Diserner
Well-known member
How would you interpret this verse:
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. (Rom. 7:14 NKJ)
Commandments of God
- Thread starter Jamie Russell CME
- Start date
How would you interpret this verse:
For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. (Rom. 7:14 NKJ)
Please read post #13 in regard to what I said about ceremonial laws. Likewise, the Bible never states which laws are moral, it never refers to the Ten Commandments as being the moral law, it never gives any sort of standard to distinguish between which of God's laws are moral laws and which are moral to disobey, there is not a single example in the Bible of any of God's law being considered to be moral to disobey, and the Bible never even refers to the subcategory of moral law. Furthermore, it is not the case that everything except the Ten Commandments was prescribed to deal with sin, such as the laws against rape, kidnapping, favoritism, and the greatest two commandments.
Morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to obey God, so all of God's laws are inherently moral laws. Every legislator creates laws according to what they think ought to be done and no one knows better than God what ought to be done. For someone to claim that some of God's laws are not moral laws is for them to claim that God made moral error about what to be done when He gave those laws, and for the to claim that they have greater moral knowledge than God.
Sin was in the world before the law was given (Romans 5:13), so the law was added because of sin to reveal what sin is.
The Bible often uses the same terms to describe aspects of the nature of God as it does to describe aspects of the nature of the Torah, such as with it being holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12), or with it justice, mercy, and faithfulness being weightier matters of the Torah (Matthew 23:23), and this is because it is God's instructions for how to testify about those aspects of His nature. For example, by doing good works, we are testifying about God's goodness, which is why our good works bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:13-16).
The experience of testifying about God's nature is the way to know Him, which is eternal life (John 17:3), while sin is what bearing false witness against God's nature, which is why sin is the transgression of God's law and those who continue to practice sin have never seen or known Him (1 John 3:4-6). However, there are more ways to testify about or against God's nature than are specifically listed in God's law, but God's law is spiritual in that it has always been intended to teach us spiritual principles that are aspects of God's nature which are fruits of the Sprit. For example, all of God's righteous laws teach us about a spiritual principle of righteousness that leads us to take physical actions that are examples of that principle that are in accordance with God's law even in situations that are not specifically listed by it.
For example, in 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to be holy for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was given instructions for how to do that, so by following those instructions we are testifying about God's eternal holiness, and the only way that we should no longer follow those laws for how to testify about God's eternal holiness is if God is no longer eternally holy. Many of these laws are commonly considered by some to be ceremonial laws even some of them have nothing in particular to do with ceremony.
I'm not. You are.
It would have been if they stayed faithful to it.
They didn't, so a New Covenant was necessary.
Physical circumcision falls into the same category - even though it was a major part of "the everlasting covenant" it is no longer binding.
You dodged Hebrews 8:13.
atpollard
Well-known member
So you would NEVER eat a cheeseburger, or shave or wear blended fabrics or marry a non-Jewish person?
How do you manage to visit the Temple twice a year for the required Holidays?
According to Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts, and Hebrews 8:10 quotes this to affirm that the New Covenant involves following the Torah, but you interpret Hebrews 8:13 as saying that the New Covenant does not involve following the Torah, so you are interpreting those verses as contradicting each other. I don't interpret Hebrews 8:13 as saying that the New Covenant dos not involve following the Torah, so I am not interpreting it in a way that contradicts Hebrews 8:10. It was sinful to commit adultery in Genesis 39:9 long before the Mosaic Covenant was made, during it, it remains sinful to commit adultery under the New Covenant, and that will never change no matter how many covenants God makes or that become obsolete, so any number of covenants being made or becoming obsolete does not change God's eternal laws.
No, I addressed it by saying that the New Covenant makes the Mosaic Covenant obsolete by doing everything that it does plus more, which is again is what it means to make something obsolete. If two things did completely different things, then one would not make the other obsolete.
In Deuteronomy 30:1-10, it prophesied about a time when the Israelites would return from exile, God would circumcise their hearts, and they would return to obedience to the Torah. In Jeremiah 31:33 and Ezekiel 36:26-27, they are speaking in regard to the New Covenant, in regard to the Israelites returning from exile, and describe God as circumcising our hearts by means of the Spirit by saying that He will write the Torah on our hearts and that He will take away our hearts of stone, give us hearts of flesh, and send His Spirit to lead us to obey it. So the New Covenant is all about the Israelites returning from exile, God circumcising their hearts, and returning to obedience to the Torah.
In Hebrews 8:6-13, it does not say that the fault the Mosaic Covenant was with His law, but rather it says that He found fault with the people for not continuing in their covenant. So the solution to the problem was not to do away with His eternal law, but to do away with what was hindering His people from following them. This is why the New Covenant involves God sending His Spirit to lead us to obey His law (Ezekiel 36:26-27), sending His Son to free us from sin so that we could be free to obey His law (Romans 8:3-4), and putting His law in our minds and writing it on our hearts so that we will obey it (Jeremiah 31:33).
You should not interpret servants of God as speaking against serving God. Either there are correct or incorrect purposes for becoming circumcised and Paul only spoke against the incorrect reasons, or according to Galatians 5:2, Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised right after the Jerusalem Council (Acts 16:4) and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. In Acts 15:1, there was a group from Judea who were wanting to require all Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the reason for which God commanded circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld God's law by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect reason. The Jerusalem Council did not have the authority to countermand God, so they should not be interpreted as speaking against obeying what He has commanded.
I do not eat cheeseburgers, mar the corners of my bear, or we fabrics made of wool and linen. It is debatable whether a Jew is permitted to marry someone who is a ger toshav. For example, David and Jesus are off the line of Ruth and Boaz.
The Israelite were given a number of laws while they were wandering the wilderness for 40 years that had the condition "when you enter the land..." so there is nothing wrong with having laws that can't currently be followed. Laws in regard to temple practice should only be followed when there is a temple in which to practice them.
Diserner
Well-known member
Would you consider yourself as "Hebrew Roots"?
How do you handle Paul's telling us we are dead to the Law, Christ is the end of the Law, etc.
I am going by how the words of the Bible are properly defined. You can play make believe all you want.
Hebrews 8:13
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
1. BDAG (3rd Edition): treat the first covenant as obsolete Hb 8:13a (palaioō, page 751).
2. Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament: Based on Semantic Domains: to cause to become old and obsolete, and hence no longer valid -'to make old, to make out of date.' 'by speaking of a new covenant, he has made the first one out of date' He 8.13 (67:103, palaioō, page 643, J. P. Louw and Eugene Nida).
3. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT): by setting up the new covenant God has declared the old to be outdated. God Himself cancels its validity (5:720, palaioō, Seesemann).
The Old Covenant spoken of that is obsolete includes the Decalogue (Hebrews 9:4)
Hebrews 9:4
having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.
Exodus 34:28
So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.
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Diserner
Well-known member
Good verse.
atpollard
Well-known member
Thank you.
At least you are consistent in your beliefs ... many are not and sort of "pick and choose" [claiming ALL but following SOME].
imho, you have taken on a yoke that Jesus has not asked of you ... but as Paul says "You ain't my servant, so obey YOUR master."
No, though I do agree with some things that are taught as Hebrew Roots.
Paul spoke about multiple different categories other than the Law of God, such as works of the law and the law of sin, so it is important to correctly identify which law he was speaking about dying to. For example, in Romans 3:27, Paul contrasted a law of works with a law of faith, in Romans 3:31 and Galatians 3:10-11, he contrasted a law that our faith upholds with a law that is not of faith, and in Romans 7:25-8:2, he contrasted the Law of God with the law of sin and contrasted the Law of the Spirit of Life with the law of sin and death.
In Romans 7:22-23, Paul said that he delighted in obeying the Law of God, but contrasted that with the law of sin that was holding him captive, so a law that we interpret as referring to the Law of God should make sense for it to be something that Paul delighted in doing. For example, in Romans 7:5-6, Paul spoke about a law that stirred up sinful passions in order to bear fruit unto death and being freed from a law that held him captive, and it would be absurd to interpret that was referring to the Law of God as though Paul delighted in those things, but rather it is the law of sin that he described as holding him captive.
In Romans 6:19-23, we are no longer to present ourselves as slaves to impurity, lawlessness, and sin, but are now to present ourselves as a slaves to God and to righteousness leading to sanctification, and the goal of sanctification is eternal life in Christ, which is the gift of God, so interpreting the Bible as saying that we need to die to the Law of God is interpreting it as saying that we need to reject God's gift of eternal life. In Romana 2:6-7, eternal life is given to those who persist in doing good. In Matthew 19:17 and Luke 10:25-28, Jesus said that the way to enter eternal life is by obeying God's commandments. In Hebrew 5:9, Jesus has become a source of eternal salvation for those who obey Him. In Revelation 22:14, those who obey God's commandments are given the right to eat from the Tree of Life.
In Romana 7:1-4, at no point was the woman set free from needing to obey the Law of God, and if she were to get married to a second husband after the death of her first, then she would still be required to refrain from committing adultery, so there is nothing that leads to the conclusion in verse 4 that in the same way we have been set free from the Law of God. Moreover, it wouldn't make sense to interpret Romans 7:4 as saying that we need to be die to God's instructions for how to bear fruit for Him in order to be free to bear fruit for Him or that we need to die to God's instructions for how to be unified in Christ in order to be unified in Christ, especially when 1 John 2:6 says that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked. We need to die to the law of sin in order to be free to obey the Law of God, not the other way around.
n Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he might know Him and Israel too, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the experience of knowing God and Jesus is the goal of the law, which again is eternal life (John 17:3).
In Romans 9:30-10:4, the Israelites had a zeal for God, but it was not based on knowing Him, so they failed to obtain righteousness because they misunderstood the goal of the law by pursuing it is as through righteousness were earned as the result of their works in order to establish their own rather than pursuing the law as through righteousness were by faith in Jesus, for knowing Jesus is the goal of the law for righteousness for everyone who has faith. In Romans 10:5-10, this faith references Deuteronomy 30:11-16 as the word of faith that we proclaim in regard to saying that the Law of God is not too difficult for us to obey, that the one who obeys it will attain life by it, in regard to what we are agreeing to obey by confessing that Jesus is Lord, and in regard to the way to believe that God rose him from the dead. So nothing in this passage as anything to do with ending any of God's laws, especially because they are all eternal (Psalms 119:160), but rather it is speaking about knowing Christ being the goal of the law.
The Psalms express an extremely positive view of the Torah, such as with David repeatedly saying that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so if we consider the Psalms to be Scripture and to therefore express a correct view of the Torah, then we will share it, as Paul did (Romans 7:22), and we will consider anything less than the view that we ought to delight in obeying it to be incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture. For example, in Psalms 1:1-2, blessed are those who delight in the Torah of the Lord and who meditate on it day and night, so we can't uphold the truth of these words as Scripture while not allowing them to shape our view of the Torah, and we shouldn't interpret the NT authors who all upheld the truth of these words as expressing views of the Torah that are incompatible with these words.
civic
Well-known member
Yes which is why I respect hyper calvinists they too are consistent even though I disagree with them.Thank you.
At least you are consistent in your beliefs ... many are not and sort of "pick and choose" [claiming ALL but following SOME].
imho, you have taken on a yoke that Jesus has not asked of you ... but as Paul says "You ain't my servant, so obey YOUR master."
I did not disagree that the New Covenant makes the Mosaic Covenant obsolete, but rather I spoke in regard to what it means for it to make it obsolete and in regard to the way that we should live under the New Covenant. Again, Joseph knew that it was a sin to commit adultery in Genesis 39:9 long before the Mosaic Covenant was made, so there is nothing about the Mosaic Covenant becoming obsolete that means that the command against committing adultery has also become obsolete.
The New Covenant is still made with the same eternal God with the same eternal nature and therefore the same eternal laws for how to testify about His nature. For example, the way to testify about God's righteousness is straightforwardly based on God's righteousness, not on a particular covenant, and God's righteousness is eternal (Psalms 119:142), therefore any instructions that God has ever given for how to testify about His righteousness are also eternal (Psalms 119:160). Sin was in the world before the law was given (Romans 5:13), so there were no actions that became righteous or sinful when the law was given, but rather the law revealed what has always been and will always be the way to do that.
The New Covenant forbids adultery (Romans 13:9).
Christians does not have to obey the 7th Day Sabbath command of the Old Covenant.
Even when the law was first given to Israel, there was not a single person who was required to obey all of them, and not even Jesus obeyed the laws in regard to having a period or giving birth. Some of the laws were given only to the King, the High Priest, priests, judges, men, women, children, those who are married, those who are widowed, those who have servants, those who have animals, those who have crops, those who have tzaraat, those who are living in the land, and those who are strangers living among them, while others were given to everyone. For example, Israelites who were not Levites were not required to follow the laws that were specifically given to govern the conduct of the Levities, so while there are illegitimate reasons for picking and choosing which laws to follow, there are also legitimate reasons for not following certain laws.
In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light for the Gentiles, and the Torah is how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is a central part of the Gospel message. Furthermore, Jesus set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Torah, and we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 2:6). So Jesus spent his ministry teaching his followers to walk in obedience to the Torah by word and by example, and in Matthew 11:28-30, he invited people to come to him and learn from him, not inviting people to come to him and reject what he taught, and he said that his yoke was easy and his burden light. Furthermore, by Jesus saying that we would find rest for our souls, he was referencing Jeremiah 6:16-19, where the Torah is described as the good way where we will find rest for our souls. The Torah is God's word and Jesus is God's word made flesh, so we can't come to him for rest while rejecting God's word. Moreover, in Titus 2:14, 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 becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Torah is the way to believe in what he accomplished through the cross (Acts 21:20).
Which verse are you referencing?... but as Paul says "You ain't my servant, so obey YOUR master."
In Romans 3:20, it is by the Torah that we have knowledge of what sin is, so that is by the New Covenant forbids adultery. You keep avoiding Jeremiah 31:33, which states that the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts.
The Bible often uses the same terms to describe aspects of the nature of God as it does to describe aspects of the nature of the Torah, such as with it being holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12), or with justice, mercy, and faithfulness being weightier matters of the Torah (Matthew 23:23), and this is because it is God's eternal instructions for how to testify about those eternal aspects of His nature. All of God's covenants teach us the way to testify about God's eternal nature, so those instructions are eternally valid regardless of which covenant someone is under if any. Sin is what is contrary to God's eternal nature, so even if God had never made any covenants with man, then we would still be obligated to live in a way that testifies about His eternal nature and to refrain from living in sin.
A Christian is by definition someone who has the goal of following what Christ taught, so it is contradictory to say that Christians don't have to obey what Christ taught. Christ taught a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Torah, including keeping the 7th day holy, and we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked. Someone can look at what Christ taught and choose whether or not to follow him, but they can't follow him by refusing to follow what he taught.
It does for adultery but not for the 7th Day Sabbath.
Not one command is given that this Old Covenant command must be obeyed today.
It doesn't refer to the Torah because the command to obey the 7th Day Sabbath does not apply to Christians.
It is joined with the "festivals" and "new moons" in Colossians 2:16 which Christians also do not have to adhere to.
It is not a command that is repeated in the New Covenant. The other 9 are and that very clearly.
Christ approves of Hebrews 8:13 that the entire Old Covenant has been made obsolete.
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atpollard
Well-known member
It was intended as a humorous paraphrase of Romans 14:4 ("Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.")... but as Paul says "You ain't my servant, so obey YOUR master."
Which verse are you referencing?
Christ set a sinless example of how to walk in obedience to the Torah, including keeping the 7th day holy, so he would have still taught full obedience to it by example even if there hadn't been any commands repeated in the NT, and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 3:4). Following Christ is for Christians. Jesus taught how to keep the 7th day holy through his interactions with the Pharisees on the topic, though he said nothing along that lines that we should only follow the laws that would eventually be recorded that he repeated. The Torah is God's word and Jesus is God's word made flesh, so he is the embodiment of what is commanded in the Torah, and we can't follow him by rejecting who he is.
I agree that the Mosaic Covenant has been made obsolete and I have been speaking in regard to the way that we should live under the New Covenant, which still involves following the Torah (Jeremiah 31:33).
