Follow Jesus Christ

Everyone knows the main criterion by which the Old Testament ought to be judged. Jesus himself stated that principle: “Love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Gospel of Matthew, 22). If these are the chief commandments, we can quite easily filter the 613 commandments of the Old Testament and sort them into categories. Everything that directly serves love expresses God’s will; everything not connected to love is auxiliary, temporary, or pedagogical.

Commandments obviously grounded in love include: “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not bear false witness,” “Do not oppress the widow and the orphan,” “Do not withhold the wages of a hired worker,” “Do not put a stumbling block before the blind,” “Do not mistreat the stranger,” “If you see your brother’s donkey fallen under its load—help him,” “If you see an animal in a pit—pull it out.” It is noteworthy that the Mosaic Law permits helping on the Sabbath, saving life even in contradiction to that law’s ritual norms. Jesus constantly appeals precisely to these commandments.

Commandments not based on love as such include dietary prohibitions: the ban on pork, the ban on seafood (shrimp, shellfish), prohibitions on mixing foods. They carry no moral content, do not make a person kinder, do not protect another human being, and are not connected to love or justice. Also not based on love are rules of ritual purity—washings, cleansings after contact, clean/unclean distinctions about objects. These are cultic symbolism, community discipline, a pedagogy of distinguishing “holy/ordinary,” a requirement of identity and order. Nor are national-cultural markers based on love: circumcision, special clothing, bans on mixed fabrics, strict calendrical rules. They formed an ethnic boundary, are not universal, and lack an ethical core. Paul later puts it bluntly: “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is the new creation.”

Outside any notion of love are the harsh commandments—violence, extermination, executions: stoning, wiping out peoples, the death penalty for religious violations. These are clearly not expressions of love but reflect ancient legal logic based on fear, a tribal model of God, and politico-religious control. Jesus never affirms or reproduces these. There are borderline cases partially related to love. The Sabbath as protection of people from exploitation—yes, that is close to the idea of love. As a legal requirement to be observed at all costs—no. Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Another case is the honoring of parents: if this means care and respect, it is undoubtedly love; blind obedience that serves evil is not love.

Let us take the 613 mitzvot (commandments) in the classical rabbinic understanding and classify each by its dominant meaning. First category: commandments based on love, which directly protect life, dignity, and justice, are aimed at the good of another person (or animal), and cultivate mercy, honesty, compassion. Second category: mixed commandments that have a social or humanizing effect but are implemented through ritual, law, or structure—where love is not the aim but a byproduct. Finally, a third category: commandments not based on love—ritual, cultic, and identificational rules that do not improve the condition of another being but serve symbolism, order, and communal boundaries.

Using standard classifications in Judaism yields the following picture. The total number of commandments contributing to “love” (judgment and justice, damages, property, honesty, labor, hired workers, debts, care for the poor, strangers, orphans, widows, humane treatment of animals, etc.) is roughly in the range of eighty-five to one hundred commandments. “Mixed” commandments (Sabbath, festivals, jubilees, family law, limits on power and kingship, some military and public norms) amount to about one hundred and thirty commandments. Commandments unrelated to love—temple, sacrifices, priesthood, ritual purity, dietary laws, clothing, mixed fabrics, calendrical details, bans on idolatry—account for roughly four hundred commandments out of the total. What picture does that give in percentages? Based on these approximations: grounded in love: 15%; mixed: 20%; not related to love: 65%.

The key conclusion from these figures is that love is not the center of the Law of Moses as a code. About seventy percent of the Old Testament commandments have nothing to do with love. In fact, love is the criterion by which Jesus distinguishes what in the Law is truly from God from what is temporary. Most commandments in Judaism were fashioned by people. Such a logic provoked outrage among priests and rabbis: Jesus, in effect, called for an almost total reformation of Judaism. Christ’s crucifixion was a direct consequence of that confrontation. From this perspective it becomes clear that when Jesus appealed to Abraham or Moses, he primarily meant that very early version of Judaism—unburdened by unnecessary commandments—focused on love and high spiritual values rather than on ritual or identity markers.

Moreover, from his position as lawgiver, Jesus could calmly correct even Moses. Who were Moses and Abraham? Ordinary people tasked with proclaiming some of the foundational truths of the universe. In the light of these facts, the Torah cannot be the Word of God: Jesus is the Word of God. This also explains how the earliest Christians lived for several centuries without any codes. Christianity is a path of imitating a person, not a religion of commandments. Therefore any attempt to reduce Christianity to a set of rules is not a return to the origins but a rejection of the very revolution Jesus brought.