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- Feb 19, 2021
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In James 2:17-18, he said that faith without works is dead and that he would show his faith by his works, so doing good works in obedience to God is what faith looks like. In John 3:36, believing in Jesus is equate with obeying him. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the law. In Revelation 14:12, those who kept faith in Jesus are the same as those who kept God's commandments. In John 6:40, those who believe in Jesus will have eternal life and in Matthew 19:17, the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments. In Hebrews 11, every example of faith is also an example of obedience to God, and there are many other verses that associate faith with obedience and unbelief with disobedience.
In Romans 10:4-10, Jesus is the goal of the law for righteousness for everyone who has faith. This faith references Deuteronomy 30:11-16 in regard to saying that the Mosaic Law is not too difficult to obey, that the one who obeys it will attain life by it, and in regard to what we are submitting to when we confess that Jesus is Lord.
In Galatians 3:10-12, Paul associated a quote from Habakkuk 2:4 with a quote from Leviticus 18:5, so the righteous who are living by faith are the same as the ones who are living in obedience to the Mosaic law, while no one is justified before God by works of the law because they are not of faith, unlike the Mosaic Law. In Isaiah 51:7, the righteous are those on whose heart is the Mosaic Law, so the righteous living by faith does not refer to a manner of living that is not in obedience to it.
The verses I that I cited said nothing about needing to obey the Mosaic Law perfectly. The Mosaic Law came with instructions for what to do when people sinned, so perfect obedience was never a requirement for us. Repentance does not change the fact that we have already failed to have perfect obedience, so there would be no point in repentance if we needed prefect obedience, and the fact that repentance has value demonstrates that it is not a requirement. In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, it says that the Mosaic Law is not to 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. Thinking that we need to have perfect obedience would mean that God essentially gave the Mosaic Law with the goal of cursing His children, which is expressing an extremely poor opinion of God, when in reality it was given for our own good in order to bless us (Deuteronomy 6:24, 10:12-13).
In James 2:1-11, he was speaking to people who had already sinned by showing favoritism, so he was not telling them that they needed to have perfect obedience because that would have already been too late, and he was not discouraging them from trying to keep the Mosaic Law, but rather he was encouraging them to repent and to do a better job of obeying it more consistently. If we break any law and become a lawbreaker, then we need to repent and to return to obedience through faith. Even if someone managed to live in perfect obedience to the Mosaic Law, then they would still would not earn eternal life because it was never given for that purpose.
Again, thinking that God gave the Mosaic Law in order to bring death to His children is expressing an extremely poor opinion of God. In Deuteronomy 30:15-20 is brings life for obedience and death for disobedience, not the other way around. All throughout the Bible, God wanted His people to repent and to return to obedience to His law, and even Jesus began his ministry with that message, so it would be absurd to think that God wanted His people to do that so that He could bring death to us and to think that in order to avoid death we are better off living in complete disobedience to God as if God doesn't want to be obeyed and will punish anyone who repents and tries to obey Him.
God wants us. Not our obedience. Can the two be separate? Yes.
There are many who ‘obey’ what they think about God. In their minds, they are giving their obedience to Him.
What God wants is us. What James is pointing out is simply that obedience is a result of God having us.
For example, if I cut my finger and I start to bleed, I know I have blood in my body.
What I do not need to do, is prove to myself or anyone else, that I have blood in my body by cutting my finger.
Good works show what is inside of us. Bad works show what is inside of us.
The Mosaic law was given specifically to Israel for a specific purpose. Had God wanted all to have the Mosaic law, He could have done it. He did not.
Why? Because it was to show us His Son - the only One Who knew God. No one else knows God except His Son.
His Son came from the lineage in which the Mosaic law was given. It was all to point to Him.
Christ points us back to God, showing us our sinfulness and His righteousness. In this way God now ‘has’ us in Christ. It is in this way we are His.
Our Faith, the only Faith, in us shows this by our love - works of love. Love is greater than the Mosaic law, to live under it is not true obedience because God wants more.
He can only have what He wants when we live by Faith. The Mosaic law is not Faith.
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