Abolishing the law of commandments

Clare73 said:

Scripture presents Satan as restrained now, but still is able to go about as a roaring lion seeking those to devour (1 Peter 5:8; Job 1:7).

Click to expand...

Exactly, that's because the Final Judgment has not yet come. After the Final Judgment Satan will be thrown to the Lake of Fire and will have zero influence on humans who will be in the New Earth and New Heaven.

Hawkins said:

Exactly, that's because the Final Judgment has not yet come. After the Final Judgment Satan will be thrown to the Lake of Fire and will have zero influence on humans who will be in the New Earth and New Heaven.

Click to expand...

The angels are no longer on trial to determine their destiny, as the dead are no longer on trial to determine their destiny, both await their judgment.

Clare73 said:

The angels are no longer on trial, as the dead are no longer on trial, both await their judgment.

Click to expand...

Your said, "both await their judgment".

So you admit that the Final Judgment has not yet come. So you agree with me, by contradicting yourself!

Hawkins said:

Your said, "both await their judgment".

So you admit that the Final Judgment has not yet come. So
you agree with me, by contradicting yourself!

Click to expand...

Methinks the pot is calling the kettle black.

The issue is the angels are no longer on trial to determine their destiny.
Their destiny was set when they were cast out of heaven.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Agreed. Does that mean that the law in its totality is not applicable to Christians or is there some kind of selectivity implied?

Click to expand...

There is good reason to make a distinction between God's Law broadly, and the Torah specifically. Cain was condemned as a murderer long before it was written on stone, "Thou shalt not murder". So the fact that the Torah does not apply to us does not make murder okay--murder was wrong from the beginning, not just because it is in the commandments given to Moses.

And this can boil down simply to "Love your neighbor as yourself", which according to St. Paul is the entirety of God's Law (Galatians 5:14).

Murder is, obviously, not loving our neighbor. Neither is bearing false witness against them, nor is coveting what our neighbor has, nor is stealing from our neighbor loving them. Depriving our neighbor of resting from their labors, likewise, is not loving them.

St. Augustine said "Love and do what you will", on the basis that if we operate in love as God commands, then the other stuff will fall into place, we will seek justice and love kindness and walk humbly before our God (Micah 6:8). If we abide in Christ and walk in the Spirit, then the Spirit will work His gifts and fruits out in our lives: love, compassion, self-control, humility, patience, etc.

-CryptoLutheran

Xeno.of.athens said:

Galatians 5:14 does tell us that love of neighbour fulfils "the whole law" but it does not tell us what law is meant because it is very difficult to see how love of one's neighbour fulfils the commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." and similarly with "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." There may be something more to saint Paul's comment than appears on the surface.

Click to expand...

When you do it to the least of these my brothers, you do it to me... Matthew 25:40

Xeno.of.athens said:

Galatians 5:14 does tell us that love of neighbour fulfils "the whole law" but it does not tell us what law is meant because it is very difficult to see how love of one's neighbour fulfils the commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." and similarly with "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." There may be something more to saint Paul's comment than appears on the surface.

Click to expand...

I would actually argue that both are summed up in "Love your neighbor". We take God's name in vain when we drag it through the mud through our sin. Idolatry is, likewise, found when we fail to worship God rightly. When we injure our neighbor, when we fail to love our neighbor, we deny their God-given humanity; we deny that they are created in the image and likeness of God. And so we blaspheme God when we don't love our neighbor. Consider St. James, "With the tongue we bless our God and Father, and with the tongue we curse our fellow man created in God's image. My brothers, this should not be."

-CryptoLutheran

Xeno.of.athens said:

Galatians 5:14 does tell us that love of neighbour fulfils "the whole law" but it does not tell us what law is meant because it is very difficult to see how love of one's neighbour fulfils the commandment "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain; for Jehovah will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." and similarly with "Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." There may be something more to saint Paul's comment than appears on the surface.

Click to expand...

Originally from the Torah (Leviticus 19:18)...

Xeno.of.athens said:

That good Christian friend is quite a stretch of words and verses but I do grant that you've worked hard to make the point that love of neighbour (human neighbour one thinks) somehow calls for treating YHWH's name as sanctified and that you also worked very hard to link eschewing the use of images to worship other gods (gods other than YHWH) to love of one's neighbour. I grant the effort deserves credit and at the same time I cannot grant that the result is accurate and praise worthy.

Click to expand...

I'm not really sure I'm saying anything that hasn't been said thousands of times already since the beginning of the Church.

I certainly hope you didn't take what I've said to mean that it's okay to make graven images and idols, that certainly isn't the case. True love of neighbor cannot be found in desecration by idols, but only in the confession of the true God, He who gives Himself and makes Himself known to us through Jesus Christ.

-CryptoLutheran

Clare73 said:

Keeping in mind, right, that Augustine is not my source (I've never read Augustine), the NT is my source.

Click to expand...

To me this brings up an interesting phenomenon. I do understand that anyone's viewpoint distorts or enhances understanding and use of whatever they consider (in any part of life, not just theology and science, etc.), so I will admit that Augustine may have influenced me though I had never read him either, when I discovered that Reformed Theology agreed with me. I have heard excerpts from him since, and possibly before (without knowing it was him or that he had anything to do with Reformed Theology), but never studied him.

I don't know Reformed Theology well enough to say he was not a big influence there, but so far I don't see him as such, personally.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Leviticus 19:18 Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am Jehovah. 19 Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with two kinds of seed: neither shall there come upon thee a garment of two kinds of stuff mingled together. 20 And whosoever lieth carnally with a woman, that is a bondmaid, betrothed to a husband, and not at all redeemed, nor freedom given her; they shall be punished; they shall not be put to death, because she was not free.
Interesting passage but I do not yet see how it bears on abolishing the law of commandments (Ephesians 2:11-22) and what is written in Galatians 5:14 but that may be because it is 04:00 in the morning as I write this and my mind is not at its best right now.

Click to expand...

The reason I posted it was to show that loving your neighbor is not a unique NT teaching but originated in Torah, that's all...

Clare73 said:

The born again are justified (declared righteous once and for all with God imputing the righteousness of Jesus Christ to them) by faith (Romans 1:17, Romans 3:20-24, Romans 3:28), just as the guilt of the first Adam was imputed to them (Romans 5:18).

Click to expand...

This is confused. Rom 5 tells us that through Adam all become sinners, truly sinners. The antidote for that would be that, through Jesus we become righteous, truly righteous. Not merely imputed to be sinners, and not merely imputed to be righteous. Continue on with vs 19:

“For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.”

This happens through the “gift of righteousness”, also translated as the “gift of justification” in vs 17 as the verse above specifically conveys the concept of being made just or righteous in the Greek.

Clare73 said:

Indeed!
We now work out (put into practice) what God has worked in us both to will and to do (Philippians 2:13).

And why wouldn't the born again do so, when God works it in them to do so?

Click to expand...

And this whole notion that one is regenerated all at once and they absolutely know it, never able to lose their salvation, halleluiah, and that they now do God's will but, um, they still sometimes sin but, um, that's ok now because sin doesn't matter anymore for believers. Or that, um, if they do sin then they never really were born again after all. All nonsense, inconsistent with the gospel as it's been understood from the beginning.

We really do work out our salvation because justice comes to the extent that we choose to accept and act upon it, and continue to do so throughout whatever time we have in this life. God draws us, by His grace, into willing rightly, but He'll ultimately never simply cause us to will rightly. He wants us to own it, and increasingly so; He wants us to love to put it another way, reflecting His own image. That kind of image, that righteousness, occurs only as a being chooses it. The offered choice comes from Him, the choosing is ours even as He necessarily helps us make it.

fhansen said:

This is confused. Rom 5 tells us that through Adam all become sinners, truly sinners. The antidote for that would be that, through Jesus we become righteous, truly righteous. Not merely imputed to be sinners, and not merely imputed to be righteous.

Click to expand...

What kind of righteousness did Abraham have?

He had the righteousness of God (Romans 1:17, Romans 3:21) imputed to him (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:2-3).

Are we better than Abraham (Romans 3:21-24)?

Continue on with vs 19:

Click to expand...

The context begins with v. 12. . .and you conveniently skip over v.18.

“For just as through the disobedience of one person the many were made sinners, so through the obedience of one the many will be made righteous.”

This happens through the “gift of righteousness”, also translated as the “gift of justification” in vs 17 as the verse above specifically conveys the concept of being made just or righteous in the Greek.

Click to expand...

Nevertheless, the word is reckoned/imputed/credited/accounted in Romans 4:3; Genesis 15:6.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Ephesians 2:11-22 mentions that Jesus Christ is our [Christians'] peace and that he brings together Jews and Gentile ... by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances ... and might reconcile us both to God in one body ...

What do you make of that?

Click to expand...

The Greek word "dogma" is used five times in the NT. Outside of Colossians 2:14 and Ephesians 2:15, it is used in regard to the degrees of Caesar (Luke 2:1, Acts 17:7) and the decree of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 16:4), so justification needs to be given for why the other two times that it is used should be interpreted as being in regard to the commands of God instead of how the commands of God are normally referred to. In Ephesians 2:10, we have been made new creations in Christ to do good works, so it wouldn't make sense to interpret verse 15 as referring to God's commands for how to do good works. God did not make any mistakes when He gave the law, so He had no motivation to send Jesus to abolish His own laws, especially when all of His laws are eternal (Psalms 119:160). In Titus 2:14, it does not say that Jesus gave himself to free us from God's law, but in order to free us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so if we believe in what he accomplished through the cross, then we will become zealous for doing good works in obedience to His law (Acts 21:20).

Xeno.of.athens said:

I see, what does "ordinances" mean in Ephesians 2:11-22 ? Do you think that Caesar's decrees (dogma) and the Ordinances (dogma) in Ephesians 2:15 are the same things?

Click to expand...

From the context of the five instances of how "dogma" is used in the NT, it seems to me to be referring the ruling of someone in authority, though not necessarily made by Caesar, such as by the Jerusalem Council, or by Pilate. In regard to how "dogma" is used in Colossians 2:14, there is a difference between these two statements:

1.) You shall not commit murder.

2.) This person has been found guilty of committing murder.

The first is an example of a law that is for our own good while the second is an example of a handwritten ordinance that was a ruling that a judge had made against someone that was nailed to their cross in order to announce why they were being executed. In Matthew 27:37 and John 19:19, Pilate wrote the charge that was against Jesus and put it on the cross, which read, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews." So Pilate nailed to Christ's cross the announcement of the reason why he was being executed, not the laws themselves, which his served as a perfect analogy for the list of our violations of God's law being nailed to Christ's cross and with him dying in our place to pay the penalty for our sins, but has nothing to do with ending any of God's laws, especially because they are all eternal (Psalms 119:160). This sort of announcement is probably also how they knew that the other two people who were crucified along with Jesus were thieves.

So in regard to Ephesians 2:11-22, "dogma" is referring to a ruling by someone in authority that was causing a dividing wall of hostility between Jews and Gentiles. God's law was not given for the purpose of creating a dividing wall of hostility, but rather it commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves, so again it wouldn't make sense to interpret it as referring to God's law. In Acts 10:28, Peter referred to a law that forbade Jews to visit or associate with Gentiles, which is not a law found in God's law, and is therefore a man-made law. It was this law that Peter was obeying in Galatians 2:11-16 when he stopped visiting or associating with the Gentiles, which was giving credibility to those who were wanting to require Gentiles to obey their works of the law in order to become justified, which is why Paul rebuked him and reiterated that we are justified by faith, not by works of the law. So I think it is most likely referring to these sorts of man-made laws that were causing hostility between Jews and Gentiles. I've also seen it suggested that it was referring to the dividing wall in the temple that was preventing Gentiles form entering on pain of death.