Good thing that we do not have to. We are saved by grace by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Your
modus operandi is to proclaim a return to your works to add to that grace, that you earlier mentioned wasn't enough. My provocative question is designed to make you think of an answer, as it is entirely appropriate for every Christian to have an answer for:
I'm curious to know your prescription for exceeding the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees.
Victor answer me this question, is it ok to kill, murder, steal, commit adultery, not honor your parents, covet another mans wife, blaspheme or go against any of Jesus's teachings in the Sermon of the Mounn?
A popular line of thought amoung Adventists (and some other groups) is that the decalogue is merely a guideline for living right.
It is not.
It is
law, and contains penalties for infractions.
Death.
Don't just quote scripture,
We could both just ramble on, but no one wants to know what I think.
We want to know what the Bible actually teaches, and that is why I ask for Scriptural support for your ideas, and I am quick to stand aside and quote Scripture instead of taking liberties with my own carnal ramblings.
I know what the Bible says.
The reason that I asked pointed questions about "the greatest commandment" passage in
Matthew 22:35-40 is to cause you to return to that passage and read it for yourself, as the conclusions you
thought this passage led to were unsupported.
Likewise, I added the context to
Romans 3:31 to show that this passage does not support the conclusions you
thought it did.
There is a great danger in assuming the sound-bite theology you have heard is supported by the Scriptures, when you haven't verified these passages for yourself.
When did I ever say that someone who has put their faith and trust in the lord is put to shame? Do not twist my words Victor.
Yet you equated "missing a sabbath" with sin, and you haven't even found a sabbath that has survived the demise of the Mosaic covenant.
I have some news that may shock you:
There is no such thing as a sabbath ordinance outside of Moses, who has lost his jurisdiction 2000 years ago.
Yet you made this nonexistant ordinance a litmus test for obedience to the Gospel, and you haven't perceived that this work of yours is a necessary addition to salvation by grace.
Romans 11:5-6
5: Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace.
6: And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
I had also quoted this from
Romans 4:3-5 as added context to
Romans 3:31 earlier:
3: For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness.
4: Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.
5: But
to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.
What do you have to add to the righteousness of Jesus, who has justified us, and not us ourselves? God has already determined everyone disobedient in
Romans 11:32, and you aren't going to reverse His decree by becoming "obedient" to that which you are disobedient to.
Your referring to Hebrews 10:17 and Jeremiah 31:33-34
But I believe that you have dismissed the qualification that
Jeremiah 31:32 and
Hebrews 8:9 determine to the law written into our hearts and minds:
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt - this indicates that Sinai is not the source of the law written into us.
"Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law." Romans 3:31 As long as their is faith we are upholding the law. If we make it a point not to uphold the law then do we really have faith? Anyone can believe but few can take their belief and put it into action which is what faith is to me.
I believe you haven't been reading my points, as you have returned yet again to this sound-bite from
Romans 3:31 minus the context it comes from.
Please do me a favor - don't place your quotes in the quote function. It seems the intuitive thing to do, but your Scripture quotes don't come through when I quote you.
And you still fail to answer what laws God wrote on our hearts?
What laws, Victor, is God writing in our hearts?
If not the the laws he written with his finger, what law is he putting on our hearts?
Actually, I haven't failed to find that law written into our hearts and minds.
I had earlier linked you to my work on this subject in a post entitled
God replaces the schoolmaster <-- that is a link to it.
I have found that you have dismissed this law's qualification of
not being according to Sinai, and here you are trying to write Sinai into your heart.
That's what sound-bite theology, ignoring the context, leads you to conclude.
To answer your final question.
Matthew 11:28-30
Through Jesus, I have rest. Since I follow Jesus, he makes it easy for me to uphold the law and therefore it becomes joyful. It is different to be under the law then to be following the law when your under God's grace. No one said you can not do both.
The burden of Jesus isn't hard, but the burden of Moses was unbearable, just as Peter declared it to be in my previous quote from
Acts 15:10:
Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
Please read this chapter, for this statement was presented at the Jerusalem council that met to consider the necessity to become circumcised and follow the law of Moses (the covenant he mediated, the ten commandments). Peter observed that God had accepted the Gentiles already, and they never had nor observed the law themselves.
If the law didn't matter to God, then why should it matter to us?
That was Peter's discourse in a nutshell.
In fact quite the contrary. Let me ask you is it a sin to follow Jesus and follow the 10 commandments?
Let Paul take the podium:
Romans 7:1-7
1: Know ye not, brethren, (
for I speak to them that know the law) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
2: For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
3: So then if,
while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
4: Wherefore, my brethren,
ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.
5: For when we were in the flesh,
the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
6: But
now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.
7: What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except
the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Paul equated trying to serve the law and Christ together with
adultery.
You can determine for yourself if it is okay to commit adultery.
Notice too, that we are delivered from the same law that contains the words "thou shalt not covet", which is found in
Exodus 20:17 - the ten commandments.
It is true that the Israelites were actually placed under the covenant of the 10 commandments. But that does not mean that it does not apply to man. To illustrate this, if you were a gentile during Moses time who had knowledge of Gods covenant with the Israelites and you even believed in the God of the Israelites. Would you or would you be not sinning by breaking any of the laws stated in the 10 commandments? In fact is it a sin today to disobey any of Gods commandments? Is it a sin to covet, yes or no? I want a yes or no answer on this.
As a Gentile, I will answer your question just as you have posed it, assuming that it is more than 2000 years ago and Moses still stood between me and the promises given to Abraham:
NO.
A Gentile cannot break a law he does not have.
As
Romans 2:12 says, that Gentile had no hope, "
as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law".
Ephesians 2:11-16 explains this relationship the Gentiles had before Christ came and abolished the Mosaic covenant, and I encourage you to read this passage. In a nutshell, they had no hope at all.
Victor