Then YOU are on the hook for all of it. Because you only keep part of it.
If you insist on defining 'work at the law' as any and all keeping of the law, instead of trying to be justified by the law, then YOU are under the curse because even believers only keep part of the law.
To be 'of the works of the law' means to be
relying on the works of the law to be justified, not simply being in obedience to the law. Because, as I say, if that's what it means then even YOU are under the curse of the law because you only keep part of the law and not all of it.
I'm distinguishing between Christians who are observant (observe the Mosaic ceremonial law worship schedule and method) and Christians who do not.
Even if I literally meant 'law keeping Christians' I'd mean it exactly the way John means Christians who keep the law:
"3By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him"-1 John 2:4
Working at the law means trying to be justified by the law. Everyone who tries to be justified by the law will indeed fail. There is no argument there. The argument is that 'working at the law'
does not mean simply being in obedience to the law. If that were true then all Christians, observant and non-observant, are under the curse of the law. Including YOU since you say you only keep the law 'love your neighbor as yourself'-Leviticus 19:18.
EVERYBODY knows this.
Obedience to God's commands can only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit. EVERY Christians knows this. Even observant Christians know this. They plainly and openly say they do not keep the law in order to be justified but keep it because that's what believers do - keep the commands of God (1 John 2:3-4). The same reason YOU keep the commands of God. You just differ on what laws constitute the expected obediences of the one who believes.
And we know who is resting in Christ by the fact that THEY KEEP THE COMMANDS OF GOD (1 John 2:3-4). But you have been taught that keeping the commands of God is automatically and without exception you trying to earn your own salvation and that it can't possibly be anything else. Even though you say you keep the law 'love your neighbor as yourself'. The duplicity of your argument is astounding.
Yes you do pick and choose laws.
You have decided to 'love your neighbor as yourself' and nothing else. And you say that because you think that somehow means you do not have to do any other law in the law of Moses. Not knowing that if you really are loving your neighbor as yourself you keep the laws that are you loving your neighbor ('do not steal', 'do not commit adultery', etc.).
You won't understand this, but you know that you are dead to the law
by if you uphold the law.
In context, being dead to the law means your flesh is crucified
and the law can not arouse sin in you anymore. But you think it means not having laws to obey anymore.
We know if that's true by if you keep the commands of God (1 John 2:3-4). But you claim that if you are keeping God's commands you can only be in the power of your own flesh and trying to justify yourself. Yet you don't realize that when you yourself keep God's commands it doesn't automatically mean that.
No, for the Christian, the Spirit tells you what is right and good in your now softened and sensitized heart and THAT'S why you then seek to do it. That's what it means to have the law written on a heart of flesh now, instead of hardened hearts like tablets of stone.
If you want to talk about carnal understanding. Carnal understanding means you continue in your sinful, lustful, greedy, ungodly ways and you think that's okay because if you lifted a finger to stop acting out those impulses you'd be guilty of trying to justify yourself. That is carnal thinking, but that is exactly what the vast majority of the church thinks these days.
I think you do not understand that you are resting in Christ
if you are keeping God's commandments-1 John 2:3-4.
In the church today, obedience is you trying to justify yourself and work your way to heaven while disobedience is you resting in Christ for fear of you being guilty of trying to justify yourself.
No, I get what literal commands I HAVE to be obedient to and which ones I do not from scripture.
When you keep the commands of God that is indeed called 'obedience' and it is what people who know Christ do (1 John 2:3-4). These days, the person sitting around in front of his TV or computer indulging the appetites of the flesh are the obedient ones not trying to earn their salvation, while the person following the commands of God are the disobedient ones trying to earn their own salvation.
We look to the Holy Spirit for power to keep God's commandments. And the New Testament uses the law to help us discern what situations and circumstances we are to rely on the Spirit to help us obey God in. But the church thinks doing that is trying to serve God in their own power and trying to justify yourself.
The mistake you make is thinking that everybody else who obeys the commands of God is instantly and without exception doing that in their own strength and trying to earn their own salvation. But of course when you obey the law it can only mean you are doing that through the Spirit and resting in Christ.
You do not see that coming to Christ and entering into his rest is
now being obedient to his commands, not being released from them so that you do not have to do them because Christ kept them for you. Some he did keep for us so that there is no remaining debt of literal fulfillment remaining for us to satisfy. But all the laws about being clean of defilement and how to treat other people remain for us to fulfill and satisfy. Christ does not fulfill those for you in this life. He fulfilled them in the sense of removing the guilt associated with your non-compliance. But he does not fulfill them for you in actual practice. YOU do that. And you do it through the power of the Spirit he gave you to do it in. That's not you trying to justify yourself. That's you being the Christian, now set free from sin, you are created in Christ to be.