Sanctification in the Jesus Tradition 177 already breaking in, can one fully appreciate the vehemence of the dispute about purity and cult between Jesus and the Pharisees and priests respectively. Jesus does not only point out a principle that has always been given, and which is merely not recognized by his opponents. Rather, he proclaims and brings about a new reality, the beginning of the universal sanctification promised in Ezekiel 36 and Zech 14,20-21. It is from there that we have to understand his conception of holiness as well as his rejection of the pharisaic concept of holiness, which in itself was a striving after this universal holiness. The Torah of Jesus is more than a simple and questionable freedom from Torah, it is the foundation of complete and perfect shalom, in which God’s holiness penetrates the furthest depths of the world (77). On the one hand Jesus seems to transgress the Torah by breaking the Sabbath, declaring the food laws to be obsolete, and by associating with impure people and sinners. At the same time he affirms the ongoing validity of the Torah (Matt 5,18 par. Luke 16,17) (78) and sometimes even renders it more stringent by his interpretation (Matt 5,32 and 19,9 parr.). We cannot but distinguish between Jesus’ attitudes towards the ethical and towards the cultic Torah. However, such a distinction is not to be carried out in the classical sense of Reformed theology, according to which Jesus disposed of the cultic (as well as the civil) Torah, while affirming the validity of the moral Torah. After all, the Sabbath laws, the laws concerning pure and impure animals (Lev 11) and the laws concerning the exclusion of impure people from the cult (Lev 7,19-21) or, in severe cases, from the people (Lev 13,46; Num 5,2-4), are just as much a part of the requirements ensuring Israel’s holiness, by which it was to stand out from among the nations and their practices (Lev 20,22-27), as was the commandment of love (Lev 19,18). To abolish these commandments would have been to jeopardize Israel’s holiness. We need to understand that Jesus, as the Holy One of God, fulfils the Torah in its deepest sense. His coming, his actions and his death ultimately sanctify his people. Therefore, there is no longer any need for the literal keeping of the purity Torah. (77) GESE, Essays on Biblical Theology, 88. (78) The fact that this logion is handed down by Matthew and Luke, but in totally different contexts, makes it rather unlikely that it is a mere reflection of their own theology. It seems to be part of ancient traditions.