Q & A Why did Paul break the Old Testament in Hebrews 8:13?

[Presbyterian Continuist]

In order for one thing to make something else obsolete, it needs to do everything that it does and more, so the New Covenant makes the Mosaic Covenant obsolete insofar as it still involves following the Torah (Hebrews 8:10) plus it is based on better promises and has a superior mediator (Hebrews 8:6-7). In Galatians 3:16-19, the promises of a covenant that has been ratified are not made void by later covenants, so again newer covenants are inclusive of older ones. There are many verses that say that the Mosaic Covenant is eternal, so again it can only be made obsolete by a covenant that is inclusive of it plus more.

In Deuteronomy 30:1-10, it prophesies about a time when the Israelites will return from exile, God will circumcise their hearts, and they will return to obedience to the Torah. In Ezekiel 36:26-27 and Jeremiah 31:33, they are speaking in regard to the New Covenant, the return of the Israelites from exile, and God circumcising our hearts by means of the Spirit by saying that He will take away our hearts of stone, give us hearts of flesh, and send His spirit to lead us in obedience to the Torah, and where God will put the Torah in our minds and write it on our hearts. In Romans 2:25-29, the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to the Torah, which is the same way to tell for a Jew, and circumcision of the heart is a matter of the Spirit, which is in contrast with Acts 7:51-53, where those who have uncircumcised hearts resist the Spirit and do not obey the Torah. So the New Covenant is all about Israel returning from exile and returning to obedience to the Torah.

The New Covenant is between the Father and Jesus. It is the agreement that the Father will honour the agreement that those who have faith in Christ and His finished work on the Cross of Calvary will be cleansed from all unrighteousness and be saved. Our part in the New Covenant is to have faith in Christ as our Saviour. The mission statement of the New Covenant is this: "By grace are we saved through faith [in Christ]; not of ourselves but is the gift of God; not of works lest any should boast." The seal of the New Covenant, or our title deed, is that we who have received Christ as Saviour are sealed with the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul said in Galatians about having received the Holy Spirit through faith, and then trying to achieve perfection through observance to the Mosaic Law. What Paul is saying is that the Galatians received the Holy Spirit as their seal, or title deed under the New Covenant between the Father and the Son, but were reverting to the obsolete Old Covenant between God and Israel, which said, If you remain faithful to me and do all I [God] have commanded you, and I [God] will be faithful to you. The Old Covenant was broken because Israel failed to remain faithful, so God effectively "divorced" the nation, which resulted in its captivity and disestablishment as a nation.

 

[Soyeong]

The New Covenant is between the Father and Jesus. It is the agreement that the Father will honour the agreement that those who have faith in Christ and His finished work on the Cross of Calvary will be cleansed from all unrighteousness and be saved. Our part in the New Covenant is to have faith in Christ as our Saviour. The mission statement of the New Covenant is this: "By grace are we saved through faith [in Christ]; not of ourselves but is the gift of God; not of works lest any should boast." The seal of the New Covenant, or our title deed, is that we who have received Christ as Saviour are sealed with the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul said in Galatians about having received the Holy Spirit through faith, and then trying to achieve perfection through observance to the Mosaic Law. What Paul is saying is that the Galatians received the Holy Spirit as their seal, or title deed under the New Covenant between the Father and the Son, but were reverting to the obsolete Old Covenant between God and Israel, which said, If you remain faithful to me and do all I [God] have commanded you, and I [God] will be faithful to you. The Old Covenant was broken because Israel failed to remain faithful, so God effectively "divorced" the nation, which resulted in its captivity and disestablishment as a nation.

In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Torah, and in Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Torah is the way to have faith in Christ and his finished work on the cross (Acts 21:20). Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and it is by the Torah that we know what sin is (Romans 3:20), so living in obedience to it through faith in Christ as our Savior is the the content of his gift of saving us from not living in obedience to it. In Psalms 119:29, he wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah and he chose the way of faithfulness by choosing to obey it, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith. In Ephesians 2:8-10, we are new creations in Christ to do good works, so while we do not earn our salvation as the result of obeying the Torah lest anyone should boast, doing good works in obedience to it is nevertheless intrinsically part of our salvation from not doing good works. In Ezekiel 36:26-27, as part of the New Covenant the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey the Torah. In Acts 5:32, the Spirit has been given to those who obey God, so obedience to the Torah through faith is part of the way to receive the Spirit. Obedience to the Torah has nothing to do with trying to result in perfection. God divorced just the Northern Kingdom because if their disobedience to the Torah, which should not indicate to us that it would be a good idea for us to also disobey the Torah, but rather we should learn from their example of disobedience what we should avoid doing (1 Corinthians 10:1-13).

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Torah, and in Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Torah is the way to have faith in Christ and his finished work on the cross (Acts 21:20). Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and it is by the Torah that we know what sin is (Romans 3:20), so living in obedience to it through faith in Christ as our Savior is the the content of his gift of saving us from not living in obedience to it. In Psalms 119:29, he wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah and he chose the way of faithfulness by choosing to obey it, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith. In Ephesians 2:8-10, we are new creations in Christ to do good works, so while we do not earn our salvation as the result of obeying the Torah lest anyone should boast, doing good works in obedience to it is nevertheless intrinsically part of our salvation from not doing good works. In Ezekiel 36:26-27, as part of the New Covenant the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey the Torah. In Acts 5:32, the Spirit has been given to those who obey God, so obedience to the Torah through faith is part of the way to receive the Spirit. Obedience to the Torah has nothing to do with trying to result in perfection. God divorced just the Northern Kingdom because if their disobedience to the Torah, which should not indicate to us that it would be a good idea for us to also disobey the Torah, but rather we should learn from their example of disobedience what we should avoid doing (1 Corinthians 10:1-13).

I think that contradicts the Scripture: "By grace we are saved through faith, NOT OF OURSELVES; it is the gift of God, NOT OF WORKS lest any should boast."

The New Covenant involved Jesus keeping the Torah perfectly, and that because of His obedience, and His finished work on the Cross, His agreement with the Father is that those who come to Christ and have faith in Him, will be accepted into the kingdom of God.

If our salvation and sanctification depended on keeping the Torah, the Scripture says that anyone who lives by the Torah needs to keep it perfectly without a single fault. This is why the Torah is the ministry of death, because one single infraction of it means death. This is shown in the Scripture: 'The wages of sin is death". Sin is the transgression of the Torah, therefore those who are unable to keep the Torah perfectly are doomed to death, and grace is no more grace, and Christ is of no effect. This means that there will be many in hell who tried to base their lives on keeping the Torah and failed.

No one has been able to keep the Torah perfectly. This is shown by the Scripture in Romans, "We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no, not one." So the New Covenant is not between us and God with the condition that we obey the Torah. It is between God and Jesus, the latter having kept the Torah perfectly and therefore was our pure sacrifice whose blood was presented to God in the heavenly Holy of Holies as the one-time sacrifice for our sins [failure to keep the requirements of the Torah). Our part is to have our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

We then receive the Holy Spirit as our title deed to the promise that when we are resurrected on the last day, we will be resurrected into glory with Christ, and will not be resurrected to shame and punishment in hell. It is the Holy Spirit within us who works to develop us into the image of Christ as we live our lives trusting in Him and being led by the Spirit day by day. The Scripture does not say that it is those who obey the Torah who are the children of God. It says: "Those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God."

 

[Soyeong]

I'd say that reconciliation with God, wrought by His Son, must come first. And that reconciliation is "appropriated" or takes place within us as we turn to Him in faith. That's our first right step, one that pleases Him immensely because it means union, agreement, right stead with Him: that relationship is the essence or basis of man's justice. From there we're gifted with a new righteousness that comes from Him alone (which is why the law, by itself, does not justify). And we're obliged to walk in that justice or righteousness that the law makes us aware of but cannot accomplish.

"For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." Rom 8:3-4

But we may not even want to know God and experience the reconciliation with Him that said knowledge results in, preferring ourselves and our own way instead,

The Torah is God's instructions for how to have reconciliation wit Him, for how to turn to Him in faith, hoot please Him, how to have union, agreement, and right stead with Him, how to know Him, how to have a relationship with Him, how to be gifted with His righteousness that comes from Him alone. Becoming righteous is becoming someone who chooses to do what is righteous and the Torah is God's instruction for how to do what is righteous, not for how to result in becoming righteous, which is why it does not result in becoming righteous.

Sure it does.

"What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law."

"Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful." Rom 7:7 &13

And this is why the law, while absolutely right and correct, has historically been understood in Christianity to serve as a tutor, convicting us of sin while preparing us to realize that we need more than mere exterior rules in order to be truly righteous; we need change, interior change, new hearts. Man needs grace, man needs God, IOW, for everything, including success at authentic morality. The ten commandments, for example, are still held as obligatory, but fulfillable only by struggle and grace. God never commanded man to do anything that it would be impossible for man to do; He only knows that we cannot do it, we cannot be who we were created to be, when apart from Him. Sin only exists within us and is acted out in this world because of man's spiritual separation from God.

Throughout Romans 7, Paul was contrasting the Torah that is the good that he wanted to do with the law of sin that was causing him not do to the good that he wanted to do. The Torah is not sinful, but is how we know what sin is, and when our sin is revealed, then that leads us to repent and causes sin to decrease, however, the law of sin stirs up sinful passions in order to bear fruit unto death, so it is sinful and causes sin to increase. In Romans 7:12-13, Paul said that the Torah is good and that that which is good did not bring death to him, but that the law of sin used what is good to bring about his death. So these verses are not saying that one of the purposes of the Torah is to demonstrate to us that we do fail at living up to it.

In Exodus 20:6, God wanted His people to love Him and obey His commandments, so there is no need to for anyone to realize that we need more than mere exterior rules in order to be truly righteous because God did not give any rules that were merely exterior, so that was never one of the purposes of the Torah. If God had given any rules that were merely exterior, then He would not have disdained it when His people honored Him with their lips while their hearts were far from Him (Isaiah 29:13).

In Romans 3:21-22, the only way to become righteous that is testified about in the Torah and the Prophets is through faith in Christ. In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah and he chose the way of faithfulness by the Torah being on his heart, so this has always been the one and only way to become righteous by grace through faith. Relying on the Torah is the way to rely on God for everything and it is incorrect for someone to think that relying on what God has instructed is doing something apart from Him. The Bible does not say that God knows that we can't obey the Torah, but rather God said that the Torah is not too difficult for us to obey (Deuteronomy 30:11-14).

I'm saying grace comes first. The Damascus road experience was a dramatic example of God turning a man around but we all must experience it in some manner. God appeals to us; He knocks on our door. He draws us to His righteousness by drawing us to Himself and, as we turn and follow, we grow in it, in the real thing, in love to put it most precisely. As we come to appreciate love, because we love Him as He first loved us, and then begin to express and share that same love, it grows, and the law becomes fulfilled accordingly, the right way, God's way.

So it's not an either/or thing, but both/and, with our willingness, our cooperation in God's work with Him initiating and us following, striving to obey now with the help of His grace...or not.

In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah. According to Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is not the result of having first done works and doing works is not the result of having first been saved, but rather God graciously teaching us to obey the Torah is the content of His gift of salvation. God draws us to Him and the same time we follow Him, he guides us at the same time we are being guided. God loves us by teaching us to how to love Him.

 

[Soyeong]

I think that contradicts the Scripture: "By grace we are saved through faith, NOT OF OURSELVES; it is the gift of God, NOT OF WORKS lest any should boast."

Ephesians 2:8-10 says that salvation is a gift of God and not the result of works, however, that does not mean that our salvation does not necessarily involve doing works, especially because according to verse 10 our salvation involves doing good works. For example, honoring our parents is intrinsically part of the concept of being saved from not honoring our parents. Works can be required for any number of reasons other than in order to result in our salvation, such as faith.

The content of a gift can itself be the experience of doing something, such as giving someone the opportunity to experience driving a Ferrari for an hour, where the gift requires them to do the work of driving it, but where doing the work of driving it has nothing to do with earning the opportunity to drive it as the result. In a similar manner, the content of God's gift of eternal life is itself the experience of knowing God and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of the Torah is His instructions for how to have that experience (Exodus 33:13, Matthew 7:23), which is why Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying the Torah (Matthew 19:17, Luke 10:25-28), but obeying the Torah has nothing to do with earning eternal life as the result of having perfect obedience.

The New Covenant involved Jesus keeping the Torah perfectly, and that because of His obedience, and His finished work on the Cross, His agreement with the Father is that those who come to Christ and have faith in Him, will be accepted into the kingdom of God.

The Father has made His will known through what He has commanded in the Torah (Psalms 40:8) and Jesus said that only those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of God (Matthew 7:21), so obeying the Torah is the way to come to Christ and have faith in Him, which is also why he said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Torah (Matthew 23:23).

If our salvation and sanctification depended on keeping the Torah, the Scripture says that anyone who lives by the Torah needs to keep it perfectly without a single fault. This is why the Torah is the ministry of death, because one single infraction of it means death. This is shown in the Scripture: 'The wages of sin is death". Sin is the transgression of the Torah, therefore those who are unable to keep the Torah perfectly are doomed to death, and grace is no more grace, and Christ is of no effect. This means that there will be many in hell who tried to base their lives on keeping the Torah and failed.

Nowhere does the Bible say that anyone who lives by the Torah needs to keep it perfectly without a single fault, but rather even if someone managed to live in perfect obedience to it, then they still would not earn their righteousness as the result (Romans 4:1-5), so that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of the Torah. In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, God said that the Torah is not too difficult to obey and that obedience brings life and a blessing while disobedience brings death and a curse, so choose life! So it was presented as a possibility and as a choice, not as the need for perfect obedience, and it is a ministry of death for those who refuse to obey it, not for those who sin once. The Torah came with instructions for what to do when the people sinned, so it never required us to have perfect obedience, and the fact that we can repent after we have sinned again demonstrates that we don't need to have perfect obedience.

That does not nullify grace, but rather our salvation involves God being gracious to us by teaching us to obey the Torah (Exodus 33:13, Psalms 119:29-30, Titus 2:11-14, Romans 1:5).

No one has been able to keep the Torah perfectly. This is shown by the Scripture in Romans, "We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no, not one." So the New Covenant is not between us and God with the condition that we obey the Torah. It is between God and Jesus, the latter having kept the Torah perfectly and therefore was our pure sacrifice whose blood was presented to God in the heavenly Holy of Holies as the one-time sacrifice for our sins [failure to keep the requirements of the Torah). Our part is to have our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

While no one has kept the Torah perfectly, there are many people who have kept the Torah, so there has never been a need for us to keep it perfectly. For example, in Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments, and in Revelation 22:14, those who kept God's commandments are given the right to eat from the Tree of Life. There are also many people who are righteous who kept the the Torah, such as Noah (Genesis 6:8-9) and Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-6), so Paul was not denying that anyone is righteous, but rather Romans 3:10 is quoting from Psalms 14:1-3, where it says that no one is righteous among those who say that they is no God. The Torah is God's word and Jesus is God's word made flesh, so it is contradictory to have faith in God's word made flesh instead of having faith in God's word, but rather God's word is His instructions for how to have faith and trust in Jesus.

We then receive the Holy Spirit as our title deed to the promise that when we are resurrected on the last day, we will be resurrected into glory with Christ, and will not be resurrected to shame and punishment in hell. It is the Holy Spirit within us who works to develop us into the image of Christ as we live our lives trusting in Him and being led by the Spirit day by day. The Scripture does not say that it is those who obey the Torah who are the children of God. It says: "Those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God."

In Ezekiel 36:26-27, the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey the Torah. In Romans 8:4-10 those who are born of the Spirit and walk in the Spirit are contrasted with those who have minds set on the flesh who are enemies of God who refuse to submit to the Torah. In Galatians 5:19-23, everything listed as works of the flesh that are against the Spirit are also against the Torah while all of the fruits of the Spirit are aspects of God's nature that are in accordance with it. In 1 John 3:4-10, those who do not practice righteousness in obedience to the Torah are not children of God. A chip off the old block is someone who has the same character or nature as their father and this is the sense that Jesus is the Son of God insofar as he is the exact image of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), which he expressed through setting a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Torah, so that is also the sense that we are children of God when we are partaking in the divine nature through following his example.

 

[fhansen]

The Torah is God's instructions for how to have reconciliation wit Him, for how to turn to Him in faith, hoot please Him, how to have union, agreement, and right stead with Him, how to know Him, how to have a relationship with Him, how to be gifted with His righteousness that comes from Him alone. Becoming righteous is becoming someone who chooses to do what is righteous and the Torah is God's instruction for how to do what is righteous, not for how to result in becoming righteous, which is why it does not result in becoming righteous.

Sounds like Pelagianism but maybe you don't reject that position that the church rejected centuries ago.

Throughout Romans 7, Paul was contrasting the Torah that is the good that he wanted to do with the law of sin that was causing him not do to the good that he wanted to do. The Torah is not sinful, but is how we know what sin is, and when our sin is revealed, then that leads us to repent and causes sin to decrease, however, the law of sin stirs up sinful passions in order to bear fruit unto death, so it is sinful and causes sin to increase. In Romans 7:12-13, Paul said that the Torah is good and that that which is good did not bring death to him, but that the law of sin used what is good to bring about his death. So these verses are not saying that one of the purposes of the Torah is to demonstrate to us that we do fail at living up to it.

Yes it does. The "curse of the law" is that the law is right but we're still wrong-and the law cannot rectify that situation. So the law only serves to bring about our death, not the life that it points to. Otherwise we wouldn't even need a new covenant. Again, the chief difference between the old and new covenant is that the new brings about reconciliation and union with God, established by faith. We become His people (Jer 31:33). Without that reconciliation we're going it alone, attempting to do our own writing of the law, or obeying apart from grace. There's a difference between being under the law and under grace. The former is me alone, while the latter is me and God.

In Romans 3:21-22, the only way to become righteous that is testified about in the Torah and the Prophets is through faith in Christ.

To have faith in Christ, along with hope and love, is to have faith in God, along with hope and love Him. And, again, that relationship which results is the basis of justice or righteousness for man. Not man alone but man now in union with God, in Christ, as opposed to his being separated from Him, in Adam.
"Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God." 1 Pet 1:21

In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah. According to Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is not the result of having first done works and doing works is not the result of having first been saved, but rather God graciously teaching us to obey the Torah is the content of His gift of salvation. God draws us to Him and the same time we follow Him, he guides us at the same time we are being guided. God loves us by teaching us to how to love Him.

Well, yes, teaching us how to obey the Torah is to draw us into loving as He does, fulfilling the greatest commandments. That's the only way Torah is fulfilled authentically. And that's really all I'm saying. It's not enough to simply obey the law. But it's plenty enough when we being to love-and the law is subsequently fulfilled. Our righteousness already surpasses that of the Pharisees ands teachers of the law as we do that (Matt 5).

 

[Soyeong]

Sounds like Pelagianism but maybe you don't reject that position that the church rejected centuries ago.

I have no idea why you think it sounds like that.

Yes it does. The "curse of the law" is that the law is right but we're still wrong-and the law cannot rectify that situation. So the law only serves to bring about our death, not the life that it points to. Otherwise we wouldn't even need a new covenant. Again, the chief difference between the old and new covenant is that the new brings about reconciliation and union with God, established by faith. We become His people (Jer 31:33). Without that reconciliation we're going it alone, attempting to do our own writing of the law, or obeying apart from grace. There's a difference between being under the law and under grace. The former is me alone, while the latter is me and God.

In Deuteronomy 28, it lists the blessing of the law for living in obedience to it and the curse of the law for not living in obedience to it, so being freed from the curse of the law is being freed from not living in obedience to it so that we can be free to enjoy the blessing of living in obedience to it.

To have a character trait is to be someone to chooses to take actions that express that character trait, so to say that God is righteous is to say that He chooses to take actions that express righteousness, and it would be inaccurate to say that God is righteous if chose not to do that, so there is no such thing as becoming righteous apart from becoming someone who chooses to take actions that express righteousness, and God's law is His instructions for how to take actions that express righteousness, not for how to become righteous.

God's law teaches us how to know Him through expressing holiness, righteousness, goodness, justice, mercy, faithfulness, and other aspects of His nature, and knowing God is eternal life (John 17:3). In Romans 7:12, Paul said God's law is good, and that it was not that which is good that brought death to him. The Psalms express an extremely positive view of the Mosaic Law, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, which Paul also did (Romans 7:22) so I don't see how you can read something like Psalms 19:7-11 and think that he was speaking about something that only serves to bring death, so you have a view of God's law that is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture.

The Mosaic Covenant also brings about reconciliation and union with God established through faith. The Mosaic Covenant is often described in terms of being a marriage between God and Israel, so the whole point of the Mosaic Law is to teach us how to have union with God through faith. There are many verses where God is gracious to us by teaching us to obey the Mosaic Laws, such as Exodus 33:13, Psalms 119:29-30, and Titus 2:11-14. Someone that we do alone does not involve relying on anyone else, so it is incorrect to think that relying on what God has instructed is something that we can do alone.

To have faith in Christ, along with hope and love, is to have faith in God, along with hope and love Him. And, again, that relationship which results is the basis of justice or righteousness for man. Not man alone but man now in union with God, in Christ, as opposed to his being separated from Him, in Adam.
"Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God." 1 Pet 1:21

Well, yes, teaching us how to obey the Torah is to draw us into loving as He does, fulfilling the greatest commandments. That's the only way Torah is fulfilled authentically. And that's really all I'm saying. It's not enough to simply obey the law. But it's plenty enough when we being to love-and the law is subsequently fulfilled. Our righteousness already surpasses that of the Pharisees ands teachers of the law as we do that (Matt 5).

When we express an aspect of God's nature through our obedience to the Torah we are expressing our love for that aspect of who God is, so everything that God chose to command was specifically commanded in order to teach us how to love a different aspect of who He is, which is why there are many verses in both the OT and the NT that connect our love for God with our obedience to His commandments. Love fulfills the Mosaic Law because that is what everything commanded is essentially about how to do. So if we love God and our neighbor, then we won't commit adultery, idolatry, murder, theft, rape, kidnapping, favoritism, and so forth.

 

[A_Thinker]

... so there is no such thing as becoming righteous apart from becoming someone who chooses to take actions that express righteousness, and God's law is His instructions for how to take actions that express righteousness, not for how to become righteous.

But this is exactly counter to what Romans 3:28 says ...

20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Righteous living, ... is not ALL that God desires for us. It may have been enough for Israel to be blessed in the Promised Land (per the Mosaic Covenant of blessings and cursings), ... though if you study the history of the relationship between God and Israel of that time, you see that God blesses Israel, in most cases, DESPITE their disobedience. When it came time for the original Israelite refugees from Egypt to enter the Promised Land, they failed because they lacked, not righteousness, but FAITH. It is not written in the Torah, "Those who have FAITH will be blessed", but rather that those who live righteously will be blessed. Yet, we see that it is righteous living borne of FAITH ... which truly blesses God's people. Abraham was judged righteous ... because he had FAITH in God. Likewise, Noah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Gideon, Esther, Nehemiah, Samuel, David, Jehosophat, and Hezekiah, along with all of the other heroes/heroines of faith listed in the 11th chapter of the letter to the Hebrews. Truly, the central truth of Hebrews is shown to be true, even in the context of the Old Covenant, ... "Without FAITH, it is impossible to please God." This principle is even found written in the writings of the Old Covenant writer Habakkuk (i.e. ... the just shall live (not by the Torah), ... but by FAITH.

Likewise, Isaiah wrote that even our righteousness is as filthy rags before God, for we are an unclean thing.

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

God desires relationship with us ... which only comes to be ... through the FAITH with which He gifts us in the New Covenant. This could be considered a portion of the MYSTERY which God hid until the coming of Messiah ... that the just live, not by the LAW, but by FAITH.

 

[fhansen]

I have no idea why you think it sounds like that.

Because Paul, for example, chose to be righteous as a Pharisee but still lacked true righteousness.

To have a character trait is to be someone to chooses to take actions that express that character trait, so to say that God is righteous is to say that He chooses to take actions that express righteousness, and it would be inaccurate to say that God is righteous if chose not to do that, so there is no such thing as becoming righteous apart from becoming someone who chooses to take actions that express righteousness, and God's law is His instructions for how to take actions that express righteousness, not for how to become righteous.

Expressing righteousness is one thing, being righteous is another. God expresses righteousness because He is righteous. That's why Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that it's not enough to refrain from murder; our hearts must be free of anger first of all. Likewise He tells the Pharisees in Matt 23 that the inside must be clean first of all, then the outside will be clean. Justification is God's act of forgiving, cleansing, and making us new creations with new hearts as we enter fellowship with Him through faith. We must continue to walk in, nurture and grow in that cleanness, that holiness, that new righteousness.

God's law teaches us how to know Him through expressing holiness, righteousness, goodness, justice, mercy, faithfulness, and other aspects of His nature, and knowing God is eternal life (John 17:3). In Romans 7:12, Paul said God's law is good, and that it was not that which is good that brought death to him. The Psalms express an extremely positive view of the Mosaic Law, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, which Paul also did (Romans 7:22) so I don't see how you can read something like Psalms 19:7-11 and think that he was speaking about something that only serves to bring death, so you have a view of God's law that is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture.

Yes, we're all to have a positive view of the law, and to know its purpose. Gal 3:21 reveals that the law cannot impart life or righteousness.

The Mosaic Covenant also brings about reconciliation and union with God established through faith. The Mosaic Covenant is often described in terms of being a marriage between God and Israel, so the whole point of the Mosaic Law is to teach us how to have union with God through faith. There are many verses where God is gracious to us by teaching us to obey the Mosaic Laws, such as Exodus 33:13, Psalms 119:29-30, and Titus 2:11-14. Someone that we do alone does not involve relying on anyone else, so it is incorrect to think that relying on what God has instructed is something that we can do alone.

Ok, we should obey the Mosaic law. We do so only to the extent that we love God and neighbor.

So if we love God and our neighbor, then we won't commit adultery, idolatry, murder, theft, rape, kidnapping, favoritism, and so forth.

This is true. We must fulfill the greatest commandments in order to fulfill the ten. Otherwise, if we try to fulfill the ten first, apart from love, we're putting the cart ahead of the horse. The ten give us an idea of what love looks like while obedience of them does not necessarily mean that we love. Basil of Caesarea, a 4th century bishop, put it this way:

“If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.”

 

[fhansen]

I think that contradicts the Scripture: "By grace we are saved through faith, NOT OF OURSELVES; it is the gift of God, NOT OF WORKS lest any should boast."

The New Covenant involved Jesus keeping the Torah perfectly, and that because of His obedience, and His finished work on the Cross, His agreement with the Father is that those who come to Christ and have faith in Him, will be accepted into the kingdom of God.

If our salvation and sanctification depended on keeping the Torah, the Scripture says that anyone who lives by the Torah needs to keep it perfectly without a single fault. This is why the Torah is the ministry of death, because one single infraction of it means death. This is shown in the Scripture: 'The wages of sin is death". Sin is the transgression of the Torah, therefore those who are unable to keep the Torah perfectly are doomed to death, and grace is no more grace, and Christ is of no effect. This means that there will be many in hell who tried to base their lives on keeping the Torah and failed.

No one has been able to keep the Torah perfectly. This is shown by the Scripture in Romans, "We all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "There is none righteous, no, not one." So the New Covenant is not between us and God with the condition that we obey the Torah. It is between God and Jesus, the latter having kept the Torah perfectly and therefore was our pure sacrifice whose blood was presented to God in the heavenly Holy of Holies as the one-time sacrifice for our sins [failure to keep the requirements of the Torah). Our part is to have our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

We then receive the Holy Spirit as our title deed to the promise that when we are resurrected on the last day, we will be resurrected into glory with Christ, and will not be resurrected to shame and punishment in hell. It is the Holy Spirit within us who works to develop us into the image of Christ as we live our lives trusting in Him and being led by the Spirit day by day. The Scripture does not say that it is those who obey the Torah who are the children of God. It says: "Those who are led by the Spirit are the children of God."

This kind of reasoning and understanding brings up the question as to whether or not sin can ever compromise our relationship with God, our state of justice, our salvation. And the answer is that, yes, it can, because the new covenant was never meant to serve as a carte blanc reprieve from the obligation for man to be righteous, but it's actually the means to accomplishing that very thing in us, not with a strictly imputed righteousness but with real righteousness as a gift that comes with our turning to God in faith. The law reflects that righteousness but cannot convey or empower us to achieve it. God, who never created man to be a sinner to begin with, can achieve that righteousness in us without reference to the law, without our needing to hear or be under the law.

 

[Soyeong]

But this is exactly counter to what Romans 3:28 says ...

20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

While it is true that Abraham believed God, so he was declared righteous (Genesis 15:6), it is also true that he believed God, so he obeyed His command to offer Isaac (Hebrews 11:17), so the same faith by which he was justified was also expressed as obedience to God, but he did not earn his righteousness as the result of his obedience to God (Romans 1:5). In James 2:21-24, it quotes Genesis 15:6 to say that Abraham was declared righteous by his works when he offered Isaac, that his faith was active along with his works, and that his faith completed his works, so he was justified by his works insofar as they were an expression of his faith, but not insofar as they were earning a wage. This is the same point that Paul was making in Romans 3:28-31, where we are declared righteous by faith apart from works insofar as our works do not earn our righteousness, but where that faith does not abolish our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it insofar as the same faith by which we are justified is also expressed as obedience to God. If we became righteous apart becoming someone who lives righteously in obedience to God's law, then that would mean that our faith does abolish our need to live righteously, plus it would undermine what it means for God to be righteous.

Righteous living, ... is not ALL that God desires for us. It may have been enough for Israel to be blessed in the Promised Land (per the Mosaic Covenant of blessings and cursings), ... though if you study the history of the relationship between God and Israel of that time, you see that God blesses Israel, in most cases, DESPITE their disobedience. When it came time for the original Israelite refugees from Egypt to enter the Promised Land, they failed because they lacked, not righteousness, but FAITH. It is not written in the Torah, "Those who have FAITH will be blessed", but rather that those who live righteously will be blessed. Yet, we see that it is righteous living borne of FAITH ... which truly blesses God's people. Abraham was judged righteous ... because he had FAITH in God. Likewise, Noah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, Gideon, Esther, Nehemiah, Samuel, David, Jehosophat, and Hezekiah, along with all of the other heroes/heroines of faith listed in the 11th chapter of the letter to the Hebrews. Truly, the central truth of Hebrews is shown to be true, even in the context of the Old Covenant, ... "Without FAITH, it is impossible to please God." This principle is even found written in the writings of the Old Covenant writer Habakkuk (i.e. ... the just shall live (not by the Torah), ... but by FAITH.

In Romans 2:13, Paul said that only doers of the Torah will be declared righteous, so there is a connection between living righteously and being declared righteous and the key is to correct understand the relationship. It is clear that we do not earn our righteousness as a wage by living righteously, however, there can be many other reasons for living righteously that connects it to our justification, such as faith. In Proverbs 3:5-7, we have a choice between doing what is right in our own eyes or trusting in God with all of our heart to correctly divide between right and wrong through obeying what He has instructed, so by choosing to live righteously we are expressing our faith and it is by that faith that we are declared righteous. Habakkuk is part of the OT, so it should not be interpreted as saying that the righteous live by faith as an alternative to living in obedience to the Torah, but rather the righteous are those on whose heart is the Torah (Isaiah 51:7), so the righteous living by faith does not refer to a manner of living that is not in obedience to it.

Likewise, Isaiah wrote that even our righteousness is as filthy rags before God, for we are an unclean thing.

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

God desires relationship with us ... which only comes to be ... through the FAITH with which He gifts us in the New Covenant. This could be considered a portion of the MYSTERY which God hid until the coming of Messiah ... that the just live, not by the LAW, but by FAITH.

All throughout the Bible, God wanted His people to repent and to return to obedience to the Torah, so he does not then turn around and show disdain for those who do that by viewing our obedience as being filthy rags. God does not command filthy rags, but rather the righteous deeds of the saints are like fine white linen (Revelation 19:8). In Isaiah 64:6, it was not God speaking, but rather it was the people hyperbolically complaining about how God was not coming down and making His presence known.

God desires to have an intimate relationship with us, which is why the Mosaic Covenant is often described in terms of being a marriage between God and Israel, and why God gave instructions for how to have a relationship with him through the Torah. The Hebrew word "yada" refers to intimate relational knowledge gained through experience, such as in Genesis 4:1, where Adam knew (yada) Even, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he might know (yada) Him and Israel too, which God did by giving the gift of the Torah (1 Kings 2:1-3), so again it is God's instructions for how to have a relationship with Him through faith.

 

[Presbyterian Continuist]

This kind of reasoning and understanding brings up the question as to whether or not sin can ever compromise our relationship with God, our state of justice, our salvation. And the answer is that, yes, it can, because the new covenant was never meant to serve as a carte blanc reprieve from the obligation for man to be righteous, but it's actually the means to accomplishing that very thing in us, not with a strictly imputed righteousness but with real righteousness as a gift that comes with our turning to God in faith. The law reflects that righteousness but cannot convey or empower us to achieve it. God, who never created man to be a sinner to begin with, can achieve that righteousness in us without reference to the law, without our needing to hear or be under the law.

The flesh will continue to war against the Spirit until we die and go to be with the Lord. Sometimes we win a battle with temptation and other times we don't. There is a difference between failing to resist temptation and sin in the flesh, and to allow that sin to go to one's heart. We also have to remember that temptation can come through our own lust, but other times it can be a fiery dart of the enemy that seeks to penetrate through a chink in our armour.

The problem with failing to resist a temptation is that when we fall off the holiness wagon, it affects our faith. We lose our peace, and it gives an opportunity for the devil to put the boot in to try and convince us that God is angry with us and that there is no forgiveness unless we jump through a whole lot of religious hoops in order to become accepted by God again. Of course this is a lie, because the Scripture says, "For a righteous man, one might give his life, but while we were yet sinners, Jesus died and gave Himself for us." So Jesus didn't die for those who had the potential to become righteous. He died for helpless, hopeless sinners who are condemned and on the road to hell. But the devil doesn't want us to know that, so he comes in with "You're never going to get to heaven now!" And this puts doubt in our minds, and we can get so discouraged, that we can develop a heart of unbelief and decide to walk away from Christ altogether. It is this discouragement and giving up on Christ that causes the sin to go from the flesh and into the heart. But we are protected as long as "with the heart we believe unto righteousness", in other words, we believe that we have received the righteousness of Christ that totally covers our sinfulness and enables us to confess our sin and be totally forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness.

In our hearts, we want to live holy lives to glorify Christ in us, and we mourn when because of temptation we can't achieve it in the way we want. As long as we continue to trust in the finished work of Christ on the Cross from our hearts in spite of the conflict we have in our flesh, then we can maintain our assurance of salvation. Problems happen when we believe the devil when he tells us that we might as well give it all up because we are never going to succeed in holiness and that Christ will not want to know us at the judgment.

 

[A_Thinker]

While it is true that Abraham believed God, so he was declared righteous (Genesis 15:6), it is also true that he believed God, so he obeyed His command to offer Isaac (Hebrews 11:17), so the same faith by which he was justified was also expressed as obedience to God, but he did not earn his righteousness as the result of his obedience to God (Romans 1:5). In James 2:21-24, it quotes Genesis 15:6 to say that Abraham was declared righteous by his works when he offered Isaac, that his faith was active along with his works, and that his faith completed his works, so he was justified by his works insofar as they were an expression of his faith, but not insofar as they were earning a wage. This is the same point that Paul was making in Romans 3:28-31, where we are declared righteous by faith apart from works insofar as our works do not earn our righteousness, but where that faith does not abolish our need to obey God's law, but rather our faith upholds it insofar as the same faith by which we are justified is also expressed as obedience to God. If we became righteous apart becoming someone who lives righteously in obedience to God's law, then that would mean that our faith does abolish our need to live righteously, plus it would undermine what it means for God to be righteous.


In Romans 2:13, Paul said that only doers of the Torah will be declared righteous, so there is a connection between living righteously and being declared righteous and the key is to correct understand the relationship. It is clear that we do not earn our righteousness as a wage by living righteously, however, there can be many other reasons for living righteously that connects it to our justification, such as faith. In Proverbs 3:5-7, we have a choice between doing what is right in our own eyes or trusting in God with all of our heart to correctly divide between right and wrong through obeying what He has instructed, so by choosing to live righteously we are expressing our faith and it is by that faith that we are declared righteous. Habakkuk is part of the OT, so it should not be interpreted as saying that the righteous live by faith as an alternative to living in obedience to the Torah, but rather the righteous are those on whose heart is the Torah (Isaiah 51:7), so the righteous living by faith does not refer to a manner of living that is not in obedience to it.


All throughout the Bible, God wanted His people to repent and to return to obedience to the Torah, so he does not then turn around and show disdain for those who do that by viewing our obedience as being filthy rags. God does not command filthy rags, but rather the righteous deeds of the saints are like fine white linen (Revelation 19:8). In Isaiah 64:6, it was not God speaking, but rather it was the people hyperbolically complaining about how God was not coming down and making His presence known.

God desires to have an intimate relationship with us, which is why the Mosaic Covenant is often described in terms of being a marriage between God and Israel, and why God gave instructions for how to have a relationship with him through the Torah. The Hebrew word "yada" refers to intimate relational knowledge gained through experience, such as in Genesis 4:1, where Adam knew (yada) Even, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he might know (yada) Him and Israel too, which God did by giving the gift of the Torah (1 Kings 2:1-3), so again it is God's instructions for how to have a relationship with Him through faith.

For consideration ...

1.) Abraham was declared righteous for his faith, BEFORE demonstrating his obedience in the offering of Isaac.
2.) The original author of the Genesis narrative says that Abraham was declared righteous because of his faith (i.e. he believed God).
3.) Romans 2 (i.e. "all of the world is guilty of breaking the Law) ... is the setup for Romans 3 (we are now saved via Christ's own righteousness).
4.) Paul taught in Romans 3 ... that there is no salvific effect of any obedience to the Law.
5.) Scripture is clear that we obtain righteousness through Christ ... and NOT through any righteous acts which we may perform.
6.) The Torah/Law was given at God's initiative in Exodus 24 (i.e. before the passage you cite in Exodus 33).
7.) God expresses (through the writer of the letter to the Hebrews) that the Israelites FAILED to keep the Covenant of the Law that He made with them. Is your contention counter to this ?
8.) You often speak as if there were not (2) distinct Covenants discussed in Scripture. The Old Covenant (established between God and the OT Israelites) ... and the New Covenant (established between God and all believers). Hebrews 8 is clear that the Old Covenant (established on the Law/Torah) is inferior and ready to vanish away, ... and that the New superior Covenant of Grace (i.e. I will FORGIVE their sin) is now in force.

 

[Soyeong]

For consideration ...

1.) Abraham was declared righteous for his faith, BEFORE demonstrating his obedience in the offering of Isaac.

Abraham was justified in Genesis 12:1-5 when he obeyed the call to go to the land where he would receive his inheritance (Hebrews 11:8), he was justified in Genesis 15:6 when he believed God (Romans 4:1-5), and he was justified in Genesis 22 when he offered Isaac (James 2:21-24, Hebrews 11:17). All of the examples of people doing works by faith listed in Hebrews 11 are of justifying faith, Abraham was listed twice, and none of the examples are of believing something before acting, but rather we can know when someone believes something based entirely on the way that they act, and Abraham acted in a way that showed trust in God's promise.

2.) The original author of the Genesis narrative says that Abraham was declared righteous because of his faith (i.e. he believed God).

Obedience to any set of instructions is about putting our faith in the one who gave them to rightly guide us (Proverbs 3:1-7). God is trustworthy therefore His instruction are also trustworthy (Psalms 19:7), so following God's instructions is the way to trust God and it is contradictory to trust God while not trusting in what God has instructed. This is why there are many verses that connect our faith in God with our obedience to God's instructions, such as Matthew 23:23, where Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the law. In Romans 1:5, we have received grace in order to bring about the obedience of faith. In Romans 3:31, our faith upholds God's law. In James 2:18, he would show his faith by his works. In Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments, so again al of God's instructions teach us how to have faith in Him. So again the same faith by which Abraham was justified was also expressed as obedience to God's instructions.

3.) Romans 2 (i.e. "all of the world is guilty of breaking the Law) ... is the setup for Romans 3 (we are now saved via Christ's own righteousness).

Christ expressed his righteousness by living in obedience to God's instructions, so following his example through faith is the way that we are saved through his righteousness. Christ is the exact image of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3), so among other things, he is the embodiment or personification of righteousness, so there is no righteousness apart from the nature of who He is and all righteous acts are expressing, experiencing, loving, believing in, and testifying about the nature of who he is.

4.) Paul taught in Romans 3 ... that there is no salvific effect of any obedience to the Law.

While there are many verses that teach that we do not earn our salvation as the result of our obedience to God, there are also many verses that show that our salvation requires us to choose to obey Him, such as Hebrews 5:9, where Jesus has become a source of eternal salvation for those who obey Him, so there must be correct reasons why our salvation requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than than the incorrect reason of trying to earn it as a wage.

Our salvation is from sin and sin is disobeying God's instructions, so while Paul taught we do not earn our salvation as the result of obeying God's instructions, he also taught that living in obedience to them through faith in Christ is the content of his gift of saving us from not living in obedience to them. In Romans 6:19-23, we are no longer to present ourselves as slaves to impurity, lawlessness, and sin, but are now to present ourselves as slaves to God and to righteousness leading to sanctification, and the goal of sanctification is eternal life in Christ, which is the gift of God, so the experience of being in Christ through living in obedience to God's law is the content of His gift of eternal life.

5.) Scripture is clear that we obtain righteousness through Christ ... and NOT through any righteous acts which we may perform.

I agree. 1 can lead to 2 and 1 can lead to 3 while 2 does not lead to 3, so the same faith can lead to justification that leads to being a doer of the law while being a doer of the law does not result in earning our justification. Christ is God's word made flesh, so righteousness through the one who is the embodiment of God's word is the same as righteousness through us embodying God's word, but we do not earn our righteousness as the result of us embodying God's word.

6.) The Torah/Law was given at God's initiative in Exodus 24 (i.e. before the passage you cite in Exodus 33).

Exodus is not strictly in chronological order, such as with the Israelites keeping the Sabbath in Exodus 16 before it was given in Exodus 20 or with Jethro giving advice in Exodus 18 about how to make judgements concerning the law that was spoken about being given later in Exodus. Furthermore, in Psalms 119:29, he wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah, which was long after Sinai. There is a difference between knowing about which things God has commanded and knowing the experience expressing aspects of God's nature through obeying them. In accordance with Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted for God to teach him how to have the experience of knowing Him, which again is the experience of eternal life (John 17:3). The way to have the experience of knowing God is through acting in accordance with God's nature, which is why aspects of God's nature were listed in Exodus 34:6-7.

7.) God expresses (through the writer of the letter to the Hebrews) that the Israelites FAILED to keep the Covenant of the Law that He made with them. Is your contention counter to this ?

In regard to Israel's redemption cycle, the good kings tended to live for much longer than the evil kings did, so even though there were more evil kings, the they were under a good king for a majority of the time, which is far from a complete failure to keep the Mosaic Covenant, through their disobedience nevertheless did get bad enough to the point of being exiled and needing a New Covenant where they would return from exile, God would circumcise their hearts, and where they would return to obedience to the Mosaic Law (Deuteronomy 30:1-10, Ezekiel 36:26-27, Jeremiah 31:33).

8.) You often speak as if there were not (2) distinct Covenants discussed in Scripture. The Old Covenant (established between God and the OT Israelites) ... and the New Covenant (established between God and all believers). Hebrews 8 is clear that the Old Covenant (established on the Law/Torah) is inferior and ready to vanish away, ... and that the New superior Covenant of Grace (i.e. I will FORGIVE their sin) is now in force.

One thing makes another thing obsolete by doing everything that it does plus more, so the New Covenant still involves following the Torah (Hebrews 8:10) plus it is distinct from the Mosaic Covenant by being based on better promises and having a superior mediator (Hebrews 8:6-7). However, in Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant is only made with the house of Judah and the house of Israel, so the New Covenant is made between the same parties and is not one of the ways in which it is distinct. The way to act in accordance with God's nature is straightforwardly based on God's nature, not on a particular covenant, so any number of covenants can be made or become obsolete while the way to act in accordance with God's eternal nature remains the same, which is why the New Covenant still involves following the Torah.

 

[A_Thinker]

Abraham was justified in Genesis 12:1-5 when he obeyed the call to go to the land where he would receive his inheritance (Hebrews 11:8), he was justified in Genesis 15:6 when he believed God (Romans 4:1-5), and he was justified in Genesis 22 when he offered Isaac (James 2:21-24, Hebrews 11:17). All of the examples of people doing works by faith listed in Hebrews 11 are of justifying faith, Abraham was listed twice, and none of the examples are of believing something before acting, but rather we can know when someone believes something based entirely on the way that they act, and Abraham acted in a way that showed trust in God's promise.

Genesis 15

1 After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision:

“Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”

2 But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3 And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

4 Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” 5 He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

 

[A_Thinker]

Exodus is not strictly in chronological order, such as with the Israelites keeping the Sabbath in Exodus 16 before it was given in Exodus 20 or with Jethro giving advice in Exodus 18 about how to make judgements concerning the law that was spoken about being given later in Exodus. Furthermore, in Psalms 119:29, he wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Torah, which was long after Sinai. There is a difference between knowing about which things God has commanded and knowing the experience expressing aspects of God's nature through obeying them. In accordance with Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted for God to teach him how to have the experience of knowing Him, which again is the experience of eternal life (John 17:3). The way to have the experience of knowing God is through acting in accordance with God's nature, which is why aspects of God's nature were listed in Exodus 34:6-7.

So ... it is your position that God provided the Law/Torah ... strictly because Moses asked for guidance ?

 

[A_Thinker]

In regard to Israel's redemption cycle, the good kings tended to live for much longer than the evil kings did, so even though there were more evil kings, the they were under a good king for a majority of the time, which is far from a complete failure to keep the Mosaic Covenant, through their disobedience nevertheless did get bad enough to the point of being exiled and needing a New Covenant where they would return from exile, God would circumcise their hearts, and where they would return to obedience to the Mosaic Law

Actually, the majority of the Israelite kings ruled during the period when the nation was divided into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, ie. Israel and Judah, respectively. The four kings the kingdoms had in common were Saul, David, Solomon, and Rehoboam (under whom the 10 Northern Tribes revolted).

Israel (the Northern Kingdom) had 0 good kings and 19 evil kings ... so this nation ended up being taken captive by the King of Assyria in 721 B.C.

In Judah (the Southern Kingdom), a few of the kings were righteous, which explains why this kingdom lasted over 100 years longer than Israel did. Judah was taken into captivity by the Babylonians beginning in 606 B.C.

Isaiah speaks to God's experience with Israel under the Covenant of Law in the saga of the Vineyard owner ...

Isaiah 5

1 Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

2 And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

5 And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

6 And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

 

[Soyeong]

Because Paul, for example, chose to be righteous as a Pharisee but still lacked true righteousness.

In Romans 9:30-10:4, the Israelites failed to become righteous because they pursued the Torah as through righteousness were by works in an effort to establish their own instead of pursing the Torah as through righteousness were by faith in Christ, for knowing Christ is the goal of the Torah for everyone who has faith. Furthermore, this was also the case for Paul in Philippians 3:8, where he had been pursuing the Torah while not being focused on knowing Christ, so he had been missing the whole goal of the Torah and counted that as rubbish. So the problem was not obeying the Torah with a correct goal.

Expressing righteousness is one thing, being righteous is another. God expresses righteousness because He is righteous. That's why Jesus tells us in the Sermon on the Mount that it's not enough to refrain from murder; our hearts must be free of anger first of all. Likewise He tells the Pharisees in Matt 23 that the inside must be clean first of all, then the outside will be clean. Justification is God's act of forgiving, cleansing, and making us new creations with new hearts as we enter fellowship with Him through faith. We must continue to walk in, nurture and grow in that cleanness, that holiness, that new righteousness.

It is no more true to say that God expresses righteousness because He is righteous than it is to say that God is righteous because he expresses righteousness, but rather being righteous is the same as being someone who expresses righteousness. In 1 John 3:7, whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. In Leviticus 19:17, God instructed not to hate our brother, so Jesus was not preaching anything brand new in the Sermon on the Mount, but rather it was thoroughly rooted in the OT along with everything else he taught. God has always disdained it when His people honored Him with their lips while their hearts were far from Him (Isaiah 29:13).

Yes, we're all to have a positive view of the law, and to know its purpose. Gal 3:21 reveals that the law cannot impart life or righteousness.

Having a positive view of the law and knowing its purpose is fundamentally at odds with saying that it only brings death. While there are many verses like Galatias 3:21 that show that we do not earn our righteousness as the result of obeying God's law, there are also many verses like Romans 2:13 where only doers of the law will be declared righteous, so there must be reasons why our righteousness requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a wage, such as faith.

In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, it says that obedience to God's law brings life and a blessing, in Deuteronomy 32:46-47, it is our very life, in Luke 10:25-28, Jesus said that the way to inherit eternal life is by obeying the greatest two commandments, in Romans 2:6-7, eternal life is given to those who persist in doing good, in Hebrews 5:9, Jesus is a source of eternal salvation for those who obey him, in Revelation 22:14, those who obeyed God's commandments are given the right to eat from the Tree of Life, and there are many other verses that show that eternal life requires us to choose to obey God's law, through we do not earn eternal life as the result of obeying it (Galatians 3:21)

Ok, we should obey the Mosaic law. We do so only to the extent that we love God and neighbor.

Everything commanded in the Mosaic Law was specifically commanded for the purpose of teaching us how to love our neighbor and/or God, so if it is not being obeyed to that extent, then it is not being obeyed.

This is true. We must fulfill the greatest commandments in order to fulfill the ten. Otherwise, if we try to fulfill the ten first, apart from love, we're putting the cart ahead of the horse. The ten give us an idea of what love looks like while obedience of them does not necessarily mean that we love. Basil of Caesarea, a 4th century bishop, put it this way:

“If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.”

All of God's commands give us an idea of what love looks like, not just ten of them, and if what someone is doing is not love, then they are not obeying them. Going through the motions of obeying God's law while missing its goal leads to death just as assuredly as refusing to obey it.

 

[A_Thinker]

One thing makes another thing obsolete by doing everything that it does plus more, so the New Covenant still involves following the Torah (Hebrews 8:10) plus it is distinct from the Mosaic Covenant by being based on better promises and having a superior mediator (Hebrews 8:6-7). However, in Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant is only made with the house of Judah and the house of Israel, so the New Covenant is made between the same parties and is not one of the ways in which it is distinct. The way to act in accordance with God's nature is straightforwardly based on God's nature, not on a particular covenant, so any number of covenants can be made or become obsolete while the way to act in accordance with God's eternal nature remains the same, which is why the New Covenant still involves following the Torah.

Paul clearly teaches that believers (i.e. participants in the New Covenant) are dead to the Law/Torah ... so that we might belong to another, Christ. We serve in the new way ... of the Spirit.

Romans 7

4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

 

[fhansen]

Having a positive view of the law and knowing its purpose is fundamentally at odds with saying that it only brings death.

Not at all, if, as I said, we know that he law is holy, good, righteous, and spiritual, reflecting God's will for man, but that it cannot, on its own, impart life but only point to the fact that we lack it-or else we'd already be obeying the law without needing it, without ever hearing it. The law is unnecessary except for the fact that fallen man is a sinner. But what's the basis of mans falleness? Answer: alienation from God. Obedience of the law won't reconcile us with Him; only grace does that, only Christ does that. I doubt there'll be any laws in heaven because by then we should be perfected in love-and that will naturally compel all obedience.

While there are many verses like Galatias 3:21 that show that we do not earn our righteousness as the result of obeying God's law, there are also many verses like Romans 2:13 where only doers of the law will be declared righteous, so there must be reasons why our righteousness requires us to choose to be doers of the law other than in order to earn it as a wage, such as faith.

Love is the true motivator. Gal 5:6 perhaps says it best, " For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but only faith working through love." And I've quoted Rom 2:13 a few times myself in this thread, because it refers to a righteousness that obeys the law without even needing to hear it. That righteousness is best described as love. Does that mean that it's unnecessary-or wrong- to hear the law? Not at all. It just means that we cannot obtain righteousness on the basis of the law. True righteousness, the real thing, comes only on the basis of faith, on relying on God to effect that righteousness in us, yet not without our cooperation.

In Deuteronomy 30:15-20, it says that obedience to God's law brings life and a blessing, in Deuteronomy 32:46-47, it is our very life, in Luke 10:25-28, Jesus said that the way to inherit eternal life is by obeying the greatest two commandments, in Romans 2:6-7, eternal life is given to those who persist in doing good, in Hebrews 5:9, Jesus is a source of eternal salvation for those who obey him, in Revelation 22:14, those who obeyed God's commandments are given the right to eat from the Tree of Life, and there are many other verses that show that eternal life requires us to choose to obey God's law, through we do not earn eternal life as the result of obeying it (Galatians 3:21)

And those are all quotes of my own. The difference is in how/why we obey, not in whether or not we must obey, because obey we must-or we won't be seeing Him; we won't be gaining eternal life.

Everything commanded in the Mosaic Law was specifically commanded for the purpose of teaching us how to love our neighbor and/or God, so if it is not being obeyed to that extent, then it is not being obeyed.

True, which means mere observance of the commandments are not enough, except for the greatest commandments. When those are fulfilled the rest are fulfilled. Anyway, as I've said, we must obey the law but not by virtue of being under the law but by the Spirit, under grace, through love.