I have had experiences trying to share the gospel with Messianic Jews and other people that promote the Law of Moses as being on par with the gospel of Christ. Many would indicate that loving Jesus means obeying the Law of Moses because in their view Jesus taught the Law of Moses and came to renew the covenant with God’s people. The problem with this view is that Christ’s commandments are not the Law of Moses because he commanded the preaching of the gospel but did not command (but instead offered incentive for) the teaching of the Law of Moses.
John 14:10-14 shows Christ explaining that his words are not his alone and that they are the Father’s words as the Father lives in him, and that anyone that believes in Christ does the work that he is doing and thus anything that is asked in Christ’s name would be done by Christ. John 14:15 next follows with Christ saying, “If you love me, keep my commands.” (NIV) What follows is that Christ promises the Holy Ghost as a measure to show that he would not leave them as orphans as the Holy Ghost is described as the advocate and Spirit of truth in John 14:15-18.
In John 14:23 Christ makes his point even clearer by stating that anyone that loves him would obey his teachings and that the Father would love that person and both the Father and the Son would come and dwell with that one. John 21:12-14 explains that Christ appeared to the disciples a third time after his resurrection, and John 21:15-17 shows Christ questioning Peter three times if he loved him and each time that Peter would respond Christ would tell Peter to feed his flock (lamb and sheep). The point is that obeying the teachings of Christ meant for Peter that he was to feed Christ’s flock, and if Peter did not feed Christ’s flock, then he simply did not love him.
In Matthew 4:4 Christ explains this spiritual food to be very word that precedes from the mouth of God the Father. In Hebrews 5:9-10 Christ is understood to be the source of eternal salvation for those that obey him as he is in the High Priestly order of Melchizedek, and Hebrews 5:12 -14 ridicules the Hebrews for having to learn the elementary teachings of God all over again and needing milk instead of solid food because they had not been acquainted with the teachings about righteousness. Overall, much of the ridicule of the Hebrews in Hebrews 12 appears to be directed at the fact that they would have had a hard time adjusting to the fact that Christ’s teachings had been superior to those of Moses because he was the High Priest not of Levi but of Melchizedek that the law says nothing about.
The Hebrews thus would have had difficulty with accepting the fact that a change of priesthood meant a change of law as seen in Hebrews 7:12, that Jesus came to bring a better covenant as seen in Hebrews 7:22, and that Christ’s priesthood was not of Aaron and that it superseded even Abraham as seen in Hebrews 7:4-11. One can thus see that obeying what Christ commands to show love for him does not particularly mean following the Law of Moses. Following Christ’s commands would instead involve the gospel message and what Christ came to do.
