Is the gospel just grace?

Frogster

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I'd disagree, a better understanding of the Jewish cultural context gives a different interpretation. To start with, the Torah never instructs all Gentiles to become circumcised or to become Jewish proselytes, or even how to become Jewish proselytes, so by rejecting what the circumcision group was asking in Acts 15:1, they were ruling against man-made traditions and upholding the Torah. As I said before, if the Torah had instructed all Gentiles to become circumcised, then the Jerusalem Council had no authority to countermand God. They couldn't add to or subtract from God's law (Deuteronomy 4:2), but only had the authority to make interpretations about how it was intended to be obeyed, and they upheld the Torah by correctly ruling that it did not intend for all Gentiles to become circumcised.

The Jews had an oral law or traditions of the elders (Mark 7:3-4), which consisted of traditions and rulings for how to keep the written law of the Torah and fences around it to protect it from being accidentally broken. For instance, when God commanded them not to do their work on the Sabbath, they had many rulings for what did and did not count as work, such as how far someone could walk. They traced the command for this back to Moses and they reasoned that you couldn't keep the Sabbath if you didn't have their traditions for how to keep the Sabbath, so they gave a greater importance to their own traditions than to the commands of God, which Jesus criticized them for (Mark 7:6-9). They would never have considered teaching someone how to keep the Sabbath without teaching their traditions for how to keep it, so all of this was wrapped up in their concept of what it meant to live according the custom of Moses (Acts 15:1). If you think about it, the Israelites would certainly have asked Moses for clarification for how to obey many of the laws out of the desire to obey in the right way, so Moses would have to had made rulings and started traditions for how to obey it. Whether the traditions that they had are the same ones that Moses started is a separate issue, but the point is that the Jews thought their traditions traced back to Moses.

So Paul was rejecting both that Gentiles had to follow their traditions and that they had follow the law in order to be saved, but he was not rejecting God's holy, righteous, and good law. He said our faith does not abolish the law, but rather that it upholds it (Romans 3:31). The heavy burden was their mountain of traditions for how to follow God's laws, not God's laws themselves. Jesus said his yoke or interpretation for how to follow the law easy and his burden was light and God said in Deuteronomy 30:11 that His commands were not too difficult for them. You can't find anywhere in the OT where anyone thought that God's laws were a heavy burden, but just the opposite. The Psalms are full of high praise for the law, especially 119, and considered the law to be a delight. The Jews frequently gave thanks to God for giving them the Torah as instructions for life, so they would never have considered it to be a heavy burden.



God gave the Torah to His chosen people, Israel, but Ephesians 2:12 and 2:19 say that Gentiles were once alienated from Israel, but are now fellow citizens. In 1 Peter 2:8-9, it says that Gentiles are no counted among God's chosen people, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood, so they should conduct themselves accordingly in compliance with God's instructions. In 1 Peter 1:13-16, it says that Gentiles should have a holy conduct, so how can Gentiles be a holy nation and have a holy conduct if they aren't supposed to follow any of God's instructions in the law for how to do that?

Jesus did not come to start a new religion, but rather he was born a Jew, became a Jewish rabbi, had Jewish disciples, and was the Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Jesus brought fullness to Judaism by teaching how to obey the Torah, by demonstrating through perfect sinlessness how it should be obeyed, by providing a means for salvation, and by including the Gentiles.
You quote Eph 2, but if you read on, Paul goes into the spiritual temple, as Peter did, not the law, not Israel, not Judaism in chapter 2.
 
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A covenant is a conditional contractual agreement that is tied to obedience. A contractual agreement can be made null and void if any person rejects the author of that covenant, who is God.
Yes, some, but not all covenants, are conditional. For example, God took upon Himself the promise (Heb. 6:13). It was unconditional, regardless of Abraham.
 
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Frogster

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I'd disagree, a better understanding of the Jewish cultural context gives a different interpretation. To start with, the Torah never instructs all Gentiles to become circumcised or to become Jewish proselytes, or even how to become Jewish proselytes, so by rejecting what the circumcision group was asking in Acts 15:1, they were ruling against man-made traditions and upholding the Torah.
Why would Paul and crew, want to look silly going all the way to Jerusalem before peter James and john, to argue that the gentiles do not have to be under oral law? No one would take that argument seriously, Acts 15 was not about oral law.

And again, about Acts 15:21, please read this...



The synagogue leaders opened up Paul's back whipping him on 5 different occasions, 39 (40 minus one) times, as per 2 Cor 11. They would not want Paul’s Jesus praising gentiles in their synagogues, they did not like Paul, look how they tried to tear him apart in Acts 21 at the temple, the synagogues were where the unsaved Jews were, Paul's opponents and enemies, it was 49 AD.


2 Corinthians 11:24 Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.


One more point, to an unsaved Jewish person, being a Christian was basically saying, the Jews killed the Messiah, and they were wrong. So how would a Christian fit in a Jewish synagogue? They would just be a testimony against the Jews. Oh my, how uncomfortable!

All James was saying in Acts 15:21, don't freak out the Jewish Christians, all they knew for centuries was the law, this was a transitional period. Jew and Greek were becoming one body, so there would be tensions.


As I said before, if the Torah had instructed all Gentiles to become circumcised, then the Jerusalem Council had no authority to countermand God. They couldn't add to or subtract from God's law (Deuteronomy 4:2), but only had the authority to make interpretations about how it was intended to be obeyed, and they upheld the Torah by correctly ruling that it did not intend for all Gentiles to become circumcised.

The Jews had an oral law or traditions of the elders (Mark 7:3-4), which consisted of traditions and rulings for how to keep the written law of the Torah and fences around it to protect it from being accidentally broken. For instance, when God commanded them not to do their work on the Sabbath, they had many rulings for what did and did not count as work, such as how far someone could walk. They traced the command for this back to Moses and they reasoned that you couldn't keep the Sabbath if you didn't have their traditions for how to keep the Sabbath, so they gave a greater importance to their own traditions than to the commands of God, which Jesus criticized them for (Mark 7:6-9). They would never have considered teaching someone how to keep the Sabbath without teaching their traditions for how to keep it, so all of this was wrapped up in their concept of what it meant to live according the custom of Moses (Acts 15:1). If you think about it, the Israelites would certainly have asked Moses for clarification for how to obey many of the laws out of the desire to obey in the right way, so Moses would have to had made rulings and started traditions for how to obey it. Whether the traditions that they had are the same ones that Moses started is a separate issue, but the point is that the Jews thought their traditions traced back to Moses.

So Paul was rejecting both that Gentiles had to follow their traditions and that they had follow the law in order to be saved, but he was not rejecting God's holy, righteous, and good law. He said our faith does not abolish the law, but rather that it upholds it (Romans 3:31). The heavy burden was their mountain of traditions for how to follow God's laws, not God's laws themselves. Jesus said his yoke or interpretation for how to follow the law easy and his burden was light and God said in Deuteronomy 30:11 that His commands were not too difficult for them. You can't find anywhere in the OT where anyone thought that God's laws were a heavy burden, but just the opposite. The Psalms are full of high praise for the law, especially 119, and considered the law to be a delight. The Jews frequently gave thanks to God for giving them the Torah as instructions for life, so they would never have considered it to be a heavy burden.



God gave the Torah to His chosen people, Israel, but Ephesians 2:12 and 2:19 say that Gentiles were once alienated from Israel, but are now fellow citizens. In 1 Peter 2:8-9, it says that Gentiles are no counted among God's chosen people, a holy nation, and a royal priesthood, so they should conduct themselves accordingly in compliance with God's instructions. In 1 Peter 1:13-16, it says that Gentiles should have a holy conduct, so how can Gentiles be a holy nation and have a holy conduct if they aren't supposed to follow any of God's instructions in the law for how to do that?

Jesus did not come to start a new religion, but rather he was born a Jew, became a Jewish rabbi, had Jewish disciples, and was the Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Jesus brought fullness to Judaism by teaching how to obey the Torah, by demonstrating through perfect sinlessness how it should be obeyed, by providing a means for salvation, and by including the Gentiles.
 
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Berean777

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Yes, some, but not all covenants, are conditional. For example, God took upon Himself the promise (Heb. 6:13). It was unconditional, regardless of Abraham.

God sprinkled his own blood on the cross and silenced the accuser for ever when he yelled out the CONFLICT IS FINISHED. This is the only covenant that God has posted for our protection against the accusations of the devil.

Tell me what exactly is unconditional about the blood covenant. Do you mean the world doesn't need to be be contractually tied to this blood covenant. What exactly are you advocating.
 
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Berean777

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Under the old covenant the focus was on outward temple worship and ordinances stipulated in Deuteronomy and oral law. When the Lord of the Sabbath who is the Holy Ghost came on Pentecost to dwell in the believers, the worship under the New covenant changed from outward temple worship to the inward temple, in worship of God in spirit.

Therefore all outward temple ordinances associated with temple sacrifices ended and inward observation and communion with the Spirit of Christ is the true form of worship. That is why in scripture it clearly states that the Kingdom of God is not by observation but is in the believer who walks by faith according to the Spirit of God. Therefore the kingdom of God is in the believer who has no outward ordinances to follow or observe, who is constantly in communion with God. Basically rather than going to the temple as the old covenant believers did, you can speak to God in worships and in praise in your own space, even the closet.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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You quote Eph 2, but if you read on, Paul goes into the spiritual temple, as Peter did, not the law, not Israel, not Judaism in chapter 2.

Reminds me of this,

Acts 1
6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.
 
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Rick Otto

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You didn't answer my question, so I'll try again. Was it a mistake for Paul and the other apostles to teach their congregations right from wrong?
It is an oversimplification not to make the distinction between rules and principles.
Principles guide us in discerning right and wrong, which can change with changing circumstances.
That is how and why rules occasionally violate principle, and should be broken.
It was not a mistake for them to teach us how to be loving.
 
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hedrick

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From a Lutheran perspective obedience is about Law, not Gospel. The Gospel is unilaterally God coming down to man in man's weakness, inability, and sin. The Law is what we are supposed to do, how we are supposed to live. The Gospel contains no commandments, only promises; commandments are a matter of the Law. Which is why the Law has no saving power, and obedience to God's commandments can merit us nothing--for we remain fiercely unrighteous before the all-holiness of God's just commands. We are therefore justified solely by the good kindness of the God who humbles Himself to death on the cross, rising from the dead triumphant over sin, death, hell, and the devil lifting us with Him by His generous love toward us.

I have the greatest respect for Lutheran theology. Its distinction between Law and Gospel is an important one. However that’s not how Jesus used the term. He used it for the coming of the Kingdom, with himself as both the agent and King. The call for obedience was an important part of the call to be a member of the Kingdom.

The best exegetes that I know will tell you that for both Jesus and Paul (with allowance for differences in terminology) justification is by faith and judgement by works. This manages to step on just about everyone’s toes.
 
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bugkiller

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The following is an article about the Pope's environmental encyclical, Laudato Si:

Pope Francis Doesn’t Get The Gospel
By telling people their spirituality is measured by what they do, Pope Francis in his recent encyclical rejects the central message of the gospel: grace.
I find this an absolutely appalling oversimplification (probably due to anti-catholic myopia). Yes, the heart of the gospel is Christ's atonement and salvation by grace, but that isn't the whole story. There is a lot in the new testament about obedience and refraining from sin. And how can we refrain from sin when we are not taught what sin is?

The essence of the mistake this evangelical author makes is that there is no place in his gospel for teaching right and wrong. Thank goodness the Pope believes differently. In an age where so many species are dying out, when resources are becoming scarce and contaminated by pollution, when our future is threatened by Climate Change, how are we to address this as Christians? What under these new circumstances is right and what is wrong? At least the Pope is on task trying to teach us.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here. How does climate change apply to grace, atonement or salvation? For that matter what does it even have to do with theology.

bugkiller
 
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bugkiller

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I'm not sure about your screenname there, but I have said the the Sabbath is required, not circumcision. And just Messianic Judaism is fine.



Roughly 80% of males in the US are circumcised and the majority of them are Gentiles, so does that me that Christ is of no value to them? No, the problem was not with circumcision, but with the reason why they were becoming circumcised, namely that they were trying to become justified be becoming circumcised and keeping the law. By trying trying to become justified by a means other than by faith in Jesus they were rejecting what he did for them and thus he was of no value to them. It was an important distinction that we need to keep the law because we are justified, not in order to become justified.
IOW we're yoked to the bondage of the law. What a load of garbage.

bugkiller
 
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Viren

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I don't understand what you're trying to say here. How does climate change apply to grace, atonement or salvation? For that matter what does it even have to do with theology.

bugkiller

God's judgement on the nations that destroy land, people and animals (creation) is littered throughout the old and new testaments.
 
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bugkiller

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Tell that to Jesus. He demanded obedience, and said quite clearly that we will all be accountable. He didn't emphasize what many people mean by morality, but he did say that we'd be judged based on whether we make a difference for other people (or negatively, abuse them).

He also said that God won't give up on us, and goes out of his way to reach us. The grace part. But you can't take just one of his emphases and ignore the other.
What did Jesus demand obedience to? the law? where? please quote something for support.

bugkiller
 
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bugkiller

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You didn't answer my question, so I'll try again. Was it a mistake for Paul and the other apostles to teach their congregations right from wrong?
I'll ask again what does it have to do with grace, atonement or salvation?

bugkiller
 
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Soyeong

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Any Gentiles. I agree that the Judaizers were in disagreement with Judaism--as Judaism quite explicitly teaches that Torah is for the Jews and only for the Jews. What he council does, however, is make clear that Torah observance doesn't apply to Gentile converts; why? because Torah observance was--indeed--never intended for Gentiles.

They said the Torah was never intended for Gentiles because the Torah was never intended for Gentiles? That's a bit circular. The Torah was for Israel, God's chosen people, and Gentiles are now included as citizens of Israel (Ephesians 2:12, 2:19) and as God's chosen people (1 Peter 2:8-10).

But what is happening in Acts 15 has nothing to do with the Oral Torah/Mishna. It has to do with Christians who, falsely, believe Gentiles should become Torah-observant in order to be full fledged members of the Church; by insisting that Gentiles receive circumcision and abide by the mitzvot of Torah: that is, that Gentiles become Jews. The Judaizers went further by insisting that Torah-observance, including circumcision, was necessary for salvation, a topic St. Paul tackles directly in his epistle to the Galatians.

Jews traced the oral law back to Moses and did not think that the written law could be kept without knowing the oral law, so it would have made no sense to the influencers to teach Gentiles to keep the written law without also teaching them the oral law, thus the oral law was wrapped up in their concept of what it meant to keep the law of Moses. It was all these many oral traditions that Jesus referred to as a heavy burden (Matthew 23:4) and what Peter referred to in verse 11. Jesus would never have criticized the Pharisees for teaching the people to obey what he or the Father had commanded, but rather he criticized them for setting aside the commands of God to follow their own traditions (Mark 7:6-9). By requiring Gentiles to keep the law of Moses, the implication was that it was in accordance with their traditions for how to obey it, which is what the Jerusalem Council rejected, not God's holy, righteous, and good law, which Paul said our faith upholds. They also rejected that the law of Moses needed to be kept in order to be saved.

Read what Peter says in Acts 15:6-11. The "yoke" Peter refers to is not Oral Torah, but Torah. At no point is Oral Torah part of what is going on, it is specifically what the Judaizers are expecting of Gentile Christians: That they receive circumcision and observe Torah, that they observe kashrut, the feasts, sabbath, etc. Peter stands up and says that, no, the Gentiles should not be expected to observe these things, saying that even "our ancestors" had trouble with all these things. Again, the things spoken about aren't what would eventually be written down in the Mishna, but what is written in the Pentateuch.

There is no commandment in the Torah that requires all Gentiles to become circumcised, so they were talking about oral law from the very beginning. God said in Deuteronomy 30:11 that His commands were not too difficult and Jesus said his yoke was easy and his burden was light and God trumps the Jerusalem Council, so if they had contradicted God and said that it was too difficult, then we should disregard the Jerusalem Council. Furthermore, that's inconsistent with Paul continuing to keep God's Feasts, Sabbath, etc. and encouraging the Colossians to keep them as well.

Because there are things God expects of all people, not just Jewish people. Murder isn't wrong only for the Jews, it's wrong for everyone. Murder isn't wrong because of the mitzvah that says "Do not murder", but because murder is wrong. Abraham was not lawless, though he lived without the Torah, lived before the Torah, and lived outside of the Torah. In fact Paul makes a big deal about Abraham's faith being reckoned to him as righteousness and addressing Abraham's righteousness apart from the Law, that is, the Torah. Did God make commandments that applied to Abraham and the Patriarchs? Yes, and yet Torah was not given until Moses. There is, therefore, much more to God's Law than simply Torah. Torah is God's specific instructions to the Jewish people as part of the covenant He established with them at Mt. Sinai; but God's Law--that is, His righteous commandments, are far bigger and larger than Torah itself. For example Torah never says, "I tell you love your enemy" and also "A new commandment I give you, love one another as I have loved you" but these commandments, given by Jesus Christ, are indeed Law. By which we will be judged and held accountable on the Day of Judgment (Matthew 25).

The law is God's instructions for how to have a holy, righteous, and good conduct. Paul said the law is spiritual, so I'd agree that there is much more to having a holy, righteous, and good conduct than what the law instructs, which is in accordance with the spiritual principles behind that law, which Jesus was teaching about in Matthew 5. Theses spiritual principles include what the law requires, but also go above and beyond that.

The Christian conviction is not that Jesus came to improve Judaism or to add Himself to Judaism. The Christian conviction is that the very uncreated Logos, the Word that brought the universe into being, has come down to encounter a world of sin and, take hold of that world, and renew, redeem, and restore it. Christianity is the religion that proclaims the God-Man. For early Christians the reality that the Christ had come, and that He was Jesus, was profoundly bigger than the kinds of expectations most had for the Christ. There would be no warrior Messiah who, militantly, drives the occupation from the land and sit on a throne in Jerusalem as the Son of David; instead the Messiah--the Christians came to understand--was the One who would be crucified and then be raised up after three days. The Messiah did not ascend to an earthly throne, but to the Throne that is above all thrones, taking up His seat as the Son of David as King of kings and Lord of lords at the right hand the Father, with all things subject to Himself. Having overcome and defeated every power, every principality, and every dominion. And, as Lord of All, He sits enthroned until the Day He comes, to judge the quick and the dead, and bringing the everlasting kingdom, world without end. We're talking something profoundly bigger than just Judaism 2.0.

-CryptoLutheran

While it is true that the Jews misunderstood the role that the Messiah would play, the role that he did play was in accordance with the OT, so all that he did was within the framework of Judaism. I didn't say that Jesus improved Judaism, that he added himself to Judaism, or that he brought about Judaism 2.0, but that he brought fullness to Judaism. In other words, he brought full understanding to Judaism and made known the way that it should be correctly understood.
 
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Jesus fulfilled the law, this is a different activity that observing the law, Jesus said through trusting .. we will do more than this because He goes to the Father.

To fulfill the law was a rabbinic term that meant to interpret that law in a way that added meaning too it, filled it up with meaning, brought full understanding to it, or demonstrated how it should be correctly obeyed. So fulfilling the law is different from obeying the law in that someone can fulfill it by only teaching how it should be obeyed, but correctly obeying the law is fulfilling it. When we correctly observe the law by loving our neighbor, we are also fulfilling it. Faith expresses itself as obedience to God, so through trusting we are to obey the law.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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To fulfill the law was a rabbinic term that meant to interpret that law in a way that added meaning too it, filled it up with meaning, brought full understanding to it, or demonstrated how it should be correctly obeyed. So fulfilling the law is different from obeying the law in that someone can fulfill it by only teaching how it should be obeyed, but correctly obeying the law is fulfilling it. When we correctly observe the law by loving our neighbor, we are also fulfilling it. Faith expresses itself as obedience to God, so through trusting we are to obey the law.

No, that's not Christianity, that's Judaism.
 
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Soyeong

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No, that's not Christianity, that's Judaism.

The NT didn't take place in a vacuum, but rather it took place in a Jewish cultural context. Jesus was a Jew and looking at how Jews used the term should help inform our understanding of what Jesus meant by it.
 
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Gregory Thompson

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The NT didn't take place in a vacuum, but rather it took place in a Jewish cultural context. Jesus was a Jew and looking at how Jews used the term should help inform our understanding of what Jesus meant by it.

The Jewish culture of Jesus' day no longer exists, relying on the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth is the best bet.
 
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