I want to express my confusion about Christianity at the most basic level, and why it appears to be poorly defined.
Paul laid the foundation for Christianity in 1 Corinthians 15:14 when he said that the Christian faith is worthless if Jesus hadn't risen from the dead. He is essentially saying that the foundational belief of being a Christian is the belief that Jesus rose from the dead.
But I believe the foundation is the forgiveness of sins. I would say that if sin does not exist, then Christianity would be pointless. So my question, essentially, is this: "What exactly is sin?"
As I understand things, in an honest reading of the Bible, we are still under the old law because of this:
Sin is transgression against the law. Thus, without the law, there is no sin; without sin, there is no forgiveness; without forgiveness, there is no Christianity. Therefore, without the law there is no Christianity.
Furthermore, the early confusion on whether or not to include gentiles in the faith can be attributed to the hypothesis that Jesus was thought to have provided forgiveness from transgression of the old law, and forgiveness of such transgression would be irrelevant if we were not under the old law. If, instead, it is the case that Jesus has rid of us the old law, then I would think that Jesus' sacrifice would actually make us sinless rather than forgiven. But as far as I understand things, Christians claim to be forgiven, and not sinless, which begs the question: "Forgiven of what?"
I recognize sin as transgression against the law, which is laid out plainly in the Torah. Yet there is not a single Christian on earth who adheres to the old law. Even if Jesus replaced the sin offering required in the old law, there are still friendship offerings and all kinds of other animal sacrifices required which do not pertain to actual forgiveness of sins. Also there are quite a few laws which we do not and will never observe.
The approach taken by 100% of all Christians is that the Old Testament is done away with because Jesus established a new covenant. While Jesus had to follow the old law to the letter, he has liberated us from that burden. But the obvious question, then, is what I asked above: "What exactly is sin?"
Is sin the disobedience of Mark 12:30-31? Is that the entire law as laid out in the New Testament? It seems clear that Paul's comments on the new law do not constitute the entire summary of the new law but rather are situational rebukes of churches which have gone astray, which means we do not have the entire view of what the new law is, which means that the law is poorly defined, which means that the terms of Christianity are poorly defined.
Is the law simply written on our hearts? Are we to follow our own conscience? This is secular humanism; this leads us astray from objective morality and deep into subjective morality. Yet I would think that if God is so holy that he cannot be in the presence of sin, then sin has some objective quality to it.
So in conclusion, it is apparent to me that either:
1.) We are all still under the old law, and are making no attempt at upholding it; or
2.) We are under a new law which is so poorly defined that it cannot be said with certainty what is or isn't sin
I think what can be confusing is conflating Law and Torah as always being the same thing.
The Torah was given exclusively to the Israelites as part of their covenant with God. It was never for anyone other than the Israelite.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't things which God expected out of people generally. For Christians the Torah is not applicable since it was for a specific people within a specific context, the covenant God made with Israel at Mt. Sinai. That doesn't mean there is no Law that Christians aren't expected to recognize.
To put it another way, all Torah is Law, but not all Law is Torah. For example Christ commands, "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, pray for those who persecute you." That isn't a commandment in the Torah, but that is a commandment from God and is therefore Law.
The "old law" as you put it isn't "done away", it's simply not applicable for those who aren't under the covenant which God made at Sinai; for the ancient Church that covenant--indeed all of the covenants and promises made in the past--have their fullness and fulfillment in Christ, they point to Christ.
For Lutherans we speak of the Three Uses of the Law:
"
Since the Law was given to men for three reasons: first, that thereby outward discipline might be maintained against wild, disobedient men [and that wild and intractable men might be restrained, as though by certain bars]; secondly, that men thereby may be led to the knowledge of their sins; thirdly, that after they are regenerate and [much of] the flesh notwithstanding cleaves to them, they might on this account have a fixed rule according to which they are to regulate and direct their whole life," - The Epitome of the Formula of Concord, Article VI
In Lutheran parlance, which I believe is helpful, the reality of human sin and concupiscence is what is called "homo incurvatus in se" or "man curved inward upon himself". Concupiscence is the inward, selfish desire, which leads to acts of sin; in Lutheran teaching this concupiscence is itself sin. Sin is man bent inward, man curved or bent to himself, to seek himself; this is in contradistinction to God's Law which calls and commands man outward, toward the love of God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:29-31); God's Law calls us out to act justly and rightly toward our neighbor, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, to care for the widow and the orphan.
We fail to act justly, that is sin. We fail to act lovingly, that is sin.
We do not love the Lord our God.
We do not love our neighbor as ourselves.
So that is sin.
-CryptoLutheran
