What is “works of the law?”

[RedTent]

Today’s Christian’s definition of works of the law is all the work we do to please Christ as scripture tells us to do. In the deep sea scrolls, they talk of works of the law in a completely different way. Some people in those days put what they did to obey ahead of any Torah principle of God. If someone was drowning on Sunday, for instance, they would put forth no effort to save that person because the works of the law had more importance to them that the principle of kindness. No one thought of works of the law as the same as the law of the Torah, even those who believed in them ahead of the spiritual law of the Torah.

When God breathed scripture to Paul to record, God used the way the current population thought of the words Paul used. We are expected to use information available to us to find out what that was. God gave us the deep sea scrolls to open up a lot of understanding to us that was lost through the years.

It is the same with “the law of Moses”. When Paul wrote about that, it was understood those laws had nothing to do with the actual law of Moses, they had to do with the lifestyle asked of the Jews so they kept separated from the gentiles who did not believe in the Lord. When we assign the meaning of that as the ten commandments, we would have been considered out of our minds by the people of Paul’s day.

 

[BlackPlatypus]

[h=1]Works of the Law[/h]
You may find that to be a useful Bible study site.

 

[Kerry]

It is impossible to please God without faith. Faith in what?

 

[RedTent]

Works of the Law
You may find that to be a useful Bible study site.

Interesting site. But it isn't defining the term works of the law, only giving an interpretation of scripture as all saying that any work we do does not save us---something all scripture tells us. They seem to feel that from knowing this, we are to assume that any works of the law should not be considered if we are Christian, and scripture doesn't uphold that conclusion at all. Scripture points to a walk with he Lord, putting on the mind of Jesus, that we are judged by our works, scripture says much about how we are to look at works, including that they don't save us.

I don't find anything at this site to inform me about what scripture means when it says "works of the law".

 

[crossnote]

The way the OP came across it sounds as if the Church was at a disadvantage for 1900 years until in 1948 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and now the meaning of Scripture has opened up...I don't buy it. Most cults run on the premise that ''your Scriptures have been altered and now we have the 'true' translation''.
God providentially preserves His Word, thank you.

 

[crossnote]

I see no other Scriptures other than the following which uses the term 'works of the law'.

Romans 9:31-32 But Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteousness.
Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law. For they stumbled at that stumblingstone;

Galatians 2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Galatians 3:2-3 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

Galatians 3:5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Galatians 3:10-11 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith.

 

[RedTent]

The way the OP came across it sounds as if the Church was at a disadvantage for 1900 years until in 1948 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and now the meaning of Scripture has opened up...I don't buy it. Most cults run on the premise that ''your Scriptures have been altered and now we have the 'true' translation''.
God providentially preserves His Word, thank you.

Your conclusion that everyone who ever read letters Paul wrote understood them as Crossnote (in all his GREAT wisdom) understands them today is ----I run out of words that could be used to describe thinking this arrogant.

 

[crossnote]

The way the OP came across it sounds as if the Church was at a disadvantage for 1900 years until in 1948 the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and now the meaning of Scripture has opened up...I don't buy it. Most cults run on the premise that ''your Scriptures have been altered and now we have the 'true' translation''.
God providentially preserves His Word, thank you.

Your conclusion that everyone who ever read letters Paul wrote understood them as Crossnote (in all his GREAT wisdom) understands them today is ----I run out of words that could be used to describe thinking this arrogant.

And you wonder why I come off the way I do.
Your continual twisting what others say is simply against the Commandments you pretend to keep.
Where in the world did I say ''that everyone whoever read letters Paul wrote understood them as I understand them (in all my great wisdom) etc?

Your incessant twisting is sickening. Do you love destroying others by making false reports of them?
Your words run hallow with all your so called ''law keeping'' rhetoric. I feel sorry for you.

 

[RedTent]

And you wonder why I come off the way I do.
Your continual twisting what others say is simply against the Commandments you pretend to keep.
Where in the world did I say ''that everyone whoever read letters Paul wrote understood them as I understand them (in all my great wisdom) etc?

Your incessant twisting is sickening. Do you love destroying others by making false reports of them?
Your words run hallow with all your so called ''law keeping'' rhetoric. I feel sorry for you.

And I feel sorry for you! I seem unable to get you to think! First you say that reading information in the deep sea scrolls sounds like our understanding has been at a "disadvantage for 1900 years" and when I object to such arrogant thinking, I am twisting. THINK, man. You are posting on a Christian site, Christians are reading this negative stuff you always post.

You have a wonderful post quoting Paul explaining how works was not right. Those scriptures, if read as the deep sea scrolls explain works, fits with every other scripture,
It wasn't negative. You CAN do it!!

 

[crossnote]

And I feel sorry for you! I seem unable to get you to think! First you say that reading information in the deep sea scrolls sounds like our understanding has been at a "disadvantage for 1900 years" and when I object to such arrogant thinking, I am twisting. THINK, man. You are posting on a Christian site, Christians are reading this negative stuff you always post.

You have a wonderful post quoting Paul explaining how works was not right. Those scriptures, if read as the deep sea scrolls explain works, fits with every other scripture,
It wasn't negative. You CAN do it!!

Again you twisted my words. Please stop responding to my posts, I'll repay you the favor.

 

[RedTent]

Again you twisted my words. Please stop responding to my posts, I'll repay you the favor.

Thank you so very much!!

 

[BradC]

Today’s Christian’s definition of works of the law is all the work we do to please Christ as scripture tells us to do. In the deep sea scrolls, they talk of works of the law in a completely different way. Some people in those days put what they did to obey ahead of any Torah principle of God. If someone was drowning on Sunday, for instance, they would put forth no effort to save that person because the works of the law had more importance to them that the principle of kindness. No one thought of works of the law as the same as the law of the Torah, even those who believed in them ahead of the spiritual law of the Torah.

When God breathed scripture to Paul to record, God used the way the current population thought of the words Paul used. We are expected to use information available to us to find out what that was. God gave us the deep sea scrolls to open up a lot of understanding to us that was lost through the years.

It is the same with “the law of Moses”. When Paul wrote about that, it was understood those laws had nothing to do with the actual law of Moses, they had to do with the lifestyle asked of the Jews so they kept separated from the gentiles who did not believe in the Lord. When we assign the meaning of that as the ten commandments, we would have been considered out of our minds by the people of Paul’s day.

That is absolutely untrue. You are trying to justify the Torah and keeping with the law. You do not understand grace and what we have been given in the doctrine of Christ and the church. You can't even support in Paul's epistles any instructions or issues of violating the law of Moses. You have made presumptuous statements to defend your position on the law. The NT believer has a much better covenant and to go back under the old would be a travesty of the cross and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[RedTent]

That is absolutely untrue. You are trying to justify the Torah and keeping with the law. You do not understand grace and what we have been given in the doctrine of Christ and the church. You can't even support in Paul's epistles any instructions or issues of violating the law of Moses. You have made presumptuous statements to defend your position on the law. The NT believer has a much better covenant and to go back under the old would be a travesty of the cross and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Isn't it amazing that you can read the same scripture and say it teaches something I find scripture saying is not so, and you call it "violating". Our God gave the Torah. Many scriptures tell us about walking with the Lord and the law shows us what is sinful and what isn't. You are saying to disregard Torah, and don't listen to law defining sin. You say that God is not eternal but His principles change so any agreement God makes with man via a covenant cannot be trusted, I say God is eternal.

Scripture tells us the law doesn't save us, it doesn't tell us to ignore all law. Scripture tells us to listen to the Holy Spirit to guide us, it doesn't tell us to ignore scripture. Scripture says Christ made atonement better, Christ brought atonement to salvation, it doesn't say God changed. Scripture showed us Christ in the Old Testament, it doesn't say anywhere that anything of Christ before the year 3 was all wrong and we should toss it out. Yet, this is what we would have to believe to follow you. So I think your teaching is false teaching. As Christians who follow Christ, I think all Christians should try their very best to correct the false teaching you expound.

 

[Flamingspirit]

It is either gains or persecution by the law.

 

[BradC]

Isn't it amazing that you can read the same scripture and say it teaches something I find scripture saying is not so, and you call it "violating". Our God gave the Torah. Many scriptures tell us about walking with the Lord and the law shows us what is sinful and what isn't. You are saying to disregard Torah, and don't listen to law defining sin. You say that God is not eternal but His principles change so any agreement God makes with man via a covenant cannot be trusted, I say God is eternal.

Scripture tells us the law doesn't save us, it doesn't tell us to ignore all law. Scripture tells us to listen to the Holy Spirit to guide us, it doesn't tell us to ignore scripture. Scripture says Christ made atonement better, Christ brought atonement to salvation, it doesn't say God changed. Scripture showed us Christ in the Old Testament, it doesn't say anywhere that anything of Christ before the year 3 was all wrong and we should toss it out. Yet, this is what we would have to believe to follow you. So I think your teaching is false teaching. As Christians who follow Christ, I think all Christians should try their very best to correct the false teaching you expound.

It is not hard to understand because we operate from two different premises, one is under the law and wants to patch up the law with grace and the other is under grace and is not indebted to the works of the law. Our position and standing with God is by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ. The works that we do after we are placed in Christ are not the works of the law or of the flesh but are the works of grace that have been given to us by Christ in the church as a body of believers. We are one body with many members that work together through the Spirit and are built together as a habitation of God through the Spirit. If you do not understand that you should as a NT believer.

 

[RedTent]

It is not hard to understand because we operate from two different premises, one is under the law and wants to patch up the law with grace and the other is under grace and is not indebted to the works of the law. Our position and standing with God is by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ. The works that we do after we are placed in Christ are not the works of the law or of the flesh but are the works of grace that have been given to us by Christ in the church as a body of believers. We are one body with many members that work together through the Spirit and are built together as a habitation of God through the Spirit. If you do not understand that you should as a NT believer.

I think we are looking at the entire scripture from two different premises.

One way of looking at scripture is what I think is a fleshly way, a way of judgment of scripture. I think you are reading scripture without taking on the mind of Christ. With the mind of Christ, we see all of scripture as truth, all scripture as one coming from one eternal God speaking with one voice. If God says that it is only through faith that we are saved, it is accepted as truth of the Lord. If God says we are not saved by works, that is accepted as truth. When scripture says the new covenant in Christ is better, that is accepted. When God gives the covenant with Abraham, that is accepted. If God says the law is holy, that is accepted. We do not judge, we become little children and accept all. Our work is in seeing how it all works together.

The fleshly mind judges this all, changes it according to their own fleshly reason. They say that if one truth is truth, it means that another is false. They judge, divide, and take away from the power of the Lord. As an example is your judging all works according to only the truth you have learned, cancelling any other truth of the Lord. You stand on your decision that if you stand on faith for salvation, it cancels everything scripture says about works having any other place in truth. You are using truth and faith to cancel truth and faith. You have been tricked by a standard falsehood used by demons from the beginning of time. Scripture gives truth, all of scripture is truth.

 

[ThomistColin]

If the Dead Sea Scrolls are indicative of the meaning of that phrase which is only found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Paul's Epistles, then "Works of the Law" means the rites and liturgical customs and calendar.

 

[RedTent]

If the Dead Sea Scrolls are indicative of the meaning of that phrase which is only found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Paul's Epistles, then "Works of the Law" means the rites and liturgical customs and calendar.

Someone who is truly thinking, thank you so very much!!

Now, we need to assess whether this is reflecting thought of that day, and especially thought of Paul as Paul wrote those words! It is thought that the scrolls came from writings kept by the Essenes, only one denomination of many of that day. Paul was a Pharisee, not an Essene, so we need to know if this denomination reflected Paul's vocabulary.

To answer these questions, I have gone deeply into history as we can gather it from that time. I had to use books from the public domain so they fit my personal budget. I don't think we can know for sure, but we can absolutely know that Paul was not against anything that scripture ever gave as truth. Based on that, I don't think it is right to read Paul from a bias against any possibility that the works of the law that Paul speaks of isn't the works as the deep sea scrolls speaks of it.

 

[ThomistColin]

Someone who is truly thinking, thank you so very much!!

Now, we need to assess whether this is reflecting thought of that day, and especially thought of Paul as Paul wrote those words! It is thought that the scrolls came from writings kept by the Essenes, only one denomination of many of that day. Paul was a Pharisee, not an Essene, so we need to know if this denomination reflected Paul's vocabulary.

To answer these questions, I have gone deeply into history as we can gather it from that time. I had to use books from the public domain so they fit my personal budget. I don't think we can know for sure, but we can absolutely know that Paul was not against anything that scripture ever gave as truth. Based on that, I don't think it is right to read Paul from a bias against any possibility that the works of the law that Paul speaks of isn't the works as the deep sea scrolls speaks of it.

Based upon basic speculation and knowledge, it is believed that the Upper Room where Jesus held the Last Supper was in the Essene quarter of Jerusalem. Also, we know that the majority of the Essenes converted to Christianity by 100 AD. Its not impossible that Paul was either using a term well known at the time and just simply lost to history or that Paul was using an Essene phrase.

 

[RedTent]

Based upon basic speculation and knowledge, it is believed that the Upper Room where Jesus held the Last Supper was in the Essene quarter of Jerusalem. Also, we know that the majority of the Essenes converted to Christianity by 100 AD. Its not impossible that Paul was either using a term well known at the time and just simply lost to history or that Paul was using an Essene phrase.

I have come to the same conclusion: that we must not outlaw the possibility as we are reading what Paul says.

I also think that it makes all of the statements Paul makes fit with the truth that everything Paul says is part of scripture, scripture speaks with one voice, all must fit together perfectly when we read it with the correct understanding.