I try not to be selfish, but I really don't want to wade through scores of threads to find a focused discussion on the matters that currently interest me. I'm sure that each of the points I may raise have likely been raised multiple times before. That being the case feel free to point me to any thread or post where that matter is dealt with clearly and succinctly rather than taking the time to explain things, yet again, to a non-believer.
Background declaration: my profile says agnostic, because that is what I am, but in regard to the Christian God I am atheist.
I have several quibbles with what I understand to be the generic Christian position, but wish to restrict discussion to one per thread. I'll hope to reach a conclusion or an irreconcilable impasse on one, before starting another.
So, I'll open with one where I think you will actually stand a reasonable chance of educating and convincing me.
I don't recall the correct terminology, but I understand that the NT subsumes the OT rendering some of the rules and regulations defunct. For example, it is no longer necessary to stone adulterers and one may even eat shellfish. Would someone identify where that arrangement is detailed in the NT. Thank you.
God made a covenant with a particular people in Sinai, which included giving them a specific set of instructions and laws--the Torah--that covenant established them as His covenant nation. It was never intended to be a universal law for everyone. So, for example, Deuteronomy 5:1-3 reads,
"
Hear, O Israel, the statutes and ordinances that I am addressing to you today; you shall learn them and observe them diligently. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. Not with our ancestors did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today."
Additionally, the Psalmist writes,
"
He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and ordinances to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any other nation;
they do not know his ordinances.
Praise the Lord!" - Psalm 147:19-20
Thus these commandments were never for everyone, but only the covenant nation.
A controversy that arose early in Christianity was how to address the conversion of the Gentiles to Christianity; namely must Gentiles become Jews? One faction argued yes, that Gentile converts to Christianity must convert and become Jews, receive circumcision and observe all the commandments of Torah. This position was rejected by the Apostles, most notably the Apostle Paul, and the Council of Jerusalem decided explicitly that there was no requirement for Gentiles to become Jews--that Gentile Christians were valid in and of themselves as Gentiles. One can read about these events and the Council of Jerusalem in the 15th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament.
Traditional Christian thought confesses, further, that Jesus Christ is the fullness and fulfillment of all God's covenants and promises which He made prior--for example to Abraham, to Israel, and to David. Thus we see mention of a "new covenant" several places in the writings which make up the New Testament, most notably at the Last Supper where Christ speaks of "the cup of the New Covenant which is in My blood" and the anonymous Epistle to the Hebrews which says, "But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises." (Hebrews 8:6) and "In speaking of 'a new covenant,' he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear." (Hebrews 8:13) Thus the position of the author of the Hebrews is that the new covenant and promises established in and through Jesus, the Messiah, render everything that came before unnecessary. And traditional Christian thought affirms this, insofar as it comprehends all that came before as serving the purpose of pointing forward to Jesus, and thus with Jesus the fullness of what those things sought to point to are no longer necessary.
St. Paul the Apostle writes in his letter to the Ephesians,
"
But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both groups to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God." - Ephesians 2:13-22
What he is saying is that Gentiles, who once were aliens and foreigners from Israel, are no longer; but that in Jesus God has made both Jew and Gentile a single and united people, a "new humanity". The former things which kept Jews and Gentiles separate no longer do so, because in Jesus there is something new which makes both one united people of God.
So there's several things ultimately going on:
1) The commandments given to the Jews in the Torah were only ever intended for the Jews as part of the covenant God made with them on Mt. Horeb through Moses.
2) Jesus, as the Messiah, is the fulfillment and fullness of every promise and covenant which came before; and in and through Him is a new covenant for all people.
3) Christians, both Jew and Gentile, are a new people of a new covenant in Jesus the Messiah.
We don't stone people, because the Church has no command to punish; that command is only relevant to the Jewish people as part of the covenant God made with them at Horeb and was only relevant while they were in the land, with a valid Sanhedrin (a court of law to pass judgment). Not only does the Church have no command to punish, we read in the writings of the Church Fathers,
"
Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence the delinquencies of sins." - St. Clement of Alexandria, Fragments, Maximus, Sermon 55
-CryptoLutheran