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  • #31
    Originally posted by Adrift View Post
    I agree its theological error, but I don't know if this is something that can be so easily rectified by simply pointing to good scholars. I'm curious, too, what sort of academic backing Soyeong's position may have, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that some scholar some place presents a view that gives some credence to his Pastor/Rabbi's interpretation. Hopefully I'm wrong though. Hopefully it can be rectified by pointing to the correct scholars, or pointing to a consensus opinion on the subject, or the reasonableness of the view that you and I hold.
    Amen. Unfortunately you might be correct that pointing to various scholars with sound doctrine will not be a sufficient remedy - especially if he chooses not to pursue the recommendation(s). The false teachers and false teachings which he adheres to sees the Church, and the vast majority of Christian's, as being in the throes of lawlessness, which they define as Torah-less-ness; and of course behind that they believe this is the working of Satan or the man of lawlessness. The teachings share a resemblance with various sects such as SDA and Herbert W. Armstrong's World Wide Church of God, but I tend to see them as repeating a variant of the Galatian heresy - which is a big deal - and another gospel.

    My hope for Soy and others blinded by deception is that they will come to see that Jesus and His Apostles are the law givers of the New Covenant, not Moses.

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by Adrift View Post
      Hopefully it can be rectified by pointing to the correct scholars, or pointing to a consensus opinion on the subject, or the reasonableness of the view that you and I hold.
      There is, of course, the solution of anathema.

      Comment


      • #33
        Oh and these HR sects/cults also teach that we must walk as Jesus walked (1John 2:6), meaning live a Torah-observant life. These sects also call for an absolute reformation, by which they essentially mean the church must return to Judaism and Torah keeping. Rabbi Stan Farr has written a brief article on this here:

        http://rabbiyeshua.com/index.php/ite...te-reformation

        I'm sure these false teachers and their followers have admirable intentions (I hope!), but they fail to realize that their efforts to reform the church and right the wrongs of history often amount to little more than Judaizing the bride of Christ.

        Comment


        • #34
          I'll inquire as to his educational background, but you're just coming off as a snob. Of course there are Messianic scholars and my rabbi cites them as well as other scholars. Even N. T. Wright has come out with a new perspective on Paul that doesn't frame him as being anti-Torah. I don't think he goes far enough, but more an more scholars are starting to realize the importance of understanding the Jewish cultural context has in correctly understanding the Bible. We have long centuries of anti-Semitism in the Church that has tried to sanitize Christianity from its Jewish core. It's not a return to Judaism so much as it is the realization that Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, not a separate religion.

          It seems like there just such a big disconnect between Jews, who frequently give thanks to God for giving them His Torah to teach them about the right way to live (just read Psalms 119) and with Christians, who consider those instructions to be a heavy burden. Examining the Jewish cultural context has opened my eyes to the fact that most Christians have missed the boat. God is holy, righteous, and good, and has given a law that is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12) in accordance with His standard by which He will judge the world (Romans 3:19-20). God never gave the law to Moses and the Israelites because He thought they could use a heavy burden, but because He wanted to teach them about His righteous standard and about how to live rightly.

          The law was always meant to be kept by faith in a way that built a relationship between God and His people and God has always disdained outward shows of obedience to the law while their hearts were far from Him (Isaiah 1:13-17, Mark 7:6-9). Obedience to the law should be done because we love and trust God and want to express that by submitting to His will, not because we want to earn favor with God. Righteousness, or the right way to live, is by living in a loving and dependent relationship with God. The problem with the Israelites was that they were trying to earn favor with God or to live righteously by outward obedience to the law and were missing that living righteously is all about the relationship with God.

          Does what I said in the above two paragraphs make sense to you? Are you willing to try to reexamine the Bible through that lens to see if it makes more sense?

          So by making the law about outward obedience rather than a relationship, they were perverting it into legalism. By the time of Jesus there were many, many man-made traditions (Mark 7:3-4) for what the Pharisees saw is the right way to follow the law, but Jesus criticized them for being concerned about outward obedience while their hearts were far from God and for setting aside the commands of God in order to establish their own traditions. God is not at odds with Himself and Jesus did nothing apart from God's will, so Jesus was not at odds with the holy, righteous, and good law that God gave to Moses, but he was at odds with the perverted legalistic way that they were keeping the law. He came in part to fulfill the law by showing in word and by action the right way that it should be kept.

          So we have no need to be set free from a law that tells us how to live rightly before God, or to be set free from imitating the perfect obedience to God that Christ demonstrated (1 Corinthians 11:1), but there are aspects that are negative when the law comes into contact with our sin nature. The reason why reverse psychology works is that there is just something in us that wants to rebel against being told what to do, so by instructing us how to live rightly, it increased our sin. Our sin also leads us to pervert God's laws and fall into legalism. Lastly, the law condemns us to death for breaking it. So it is these things and our sin nature's mastery over us that held us captive and that Christ set us free from (Romans 7:6), not the instructions for how to live rightly. The opposite of living rightly is sin, and Christians are not set free to sin, but rather we are set free so that we can become slaves of obedience (Romans 6:15-16).
          Last edited by Soyeong; 04-17-2015, 11:46 PM.
          "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it." - Edward Feser

          Comment


          • #35
            I just want to make sure we're all on the same page Soyeong. Does your current Rabbi teach that it is willful disobedience to God's law for a Gentile convert to Christianity to knowingly eat pork, to break the Sabbath, and to not get circumcised? If I became a member of your congregation, signed a statement of faith, and later that day ate a BLT, would I be sinning?

            Comment


            • #36
              I don't see how a recommendation can be made for continued observance of Torah when it is seen that Scripture teaches it was impossible to do so.

              Forgiveness, justification, acceptance as those who were loyal to God, had not bowed their knee to Baal, was given to those who had come to this realization, as seen in the parable of who was justified, forgiven, in the account of the Publican and the Pharisee, who both came to the Temple.

              Why was the Pharisee found unclean, unacceptable, not kosher, not IN, not fit to be justified, forgiven, not allowed to remain in the assembly of the saints?

              Because he had substituted full observance of Torah, necessary to bring him to realisation of his inadequacy, with notional observance, just enough to comply with the norms set by the Sanhedrin, the magisterial institution set up to decide what was required to keep you clean, acceptable in the camp, the assembly of God's People, called out from the world. This magisterium had substituted tradition for Torah, in some instances with rulings that went against the spirit of the law, allowing Jews to withhold support from their parents, by claiming their monies had gone for a higher cause, kurban, supporting the Temple.

              Why was the Publican given justification, forgiveness, found to be IN the group known as God's People. The reason is not as clear, not stated directly. The purpose of Torah was to bring to realization of inadequacy, and maybe it took just a few laws to make him realise he couldn't be compliant. (Everybody has a different threshold, to break down, and come to the realisation that our body of death, which even Adam possessed, will not allow turning from selfishness, serving mammon and his goals, to unselfishness, serving God and His ideals, as seen in the case of the rich young ruler. When asking him to obey Torah did not reveal his inadequacy, his sin, Christ went beyond Torah, to ask for a further requirement, to reveal that the sin of worshipping Baal, being selfish, caring for self, rather than working to care for his fellowman, by following God was present in the young man).

              Was the Publican working to care for his fellow man by following God? Sure he was. If a sovereign Lord requires input from his vassals in His war against the enemy, then a show of loyalty is enough, in the kingdom of God, to help in the war against the enemy. Did Joshua and Caleb contribute to victory over God's enemies by their personal might or power? No. It was God doing all the fighting. Did the loyalty of Joshua and Caleb contribute to the victory over God's enemies? Sure. Rahab saw what loyalty to God resulted in, and she was won over to God's side. God's victory is first and foremost described in terms of gathering in His sheep.

              In the Old Administration, the believer's contribution is limited to loyalty, limited as they were by the body of death. In the New Administration, thanks be to Christ, we can put to death that body of death, by the Holy Spirit, and contribute more, share in what remains in Christ's work, through being in Christ.

              Wright rightly recognizes that Second Temple Judaism did not depend on "works righteousness" to "save" a person. Works did not get a person "in". Works indicated that a person was "in", had retained that state of acceptability, was being "clean", not defiled. He also recognized it as a fault: not the attempt to "earn" salvation, but the holding in high esteem of the favoured nation status of Israel, amounting to idolatry.

              http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Creation_Covenant.htm

              Quote
              The same is true, and this brings us to another usage of the same word sarx, for Paul’s account of what is wrong within the covenant. Put simply, his point, repeated from several angles and in varying degrees of intensity, is that Israel too is in Adam: the people who bear the solution are themselves part of the problem, and the good and holy Torah (to its own surprise, one might almost say) simply intensifies this problem, partly by pointing at sin within Israel, and partly, at a second level, by apparently encouraging Israel to make it an idol, to use it as a way of establishing an inalienable status of national privilege. This is what Paul can refer to as Israel according to the flesh. This point needs spelling out more fully, but not here.


              Christ disabuses Israel of this wrong understanding:

              Matthew 15:11"It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man."

              As does Paul:

              Romans 2:26So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

              It is not observance of food laws or circumcision, following the letter of the law, that makes a person clean, it is following the spirit of the law which does: specifically, speaking good, edifying words, living unselfish lives.

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Soyeong View Post
                I'll inquire as to his educational background, but you're just coming off as a snob. Of course there are Messianic scholars and my rabbi cites them as well as other scholars. Even N. T. Wright has come out with a new perspective on Paul that doesn't frame him as being anti-Torah. I don't think he goes far enough, but more an more scholars are starting to realize the importance of understanding the Jewish cultural context has in correctly understanding the Bible. We have long centuries of anti-Semitism in the Church that has tried to sanitize Christianity from its Jewish core. It's not a return to Judaism so much as it is the realization that Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, not a separate religion.

                It seems like there just such a big disconnect between Jews, who frequently give thanks to God for giving them His Torah to teach them about the right way to live (just read Psalms 119) and with Christians, who consider those instructions to be a heavy burden. Examining the Jewish cultural context has opened my eyes to the fact that most Christians have missed the boat. God is holy, righteous, and good, and has given a law that is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12) in accordance with His standard by which He will judge the world (Romans 3:19-20). God never gave the law to Moses and the Israelites because He thought they could use a heavy burden, but because He wanted to teach them about His righteous standard and about how to live rightly.

                The law was always meant to be kept by faith in a way that built a relationship between God and His people and God has always disdained outward shows of obedience to the law while their hearts were far from Him (Isaiah 1:13-17, Mark 7:6-9). Obedience to the law should be done because we love and trust God and want to express that by submitting to His will, not because we want to earn favor with God. Righteousness, or the right way to live, is by living in a loving and dependent relationship with God. The problem with the Israelites was that they were trying to earn favor with God or to live righteously by outward obedience to the law and were missing that living righteously is all about the relationship with God.

                Does what I said in the above two paragraphs make sense to you? Are you willing to try to reexamine the Bible through that lens to see if it makes more sense?

                So by making the law about outward obedience rather than a relationship, they were perverting it into legalism. By the time of Jesus there were many, many man-made traditions (Mark 7:3-4) for what the Pharisees saw is the right way to follow the law, but Jesus criticized them for being concerned about outward obedience while their hearts were far from God and for setting aside the commands of God in order to establish their own traditions. God is not at odds with Himself and Jesus did nothing apart from God's will, so Jesus was not at odds with the holy, righteous, and good law that God gave to Moses, but he was at odds with the perverted legalistic way that they were keeping the law. He came in part to fulfill the law by showing in word and by action the right way that it should be kept.

                So we have no need to be set free from a law that tells us how to live rightly before God, or to be set free from imitating the perfect obedience to God that Christ demonstrated (1 Corinthians 11:1), but there are aspects that are negative when the law comes into contact with our sin nature. The reason why reverse psychology works is that there is just something in us that wants to rebel against being told what to do, so by instructing us how to live rightly, it increased our sin. Our sin also leads us to pervert God's laws and fall into legalism. Lastly, the law condemns us to death for breaking it. So it is these things and our sin nature's mastery over us that held us captive and that Christ set us free from (Romans 7:6), not the instructions for how to live rightly. The opposite of living rightly is sin, and Christians are not set free to sin, but rather we are set free so that we can become slaves of obedience (Romans 6:15-16).
                I look forward to hearing about his qualifications.

                PS: Once again, no one has ever argued that Paul is "anti-Torah", nor has anyone argued that Jesus abolished the law and instituted antinomianism. Moreover, I have absolutely no issue with studying the Jewish roots of Christianity. After all, "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4:22), and I have love for the Jewish people and with Paul I can say, "my heart's desire and prayer is to see them saved" (Rom. 10:1).

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Scrawly
                  I look forward to hearing about his qualifications.
                  I sent him an e-mail, but I didn't get a chance to talk with him one on one today. In any case, I'm far more concerned with whether what he says is true than what his qualifications happen to be. Regardless of whether a teacher has a Seminary degree or no formal training, we should always check what they say. Did you have any comments on the lessons that you listened to?
                  "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it." - Edward Feser

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Adrift View Post
                    I just want to make sure we're all on the same page Soyeong. Does your current Rabbi teach that it is willful disobedience to God's law for a Gentile convert to Christianity to knowingly eat pork, to break the Sabbath, and to not get circumcised? If I became a member of your congregation, signed a statement of faith, and later that day ate a BLT, would I be sinning?
                    My rabbi is a big believer that it's the Holy Spirit's job to convict people about whether they should obey the law, not ours. He also thinks that we should try not to club people with the truth. If you think God's law does not apply to you, then eating pork and breaking the Sabbath are not acts of willful disobedience, but if you are wrong about thinking that God's law doesn't apply to you, then it nevertheless is disobedience.

                    From our statement of faith: https://www.rabbiyeshua.com/newcomer...10-29-21-01-07

                    "We believe that through His guidance we become part of a New Covenant, no longer needing a man to teach us how to live lives that satisfy the standards of God’s Torah but the Holy Spirit will lead us into living lives that rise above the minimum standards set forth in Torah. This guidance supersedes Mishnah, Talmud and Church dogma or any of man’s legalism but in no way nullifies God’s Eternal Torah or any other part of the Bible as it is God’s infallible word and our final authority."

                    If you agreed to that that the Holy Spirit will lead us into living lives that rise above the law and away from what it says is sin, then eating a BLT would qualify as sin. I think if you look at the fact that in 1 Peter Jews and Gentiles are told that we are a holy nation, that we should have a holy conduct, that we are to "be holy, for God is holy", and you look at what it means in the Bible to be a holy nation, have a holy conduct, and where the author is quoting from, then it becomes pretty clear that refraining from defiling ourselves with eating unclean animals is part of it.

                    Romans 14 is often misunderstood because people miss that the context is about conflict between disputable matters of opinion rather than about whether we should obey the commands of God. For instance, if you were eating at a community meal and you didn't know for sure whether any of the meat had be sacrificed to idols before it had been sold on the market, then you might be of the opinion that all of the meat is unclean and eat only vegetables (14:2). You might look down on those who were of the opinion that all of the meat was fine to eat, and in turn be disdained by them (14:3). In any case, Paul has no authority to countermand the commands of God, so if Paul disagrees with what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-19, then throw out Paul, but I don't think it needs to come to that when taking a closer look at the context will do.

                    Galatians 1:1 Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers and sisters[a] with me,

                    Paul is an apostle or a "sent one" of both Jesus and the Father, so what he says will not go against what Jesus said or what the Father has commanded.
                    ------

                    In regard to circumcision, the OT only tells Gentiles to become circumcised in two places, neither of which requires all Gentiles to become circumcised, the the requirement for all Gentiles to become circumcised is a law of the Jews, not a law of God. By overruling the law of the Jews in Acts 15, they were ruling against a man-made law and upholding the law of God. Paul makes the issue of circumcision perfectly clear here:

                    1 Corinthians 7:17-19 Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 18 Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts.
                    "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it." - Edward Feser

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by footwasher
                      I don't see how a recommendation can be made for continued observance of Torah when it is seen that Scripture teaches it was impossible to do so.
                      The purposes God had in giving the law were, among others, to teach us about a holy, righteous, and good God, to teach us how to live according to His holy, righteous, and good standard, to point out how far short we fall of that standard, to provide a temporary remedy for transgressing that standard, and to point to our need for one who can provide a permanent remedy. While it's true that we have all sinned fallen short, the law was not given just to point that out:

                      Deuteronomy 6:25 And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”

                      In other words, he is saying that we will live rightly if we obey God's commands. If we have all sinned, then none of us have been justified by living rightly, which means that like Abraham and David (Romans 4:1-8), if Moses and any of the Israelites were justified, they were justified by faith before the law was given to them. So the law was not given to them so that they could become justified by keeping it, but so those who were declared righteous would know how to practice righteousness.

                      Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

                      Paul could have equivalently said we are declared righteous by grace through faith, not by practicing righteousness, but we are created in Christ for the purpose of practicing righteousness.

                      1 John 3:10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.

                      Again, those who abide in Christ and are children of God are called to practice righteousness, so following the law is not about what we need to do to become justified, but about how Christians should behave after we are justified, as we go through the process of being sanctified and being made to be like Christ in how he thought and in how he obeyed God.

                      Why was the Pharisee found unclean, unacceptable, not kosher, not IN, not fit to be justified, forgiven, not allowed to remain in the assembly of the saints?

                      Because he had substituted full observance of Torah, necessary to bring him to realisation of his inadequacy, with notional observance, just enough to comply with the norms set by the Sanhedrin, the magisterial institution set up to decide what was required to keep you clean, acceptable in the camp, the assembly of God's People, called out from the world. This magisterium had substituted tradition for Torah, in some instances with rulings that went against the spirit of the law, allowing Jews to withhold support from their parents, by claiming their monies had gone for a higher cause, kurban, supporting the Temple.
                      Because of our sin nature, we have the tendency to pervert the law into legalism as the Pharisees had done. Obedience to the law is meant to be a demonstration of our faith and love to God, not something we do to legalistically earn favor with God. Love gives freely and joyfully, but love that is given in exchange for something is a perversion that is not really love at all. The problem with the Pharisees is that they we concerned with outward obedience while their hearts were far from God.

                      Why was the Publican given justification, forgiveness, found to be IN the group known as God's People.
                      I think his problem was that we can not serve two masters and his money was his master.

                      Wright rightly recognizes that Second Temple Judaism did not depend on "works righteousness" to "save" a person. Works did not get a person "in". Works indicated that a person was "in", had retained that state of acceptability, was being "clean", not defiled. He also recognized it as a fault: not the attempt to "earn" salvation, but the holding in high esteem of the favoured nation status of Israel, amounting to idolatry.
                      Romans 9:30-32 What shall we say, then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it, that is, a righteousness that is by faith; 31 but that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness[d] did not succeed in reaching that law. 32 Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,

                      The problem was not that Israel pursued the law, but that they pursued it in the wrong way. They pursued the law legalistically, rather than by faith as the Gentiles did.

                      Quote
                      The same is true, and this brings us to another usage of the same word sarx, for Paul’s account of what is wrong within the covenant. Put simply, his point, repeated from several angles and in varying degrees of intensity, is that Israel too is in Adam: the people who bear the solution are themselves part of the problem, and the good and holy Torah (to its own surprise, one might almost say) simply intensifies this problem, partly by pointing at sin within Israel, and partly, at a second level, by apparently encouraging Israel to make it an idol, to use it as a way of establishing an inalienable status of national privilege. This is what Paul can refer to as Israel according to the flesh. This point needs spelling out more fully, but not here.
                      Agreed.

                      Matthew 15:11"It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man."
                      Matthew 15:20 These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

                      Matthew 15 is entirely a discussion about ritual and moral purity. The Pharisees were saying if you ate normally kosher bread with unwashed hands, then it would become ritually unclean and verse 20 shows that the topic never switched from that. Jesus was making the point that their concern for ritual purity was not balanced by their concern for moral purity, not making a comment about dietary laws. In fact, it would have been extremely hypocritical if Jesus was setting aside the commands of God because he had just finished criticizing the Pharisees for doing that. Furthermore, if Jesus had been teaching not to follow the commands of God, then he would have been in violation of Deuteronomy 13 and disqualified himself as being the Messiah.

                      Romans 2:26So, if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
                      That passage is Romans 2 is saying that what matters is having a circumcised heart and both Jews and Gentiles are recognized as having that by their obedience to the law.

                      It is not observance of food laws or circumcision, following the letter of the law, that makes a person clean, it is following the spirit of the law which does: specifically, speaking good, edifying words, living unselfish lives.
                      I'm not saying that we should legalistically follow the letter of the law, but that we should follow the law by faith and by the leading of the Spirit. The law is spiritual and the Spirit is not at odds with the law that God gave, but rather it works to help us to obey the law.

                      Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.

                      Ezekiel 36:27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

                      Galatians 5:19-23 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy,[d] drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

                      All the things that Paul is talking about here are straight from the law.
                      Last edited by Soyeong; 04-19-2015, 12:03 AM.
                      "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it." - Edward Feser

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        That was a lot of words when all I wanted to know was the following:

                        Originally posted by Soyeong View Post
                        eating a BLT would qualify as sin.
                        if Paul disagrees with what Jesus said in Matthew 5:17-19, then throw out Paul, but I don't think it needs to come to that when taking a closer look at the context will do.
                        I think there's a better way of solving the false dilemma between Paul's teaching on the Law (that it was our schoolmaster/guardian till Christ came) and Jesus' statement in Matthew 5:17-19. I believe that Jesus (as he pointed out) is the fulfillment of the Law for those who believe in him, and what that means is that we are no longer bound to the letter of the Law, because Jesus did all of the heavy lifting for us. The heart of the Law, the non-ceremonial/judicial moral core, is still applicable. I do believe, though, the full brunt of the Mosaic Law is still in effect, and that those NOT in Christ will be judged (and ultimately condemned) by it. Only one man has been able to successfully live up to the demands of the Law, and he sacrificed his life knowing that it would be impossible for us to do the same. It is only through him that there is now no longer any condemnation.

                        In regard to circumcision, the OT only tells Gentiles to become circumcised in two places, neither of which requires all Gentiles to become circumcised, the the requirement for all Gentiles to become circumcised is a law of the Jews, not a law of God. By overruling the law of the Jews in Acts 15, they were ruling against a man-made law and upholding the law of God. Paul makes the issue of circumcision perfectly clear here:

                        1 Corinthians 7:17-19 Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. 18 Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts.
                        So, eating pork and breaking the Sabbath is out...circumcision, however, gets a pass. Interesting.

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Adrift View Post

                          So, eating pork and breaking the Sabbath is out...circumcision, however, gets a pass. Interesting.
                          Only because he conveniently focuses only on the Mosaic Covenant.

                          And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

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                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Adrift
                            That was a lot of words when all I wanted to know was the following:
                            So, eating pork and breaking the Sabbath is out...circumcision, however, gets a pass. Interesting.
                            Sorry, I needed to make the point that the Sabbath and dietary laws are in accordance with the law, while requiring all Gentiles to become circumcised was not in a way that didn't appear arbitrary. The requirement for all Gentiles to become circumcised can't be found anywhere in the OT. I think that just emphasises the point that what is being talked about in the first part of Acts 15 is specifically in regard to man-made oral laws.

                            I think there's a better way of solving the false dilemma between Paul's teaching on the Law (that it was our schoolmaster/guardian till Christ came)
                            "If your father were king and you were a young child destined to rule one day, he would get a tutor to train you and teach you what you would need to know to rule the kingdom when your time came. He would give the tutor authority to teach, discipline, and punish you.

                            When your time came, would you immediately shoot your tutor, reject everything he had ever taught you, and then have the audacity to proclaim your actions to be in accordance with the wishes, desires, and intentions of your father the king? The tutor is not the king. He is given by the king to train those who will one day rule. They must be trained so that they can properly make decisions and act in the liberty, freedom, responsibility, and position they will one day have.

                            The tutor is there so that you might take his lessons to heart, so that they might become a natural part of your thought processes. You are to rule according to what you have learned, even though the tutor no longer has authority to control or punish you. You will not need to be controlled from then outside, because you will have accepted what you have been taught. You will be controlled from within your heart. It will be your second nature."

                            Jesus' statement in Matthew 5:17-19. I believe that Jesus (as he pointed out) is the fulfillment of the Law for those who believe in him, and what that means is that we are no longer bound to the letter of the Law, because Jesus did all of the heavy lifting for us.
                            Every Sabbath, a rabbi in a synagogue would stand up and take a scroll to Moses's Seat, where they would fulfill the Law and the Prophets by interpreting and explaining how they should be understood. This was precisely what Jesus was doing in Luke 4:14-21. So fulfilling the law was a rabbinic term that referred to interpreting the law in a way that added meaning to it, filled it up with meaning, or brought full understanding to it, which is also what Jesus proceeded to in Matthew 5:21-48. Fulfilling the law also referred to taking actions that show that you correctly understand how to follow the law, so by keeping the law perfectly, Jesus taught by example how we should correctly understand to obey the law.

                            So fulfilling the law was not at all a once and for all thing. Jesus used "fulfill" in contrast with "abolish", so it should not be interpreted to mean the same thing in regard to abolishing part of the law for those who believe in him. Those would would teach to relax the smallest part of the law still come under Jesus' warning in Matthew 5:17-19. Furthermore, Jesus fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, so it shouldn't be interpreted to mean that Jesus abolished the Prophets.

                            The heart of the Law, the non-ceremonial/judicial moral core, is still applicable. I do believe, though, the full brunt of the Mosaic Law is still in effect, and that those NOT in Christ will be judged (and ultimately condemned) by it. Only one man has been able to successfully live up to the demands of the Law, and he sacrificed his life knowing that it would be impossible for us to do the same. It is only through him that there is now no longer any condemnation.
                            I'm not saying you said this, but if moral laws are on in regard to man's relationship with man and not man's relationship with God, then the first four of the Ten Commandments are not moral laws, including the law against idolatry. However, if moral laws are in regard to man's relationship to God, then all of God's laws are moral laws. I don't see where Paul or anyone else in the Bible made any distinction between moral and nonmoral laws.

                            Romans 8:1 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,

                            Romans 8:7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.

                            I am in full agreement with Romans 8:1, but I am also in full agreement with 8:7. I don't see it how it follows that unbelievers need to submit to God's law and then once they become a believe they don't have to bother with submitting to part of it.
                            "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it." - Edward Feser

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Paprika View Post
                              Only because he conveniently focuses only on the Mosaic Covenant.

                              And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
                              That is one of the two places that the law requires Gentiles to become circumcised. The other place in in Exodus 12:48. So Gentiles only had to become circumcised if they were part of Abraham's household or if they wanted to eat of the Passover lamb, neither of which applies to all Gentiles everywhere. The Bible also does not list a process for how a Gentile is to become a Jewish proselyte and there was some disagreement within Judaism about whether a proper proselyte needed to be circumcised, immersed, or both. So that process and requiring Gentiles to go through it is all about man-made laws.
                              "Faith is nothing less than the will to keep one's mind fixed precisely on what reason has discovered to it." - Edward Feser

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                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Soyeong View Post
                                That is one of the two places that the law requires Gentiles to become circumcised. The other place in in Exodus 12:48. So Gentiles only had to become circumcised if they were part of Abraham's household
                                Christians are grafted into Abraham's family.

                                or if they wanted to eat of the Passover lamb, neither of which applies to all Gentiles everywhere.
                                The Law commands the celebration of the Passover. So if Gentile Christians are supposed to obey the Law they have to be circumcised to do so.

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