Are we subject to the Old Covenant today?

[Icyspark]

Good question.

A covenant is an agreement between two (or more) parties.

In Scripture, a covenant is also referred to as a testament, or a will. Frequently a covenant will have stipulations for each side to fulfill during the term of the covenant. The Law falls into this category. The Law is a part of the Covenant made with Abraham, but it was not added to that covenant until the covenant was renewed with Moses on Mt Sinai. So when God says that the Old Covenant is obsolete, that means that the agreement and all the parts of it (the Law) are obsolete.

Hi Doug Brents,

Your definition was fine but then you jumped the rails and started adding to the definition what appears to be preconceived ideas.

"A covenant is an agreement between two (or more) parties." That is correct. But to say that what was agreed upon (i.e. the law in this particular) is to be conflated with the covenant/agreement is stepping outside and beyond the definition. In the case of the old agreement it was not the law that was found faulty, but rather "God found fault with the people." Why? Because they did not keep their end of the agreement. What was their agreement? "All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient." This was a faulty promise and "God found fault with the people" because "they did not remain faithful to [His] covenant." Note that God did not find fault with His law.

Interestingly, in the new agreement God promises to write His law on the minds and hearts of His people. God says His law is perfect, converting the soul. On what basis would you conclude that He'd need to scrap His perfect law in favor of some alternative law? If there was some reason why this prior law was faulty and needed to be replaced, on what basis do you suppose you could trust that the author of such a faulty law would be able to supply a less faulty law to replace it?

I pray this helps.

But for the grace of God go I,cyspark

 

[Soyeong]

If this were true, then circumcision would still be mandated in the New Covenant. It was a pivotal commandment in the Old Covenant, and central to their identity. Yet we are told that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything in the New Covenant. That means that His laws can, and have, changed.

It is contradictory to think that God's nature is eternal, but that the way to act in accordance with His nature is not, so you should not interpret the Bible in a manner that is contrary to God's eternal nature.

While Paul said that circumcision has no value and that what matters is obeying the commandments of God (1 Corinthians 7:19), he also said that circumcison has much value in every way (Roman 3:1-2), so it is not that circumcision either has or doesn't have value, but that it conditionally has value if someone obeys the Mosaic Law (Romans 2:25). The way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to the Mosaic Law (Romans 2:26), which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 30:6).

Either there are correct or incorrect reasons for becoming circumcised and Paul only spoke against the incorrect reasons, or according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised in Acts 16:3, right after the Jerusalem Council. In Acts 15:1, they were wanting to require all Gentiles to be circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the purpose for which God command circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld the Mosaic Law by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect purpose.

Their ruling should not be mistaken as being against or as changing what God has commanded, especially because they did not have the authority to do that, and even if they hd ruled against obeying what God has commanded, we should not follow them instead of God. The bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so we should be quicker to disregard everything that any man has said than to disregard anything that God has commanded. In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Mosaic Law, and in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet who was not speaking for Him was if they

Another example of a Law that changed from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant was the dietary restrictions. Eating unclean animals under the Old Covenant was a sin, but God has made all things clean (Acts 11:9), so eating those same things (pork, squid, etc.) is no longer sin.

If what you said was correct, then Act 11:9 would say that what God has made clean, do not call unclean, however, it says do not call common, which is a difference concept. In Acts 10:10-15, Peter could have obeyed God's commands in Leviticus 11 and His command in his vision by simply killing and eating one of the clean animals, so the point that God was making was in regard to why Peter refused to do what the Mosaic Law permitted him to do. Peter notably did not just object by saying that he has never eaten anything unclean, but also added that he had never eaten anything common, and God did not rebuke him for His use of the word "unclean", but only rebuked him for his use of the word "common", so the problem was that he was incorrectly identifying the clean animals as common. Peter interpreted his vision three times as as being in regard to incorrectly identifying Gentiles and did not say a word about it no longer being a sin to eat unclean, so his vision had nothing to do with God's eternal law changing. If Peter had been going around saying that it is no longer a sin to eat unclean animals, then those who rejected what he said would be acting in accordance with what God has instructed them to do in Deuteronomy 13.

Heb 8:10 does not talk about the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was one part of the Mosaic Covenant (which was actually the Abrahamic Covenant renewed again: the Old Covenant). And when the Abrahamic Covenant was fulfilled by Christ it became obsolete, along with all the parts, addendums, attachments, laws, and requirements of it.

Hebrews 8:10 is quoting Jeremiah 31:33, which uses the Hebrew word "Torah", so I don't see how you can deny that it is not talking about the Law of Moses. Christ spent his ministry teaching his followers how to obey the Law of Moses by word and by example and he did not establish the New Covenant for the purpose of undermining his entire ministry, but rather the New Covenant still involves following the Mosaic Law (Jeremiah 31:33).

Now, you are right, that the nature of God has not changed, and His moral righteousness has not changed. But He has changed things that He required of us. Under the Old Covenant adultery was sin, but looking at a woman and fanaticizing about her was not (technically) a violation of the law. Just as murder was a sin, but hating a man and wishing he were dead was not a violation of the law. But these things are sin in the New Covenant, while eating pork and working on sabbath are not sin in the New Covenant though they were in the Old.

Everything that God commanded in the Mosaic Law was commanded for the purpose of teaching us how to act in accordance with his nature, so there are no requirements that could be changed without God's eternal nature changing first.

If we correctly understand what is being commanded against the 7th and 10th Commandments against adultery and coveting in our hearts, then we will not lust after a married woman in our hearts, so Jesus was not sinning in violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 by making changes to the Mosaic Law, but rather he was teaching how to correctly obey what God has commanded as it was originally intended.

In Leviticus 19:17, God commanded against hating our neighbor, so again that was nothing brand new. Loving our enemy is in accordance with verses like Exodus 23:4-5, Deuteronomy 23:7, Proverbs 24:17-18, and Proverbs 25:21-22.

 

[Doug Brents]

Hi Doug Brents,

Your definition was fine but then you jumped the rails and started adding to the definition what appears to be preconceived ideas.

"A covenant is an agreement between two (or more) parties." That is correct. But to say that what was agreed upon (i.e. the law in this particular) is to be conflated with the covenant/agreement is stepping outside and beyond the definition.

Not so. If you and I have an agreement, and later we both agree to add some definitions and specific, detailed rules to the agreement, then those details become part of the agreement (like an addendum to a contract). That is what the Law of Moses was when it was added to the Abrahamic Covenant.

In the case of the old agreement it was not the law that was found faulty, but rather "God found fault with the people." Why? Because they did not keep their end of the agreement. What was their agreement? "All that the Lord has said we will do, and be obedient." This was a faulty promise and "God found fault with the people" because "they did not remain faithful to [His] covenant." Note that God did not find fault with His law.

Ahh, but you miss the greater point made in verses 1-7 & 13. Yes, He found fault with the people, but He also found fault with the Covenant (because the Old Covenant had no provision for forgiveness of sin, it only rolled them forward to Christ). As verse 6 says, “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, to the extent that He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.”

Interestingly, in the new agreement God promises to write His law on the minds and hearts of His people. God says His law is perfect, converting the soul. On what basis would you conclude that He'd need to scrap His perfect law in favor of some alternative law? If there was some reason why this prior law was faulty and needed to be replaced, on what basis do you suppose you could trust that the author of such a faulty law would be able to supply a less faulty law to replace it?

I pray this helps.

But for the grace of God go I,cyspark

Can the blood of bulls and goats remove sin? No. So then, a better sacrifice was required to remove sin: Jesus’ blood. But Jesus could not be the sacrifice for sin under the Old Covenant, there was already a stipulated sacrifice in that covenant.

 

[Doug Brents]

This which you say concerning circumcision confirms just about everything I have already said. You still view the Torah according to the mind of the Pharisees, as shown by this admission, and the remainder of your understanding is the same: natural and physical. Circumcision wasn't canceled, deleted, or done away with: you simply do not believe the Torah is spiritual, as Paul says in Romans 7:14, and which has been repeatedly mentioned to you.

This is the correct understanding of circumcision from the Torah:

Deuteronomy 10:12-16 KJV
12 And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
13 To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?
14 Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD'S thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.
15 Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.
16 Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.

And as already quoted to you in the other thread:

Deuteronomy 30:4-6 KJV
4 If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the LORD thy God gather thee, and from thence will he fetch thee:
5 And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers.
6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.

And as already explained to you multiple times, Paul teaches this choice from the Torah, just as the Master himself teaches in the Gospel accounts in all his Testimony: for again, just as Mosheh admonishes the hearer and reader in that passage, choose life.

Paul teaches the above here:

Romans 2:28-29 ASV
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh:
29 but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.

This is an interesting point. So you are saying that, today, we have to do God's part of the Old Covenant? God is the one who circumcises the Heart, both in the Old Covenant and in the New.

But my point was about physical circumcision. It was a requirement of the Old Covenant (and this cannot be debated), but it is not a requirement of the New Covenant (as you have admitted). So then, the Old Covenant was not re-newed, but was replaced with the New Covenant.

But you still do not believe Paul even in this because the natural mind has concocted the idea that circumcision is purely physical and outward in the Torah and therefore needs to be canceled: and this your mind does for you because you neither understand nor believe the Torah and therefore neither understand the Testimony of the Messiah nor Paul.

This is your personal belief about me, but does not reflect the truth.

Paul isn't canceling or changing anything:

Correct. Paul is totally irrelevant to this discussion. Paul has no power, authority, or significance to the Covenant we have with God, other than that he was the instrument through which God wrote the majority of the New Testament writings, and he was a minister, teacher, and Apostle for God in the first century.

there are two ways, one way is death, the other is life: one way is the natural, physical, and outward, while the correct and true way is supernal, spiritual, and inward: choose life in all your understanding of the scripture, all scripture, including the Torah. Allow the covenant to be renewed by the Testimony of the Master in the Gospel accounts, and the writings of his apostles, while your heart and mind are being renewed at the same time in your walk with and in Messiah.

So you are saying that Moses' wife spiritually cut the foreskin off of the spirit of their son, and spiritually threw it at Moses' feet? That is an interesting interpretation of that passage. Hmmm, I will have to think on that.

And you are saying that when Jacob's sons were angry over the rape of their sister, they invited the men of that town to spiritually cut themselves, and it was in this pain of spirit that they were in that caused them not to be able to defend themselves, and so were slain by the brothers? Again, this is an interesting interpretation.

No! To assign spiritual interpretation to everything in Scripture is erroneous. Yes, there is much that is spiritual, but much also that is physical. And the man of God must be able to distinguish between the two. The Old Covenant was righteous in its day, but it had faults and was built on faulty, repetitive sacrifices. But the New Covenant has no fault, and is built on the singular, faultless, eternal sacrifice of Jesus.

Circumcision is absolutely required to this day:

Romans 15:8-10 ASV
8 For I say that Christ hath been made a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, that he might confirm the promises given unto the fathers,
9 and that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, Therefore will I give praise unto thee among the Gentiles, And sing unto thy name.
10 And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people.

What is "the circumcision"? "The circumcision" is not the act, but the people who are designated by the act. "The Circumcision" refers to the people of God, the Jews (Matt 15:24). Thus, Christ has been made a minister to the Jews, so He can confirm the promises given to [Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc.], and that the Gentiles might also glorify God.

Learn to rightly divide the scripture: learn the difference between when the scripture speaks of supernal, spiritual, and inward things, and when it speaks of physical, carnal, and outward things, and perhaps then you won't be so hasty to judge people and things you know nothing about. Do you suppose your heart was circumcised the day you first believed? Guess again, or better yet, begin the process of learning the truth about it from the scripture: it's a walk, in patient endurance and faithfulness.

Supernal is not supernatural, spiritual, or Godly. There is a massive difference in the heavens, and Heaven.

You are correct that the journey of faith is an endurance race, not a sprint. But you are wrong that the heart is not circumcised the day we are added to the body of Christ (true, not necessarily the day we first believe, but that is a discussion for other threads). But Col 2:11-14 says that our hearts are circumcised by the Holy Spirit during the act of [water] baptism. This is the point at which we are united with Jesus' death, buried with Him, and united with His resurrection. But this last few sentences is off the topic of this thread.

 

[Doug Brents]

It is contradictory to think that God's nature is eternal, but that the way to act in accordance with His nature is not, so you should not interpret the Bible in a manner that is contrary to God's eternal nature.

So you are saying that God has never changed the way in which He interacts with man? Nor has He changed His instructions for what man is to do to worship Him?

While Paul said that circumcision has no value and that what matters is obeying the commandments of God (1 Corinthians 7:19), he also said that circumcison has much value in every way (Roman 3:1-2), so it is not that circumcision either has or doesn't have value, but that it conditionally has value if someone obeys the Mosaic Law (Romans 2:25). The way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to the Mosaic Law (Romans 2:26), which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 30:6).

There you go, violating Scripture with your preconceptions. Just a little further down the page, we are told in Rom 3:21, that it is "apart from the Law [that] the righteousness of God has been manifested", and that this is "witnessed by the Law and the Prophets". The righteousness of God does not come through the Law. Rom 2:24-5 tells us that IF someone kept the Law (perfectly), then they would be considered of the circumcision even if they were not circumcised (they would be saved), but even if they are circumcised in the flesh, but violate the Law in even the smallest degree, their circumcision will be considered uncircumcision. We are told in James 2:10, "For whoever keeps the whole Law, yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all."

Either there are correct or incorrect reasons for becoming circumcised and Paul only spoke against the incorrect reasons, or according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised in Acts 16:3, right after the Jerusalem Council.

There is a "correct" reason to be circumcised: to win souls to Christ. Timothy had a Jewish mother, but a Gentile father, and had been raised by his mother with a knowledge of the Law. But Paul wanted Timothy to assist in his ministry among the Jews, and they were resistant to accepting a Gentile among them. So, because of the tradition of the Jews, and the pressure of the Jews that were in that place, Timothy was circumcised so that he could work among the Jews. This is not to say that he was circumcised to be in compliance with the Law. Rather, as Paul said in 1 Cor 9:20, among the Jews he became as a Jew to win the Jews, but among the Gentiles he became as the Gentiles to win the Gentiles. He could not win the Jews if they resisted him and his message because of their perception of his companions.

I have many friends, my in-laws among them, who eat kosher and worship on sabbath, and behave "Jewishly" because they are part of a Messianic Jewish Synagogue and are ministers among the Jews here in Atlanta. But it is not because of an attempt to "keep the Law", but to minister to those who believe they are still under the Law (unbelieving Jews).

In Acts 15:1, they were wanting to require all Gentiles to be circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the purpose for which God command circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld the Mosaic Law by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect purpose.

No, they ruled against circumcision for the Gentiles because that would lend credibility to the idea that we are still under the Old Covenant and the Law of Moses. As it says in verse 1, "Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”", but these men were false teachers. They were Judaizers who taught that you had to become a Jew (obey the Law of Moses) in order to be saved under the New Covenant. And it continues in verse 5, "But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to keep the Law of Moses.”" and then in verse 10-11, "Since this is the case, why are you putting God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”"
The decision was not that we keep the Mosaic Law, but that we are no longer subject to the Law of Moses in any way.

Their ruling should not be mistaken as being against or as changing what God has commanded, especially because they did not have the authority to do that,

Correct, they did not have the authority to do that. It had already been done by Jesus (who does have the authority to do is), and the Apostles knew through His teaching, and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that we are not under the Law any more.

and even if they had ruled against obeying what God has commanded, we should not follow them instead of God. The bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so we should be quicker to disregard everything that any man has said than to disregard anything that God has commanded. In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Mosaic Law, and in Deuteronomy 13:4-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet who was not speaking for Him was if they

I know what you are saying. But we (I at least, I won't speak for you) hold that the original texts written by the Apostles were inspired by direct revelation of God, and so are 100% God's words directly to us. They are not the manufacture of the minds of any man. I also believe that those translations from the original that are "word for word", (not "thought for thought" or "paraphrase") are also God's word to those of us who do not understand the original Greek in which it was written.

So then, these words of the Apostles in Acts 15 are equal to the words of Moses in Deuteronomy, being equally from the mouth of God. That being said, as I pointed out above, the understanding was then, and should be now, that we are not subject to the Law of Moses in any way.

If what you said was correct, then Act 11:9 would say that what God has made clean, do not call unclean, however, it says do not call common, which is a difference concept.

Go to biblehub.com and look at this one verse (Acts 11:9 - Peter's Report at Jerusalem) this is the link to the page (hope this is not a violation of anything). Look at the different renderings in the many translations. I try to stick with the "word for word" translations as seen in the "scale of Bible translations"

I mostly read from the NASB and the NKJV, but I like to look at biblehub.com sometimes because I can see all of the translation of a particular verse side by side. In doing so with this verse, we can see that there are many words used, but all of them have the same idea:
pure/impure
clean/unclean
common/uncommon
cleansed/unholy
cleansed/defiled....
The NASB says "cleansed / unholy". So what God was telling Peter was not to call unholy (impure, unclean) the things that God had cleansed (made clean).

In Acts 10:10-15, Peter could have obeyed God's commands in Leviticus 11 and His command in his vision by simply killing and eating one of the clean animals, so the point that God was making was in regard to why Peter refused to do what the Mosaic Law permitted him to do.

There is nothing in the text that tells us definitively one way or the other whether there were any clean animals in the sheet in the vision that Peter had. But there is every indication that there were only "unclean" animals, else, as you say, he could easily have arisen and killed a clean animal and eaten.

Peter notably did not just object by saying that he has never eaten anything unclean, but also added that he had never eaten anything common, and God did not rebuke him for His use of the word "unclean", but only rebuked him for his use of the word "common", so the problem was that he was incorrectly identifying the clean animals as common.

Again, see the different translations of that verse. In the NASB it says, "unholy or unclean".

Peter interpreted his vision three times as as being in regard to incorrectly identifying Gentiles and did not say a word about it no longer being a sin to eat unclean, so his vision had nothing to do with God's eternal law changing. If Peter had been going around saying that it is no longer a sin to eat unclean animals, then those who rejected what he said would be acting in accordance with what God has instructed them to do in Deuteronomy 13.

Yes, the primary purpose of the vision was saying that the Gentiles were now "clean", and welcome into the Church, the Kingdom of God. However, God never uses a false analogy. When He sent the vision of foods that Peter recognized as "unclean" but told him not to call unclean things that God had made clean, even though He was talking about the Gentiles, both sides of the analogy must also be true. The foods must also be clean, if the Gentiles are now clean.

Hebrews 8:10 is quoting Jeremiah 31:33, which uses the Hebrew word "Torah", so I don't see how you can deny that it is not talking about the Law of Moses. Christ spent his ministry teaching his followers how to obey the Law of Moses by word and by example and he did not establish the New Covenant for the purpose of undermining his entire ministry, but rather the New Covenant still involves following the Mosaic Law (Jeremiah 31:33).

Not a single translation uses the word "Torah", but then, I cannot read the Hebrew, so maybe the translators are taking the word "Torah" and translating it to "My Law".

However, all of that is beside the point. Christ spent His entire ministry teaching that we are to obey God, not the Law of Moses. The Law of Moses was the Law under which Jesus lived His entire life, so yes, He had to keep the Law of Moses perfectly or else He would have sinned and not been worthy to be the sacrifice that removed our sin. However, as has been pointed out many times, He also fulfilled the Law perfectly, and in doing so fulfilled the requirements of the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was then replaced with a New Covenant in which many of the same laws from the Old Covenant were incorporated, but some were left out (sabbath keeping and the kosher diet notably among them).

Everything that God commanded in the Mosaic Law was commanded for the purpose of teaching us how to act in accordance with his nature, so there are no requirements that could be changed without God's eternal nature changing first.

Not true. The sacrificial system was commanded as part of the Mosaic Law, and it was for the purpose of teaching us how to act in accordance with His nature. But the sacrificial system was completely replaced with the singular sacrifice of Christ. This did not require a change in God's nature, only a change in His commandment of how we are to respond to His eternal nature in our dealings with Him.

If we correctly understand what is being commanded against the 7th and 10th Commandments against adultery and coveting in our hearts, then we will not lust after a married woman in our hearts, so Jesus was not sinning in violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 by making changes to the Mosaic Law, but rather he was teaching how to correctly obey what God has commanded as it was originally intended.

In Leviticus 19:17, God commanded against hating our neighbor, so again that was nothing brand new. Loving our enemy is in accordance with verses like Exodus 23:4-5, Deuteronomy 23:7, Proverbs 24:17-18, and Proverbs 25:21-22.

You are correct, Jesus was not telling them anything new (as we understand it today), but was clarifying for them, and us, what was meant by the commandment. And in doing so, He brought those commandments into the New Covenant as being relevant to us today. But some of the commandments, like the kosher diet, the sabbath restrictions, circumcision, and the sacrificial system were not carried over into the New Covenant. They are expressly excluded from the requirements of those under the New Covenant.

 

[daq]

But my point was about physical circumcision. It was a requirement of the Old Covenant (and this cannot be debated), but it is not a requirement of the New Covenant (as you have admitted).

Yes, it can be debated, because that is merely your chosen interpretation of circumcision based in the physical, outward, Pharisee-minded, old way of reading the covenant. Your interpretation was nailed to the stake just as Paul teaches. It is astounding that you still cannot see this.

So then, the Old Covenant was not re-newed, but was replaced with the New Covenant.

Yes, it was renewed, back to what was intended when it was given. But again, as Paul says, the Torah is spiritual, (Rom 7:14), and therefore the natural mind cannot please Elohim.

Romans 8:4-9 KJV
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

So then, according to the teaching of Paul in the above passage, what are you actually saying every time you proclaim that you are not subject to the Torah of Elohim and that it is impossible?

So you are saying that Moses' wife spiritually cut the foreskin off of the spirit of their son, and spiritually threw it at Moses' feet? That is an interesting interpretation of that passage. Hmmm, I will have to think on that.

And you are saying that the Most High demanded a foreskin of flesh cut off from the privy member of a child or was He going to physical kill Mosheh?

And you are saying that when Jacob's sons were angry over the rape of their sister, they invited the men of that town to spiritually cut themselves, and it was in this pain of spirit that they were in that caused them not to be able to defend themselves, and so were slain by the brothers? Again, this is an interesting interpretation.

The observant student of the scripture would note that they used physical circumcision, (the wrong interpretation), to murder a whole town. I am sure glad that this passage is there also: for I have the testimony of Yakob rebuking your false interpretation of circumcision.

No! To assign spiritual interpretation to everything in Scripture is erroneous. Yes, there is much that is spiritual, but much also that is physical. And the man of God must be able to distinguish between the two. The Old Covenant was righteous in its day, but it had faults and was built on faulty, repetitive sacrifices.

Animal sacrifices too? Read the Prophets and Psalms for goodness sake, and believe them, and stop relying on Pharisee and Sadducee interpretations for your understanding of the Torah: their handwritten ordinances, dogmas, and decrees were nailed to the stake, just as Paul teaches.

But the New Covenant has no fault, and is built on the singular, faultless, eternal sacrifice of Jesus.

Again, it's built on his Testimony, which he paid for with his life and blood: and anyone who does not utterly deny themselves, take up their own stake and follow him, cannot be his disciple.

What is "the circumcision"? "The circumcision" is not the act, but the people who are designated by the act. "The Circumcision" refers to the people of God, the Jews (Matt 15:24). Thus, Christ has been made a minister to the Jews, so He can confirm the promises given to [Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc.], and that the Gentiles might also glorify God.

Yes, we who are circumcised through the work of the Messiah in us are the true circumcision, (Philippians 3:1-7, Colossians 2:8-12), and that's part of the whole grafting in process: being converted from a Gentile into the Olive Tree of the all Yisrael of the Father through His Son, His Word, much of which you say is canceled.

Supernal is not supernatural, spiritual, or Godly. There is a massive difference in the heavens, and Heaven.

I already know what supernal means.

You are correct that the journey of faith is an endurance race, not a sprint. But you are wrong that the heart is not circumcised the day we are added to the body of Christ (true, not necessarily the day we first believe, but that is a discussion for other threads). But Col 2:11-14 says that our hearts are circumcised by the Holy Spirit during the act of [water] baptism. This is the point at which we are united with Jesus' death, buried with Him, and united with His resurrection. But this last few sentences is off the topic of this thread.

No, it doesn't say water baptism, again, lose the outward natural man understanding: immersion is immersion into the Word, not literal-physical water for the bathing of the flesh. Have you never heard or read of the washing of water in the Word? What do you suppose that means? Would you shred a couple pages of scripture into a barrel of water and bath yourself with holy scripture water?

Colossians 2:8-15 ASV
8 Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ:
9 for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
10 and in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power:
11 in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses;
14 having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;
15 having despoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Putting off the body of the flesh is the same as utterly denying yourself, taking up your own stake, and following Messiah as he says. The circumcision of Messiah comes to pass in doing what he says, in carrying out his Testimony, over much patience and time, and other than that there is no other circumcision beyond the outward physical Pharisee way. This is why Paul says Messiah has been made the Minister of the Circumcision: for it is his Testimony and that Testimony alone which accomplishes that goal, but only if you walk in it and do the will of Elohim, (as quoted to you previously from Heb 10:35-39).

Putting off the body of the flesh is also putting off the outward and physical minded "works of the law".

Romans 8:12-13 ASV
12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh:
13 for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

Colossians 3:2-10 ASV
2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.
3 For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.
5 Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;
6 for which things' sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience:
7 wherein ye also once walked, when ye lived in these things;
8 but now do ye also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth:
9 lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings,
10 and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him:

The KJV uses mortify in these two passages: mortify the deeds of the body, and mortify your members which are upon (concerning) the earth (of below by the context, cf. Col 3:2, highlighted above). Paul is teaching everything I have said and have been trying to tell you: but you have your own interpretation of his words which allows you to cancel a large portion of the Word of Elohim. Putting to death your members, or mortifying your members, is Paul's way of teaching the same thing the Master teaches in the Gospel accounts when he says that if your hand or foot offend you, (scandalize or cause you to stumble), cut them off and cast them from you.

Can you strap on teffilin if you cut off your hand? Lol, oh yeah that's right: you don't want to hear about the real works of the law because you already have an interpretation that allows you to cancel a large portion of the Word of Elohim that you do not wish to accept as being valid anymore.

 

[Icyspark]

Not so. If you and I have an agreement, and later we both agree to add some definitions and specific, detailed rules to the agreement, then those details become part of the agreement (like an addendum to a contract). That is what the Law of Moses was when it was added to the Abrahamic Covenant.

Hi Doug Brents,

You're still conflating the agreement with what was agreed upon. God found fault with the people, not with His perfect law. If both parties agree/covenant "to add some definitions and specific, detailed rules," that is still not the agreement/covenant itself. Saying, "I will obey these rules" is the covenant. Failure to obey the rules is the failed promise of the Israelites which is why God found fault with them.

The law of Moses wasn't added to the Abrahamic covenant. It was actually an addendum to the Ten Commandment covenant. That's why the Ten Commandments and the book of the law of God are kept with the Ark of the Covenant.

Ahh, but you miss the greater point made in verses 1-7 & 13. Yes, He found fault with the people, but He also found fault with the Covenant (because the Old Covenant had no provision for forgiveness of sin, it only rolled them forward to Christ). As verse 6 says, “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, to the extent that He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.”

Ahh, but I don't agree with that because in my humble opinion it makes God out to be the one at fault. If in fact He found fault with the covenant/agreement He set up, then He should be taking on all the fault and not the people, right? He's the Author, so wouldn't it make sense that if there was something faulty with what He authored then doesn't it make sense that He'd be the one to blame?

The new covenant is a "better covenant" because it removed the faulty promises of the people of which we're told is the reason for the new being needed. God can't make "better" promises since He starts and ends with the superlative best (iow, it doesn't get better than best). The only imperfection in the first agreement was on the part of the people.

The provision for the forgiveness of sin was in the symbolism of the laws which the people agreed should be obeyed. There was nothing wrong with any of the laws God set up. God said they are "perfect." Those laws were given for the benefit of humanity—to point out sin and our need of forgiveness and a forgiving Savior. If you remove the laws which identify sin then you, me and everyone you see are all tacitly sinless. We no longer have a need of a Savior. Jesus could and should come right now and end the madness. But if it were that easy to just abolish the law, then Jesus didn't need to die.

Can the blood of bulls and goats remove sin? No. So then, a better sacrifice was required to remove sin: Jesus’ blood. But Jesus could not be the sacrifice for sin under the Old Covenant, there was already a stipulated sacrifice in that covenant.

The blood of bulls and goats was never meant to remove sin. These were merely shadows which pointed to their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

Hebrews 8 is where the new covenant is addressed and the reason is supplied for why it was necessary. I'm not seeing that it talks about about replacing bulls and goats with Jesus. What it does say in verse 6 is that Jesus is the "Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises." In verses 7 and 8 it says, "If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. 8 But when God found fault with the people..." Contextually we don't get to jump outside the obvious intent of these verses. Verse 7 talks about fault and then the very next verse identifies where God assigns blame. I'm not seeing where you find the latitude to redistribute the fault and especially I'm not seeing where you find impetus for placing it at the feet of Someone who can't have fault.

I pray this helps.

But for the grace of God go I,cyspark

 

[Doug Brents]

Yes, it can be debated, because that is merely your chosen interpretation of circumcision based in the physical, outward, Pharisee-minded, old way of reading the covenant. Your interpretation was nailed to the stake just as Paul teaches. It is astounding that you still cannot see this.

Gen 17:14 - "But as for an uncircumcised male, one who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”"
No, it cannot be debated that physical circumcision is a commandment of the Old Covenant, and that failure to do so resulted in expulsion from the people of God and was sin. There it is directly from the mouth of God.

Yes, it was renewed, back to what was intended when it was given. But again, as Paul says, the Torah is spiritual, (Rom 7:14), and therefore the natural mind cannot please Elohim.

Romans 8:4-9 KJV
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

So then, according to the teaching of Paul in the above passage, what are you actually saying every time you proclaim that you are not subject to the Torah of Elohim and that it is impossible?

Yet again, you take passages out of context because they seem to tickle your ear and you think you can twist it to mean what you want it to mean. You conveniently started in the middle of the sentence (verse 4 does not start a new sentence, it being a continuation of the sentence in verse 3).
"Therefore there is now no condemnation at all for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."
What the Law (of Moses) could not do, God did through Christ, His Son, who was made to be in the likeness of sinful man, and became an offering for sin to fulfill the requirements of the Law for those of us who are in Christ, we wo do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit of Christ.

This passage does not support your interpretation when you read the whole of the passage and understand the context. Christ does not save us through the Law or the Old Covenant, but through His blood of the New Covenant.

And you are saying that the Most High demanded a foreskin of flesh cut off from the privy member of a child or was He going to physical kill Mosheh?

No, that is not what I am saying. That is what God said.
Exo 4:24-26 - "But it came about at the overnight encampment on the way, that the Lord met [t]Moses, and sought to put him to death. 25 So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and [u]threw it at Moses’ feet; and she said, “You are indeed a groom of blood to me!” 26 So He left him alone."

The observant student of the scripture would note that they used physical circumcision, (the wrong interpretation), to murder a whole town. I am sure glad that this passage is there also: for I have the testimony of Yakob rebuking your false interpretation of circumcision.

Wrong/false interpretation? Hmm.
Exo 17:10-11 - "This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you."
Spiritual only interpretation, hmmm? So even Abraham had it wrong. He was only supposed to let God circumcise his heart, not to cut off the foreskin of his member.

In pointing to this passage, I am not excusing what they did, nor am I condoning the murder they did. I am pointing out that not all of the concepts in Scripture are spiritual in nature. There are physical instructions and physical mandates in Scripture, both the Old and New Covenants.

Animal sacrifices too? Read the Prophets and Psalms for goodness sake, and believe them, and stop relying on Pharisee and Sadducee interpretations for your understanding of the Torah: their handwritten ordinances, dogmas, and decrees were nailed to the stake, just as Paul teaches.

I have never read any of the Pharisaic or Sadduceeic interpretations or writings. I don't know what their understanding was other that the things that Jesus said about them. But I do know that it was not just their writings that were nailed to the cross (not a stake) with Christ. It was all of the Old Covenant including the Law and Prophets. They are still there for us to learn from, but they are not binding on our behavior today.

Again, it's built on his Testimony, which he paid for with his life and blood:

Heb 8:6 - "But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, to the extent that He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises."

and anyone who does not utterly deny themselves, take up their own stake and follow him, cannot be his disciple.

Cross, not stake, but you have made so many errors in interpretation, why quibble over petty details? BECAUSE DETAILS MATTER!

Yes, we who are circumcised through the work of the Messiah in us are the true circumcision, (Philippians 3:1-7, Colossians 2:8-12), and that's part of the whole grafting in process: being converted from a Gentile into the Olive Tree of the all Yisrael of the Father through His Son, His Word, much of which you say is canceled.

No, I am not the one who says it is canceled. God did. But the rest of what you say here is correct.

I already know what supernal means.

Then why do you keep using it improperly? You keep using it as if it means supernatural, or spiritual. Satan is the lord of the supernal things (Eph 2:2).

No, it doesn't say water baptism, again, lose the outward natural man understanding: immersion is immersion into the Word, not literal-physical water for the bathing of the flesh. Have you never heard or read of the washing of water in the Word? What do you suppose that means? Would you shred a couple pages of scripture into a barrel of water and bath yourself with holy scripture water?

I have several other threads where I go into this in depth. You are welcome to go read those threads for more details, but I will give you a few passages to get started with which show us that water baptism is the baptism that is talked about here.
Acts 8:35-36, 1 Pet 3:21, Acts 10:47, and there are others. Further, the Jews on Pentecost were already well immersed in the Scripture of the Old Law. If baptism were "immersion into the Word", they they already had it. But Peter instructed them to "repent and be baptized for (so that they could receive) remission of sin".

One other point here. The passage you are trying to quote there was Eph 5:25-27 - "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, 26 so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, 27 that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless."
Not the washing of water in the word. No, this has nothing to do with grinding up pages of a bible and mixing them with water in which to bathe, smh.

Colossians 2:8-15 ASV
8 Take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ:
9 for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,
10 and in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power:
11 in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ;
12 having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses;
14 having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross;
15 having despoiled the principalities and the powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Putting off the body of the flesh is the same as utterly denying yourself, taking up your own stake, and following Messiah as he says. The circumcision of Messiah comes to pass in doing what he says, in carrying out his Testimony, over much patience and time, and other than that there is no other circumcision beyond the outward physical Pharisee way.

WRONG. The passage here tells you when the circumcision of Christ comes: not in time after much work and patience, but "in baptism". And as I indicated above, this is not baptism into the Word, but water immersion, as taught by Phillip to the Ethiopian Eunuch, and many other places in NT Scripture.

Putting off the body of the flesh is also putting off the outward and physical minded "works of the law".

Romans 8:12-13 ASV
12 So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh:
13 for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

Colossians 3:2-10 ASV
2 Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are upon the earth.
3 For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory.
5 Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;
6 for which things' sake cometh the wrath of God upon the sons of disobedience:
7 wherein ye also once walked, when ye lived in these things;
8 but now do ye also put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth:
9 lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings,
10 and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him:

The KJV uses mortify in these two passages: mortify the deeds of the body, and mortify your members which are upon (concerning) the earth (of below by the context, cf. Col 3:2, highlighted above). Paul is teaching everything I have said and have been trying to tell you: but you have your own interpretation of his words which allows you to cancel a large portion of the Word of Elohim.

Putting off the flesh is about putting to death in yourself the continual seeking to fulfill the fleshly desires that are sin. As Col 3:5 details, the "members which are upon the earth" that we are to "put to death" are "fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry;" This is not talking about the Old Law at all. This is explicitly talking about sin.

Putting to death your members, or mortifying your members, is Paul's way of teaching the same thing the Master teaches in the Gospel accounts when he says that if your hand or foot offend you, (scandalize or cause you to stumble), cut them off and cast them from you.
Can you strap on teffilin if you cut off your hand? Lol, oh yeah that's right: you don't want to hear about the real works of the law because you already have an interpretation that allows you to cancel a large portion of the Word of Elohim that you do not wish to accept as being valid anymore.

You are correct, Paul is telling us to put to death in ourselves all the desires to do evil, and to turn to living for Christ. And as God says through Paul in 1 Cor 10:13, with every temptation God provides an escape. Maybe the only escape from a particular sin might be to cut off a hand, or to gouge out your eyes. If that is the case, then, as Christ says, it is better to live maimed and enter Heaven, than to live whole and go to Hell.

 

[Doug Brents]

Hi Doug Brents,

You're still conflating the agreement with what was agreed upon. God found fault with the people, not with His perfect law. If both parties agree/covenant "to add some definitions and specific, detailed rules," that is still not the agreement/covenant itself. Saying, "I will obey these rules" is the covenant. Failure to obey the rules is the failed promise of the Israelites which is why God found fault with them.

The law of Moses wasn't added to the Abrahamic covenant. It was actually an addendum to the Ten Commandment covenant. That's why the Ten Commandments and the book of the law of God are kept with the Ark of the Covenant.

If both parties agree to an addendum to a covenant, that addendum becomes a part of the covenant. It is no longer separable from the original covenant because to violate the addendum becomes a violation of the covenant. This is what the Law that came from Mt Sinai was, as stated by God in Gal 4:21-31.

The 10 Commandments was not a covenant in itself. It was a renewal and addendum to the Abrahamic Covenant. Jesus and the Apostles in their writings (all inspired by the Holy Spirit) only speak of two covenants. The Old which is the covenant made with Abraham, and renewed with Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. And the New which is the covenant in Jesus' blood as depicted in the last supper.

Ahh, but I don't agree with that because in my humble opinion it makes God out to be the one at fault. If in fact He found fault with the covenant/agreement He set up, then He should be taking on all the fault and not the people, right? He's the Author, so wouldn't it make sense that if there was something faulty with what He authored then doesn't it make sense that He'd be the one to blame?

So you don't agree with Scripture? I copied the Scripture directly there for you to read.
Yes, the people of Israel were indeed at fault for not keeping the covenant. But the passage that you quoted says plainly that He found fault, not only with the people, but also with the Old Covenant itself, and so He made a New Covenant, bused on better promises with a better sacrifice.

The new covenant is a "better covenant" because it removed the faulty promises of the people of which we're told is the reason for the new being needed. God can't make "better" promises since He starts and ends with the superlative best (iow, it doesn't get better than best). The only imperfection in the first agreement was on the part of the people.

Wrong. The Old Covenant had no provision for removing and eliminating the sins of the people. It merely rolled them forward from year to year until Christ came (Heb 10:1-10). Only the blood of Jesus has the power to remove our sin and make us right with God.

The provision for the forgiveness of sin was in the symbolism of the laws which the people agreed should be obeyed. There was nothing wrong with any of the laws God set up. God said they are "perfect." Those laws were given for the benefit of humanity—to point out sin and our need of forgiveness and a forgiving Savior. If you remove the laws which identify sin then you, me and everyone you see are all tacitly sinless. We no longer have a need of a Savior. Jesus could and should come right now and end the madness. But if it were that easy to just abolish the law, then Jesus didn't need to die.

Without the Law there is no knowledge of sin. But the sin, known or not, remains, even though it may not be imputed to the individual. However, as I have said many times, the law of God was restated in the New Covenant. Murder, rape, incest, theft, lying, deceit, all these things and many more are mentioned in the New Covenant as being sin. So the laws and ordinances of God is not canceled by the change of covenants, but some of the particulars, like the sabbath, the dietary law, and the sacrificial system, were not restated as laws in the New Covenant and so are not binding on Christians (either Jew or Gentile) today.

The blood of bulls and goats was never meant to remove sin. These were merely shadows which pointed to their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

Exactly. That is precisely the point.

Hebrews 8 is where the new covenant is addressed and the reason is supplied for why it was necessary. I'm not seeing that it talks about about replacing bulls and goats with Jesus. What it does say in verse 6 is that Jesus is the "Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises." In verses 7 and 8 it says, "If the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it. 8 But when God found fault with the people..." Contextually we don't get to jump outside the obvious intent of these verses. Verse 7 talks about fault and then the very next verse identifies where God assigns blame. I'm not seeing where you find the latitude to redistribute the fault and especially I'm not seeing where you find impetus for placing it at the feet of Someone who can't have fault.

I can see what you are saying. But follow along here. God found fault with the people, this is true. But He also finds fault with you and me when we do not keep His New Covenant (you and I still sin). So in that respect, we are no better than the Israelites who were found at fault for breaking the Old Covenant. But Jesus is the mediator of a BETTER Covenant, based on BETTER promises, because the first covenant was not faultless (see highlight in your comment above). So there was need for a Second, Better, New covenant. And then He says in verse 13, "When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is about to disappear."
By saying that He would make a NEW Covenant with Israel, He signed the death warrant on the Old Covenant and made it obsolete. The Old Covenant was then, from the writing in Jeremiah, on its last legs, and was ready to disappear when Jesus came to put an end to it and make the New Covenant in His own blood.

 

[SabbathBlessings]

Without the Law there is no knowledge of sin. But the sin, known or not, remains, even though it may not be imputed to the individual. However, as I have said many times, the law of God was restated in the New Covenant. Murder, rape, incest, theft, lying, deceit, all these things and many more are mentioned in the New Covenant as being sin. So the laws and ordinances of God is not canceled by the change of covenants, but some of the particulars, like the sabbath, the dietary law, and the sacrificial system, were not restated as laws in the New Covenant and so are not binding on Christians (either Jew or Gentile) today.

By saying that He would make a NEW Covenant with Israel, He signed the death warrant on the Old Covenant and made it obsolete. The Old Covenant was then, from the writing in Jeremiah, on its last legs, and was ready to disappear when Jesus came to put an end to it and make the New Covenant in His own blood.

Perhaps you have a misunderstanding for God's love language.

I am going to post the Ten Commandments again for reference....

Bible Gateway passage: Exodus 20 - New King James Version

The Ten Commandments - And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above...

www.biblegateway.com

The Ten Commandments​

20 And God spoke all these words, saying:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of [a]bondage.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor [b]serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting[c] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

If you notice not all of the commandments start off with "you shall not" one of those being the Sabbath commandment. While it is still a commandment God never said "thou shalt keep My Sabbath day holy" so if you are looking for that as a reason to not keep the Sabbath in the NT you will not find that as a reason in the OT, but yet it is still a commandment of God.

The highest respect you can give someone is when you honor what they ask. This is the ultimate sacrifice of love. It's like when a parent asks their child to remember to be home at a certain time - when a child does what their parent asks, it shows an act of love and honor.

We are told to honor our father and mother, and this also includes our Heavenly Father. How do we honor God in scripture? One way is through the Sabbath commandment.

Isaiah 58:13 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,

The Ten Commandments are not something us humans can arbitrability decide on the ones we should keep. They were never given as multiple choice or suggestions, while God did not start off with the Sabbath as thou shalt not, it is still a commandment of God and we should treat it as such because it is God's will for us, that we keep His Sabbath day holy. God placed the Ten Commandments in a unit of Ten written in stone by His very own Finger Exodus 31:18 and said we cannot edit His commandments in any way Duet 4:2. God writes His laws in our hearts and minds in His New Covenant promise that Jesus mediates, and God identifies His commandments right in the Ten, so it's not up to us to pick the ones we like because we cannot add or subtract from this unit of Ten. The Sabbath is written throughout the NT and Jesus speaks of the Sabbath as it would be kept long after He ascends back to heaven for His people so this one commandment that God deemed holy and blessed and identifies as MY HOLY DAY and God said REMEMBER, out of love we need to honor what He asks.

The Ten Commandments are the work of God alone Exodus 32:16 and are kept in the holies of holy in God's Temple where He dwells. The earthy Temple is just a miniature of God's heavenly Temple Hebrews 8:2. Hebrews 8:5 and God placed His will and testimony in the ark of the covenant right under His mercy seat and it is what we will be judged by. James 2:10-12

The Sabbath is the one commandment that has to do with time. God wants to spend time with His children and only ask for a full 24 hours every Sabbath to spend time with us. It's the only day God blessed and sanctified, which means to be set aside for holy use. He gave us 6 other days to do all thy work and labors. Exodus 20:9

There is no scripture that says we do not have to keep the Sabbath commandment. Today is our test to see if we can be brought to God's holy mountain. God asks so little of us but obedience to Him and His commandments is one of those things He asks, because it shows that we love Him. 1 John 5:3 Exodus 20:6 John 14:15, John 15:10 and have faith Romans 3:31 Revelation 14:12


Isaiah 56 Thus says the Lord:

“Keep justice, and do righteousness,
For My salvation is about to come,
And My righteousness to be revealed.
2 Blessed is the man who does this,
And the son of man who lays hold on it;
Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”
3 Do not let the son of the foreigner
Who has joined himself to the Lord
Speak, saying,
“The Lord has utterly separated me from His people”;
Nor let the eunuch say,
“Here I am, a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,
5 Even to them I will give in My house
And within My walls a place and a name
Better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give [a]them an everlasting name
That shall not be cut off.
6 “Also the sons of the foreigner
Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—
Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And holds fast My covenant—
7 Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
Will be accepted on My altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

God delights when we keep His Sabbath holy- should we not want God to be delighted in us?

Isaiah 58:13 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
14 Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The Sabbath commandment is in God's heavenly Temple along with the other 9 commandments to make the complete "Ten Commanments" which is why the Sabbath does not end at the cross and continues forever just as God promised. The question is will we do God's will which is not different in heaven than it is on earth and God wrote His will for us in our hearts. Psalms 40:8 Hebrews 8:10 and minds which means we are a doer of God's will James 1:22, Revelation 22:14

Isaiah 66:23 And from one Sabbath to another,
All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the Lord.

Happy Sabbath all!

 

[Icyspark]

If both parties agree to an addendum to a covenant, that addendum becomes a part of the covenant. It is no longer separable from the original covenant because to violate the addendum becomes a violation of the covenant. This is what the Law that came from Mt Sinai was, as stated by God in Gal 4:21-31.

Hi Doug Brents,

A covenant is an agreement. The agreement is not to be conflated with the thing agreed upon--which is what you are apparently tryna do. Again, the agreement of "all that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient," that was faulty. That was the bad promise. By default, God cannot make a bad promise. By default, God cannot make faulty law (He says His law is perfect). So for you to insist that the covenant was faulty is to claim that God is faulty since you are shifting the blame to Him. Ultimately, that may be the god you believe in, but it's not the God I believe in, or the God of the Bible.

The 10 Commandments was not a covenant in itself. It was a renewal and addendum to the Abrahamic Covenant. Jesus and the Apostles in their writings (all inspired by the Holy Spirit) only speak of two covenants. The Old which is the covenant made with Abraham, and renewed with Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. And the New which is the covenant in Jesus' blood as depicted in the last supper.

This is gonna be a hard row to hoe--for you. The Ten Commandments are explicitly said to be a covenant:

Exodus 34:28​

Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.​

No matter how you try to slice it or dice it, that is very explicit. This is indeed a covenant, but the bigger problem for you is that there is an explicit number attached to this covenant which does not allow for you to add or subtract from it. Additionally, God says not to add or subtract from what He commands, which certainly appears to be what you're doing here.

Deuteronomy 4:2​

Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.​

Your contention that there are only two covenants is a strange one. How is the Noahic covenant somehow added to the Abrahamic covenant?

So you don't agree with Scripture? I copied the Scripture directly there for you to read.
Yes, the people of Israel were indeed at fault for not keeping the covenant. But the passage that you quoted says plainly that He found fault, not only with the people, but also with the Old Covenant itself, and so He made a New Covenant, bused on better promises with a better sacrifice.

I agree with Scripture that:

• God placed a numeral which sets a limit to the number of commandments in the covenant written on stone. Do you agree with that?
• God says not to add or subtract from what He commands. Do you agree with that?
• God says that His law is perfect. Do you agree with that?
• God found fault with the people because they are the ones identified as failing in their promise to obey. Do you agree with that?

I do not agree that the passage I quoted "says plainly" that He found fault "with the Old Covenant itself" in the sense that you are trying to conflate the meaning of the word covenant/agreement with what was agreed upon (i.e. God's perfect law). You cannot attribute any blame or fault in any shape or form to the God-side of the equation, which is what icy that you are doing. God doesn't make halfway promises. His promises are not comparative, they're always superlative. God's promises don't get "better," cuz they're always the best.

Let's cut to the chase. What is your belief about sin? Are you a sinner? If so, on what basis do you believe that's the case? Do you sin? Could you provide a biblical definition of sin?

I pray this helps.

But for the grace of God go I,cyspark

 

[daq]

Satan is the lord of the supernal things (Eph 2:2).

Wow, lol, no sense in going any further.

 

[Doug Brents]

Perhaps you have a misunderstanding for God's love language.

I am going to post the Ten Commandments again for reference....

Bible Gateway passage: Exodus 20 - New King James Version

The Ten Commandments - And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above...

www.biblegateway.com

The Ten Commandments​

20 And God spoke all these words, saying:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of [a]bondage.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor [b]serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting[c] the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”

If you notice not all of the commandments start off with "you shall not" one of those being the Sabbath commandment. While it is still a commandment God never said "thou shalt keep My Sabbath day holy" so if you are looking for that as a reason to not keep the Sabbath in the NT you will not find that as a reason in the OT, but yet it is still a commandment of God.

The highest respect you can give someone is when you honor what they ask. This is the ultimate sacrifice of love. It's like when a parent asks their child to remember to be home at a certain time - when a child does what their parent asks, it shows an act of love and honor.

We are told to honor our father and mother, and this also includes our Heavenly Father. How do we honor God in scripture? Through the Sabbath commandment.

Isaiah 58:13 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,

The Ten Commandments are not something us humans can arbitrability decide on the ones we should keep. They were never given as multiple choice or suggestions, while God did not start off with the Sabbath as thou shalt not, it is still a commandment of God and we should treat it as such because it is God's will for us, that we keep His Sabbath day holy. God placed the Ten Commandments in a unit of Ten written in stone by His very own Finger Exodus 31:18 and said we cannot edit His commandments in any way Duet 4:2. God writes His laws in our hearts and minds in His New Covenant promise that Jesus mediates, and God identifies His commandments right in the Ten, so it's not up to us to pick the ones we like because we cannot add or subtract from this unit of Ten. The Sabbath is written throughout the NT and Jesus speaks of the Sabbath as it would be kept long after He ascends back to heaven for His people so this one commandment that God deemed holy and blessed and identifies as MY HOLY DAY and God said REMEMBER, out of love we need to honor what He asks.

The Ten Commandments are the work of God alone Exodus 32:16 and are kept in the holies of holy in God's Temple where He dwells. The earthy Temple is just a miniature of God's heavenly Temple Hebrews 8:2. Hebrews 8:5 and God placed His will and testimony in the ark of the covenant right under His mercy seat and it is what we will be judged by. James 2:10-12

The Sabbath is the one commandment that has to do with time. God wants to spend time with His children and only ask for a full 24 hours every Sabbath to spend time with us. It's the only day God blessed and sanctified, which means to be set aside for holy use. He gave us 6 other days to do all thy work and labors. Exodus 20:9

There is no scripture that says we do not have to keep the Sabbath commandment. Today is our test to see if we can be brought to God's holy mountain. God asks so little of us but obedience to Him and His commandments is one of those things He asks, because it shows that we love Him. 1 John 5:3 Exodus 20:6 John 14:15, John 15:10 and have faith Romans 3:31 Revelation 14:12


Isaiah 56 Thus says the Lord:

“Keep justice, and do righteousness,
For My salvation is about to come,
And My righteousness to be revealed.
2 Blessed is the man who does this,
And the son of man who lays hold on it;
Who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”
3 Do not let the son of the foreigner
Who has joined himself to the Lord
Speak, saying,
“The Lord has utterly separated me from His people”;
Nor let the eunuch say,
“Here I am, a dry tree.”
4 For thus says the Lord:
“To the eunuchs who keep My Sabbaths,
And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant,
5 Even to them I will give in My house
And within My walls a place and a name
Better than that of sons and daughters;
I will give [a]them an everlasting name
That shall not be cut off.
6 “Also the sons of the foreigner
Who join themselves to the Lord, to serve Him,
And to love the name of the Lord, to be His servants—
Everyone who keeps from defiling the Sabbath,
And holds fast My covenant—
7 Even them I will bring to My holy mountain,
And make them joyful in My house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices
Will be accepted on My altar;
For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations.”

God delights when we keep His Sabbath holy- should we not want God to be delighted in us?

Isaiah 58:13 “If you turn away your foot from the Sabbath,
From doing your pleasure on My holy day,
And call the Sabbath a delight,
The holy day of the Lord honorable,
And shall honor Him, not doing your own ways,
Nor finding your own pleasure,
Nor speaking your own words,
14 Then you shall delight yourself in the Lord;
And I will cause you to ride on the high hills of the earth,
And feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

The Sabbath commandment is in God's heavenly Temple along with the other 9 commandments to make the complete "Ten Commanments" which is why the Sabbath does not end at the cross and continues forever just as God promised. The question is will we do God's will which is not different in heaven than it is on earth and God wrote His will for us in our hearts. Psalms 40:8 Hebrews 8:10 and minds which means we are a doer of God's will James 1:22, Revelation 22:14

Isaiah 66:23 And from one Sabbath to another,
All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says the Lord.

Happy Sabbath all!

This is a great thesis on how the sabbath was definitely a commandment under the Old Covenant. But that is not the purpose of this thread. We are not debating the sabbath under the Old Covenant.

The point in this thread is that Scripture says we are no longer subject to the Old Covenant at all. The sabbath just happens to be one of the key commandments from the Old Covenant that is not in the New Covenant. And that is evidence (although not the best or most compelling evidence) of us not being subject to the Old Covenant anymore.

As has been shown through multiple statements directly from Scripture (not my words, God’s Word), the Old Covenant has been made obsolete, and so is no longer binding. The New Covenant is the only binding law of God on us today. The only commands from the Old Covenant that are binding in the New Covenant are the ones that are explicitly restated in the New Covenant. The sabbath keeping commandment was expressly excluded based on several passages. This is not my interpretation or hypothesis, this is God’s Word to us. You are welcome to continue to obey the Old Covenant and the Law, but doing so makes Jesus worthless to you for salvation, because your salvation at that point is based on perfect keeping of the Law.

 

[Doug Brents]

Wow, lol, no sense in going any further.

i could have said the same to so many of the things you have said. But Scripture says that Satan is the prince (Lord) of the power of the air.
Eph 2:1-2 - “And you were dead in your offenses and sins, 2 in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

 

[Doug Brents]

Hi Doug Brents,

A covenant is an agreement. The agreement is not to be conflated with the thing agreed upon--which is what you are apparently tryna do. Again, the agreement of "all that the Lord has said we will do and be obedient," that was faulty. That was the bad promise. By default, God cannot make a bad promise. By default, God cannot make faulty law (He says His law is perfect). So for you to insist that the covenant was faulty is to claim that God is faulty since you are shifting the blame to Him. Ultimately, that may be the god you believe in, but it's not the God I believe in, or the God of the Bible.

I am not the one who said that God found fault with His Old Covenant; He did. The Old Covenant was made on good promises, and was good. But God made a New Covenant based on better promises (not my words, God’s!).

This is gonna be a hard row to hoe--for you. The Ten Commandments are explicitly said to be a covenant:

Exodus 34:28​

Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.​

No matter how you try to slice it or dice it, that is very explicit.

In your last paragraph, you argue that the 10 commandments are not a part of the Old Covenant because the thing agreed upon is not part of the agreement (where you get that nonsense I have no idea, but you are welcome to your opinion). But now you argue that they are part of the Covenant? Make up your mind; it cannot be both ways.

Yes, the 10 commandments were a covenant, added to, and rolled into the Old Covenant (the one made originally with Abraham). But let’s say I am wrong, and the 10 commandments are a stand-alone covenant. Then Gal 4:21-31 is speaking DIRECTLY to the 10 commandments (being the covenant that came from Sinai) and what does verse 30 say? “Drive out the slave woman and her son, For the son of the slave woman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.”
The slave woman is the 10 commandments that came from Sinai, and her children will not be heirs with the son of the free woman (the New Covenant).

This is indeed a covenant, but the bigger problem for you is that there is an explicit number attached to this covenant which does not allow for you to add or subtract from it. Additionally, God says not to add or subtract from what He commands, which certainly appears to be what you're doing here.

Deuteronomy 4:2​

Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.​

Your contention that there are only two covenants is a strange one. How is the Noahic covenant somehow added to the Abrahamic covenant?

I have been taking the Old Covenant back just to Abraham, but many of the promises that were included in the Old Covenant were originally made to Adam, and again to Noah, and then to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then Moses. Same promises, same Covenant. Jesus fulfills ALL of those promises, and inaugurates a New Covenant.

I agree with Scripture that:

• God placed a numeral which sets a limit to the number of commandments in the covenant written on stone. Do you agree with that?
• God says not to add or subtract from what He commands. Do you agree with that?
• God says that His law is perfect. Do you agree with that?
• God found fault with the people because they are the ones identified as failing in their promise to obey. Do you agree with that?

I do not agree that the passage I quoted "says plainly" that He found fault "with the Old Covenant itself" in the sense that you are trying to conflate the meaning of the word covenant/agreement with what was agreed upon (i.e. God's perfect law). You cannot attribute any blame or fault in any shape or form to the God-side of the equation, which is what icy that you are doing. God doesn't make halfway promises. His promises are not comparative, they're always superlative. God's promises don't get "better," cuz they're always the best.

Again, I am not the one accusing God of making a “bad” covenant. I am simply repeating what God Himself said.

Yes, His promises are always fulfilled. But even He changes His mind. His essence in unchanging, His eternal attributes are unchanging, but He does have the ability to change His mind. And when He says that the promises of the New Covenant are better than those of the Old, we MUST believe that this is so, unless you believe that this passage of Scripture is not really part of God’s Word. Is that the case?

Let's cut to the chase. What is your belief about sin? Are you a sinner? If so, on what basis do you believe that's the case? Do you sin? Could you provide a biblical definition of sin?

Yes, I am was a sinner.
Sin is any violation of God’s law as it stands during the life of the individual (God’s law was different for Adam before the Fall, than it was for Abraham, than it was for Elisha, than it is for you and me).
I have stolen, had sex with my both my wives before we were married (1st died before I met the 2nd), I have been addicted to inappropriate content, and other sins (1 Cor 6:9-11)
But I have been redeemed by the blood of Christ. I was baptized into Christ when I was 14, when I was convicted of sin in my life and in baptism surrendered my life to Him. Since then, as mentioned above, I have stumbled, but I constantly turn back to Christ (as David did when he sinned) and the blood of Christ continually cleanses me from all sin (1 John 1:7).

Now, if I were under the Old Covenant the list of my sins would be much longer: I did not eat a Passover meal until I was in my mid 40s, I do not keep the 7th day as a day of rest, I do not make pilgrimage to Jerusalem annually (never been there), I don’t make sacrifices at the Temple there (no one has in almost 2000 years). These, and many more I am sure, of the many laws of the Old Covenant have I disregarded because they are no longer relevant to the New Testament Christian (Gentile or Jew) as far as salvation goes.

 

[daq]

i could have said the same to so many of the things you have said. But Scripture says that Satan is the prince (Lord) of the power of the air.
Eph 2:1-2 - “And you were dead in your offenses and sins, 2 in which you previously walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.”

Ephesians 2:1-5 KJV
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, [G109] the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved; )
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly [G2032] places in Christ Jesus:

Mickelson's Enhanced Strong's Dictionaries
G109 ἀήρ aer (a-eer') n.
“air” (as naturally surrounding).
[from aemi “to breathe unconsciously,” i.e. respire: (by analogy) to blow]
KJV: air

Mickelson's Enhanced Strong's Dictionaries
G2032 ἐπουράνιος epouranios (e-pou-ra'-niy-os) adj.
above the sky.
[from G1909 and G3772]
KJV: celestial, (in) heaven(-ly), high

supernal​

Also found in: Thesaurus.

su·per·nal​

(so͝o-pûr′nəl)
adj.
1. Celestial; heavenly.
2. Of, coming from, or being in the sky or high above.

---

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin supernus; see uper in Indo-European roots.]

---

su·per′nal·ly adv.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

supernal (suːˈpɜːnəl; sjuː-)​

adj
1. of or from the world of the divine; celestial
2. of or emanating from above or from the sky
[C15: from Medieval Latin supernālis, from Latin supernus that is on high, from super above]
suˈpernally adv
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

su•per•nal​

(sʊˈpɜr nl)

adj.
1. heavenly, celestial, or divine.
2. lofty; of more than human excellence, powers, etc.
3. being on high or in the sky or visible heavens.
[1475–85; < Middle French < Latin supern(us) upper + -ālis -al1]

su•per′nal•ly, adv.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

supernal

Definition, Synonyms, Translations of supernal by The Free Dictionary

www.thefreedictionary.com

I would like to say that I hope this helps but it is too late.

 

[SabbathBlessings]

This is a great thesis on how the sabbath was definitely a commandment under the Old Covenant. But that is not the purpose of this thread. We are not debating the sabbath under the Old Covenant.

The point in this thread is that Scripture says we are no longer subject to the Old Covenant at all. The sabbath just happens to be one of the key commandments from the Old Covenant that is not in the New Covenant. And that is evidence (although not the best or most compelling evidence) of us not being subject to the Old Covenant anymore.

As has been shown through multiple statements directly from Scripture (not my words, God’s Word), the Old Covenant has been made obsolete, and so is no longer binding. The New Covenant is the only binding law of God on us today. The only commands from the Old Covenant that are binding in the New Covenant are the ones that are explicitly restated in the New Covenant. The sabbath keeping commandment was expressly excluded based on several passages. This is not my interpretation or hypothesis, this is God’s Word to us. You are welcome to continue to obey the Old Covenant and the Law, but doing so makes Jesus worthless to you for salvation, because your salvation at that point is based on perfect keeping of the Law.

Sorry, the scripture I posted didn’t help- the Sabbath is eternal- it’s God commandments written personally by God that He gave to us and resides in His heavenly Temple Revelation 11:19 and continues on for His saints eternally Isaiah 66:23 thus saith the Lord. Scriptures show God’s people hold fast His Sabbath today and all of God’s commandments Revelation 14:12 because God does not have different will in heaven as He does for His people on earth. Our bodies our a Temple and dwelling place for the Holy Spirit1 Cor 6:19 which is why His law is written in our hearts and minds Hebrews 8:10 Jer 31:33 as long as we have not changed what God placed there.

No one is saying we are saved by Sabbath-keeping, we are saved by God’s grace through our faith- those who have faith in God trust in His works Exodus 32:16 and not their own, because our works have no righteousness, but God’s Works is Truth and Righteous. Psalms 119:172, Psalms 119:105 and those who do not have Truth are not sanctified John 17:17, Ezekiel 20:12

 

[Doug Brents]

Ephesians 2:1-5 KJV
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, [G109] the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved; )
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly [G2032] places in Christ Jesus:

Mickelson's Enhanced Strong's Dictionaries
G109 ἀήρ aer (a-eer') n.
“air” (as naturally surrounding).
[from aemi “to breathe unconsciously,” i.e. respire: (by analogy) to blow]
KJV: air

Mickelson's Enhanced Strong's Dictionaries
G2032 ἐπουράνιος epouranios (e-pou-ra'-niy-os) adj.
above the sky.
[from G1909 and G3772]
KJV: celestial, (in) heaven(-ly), high

supernal​

Also found in: Thesaurus.

su·per·nal​

(so͝o-pûr′nəl)
adj.
1. Celestial; heavenly.
2. Of, coming from, or being in the sky or high above.

---

[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin supernus; see uper in Indo-European roots.]

---

su·per′nal·ly adv.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

supernal (suːˈpɜːnəl; sjuː-)​

adj
1. of or from the world of the divine; celestial
2. of or emanating from above or from the sky
[C15: from Medieval Latin supernālis, from Latin supernus that is on high, from super above]
suˈpernally adv
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

su•per•nal​

(sʊˈpɜr nl)

adj.
1. heavenly, celestial, or divine.
2. lofty; of more than human excellence, powers, etc.
3. being on high or in the sky or visible heavens.
[1475–85; < Middle French < Latin supern(us) upper + -ālis -al1]

su•per′nal•ly, adv.
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

supernal

Definition, Synonyms, Translations of supernal by The Free Dictionary

www.thefreedictionary.com

I would like to say that I hope this helps but it is too late.

I am not trying to redeem myself in your eyes. I am posting so that others who read this may know that my usage was not incorrect.

The Jews in the time of Jesus had the concept of three “heavens”. The first Heaven was the air, where birds fly. The second Heaven was where the stars, moon, and sun exist; space. These are the “heavenly places” or “heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12, Eph 3:10). The third Heaven is where God is (2 Cor 12:2).

Satan is the lord (prince) of the air, and the ruler of all the powers of evil that are in the “heavenly places”. Thus anything supernal falls into Satan’s power.

Supernal does not mean supernatural, Godly, spiritual, or contrast with flesh as daq used it in his posts.

 

[Doug Brents]

Sorry, the scripture I posted didn’t help- the Sabbath is eternal-

The sabbath is indeed eternal, but as has been pointed out before, what the sabbath is has changed from the Old Covenant to the New (Heb 4). The rest of God is not constrained to the 7th day any more.

it’s God commandments written personally by God that He gave to us and resides in His heavenly Temple Revelation 11:19

Again, you say this as if it means more than any other of God’s words how ever they were delivered. It does not. There are many things from the Old Covenant that have been changed in the New Covenant: the High Priest, the method and place of worship, the sacrifice, the way we draw close to God, and many other things.

and continues on for His saints eternally Isaiah 66:23 thus saith the Lord.

Y you oh keep referring to this passage as if it means something that it does not. It is not saying that sabbath will still be a day of rest. It is simply saying that from month to month and week to week, we will worship the Lord.

Scriptures show God’s people hold fast His Sabbath today and all of God’s commandments Revelation 14:12 because God does not have different will in heaven as He does for His people on earth.

Indeed we are to keep God’s commandments, but we need only concern ourselves with the ones that are relevant to us in our day. We do not have to worry about not eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; that command is not relevant to us. We do not need to worry about the command to sacrifice our children; that command was only to Abraham. We do not need to concern ourselves with keeping the 7th day; that command was only to the physical descendants of Abraham, during and after the time of Moses, up until the death of Christ.

We are a dwelling place for God’s Temple 1 Cor 6:19 which is why His law is written in our hearts and minds Hebrews 8:10 Jer 31:33 as long as we have not changed what God placed there.

Again, you change what Scripture says. It does not say we are a dwelling place for His temple. It says we (our bodies) are His temple.

No one is saying we are saved by Sabbath-keeping, we are saved by God’s grace through our faith- those who have faith in God trust in His works Exodus 32:16 and not their own, because our works have no righteousness, but God’s Works is Truth and Righteous. Psalms 119:172, Psalms 119:105 and those who do not have Truth are not sanctified John 17:17, Ezekiel 20:12

If we are required to keep the sabbath (as they were in the Old Covenant) then the breaking of the sabbath is sin, and thus would prevent our salvation if we were continually living in this unrepentant sin (just as we would if we were thieves, homosexuals, liars, or any of the other sins listed in 1 Cor 6:9-11 and other places.

But among those lists, sabbath keeping is never listed, and is expressly noted as being personal choice based on personal belief in Rom 14.

 

[daq]

I am not trying to redeem myself in your eyes. I am posting so that others who read this may know that my usage was not incorrect.

The Jews in the time of Jesus had the concept of three “heavens”. The first Heaven was the air, where birds fly. The second Heaven was where the stars, moon, and sun exist; space. These are the “heavenly places” or “heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12, Eph 3:10). The third Heaven is where God is (2 Cor 12:2).

Satan is the lord (prince) of the air, and the ruler of all the powers of evil that are in the “heavenly places”. Thus anything supernal falls into Satan’s power.

Supernal does not mean supernatural, Godly, spiritual, or contrast with flesh as daq used it in his posts.

And I am posting this so that others who read this may understand what has happened here.

The above poster has insinuated that my understanding of the scripture is Satanic. He does not understand that testimony is spirit, and therefore we are admonished to test or try the spirits, and the only way to do this is to compare the testimony of someone with the scripture. The Master himself even says that his words are Spirit and they are Life, (John 6:63, which has been repeatedly referenced in discussion with this poster), proving by the very Testimony of the Master himself that testimony is indeed spirit: whether for the good or whether for the evil.

The prince of the power of the air is the same as the spirit of the world, which term Paul uses in 1Cor 2:12, in which passage he expounds what it means when it comes to the message which he and his companions preach. That surely means that the testimony of Paul is by the Holy Spirit even in his own thinking, which is abundantly clear in his epistles, and is true, and it is surely confirmed in other scripture passages outside the writings of Paul.

1 Corinthians 2:6-16 KJV
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
8 Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

Understand therefore, dear reader, think long and hard before you accuse someone of being Satanic because of what they believe from the scripture, and especially when they have a mountain of scripture to support what they say: for if they are indeed speaking the truth from the scripture, according to the real and intended meanings in the scripture in the things they speak, which is the Logos-Reasoning and Wisdom from on high, then they speak according to the Holy Spirit. If therefore you call them Satanic for what they speak in the Spirit of the heavenly Father, you will be blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Remember, testimony is spirit, and those who speak according to the flesh, the physical, and the eyes and mind of the natural man: the same are those who speak the prince of the power of the air and the spirit of the world. Guard your spirit, for the tongue is a little member boasting great things, and it is a fire, the world of iniquity among our members which defiles the whole body: and it sets aflame the generation cycle, (there are four generations in the first "age" of a man), and it is set aflame by Gehenna.

Matthew 12:22-45 KJV
22 Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.
23 And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?
24 But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.
25 And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:
26 And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.
28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.
29 Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.
30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.
31 Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.
32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
33 Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt: for the tree is known by his fruit.
34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
35 A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.
36 But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.
38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation [1] seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, [2] and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here.
42 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, [3] and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.
43 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.
44 Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.
45 Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation [4].