I tried to find a Levite priest who would perform animal sacrifices for me, but found none.
The Rejection of Obedience
- Thread starter Delvianna
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Christ said that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, so it is contradictory to follow Christ instead of the Law of God or to follow God's Word made flesh instead of God's Word.
In Matthew 4, Jesus preceded a quote from what is written by saying "it is written", but in Matthew 5, he preceded a quote from what the people had heard being said by saying "you have heard that it was said...", so he was not sinning in violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 by making changes to what was written but rather he was fulfilling the law by correcting what the people had heard being said and by teaching how to correctly obey it as it was originally intended.
The fact that there are laws that we can't currently obey does not mean that we should not delight in getting to obey the laws that we can obey.
While it is possible for someone to interpret Acts 15:19-21 as ruling that Gentile followers of Christ are not required to follow over 99% of what Christ taught to follow, I don't think that it makes much sense to do that. Either Acts 15:19-21 contains an exhaustive list for mature believers or it does not, so it would be contradictory to treat it as being an exhaustive list in order to limit which laws Gentiles should follow while also treating it as being an non-exhaustive list by taking the position that there are obviously other laws that Gentiles should follow. It was not given as an exhaustive list for mature believers but as a list intended to avoid making things too difficult for new believers, which they justified in Acts 15:21 by expecting that Gentiles would continue to learn about how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues.
If someone has the goal of knowing God through embodying His character traits, then they will delight in getting to follow the instructions that God has given for how to do that to the extent that they are able.
In Titus 2:14, it does not say that Jesus gave himself to free us from the Law of Moses but in order to free us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in the freedom that we have in Christ is by becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Law of Moses (Acts 21:20) while the way to reject what he accomplished would be by returning to the lawlessness that he gave himself to redeem us from. In other words, the freedom that we have in Christ is the freedom from sin, not the freedom to sin. In Psalm 119:142, the Law of Moses is truth, and in John 8:31-36, it is the transgression of the Law of Moses that puts us into bondage while the truth sets us free.
According to Galatians 5:14, anyone who has loved their neighbor has fulfilled the enter law, so it refers to something that countless people have done and should continue to do in perpetuity, not to something unique that only Jesus did.
Changing the medium upon which the Law of Moses is written from stone to our hearts does not change the content of what it instructs us how to do. For example, the command to keep the Sabbath holy written on stone has the same content as the command to keep the Sabbath holy written on our hearts.
We can't earn our own righteousness even as the result of having perfect obedience to the Law of Moses (Romans 4:1-5), so that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of the goal of why we should obey it. In Psalm 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey the Law of Moses, and he chose the way of faith by setting it before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith, which is why those who are under grace are not permitted to transgress the Law of Moses (Romans 6:15). Likewise, the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey the Law of Moses (Ezekiel 36:26-27) and the Law of Moses is the Law of Liberty (Psalm 119:45). To interpret Galatians 3:10-14 as speaking against relying on God's instructions is to interpret it as speaking against relying on God.
No one is disputing that OT moral laws have value as preparation for the NT Gospel.
The issue per NT teaching is that obedience of laws is the old/childish/immature/inferior way of describing the relationship between God and believers.
The NT/mature/Christian/superior and thus superseding way (per Heb. 7:11-10:10) is cooperation/consensus/
mutual submission/love of the Holy Spirit.
If Torahists would speak of walking in the Spirit instead of obeying the Torah, there would be no problem (apply John 3:30).
Until this moment I had never heard of that interpretation of those three verses in Acts 15. Source, please? Including, if possible, how they calculated the percentage you're quoting here:
19Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. 21For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.”
Are you sure you read the second paragraph in my post #49 addressed to Delvianna? Here it is again:
Also, please bear in mind that the Apostolic Council (Acts 15) wasn't about theology. It wasn't saying what Gentiles needed to do to be justified or sanctified or saved. Its only purpose was to draw up a practical set of criteria for each synagogue to decide whether or not a Gentile would be allowed to continue worshiping there.
The Council was mainly for agreement regarding GRFS/God's requirement for salvation (Acts 15:5-11).
The matters in v. 19-21 were minor details/concessions.
That is a very unusual interpretation of Acts 15. Please read it again. The account of the meeting chaired by James the Just begins at v. 4, “When they came to Jerusalem ....” In the NIV:
4When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
5Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”
6The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. 10Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
James the Just announces his decision beginning at v. 19:
19“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”
"We should not make it difficult," he says (v. 19). He doesn't say "God does not make it difficult." He is clearly talking about what "we" ― the elders in charge of the synagogues ― should or should not do.
Jesus said that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4, Deuteronomy 8:3) and Moses wrote down everything that God spoke to him without departing from it (Deuteronomy 5:31-33), which means that Jesus taught to follow the 613 laws of Moses, so if someone interprets Acts 15:19-21 as ruling that Gentile followers of Christ should only follow 4 of them, they then are interpreting them as ruling against following over 99% (609/613) of what Christ taught. I do not think that the issue that they were debating in Acts 15 was whether followers of Christ should follow Christ, but rather they were debating whether salvation is by circumcision (Acts 15:1) or by grace (Acts 15:11). If you are saying that Acts 15:19-21 was a starting point for fellowship, then I agree.
Some can take that passage to mean if we fail to obey we can lose salvation.
When in reality, our salvation and being a new creation is commensurate with obedience.
Morality is in regard to what we ought to do and we ought to embody God's character traits, so all of the OT laws are inherently moral laws.
The NT does not describes obedience to the OT in that manner, but rather it describe the OT laws as being God's instructions for how to have an intimate relationship with Him on the deepest level.
Can the example that Jesus set for us to follow be accurately described as walking in obedience to the Torah? Yes.
Can the example that Jesus set for us to follow be accurately described as walking in love through the Holy Spirit? Yes.
Does walking in the Spirit involve doing something that is not in accordance with walking in obedience to the Torah? No.
Can someone walk in the Spirit instead of walking in obedience to the Torah? No.
Does the Spirit have the role of leading us to embody God's Word? Yes.
Does God's Word made flesh have the role of leading us to embody God's Word? Yes.
Is God's Word inferior to the Spirit? No.
Does the Spirit supersede God's Word? No.
I'm not sure why you want to apply that verse out of context.
So you would still perform animal sacrifices even after they were rendered unnecessary by Jesus' death?
As I understand it, you don't repeatedly, knowingly keep doing something you shouldn’t.
Someone who is into fornication or adultery and knows it shouldn't be done. That's done intentionally, a continual sin.
Someone who for some reason lied but doesn't do so habitualy.
Both are sins. One is committed and repeated with full awareness, while the other may have happened out of fear. While typing this I am reminded of Peter. He denied the Lord thrice, but after that there is no record of Peter doing that again. Instead, he went on to fearlessly preach the Gospel.
Though many of us may not be committing sins habitually, we all mess up. Sometimes may be because of temptation or other reasons.
Acts seems to imply that Paul was willing to consent to animal sacrifices, based on his willingness to pay the fees for the other believers who were completing a vow.
And on another basis, we still perform animal sacrifices today, we have just carefully, for the most part, removed ourselves from the process and removed the religious trappings, but just as in many ancient cultures, the remains of the animals sacrificed are avaialable in the market place.
The judgment of James, who wrote one epistle, can be respected for what it is worth, but should not be elevated above the invaluable teachings of Paul, who with his associates wrote most of the New Testament, in Acts 15:5-11, Rom. 14:14&17 and
1Cor. 8:4-8, etc.