Carlos Vigil said:
I hope you have Christ's correct understanding of THE DURATION OF HIS OFFER.
Perhaps you could elaborate, as I am not sure where you are going with this one.
"Then he says, "I have come to do your will" ...in other words, he takes away the first covenant to establish the second."
Heb. 10: 9
Indeed He does.
let's look at both covenants. A covenant is an agreement, with promises on both sides. We see many of them in the Bible.
It is important to note that the covenant is not the law, but the AGREEMENT that the people and God made. The covenant is the set of promises. The ten commandments are the requirements, the covenant document if you will, that the people agreed to. But they are not the covenant itself. The covenant is that of a stronger party and a weaker, and is in some ways similar to the covenants imposed on weaker nations conquered by a stronger one. They do all that the power asks or they receive punishment. If they obey, they receive blessings.
Here are the old covenant promises first:
Exo 19:3 while Moses went up to God. The LORD called to him out of the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel:
Exo 19:4 You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.
Exo 19:5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;
Exo 19:6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel."
Exo 19:7 So Moses came and called the elders of the people and set before them all these words that the LORD had commanded him.
Exo 19:8 All the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do." And Moses reported the words of the people to the LORD.
The promises of God (in blue) were to bless the people and make them his treasured possession. The promise of the people (in red) was to obey all the Lord will do. They affirmed this more than once.
The problem is that the people continually broke their promise, and received the covanental curses rather than the blessings they would have received.
In the new covenant God still includes the law. Now WHICH part of the law is the question. But the law is still there. What does change is the nature of the promises. In fact the people do not make promises at all in the new covenant. God says that He Himself with write the law on their hearts and minds (Christ will live in them, and as John says His commands are not burdensome). God promises to forgive them, and be their God. He reverses all of the curses and makes the new covenant totally dependent on Himself.
So the problem with the old covenant was not the law. It was the people. They did not keep their promises. So God made all the promises.
And He put the law back where it belonged, on the heart, not on tablets of stones.
It is a total reversal of the old covenant system, and it is all by God's doing for them.
Note what the text says:
Heb 8:6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
Heb 8:7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
Heb 8:8 For he finds fault with them when he says: "Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,
Heb 8:9 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. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
Heb 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Heb 8:11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
Heb 8:12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more."
Heb 8:13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
The fault of the old covenant was not God's law. It was with the promises of the people. Paul says the same thing in Romans 7, that the law is spiritual, but he is unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. But now that Christ came in, He lives in Paul, forgives his sin, and through the Spirit Paul can now fulfill the law (not for salvation, but because he has the mind of the Spirit).
The emphasis is not on the external laws of stone, quite true. The emphasis is on Christ who fulfills in us the law in a way that we never could on our own, simply looking at the external law.
That is understood.....
I was hoping you would notice in Rom. 8:2 , that,
"The Law of the Spirit"... has set us free from "The law of the flesh, (the law of sin and death)
The law of the Spirit ...is the law of The Holy Spirit whom Christ sends into us to lead us into The New Covenant,
To reveal Christ in us,
To transform us into becoming like Christ,
To write his law in our hearts,
To lead us along The New Living Path....
Yes, well I did in fact notice that. I even elaborated on that. However, I think you are equating the law of sin and death with God's OT law. They are not the same.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,
Rom 7:23 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.
Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Paul says that there is a law of death working in his members which works agaist the law of God. He does not equate this with God's law which he quotes from (about coveting), and calls spiritual, good, righteous, etc. in this very chapter. Instead he says it is the law of sin working in his members...it is the flesh that wars against the law of God. It is this law of sin and death that is defeated by Christ living in us.
That is because Sabbath Rest is a condition and not a weekly event.
If Sabbath Rest is in fact "salvation" , ...why does it still remain FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD ?
aren't THE PEOPLE OF GOD those who are already IN salvation ?
YES ! they are in "salvation," but some do not yet have GOD'S SABBATH REST in them.
Same as all the Israelites were on the Journey (THE EXODUS) yet some of them were in rebellion, resisting, despising authority, (DISOBEDIENCE).
The rest of salvation remains because the audience was in danger of rejecting salvation as the exodus wanderers did. They were turning back and he warned them not to do so. I elaborated this at great length a few pages back.
But it still is not speaking of the weekly Sabbath rest but instead is using the symbol of God's rest as a sign of salvation.
"POWER NOT TO HAVE TO SIN"...
= "It is God who, in his good will toward you,
begets in you any measure of desire or achievement."
Phil 2: 13
= "I wish to know Christ, ...and the power flowing from his resurrection;
likewise to know how to share in his sufferings... by being formed into the pattern of his death."
Phil. 3: 10
"This means that if anyone is IN CHRIST, he is a new creation.
the old order has passed away;
now all is new !"
2 Cor. 5: 17....57 A.D. / 2006 A.D.
There is a difference in "knowing about Christ" and
LIVING IN CHRIST.
I have no problem with any of these texts, nor do they speak against the Sabbath.
"On the first day of the week when we were gathered for the BREAKING OF THE BREAD, Paul preached to them.
Because he intended to leave the next day, he kept on speaking until midnight....
Eutychus became drowsier and drowsier...and finally went sound asleep.....(three floors...) THUD ! Acts 20: 7
Do you think these people in Troas fit 2 Cor. 5: 17 ?... (YES) or (N0)
carlos
Do I think that they were new creatures? Yes. Do I think that has anything to do with getting rid of the Sabbath? No.
And since you brought up Acts 20:7, you might want to explain why this is the only text even mentioning a gathering on the first day. It is not called anything but the first day, it is at night, when Paul is about to leave. It is recorded, along with the timing of it, in the same vein that Paul's other parts of his missionary journey are recorded, on the way to the delivery of his offering in Jerusalem. If they were indeed meeting on a new Sabbath, one would expect a bit more than this to show it. This was a meeting called for Paul's departure, at a most unsuaul time of day.
Contrast this with the evidence that, despite claims that they abandoned the Sabbath, the early church were still meeting in the synagogues on the Sabbath.
- When Paul went to find Christians to persecute he went to the synagogues first.
- John records in his gospel, written at a pretty late date by most accounts, that they were even in Jesus time already beginning to put people out of the synagogue. It is clear in John's time they were doing the same. In fact the formula curses in the synagogue against the Nazarenes are believed by many to have been started between 70-90 AD, and some would say even later. So people even at that late date were still worshipping on Sabbath in the synagogue.
- Paul continued to keep the Sabbath, not only preaching to gentiles for evangelistic reasons, but meeting, sometimes for years at a time, every week on the Sabbath. No mention was made of switching them over to the new day. Moreover, when there was no synagogue, he sought out a place of prayer.
- James references the preaching of Moses in the synagogue every Sabbath in connection with the Acts 15 resolution.
The early church was clearly still meeting in the synagogue, keeping the Sabbath.
Give it a rest.
