Is the Holy Spirit Misleading You?

[SteveII]

That verse does not mean what you think it means. 



It is clearer in context with the surrounding chapters (5-7) and has a different meaning to a person raised in Judaism (the original audience) than to one that was not.  In light of the previous verses, Jesus was assuring them their sacred Law still had value. The word 'fulfill' in verse 17 does not mean perpetuate, it means complete. But to understand what that means, you then have to understand the purpose of the Law. Jesus was teaching in these three chapters that the law was impossible to fully follow so in fact, no one was righteous. To illustrate that even more, he went on to expand the laws throughout the rest of the chapter 5--further illustrating that it is impossible to live up to the spirit of the law, let alone the letter of it--and therefore cannot ever be the means of salvation. This fits in perfectly with the message that Jesus claimed to be the only means of salvation.

We have to understand that:

1. No one (except for Jesus) has ever succeeded in keeping the law (Acts 15:10)!
   
2. The law was delivered to Israel - One nation of people (Exodus 20:1-2; Deuteronomy 4:1-2).
   
3. It is One Law containing the whole package of rituals and sacrifices as well as the Ten Commandments (Galatians 3:10-11; Galatians 5:3)
   
4. The law cannot bring salvation (Romans 3:20; Galatians 2:8-10, 16; Galatians 3:1-5).
   
5. As Paul makes clear, the law's job was to act as a schoolmaster in order to bring us to Christ (Galatians 4:1-7).
   

You also have to ask the meaning of the phrase at the end of verse 18. It is clear in the larger context that this as the purpose for which Jesus came--the sacrifice was made to make it possible to bridge the gap back to God--providing a new (and better) way to God and the only means of salvation--which the law failed to do. 

Here is a good (thorough) article on this issue: http://www.ukapologetics.net/Jesusandthelaw.html

How do you know though, that your interpretation of Scripture is the right one? There are literally over 30,000 denominations of Christianity today, which means every ''church'' is interpreting things its own way, right down to the followers, all interpreting Scripture their own way. Including you. Including me. Including anyone who is a theist or not. I left faith, was an atheist, and returned to faith, and now don't consider myself a Christian per se, anymore. But, I'm at a cross roads with it all, I guess you could say. That said, I've never liked that the Bible creates this chaos and confusion in the mind of its reader. An atheist should be able to read the Bible, and grasp its meaning, and the truth is...most atheists do. (Thus, the need came along for ''apologetics'') The Bible isn't a hard book to understand. The problem is, it's a very straight forward book that many theists feel the need to ''explain'' with ''you're not understanding that passage the right way.'' No, the truth is, there are many horrible passages in the Bible, whereby depraved men wanted to convince the masses, that a god is ordaining all of their own depravity. There are of course beautiful verses and passages too that coexist with those horrible ones, but it's funny...those never need ''explaining.''

First, the fact that there are many different protestant denominations (certainly not 30,000) in no way indicates a doctrinal disagreement. The reasons for denominations include culture, geography, service structure, music, minor doctrinal differences and major doctrinal differences. I would say there are only 3-4 divisions along major doctrinal differences in a narrow band of topics. 

Second, you assume that people can interpret the Bible any way they want and go on your merry way. That is simply not the case. Systematic theology is the study of putting all the doctrines together into cohesive whole. There are only a couple of versions that will stay together (none of which have earth shattering differences). If you personally ignore some doctrine because you disagree, it most likely will affect many other things and your own personal theology is shot full of holes.

Every chapter and verse should be read in the context of the surrounding passage, the purpose of the book, the original audience, the author, the culture, the historical context, etc. To fail to do so is to not understand what the text means. Pulling a couple of verses out of the middle of all of that and say "it's very clear" is simply wrong more often than not. No need to 'explain', just a need to examine it correctly. 

Third, 'apologetics' does not mean what you think it means. It simply means "to give an answer". 

Fourth, difficult passages can be understood in context and with a systematic theology that takes the entirety of scripture and makes sense of the passages. Taking them in isolation is not adequate to a full understanding.