Confidence in the Flesh...

friend of said:

In view of sinless perfectionism, if someone rests in their good works and sanctification of the flesh, can it be said that they are putting their confidence in their flesh? When Christian's look to their obedience as their rock and sustainer of their salvation, more or equally so than to Christ's propitiation, I think it can be said that they are putting confidence in the flesh/works.

I believe this scripture says yes. Paul talks about not putting confidence in his flesh, then goes on to over qualify himself by all the things he accomplished, with a comparison to religious pharisees who also followed the letter of the law to a "T"

Philippians 3:3-7

3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:

5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

_

What does it mean to have confidence in the flesh? Am I wrong?

Be blessed

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friend of said:

In view of sinless perfectionism, if someone rests in their good works and sanctification of the flesh, can it be said that they are putting their confidence in their flesh? When Christian's look to their obedience as their rock and sustainer of their salvation, more or equally so than to Christ's propitiation, I think it can be said that they are putting confidence in the flesh/works.

I believe this scripture says yes. Paul talks about not putting confidence in his flesh, then goes on to over qualify himself by all the things he accomplished, with a comparison to religious pharisees who also followed the letter of the law to a "T"

Philippians 3:3-7

3 For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:

5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

7 But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

_

What does it mean to have confidence in the flesh? Am I wrong?

Be blessed

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Soyeong said:

In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, God said that obedience to His Law is not too difficult for us and that obedience brings life and a blessing while disobedience brings death and a curse, so choose life! So it is presented as a choice and as a possibility, not as an impossible standard of perfect obedience. If we needed to have perfect obedience for some strange reason, then there would be no point in repentance because it would already be too late to have that, so the fact that repentance has value means that obedience that is less than perfect has value. The consistent message of the prophets up to and including Jesus was to repent from our sins and turn back to obedience to God's Law, so the need to continue to practice repentance if we sin has always been key.

In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law, and in 1 John 5:3, to love God is to obey His commandments, which are not burdensome, so obedience to God's Law has always been about expressing our faith in Him to guide us in how to rightly, about expressing our love for Him, and thereby growing in a relationship with him based on faith and love, and has never been about trying to become saved through our own efforts. In Philippians 3:8, Paul had been outwardly keeping the Law without having a focus on knowing Christ, so he had been missing the whole point and counted it all as rubbish. The right solution to incorrectly obeying God's Law is to start obeying it correctly with the right focus, not to stop obeying God.

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Halbhh said:

Very useful, and if one thing could improve this useful statement you are offering -- a helpful explanation needed for many readers -- it would be for you to also include how "God's Law" has been now restated into completed perfect form by Christ in the New Testament, so that the "Law" for us now, today, is only and all that Christ said (and which the epistles often echo and expand upon).

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(my own way of thinking of this is that as He said, all the law now is the 2 great commandments and how to do them fully, and all the invaluable things He commanded us about those how-to-do fully parts, like forgiving, and loving even those who don't love us, worshiping God in 'spirit and in truth' and much more. And the invaluable extra help for how-to in doing the 2nd great commandment in Matthew 7:12)

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Soyeong said:

Thank you, but I will have to disagree. In Galatians 4:4, Jesus was born under the Law, so he was obligated to obey it, and in Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Law, so if Jesus had been editing the Law as you suggested, then he would have sinned and disqualified himself from being our Savior. Likewise, 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 spoke against obeying what He had commanded, so Jesus did not do that. If he had been trying to edit the Law, then that would indicate that he was in disagreement with the Father about which laws we should follow and thought that the Father had made mistakes that he needed to correct, but I see nothing that indicates any disagreement. On the contrary, in John 14:23-24, Jesus said that if we love him, then we will obey his teachings, if we do not love him, then we will not obey his teachings, and that his teachings were not his own, but that of the Father, so if we love Jesus, then we will obey what the Father has taught.

We should not need anything to be repeated in the NT in order for us to know that we should still obey the Father. Jesus was sinless, so he set a perfect example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to God's Law, which means that he would have still taught full obedience to it by example even if he had repeated nothing, and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22), to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:3-6), and to be imitators of him (1 Corinthians 11:1). Furthermore, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent from our sins for the Kingdom of God is at hand (Mark 1:14-15) and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin was, so repenting from our disobedience to it is an integral part of the Gospel of Christ, which means that Jesus fulfilled the Law by teaching how to correctly understand and obey it by word and by example.



All of the 613 commandments in the OT and 1,050 commandments in the NT can be put into one or both of the categories of being instructions for how God wants us to love Him and for how He wants us to love our neighbor, so they all hang on the greatest two commandments because they are all examples of what it looks like to correctly obey them. For example, obedience to the command to help the poor looks like obedience to the command to love our neighbor, so the command to love does not replace the other commandments, but rather it fulfills the Law because it is the essence of them.

In other words, if you were to to look at the life of someone who was living in obedience to the greatest two commandments and you were to compare them with the life of someone who lived in obedience to the Mosaic Law, then there would be no difference because they would both look like the same example that Jesus set for us to follow. God's Law is His Word and Jesus is God's Word made flesh, so God did not just give commandments to His people, but He also sent Jesus as a living example to teach us how to obey them.

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Halbhh said:

Ah, I can see we pretty much agree entirely, but there are language wording differences in how you and I talk. Parlance. Different backgrounds, different ways of speaking, but really the same conclusions.

Be sure to get that -- it's important. I agree with you entirely. So, you can gain if you realize I've simply having a different wording style of word use, like a different language or dialect. Swahili. (ok, that's hyperbole though!)

Instead of 'editing' (which suggest deleting, which is a not-quite-right sense of it to me), it's 'perfecting' as best I understand. It's like the "in spirit and in truth" (about worship) -- it's how He has now, in the New Covenant, given us the perfect form of the Law, now, in the New Covenant, in a full and complete way, in His words. Put a whole different way, if a person was stranded on an island some other people (say people not yet converted), and the only thing the person had was a gospel, like Matthew, and nothing else, still that would be enough. They would have all essential things.

About whether we have to be obedient -- definitely! We learn this in the gospels. For instance in John it would be learned very directly and clearly in chapters 14 and 15, but in other gospels it can be learned very well too. So, perhaps possibly the only way you and I have anything to discuss on the Law would be only small details, and sharing, but nothing major at all.

I really love your post. It's good writing and well said, but if you can, you could gain a little bit (not a lot) from my observation about communicating with people that use words (english) just a little differently. Or not. I'm not offended if you think, for now, that I don't know what I'm saying about wording differences people have.

Also, I'm putting 'winner' on your post because as the other, it's very good and useful writing and help to Christians. If I didn't say a word about language usage stuff, you'd still be fine. I'm mostly hoping you'll better realize when others are saying the same thing you are, but their wording is very different. But that's part of a gift I have, to recognize very diverse ways of saying the same things.

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Soyeong said:

Thank you again, sorry if I misunderstood anything. Editing something refers to adding, subtracting, or making changes to it. So when you say that the Law has been now restated into a completed perfect form by Christ, then that means to me that Christ was making changes to it and that he thought that there was therefore something wrong with what the Father commanded that needed changing. Likewise, if the Law for us today is only and all that Christ said, that that means to me that he was deleting everything that he did not repeat and that he was therefore in disagreement with the Father about whether we should follow those things.

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Halbhh said:

Well, it can be useful to review things Christ said about the Law (and of course not only the key one below, but of course all the rest, definitely) -- such as the exact wording of this verse in various translations:

Matthew 22:40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Here I trust that "all" (or "whole") is the accurate translation --

New International Version
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

New Living Translation
The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."

English Standard Version
On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Berean Literal Bible
On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."

New American Standard Bible
"On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

King James Bible
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Christian Standard Bible
All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands."

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
On these two commands depend all The Written Law and The Prophets.”

American Standard Version
On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets.

Douay-Rheims Bible
On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets.

Darby Bible Translation
On these two commandments the whole law and the prophets hang.

English Revised Version
On these two commandments hangeth the whole law, and the prophets.

Young's Literal Translation
on these -- the two commands -- all the law and the prophets do hang.'
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So then, when I see also:

Matthew 7:12 In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the prophets.
(and also for this one I looked at the various other translations)

Then already here we have perfect statements, that are complete, and He is going to help us (as we know) with a lot of specific situation examples, and also precise definite commands such as to be merciful, to forgive, to love those who do not love us, and more, and by the time we have them all (all the gospels), then we have a completion I feel confident. A total complete statement of the law in all ways we need. (This doesn't mean we can't benefit from the epistles! heh heh)

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