How do we know?

And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. Luke 10:27
So I think we should ask ourselves:
What is displeasing to God? Don't do it.
What is pleasing to God? Do it.
What will hurt others? Don't do it.
What will help others? Do it.
Is not this what the law was all about?

 

This is true, but Jesus also said "If you love Me, keep my commandments". We don't keep the commandments in order to "win" salvation, but simply because we love Jesus.

 

It didn't become "more", it became impossible!

The law required perfection and no man could EVER meet that requirement. That is why we are in need of a new covenant, we can never live up to the old.

So God, as He had promised He would do, made a New covenant with the people.

The new covenant is not like the old. It has nothing to do with the old. Here is the New covenant.

We now have the Spirit within us, we have all we need within us. We no longer need a "law" to guide us for now we have the "new" laws of Christ living in us! This is indeed good news!

Note: this is the only place in the NT the word law is used in the plural. It says "laws" not law. We will have Christ's laws written on our hearts, not THE law. What are Christ's laws?

So, now we know we are under a NEW covenant of love. Did this NEW covenant make the first one more to us as is claimed? NO! The scripture says the first one is obsolete.

But some still claim that the law that God made obsolete in Christ is still required. Paul calls this thinking foolishness! Did you receive the Spirit by obeying the law or believing? We know the answer, it's by believing. So why, go back to the law????

Which gets us back to the point that I mentioned already. We please God, not by observing the law, but by walking in the Spirit. That is ALL we need. Anyone walking in the Spirit will NOT do something that is displeasing to God. The SPIRIT has the power to teach us from within. Follow these instructions Paul gave us.

When we sin, our problem isn't whether we are disobeying this law or that law, it is that we are not in step with the Spirit. THAT is what we must do.

~Lorelei

 

[ June 21, 2003, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: Sherrie ]

 

Do we have the same rules for adults as for children? No. Did God have the same rules for a largely unsaved people (O.T. Israel) as He has for His Spirit-led disciples (the church)? No.

We now have less rules, but the few we have require a changed heart--conforming to the image of Christ.

 

Not really because not only is there no Scripture to support it, the Scripture that references the Law tells us that it was completed and removed in Christ. It was a for a nation of people under the theocracy of God. We are not that nation and we are not under the rule of God.

The distinction that needs to be made is between the universal law and the Mosaic Law. What you have split into three parts is the indivisable Mosaic Law that was for the nation of Israel. That is what most people refer to when the speak of the OT Law. And they are right. Yet there is a law (not Law, but law) that stems from the eternal nature of God. It is that law that we are under, not the Law. The Law contained some of hte provisions of the law, but the law is different.

An analogy might be like this: Britian has a law against murder. The US has a law against murder. When you murder in teh US, you are not charged with Britian's law, but with the US law. In a similar fashion, the law against say, adultery, is a part of the law and the Law. We are charged with obedience to the law, not the Law. And that is a big difference. As Paul says, once you keep a part of the Law you are under obligation to keep it all. You cannot divide it up because it is indivisible. I think that is the better way to go rather than making these distinctions that Scripture doesn't make.

 

The law of liberty is the law that brings liberty, i.e., the law of Christ. The point of James 2 is that we have all broken at least one tenet of the Law and therefore are guilty of all of it. Yet in Christ there is a perfect lawkeeper so that we have freedom. He has set us free. It is similar to Galatians 5.

They are condemned under the principles of God and marriage. Bestiality is a contradiction of the biblical principle of sexual morality in marriage. Since man cannot be married to an animal and since marriage is the only place where the bed is undefiled, bestiality is clearly ruled out. Astrology is the use of means other than God's revelation to seek information and thus breaks the sufficiency of Scripture principle among others.

So no, these are not okay. They were neither okay before the Law.

 

Pastor Larry, I think your example proves my point. Britian has certain laws, US has certain laws, France has certain laws, etc. However in all these countries there are Christians. They are to obey the laws of the land God put them in, yet if they go to another country they are to obey their laws.(The exemption to this would be if the law violates what God commanded, but let's don't go there for this discussion). So this shows we are still under the Civil law, but it is adaptable(changes). Now it is obvious that we don't practice the ceremonial law as Christians, even though the orthodox Jew still does, we do not becAUSE WE ARE FREED FROM THAT BONDAGE, even though we have been adopted as Jews. that lives us with the moral law. It was here before Moses. Moses recieved this from God, but it was already here. That is why Adam and Eve were banished from eden. That is why Cain was marked. That is why God detroyed the first world with the flood. We still have the Moral Law and Jesus completed it when he wrote it on our hearts. We as Christians don't need any laws, Civil, Moral or Cermonial if we are doing as the Holy Spirit directs, but for practical purposes God has kept the Civil law for all(saved and unsaved) and we as Christians should have an earnest desire to keep God's Moral law(note not Mosaic Law).

Thanks,
Jailminister

 

According to 2 Tim. 3:16, all Scripture, including the OT and the Mosaic Law, is profitable for doctrine and reproof. As Jim Berg says in Changed Into His Image, it teaches us what is right and what is wrong. We can learn unchangeable truths about God, what He approves of and what He condemns, from these sections of the Bible. Sometimes I think that NT believers are too quick to disregard OT teaching as not applicable today. I agree with what Craig Blomberg has to say in his commentary on Matthew:

“It is inadequate to say either that none of the Old Testament applies unless it is explicitly reaffirmed in the New or that all of the Old Testament applies unless it is explicitly revoke in the New. Rather, all the Old Testament remains normative and relevant for Jesus’ followers (2 Tim. 3:16), but none of it can right be interpreted until one understands ho it has been fulfilled in Christ.” (pp. 103-104)

Andy

 

Of course all the Scripture is profitable (including the O.T.) and there is much to learn about how God dealt with Israel from studying the Law. In fact, Paul elaborates upon that in the N.T. But that does NOT mean we are bound to obey the Law of Moses. Those were instructions given to someone else. Are we supposed to conquer the promised land, too? No, yet we do learn principles from that account as well, that we apply to our lives today.

We do not live in a theocracy like O.T. Israel. If we today try to impose moral standards upon the unsaved by law, that are not in their hearts, we will only alienate them. And if history is a teacher, most likely we will become hypocrites in the process.

A believer in the better covenant,

Tim

 

[ June 21, 2003, 08:53 PM: Message edited by: Sherrie ]

 

Right, so one of the things we do is look at the portions of the Mosaic Law and observe that some laws are eternal absolutes based upon the character of God. These laws would have been applicable before the giving of the law and are still applicable today. Theologians have called these the Moral Law.

There are other aspects of the Mosaic Law that were pictures of Christ and His work on the cross. Others laws were intended to teach Israel principles about holiness and worship. Still others served to identify Israel as God's chosen people. These laws have been identified as Ceremonial and unnecessary today in the New Covenant. Yet, even with these, there is much to apply to our lives.

The rest are Civil laws that have to do with life in that culture and the penelties for breaking the various laws. I think these laws could be used, although not directly, as a guide for lawmaking today.

Anyway, I don't mean to bore you with something that everyone knows. I just think that the 3-fold division of the Mosaic Law is an attempt, maybe not a perfect one, to help apply the Law in today's context.

I don't think you really mean that. Are we really supposed to do away with laws against murder, stealing, rape, etc? Maybe that's not what you meant.

I believe that we ought to have laws that reflect God's moral absolutes. We can't make men moral with law but we can legislate that men abide by God's moral laws.

Andy

 

I would just like to note that those who are saying we are still under the law have still not used scripture to prove it.

You think your legislation is going to be more motivation for a man to please God than his Holy Spirit can? We don't need legislation any longer because we have Christ living within us.

Is the Spirit going to lead a follower to do any of these things? NO, so why do we need to "legislate" them? Is "legislation" really more powerful than the Spirit? Has "legislation" kept man from disobeying this law up until now? No! So why keep using a system that man can NOT follow? You will never change a man's heart by offering him the law. Once a man has the Spirit of God he no longer needs the law.

We have God's Word that shows us how God feels about sin, but we must let the Spirit lead us into following it. Following rules outside of the Spirit's leading is to try live a holy life on your own. You have entered "works", not grace.

~Lorelei

 

How so? When you commit a crime in one country, you are charged with the law of that country, not with the law of another country. You are not even guided by the principle of law in another country. In the same way, the Mosaic Law is only for those who lived in the nation of Israel in the Mosaic economy. While we might learn some things from it, we are no more bound to obey it then we are the laws of ancient Egypt, ancient Persia, or any other country.

This is true, so when you go to live in OT Israel, you will have to obey the Law. Until then, you are not under that Law.

Not at all. The Civil Law as it is used in these discussion was a part of the Mosaic Law. It is not natural law, or the laws that stem from God's character.

What Moses received was not the moral law. He recieved the Mosaic Law. We are not under any part of it. Adam and Eve, Cain and all the others were judged because they broke the universal law of God. That is the law we are under. But that is not the law that is beign talked about in this conversation. We are talking about the OT Law, the Mosaic Law, which was given to the nation of Israel.

 

Actually there was. There was always the rule written on the human heart. AFter the flood, God instituted human government with various rules and laws. Many of the artifacts of the Ancient Near East show a very developed law of the countries in the same time frame or earlier than the Hebrew Law. God gave the 10 commandments to the nation of Israel to regulate the theocracy. It was not a general attempt at law giving for lawless people. In Exo 19 when the Law is given, it is given to a group of people with whom God was making a covenant. He asked them if they would follow him and they said yes (v. 8). When they said Yes, they were given the civil constitution of the nation, which consisted of the Mosaic Law.

So it was a not a society of people who did not know right from wrong. They did. God was giving a set of laws to a country to regulate the theocracy.

But to teach the OT Law as commands for us today is to put him under bondage to something he has no allegiance to. It is to insist on something to which he is freed.

There is much profitable in the Law. But a standard for living under the Law is not one of them.

 

You think your legislation is going to be more motivation for a man to please God than his Holy Spirit can? We don't need legislation any longer because we have Christ living within us.

Is the Spirit going to lead a follower to do any of these things? NO, so why do we need to "legislate" them? Is "legislation" really more powerful than the Spirit? Has "legislation" kept man from disobeying this law up until now? No! So why keep using a system that man can NOT follow? You will never change a man's heart by offering him the law. Once a man has the Spirit of God he no longer needs the law.

We have God's Word that shows us how God feels about sin, but we must let the Spirit lead us into following it. Following rules outside of the Spirit's leading is to try live a holy life on your own. You have entered "works", not grace.
</font>[/QUOTE]My reply was in reference to not imposing moral standards upon the UNSAVED by law. Surely you're not saying that we should let everyone run wild, impose no penelties, and just wait for the Holy Spirit to convict? That is anarchy!

Furthermore, to imply that Christians are not under any law today is contrary to Romans 13.

Andy

 

Has anyone said this?? I haven't seen it. The discussion here is about the application of hte OT, not just any law in general. We are talking about the OT Law.

 

No, I'm not an anarchist. Any law that protects the citizenry from each other's violence, greed, etc. is certainly legitimate. The kind of law I'm talking about NOT trying to impose upon the unsaved are laws which are based upon O.T.Law which had a Godward focus. Basically commandments 1 through 4 are only appropriate in a theocracy. Those are the commandments that got the Puritans all out of whack when they tried to enforce them in the colonies. The vestiges of these laws (like "blue laws") are only a means of engendering resentment amoung the unsaved.

In regards to Sherrie's commment--I don't believe we can say that the O.T. Law was ever given to anyone but Israelites. Note the introductory clause of Exodus 20, and in the N.T. (Rom. 9), Paul says that receiving the law was one advantage of being an Israelite. In Ephesians 2, he says that the abolshment of the Law brought the Jews and Gentiles together. So I don't see any Biblical grounds for O.T. Law being binding on anyone except O.T. Israel.

In Christ,

Tim

 

OK, I can live with that. Sorry if I misunderstood you. I got the impression that some in this thread were moving from discussing the OT Mosaic Law to law in general.

Andy