as far as i can tell, and i admit that i don't go to 15,000 churches per week or listen to 100,000 preachers, so i don't have a statistically sound way of ascertaining, but as far as i can tell, "mainstream" teaching in what is called the Christian churches is that salvation is not *quite* by grace through faith, but that it's faith + 'something'
mainstream teaching seems to me to be adding some form of law, some form of ceremony, some form of "do not" and "do" in order to be saved and/or to maintain that salvation. you aren't saved unless you do these works. you are no longer saved if you don't do these works. you were never saved in the first place unless you do these works. that's 'mainstream' in my view. wasn't that also mainstream in the time Colossians was written? yes - 'be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses' ((Acts 15:5)) they said. believing Jews said this. *add these works* or they aren't saved.
observe a day or a set of dietary laws, for example, in one fashion or another. "tithe" as they call it, though it's not the Levitical tithe. maintain a certain outward behavior in some way, keep some regular habit, say some set of words out loud, walk to an altar and *do* something. go through a certain ceremony. go through that ceremony weekly, either on a saturday or a sunday. not saved if you don't, or if you do it on the wrong day.
it's been bugging me throughout this thread, Studyman, how you keep referring to 'mainstream' as though you're the outlier, but i rather think you're pressing us towards what i actually think is something 'mainstream'
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one central mistake in this thread, as i see it, is thinking the Law is separable into ceremony, sacrifice, moral and priestly bits, and that those are all distinct, individual laws, any one of which can be taken away. but the Law given through Moses to Israel is a covenant, and just like any contract, no matter how many clauses it has, it is all one contract. you break any part of the contract, you break it all.
the scripture calls even the history of Abraham's life "the Law" ((Galatians 4)) - and Jesus calls the Psalms "the Law" ((John 10:34-35)) -- interestingly, He calls it there "your Law" while speaking to the Jews in the temple courts.
i know of nowhere in any of the Bible that "the Law" of Moses is ever spoken of in bits and pieces; only in whole.
"mainstream" teaching today - and arguably of Christ's day, given how He chided them for ignoring what parts of it say while keeping fastidiously other parts - is that the Law is bits and pieces you can pick from somehow. "oh, only some of it was taken away at the Cross, only some of it was nailed" -- what is "mainstream" is to put yourself, and others - or laughably, often only others, not yourself, thinking to judge and not be judged - under some segment of the Law but not under all of it, of course.
i recognize that you, for respect of what was given by God, have difficulty believing it could be found to lack, so you are trying to convince yourself and us that it was only some totally inconsequential and non-binding opinions of deluded scribes that He crucified that day.
but scripture doesn't support this.
what was nailed up on that piece of wood is a Covenant - a broken contract, which He replaced that day with a new one, better, able to save: and it wasn't just bits of a contract but not all of it; He didn't "amend" the covenant - He made a new covenant with His own blood and body.
sure and there are things in the new contract that were also in the old: "love your neighbor" is the immutable Law of God, and the old covenant with Israel had this language, just as the new covenant in Christ says "love one another"
