law

Death, sin, sting: law

eejoseph, , ,

Animal life, relationships, and even inanimate resources illustrate many important aspects of the kingdom of God.  Satan is represented by a lion and so is God. The law of God/Moses is many things, perhaps reflecting the law’s functions deep in the operations in Israel-Judah.  The law is the truth, an educator, a light, a library of knowledge, but also a prison, a corrector and punisher of the impudent, but the outcomes of these functions are not prominent in Israel’s perverse history.  Even with such an illustrious resume the law is never the agent or channel of righteousness, despite the gallant and creative effort of Psalm 119’s writer(s)

Venom, numbness and unbelief

There are some believers whose consciences are so burned out that they deny that the law is an agent for making sin loom larger than it really is.  They also claim to find righteousness in observing the law, as if Christ has nothing to do with sin and divine justice.  James’ characterization of the law as a participant in liberty is unfortunate, seeing that he makes no reference to the liberty brought about by the Lord and his opinion of kingdom or royal law seems to exclude his famous brother’s passion and glory.

And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law.

Galatians 5:3

It is just pure venom that is affecting the crew that wants to be more Jewish than anyone else.  Their minds are numb, their eyes are dim and they are in a stupour that prevents them from perceiving what God is offering.  There is no division of the law into moral and ritual conventions.  One would have to make the Decalogue a hybrid constitution, (a) pushing a holy day clearly listed as a ritual and festival in Leviticus, (b) human ideals like the 5th command and (c) condemning everyone with the other 8 commands.

No one is getting justified by observing the law

because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. (Romans 3:20)

It has to be a kind of insensitivity spell that results in people taking pride in knowing sin.  

  • Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth. (Psalms 119:142)
  • Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law; (Psalms 94:12)
  • For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light; And reproofs for discipline are the way of life (Proverbs 6:23)
  • “For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 2:7)

Hurtful, harmful, and suicidal

Obedience in full splendour has to be more than a Ten Commandment loyalty.  A person can sit at home perfectly idle, The typical division of the law into binding and non-binding falls into the ditch as soon as the fact emerges that no human being has complied with everything the law says.  

It is folly to insert Christ into the fabulously duplicitous narratives of the sons of Israel.  It is extreme depravity for Christians to adapt the priorities of ancient prophets, theocratic kingdoms for charting the course of the kingdom of grace and the Church.

Obeying the Bible is a terroristic claim

People who press others to obey the Bible have forgotten that God is a person, not a thing.  There is no “thing” from which we derive God’s approval.  It is God himself who provides peace and light.  You cannot replace David’s Lord with a set of instructions and try to make salvation and righteousness come from your own behaviour (commission or omission).  How many people have been mesmerized by a rabbi conflating Messianic revelation with Judaism? Very many.  The church is suffering from delusions of self-sufficiency.  The majority of believers have disconnected themselves from the foundation Christ laid.  The testimony of the apostles and the thunder (the things that must remain undocumented) of the writers of the New Testament are the things that slip by.  What beside Pharisee, hypocrite and moron can we call a person who asserts that God gave Adam and Eve the Ten Commandments in Eden? To fully disengage from the heavenly help that the Holy Spirit brings to believers’ lives we are be8 urged to subscribe to the idea that the Sinai Covenant was in sway before war broke out in heaven.  Sheesh and goodness gracious, man!

The sting of death is sin, and the power (Greek, dunamis, δύναμις) of sin is the law;

The most famous rabbit has a hole

eejoseph, , ,

When we speak of the sinless, flawless, ineffable, holy and awesome God we realize that he has attributes that are uniquely his. 

Blameless and beyond indictment

Since the elect of God are declared to be beyond being indicted, it must bring to mind the question “Who dares to bring a charge against God?” The picture of David eating the Bread of the Presence is not so eye-popping. The idea that God can sin is ridiculous.

Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; (Romans 8:33, NASB) who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. (Romans 8:34, NASB)

What is going to do? Can he have another god, can he bear false witness, can he violate the sabbath, can he take somebody’s wife, can he steal a loaf of bread, or covet a donkey?  There are people who affirm that God’s standard for human beings is the law, applicable to him as to them.  You see the folly that swirls around the spiritual galaxy!

God’s people: lawless and rebellious

… realizing the fact that law is not made for a righteous person, but for those who are lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers (1 Timothy 1:9, NASB). and immoral men and homosexuals and kidnappers and liars and perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound teaching, (1 Timothy 1:10, NASB)

Law is not for God or holy people. Go down that rabbit hole, say that God and his people are to be defined by law, and you have sealed your destiny as a mere proverb and abomination.

This is not my covenant

eejoseph, , ,

“Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets which were written on both sides; they were written on one side and the other.”

Exodus 32:15

Appreciation of God’s covenant cannot come without a page-turning.  The two-sided writing indicates that a change is necessary for anyone to be found in compliance with God’s will.

“For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.”

Hebrews 7:12, New American Standard Bible

Morality without the cross

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Knowing what we have discovered about secular religious power in religious hands we ought to be far more cautious about reinventing the wheel.  The trial of Jesus by a religious court provides convincing evidence that injustice can acquire the label and reputation of justice.  We can add nothing to the doctrines of Moses or Jesus and mixing the two is bound to result in wasting the two.

You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God that I command you. Deut. 4:2,

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, (Rev. 22:18)  and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Rev. 22:19)

Rev. 22:18-19

Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Matthew 9:17

The persecution of the church

In John 5:16 we see the Jews persecuting Jesus, because He was doing good things on the Sabbath.  In Acts we see the persecution of Jesus’s disciples continues the church for calling on and preaching Jesus’s name.   Perhaps it is James and the Pharisees who are the persecutors of the church.  Judaism has never sustained a sense of morality.  It only knew how to engage in power plays: prosecuting violators of the law, keeping aliens as second class citizens, and discriminating against women.  Perfection and maturity are not the outcomes of law; law lets people know what sin they have committed, it condemns everyone without exception and predicts it’s own demise.

The way and the life

Since Christ personally takes the reins of God’s kingdom from the levitical system complete with a change of law, how can life of the redeemed (the converted) ever be shaped by dead works?   Death and condemnation are not affirmed by the ritual law…  Death sentences appear all over the law: for incest, sorcery, gluttony, rebellious children and many prohibitions (“you shall not…”) regarding festivals, and food and drink.   We could believe that the law has nothing to do with moral behaviour or lifesaving obligations, but how can the cross not be elevated above the hills because of the freedom from death it brings?  How can the cross not be the spice that flavors the life it brings if we believe that it does something the law could never do? Where is “what he’s done for others he’ll do for you” when you need one?

The evangelical world rejects the idea that the Law is perfect by rejecting the Sabbath and the rituals for sacrifice and festivals.   If the law needs an improvement for the protection of women’s inheritance rights it is neither whole nor perfect.  A Jew will rightly not accept the unraveling of the law into moral and ritual.  Christians know that defining sin is not what Christ came to do.  He came to abolish death and bring life and immortality to light through the gospel. If you think that the gospel is inadequate as a moral standard you will remain excited about pig’s mud, dog’s vomit, and give the nod to oppression of the poor and needy.