Chizuk Emunah Under the Microscope: Chapter 19

In Chapter 19, Isaac Troki accuses Christians of violating the Mosaic law, believing that it is now null and void, having been superseded by Jesus. Troki quotes Matthew 5:17-20 which states:

    “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:17-20 ESV)

The apostles of Jesus were circumcised, including Timothy. The Sabbath was observed on Saturday until one of the Popes instituted it on the first day of the week about 500 years after Jesus.

God gave Moses a double portion of Manna on Friday in order to show that God himself sanctified the Sabbath. As a result, says Troki, the Sabbath cannot ever be abrogated. Paul did not believe that the Law was totally dead. Did not Paul order the death of one who marries his father's wife?

    It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father's wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.
(1 Corinthians 5:1-2 ESV)

Christians seem to have abandoned the foundation of the law. Jesus seems to have abrogated omse laws and enacted others, such as the prohibition of divorce.Malachi 4 states:

    “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. 
(Malachi 4:4 ESV)

While Jesus kept the Sabbath, he kept it in a way differently than did the Pharisees. Jesus allowed his disciples to pluck heads of grain on the Sabbath. He also healed people of non-life-threatening illnesses, such as a withered hand on the Sabbath as well. This was in violation of Rabbinical prohibitions.

Daniel Boyarin thinks differently. In his book The Jewish Gospels he makes the case that Jesus was not trying to reform the Pharisaic law, but that the Pharisees were the innovators who were trying to alter the Mosaic laws. He believes that the Pharisaic movement was one that came from the Babylonian exile. During that period, the Pharisees developed the traditions of the Elders, which is a systems to which they were trying to convert Israelite Jews. The justification for these reforms is that God passed down an oral tradition, and would have been offensive to Jews who had lived in the land during the period of the exile. Jesus' Judaism was a conservative reaction against that.

The followers of Jesus did observe the Saturday sabbath, but they also observed the Lord's Day on Sunday as well. Since the Sabbath is meant for Israel and her children only.

    You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the LORD. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.’”
(Exodus 31:14-17 ESV)

The Sabbath was meant for Israelites only. The Lord's Day was meant for followers of Jesus. Jewish followers of Jesus observed both. Gentiles need not observe the Saturday Sabbath.

    On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
(Acts 20:7 ESV)

If God could end his covenant with national Israel for any reason, he can do it with the church as well. There can be no biblical case that the church is the new Israel or new Jerusalem.

Ignatius recognized that Gentile Christians observe the Lord's Day and not the Sabbath.  "No longer keeping the Sabbath, but living according to the Lord's Day, in which too our life sprang up by Him and His death."

The reason that Christian Jews need not follow the Rabbinical Law is that this law is an apostate and twisted interpretation of Moses. Secondly, the law of faith, if kept, prevents one from being subject to the curses of God.

An example of Rabbinical perversion is the practice of Prosbul undermines the very intent of Deuteronomy 15. It violates the plain sense of Scripture and is simply a man-made invention to get out of the freedom that comes at the seventh year.

    “At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the LORD's release has been proclaimed. Of a foreigner you may exact it, but whatever of yours is with your brother your hand shall release.
(Deuteronomy 15:1-3 ESV)

    Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.
(Romans 3:27-31 ESV)