I don't object to you keeping the Mosaic law, if that is what you feel you have to do.
I disagree that "following Jesus' example" means "adopting the faith that he was brought up in and keeping the laws that he fulfilled."
DO you follow Jesus' example? Are you an itinerant preacher, teaching about God, coming into conflict with religious authorities and speaking only the words that God gives you to speak? That's what Jesus did - if you follow his example, it should be what you do too.
God is either sovereign or He is not, followers of God should either follow God or we should not, our obedience to God is not about what we feel we have to do. Jesus is the exact expression of the God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), which he expressed through how he lived, so following his example is about expressing holiness, righteousness, goodness, and other aspects of his nature through our actions in accordance with God's instructions for how to do that, not about being an itinerant preacher or wearing robes and sandals.
"To fulfill the law" means "to cause God's will as made known in His law to be obeyed as it should be” (NAS Greek Lexicon pleroo 2c3). After Jesus said he came to fulfill the law in Matthew 5, he proceeded to fulfill it six times throughout the rest of the chapter by teaching how to correctly obey it or by completing our understanding of it. In Galatians 5:14, loving our neighbor fulfills the entire law, so it refers to something that countless people have done, not to something unique that only Jesus did. In Galatians 6:2, bearing one another's burdens fulfills the Law of Christ, so you should interpret that in the same way as you interpret fulfilling the Law of Moses.
What do you think it means to follow Christ's example?
Yes, once only the nation of Israel were God's people - now, through Christ, we can all be.
That doesn't mean we have to put ourselves under the laws which they were given, and proved that they were unable to keep.
We are reconciled to God through Christ; given the Spirit through Christ and have become God's children and heirs with Christ. Our new community is centred on Christ, not Moses.
In 1 Peter 2:9-10, Gentiles are included as part of God's chosen people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, and a treasure of God's own possession, which are terms used to describe Israel (Deuteronomy 7:6), so Gentiles also have the delight of getting to follow the instructions for how to fulfill those roles. It is contradictory for a Gentile to want to become included as part of those roles while wanting nothing to do with following God's instructions for how to fulfill them. In 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to have a holy conduct for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to have a holy conduct as part of a holy nation, so following those instructions is testifying about God eternal holiness, while refusing to follow them is bearing false witness against His holiness. There were countless Israelites who kept the law who proved that it can be kept.
God did not just give instructions through His word for how to become reconciled to him, but sent Jesus to show us how to follow to instructions as the word made flesh, so he is the living embodiment of those instructions and the personification of the nature of God that those instructions were given to testify about. The fruits of the Spirit are all aspects of God's nature that the Spirit leads us to express by leading us to obey those instruction (Ezekiel 36:26-27). A chip of the old block is someone who has the same character or nature as their father, so that is the sense that Jesus is the Son of God and the sense that we are sons of God when we are partaking in the divine nature, which is why those who do not practice righteousness sin obedience to God's law are not children of God (1 John 3:10). The same God who gave the law to Moses also sent Jesus, who set a sinless example of how to obey it, so there is no disagreement.
Scripture says that it was only because Christ was made sin for us that we are able to become the righteousness of God.
Jesus has reconciled us to God; we are righteous in him and through faith - just as Abraham was. Being righteous, we are to do the works of righteousness and show it by our fruit.
The law never made anyone righteous. Even Noah and Job, who were described as righteous men, sinned - because Jesus is the only sinless person who has ever lived, and therefore the only One who could be sin for us.
I am righteous in him; I do not keep the Mosaic law.
Jesus expressed the righteousness of God through his actions by walking in obedience to the Mosaic Law, so that is also how we are called to express the righteousness of God. In 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked. God's law is His instructions for how to do works of righteousness, not His instructions for how to become righteous. To say that someone is righteous is to say that they do what is righteous, so there is no such thing as someone who is righteous while also refusing to follow God's instructions for how to do what is righteous.
God's law was given to a specific group of people - those who had been rescued from Egypt, purified at his Holy mountain and entered into a covenant with him.
That may have included your ancestors; it doesn't include mine.
Indeed, God's law was given to a specific group of people and it was given to them for the purpose of equipping them to be a light and a blessing to the nations through teaching the nations to turn from their wicked ways and how to walk in God's ways in obedience to it (Isaiah 2:2-3, 49:6). The reason why God saved the Israelites out of Egypt was not because of how great they were, but rather it teaches us something important about the nature of who God is, and as his followers we should live in a way that testifies about the nature of who He is rather than a way that denies the nature of who He is, so focusing on whether you happen to have ancestors who were in Egypt is missing the point. The way that you live testifies about who you believe about who God is, so if you believe that God is righteous and holy, then you should follow his instructions for how to do that found in His law. Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so it is contradictory for someone to think that they need salvation from sin while also thinking that they have no obligation to refrain from doing what God's law reveals to be sin.
I know - I was showing that God had given some commands and laws long before he gave them through Moses.
The way to do what is righteous have existed for as long as God has been eternally righteous, so there were no actions that became righteous when God's law was given, but rather God's law revealed what has always been and will always be the way to do that.
Jesus was born under the law (Galatians 4:4), so he was obligated to obey it, and he was sinless, so he never broke it, so to say that he did not keep it perfectly is to deny that he was sinless. 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 broke the Sabbath by healing on it. It is lawful to heal on the Sabbath, so while they were some Pharisees who through that Jesus had broken the law, they were wrong. It is unlawful to work on the Sabbath, but God also commanded priests to make offerings on the Sabbath (Numbers 28:9-10), however it was not the case that priests were forced to sin by disobeying one of the two commands, but that one of the commands was greater and that the lesser command was never intended to be understood as prohibiting the greater commandment from being obeyed, so 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 Jesus defended his disciples as being innocent. Likewise, it is lawful to circumcise a baby on the 8th day if happens to fall on a Sabbath and it is lawful to get an ox or a child out of a ditch on the Sabbath, so there were some forms of work that were never intended to be understood as being prohibited by the Sabbath.
There is nothing in the Bible that say that Jesus did not offer animal sacrifices.
John 8:1-12 is an example of Jesus acting in accordance with the Mosaic Law requires. There was no judge to pronounce a sentence (
Deuteronomy 19:17-21), there was no man accused (
Leviticus 20:10), he didn't have any witnesses to examine (
Numbers 35:30,
Deuteronomy 19:15), and he did not have a confession, so if he had condemned her, then he would have acted in violation of the Mosaic Law. Just a few verses later Jesus said that he judged no one (
John 8:15) and he also said that he came not to judge (
John 12:47), so he did not exercise authority as a magistrate and did not condemn her, but he did recognize her action as sin, and told her to go and sin no more.
In Matthew 19:3, Jesus was asked whether it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason and this is what was not so from the beginning.
There were some religious leaders who rejected Jesus while others became his followers, such as Nicodemus.
1 John 3:16 - "THIS is love; Jesus Christ laid down his life for us".
Romans 5:8 - "God has shown us how much he loves us; while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Jesus express his love both through how he lived in obedience to the Mosaic Law and through his death. In John 13:34, he instructed to love one another as he had loved them, which was said prior to when he laid down his life for us. In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus summarized the Mosaic Law as being about how to love God and our neighbor, so that is how he loved God and his neighbor. The law itself came with instructions for what to do when the people sinned, so perfect obedience was never a requirement for us. Even if someone managed to live in perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law, then they still would not earn their righteousness because it was never given as a means of doing that.
The good kinds tended to live for much longer than the evil kings did, so if you add up the years, the the Israelites were under a good king for roughly 80% of the time, which is far from being a complete failure. In any case, Israel succeeded as a light to the nations either by being an example of what we should do or an example of what we should avoid doing, and we should learn from Israel's refusal to obey God's law as an example of what we should avoid doing, not as an example for us to emulate (1 Corinthians 10:1-13).
So if atheists and people of other faiths, those who don't accept Jesus, aren't sinners, they can get to heaven without hearing the Gospel, and we don't need to obey Jesus' command to preach to them??
God is sovereign, so we are all under His law. Unbelievers need to repent from doing what God's law reveals to be sin even though they aren't under the New Covenant, so there is nothing about not being under the Mosaic Covenant that means that we don't need to repent from doing what God's law reveals to be sin.
Sin was in the world long before Moses gave the law - and people knew that they were sinners.
Indeed, there is much evidence of many of God's eternal laws being given prior to when they were given at Sinai, so the laws given at Sinai did not change which actions are righteous or sinful, and all of the laws that God has given are how the Israelites knew what sin is.
No, he may have been given a prophecy about him; he didn't KNOW him, since he lived before Jesus was born on earth.
Genesis 5:24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
If you believe both of the above verses, then Enoch knew Christ and the way that he walked with God is the way, who is Christ. The only way for Enoch to have eternal life is though knowing God and Jesus (John 17:3).
God's commandments given through Jesus - not the Mosaic law and all the food and hygiene laws.
Jesus was one with the Father, so he was no in disagreement with Him about whether any of His laws should be followed. In John 15:10, Jesus used a parallel statement to equate his command with those of the Father. Jesus lived in sinless obedience to the Mosaic Law and did not hypocritically preach something other than what he practiced.
The ONLY way to be reconciled to God is by accepting that we are sinners and cannot do anything to find God on our own - and that Jesus died for our sins to reconcile us to God.
There is not other way to be forgiven and reconciled to God.
Jesus is the way, so walking in God's ways in obedience to His law is the way to become reconciled with God through Jesus. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Mosaic Law, so our obedience to it is about putting our faith in him, not about what we can accomplish on our own.
No, it wasn't.
Jesus said that he is the only way to the Father - not, Jesus + obeying the law; only Jesus. Jesus said that he alone gives eternal life, and that anyone who is not in the Son does not have life.
Jesus never told Jews "keep the law perfectly"; he said that he had come to fulfil the law.
He certainly never taught Gentiles to start obeying it.
God's law is God's word and Jesus is God's word made flesh, so that is the same way. It is Jesus who said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments (Matthew 19:17), so again that is the same way. Repentance doesn't change the fact that we have already fallen short of perfect obedience, so either repentance has value and there has never been a need for perfect obedience or we need to have perfect obedience and repentance has no value, and the consistent message of the prophets up to and including Jesus was that of repentance. Jesus fulfilled the law by teaching us how to obey it.
Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, 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 that Jesus taught, which was a light to the Gentiles (Matthew 4:15-23), which he prophesied would be proclaimed to all nations (Matthew 24:12-14), and which he commissioned his disciples with to teach all nations (Matthew 28:16-20).
Disagree.
He did not come to teach obedience to the law; that was not his purpose or mission.
He came that we should have life, John 10:10.
He came to seek and save the lost, Luke 19:10.
He came to give his life as a ransom for many, Mark 10:45.
When some Greeks came and wanted to talk to hi, Jesus spoek about seeds dying and said that that was why he had come, John 12:27.
Before the cross, Jesus said "I have finished the work that you gave me to do", John 17.
What work? Telling people to obey the law? No, the Pharisees did that, and prided themselves on doing that, yet they opposed Jesus, and Jesus called them hypocrites and whitewashed tombs.
On the cross, Jesus said "it is finished" - he had finished the work God gave him to do, which was to die for the sins of the world.
Regardless of whatever else you think that his mission was, Jesus set an example of how to walk in obedience to the Mosaic Law, which means that he taught how to obey it by example. If someone didn't know how to obey the Mosaic Law, then they could learn how to obey it by following him around and copying his example, and we are also told to follow his example.
In Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments, so that is how we should have life. Our salvation is from sin, and sin is the transgression of God's law, so teaching people to obey it is the way to seek and save the lost. In Titus 2:14, it describes what Jesus finished on the cross 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 that Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many (Acts 21:20). The way to glorify God is by living in a way that testifies about His nature, which is why doing good works in obedience to His law brings glory to the Father (Matthew 5:13-16). Jesus lived in sinless obedience to the Mosaic Law, so he was much more zealous for obedience to it than the Pharisees were. His purpose in criticizing the Pharisees was not in order to get them to stop following the law, but in order to call them to a fuller obedience to it.
