The Galatian Suppositions

Clare73 · May 2, 2021

Soyeong said:
In Romans 3:21-22, the Law and the Prophets testify that the righteousness of God comes through faith in Christ for all who believe, so this has always been the one and only way that there has ever been to become righteous. In Genesis 6:8-9, Noah found grace in the eyes of God and was a righteous man, so he was declared righteous by grace through faith by the same means as everyone else. God had no reason to provide an alternative an unattainable means of becoming qualified as righteous by obeying the Mosaic Law, so that was never the goal of why we should obey it, and has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of the law. For example, in Romans 9:30-10:4, they had a zeal for God, but it was not based on knowledge, so they failed to attain righteousness because they pursued the law as through righteousness were by works in an effort to establish their own rather than pursing the law as through righteousness were by faith in Christ, for Christ is the goal of the law for righteousness for everyone who has faith.

Righteousness is a character trait of God that is straightforwardly expressed by doing what is righteous, and God's law is His instructions for how to express that character trait, not for how to attain it. For example, the law reveals that helping the poor is a way to testify about God's righteousness, but no amount of helping the poor will ever cause someone to become righteous because the one and only way to become righteous is by grace through faith. The character traits that we have are expressed through our actions, so when God declares us to be righteous, He is also declaring us to be someone who expresses His righteousness through our actions in obedience to His instructions for how to do that found in His law. Christ expressed his righteousness through his actions and what that looked like was obedience to the Mosaic Law, so that is also what it looks like when we express his righteousness through our actions. In other words, the reason why we have received the righteousness of Christ was not in order to hide it under a bushel, but in order to let our light shine through our obedience in accordance with the example Christ set for us to follow.

Where do we find in the NT that God decalares us to be one who expresses his righteousness?

So the issue is that there can be reasons for obeying the Mosaic Law other than trying to earn our justification, especially because it was never given as a means of doing that, so verses that speak against earning it should not be mistaken as speaking against our justification requiring our obedience to it for some other reason, such as faith. 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 also denying in Romans 4:4-5 that our justification is something that can be earned as a wage.

Nice amalgamation of misinterpretation of Romans 4:4-5 in relation to Romans 2:13.

Romans 2:13 establishes that no one has ever been, nor can be, made righteous by the law because no one can obey it as required for righteousness, therefore, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse (Romans 3:10) of the law.
Romans 4:4-5 establishes that righteousness in the New Covenant is pure gift through faith, not by law keeping.

While it is true that Abraham believed God, so he was justified, it is also true that he believed God, so he obeyed God's command to offer Isaac, so the same faith by which he was justified was also expressed as obedience, but he did not earn his justification by his obedience. In James 2:21-23, Abraham was justified by his works when he offered Isaac, his faith was active along with his works, and his faith completed his works, so he was justified by his works insofar as they were an expression of his faith, but not insofar as they were earning his justification as a wage. In Romans 3:28, we are justified by faith apart from works of the law, which is true insofar as there are no works that we can do to earn our salvation, however, Paul did not want us to draw the conclusion in Romans 3:31 that our faith therefore abolishes our need to obey the Mosaic Law, but rather our faith upholds it, which is true insofar as the same faith by which we are justified is also expressed as obedience to it.

Our obedience to the Mosaic law is completely accomplished in Jesus two commands of Matthew 22:37-40 (Romans 13:8-10).

In Genesis 18:19, God experientially knew Abraham that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring about all that He promised him, namely that through his offspring all of the nations of the earth will be blessed. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by showing him His way that he might experientially know Him, and the Israelites too. In Psalms 119:29-30, David wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Mosaic Law, and he chose the way of faithfulness. There are many other verses that describe the Mosaic Law as being instructions for how to walk in God's way,

Jesus has told us how to walk in God's way in the New Covenant in Matthew 22:37-40 (Romans 13:8-10).

]such as Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Isaiah 2:2-3, Joshua 22:5, Psalms 103:7, and many others. I can be gracious to someone by doing something that will bless them for a day, but if I really want to be gracious to them, then I will teach them how to walk in the way where they will be blessed for a lifetime, and the Mosaic Law is God's instructions for how to walk in the way to be blessed (Psalms 119:1). So the fulfillment of the promise that God made to Abraham is for the Israelites to bless the nations by teaching them to turn from their wicked ways and to walk in God's way in obedience to the Mosaic Law, which has its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus, who is the way, who fulfilled that promise by being sent to bless us by turning us from our wicked ways (Acts 3:25-26). Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand (Matthew 4:17-23) and the Mosaic Law was how his audience knew what sin is, so repenting from our disobedience to it is an integral part of the Gospel message, which he prophesied would be proclaimed to all nations (Matthew 24:12-14).

Having a circumcised heart is associated with living in obedience to the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 10:12-16, Deuteronomy 30:6, Romans 2:25-29), while having an uncircumcised heart is associated with refusing to submit to it (Jeremiah 9:25-26, Acts 7:51-53). In Romans 3:27, Paul directly contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, so he directly contrasted works of the law with the Mosaic Law.

The Old Covenant focused on law.

The New Covenant focuses on love, not law.

Clare73 · May 2, 2021

Soyeong said:
In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus was not asked about which were the only laws that should still be followed, but about what the greatest commandment is, and the existence of the greatest two commandments implies that there are still other commandments that are not the greatest. All of the commands that God has given as examples of what it means to love God and our neighbor, which is why Jesus said that those are the greatest two commandments and that all of the others hang on them, so they are all connected, and the moment you try to take just the greatest two, all of the others come with it.

Which doesn't altar the fact that the answer he gave stated that his two commandments fulfilled the whole Mosaic law.

And the NT clarifies his meaning in Matthew 22:37-40 at Romans 13:8-10: "Love is the fulfillment of the law."

For instance, obedience to the command to help the poor is part of what it means to obey the command to love our neighbor, so the greatest two commandments don't replace the other commandments, but rather they are the greatest two because they are inclusive of all of the other commandments. If someone's obedience to the greatest two commandments is not inclusive of the other commandments, then they are not treating them as being the fulfillment of the other commandments. Someone who lived in obedience to the greatest two commandments who would indistinguishable from someone who lived in obedience to the Mosaic Law because they would both be following the same example that Jesus set for us to follow.

Where are we instructed to treat "obedience to the greatest two commandments" as fulfillment "of the other commandments?"

All these contrived machinations trying to separate Jesus' two commands from being the complete fulfillment of the Mosaic law are
contra-New Covenant, and simply an attempt to make Jesus's two New Covenant commands insufficient to replace the Old Covenant Mosaic law.
You don't need to try to improve on Jesus' finished work, including improving on his New Covenant laws for those in Christ.

There are a number of commandments in the Bible that appear to conflict with each other, such as when God commanded His people to rest on the Sabbath, but also commanded priest to make offerings on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10), how it was not the case that priests were forced to sin by breaking one of the two commandments no matter what they chose to do, but that one of the commandments was greater than the other and that the lesser commandment was never intended to be understood as preventing the greater commandment from being obeyed. This is why Jesus said that priests who performed their duties on the Sabbath were held innocent, why David and his men were held innocent, and why he considered his disciples to be innocent (Matthew 12:5-7), why it is lawful to get an ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath, and why Jesus ruled that it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath. This is also why it is common question within Judaism to discuss which commandments are the greatest, which has absolutely nothing to do with limiting which commandments we should follow.

klutedavid · May 2, 2021

Soyeong said:
Christ lived in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so that is also how he lives through us.

Jesus always worked on the Sabbath day. That was when Jesus taught at the temple and when Jesus healed people.

Jesus followed His Father's command.

John 5:16
For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

John 5:18
For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

Make no mistake, Jesus was working on the Sabbath day.

Soyeong · May 2, 2021

Clare73 said:
Where do we find in the NT that God decalares us to be one who expresses his righteousness?

We express our character traits through our actions, so that is what it means to say that someone is righteous. Likewise, to say that someone is courageous is to say that they take actions that express courage.

Nice amalgamation of misinterpretation of Romans 4:4-5 in relation to Romans 2:13.

Romans 2:13 establishes that no one has ever been, nor can be, made righteous by the law because no one can obey it as required for righteousness, therefore, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse (Romans 3:10) of the law.
Romans 4:4-5 establishes that righteousness in the New Covenant is pure gift through faith, not by law keeping.

The reason why no one is declared righteous by obeying the Mosaic Law is because it was never given for the goal of earning our righteousness, so even if someone managed to live in perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law, then they still would not be declared righteous by it, yet it remains true that only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified, therefore there is a reason that our justification requires obedience to the Mosaic Law other than in order to earn it, such as faith.

In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, it says that the Mosaic Law is not too difficult to obey and obedience brings life and a blessing while disobedience brings death and a curse, so choose life! So it was presented as a possibility and as a choice, not as something that no one could obey. Indeed, there are countless people who have obeyed it, such as Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-6), though none of the countless people who have obeyed it were declared righteous by it because that was never the goal of the law. Thinking that no one could obey the law 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). The reality of what is recorded in the OT is that those who relied on the Mosaic Law were blessed while those who did not were cursed.

To say that we can't rely on the Mosaic Law is to say that we can't rely on the Lawgiver, however, Galatians 3:10-12 is not speaking against relying on the Mosaic Law, but rather those who rely on works of the law are under a curse because they aren't relying on the Mosaic Law. 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, unlike the Mosaic Law.

Becoming someone who does what is righteous in obedience to the Mosaic Law is itself the content of the gift of being declared righteous. In Romans 6:19-22, we are no longer to present ourselves as slaves to impurity, lawlessness, and sin, but are now to present ourselves as slaves to God and to righteousness leading to sanctification, and the goal of sanctification is eternal life in Christ, which is the gift of God, so doing what is righteous in obedience to God's law is part of the content of God's gift of eternal life. Likewise, in Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, so God graciously teaching us to obey His laws for how to do that is itself part of the content of God's gift of salvation. God gave the Mosaic Law as a precious gift that we have the delight of getting to obey, not in order to provide the means of earning our righteousness.

Our obedience to the Mosaic law is completely accomplished in Jesus two commands of Matthew 22:37-40 (Romans 13:8-10).
Jesus has told us how to walk in God's way in the New Covenant in Matthew 22:37-40 (Romans 13:8-10).

In Matthew 24:12-14, it says that because of lawlessness the love of many will draw cold, so saying that we just need to love instead of obeying God's law is missing the point. Love fulfills the Mosaic Law because that is what it is essentially about how to do and all of it slaws are examples of what it means to obey the command to love. A sum is inclusive of all of its parts. What God was commanded His people to do when He gave the greatest two commandments should not mean something completely different than what Jesus was instructing us to do when he quoted those commandments. Likewise, Jesus did not say that we only need to obey the greatest two commandments and that we should disregard everything else that he taught during his ministry. Jesus showed us how to walk in God's way un the New Covenant by living in sinless obedience to the Mosaic Law. It is contradictory to just want to obey God's command to love while wanting nothing to do with obeying God's commands for how He wants us to love. The greatest two commandments are a lot easier said than done, so thankfully God gave us all of the other commands to paint us a picture of what that looks like.

The Old Covenant focused on law.

The New Covenant focuses on love, not law.

In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, the greatest two commandments are part of the Mosaic Law, and there are many other verses in the OT that associate our love for God with our obedience to His commands, so the focus of the Mosaic Covenant has always been on both has always been on both love and law because God's law is His instructions for how to love. Likewise, in Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant still involves following God's law, so its focus is also on both love and law. God is righteous, so whenever we do what is righteous in obedience to His law, we are expressing our love for who He is, so all of the laws that God has given were specifically chosen to teach us how to express our love for who He is, while refusing to submit to His laws is expressing that you do not love that aspect of who God is, which is why Jesus said in John 14:23-24 that if we love him, then we will obey his teachings, if we don't love him, then we will not obey his teachings, and that his teachings were not his own, but that of the Father, so Jesus did not teach anything other than what the Father taught in the Mosaic Law.

All these contrived machinations trying to separate Jesus' two commands from being the complete fulfillment of the Mosaic law are contra-New Covenant, and simply an attempt to make Jesus's two New Covenant commands insufficient to replace the Old Covenant Mosaic law.
You don't need to try to improve on Jesus' finished work, including improving on his New Covenant laws for those in Christ.

In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Mosaic Law, so Jesus did not teach his own commandments. The New Covenant does not involve rejecting anything that Jesus spent his ministry teaching by word or by example. Jesus said nothing about the two greatest commandments replacing the Mosaic Law, so what I'm saying is just contra-you, not contra-New Covenant. In Titus 2:14, it describes the finished work of Christ by saying that he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Mosaic Law is what it means to believe in the his finished work (Acts 21:20), while returning to the lawlessness that he gave himself to redeem us from is what would be diminishing his finished work.

Soyeong · May 2, 2021

klutedavid said:
Jesus always worked on the Sabbath day. That was when Jesus taught at the temple and when Jesus healed people.

Jesus followed His Father's command.

John 5:16
For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.

John 5:18
For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.

Make no mistake, Jesus was working on the Sabbath day.

Christ was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so he was obligated to obey it, and he was sinless, so he never broke it, which includes never breaking the Sabbath. If Jesus had broken the Sabbath, then he would have sinned and disqualified himself from being our Savior. It is contradictory to believe both that Jesus was correct about it being lawful to heal on the Sabbath and that the Pharisees were correct that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath by healing on it. While John accurately recorded the reasons that the Pharisees had for wanting to kill Jesus, their reasons were wrong, so they were incorrect for wanting to kill him.

There are a number of instances where God's laws appear to conflict with each other, such as when God commanded His people to rest on the Sabbath, but also commanded priests to make offerings on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10). However, it was not the case that they were forced to sin by disobeying one of the two commands no matter what they chose to do, but that one of the commandments was greater than the other, and the lesser was never intended to be understood as preventing the greater from being obeyed. This is why Jesus ruled that priests who did there duties on the Sabbath were held innocent, why David and his men were held innocent, and why Jesus considered his disciples to be innocent (Matthew 12:5-7). Likewise, it was lawful to get a child or an ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath even though that is work (Luke 14:5).

It is unlawful to do work in the Sabbath and healing is work, so some Pharisees had reasoned that healing is therefore unlawful on the Sabbath. However, we are also commanded to love our neighbor, and it would not be loving our neighbor to refuse to heal them. No command was intended to be understood as preventing us from obeying the greatest two commandments, so Jesus ruled that it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, and those who thought he was breaking the Sabbath by doing that were and still are wrong. So some forms of work were never intended to be understood as being prohibited by the Sabbath, which includes the work that Jesus was doing. On the other hand, if Jesus had done something like plowing his field on the Sabbath, then he would broken the Sabbath and have been guilty of sin.

klutedavid · May 2, 2021

Soyeong said:
Christ was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so he was obligated to obey it, and he was sinless, so he never broke it, which includes never breaking the Sabbath. If Jesus had broken the Sabbath, then he would have sinned and disqualified himself from being our Savior. It is contradictory to believe both that Jesus was correct about it being lawful to heal on the Sabbath and that the Pharisees were correct that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath by healing on it. While John accurately recorded the reasons that the Pharisees had for wanting to kill Jesus, their reasons were wrong, so they were incorrect for wanting to kill him.

There are a number of instances where God's laws appear to conflict with each other, such as when God commanded His people to rest on the Sabbath, but also commanded priests to make offerings on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10). However, it was not the case that they were forced to sin by disobeying one of the two commands no matter what they chose to do, but that one of the commandments was greater than the other, and the lesser was never intended to be understood as preventing the greater from being obeyed. This is why Jesus ruled that priests who did there duties on the Sabbath were held innocent, why David and his men were held innocent, and why Jesus considered his disciples to be innocent (Matthew 12:5-7). Likewise, it was lawful to get a child or an ox out of a ditch on the Sabbath even though that is work (Luke 14:5).

It is unlawful to do work in the Sabbath and healing is work, so some Pharisees had reasoned that healing is therefore unlawful on the Sabbath. However, we are also commanded to love our neighbor, and it would not be loving our neighbor to refuse to heal them. No command was intended to be understood as preventing us from obeying the greatest two commandments, so Jesus ruled that it was lawful to heal on the Sabbath, and those who thought he was breaking the Sabbath by doing that were and still are wrong. So some forms of work were never intended to be understood as being prohibited by the Sabbath, which includes the work that Jesus was doing. On the other hand, if Jesus had done something like plowing his field on the Sabbath, then he would broken the Sabbath and have been guilty of sin.

According to the law everyone had to rest on the Sabbath except the priests. The law makes no provision for doing any work on the Sabbath, be it good work or not.

Love fulfills the law and that was who Jesus was, the incarnation of perfect love.

Whether you can accept this fact or not, Jesus worked on the Sabbath because He was the great high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek.

Clare73 · May 2, 2021

Soyeong said:
We express our character traits through our actions, so that is what it means to say that someone is righteous. Likewise, to say that someone is courageous is to say that they take actions that express courage.

That doesn't answer the question of where we find that God declares us to be the one to express his righteousness.

There is no righteousness in the NT outside Jesus Christ.

The reason why no one is declared righteous by obeying the Mosaic Law is because it was never given for the goal of earning our righteousness, so even if someone managed to live in perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law, then they still would not be declared righteous by it,

Not given for righteousness and not able to make righteous are two different things.
Perfect law keeping is righteousness, and Jesus kept it perfectly, maintaining his righteousness, as Adam would have done and had the ability to do, had he kept it perfectly.

yet it remains true that only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified, therefore there is a reason that our justification requires obedience to the Mosaic Law other than in order to earn it, such as faith.

Our justification is apart from law keeping (Romans 4:5, 3:21, 28) for any reason.

Earned righteousness is only by perfect law keeping. The law was not given to justify, but to reveal sin, to condemn, because it was given to a people unable to keep it perfectly and who were, therefore, necessarily condemned by it (Galatians 3:10). Righteousness has never existed in mankind since the fall of Adam, until Christ. And now the only righteousness that exists in mankind is the righteousness of Christ imputed/imparted to those who are in him by faith.

In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, it says that the Mosaic Law is not too difficult to obey and obedience brings life and a blessing while disobedience brings death and a curse, so choose life! So it was presented as a possibility and as a choice, not as something that no one could obey.

No, commands of God do not necessarily mean ability to obey them. Commands are to show the inability to obey, leaving only one possibility for rightness with God, faith in the Promise (Jesus Christ).

Indeed, there are countless people who have obeyed it, such as Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-6), though none of the countless people who have obeyed it were declared righteous by it because that was never the goal of the law.

This is contrary to NT teaching.
The law was given to establish that no one, not even one, is righteous (Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 5:9, Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7, Psalm 59:7-8, Psalm 36:1).

Thinking that no one could obey the law 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).

Human reasoning is never the measure of the truth of God.

The reality of what is recorded in the OT is that those who relied on the Mosaic Law were blessed while those who did not were cursed.

The reality of what is recorded in the OT is explained in both the OT, see Psalms above, and in the NT; i.e., no one, not even one is righteous (Romans 3:9-18).

To say that we can't rely on the Mosaic Law is to say that we can't rely on the Lawgiver

More cobbling together of human notions to explain the divine intent.

however, Galatians 3:10-12 is not speaking against relying on the Mosaic Law, but rather
those who rely on works of the law are under a curse because they aren't relying on the Mosaic Law.

All you rely on observing the law are under a curse (Galatians 3:10).
Stop working so hard to unseat Christ's commands of Matthew 22:37-40 as the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10).
It is double-mindedness to have one foot in the New Covenant and one foot in the Old Covenant.

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, unlike the Mosaic Law.

Becoming someone who does what is righteous in obedience to the Mosaic Law is itself the content of the gift of being declared righteous.

It doesn't matter how you slice it, nor how much lipstick you put on it.

You are trying to make Christ's two commandments insufficient to fulfill the law, contrary to NT teaching (Romans 13:10). It is a foolish errand.
We are not free to violate the Mosaic law, but it is not the focus in the New Covenant, love is the focus, love is what we study to do, love is what we work at, love--both to God and man--is what transforms us, not focus on and doing law keeping.

That is contrary to New Covenant teaching. In Romans 6:19-22, we are no longer to present ourselves as slaves to impurity, lawlessness, and sin, but are now to present ourselves as slaves to God and to righteousness leading to sanctification, and the goal of sanctification is eternal life in Christ, which is the gift of God,

And righteousness in the New Covenant is love of God and neighbor, not law keeping.

so doing what is righteous in obedience to God's law is part of the content of God's gift of eternal life. Likewise, in Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, so God graciously teaching us to obey His laws for how to do that is itself part of the content of God's gift of salvation. God gave the Mosaic Law as a precious gift that we have the delight of getting to obey, not in order to provide the means of earning our righteousness.

And Jesus told us precisely how we are to fulfill it. . .in love of God and love of neighbor, not in law keeping. If you don't love God and your neighbor, then you don't belong to Christ, and all the law keeping in the world will neither please God nor make you right with him, nor a son of God.

In Matthew 24:12-14, it says that because of lawlessness the love of many will draw cold, so saying that we just need to love instead of obeying God's law is missing the point. Love fulfills the Mosaic Law because that is what it is essentially about how to do and all of it slaws are examples of what it means to obey the command to love. A sum is inclusive of all of its parts. What God was commanded His people to do when He gave the greatest two commandments should not mean something completely different than what Jesus was instructing us to do when he quoted those commandments.

Likewise, Jesus did not say that we only need to obey the greatest two commandments and that we should disregard everything else that he taught during his ministry. Jesus showed us how to walk in God's way un the New Covenant by living in sinless obedience to the Mosaic Law. It is contradictory to just want to obey God's command to love while wanting nothing to do with obeying God's commands for how He wants us to love. The greatest two commandments are a lot easier said than done, so thankfully God gave us all of the other commands to paint us a picture of what that looks like.

Jesus has already told us what loving our neighbor looks like, it looks the same as loving ourself; i.e., commitment to our well-being.

In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, the greatest two commandments are part of the Mosaic Law, and there are many other verses in the OT that associate our love for God with our obedience to His commands, so the focus of the Mosaic Covenant has always been on both has always been on both love and law because God's law is His instructions for how to love.

We have our instructions for how to love from Jesus; i.e., as we love ourselves--committed to our well-being.

Likewise, in Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant still involves following God's law, so its focus is also on both love and law. God is righteous, so whenever we do what is righteous in obedience to His law, we are expressing our love for who He is, so all of the laws that God has given were specifically chosen to teach us how to express our love for who He is, while refusing to submit to His laws is expressing that you do not love that aspect of who God is, which is why Jesus said in John 14:23-24 that if we love him, then we will obey his teachings, if we don't love him, then we will not obey his teachings, and that his teachings were not his own, but that of the Father, so Jesus did not teach anything other than what the Father taught in the Mosaic Law.

In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from the Mosaic Law, so Jesus did not teach his own commandments. The New Covenant does not involve rejecting anything that Jesus spent his ministry teaching by word or by example. Jesus said nothing about the two greatest commandments replacing the Mosaic Law, so what I'm saying is just contra-you, not contra-New Covenant. In Titus 2:14, it describes the finished work of Christ by saying that he gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Mosaic Law is what it means to believe in the his finished work (Acts 21:20), while returning to the lawlessness that he gave himself to redeem us from is what would be diminishing his finished work.

One foot in and one foot out. . .

Clare73 · May 2, 2021

klutedavid said:
According to the law everyone had to rest on the Sabbath except the priests. The law makes no provision for doing any work on the Sabbath, be it good work or not.

Love fulfills the law and that was who Jesus was, the incarnation of perfect love.

Whether you can accept this fact or not,
Jesus worked on the Sabbath because He was the great high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek.

And that would be of the New Covenant, right?

Soyeong · May 2, 2021

Clare73 said:
That doesn't answer the question of where we find that God declares us to be the one to express his righteousness.

There is no righteousness in the NT outside Jesus Christ.

If you agree that there is no righteousness outside of Jesus Christ, then why are you questioning whose righteousness were are expressing?

Not given for righteousness and not able to make righteous are two different things.
Perfect law keeping is righteousness, and Jesus kept it perfectly, maintaining his righteousness, as Adam would have done and had the ability to do, had he kept it perfectly.

Nowhere does the Bible teach that we can earn our righteousness by living in perfect obedience to God's law.

Our justification is apart from law keeping (Romans 4:5, 3:21, 28) for any reason.

Earned righteousness is only by perfect law keeping. The law was not given to justify, but to reveal sin, to condemn, because it was given to a people unable to keep it perfectly and who were, therefore, necessarily condemned by it (Galatians 3:10). Righteousness has never existed in mankind since the fall of Adam, until Christ. And now the only righteousness that exists in mankind is the righteousness of Christ imputed/imparted to those who are in him by faith.

In Romans 4:5, Paul denied that righteousness is something that could be earned as a wage, which means that even perfect obedience to God's law would not earn righteousness as a wage. There is no such thing as earned righteousness and that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of the law, which is why there are many verses that speak against earning our righteousness. 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 that there has ever been to become righteous. In Genesis 6:8-9, Noah found grace in the eyes of God and he was a righteous man, so he was declared righteous by grace through faith by the same means as everyone else. God had not reason to provide an alternative and unattainable means for us to become righteous by living in perfect obedience to His law when a perfectly good means of becoming righteous by grace through faith was already in place, so that the law was never given as a means of earning our righteousness regardless of our level of obedience. The law itself came with instructions for what to do when the people sinned, so perfect obedience was never a requirement for us. If you agree that the law was not given to justify, then don't treat is though it were given to justify.

Earthly parents don't give rules to their children in order to condemn them, but rather they give their children rules for their own good in order to bless them and teach them how to rightly live, and this is that much more true of our Heavenly Father (Deuteronomy 6:24, 10:12-13). So the goal of the law was not to condemn us and Galatians 3:10 is not speaking being cursed if we fail have perfect obedience, but rather the problem was that they were relying on works of the law instead of relying on God's law. God is trustworthy, therefore His law is also trustworthy (Psalms 19:7), but if God gave the law in order to condemn His children, then God would be untrustworthy. There are many people who are described as righteous, such as Noah (Genesis 6:8-9), Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-6), and may others in the Psalms and Proverbs. Christ expressed His righteousness through His actions and what that looked like was a life lived in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so that is also what it looks like when we have been imputed with His righteousness.

No, commands of God do not necessarily mean ability to obey them. Commands are to show the inability to obey, leaving only one possibility for rightness with God, faith in the Promise (Jesus Christ).
This is contrary to NT teaching.

Nowhere does the Bible say that God's commands were given to show us our inability to obey them, but just the opposite. Again, Deuteronomy 30:11-20 directly says that God's law is not too difficult to obey, so saying that we need we need to have perfect obedience is in direct disagreement with God. Likewise, in 1 John 5:3, to love God is to keep is commandments, which are not burdensome. So say that we have the inability to keep God's commandments is to deny that anyone has ever loved God and to deny that they are not burdensome. Again, we many examples of people who did obey them, such as Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-6). Jesus has always been the one and only possibility for rightness with God.

The law was given to establish that no one, not even one, is righteous (Psalm 14:1-3, Psalm 5:9, Psalm 140:3; Psalm 10:7, Psalm 59:7-8, Psalm 36:1).

In Psalms 14:1-3, it says that no one is righteous among those who say that there is no God, so it is not denying that anyone is righteous. In Psalms 5:9, David was speaking about his enemies. In Psalms 14:3, he was speaking about evil men. In Psalms 10:7, he was speaking about the wicked. In Psalms 59:7-8, he was speaking about his enemies. In Psalms 36:1, he was speaking about the wicked. Does context just not matter to you?

Human reasoning is never the measure of the truth of God.

Your human reason maligns the character of God and so I object.

The reality of what is recorded in the OT is explained in both the OT, see Psalms above, and in the NT; i.e., no one, not even one is righteous (Romans 3:9-18).

Again, Romans 3:9-18 is referencing Psalms 14:1-3, which was speaking about those who say that there is no God, not everyone. How we understand what Romans 3:9-18 says about the people in the OT should be understood in light of what is actually recorded about people in the OT, and in the OT, there were people who were blessed by God who lived in obedience to His laws.

More cobbling together of human notions to explain the divine intent.

The Bible says that God's law is trustworthy (Psalms 19:7, Nehemiah 9:13), so you should stop treating God and His law as being untrustworthy. It you who are cobbling together human notions to undermine divine intent.

All you rely

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on observing the law are under a curse (Galatians 3:10).

Galatians 3:10 is speaking against relying on works of the law, not against relying on the Law of God. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law of God, so by putting our faith in it we are putting our faith in the Lawgiver.

Stop working so hard to unseat Christ's commands of Matthew 22:37-40 as the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10).

Jesus was asked about which was the greatest commandment. He was not asked to give His own commandments or about which commandments should still be followed. I have not spoken against love fulfilling the law, but rather I have spoken in regard to what that means and what is does not mean.

It is double-mindedness to have one foot in the New Covenant and one foot in the Old Covenant.

While we are under the New Covenant and not Mosaic Covenant, we are nevertheless still under the same God with the same nature and therefore the laws laws for how to testify about His nature.

It doesn't matter how you slice it, nor how much lipstick you put on it.

The Psalms express extremely high praise for God's law, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so if you consider the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express a correct view of it, then you will share it, as Paul did (Romans 7:22), and will consider anything less than the view that we ought to delight in getting to obey God's law to be incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture. 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 the Mosaic Law. You view of the law is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture and that is how I can know for certain that your view is wrong. In Psalms 119:29, David wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to follow His law, and in Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by showing him His ways, so if you don't get that the law was something that they wanted God to graciously teach them, then you don't have a correct view of the law.

You are trying to make Christ's two commandments insufficient to fulfill the law

, contrary to NT teaching (Romans 13:10). It is a foolish errand.
We are not free to violate the Mosaic law, but it is not the focus in the New Covenant, love is the focus, love is what we study to do, love is what we work at, love--both to God and man--is what transforms us, not focus on and doing law keeping.

I have said nothing about love being insufficient to fulfill the law, but have spoken in regard to what that means and doesn't mean. Jesus summarized the Mosaic Law as being about how to love God and our neighbor, so love has always been the focus on the Mosaic Law. Again, Jesus said that because of lawlessness the love of many will grow cold. If you agree that we are not free to violate the Mosaic Law, then why are you saying that we can violate everything except the greatest two commandments?

And righteousness in the New Covenant is love of God and neighbor, not law keeping.

God's law commands us to love Him and our neighbor, so that is law keeping. If we love God and our neighbor, then we don't commit murder, theft, adultery, rape, kidnapping, and so forth for all of the other laws that God has given, so the greatest two commandments are inclusive of all of the other commandments, and all of the other commandments paint a picture of what it means to love God and our neighbor.

And Jesus told us precisely how we are to fulfill it. . .in love of God and love of neighbor, not in law keeping. If you don't love God and your neighbor, then you don't belong to Christ, and all the law keeping in the world will neither please God nor make you right with him, nor a son of God.

Fulfilling the law is teaching how to correctly obey it, so love fulfills the law because all of the laws were given to teach us how to love. The Mosaic Law was never intended to be obeyed apart from Christ, but rather it was given to testify about him.

Jesus has already told us what loving our neighbor looks like, it looks the same as loving ourself; i.e., commitment to our well-being.

The command to love God with all of our heart, soul, and might is a lot easier said than done, so God's other laws paint us a picture of what that looks like.

We have our instructions for how to love from Jesus; i.e., as we love ourselves--committed to our well-being.

God could have given the Israelites just the greatest two commandments, but He gave additional commandments to help teach us what it means to obey them.

One foot in and one foot out. . .

Like it or not, the New Covenant still involves following God's law and Jesus did not establish the New Covenant in order to undermine anything he spent his ministry teaching by word or by example.

Soyeong · May 2, 2021

klutedavid said:
According to the law everyone had to rest on the Sabbath except the priests. The law makes no provision for doing any work on the Sabbath, be it good work or not.

Love fulfills the law and that was who Jesus was, the incarnation of perfect love.

Whether you can accept this fact or not, Jesus worked on the Sabbath because He was the great high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek.

Nowhere does the law state that everyone needs to rest on the Sabbath except the priests, but rather the law commands multiple things that can sometimes be mutually exclusive where people need to make a decision about which law should be followed. For example, God command to circumcise baby boys on the 8th day, but what should be done if that happened to fall on the Sabbath? Again, it was not the case that they were forced to sin by breaking one of the commands, but that the lesser command was not intended to be understood as preventing the greater from being obeyed. If a priest plowed a field on the Sabbath, then they would have been guilty of breaking it, so they did not have an exemption from resting on the Sabbath.

Love fulfills the law because that it what it is essentially about how to do. If we love God and our neighbor, then we won't commit murder, theft, idolatry, adultery, kidnapping, rape, and so forth for all of the other laws that God has given, so the command to love is inclusive of all of the other commands.

In Galatians 4:4, Jesu was born under the law, so he was obligated to obey it, and he was sinless, so he never broke it. If Jesus was free to break the law because he was the High Priest, then him being sinless would be meaningless, however, being High Priest has nothing to do with being permitted to break God's law, but just the opposite. Furthermore, the New Covenant was not established until Christ's death, so everything he did in his ministry was under the Mosaic Covenant. Jesus ruled that it is lawful to do good in the Sabbath, which has always been the case, so that is the work that he did, and which we should do, and which had nothing to do with being the High Priest.

Clare73 · May 3, 2021

Soyeong said:
If you agree that there is no righteousness outside of Jesus Christ, then
why are you questioning whose righteousness were are expressing?

"We"?. . .Who is "we"?

I question where it is found in Scripture that God declares us to be the one to express his righteousness.

Nowhere does the Bible teach that we can earn our righteousness by living in perfect obedience to God's law.

Jesus maintained his righteousness only by observing God's law perfectly. Adam could have done the same.

Romans 4:5, Paul denied that righteousness is something that could be earned as a wage, which means that
even perfect obedience to God's law would not earn righteousness as a wage.

Not necessarily.

That is not a statement of the inability of perfect law keeping to make righteous, but rather a contrast between innate inability of mankind to earn righteousness by law keeping and the gift of righteousness through faith apart from works.
That the law was not given to fallen nature unable to obey it perfectly to make righteous does not conclude that the law is not able to make righteous. If it were not, it would not have mattered whether Jesus kept it perfectly or not, since righteousness was not affixed to it.

There is no such thing as earned righteousness

There is only righteousness given (Adam, Jesus) and righteousness kept (Jesus), never righteousness earned. Righeousness has never been earned in the history of mankind, even though we had two that were righteous, one of whom lost it and the other who redeemed it for us.

and that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of thnever righteousness earned. Righeousness has never been earned in the history of mankind, even though we had two that were righteous, one of whom lost it and the other who redeemed it for us.e law, which is why there are many verses that speak against earning our righteousness. 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 that there has ever been to become righteous. In Genesis 6:8-9, Noah found grace in the eyes of God and he was a righteous man, so he was declared righteous by grace through faith by the same means as everyone else. God had not reason to provide an alternative and unattainable means for us to become righteous by living in perfect obedience to His law when a perfectly good means of becoming righteous by grace through faith was already in place, so that the law was never given as a means of earning our righteousness regardless of our level of obedience. The law itself came with instructions for what to do when the people sinned, so perfect obedience was never a requirement for us. If you agree that the law was not given to justify, then don't treat is though it were given to justify.

Earthly parents don't give rules to their children in order to condemn them,

We were already condemned long before tha law (Romans 5:18).

but rather they give their children rules for their own good in order to bless them and teach them how to rightly live, and this is that much more true of our Heavenly Father (Deuteronomy 6:24, 10:12-13). So the goal of the law was not to condemn us and Galatians 3:10 is not speaking being cursed if we fail have perfect obedience, but rather
the problem was that they were relying on works of the law instead of relying on God's law.

That is cobbling together your theology, which makes different those things which are the same (law),
with a distortion of Scripture, for the sake of making insufficient Jesus' two laws given to fulfill the Mosaic law in the New Covenant.

Your distortion of Scripture lies in your misrepresentation of the reason for the Mosaic law.
Scripture reveals we were already condemned long before the law, by Adam's rebellion (Romans 5:18).
Scripture reveals that the law was temporarily added (Galatians 3:19) to the Abrahamic covenant only to teach us how sinful we are,
to cause us to become conscious of sin (Romans 3:20), to reveal sin (Romans 5:20).
You've overlaid your theology on Scripture to clean up all its references which purpose the law to increase sin (Romans 5:20),
for the sake of justifying your own notion requiring law keeping in the New Covenant.

Your issue remains: an attempt to make insufficient Jesus' two laws (Matthew 22:37-40) given to fulfill the Mosaic law in the New Covenant
(Romans 13:10).

You are as crossways with God on this as are those who attempt to make Jesus' death insufficient to save without their works being added to it.

You've got one foot in the Old Covenant and one foot in the New Covenant.
That is rejecting God's New Covenant order as insufficient, and adding your own work of law-keeping to complete it.

You must come out of this bifurcated gospel which, though not in theory, yet in practice, treats Jesus' two commandments as insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic law, preferring one's own law-keeping instead.

One foot in and one foot out is not full acceptance of God's New Covenant order.
And that is not a good thing for you. . .

Soyeong · May 3, 2021

Clare73 said:
"We"?. . .Who is "we"?

I question where it is found in Scripture that God declares us to be the one to express his righteousness.

God is righteousness, so all righteousness is His righteousness and whenever we do what is righteous, such as helping the poor, we are testifying about God's righteousness.

Jesus maintained his righteousness only by observing God's law perfectly. Adam could have done the same.

Again, nowhere does the Bible teach that we can earn our righteousness by having perfect obedience, but rather there are many people who are described as righteous who fell short of perfect obedience. There are many verses that speak against earning our righteousness because that righteousness was never something that could be earned. Jesus was righteous, so the reason why he obeyed the Mosaic Law was not in order to earn his righteousness.

Not necessarily.

That is not a statement of the inability of perfect law keeping to make righteous, but rather a contrast between innate inability of mankind to earn righteousness by law keeping and the gift of righteousness through faith apart from works.
That the law was not given to fallen nature unable to obey it perfectly to make righteous does not conclude that the law is not able to make righteous. If it were not, it would not have mattered whether Jesus kept it perfectly or not, since righteousness was not affixed to it.

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 righteous faith in Christ for all who believe, so having perfect obedience was never a means of becoming righteous. The one and only way that there has ever been to become righteous is by means of a gift, and receiving the gift of Christ's righteousness is becoming someone who does what is righteous in accordance with Christ's example. In Romans 3:31, Paul did not want us to conclude that being declared righteous through faith apart from works that our faith abolishes our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it, so the fact that we are declared righteous through faith apart from works is denying that there are any works that we can do to earn our righteousness, but that does not mean that being someone who is righteous is apart from being someone who does what is righteous through faith. It was necessary for Jesus to be sinless because someone with sin could not have given himself to atone for the sins of the world, but that had nothing to do with him earning his righteousness as a wage.

There is only righteousness given (Adam, Jesus) and righteousness kept (Jesus), never righteousness earned. Righeousness has never been earned in the history of mankind, even though we had two that were righteous, one of whom lost it and the other who redeemed it for us.

Righteous has never been earned in the history of mankind because it is not something that can be earned, but only given as a gift.

We were already condemned long before tha law (Romans 5:18).

It is contradictory for there to be trespass before there is anything to trespass.

That is

cobbling together your theology, which makes different those things which are the same (law),
with a distortion of Scripture, for the sake of making insufficient Jesus' two laws given to fulfill the Mosaic law in the New Covenant.

Your distortion of Scripture lies in your misrepresentation of the reason for the Mosaic law.
Scripture reveals we were already condemned long before the law, by Adam's rebellion (Romans 5:18).
Scripture reveals that the law was temporarily added (Galatians 3:19) to the Abrahamic covenant only to teach us how sinful we are,
to cause us to become conscious of sin (Romans 3:20), to reveal sin (Romans 5:20).
You've overlaid your theology on Scripture to clean up all its references which purpose the law to increase sin (Romans 5:20),
for the sake of justifying your own notion requiring law keeping in the New Covenant.

Your issue remains: an attempt to make insufficient Jesus' two laws (Matthew 22:37-40) given to fulfill the Mosaic law in the New Covenant
(Romans 13:10).

You are as crossways with God on this as are those who attempt to make Jesus' death insufficient to save without their works being added to it.

You've got one foot in the Old Covenant and one foot in the New Covenant.
That is s rejecting God's New Covenant order as insufficient, and adding your own work of law-keeping to complete it.

You must come out of this bifurcated gospel which, though not in theory, yet in practice, treats Jesus' two commandments as insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic law, preferring one's own law-keeping instead.

One foot in and one foot out is not full acceptance of God's New Covenant order.
And that is not a good thing for you. . .

In Romans 3:27, Paul directly contrasted a law of works with the law of faith, so you should be more careful not to take what Paul said about the law of works and apply it to the law of faith. The law that Paul spoke against relying on in Galatians 3:10-12 can't be the same law that Paul said that our faith upholds in Romans 3:31. There are many others verses that I could cite where there is a law that Paul spoke in favor of obeying and other verses where there is a law that he spoke against, so if you don't bother to determine which law Paul was speaking about, then you end up turning him into a contradictory mess and making him out to be an enemy of God who was teaching us to rebel against what He has commanded. For example, in Romans 8:4-7, Paul contrasted those who walk in the Spirit with those who have minds set on the flesh, who are enemies of God, who refuse to submit to His law.

Romans 5:18 does not say that we were already condemned long before the law. Likewise, Galatians 3:19 does not say anything about God's eternal laws being temporarily added. Christ did not go around telling people that the law had ended and they needed to stop repenting from their sins, but just the opposite, and what is said about what Jesus did should not be distorted to undermine what Jesus actually did. God's law does not just teach us what sin is, but also teaches us how to do what is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12), but if you believe that the Mosaic Law reveals what sin is and what we should refrain from doing what God has revealed to be sin, then you should agree that we should obey it. In Romans 5:20, a law that increases sin is a law that is sinful, but Romans 7:7 say that God's law is not sinful, therefore Romans 5:20 should be interpreted as referring to a law that increases sin rather than to God's law, which decreases sin, namely the law of sin.

In Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant involves law keeping, so I don't see how you can deny that it requires law keeping. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so law keeping is a requirement.

I have said nothing to suggest that the greatest two commandments are insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic Law, but rather I have spoken in regard to what it means to fulfill the Mosaic Law and what it does not mean. Likewise I have said nothing to suggest that we are under the Mosaic Covenant and not the New Covenant, but rather I have spoken only in regard to how we should live under the New Covenant.

In Titus 2:11-14 our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and goodm and to renounce doing what is ungodly. Furthermore, verse 14 says that Jesus gave himself in order to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for dong good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's laws for how to do good works has nothing to do with adding our own works to what Jesus accomplished or with considering his death to be insufficient to save.

klutedavid · May 3, 2021

Soyeong said:
God is righteousness, so all righteousness is His righteousness and whenever we do what is righteous, such as helping the poor, we are testifying about God's righteousness.

Again, nowhere does the Bible teach that we can earn our righteousness by having perfect obedience, but rather there are many people who are described as righteous who fell short of perfect obedience. There are many verses that speak against earning our righteousness because that righteousness was never something that could be earned. Jesus was righteous, so the reason why he obeyed the Mosaic Law was not in order to earn his righteousness.

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 righteous faith in Christ for all who believe, so having perfect obedience was never a means of becoming righteous. The one and only way that there has ever been to become righteous is by means of a gift, and receiving the gift of Christ's righteousness is becoming someone who does what is righteous in accordance with Christ's example. In Romans 3:31, Paul did not want us to conclude that being declared righteous through faith apart from works that our faith abolishes our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it, so the fact that we are declared righteous through faith apart from works is denying that there are any works that we can do to earn our righteousness, but that does not mean that being someone who is righteous is apart from being someone who does what is righteous through faith. It was necessary for Jesus to be sinless because someone with sin could not have given himself to atone for the sins of the world, but that had nothing to do with him earning his righteousness as a wage.

Righteous has never been earned in the history of mankind because it is not something that can be earned, but only given as a gift.

It is contradictory for there to be trespass before there is anything to trespass.

In Romans 3:27, Paul directly contrasted a law of works with the law of faith, so you should be more careful not to take what Paul said about the law of works and apply it to the law of faith. The law that Paul spoke against relying on in Galatians 3:10-12 can't be the same law that Paul said that our faith upholds in Romans 3:31. There are many others verses that I could cite where there is a law that Paul spoke in favor of obeying and other verses where there is a law that he spoke against, so if you don't bother to determine which law Paul was speaking about, then you end up turning him into a contradictory mess and making him out to be an enemy of God who was teaching us to rebel against what He has commanded. For example, in Romans 8:4-7, Paul contrasted those who walk in the Spirit with those who have minds set on the flesh, who are enemies of God, who refuse to submit to His law.

Romans 5:18 does not say that we were already condemned long before the law. Likewise, Galatians 3:19 does not say anything about God's eternal laws being temporarily added. Christ did not go around telling people that the law had ended and they needed to stop repenting from their sins, but just the opposite, and what is said about what Jesus did should not be distorted to undermine what Jesus actually did. God's law does not just teach us what sin is, but also teaches us how to do what is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12), but if you believe that the Mosaic Law reveals what sin is and what we should refrain from doing what God has revealed to be sin, then you should agree that we should obey it. In Romans 5:20, a law that increases sin is a law that is sinful, but Romans 7:7 say that God's law is not sinful, therefore Romans 5:20 should be interpreted as referring to a law that increases sin rather than to God's law, which decreases sin, namely the law of sin.

In Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant involves law keeping, so I don't see how you can deny that it requires law keeping. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so law keeping is a requirement.

I have said nothing to suggest that the greatest two commandments are insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic Law, but rather I have spoken in regard to what it means to fulfill the Mosaic Law and what it does not mean. Likewise I have said nothing to suggest that we are under the Mosaic Covenant and not the New Covenant, but rather I have spoken only in regard to how we should live under the New Covenant.

In Titus 2:11-14 our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and goodm and to renounce doing what is ungodly. Furthermore, verse 14 says that Jesus gave himself in order to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for dong good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's laws for how to do good works has nothing to do with adding our own works to what Jesus accomplished or with considering his death to be insufficient to save.

Hello Soyeong.

I was reading through your post and I noticed this.

It is contradictory for there to be trespass before there is anything to trespass.

It is not a case of whether you will trespass or not. You have already been condemned, way before, you even attempted to obey any law.

Romans 7:21-24
I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Paul's flesh had condemned Paul, Paul was imprisoned by his sin.

Whether Paul actually obeyed any of the law is irrelevant, Paul was under the condemnation of the law anyway. Paul was evil and an enemy of God.

That is why your statement.

It is contradictory for there to be trespass before there is anything to trespass.

Is incomprehensible. You are not condemned for a Sabbath breach or a lie you told. You are condemned because you are riddled with the sin that is in your flesh.

Romans 3:19-20
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

As soon as God issued the law, we were all condemned.

Soyeong · May 3, 2021

klutedavid said:
Hello Soyeong.

I was reading through your post and I noticed this.

It is not a case of whether you will trespass or not. You have already been condemned, way before, you even attempted to obey any law.

Romans 7:21-24
I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

Paul's flesh had condemned Paul, Paul was imprisoned by his sin.

Whether Paul actually obeyed any of the law is irrelevant, Paul was under the condemnation of the law anyway. Paul was evil and an enemy of God.

That is why your statement.Is incomprehensible. You are not condemned for a Sabbath breach or a lie you told. You are condemned because you are riddled with the sin that is in your flesh.

Romans 3:19-20
Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

As soon as God issued the law, we were all condemned.

Hello,

There needs to be a law that defines what it means to trespass before we can trespass, so I don't see how you can dispute that. @Clare73 stated "We were already condemned long before tha law" while you stated "As soon as God issued the law, we were all condemned", so you are in disagreement, though you are both wrong. The existence of sin requires there to be a standard of what is and is not sin, and that standard is God's eternal nature, which has been revealed through His eternal law, so God's law is coexistent with His nature and one can't exist without the other. For example to say that God is righteous is to say that He does what is righteous, so God's eternal righteousness requires there to also be an eternal way to do what is righteous regardless of when that way has been revealed to us.

Being accountable to God to obey God's law is not the same as being condemned by it because in 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are accountable to walk in the same way he walked, and in Romans 8:1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Every example of faith listed in Hebrews 11 is of someone from the OT, so people in the OT were justified by the same means as we are. God did not give the law in order to condemn us, but rather God can be trusted to give us laws that are for our own good in order to bless us (Deuteronomy 6:24, 10:12-13).

In Romans 7:22, Paul delighted in God's law, so do you think that he delighted in being condemned? The Psalms express an extremely positive view of the Mosaic Law, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so if you consider the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express a correct view of the Mosaic Law, then you will share it, as Paul did. The Psalms are Scripture, so any view of the Mosaic Law that is not in accordance with the view expressed in the Psalms is wrong, such as that it was given to condemn us, and anything less than the view that we ought to delight in obeying the Mosaic Law is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture.

Clare73 · May 4, 2021

Soyeong said:
God is righteousness, so all righteousness is His righteousness and whenever we do what is righteous, such as helping the poor, we are testifying about God's righteousness.

Again, nowhere does the Bible teach that we can earn our righteousness by having perfect obedience, but rather there are many people who are described as righteous who fell short of perfect obedience. There are many verses that speak against earning our righteousness because that righteousness was never something that could be earned. Jesus was righteous, so the reason why he obeyed the Mosaic Law was not in order to earn his righteousness.

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 righteous faith in Christ for all who believe, so having perfect obedience was never a means of becoming righteous. The one and only way that there has ever been to become righteous is by means of a gift, and receiving the gift of Christ's righteousness is becoming someone who does what is righteous in accordance with Christ's example. In Romans 3:31, Paul did not want us to conclude that being declared righteous through faith apart from works that our faith abolishes our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it, so the fact that we are declared righteous through faith apart from works is denying that there are any works that we can do to earn our righteousness, but that does not mean that being someone who is righteous is apart from being someone who does what is righteous through faith. It was necessary for Jesus to be sinless because someone with sin could not have given himself to atone for the sins of the world, but that had nothing to do with him earning his righteousness as a wage.

Righteous has never been earned in the history of mankind because it is not something that can be earned, but only given as a gift.

It is contradictory for there to be trespass before there is anything to trespass.

Not according to Romans 5:12-14.

In Romans 3:27, Paul directly contrasted a law of works with the law of faith, so you should be more careful not to take what Paul said about the law of works and apply it to the law of faith. The law that Paul spoke against relying on in Galatians 3:10-12 can't be the same law that Paul said that our faith upholds in Romans 3:31.

It is precisely the same. We emphatically do not rely on the law for justification, but we uphold the law in the obedience of sanctification. We don't abolish the Mosaic law, we establish its proper use--for sanctification, not for justifiction. And in the New Covenant, obedience to the Mosaic law is completely fulfilled in love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40, Romans 13:10)

There are many others verses that I could cite where there is a law that Paul spoke in favor of obeying and other verses where there is a law that he spoke against, so if you don't bother to determine which law Paul was speaking about, then you end up turning him into a contradictory mess and making him out to be an enemy of God who was teaching us to rebel against what He has commanded. For example, in Romans 8:4-7, Paul contrasted those who walk in the Spirit with those who have minds set on the flesh, who are enemies of God, who refuse to submit to His law.

Romans 5:18 does not say that we were already condemned long before the law. Likewise, Galatians 3:19 does not say anything about God's eternal laws being temporarily added. Christ did not go around telling people that the law had ended and they needed to stop repenting from their sins, but just the opposite, and what is said about what Jesus did should not be distorted to undermine what Jesus actually did. God's law does not just teach us what sin is, but also teaches us how to do what is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12), but if you believe that the Mosaic Law reveals what sin is and what we should refrain from doing what God has revealed to be sin, then you should agree that we should obey it. In Romans 5:20, a law that increases sin is a law that is sinful, but Romans 7:7 say that God's law is not sinful, therefore Romans 5:20 should be interpreted as referring to a law that increases sin rather than to God's law, which decreases sin, namely the law of sin.

In Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant involves law keeping, so I don't see how you can deny that it requires law keeping. In Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so law keeping is a requirement.

I have said nothing to suggest that the greatest two commandments are insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic Law, but rather I have spoken in regard to what it means to fulfill the Mosaic Law and what it does not mean. Likewise I have said nothing to suggest that we are under the Mosaic Covenant and not the New Covenant, but rather I have spoken only in regard to how we should live under the New Covenant.

In Titus 2:11-14 our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and goodm and to renounce doing what is ungodly. Furthermore, verse 14 says that Jesus gave himself in order to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for dong good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's laws for how to do good works has nothing to do with adding our own works to what Jesus accomplished or with considering his death to be insufficient to save.

@Clare73 stated "We were already condemned long before tha law" while you (klutedavid) stated "As soon as God issued the law, we were all condemned", so you are in disagreement, though you are both wrong.

Death is the wages of sin (Romans 6:23), and Paul teaches in Romans 5:12-14 that the reason mankind died between the time of Adam and Moses before the law was given and, therefore there was no trespass, was because God held them guilty of Adam's sin imputed (Romans 5:18-19) to them. Mankind has been condemned since the fall of Adam.

You have a thorough mind, a good clear grasp of the NT doctrine which you understand, and are a teacher. But there is still some important NT doctrine which you do not understand.

But more important is your fundametal issue: an attempt to make insufficient Jesus' two laws (Matthew 22:37-40) given to fulfill the Mosaic law in the New Covenant (Romans 13:10).

You are practicing what the NT calls will worship (Colossians 2:22-23, KJV), devising our own way of honoring and worshipping God instead of doing so only in the way he has prescribed (see Uzzah). All forms of religion not authorized by the NT are worldly because they do not come from the new creation (Galatians 4:3, 8-1; Colossians 2:8, 17, 20; Hebrews 10:1) and likewise dishonoring to God because they are authorized by man only, not by God. We are to do nothing that dishonors God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

You are as crossways with God on this as are those who attempt to make Jesus' death insufficient to save without their works being added to his work.

You've got one foot in the Old Covenant and one foot in the New Covenant.
That is a rejecting God's New Covenant order as insufficient, and adding your own work of law-keeping to complete it.

You must come out of this bifurcated gospel which, though not in theory, yet in practice, treats Jesus' two commandments as insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic law, preferring one's own law-keeping instead.

One foot in and one foot out is not full acceptance of God's New Covenant order.
And that is not a good thing for you. . .

Soyeong · May 4, 2021

Clare73 said:
Not according to Romans 5:12-14.

In order for sin to exist, there needs to be a standard that defines what sin is and is not. People can transgress that standard before that standard has been made known to them, as in Romans 5:12-14, but it is incoherent to say that sin has enter the world without there being a concept of what sin is. For example, it has eternally been sinful to commit adultery for as long as God has been eternally righteous, but people have not always been aware of the law that it is sinful to commit adultery, so it was not counted against them until they were given that law.

It is precisely the same. We emphatically do not rely on the law for justification, but we uphold the law in the obedience of sanctification. We don't abolish the Mosaic law, we establish its proper use--for sanctification, not for justifiction.

In Romans 2:13, only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified, so obedience to it is required for justification, but not in order to earn it. Likewise, Matthew 19:17, the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God commandments, but this is not speaking about earning eternal life. in James 2:21-23, Abraham was justified by his works when he offered Isaac, his faith was active along with his works, and his faith completed his works, so again works are required for justification, but not in order to earn it.

Furthermore, in Galatians 3:10-12, it does not just deny that we should rely of works of the law, but says that they are not of faith, so works of the law can not be the same law that our faith upholds. There is nothing in those verses that makes a distinction that works of the law are not of faith when it comes to justification, but are of faith when it comes to sanctification, and there is nothing in Romans 3:31 that specifies that our faith only upholds God's law when it comes to sanctification, but that God can't be relied upon when it comes to justification.

In addition, you are ignoring that Paul contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, so they are not the same law. You are also ignoring where the Bible speaks about laws that weren't given by God, such as in Acts 10:28 and you are ignoring the role of the large body of Jewish oral laws, traditions, rulings, and fences that existed in the 1st century.

And in the New Covenant, obedience to the Mosaic law is completely fulfilled in love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40, Romans 13:10)

I completely agree that love fulfills the entire Mosaic Law and have not suggested otherwise. Do you agree or disagree that obedience to the command to help the poor is an example of what it means to obey the command to love God and our neighbor? If not, then thinking we just need obey the command to love our neighbor, so we don't need to help the poor is fundamentally misunderstanding what Jesus was saying and is not treating the other commandments as hanging on the greatest two. If so, then the same thing can be said about God's other laws, so love fulfills the law because it is essentially what all of the other laws are about how to do.

Death

is the wages of sin

(Romans 6:23), and Paul teaches in Romans 5:12-14 that the reason mankind died between the time of Adam and Moses before the law was given and, therefore there was no trespass, was because God held them guilty of Adam's sin imputed (Romans 5:18-19) to them. Mankind has been condemned since the fall of Adam.

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. You only get that mankind has been condemned since the fall of Adam if you ignore the second half of the verse.

You have a thorough mind, a good clear grasp of the NT doctrine which you understand, and are a teacher. But there is still some important NT doctrine which you do not understand.

But more important is your fundametal issue: an attempt to make insufficient Jesus' two laws (Matthew 22:37-40) given to fulfill the Mosaic law in the New Covenant (Romans 13:10).

You are practicing what the NT calls will worship (Colossians 2:22-23, KJV), devising our own way of honoring and worshipping God instead of doing so only in the way he has prescribed (see Uzzah). All forms of religion not authorized by the NT are worldly because they do not come from the new creation (Galatians 4:3, 8-1; Colossians 2:8, 17, 20; Hebrews 10:1) and likewise dishonoring to God because they are authorized by man only, not by God. We are to do nothing that dishonors God (1 Corinthians 10:31).

You are as crossways with God on this as are those who attempt to make Jesus' death insufficient to save without their works being added to his work.

You've got one foot in the Old Covenant and one foot in the New Covenant.
That is a rejecting God's New Covenant order as insufficient, and adding your own work of law-keeping to complete it.

You must come out of this bifurcated gospel which, though not in theory, yet in practice, treats Jesus' two commandments as insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic law, preferring one's own law-keeping instead.

One foot in and one foot out is not full acceptance of God's New Covenant order.
And that is not a good thing for you. . .

Thank you. I can only keep denying that I've made any attempt to make the greatest two commandment insufficient to fulfill the Mosaic Law, denying that I prefer my own law-keeping instead, denying that I have a foot in the Mosaic Covenant, denying that I have said anything to make Jesus' death insufficient to save without their works being added to his work, and denying that I am rejecting God's New Covenant order as insufficient, but I can't stop you from making up bogus things about what I believe.

In Colossians 2:22-23, it specifically states that it is speaking about human precepts and teachings, which means that it is not speaking about the holy, righteous, and good commandments of God. The Mosaic Law is not something that devised myself, but rather it is something that God commanded to teach us how to honor and worship Him. Christ spent his ministry teaching how to obey the Mosaic Law by word and by example, so it is absurd to interpret Colossians 2:8 as Paul speaking about those teaching people how to follow Christ as taking people captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, and not according to Christ. It is a tipsy topsy world that you live in where obedience to God's commands in accordance with the example Christ set for us to follow is dishonoring Him. You should be more careful not to take things that were only said against obeying man as being against obeying God as if Paul were not a servant of God.

klutedavid · May 4, 2021

Soyeong said:
Hello,

There needs to be a law that defines what it means to trespass before we can trespass, so I don't see how you can dispute that. @Clare73 stated "We were already condemned long before tha law" while you stated "As soon as God issued the law, we were all condemned", so you are in disagreement, though you are both wrong. The existence of sin requires there to be a standard of what is and is not sin, and that standard is God's eternal nature, which has been revealed through His eternal law, so God's law is coexistent with His nature and one can't exist without the other. For example to say that God is righteous is to say that He does what is righteous, so God's eternal righteousness requires there to also be an eternal way to do what is righteous regardless of when that way has been revealed to us.

Being accountable to God to obey God's law is not the same as being condemned by it because in 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are accountable to walk in the same way he walked, and in Romans 8:1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Every example of faith listed in Hebrews 11 is of someone from the OT, so people in the OT were justified by the same means as we are. God did not give the law in order to condemn us, but rather God can be trusted to give us laws that are for our own good in order to bless us (Deuteronomy 6:24, 10:12-13).

In Romans 7:22, Paul delighted in God's law, so do you think that he delighted in being condemned? The Psalms express an extremely positive view of the Mosaic Law, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so if you consider the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express a correct view of the Mosaic Law, then you will share it, as Paul did. The Psalms are Scripture, so any view of the Mosaic Law that is not in accordance with the view expressed in the Psalms is wrong, such as that it was given to condemn us, and anything less than the view that we ought to delight in obeying the Mosaic Law is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture.

You will die because Adam sinned and died.

Romans 5:18
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

You were condemned as a consequence of Adam's transgression.

Soyeong · May 4, 2021

klutedavid said:
You will die because Adam sinned and died.

Romans 5:18
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

You were condemned as a consequence of Adam's transgression.

Rather, you will live because of one act of righteousness.

Romans 5:18
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

klutedavid · May 4, 2021

Soyeong said:
Rather, you will live because of one act of righteousness.

Romans 5:18
So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men.

Correct.

Clare73 · May 5, 2021

Soyeong said:
In order for sin to exist, there needs to be a standard that defines what sin is and is not. People can transgress that standard before that standard has been made known to them, as in
Romans 5:12-14, but it is incoherent to say that sin has enter the world without there being a concept of what sin is.

That is the point on which Paul's argument turns. . .in his parallel
-of condemnation and death for mankind because of Adam's one act of transgression, with
righteousness and eternal life for mankind because of Jesus' one act of obedience in Romans 5:18-19.

Because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), death proves there was sin in the world before the law was given. Since there can be no sin when there is no law, then what sin caused the death of those between Adam and Moses? Paul concludes it was the sin of Adam, that they all died between Adam and Moses because of the sin of Adam that was imputed to men (Romans 5:18), which he parallels to the righteousness of Christ also imputed to men (Romans 5:18-19) in justification/righteousness through faith.

For example, it has eternally been sinful to commit adultery for as long as God has been eternally righteous, but people have not always been aware of the law that it is sinful to commit adultery, so it was not counted against them until they were given that law.
In Romans 2:13, only doers of the Mosaic Law will be justified, so obedience to it is required for justification,

Okay, your conclusion of Romans 2:13 is incorrect, for God justifies the wicked who do not work(s of the law) but trust him (Romans 4:5).

Likewise, Matthew 19:17, the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God commandments, but this is not speaking about earning eternal life.

Jesus is speaking of the Old Covenant order, under which Jesus preached and died.
Jesus referred those under the law to the law for the same reason that the law was given--it was temporarily added (Galatians 3:19) to the Abrahamic covenant only to reveal to us how sinful we are, to cause us to become conscious of sin (Romans 3:20), to increase sin, to reveal sin (Romans 5:20).

You must reckon with the NT revelation of the law's purpose if you are going to understand the New Covenant revelation regarding the law.

in James 2:21-23, Abraham was justified by his works when he offered Isaac, his faith was active along with his works, and his faith completed his works, so again works are required for justification, but not in order to earn it.

While Paul uses justify to mean "to declare not guilty," James uses it to mean "to verify, to show to be true."
As in, "she was justified (shown to be true) in not trusting the old car."

Abraham's faith was verified by his obedience regarding Isaac, but
Genesis 15:6 and Paul clearly state Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness/justification when he believed the promise,
not when he offered Isaac, which was when his faith was verified, not when his faith justified him.
James is stating that Abraham's faith was verified when he offered Isaac.

Furthermore, in Galatians 3:10-12, it does not just deny that we should rely of works of the law, but says that they are not of faith, so works of the law can not be the same law that our faith upholds. There is nothing in those verses that makes a distinction that works of the law are not of faith when it comes to justification, but are of faith when it comes to sanctification, and there is nothing in Romans 3:31 that specifies that our faith only upholds God's law when it comes to sanctification, but that God can't be relied upon when it comes to justification.

There is nothing in Daniel 4:35 that states God is sovereign, but we know from the whole counsel of God that he is indeed sovereign, even though it is nowhere specifically stated.
Likewise with both emphatically denying the law's involvement in justification, and upholding the law's involvement in sanctification.
We know it from the necessary conclusion of the whole import of the NT, from the necessary conclusion of Paul's revelation.

Secondly, "not of faith" does not mean "are of unbelief," it means that "by faith" and "by works" are two different principles,
that "by works" is "not of faith," that "by faith" is "not of works,"
not of faith = not by faith, and not of works = not by works, and does not mean that either faith or works are invalid.
Correct understanding of Paul's revelation does not mix works with faith in justification, nor does it negate the validity of either works or faith.

I'm trying to decide if you really misunderstand these texts, or if you are simply knitting them together to support your assertion of the necessity for law keeping in the New Covenant. Right now, the latter seems to have the most weight, which means I am not inclined to unravel your knitting just for the sake of unravelling it, I am willing to do such if it means a truer NT understanding for you.
Are you in a position to tell me which is more likely here?

In addition, you are ignoring that Paul contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, so they are not the same law.

The law of works is the principle of works = effected by works, through the Holy Spirit (righteousness of sanctification).
The law of faith is the principle of faith = effected by faith (righteousness of justification/salvation).

You are also ignoring where the Bible speaks about laws that weren't given by God, such as in Acts 10:28

The practice in Acts 10:28 is called "law" because it was the necessary consequence of the law regarding defilement by the unclean, which made the Israelite unclean if he touched the unclean, which a Gentile was

and you are ignoring the role of the large body of Jewish oral laws, traditions, rulings, and fences that existed in the 1st century.

Actually, it is Paul who ignores them, since he is dealing with the law given by God.

I completely agree that love fulfills the entire Mosaic Law and have not suggested otherwise. Do you agree or disagree that obedience to the command to help the poor is an example of what it means to obey the command to love God and our neighbor?

I don't need a command to "help the poor" when I love my neighbor, I help whoever needs help, the rich, the poor, and neither.
There is more to loving your neighbor than what is or can be spelled out in the law.
You are creating a false construct to justify your insistence on adding law keeping to the New Covenant.

If not, then thinking we just need obey the command to love our neighbor, so we don't need to help the poor is fundamentally misunderstanding what Jesus was saying and is not treating the other commandments as hanging on the greatest two. If so, then the same thing can be said about God's other laws, so love fulfills the law because it is essentially what all of the other laws are about how to do.

There is no NT command to "treat the other commandments as hanging on the greatest two."
This again is a false construct to require law keeping in the New Covenant.

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. You only get that mankind has been condemned since the fall of Adam if you ignore the second half of the verse.

Another misconstruction. All mankind is condemned because of the sin of Adam (Romans 5:18; Ephesians 2:3). Only those who believe and trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ for the remission of their sin and right standing with God's justice (not guilty) receive the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus.

In Colossians 2:22-23, it specifically states that it is speaking about human precepts and teachings, which means that it is not speaking about the holy, righteous, and good commandments of God. The Mosaic Law is not something that devised myself,

That is precisely the meaning of "will worship," worshipping God according to what we think is better--either from man or ordinances of God, it matters not, because it is not what he has specifically prescribed.
Uzzah thought he was doing a really good thing when the oxen stumbled and he kept the Ark from falling, but it was contrary to what God had specifically prescribed, and God struck him dead (1 Chronicles 13:9-11).
I am comparing you to the will worship of Colossians in your adding specific law keeping to what God has prescribed: "Love your neighbor as yourself," where Jesus specifically prescribes the standard we are to follow, but which you want to improve with law keeping.

but rather it is something that God commanded to teach us how to honor and worship Him. Christ spent his ministry teaching how to obey the Mosaic Law by word and by example, so it is absurd to interpret Colossians 2:8 as Paul speaking about those teaching people how to follow Christ as taking people captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, and not according to Christ. It is a tipsy topsy world that you live in where obedience to God's commands in accordance with the example Christ set for us to follow is dishonoring Him. You should be more careful not to take things that were only said against obeying man as being against obeying God as if Paul were not a servant of God.

Less cutting and pasting would be appreciated.

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