Questioning my faith in God & more. PLEASE READ!

TheWorriedOne said:

I just feel extremely inadequate and unworthy of God because of all I've done.

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There is nothing wrong with a healthy fear of God and knowledge of sin. We are all unworthy of His grace and mercy, Jesus came to earth knowing this, but He still loves the unlovable. His love is a redeeming love, He loves to forgive the repentant and undeserving. Study the life of Christ, He never saves someone who doesn't want it of think they need it...He saves the unworthy, the lost and the broken. He is our Saviour, our God and king, do not be afraid of His love, come trembling yes, but come in expectation of His grace on your life.

TheWorriedOne said:

Thank you so much Hedrick I just have one last question and I think I'll be done, you said the Old Testament Law no longer applies today but what about what Jesus says in Matthew 5:17-20? He says it will basically until the end of time?

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"Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil." (Matt. 5:17)

Jesus never said that the law was to be done away with, He said that He came to fulfill the law. He fulfilled it by living a perfect and sinless life in complete obedience to the law and will of God. By dying on the cross as a substitute and atoning sacrifice for the sins of humanity He can now bestow this life on us. We are declared righteous through His shed blood and we receive His salvation by faith in His atoning work. We are righteous and free from the law because we are now in Christ, the law has not been destroyed but fulfilled in Christ and we now enjoy the blessings of grace that God can now legally (in justice and holiness) bestow on mankind.

We as fallen, sinful beings could never fulfill the law of God and be declared righteous in His sight, but because of His great love for us all He provided the Lamb that was to die in our place as the atoning sacrifice for our sins and granting us life in the process. Jesus came to do what we could never do and died to save us from eternal separation from His presence. We are declared righteous and holy in the sight of God because of our great Substitute Christ Jesus.

Those without Christ are still under the law and the curse.

You've asked one of the most complex questions in NT interpretation, the Law and specifically what Jesus meant by fulfilling the Law. People here won't all agree. SoldierOfSoul gave you a pretty standard Protestant response. There's nothing wrong with it, but I'm not sure it quite captures everything Jesus meant.

Jesus said that his mission was to bring the Kingdom, forgiving sins, calling people to be part of the Kingdom, and eventually giving his life to establish the new covenant of Jer. 31:31. But the Kingdom is what the whole OT was pointing to. The prophets all saw the Day of the Lord, and the coming Messiah. Isaiah's suffering servant and Jeremiah's new covenant in our hearts also pointed to Jesus. I believe Jesus meant that his mission was to do what all these things pointed to. Note that Mat 5:17 doesn't talk about just the Law but the Law and the Prophets. This was Jesus' normal way of the referring to the OT. So he was fulfilling God's plans as shown in the whole OT. The word "fulfill" is translated by Louw and Nida as "to give the true or complete meaning to something—‘to give the true meaning to, to provide the real significance of.’" (Incidentally, this appears to be Calvin's interpretation of the fulfillment, although there are other implications of vs 19 where we don't say quite the same thing.)

5:19 does refer to law in the sense of commandments, so he is also saying that he isn't abolishing the Law as a standard. But to see what that means, we have to look at how he interprets the Law in practice:

Mat 5 is a commentary on the 2nd table of the 10 commandments, and when the Rich Young Man asked what he should do, Jesus said fulfill the commandments. So Jesus still used at least the 10 commandments as a standard. *However*, and it's a big however, when you look at how he applied the commandments, he looked primarily at intent. The interpretations in Mat 5 replace the letter with intent, and at times his concept of intent contradicts the letter. When the disciples were criticized for picking grain on the sabbath, Jesus said "the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath", and gave a precedent from David for breaking the strict interpretation of the Law. He said love God and your neighbor, and you're doing what the Law intends. This suggests that he was looking at the Law not strictly as a legal code but as teaching, a way to help us learn what God intends. Indeed the Jewish term "Torah" means "teaching" as much as law. So yes, he accepted the Law, but he changed how it was thought of.

One other observation. Jesus was speaking to Jews most of the time. Jews in both the 1st Cent and now believed that the Law was given to the Jewish nation as part of the covenant with Abraham. Thus it did not fully apply to non-Jews. The rabbis often suggested that non-Jews are bound by the principles given to Noah when he came out of the Ark. It was common to summarize those as 7 principles, often called the Noachic laws. Those are what non-Jews should do. Jesus never talked about this, because he was talking to Jews. But as non-Jews started becoming Christians, the early Christian leaders decided that the full legal code from the Law does not apply to them. This is described in Acts 15. See 15:19-20 for the standards they applied to non-Jews. Many interpreters say that these are based on the laws given to Noah as understood by 1st Cent rabbis. vs 29 gives a slightly more complete list.

So the Law as God's teaching is not done away with. But Jesus largely removed the strict legal code, replacing it with the law of love, and for non-jews the legal code didn't apply in the first place. But Jesus' fulfillment was of the Law and the Prophets, i.e. the whole OT. He finally did what God had been promising his people throughout their history that he would eventually do.

TheWorriedOne said:

So what do I do about my vow?

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Confess to God that you made a rash vow. It's rash because anyone who knows teenagers would know that you almost certainly couldn't keep it (and many of us would have told you that masturbation isn't much of a problem in the first place), Jesus told us not to make vows, and you were young enough not to understand the full implications of your vow. You ask God's forgiveness, and after that you are released from the vow. It's no different from God forgiving you for anything else.

I don't believe there's any official procedure for being released from a vow. The Book of Concord (the primary confessional authority for your church) looks at monastic vows, which share many of the features of your vow, and says simply that they are null and void. Lev 5 has you go before a priest and sacrifice, but of course sacrifice is no longer used for Christians.

However I think you'll feel better if someone who is in authority over you is involved. It's not needed, but having a parent, a pastor, etc, assure you that you're really OK will probably make you feel better.

Incidentally, I do believe you should normally keep your promises. I say promises and not vows, because I think Jesus said that you shouldn't vow. A simple promise should be enough. It's important for people to be able to trust you. The problem here is that you made a promise that an adult would have realized would get you in trouble. I want to make sure that you don't cite me as an authority when you promise to do something for your parents and don't However even then, I'm quite sure your parents will forgive you when you fail (which you surely will from time to time), and that if you find something is too difficult to do, they'll let you out of the promise.

Focus on your relationship with God, pray and talk to Him and open your heart to the Lord. We need to fear God, but don't be too scared to talk to Him, seek him with a humble heart and He will heal you. God will forgive if you repent from your ways and truly seek Him. I have made silly vows like this before when i was a teenager, i call them silly because a) i wasnt able to keep the vow, and when i failed i just continued the cycle, and b) because it was me trying to control things, like i was trying to prove i was strong enough to defeat temptation without God. But what i learnt is that it doesnt work like this, to overcome sins in our life we must turn straight to God, and let Him take the sin away, all we have to do is trust Him and be willing to change. Its not about our willpower, its about trusting God, and letting Him take control. Pray each day, and hand it over to God. We need to allow Him to take the sin away, and not try and do it all by ourselves. By all means discipline and perseverence are important, but only through God.

TheWorriedOne said:

Wait can you do me a favor? I looked up the Book of Concord and the part about vows and it was a big thing that was complex so could you look it up find the part about exemption of vows and put it in Laymans terms.

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I just went through that section of the Augsburg Confession. I agree that it's a bit wordy. Here are the objections I see to monastic vows. I've put a + next to the ones that I think apply to your situation. ? are two things that may apply, depending upon why you made the vow. I suspect you may be putting too much importance on a fairly minor form of sexual purity. In that case the ? sections may apply in part. It is pretty clear that not every point applied to every person.

• + People taking them often didn't realize that they aren't going to be able to do them
• ? The vows were portrayed as too important, often being said to matter as much a baptism
• It was claimed that living by monastic vows made you better than other people
• The vows didn't allow marriage, but the Bible says that celibacy is something you have to be called to, and very few people are called
• + Many times people have been released from the vows. Generally it was done when they had obligations as rulers. But, the confession argues, if you're willing to release someone because of worldly needs, you should be more willing to release them when it creates "distress" for their souls.
• + Young men and women are pushed to take these vows before they understand the implications. Catholic law at the time said no vow before 15 or 18 is valid. (In today's culture we have somewhat extended adolescence. So the equivalent ages for us would be 18 or 22, I'd say.)
• If married people vow, their marriage is dissolved. This is wrong.
• Some monks teach the making a monastic vow merits grace. This violates jusiification by faith. What's worse, some teach they monks can give their merit to other people.
• ? They teach that only people under such vows are in a state of perfection. This places perfection in external works such as celibacy and poverty.

Conclusion: "All these things, since they are false and empty, make vows null and void."

Note particularly the statement that the Church should be willing to free people from vows when they cause "distress of souls." That is surely the effect your vow has had.

I would argue that OCD adds a complication. Augsburg sees vows made by those who are too young, or under compulsion, as void. But OCD tends to push people into irrational fear, and I think your vow (and also your excessive concern about masturbation) are a response to that. This problem is probably going to be with you even when you're over 18, although I trust you're getting treatment for OCD. I assume that in the future you'll be more careful about vows. But you could still end up doing this or something else later. I want to make sure that in a few years you don't get into a situation like this and say to yourself "I'm now over 18. There's no way out of my vow now. I'm dead." God won't do that to you. Really. A vow like you took is a promise to God. God isn't going to hold you to a promise that is harmful to you spiritually.

Incidentally, please make sure you read Mytel's comment just above.

I'm approaching this with you somewhat intellectually, and almost legally, because I'm trying to make sure that with your tendency to OCD you don't in the back of your mind think that there's no legal way out. This isn't how I'd prefer to deal. Jesus is not about legalism. He is about loving God and doing what is best for people. At this point you probably need a hug more than an exposition of Augsburg, but over the Internet I can do the exposition and I can't do the hug. Please do imagine that I've hugged you, though. You're a good guy trying to do what's best. God loves you.

TheWorriedOne said:

I think I finally am getting this ok so when I made my vow I wasn't suffering from symptoms of OCD at that time but I was extremely irrational because I thought masturbaition was a serious sin not that all sun isn't serious well you get what I'm saying and when I said the vow I thought I understood the consequences but didn't so God won't hold my vow against me.

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Right.

hedrick said:

Right.

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hedrick said:

Confess to God that you made a rash vow. It's rash because anyone who knows teenagers would know that you almost certainly couldn't keep it (and many of us would have told you that masturbation isn't much of a problem in the first place), Jesus told us not to make vows, and you were young enough not to understand the full implications of your vow. You ask God's forgiveness, and after that you are released from the vow. It's no different from God forgiving you for anything else.

I don't believe there's any official procedure for being released from a vow. The Book of Concord (the primary confessional authority for your church) looks at monastic vows, which share many of the features of your vow, and says simply that they are null and void. Lev 5 has you go before a priest and sacrifice, but of course sacrifice is no longer used for Christians.

However I think you'll feel better if someone who is in authority over you is involved. It's not needed, but having a parent, a pastor, etc, assure you that you're really OK will probably make you feel better.

Incidentally, I do believe you should normally keep your promises. I say promises and not vows, because I think Jesus said that you shouldn't vow. A simple promise should be enough. It's important for people to be able to trust you. The problem here is that you made a promise that an adult would have realized would get you in trouble. I want to make sure that you don't cite me as an authority when you promise to do something for your parents and don't However even then, I'm quite sure your parents will forgive you when you fail (which you surely will from time to time), and that if you find something is too difficult to do, they'll let you out of the promise.

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Hi, I know it's been a decade or so, but I do suffer from the same type of OCD, except the vow was different, it was about abstaining from marriage. I've been getting intrusive thoughts that goes like "I promise not to ...". It's so frightening, so it made me miserable. I've prayed and prayed to ask for forgiveness. However, one day, I got a rare chance to be joyful. I don't know what happened, but basically I was in a happy state of mind, and thoughts went on and SOMEHOW I ended up in the "I promise not to (marry)" thought. I'm pretty sure I tried to resist it by saying "I do not accept this thought in the name of Jesus Christ", but I can't be sure. I can't be sure of anything (part of OCD, but it all feels real). I can't be sure that I didn't mean it. But I know FOR SURE that I never wanted to make that vow prior and after that "incident". Since I can't be sure of what exactly happened, I shifted my focus onto forgiveness.

I went through the same stages as this person, going through scriptures like a mad man. Leviticus 5, Leviticus 27 and Numbers 30 are the comforting ones, because it gives me the chance to confess, repent and be released from these vows. These are mostly in the OT. In the NT however, there's a lot of talks about freedom and forgiveness in Christ. I'm just not sure if that applies to situations like mine. Do you think you can provide some insights into this?

I understand that integrity is important, but the problem is I don't even know if I made it in the first place. I can't just live the rest of my life in misery over assuming that I DID make the vow. It hurts me so much to even think about it.