"The Law has not been abolished, but rather man is invited to
rediscover it in the person of his Master who is its perfect fulfillment
I came across with this question on Google which needs clarification
for continued awareness and at the same time to shed light. The query goes this mode:
“My Catholic friends don't practice Baptist
traditions. We Baptists celebrate an anniversary for almost anything under the
sun - seriously.) Also, I have always
seen myself as a non-denominational person who has Baptist roots. Can you please elaborate more on why
Catholics don't follow the Mosaic Law at all? I used to know - a long, long
time ago what the Catechism is and the role it plays in Catholic Church. Would you run through that for me? Hope these questions aren't offensive.”
While the Baptist offers two worship services on each of the four
Sundays, the
Catholic Church (aside from its Catechism for the children, Parish Renewal
Experience (PREX), Catholic Life in the Spirit Seminars and different organizations which empower men and women in terms
of Spirituality, community building, evangelization) preaches the Gospel
everyday (at least two masses in the morning and 1 in the afternoon on weekdays
while up to seven masses on Sundays.
With respect to Mosaic Law, Christians are indebted to obey the Ten
Commandments which are repeatedly quoted as examples of the natural law not because they are part of the Old Testament
law, but because they are part majority of the natural law. The natural law[1]
is embedded in the human heart and therefore universal and is in itself uniform
for all the entire human race, except for infants and insane persons who have
not the actual use of their reason. Every human is bound, if he/she matches up
the universal order willed by the Creator, to live anchored to her/his own
rational nature, and to be guided by reason. The natural law commands and
forbids in the same tenor everywhere and forever.
Old Testament law never has been binding on Christians.[2] It was only ever binding on those to whom it
was delivered—the Jews (Israelites). That said, some of that law contains
elements of a law that is binding on all people of every place and time. Jesus
and Paul provide proof of this in the New Testament.
Matthew’s Gospel makes it clear about Jesus’ teaching regarding Old
Testament law:
Matt. 22:34-40 http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0839/__PVV.HTM When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced
the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them [a scholar of the
law] tested him by asking,
"Teacher, which commandment in the
law is the greatest?" He said to him,
"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all
your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first
commandment. The second is like it: You
shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments."
In saying this, Jesus affirms the breadth of the new law of his new covenant
bringing the old law into its perfection. He put in plain words to His
disciples:
Matthew 5:17-19 "Do
not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not
to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass
away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from
the law, until all things have taken place. Therefore, whoever breaks one of
the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called
least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these
commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
"The Law has not been abolished, but rather man is invited to
rediscover it in the person of his Master who is its perfect fulfillment" (Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 2053)
The advent of Jesus' Birth and His clear intention of inaugurating a new religious movement make it essential
for Him to put in plain words His perspective concerning the Old Testament law.
He has not come to repeal but to bring it to perfection, to reveal the full
intention of the divine legislator, that is. The old moral order is to resurrect
to a new life, infused with a new spirit.
Jesus reaches the summit of the Old Testament Law.
Old Testament law contains several dietary commandments which were instituted
as a preparation for His teaching on the moral law. Jesus talked about these
laws:
(Mark 7:14-19) He summoned the crowd again and said to them, "Hear me, all of
you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that
person; but the things that come out from within are what defile." When he
got home away from the crowd his disciples questioned him about the parable. He
said to them, "Are even you likewise without understanding? Do you not
realize that everything that goes into a person from outside cannot defile,
since it enters not the heart but the stomach and passes out into the
latrine?" (Thus he declared all foods clean.
The Catechism makes it clear, "Jesus perfects the dietary law, so
important in Jewish daily life, by revealing its pedagogical meaning through a
divine interpretation . . . What comes out of a man is what defiles a man. For
from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts . . ." (CCC 582).[3]
Paul edifies similarly in the same way
regarding other other Old Testament law:
Let no one, then, pass judgment on you in matters of food and drink or
with regard to a festival or new moon or sabbath. These are shadows of things
to come; the reality belongs to Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17; 20-23 If you
died with Christ to the elemental powers of the world, why do you submit to
regulations as if you were still living in the world? "Do not handle! Do
not taste! Do not touch!" These are all things destined to perish with
use; they accord with human precepts and teachings. While they have a semblance
of wisdom in rigor of devotion and self-abasement (and) severity to the body,
they are of no value against gratification of the flesh.
In this passage, Paul recognized that much of the Old Testament law
was instituted to set the stage for the new law that Jesus would establish. Much
of the old law’s could be taken into account in this value.
Jesus’ teaching about the Sabbath indicates similar value in part of
the Old Testament regulation of the Sabbath:
Matthew 12:1-8 At that
time Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples
were hungry and began to pick the heads 2 of grain and eat them. When the
Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "See, your disciples are doing what
is unlawful to do on the sabbath." He said to them, 3 "Have you not
read what David did when he and his companions were hungry, how he went into
the house of God and ate the bread of offering, which neither he nor his
companions but only the priests could lawfully eat? Or have you not read in the law that on the
sabbath the priests serving in the temple violate the sabbath and are innocent?
I say to you, something greater than the temple is here. If you knew what this meant, 'I desire mercy,
not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned these innocent men. For the Son of Man is Lord of the
sabbath."
Undoubtedly, Jesus pointed out that not the Old Testament but He had
authority over the Sabbath, and its regulation was not as severe as the
Pharisees deemed. As a matter of fact, once Jesus would give the hierarchy of His
Church with his own authority (Matthew 16:19),
regulation of worship would develop into the church’s domain.
Romans 2:14-15a In here, the obligation to worship is something
all humans of every place and time can discern simply by the use of reason. It
is knowledge engraved into the human conscience -natural law. Paul makes mentions
of such law when talking about those of his own time who were never bound by
Old Testament law: For when the Gentiles who do not have the law by nature
observe the prescriptions of the law, they are a law for themselves even though
they do not have the law. They show that the demands of the law are written in
their hearts.
Christians are indebted to obey the Ten Commandments which are
repeatedly quoted as examples of the natural law because they are cited in here
(part of the Old Testament law) but because they are part majority of the
natural law.
Indeed, humans can discern by reason alone that specific actions are
immoral – say killing of the innocent, taking other’s possession, cheating on spouses,
among the few.
Likewise, humans can discern by reason alone of her/his obligation to
worship the Creator. But since Sabbath commandment is not part of the natural
law at all but was simply a law imposed upon the Jews for the discipline of their
nation, so it can be discerned in the same manner that such worship should happen
weekly on Saturday. Individual races had
the authority to choose for themselves the time preferred for worship. For
Christians now, it makes sense taking this on Sunday.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church makes it clearly: The celebration
of Sunday observes the moral commandment inscribed by nature in the human heart
to render to God an outward, visible, public, and regular worship as a sign of
his universal beneficence to all. Sunday worship fulfills the moral command of
the Old Covenant, taking up its rhythm and spirit in the weekly celebration of
the Creator and Redeemer of his people. (Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 2176)
Old Testament law required, as a discipline,
that the Jews worship on Saturday. In the same way, the Church requires Catholics
of a Sunday worship which is the day of the Lord’s Resurrection. (NOTE: discipline is man-made and can be
modified as frequent as the Church desires. This does not mean that the authority to enact discipline is man-made, which is clarified in the Scripture: Whatever
you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth
shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 18:18). This power to bind and loose extend beyond
discipline, but it certainly includes the authority to enact discipline as
well. Conversely, doctrine is the teaching on matters of faith and morals, handed
down to the Church by Jesus and the apostles before the death of the last
apostle. It is "the faith which was once for all delivered to the
saints"[4] (Jude 1:3). As
mentioned before, doctrine can develop over time as the Church comes to discern
it better but cannot be altered, not even the pope has the authority to change
doctrine.)
Like the majority of the law in the Ten Commandments, the Church’s
teaching on the immorality of homosexuality is part of the natural law, which
can be discerned by people of every time and place through reason alone and are
bound by it even without unequivocal teaching on it. Definitely, it was neither
necessary for God to include such teaching both in the Old Testament law the
New Testament. Despite that, the New Testament contains abundant teaching concerning
this.
Hence, Christians are bound to the law of Christ which, of course,
includes the natural law. Old Testament law contains elements of natural law,
like the condemnation of homosexual activity (not the homosexuals per se),
marital infidelity, stealing etc. to which Christians are bound for that
reason, not because of their inclusion in the Old Testament. Christians do not
have liberty on these issues. Similarly, Christians are not and have never been
bound by Old Testament law for its own sake, and those elements of Old
Testament law which are not part of the natural law, like the obligation to
worship on Saturday which was only binding on the Jews. Christians do have
liberty on the latter.
References:
[2] Jim
Blackburn, Why We Are Not Bound by Everything in the Old Law, http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/why-we-are-not-bound-by-everything-in-the-old-law
[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church,
Second Edition, CCC582, http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/582.htm
[4] Jim
Blackburn, Is It a Doctrine or a Discipline?, http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/is-it-a-doctrine-or-a-discipline
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