the new law

[walterfiat]

Hep me understand this better…

Jesus fulfilled the old law (of the Old Testament). So we now have the new law in the New Testament.

Is that right?

If so, how do we determine the relevance of the Old Testament in our lives today?

 

[JerryZ]

Well for starters we can read how God prepared set the stage so that Jesus could be born?

Aren’t the 10 commandments in the Old Testament still? Or did they move them?

Jesus coming was announced or prophetized about in the Old Testament.

When St. Peter and the other apostles including St Paul celebrated their liturgy they would or rather they could only read from the Old Testament. We still read from it in our liturgy today.

The NEW law did not abrogate the Old law exnovo it rather built up on it, corrected it when necessary, etc.

Example Jesus answer to the pharisee asking Him about divorce. There is NO divorce on God’s law and yet in the Old Testament it was allowed.
I think the saying that applies is “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”

And the Old Testament has not lost relevance today either, the phrase “disregarding history condems to repeat the mistakes” comes to mind too.

 

[bsroufek]

Some of the OT laws still apply, like the Ten Commandments, but the majority of the dietary and sacrificial laws don’t.

By the Way, I’ve developed a blog of 40 Moral Laws based mostly on the Catholic Bible but also on experience. It’s just an example of laws that should be binding on ALL PEOPLE…

 

[JamesCaruso]

Some of the OT laws still apply, like the Ten Commandments, but the majority of the dietary and sacrificial laws don’t.

By the Way, I’ve developed a blog of 40 Moral Laws based mostly on the Catholic Bible but also on experience. It’s just an example of laws that should be binding on ALL PEOPLE…

The Christian, restored to communion with God by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is empowered to live a life of love thereby fulfilling the ten commandments (the law).

 

[JamesCaruso]

Hep me understand this better…

Jesus fulfilled the old law (of the Old Testament). So we now have the new law in the New Testament.

Is that right?

If so, how do we determine the relevance of the Old Testament in our lives today?

The Christian, restored to communion with God by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is empowered to live a life of love thereby fulfilling the ten commandments (the law). It’s not that the commandments are outdated, but that we have received power to keep them.

 

[TylerJordan]

Hep me understand this better…

Jesus fulfilled the old law (of the Old Testament). So we now have the new law in the New Testament.

Is that right?

If so, how do we determine the relevance of the Old Testament in our lives today?

The New Testament is the Life of Jesus and after.

 

[Mary_Ellen]

This may help, from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

128 The Church, as early as apostolic times,104 and then constantly in her Tradition, has illuminated the unity of the divine plan in the two Testaments through typology, which discerns in God’s works of the Old Covenant prefigurations of what he accomplished in the fullness of time in the person of his incarnate Son.

129 Christians therefore read the Old Testament in the light of Christ crucified and risen. Such typological reading discloses the inexhaustible content of the Old Testament; but it must not make us forget that the Old Testament retains its own intrinsic value as Revelation reaffirmed by our Lord himself.105 Besides, the New Testament has to be read in the light of the Old. Early Christian catechesis made constant use of the Old Testament.106 As an old saying put it, the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.107

130 Typology indicates the dynamic movement toward the fulfillment of the divine plan when "God [will] be everything to everyone."108 Nor do the calling of the patriarchs and the exodus from Egypt, for example, lose their own value in God’s plan, from the mere fact that they were intermediate stages.

140 The unity of the two Testaments proceeds from the unity of God’s plan and his Revelation. The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are true Word of God.

 

[NHInsider]

Good stuff in all the replies above; to which I would add - Jesus delegated HIS authority to the Apostles, and by that Authority they and their successors determined which parts of the Law were obligatory for Christians and how those parts were interpreted. We see this authority and interpretation in the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) debating and decreeing upon the new phenomenon of non-Jewish converts. Same process, post NT, for the shift of the Sabbath obligation to Sunday (the Lord’s Day, day of the Resurrection) and the addition of Apostolic writings to the canon of inspired Scripture.

Sally