Featured The Three-Fold Division of the Law

I think what people miss is the covenantal aspect of the Mosaic Law. If the Law (the Mosaic Law, Torah, the Law of Moses) is a covenant then it cannot be divided or taken in part. Deut. 5 tells us that the Mosaic Law is a covenant between not only a specific people (Israel) but to this specific people at a specific time (it was not a covenant between God and their fathers before). So Paul was quite right to condemn Peter for looking back to the Law because it can never be broken.

That said, every aspect of the Law (moral, ceremonial, and civil) represent God’s nature in that covenant for the people to whom that covenant was given until it is fulfilled. The ceremonial laws have been fulfilled in Christ (they were about Jesus, foreshadowing Christ). This alone removes men from under the Mosaic Law and makes the Law obsolete. But we are still left with God’s law, or God’s “moral law” (the basis for the moral commands in the Mosaic covenant. God’s law is eternal because it reflects the image of God in man , that is, what man should be (God is the standard by which men are judged).

My argument here is that the Law (the Mosaic Law) cannot be broken because it is a covenant, but as a covenant it is restricted to those to whom it is given until it is fulfilled. We are not, nor were we ever, under the Mosaic Law. We are commanded to be in Christ (to repent and believe). If we do this then we fulfill God’s law (which means we would also fulfill the Law). It is not enough not to murder, for we must not hate. It is not enough to refrain from adultery, for we must not lust. It is not enough to make offerings to God, for we must love God with all of our heart….and if we love God we obey his commandments.

 

How often do you make animal sacrifices as commanded in Torah? Or are you a Law breaker? Jesus said that he came to fulfill the Law, and I suspect he was correct in that statement.

Your analogy is a bit off. I do not know of any church that sees it this way.

Military servicemen are subject to Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ is federal law enacted by Congress defining the military justice system). Articles 77 through 134 are punitive. When I was a soldier, had I driven while drunk I would have violated Article 111. Had I been driving in Tennessee that same transgression of military law would be a violation of Tennessee Annotated Code 22-10-401.

Your hypothesis implies that everyone who receives a DUI transgresses UCMJ Article 111. This is an error because non-military personnel who receive a DUI are not violators of Article 111 because they are not governed under that law. Your reply implies that I am saying since they are not guilty of transgressing UCMJ it is perfectly fine for them to drink and drive. This is wrong because they are still guilty of the offense, just not under the authority you would have them to be subject.

The Mosaic Law was given as a covenant to Israel during a specific time in history. It is an error to think that those who recognize the teaching of Scripture about the nature of the Law are advocating lawlessness. God's law was never dependent on Torah. It is the other way around.

 

Paul teaches that this New Covenant is given to "true Israel", the "spiritual descendants" of Abraham who are in the "Seed of Abraham" of Whom Torah testified. Both Paul and John extend this to all believers, of whom Jew and Gentile are no distinction. Do you doubt those truths....perhaps holding only the red letters true Scripture?

(Not accusing, but I have encountered some who teach that Paul hijacked Christianity and the Disciples' writings are not as trustworthy as are the "red letters"; your ideas seem similar).

 

I believe we agree on the passages. Jeremiah 31 speaks of God’s compassion on Jacob; their leader will be one of them, and come from them to approach God. It looks to a day when God will make a New Covenant – not like the one He made with their fathers which they broke (although God remained faithful). God will teach them, put His law in them, be their God and they His people. This is the same New Covenant of Hebrews 8. The first is made obsolete, the second a better covenant mediated by Christ Jesus.

I think perhaps Paul is so difficult for some to understand because they forget he was called an apostle to the Gentile. Paul is explaining so often that Gentiles are grafted into spiritual Israel (the “grafting” is an illustration Paul uses of olive trees). More to the point, Paul also teaches that God’s covenant with Abraham looked to Abraham’s Seed (singular) and the children of the Promise are those “in” this Seed (“in Christ”). This is reinforced (by Paul) in noting that the Abrahamic Covenant not only predated Torah but also was not made to Israel. It was made to Abraham and it was made to Abraham before he was even circumcised.

In other words, the Abrahamic Covenant within which Paul finds the identity of the “People of God” or “true/spiritual Israel” was, technically speaking, a covenant of God made to a Gentile man who was not under the Law. In addition, the unconditional promised blessing of the covenant was not directed to Israel or even all of Abraham’s physical descendants. That Seed (again, note Paul’s insistence we are speaking singular here) that will redeem man from the curse (Genesis 3:15) is the promised blessing to “all the families of the earth” (not just one people group).