The Law: All or Nothing? Done Away or Still Today?

JesusFan · Apr 22, 2011

Iconoclast said: ↑

The ten commandments are for all men.
They were before the mosaic laws were spelled out.
Mosaic law is just an expansion of the ten.
All men will be judged by the ten commandments
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Actually, all will be judged by/on the basis of rejection of the Lord Jesus, by NOT believing on the only name given by which we will be saved by...

And IF one is a Christian, than we are no longer under the bondage of the law, but alive in Christ thru the Holy Spirit...
the law NEVER meant to save us, but was means by which God revealed Himself, is demands, and used to regulate His holy nation of isreal..
But now have a new surer Covenant thru the blood of Christ, and not under law to regulate us and our behavior, but the Holy spirit and life of Jesus in us now!

We have the law written on our hearts, in that the Holy Spirit gives us the actual power to live out the law, IF we allow Him to empower us daily...

the law served its purpose, brought usd to realise cannot save ourselves, sinners before God, and we need to receive Jesus as the sin bearer on our behalf...

Once saved/redeemed, no longer un external law, but alive in Christ, bondage to Him, and to walk in power of the Holy Spirit...

HankD · Apr 22, 2011

Tom, I admire your tenacity (though its now become a long term thing) and its good to see you stimulating our gray matter.

The timeless and universal purpose of the law:

1 Timothy 1:9 Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers.

This will stand while there is still sinful flesh to be controlled and/or punished working as a tool by the Spirit (either by letter or written upon the heart via the conscience) to reprove/convict men of sin.

God's work of regeneration does not and will not eradicate the flesh upon regeneration but provides the power to overcome it (to have dominion over it). The flesh necessitates the law.

Preterism's difficulty:

Preterism has no explanation for the present day existence of the flesh, and sin and death and thereby diminishes the power of Christ:

Neither can it tell us how long all this sin and death will remain in this material universe or how this material universe will end seeing that all has been fulfilled in the preterist point of view. Sin yet reigning over this world.

1 John 3:8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

There is one who is coming who will conquer, cleanse and purify the universe in its entirety:

Act 1

3 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
5 For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.
6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
9 And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

We have not seen this same Jesus (not Titus) return in like manner (bodily form) as He was seen to leave, but when He does He will assuredly put an end to this miserable abode of sin and death and then and only then will the law become an unecessary tool of the Spirit of God.

HankD

kyredneck · Apr 22, 2011

18 And if ye will not yet for these things hearken unto me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins.
19 And I will break the pride of your power: and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass; Lev 26

23 And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. Dt 28

In Lev 26 & Dt 28 the Jews are told that their heaven and earth would be as iron and brass if they did not hearken unto Him. Well, they didn't hearken unto Him and I believe that their heaven and earth are indeed as iron as brass to them today, and there were several other curses contained in these passages that came down on them due to their unbelief.

I agree. I believe we are new creatures of the new covenant of the new heaven and new earth.

Iconoclast · Apr 22, 2011

asterisktom said: ↑

Please lets get back to Jesus' use of Law on the Sermon of the Mount. He gave no indication that there are different Laws in this section. This is important, because what Christ says will happen to the Law will happen to all of it, exemplified by the many parts He referred to in this section.

I am not asserting that the Decalogue does not have a higher priority, just that Christ was not making that distinction in this section. Neither should we.
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Tom
I agree this is very important. I think the answer as far as distinction is made lies in the word fulfilled.
Jesus Fulfilled all the law in that he carried it out perfectly. Some parts of the law Jesus is the completion of.

3For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.
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this sign is fulfilled in Christ....
here is another;

1For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

2For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.

3But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.

4For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

5Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

6In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

7Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

8Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; 9Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. 10By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

11And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;

13From henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool.

14For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
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Tom....is this what you are getting at? I think I am with you on this, but maybe I am tired and not following as well as I would like to..
4For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

I think some parts of the law are fulfilled and completed IN Christ.....some parts are still on going..the 10 in our heart

Calv1 · Apr 25, 2011

asterisktom said: ↑

The Law: All or Nothing? Done Away or Still Today?
There is not a third, modified choice. Not according to Christ's Promise

Here is His promise:
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled." - Matt. 5:17-18

You may need to read this several times, slowly, to let the point of this article sink in. I know that this is not something that I saw until fairly recently. And I had read - and perhaps at some time even memorized - this passage, still not grasping Christ's powerful point.

The point of this passage is that there will never be a time when the Law will operate only partially. For instance, there will never be a time when we are obligated to keep the Ten Commandments - without keeping every other lesser law (every "jot" and "tittle").

Yet, this is exactly what many do today. They erect a distinction between ceremonial law (for the Jews only) and the eternal law (binding on all believers). Quick quiz: What is the Greek word for "ceremonial", as in "ceremonial law"? How about the Hebrew word? There is none. That is already an indication itself that this distinction is man-made, not God-ordained.

Because it is difficult to actually see what this verse is saying, seeing that we are overly familiar with what we think the verse is saying, it might be helpful to try a different tack.

Let's try the mathematical word-problem approach. To solve a hard word problem it is often helpful to substitute values to gain insight into the problem. In Matt. 5:18 let us forget, for the moment, some phrases and replace them with different phrases. This way we will be able to see just what type of action is being described, and - more importantly - the actual duration of those actions. After all, this is the very gist of the misunderstanding of this passage.

Poor Ned
Note that the substituted phrases are in brackets:
For assuredly, I say to you, till [Ned's prison sentence is completed], [not one day will pass without him wearing an orange suit and being a prisoner] till [he has served out the mandated punishment].

Consider poor Ned's case. He is laboring under a double whammy: Because he has a sentence to fulfill he has to wear that orange suit and, more importantly, he is imprisoned. When does relief come to Ned? When his sentence is completed. At that time - and exactly at that time, not a second sooner - he is free to dress as he pleases and to leave the prison. He is a new man! And here is the clincher: The place of Ned's incarceration - and where the records were all kept - burned to the ground! You might say that this addition is unwarranted from Scripture, but read on.

Application for us
Now consider our case. Mankind was laboring under sin and condemnation. Christ put an end to all this by his sacrifice on the cross. All of our condemnation, our incredibly detailed and discouraging rap-sheet, was nailed to the cross. And here is the clincher for us: Like Ned's case, the place where our guilt was perpetuated ("through the Law is the knowledge of sin", Rom. 3:20) was likewise destroyed. At the cross the Temple veil, that reminder of our estrangement from God, was already torn in half, top to bottom (God's initiative, not ours). At the destruction of Jerusalem in AD70 the only means of perpetuating and observing the Law was likewise destroyed. The elements (the STOICHEIA), the basis of our condemnation, likewise burned to the ground. Hallelujah! Peter tells us - twice - that the "elements will melt with fervent heat". What are these elements? None other than the foundational principals of the whole Law system, Gal. 4:3; Col. 2:8, 20. With the burning of the physical bricks and stones of the Temple there was an inexorable but invisible burning up of that whole system. We couldn't return to the Law if we wanted to.

But why would we even want to, seeing that it only ever condemned us before God, never commended us to God?

New Heavens, New Earth - right now.
When Ned was free from his sentence and condemnation he was a new man. By comparison, when we are free from our condemnation we were not only new creatures in Christ, but we were also , from that time on, in a new heavens and new earth.

If you don't believe me, go back to the original passage. At the very time when we were no longer under the Law and its condemnation, at that very time we are in the new heavens and new earth. We have this right now. We are not waiting for this still to happen in the future. The New Heavens and New Earth is the world of the new creature in Christ.

If we are not in the New Heavens and New Earth then we must also still be under the Law - all of it, every jot and tittle. Under the Law and without place or means to practice the Law - in its entirety. We would be, of all men, the most miserable!

Eternal & Invisible
An objection might be raised: This does not look at all like the New Heavens and New Earth, not at all what I would expect. Well, the problem is in our perception. We have been taught a certain way. Look again at what the Bible says, not what man's teaching insists.

"We walk by faith, and not by sight." - 2 Cor.5:7

"we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." - 2 Cor.4:18

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The law very much applies to us, but remember, Jesus didn't just die for our sins, but fulfilled all righteousness for us Why did Jesus have to live a perfect life? For us!

If Christ only died for our sins, we'd be in the state of Adam, innocent but not righteous. Christ DID IT ALL, God bless Him forever! His temptations were for us, His sorrow was for us, HIS RIGHTEOUS LIFE ACCORDING TO THE LAW was fulfilled for us.

So yes, the law applies to us, but it is also fulfilled for us by Christ

The Law: All or Nothing? Done Away or Still Today?

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