for those of us who truly Love our Holy Saviour, we do always keep a 'check' on ourselves,
lest we grieve our Master...
lest we grieve our Master...
Do We Have To Keep The Law?
- Thread starter Budman
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R
Ralph-
Guest
"You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace."-Galatians 5:4
The context is justification. And we see that by turning back to the law for justification the Galatians lose the grace of justification in Christ they had. But the church is sure that a person justified in Christ can never under any circumstances forfeit the justification they have received in Christ. But we can plainly see that's not what Paul says.
But the Galatians do show us that it is possible that God will leave the opportunity open for a while for the errant ex-believer to come back to faith/justification in Christ.
So what does this mean to this thread? Well, it's clear that what the Galatians were doing wrong was not keeping the law, but keeping the law to be justified. That is what we are forbidden to do concerning the law. Paul never taught that simply keeping the law made you cursed. Keeping the law in order to be justified is what will cause you to be cursed.
R
Ralph-
Guest
From 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 we can glean that the 'law of Christ' is the law of God/Moses minus the laws of worship required to reconcile one with the Father because Christ has never needed those laws.
Which is what Paul was talking about when he said the law is for the unrighteous, not the righteous (1 Timothy 1:9). Righteous people don't need the various Mosaic laws concerning Feasts and Sabbaths and so on to be made right with the Father. Unrighteous people without the righteousness of Christ do.
That's why we serve according to the law of Christ, not the letter of the law of Moses. We are as legally righteous as Christ and so don't need the ceremonial laws of the law of Moses to be made right with the Father. We can keep them as commemorations of what Christ did for us (and so we won't be guilty of serving pagan deities) but righteous people don't HAVE to keep them as a matter of covenant law. Christ's righteousness imputed to us makes it so we don't HAVE to.
we who Love Jesus know that His Holy/Spiritual Laws reign in our hearts forever, for they are Spiritual -
of course we know that He is our Holy sacrificial Lamb forever, sitting on the 'right hand of our Holy Father,
to intercede for us when we come to Him in true repentance...
of course we know that He is our Holy sacrificial Lamb forever, sitting on the 'right hand of our Holy Father,
to intercede for us when we come to Him in true repentance...
So Ralphie, are we saved by observing the commandments/works of the law or by grace through faith as a free gift, because it can't be both.
You people talk about what you don't understand.
You left out the rest of the context of why the Lord will say "Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness." Below is the entire context:
"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness"
According to the scripture above, only those who do the will of the Father will inherit the kingdom of God. What is the will of the Father but to believe in the One whom He sent, Jesus Christ. In the scripture above, when they find out that they cannot enter into the kingdom of God, their own words "did we not" provide the reason as to why they will not be able to and that because by saying "did we not" it demonstrates that they will have trusted in their own efforts for salvation. Yet, we are saved by trusting in Christ as the One who provided salvation for us and not by our own efforts.
To be clear, our salvation should be solely based on the shed blood of Christ as His completed and finished work of salvation. He doesn't need our help, as he already accomplished it on our behalf. Should we do good works? Absolutely, but not to obtain or maintain salvation, but to glorify God in all that we do.
Not being under the law, does not mean being lawless i.e. free reign to sin. This is why you guys continue to misunderstand this concept. We are under a different covenant. Those who are truly in Christ and are led by the Spirit, though not under the law, are not going to be looking to deliberately break the law. If we are following Christ, as we go from faith to faith we are being transformed into His image. And whenever we do commit sin, if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness, though we are not under the law.
We are not under the first covenant of the law of Moses, but are saved by grace through faith. It is the gift of God, not by works. Or I like how the NLT puts it:
"God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. "
If you sin, confess it and move on. We are not saved by performing the works of the law.
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Ralph-
Guest
Yes there is.......out of love and appreciation for what God has done for you in Christ. And so you can dwell in the manifest abundance of the promises.
The church doesn't get this because 1) it does not get taught that the manifest blessing of eternal life is conditional on how you act (notice I did not say eternal life itself), and 2) the church does not know that the Sabbath and Festival observances are memorials to what God has done for his people, and all the more now that we know they are types and shadows of Christ.
I mean, there's no reason not to observe a Mosaic Passover to celebrate and commemorate our Passover Lamb, Jesus Christ. Instead we stupidly invented our own observances based on pagan rituals and beliefs and threw away the ones that actually represent Christ. We're spiritual morons. And I blame the early Catholic church for this buffoonery.
You really are following a man-made doctrine. Do you mind sharing your church's name? I'd like to do some research on it.
There was no such thing as the "early Catholic church".
The RCC did not exist for ten centuries after the incarnation of Jesus Christ...
You, along with most others making dubious statements like this rely on your ignorance as well as the ignorance of others...
Call it RCC or not, there were shady things going on in Rome by the 3rd-4th century AD
I don't understand what your believe.
A. You believe we able to keep the law of Jesus all time, like never commit adultery in our heart, never lust when look pretty woman, always give left cheek when one slapped right cheek, etc
B. Or you believe we do sin, not always keep the law of Jesus, as long as we acknowledge it make us blameless. In othe word, it is ok to kill, robe the bank, etc as long as we know it is sin, than we are ok.
I wonder how many of the Bible " experts " on here have ever studied the council of nicea, why it was called, the main issue they met over, how the Bible came into being...
Probably not many but, by itself, it is not a train smash.
The issue only comes when one makes obviously incorrect statements...
I don't always remember every detail of things but I have reference materials and resources to cross-check any of this history.
Most people would be reduced to using the internet, and while there are plenty of excellent resources that are web-based, one needs to know enough to start to judge the accuracy of the data. Unfortunately there as many, if not a lot more, sites that share extraordinarily dodgy data on Christian history...
What was stopping the Galatians from telling Paul that they weren't keeping it to be justified, like you do?
Why didn't Paul tell us that as long as we weren't trying to be justified by the law then it is ok to work at it.
Because it is not as easy as just saying "we aren't doing it for justification" or "we aren't doing it for salvation".
There must be some reason for working at the law. Why is it that you do, Ralph?
R
Ralph-
Guest
Answer: The simple fact that they were in fact keeping it to be justified.
How do we know? That's what the Bible says.
I know that you are trying to slant law keeping in the only way you know how to understand it by using the phrase 'working at it', but the answer is easy: Christians who have faith, and walk in the Spirit uphold the law. Faith upholds the law-Romans 3:31. We uphold the law when we walk by the Spirit.
Your difficulty comes from the fact that you are only capable of understanding upholding the law as a person trying in their own strength without aid of the Holy Spirit to keep the letter of the law for the purpose of justification. You are the victim of a church that literally can not understand upholding the law any other way.
Something I hae posted on that bears repeating.
If the Children of Israel read Moses but had the veil preventing them from seeig and understand the truth, what is that truth they did not see in the Torah?
I know, and Jesus taught us what it is for He is the fulfillment of the Law and th Prophets.
Anyone who believes there was no grace before Jesus Christ has never read all of the Word, and if they have and yet do not understand, the veil is sstill over the eyes.
If the Children of Israel read Moses but had the veil preventing them from seeig and understand the truth, what is that truth they did not see in the Torah?
I know, and Jesus taught us what it is for He is the fulfillment of the Law and th Prophets.
Anyone who believes there was no grace before Jesus Christ has never read all of the Word, and if they have and yet do not understand, the veil is sstill over the eyes.
R
Ralph-
Guest
In AD 364 at the Council of Laodicea, the church at Rome decreed that Sunday will now be the official day of sabbath rest, not Saturday, and that if you rested on Saturday you would be cut off from Christ.
This inability of the church to comprehend that one can keep the law of Moses for reasons other than justification goes way back in church history and began with the early Catholic church who claimed to have greater authority than Christ and the Bible. The early Catholic church is responsible for the un-Biblical, pagan based system of worship that the church follows today. And they are not shy about telling you that. Most Christians do not know this.
I came to love to have the Seventh Day as my recognition of the Sabbath of teh Lord. Why? Because I believe the Father gave it to me personally as a gift and a day toshare with Him.
I do not follow any rituals or ceremony, I simply give praise and thanksgiving to my Father for this very personal gift.
No, I do not expect any to do the same unless they believe it so, but do not be like so many and jump to say I am SDA, Hebrew Roots (Thour our spiritual roots are definitely Hebrew.) or that favorite of the totally clueless, juidaizer.
As long as others ae content with their decision to recognize a different day of the week, fine, but the Maker did not chage the order of cretion so I follow His lead, not the lead of conventions of flesh.
I do not follow any rituals or ceremony, I simply give praise and thanksgiving to my Father for this very personal gift.
No, I do not expect any to do the same unless they believe it so, but do not be like so many and jump to say I am SDA, Hebrew Roots (Thour our spiritual roots are definitely Hebrew.) or that favorite of the totally clueless, juidaizer.
As long as others ae content with their decision to recognize a different day of the week, fine, but the Maker did not chage the order of cretion so I follow His lead, not the lead of conventions of flesh.
