The verb “fulfil” is interesting. It means “to complete” something, to add a missing element and thus to make something whole. In some ways it is a cousin to the verb “to perfect”. One can fulfil an expectation; one can fulfil a promise; one can fulfil a prophecy.
“I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them.” (Mt 5:17)
Yeshua’s interpretation of the Meshiach’s task is one of inwardness. The Law gave people (individuals and the community both) ten commandments and 613 regulations to observe, in order to present themselves worthily before God. Obviously, this required much study and practice: as Psalm 19 says, “Who can tell how oft he offendeth? O cleanse thou me from my secret faults.”
Yeshua, steeped in the Psalms and in the Prophets, notably Isaiah, seems to have pondered this and concluded that another way was possible. After all, what was the Law for? It existed to bring God and man together again, to re-bind (re-ligare) their bond. Might there not be a way to do this more purely as well as more expeditiously? Not by abolishing and replacing the Law: that would be blasphemous, as it had been given by God through Moses. On the other hand, achieving the Law’s aim more directly would, as it were, “fulfil” it, accomplish its purpose more simply as well as more purely. After all, it is possible to live a perfectly kosher life respecting the commandments and still have a mind full of resentment.
So he reduced the ten commandments to two: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart and all thy soul and all thy mind and all thy strength, and thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. I have written previously (1 September 2022) about the seeming oddity of joining the injunction of ‘thou shalt’ with the verb ‘love’; here what is important is that if you live those two forms of love completely and wholeheartedly, none of the other commandments are relevant. And this is all the more true concerning the 613 rules: if you live the second commandment fully enough to enable you to live the first, and live the first completely, then in that love between you and God the 613 rules are completely fulfilled.
Ah, says Rabbi Neusner[1], but you are forgetting Shabbat. That is a commandment not so much for the individual but for the community, for the community of the people of Israel. However much you, as an individual, love your Father in Heaven, that does not exempt you from observing Shabbat with your family, your clan, your town.
And just as that was for Neusner the point where, regretfully, he parted company with Yeshua, so it is the point where the followers of Yeshua Meshiach part company with the Rabbi. Because now we come up against a further huge step in the evolution of the Meshiach. Yeshua, the man from Nazareth, had interpreted the Meshiach’s task as fulfilling the Law by creating a direct route from the human heart to God. Now, however, he has become, he is, that Meshiach, and as such he gradually goes much further.
First of all, he (not man in general, but he) is “Lord of the Sabbath”. Once again, he looks for the purpose: what is the observance of the Sabbath for? And he concludes that it exists to bring the people closer to their God. Shabbat is made for man: not man for Shabbat. Meaning: man is made to be with God; if there is a better, more direct, more inward (note: not easier!) way for man to come closer to God on the special day of the week than observing rules about eating wheat tops or activating a light switch, then man should choose that.
Next: he has always read Isaiah; now he is coming to see that Isaiah’s relevance is complete and direct: the Suffering Servant is not the People of Israel but the Anointed One himself. It is he who will take upon him the sin of the world; it is he who, alone, will face the measureless evil that is its consequence; it is he who will be at the same time the High Priest and the High Priest’s sacrificial lamb; and on the third day, he rose again from the dead.
So, as he has taught men to “fulfil” the Law, he himself “fulfils” the Scriptures – he gives them, retrospectively if not retroactively, their ultimate meaning.
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