The FULFILLING of the Law
Jen Fishburne
San Antonio, TX ·

Many years ago, I believed that we were fully under the Law of Moses, and lived my life accordingly, as much as possible. I was arguing that we were still under the Law online one day, and a pastor/seminary professor came along and challenged me in a way I had never heard before. He asked me questions that, for the first time, I simply could not answer.

He then asked me if I was willing to do a Bible study with him regarding the Law. For the next 90 days, I studied every passage in Scripture having to do with the Law, 8-12 hours a day, until I finally saw that that Law was never given to us in the first place; it was given only to Israel. That Law had NO authority over me, and I was not under its jurisdiction.

Matt. 5:17-18 was key for me. I realized that the Law was still in FULL effect until ALL the Law and ALL the prophets were fulfilled — in Christ. Once that happened, they were FULFILLED (not abolished).

So that left me with not having a clue where to go from there. At that time, I was wearing long dresses 24/7. I was very afraid that God was going to kill me, literally, if I put on a pair of pants, even weeks after realizing that Scripture never said anything what I should or should not wear. I finally got up the courage to try on a pair of pants, and quickly took them back off again, before God killed me. Yeah, it seems crazy now, but the fear was real.

I finally learned grace through the peeling away of the layers of legalism that I was bound up in. One by one, I studied each one in Scripture, only to find out that the Bible said nothing about all the “rules” we had made for ourselves.

I was so lost at that point, not understanding what grace was, that I put aside my Bible for the next 5 years and didn’t study it or read it, and rarely prayed. I never lost my faith, but I just meditated on life and the things I had learned in life. It was during those 5 years of silence that I learned what grace was.

And then I was free to begin learning the truth of God’s Word for the first time in my life.