no longer under the law?

Clare73

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The laws that people consider to be ceremonial vary from person to person. For example, I've spoken with a number of people who have stated that the Ten Commandments are the moral law of God while all of the other laws are ceremonial laws that were nailed to the cross.
Some people have a more nuanced view where they consider laws like those against homosexual sex, inappropriate behavior with animals, rape, kidnapping, showing favoritism, and loving our neighbor to also be moral laws, so I was not saying that we can't describe God's laws as being moral or ceremonial, but that the Bible does not give an official list of which laws are ceremonial and never even refers to those categories.
Strawman. . .does not nullify the concept.

There is a somewhat common understanding in Christian Bible churches of what is meant by "ceremonial laws."

No one claims the words "ceremonial laws" came from Scripture.
 
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Clare73

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I've given many verses from Jesus, the Apostles, and the rest of the Bible that show that knowing Jesus is the goal of the law, so are you denying the truth of those verses?
I don't see any such verses presented here.

Just more cutting and pasting. . .
.
 
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Soyeong

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Strawman. . .does not nullify the concept.

There is a somewhat common understanding in Christian Bible churches of what is meant by "ceremonial laws."

No one claims the words "ceremonial laws" came from Scripture.

I didn't deny that there was a concept of ceremonial laws. People are free to categorize God's laws however they want, such as categorizing them based on which part of the body is most commonly used to obey/disobey them, but just because we can categorize God's laws in a particular manner does not establish that any of the the authors of the Bible categorized them in the same manner. If we assume that they are referring to categories that we have created without establishing that they categorized God's laws in the same manner, then we are reading our position into the text rather than deriving our position from the text, and are running into error.

The biggest problem with the subcategories of moral and ceremonial law is the implication that the laws that you've personally decided are ceremonial are not moral laws and are therefore moral to disobey. However, there are no examples on the Bible of any of God's laws bring treating as being moral to disobey. Rather, morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to obey God, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws. The subcategories that are used by the Bible do not carry any sort of implication of some subcategories being moral while others are moral to disobey, so the subcategories of moral and ceremonial law have no correspondence to Scripture.


I don't see any such verses presented here.

Just more cutting and pasting. . .
.

In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who were workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so again the goal of the law is to teach us how to know Christ. Likewise, in 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Christ, but don't obey his commands are liars and the truth is not them, and in 1 John 3:4-6, sin is the transgression of God's law, and those who continue to practice sin have neither seen or known him. In Matthew 19:17, the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments, and in John 17:3, eternal life is knowing God and Jesus. In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6 they did now know God and refused to know Him because in 9:13, they had forsaken the Mosaic Law. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by showing him His ways that he might know Him, and God has revealed His ways through the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Isaiah 2:2-3, Joshua 22:5). Knowing Jesus is a requirement for salvation.
 
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Andrewn

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While we are under the New Covenant and not the Mosaic Covenant, we are nevertheless still under the same God with the same nature and therefore the same laws for how to testify about His nature. The way to testify about God's nature is straightforwardly based on God's nature, not on any particular covenant, and God's nature is eternal, so any instructions that God has ever given for how to do that are eternally valid regardless of which covenant someone is under, if any. For example, it was sinful to commit adultery in Genesis 39:9 long before the Mosaic Covenant was made, during it, and after it has become obsolete, so there is nothing about any of God's covenants being made or become obsolete that changes which actions are in accordance with or against His nature.
If this is what you believe then you should have agreed with me a long time ago when I wrote that the moral commands in the Torah are eternal and that Jesus was completing the law. But you chose, instead of agreeing, to continue defending the ceremonial laws. Now you don't get the right to use the moral law as example. Defend following the ceremonial laws if you can.

The Israelites were given instructions while they were still wandering the desert that they were only supposed to follow once they had entered the land, having laws that can't currently be followed does not mean that they disappear, and there is nothing wrong with not following laws that can't currently be followed. God's laws didn't go anywhere after the destruction of 1st temple, so there is nothing about the destruction of the 2nd temple that means that they have disappeared. When the Israelites were in exile in Babylon, the condition for their return to the land was to first return to obedience to God's law, which required them to have access to the temple, which they didn't have while they were in exile, so when there are laws that can't be followed, then God honors it when we are nevertheless faithful to obey as much as we can.
Do you mean that Jesus' sacrifice was not the ultimate and eternal sacrifice? Are you looking forward to slaughtering animals in a temple? Do you look forward to practicing OT polygamy and slavery and to stoning adulterers in the streets of Tel Aviv, which at this point in history is one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world? Are you for murdering those who do not keep the Sabbath?

If your Torah following boils down to circumcising your kids, not eating pork, and taking Saturday off work, then this is up to you. But Jesus' Apostles said:

Act 15:28 For it was the Holy Spirit’s decision—and ours—not to place further burdens on you beyond these requirements: 29 that you abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. You will do well if you keep yourselves from these things.

Farewell.”
 
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Clare73

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I didn't deny that there was a concept of ceremonial laws. . .just because we can categorize God's laws in a particular manner does not establish that any of the the authors of the Bible categorized them in the same manner.
Strawman. . .non-responsive.
we are reading our position into the text rather than deriving our position from the text,
Textbook example of the pot calling the kettle black.
the laws that you've personally decided are ceremonial are not moral laws and are therefore moral to disobey.
Piggy-backing the ceremonial laws on the moral laws won't legitimize the ceremonial laws.

So childbirth is still defiling? Marital sex is defiling?
However, there are no examples on the Bible of any of God's laws bring treating as being moral to disobey.
. . .In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who were workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so again the goal of the law is to teach us how to know Christ. Likewise, in 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Christ, but don't obey his commands are liars and the truth is not them, and in 1 John 3:4-6, sin is the transgression of God's law, and those who continue to practice sin have neither seen or known him. In Matthew 19:17, the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments, and in John 17:3, eternal life is knowing God and Jesus. In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6 they did now know God and refused to know Him because in 9:13, they had forsaken the Mosaic Law. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by showing him His ways that he might know Him, and God has revealed His ways through the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Isaiah 2:2-3, Joshus 22:5
So, in all the above cases, those who were not in obedience to the laws regarding childbirth, marital sex, menstruation, houses, garments, food, etc., etc., etc. are in disobedience to God's law and are liars. . .got it.

Run, Forest, run!
.
 
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Soyeong

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If this is what you believe then you should have agreed with me a long time ago when I wrote that the moral commands in the Torah are eternal and that Jesus was completing the law. But you chose, instead of agreeing, to continue defending the ceremonial laws. Now you don't get the right to use the moral law as example. Defend following the ceremonial laws if you can.

If God has given non-moral laws, then it can be moral to disobey God, but I do not see any grounds for thinking that it can ever be moral to disobey God, and for someone to think that it can be moral to disobey God is to think that in those instances they have greater moral knowledge than God. Rather, morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to obey God, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws. The Bible never specifies any laws as being moral or ceremonial and never even refers to those subcategories, so there is no biblical basis for putting God's laws into those categories in order to distinguish between them, and without and official list laws that the Bible considers to be ceremonial, then any doctrine based on that subcategory is reading into the text rather than being derived from the text.

In 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to have a holy conduct for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to have a holy conduct, which is includes keeping God's Sabbaths holy (Leviticus 19:2-3) and refraining from eating unclean animals (Leviticus 11:44-45), which or may not be ceremonial laws depending on who I ask. Following those laws is testifying that we believe that God is holy. In 1 Peter 2:9-10, Gentiles are included as part of God's chosen people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, and a treasure of God's own possession, which are terms used to describe Israel (Deuteronomy 7:6), so Gentiles also have the delight of getting to obey the instructions that God gave to Israel for how to fulfill those roles. It is contradictory for a Gentile to want to become part of a holy nation while wanting nothing to do with following God's instructions for how to live as a holy nation, or for a Gentile to want to become a follower of Christ while not wanting to follow Christ's example of obedience to those laws.

Do you mean that Jesus' sacrifice was not the ultimate and eternal sacrifice? Are you looking forward to slaughtering animals in a temple? Do you look forward to practicing OT polygamy and slavery and to stoning adulterers in the streets of Tel Aviv, which at this point in history is one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world? Are you for murdering those who do not keep the Sabbath?

I did not deny that Jesus' sacrifice was the ultimate and eternal sacrifice. Do you think that David was expressing an incorrect view of the law when he said that he repeatedly said that he loved God's law and delighted in obeying it or that Paul was wrong to delight in it (Romans 7:22), or should we find God's laws distasteful? Can God not be trusted to give good laws that are for our own good in order to guide us in how to rightly live? Was God wrong to command the death penalty for breaking the Sabbath? Jesus gave himself to pay the penalty for our sins, so it would be unjust to enforce a penalty that has already been paid. Still the fact that God considers breaking the Sabbath to be worthy of the death penalty and the fact that Jesus gave himself to pay that penalty should make us want to go and sin no more by living in obedience to His law.

If your Torah following boils down to circumcising your kids, not eating pork, and taking Saturday off work, then this is up to you. But Jesus' Apostles said:

Act 15:28 For it was the Holy Spirit’s decision—and ours—not to place further burdens on you beyond these requirements: 29 that you abstain from food offered to idols, from blood, from eating anything that has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. You will do well if you keep yourselves from these things.

Farewell.”

Either those four laws are an exhaustive list of everything that would ever be required for a mature Gentile believer or they are not. There are 1,050 commandments in the NT, so if they were an exhaustive list, then that would exclude over 99% of the commandments in the NT, including the greatest two commandments. The moment you try to say that other laws are included is the moment that the list no longer has any power to limit which laws Gentiles should follow. It seems clear to me that it was not intended to be an exhaustive list for mature believers, but as stated, it was a list not to make things too difficult for new believers, which they excused by saying that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses every Sabbath in the synagogues (Acts 15:21). Furthermore, those four laws are all in regard to prohibiting pagan practices, so it could be argued that they are all ceremonial laws.
 
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Andrewn

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If God has given non-moral laws, then it can be moral to disobey God, but I do not see any grounds for thinking that it can ever be moral to disobey God, and for someone to think that it can be moral to disobey God is to think that in those instances they have greater moral knowledge than God. Rather, morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to obey God, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws.
The problem is your definition of God's law. Thank you for taking the time to reply. Sorry, but I find this logic so utterly out of place. You can live with the rules you like but when you start killing people who are gay or living together or are not keeping the sabbath and start keeping slaves, you will be prosecuted for it in any place except Islamic State (ISIS) territory.

Furthermore, those four laws are all in regard to prohibiting pagan practices, so it could be argued that they are all ceremonial laws.
Sounds like you might have got my point: these are the only ceremonial laws to follow.

You mounted a good defense of the Torah. But then you wanted to apply it to the entire Torah, which is impossible. You should have been satisfied with your gains and accepted the plea offer. :)
 
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Soyeong

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The problem is your definition of God's law. Thank you for taking the time to reply. Sorry, but I find this logic so utterly out of place. You can live with the rules you like but when you start killing people who are gay or living together or are not keeping the sabbath and start keeping slaves, you will be prosecuted for it in any place except Islamic State (ISIS) territory.

God's law straightforwardly consists of the laws that God has given. What is your poriblem with my definition?

You're welcome. Sorry if I was not clear. A problem is the subcategories of moral, civil, and ceremonial law is the implication that God's laws only fit into one of those three categories when in reality all of them fit into multiple of those categories. For example, laws against kidnapping and rape are laws that are not part of the Ten Commandments, yet they are both in regard to moral and civil issues. The whole point of the division into those subcategories is to try to say that we still need to follow the moral laws, but not the civil and ceremonial laws, yet there is no standard given for how to determine whether or not a particular law is moral. If its only immoral to disobey the moral laws and not the civil or ceremonial laws, then it is moral to disobey law that God has given, but I don't see any grounds for thinking that it can ever be moral to disobey God.

The Bible doesn't permit people to go around killing people that we see breaking the law, but rather it requires there to be due process with a judge doing a thorough investigation and wit no one being put to death without at least two or three witnesses. False witnesses were given the same penalty that the person they testified against would have gotten if they had been found guilty (Deuteronomy 19). In Numbers 35:31, it specifies that there is no ransom permitted in the case of a murderer, so the exception proves the rule that a ransom is permitted in other cases, so people were usually fined instead. So there were checks in place that made executions rare and a Sanhedrin that executed someone once in 70 years was considered to be murderous.

Sounds like you might have got my point: these are the only ceremonial laws to follow.

Most people that I've spoke with argue against Gentiles being requires to follow ceremonial law or commonly say that the ceremonial laws were nailed to the cross, but don't have a standard for which laws are ceremonial or which of the ceremonials laws have exceptions. In any case, the four laws listed are clearly not an exhaustive list of everything that would ever be required.

You mounted a good defense of the Torah. But then you wanted to apply it to the entire Torah, which is impossible. You should have been satisfied with your gains and accepted the plea offer. :)

Jesus warned those who would relax the last part of the Torah or teach others to do the same. In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Torah, so the NT does not do this.
 
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Andrewn

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God's law straightforwardly consists of the laws that God has given. What is your poriblem with my definition?
In your definition all 613 laws are permanent. This is neither upheld by Christians nor by Rabbinic Jews. Your definition makes your cultural worldview very close to that of ISIS and radical Islam. But, even in Islam, there are voices for modernization and President el-Sisi of Egypt has frequently advocated for "renewing religious discourse." God's commands are not static but rather teach people how to live in their time period and social milieu. But Jesus has done this already. He has renewed the rigorous discourse already and has done a lot more than that.

https://www.sis.gov.eg/Story/107014?lang=en-us

A problem is the subcategories of moral, civil, and ceremonial law is the implication that God's laws only fit into one of those three categories when in reality all of them fit into multiple of those categories. For example, laws against kidnapping and rape are laws that are not part of the Ten Commandments, yet they are both in regard to moral and civil issues.
@Clare73 has defined ceremonial laws as follows: "the ceremonial laws are the sacrifices; the clean and unclean foods, garments, houses, persons; the cleansings; the feasts; the years; the Temple; the Aaronic priesthood, the Mosaic lawgiver/mediator; corban, etc."

We also need to distinguish a moral law such as "do not commit adultery" from a civil law such as 'stone the adulterers' or 'do not eat lobster' or 'circumcise newborn males.' It's usually easy to see which rules are moral, civil, or ceremonial. Christians and Rabbinic Jews have already made this distinction and adapted the commands to their cultural circumstances.

So there were checks in place that made executions rare and a Sanhedrin that executed someone once in 70 years was considered to be murderous.
This is only bec Israel was not an independent nation during 2nd temple period (except for a few years under the Maccabees). Foreign powers forced their generally more civilized laws on the Jewish population. But we still read in the NT about Jews attempting to kill an adulteress and killing Steven and James.

Most people that I've spoke with argue against Gentiles being requires to follow ceremonial law or commonly say that the ceremonial laws were nailed to the cross, but don't have a standard for which laws are ceremonial or which of the ceremonials laws have exceptions.
I've seen people argue that Paul permitted eating meat sacrificed to pagan deities. But this would be against the Jerusalem Council guidelines. In fact, I currently struggle with whether or not I should eat meat labelled "Halal," which is sacrificed to the Islamic deity.

Jesus warned those who would relax the last part of the Torah or teach others to do the same. In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Torah, so the NT does not do this.
Again, this brings us back to what commands exactly did Jesus mean. the Bible says that God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger, so I think they're eternal. Other commands are also useful guidelines of behavior. But I will refuse to own slaves even if ISIS, or you, think it's God's command.
 
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Butterball1

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The Bible never refers to moral or ceremonial laws. Works of the law and the law of sin are separate categories of law that are not part of the Mosaic Law. In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus specifically said that he came not to abolish the law and warned against relaxing the least part of it or teaching other to do the same, so saying that he removed even the least part of it is calling him a liar and disregarding his warning.

On other forums in years gone by I have debated with various individuals who claim the OT law of Sabbath keeping is still binding today upon Christians. To which I reply that Christ took ALL the OT out of the way including the 10 commandments therefore Sabbath keeping is not part of NT Christianity. To which THEY replied that Christ took only ceremonial laws of the OT out of the way leaving moral laws of the OT in place thus leaving the 10 commandments in place. So the idea of ceremonial vs moral came from THEM not me. I simply point out in Romans for example, Paul made no distinction...Romans 3:28 men today are saved by NT faith NOT by deeds of the OT law. The OT law does not save today and we today are not obligated to keep any of it.

Side note; those who claim Jesus took only OT ceremonial laws out of the way leaving moral laws of the OT was their attempt to keep the 10 commandments binding today. Yet I see Sabbath keeping more a ceremonial law rather than moral law.

One purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to remove the OT law that separated Jew from Gentile and set up His NT gospel where both Jew and Gentile are one in Christ, Ephesians 2:13-18. Therefore Matthew 5:17-19 does not contradict this.

This context (Matthew 5:17-19) shows HOW Christ would tae the OT out of the way. Christ would NOT take the OT law out of the way by destruction of it but instead Christ would take it out of the way by fulfilling it....there is contrast made between "destroy" and "fulfil". Jesus got rid of the OT law NOT by destroying it NOT by being a adversary to it and overthrowing it. Yet Jesus got rid of the OT law by fulfilling it. Example, when you make the last payment on a car note then you fulfilled the loan agreement and it comes to an end, ceases to exist, it's no longer active, it does not perpetually continue on and on nor are you perpetually bound by it. You did not end the loan contract by ignoring it, destroying it, tearing it into pieces but you fulfilled it by abiding by its terms. Christ was not an adversary to the law ignoring the law or by tearing it into pieces but He loved it and kept it abiding to its terms and by fulfilling it He ended it. If Christ did not take the OT out of the way then ALL of it, every jot and tittle, is binding on us today yet Christ DID take it out of the way through fulfillment of it NOT by destruction of it.

Further reading:
Did Christ Abolish the Law of Moses?
 
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Andrewn

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I simply point out in Romans for example, Paul made no distinction...Romans 3:28 men today are saved by NT faith NOT by deeds of the OT law. The OT law does not save today and we today are not obligated to keep any of it.
But you agree that we must follow that 2 commandments of love. And several times (I can quote them if you wish) Jesus said whoever loves Him must keep His commandments. Was He referring to the 2 commandments of love? It doesn't make sense that He was because then He would be saying whoever loves me must love me!!!

And you say that if you love your neighbor you would automatically follow whatever is necessary in OT commandments. But you will be allowing pre-marital sex and gay sex, and all sorts of "loving" relationships perhaps including polygamy. And actually, loving God and your neighbor, will lead you to take the Sabbath off work in order to spend the day in prayer and promote relationship with your family, friends, and neighbors.

One purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to remove the OT law that separated Jew from Gentile and set up His NT gospel where both Jew and Gentile are one in Christ, Ephesians 2:13-18.
You should add to this teaching Gentile moral precepts, commandments.

This context (Matthew 5:17-19) shows HOW Christ would tae the OT out of the way. Christ would NOT take the OT law out of the way by destruction of it but instead Christ would take it out of the way by fulfilling it....there is contrast made between "destroy" and "fulfil". Jesus got rid of the OT law NOT by destroying it NOT by being a adversary to it and overthrowing it. Yet Jesus got rid of the OT law by fulfilling it.
Where do you read that Jesus fulfilled the Law perfectly by offering animal sacrifices and stoning sinners?
 
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Butterball1

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Paul never stopped identifying as either a Jew (Acts 21:39, 22:3) or as Pharisee (Acts 23:6). Jesus is Jesus did not come to start his own religion following a different God, but rather he came to bring fullness to Judaism as its Jewish Messiah in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. Christ practiced Judaism by living in sinless obedience to the Torah and he taught his followers how to practice it by word and by example, so it doesn't make sense to think that the Law of Christ was something other than what Christ taught. In Acts 21:20, they were rejoicing that tens of thousands of Jews were coming to faith who were all zealous for the Torah, so Jews who were coming to faith were not ceasing to obey it and were not considering themselves to be converting to a different religion. In Acts 21:20-24, Paul took steps to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against the Torah and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it, so all Christians were Torah observant Jews for roughly the first 7-15 years after Christ's resurrection up until the inclusion of Gentiles in Acts 10, so Christianity at its origin was the form of Judaism that recognized Jesus as its prophases Messiah.

All throughout the Bible, God wanted His people to repent and to return to obedience to His law, and even Christ began his ministry with that message, so it doesn't make sense to interpret Galatians 5:4 as Paul warning us against following Christ and saying that we will be cut off from Christ if we follow Christ. In Psalms 119:29, David wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, so that is how God is gracious to us, not the way to fall form grace. Paul's problem in Galatians was not with those who were teaching Gentiles how to follow Christ, but with those who were wanting to require Gentiles to obey their works of the law in order to become justified.

In Romans 7:22, Paul delighted in obeying God's law, but contrasted that with the law of sin that held him captive, so if Romans 7:4-6 were referring to God's law, then that would mean that Paul was speaking against obeying a law that he delighted in obeying, that he delighted in stirring up sinful passions in order to bear fruit unto death, and that he delighted in being held captive, which is absurd, but rather it is the law of sin that he described as holding him captive.



The Mosaic Law is the commandments of God, so unless you are only interested in quote mining, Paul saying that circumcision has not value and that what matters is obeying the commandments of God could not be interpreted as saying that the commandments of God count for nothing. Paul also said that circumcision has much value in every way (Romans 3:1-2) and he conditionally said that circumcision has value if we obey the Mosaic Law (Romans 2:25), so it should be clear that there are conditions where circumcision has value and where it does not, and the deciding factor is whether we obey the Mosaic Law. In Romans 2:26, the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by their obedience to the Mosaic Law, which is the same way to tell for a Jew. Our salvation is from sin and God's law is how we know what sin is (1 John 3:4), so it is contradictory for someone to think that they need salvation from living in transgression of God's law while also thinking that they aren't obligated to obey it.

Many Jews did keep the Mosaic Law, such as Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-6), so Paul calling out the hypocrisy of some Jews does not mean that all Jews were acting that way or that there were no Jews obeying the Mosaic Law. The fact that Paul was criticizing people for their hypocrisy does not negate what he said.



The same God who gave the law to Moses also sent Jesus, who set a sinless example for us to follow, and who did not hypocritically preach something other than what he practiced, so there is no disagreement. Jesus did not establish the New Covenant in order to undermine anything that he spent his ministry teaching by word or by example, but rather it still involves following the God's law (Hebrews 8:10).

The Israelites were given instructions for what to do once they had entered the land while they were still wandering the desert, so there is nothing wrong with not following laws that can't currently be followed. Likewise, when they were in exile in Babylon, the condition for their return to the land was to first return to obedience to His law, which required them to have access to the temple, which they didn't have while they were in exile, when if there is a law that we can't obey, then God honors it when we are faithful to obey as much as we can. In Deuteronomy 11:26-32, the difference between being under God's blessing or His curse is based on whether to we follow God or chase after others gods, not based on whether or not we have perfect obedience. Living in complete disobedience to God's law is not an available option to avoid coming under God's curse.



Paul was speaking about works of the law being bondage, not God's law. In Romans 3:31, Paul said that our faith upholds God's law, so there is a law that he spoke again and a law that he was in favor of keeping, and you don't bother to determine which law he was speaking about, then you are guaranteed to misunderstand him. In Galatians 4:8, Paul addressed those verses to those who formerly did not know God, so they were not formerly keeping God's law, which means that he could not have been criticizing them for returning to it. You should be more careful not to take something that was only said against man as being against obeying God.

The view that we have of the Mosaic Law matches the view that we have of the Lawgiver. For example, God is trustworthy, therefore His law is also trustworthy (Psalms 19:7), and a law that isn't trustworthy can't come from a God who is trustworthy. The Psalms express an extremely positive view of the Mosaic Law, which certainly matched his view of the Lawgiver, so if you have such a poor view of the Mosaic Law that you consider it to be bondage, then you must have an equally poor view of the Lawgiver. Paul also delighted in obeying God's law (Romans 7:22) and that is incompatible with viewing it as being bondage.



Everything in Romans 6 is speaking in favor of obedience to God and against sin. We need to die to sin in order to rise with Christ in newness of life in obedience God, not the other way around. God's law is His instructions for how to serve righteousness. It is completely absurd to think that is is sinful to obey God's law, especially when sin is defined as the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4). At no point was the man ever set free from needing to obey any of God's laws, so there is nothing that leads to the same conclusion that in the same way it now sinful to obey God's laws. It is absurd to think that we need to reject God's instructions for how to bear fruit for Him in order to be free to bear fruit for him, or to think that the way to have unity with Christ is by refusing to follow what he spent his ministry teaching by word and by example. Christ didn't teach any laws in the NT that weren't in accordance with the OT and he was not in disagreement with what the Father commanded.

In Romans 3:21-22, it does not say that the Law and the Prophets testify that the righteousness of God comes through perfect obedience, but rather they testify that it comes through faith in Christ for all who believe, so this has always been the one and only way to become righteous. Even if someone managed to live in perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law, then they still would not earn their justification because our justification is not something that can be earned as a wage (Romans 4:4-5), so that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of why we should obey God's law. It is not as though the fact that we aren't made righteous by obeying God means that we don't need to obey God.



Christ should be who guides Christians, and he taught obedience to the Mosaic Law by word and by example. When the NT teaches us to repent from our sins, it is teaching us to obey the Mosaic Law because it was given to teach what sin is. Hebrews 9:10 is referring to regulations in regard to the body, not to the carnal nature of God's law because carnal works are always those done in disobedience to it. For example, in Romans 8:4-7, those who walk in the Spirit are contrasted with those who have minds on the flesh who refuse to submit God's law. In Galatians 5:19-22, everything listed as carnal works that are against the Spirit are also against the Mosaic Law, while all of the fruits of the Spirit are in accordance with it. The time of the reformation is when conditions are restores to how they were in the Garden.


Paul identified himself as being born a Jew but he never said that as a convert to Christianity he was still bound to keep the OT law nor did he command others to keep it. Acts 21 Paul gives account to the Jews as to what God had done among the Gentiles, God used Paul to go to the Gentiles. Those Christian Jews were happy and pleased with what took place among the Gentiles. Verse 20 many Jews had converted to Christianity and it appears some were still keeping the OT law as a matter of custom not out of command,necessity:

Yet Paul had by this time (Acts 20) written Romans and Galatians, books that made it clear that Christians-even Christians of a Jewish background were no longer under the Law of Moses (Romans 7:1).
Galatians 3:25 "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor". And equally, that continued observance of the Law in order to find favor with God (like circumcision, or observing days), would result in falling from grace (Galatians 5:1-4).

One can be zealous for the Law without continuing to observe the obsolete system (as the Hebrew writer calls it, (Hebrews 8:13)
That is, I still view it as the word of God and learn the lessons that it teaches (Romans 15:4).

One could continue to observe certain elements in the Law merely from the standpoint of custom. That is, circumcision was still allowed - simply as a surgical practice (1 Corinthians 7:19).
One could still go to Jerusalem during Passover or Pentecost and attend those feasts as one would attend any other national festival. One could go to the Jewish synagogue on the Sabbath in order to teach people, and one could still observe various food laws - simply as a matter of personal taste or conscience (Romans 14:1 (NAS) after all one did not have to eat pork if they did not want to.
"
Dunagan Comm.

=======

Romans 7 Paul is not saying he was PRESENTLY keeping the OT law. Romans 7:1-6 Paul points out it is sinful for the Christian to try and keep the NT gospel of Christ and the law of Moses at the same time, a spiritual adultery, like the adulteress woman keeping 2 husbands at the same time. Paul pointed out earlier in Romans one is justified by faith NOT by deeds of the OT law. Here in Rom 7 he shows the way for the Christian to serve Christ is to get out from serving the OT law that was a yoke of bondage in requiring flawless, perfect law keeping to be justified. Paul as a Christian struggles with sin and in the remainder of Rom 7 Paul showed himself as Saul, a non-Christian Jew struggling to meet the perfect, flawless demands the OT required. He loved the OT law and tried to keep it perfectly but would always fail. Paul contrasts his life back then as a non-Christian Jew under the law and condemend by that OT law for not keeping it perfectly to "NOW" being a Christian in Christ where there is no conedemnation Romans 8:1.


======

The OT law itself did require perfect flawless law keeping to be jsutified by it. One sin and a person was under the curse of that law (Galatians 3:10) for the OT law showed no mercy, but condemned. Because of this perfect, flawless law keeping required by the OT law of Moses, Paul says of the OT law
"And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them." Again, when it came to justification under the OT law faith did not matter, for what did matter is keeping the OT law perfectly. doing the law, Leviticus 18:5....do the law and live. Yet the Jew could not keep and live in the law perfectly therefore Paul says "no man is justified by the law in the sight of God" because again the Jew xould not keep it perfectly. But one is now under the NT justified by faith, Galatians 3:11. Therefore there is no reason for anyone today suggest people keep ANY of the OT law for keeping the OT law CANNOT justify anyone.
 
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Butterball1

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But you agree that we must follow that 2 commandments of love. And several times (I can quote them if you wish) Jesus said whoever loves Him must keep His commandments. Was He referring to the 2 commandments of love? It doesn't make sense that He was because then He would be saying whoever loves me must love me!!!

If one follows the commandments of love, one will keep Christ's NT commandments.

Andrewn said:
And you say that if you love your neighbor you would automatically follow whatever is necessary in OT commandments. But you will be allowing pre-marital sex and gay sex, and all sorts of "loving" relationships perhaps including polygamy. And actually, loving God and your neighbor, will lead you to take the Sabbath off work in order to spend the day in prayer and promote relationship with your family, friends, and neighbors.


Christ nor any Apostle commanded men today to keep the OT law of Moses...men were condemned (Galatians and Hebrews epistles) for leaving the NT and going back to the OT law. Keeping the OT law CANNOT justify so why keep a law that CANNOT justify?

Andrewn said:
You should add to this teaching Gentile moral precepts, commandments.
Christian converts, whether Jew or Gentile, are to keep Christ's NT moral precepts and commandments and NOT the OT law of Moses.

Andrewn said:
Where do you read that Jesus fulfilled the Law perfectly by offering animal sacrifices and stoning sinners?
If Jesus did not keep the OT law perfectly then He sinned, was a sinner and could not be a perfect sacrifice for sin thereby His death means nothing to those who are sinners in need of forgiveness.
 
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Andrewn

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If Jesus did not keep the OT law perfectly then He sinned, was a sinner and could not be a perfect sacrifice for sin thereby His death means nothing to those who are sinners in need of forgiveness.
The interesting thing is that both you and @Soyeong agree that the Torah is a single whole that should be followed or disregarded in toto. According to this definition Jesus sinned by not offering animal sacrifices, by breaking the Sabbath, and by not stoning the adulteress.

Your ideas have dire theological consequences.

Keeping the OT law CANNOT justify so why keep a law that CANNOT justify?
Nobody disagrees with this. You don't have to keep beating that poor straw man :).

By the way, Jesus said that he came not to abolish but to pleroo. Plz check what pleroo means bec it's not what you think.
 
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Butterball1

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The interesting thing is that both you and @Soyeong agree that the Torah is a single whole that should be followed or disregarded in toto. According to this definition Jesus sinned by not offering animal sacrifices, by breaking the Sabbath, and by not stoning the adulteress.

Your ideas have dire theological consequences.


Nobody disagrees with this. You don't have to keep beating that poor straw man :).

By the way, Jesus said that he came not to abolish but to pleroo. Plz check what pleroo means bec it's not what you think.

When the OT law was still in effect, it did require perfect, flawless law keeping in order to be justified by it. Jesus did keep it perfectly in every way, else He was a sinner Himself. When Jesus was born, the OT law was still in effect so Jesus was born under that law (Galatians 4:4-5) and He was born to redeem them that were under the OT law. He kept it perfectly (Matthew 5:17; John 8:29) none could justly accuse Him of breaking the OT law (John 8:46). Whatever the OT law required Jesus kept it. It was prophesied He would be sinless (Isaiah 53:9) and the NT attests to the fact He was sinless (1 John 3:5; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 Peter 1:18-19) men could not be made righteous by the righteousness of Christ (Romans 5:18) if Christ was not righteous Himself. So any claim Jesus committed sin against the OT law is totally false.

Again, Christ DID for a fact take all the OT law out of the way, including the 10 commandments, replacing it with His NT (Ephesians 2:13-19). Matthew 5:17 explains HOW He took it out of the way. He took it out of the way by fulfilling it, He did NOT take it out of the way by destroying it.

You say Jesus "came not to abolish" but Ephesians 2:14-15 says otherwise "For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;":

The Law Was Abolished
In addition to the points listed above, Paul clearly argues in his letter to the Ephesians that the “law of commandments contained in ordinances” was “abolished” by the death of Jesus upon the cross (Eph. 2:14-15).

The Greek term for “abolished” is katargeo. The word literally suggests the idea of reducing something to a state of inactivity.

Paul uses this term twice in Romans 7:2,6 showing that just as a wife is “discharged” from the law of her husband when he dies, even so, through the death of the body of Christ, men were “discharged” from the obligations of the Mosaic law.

That the law here contemplated is the law of Moses, including the ten commandments, is demonstrated by the reference to the tenth commandment in Romans 7:7 (cf. Ex. 20:17).

The harmony between Matthew 5:17-18, and Ephesians 2:15, is this. The purpose of the law of Moses was never to come to naught. Its original design would be perpetual.

On the other hand, as a legal code, it would be abolished — cancelled by the Savior’s sacrificial death (cf. Col. 2:14ff.).

And so, a consideration of all the facts leads only to the conclusion that Matthew 5:17 does not afford any support to those who maintain that the observance of the sabbath day is a divinely-required obligation for this age. (Wayne Jackson)
Did Christ Abolish the Law of Moses?

(my emp)
 
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Soyeong

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On other forums in years gone by I have debated with various individuals who claim the OT law of Sabbath keeping is still binding today upon Christians. To which I reply that Christ took ALL the OT out of the way including the 10 commandments therefore Sabbath keeping is not part of NT Christianity. To which THEY replied that Christ took only ceremonial laws of the OT out of the way leaving moral laws of the OT in place thus leaving the 10 commandments in place. So the idea of ceremonial vs moral came from THEM not me. I simply point out in Romans for example, Paul made no distinction...Romans 3:28 men today are saved by NT faith NOT by deeds of the OT law. The OT law does not save today and we today are not obligated to keep any of it.

If Christ had taken all of the OT out of the way, then he would have undermined everything that he taught during his ministry and the point of the cross. Jesus is the exact expression of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so the only way that he could abolished instructions for how to testify about God's nature would be if he had first abolished Himself. I agree that Paul made no distinction between moral and ceremonial laws and that we do not earn our salvation by obeying God's law, however, the fact that we do not earn our salvation by obeying God does not mean that we are not obligated to obey God. God's law can be obeyed for purposes other than earning our salvation, especially because it was never given as a means of doing that, so verses that speak against that like Romans 3:28 should not be mistaken as saying that we are not obligated to keep God's law for some other reason such as faith, especially when Paul concluded in Romans 3:31 that our faith does not abolish our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Mosaic Law, so only those who have faith will obey it and will be justified by the same faith, which is why Paul could say in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified while denying in Romans 4:4-5 that our justification is something that can be earned as a wage, so the fact that we do not earn our salvation by obeying God does not mean that we aren't still obligated to obey God for some other reason.

Side note; those who claim Jesus took only OT ceremonial laws out of the way leaving moral laws of the OT was their attempt to keep the 10 commandments binding today. Yet I see Sabbath keeping more a ceremonial law rather than moral law.

Ya, they usually argue that the Sabbath shouldn't be considered to be a ceremonial law, but that is really a moot point because what is holy to God should not be profaned by man, so we would still be obligated to keep the Sabbath holy even if God had never commanded anyone to do that regardless of which category you want to place it.

One purpose of Jesus coming to earth was to remove the OT law that separated Jew from Gentile and set up His NT gospel where both Jew and Gentile are one in Christ, Ephesians 2:13-18. Therefore Matthew 5:17-19 does not contradict this.

Jesus denying that he came to abolish the law was denying that one of his purposes of coming to the earth was to abolish any laws. God did not make any mistakes when He gave the law, so He had no need to abolish His own eternal laws. God did not give any laws for the purpose of creating a dividing wall of hostility, but rather His law instructs us to love our neighbor as ourselves, so I don't see any reason to interpret Ephesians 2:14-15 as referring to any of God's laws.

This context (Matthew 5:17-19) shows HOW Christ would tae the OT out of the way. Christ would NOT take the OT law out of the way by destruction of it but instead Christ would take it out of the way by fulfilling it....there is contrast made between "destroy" and "fulfil". Jesus got rid of the OT law NOT by destroying it NOT by being a adversary to it and overthrowing it. Yet Jesus got rid of the OT law by fulfilling it. Example, when you make the last payment on a car note then you fulfilled the loan agreement and it comes to an end, ceases to exist, it's no longer active, it does not perpetually continue on and on nor are you perpetually bound by it. You did not end the loan contract by ignoring it, destroying it, tearing it into pieces but you fulfilled it by abiding by its terms. Christ was not an adversary to the law ignoring the law or by tearing it into pieces but He loved it and kept it abiding to its terms and by fulfilling it He ended it. If Christ did not take the OT out of the way then ALL of it, every jot and tittle, is binding on us today yet Christ DID take it out of the way through fulfillment of it NOT by destruction of it.

Further reading:
Did Christ Abolish the Law of Moses?

Jesus said he came to fulfill the law in contrast with saying that he came not to abolish it along with warning against relaxing the least part of the law, so fulfilling the law should not be interpreted as meaning essentially the same thing. In Galatians 5:14, loving our neighbor fulfills the entire law, so it refers to something that countless people have done and has nothing to do with Jesus doing something unique to take it out of the way. Likewise, in Galatians 6:2, bearing one another's burdens fulfills the Law of Christ and you should consistently interpret that in the same way that you interpret fulfilling the Law of Moses. In Romans 15:18-19, Paul fulfilled the Gospel, so again, not something done to take it out of the way.

There is nothing in the Bible that remotely describes the Mosaic Covenant as being a loan contract where if someone does a good enough of meeting its terms, then the contract is ended. Rather, the Mosaic Covenant is often described as a marriage contract between God and Israel, such as with God describing Himself as her husband (Jeremiah 31:32). A husband or a wife fulfilling their duties as a spouse does not cause their marriage contract to end. Christ did not take the OT out of the way, but rather there has never been someone else whose teaching were more throughout rooted in the OT.
 
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Butterball1

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If Christ had taken all of the OT out of the way, then he would have undermined everything that he taught during his ministry and the point of the cross. Jesus is the exact expression of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so the only way that he could abolished instructions for how to testify about God's nature would be if he had first abolished Himself. I agree that Paul made no distinction between moral and ceremonial laws and that we do not earn our salvation by obeying God's law, however, the fact that we do not earn our salvation by obeying God does not mean that we are not obligated to obey God. God's law can be obeyed for purposes other than earning our salvation, especially because it was never given as a means of doing that, so verses that speak against that like Romans 3:28 should not be mistaken as saying that we are not obligated to keep God's law for some other reason such as faith, especially when Paul concluded in Romans 3:31 that our faith does not abolish our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Mosaic Law, so only those who have faith will obey it and will be justified by the same faith, which is why Paul could say in Romans 2:13 that only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified while denying in Romans 4:4-5 that our justification is something that can be earned as a wage, so the fact that we do not earn our salvation by obeying God does not mean that we aren't still obligated to obey God for some other reason.



Ya, they usually argue that the Sabbath shouldn't be considered to be a ceremonial law, but that is really a moot point because what is holy to God should not be profaned by man, so we would still be obligated to keep the Sabbath holy even if God had never commanded anyone to do that regardless of which category you want to place it.



Jesus denying that he came to abolish the law was denying that one of his purposes of coming to the earth was to abolish any laws. God did not make any mistakes when He gave the law, so He had no need to abolish His own eternal laws. God did not give any laws for the purpose of creating a dividing wall of hostility, but rather His law instructs us to love our neighbor as ourselves, so I don't see any reason to interpret Ephesians 2:14-15 as referring to any of God's laws.



Jesus said he came to fulfill the law in contrast with saying that he came not to abolish it along with warning against relaxing the least part of the law, so fulfilling the law should not be interpreted as meaning essentially the same thing. In Galatians 5:14, loving our neighbor fulfills the entire law, so it refers to something that countless people have done and has nothing to do with Jesus doing something unique to take it out of the way. Likewise, in Galatians 6:2, bearing one another's burdens fulfills the Law of Christ and you should consistently interpret that in the same way that you interpret fulfilling the Law of Moses. In Romans 15:18-19, Paul fulfilled the Gospel, so again, not something done to take it out of the way.

There is nothing in the Bible that remotely describes the Mosaic Covenant as being a loan contract where if someone does a good enough of meeting its terms, then the contract is ended. Rather, the Mosaic Covenant is often described as a marriage contract between God and Israel, such as with God describing Himself as her husband (Jeremiah 31:32). A man fulfilling his duties as a husband does not cause His marriage contract to end. Christ did not take the OT out of the way, but rather there has never been someone else whose teaching were more throughout rooted in the OT.

When Christ was upon earth the OT law was still in effect (Hebrews 9:16-17) for the NT would not come into effect until some point after His death. Therefore He would not teach men to break the OT law for it was still active, in effect. When Jesus was on earth, He has been give "all power/authority" (Matthew 28:18) therefore during His personal earthly ministry He began prepping men for the change in law (Hebrews 7:12) that was about to occur and had the power/authority to initiate that change as seen in Matthew 5:27-28. He brought an end to the OT law by fulfilling it not by destroying it.

Luke 16:16 "the law and the prophests were UNTIL John", then the change in law began after John with Christ. Matthew 22:40 Jesus still respected the OT law, it was still in effect at this point in Matt 22. By saying those two commandments hang all the law and the prophets He was showing respect for the laws to those Jews who were present. But from Matthew 5 we saw Jesus had power to changed the OT law......"but I say unto you" but still respected it.

Jesus did for a fact 'abolish' the OT law Ephesians 2:14-15 but that does not imply the law was full of mistakes. The OT law was not meant to last, "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith." (Galatians 3:24-25) Before faith (NT) came men were shut up under the OT law (Galatians 3:23) meaning the law could not save/justify, it could not remove sin (Hebrews 10:4) hence the law "shut up" men, that is, it imprisoned men in sin. Yet later "THE faith" (NT system of faith) would be revealed by Christ when He came to earth and men would then be justified by that NT faith which the OT could not do. The OT law therefore was meant by God as a tutor to being men to Christ and NT jsutification therefore not meant to last. It served its purpose in bringing men to Christ then the "tutor" went away no longer needed. Again, why are we no longer uner a tutor (Galatians 3:25)? Galatians 3:26 "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." "For" of v26 is an explanatory preposition explaining why we are no longer under the OT tutor. For NT faith makes all, Jew and Gentile, children of God something the OT tutor could NOT do. GENTILES BETTER BE THANKFUL THE OT LAW IS GONE for it could not make them children of God.
 
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Soyeong

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Paul identified himself as being born a Jew but he never said that as a convert to Christianity he was still bound to keep the OT law nor did he command others to keep it. Acts 21 Paul gives account to the Jews as to what God had done among the Gentiles, God used Paul to go to the Gentiles. Those Christian Jews were happy and pleased with what took place among the Gentiles. Verse 20 many Jews had converted to Christianity and it appears some were still keeping the OT law as a matter of custom not out of command,necessity:

Jesus did not come to start his own religion, but rather he practiced Judaism by living in sinless obedience to the Torah, spent his ministry teaching how to obey it by word and by example, and being a follower of Christ is about following what he taught (1 John 2:6, 1 Peter 2:21-22), so Jews who became his followers were not converting to a different religion or ceasing to obey the Torah, but rather they were becoming zealous for it (Acts 21:20). I'm not seeing a good reason for you to assume that becoming a follower of Christ involves refusing to follow him. In Acts 21:20-24, Paul took stepes to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against the Torah and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. A Pharisees is a Torah observant sect of Judaism of which Paul identified as a member, and in Acts 24:14, he testified that he continued to believe in the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Torah and written in the Prophets.

It does not say that their obedience was a matter of custom and not our of command.

Yet Paul had by this time
(Acts 20) written Romans and Galatians, books that made it clear that Christians-even Christians of a Jewish background were no longer under the Law of Moses (Romans 7:1).
Galatians 3:25 "Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor". And equally, that continued observance of the Law in order to find favor with God (like circumcision, or observing days), would result in falling from grace (Galatians 5:1-4).


In 2 Peter 3:15-17, it says that Paul is difficult to understand, but that those who are ignorant and unstable twist his words to their own destruction and are carried away by the error of lawless men, so even in his day there were people who were misunderstanding passages like the ones you've listed as being against obeying God's law, but we can be confident that when Paul is correctly understood that he never did that. Someone who disregarded everything that their tutor taught them after they left would be missing the whole point of a tutor. All throughout the Bible, God wanted His people to repent and to return to obedience to His law, and even Christ began his ministry with that message, so it would be absurd to interpret Galatians 5:4 as Paul warning us against following Christ and saying that we will be cut off from Christ if we follow Christ. In Psalms 119:29, David wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, so that is what it means to be under grace, not the way to fall from grace. Paul's problem in Galatians was not with those who were teaching Gentiles how to follow Christ's example of obedience to the Mosaic Law, but with those who were wanting to require Gentiles to obey their works of the law in order to become justified.

One can be zealous for the Law without continuing to observe the obsolete system (as the Hebrew writer calls it, (Hebrews 8:13)
That is, I still view it as the word of God and learn the lessons that it teaches (Romans 15:4).

In Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant still involves following God's law, so while the Mosaic Covenant has become obsolete, God's eternal law did not become obsolete along with it. It was sinful to commit adultery in Genesis 39:9 before the Mosaic Covenant was made, during it, and after it has become obsolete, so there is nothing about it being made or becoming obsolete that changes which actions are righteous or sinful. It is worthless to learn lessons that have no practical application for how we should live our lives.

One could continue to observe certain elements in the Law merely from the standpoint of custom. That is, circumcision was still allowed - simply as a surgical practice (1 Corinthians 7:19).
One could still go to Jerusalem during Passover or Pentecost and attend those feasts as one would attend any other national festival. One could go to the Jewish synagogue on the Sabbath in order to teach people, and one could still observe various food laws - simply as a matter of personal taste or conscience (Romans 14:1 (NAS) after all one did not have to eat pork if they did not want to.
"
Dunagan Comm.

Paul did not have the authority to countermand God, so he should not be interpreted as trying to do that, and should not be followed instead of God even if that is what he was trying to do. God did not give his people any room to follow anyone who speaks against obeying any of His laws (Deuteronomy 4:2, 13:4-5).

While Paul said that circumcision has not value that what matters is obeying the commands of God (1 Corinthians 7:19), he also said that circumcision has much value in every way (Romans 3:1-2) and that circumcision conditionally has value if someone obeys the Mosaic Law (Romans 2:25), so the issue is not that circumcision has not value or great value, but that it has no inherent value as a special status, and its value is entirely derived from whether someone obeys the Mosaic Law. In Romans 2:26, the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by their obedience to the Mosaic Law, which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 10:12-16, 30:6), while the way to recognize that someone has an uncircumcised heart is by their refusal to obey it (Jeremiah 9:25-26, Acts 7:51-53).

The topic of Romans 14 stated in the first verse is in regard to how to handle disputable matters of opinion, not in regard to whether followers of God should follow God's commands, so nothing in the chapter should be interpreted as speaking against obeying God. Paul was not saying that we are free to commit murder, idolatry, theft, adultery, break the Sabbath, or disobey any of God's other commands just as as long as we are convinced in our own minds that it is ok, but rather that was only said in regard to things that are disputable matters of opinion. For example, God gave no command to fast twice a week, but that had become a common practice in the 1st century (Luke 18:12), so whether someone chooses to do that is a disputable matter of obedience, but God has commanded His people to refrain from eating unclean animals, so whether someone does that is a matter of obedience to God.

Romans 7 Paul is not saying he was PRESENTLY keeping the OT law. Romans 7:1-6 Paul points out it is sinful for the Christian to try and keep the NT gospel of Christ and the law of Moses at the same time, a spiritual adultery, like the adulteress woman keeping 2 husbands at the same time. Paul pointed out earlier in Romans one is justified by faith NOT by deeds of the OT law. Here in Rom 7 he shows the way for the Christian to serve Christ is to get out from serving the OT law that was a yoke of bondage in requiring flawless, perfect law keeping to be justified. Paul as a Christian struggles with sin and in the remainder of Rom 7 Paul showed himself as Saul, a non-Christian Jew struggling to meet the perfect, flawless demands the OT required. He loved the OT law and tried to keep it perfectly but would always fail. Paul contrasts his life back then as a non-Christian Jew under the law and condemend by that OT law for not keeping it perfectly to "NOW" being a Christian in Christ where there is no conedemnation Romans 8:1.

Sin is defined in the NT as the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), not as obedience to it. It completely absurd to interpret Romans 7:1-6 as Paul saying that it is sinful to follow Christ's example of obedience to God's law and that what God really wants from us is our disobedience. All throughout the Bible, God wanted His people to repent from their sins and to return to obedience to His law and never once was it the other way around. In Romans 7:22-23, Paul said that he delighted in obeying God's law, but contrasted it with a law of sin, which held him captive, so if Romans 7:4-6 were referring to God's law, then that would mean that Paul was speaking against obeying God, that he was speaking against obeying a law that he delighted in obeying, that he was saying the way to be united with Christ is by rejecting the way that he taught to be united with him, that Paul delighted in stirring up sinful passions in order to bear fruit unto death, and that he delighted in being held captive, which is all completely absurd, but rather it is the law of sin that he described as holding him captive. Furthermore, everything in Romans 6 is speaking in favor of obedience to God and against sin, not the other way around.

While Paul said in Roman 3:28 that we are justified by faith apart from works, he followed that up in verse 31 by saying that our faith does not abolish our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it, yet you are trying to use verse 28 to say the opposite.

The view that we have of the Mosaic Law matches the view that we have of the Lawgiver. For example, God is trustworthy, therefore His law is also trustworthy (Psalms 19:7), and a law that isn't trustworthy can't come from a God who is trustworthy, so to rely on the Mosaic Law is to rely on the Lawgiver. The Psalms express an extremely positive view of the Mosaic Law, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it an delighted in obeying it, which certainly matched his view of the Lawgiver, so if we consider the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express a correct view of the Mosaic Law, then we will share it, as Paul did (Romans 7:22), while view God's law as being bondage is expressing an extremely poor view of God and is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture.

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The OT law itself did require perfect flawless law keeping to be jsutified by it. One sin and a person was under the curse of that law (Galatians 3:10) for the OT law showed no mercy, but condemned. Because of this perfect, flawless law keeping required by the OT law of Moses, Paul says of the OT law
"And the law is not of faith: but, The man that doeth them shall live in them." Again, when it came to justification under the OT law faith did not matter, for what did matter is keeping the OT law perfectly. doing the law, Leviticus 18:5....do the law and live. Yet the Jew could not keep and live in the law perfectly therefore Paul says "no man is justified by the law in the sight of God" because again the Jew xould not keep it perfectly. But one is now under the NT justified by faith, Galatians 3:11. Therefore there is no reason for anyone today suggest people keep ANY of the OT law for keeping the OT law CANNOT justify anyone.

The Mosaic Law was never given as a means of earning our justification as a wage (Romans 4:4-5), so someone would not earn their justification even if they had managed to live in perfect obedience to it. That has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of why we should obey the Mosaic Law, which is why the NT repeatedly speaks against obeying for that reason, but that doesn't meant that we aren't obligated to obey it for the reasons for which it was given.

In Deuteronomy 11:26-32, the difference between being under God's blessing or His curse is based on whether we choose to follow God or chase after other gods, not based on whether or not we have perfect obedience. While everyone in the OT fell short of perfect obedience, everyone being under God's curse does not reflect the reality of what is recorded about those who served God, just those who chased after other gods. The law itself came with instructions for what to do when the people sinned, so perfect obedience was never a requirement. Repentance doesn't change the fact that we have fallen short of perfect obedience, so the fact that repentance has value means that we don't need perfect obedience. In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, it says that God's law is not too difficult to obey and that obedience brings life and a blessing while disobedience brings death and a curse, so choose life! So it was presented as a choice and as a possibility, not as the need for perfect obedience. Thinking that we are under a curse if we sin once would mean that God essentially gave the law with the goal of cursing His children, which is expressing an extremely poor opinion of God, when in reality it was given for our own good in order to bless us (Deuteronomy 6:24, 10:12-13).

In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Mosaic Law, so the Mosaic Law is of faith. In Romans 3:27, Paul contrasted a law that was of works with a law that was of faith, so works of the law are of works, while he said in 3:31 that our faith upholds the Mosaic Law, so again the Mosaic Law is of faith and Paul contrasted the Mosaic Law with works of the law. In Galatians 3:10-12, Paul associated a quote from Habakkuk 2:4 with a quote from Leviticus 18:5, so the righteous who are living by faith are the same as those who are living in obedience to the Mosaic Law, while no one is justified before God by works of the law because they are not of faith in God. It does not follow that because we do not earn out justification by obeying God that we therefore aren't obligated to obey God for some other reason, such as faith.
 
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Soyeong

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When Christ was upon earth the OT law was still in effect (Hebrews 9:16-17) for the NT would not come into effect until some point after His death. Therefore He would not teach men to break the OT law for it was still active, in effect. When Jesus was on earth, He has been give "all power/authority" (Matthew 28:18) therefore during His personal earthly ministry He began prepping men for the change in law (Hebrews 7:12) that was about to occur and had the power/authority to initiate that change as seen in Matthew 5:27-28. He brought an end to the OT law by fulfilling it not by destroying it.

The reason that Jesus established the New Covenant was not in order to undermine anything that he spent his ministry teach by word or by example, but rather the New Covenant still involves following the same law (Hebrews 8:10). We are instructed to follow Christ's example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligate to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:6), so the fact that he was under Mosaic Covenant does not give us any grounds to refuse to follow him. Likewise, in John 12:46-50, we don't have any ground to reject anything that Jesus taught during his ministry. We can look at the law Jesus taught by word and by example and decide whether or not to become his follower, but we can become his follower while refusing to follow him. Jesus was obligated to obey the law, including Deuteronomy 4:2, which prohibits adding or subtracting from the law, so he did not do any prep work for making changes to it, and he was not in disagreement with what the Father commanded, so he had no motivation to make any changes to it even if that was something that he could have done without disqualifying himself as our Savior. In John 14:24, he said that his teachings were no this own, but that of the Father, so he did not depart from what the Father has taught. The command not to look at a woman with lust in our hearts is just the correct application of the 7th and 10th Commandments, not making a change.

Jesus said that he came to full the law in contrast with saying that he came not to abolish it and warned against relaxing the least part of it, so fulfilling the law should not be interpreted as essentially abolishing it. In Galatians 6:2, bearing one anther's burdens fulfills the law of Christ, but you do not consistently interpret that as bringing it to an end.

Luke 16:16 "the law and the prophests were UNTIL John", then the change in law began after John with Christ.

In Luke 16:16-18, Jesus said that the Mosaic Law was until John and that since then the Gospel of the Kingdom has been preached, namely to repent from our sins for the Kingdom of God is at hand. The Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is, so the fact that he was speaking about it still being taught after John shows that he was not speaking about it ending with him. Furthermore, Jesus went on in verse 17-18 to teach obedience to the Mosaic Law and to say that it would be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the least part of the Mosaic Law to pass away, so he was not speaking about a law that he thought had already ended. In addition, neither Jesus nor John went around teaching people to stop repenting, but just the opposite.

Matthew 22:40 Jesus still respected the OT law, it was still in effect at this point in Matt 22. By saying those two commandments hang all the law and the prophets He was showing respect for the laws to those Jews who were present. But from Matthew 5 we saw Jesus had power to changed the OT law......"but I say unto you" but still respected it.

Everything that Jesus taught in Matthew 5 was rooted in the OT. Whenever he directly quoted the OT, he preceded it by saying "it is written", but when he was quoting from what the people of his day had heard being said about the law, he preceded it by saying "you have heard that it was said", so his emphasis on the different form of communication is important. Jesus was not sinning in violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 by making changes to what was written, but rather he was fulfilling the law by correcting what was wrongly being taught about it and by teaching how to correctly obey it as it was originally intended.

Jesus did for a fact 'abolish' the OT law Ephesians 2:14-15 but that does not imply the law was full of mistakes. The OT law was not meant to last, "

You need to explain why my reasons for why it couldn't be referring to abolishing the OT law are wrong are explain you justification for why we should interpret it as referring to it. Nothing in the OT indicates that the law was not meant to last, but rather it repeatedly says that it is eternal (Psalms 119:160).

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith
." (Galatians 3:24-25) Before faith (NT) came men were shut up under the OT law (Galatians 3:23) meaning the law could not save/justify, it could not remove sin (Hebrews 10:4) hence the law "shut up" men, that is, it imprisoned men in sin. Yet later "THE faith" (NT system of faith) would be revealed by Christ when He came to earth and men would then be justified by that NT faith which the OT could not do. The OT law therefore was meant by God as a tutor to being men to Christ and NT jsutification therefore not meant to last. It served its purpose in bringing men to Christ then the "tutor" went away no longer needed. Again, why are we no longer uner a tutor (Galatians 3:25)? Galatians 3:26 "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." "For" of v26 is an explanatory preposition explaining why we are no longer under the OT tutor. For NT faith makes all, Jew and Gentile, children of God something the OT tutor could NOT do.

Someone who disregarded everything their schoolmaster taught them after they graduated would be missing the whole point of a schoolmaster. The Greek word "phroureó" used for "shut up" means "to guard or protect", so it is not speaking about being imprisoned against our will. In Romans 3:21-22, it does not say that the Law and the Prophet testify that the righteousness of God comes through perfect obedience, but rather they testify that that it comes through faith in Christ for everyone who believes, so this has always been the one and only way that there has ever been to become righteous. Now that Christ has come we are under a superior teacher, but the subject matter is still how to walk in God's ways in obedience to His law in accordance with what he taught by word and by example. The law brings us to Christ because everything in it testifies about how to have a relationship with him, but does not lead us to Christ so that we can reject what he taught and go back to living in sin. In 1 John 3:10, those who do not practice righteousness in obedience to God's law are not children of God.

GENTILES BETTER BE THANKFUL THE OT LAW IS GONE
for it could not make them children of God.

If the Psalms are Scripture, then they express a correct view of the Mosaic Law, so I used them as the standard to determine whether someone has a correct view of it. For example, in Psalms 1:1-2, blessed are those who delight in the law of the Lord and who meditate on it day and night. We can't believe in the truth of these words while not allowing them to shape our view of it. David said repeatedly throughout the rest of the Psalms that he loved the Mosaic Law and delighted in obeying it, which was a view that Paul also shared (Romans 7:22), so anything less than the view that we ought to delight in obeying it is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture. Jews thank God every day for giving the Mosaic Law and that is the correct attitude to have towards it, so you either need to change your view to match the one expressed in the Psalms or deny that the Psalms are Scripture.
 
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coffee4u

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hello all. so i just got back from talking to a preacher up the street from me. i have been questioning salvation, and i have to say that this preacher really confused me. so i asked him a few questions, like are backsliders christian? and is addiction a sin? he said yes to both. but the one thing that bothered me is he brought up being under the law. his belief was that christians are not under the law, or ten commandments, and that the only commandments to follow are 1. love the Lord thy God with all your heart, mind, and soul. and 2. love they neighbor as thy self. he said that if you followed those 2 commandments, all the other laws would be followed as a result of love.

am i wrong to think this didnt sound right?????

He is correct, we are not and never have been under the law. The law of Mosses was for the Jewish nation never the gentiles.
You don't get saved by following rules, you get saved by repenting of your sins and loving Jesus. As he said, love God and love others. With love being the base, we actually uphold the law without following the law.
Galatians 3:24-25

24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian

Because we no longer need the law the guardian to guide us, we have an internal guide, the Holy Spirit.
For example: Do not steal.
Do you need a law saying do not steal to stop yourself from stealing?
No you shouldn't need a law, you should know in your heart that stealing from others is wrong and not loving to them and so you don't steal.
Hebrews 10:16
"This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds."

Your conscious is the law of love. Not written laws like a person may keep out of duty but simply loving.
 
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