What is the Whole Gospel?

[Soyeong]

The law of sin that s present in our members, our physical body, is not the law of God.

The law of God is His Commandments that are written on our heart and mind.

Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. Romans :20-23

• Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

• I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.

• For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

The law of God in our inward man is not the same as the law of sin (sin) that dwells in our flesh.

Paul is making a legal argument using certain terminology that is used in legal matters to make his main point, because he is primarily speaking to those that “know the law”, (Romans 7:1), which is why he keeps using the word “law” in his discourse.


The Point:

The law of sin in our members
The law of God according to our inward man
The law of the Spirit of Life
The law of Moses; The law of commandments contained in ordinances
The law of faith
The Law; The Torah (first five books of the Bible)
The Royal Law
The law; the 10 Commandments

Are all not the same law, though they may have variables within them that are interconnected




JLB

I completely agree that the law of sin is not the law of God, which is why I said that Paul contrasted the law of sin with the law of God in Romans 7:25. My point again is that "the law of the Lord, the law of Moses, the law of Christ, and the law of faith are all different ways of referring to the same law, which is the law that Jesus paid our penalty for transgressing, and which is different than the law of sin and death and works of the law."

Again, there are a number of verses that refer to the law of Moses as the law of God, such as Nehemiah 8:1-8, Ezra 7:6-12, and Luke 2:22-23, so that means that verses that are speaking about the law of God are speaking about the law of Moses, such as Romans 7:22. In Romans 7:25-8:2, Paul equated the law of God with the law of the Spirit by contrasting them both with the law of sin and death, which means that the law of the Spirit of life is the law of Moss. In regard to Colossians 2:14, the Greek word "dogma" does not refer to the law of Moses, so it is not the law of commandments contained in ordinances. In Romans 3:27, Paul contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, so works of the law are of works, while he said in Romans 3:31 that our faith upholds God's law, so the law of Moses is the law of faith. Likewise, the Torah is referred to as the Law of Moses. The law of Moses is perfect (Psalms 19:7), it is a law of liberty (Psalms 119:45), and it blesses those who obey it (Psalms 119:1-3), so when James 1:25 speaks about the perfect law of liberty that blesses those who obey it, he was not saying anything about the law of Moses that wasn't already said in the Psalms, so the Royal law does not refer to something different. If we love God and our neighbor, when we won't commit adultery, theft, murder, idolatry, rape, kidnapping, favoritism, and so forth for everything else in the law of Moses, which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 that all of the other commandments hang on the greatest two. The Ten Commandments are included as part of the law of Moses and all of the other commandments of the law of Moses are again based on the principles of the Ten Commandments. So everything in that list but the law of sin refers to the law of Moses.

 

[Doug Brents]

Jesus Christ is Lord; YHWH the Lord God.

JLB

Just a question for clarification: you say Jesus is Lord, and YHWH is Lord God. Do you mean by that that Jesus is not God also? Or am I misreading what you intended?

 

[JLB777]

I completely agree that the law of sin is not the law of God,

The law of sin is indeed a law of God, a law from God, (like the law of gravity is a law from God; designed and implemented by God), that He Himself has set forth, However it is not the same as the law of God (the law He has written upon our heart) according to the inward man.



JLB

 

[JLB777]

My point again is that "the law of the Lord, the law of Moses, the law of Christ, and the law of faith are all different ways of referring to the same law,

I disagree.

The law of the Lord was in the earth and was given “directly” to Abraham by faith, in which Abraham obeyed, 430 years before the law of Moses was given.


And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” Genesis 26:4-5


The law of Moses, which required specific animal sacrifices, food laws, Sabbath laws, ceremonial washings, clothing laws, as well as specific feast days was added to the Abrahamic Covenant, TEMPORARILY, until the Seed, the Messiah should come.


And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. Galatians 3:17

again


What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Galatians 3:19


By saying “until” the Spirit is indicating the law of Moses was temporary.





JLB

 

[JLB777]

Just a question for clarification: you say Jesus is Lord, and YHWH is Lord God. Do you mean by that that Jesus is not God also? Or am I misreading what you intended?

I am saying Jesus is Lord; YHWH the Lord God.


Jesus is the Lord who spoke through the mouth of the Old Testament prophets.


When I say Jesus is Lord, I am saying He is the LORD GOD of the Old Testament.




JLB

 

[Doug Brents]

I am saying Jesus is Lord; YHWH the Lord God.
Jesus is the Lord who spoke through the mouth of the Old Testament prophets.
When I say Jesus is Lord, I am saying He is the LORD GOD of the Old Testament.
JLB

That is good.

But is He not also Lord God of the New Testament?

I don’t mean to split hairs, but I have seen others who used similar language to make a distinction that does not exist in Scripture. If you are not making that distinction, then I apologize for this line of questioning.

 

[Guojing]

I disagree.

The law of the Lord was in the earth and was given “directly” to Abraham by faith, in which Abraham obeyed, 430 years before the law of Moses was given.


And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” Genesis 26:4-5


The law of Moses, which required specific animal sacrifices, food laws, Sabbath laws, ceremonial washings, clothing laws, as well as specific feast days was added to the Abrahamic Covenant, TEMPORARILY, until the Seed, the Messiah should come.


And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. Galatians 3:17

again


What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Galatians 3:19


By saying “until” the Spirit is indicating the law of Moses was temporary.





JLB

Are you saying the Law of the Lord given to Abraham in Genesis still holds today?

 

[Soyeong]

I disagree.


The law of the Lord was in the earth and was given “directly” to Abraham by faith, in which Abraham obeyed, 430 years before the law of Moses was given.


And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” Genesis 26:4-5

By disagreeing, you are either saying that you disagree with the verses that I've cited to support my position, or you are saying that I have misinterpreted those verses, in which case you should make the case for how to correctly interpret them. Again, the law of Moses is referred to as the law of God in verses like Nehemiah 8:1-8, Ezra 7:6-12, and Luke 2:22-23.

There are many verses that describe the law of Moses as being instructions for how to walk in God's way, such as Deuteronomy 10:12-13, 1 Kings 2:1-3, Isaiah 2:1-3, Joshua 22:5, Psalms 103:7, Psalms 119:1-3, and many others, and Abraham also taught others how to God's way in accordance with the promise and the Gospel that was made known in advance to him (Genesis 18:19, Galatians 3:8).

The law of Moses, which required specific animal sacrifices, food laws, Sabbath laws, ceremonial washings, clothing laws, as well as specific feast days was added to the Abrahamic Covenant, TEMPORARILY, until the Seed, the Messiah should come.


And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect. Galatians 3:17

again

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Galatians 3:19

By saying “until” the Spirit is indicating the law of Moses was temporary.

JLB

Jesus did not begin his ministry telling people that the law of Moses has ended now that he has come and that they needed to stop repenting, but rather he began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand (Matthew 4:17-23), and the law of Moses was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is an integral of the Gospel message that was made known in advance to Abraham. Furthermore, Jesus set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the law of Moses and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:6). So Jesus spent his ministry teaching his followers how to obey the law of Moses by word and by example in accordance with spreading the Gospel and what Galatians 3:19 says about what he did should not be interpreted in a way that undermines everything that he spent his ministry teaching.

Someone should be quicker to think that they have misinterpreted Galatians 3:19 than to think that it makes perfect sense to interpret Paul as speaking against following Christ, especially when all of God's righteous laws are eternal (Psalms 119:160) and when the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey them (Ezekiel 36:26-27). Furthermore, it wouldn't even make sense to think that the law of Moses was added because of sin, but now that Christ has come we are free to go back to living in sin - that would be contrary to everything else in the Bible.

Furthermore, Galatians 3:26-29 connects the concepts of being children of Abraham and heirs according to the promise with being children of God in Christ through faith, and every aspect of this is in regard to walking in God's way in obedience to the law of Moses. The Kingdom of God is where people a blessing to others by multiplying the nature of God through teaching how to walk in His way in obedience to His law, which is why Jesus began his ministry calling for people to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, and this was the Gospel that was made known in advance to Abraham (Galatians 3:8). In Genesis 18:19, God knew Abraham that he would teach his children and those of his household to walk in God's way by doing righteousness and justice that the Lord may bring to him all that He has promised, namely in Genesis 26:4-5 that God would multiply Abraham's children as the stars in the heaven, to his children He would give all of these lands, and through His children all of the nations of the earth would be blessed, which again is the Gospel of the Kingdom that was made known in advance to him. In Deuteronomy 30:16, if they love God by walking in His way in obedience to His commandments, statutes, and laws, then they will live and multiply in the land and God will bless them in the land that they go to posses, so all of the promises were made to Abraham and brought about because he walked in God's way in obedience to His law, he taught his children and those who his household to do that, and because his children did that, and that his how his descendants were multiplied and became citizens of the Kingdom of God, which is again spreading the Gospel of the Kingdom. In John 8:39, Jesus said that if they were children of Abraham, then they would be doing the same works that he did, so again it is connected with following His example of spreading the Kingdom, and that is how we are children of Abraham and heirs to the promise through faith. In 1 John 3:4-10, those who do not practice righteousness in obedience to the law of Moses are not children of God, and in Romans 3:31, our faith upholds the Law of Moses, so again every aspect of being children of God, in Christ, through faith, children of Abraham, and heirs to the promise is connected with living in obedience to the Law of Moses, which completely undermines interpreting Galatians 3:19 as saying that the law of Moses is temporary.

The law of sin is indeed a law of God, a law from God, (like the law of gravity is a law from God; designed and implemented by God), that He Himself has set forth, However it is not the same as the law of God (the law He has written upon our heart) according to the inward man.



JLB

Again, this verses directly contrasts the two:

Romans 7:25 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.

 

[Tygra_1983]

Hi Soyeong, what about Acts 15: 5:11

"But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

 

[JLB777]

Jesus did not begin his ministry telling people that the law of Moses has ended

“The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. Luke 16:16



“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Matthew 5:17-18



Jesus plainly stated that He came to fulfill the Law.

The law was fulfilled and has passed away.

We are now under the Law of Christ, not the law of Moses.


We no longer sacrifice animals for our sins.

We no longer stone people to death for cooking on the Sabbath.

We no longer have to abstain from eating certain foods.

We no longer are required to become physically circumcised.

We no longer travel to Jerusalem for certain feast days.


I hope you understand these things.



JLB

 

[Soyeong]

Hi Soyeong, what about Acts 15: 5:11

Hello and welcome to the forum. So you know, it will make it easier for someone to see that you are speaking to them if you put an @ before their name like @Tygra_1983.

"But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith. Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

In Deuteronomy 30:11-14, God's word says that His law is not too difficult to obey, so if Acts 15:10 were referring to God's law as being a heavy burden that no one could bear, then they would be expressing direct disagreement with God. Furthermore, in 1 John 5:3, to love God is to obey His commandments, which are not burdensome, so they had ruled that Gentiles shouldn't follow God's commandments outside of a few laws, then they would have been disagreeing with that verse and essentially ruling that Gentiles should not love God. Furthermore, the Jerusalem Council did not have the authority to countermand God or to tell Gentiles not to obey any of God's commandments. In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from God's law, and in Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone was a false prophet who was not speaking for Him was if they taught against obeying His law, so if the Jerusalem Council had done that, then according to God, we should regard them as being false prophets.

However, in Acts 15:11, it the Jerusalem Council said that they believed they are saved by grace just as they are, which clarifies that the ruling in Acts 15:10 was not referring to the Law of Moses as being a heavy burden that no one could bear, but rather what they were referring to was an incorrect manner of salvation that is not by grace. In Psalms 119:29-30, David wanted God to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Law of Moses, and he chose the way of faithfulness, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith. The issue was that in Acts 15:1, there was a group that came down from Judea who were wanting to require all Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved, which was never the purpose for which God commanded circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld the Law of Moses by correcting ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect purpose. In Acts 15:5, there was a group of believers from among the Pharisees who opposed those who had come from Judea in Acts 15:1 by saying that it is necessary for Gentiles to become circumcised and obey the Law of Moses, but they did not add that Gentiles needed to do that for the purpose of earning their salvation.

In Acts 15:6-7, Peter said that they knew since the early days that God made a choice among them that Gentiles should hear the word of the Gospel and believe. In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the Gentiles, and the Law of Moses was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is an integral part of hearing and believing the Gospel message. In Acts 15:8-9, Peter said that God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Spirit just as He did to us, and he made no distinctions between them having cleansed their hearts by faith. In Ezekiel 36:26-27, God will take away our hearts of stone, give us hearts of flesh, and send His Spirit to lead us to obey the Law of Moses. In Romans 2:25-29, the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to the Law of Moses, and circumcision of the heart is a matter of the Spirit, which is in contrast with those in Acts 7:51-53, where those who have uncircumcised hearts resist the Spirit and do not obey the Law of Moses. So everything that Peter argued in Acts 15:6-9 was in favor of the group of believers from among the Pharisees in Acts 15:5 and against the group from Judea in Acts 15:1. No one there thought that Gentiles shouldn't become circumcised or obey the Law of Moses. Furthermore, in Acts 15:12-18, they quoted prophesies in regard to Gentiles being included as part of the restoration of Israel, which again is in support of Gentiles keeping the Law of Moses.

 

[Soyeong]

“The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. Luke 16:16

First of all, do you think that it ended with John or with Jesus (Galatians 3:19). Jesus said that sin John the kingdom of God has been preached, which again was not telling people to stop repenting because the law had ended, but rather he was telling people to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, so that verse does not support that the law of Moses has ended. Furthermore, in Luke 16:17, Jesus said that it would be easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for the least part of the law of Moses to become void, so he was not speaking about something that he thought had already ended. In addition, in Luke 16:18, Jesus continued to teach obedience to the law of Moses. There are many verses like Matthew 7:23, where Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so you'd have to take Luke 16:16 out of context and ignore everything else that Jesus taught by word and by example in order to think that Jesus was telling people that the law of Moses had ended.

“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Matthew 5:17-18



Jesus plainly stated that He came to fulfill the Law.

The law was fulfilled and has passed away.


We are now under the Law of Christ, not the law of Moses.

Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law of Moses in contrast with saying that he came not to abolish it, so you should not interpret fulfilling it as meaning the same thing as abolishing it. Rather, Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses by spending his ministry teaching his followers how to correctly obey it by word and by example, and it would be contradictory to think that the law of Christ is something other than the law that Christ taught. In Galatians 6:2, bearing one another's burdens fulfills the law of Christ, but you do not consistently interpret that as referring to ending the law of Christ, but rather that is referring to the way to correctly obey it. Likewise, in Romans 15:18-19, Paul fulfilled the Gospel not by ending it but by bringing the Gentiles to full obedience to it in word and in deed.

We no longer sacrifice animals for our sins.

We no longer stone people to death for cooking on the Sabbath.

We no longer have to abstain from eating certain foods.

We no longer are required to become physically circumcised.

We no longer travel to Jerusalem for certain feast days.


I hope you understand these things.



JLB

When God has commanded something and you no longer obey what God has commanded, then that is called "sin" (1 John 3:4).

 

[Tygra_1983]

@ Soyeong

But a few verses later, this happens:

Acts 15: 19-29
"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not cause trouble for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

The Letter to the Gentile Believers

Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to select men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, two leaders among the brothers, 23and sent them with this letter:

The apostles and the elders, your brothers,

To the brothers among the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:

Greetings.

It has come to our attention that some went out from us without our authorization and unsettled you, troubling your minds by what they said.c So we all agreed to choose men to send to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to tell you in person the same things we are writing.

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond these essential requirements: You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell."

In Psalms 119:29-30, David wanted God to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Law of Moses, and he chose the way of faithfulness, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.

Are you saying that salvation by grace through faith comes by keeping the commandments? That you don't get any grace if you don't keep the commandments?

 

[Clare73]

What is the Whole Gospel?

The whole NT. . .and its patterns in the OT.

 

[Soyeong]

@ Soyeong

Just don't put a space between the @ and someone's name.

But a few verses later, this happens:

Acts 15: 19-29
"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not cause trouble for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write and tell them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals, and from blood. For Moses has been proclaimed in every city from ancient times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

The Letter to the Gentile Believers

Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to select men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas called Barsabbas and Silas, two leaders among the brothers, 23and sent them with this letter:

The apostles and the elders, your brothers,

To the brothers among the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia:

Greetings.

It has come to our attention that some went out from us without our authorization and unsettled you, troubling your minds by what they said.c So we all agreed to choose men to send to you along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to tell you in person the same things we are writing.

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond these essential requirements: You must abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell."

Either the four things listed in Acts 15:19-21 are exhaustive lists of everything that would ever be required for a mature Gentile believer or they are not, and the moment that you try to say that other laws are obliviously included, such as the greatest two commandments, is the moment that it can no longer be used as an exhaustive list to limit which laws Gentiles should follow. Clearly it is not an exhaustive list for mature Gentile believers, but as stated, it was a list intended not to make things too difficult for new believers, which they excused on verse 21 by saying that they would continue to hear Moses taught every Sabbath in the synagogues, which again supports the expectation that Gentiles would obey the Law of Moses.

To use an analogy, when a employer hires a new employee, they don't start by making them memorize everything that they would ever need to know about how to do their job on day one, but rather in order to avoid overwhelming them, they start with the basics with the understanding that they would continue to learn the rest on the job.

Again, the Jerusalem Council did not have the authority to countermand and the bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so we should be quicker to disregard everything that any man has said than to disregard anything that God has commanded, which means that those who think that the correct interpretation of Acts 15 is that the Jerusalem Council had been limiting which laws Gentiles should follow should disregard what the Jerusalem Council said in favor of obeying God instead, though it does not need to come down to that because that is not what they were ruling against.

Are you saying that salvation by grace through faith comes by keeping the commandments?

Yes.

That you don't get any grace if you don't keep the commandments?

It's not that we don't get any grace if we don't keep God's commandments, but that God is gracious to us by teaching us to obey His commandments (Psalms 119:29). Likewise, in Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, so God graciously teaching us how to do these works is itself part of the content of His gift of salvation. Our salvation is from sin (Matthew 1:21) and sin is the transgression of God's law (1 John 3:4), so while we do not earn our salvation by obeying it, living in obedience to it is nevertheless intrinsically part of the gift of Jesus saving us from not living in obedience to it.

The content of a gift can itself be the experience of doing something, such as giving someone the opportunity to drive a Ferrari for an hour, where them doing the work of driving it does detract from the fact that the opportunity to drive it was completely given to them as a gift. In a similar way, the content of God's gift of eternal life is the experience of knowing Him and Jesus (John 17:3) and the gift of God's law is His instructions for how to have that experience. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him His way that he might know Him and Israel too, and in Matthew 19:17, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the experience of knowing God and Jesus is the goal of the law, which again is eternal life, and which is why Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments (Matthew 19:17, Luke 10:25-28).

 

[Wayne Gabler]

There is a companion verse in the OT. That should be all the proof needed to show the book from Ge:1:1 to Re:22:21.
Re:22:18-19:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book,
If any man shall add unto these things,
God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:
And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy,
God shall take away his part out of the book of life,
and out of the holy city,
and from the things which are written in this book.

Isa:28:8-11:
For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness,
so that there is no place clean.
Whom shall he teach knowledge?
and whom shall he make to understand doctrine?
them that are weaned from the milk,
and drawn from the breasts.
For precept must be upon precept,
precept upon precept;
line upon line,
line upon line;
here a little,
and there a little:
For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.