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May 26, 2013 |
| The Law | ||
Paul says many things about the law that seem to contradict each other. Here are some examples..
Galatians 3:24 The Written Law was therefore a guide for us to The Messiah that we would be made right by faith. 25 But when the faith came we were not under a guide.
1 Timothy 1:8 But we know that The Written Law is good if a man will be led by it, according to The Written Law,
Romans 3:31 Are we eliminating The Written Law by faith? God forbid, but we are establishing The Written Law.
2 Timothy 3:15 And because from your childhood you were taught The Holy Scrolls which can make you wise unto the life in the faith of Yeshua The Messiah. 16 Every writing which is written by The Spirit is profitable for teaching, for correction, for direction and for a course in righteousness, 17 that the man of God will be perfect and perfected for every good work.
2 Corinthians 3:14 But they were blinded in their understanding; for until today whenever the Old Testament is read, that veil remains over them, and it is not revealed that it is being abolished by The Messiah.
And in many places we see Paul using the 10 commandments to teach righteousness.
The apparent contradictions in these verses and others have resulted in many incorrect understandings. Some of these have been the result of simple error but others are intentional as Peter says of the readers of Paul's writings and the writings of others.
2 Peter 3:15 And you shall consider that the patience of the lord Jehovah is salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul wrote to you, according to the wisdom that was given to him, 16 Just as in all of his letters he spoke about these things, in which are things difficult for the intellect, which those who are without teaching and unstable, pervert, as also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Some of these misunderstandings are:
In this lesson we will look at the law and what it means to the Christian.
Before we get into the role of the law we need to discuss righteousness. The word righteous has two meanings in Judeo-Christianity and it's critical to understand this. The first meaning describes our relationship with God. Being righteous in God's eyes or being right with God can only be achieved by faith in God. When righteous in this way we are promised salvation and eternal life. Nothing else is required.
Being righteous in this way, by faith, leads to the other meaning of righteous. If our faith is real then our desire will be to be as God-like as possible. To do this we want to know what God is like and what he expects of us and we want to obey him. Therefore we want to live a righteous life.
Therefore being righteous before God leads to living a righteous life. But the reverse is not true. Righteousness before God comes through faith only. But intentionally living an unrighteous life is disobedience and leads to an end of salvation and to eternal death. So we see that the law can only judge a man guilty; it can never declare him to be just.
The law was intended to result in living a righteous life by defining an unrighteous life.
The foundation of the law is God and God is love. But what do we mean when we say that? Do we mean God has love? While it's true that God has love that isn't what is meant. Do we mean God is the same thing as love? No. What we mean is that God is the existence of love, the body in which love exists. Without God there is no love. God is the source of all love.
But God's love is not the infantile love that some would like it to be; a love where nothing bad is ever done. True love requires justice. When a person does something unloving to another person justice dictates that a penalty must be paid. True love also requires truth and mercy. In fact all the qualities of God can be traced back to true love.
Getting back to the law now, we will be covering the law as God gave it over history. These phases are called dispensations.
When God created mankind he implanted in everyone an understanding of love in a form we call a conscience. This conscience teaches us, if we will listen, about love, which is God. Therefore each one of us has an understanding of God and a desire to be holy as he is holy. From this comes the Law of God described by Paul
Romans 7:25 I thank God by Our Lord Yeshua The Messiah. Now therefore, I am a Servant of The Law of God in my conscience, but in my flesh, I am a Servant of the law of sin.
A conscience was the only law that mankind had from the first. It's very likely that this was accompanied by an oral tradition. Adam and Eve would have told their stories to their children Cain and Seth who would have passed them down to their children and so on for many generations.
But it turns out that a conscience is pretty easy to ignore. Small wrongs result in small pangs of conscience and after enough of them the conscience soon becomes used to them and stops them. One big step would be too much for a conscience but a series of small steps make it possible. This is what Paul calls a seared conscience which brings to my mind the image of seared meat which no longer lets out its juices. For meat that's a good thing; for a conscience … not so much.
1 Timothy 4:2 These persons who deceive by false appearances and speak lies and sear their consciences
As consciences became seared mankind became sinful. Eventually mankind became so sinful that they would not be able to find their way back to God. God acted by destroying almost all of mankind, leaving only a remnant, Noah and his family.
Genesis 6:5 The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.
Salvation - Salvation was made available to them after the Messiah was crucified and descended to Sheol. He preached to them. "Because The Messiah also died once for the sake of our sins, the righteous one in the place of sinners, to bring you to God, and he died in body and lived in his spirit. 19 And he preached to those souls who were held in Sheol, 20 These who from the first were not convinced in the days of Noah […]." (1 Peter 3:18-20)
Diet - Plants and fruits
Sacrifices - Crops and clean animals at any location
Immediately after stepping off the Ark, God started giving Noah some laws that are now called the Seven Noahide laws. They aren't given as a sequence of laws like the Ten Commandments. They are spread around a little bit like the rest of the laws the Jews were required to observe. That makes them like the two great commandments that Jesus refers to that not near each other in the Old Testament text.
These seven laws are traditionally listed as:2
The Jewish sages have understood since long before Jesus time that these laws were given. Yet most Christians have no idea that these laws existed. That's unfortunate because the New Testament refers to them in a very important teaching that many Christians consequently do not understand. Because of this lack of understanding some Christians, particularly in some of the Messianic communities, are being taught that they must observe the food regulations of the Old Covenant.
This law was given to Noah as a law for all of mankind. It combines laws about the relationship with God, laws about the relationship with mankind, and a food law. It can be seen as a subset of the Ten Commandments and the Jewish food law.
Very quickly the new world turned away from God
Salvation - Salvation was made available to them after the Messiah was crucified and descended to Sheol. He preached to them. "Because The Messiah also died once for the sake of our sins, the righteous one in the place of sinners, to bring you to God, and he died in body and lived in his spirit. 19 And he preached to those souls who were held in Sheol, 20 These who from the first were not convinced in the days of Noah […]." (1 Peter 3:18-20)
Diet - Animals, plants and fruits
Sacrifices - Crops and clean animals at any location
Early in this phase God chooses a people to be his representatives and to bring his salvation into the world. He makes a covenant with them and gives them a written law to aid their consciences to keep them away from sin.
That law consists of many parts. The stone tablets are the moral law and are a written form of the law of God in the conscience. The stone media and being written by the finger of God attest to their permanence. The two of them show the two parts of "You shall love the lord Jehovah your God from all your heart and from all your soul and from all your strength and from all your mind and your neighbor as yourself."1
The writing on them, which we call the Ten Commandments, would probably be better called the ten examples. Direct translations from the Hebrew render the name of them as the "ten sayings" or the "ten words".
The law of God is different from the law of man. The law of man is intended to regulate human behavior; the law of God is intended to teach righteousness. The law of man is all about the letter of the law; the law of God is about finding the full and deeper meanings of the law.
The rest of the law was written on paper. It consisted of:
In this covenant there was no separation of church and state. God took complete control of his people and provided all the laws for their society as a king would do.
But the people rejected their king, broke his laws and fell into sin. As punishment and to turn them back to God they were conquered many times, most notably to the Assyrians, then Babylonians, then during the period between the old and new testaments, by the Greeks and then Romans.
From this his people learned a lesson but it was the wrong one. They learned they needed to follow his laws to the letter. Judaism became a religion of strict adherence to laws and laws abounded as the priests tried to perfect the people through additional laws. Faith was replaced by laws and the priesthood became corrupt which lead to the corruption of many of the people. It was time for God to step in again.
Salvation - Salvation was by faith in God which included odeying his commandments, ordinances and statutes.
Diet - Same as God - Clean animals, plants and fruits
Sacrifices - Crops and clean animals at tent of meeting, tabernacle, or temple where God indicated. Specific offerings only
Salvation - Only available by entering the Mosaic covenant
Diet - Animals, plants and fruits
Sacrifices - Crops and clean animals at any location
In this phase the salvation of God comes to earth in the form of Jesus. He tries to return the people and priests to the correct understanding of God. In turn they kill him and he dies as the atonement for all sin past and future, for those who believe in him. He is resurrected and returns to God.
Before he is killed he makes a new covenant and one part of this covenant is that the Holy Spirit will be given to all those who believe in him. The Holy Spirit will be, among other things, like a law of God written in the heart. It will be an aid to the conscience as the written law was, in the Old Covenant.
This covenant puts an end to many things from the Old Testament. Because the faith of the Messiah has come and because Jesus' sacrifice on the cross paid the debt of all sin, there is no longer a need for sacrifices for sin or for priests to offer those sacrifices and it is possible for us to be free of sin and live under grace. Because we have the Holy Spirit there is no longer a need for priests to act as intercessors between us and God.
We don't know exactly how this phase will end. We have prophecy that gives us some understanding and a look at what comes in the next phase. The world will again turn to sin and God will step in again this time as the Messiah returning to be king.
Salvation - Salvation was by faith in the Messiah, who was God, which includes obeying his commandments.
Diet - Animals, plants and fruits
Sacrifices - Crops and clean animals at any location
Notice how the end of the Mosaic covenant leaves the Noahide covenant laws. "But let it be sent to them that they separate from the defilement of sacrifices and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. 21 For from the first ages there have been preachers for Moses who read him on every Sabbath in every town in the synagogues. 29 Abstain from what is sacrificed, from blood, from what is strangled, and from fornication, for when you keep yourselves from these things, you will be well. Be faithful in Our Lord." (Acts 15:20-21,29)
Satan will be locked up. We don't have much detail about this phase but a few things seem clear.
Revelation 2:27 "To Shepherd them with a rod of iron, and like the vessels of a potter you shall shatter them, for in the same manner I have also received of my Father."
The shepherd's rod was used for defending the flock from outside attackers and less often for dealing with problem members of the flock. Rods were traditionally made of wood so the reference to an iron rod tells us that tolerance and leniency will not be available. The reference to a potter's vessels is to the process of reducing an old clay pot to dust and building a new pot from it. So the overall picture here is of strict adherence to God's ways and immediate correction for those who will not.
As this phase comes to an end, Satan will be freed and immediately he sets about to deceive the people of the earth. He brings them together for a battle against God. Naturally they are destroyed by God
Righteousness and Righteousness
God is Love
First Phase (dispensation)
Love → Conscience
Over-ridding the conscience is easy
Step-by-step
First Phase ends in moral decay with flood
Second Phase - Old Covenant
God chooses a people
The tablets and writings are given
Second Phase ends with moral decay especially in the priesthood and then the first coming
Third Phase - New Covenant
Third Phase ends with moral decay and second coming
Fourth Phase - King
1 Luke 10:27 excerpt