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Did Matthew 5 not define sin?
No, it didn't. It gives teachings on some behaviors.
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Sin is lawlessness. The law being referred to is God's law.
So your definition is not any different than what I provided in
Message 101, which is the meaning of the word used in the OT.
Definition of Chata'-Translated Sin - Verb
1) to sin, miss, miss the way, go wrong, incur guilt, forfeit, purify from uncleanness
Here's the NT definition for the word translated as sin.
hamartanō.
1) to be without a share in
2) to miss the mark
3) to err, be mistaken
4) to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour, to do or go wrong
5) to wander from the law of God, violate God's law, sin
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First, the Jewish laws were set in place for the purpose of forgivness of sins. Before Jesus, there were a multitude of rituals within the Jewish tradition. It ranged from purifying yourself, to making animal sacrifices, to the high preist going in once a year to make a sacrifice. These were done in obedience to God for He was the one who demanded them.
The Jewish laws were set in place to govern a people. God did not demand sacrifices. See the thread:
Jesus Was Not A Sacrifice To Forgive Sins. Sacrifices weren't necessary for forgiveness.
Ezekiel 18:21-22
But if a wicked man turns away from all the sins he has committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, he will surely live; he will not die. None of the offenses he has committed will be remembered against him. Because of the righteous things he has done, he will live.
Yes, the Priestly portion of the Mosaic Law gives instructions if one brings a sacrifice. Notice there is no penalty, that I've seen, in Leviticus for not bringing a sacrifice.
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Second, the Jewish laws were put in place to protect the Isrealites. Like I said earlier, God had a plan for the Isrealites. They were His chosen people. The anscestors of His Son. They could not become corrupted by other nations and religions. That is why God set such strict laws in place. Sin could not be tolerated because sin corrupts. The consequences for sin had to be great. If there are no consequences for sin then people will never learn that sin is wrong.
Again the laws were put into place for the same reason any other civilization puts laws in place. Many laws are for protection, but the Jewish laws weren't put in place for a future master plan. Not all sin corrupts. People who break the speed limit aren't automatically corrupt.
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Third, the laws were put in place to show man that he was not infallibe, inerrant, and fundamentaly moral. God made these laws to show man that he was not perfect and that he needed a Saviour. Man cannot forgive his own sins. The only person who has the power to pardon man from his sins is God. And God wanted man to know that--if man wanted to be pure he had to abide by God's rules and nobody else's.
No it wasn't. Laws were a part of life for mankind. It had nothing to do with showing people they were fallible or immoral. It had to do with managing a civilization.
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Jesus did not abolish the laws that God had set in place in the Old Testament. He did ,however, make all the rituals in Jewish tradition obsolete. Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice. Because He died for us, we no longer have to purify ourselves, or make animal sacrifices, or have a high priest make an annual sacrifice for the sins of us all. Jesus was the Ultimate High Priest if you will. He went to the cross to once and for all pay the price for our sins so that we would never have to. The punishment of sin is still death. But God does not demand it right away. God gives us our whole lives to repent for our sins. If we repent for our sins, God forgives them--no matter how terrible the sin. What mercy! If God was not merciful, many of us would have been stoned long ago. This was a huge part of Jesus' message.
Jesus did not make the Jewish rituals obsolete. The Jewish followers of Jesus continued these Jewish rituals. Gentiles in the first century weren't bound by Jewish Law. The punishment for sin is not physical death. The penalties fit the crime, just like today. If you are speaking of spiritual death or an afterlife deal, then please be specific. The Jewish laws and penalties are applied in real life.
That's Paul's message to the Gentiles, not the message Jesus brought to the Jews. People in the OT also had their whole lives to repent and once they repented their offenses were forgotten.
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In conclusion, Jesus did not abolish or change the laws that God had set in place i.e. Ten commandments, but he did do away with all the rituals.
How do you come up with just 10 laws and the Jews have
613 commandments from the OT?
Jesus didn't do away with the rituals. Jewish reformists were trying to do away with the rituals long before Jesus was born. The sacrificial system was very expensive to maintain. (175BCE) The destruction of the temple did away with the sacrificial system. (70CE)
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Jesus' message was was basically this: God is a loving God. He wishes to have a personal relationship with you. God is merciful. This was a differnt perspective of God compared to how most Jews saw God. To most people, God was a God who was to be respected and feared. If you didn't fear and respect Him, you would be punished. Jesus came to say that God was not all about stoning you.
But that isn't the picture painted in the OT, which is the point of this thread. What you present is not logically consistent.
Killing thousands for the mistakes of the leadership is not an example of a loving and merciful god.
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God is still to be feared and respected in the sense that everyone should know that they will one day be judged by God for their sins and punished. However, God has taken all the rituals and traditions that one had to do to attain salavtion and replaced it with one simple rule.
What's the point in punishing a person after they are physically dead?
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All that being said, I will restate my definition of morality.: I define right and wrong using the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What Jesus said was a sin, I call a sin. What Jesus called righteousness, I call righteousness.
Unfortunately that's not a definition. The scary part is that we don't even know what Jesus actually said and what is attributed to Jesus is basically Jewish Law which contains more than just the 10 or even the 613.
"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz
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