What's the "orthodox" view of the law of Christ?

Soyeong said:

Something having a ceremonial aspect does not exclude it from also being a moral action. Everything that God has commanded is in regard to how to love Him and our neighbor, which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:34-40 that those are the greatest two commandments and that all of the other commandments hang on them, so the position that we should obey the greatest two commandments is also the position that we should obey the commandments than hang on them, which is why love fulfills the law.

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Then let's unpack it more. What is the moral act of the 4th commandment that sets it apart? Obedience alone does not make the law uniquely moral, there is a purpose to the law and that purpose needs to be morally driven for it to called moral.

For example circumcision is not a moral act, it is a ceremonial act that is symbolic of being set apart by God, of purity, and a commitment of keeping his commandments. The act alone does not need to be performed for those things to exist and the act alone also does not garentee the moral product.

This is why Paul discourages the practice while still encouraging the goal. He says in 1 Cor 7:19 that circumcision is nothing and keeping God's commandment is what counts. This is a mind blowing statement as circumcision is the covenant act to keep the commandments yet Paul call's it nothing and points to the change of the direct change of heart, emphasising the moral products over the ceremonial displays.

I'm not sure there is a single "orthodox" view of Christ, any more than I have ever seen a single view of Christ in any of the churches to which the Lord has sent Sweet Lori and myself over the years, we have worked in and visited several. I am positive that many "orthodox" views of Christ are not consistent with this:

from scratch said:

I know you love separating the law and even the Ten Commandments. The Bible doesn't do this in any place. The law is a single indivisible whole unit. You can have the wages of any work I do. I like the gift much better.

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Hi there. I would like to show you some scriptures because there are many laws in scripture, not just one.

The fact God gave the number Ten means there are separate laws. God only numbered one set of law in all of scripture by design because He knew man would try to reduce it to an unbiblical number.

Deut 4:13 So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone.

Exo 34:28 So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

After our God of the Universe personally wrote the Ten Commandments, no more was added

Deut 5:22 “These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly, in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and He added no more. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.

The Ten Commandments is very much separated and a standalone unit- written personally by God. Only the Ten Commandments was placed inside the ark of the covenant Exo 40:20 underneath God's mercy seat because it will be what all man is Judged by James 2:10-12 Rev 22:14-15 Ecc 12:13-14 Mat 5:19-30 God's perfect law converting the soul. Psa 19:7

There was another law added because man sinned Gal 3:19 and sin is breaking God's law 1 John 3:4 the Ten Commandments Rom 7:7 James 2:10-12.

The law of Moses was added, written by Moses in a book that was placed outside the ark of the covenant where inside God wrote His commandments Exo 20:6 . The law of Moses which contained all other laws including all the animal sacrifices etc for sin and until Christ came Heb 9:11-15 Heb 10:1-22 So there is not just one law in scripture, there are actually a lot of laws Neh 9:13

Deut 31:24 So it was, when Moses had completed writing the words of this law in a book, when they were finished, 25 that Moses commanded the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the Lord, saying: 26 “Take this Book of the Law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you;

We see the Ten Commandments before God codified them at Mt Sinai written by His own finger, For example the Sabbath started at Creation Exo 20:11, Eve stole and coveted the forbidden fruit in the Eden and broke commandment number 1 when she listened to the other spirit instead of obeying God. Cain murdered Abel which God said was sin, where there is no law, there is no sin Rom 4:15 so God's law existed from the beginning and more laws were added when man rebelled against God. which many were a prescription for breaking God's eternal and holy law to help bring man back to Him.

DamianWarS said:

Then let's unpack it more. What is the moral act of the 4th commandment that sets it apart? Obedience alone does not make the law uniquely moral, there is a purpose to the law and that purpose needs to be morally driven for it to called moral.

For example circumcision is not a moral act, it is a ceremonial act that is symbolic of being set apart by God, of purity, and a commitment of keeping his commandments. The act alone does not need to be performed for those things to exist and the act alone also does not garentee the moral product.

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The existence of the moral law would imply that we can be acting morally while disobeying the laws that aren't in that category, but there are no examples in the Bible where disobedience to any of God's laws is said to be moral and I see no justification for thinking that it can ever be moral to disobey God. Morality is in regard to what we ought to be in God's likeness by being a doer of His character traits in obedience to Him, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws. For example, in 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to be holy for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to do that, which includes keeping God's Sabbaths holy (Leviticus 19:2-3), so by following God's instructions for how to be holy as He is holy we are being in God's likeness by being a doer of His character traits, which is a moral issue. Legislators give laws according to what they think ought to be done, so for someone to claim that some of God's laws are not moral laws is to claim that God made a moral error about what ought to be done when He gave those laws and therefore to claim to have greater moral knowledge than God.

DamianWarS said:

This is why Paul discourages the practice while still encouraging the goal. He says in 1 Cor 7:19 that circumcision is nothing and keeping God's commandment is what counts. This is a mind blowing statement as circumcision is the covenant act to keep the commandments yet Paul call's it nothing and points to the change of the direct change of heart, emphasising the moral products over the ceremonial displays.

Click to expand...

It is important to recognize that Paul can speak against doing something for an incorrect reason without speaking against doing it for the reasons for which God commanded it. If Paul had been speaking against circumcision for any reason, then according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised right after the Jerusalem Council and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. In Acts 15:1, they were wanting to require Gentile to become circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the reason for which God commanded circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld God's law by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect reason. In Exodus 12:48, a Gentile who wanted to eat of the Passover lamb was required to become circumcised, so the Jerusalem Council should not be interpreted as ruling against Gentiles becoming circumcised for the reasons for which God commanded it as if they had the authority to countermand God. A Gentile who ate of the Passover lamb without becoming circumcised would have been acting immorally.

Paul also said that circumcision has much value in every way (Romans 3:1-2) and that circumcision conditionally has value if we obey God's law (Romans 2:25), so the moral value of circumcision is derived from our obedience to God's law. Someone being physically circumcision is an outward sign of them having a circumcised heart and someone having a circumcised heart is evident through observing their obedience to God's law (Romans 2:26), so it has no value only when what it signifies is not true.

In Isaiah 45:17, it says that all Israel shall be saved, which has led some to hold the position that the way for a Gentile to become saved is by becoming a Jew, which involves physical circumcision, which is is a position that Paul was strongly opposed to, and referred to by the phrase "works of the law". In Romans 2:17-29, Paul address those who call themselves Jews, so he was addressing Gentiles who had converted and were now calling themselves Jews, which involved becoming physically circumcised, but they were not living in obedience to God's law in accordance with their circumcision. So Paul was making the point that being a Jew is not just about being physically circumcised, but also about having a circumcised heart.

from scratch said:

I know you love separating the law and even the Ten Commandments. The Bible doesn't do this in any place. The law is a single indivisible whole unit. You can have the wages of any work I do. I like the gift much better.

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A gift can be the experience of doing something such as giving someone the opportunity to drive a Ferrari for an hour, where the gift requires them to do the work of driving it in order to have that experience, but where doing that work contributes nothing as a wage towards earning the opportunity to drive it. Likewise, God's gift of eternal life is the experience of knowing Him and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of God's law is His instructions for how to have that experience, not for how to earn it (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23). Jesus saves us from our sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so Jesus graciously teaching us to be a doer of the law is intrinsically the way that he is giving us his gift of saving us from not being a doer of the law. In Titus 2:11-13, 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 doing those works has nothing to do with trying to earn our salvation as a wage, but rather God graciously teaching us to be a doer of those works is part of His gift of salvation.

Soyeong said:

The existence of the. moral law would imply that we can be acting morally while disobeying the laws that aren't in that category, but there are no examples in the Bible where disobedience to any of God's laws is said to be moral and I see no justification for thinking that it can ever be moral to disobey God. Morality is in regard to what we ought to be in God's likeness by being a doer of His character traits in obedience to Him, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws. For example, in 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to be holy for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to do that, which includes keeping God's Sabbaths holy (Leviticus 19:2-3), so by following God's instructions for how to be holy as He is holy we are being in God's likeness by being a doer of His character traits, which is a moral issue. Legislators give laws according to what they think ought to be done, so for someone to claim that some of God's laws are not moral laws is to claim that God made a moral error about what ought to be done when He gave those laws and therefore to claim to have greater moral knowledge than God.

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Sabbath is not innately a physical value, it is a spiritual value. God did not physically rest on the 7th day because God is spirit and he preexisits the physical, he also does not need rest, certainly not physical rest, nor can physical rest satisfy the sabbath.

Based on the creation account "sabbath" as a verb doesn't have to mean rest, in the sense of taking a break, it can mean to cease and this is exactly what God did. Why did he cease? Because his work was complete. It is only through completed work that God ceases and for this reason it is why we associate 7 with a perfect number and a number of completion. God does not cease arbitrarily, he ceased with purpose, the purpose is because of a competed work he stopped working. Without a completed work, there is no sabbath.

The 7th day is the antithesis to before light was spoken time. It is of light, where the other is of darkness, it is complete, the other is incomplete, it is formed, the other unformed, it is rest, the other unrest, it is order the other is chaos etc.... The processes that transforms the chaos into order is the same process that speaks light into a dark hopeless world. And this shows us a salvation message. This shouldn't be a surprise to know that light into darkness is a spiritual message but the bible does spell it out explicitly in 2 Cor 4:6

So what is the message of creation? Is it physical or spiritual? What is the work? And if we are to rest as God did, what does it take to complete the work? What does it take to rest? We toil, week by week. Never completing the work, never being able to fully rest. If only one could come and do the work in a way to complete it then utter the words "it is finished" ushering in a new age of salvation.

Sabbath is moral to the degree we can understand it's purpose and through the purpose honor God, but the physical act of resting contributes nothing. This is the purpose of the law, the deep meanings of it and Christ is the answer to it, it points to him and he is the only one who can fulfill it. He is the only one who has can complete the work, and the only one that can give us rest. All we can do is play sabbath, we can do nothing ourselves to take it. Think of the 4th commandment, even the animals had to rest, but animals have no authority to rest. They can only rest when they are given rest by one with authority. Christ has the authority and he gives the rest freely but it is a spiritual focus over a physical. Rest is good, and rest is needed, but what Christ offers is the difference between water where we continually thirst and living water where we thrist no more.

Obedience is the at heart of serving Christ and he tells us to love one another as well as doing good is lawful on the Sabbath. Should we assume Christ meant that goodness is optional on the Sabbath or that it is something we should seek out? The man with the withered hand is greatful that Christ sought him out should we not do likewise?

Doing good is an act of love and is not optional in terms of Christian living but called upon us all. Christ using an example of pulling sheep out of pits. Does he need to spell it out that sheep are not really sheep? The spiritually lost are trapped, and need to be pulled out, we are the ones tasked to do it regardless of what labour you enter in, it is lawful.

Soyeong said:

It is important to recognize that Paul can speak against doing something for an incorrect reason without speaking against doing it for the reasons for which God commanded it. If Paul had been speaking against circumcision for any reason, then according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised right after the Jerusalem Council and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. In Acts 15:1, they were wanting to require Gentile to become circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the reason for which God commanded circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld God's law by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect reason. In Exodus 12:48, a Gentile who wanted to eat of the Passover lamb was required to become circumcised, so the Jerusalem Council should not be interpreted as ruling against Gentiles becoming circumcised for the reasons for which God commanded it as if they had the authority to countermand God. A Gentile who ate of the Passover lamb without becoming circumcised would have been acting immorally.

Paul also said that circumcision has much value in every way (Romans 3:1-2) and that circumcision conditionally has value if we obey God's law (Romans 2:25), so the moral value of circumcision is derived from our obedience to God's law. Someone being physically circumcision is an outward sign of them having a circumcised heart and someone having a circumcised heart is evident through observing their obedience to God's law (Romans 2:26), so it has no value only when what it signifies is not true.

In Isaiah 45:17, it says that all Israel shall be saved, which has led some to hold the position that the way for a Gentile to become saved is by becoming a Jew, which involves physical circumcision, which is is a position that Paul was strongly opposed to, and referred to by the phrase "works of the law". In Romans 2:17-29, Paul address those who call themselves Jews, so he was addressing Gentiles who had converted and were now calling themselves Jews, which involved becoming physically circumcised, but they were not living in obedience to God's law in accordance with their circumcision. So Paul was making the point that being a Jew is not just about being physically circumcised, but also about having a circumcised heart.

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Paul is a contextualist, he is driven by his mission as 1 Cor 9 unpacks. Circumcision can be used contextually to gain access to a people group who would otherwise reject you. This is why Timothy is circumcised but Titus on the other hand is not. Paul is evaluating it missionally not spiritually.

In Gal he unambiguously says circumcision in the flesh has no value, there is no way to explain what he says away, it is clear. The law points to Christ but when we use the law to discredit Christ's authority then Christ has no value for us and we are fully under the law and condemned under the law. Paul is not contradicting himself by his choices with Titus and Timothy, he is driven missionally, and sees circumcision as a negotiable value making his choices based on how it serves the mission, but spiritually the value merits you nothing, save for the act of sacrafice if done to reach a people group as Timothy did. The sacrafice which comes from the heart and a posture of love is counted but the physical devices we use have no power and gain us no extra credits. The obedience is from the heart and that's what God desires.

DamianWarS said:

Sabbath is not innately a physical value, it is a spiritual value. God did not physically rest on the 7th day because God is spirit and he preexisits the physical, he also does not need rest, certainly not physical rest, nor can physical rest satisfy the sabbath.

Based on the creation account "sabbath" as a verb doesn't have to mean rest, in the sense of taking a break, it can mean to cease and this is exactly what God did. Why did he cease? Because his work was complete. It is only through completed work that God ceases and for this reason it is why we associate 7 with a perfect number and a number of completion. God does not cease arbitrarily, he ceased with purpose, the purpose is because of a competed work he stopped working. Without a completed work, there is no sabbath.

The 7th day is the antithesis to before light was spoken time. It is of light, where the other is of darkness, it is complete, the other is incomplete, it is formed, the other unformed, it is rest, the other unrest, it is order the other is chaos etc.... The processes that transforms the chaos into order is the same process that speaks light into a dark hopeless world. And this shows us a salvation message. This shouldn't be a surprise to know that light into darkness is a spiritual message but the bible does spell it out explicitly in 2 Cor 4:6

So what is the message of creation? Is it physical or spiritual? What is the work? And if we are to rest as God did, what does it take to complete the work? What does it take to rest? We toil, week by week. Never completing the work, never being able to fully rest. If only one could come and do the work in a way to complete it then utter the words "it is finished" ushering in a new age of salvation.

Sabbath is moral to the degree we can understand it's purpose and through the purpose honor God, but the physical act of resting contributes nothing. This is the purpose of the law, the deep meanings of it and Christ is the answer to it, it points to him and he is the only one who can fulfill it. He is the only one who has can complete the work, and the only one that can give us rest. All we can do is play sabbath, we can do nothing ourselves to take it. Think of the 4th commandment, even the animals had to rest, but animals have no authority to rest. They can only rest when they are given rest by one with authority. Christ has the authority and he gives the rest freely but it is a spiritual focus over a physical. Rest is good, and rest is needed, but what Christ offers is the difference between water where we continually thirst and living water where we thrist no more.

Obedience is the at heart of serving Christ and he tells us to love one another as well as doing good is lawful on the Sabbath. Should we assume Christ meant that goodness is optional on the Sabbath or that it is something we should seek out? The man with the withered hand is greatful that Christ sought him out should we not do likewise?

Doing good is an act of love and is not optional in terms of Christian living but called upon us all. Christ using an example of pulling sheep out of pits. Does he need to spell it out that sheep are not really sheep? The spiritually lost are trapped, and need to be pulled out, we are the ones tasked to do it regardless of what labour you enter in, it is lawful.

Click to expand...

God rested after six days of creation, so it is speaking about ceasing from creative work, which is what the Hebrew word means. While the Bible has a spiritual meaning, it is in accordance with its physical meaning, not at the cost of it. God left creation unfinished so that we could be partners in its completion both in ourselves and the land. In Titus 2:14, it describes what Jesus finished 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. According to Galatians 5:14, anyone who has ever loved their neighbor has fulfilled the entire law, so countless people have fulfilled it. Jesus set a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to God's law, and in Matthew 11:28-30, he was inviting people to come to him for rest and to learn from him, moreover, by saying that we would find rest for our souls, he was referencing Jeremiah 6:16-19, where God's law is described as the good way where we will find rest for our souls. God's law is God's word and Christ is God's word made flesh.

DamianWarS said:

Paul is a contextualist, he is driven by his mission as 1 Cor 9 unpacks. Circumcision can be used contextually to gain access to a people group who would otherwise reject you. This is why Timothy is circumcised but Titus on the other hand is not. Paul is evaluating it missionally not spiritually.

In Gal he unambiguously says circumcision in the flesh has no value, there is no way to explain what he says away, it is clear. The law points to Christ but when we use the law to discredit Christ's authority then Christ has no value for us and we are fully under the law and condemned under the law. Paul is not contradicting himself by his choices with Titus and Timothy, he is driven missionally, and sees circumcision as a negotiable value making his choices based on how it serves the mission, but spiritually the value merits you nothing, save for the act of sacrafice if done to reach a people group as Timothy did. The sacrafice which comes from the heart and a posture of love is counted but the physical devices we use have no power and gain us no extra credits. The obedience is from the heart and that's what God desires.

Click to expand...

In 1 Corinthian 9, Paul was speaking about giving up his rights in order to meet people where they are at. The point is that if Paul did not cause Christ to be of no value to Timothy, then it is incorrect to think that he was speaking against circumcision for any reason instead of just speaking against it for incorrect reasons. Paul saying that circumcision has no value and that what matters is obeying the commandments of God needs to be understood in the context of him also saying that circumcision has much value in every way and that circumcision conditionally has vale if we obey God's commandments, so this is not explaining it away. The law points to Christ because he is the embodiment of it. I've said nothing to suggest that we should use the law to discredit Christ's authority. God did not give His law with the goal of condemning His children, but with the goal of blessing us.

Soyeong said:

God rested after six days of creation, so it is speaking about ceasing from creative work, which is what the Hebrew word means. While the Bible has a spiritual meaning, it is in accordance with its physical meaning, not at the cost of it. God left creation unfinished so that we could be partners in its completion both in ourselves and the land. In Titus 2:14, it describes what Jesus finished 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. According to Galatians 5:14, anyone who has ever loved their neighbor has fulfilled the entire law, so countless people have fulfilled it. Jesus set a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to God's law, and in Matthew 11:28-30, he was inviting people to come to him for rest and to learn from him, moreover, by saying that we would find rest for our souls, he was referencing Jeremiah 6:16-19, where God's law is described as the good way where we will find rest for our souls. God's law is God's word and Christ is God's word made flesh.

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biblically the number 7 is synonymously with perfection/completion. It is not synonymous with imperfect/incomplete. In Genesis 1:31, God says, "And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good". The Hebrew word for "good" appears 7 times in the text. Saying "God left creation unfinished" has theological implications that I don't think you have unpacked enough. Do you have any biblical source that declares this or are you just saying this because it fits with a particular view of sabbath/creation?

the physical rest of Sabbath is a metaphor for spiritual rest/salvation that only Christ can give (which should be obvious). The Sabbath day in creation is the same thing. light is spoken into darkness which starts a work that when finished ushers in rest.... this is a salvation account. Don't believe me? Paul opens the door to this in 2 Cor 4:6. Light into darkness is a spiritual metaphor where sabbath is the goal. Do you think Sabbath has any other implication than just the physical? does it also not point to the spiritual? does it not also point to Christ? it is that thought process I am tapping into.

Soyeong said:

In 1 Corinthian 9, Paul was speaking about giving up his rights in order to meet people where they are at. The point is that if Paul did not cause Christ to be of no value to Timothy, then it is incorrect to think that he was speaking against circumcision for any reason instead of just speaking against it for incorrect reasons. Paul saying that circumcision has no value and that what matters is obeying the commandments of God needs to be understood in the context of him also saying that circumcision has much value in every way and that circumcision conditionally has vale if we obey God's commandments, so this is not explaining it away. The law points to Christ because he is the embodiment of it. I've said nothing to suggest that we should use the law to discredit Christ's authority. God did not give His law with the goal of condemning His children, but with the goal of blessing us.

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the net result being contextualization. Paul spells it out. v19-23 "Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. to the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." To Paul, circumcision only has value when it can be used to show the gospel/serve others. But circumcision itself is nothing. it is not circumcision that has innate value, but instead, how circumcision is used to reach people that imparts its value, without the latter it only carries ceremonial old covenant meaning. Doing good is of course desired but our purpose is to serve people, not things. if we do good to a rock, that goodness is meaningless. This is consistent as it applies to Timothy getting circumcised and as is consistent as it applies to Titus not getting circumcised. Paul cares about how it communicates/shares the gospel, he doesn't care about circumcision.

Creation was not left unfinished. After six days of the creation work on this world as shown, God said of it that it is very good, God never said that in the Bible of anything made by God again. All of it was meant for us and all living in the world. And it would be right to consider the seventh day for rest to be right for us too, as the Sabbath is to point to the days of creation and the seventh for rest afterward. The rest needed is that in Christ which is the only way Sabbath is rightly observed.