Hello,
You listed a number of verses that you think support the position that we do not have to obey OT Laws and I challenged your interpretation of those verses, so I would appreciate it would interact with what I said about how those verses should be interpreted rather than just going on to new verses that you erroneously think support your position. Your main confusion is that you've listed verses in regard to three different categories of law as though they are all speaking about God's Law.
Galatians 5: 11 Now, brothers, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12
As for those who are agitating you, I wish they would proceed to emasculate themselves! 13 For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.…
The issue that Paul was addressing in Galatians was the same issue that was being address in Acts 15:1, namely whether Gentiles are required to become circumcised in order to become saved, so it is important to determine whether this was something that God's Law actually required or whether it was something that man was teaching that God's Law required. If you can't cite where God's Law required anyone to become circumcised for the specific purpose of becoming saved, then God did not require it it, and it is therefore only a man-made work of law that was rejected by the Jerusalem Council. However, if you can cite where God's required all Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved, then please explain to me why we should follow what the Jerusalem Council said on instead of what God said on this matter.
According to Isaiah 45:25, all Israel will be saved, so a number of Jews incorrectly thought that meant that Gentiles had to become Jewish proselytes in order to become saved, which involved circumcision, and which involved joining the group of people who agreed at Sinai to do everything Moses said (Exodus 20:19, Deuteronomy 5:22-33). Moses had the authority to interpret the Law, but by the 1st century those who who this authority passed down to them were referred to as sitting in Moses' seat and it had become a large body of Jewish oral laws, tradition, rulings, and fences that Jesus referred to as placing a heavy burden on the people. He certainly was not criticizing the Pharisees for instructing the people to obey what God had commanded them to do, but rather these the role of these oral laws were a major source of conflict between Jesus and Pharisees (Matthew 15:1-9), which continued between the followers of Jesus and the Pharisees, which came to a head in Acts 15 and Galatians. So by becoming circumcised, Gentiles were becoming Jewish proselytes and agreeing to live as Jews according to all of their oral laws, and doing that in order to become saved, so that is why becoming circumcised was making what Jesus did of no value and what Paul was rejecting in Galatians.
2 Corinthians 3: 6 And He has qualified us as ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 7
Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious?…9 For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry of righteousness! 10
Indeed, what was once glorious has no glory now in comparison to the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was fading away came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which endures!…13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at the end of what was fading away.
In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, it is up front that the Law is a ministry of life and blessing for obedience and ministry of death and cursing for disobedience, so the fact that the Law brings death for disobedience is hardly a good argument for disobedience to it.
Romans 7: 9 Once I was alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10
So I discovered that the very commandmentthat was meant to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing its opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through the commandment put me to death.…
Romans 7:12-13 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good. 13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
Paul said that the Law is holy, righteous, and good, and that he did not blame what was good for bringing death, but rather the problem was the law of sin that was producing death through what was good. So the solution to the problem is not to do away with what is good, but to do away with what was hindering us from doing what is good. In Titus 2:11-14, it does not say that Christ gave himself to redeem us from the Law, but to redeem us from all Lawlessness, so we have been set free from sin in order to be free to serve God (Romans 6:16-19).
In Romans 7, Paul was comparing and contrasting God's Law with the law of sin. He said that God's Law was not sin, but that it revealed what sin is (7:7), that it is holy, righteous, and good (7:12), that it is the good he sought to do (7:13-20), the good he delighted in doing (7:22), and the good that he served with his mind (7:25), but contrasted that with a law of sin that came about to increase transgressions (5:20), that stirred up sins to bear fruit unto death (7:5), that held him captive (7:6), that gave sin it's power (7:8), that cause him not to do the good that he wanted (7:13-20), that held him captive (7:23), and that he served with his flesh (7:25), so it is important not to mistake Paul speaking against the law of sin as speaking against God's holy, righteous, and good Law.
Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with
him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Do you really think that Paul was describing those who were teaching obedience to the holy, righteous and good commands of God (Romans 7:12) as teaching empty philosophy and vain deceit according to human tradition? Jesus lived in perfect obedience to the Law, so it wouldn't make any sense to say that follow his example is not according to Christ. Paul described those promoting these elementary principles of the world in Colossians 2:20-23 as promoting human precepts and traditions, self-made religion, asceticism, and severity to the body, so he was very clearly speaking against the teachings of men, not those teaching obedience to God.
"The Decalogue produces frustrated religious hypocrites who damn other people for not being as moral as them. How moral is it to damn somebody."
God did not give the Law to damn anyone, but rather He said that what He commanded for his people own good, to prosper us, to bless us, and to teach us how to walk in His ways (Deuteronomy 6:24, Deuteronomy 8:6), so you can either believe what God said is true or you can believe whoever made that quote.
