Law/Nt/Legalism/Antinomiam thought/kitchen sink...pt3

Never was given to save sinners, but to let them know just how Holy God really is , and drive us to find the grace in Christ Jesus!

 

Does God still have an objective standard for right/wrong, as in the Law?

 

The moral standards of the Law are sill binding to us in how we as the redeemed are to live now, correct?

 

'Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh' (Galatians 5:16). But if the spirit is not leading you to keep the commandments, I beg leave to wonder if it is the Holy Spirit.

'For they [the Jews], being ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end [Gk. telos] of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes' (Romans 10:3-4).

Christ is not the end of the law, but the end of the law for righteousness. He is the end of people striving to be justified by works. But we should not regard 'end' here as being the death or destruction of the law; rather Christ is its perfection or consummation. In Hebrews 6:1 & 7:11, the word telos is translated 'perfection.' The moment that anyone trusts in Christ for salvation, the end, or purpose, of the law is attained in him, and he is in possession of that righteousness which exceeds that of the Scribes and Pharisees. But if he has truly believed in Christ, he is a new creation and the evidence of that will be that will be a delight in the law of God (Romans 7:22) and a desire and increasing, though imperfect, ability to keep it (c.f. Matthew 12:33; James 2:17).

 

It's also through His Life in us can we do anything righteous as well

 

Excuse, me? You are getting pretty close to being ridiculous. I have only said biblical, Scriptural statements. I have one Desire, to Please my Master, the Lord Jesus Christ according to His Word and according to the New Covenant. You think that it might be some other spirit that desires that? All Scripture is God Breathed--but I am not under the Old Covenant. That's all I've been saying.

You act as if the New Covenant is some sort of shined up Old Covenant. Your lack of "Christ" in your statements concerns me that you truly do not Understand Galatians 2:20. But you do not hear me questioning your salvation, do you??? You sir, are out of line.

 

I'm under the Law of Christ and my desire is to Love God more than anything in this World and to Love My Neighbor as myself AND to Love the brethren as Christ loved me. It's not a pass to sin! It's a Pass to Live Godly and Righteously through the Power of the Holy Spirit according to God's Word!

What is the law of Christ?

 

First of all, my sincerest apology for the innuendo in my post #84. It is never my intention to question anyone's salvation on this board. Unfortunately, most of my recent posts on this thread have been written in great haste because of my church responsibilities which come and go as my Pastor deals with various family problems. However, that is no excuse, I should have been more careful in what I wrote and I apologize again.

You will however note that I used the name of Christ four times in post #84 (five times if you include the Scripture text).

What I don't understand is the desire to separate what God has not separated. The 'Royal law' and the Ten Commandments are not in opposition to each other. On the contrary, the one is simply a summary or epitome of the other. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 comes very quickly after Deuteronomy 5:1-21. I don't see how the one negates the other in any way whatsoever; rather the one is the rationale for the other.

 

I accept absolutely that this is your desire and that you regard yourself as being under the law of Christ.
What I deny is that Christ has a different set of laws to His Father.

In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord Jesus deals with Commandments 6 (Matthew 5:21-22), 7 (vs. 27-28), 7 (vs. 31-32) and 4 (vs. 33-37) and gives their proper interpretation as opposed to that of the Scribes and Pharisees, before going on to look at loving one's neighbour (vs. 38-48). He does not regard the one as making the other obsolete.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Paul warns the Corinthians, 'Do not be deceived.' He then goes on to tell them that those who break the 7th Commandment (in a variety of ways), the 2nd, the 10th, the 6th and the 8th (possibly the 1st if alcoholism is putting drink before God) will not enter the kingdom of God. The Corinthians have been cleansed from these sins, and they cannot go back to them (c.f. 2 Peter 2:22). They must not be deceived.

In Ephesians 6:1-2, writing to a mostly Gentile church, Paul commands children, '"Honour your father and mother," which is the first commandment with a promise, "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."' This is not the first commandment that anyone has to obey; it is the first commandment with a promise. The statement only makes sense if the other commandments are operative and if they were known to the Ephesian Gentiles.

I promised @1689Dave (I think it was he) that I would deal with 1 Timothy 1:5-11. I should have some free time next week to do that.

 

Yes! “For the commandments, “Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet,” (and if there is any other commandment) are summed up in this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:9–10) (NET)

What did Paul say? He said if you give your body to be burned (legalistically) and have not love, it profits nothing. Love fulfills the law, but legalism always fails.

 

Why though did the Apostles bring all 10 of them back over to us then, under the NC?

 

They did not. They used the Ten for commentary and instruction. But warned that keeping even one commandments as a religious obligation meant keeping all of them. Plus, ONLY these points of the Law are binding today: “Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.” (Acts 15:19–20) (KJV 1900)

 

NOT saying we must keep them in order to be a Christian, but the moral standards they address should be kept by Christians , correct?

 

We are not under the Ten Commandments. They were a negative version of the Two Great Commandments designed for spiritually dead people. We are under the same Two Great Commandments Abraham and all believers are under. Love of God and neighbor. If you do this, you keep the Ten Commandments without trying.

Think of it this way. The wicked Jews obeyed the Ten Commandments reluctantly under threat of death. They did not steal, not because they were good. They did not steal, no matter how badly they wanted to, for fear of punishment. And greed drove their obedience because it brought material gain.

But the Two Great Commandments were for believers. Because of the New Birth, they loved God and neighbor, and did not want to steal. This would be Abel, Job, Abraham and all of the faithful listed in Hebrews 11.

 

So it would be wrong Christians to even recognize the moral code of the Law to us today?

 

I understand, brother. I accept your apology and I forgive you. The reality is, I am born from above--My desire is to Live for King Jesus and obey His commandments. I just believe it looks different from a NT context. It's not anti-old covenant, its "Better than the Old Covenant" concerning practical righteousness (and other things as well--Hebrews).

 

I use the Ten Commandments every hour of every day. Checking my thoughts against them. But we are not bound by them. As I said, they serve as instruction and commentary in the New Covenant. But we are under the Two Great Commandments of love for God and neighbor, just as Abraham, Abel and all of the faithful of all time were.

 

I am happy to accept that this applies to you, but I believe that generally it is a recipe for self-deception and for moral and spiritual shipwreck. I say that because I have seen it happen.

And this is so blatantly untrue! What about the writer of Psalm 119? Did he only obey the commandments for fear of punishment? What of the blessed man in Psalm 1? On the other hand, King Jehu said, "Come and see my zeal for the LORD" (2 Kings 10:16), but that did not prevent him from leading Israel into breaking the second commandment (2 Kings 10:28-29).

Abel, Job and Abraham would not have known your two 'great commandments' any better than the Decalogue. They appear for the first time in Deuteronomy 6:45 and Leviticus 19:18.

Once again, it is an egregious error to set the 'great commandments' against the Decalogue. They come from the mind of the same great God and are sweetly in harmony with one another, the one being a summary of the other.

 

The point is, that Christ in the heart produces love, whether we heard about the Two Great Commandments or not. And Love fulfills both them and the Ten. Hearing the Ten pinpoints the fountains of lust in the heart for the wicked. But loving God and neighbor shuts them down. In our case, to a trickle. A trickle we attack and censor in the thought realm. I think it is rare for someone walking in the Spirit to sin outwardly. The tongue seems the greatest threat to external sin in this case. But if love rules our thoughts and words, we can overcome even this.

 

The wicked will do wicked things; that is a given (Luke 6:43-45 etc.). They will not love God and their neighbours. The Commandments stand for such people as a warning to retrain their wickedness to some degree.

As for the righteous, well there is none of those (Romans 3:10, 23). There are those who are redeemed and born from above. Yet Paul warns such people (1 Corinthians 1:2-9) that if they commit certain named sins, they will not enter the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). 'Do not be deceived.' There is no greater or more wicked deception than to tell new Christians that so long as they love Jesus it doesn't matter what they do. Because it isn't true. 'Do not be deceived.' Loving God means keeping His commandments (John 14:15; 1 John 5:3).