”Soyeong” said:
Many of God's commands against doing something can be correctly understood as also commanding the reverse, such as the command not to steal being taken as the command to be generous, and thus they too can be fulfilled. However, God's Law was never just about outward obedience, but rather they are spiritual, so they are intended to teach us deeper spiritual principles of which the listed laws are just examples. Those deeper spiritual principles are the attributes of God, so the primary function of the Law is to teach us about God and how to reflect His attributes and to thereby grow in a relationship with Him. For example,
Leviticus 11:44-45 says to do what is holy for God is holy, so refraining from eating unclean animals is teaching us about God's holiness and how to act in accordance with it. In Peter 1:13-16, it also says that we are to do what is holy for God is holy. When Jesus said on the cross that it is finished, he was speaking about his redemptive work, not about God's holiness being finished.
That is an excellent comment, Soyeong, be it we appreciate that Paul, in regard to meats, plainly said at Romans 14:14 “
I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean.”
We see there in Romans 14:14 that the sin which remains in eating things that the Old Law Covenant called “unclean” is only when eating such meats in the presence of others violates the love of a brother. If we fail to respect the consciences of those around us we sin against them by eating what they, having weaker consciences, consider as yet an unclean thing. That same principle can be extended to things such as drinking wine in the presence of those who earnestly belief that the consumption of alcoholic beverages is wrong. (Jesus was called a winebibber by the Pharisees, as at Matthew 11:19 , not because they did not also drink wine, but, because they were accusing him of being one who stayed too long with the wine. For them it was not a conscience matter but they were just picking for fault with which to dissuade others from listening to Jesus. A different circumstance entirely.)
Still, Paul plainly said, “
I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself...” Further, Paul said, 1 Timothy 4:4-5 “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”
Paul speaks rather clearly to the point behind what he says in all of his letters concerning meats and like issues, at 1 Corinthians 10:24-33.
Paul clearly believed that man had returned to the law which was originally given to Noah and to Noah's family after the flood: Genesis 9:3-4 “
Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”
Now, there are those who have tried to claim that there were clean and unclean meats before the Old Law Covenant, using what was said about the animals taken upon the Ark: Genesis 7:2 “Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.” But man was not yet allowed to eat meat at all, and the cleanliness or lack there of was only about the hardship of keeping the Ark clean so that the environment within would be easier to keep clean and healthy for all who had to dwell in that Ark. This compares to how we yet need to keep clean both physically and spiritually our present day Ark, the body of Christ (aka, the church or congregation of God) which like Noah's Ark is transporting through the polluted and agitated waters of this present day life (Isaiah 57:20) toward life that is life indeed, life to its full potential.
”Soyeong” said:
In
Hebrews 8:4, it speaks about priests who offering gifts in accordance with the Law, so the Law was still in effect. In fact, if it weren't in effect, then it would have no power to prevent Jesus from being a priest if he were on earth.
A wife can only be obligated by one covenant to one husband, else she is an adulteress. Paul speaks of this at Romans 7:1-4 Clinging to that Old Law Covenant and at the same time trying to cleave onto the New Covenant is like a woman trying to commit adultery with the son of the man she is yet married to.
God cannot die. But we died to that first marriage covenant, by laying our life down in death with Christ, thus showing that we have accepted the just penalty of that Old Law Covenant for our sins. And so you are right that if we are not in Christ we are then yet under that Old Law Covenant and resisting its just penalty upon us as if refusing to accept it: Romans 7:5 “For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”
That is why Paul also said, “.... the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust.” 1 Timothy 1:9-11
Trying to cling to the Old Law Covenant and trying to fuse it together with the New Covenant is not a good place to be in. That Old Law Covenant arrangement is become like dried out old wine skins which would burst if new wine be placed in them, or like a worn out old garment the cloth of which is become too weak to withstand the thread used to sow on a new patch. (Matthew 9:16-17)
”Soyeong” said:
In Acts 18:18, Paul took a vow that involved shaving his head, which refers to a Nazarite vow (
Numbers 6), which involved making offerings. In Acts 21:20-24, Paul was on his way to pay for the offerings of others who had undertaken a similar vow in order to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against to Law and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. So offerings did not stop because of the death or resurrection of Jesus, but only stopped because of the destruction of the temple. However, the Bible prophecies of a time when a third temple will be built and when offerings will resume (
Ezekiel 40-44), so they are very much still part of the Law.
The Bible does not specifically state what Paul’s vow was. Moreover, the Scriptures are silent as to whether the vow was made before or after Paul’s conversion or if he was starting or ending the vow. Whatever was the case, the taking of such a vow was not sinful any more so than it was for Paul to have Timothy get circumcised so as not to stumble those Jews to whom they were going to be preaching.
The principle which there applies is most likely the same one Paul used with Timothy at Acts 16:3 “Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.” This despite Paul's very clear admonition to the Galatian congregation of God at Galatians 5:2 “Behold, I Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. “ But the admonition is about the motive behind the act of circumcision. If we get circumcised because we think that by doing so we are being obedient to God, then that is a likely indicator that we are yet focused in the carnal mindset and not fully appreciating the deeper spiritual aspects of what that physical circumcision only represented. Else we would know that there is a far more to be treasured circumcision that we must be intently focused upon rather than putting on a showy display with our external flesh.
The room to yet be able to do the things of the Old Law Covenant though no longer binding upon us is provided by love in that love does what it has to do (short of sinning, which love would never do) in order not to stumble others.
”Soyeong” said:
In
Matthew 5:17, Jesus said that he came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it, so it doesn't make any sense to interpret fulfilling the Law as abolishing it or parts of it. Rather, fulfilling the Law is defined as causing God's will (as made known in the Law) to be obeyed as it should be, so after saying that, Jesus then proceeded to fulfill the Law six times throughout the rest of the chapter by teaching how to correctly understand and obey it as it was intended.
That is true in balance of understanding. The Old Covenant is but an add-on to God's eternal spiritual law and the add-on served a specific purpose in its time.
The Old Law Covenant was not man's enemy and one who is righteous destroys only enemies. Sin is the enemy and the Old Law Covenant was added to mankind for the purpose of highlighting and exposing sin as our enemy. We read of that at Galatians 3:19
That Old Law Covenant was tailored to the needs of sinful men to deal justly with them while they lived in sin. That Law dealt with sin after the fact rather than preventing it. Hebrews 7:19 “For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.”
The New Covenant is “the bringing in of a better hope”, and it deals with stopping sin dead in its tracks before sin can destroy us. But that only works if we really give ourselves to die with Christ and then live from that point forward as though the life we live is him living in us. Galatians 2:20 “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” (Compare: Ephesians 4:17-24 with emphasis on verse 20 and 21)
Jesus takes our attention to what was God's law long before that Old Covenant, saying, “... Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” Matthew 19:8
No, when the Scriptures speak of God's law being restored it does not mean the resurrection of that Old Law Covenant which Jesus likened to old and brittle wine skins and Paul said was near to vanishing away in his day:
Hebrews 8:13 “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”
