"If you love Me, obey My commandments.": A discussion on sin and the Law of God

darthOB1 - See Leviticus 11:10-12. It's one of the purity laws. I think I can love God and my neighbor jst fine and not follow it, thus I'm challenging your assertionn that loving God and neighbor automatically means automatically obeying all of the old Law.

But your ascribing the same values of the laws that the Pharassies were condemed by Jesus for! They beat people down with the letter of the law without observing its principals!

We are no longer under the Mosaic law. But perhaps I should have used the words "10 Commandments" instead of Mosaic law.

However, ?Christ is the end of the Law? (Ro 10:4), which results in Christians? being ?discharged from the Law.? (Ro 7:6) Neither Jesus nor his disciples made any distinction between so-called moral and ceremonial laws. They quoted from the other parts of the Law as well as from the Ten Commandments and considered all of it equally binding on those under the Law.

Does this mean that God does not want us to eat crab or any other sea creature that doesn't have scales?

Of course not.

A lot of the mosaic laws besides the 10 commandments were put in place to protect the Israelites not to burden them. They were put in place to keep them healthy and free from preventable diseases. (cleanliness stuff as you put it)

In regards to Pharasaical ammendments, we might say that those added laws and traditions became affixed to the Mosaic Law much as barnacles become attached to the hull of a ship. A shipowner goes to great lengths to scrape these pesky creatures from his ship because they slow the vessel and destroy its rustproof paint. Likewise, the oral laws and traditions encumbered the Law and exposed it to corrosive misuse. However, instead of scraping such extraneous laws away, the rabbis kept adding more. By the time the Messiah came to fulfill the Law, the ?ship? was so encrusted with ?barnacles? that it was barely afloat!
(Compare Proverbs 16:25.)
Rather than protecting the Law covenant, these religious leaders committed the folly of betraying it.

For one thing, you cannot assume these verses are talking about the same law. You must take the context into account. The verse in Hebrews are obviously referring to the imperfection of the ceremonial ordinances. Looking at the Matthew verse in context, we can see Christ was referring to the moral laws.

Nicely put!

And Fire_man the Bible cannot contradict!!

If you can reason in your head that the apostle Paul's teachings are in direct conflict with Jesus' then you need to seriously reconsider what and how you believe!

ElfStar - How is one to differentiate between moral and ceremonial laws? What makes, say, cooking a lamb in its mother's milk different from, for example, committing adultery?

Which one breaks Jesus' pricipals?

Makes it real easy huh?

 

I'm not reasoning it, it just blatantly appears that way. You yourself said Jesus and the apostles never made a distinction between the 10 Commandments and the rest of the Law. And yet you just posted two phrases from Paul which blatantly contradict that.

Either we are supposed to follow the Law or it is unimportant. Jesus appeared to teach that the Law (that is, the Torah) is something from God that we should follow. Paul seems to be saying we are free from it.

Granted, adherence to it cannot save, since we've already broken it, and are in need of atonement. But the Law is still in place, is it not? If breaking it merited the penalty of death and the need for a Savior, then surely it describes sin? Then why are we free to break it? To sin? Should we sin so that grace may abound?

 

DarthOB1 - I think we're on the same page regarding the whole shellfish thing; your original post didn't make it clear how you meant the Law.

On what basis do you state that the Bible cannot contradict itself? Saying it does not is one thing (though I disagree with you) -- you can make an argument from evidence that it does not. But how can you ascribe to a collection of texts the potential for self-contradiction or lack thereof?

-Paul

 

Fire_man NO!

Did you not read my post?

Christians are not under the mosaic law because of Jesus sacrifice! Man is no loner in need of attonment becuase Jesus accomplished that. We have been bought through his blood.

The only "laws" we are required to be under are the two priciplals I mentioned earlier.

There are no laws that say I cannot throw garbage in my neighbors law, however my love for my neighbor will prevent me from doing that.

PRINCIPALS, not LAWS!

Follow those two principles and you might make it! Zeph 2:3


darth_paul Because if there are contradiction, hten it invalidates itself as the word of God!

If you believe it is then it CANNOT contradict itself, anywere, anyhow! If you believe there are contradictions then maybe your interpretation of them are wrong.

 

But Fireman's point is that what you're saying contradicts what Jesus says. And for him, words straight out of Jesus's mouth take precedence over anything else -- certainly a policy that makes sense.

As for me, I don't believe the Bible is literally the Word of God, so I guess that's the difference in where I'm coming from. But certainly subsequent versions/translations of the Bible can contain errors and contradictions, even if the originals were the perfect Word of God. It's my understanding from what I've read that the Qu'ran is no longer considered to be the perfect word of Allah when translated out of Arabic, because translation by necessity muddies meaning and creates imperfection. Wouldn't a similar principle operate on the Bible, even if one believed the original documents to be perfect?

-Paul

 

Either we are supposed to follow the Law or it is unimportant.

There is a third option. That is that we do not follow the Law of Moses, but it is still important. Like I posted before, Paul respected and used the OT scriptures in his preaching of the gospel of Christ. In 2 Timothy 3:15, Paul tells Timothy: "...and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." The Holy Scriptures here are the Law and Prophets. Paul says that they can lead one to salvation through faith in Christ. And they certainly can because when you understand the Law and Prophets, you will better understand the principles in the gospel of Christ such as sacrifice, love, and redemption. You don't have to be under the Law of Moses for it to be useful.

Heb. 7:18 and Mt. 5:19 do not contradict because, as said by others, they are in the context of two different laws. When Jesus was speaking, He had not yet died and the Old Law was still in effect. So it was true what He told them about keeping all the Mosaic Laws, as well as the principles behind them. When Paul was speaking, Christ had died and the Old Law was no longer in effect, the gospel or Law of Christ was in effect. So what Paul said was true as well. No contradiction.

 

I did not read all this thread (which is probably a mistake), but I want to put in my opinion of the original question.

I think that in the OT times, since Jesus had not yet come, there was only the law, but it was not meant to save us. It's purpose was to show us we could not be saved based on ourselves. When Jesus came, at that point God no longer allowed people in based on faith credited as rightousness, but based on those who believed in Christ.

But the law remains even today as the guide to show us how perfect God is and how we SHOULD live. But God knows we are sinners and will not be able to live up to the law. That explains why Jesus in Matt 5 talks about the law. Like the Bible says, he wasn't there to destory the law, but to complete it.

The law shows us the holiness of God, and we should strive to follow it as much as possible since it outlines right and wrong. But the law won't save us.