The Old Law was given by God to Man so that we know sin. Avoiding it will not only make for a more prosperous life, but bring divine blessings.But, ironically, the Old Law then bonds mankind to the wages of sin: punishment and death.
Nobody is perfect, hence nobody can keep the Law 100%. You may think you can by never breaking the Ten Commandments, but as Jesus pointed out on the Sermon on the Mount, the Law goes deeper than merely ten sentences.
Hence the New Law: God's undeserved grace and forgiveness for those who accept it via the sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus Christ, who is also the only sinless man.
And Jesus made it clear: to subject the New Law to the Old would be like sewing a fresh piece of cloth to an old cloak: it would tear a hole in the cloak that would be worse than before, ruining both materials (Matthew 9-14-17).
Do we forget the Old Law?
St. Paul says no, I agree with him (Romans 4:13).
It should be noted, however, he made a convincing case not to live the legalist life style, he abbreviates as circumcision (Romans 2: 17-29).
The New Law gets summed up by Jesus simple as, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind...[and]...You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22: 37).
The "clarifications" of the Laws Jesus gave on in Matthew 5-7 sprout from this New Law.
Hence to love God and your neighbors is to do what Jesus commanded from the Sermon on the Mount.
The Old Law remains to continue to educate us about sin.
Everything makes sense until you start wondering about Reality.
Take, for example, Jesus' teaching against retaliation or Turn the Other Cheek (Matthew 5: 38-42).
He says, "Do not resist an evil man."
This obviously presents some problems in the real world.
Let me say right now that I understand and believe in the concept behind these teachings which is complete humility and anti-egotism.
On a very personal level, we are not to be evil to resist evil. Fighting fire with fire only brings more fire.
On a much more simpler level: what if a boss yells at an employee, not entirely justified. The employee can yell back an raise a ruckus, or respond calmly and resolve the situation. Either that, or he can do nothing and allow his irrational boss blow off the steam.
Swallowing pride, even to the point of Martyrdom is easy for be to believe and accept.
I assume it is for the majority of Christians.
But what a situation extends beyond you.
What if it's not you being attacked by an evil man, but another person.
Does "Do not resist an evil man" imply that we allow the evil man to attack an innocent person by doing nothing?
Even for cases where you are the only one concerned; is self defense sinful.
It's one thing to be martyred for some higher principle, but are we to sacrifice our lives as an evil man stabs us to steal our credit cards?
Jesus' extreme rhetoric has led most Biblical scholars to believe that He was not being literal with his commandments from the Sermon on the Mount.
Most Christians also believe that the teaching about non-retaliation really concerns legal and personal squabbles, not life or death situations (many scholars even believe the original Greek word "resist" is translated from has a distinct legal connotation to it).
But who am I to believe? The words of God Himself or the words of scholars?
And yet, it is difficult to understand why a God of Law and Justice (so concerned with justice, that he sacrificed His own Son rather than do-away with the Law) would be pleased with a Christian not helping a person being attacked by an evil person.
Quite frankly, I don't understand how the same God would not want me to resist a murderer or rapist, even if I was the target.
Extend this to a national level: if the Allied Nation followed Jesus' words literally, we'd all be speaking German now, and there would be fewer Jews left in the world.
It seems totally irrational to take Jesus' words literally beyond the personal level.
But then the question comes to mind: are we not to care about Reality?
Jesus' teachings, which if followed will deliver us into the Kingdom of God, demands that we disregard Reality, if taken literally and beyond the personal.
This is difficult for a Conservative to comprehend, but maybe we Conservatives are merely wrong.
Maybe when Jesus speaks of the Kingdom as not of this world, He is implying we are not to even expect our actions to yield solid results (Luke 17: 20).
He also says we are to believe like children to receive the Kingdom of God (Luke 18: 15-17).
As we all know: Children believe anything they are told without question, nuance or doubt.
It seems that Jesus is calling us to be ignorant of reality, embrace the idealism of The Kingdom of God 100%, and totally disregard Real World consequences.
Such actions, taken beyond the literal and personal leads to tyranny of those who take advantage of such cases.
When Jesus speaks of the Narrow Gate that few in this world will walk through, is this an implication that only those like Mother Theresa and St. Francis of Assisi will receive the Kingdom of God, and the rest of us lay folk are deceiving ourselves (Matthew 7: 13-14; 21-23)?
Maybe not.
When questioned about whether or not it's lawful to pay taxes, Jesus responded with the famous, "Give...to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's," (Matthew 22: 15-22).
Apparently, rejecting reality doesn't include skipping out on taxes.
If it is so abhorrent to protect others, how come Jesus didn't tell the Centurion, who asked Him to heal his servant, to quit his day job (Matthew 8: 5-13).
Even though St. Paul claims we must obey Government, for no power on Earth is not given by God, he shows no restraint in criticizing the Government who locked him up for preaching the Gospel (Romans 13: 1-7; Acts 24: 10-23; Acts 25).
How "loving" was Jesus to the Pharisees in the nearly-page long verbal attack from Matthew 23?
It seems that Reality is not to be ignored.
But we are not to compromise on the principle of loving our neighbors.
It's just that loving our neighbors sometimes requires doing unpleasant or confrontational things; or at the very least: thinking ahead.
The greatest of God's servants are certainly those who live with a child-like approach to His commandments, but I don't believe it's sinful to keep a level head in this Fallen but very Real World.
After all, what good is it to love your enemy by allowing him to continue being a murderer with you as his next victim?
It seems that we'll have to look into this concept of "love" a bit further.
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