THE GOOD NEWS
Compliance with the many rules and regulations of the law is a very heavy burden. Jews for example, claim that there are 613 laws to be obeyed. Christians, do not have their laws so rigidly codified, but they still have their own ideas of what can and cannot be done in order to be a true believer as specified in their many traditions.
In the Jewish Orthodox tradition, obedience to all the laws of Moses is expected. In addition to those laws, Jews have added many other laws that complicate their lives exceedingly. Consider, for example, the challenges to bring all the animal and grain sacrifices to one location at the right time. Or consider the many fine points of tithing. These are examples of the many difficulties people face trying to keep the law of Moses — especially for people who do not live in Jerusalem. With such difficulties in mind, calling it a stumbling block seems an accurate description. The law of Moses can’t be kept as it is literally written; people who try to keep the literal law are condemned to failure because people who attempt to gain righteousness by keeping the law through legalism are guilty of sin if they fail to keep even one point of the law.
The challenge of obeying these laws is introduced in the Old Testament and is reinforced by Jesus. Jesus spoke of them further when he said that his burden was light and his yoke was easy. In saying “his yoke,” Jesus was comparing the relative ease of being a New Covenant disciple with the “yoke of the Pharisees”
That is the bad news. In addition to being a stumbling block, it could be said that condemnation for failure to to keep all of the written law is the obsolete part of the literal Mosaic Law. It is obsolete, however, only for those who have tried to gain righteousness through rigid obedience to the written law and found their efforts to be tiresome, burdensome and totally ineffective. Coming to this conclusion is the purpose of the law as our instructor to lead us to Christ. It seems that we cannot come to the conclusion that the New Covenant is the best way to achieve true righteousness unless we go through the process of working hard for righteousness in our flesh. We need to come to understand that our religious zeal, and all the rituals to which we have become addicted, are no better than dung.
The good news is that God never expected people to keep the literal law in all its finite details. Like so much of scripture, the literal word is symbolic of the spiritual meaning and intent that God has invested in it.
The good news is that God has provided a way to be in full compliance with the law without worrying about legalistic observance of all the details regarding circumcision, feasts, offerings, sacrifices, and so on. That way is through the New Covenant. And Jesus is the way to access that New Covenant obedience. That is why he said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Paul the Apostle came to understand this truth the hard way but only after he devoted his professional, religious life to obedience to the law. He summarizes that process in Philippians 3 where he reports on the ineffectiveness of his religious zeal on his way to learning that the New Covenant in Christ was the only way to live.