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SpongeBlog -> RE: Keep The Law? - One Stop Thread (12/1/2008 9:52:45 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: HaEmethKawthawb
...MY view then, is this, yes I believe that the ENTIRE body of what we call the Bible is applicable to us todate. In a personal study I found over 240 verses wherein we are told the Law of God (aka Law of Moshe) is for: all generations, all times and forever.
Christ has fulfilled the 'forevers' and the 'lasting ordinances' connected with the ceremonial and priestly worship requirements of the law. And to think that all of the other parts of the law continue 'forever' is to simply ignore what is no longer required by law because of Christ's sacrifice (exclusions from the assembly, etc.)
quote:
ORIGINAL: HaEmethKawthawb
I find these words from Genesis to Revelation, and can see no reason to "divide" them into what applies to Israel, proper (the nation) and Israel, the People of God.
Largely true, but Paul does exhort Jews who get saved to remain as one 'having the law' (circumcised) and tells gentiles to remain as those 'not having the law' (uncircumcised) (1 Cor. 7:17-20). I personally have no problem with natural Jews who get truly saved and are zealous for the law. What I disagree with are gentiles who insist we are required to live like Jews to experience God fully because they think, wrongly, that we have been grafted into natural Israel, and that to be grafted into Israel means we are also subject to the literal, unalterable requirements of the law they were under in the old covenant in order to experience God's blessing.
quote:
ORIGINAL: HaEmethKawthawb
...I find that our Christ broke down the dividing wall of partition; that He made TWO bodies into ONE and calls Gentile followers the ADOPTED children of Israel...
Children of Israel? We have been made sons of God, not sons of Israel. And there are only two real Son's of God--Adam and Jesus. All the rest of us, including natural Israelites are adopted. We all, Jew and Gentile alike, have been grafted into Jesus and have become adopted children of God.
"3For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, 4the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. (Romans 9:3-4)
quote:
ORIGINAL: HaEmethKawthawb
...that His Laws are NOT burdensome;
I know what John means when he says God's commands are not burdensome (1 John 5:3), but what do Peter and Paul mean when they talk about the law being "a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear" (Acts 15:10), and "a yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1)? I contend that the 'law' that we follow as New Covenant believers no longer includes the slavery and burden of worship requirements that have now been fulfilled in the work of Christ. A work that we lay hold of by believing in Christ. This is certainly true and undebatable in regard to the law of animal sacrifice for sin and the law of literal circumcision.
quote:
ORIGINAL: HaEmethKawthawb
...that His ways are ABOVE my ways; that His Law contained weights and measures (common sense applications) which, through the Wisdom of the Holy Spirit, enables us to apply whatever Law may apply, to us, to our situation, at OUR time. Within reason, of course, there is FLEXIBILITY, then.
This is the point of this entire thread. Everyone knows, whether they want to admit it or not, that the law does not continue as the complete binding entity it was prior to Christ, which leaves us with the question of what do we obey literally. It is this 'within reason' that people are separating themselves away from other believers over. So the point is not if the law is still in effect. The question is how much of the law is still in effect.
That's why I say this whole thing is just a matter of denominational preference and personal conviction. I contend that the matter of the law that God wants us to focus on exclusively is 'love your neighbor as yourself'. The outward system of worship of the OT has been made obsolete and meaningless because of the work of Christ. But many people still wonder if they should eat shellfish, or hang around someone who does.
quote:
ORIGINAL: HaEmethKawthawb
...For example, I am quite poor...quite. If people come to my home and bring me pork, should I feed my children with it or refuse it in order to "keep the Law"? It is MY belief that the weights and measures say, FEED MY KIDS, for I would be far more guilty of NOT LOVING them, were I to let them starve.
Now for the real question. Would you lie to feed your starving children?
quote:
ORIGINAL: HaEmethKawthawb
...We counsel our brethren to obey the laws of the land, yet in another breath say, the Laws of God are no more? This to me, is disturbing.
This to me, is a meaningless argument. If you'd like we can start a list of all the laws that we both agree are no longer are binding now that Christ has died and rose from the dead. Let's start with the law forbidding those who have been emasculated from entering the assembly of the Lord (Deut. 23:1).
Some resist it, but the hard truth is some old covenant laws are simply not in authority anymore. Those laws have not been abolished, but we have died to our old relationship with the flesh and are no longer are subject to the particular laws that governed that old relationship. Our old spouse, the flesh, died on the cross so we are no longer subject to the laws that governed that marriage to the flesh (and kept us in it!) but are now free to be joined to a new spouse, namely Christ, and are now governed by the Spirit, not the written code (Romans 7:1-6).
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