Is a Christian really subject to the OT Law?

[Arsenios]

We have a new covenant...
Christianity is not an extension of Judaism...

I agree - The New Covenant of the Body and the Blood of our Lord, yes?
It is not an extension, but the fulfillment of Judaism...

But Christ did come through the Jews, and gave them a blindness that this New Covenant be extended to the Gentiles, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come to pass...

Rom 11:25
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this Mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits;
that blindness in part is happened to Israel,
until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

He mentions that Israel shall be literally recalled from the dead, if I remember aright, because their blindness was not totally their own...

Interesting stuff...

Arsenios

 

[bugkiller]

I never said the keeping the law was what we needed to do for salvation. We have to stop equating God's law with salvation. By observing God's law, we will not be saved, but because we are saved, we should desire to observe His law, because it's what He asks us to do.

You agree with Paul? What do you do with all of the times where Paul kept, and taught the keeping of the law? Not for salvation, but because of salvation.

Acts 25:8 - while he answered for himself, "Neither against the Law of the Jews, nor against the temple, nor against Caesar have I offended in anything at all."

Here he says that He kept torah "against the law of the jews."

Acts 18:21 - but took leave of them, saying, "I must by all means keep this coming feast in Jerusalem; but I will return again to you, God willing." And he sailed from Ephesus.

Here he is talking about his keeping the feast of unleavened bread in Jerusalem.


Romans 7:25 - I thank God--through Jesus the Messiah our Master! So then, with the mind I myself serve the Law of God, but with the flesh the Law of sin.

Here he says that with His mind, he serves the law of God, but that his flesh still serves the law of sin. Which makes sense, because our bodies are corruptible until Jesus comes back and gives us our new incorruptible bodies.


Romans 2:12 - For as many as have sinned without Law will also perish without Law, and as many as have sinned in the Law will be judged by the Law 13 (for not the hearers of the Law [are] just in the sight of God, but the doers of the Law will be justified;

Here he's saying that hearing the law will not justify you, that you must do it. As it's written, "faith without works is dead", and as it's also written, "the one who practices righteousness is righteous even as He is righteous."

Acts 20:16 - For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would not spend the time in Asia: for he hurried, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost.

This verse talks about how Paul was keeping Pentecost, and as the law said, he hurried to be in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost, as it was required at the time (before the second temple fell).

There are many more examples, but you get my point.

Devin I have no problem with God's law nor the 10 Cs. The problem is so many insist that we are obligated to an obsolete covenant. The new covenant does not include any of the rites of the old covenant. The sabbath is a rite given to Israel alone. Moses says so in that he says the sabbath is the sign of the covenant. If it was given to every one there would be no significance to Israel.

What I believe you call God's law (the 10 Cs) is not written on the heart of the Christian. No if you are talking about God's moral law prior to Sinai, I can and do subscribe to that. That law does not include any rites given to Israel per Moses - Deut 5:3.

Paul was and still is a natural blood line Jew. Paul said very clearly he kept the law when witnessing to Jews about Jesus and did not do so when witnessing to gentiles. Then you might argue that the early church kept the law. The early church was nearly 100% Jewish. You can't expect centuries of tradition to change at the flip of a switch. Jesus and all the Apostles did not teach the law starting with John the Baptist per LK 16:16. John 1:17 also says Jesus did not bring (teach) the law. Read the Gospel of John; it has many references to prove Jesus did not teach the law. Jesus was not teaching the law in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said but I say after referencing the 10 Cs.

Paul can not say we are delivered from the law and teach we are to keep it. Paul can not say throw out the law and teach the law as a requirement. Why would Paul be troubled about those returning to the law if he was teaching it?

Paul is not saying he keeps the law right after saying we are delivered from the law aka 10 Cs (7:6).

Paul can not be saying be a doer of the law and we are delivered from the law.

Paul can not say be a doer of the law while saying we are dead to the law and the law died.

Paul can not say be a doer of the law and no one does. So how can anyone be justified by the law? Mat 19 also proves this point. The man did not leave knowing he possessed eternal life after saying he kept the law. Jesus did not disagree with him nor condemn him. The law did though.

Yeah I get your point all right, but you seem to have missed Jn 10 and Gal 2:21.

bugkiller

 

[Arsenios]

Yes, I agree. For the issue is not even that our literal flesh is bad in and of itself. It is neglected because its design is to be led by the spirit. Apart from being led by spirit it begins to succumb to the forces of corruption even before the moment it is born so that it is born unholy. And God will not sustain it by reason of that unholiness.

A mother's emotions affect the fetus. And genitive failures due to the parents lack of the full sustaining power of God working in them. It is as it asks in Job: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." Job 14:4

God chose the purest race of people back to Adam to demonstrate to all races of mankind that we are all in that same spiritually deprived condition. That demonstration was all that mankind needed to be able to see their need for the Messiah. But because of our fallen spiritual condition we tend to have a difficult time seeing that we are not so special. All of us our born to the same afflictions.

Edit: It is interesting to also note that with the added words removed from 1 Corinthians 15:39 Paul says there is but "one sarx of man." The additional sarx is not considered added as the context and the grammar both directly support it.

So...

This is totally off topic...

If the OP poster wants, I will remove it...

Did Christ have a sin nature?

If no, why no...

If yes, why yes...

Arsenios

 

[bugkiller]

In Zechariah 14 God says in verse 1-3 that this chapter talks about the time after God returns -

Zechariah 14:1-3 -
1 Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
3 Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.

Then later on in the chapter, He talks about what will happen to the nations (goyim - aka gentiles) that don't keep the feast of tabernacles / sukkoth

Zechariah 14:16-19
16 And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations (גוים goyim - aka gentiles) which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.
17 And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
18 And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the Lord will smite the heathen (גּוֹי goy - gentile) that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations ( גּוֹי goyim - aka, gentiles) that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.

If the law isn't meant for the gentiles, and it's done away with, then why in the end times, after Jesus returns, will He punish the gentiles for not keeping the law by their refusing to observe the holy feast of Sukkoth (tabernacles)?

I know I'm just copying the post from earlier in the forums that I posted, but forget everything else I posted, and just read and respond to this, please.

Sorry but I am not going to argue prophecy with you except Jer 31:31-33 and its fulfillment with the words of Jesus in LK 22:20. So you argue end times stuff to justify your belief or disbelief all you desire.

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

But you fail to factor in that not all of the violations of that Old Law Covenant incurred death as a part of their sentence. And in hearing me say that, your mind will immediately leap to the thought that one who breaks even the least of those laws is guilty of all. However, there once again you have missed the understanding.

Context is essential. And in places where Paul makes quotes of the Old Testament, the Old Testament context becomes essential to what Paul says. And never in the history of Israel, at any time, did literally all become unfaithful. And you cannot find anywhere in the OT that literally all are shown as having become unfaithful. The prophets who served as messengers of God were not unfaithful, even while they spoke of the nation as a whole being unfaithful. And those who were faithful were tormented in their righteous souls, similar as Enoch was, because of that rampant unfaithfulness by the many. Those faithful died faithful just as Hebrews chapter 11 tells us and so that Old Law Covenant did not kill them.

I need to help the majority of you who are posting to this thread understand the difference between being killed by ones own disobedience to the Law and being put to death by the killers of God's prophets, those who were making a mockery of God's Law with their ritualistic application and then using their pride to condemn the innocent who refused to go along with them.

But first take time to ponder the truth of what I pointed out in the second paragraph. Go to Hebrews 11 and do not leave it until you see that the Old Law Covenant did not kill literally all, but only the law breakers, which just happened to be the majority of men, even as before that Old Law Covenant.

Then I will help you more fully grasp what Jesus did and why he could do it whereas those who previously died faithful could not do it. And it certainly was not this outrageous lie which claims God died so that the adulterous Israel could be freed to be married to him again under a New Covenant, like a second time married to him. That idea makes a mockery of both God and the Old covenant Law.

You can not change the words of Jesus found in John 10.

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

While it is true that no one could actually observe all the commandments of the Law’s 600 or so points without mistake, there are other things which must be considered and weighed in to our conclusions:

One thing is that James is there reproving individuals who do claim to keep practically all the Law, and are using this belief that they do honor God's law, in a puffed up way as if it proves they are righteous. So James sets out to show them they are mistaken in their thinking.

Men tend to choose the parts of the Scriptures that they want to follow, and they tend to minimize or even completely fail to see other parts. The Law is one perfect unit as a covenant and therefore this tendency of men does offend that law as one perfect unit (called God's covenant), in which they mutually agreed to keep all of God's laws (Exodus 19:5-8; Exodus 24:6-7). This is in fact the meaning of the word, Amen. And the word, Amen, means that for us, also. To offend in the smallest of points of God's law is like defacing that covenant we made and we restate our commitment to each time we say, Amen. By even the smallest infraction we change God's covenant with us to our liking instead of God's liking, whether we are saying Amen to the Old Covenant or the New. Galatians 5:24-25

God has not made a covenant with us to approve lawlessness has he? Then if we are not doing as Galatians 5:16; Galatians 5:24-25 says, we are defacing our covenant and playing false to it.

If a person breaks one of the commandments of the Law, he fails to fulfill the purpose of entire law, and that purpose is to discourage lawbreakers, period. It is the same purpose for each of those 600 plus codes. Be untrue to that purpose for one law, even a law violation which does not incur death (1 John 5:16), and he has been untrue to the purpose which binds the entire law.

For this reason we can correctly say that the Mosaic law showed all to be sinners because no one could keep it perfectly. Still, we cannot on that basis claim that the law put all to death, for not all sins against that law did incur death but all that did not require death did require sacrifice for the sin. And so we see that though ones were considered as righteous in God's eyes, they had inability in themselves to deliver themselves from Adam's death sentence. Thus requiring the provision of a ransom by God furnishing that ransom for us, his Son who humbly left his heavenly estate and honored position with God his Father to do for us what we could not do.

We did not need the law to kill us because we were all already condemned of Adam's sin long before that Old Law Covenant. All the Old Law Covenant did was prove that to us. Not being able to keep it perfectly proved the sin in us which we bare of Adam. The entire focus is on rescuing us from Adam's sin and on the errors we make because of that bad beginning we had in Adam. Thus that Law Covenant proved all dead by Adam's sin and therefore it showed us what Paul said was true at Romans 3:19 “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” Thus we can correctly understand Paul at Romans 3:19 as telling us that the Law Covenant proved we are all justly classified as sinners by reason of our start in the fallen Adam and thus proven all to be by that start, sinners. All of our mouths, matter not whether Jew or Gentile, have been stopped from being able to proclaim our own righteousness. Thus our attributing of righteousness from Abel onward has always been only by the grace of God yet recognizing the intent of our hearts to have faith in God and desire to do right despite our inability to actually always do so which Adam caused to us when he sinned and brought his children up in the shadow of his sin. God's grace has always credited the ransom in advance for life to those God deemed faithful.

It was not necessary that the Old Law Covenant kill us all for violating its Laws, most of which were able to be sacrificed for so as not to incur death. All that Law needed to do was prove that all, the whole world, was already laboring under Adam's sin. And for that reason we needed God to provide a suitable ransom. And he did credit that ransom in advance for many.

This is an important point, also: A ransoming for sin would have to keep being offered to perpetuity if we continued to dip ourselves back into a baptism of sin. And that is why we are also required to learn from Christ how to walk by God's spirit so that we can do as Paul spoke at Galatians 5:16; Galatians 5:24-25. If we do not do that we are repeating the same mistakes which those under the Old Covenant made and in jeopardy of losing God's grace. 2 Corinthians 6:1

Heb 7-10 covers it and disproves your idea.

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

Yes, I agree. For the issue is not even that our literal flesh is bad in and of itself. It is neglected because its design is to be led by the spirit. Apart from being led by spirit it begins to succumb to the forces of corruption even before the moment it is born so that it is born unholy. And God will not sustain it by reason of that unholiness.

A mother's emotions affect the fetus. And genitive failures due to the parents lack of the full sustaining power of God working in them. It is as it asks in Job: "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one." Job 14:4

God chose the purest race of people back to Adam to demonstrate to all races of mankind that we are all in that same spiritually deprived condition. That demonstration was all that mankind needed to be able to see their need for the Messiah. But because of our fallen spiritual condition we tend to have a difficult time seeing that we are not so special. All of us our born to the same afflictions.

Edit: It is interesting to also note that with the added words removed from 1 Corinthians 15:39 Paul says there is but "one sarx of man." The additional sarx is not considered added as the context and the grammar both directly support it.

Our body of flesh is never lead by the Holy Spirit. It has already received its irrevocable sentence of death.

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

Sometimes a man sweeps too broadly with his thoughts. The subject was the priesthood.

The former law concerned the priesthood of Aaron. The changed law concerns the priesthood according to the manner of Melchizedek.

That law changed so that it is no longer the Levitical priesthood we are focused on. But the spirit of much of that which Jason mentions has not changed. The spirit was always right. Man was just acting out a simulation of it in the physical for our reference. That simulation was merely a demonstration. There is yet a Sabbath remaining for us. But it is a better one than that mere demonstration.

Did you not post something about the law being a single indivisible unit?

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

Then in 8, Paul begins by defining his personal posture in what is to follow, saying: "I am speaking to those knowing the Law..." Paul elsewhere explains how it is that he becomes all things to all men that he should save some, remember? And that is what he is doing here, so as to persuade them of your 6 and 7 quotes... As one knowing the Law - eg married to the Law - eg as a Law regulated Jew - Yes? As this law governed person, he is unable to do what he desires, and does that which he hates... And the betinning of 9 begins: "I am giving thanks to God..." as the answer to the question that ends chapter 8...

Beginnings are important...

Arsenios

I have been accused of thinking way to fast to follow. I do not follow you here.

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

In 6 Paul is speaking as a Christian Apostle...

In 7 he shifts, until almost the end, speaking as one knowing (in obedience to) the Law of Moses to others who are also knowing the Law...

Chapter 7, you see, demonstrates, to those knowing the Law, that their efforts in obedience to the Law, do not and cannot overcome sin... Leading to the crisis at the end where one trying so hard fails time after time, and cries out in defeated agony:

Rom 7:24
O wretched man that I am!
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

The answer, of course, is the Body of Christ...

So he writes:

Rom 7:25
I am thanking God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And he then returns to the original case as one who is knowing the Law:

So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God;
but with the flesh the law of sin.

Which is, of course, the case with one knowing the Law...
The are unable to overcome our own sin knowing the Law...
Paul himself, however, is thanking God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Arsenios

Sorry but Paul did not serve the law. Paul said very clearly he is now presently delivered from the law. No way can one be free from something and bound to it at the same time.

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

I agree - The New Covenant of the Body and the Blood of our Lord, yes?
It is not an extension, but the fulfillment of Judaism...

But Christ did come through the Jews, and gave them a blindness that this New Covenant be extended to the Gentiles, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come to pass...

Rom 11:25
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this Mystery,
lest ye should be wise in your own conceits;
that blindness in part is happened to Israel,
until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.

He mentions that Israel shall be literally recalled from the dead, if I remember aright, because their blindness was not totally their own...

Interesting stuff...

Arsenios

I am not saying Israel is forever out of the picture. So I do not get you here.

bugkiller

 

[bugkiller]

So...

This is totally off topic...

If the OP poster wants, I will remove it...

Did Christ have a sin nature?

If no, why no...

If yes, why yes...

Arsenios

No, because God is His Father. To say Jesus had a sin nature means God the Father does as well. All inheritance is through the male. Jesus had no earthly father.

bugkiller

 

[Arsenios]

I have been accused of thinking way to fast to follow. I do not follow you here.

bugkiller

I'm only half as fast as you - For you see, I meant chapter 7, but typo'd chapter 8...
So your inability to follow me is simply reality 101...

One thing I would suggest to you on chapter 7 - It does not appear in the KJV - The very opening word of that chapter - I had missed it myself - Just noticed it when I went to check verbs there - That entire chapter, 7, is an ASIDE... He has a mixed audience in Rome, apparently - some following [eg "knowing" - The same verb as in Adam "knew" Eve etc] the Law and some not, some Christians and some not but enquiring, but apparently a fair number following Mosaic Levitical Law were there... And this chapter 7 is something of an aside to them, to the enquirers from the Jews, and perhaps even to the Jewish Christians who were still keeping the Law and thought the non-Jewish converts should also keep the Law... The whole of this chapter is an aside to them alone...

It is so because it, chap 7, begins with this little Greek word: η, It is a HUGE word, and it means OR... It is highly rhetorical, proceeding with no EITHER preceeding it... So Paul is rambling along in his explaination of how Christianity works, and he stops for a minute and peers over the glasses he is not wearing, and he says, in a suddenly loud manuscripted 'voice'...:
OR...
Are you NOT KNOWING, Brethren?
For (it is you who are) KNOWING the Law that I am addressing...

Which launches the whole aside of chapter 7, where he becomes as one knowing the Law to show them their folly in thinking that the Law will overcome their sins, for it does not... And he shows them how and why in the first person singular, how it did not work even for him... And he does so in the dramatic present tense...

So now perhaps you will be able to follow in chapter 7, and somehow find it in your generous heart to forgive my typo-prone notzo-fast fingers and synapses...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

No, [Christ's did not have a sin nature] because God is His Father. To say Jesus had a sin nature means God the Father does as well. All inheritance is through the male. Jesus had no earthly father.

How then do you understand this verse?

John 20:17
Jesus saith unto her,
"Touch me not;
for I am not yet ascended to my Father:
but go to my brethren, and say unto them,
I ascend unto my Father, and your Father;
and to my God, and your God."

Why would Jesus not want her to touch His His just Resurrected body?

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

I am not saying Israel is forever out of the picture. So I do not get you here.

You do if we agree, yes?

And we agree!

A.

 

[Buzz_B]

So...

This is totally off topic...

If the OP poster wants, I will remove it...

Did Christ have a sin nature?

If no, why no...

If yes, why yes...

Arsenios

That was a reply to Ron Gurley.

If you are offended by what I said, I apologize for having offended you. But I share in Jewish blood and I was not speaking to insult that blood or anyone else.

The reply is no more off topic than the post it was given in reply to. I thought that was permissible then and had no idea the 'Thought Police' would get excited.

 

[Buzz_B]

You can not change the words of Jesus found in John 10.

bugkiller

And I agree, but do not see how you might think what I said does change anything Jesus said in John 10.

Br more specific as to how.

 

[Buzz_B]

Did you not post something about the law being a single indivisible unit?

bugkiller

Perspective, friend, perspective.

That was said in relation to the offending of even the least of the law being and offense of the entire law's purpose. That purpose being to prevent lawlessness.

God's changing the priesthood is not an offense against the law. It would not even be an offense against the law for God to change any of it, for they are his laws. He is the law-giver.

The Rabbis have a belief that they have the God given right to interpret the law and even change the law, but I see that as wrong.

 

[Buzz_B]

I'm only half as fast as you - For you see, I meant chapter 7, but typo'd chapter 8...
So your inability to follow me is simply reality 101...

One thing I would suggest to you on chapter 7 - It does not appear in the KJV - The very opening word of that chapter - I had missed it myself - Just noticed it when I went to check verbs there - That entire chapter, 7, is an ASIDE... He has a mixed audience in Rome, apparently - some following [eg "knowing" - The same verb as in Adam "knew" Eve etc] the Law and some not, some Christians and some not but enquiring, but apparently a fair number following Mosaic Levitical Law were there... And this chapter 7 is something of an aside to them, to the enquirers from the Jews, and perhaps even to the Jewish Christians who were still keeping the Law and thought the non-Jewish converts should also keep the Law... The whole of this chapter is an aside to them alone...

It is so because it, chap 7, begins with this little Greek word: η, It is a HUGE word, and it means OR... It is highly rhetorical, proceeding with no EITHER preceeding it... So Paul is rambling along in his explaination of how Christianity works, and he stops for a minute and peers over the glasses he is not wearing, and he says, in a suddenly loud manuscripted 'voice'...:
OR...
Are you NOT KNOWING, Brethren?
For (it is you who are) KNOWING the Law that I am addressing...

Which launches the whole aside of chapter 7, where he becomes as one knowing the Law to show them their folly in thinking that the Law will overcome their sins, for it does not... And he shows them how and why in the first person singular, how it did not work even for him... And he does so in the dramatic present tense...

So now perhaps you will be able to follow in chapter 7, and somehow find it in your generous heart to forgive my typo-prone notzo-fast fingers and synapses...

Arsenios

I was contemplating just a short while ago whether the setting for Romans 7:1 ties back to Romans 6:3 and that Paul is just telling them that, as Christ died, Christ is no longer bound to that Old Law and so if they are baptized into Christ and his death, then they should understand that neither are they bound to that Old law.

Because surely you realize that it was only Jerusalem that was wed to God and the rest of Israel being treated as God's children being shaped and molded in her womb? Compare Isaiah 50:1

Further, in support of that premise, notice that Romans 7:4 does not say that the law killed us but that, "ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ.."

I would surmise that in Romans 7:9 what Paul means is that he had no consciousness of being dead and thus lived as if he were alive. But then the law imposed the consciousness of sin's having caused his death:

"What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Howbeit, I had not known sin, except through the law: for I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.." Romans 7:7

Accepting that the Law by promoting that consciousness of sin's having caused his death, Paul would understand that because he was actually dead, God could not have any real association with him. Thus he would realize he was free to accept the baptism into Christ's death, and thus the , "ye also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ.." Dead to sin that sin not be master over him any longer: "God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?" Romans 6:2

"But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life." Romans 6:22

Hey! That works!

Thank you, Arsenios, for your comment moving me to think more about that.

Much appreciated!

 

[Buzz_B]

Our body of flesh is never lead by the Holy Spirit. It has already received its irrevocable sentence of death.

bugkiller

"But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Romans 8:11

It seems Paul disagrees with you concerning our inability to lead our bodies of flesh by spirit.

Perhaps you are confusing what he said at Romans 8:7-8 ?

There he means by its own accord. But our flesh is made to be dominated by our spirit. That is different from it being subjected to the law of God by its own accord.

Thus, "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Galatians 5:16