The End of the LawBy Glenn Dupont

March 8, 2011   |   Category: Other Articles

A few thoughts from the book of Acts.

I was taught in Bible School that the Law ended at the Cross but the early Christians weren’t told. Instead there was a “gradually unveiling” and it took Paul’s later writings to make this clear. At that time I wondered why God would leave the Apostles in such ignorance and allow the Christians to follow this religious error. (If this doctrine is correct then Paul repeatedly made it clear how serious a sin this was and that those doing this are to be accursed Gal. 1:8-9)

But I can’t find any gradual unveiling that Jewish believers were not under the Law. In Acts 3 Peter talks of an imminent future event that would restore everything promised by the prophets. - Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets.

Act 3:19-21 - Stephen is accused of preaching a future destruction and end of the Law. -For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us. Acts 6:14- These verses correlate with all the various teachings of Jesus that the Law would not end till all OT prophesies were fulfilled and also his promises to return within a generation.

The big shock that came to the first century Jewish believers was when the Lord said that Cornelius a Gentile could become part of the first century Jewish believers without being under the Law. Luke spends 2 chapters on this event (Acts 10-11). Not even a hint here that Jewish Christians thought that they were no longer under Law. The next big disagreement over Gentiles is in Acts 15. It starts with Jewish believers going to Antioch disrupting the church by trying to impose the Law on Gentile believers. To make a long story short after great dissention and debate Paul, Barabbas and some others are sent to Jerusalem and the Apostles send an official document with representatives to Antioch declaring that the Gentiles don’t have to follow the Law. There is nothing here, some 20 years or so after Pentecost, about Jews not keeping the Law, its all about Gentiles not needing to keep it.

Some 27 years or so after Pentecost Paul goes to Jerusalem (Acts 21). He is told –“You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.”v20 - (No gradual unveilings yet.) But there is a nasty rumor that Paul is teaching Jews that are living among the Gentiles that they should not follow the Law. So they come up with a plan to prove to the people that the rumor is wrong, so that “everybody will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."v 24-25

Luke wrote the book of Acts around 63AD. He was the traveling companion of Paul for part of his missionary journeys and nowhere in his book does he indicate that the Law was done away. Paul, as the Apostle to the Gentiles, often writes to them telling them that they should not follow the Law but Acts 21 makes it clear that he did not teach this to Jews.