'Law' in the Bible

"Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I didn't come to destroy them, but to fulfill them,

because I tell all of you with certainty that until heaven and earth disappear, not one letter or one stroke of a letter will disappear from the Law until everything has been accomplished.

Therefore, whatever you want people to do for you, do the same for them, because this summarizes the Law and the Prophets."

because the Law and all the Prophets prophesied up to the time of John.

Or haven't you read in the Law that on every Sabbath the priests in the Temple violate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?

One of them, an expert in the Law, tested him by asking,

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments."

"How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your mint, dill, and cummin, but have neglected the more important matters of the Law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. These are the things you should have practiced, without neglecting the others.

When the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord,

as it is written in the Law of the Lord, "Every firstborn son is to be designated as holy to the Lord."

They also offered a sacrifice according to what is specified in the Law of the Lord: "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons."

Led by the Spirit, he went into the Temple. When the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him what was customary under the Law,

After doing everything required by the Law of the Lord, Joseph and Mary returned to their hometown of Nazareth in Galilee.

One day, as Jesus was teaching, some Pharisees and teachers of the Law happened to be sitting nearby. The people had come from every village in Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was present to heal them.

But the Pharisees and the experts in the Law rejected God's plan for themselves by refusing to be baptized by John.

Just then an expert in the Law stood up to test Jesus. He asked, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus answered him, "What is written in the Law? What do you read there?"

Then one of the experts in the Law told him, "Teacher, when you say these things, you insult us, too."

Jesus said, "How terrible it will be for you experts in the Law, too! You load people with burdens that are hard to carry, yet you don't even lift a finger to ease those burdens.

How terrible it will be for you experts in the Law! You have taken away the key to knowledge. You didn't go in yourselves, and you kept out those who were trying to go in."

So Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the Law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?"

"The Law and the Prophets remained until John. Since then, the good news about the kingdom of God has been proclaimed, and everyone entering it is under attack.

However, it is easier for heaven and earth to disappear than for one stroke of a letter in the Law to be dropped.

Then he told them, "These are the words that I spoke to you while I was still with you that everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled."

because while the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus the Messiah.

Philip found Nathaniel and told him, "We have found the man about whom Moses in the Law and the Prophets wrote Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth."

Moses gave you the Law, didn't he? Yet none of you is keeping the Law. Why are you trying to kill me?"

If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because I made a man perfectly well on the Sabbath?

But this mob that does not know the Law they're under a curse!"

"Surely our Law does not condemn a person without first hearing from him and finding out what he is doing, does it?"

Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women to death. What do you say?"

In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two people is valid.

Jesus replied to them, "Is it not written in your Law, "I said, "You are gods"'?

Then the crowd answered him, "We have learned from the Law that the Messiah remains forever. So how can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?"

But this happened so that what has been written in their Law might be fulfilled: "They hated me for no reason.'

Pilate told them, "You take him and try him according to your Law."

The Jewish leaders answered Pilate, "We have a law, and according to that Law he must die because he made himself out to be the Son of God."

But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law who was respected by all the people, stood up in the Council and ordered the men to be taken outside for a little while.

They had false witnesses stand up and say, "This man never stops saying things against this Holy Place and against the Law.

You received the Law as ordained by angels, and yet you haven't obeyed it!"

After the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the synagogue leaders asked them, "Brothers, if you have any message of encouragement for the people, you may speak."

and that everyone who believes in him is justified and freed from everything that kept you from being justified by the Law of Moses.

Then some men came down from Judea and started to teach the brothers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the Law of Moses, you can't be saved."

But some believers from the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The gentiles must be circumcised and ordered to keep the Law of Moses."

They said, "This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the Law."

But since it is a question about words, names, and your own Law, you will have to take care of that yourselves. I refuse to be a judge in these matters."

When they heard about it, they praised God and told him, "You see, brother, how many tens of thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and all of them are zealous for the Law.

But they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the gentiles to forsake the Law of Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.

Take these men, go through the purification ceremony with them, and pay their expenses to shave their heads. Then everyone will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you are carefully observing and keeping the Law.

yelling, "Men of Israel, help! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere to turn against our people, the Law, and this place. More than that, he has even brought Greeks into the Temple and desecrated this Holy Place."

"I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia but raised in this city and educated at the feet of Gamaliel in the strict ways of our ancestral Law. I am as zealous for God as all of you are today.

"A certain Ananias, who was a devout man with respect to the Law and who was highly regarded by all the Jews living there,

At this Paul told him, "God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! How can you sit there and judge me according to the Law, and yet in violation of the Law order me to be struck?"

I found that, although he was charged with questions about their Law, there was no charge against him deserving death or imprisonment.

However, I admit to you that in accordance with the Way, which they call a heresy, I worship the God of our ancestors and believe in everything written in the Law and the Prophets.

Paul said in his defense, "I have done nothing wrong against the Law of the Jews, or of the Temple, or of the emperor."

From morning until evening, he continued to explain the kingdom of God to them, trying to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses and the Prophets. Some of them were convinced by what he said, but others wouldn't believe.

For all who have sinned apart from the Law will also perish apart from the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law.

For it is not merely those who hear the Law who are righteous in God's sight. No, it is those who follow the Law, who will be justified.

For whenever gentiles, who do not possess the Law, do instinctively what the Law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the Law.

They show that what the Law requires is written in their hearts, a fact to which their own consciences testify, and their thoughts will either accuse or excuse them

Now if you call yourself a Jew, and rely on the Law, and boast about God,

and know his will, and approve of what is best because you have been instructed in the Law;

an instructor of ignorant people, and a teacher of infants because you have the full content of knowledge and truth in the Law

As you boast about the Law, do you dishonor God by breaking the Law?

For circumcision is valuable if you observe the Law, but if you break the Law, your having been circumcised has no more value than if you were uncircumcised.

So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the requirements of the Law, his uncircumcision will be regarded as circumcision, won't it?

The man who is uncircumcised physically but who keeps the Law will condemn you who break the Law, even though you have the written Law and circumcision.

No, a person is a Jew inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, brought about by the Spirit, not by a written law. That person's praise will come from God, not from people.

Now we know that whatever the Law says applies to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

Therefore, God will not justify any human being by means of the actions prescribed by the Law, for through the Law comes the full knowledge of sin.

But now, apart from the Law, God's righteousness is revealed and is attested by the Law and the Prophets

For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the actions prescribed by the Law.

Do we, then, abolish the Law by this faith? Of course not! Instead, we uphold the Law.

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the Law, but through the righteousness produced by faith.

For if those who were given the Law are the heirs, then faith is useless and the promise is worthless,

for the Law produces wrath. Now where there is no Law, neither can there be any violation of it.

Therefore, the promise is based on faith, so that it may be a matter of grace and may be guaranteed for all of Abraham's descendants not only for those who were given the Law, but also for those who share the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

Certainly sin was in the world before the Law was given, but no record of sin is kept when there is no Law.

Now the Law crept in so that the offense would increase. But where sin increased, grace increased even more,

For sin will not have mastery over you, because you are not under Law but under grace.

What, then, does this mean? Should we go on sinning because we are not under Law but under grace? Of course not!

Don't you realize, brothers for I am speaking to people who know the Law that the Law can press its claims over a person only as long as he is alive?

For a married woman is bound by the Law to her husband while he is living, but if her husband dies, she is released from the Law concerning her husband.

So while her husband is living, she will be called an adulterer if she lives with another man. But if her husband dies, she is free from this Law, so that she is not an adulterer if she marries another man.

In the same way, my brothers, through the Messiah's body you also died as far as the Law is concerned, so that you may belong to another person, the one who was raised from the dead, and may bear fruit for God.

For while we were living according to our human nature, sinful passions were at work in our bodies by means of the Law, to bear fruit resulting in death.

But now we have been released from the Law by dying to what enslaved us, so that we may serve in the new life of the Spirit, not under the old writings.

What should we say, then? Is the Law sinful? Of course not! In fact, I wouldn't have become aware of sin if it had not been for the Law. I wouldn't have known what it means to covet if the Law had not said, "You must not covet."

But sin seized the opportunity provided by this commandment and produced in me all kinds of sinful desires, since apart from the Law, sin is dead.

At one time I was alive without any connection to the Law. But when the rule was revealed, sin sprang to life,

So then, the Law itself is holy, and the rule is holy, just, and good.

For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am merely human, sold as a slave to sin.

Now if I practice what I don't want to do, I am admitting that the Law is good.

For I delight in the Law of God in my inner being,

but I see in my body a different principle waging war with the Law in my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin that exists in my body.

Thank God through Jesus the Messiah, our Lord, because with my mind I myself can serve the Law of God, even while with my human nature I serve the law of sin.

For the Spirit's law of life in the Messiah Jesus has set me free from the Law of sin and death.

For what the Law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the flesh, God did. By sending his own Son in the form of humanity, he condemned sin by being incarnate,