Originally posted by Soyeong
View Post
There is an easier way to understand the situation. The part of the brains of teenagers which does the job of differentiating good from evil is not fully grown until the age of eighteen. In recognition of this, minors are not considered to be under the jurisdiction of the law applicable to the general population. Is the minor free from the law? Yes he is. Should he break the law? No he shouldn't. Is he to observe the rules because he can be punished? No he can't be punished. Is he to observe the rules because his guardians can be punished? Yes he is to observe the rules because otherwise his parents can be punished. That is why the parents of the man born blind were afraid to take responsibility for him, because they were afraid of being thrown out from the synagogue.
John 9:13They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. 14Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. 15Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, “He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see.” 16Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, “This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others were saying, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And there was a division among them. 17So they said to the blind man again, “What do you say about Him, since He opened your eyes?” And he said, “He is a prophet.”
*****18The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight, until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, 19and questioned them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?
20His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; 21but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.” 22His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue. 23For this reason his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”
Now let's look at the believer under the New Covenant.
Is he free from the Old Covenant?
Yes he is.
Should he avoid observing the requirements of the Old Covenant?
Yes, because:
The Old Covenant was made with Israel and Israel only, under special circumstances
The Old Covenant was man's effort to fulfill God's promise to Abraham.
See the model:
The promise:
Genesis 22:18and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."
The reaction:
Deuteronomy 5:27‘Go near and hear all that the LORD our God says; then speak to us all that the LORD our God speaks to you, and we will hear and do it.’
The result:
Acts 15:10"Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?
Human effort resulted in a covenant that placed a yoke, entering into which led to slavery!
The term " put God to the test " means the person was assuming that his actions had God's sanction, just because He had promised a certain blessing, which Sarah did. The results were disastrous. As were the results in the incident when the Israelites went to fight against the Canaanites, assuming that God would give them victory, since He had promised it. ********
Jesus, on the other hand, refused to put God to the test by jumping off a high building, even though God had promised to protect Him from harm.
Assuming that our actions to bring to fruition a blessing promised by God through divine action has God's sanction is a form of pride, placing ourselves equal to God. God did not stop Sarah, but the result was a child born into slavery, which in turn resulted in conflict, the maid despising her mistress and *persecution for Isaac from the son of the slave woman.
The mind boggles at what would have happened if Sarah, Israel and Christ had not acted as they did, but importantly, the church in Jerusalem acted to prevent the judaizers from repeating the mistake of Israel, sanctioning a doctrine that would result in slavery. The preventive measure repeated by Paul in acting against the practice adopted by the church in Galatia.
Had they not acted, those returning to law would have tested God, resulting in the crushing failures faced by Sarah and the old covenant initiators.
The interesting parallel offered by Paul:
The promise:
Genesis 15:2Abram said, “O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?” 3And Abram said, “Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir.” 4Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, “This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir.” 5And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” 6Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
Genesis 18:10He said, “I will surely return to you at this time next year; and behold, Sarah your wife will have a son.”
The reaction:
Genesis 16:1Now Sarai, Abram's wife had borne him no children, and she had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. 2So Sarai said to Abram, "Now behold, the LORD has prevented me from bearing children. Please go in to my maid; perhaps I will obtain children through her." And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
The result:
Genesis 16:15So Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.
Galatians 4: **21Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. 23But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. 24This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants: one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. 25Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our mother.
Paul describes the situation that brought forth the law as *human effort, not the result of divine fulfilment of a promise. Just as Ishmael was a result of human effort trying to bring to pass the result of the promise of God to Abraham to make him a father of many nations, the Old Covenant came into being as a result of men trying to bring the result of God's promise, to make Abraham the father of the One who would be a blessing to the world, into fruition. Ishmael symbolizes slavery, imprisonment, obligation, no option to choose, no authority to act on the behalf of the family, whilst Isaac represents freedom, ability to choose to contribute to the completion of creation, with the authority of a son to represent the family.
So yes, the Old Covenant held instruction for proper living, but as a slave. The New Covenant holds instructions for proper living, as a son. If you choose to live as a slave, you are stating, with your action, that Christ's payment was of no value, it resulted in no freedom for the captives.
Why do you think God commanded Moses and the Israelites to do sacrifices when he didn't desire them?
God did not desire to give a contact to Israel perform the role of a slave, *but desired to adopt them as sons:
Jeremiah 7:22"For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23"But this is what I commanded them, saying, 'Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you will be My people; and you will walk in all the way which I command you, that it may be well with you.'…
He allowed them the lesser role, since they were afraid and uncertain about what sonship involved. However the possibility of a better situation always existed, conditional on belief that God was the initiator of the promised blessing.
1. God promised Abraham's seed would be a blessing to the world.
2. Those involved believed.
3. Those involved were blessed.
Not a hard lesson, conclusion, harvest:
Matthew 21:33“Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who PLANTED A VINEYARD AND PUT A WALL AROUND IT AND DUG A WINE PRESS IN IT, AND BUILT A TOWER, and rented it out to vine-growers and went on a journey. 34“When the harvest time approached, he sent his slaves to the vine-growers to receive his produce. 35“The vine-growers took his slaves and beat one, and killed another, and stoned a third. 36“Again he sent another group of slaves larger than the first; and they did the same thing to them. 37“But afterward he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38“But when the vine-growers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’ 39“They took him, and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40“Therefore when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?” 41They said to Him, “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.”
The Old Covenant was permitted and could give life, but it brought death instead, because sin seeing the opportunity, used it to bring death, through the sins that Sarah and Israel sinned, testing God. That was why God did not desire to give the old covenant, but was forced to, because of the lack of faith of Israel.
The law is holy, righteous, and good in accordance with God's standard of holiness, righteousness, and goodness. This is a standard that we should all aspire to align our lives with, not something that we need to or can be set free from. If God could just lower His standards, then Christ would not have needed to die. The fact that we can't live up what that standard requires through our own effort does highlight our inadequacy, but that's far from the only reason God made His standard known. A role of the Spirit is to cause us to be obedient to God, so God set us free from our sin nature's mastery over us and sent His Spirit to cause to be able to live up to that standard and meet its righteous requirement, not so that we could disregard it. What we needed to be set free from was not God's holy, righteous, and good standard, but the penalty for violating it.
The promise was made by God. Israel should have waited. But like Sarah, she did not have faith in God and forced the issue. God gave a stop gap solution, to give life, but it depended on Israel remembering God's *faithfulness and building on that experience to build up her own faith. ****
There is a huge difference between submitting to God's law because that it what He has called those who have been justified by faith to do and submitting to God's law in an effort to become justified in God's eyes through our own effort. God never gave His law for His people to become justified by keeping it, so that is a perversion of the law. You should not confuse criticism of a perversion of the law with with a criticism of God's holy, righteous, and good law.
The law was given to teach faith, show that not waiting for God led to disaster, that was the harvest from the vineyard. It was derivative, but uncertain. Sin saw the opportunity and used law to reinforce human presumption that God's promise was a sanction for human intervention.
Christ is not at all at odds with the Father, so He is not at odds with the law God has commanded. Having faith in Christ should lead us to submit to the law, just as Christ did.
And the law is to have faith in God, believe He will deliver on His promise:
Galatians 4:21Tell me, you who want to be under law, do you not listen to the law? 22For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. 23But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise.
Having faith is not simply saying that you trust someone, but it is demonstrating through your actions that you do, so having faith is demonstrated by obedience to the law. As James says, faith without works is useless. The holy, righteous, and good law unsurprisingly instructs how to have a holy conduct, how to practice righteousness, and how to do good works. Christ lived in perfect accordance with the law and taught how to follow it both in word and by example, so faith in Christ is in perfect accordance with the law.
The law is to believe God will deliver on His promise.
You don't think it is relevant to look at what this verse is quoting from?
Deuteronomy 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
They are saying that Gentiles are now included as part of God's chosen people and what God once said the Israelites now applies to them.
Deuteronomy 7:6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
They are saying that Gentiles are now included as part of God's chosen people and what God once said the Israelites now applies to them.
And the law is now applied to them: believe God will deliver on His promise. Once they had no formal covenant, promise from God, no hope, now they had that hope. All they had to do was believe God and wait, not take pre emptive action.
Again, Christ lived in perfect accordance with the law and he is not at odds with the Father, so obedience to Christ is in perfect accordance with the law that God has commanded. Sanctifying us to be more like Christ in how he thought and in his obedience to God is likewise in perfect accordance with obedience to God's law.
Christ did not take pre emptive action:
John 5:30"I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
Other verses that to do explain how to have a holy conduct do not exclude the law's instructions for it, but rather are in perfect accordance with it.
Holy conduct is put to death the deeds of the body, pre emptive action.
If our freedom in Christ means that we have freedom from the instructions of law in regard to sin, then we have the freedom to sin and to do what is evil, but this verse is saying that we should not understand our freedom in Christ to mean that. Rather, we are set free from sin to become bondslaves of God, which means obediently following His commands.
Which is: see above.
All of those acts list in Galatians 5:19-23 are found in the law. The law identifies breaking the dietary laws as a sin, so I see no good reason to exclude it from Galatians 6:1. The lists in Galatians 5:19-23 are not exhaustive.
If you eat unclean animals because that is what you want to do in defiance of God, then that's just as much a selfish act as anything else. Jesus gave no indication that he thought some laws were unimportant, but rather in Matthew 5:17-19, he said that not the least commandment would disappear from the law and warned against those who would teach to relax them, which includes the dietary laws. He spoke about what he thought was most relevant to his Jewish audiences and apparently he didn't think they needed to be exhorted to keep the dietary laws, probably because they were already doing that.
Correct, sorry, that was a typo. This is exactly the problem with people considering God's law to be a heavy burden, when it is actually instructions for proper living.
I'm in agreement. There's just such huge disconnect between how the Jews view the law as a delight, such as in Psalms 119, or with them frequently giving thanks to God for giving them His Torah as instructions for life and with Christians who view the law as a heavy burden. I've become convinced that in this the Jews have the right idea and that it is absurd to think that they would have referred to God's holy, righteous, and good law as a heavy burden in Acts 15. Through the leading of the Spirit, it is a delight to keep the law and to exceed what it requires, and we are set free from keeping the law legalistically.
God's holy, righteous, and good standard exists independently of any contract to obey it and the law is as you said, "instructions for proper living". We can't become justified by following instructions for proper living, but it was never given for that purpose, and it is nevertheless still good to live properly. Does it really make sense to you that Jesus is at odds with the Father and following God's instructions for living properly makes Christ of no value? Of course not, what was making Christ of no value to someone was not obedience to God, but rather it was seeking justification in any way other than faith in Christ. Christ died to set us free from our sin nature and sent the Holy Spirit to enable all to enable us to practice righteousness in accordance with the righteous requirement of God's law, so it is disregarding God's law that is the insult to Christ. It's amazing what Christ has done for us in that we get to not sin, but people want to ignore what the law says about what sin is.
Someone who kept the law almost perfectly and only sinned once would still have lived their life properly, they just would not be justified by doing so.
The law does point to our need for the Messiah and the prophets do help to identify him, but that does not exclude other that it was given to instruct how to live properly.
And we are apart of Israel, God's chosen people, and a holy nation by faith. A holy nation is also one that is set apart from the pagan nations, or in other words, we are to be in the world, but not of the world.
Faith is what differentiates God's people from other nations.
I am a vegan, so I would likely find that an enjoyable experience.
That was a general example.
Sarah learned it was blessed to believe in God. She bore good fruit, through God's permission to let her have her way. Israel never bore good fruit from the vineyard. But she will, when the required number of Gentiles are *gathered in.
Indeed, God making His holy, righteous, and good standard known does reveal our transgressions, but it is nevertheless something that we should aspire to through the leading of the Spirit.
More and more Christians are gaining a deeper understanding of the Bible and are being blessed by coming into a fuller obedience to God. Many Jews are also coming to see the truth that Jesus is their Messiah. We've also recently helped to host a annual March of Remembrance at our State Capital. I'm not trying say we're better or worse than other churches, but we try do our part.
Living water is cleansing water, cleansing from preemptive action. Preemptive action is such a subtle sin. However the results are disastrous.
Comment