How Romans 11 debunks OSAS

I doubt that Jesus ever said anything like this.

Remember - the term "the Law" denotes the Law of Moses, not some general moral code.

I doubt you will be able to make a case that Jesus is actually explicating the Law of Moses. I suggest that He is instead, transcending it in these teachings. Remember the form of his teaching "it is written this, but I tell you that...."

Besides, Paul certainly claimed that He kept the Law of Moses:

...as to the (B)righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless

 

True, but this does not require us to conclude that Paul thinks the Law of Moses still applies in the form of a written code that functions to regulate behaviour. At several points in other letters (Colossians, Galatians 3, Ephesians 2), he unambiguously declares that the time of the Law of Moses is now over.

I disagree that Paul is describing the state of the saved saint in Romans 7 - he is instead, I suggest, reflecting on the past and the present state of the Jew who is under the dictates of the Law of Moses.

Are you being consistent? It appears to me that you have (above) described Romans 7 in terms of the struggle of the "saved saint". But now you seem to say that the saint leaves Romans 7 behind and is no longer hopelessly enslaved as the person in Romans 7 is. And I would agree with this - the Christian leaves Romans 7 behind and is in the position of the person described in Romans 8.

Now about Romans 2. While I will have to explain later, I believe that the "law" that the Gentile keeps in Romans 2 is not the Law of Moses, it is something else.

 

I disagree with this. I think that in Romans 7, Paul is saying the unregenerated Jew still agrees with the Law of God.

How can this person in Romans 7 possibly be a "new creation"?

Romans 7 does not deal with the experiences of the believer. It is Paul's reflection on the plight of the Jew under Torah, analyzed from his perspective as a Christian.

Would the Christian say this about his experience as a Christian:

Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death

Of course not - how is death brought to the new creation that is a Christian? Paul is looking back here to the time when the advent of the Law - the Torah - brought judgement and death. This is true of the Jew under Torah, not the Christian. Note the specific allusion to the delivery of the Torah at Sinai – “when the commandment came”. Clearly, Paul is describing the history of Israel, using himself (a Jew) as a representative.

Would the Christian say this about his experience as a Christian:

But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful

Sin produces death in the Christian? Sin becomes utterly sinful in the Christian? Of course not.

Please do not misunderstand Romans 7. It is not a transcript of Christian experience, for the alleged "elect" or otherwise. It is what Paul knows to be the case about the plight of the Jew under Torah, as seen from Paul's present state - that of a redeemed saint.

 

True enough, but just because these principles are asserted to be the underpinning of the Law of Moses, and just because we are to still live by these principles, it simply does not logically follow that the Law of Moses is still in force.

And if it is, then Paul was not writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when he declares its abolition here in Ephesians 2:

by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.

I will get back to you on Romans 2.

 

It's there Bob, and it isn't difficult for those who read Romans 11 with any amount of objectivity.
One fact remains for me personally, and perhaps for others here, I just don't have the time to painstakingly exegete every verse in Romans 11 just to show you what you need to know, when you could really do it yourself. But you don't want to take that time either.

 

That may be so, but this is hardly an argument that the Law of Moses still applies.

You seem to be arguing as if you discount the possibilty that the plan of redemption that God is working out in the world never has transition points and that what is true in the Old Testament is true this side of the cross.

You are really constructing a strawman here, implicitly setting me in the role of someone with the "Good Bible" vs "Bad Bible" mindset. However, that claim cannot stick - I am in no way saying the Law of Moses is a bad thing. It is a good thing whose time came to an end at the cross:

Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

I suggest a picture where the Law of Moses served a particular goal in the plan of God and that goal was fulfilled at the cross. So the Law is now retired, having done its job. I am not sure how you can avoid the implications of several clear statements by Paul that the Law of Moses has been abolished, not least the one from Ephesians 2 as per my last post.

 

I do not believe that you have answered this question, now posed to you for the fourth time:

Please explain to us all whether this statement can be describing a non-believing person:

....and you stand by faith

I will be very interested to see how you engage this text and make any kind of argument that it can be taken as referring to a group that includes unbelievers. Let's remember, the "you" in this statement is clearly the same person(s) who is warned not to fall away.

 

Those who stand by faith do not fall away. It is that simple. But like I said previously I don't have the time to exegete the entire passage for you so that you can understand that wonderful truth of OSAS being taught here. You can actually do that for yourself if you approach the passage without bias.

 

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This cannot work with the construction that Paul gives us.

You appear to simply deny the logic of text. Here it is again:

I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry 14in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. 15For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? 16If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.
17If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19You will say then, "Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in." 20Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. 21For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

Now I am not going to spend the time going through this line by line and show that the structure of the argument is such that this is a warning to those who stand in faith against the possibility of their falling away.

But it is clear that a reading of this text that honours nominal language conventions will simply not sustain a reading where "those who stand in faith" are set aside as a special sub-set of Gentiles who are not under the threat of falling away.

In short, the "you" who stands in faith is clearly the same "you" is being warned about being cut off. There really is no dispute about this.

So I suspect we are at an impasse. If you do not read this text as embracing the possibliity that those who "stand in faith" can indeed be cut off, then you and I have entirely different understandings about the nature of the English language.

And we are certainly not to settle such fundamental differences here.

 

Please give us any one such reference - chapter and verse where Paul, or any other writer says that it is impossible to keep the Law of Moses.

I have done my part - I have provided a text from Phillipians 3 where Paul declares he was, yes, blameless, in respect to keeping the Law.

It will be interesting, and disturbing for we "in-errantness" types, if you can find a text that will force us to accept internal inconsistency in the Bible.