Why do most christians not follow the 10 commandments?

[Soyeong]

I think this is an incorrect assumption.
When Jesus referred to God's laws, He said, "It is written".
When Jesus referred to the rest of the laws, He said, "You have heard it has been said".
So let's take a look at some examples of this.

Matthew 5:21 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
Matthew 5:27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
Matthew 5:31 It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
Matthew 5:33 Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths:
Matthew 5:38 Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:
Matthew 5:43 Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God
Matthew 4:7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God
Matthew 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
Matthew 21:13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Mark 7:6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
John 6:45 It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me.

When Jesus quotes the 10 commandments with the exception of Mark 7:10 He never says "It is written.
In Mark 7:10 He says, "Moses says", but earlier in the chapter He says this is a command of God that the Pharisees were ignoring.

All of the laws given by God are God's Laws regardless of whether He wrote them, told Moses to write them, or even if God has just spoken them without writing them down. When Jesus said "it is written" he was quoting form what was written in the Mosaic Law, but when he said "you have heard that it was said" he was quoting from what the people had heard being said about the Law, so in Matthew 5 Jesus was not sinning in violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 speaking against or making changes to what was written, but rather he was correcting what was wrongly being taught about the Law. For example:

Matthew 5:43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’

While the Law certain instructs us to love our neighbor and the stranger as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18, 34), it does not instruct us to hate our enemies, so that was what Jesus was correcting. In Leviticus 19:17, we are told not to hate our brother, so again Jesus wasn't saying anything brand new. The command against looking at a married woman with lust in our hearts is just the correct application of the 7th and 10th commandments against adultery and coveting in our hearts. so Jesus was not sinning in violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 was adding or subtracting his own commands.

The 10 Commandments were given to show us our sinful state.
Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Galatians 3:19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.

There are many verses that describe the Mosaic Law as being instructions for how to walk in God's ways, such as Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Joshua 22:5, Isaiah 2:2-3, Psalms 103:7, so it was primarily give as instructions for how to live in accordance with God's attributes, such as holiness, righteousness goodness (Romans 7:22), justice, mercy, faithfulness (Matthew 23:23), love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control (Exodus 34:6-7, Galatians 5:21-22). So pointing out where we sin and fall short has significance only insofar as it leads us to repent and back to walking in God's ways.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Starting with Moses, they had an understanding of how to obey God's Law, which they passed down to their children and so forth, so it would be almost impossible for us to follow God's commands without following a man-made tradition taught for how to obey those commands.

If it is YHVH'S COMMAND and WORD, it is not man-made tradition.
"how to " is EASY ENOUGH for a little child to understand!

"NO MURDER" is HIS WORD. So today, "NO MURDER" is to be obeyed.
And so on.
The commands are not difficult to keep. (JESUS SAYS SO)
So it is not "almost impossible" to obey JESUS and HIS FATHER.
If it is someplace a tradition < shrugs > as long as it does not imply trust in man nor in man-made stuff, perhaps no worries. Realize that man-made (or deomn) traditions , and pagan ones, are a BIG DEAL TODAY world-wide, idolatry in every country ! That is bad, sin, and wrong to do or to follow.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Colossians 2
Hebrews 4

Hebrews 7 shows that the law was changed and what we now have is better than the law.

 

[Soyeong]

If it is YHVH'S COMMAND and WORD, it is not man-made tradition.
"how to " is EASY ENOUGH for a little child to understand!

"NO MURDER" is HIS WORD. So today, "NO MURDER" is to be obeyed.
And so on.
The commands are not difficult to keep. (JESUS SAYS SO)
So it is not "almost impossible" to obey JESUS and HIS FATHER.
If it is someplace a tradition < shrugs > as long as it does not imply trust in man nor in man-made stuff, perhaps no worries. Realize that man-made (or deomn) traditions , and pagan ones, are a BIG DEAL TODAY world-wide, idolatry in every country ! That is bad, sin, and wrong to do or to follow.

Many of God's commands almost ask for further clarification for how to correctly obey them. For example, with the command not to murder we need to define what actions count as murder. Is killing someone in war, on accident, or in self-defence murder? If you say killing someone in self-defense is not murder, then that is based on a ruling that has been passed down. We agree that we should not commit idolatry, but we might not agree on what things count as idolatry. For example, meat that had been sacrificed to idols was often later sold on the market, so people disputed whether someone could was committing idolatry if they unknowingly ate meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Then there's the issue of whether someone can commit idolatry if their time and energy is more devoted to watching TV than to worshiping God. The command not to work on the Sabbath almost begs for further clarification of what actions count as work. In Numbers 15:38, God commanded the Israelites to wear frings on the corners of their garments with a thread of blue, but it doesn't say anything about how longer these fringes should be, how many knots should be tried, what shade of blue to use, how the blue pigment should be created, what other colors to use, what to do if their garments don't have corners, etc., so there are many traditions in this regard, and it is notable that Jesus was never criticized about how he wore his tzitzit.

 

[Soyeong]

Hebrews 7 shows that the law was changed and what we now have is better than the law.

Instructions for how to act in accordance with God's righteousness can't be done away with or improved without changing God's eternal righteousness. Superior instructions for how to practice righteousness would involve following a superior God with superior righteousness. Hebrews 7 is not speaking about a change is God's eternal righteous standard, but rather in context it is speaking about a transition of the priesthood, which would necessarily also require a transition of the Law.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Instructions for how to act in accordance with God's righteousness can't be done away with or improved without changing God's eternal righteousness. Superior instructions for how to practice righteousness would involve following a superior God with superior righteousness. Hebrews 7 is not speaking about a change is God's eternal righteous standard, but rather in context it is speaking about a transition of the priesthood, which would necessarily also require a transition of the Law.

...so the law was indeed changed (Hebrews 7.12), and what we now have is better than the law (Hebrews 7.19).

Yes, the general righteousness principle is eternal; God's revelation has greatly increased since the Old Testament.

 

[1stcenturylady]

Instructions for how to act in accordance with God's righteousness can't be done away with or improved without changing God's eternal righteousness. Superior instructions for how to practice righteousness would involve following a superior God with superior righteousness. Hebrews 7 is not speaking about a change is God's eternal righteous standard, but rather in context it is speaking about a transition of the priesthood, which would necessarily also require a transition of the Law.

According to the OT law, was remarriage while divorced spouse was living permissible?

 

[faroukfarouk]

According to the OT law, was remarriage while divorced spouse was living permissible?

I think the answer was definitely no, as I understand it. It seems that the exeception would have been the divorce in the betrothal period.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Many of God's commands almost ask for further clarification for how to correctly obey them. For example, with the command not to murder we need to define what actions count as murder.

No.
That is how man/ mankind/ religion rebelling against YHVH does things.
Abiding IN JESUS,
a little child KNOWS by revelation from the FATHER in heaven, "no murder"
and even does not think of hate (murder) in their heart when they are raised in the way they should go,
or /and later when someone is REGENERATED in LIFE/SPIRIT (born again with a NEW FRESH LIVING HEART) ....

 

[Soyeong]

According to the OT law, was remarriage while divorced spouse was living permissible?

According to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, a woman was not permitted to become remarried to her first husband after she had been divorced and become another man's wife, which means that she was permitted to become another's man's wife while her first husband was still alive.

 

[Soyeong]

...so the law was indeed changed (Hebrews 7.12), and what we now have is better than the law (Hebrews 7.19).

Yes, the general righteousness principle is eternal; God's revelation has greatly increased since the Old Testament.

Again, the word can be translated as "transition" and incontext it is speaking about a transition of the Law, not change in the content of any of the laws. All of God's righteous laws are eternal (Psalms 119:160), so again, it is not speaking about a change in God's righteous standard. The Law was given to instruct how to be perfect, but was not given to make anything perfect. The fact that we can't be made perfect by obeying the Law doesn't mean that we shouldn't seek by faith to do what is perfect. In Psalms 19:7, the Law is perfect and you can't improve upon perfection.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Again, the word can be translated as "transition" and incontext it is speaking about a transition of the Law, not change in the content of any of the laws. All of God's righteous laws are eternal (Psalms 119:160), so again, it is not speaking about a change in God's righteous standard. The Law was given to instruct how to be perfect, but was not given to make anything perfect. The fact that we can't be made perfect by obeying the Law doesn't mean that we shouldn't seek by faith to do what is perfect. In Psalms 19:7, the Law is perfect and you can't improve upon perfection.

Stong's note re. Hebrews 7.12: "from 3346; transposition, i.e. transferral (to heaven), disestablishment (of a law):--change, removing, translation."

Hebrews 7.11-12: "If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
12For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law."

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

According to Deuteronomy 24:1-4, a woman was not permitted to become remarried to her first husband after she had been divorced and become another man's wife, which means that she was permitted to become another's man's wife while her first husband was still alive.

That is a terrible and mistaken way of explaining a horrible error that is often accepted because of totally corrupted man's traditions taking the place OVER YHVH'S WORD and opposed to Jesus.

 

[Soyeong]

Stong's note re. Hebrews 7.12: "from 3346; transposition, i.e. transferral (to heaven), disestablishment (of a law):--change, removing, translation."

Hebrews 7.11-12: "If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?
12For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law."

Again, the Law had to transition from the Levitical priesthood, to that of Melchizedek. It's speak about the administration of the Law, not a change in God's eterna righteous standard.

 

[Soyeong]

That is a terrible and mistaken way of explaining a horrible error that is often accepted because of totally corrupted man's traditions taking the place OVER YHVH'S WORD and opposed to Jesus.

I was simply asked whether a woman who had been divorced was allowed to remarry while her first husband was still alive, which is affirmative. While it is true that man has corrupted what was intended by those verses, it doesn't change the answer to the question. If you think that there is more to explain or that it can be explained in a better manner, then by all means feel free to do so.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Again, the Law had to transition from the Levitical priesthood, to that of Melchizedek. It's speak about the administration of the Law, not a change in God's eterna righteous standard.

Galatians makes it clear that the New Testament believer is not under the law.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I was simply asked whether a woman who had been divorced was allowed to remarry while her first husband was still alive, which is affirmative.

No.

 

[Soyeong]

Galatians makes it clear that the New Testament believer is not under the law.

While I completely agree that we are not under the law, Paul spoke about a number of different types of laws, such as God's Law, the law of sin, and works of law, so it is important to correctly identify which one he was talking about us not being under. The Spirit is not in disagreement with the Father and the Father was not acting against His Spirit when He gave the Law to Moses, so we can easily cross God's Law off the list of possibilities. In Ezekiel 36:26-27, the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey the Law. In Romans 8:4-7, those who walk in the Spirit are contrasted with those who have a mind set on the flesh, who refuse to submit to God's Law. Furthermore, in Galatians 5:19-23, everything listed as works of the flesh that are against the Spirit are also against God's Law, while all of the fruits of the Spirit are in accordance with it, so it would make no sense whatsoever to interpret Galatians 5:18 to be speaking about God's Law. Rather, in Galatians 5:17, Paul described the desires of the flesh as causing us not to do the good that we want to do, which was exactly how Paul described his struggle with the law of sin in Romans 7:13-25, so when we are led by the Spirit we are under God's Law, but not under the law of sin.

 

[faroukfarouk]

it would make no sense whatsoever to interpret Galatians 5:18 to be speaking about God's Law.

I think a lot of Bible believing Christians would find this hard to accept.

 

[Soyeong]

No.

Feel free to make the case against it then. The verses only speak against he returning to her first husband after she had been divorced and remarried to another man, but does not say anything against he becoming married to another man after she has been divorced.