Are There Christian Rabbinic Regulations?
1Timothy 1:6-7 Some have turned to empty chatter, because they like to think of themselves as teachers of the Law.
In speaking out against the rabbinic regulations, Jesus came into conflict with the entire world. How can any community come into existence and prosper if it does not produce a system of law that is binding for all? And will it not necessarily strive to perfect its law through a system of regulations? Jerusalem scholars, who since Ezra had been led to study the Law to develop such a system, maintained that the people were not helped by regulations that soared above real-life situations. The only one who can compel obedience is the one who clearly and authoritatively adjudicates a particular case. In the Roman Empire, likewise, the law that assured the empire's unity had developed into a system of regulations and a jurisprudence that refined these regulations further and further. Soon after the apostolic period, a holy law arose in the church by which the church bound together those who pledged allegiance to it. Who then proved victorious in the battle over regulations: the Jews or Jesus?
Jesus freed his disciples' conscience from arbitrary human regulations and instituted a community of love, which came into being out of a pure heart, clear conscience, and a genuine faith. Thus, Jewish regulations disappeared from their congregations. The Jewish members were free to observe them, but they lost their value even for them, since they could not retain their full national identity. As for the Greeks who believed in Jesus, Paul told them not to adopt Jewish regulations.
For this reason new customs were needed that could provide the foundation for a common conduct in Greek-speaking congregations. Was this sufficient? Paul's opponents said, "NO! We need legislation. How can the community's unity be achieved unless everyone is obligated by way of a clear regulation that states what the community requires of him? And how can purity be safeguarded unless valid regulations stipulate for everyone what is forbidden in the church?" In this way they presented themselves to the church as teachers of the Law.
Paul contradicted them, because they crowded out both the old and the new word of God with their regulations.Their human traditions obscure majesty of the divine law, which reveals to people the reprehensible nature of their desires and which renders sin culpable. These new regulations were no less harmful to comprehending God's good news. For this message does not consist in God's stipulating articles of conduct but in his giving us grace to her what Christ says and to do what he has commanded.
For this reason on one is placed above another as lawgiver in the church, but everyone is placed before God so that he may believe in him and thus be united with all those who likewise have received the same word. This makes the community established by Jesus something other than a collection of individuals who must be kept together by the compulsion of jurisprudence and legislation-for its Lord and Christ, who has united its members with him and with one another so that they may serve God in unity in keeping with his Word.
Do We Know Jesus?, Adoff Schlatter
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