Okay, this is me, a Jew, asking Christian Twitter to explain something:

What do Christians mean when they say things like "Jesus fulfilled the Law" or "perfected the Law"? I don't mean theologically, I mean, like, how does that transitive verb act on that direct object? 1/

There are lots of things you can do with a law! You can obey a law, defy a law, break a law, ignore a law, pass a law, amend a law, repeal a law, etc. I know what those phrases mean. 2/

And there are lots of things you can fulfill, too: You can fulfill your destiny, fulfill a prophecy, fulfill your dreams... I also understand what those phrases mean. 3/

Likewise for "perfect": Perfect a recipe, perfect a trick, perfect a joke, etc. All of these make sense to me.

But I hear "perfect the Law" and "fulfill the Law" and I literally don't understand what that means. 4/

The law says you have to stop at a red light. Explain to me what it means to "fulfill" that law. Does it mean you stopped at the light? Are Christians just saying Jesus *kept* the laws of the Torah? Why not just say that, then? 5/

The law says you have to pay your taxes every year. What does it mean to "perfect" that law? You paid your taxes early? You made sure that you paid your taxes exactly right? 6/

I always thought that when Christians say "Jesus fulfilled the Law" what they really meant was "rendered moot", as in "Jesus made observing of the Law no longer mandatory". But that's a really weird way to think about laws, isn't it? 7/

You wouldn't say "I paid my taxes so well this year that I don't need to pay them anymore." or "I stopped at the red light *for you* so that nobody else has to ever again." That's not how laws work! 8/

I'm trying to think of any other context in which it makes sense to say that one person "fulfills a law" so that other people no longer have to obey it. I really can't, which makes me think maybe I am misunderstanding the phrase? 9/

Maybe the issue is that Christians don't actually think "Law", in this context, actually refers to, you know, *laws*. Do Christians understand "fulfill the Law" to mean "fulfilled the prophecies of the Torah"? Okay, but what about the *actual laws* in the Law? 10/

I'm not trying to be coy or play dumb here. I understand the basic tenets of Christianity: Jesus's death supposedly acted as a combination sin-offering / vicarious atonement on behalf of the world, so everyone is forgiven their sins. 11/

I also understand (intellectually) the corollary that people who accept Jesus's sacrifice on their behalf are not obliged to follow the laws of the Torah, because they've already been forgiven (in advance) for violating them. Seems like a weird approach to laws, but I get it. 12/

But it seems linguistically and conceptually weird to me to describe that as "fulfilling a Law" or "perfecting the Law". "Repealing the Law" seems like a better fit -- or maybe "neutralizing the law" or "rendering the law irrelevant". 13/

This thread, by the way, was inspired by the following brief exchange I had a couple of days ago. I've been thinking about it, and my own inability to understand what these words mean, for two days now. https://twitter.com/RotationlSymtry/status/1316558754737983488 /end