Originally posted by Soyeong
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While this area is for the discussion of these doctrines within historic Christianity, all theists interested in discussing these areas within the presuppositions of and respect for the Christian framework are welcome to participate here. This is not the area for debate between nontheists and theists, additionally, there may be some topics that within the Moderator's discretion fall so outside the bounds of mainstream evangelical doctrine that may be more appropriately placed within Comparative Religions 101 Nontheists seeking only theistic participation only in a manner that does not seek to undermine the faith of others are also welcome - but we ask that Moderator approval be obtained beforehand.
Atheists are welcome to discuss and debate these issues in the Apologetics 301 or General Theistics 101 forum without such restrictions. Theists who wish to discuss these issues outside the parameters of orthodox Christian doctrine are invited to Unorthodox Theology 201.
Remember, our forum rules apply here as well. If you haven't read them now would be a good time.
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In the original post Romans 2 was mentioned:
In Romans 2:13, Paul said only the doers of the Law will be justified. In Romans 2:26, the way to recognize that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to God's Law, which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 10:12-16).
The mention of "doers of the law" represents the problem of those who claim to hold to the law but actually aren't doing the law. This phrase seems to be used as a complaint against the Jewish claim that they had the law -- but the issue with this is whether they were truly doing the law. The Gentiles were without the law -- so the Gentiles were described by contrast to the Jews here.
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Originally posted by Chrawnus View PostYou're operating under the mistaken assumption that every law in the old covenant was given for moral reasons, or to reflect the moral law.
While it is good to correctly understand whom the Law was given to, it is not good to focus on that so much that you lose sight of whom it was given by. God's laws were not arbitrarily given, but rather they were given to teach us about who God is and how to walk in His ways in accordance with His nature (Deuteronomy 10:12-13). The Bible often uses the same terms to describe the character of God as it does to describe the character of God's Law, which is because it is God's instructions for how to express His character traits, such as with it being holy, righteous, and god (Romans 7:12), or with justice, mercy, and faithfulness being weightier matters of the Law (Matthew 23:23). Jesus expressed these character traits and other fruits of the Spirit through his actions and what that looked like was complete obedience to the Mosaic Law, so that is what it should look like when we are meeting our moral obligation to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:6). By expressing God's character traits through our actions in obedience to God's, we are acting as a light to the world, we are making God known to the world by testifying to the world about who God is, and we are expressing our love for who God is (Deuteronomy 4:5-8, Matthew 5:13-16). The nature of God is the essence of morality."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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Originally posted by mikewhitney View PostAnother verse that is help is again in Romans
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Paul's argument was to show that the Law of Moses, having been given to Jews under the Mosaic covenant, were the ones to whom the Law applied. Gentiles in Christ were never brought into the Mosaic covenant. As for Jews, note what Chrawnus mentioned.
In 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked, and he walked in complete obedience to the Mosaic Law. There's not much sense in Gentile wanting to have unity with Christ while not wanting nothing to do with who he is. Following Christ is not just for Jews, but for Gentiles too, but we can't follow him by refusing to follow the Law that he followed and taught us how to follow by word and by example. I have not been suggesting that we should be under the Mosaic Covenant, but rather I have been speaking about how we should live under the New Covenant, which does not involve refusing to follow what Christ taught.
You are reading ideas into Paul rather than reading what Paul is saying. Maybe the post I did just before this one will fill in some details for you.
Romans has been a tough letter to understand. So the mistaken interpretations are not a surprise.
The mention of "doers of the law" represents the problem of those who claim to hold to the law but actually aren't doing the law. This phrase seems to be used as a complaint against the Jewish claim that they had the law -- but the issue with this is whether they were truly doing the law. The Gentiles were without the law -- so the Gentiles were described by contrast to the Jews here."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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Soyeong,
You are right that Jesus showed complete obedience to the Mosaic Law. Jesus fulfilled the Law so that any obligation to the law would be taken care of through Jesus. This made the situation great for us since there was left no residual legal obligation upon those who follow Christ.
Rom 4:15 shows that the law brought wrath. I'm not sure why someone would be welcoming wrath upon himself after coming to Christ.
This does not mean that you would have to seek out to do all immorality. Why would someone become a Christian, with inherent desire to please God, and then seek to do all sort of bad things? (Well. Some have done this. But few theologians or pastors have sought to give doctrinal support to such behavior.)
A Christian is made righteous through Christ. The law is written for those who are unrighteous. So, the taking on of the letter of the law is to say that one is not accepting the fulfillment of the law through Christ.
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Originally posted by Soyeong View PostWhy would the whole world become guilty before God if they were not obligated to obey His Law? God judged the world with the Flood because of their sin and Hee judged Sodom and Gomorrah because their Lawless deeds (2 Peter 2:6-8) even though they weren't in a covenant relationship with Him, so again what grounds did God have to judge them by if they were not obligated to obey His Law?
In 1 John 2:6, those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked, and he walked in complete obedience to the Mosaic Law. There's not much sense in Gentile wanting to have unity with Christ while not wanting nothing to do with who he is. Following Christ is not just for Jews, but for Gentiles too, but we can't follow him by refusing to follow the Law that he followed and taught us how to follow by word and by example. I have not been suggesting that we should be under the Mosaic Covenant, but rather I have been speaking about how we should live under the New Covenant, which does not involve refusing to follow what Christ taught.
The Law works through the flesh. If you wish also to work in the flesh, seek to obey the letter of the Law.
Do you agree that Paul said in Romans 3:31 that our faith does not abolish God's Law, but rather our faith upholds it? And does you faith uphold God's Law? If so, then why do you interpret Paul as though he was seeking to abolish the Law rather than uphold it?
Paul is telling the audience that their faith resulted through the promise of scripture. Jesus fulfilled scripture. Paul was contesting the those who mocked the law. He was not saying do the law.
Having the Law referred to having physical possession of a Torah scroll. If Gentiles wanted access to God's Law, then they had to go through the Jews to do so, but if you own a copy of the Bible, then you also have the Law. In Romans 2:14, Gentile believers will by nature do what the Law requires, so I agree that Gentiles who were obeying the Law were being contrasted with Jews who were not, though it is the same for both Jews and Gentiles that only the doers of the Law will be justified. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law, so everyone who has faith in God to guide us will obey His Law and will be justified by that same faith, which is why only doers of the Law will be justified and why faith without works is dead.
Where are you getting your doctrines about this return to the law? Do you have certain teachers you are following?
You seem inclined to interpret scripture around this paradigm of Christian obligation to the Old Covenant.
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Originally posted by mikewhitney View PostSoyeong,
You are right that Jesus showed complete obedience to the Mosaic Law. Jesus fulfilled the Law so that any obligation to the law would be taken care of through Jesus. This made the situation great for us since there was left no residual legal obligation upon those who follow Christ.
Rom 4:15 shows that the law brought wrath. I'm not sure why someone would be welcoming wrath upon himself after coming to Christ.
This does not mean that you would have to seek out to do all immorality. Why would someone become a Christian, with inherent desire to please God, and then seek to do all sort of bad things? (Well. Some have done this. But few theologians or pastors have sought to give doctrinal support to such behavior.)
A Christian is made righteous through Christ. The law is written for those who are unrighteous. So, the taking on of the letter of the law is to say that one is not accepting the fulfillment of the law through Christ.
In Titus 2:11-14, our salvation is described as being trained by grace to do what is godly, righteous, and good, and to renounce doing what is ungodly, which is essentially what God's Law was given to instruct us how to do. Furthermore, verse 14 says that Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all Lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so if we believe in Christ, then we will become zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's Law (Acts 21:20) and will not return to the Lawlessness that he gave himself to redeem us from."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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Originally posted by Soyeong View PostEither the four laws listed in Acts 15:19-21 are an exhaustive list of everything that would ever be required for a mature Gentile believer or they are not. There are 1,050 commandments in the NT, so if they were an exhaustive list, then that would exclude over 99% of the commandments in the NT, including those expounded upon by Jesus.Veritas vos Liberabit<>< Learn Greek <>< Look here for an Orthodox Church in America<><Ancient Faith Radio
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I recommend you do not try too hard and ...research as little as possible. Such weighty things give me a headache. - Shunyadragon, Baha'i apologist
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So where are you getting this interpretation from? Do you have certain scholars or pastors you follow?
When Jesus said that he came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, he seems to be anticipating that the gospel would be recognized as having abolished the law. How would the gospel seem to convey this message if the Mosaic law were still intact?
Nothing you have offered seems substantial enough to undo the grace concept that replaced obligations to the law.
The problem with the written law was that people ended up making that their goal instead of seeking God. The law brought on judgmental attitudes -- of Jews judging each other on how much they appeared to be doing the laws. But the laws were also augmented with the teachings of men. Everything was going haywire. This wasn't because Jews were worse people but rather that Jews were like all other humanity, except for being a little restrained from many immoral things because there was some semblance of obeying the laws.
It may be useful to continue the discussion. However it will not likely convince anyone to change. The issue is about changing the interpretive framework one has while reading scripture.
You end up taking piecemeal verses in Romans to say that Paul told people to do the law. But this leaves passages like Rom 7:1-7 in a weird state.
Also...
The problems of the Pharisaical behavior was a consequence of people trying to focus on the law. Their behavior (and interpretations) was a natural consequence of the law. This was not the exception to people's encounters with the law.
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Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post1,050? Wow. Talk about Pharisaism on steroids!
Here's a link to a list of the 1,050 NT commandments with Scriptural references:
https://www.cai.org/bible-studies/10...ament-commands
Jesus was sinless, so he had a zeal and a dedication to obeying God's Law that was in common with the Pharisees. They were the people that he spent the bulk of his ministry interacting with, so they were the people that he thought he could work with, and a number of them became his followers, such as with Nicodemus and Paul. He never criticized them for obeying God's Law, but he did criticize them for not obeying it correctly. For example, in Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that tithing dill, mint, and cumin was something that they should be doing while not neglecting weightier matters of the Law, so he was not coming against his Law, but rather he was fulfilling it by teaching how to correctly obey it.
If you are interested in watching a lecture by an ex-Pharisees who talks about what Phariseeism is and what Messiah's problem was with it in order to better understand to historical and cultural context of the Bible, then I can recommend one to you.Last edited by Soyeong; 07-09-2019, 09:56 PM."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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Originally posted by mikewhitney View PostFrom a Jewish viewpoint, you can say they were lawless deeds. But without the law, these people still were fleshly and haters of God.
I addressed the gift that Christ gave to us in fulfilling the Law.
And hopefully you noted that when one become a Christian it usually isn't in the hope of living in the flesh.
The Law works through the flesh. If you wish also to work in the flesh, seek to obey the letter of the Law.
Obeying the law according to the letter undermines both the intent of what God has commanded us to do and why He has commanded us to do it, which therefore leads to death just as assuredly as refusing to submit to it.
I don't agree with the interpretation of 3:31 which makes you ask any of the questions here.
Paul is telling the audience that their faith resulted through the promise of scripture. Jesus fulfilled scripture. Paul was contesting the those who mocked the law. He was not saying do the law.
While it was true that Abraham believed God, so he was declared righteous, it is also true that Abraham believed God, so he obeyed God's command to offer Isaac, so the fact that he was justified by faith did not abolish his need to obey God's command to offer Isaac, but rather his faith upheld God's command by leading him to obey it. In the same way, Paul was making the point in Romans 3:28 that we are justified by faith apart from works of the law, but in Romans 3:31, he did not want us to conclude from that that our faith therefore abolishes our need to obey God's Law, but rather our faith upholds it by leading us to obey it. Obedience to any set of instructions is about putting our faith in the one who gave them to rightly guide us, which is again why our faith upholds God's Law and why Jesus said that faith is one of the weightier matters of the Law (Matthew 23:23).
Just because Paul said the Pharisees were wrong ... and even saying that faith was an expectation of them, this doesn't make an obligation to the law for people already justified in Christ.
Where are you getting your doctrines about this return to the law? Do you have certain teachers you are following?
You seem inclined to interpret scripture around this paradigm of Christian obligation to the Old Covenant."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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Originally posted by mikewhitney View PostSo where are you getting this interpretation from? Do you have certain scholars or pastors you follow?
When Jesus said that he came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it, he seems to be anticipating that the gospel would be recognized as having abolished the law.
How would the gospel seem to convey this message if the Mosaic law were still intact?
Nothing you have offered seems substantial enough to undo the grace concept that replaced obligations to the law.
According to Romans 1:5, we have received grace in order to bring about the obedience of faith. According to 2 Peter 3:17-18, growing in grace is contrasted with being taken away with the error of Lawless men. According to John 1:16-17, grace was added upon grace, so the grace of Christ was added upon the grace of the Law. According to Jude 1:4, the ungodly pervert God's grace into license for immorality. According to Strong's, "grace" is defined as "the divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in the life" and when God's will is reflected in our lives, it takes the form of obedience to His Law (Psalm 40:8), so grace is the power of God to overcome Lawlessness in our lives and it is by grace that God teaches us to walk in His ways in accordance with His Law.
The problem with the written law was that people ended up making that their goal instead of seeking God. The law brought on judgmental attitudes -- of Jews judging each other on how much they appeared to be doing the laws. But the laws were also augmented with the teachings of men. Everything was going haywire. This wasn't because Jews were worse people but rather that Jews were like all other humanity, except for being a little restrained from many immoral things because there was some semblance of obeying the laws.
It may be useful to continue the discussion. However it will not likely convince anyone to change. The issue is about changing the interpretive framework one has while reading scripture.
You end up taking piecemeal verses in Romans to say that Paul told people to do the law. But this leaves passages like Rom 7:1-7 in a weird state.
In Romans 7:21-25, Paul said that he delighted in God's Law and served it with his mind, but contrasted that with the law of sin, which he served with his flesh, so it is important to correctly identify which law he was speaking about in Romans 7:5-6. If he was speaking about God's Law, then that would mean that he delighted in stirring up sinful passions to bear fruit unto death and that he delighted in being held captive, which would be absurd, but rather it is the law of sin that he described as holding him captive (7:23). In Romans 7:7, Paul said that God's Law was not sinful, but was given to reveal what sin is, and when our sin is revealed, then that leads us to repent and causes sin to decrease, however, the law of sin stirs up sinful passions to bear fruit unto death, so it is sinful and causes sin to increase, so it is the opposite of God's Law. So verses that refer to a law that is sinful or cases sin to increase should be interpreted as referring to the law of sin, not to God's Law, such as Romans 5:20, Romans 6:14, 1 Corinthians 15:56, and Galatians 5:16-18.
Also...
The problems of the Pharisaical behavior was a consequence of people trying to focus on the law. Their behavior (and interpretations) was a natural consequence of the law. This was not the exception to people's encounters with the law."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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Originally posted by Soyeong View Post
I've read various books and articles and listened to various lectures, sermons, and commentaries, and participated in various Bible studies and discussions on various forums over the past ten or so years. If you are interested, I can recommend a podcast to you that I'm already listening to a second time through that been teaching me how to ask the right questions of Scripture, and which not specifically related to the topic of obeying God's Law. For example, it has really been hammering home the point that every time that Jesus opened his mouth teach he was firmly rooted in OT Scripture, such as with the parable of the soils that references different OT passages that speak about the different types of soils and what to do if we find that we are that type of soil, which corresponds to Messiah's explanation of the parable.
It is true that Jesus spoke from OT scripture. His earthly ministry was to the lost sheep of Israel.
Do you know why Jesus came to the Jews? Was it because they were obedient or disobedient?
And nevermind on the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. That is unrelated to this issue about the law and its fulfillment.
One problem I notice is that you will inject the word 'law' into statements about verses that don't mention law. Such practice is dissuasive.
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Originally posted by mikewhitney View PostI've seen enough of attempts to say Paul was still practicing the law. I'm not curious on the study of this except for some bewilderment how people get attracted to such interpretations.
It is true that Jesus spoke from OT scripture. His earthly ministry was to the lost sheep of Israel.
Do you know why Jesus came to the Jews? Was it because they were obedient or disobedient?
Luke 1:5-6 In the days of Herod, king of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, of the division of Abijah. And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. 6 And they were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord.
However, is stated purpose in comping was to fulfill the Law, so he did come to teach how to correctly obey the Law by word and by example. The Law is God's Word and Jesus is God's Word made flesh, so God did not just give His Law to His people, but also sent Jesus as the living embodiment of the Law, the personification of the character of the Law, and as the exact imprint of His nature to teach us how to correctly obey it so that through him could become partakers the divine nature (Hebrews 1:3, 2 Peter 1:4).
One problem I notice is that you will inject the word 'law' into statements about verses that don't mention law. Such practice is dissuasive.Last edited by Soyeong; 07-10-2019, 12:07 AM."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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Naming the exceptions who were righteous only shows that most were not righteous. Why were the others not righteous?
One example of injecting the idea of 'law' into the discussion is that you just said Jesus came as the embodiment of the Law where neither Heb 1:3 nor 2Pet 1;4 mention the law.
Were there prophecies being fulfilled for the Messiah to come? What was he to accomplish? Were the Jews obedient when Jesus was among them?
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