You're an interesting critter.
Thanks, I think.
I'll agree God's character doesn't change.
If you agree that God's character doesn't change, then you should agree that the way to act according to God's character likewise doesn't change, therefore while the New Covenant is not like the Mosaic Covenant, the way that they are not alike in not in regard to God's character changing or the way to act according to His character changing. God has always been righteous, so the way to act according to His righteousness has existed unchangingly from the beginning and is dependent on God's righteousness, not on any particular covenant. So if we want to look up how to practice or train in righteousness, as we are told to do as part of the New Covenant (1 John 3:10, 2 Timothy 3:16-17), then we can read any instructions that God has given for how to do that, regardless of what covenant those instructions were given under, and this is also true of God's other attributes. So there is a distinction between a set of instructions for how to act according to God's attributes and a covenant agreement to abide by those instructions.
What law are you talking about the whole world is under? It can't be th4e law given to Israel. Moses no one prior to Israel had the law in Deut 5:3. That law is the ten commandments identified as the law covenant in Deut 4:13.
So while I agree with Deuteronomy 5:3 that the covenant was not made with their ancestors, that it not at all the same as saying that God's Laws had not been given to their ancestors. There are many examples of God's Laws being in place prior to Sinai, so the way to act according to God's righteousness did not change at Sinai, but rather the Law given revealed what has always been and will always be the way to act according to God's righteousness.
The Ten Commandments were the law of the covenant that God originally intended to make with Israel and what they originally agreed to, but the covenant that they ended up making consisted of many more laws than that. The original covenant came with the important condition that they would hear God's voice and obey by faith (Exodus 19:5), but upon hearing God's voice, they wanted God to speak to Moses and for him to act as a mediator instead, so God nevertheless agreed to a different covenant where it became necessary for Moses to listen to God's voice and instruct the people how to serve Him and walk in His ways (Exodus 20:19, Deuteronomy 5:22-32).
If a person were to keep the law they would be living like a Jew even without all those oral laws you talk about. Not every Jew was either a scribe or Pharisee.
In Acts 10:28, Peter mentioned a Jewish oral law that forbade Jews from visiting or associating with Gentiles and this is the law that Peter was following in Galatians 2:11-15 when he stopped visiting or associating with the Gentiles, so we have a clear example of "living like a Jew" referring to living according to these oral laws. Many even taught that you couldn't know how to correctly obey God's Law without know their oral laws, so they saw their traditions as having greater weight than God's Law, which was a major source of conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees (Matthew 15:1-9).
Those who sit in Moses' seat have no authority outside of Israel or the religion and practices of the Jews. Since they are no more the issue is really mute unless you attend the synagogue.What law was that?
Moses had the authority to make interpretations on how to obey the Law and by the 1st century, those who had this authority passed down to them were referred to as sitting in Moses' seat, and it had become a large body of Jewish oral laws, rulings, traditions, and fences that Jesus referred to as placing a heavy burden on the people. Again, he was not criticizing them for teaching the people to obey what God had commanded them.
The law Paul talks about is obviously the law issued to Israel by quoting one of the ten commandments. The law of sin and death (both are the same law) is an operation of that law upon violation. Sin was before the law and is a reason for it.
Romans 7:21-25 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
In these verses Paul is very clearly contrasting the Law of God that is the good he delights in doing and serves with his mind with the law of sin that held him captive, that caused him not to do the good that he wanted to do, and that he served with his flesh, so I do not see how you can consider them to be the same law. Paul said that God's Law is not sin, but rather it instructs us what sin is (7:7), that it is holy, righteous, and good (7:12), that it is the good he sought to do (7:13-20), the good he delighted in doing (7:22), and that law that he served with his mind (7:25), but contracted that with the law of sin that came about to increase transgress (5:20), that stirred up sinful passions to bear fruit unto death (7:5), that held him captive (7:6), that gave sin it's power (7:8), that caused him not to do the good that he wanted (7:13-20), that held him captive (7:23), and that he served with his flesh (7:25).
See Gal 3:19.Here you admit the law is changed.
Having no more need for a tutor is not at all the same thing has having no more need for what the tutor taught you. The subject is still how to serve God and how to walk in His ways, but now that Christ has come, we have a superior teacher and a superior example of obedience to the Law to follow. We also have the Spirit, who has the role of leading us in obedience to God's Law (Ezekiel 36:26-27).
That means the "all things" of Mat 5:17-18 have indeed been fulfilled.
If taking a particular action was in accordance with God's righteousness before the cross, but after the cross that is no longer the case, or vice versa, then God's righteousness has changed, but God's righteousness is eternal and unchanging (Psalms 119:142) and so therefore all of God's righteous Laws are likewise eternal and unchanging (Psalms 119:160).
Heaven and earth are still here and not all has been accomplish because there is still the second coming. Rather:
Pleroo: to fulfil, i.e. to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God's promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfilment
In Matthew 5, Jesus said he came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it, said not the least part of the law would disappear until heaven and earth disappear and all is accomplished, both of which refer to end times, gave a warning which we should heed to those who would relax the least of the laws or teach others to do the same, and then proceeded to fulfill the law six times throughout the rest of the chapter by causing God's will (as made known in the Law) to be obeyed as it should be.
One of the things those of Heb 11 didn't have in common was the law issued to Israel per Deut 5:3.
In Genesis 26:5, it says that Abraham obeyed God's voice and kept His charge, His commandments, His statutes, and His laws. We don't know the exact content of these instructions, but I think it is extremely safe to say that they could be summarized as instructions for how to do what is holy, righteous, and good in accordance with the attributes of God, just as the Mosaic Law can be summarized (Romans 7:12). And again, we have much evidence of God's Laws already being in place prior to Sinai.
Israel indeed is called God's wife. The Christian or Church is called the Bride of Christ. That bride isn't Israel. So you have 2 distinct and different groups.
The Greek word "ekklesia" means "assembly" or "church" and is used in the Septuagint to refer to the assembly of Israel in the wilderness, so that is when the Church Age began. When translators of the NT inconsistently translate "ekklesia" as "church" when it refers to a group of Christian believers and translate it as "assembly" everywhere else, they create the false impression that it is talking about something new, rather than something that has been rebuilt according to prophecy (Amos 9:11).
Interesting that you say "annulled." Why do you want to reinstitute an annulled contract (for lack of better expression)? Don't you have Israel becoming the bride of Christ? Under the law who can marry a divorced person without committing adultery? Don't you have Jesus (God) at least intending to sin by taking another's wife? I'm fairly certain you don't promote God died.
Sorry, should have explained that point better. In the Mosaic Covenant, Israel was the bride of Christ, but God gave her a certificate of divorce and according to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, she could not again return and become the bride of Christ without defiling the land. This is the issue that is being discussed in Jeremiah 3:1-14, but God nevertheless continued to call for her to return to Him, so He had a way of making it work out, and this way was a mystery. The only way the wife could return to her first husband would be if the first marriage contract was annulled, which could only happen when he died, but she could not return to someone who was dead, and surely God couldn't die. Enter Jesus, who died, which caused the first marriage contract to be annulled, which freed Israel from her to be free to belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, that we might bear fruit for God (Romans 7:1-4).
I've no idea why you quote Jeremiah, when you don't believe him. Jeremiah says in your quote, "not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt..." What covenant is this? The only covenant I know about with Israel is the one Moses says is the ten commandments per Deut 4:13. Do you know about another covenant with Israel? Jeremiah is talking about a new covenant in all the verses you quote. Jeremiah doesn't change subjects mid sentence.Where does anything you quote talk about moving the covenant from one place to another? How would that change the contents of the covenant? "Not according to... remember? You quoted it.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 has refers to a new marriage contract between God and the house of Israel and Judah, which again uses imagery of God being a husband to her. Furthermore, it talks about how the new marriage contract will be different from the previous one in that it is no longer one where man serves as a mediator to teach other men how to serve God and to walk in His ways, but rather it is one where can all hear God's voice instruct us how to serve Him and walk in His ways, from the least to the greatest.
