Disclaimer: this is not intended to be a tight theological argument, merely a series of observations intended to stimulate discussion and reflection and to address possible surface questions raised. I’m sure there are some things that I have said that are not entirely true and in that I beg grace. I’m not intending to be a pro at this, just a curious observer. I expect to get some eye-opening revelations myself.

Ryan and I discussed a provocative question in regard to the Law and Jesus this past Sunday. The context was our community group discussion where we talked about the encounter of the woman caught in adultery who is brought before Jesus. The Pharisees ask Jesus, “The law said we should stone . . . what do you say?” (John 8:5)

In the OT, God commands the Israelites to take an adulterer and adulteress and stone them. No hesitancy. Yet, as He walked here on earth, Jesus pardons the woman and does not condemn her and challenges anyone to stone her who is not clean of sin.

This posed the question to us: “when does God ’set aside’ the law and why?”

Jesus of course states that He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill the law, so how does he do that in these cases where there appears to be a sanctioned break of the law? In my initial reflections after this, I thought about the Sabbath. My thoughts were upon National Football League players, that they wouldn’t have the opportunity go to church on Sunday. I know from personal testimony by players that there are a number of Christians in the NFL. Are they breaking God’s law?? And then I thought, “Huh, God wants them there to reach people in that setting for Jesus Christ. To witness.” (The same could be said of retail, which in many cases requires people to work on Sundays.)

So it seemed to me that God would set aside a command or at least not require the outward observance of it in order to show merciful love to someone or some people. (There could be a lot of discussion that this was always the case, but we’ll leave that discussion for another time. For the time being, I will answer that objection by saying that Jesus appeared not to have changed the law - He certainly didn’t. He fulfilled it - But that He offered us the clearest picture of what the Law really was and is.)

God doing this - I’ll call it setting aside man’s law to express God’s law - is abundantly obvious when you see that God is love. (It still doesn’t mean there is not an issue with the issue of justice and compliance to the law. I’ll get back to that.) Jesus makes the same point when the Pharisees challenge him about the Sabbath (which they do on many occasions and which seems to be one of the main things, along with his love for sinners and his claim to be God, that make them want to kill Jesus). He says, essentially, “If someone is in need of help or mercy on the Sabbath, will you not show it?!” Another way we might say it around Fellowship Church is “The time when you can ‘set aside’ the law is in order to boldly love someone.” I put ‘observe’ in quotes, because of course Jesus says, “The real purpose of the law is not the outward observance, but the inward aspect. When you help someone, you fulfill the law in the truest form.” The command behind the command, if you will. So you are not in fact setting it aside but obeying it as it was intended to be obeyed. The law required certain things to be done, but the law was not to be used as a legislative tablet of our goodness and honorable works that obligated favor.

There are other examples in the Scriptures of this apparent “conflict”. One is Jesus speaking about how David went in and ate the consecrated bread of the priests as an illustration to defend his disciples’ plucking and eating of grain from the grain fields as they walked on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-27). Another is when Jesus healed on the Sabbath, which the Pharisees called “work” (Mark 3:1-6). And there are others.

Ryan and I talked about the terminology of this. Do we look at it as Jesus “changing/setting aside the law” (He states in another place that He is the Son of Man and is Lord of the Sabbath. He’s the Lord and we can’t judge Him or His observance of the law and certainly not in relation to our own standards. And of course He doesn’t circumvent it because it is His law!). Or do we look at it as Jesus fulfilling the law in a different way than what we might say is following it? I think my vote would go for #2.

So, turning back to the adultery case, this still doesn’t fully answer the question. How can Jesus not require this woman (and the man, where’s he?) to be stoned for her adultery. Well, he doesn’t require it in order to boldly love her. The thing about the law and God’s commands that we have to keep in mind is His concern with long-term consequences. As a rule, if adultery or any other sin is allowed to go unfettered or unpunished, then the sin of adultery or whatever it is will infect the whole community. If God prescribed stoning as the punishment for adultery in olden times, then it is reasonable to infer that He had the long-term benefits of punishing that sin on his heart for the people. What are the potential consequences of adultery? Unwanted babies, possible murder as retaliation by an enraged spouse, STDs, the breakdown of family and community, etc. If we would also see God’s commands as prescriptive in addition to prohibitive, we could see more of His heart for sinful people.

God chose the people of the Israelite community to be His agents of discipline and justice in the world for punishing sin. He said, “This is the way I am choosing to handle this . . . right now.” However, this revelation of the law was intended to eventually give way. This is where the lack of understanding of the Pharisees failed to take place. With the advent of Jesus on the scene, could the Pharisees not see that He had done that very thing? Hadn’t they grown up? The law wasn’t the end thing to say about who and what God was. Jesus was, and is. They failed to learn from Him about God and thus see and appreciate Him in a new way. God wanted them to grow up and be mature thinkers, but they were not ready or willing.

God’s way for dealing with sin is different than ours, and He has made His desire for and commitment to justice abundantly clear with the cross - also through Christ. He has punished sin, so we can forgive it. And we can be glad that He “sets aside” the punishment prescribed by the law. Aren’t we glad we are shown mercy when we sin?

There are other reasons we do not need to be agents of wrath. Our lust for punishment often goes astray. As Kevin, our discussion leader said, the Pharisees are responding to an adultery with a desire to murder. They have upped the ante, so to speak. It of course wasn’t about justice to them. Jesus repeatedly challenged them and the teachers of the law about their failure to comply with the law, not understanding that “God desired mercy, not sacrifice.” They didn’t obey the law in bringing the woman to Jesus, nor in sitting in judgment on the One who spoke it.

Perhaps the clearest way for me to think about this is in terms of responding to people who sin is: “The rule is love.” (Paul and James say the same thing.) We are commanded to operate by the spirit of love, and let God judge what happens to someone. This is hard to do when we feel angry at someone for what they have done to us. But the Bible commands forgiveness, and we should be glad. It results in good benefits for them and us.

The Pharisees were right in saying, “Hey, there’s a disconnect here. Justice needs to be done.” This discussion doesn’t answer all the questions about “How is this fair?” But for me it starts to at least address my own need for personal mercy, not justice, and see the restorative aspect of how Jesus responds, and to appreciate the benevolent goodness of God. The other considerations will be for another day.