Which Rules Are for Christians?

[Ancient Paths]

There seem to be different rules regarding right and wrong in different churches and denominations. In some Pentecostal churches, men should not wear short-sleeved shirts. In old-order Mennonite churches, everyone must (should?) drive a black car, but in some other Mennonite churches, any color car is acceptable. In Catholic churches, not going to confession means sins are retained, but most other denominations don't even have the practice of confession. To Seventh-Day Adventists, not going to church on Saturdays is a sin,... or is it that going to church on Sundays is a sin? Some churches/denominations ordain homosexuals and others consider homosexuality a sin.

Where do people/churches get these rules and their definitions of what's sin and what's not? Shouldn't Christianity have a common standard? Shouldn't the Bible somewhere define what constitutes sin and what doesn't, or does/should Christianity get its cues on right and wrong from whichever society or culture a church is in?

So I've asked several questions here that are all getting at the same point: how is right and wrong (sin) defined and who defines it?

Peace.

[bluethread]

As I stated, if one wishes to be considered one of Adonai's people, whether on wishes to call themselves a Christian or not, that one should keep all the commandments that are possible to keep.

But most Christians say that we can't keep the whole law and, because we can't keep the whole law, we shouldn't even try to keep any of it. The vast majority of Christian denominations teach us that, to obey any of God's laws (except for the ones that the church leadership likes on that particular day) is to be in bondage and to deny that Christ paid our sin debt in full, in essence to be unsaved as a result of attempting to earn salvation.

One is not to keep Torah for salvation, one keeps Torah because it is a covenant. It is a commitment and serves as a reminder of one's relationship with Adonai. Those who do not keep HaTorah, because you can not keep it are contradicting Moshe'.

(Dt. 30:11-14) "Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it."

HaTorah makes provision for error, so the fact that one may fail at a point here or there does not mean all is lost. Salvation is about acting on one's belief in the Promise of Adonai. That whole "bondage" and "denying Christ" thing is a canard. If one looks at the passage they use to support that view, it has nothing to do with rejecting HaTorah.

I don't see it that way because it flies in the face of far too many passages of scripture as well as common sense, but that's what I hear from almost every corner of the Body of Christ. Can so many people be so wrong for so long on such an important matter?

Peace.

Baruch HaShem. Hold your ground. Regarding do many people being so wrong for so long. The principle of the remnant is a common theme throughout the Scriptures. Remember the seven thousand in the time of Eliyahu?

[Ancient Paths]

[Replying to post 30 by tam]

[I just read over my novel here and it occurred to me that some of it may sound testy. I don't have time right now to go back and smooth that out, but please know that I'm not trying to be testy. I tend to be frank, particularly when I'm in a hurry to get thoughts and ideas out of my head.]

What I'd like to do is challenge this and see where it goes because I see some of what you're saying and some I'm not getting.

And if we are being trained for a job, we both listen to our trainer, and we watch what they do so that we can do the same.

I'm going to try to build a case here centered on this idea of following Jesus' example. This is what I'm currently seeing in scripture, but it is rejected by the vast majority in the church.

the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. -1Jn. 2:6

This begs the question: How did Jesus walk? If he was to be that spotless lamb pictured in the Passover, the lamb of God, then he needed to live a sinless life. Anything less would mean that his death on the cross was for naught and we all remain in our sins. So was he sinless? I believe he was, but we need to define sin. In the OT, sin was disobeying God. God gave us laws, commandments, testimonies, statutes, judgments, ordinances, all of which refer to what we could generally call instructions. To violate any of these instructions was to sin.

So here's the question: Did the definition of sin change with the arrival or Jesus? Put another way, did God change his mind about what he considers disobedience after Jesus came, or after Jesus died, or after Jesus resurrected? Everything pertaining to this matter that I see in the NT indicates that sin remained what it had always been--disobedience to God's instructions. I think John states this quite clearly at 1Jn. 3:4 and the verses preceding the one above:

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,� and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:" -1Jn. 2:3-5

Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. -1Jn. 3:4

To a Jew, there is only one possible meaning of "the Law" in a religious context: the 613 laws contained in the Pentateuch, colloquially referred to as "Moses" because he recorded them. For Jesus or any of the apostles to have referred to "the Law" and not explained that they were referring to something other than the Pentateuch would be highly deceptive. So here we have explicit advocacy of God's Law in the NT, just not as a means of salvation. So on to some of your other points...

Christ did give commands that are different than what is written in the OT ("You have heard it said, but I tell you NOW..."), but not every command written in the OT was as it was meant to be from the beginning. Some laws were given because the hearts of the people were too hard to do what was true. ("Moses gave you this law because your hearts were hard. But it was not that way from the beginning...")

This is interesting and I had to meditate on this a bit to get clarity on what I think is going on here. These examples are in Mt. 5:21-48 and include murder, adultery, giving a certificate of divorce, making false vows, revenge, and loving our enemies. It seems to me that what he's doing here is commenting on the instructions rather than changing them. He is making them a matter of the heart, as they were always intended to be, rather than letting them remain as mere checklists of dos and don'ts. This may seem like a change, but one must ask what it is a change from. It's not a change from the way God had originally established his Law; it's a change from the way many people were treating his Law, which was prophesied by Isaiah.

For He says, "Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there." Indeed, He will speak to this people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue, He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,� and, “Here is repose,� but they would not listen. So the word of the Lord to them will be, “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there,� that they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive. -Isa. 28:10-13

His Law was never meant to be anywhere but on his people's hearts. What Jeremiah said at 31:33 about the New Covenant being a matter of God's Torah being on our hearts was not new:

These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. -Dt. 6:5

"These words" that God had commanded his people were the Law. What was to be new with the New Covenant is how the words of God's Torah were to get on our hearts. Under the Mosaic Covenant, we were to get them there ourselves, but under the New Covenant God would inscribe them himself on our hearts.

The certificate of divorce is mentioned in Mt. 5 but clarified in chapter 19:

They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?� He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way." -Mt. 19:7-8

I find it interesting that the particular law that this pertains to was given almost at the end of the Torah, in Dt. 24, and not with the rest of the laws given earlier. Deuteronomy is a repeating (deutero) of the Law (nomy, from nomos), yet here we find this law that is new rather than something being repeated. So it appears that this was indeed some kind of concession on God's part rather than something God had commanded. Jesus even says that it was not always that way from the beginning. So what I see Jesus doing here is ending the concession rather than changing anything. One might even say that Jesus was restoring God's Law to what it is in eternity. The concession itself has prophetic significance as we read analogies of God divorcing the Northern Kingdom ("Israel") and then restoring them.

"How can you say, 'We are wise for we have the law of the LORD', when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely." Jeremiah 8:8

So not every law that we have written is as it was meant to be, or is the truth from God. Some are a result of making allowance for the heard hearts of the people/damage control; and also some are a result of the lying pen of the scribes.

So do we rely upon a written law that is not all Truth, and that even the bible says has been mishandled by the 'lying pen' of the scribes? Or do we turn to Christ and listen to Him, who IS the Truth, and who IS from God?

This is another interesting argument. I'm torn on this because I don't know what is meant by "lying pen of the scribes" in the particular case of Jer. 8:8, but I see Jesus and Paul and John repeatedly walking out God's Law and/or teaching others to follow it. If the text of the Law had been corrupted, it doesn't make sense that they would so absolutely advocate it. I have shot an email request off to a group that might be able to shed some light on Jer. 8:8 for me, bu I won't hear back from them until next week at the earliest. I'm wondering if the lying scribes and textual corruption could be akin to people like Joseph Smith who, while not altering the biblical texts themselves, wrote things about them or based on them that were misleading. In other words, did those who were called scribes only copy scrolls of the Bible, or did they copy and write other texts as well?

Except that those things are against the law of love. Love does not steal, rape, murder. There are of course exceptions to things like lying IF say, you were hiding Jews in your basement during the holocaust but you told the nazis that there were no Jews around. If that is a sin, it would be covered over by love.

"Love covers over a multitude of sins." 1Peter 4:8

Hmm, now I see a third law within the doctrines of Christendom: the Law of God, the law of Christ, and the law of love. I suspect these are all one and the same, however, just as Paul is describing the same law, the Law of God, when he refers to it as both the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus and the law of sin and death at Ro. 8:2. I say these are all the same law because, for there to be a law, it must be spelled out somewhere and not inferred, such as the "Noahide Law." God would have to include somewhere in the Bible a passage stating something to the effect of, "And here is the Law of Love..." or "the Law of Moses is the law of sin and death, which you shall ignore, but the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, which you shall do as a replacement of the Law of Moses, is..." All of those things you mentioned above--steal, rape, murder--are in God's Torah, so that would make the Torah a law of love. Could the law given by God, who is love (1Jn. 4:8, 16), be anything but a law of love?

...scripture points to Christ. He is the One to whom God gave us to listen. (This is my Son, listen to Him) Scripture is like a bike with training wheels. Once we come to Christ - the Living Spirit and Living Word of God - so as to learn from Him, we don't need the training wheels anymore. In fact, if we become so dependent on the training wheels, we might never learn to ride a two-wheel on our own. We might become TOO afraid to even try.

I agree completely that scripture points us to Christ, but scripture doesn't point us to Christ so that we can acknowledge him and then go on about our business. I agree that we are to listen to Christ. Regarding the Torah, he said that he didn't come to abolish it (Mt. 5:17), which means we are to walk it out. Whatever else I think Paul may be saying about the Law, Jesus was absolutely clear on this point, as was John. Paul is the one most often quoted by Christians trying to show that God's Law is abolished, yet Peter tells us:

...and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. -1Peter 3:15-16

Your training wheels analogy is, I think, a good one. What do training wheels help us to do? They help us to ride a two-wheeled bike without falling down. We must grasp the concepts of balance, momentum, thrust, leaning, turning the front wheel in the opposite direction of an intended turn when at speed, how to get started pedaling, and how to plant your feet when stopping. It's not just about mastering the concepts, but mastering the skills that enable us to benefit from these concepts when applied to the bicycle. Paul uses a similar analogy.

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. -Gal. 3:24-25

Most Christians I speak with believe that Paul is here saying that we no longer need the Law, meaning that we may ignore it and do whatever seems right in our own eyes. I see something different, opposite in fact. When we graduate from a tutor's instruction, do we ignore everything we learned under the tutor? In practical terms, would you fly with a pilot who studied principles of aerodynamics and thrust and laws about navigation and safety, graduated with his or her pilot's license, and intended then to ignore all or some of what he learned while flying? What if s/he were to tell you it's okay because s/he is going to fly by the Spirit, what that be any better? I hope you wouldn't fly with such a person.

Paul also wrote:
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. -Ro. 10:4

I looked into this verse because it seems to fly in the face of everything else that supports the idea that God's Law remains valid under the New Covenant. It turns out that the word translated here as "end," telos in the Greek, should not be translated as end. It can mean end, but not as it appears to imply here. It should be translated as aim or goal, which would align with Gal. 3:24-25 above. Should it be any wonder that the Law points to Christ? Jesus himself said as much:

For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. -Jn. 5:46

The rule God has given you is to listen to His Son. That Son said that if you love Him, you will obey His commands. Don't worry about anyone else; or any other teachings. Not the OT, not Paul, not any of the many many denominations, not doctrines (no matter how long they have been around), not religious leaders. Just listen to and follow Christ.

I believe I am listening to Christ, but will the Holy Spirit ever instruct anyone to do anything in violation to God's instructions? You say not to pay attention to, among other things, the OT, which raises in me a question for you. Is Jesus God? Does Jesus = God? If they are one and the same, if it is Jesus who created the universe, if it is Jesus who wiped out almost all of humanity with the great flood, if it is Jesus who ordered Saul to kill every man, woman, child, and beast of the Amalekites, if it is Jesus who will return and bathe most of humanity in its own blood, then it is Jesus who also gave the Law--God's Law--to the Israelites through Moses. I am seeing that Torah is Jesus' law, and it is a law of love, not condemnation. Is there anything in God's Law that you find objectionable?

I think that what changed with the advent of Jesus is that the punishments associated with the Law--the "curse" if you will--has been nullified, or "nailed to the cross." I don't see Jesus' death on the cross as freeing us to sin but rather freeing us from sin. He sent us the Helper, the Holy Spirit, but for what? To sin by disobeying God's Law? That's easy, just go with the flow, or with the flesh. I certainly don't need a helper to sin.

The TRUE law of God was never bad (though it did not save anyone) - but it was used badly - to condemn others rather than SEE the sin in oneself; and also mishandled.

I think this is a mistake that many Christians make, which is believing that there ever was some promise of salvation attached to obeying God's Law. I've read through the Bible several times in addition to myriad other studies, and I've never seen any link between salvation and obeying the Law. Actually, that's not entirely true. Paul in Galatians and Colossians rebuked believers who were being lured into this thinking. My point, however, is that there never was a promise of salvation attached to the Law. The Law was to be our righteousness, but that righteousness, which was of our own efforts, could never be righteous enough to be acceptable to God. Hence our need for Jesus' righteousness to be imparted to us. And how is that imparted to us? Through faith in God, just as it was with Abram.

The only promise attached to the Law was that things would go well with us to the extent we obeyed it. Because we read the NT without its OT foundation/context, we assume that Paul, by rebuking some for believing that their salvation was dependent on becoming Jewish or being circumcised or obeying any or all of God's Law, is teaching that the Law is abolished. Once that became established doctrine, no one, or hardly anyone, ever questioned it, despite Jesus blatantly instructing otherwise.

LOL, yes, I don't think I would have the guts to try something like that. However, saying one has the law - but not doing as that law SAYS - these may be two different things.

Which brings me back to my original point. Nowhere that I can see is a distinction made between God's Law, or Torah, and any other law that Christians are to follow today, whether it be a totally different set of laws, a subset of the Mosaic laws, or some combination of the two. There is still a Law that we are to obey if we are truly in covenant with him (don't steal, don't murder, don't rape, etc.), yet nowhere in scripture is a dividing line between old law and new law. This is what leads me to the idea that the old law isn't really old and that we should be keeping it.

Sort of in the same way that 'faith without works is dead'. If your faith does not lead you to works, then what good is it? If the law of love upon your heart does not lead you to acts of love, then what good is it? Are you sure you even have it?

Exactly, except, because Christendom has discarded its own foundation, the Pentateuch, we no longer recognize things like the term "works" in the passage above. When Jews speak of works or good works, it necessarily refers to doing things instructed in the Torah. In other words, what James is saying is that, if our faith in Christ is genuine, then we will, as a natural result, follow Jesus' instructions, which are spelled out in the first five books.

I checked, and the Hebrew word for Law there is "Torah." So Jesus says in the OT that the Torah would be written on our hearts as part of being in the New Covenant, Jesus says in Mt. 5 that the Law/Torah is to remain valid for his people until heaven and earth disappear,

Until all is fulfilled.

Where is this from, and what do you mean by it?

Peace to you.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 14 by Ancient Paths]

Okay, good point, so where in Christianity do we find a list of behavior that is prohibited or frowned upon by God?

Thou shalt not ...

The Golden Rule is found at Lk. 6:31, "Do unto others what you would have others do unto you." Is this the only rule a Christian must live by? I'm thinking there must be more because some people have widely different views of acceptable or desirable actions toward others. I once had a friend who thought slapping his buddies on the stomach unexpectedly was great fun and was a sign of comraderie. I disagreed. I have a friend who is a Christian who believes that we should be allowed to access various media--music, movies, photos, etc.--without paying. I disagree; I call that theft. So people who all think they're operating according to the Golden Rule could still differ widely on their practice of it.

I don't disagree.

Ask your friend how he feels being slapped on the belly unexpectedly/ever?
Ask your friend how they would like their work taken and not paid for?

If you are in Christ you are being transformed to be like Christ but that doesn't mean that the process is instant. God might work on one small sin for a while and leave the big sins until you are ready to address them.

But I think this topic is so existentially important.

We all think that if we do the right sacrifices, worship the right way, give to the right charities, wear the right clothes, say the right things that society wants us to then we will be saved. The truth is that the law condemns and only God can save (See Romans 3). For years after being a Christian I still doubted that I was saved. How can it be that I do nothing, and certainly don't deserve salvation and yet God will do this for me? There must be some rule I should follow ....

But that eagerness to follow a rule is my sin nature wanting there to be a way for me to earn my way into heaven, to be God's equal.

The do not rules which I would call laws are minimal.

The do laws are non existent but the desire for such laws is great. it would mean we can save ourselves and if we can save ourselves then we are equal to God.

The closest do rules we have are the golden rule and to follow Jesus. And we all start from very different places.

[Ancient Paths]

We all think that if we do the right sacrifices, worship the right way, give to the right charities, wear the right clothes, say the right things that society wants us to then we will be saved.

Hi Wootah. I have two points to make regarding your statement above. The first is that I don't at all feel or believe that my works have anything whatsoever to do with my salvation. My salvation is by grace alone through faith and not of works. I want to stress this point strongly. This is not about works righteousness, but Christ told us that we are saved unto good works. I would say that anyone who thinks s/he is saved but sits on his or her proverbial buttocks is not, in fact, saved. In Hebrew context, "good works" is a reference to keeping God's Law, not deeds that each individual variously defines as good. It doesn't matter what you or I think is good; our job is to conform our thinking to bring it in line with God's thinking. The second point is that you mentioned "society," and I couldn't care less what society thinks of my beliefs or how I live my life; I care about what God thinks of my beliefs and how I live my life. I'm not sure, but I suspect that you meant to say God there.

The truth is that the law condemns and only God can save (See Romans 3).

I'm not sure what part of Romans 3 you're referring to specifically, but I see there only support for the continued relevance and applicability of God's Law under the New Covenant. Paul begins the chapter by pointing out that the one advantage that Jews had over gentiles converting to the faith is that they had the scriptures--the Law and the Prophets and the Psalms (Lk. 24:44). He concludes the chapter by pointing out that faith in Christ does not nullify the Law, but rather establishes it. Were you perhaps referring to a different part of the NT?

The do not rules which I would call laws are minimal.

On what basis do you minimize the importance of the "do not" laws? On what basis would you ascribe lesser or greater importance to any of God's laws?

The do laws are non existent but the desire for such laws is great.

I see some "do" laws that God gave us, but we Christians tend to think of them as being introduced with the NT when they are in fact very much a part of God's law, e.g., treating the stranger fairly and with love, providing for the widows and the poor, etc.

Peace.[/u]

[Ancient Paths]

[Replying to post 30 by tam]

Tammy, I took a closer look at Jeremiah 8:8, and it doesn't mean what you said. It turns out that this is yet another case of not getting a clear picture when translating from Hebrew to English.

"How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie." -Jer. 8:8

The context is God chastening Israel for being hypocrites, saying one thing and doing another; claiming obedience to God's instructions and superiority for doing so but not actually obeying them. The word translated here as lying is sheker in the Hebrew, which means "for naught" or "in vain" and not "lying" or "false." The point here is that the scribes were writing the Law but it was for naught or in vain because Israel wasn't obeying what the scribes were writing. So, contrary to the idea that the OT has been messed up or mishandled, this is further support that God views his Law as a good thing and was upset with his people for treating it lightly. Sheker is the same Hebrew word used for "lie" at the end of the verse.

That would have been troublesome indeed if what you said was correct because it would mean that the entire OT is unreliable, which would mean that the NT's foundation would be unreliable, which would mean that there would be no way to verify anything written in the NT.

[tam]

Peace to you Ancient Paths.

I am sorry that I was away for so long. I am not really sure how much more I can add to what we have already discussed. This is not a new issue; this was around from the start. The reason that there are seemingly conflicting ideas in the NT on this issue is because different writers were dealing with the two conflicting extremes. The first - that all people including gentiles should have to obey the entire law, including circumcision. The response to that included, among other things, that it was not works that save a person, but faith in Christ.

But then there were people who (mis)used their freedom TO sin. So you get warnings and instructions that those in Christ do NOT deliberately continue to sin. You also get instruction on how 'faith without works is dead'. We have the exact same issues today. Some people trying to place others back under the law, and some claiming that works do not matter.

The truth that I have learned from my Lord is that the law covenant is the old covenant. The new covenant is in Him, and the instruction of God is that we listen to His Son.

Ancient Paths, there is at least one group today that I know of that has put people back under the law (or at least an image of that law), and they use their law in the exact same way as Israel did: to judge, to condemn, to burden people down with heavy yokes. There is hypocrisy, there is a lack of mercy and love, and there is a great deal of fear.


That is what it looks like when you go back to the law covenant.


You are correct, however, that more than just (a claim of faith) is needed. Hence what James said (I believe it was James)... faith without works is dead. If one's (claim of faith) does not inspire them to works (any works, including the thief on the cross who defended Christ and asked him to remember him <- that was his works from his faith in Christ), then one might want to consider whether their faith is anything more than just a claim.

But that is truly between them and their Lord. Not them, you (or me), and their Lord. To his own master each of us stand or fall. But the solution to what other Christians do or do not... is not to up and place all people back under the law covenant.


So... on to some of your post. I also am a bit blunt, but do not mean anything bad by it.

And if we are being trained for a job, we both listen to our trainer, and we watch what they do so that we can do the same.

I'm going to try to build a case here centered on this idea of following Jesus' example. This is what I'm currently seeing in scripture, but it is rejected by the vast majority in the church.

the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. -1Jn. 2:6

This begs the question: How did Jesus walk? If he was to be that spotless lamb pictured in the Passover, the lamb of God, then he needed to live a sinless life. Anything less would mean that his death on the cross was for naught and we all remain in our sins. So was he sinless? I believe he was, but we need to define sin. In the OT, sin was disobeying God. God gave us laws, commandments, testimonies, statutes, judgments, ordinances, all of which refer to what we could generally call instructions. To violate any of these instructions was to sin.

I could be wrong, but I think you are concentrating more on living a sinless life than you are on simply following Christ. The goal may be to lead a sinless life (though we do sin, even if not on purpose, or else we would not need Christ to begin with), but the focus should be on Christ. It may seem minor, but it is not... keep your eyes upon Christ and let Him lead you. You will make mistakes. He knows that. But keep your focus on Him, following Him, listening to Him.

Once you start looking for some other means of knowing what to do or what not to do, then your eyes have shifted from Him, to something/someone else. Then you cannot see clearly to know what He wants and what He does.

He reminds me now as He has reminded me before: how much more blind are you when you look away from the Light that you have been staring at?

If you want to walk as Christ walked, then look at HIM... do what He did or what He instructed us to do. Do not look backward. It is unnecessary and it takes your focus off of Him.

Love also covers all of it, and if one does not have love, then one is likely to abuse the old law and use it to condemn others. If one does have love written upon their hearts, then what does one need to look back for in the first place?

So here's the question: Did the definition of sin change with the arrival or Jesus? Put another way, did God change his mind about what he considers disobedience after Jesus came, or after Jesus died, or after Jesus resurrected? Everything pertaining to this matter that I see in the NT indicates that sin remained what it had always been--disobedience to God's instructions. I think John states this quite clearly at 1Jn. 3:4 and the verses preceding the one above:

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,� and does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him:" -1Jn. 2:3-5

The "Him" John speaks of is Christ, and His commands.

"If anyone loves me, they will obey my commands/keep my word. My Father will love them and we will come and make our home with them."

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them." John 14:21

I was very glad to find some of your children walking in Truth, just as we have received commandment to do from the Father. Now I ask you, lady, not as though I were writing to you a new commandment, but the one which we have had from the beginning, that we love one another. 2John 1:4


God's instructions are that we listen to that One. It truly is that simple, despite how difficult some will make it.

"This is my Son, whom I have chosen. Listen to Him."

Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. -1Jn. 3:4

To a Jew, there is only one possible meaning of "the Law" in a religious context: the 613 laws contained in the Pentateuch, colloquially referred to as "Moses" because he recorded them. For Jesus or any of the apostles to have referred to "the Law" and not explained that they were referring to something other than the Pentateuch would be highly deceptive. So here we have explicit advocacy of God's Law in the NT, just not as a means of salvation. So on to some of your other points...

I am not sure it can be said that John was advocating the law of Moses in this letter simply by referencing it. Because the law was meant to show us that there is sin in us. But the next line in that verse is:

"But you know what he appeared so that he might take away our sins."

And the main focus of John's entire letter is love and living in Truth (Christ).

May I ask how you explain that Paul spoke against circumcision (at least for Gentiles; Jews would already have been circumcised)? He also advocated that one could eat whatever one wished (including Jews), and even confronted Peter about his hypocrisy over living like a Gentile until there were Jews around? Christ also said that it is not what goes into the mouth that makes one unclean, but rather what comes out of the mouth. For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Christ did give commands that are different than what is written in the OT ("You have heard it said, but I tell you NOW..."), but not every command written in the OT was as it was meant to be from the beginning. Some laws were given because the hearts of the people were too hard to do what was true. ("Moses gave you this law because your hearts were hard. But it was not that way from the beginning...")

This is interesting and I had to meditate on this a bit to get clarity on what I think is going on here. These examples are in Mt. 5:21-48 and include murder, adultery, giving a certificate of divorce, making false vows, revenge, and loving our enemies. It seems to me that what he's doing here is commenting on the instructions rather than changing them. He is making them a matter of the heart, as they were always intended to be, rather than letting them remain as mere checklists of dos and don'ts. This may seem like a change, but one must ask what it is a change from. It's not a change from the way God had originally established his Law; it's a change from the way many people were treating his Law, which was prophesied by Isaiah.

For He says, "Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there." Indeed, He will speak to this people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue, He who said to them, “Here is rest, give rest to the weary,� and, “Here is repose,� but they would not listen. So the word of the Lord to them will be, “Order on order, order on order, line on line, line on line, a little here, a little there,� that they may go and stumble backward, be broken, snared and taken captive. -Isa. 28:10-13

His Law was never meant to be anywhere but on his people's hearts. What Jeremiah said at 31:33 about the New Covenant being a matter of God's Torah being on our hearts was not new:

These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. -Dt. 6:5

"These words" that God had commanded his people were the Law. What was to be new with the New Covenant is how the words of God's Torah were to get on our hearts. Under the Mosaic Covenant, we were to get them there ourselves, but under the New Covenant God would inscribe them himself on our hearts.

The certificate of divorce is mentioned in Mt. 5 but clarified in chapter 19:

They said to Him, “Why then did Moses command to give her a certificate of divorce and send her away?� He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way." -Mt. 19:7-8

I find it interesting that the particular law that this pertains to was given almost at the end of the Torah, in Dt. 24, and not with the rest of the laws given earlier. Deuteronomy is a repeating (deutero) of the Law (nomy, from nomos), yet here we find this law that is new rather than something being repeated. So it appears that this was indeed some kind of concession on God's part rather than something God had commanded. Jesus even says that it was not always that way from the beginning. So what I see Jesus doing here is ending the concession rather than changing anything. One might even say that Jesus was restoring God's Law to what it is in eternity.

Christ was simply speaking the truth.

The concession itself has prophetic significance as we read analogies of God divorcing the Northern Kingdom ("Israel") and then restoring them.

Did you mean to say the Southern Kingdom ("Judah") that was restored?

Except that those things are against the law of love. Love does not steal, rape, murder. There are of course exceptions to things like lying IF say, you were hiding Jews in your basement during the holocaust but you told the nazis that there were no Jews around. If that is a sin, it would be covered over by love.

"Love covers over a multitude of sins." 1Peter 4:8

Hmm, now I see a third law within the doctrines of Christendom: the Law of God, the law of Christ, and the law of love. I suspect these are all one and the same, however, just as Paul is describing the same law, the Law of God, when he refers to it as both the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus and the law of sin and death at Ro. 8:2. I say these are all the same law because, for there to be a law, it must be spelled out somewhere and not inferred, such as the "Noahide Law." God would have to include somewhere in the Bible a passage stating something to the effect of, "And here is the Law of Love..." or "the Law of Moses is the law of sin and death, which you shall ignore, but the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus, which you shall do as a replacement of the Law of Moses, is..." All of those things you mentioned above--steal, rape, murder--are in God's Torah, so that would make the Torah a law of love. Could the law given by God, who is love (1Jn. 4:8, 16), be anything but a law of love?

When you say that the law would have to be spelled out somewhere, I think you may be overlooking what it means for the law – of love - to be written upon one’s heart. Because it is spelled out on the heart.

...scripture points to Christ. He is the One to whom God gave us to listen. (This is my Son, listen to Him) Scripture is like a bike with training wheels. Once we come to Christ - the Living Spirit and Living Word of God - so as to learn from Him, we don't need the training wheels anymore. In fact, if we become so dependent on the training wheels, we might never learn to ride a two-wheel on our own. We might become TOO afraid to even try.

I agree completely that scripture points us to Christ, but scripture doesn't point us to Christ so that we can acknowledge him and then go on about our business. I agree that we are to listen to Christ. Regarding the Torah, he said that he didn't come to abolish it (Mt. 5:17), which means we are to walk it out. Whatever else I think Paul may be saying about the Law, Jesus was absolutely clear on this point, as was John. Paul is the one most often quoted by Christians trying to show that God's Law is abolished, yet Peter tells us:

...and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. -1Peter 3:15-16

Your training wheels analogy is, I think, a good one. What do training wheels help us to do? They help us to ride a two-wheeled bike without falling down. We must grasp the concepts of balance, momentum, thrust, leaning, turning the front wheel in the opposite direction of an intended turn when at speed, how to get started pedaling, and how to plant your feet when stopping. It's not just about mastering the concepts, but mastering the skills that enable us to benefit from these concepts when applied to the bicycle. Paul uses a similar analogy.

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. -Gal. 3:24-25

Most Christians I speak with believe that Paul is here saying that we no longer need the Law, meaning that we may ignore it and do whatever seems right in our own eyes. I see something different, opposite in fact. When we graduate from a tutor's instruction, do we ignore everything we learned under the tutor? In practical terms, would you fly with a pilot who studied principles of aerodynamics and thrust and laws about navigation and safety, graduated with his or her pilot's license, and intended then to ignore all or some of what he learned while flying? What if s/he were to tell you it's okay because s/he is going to fly by the Spirit, what that be any better? I hope you wouldn't fly with such a person.

Paul also wrote:
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. -Ro. 10:4

I looked into this verse because it seems to fly in the face of everything else that supports the idea that God's Law remains valid under the New Covenant. It turns out that the word translated here as "end," telos in the Greek, should not be translated as end. It can mean end, but not as it appears to imply here. It should be translated as aim or goal, which would align with Gal. 3:24-25 above. Should it be any wonder that the Law points to Christ? Jesus himself said as much:

For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. -Jn. 5:46

Yes, Moses did write about Christ:

Moses continued, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. Deuteronomy 18:15


As for the tutor analogy continued, I hear what you are saying. But if the law is a tutor that leads one to Christ, why turn back to that law covenant once you are in Christ?

The rule God has given you is to listen to His Son. That Son said that if you love Him, you will obey His commands. Don't worry about anyone else; or any other teachings. Not the OT, not Paul, not any of the many many denominations, not doctrines (no matter how long they have been around), not religious leaders. Just listen to and follow Christ.

I believe I am listening to Christ, but will the Holy Spirit ever instruct anyone to do anything in violation to God's instructions?

No. But God's instruction is to listen to His Son.

You say not to pay attention to, among other things, the OT, which raises in me a question for you. Is Jesus God? Does Jesus = God?

(Do not pay attention to the OT over Christ.)

Jaheshua, the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel... is not Jah, the God and Father of Christ, the Most Holy One of Israel.

Their relationship is reflected in the temple also, which had a Most Holy Place as well as a Holy Place. You must go through the Holy in order to reach the Most Holy.

But Jaheshua is the image of His Father. So to know Christ is to know God.

If they are one and the same, if it is Jesus who created the universe, if it is Jesus who wiped out almost all of humanity with the great flood, if it is Jesus who ordered Saul to kill every man, woman, child, and beast of the Amalekites, if it is Jesus who will return and bathe most of humanity in its own blood, then it is Jesus who also gave the Law--God's Law--to the Israelites through Moses. I am seeing that Torah is Jesus' law, and it is a law of love, not condemnation. Is there anything in God's Law that you find objectionable?

This post deserves a thread of its own! I will respond just to the last line:

There is nothing in the law of God that I find objectionable. But the command of God is that we listen to His Son. So that is what I do.

Exactly, except, because Christendom has discarded its own foundation, the Pentateuch, we no longer recognize things like the term "works" in the passage above. When Jews speak of works or good works, it necessarily refers to doing things instructed in the Torah. In other words, what James is saying is that, if our faith in Christ is genuine, then we will, as a natural result, follow Jesus' instructions, which are spelled out in the first five books.

The foundation for Christendom SHOULD be Christ. (unfortunately it is not often so)

Works is anything that your faith in Christ motivates you to do.

I checked, and the Hebrew word for Law there is "Torah." So Jesus says in the OT that the Torah would be written on our hearts as part of being in the New Covenant, Jesus says in Mt. 5 that the Law/Torah is to remain valid for his people until heaven and earth disappear,

Until all is fulfilled.

Where is this from, and what do you mean by it?

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."

He came to fulfill and He DID fulfill.



I see something a bit different from what you see. I see that some people take the above quote and use it to say that Christ meant we had to follow every jot and tittle of the law, while ignoring that He said "until all is fulfilled"... which all IS fulfilled in Christ.


So that we who are in Christ - Jew or Gentile - listen to Christ. We do not nullify Christ by trying to put people back under the law. That being said, the law (of love) does not permit one to do things such as stealing, murdering, raping, etc.

Not because it is written not to do so on paper or on tablets or spoken by religious leaders, etc. But because love - written on our hearts - does not permit such things; nor does the spirit that Christ gave us.


I am sorry if I missed anything. It was long, as was mine before that, so I did not address every point. But hope that some of them are addressed by proxy, as others were addressed.

Peace to you again,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[tam]

Ancient Paths[/url]"]
[Replying to post 30 by tam]

Tammy, I took a closer look at Jeremiah 8:8, and it doesn't mean what you said. It turns out that this is yet another case of not getting a clear picture when translating from Hebrew to English.

"How can you say, ‘We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us’? But behold, the lying pen of the scribes has made it into a lie." -Jer. 8:8

The context is God chastening Israel for being hypocrites, saying one thing and doing another; claiming obedience to God's instructions and superiority for doing so but not actually obeying them. The word translated here as lying is sheker in the Hebrew, which means "for naught" or "in vain" and not "lying" or "false."

I do not think this is accurate.

http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lex ... 8267&t=NIV

lie, deception, disappointment, falsehood
deception (what deceives or disappoints or betrays one)
deceit, fraud, wrong
fraudulently, wrongfully (as adverb)
falsehood (injurious in testimony)
testify falsehood, false oath, swear falsely
falsity (of false or self-deceived prophets)
lie, falsehood (in general)
false tongue
in vain


False is very much a part of the definition of that word.

The point here is that the scribes were writing the Law but it was for naught or in vain because Israel wasn't obeying what the scribes were writing.

I am not sure this can be said to be accurate either. Else the verse might refer to the hypocrisy of the people, but not refer to the false pen of the scribes. Remember that Christ also said:

"Woe to you scribes."

Not the people who were making the poor scribes work in vain. But the scribes themselves.

So, contrary to the idea that the OT has been messed up or mishandled, this is further support that God views his Law as a good thing and was upset with his people for treating it lightly. Sheker is the same Hebrew word used for "lie" at the end of the verse.

Text can be altered. Men have done it. A modern day example of the lying pen of the scribes is the translation of the word hades/sheol to hell (and the traditional teaching that hell is a place of fiery torment... which the text now appears to support, but that definition and appearance of support is a lie).


This is an example of 'woe' to both scribes AND teachers.

That would have been troublesome indeed if what you said was correct because it would mean that the entire OT is unreliable, which would mean that the NT's foundation would be unreliable, which would mean that there would be no way to verify anything written in the NT.

[/quote]


The foundation of the NT is not the OT, but rather Christ. The OT is a witness TO Christ. A witness to the Truth (Christ). But now that the Truth is here, we are to listen to Him.



Nor does something have to be inerrant to be useful. But one should not test the NT by the OT... rather one should test ALL things - written or spoken - by Christ.

He is the LIVING Word and Image of God. The LIVING Truth.


The written word is not perfect. But we have a Living Word to listen to: Christ. No one and nothing else is the Truth. No one and nothing else reveals to us ALL truth. Not just some truth, but ALL truth, including the Truth of His Father; and the truth of anything that happened as written in the OT.


Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[Ancient Paths]

[Replying to post 36 by tam]

The reason that there are seemingly conflicting ideas in the NT on this issue is because different writers were dealing with the two conflicting extremes. The first - that all people including gentiles should have to obey the entire law, including circumcision. The response to that included, among other things, that it was not works that save a person, but faith in Christ.

You used the verb "have to" above in referring to gentiles obeying God's Law. I would ask: Have to for what?

As I have pointed out, gentiles were expected to keep God's Law. That was the decision of the Council of Jerusalem at Acts 15:19-21. What the leaders at that council decided was that gentiles coming into the faith were not required to keep the whole Law as a prerequisite to joining the faith.

Are works bad? I think you said or agreed somewhere above that works are good and are a fruit or proof of genuine salvation. I think you're missing two things here, the first being what works meant in the biblical context and the second being the context of the book of Galatians where the relevant passages are found. Works was a direct reference to the whole Law; doing good works meant doing good to other people in accordance with the Law, not in accordance with each individual's own definition of what's good. Jews did not consider a good work to be good unless it was mentioned in the Torah. In fact, today they call good works mitzvot, which is the Hebrew word for commandments. So doing a good work is doing a mitzvah, or commandment.

The context of Galatians is Paul refuting a false teaching. To understand Galatians, we must know what that false teaching was. If we don't know what the false teaching was, it is easy to misinterpret Paul here. Their teaching was that gentiles converting to faith in Messiah Jesus had to become Jews, meaning that they first had to obligate themselves to keeping the entire Law of God. Paul wasn't saying that gentiles shouldn't keep God's Law; he was saying that keeping it was not a requirement of salvation. For example, Paul says at Gal. 5:1-3,

{1} It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery. {2} Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. {3} And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.

Is Paul really nullifying circumcision? The first question that should come to mind for anyone who thinks that Paul is doing away with circumcision is: by what authority is Paul changing God's law? Either he's a heretic or he's not changing God's law at all. The point he's making in verse 2 is not that circumcision is bad, but if someone gets circumcised because he thinks he must do it as part of keeping the Law because he thinks that's how one attains salvation, then it is of no value. He points out in verse 3 that, if that is your approach, then you are indeed obligated to keep the whole Law, which, he states elsewhere, cannot be done perfectly. The reason he speaks of freedom in verse 1 is because legalism is bondage, but legalism is not the same as obeying God's Law; it's obeying God's Law as a means of earning salvation. Modern Christianity, and going back to the A.D. 300s, has mistakenly believed that following God's Law is legalism.

If we take a look back in the Pentateuch, salvation was never a matter of keeping the Law. So this idea that, before Jesus, one's salvation was dependent on keeping the Law, or that anybody believed that, is solely a matter of misinterpreting what Paul is saying about it. In other words, that false idea originated with Paul's writings, or rather Christians' misinterpretation of them. Today most Christians who who are familiar with this doctrine believe this fallacy, that Jews then and today believe that salvation is tied to how well they keep God's Law. Salvation before Jesus was the same as it is today: faith in Yhvh. When we obey Jesus, we are obeying God. When we obey God, we do so out of faith, and thus we are accredited with righteousness, the exact same way it worked with Abram.

We have the exact same issues today. Some people trying to place others back under the law, and some claiming that works do not matter.

What do you understand the expression "under the Law" to mean?

The truth that I have learned from my Lord is that the law covenant is the old covenant. The new covenant is in Him, and the instruction of God is that we listen to His Son.

This despite all the NT warnings about those who walk in lawlessness? Also, the term "old" when referring to the Mosaic Covenant appears nowhere in scripture. That is a later church invention as part of its effort to do away thing all things "Jewish" although they incorrectly applied the term. If you do away with God's Law, then this brings us full circle: where in scripture is the standard for Christian behavior, how we treat God and one another? You make reference to a Law of Love, yet there is no such distinction made in the NT. In fact, nowhere is this Law of Love even mentioned. And then there's this:

Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. -Mt. 24:12

So I see in NT scripture that to keep God's Law is to love, both God and our fellow human beings. That is what scripture tells us.

Yes, by all means, listen to God's Son, but God's Son time and time again points us back to the Law (although not as a means of salvation, but rather as a means of right living):

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. -Mt. 5:17-19

And Jesus said to him, "See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them." -Mt. 8:4

And He said to him, "Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." -Mt. 19:17

Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, saying: "The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them." -Mt. 23:1-3

He was also saying to them, "You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother'; and, 'He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death'; but you say, 'If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),' you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that." -Mk. 7:9-13

Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to divorce a wife. And He answered and said to them, "What did Moses command you?" -Mk. 10:2-3

And He said to him, "What is written in the Law?" -Lk. 10:26

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. -Jn. 14:15

He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him. -Jn. 14:21

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. -Jn. 15:10

But Abraham said, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them." -Lk. 16:29

...and they use their law in the exact same way as Israel did: to judge, to condemn, to burden people down with heavy yokes. There is hypocrisy, there is a lack of mercy and love, and there is a great deal of fear.

That is what it looks like when you go back to the law covenant.

You seem to have a very negative view of God's Law. If the Law is so bad, such a burden, why did God give it? Did he give the Law to place the Israelites right back into bondage after freeing them from their bondage in Egypt? That makes no sense to me and would not be an accurate description of the God I know.

When you refer above to Israel and how Israel applied the Law, you're painting with the broadest of brushes. One could make a similar generalization about America today, yet there are many believers working out God's will in their communities. One could make similar assertions about the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. But God tells us in scripture that he always reserves a remnant. The other problem with your generalization of Israel is that Israel spanned a very long period of history. There were times when Israel was getting it [the Law] right and other times when Israel was getting it wrong, but through it all there remained a remnant.

You are correct, however, that more than just (a claim of faith) is needed. Hence what James said (I believe it was James)... faith without works is dead. If one's (claim of faith) does not inspire them to works (any works, including the thief on the cross who defended Christ and asked him to remember him <- that was his works from his faith in Christ), then one might want to consider whether their faith is anything more than just a claim.

But in context, the term "works" refers specifically to keeping the Law, as I explained above.

But the solution to what other Christians do or do not... is not to up and place all people back under the law covenant.

{31} "Behold, days are coming," declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, {32} not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them," declares the Lord. {33} "But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days," declares the Lord, "I will put My law [Torah in Hebrew] within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people."

With whom did God establish this new covenant? With Israel. Israel is that to which we are to be grafted in, not that which we are to replace. Jesus said that he came only for the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Yes, there is something new about this new covenant, but doing away with God's Law is not it. What's new is how God's Law is to get onto/into our hearts--God will write it there. Right here in this passage we see that the entirety of God's Law was to be written on our hearts if we are walking in covenant with God under this new covenant. The whole difference between doing the law rightly and doing it wrongly was whether it was on our hearts (i.e., we do it out of love for God) or we looked at it as Isaiah said: line upon line, rule upon rule, a little here, a little there. If it is written on our hearts, then by default we are in right standing with the Law and are doing it as God intended. This is why, in Mt. 5:17, Jesus said he did not come to abolish the Torah, but to complete [pleroo] it. To take your understanding of the status of God's Law today would make Jesus' statement here nonsensical: "I did not come to abolish the Torah but to do away with it."

Once you start looking for some other means of knowing what to do or what not to do, then your eyes have shifted from Him, to something/someone else. Then you cannot see clearly to know what He wants and what He does.

You mean some other means than his instructions to us? If he is the word made flesh, then he is the Law made flesh. "Word" is another Jewish reference to Torah, so the Christian concept of Jesus being the Bible made flesh is incorrect.

If you want to walk as Christ walked, then look at HIM... do what He did or what He instructed us to do. Do not look backward. It is unnecessary and it takes your focus off of Him.

I think you're contradicting yourself here. The way Christ walked was in perfect obedience to the Law, otherwise he couldn't have been the spotless sacrifice for all of our sins. So to do what he did is to do the Law, and what he instructed us to do, as I pointed out above, is the Law. Looking to the Law is not looking backward, it is what we are told to do in the NT:

But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does. -Jas. 1:25

Yet nowhere in the NT are we instructed to not do the Law.

I have to leave shortly to catch a bus, but I'll be back. Thanks for bearing with me and being a good sport, and have a good weekend.

[tam]

Peace to you Ancient Paths!

As I have pointed out, gentiles were expected to keep God's Law. That was the decision of the Council of Jerusalem at Acts 15:19-21. What the leaders at that council decided was that gentiles coming into the faith were not required to keep the whole Law as a prerequisite to joining the faith.

How does this make sense? "You don't have to do these things now, but as soon as you are baptized... you have to do them." What is the difference? Unless the apostles were tricking gentiles into getting baptized (without them knowing that they would then be under the entire law, expected to be circumcised as well, etc) and only after joining up, then telling them, well, now that you are baptized, you must do all of these things also.

If I am understanding you correctly, then what you are suggesting does not make any sense to me.

Such a huge issue - fighting, a council being formed to discuss and to pray over the matter, distress in a congregation, and a delegation being sent back to reassure people - just over when gentiles would have to start obeying the law?



So now I must point out some things to you. Because your theory above does not mesh even with what is written.

"Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved."

So they were teaching this to the brothers. Not prospective brothers. But brothers already. They had already joined the faith.

"This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted."

Not, were wanting to be converted... HAD BEEN converted.

This news made all the brothers very glad. When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them. Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, "The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses."

The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: "Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that He accepted them by giving holy spirit to them just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord [Jesus] that we are saved, just as they are."



First, the Gentiles Peters speaks of were not prospective members of the Body of Christ. They were anointed with holy spirit and/or disciples.

And while you state that it seems I have a negative view of God's law (even though the context here is the law of Moses), you do not need to take my word for that law being a heavy yoke that no one can bear up under. You also have Peter's words here that putting these people back under that law is the same as a) testing God; and b) placing them under a yoke that neither they or their fathers have been able to bear. He does not say that they were unable to bear at times. Neither does he say that some were not able to bear.



How does that mesh with your theory?


Then there is of course the question of WHICH laws do you think people should be placed back under? (as in are required to obey, of the 622 that you are promoting) The ones that Christ corrected? The ones that were mishandled by the lying pen of the scribes? The ones that were added as a concession to the people?

Do we know which are which? Is everything that Christ said written down? Did He address every single law?


Your other objection is that without the law (of Moses, the 622 laws) Christians will just do whatever they feel like doing. While it is true that some (perhaps even many, I do not know; God knows) believers may do this - abuse the freedom given to them. But that is an abuse. You do not place people who do not abuse their freedom back under a yoke just because some DO abuse their freedom.

The response - if the Spirit leads one to give a response - is to show how the action is against Christ, against love, and so against God. If you try to show someone that something is against one of the Mosaic laws, then they can and will dismiss your argument, because we are not under the Mosaic law. Most of our ancestors never were, to begin with.

I am not under the law that you are trying to breath life back into. But I know that I cannot steal, lie, murder, rape, judge others, show a lack of love, etc. These things are all against the love of God, of Christ, of neighbor, of enemy. So I could not do these things to a friend OR to an enemy, because I am taught to love them both. I know also that I must forgive, love even my enemies, etc, etc... because a) this is what my Lord teaches and did; and b) this is from the law of love. Everything is summed up in that.

Why go backward? Were there no murderers in Israel under the law? Were there no liars? Were there none who refused to give mercy, or forgiveness?


The written law is without. (something one gets from sight). The law of love upon one's heart is within. (something one gets from Jah, from His Son, from faith... and... we are to walk by faith and not by sight).


You have stated that Paul was not saying that Gentiles should not be circumcised. Well, the following pertains to the whole incident written about in Acts, here at Galatians 2:3:

"Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though hew as a Greek. This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ [Jesus] and to make us slaves. We did not give into them for a moment."


So how is anyone who tries to place others under the law as those false brothers were doing (as written about in Acts, and again here), not doing that same false work?

The reasons such as a) they were just speaking against linking salvation to the law. (if the law has no bearing upon whether or not a person is saved... then why place anyone under that yoke to begin with? No, they were speaking against placing people under that yoke). Or b) the decree that gentiles were not to be placed under the law was only for prospective members of the faith. These are not supported by the text, but are meant to justify bringing back the law - which is a lacking in faith in the Spirit - and tp make people slaves TO the law once more.


And there is also THIS:

There is no law against love.

If there is no law against love, then does that not make LOVE the law?


Then lawlessness is what? Something that is against love - of God, of Christ, of of brother in Christ, of neighbor, of enemy. A LACK of love.

I am repeating myself now, but Christ said that all the law and the prophets hang off the first two commandments. Love God with your WHOLE heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.


Even Paul says in Galatians:

For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."


(That is a bit out of context perhaps, because the first and most important is to love God with your whole heart, which will mean loving your neighbor as yourself, as well as your enemies; even if JUST out of whole-hearted love for God)

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. -Mt. 5:17-19

Until all is accomplished. Which all was accomplished in Christ. Not UNTIL He completed the work He had been sent to do, culminating in his death and resurrection, and breathing out of holy spirit upon those who belong to Him.

Those who are in Him carry HIS yoke, which is light.



Ancient Paths, all of this talk about whether we are under the law (as in required to obey the mosaic law) or not. Why not just ask Christ? Then listen to what He tells you. Listen to His voice. (He has said that His sheep will hear His voice)

He is the Truth, the Way, the Life, the Word and Image of God.



May you again have peace, and ears to hear so as to get the sense of these things, as well as to hear the Spirit (Christ) and the Bride (the Body of Christ) say to you and to anyone who thirsts and wishes, "Come! Take the free gift of the water of Life!"

Which water is holy spirit, given to us by my Lord, THE Life: Christ Jaheshua, the Holy Spirit and Holy One of Israel, and Chosen One of His Father and my Father, Jah, the Most Holy One of Israel.


your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[Ancient Paths]

[Replying to post 39 by tam]

Hi Tammy,

I'm guessing you'll agree that this has become too broad to handle easily. I tend to post in my spare time at work when there's nothing to do, so, while I enjoy these long posts, I won't often have the time to do the responses justice, just as I mishandled my post about Jeremiah 8:8, which has to do with choosing the right meaning of a Hebrew word based on the context of the passage rather than the most common use of that word. But I blew that and didn't even finish my previous post because I had to leave work to catch a bus home. (I also got embroiled in the When you understand why you dismiss other gods... thread in the C&A forum and got steamrolled by too many replies coming too quickly.) So, what I'd like to propose is that we focus on a single law or area of law instead of the whole law and see where that goes. Is there a particular law that you'd like to start with, preferably one that you believe is no longer in practice under the New Covenant, that we could try focusing on?

Peace.