textbooks in a school. The Second Reading Book does not annul the first, but assumes the
facts taught in it, while giving more advanced teaching 1. The Qur'an does not state that
it came to annul the Torah and the Injil, but to confirm and protect them.
72. M. Why then do you Christians not observe the ceremonial parts of the Law of Moses,
with regard to washings, festivals, and circumcision?
C. For two reasons. (1) Because these commands were given to the Jews only and not to all
nations. (2) Because they were not abrogated but fulfilled in Christ. Circumcision was
intended to keep the children of Abraham apart until Christ came; the purifications and sacrifices
received their fulfilment in Christ. The ordinances, given not to all nations and for all time (like
the Moral Law generally), but only temporally and to the Jews alone (for example those regarding
sacrifices, circumcision, going up three times a year to the Temple, abstinence from certain kinds
of food, &c.), were therefore abrogated by Christ as far as the letter is concerned, but
they were not abrogated but filled up and made eternally binding on all men so far as
their spiritual meaning is concerned 2. For example, in Exod. xii. the Israelites
were commanded to observe the Passover; and in 1 Cor. v. 7, the spiritual meaning and necessity of
the