Well, Freydo, what is interesting here is that you did not even answer one question I have asked of you. I wonder why that is. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to answer YOUR query.
Perhaps you can show in Scripture where the apostles and disciples stopped following the Torah.
Before I answer your question, permit to preface my response with the following:
According to the biblical text, the prophet Jeremiah stated in chapter 31, verse 31, the following:
“Look! There are days coming, “is the utterance of Jehovah, “and I will conclude with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant; not one like the covenant that I concluded with their forefathers in the day of my taking hold of their hand to bring them forth out of the land of Egypt, which covenant of mine they themselves broke . . . . For this is the covenant that I shall conclude with the house of Israel after those days,” is the utterance of Jehovah. “I will put my law within them, and in their heart I shall write it. And I will become their God, and they themselves will become my people.”
Does not this imply that there is going to be a doing away with the old covenant, replaced by a new one? I think it does. I think it does.
The writer of Hebrews even quotes the above at Hebrews 8:8-12. However, the writer of Hebrews goes even further than what the prophet Jeremiah stated. He wrote at Hebrews 8:7, the following:
For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second. . . . Interesting.
But notice what he writes in verse 13:
In his saying “a new covenant” he has made the former one obsolete.”
Obsolete! Wow! Do you get that? The new covenant, which Christ instituted, replaces the old covenant—the old covenant has become obsolete. Continue, if you will with Hebrews 9:1. It’s called the “former covenant.” Read verse 15. Do you get the importance? Hebrews 10:8, 9 states: “You did not want nor did you approve of sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sin offerings—sacrifices that are offered according to the Law . . . . He does away with what is first that he may establish what is second.”
Do you need more explanation, Freydo?
The writer of the letter to the Colossians writes: “Let no man judge you in eating and drinking or in respect to a festival or of an observance of the new moon or of a Sabbath. . . .” Yes, not even of a Sabbath!
Paul writes in Romans 10: 4: “For Christ is the end of the Law….” He writes in Galatians 4:10: “You are scrupulously observing days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you, that somehow I have toiled to no purpose respecting you.”
At Hebrews 7:12, the writer states: “For since the priesthood is being changed, there comes to be of necessity a change also of the law.” Verse 18 states: “Certainly, then, there occurs a setting aside of the preceding commandment on account of its weakness and ineffectiveness.” Verse 22: “Jesus has become the one given in pledge of a better covenant.”
Now, in answer to your last question, you might read Acts 10:9-15. Things were a changing, including the laws of the old covenant and here in Acts Peter acknowledges those changes. Do you think he taught the changes from that point forward?
You, Freydo, quote:
Matthew 5:19 - "Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
You must remember, Freydo, that at the time Christ made the above statement, the Law was still in force because Christ had not yet died and with his dying nailed the Law covenant to the torture stake. So up until his death, the Mosaic law had to be obeyed in every jot and tittle.
Heb 10:26-27 "If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God."
Now that the law has been fulfilled and is out of the way for Christians, where there is no law there is no sin. You know this, right?
