The Jews used the expression ‘The Law’ in four different ways. They used it to man the 10 commandments; they used it to describe the first five books of the bible, called the Pentateuch. They considered those to be the most important part of the bible. They used the words law and the prophets to mean the whole of scripture, and they used the word law to mean oral or scribal law.
In the time of Jesus, it was the last meaning which was most common and it was the scribal law which Jesus and Paul condemned. So, what is scribal law?
We find very few rules and regulations in the Old Testament. Instead, we find broad principles which a person must take and with God’s guidance apply to situations in life. For example, the 10 commandments are not rules and regulations, they are principles by which a person must discern their rules for life.
To the Scribes in Jesus’ time these principles did not seem to be enough. They believed that the law was divine and that everything, every specific action must be in it. They believed that through the law one could deduce a rule or regulation for every situation in life.
The scribes reduced the great principles of the law to literally thousands upon thousands of rules and regulations.
So too the Pharisees, the name means “the separated ones” were men who separated themselves from the ordinary activities of life to keep all these rules and regulations.
Jesus did not come to destroy the law but to bring out the real meaning of the law. He wanted to challenge the scribes and Pharisees and all of us, not to get trapped in rules and regulations where they become more important than our relationship with our God and with others.
The fundamental principle behind the ten commandments is to give God and our fellow men and women the reverence that is due them.
That reverence and respect did not consist in obeying a multitude of petty rules and regulations. They consisted not in judgement but in mercy, not in legalism but in love, not in prohibitions, but in the challenge to form our lives on Jesus’ most important law and commandment, “Love your God and your neighbor as you love yourself.”