I had announced in a previous post where someone had inquired about the role of the law, that it is difficult to treat this topic with sound-bytes in a comment section. I advised them to read that which has been written already on this topic elsewhere (the booklet Laying Down the Law) and notified them that I anticipate writing a series on the role of the law soon.

For those who have submitted comments pertaining to the law, I ask you to be patient and wait for these posts. If you desire to communicate to me personally on the topic of the Law of Moses, I invite you to do so through e-mail as I do not believe that off-topic posts are beneficial to the readers, and the Law requires a very patient study to discern correctly.

I Timothy 1:6-9
For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions. But we know that the Law is good, if one uses it lawfully, realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous man…

I do not want to provide a platform here for fruitless discussion by those who want to be teachers of the Law while not understanding what they are saying. The Law was not made for the righteous. It was made for those who are unrighteous.

If you are in Christ you are now "the righteousness of God in Christ Yahshua." The Law is not made for you, but for those who are unrighteous. The Law was a tutor to lead men to Christ, but now that faith in Christ has come, the Law has been done away.

There is still benefit in the law as one studies the shadows and types, but we must press on to walk in the substance of these things which are found in Christ.

May you be blessed with peace and understanding in these days.

Christ then said to the woman,

"Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?" And she said, "No one, Lord." And Yahshua said, "Neither do I condemn you; go your way. From now on sin no more."

Did Christ say, "Woman you are free because there were not enough witnesses present to convict you"? No! This was never the issue. She was guilty, and the Law condemned her, and so too might Christ have done so. As this article has testified, Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that through Him the world might be saved.

The Law would slay all men, for all have sinned and the wages of sin is death. Christ came that man might have life.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts concerning the Law. Your comment on the encounter between Christ, the woman caught in adultery, reveals your misunderstanding of this matter.

You presented an interpretation, that is no doubt cited by others who are promoting a continued subjection to the Law of Moses, but there is error in the argument.

Christ does not cite the Scripture you quoted from the Old Testament about there needing to be two or three witnesses to convict a person. His words were simply, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

If Christ had intended to say there were insufficient witnesses, would He not have asked for two or three witnesses to present their proof? He did not do so.

Nor does the context support your contention that the woman was falsely accused. The apostle John recorded the following words:

John 8:3-4
And the scribes and the Pharisees BROUGHT A WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY, and having set her in the midst, they said to Him, "Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act."

John was the beloved disciple, and walked with Christ. He wrote of those things to which he was himself an eyewitness. John expresses no doubts concerning the validity of the accusation. He says plainly, she was a woman caught in adultery.

This event was not about whether the Jews were following the form of the Law by having the required two or three witnesses. There was a group of men standing before Christ who were all testifying that the woman had been caught in the very act of adultery.

The matter is explained in the following words of the scribes and Pharisees.

John 8:5-6
"Now in THE LAW Moses COMMANDED US TO TONE SUCH WOMEN; WHAT THEN DO YOU SAY?" And they were saying this, testing Him, in order that they might have grounds for accusing Him.

If Christ said to stone the woman, they would accuse Him to the Romans, for the Jews did not have the authority under Roman occupation to carry out a death sentence.

John 18:31
Then said Pilate unto them, "Take ye him, and judge him according to your law." The Jews therefore said unto him, "IT IS NOT LAWFUL FOR US TO PUT ANY MAN TO DEATH."

We know the Law of Moses permitted God's people to put transgressors to death. It required that they do so. It was the law of the Romans that the Jews were under that did not permit them to put a man to death. The Jews had to have a person tried in a Roman court of law to receive a sentence of death.

If Yahshua said they should follow the command of Moses and stone the woman caught in adultery, the scribes and Pharisees could accuse Him before the Romans. If He said she should not be slain, for Rome did not permit it, or it was His own judgment that she should not be put to death, they could accuse Him of opposing the Law of Moses. The scribes and Pharisees thought they had Him trapped no matter how He answered.

Christ, knowing their deceit, answers with the wisdom of God: "Let the one who is without sin, cast the first stone."

With these words the men were convicted. Though Moses may say for them to stone such a woman, it should be with humility and a broken heart that such a verdict was ever carried out. Only a proud and deceitful man, blind to his own guilt before a holy God, could ever cast a stone without remorse, recognizing that he too was a sinner.

The Scriptures reveal the mind of the Father when they say, "By the judgment that you judge others, you shall be judged," and "judgment shall be merciless to the one who has shown no mercy."

The Spirit convicted these men of their own transgressions. They stood condemned before God just as did the woman before them. They departed with this knowledge in their hearts.

Continued…

I believe you are misinterpreting the episode of the woman caught in adultery. Yeshua was not absolving the woman of her sin of adultery and therefore setting aside the Law of Moses (as the Pharisees claimed that He was). Rather, He was bringing it to it's fullness by quoting the proper standards of justice required in this situation:

Deuteronomy 17:6-7 "On the evidence of two witnesses or three witnesses, he who is to die shall be put to death; he shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. "

When Yeshua said to this woman's accusers, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her", He was exposing this entire episode for what it was: a conspiracy to entrap someone in adultery so that Yeshua might be tested and shown to be violating the righteous standards of the Torah. In other words, these men were not without sin in this affair because they had conspired to set the adulterous woman up for judgment. This did not absolve the woman of her sin but it did mean that according to the judicial standards of the Torah, she could not be convicted of adultery and sentenced to stoning.

I think you have a tendency towards setting Yeshua in opposition and contradistinction to the Law of Moses. The same God of grace and mercy existed in Moses day and He made provision for the people’s inability to live up to the standards of the Law. This is why David was acquitted of adultery with Bathsheba even though he was guilty and deserving of death. True repentance and sacrificial atonement has always been the method by which God saves His people. But with Yeshua’s death, we have a better and more perfect covenant that that which came through the blood of bulls and goats.

"Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the guiltless poor; you did not find them breaking in. Yet in spite of all these things you say, 'I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me.' Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying 'I have not sinned.'"

Who are the most innocent, i.e., the truly "guiltless" poor? Their unborn babies — targeted implicitly and sometimes even explicitly for extinction.

Blood on skirts no doubt has great metaphorical significance, but I see no reason it cannot also be (quite vividly and sickeningly) literal.

Seems like a pitiful attempt at removing visible pollution even as rivers of spiritual pollution (innocent blood) were being unleashed in our nation.