Matthew 5:17 explanation?

[Noose001]

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh , so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:2‭-‬4 NRSV-CI

You need to keep reading so that you may understand what Paul is saying.
The passage you quoted doesn’t cancel the previous one; your wife/husband is bound to you until death not as per Christ but as per the Law given through Moses. If you break that, you are called an adulterer as per Moses.

Christ setting us free doesn’t mean that we are free to be promiscuous, it means we are able to keep the law by abiding in Christ but the law stands.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Newsflash: this passage is talking about covenants , not temples !

That was the only way the Mosaic Covenant could be kept.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Christ setting us free doesn’t mean that we are free to be promiscuous, it means we are able to keep the law by abiding in Christ but the law stands.

The Law doesn’t stand. Grace stands.

As Paul said, “Christ is the end of the Law and beginning of righteousness for all who believe.”

So we don’t keep the commandments because of Moses but Christ.

 

[Gorgias]

That was the only way the Mosaic Covenant could be kept.

No. That was the only way to perform sacrifice. The covenant endures, even through exile and lack of temple.

 

[Shakuhachi]

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put I “I will put my laws in their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

The new and everlasting covenant.

So beautiful!

 

[Julius_Caesar]

That was the only way to perform sacrifice. The covenant endures,

And sacrifice was an integral part of that Covenant. That covenant isn’t in force. There is only the New Covenant in His Blood.

 

[Noose001]

So we don’t keep the commandments because of Moses but Christ.

I don’t understand this part; how exactly are you keeping the law because of Christ?
Can you please explain using marriage for example. You are faithful to your wife or husband because of Christ- how?

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Can you please explain using marriage for example. You are faithful to your wife or husband because of Christ- how?

Romans 8:2-4 says how.

Short answer: we have the Spirit.

For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.
Galatians 5:17‭-‬23 NRSV-CI

 

[Guilherme123]

Everytime I ask about Matthew 5:17 or search about it, I find a lot of different (and unsatisfactory) answers. I think I’ll simply accept that the correct interpretation of Matthew 5:17 is too complex and that we don’t need to follow the Old Testament laws because clearly Jesus and the apostles didn’t want it.

 

[goout]

Julius_Caesar:

So we don’t keep the commandments because of Moses but Christ.

I don’t understand this part; how exactly are you keeping the law because of Christ?
Can you please explain using marriage for example. You are faithful to your wife or husband because of Christ- how?

Because Christ is the perfection and fulfillment of the moral law. Christ is it’s source and unity with Christ is it’s end. Christ is the good that morality points to. We aren’t moral people to fulfill requirements, we are moral people because morality leads to Christ himself.

In the context of marriage:
In Ephesians 5 we see how the love of spouses is directed in it’s fullness…we are to love as Christ loved the Church. Christ gave himself up for the Church, completely. In Christ and with Christ, we (I) can begin to love this way every day.

 

[Gorgias]

And sacrifice was an integral part of that Covenant. That covenant isn’t in force.

I can’t recall whether you participated in that thread, but there was one recently which discussed whether the Church teaches supercessionism. (It doesn’t.) From the catechism (emphasis mine): “The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.”

 

[Julius_Caesar]

“The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.

But is it in force?

The answer from Jesus and Paul is no.

It hasn’t been revoked. It’s been replaced.

 

[Vico]

why does heaven need to pass away?

We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come and “a new heaven and a new earth”.

Apocalypse 21:1-5

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth was gone, and the sea is now no more. 2 And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a great voice from the throne, saying: Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people; and God himself with them shall be their God. 4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes: and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more, for the former things are passed away. 5 And he that sat on the throne, said: Behold, I make all things new. And he said to me: Write, for these words are most faithful and true.

 

[Noose001]

Romans 8:2-4 says how.

Short answer: we have the Spirit.

This hardly answers the question and again, i don’t think it addresses what Paul says in Rom 7. Being faithful to your spouse is as per the law and it is the law that defines what adultery is, not Christ yet Christ setting you free doesn’t mean you can be promiscuous.

So clearly, there’s something being missed here.

 

[Noose001]

Because Christ is the perfection and fulfillment of the moral law. Christ is it’s source and unity with Christ is it’s end. Christ is the good that morality points to. We aren’t moral people to fulfill requirements, we are moral people because morality leads to Christ himself.

Correct, we by abiding in Christ who perfectly fulfills the law are made righteous through Christ; but then it comes round back at us again when we are actually required to live a life worthy of this grace and this life actually means our efforts in keeping the law again.

Ephesians 4:1
As a prisoner in the Lord, then, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received:

This simply means, even with the grace, you can not be an adulterer and break the law at will or kill at will and still claim grace. The only difference is that with Christ, we are supposed to understand what the law really means.

 

[goout]

Gorgias:

“The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked.

But is it in force?

The answer from Jesus and Paul is no.

It hasn’t been revoked. It’s been replaced.

Fulfilled would be the better word.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Fulfilled would be the better word.

Completed is an upgrade from that even.

We have Jesus. There’s no reason to have a pedagogue.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

So clearly, there’s something being missed here

On your part, not mine.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.
Matthew 5:27‭-‬30 NRSV-CI

We are held to Christ’s standard of purity, not Moses’s.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

@Noose001 has quoted only part of Romans 7.

In the same way, my friends, 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. 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. But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.
Romans 7:4‭-‬6 NRSV-CI

 

[Gorgias]

But is it in force?

The answer from Jesus and Paul is no.

The question isn’t merely “is it in force?”, because Jesus does say that it will not pass away “until heaven and earth pass away,” but rather “for whom is it in force?”.

Not for Christians, obviously. But, for Jews, it still is, although the offer for them to come to belief in Christ remains open.

It hasn’t been revoked. It’s been replaced.

No. The Church does not hold to supercessionism. From the document “The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable” – A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of ‘Nostra Aetate’, as found on the Vatican website:

With its Declaration “Nostra aetate” (No.4) the Church unequivocally professes, within a new theological framework, the Jewish roots of Christianity. While affirming salvation through an explicit or even implicit faith in Christ, the Church does not question the continued love of God for the chosen people of Israel. A replacement or supersession theology which sets against one another two separate entities, a Church of the Gentiles and the rejected Synagogue whose place it takes, is deprived of its foundations…

There have often been attempts to identify this replacement theory in the Epistle to the Hebrews. This Epistle, however, is not directed to the Jews but rather to the Christians of Jewish background who have become weary and uncertain. Its purpose is to strengthen their faith and to encourage them to persevere, by pointing to Christ Jesus as the true and ultimate high priest, the mediator of the new covenant. This context is necessary to understand the Epistle’s contrast between the first purely earthly covenant and a second better (cf. Heb 8:7) and new covenant (cf. 9:15, 12:24). The first covenant is defined as outdated, in decline and doomed to obsolescence (cf. 8:13), while the second covenant is defined as everlasting (cf. 13:20). To establish the foundations of this contrast the Epistle refers to the promise of a new covenant in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah 31:31-34 (cf. Heb 8:8-12). This demonstrates that the Epistle to the Hebrews has no intention of proving the promises of the Old Covenant to be false, but on the contrary treats them as valid. The reference to the Old Testament promises is intended to help Christians to be sure of their salvation in Christ.