The Old and New are in fact the same. God didn’t drop the Old with New. The New fulfilled the Old. Its fulfillment does not mean its passing away.
Are you telling me that God’s covenant with Abraham is now void. So I mean, that makes you not a descendant of Abraham.
Besides, the Old was sealed by the blood of the covenant, which transcends any animal sacrifice because the blood was Jesus’ blood, the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world; just like the Old Covenant sacrifice expiated sin’s removal from the people, the blood of the lamb, Christ’s sacrifice, removes sin from the people. You still have blood sacrifice involved between the New and the Old. Nothing of the Old has passed away. It’s just the Old has been transformed into the Righteousness of the New.
He is probably speaking about Scripture passages like these:
“In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first
as obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and
growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Heb 8:13)
You guys may be really saying the same thing, but from different points of view. Christ says in Mt 5:17:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”
Jesus said he did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. So Jesus honors the Law and the prophets. He doesn’t do away with them. However, once Jesus fulfills the promises and obligations of the old covenant how is it that the new covenant replaces the old?
Paul writes in Romans that we are now under grace for we have died to the law:
“Do you not know, brethren—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only during his life? 2*¶ Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; … Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5*¶ While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6*But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Rom 7)
So while Jesus didn’t abolish the old Covenant, when we are baptized into Christ we have spiritually died with him and thus have died to the law of the old Covenant and thus are no longer under it. Since a contract is only valid while the parties are alive. Now, having died with Christ we shall also live with him. We live by the Spirit. We receive the grace of Christ to bear fruit for God.
“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Rom 6:4)
It is a Catholic teaching that we are no longer under Law. We don’t for instance practice circumcision, avoiding pork, etc. The reason why the 10 commandments are emphasized is because they are eternal moral commandments that still have bearing on us. These commandments Jesus summed up in the command to love God and your neighbor as yourself. But, the 10 commandments are not enough. We need the Holy Spirit to truly become holy inwardly, not just outwardly. If Catholicism is something you think you can do on your own then you are not doing it right. We need the grace of Christ. If we could do it on our own we wouldn’t need to go to church or receive the Sacraments.
