The relevance of Jewish law to Gentiles

Martin Downes insightfully comments that:

If you deny that law has any reference to Gentiles, are you not forced to conclude that Jesus neither kept it for their sake, nor is his obedience imputed to them for their justification?

I've been aware on in my recent posts on the law that while (I feel) I haven't neglected eschatology, I have neglected the fact that it was given to the nation of Israel. Not unconnected to that, I've focused on the Ten Commandments. But I still think what I have said holds because the relevance of the law is more fundamentally a question of the age, or creation, we live in than whether we are Jew or Gentile.

I would argue that as Adam represented humanity in the Garden, so Israel represented the nations in the land. They were priests to the world showcasing what life in close relationship to God looked like.

Israel were to keep the OT law on behalf of the world, and if they kept it then through them the world could be blessed. However, if they broke God's law then they would be judged first, and then the rest of the world through them.

The line of the seed is the line of representatives of the old humanity:

• Adam
• Noah
• Abraham
• Isaac
• Jacob/Israel
• David
• Jesus Christ

The specific commands (as part of their covenants) to each were slightly different, each building on the one before. However, they all were representing the world before God.

The line of the seed is also a line of shadow-representatives of the new humanity, each with their own promises which were slightly different building on the one before. The Seed who is representative of the true new humanity where all the promises are 'yes' is singular and not a family tree because one king will rule on that throne forever:

• Jesus Christ

Perhaps that needs some fine-tuning, but that would be the outline of where I'd go.

PS In case you're wondering why I'm obsessing about the 10 commandments at the moment it is because our pastor is doing a series on them entitled "10 ways to love", I'm reading Ed Clowney's book alongside that, and lots of conversations are happening with church members. However, what I should be obsessing about is property and criminal law because I have exams in a week, so don't expect to hear from me too much for a while.