Retire the Ten Commandments?

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Sketch

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I have made a special study of covenants for that is the way the Lord communicates with us...
Is that a fact? What do you make of this?

John 10:27
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
 

Sketch

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Nov 1, 2018
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I find nothing to say that God takes back anything that God tells us of.
Really? (read more)
The old way of the written code has given way to the new way of the Spirit.
Before the coming of this faith... until Christ came... now that this faith has come...
Are you claiming God did not make these changes?

Romans 7:6
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Galatians 3:23-25
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
 

Blik

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Dec 6, 2016
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I enjoy this particular conversation because it hits on something I struggled with for a while. I think for me the best way to explain this is by using two keywords, descriptive and prescriptive.

There is nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments. However, the Word of God makes it clear that the commands in themselves are not able to make me right before God.

Romans 8:3
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh,

So we know that the law is unable to save us.

Romans 3:20
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

As we read the commands of God "Thou shalt not covet" sin is revived and we die.

Romans 7:9
I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

This is explained in Romans 5:13
for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Therefore, the proclamation of the law made the evil deeds of the people increasingly sinful. So we see how the law itself was given to manifest sin, and the Law was a guardian to lead us down the path to Christ.

Now that Christ has come, and now that the true faith has been revealed, we have no need for a guardian. A born again Christian will do good works because he or she is born again.

The Law - Prescriptive for any who follow it.
Prescriptive means that I MUST do this in order to sustain my relationship with God.

The Law - Descriptive of Christ and anyone in him.
Descriptive means that I WILL do this because I HAVE a relationship with God through Christ Jesus our Lord and faith in his finished work.

The Law is binding for all those who follow after it. The law is also descriptive of a saved believer who is indwelled by the spirit of God.

The New Covenant is not the Old Covenant. This is not simply a continuation of things. A change has occured.

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,

not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

For they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:

Hebrews 8:8 - 12
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”

The fulfillment of the law is this, to love God with all of your heart, mind, and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. This behavior issues out of a cleansed heart and the working of God in a believers life. Through Grace are we saved, that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God lest any man should boast.

We will love God and others, not because tablets of stone command us to, but because the work God has done and continues to do in the process of sanctification.
I struggled, too, with this. It seemed that scripture wasn't true to itself but contradicted, I felt threatened for God as truth is a basic part of living. But what I found as truth differs from what you found!

The fact that works will not save has no effect on the law,itself. What we are to learn from that is that we are human not God as Lucifer tried to make himself. We need Christ. God is holy, and we are unable to create that in ourselves, only God can.

David gave us the characteristics of the law in the 119th Psalm, and all of it is truth. That knowing the law and how we fall short is an additional truth, but does not affect the other truths of the law.
Paul was a Pharisee who had used the oral traditions (often called the law of Moses) even to kill others. When Paul met Christ he got the full impact of how wrong it was and he was on a soap box against such. He understood, now, how it was possible to obey that "law" and disobey God's law and much of what he wrote was teaching how wrong that is. But always, in conclusions of his teachings, Paul explained how right God's law is.

When you said "the law is descriptive of a saved believer who is indwelled by the Holy Spirit of God" I think it is an inspired statement.

Because through the new covenant we have the Holy Spirit within us to guide us instead of the rituals that guided before I feel sure that has not changed the eternal laws of God. Those laws always could be read legalistically without the spirit of the Lord so they weren't correct. That has never changed. The laws reflect the love that is God, and that is the spirit of the law that is the true law that is and was eternal.
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
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Is that a fact? What do you make of this?

John 10:27
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
I think it is truth, also.
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
7,312
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Really? (read more)
The old way of the written code has given way to the new way of the Spirit.
Before the coming of this faith... until Christ came... now that this faith has come...
Are you claiming God did not make these changes?

Romans 7:6
But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Galatians 3:23-25
Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
When is it that God was not of love, God was not a spirit, God was not eternal but one way at one time and another way at another?

In all my studies, God is always God not some other entity. Could you give any scripture at all telling us that God justified anyone based on his work for Him? Lucifer decided to do that saying he was as good as God.

Why study scripture if what God tells of Himself is different from time to time? If you find scripture that tells you so, do put it down proving God can't be trusted. Imagine a world with a God who is false!!

You are getting Paul's teaching against the traditions the rabbis thought up as scripture interpretations with God. You are getting legalism mixed up with the spirit of the law. There is no scripture that Paul gave that did not come to the conclusion that God's eternal laws were good and to be obeyed. Paul would write "what should we say then" and "God forbid". Read the entire letter complete with the conclusions Paul comes to, not just the beginnings.
 

Sketch

Well-known member
Nov 1, 2018
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When is it that God was not of love, God was not a spirit, God was not eternal but one way at one time and another way at another?

In all my studies, God is always God not some other entity. Could you give any scripture at all telling us that God justified anyone based on his work for Him? Lucifer decided to do that saying he was as good as God.

Why study scripture if what God tells of Himself is different from time to time? If you find scripture that tells you so, do put it down proving God can't be trusted. Imagine a world with a God who is false!!

You are getting Paul's teaching against the traditions the rabbis thought up as scripture interpretations with God. You are getting legalism mixed up with the spirit of the law. There is no scripture that Paul gave that did not come to the conclusion that God's eternal laws were good and to be obeyed. Paul would write "what should we say then" and "God forbid". Read the entire letter complete with the conclusions Paul comes to, not just the beginnings.
Nothing to do with that. This is what you said:
"I have made a special study of covenants for that is the way the Lord communicates with us..."
"I find nothing to say that God takes back anything that God tells us of."
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
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But you said the "covenants" are "the way the Lord communicates with us".
If you say they are not, please back it up with scripture. The rainbow tells us of no floods. The covenant at Mt Sinai gives results of the law for us. The new covenant gives news of the Holy Spirit for all, telling us of God's communication with us. A salt covenant is one where an agreement always stays the same. They are all ways God communicates and acts out in our life.
 

Nehemiah6

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Jul 18, 2017
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The covenant at Mt Sinai gives results of the law for us. The new covenant gives news of the Holy Spirit for all, telling us of God's communication with us.
As long as you understand that the Old Covenant is NULL AND VOID in light of the New Covenant. However, if you are trying to make a mishmash of the two, then that is another matter.
 

Sketch

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Nov 1, 2018
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If you say they are not, please back it up with scripture. The rainbow tells us of no floods. The covenant at Mt Sinai gives results of the law for us. The new covenant gives news of the Holy Spirit for all, telling us of God's communication with us. A salt covenant is one where an agreement always stays the same. They are all ways God communicates and acts out in our life.
I already did. See below.
None of what you are presenting is communication WITH us.
We have no part in the communication about the covenants.
So, definitely NOT the way God communicates WITH us.

John 10:27
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
7,312
2,424
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As long as you understand that the Old Covenant is NULL AND VOID in light of the New Covenant. However, if you are trying to make a mishmash of the two, then that is another matter.
In your mind perhaps I am making a "mishmash" but I don't think God cancelled anything with the new covenant. God is simply stating that somethings are of no use any longer. The words null and void, and the word obsolete is not the same as the word cancellation. So what is it that God gave us that simply doesn't work any longer and is of no use to us any longer? There is still a rainbow. God's laws are eternal according to scripture. One scripture cannot cancel out another scripture, if it does then we can't rely on scripture. By inserting the word cancel to replace the words obsolete and null and void you are making all scripture suspect. We are told not to do that.
 

Blik

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Dec 6, 2016
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I already did. See below.
None of what you are presenting is communication WITH us.
We have no part in the communication about the covenants.
So, definitely NOT the way God communicates WITH us.

John 10:27
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
Are you not listening to God as God communicates with you? If God sends you a message via a rainbow are you saying you will not listen to that message? We are missing communication somehow, I can't believe you mean what I hear you say.
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
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Fallacy: burden of proof reversal.
I honestly don't see any relationship between what you say and scripture, we simply cannot communicate.
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
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Nobody is saying to ditch the entire covenants of God. The New Testament is a continuation of the Old Testament and everything that is good and right in the Old Testament is repeated in the New Testament with added emphasis. Read the whole of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 and you will see that what is good in the Old Testament, remains forever enshrined in the New Testament.
I spent a lifetime, until retirement, in the NT only, the old was a mystery to me. I found someone who spent eight years in the Far East studying and then wrote a momentary of the OT, he had studied with scholars who worked with the dead sea scrolls as well as others. By studying with him putting scripture and ancient history together I found that I had been misled by my church over and over. There are set holy ways of God and it is consistent throughout scripture. There is no change whatsoever in any of God's ways throughout scripture. What Christ told us when Christ commented on the law is how the law always was. Faithful Jews work hard at following God, but it isn't for salvation they work, it is in appreciation to God. There was grace at creation, only Lucifer decided his work was as good as the Lord. You can study the Torah and never touch the NT and you would have a NT understanding, except you wouldn't know why blood was necessary for salvation, you wouldn't know you were a temple, and you wouldn't understand the wonders of what a high priest could be as you only had a pale copy.
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
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By inserting the word cancel to replace the words obsolete and null and void you are making all scripture suspect. We are told not to do that.
You are misunderstanding the whole matter. So just ask yourself a few hard questions.

1. Is there are legitimate tabernacle or temple on earth?
2. Is there any active Levitical priesthood fulfilling its duties?
3. Are there any sacrifices and offerings according to the Torah anywhere?

Why is that? And if that does not mean that God has canceled them in the light of the Cross, what does it mean? And does the New Testament tell us that those things are null and void because of Christ?
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
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You are misunderstanding the whole matter. So just ask yourself a few hard questions.

1. Is there are legitimate tabernacle or temple on earth?
2. Is there any active Levitical priesthood fulfilling its duties?
3. Are there any sacrifices and offerings according to the Torah anywhere?

Why is that? And if that does not mean that God has canceled them in the light of the Cross, what does it mean? And does the New Testament tell us that those things are null and void because of Christ?
1. Yes, we are the temple. 2. Yes, the very same office of high priest has been fulfilled by Christ. 3. Yes, Christ is our sacrificial lamb. It is all the very same by the same God with the same principles.

Animal blood is null and void. Levi's are not our high priest the Levi's as high priest is null and void. Everything is according to the Torah, the Torah gives everlasting ways of the Lord. Christ's blood is everlasting, the blood of animals symbolizing Christ is null and void.
 

Blik

Senior Member
Dec 6, 2016
7,312
2,424
113
You are misunderstanding the whole matter. So just ask yourself a few hard questions.

1. Is there are legitimate tabernacle or temple on earth?
2. Is there any active Levitical priesthood fulfilling its duties?
3. Are there any sacrifices and offerings according to the Torah anywhere?

Why is that? And if that does not mean that God has canceled them in the light of the Cross, what does it mean? And does the New Testament tell us that those things are null and void because of Christ?
Christ did not change the Torah that tells us of Christ. God is the same God, God does not change into a different God at any time. Christ was at the time of creation. The new covenant puts the law into our hearts, it does not recreate a God.
 

Sketch

Well-known member
Nov 1, 2018
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Are you not listening to God as God communicates with you? If God sends you a message via a rainbow are you saying you will not listen to that message? We are missing communication somehow, I can't believe you mean what I hear you say.
Stop beating around the bush and back-pedaling.
You made the claim that covenants are THE way God communicates with us.
Are you ready to revise that claim or not? God has replaced the old covenant.
Thus indicating a change. Agree or disagree?

John 10:27
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.