The Rejection of Obedience
- Thread starter Delvianna
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
I literally quoted you and pasted the quote. So how bout you explain then since you're claiming what you said isn't what you said.
Now You go directly against scripture and the words of Jesus, He DID say to enter into life to keep the commandments, he specified the Ten Commandments. its very sad to see this here on a christian forum and is in direct opposition to the will of God. if you don't want to keep them you shall not enter heaven its that simple, its not an option. God will not tolerate lawlessness when the ten commandments are concerned. we need the ten Commandments and all that you mentioned above that is: "LOVE, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance are what are placed in the hearts and minds" they are from a heart that obeys God and do His will.
This is a painting of extremes to make your position seems less extreme. No Christian that I have seen in this forum is advocating that we not obey God. Preaching grace over works for salvation is the Gospel message, not a negative reaction to the idea of obedience.
You raise a good question in my opinion. Do you know about intrinsic morality?
Intrinsic morality is the idea that certain actions possess moral quality in themselves, independent of any command, statute, or external authority. On this view, acts like justice, mercy, or cruelty are morally charged because of what they are, not because someone declares them so. Moral obligation arises from the nature of persons and actions, meaning that some things are right to do even if no law requires them, and some things are wrong even if no law forbids them. Commands can reveal or reinforce these truths, but they do not create them.
God’s law includes both intrinsic moral realities and positive commands. Some commands express what is eternally and universally good—such as loving one’s neighbor or honoring God—truths that would remain morally binding even if never written down. Other commands are positive, meaning their moral force comes from God’s authoritative will rather than from the nature of the act itself—such as dietary laws, ritual boundaries, or specific covenantal instructions. God’s law therefore operates on two levels: it reveals what is intrinsically right, and it establishes additional obligations grounded in His authority.
Christians often flatten these two categories, treating all commands as if they were equally intrinsic or equally positive, and this makes arguments about obedience difficult to sort out. When intrinsic morality and positive command are collapsed into a single category, people lose the ability to distinguish between what is eternally right and what is right because God has temporarily or covenantally required it. This leads to confusion about moral responsibility, debates over whether disobedience reflects a failure of character or simply a violation of authority, and disagreements about how to apply Scripture across covenants. Without the distinction, conversations about obedience become tangled because the underlying moral structure has been blurred.
pinepeach,
This strikes me as a deeply felt reaction to concepts you are unwilling to consider. The works issue seems so ancient. Martin Luder's reaction to Roman Catholic abuses in the 16th century is now the "foundation for and definition of salvation?" Even Luder understood and preached that the only valid way of knowing if your were saved was by the "fruit" one bears. No Christian love, humility, service, commitment to the service of those in need and no moral uturn = no salvation. Today's "Christians" seeking relief from conviction, conversion and inconvenience have defined trust in my unique dogmas as what "saves." it never was and never will.
I think God want to keep things simple: Obey Him and trust Him. Sooner or later He might make it clearer to us what it all means.
I think just talking about it distracts from our actual responsibility to obey Him.
Rodger316
I really like where your thought train was headed here. My general approach to these issues is toward synthesis vs bifurcation. The natural and intuitive instinct of loving one's neighbor and family is born out in the entire known history of mankind. One train of thought is that these are the natural processes of evolution, but that is trusting a single page in the many volumes of human experience. It is inadequate and at intuitional and experiential level. Moral responsibility is the common experience of mankind as far back as human culture has existed. IMHO God need only remind us of the obvious value and need to love our neighbors as ourselves with the caveat that all of the human community are our neighbors in a very authentic way.
I believe there is a case to be made that human prosperity especially to the degree it empowers and elevates the successful over the less successful is a fault line in human existence. Yes, in the Hebrew Bible there were some more wealthy and of a "higher cast" but they were enjoined to return to the natural order God had established of the strong caring deeply for the weak. Even the most ancient anthropology demonstrates that as long as there have been humans there has been moral and social commitment from the strong to the weak. In Matthew 25 Jesus is calling us back to the very best and most authentic humans we can be as is Paul in 1 Corinthians 13.
We have allowed modernity to all but erase a once vibrant culture of loving care for others. Somehow it became the responsibility of the government. Both the Hebrew Bible, in microcosm and the New Testament in planetary scope is calling us not forward to a new kind of culture but back to a culture that defined humanity from creation. We can both self-actualize but still stay personally connected to and care for those in need. The ability to love God and the ability to love our fellow mankind is both our mandate looking as far back into the past as possible and our hope for a future where love and care are once again the hallmarks of the love of God our creator and the natural order He instilled in our creation.
I like what you are saying here, warrior princess.I think God want to keep things simple: Obey Him and trust Him. Sooner or later He might make it clearer to us what it all means.
I think just talking about it distracts from our actual responsibility to obey Him.
Sometimes walking by faith requires us to step out and do the right thing, knowing that God will direct us along the way. In my experience, God is more likely to direct my path if I am already in motion than if I am standing still. So, fight the good fight, sister, and keep on truckin'. 
Nazir vows were a very strict vow taken before God with very strict conditions attached, that included sacrifices in the temple upon conclusion. Part of the conditions involved active avoidance of a dead body, including gravesites, no exceptions even for family or accidental contact, not consuming even as much as a single grape seed of any grape based food or liquid, and not cutting one's hair until the vow was finished, and then shaving one's head as part of the actions of completion. The length ranged from 30 days up to a lifetime and violations could mean a total reset from the beginning. Queen Helene of Adiabene reportedly took a 7-year vow, and had two resets close to the end which meant virtually 21 years before finishing.
There are more specifics, but since the necessary temple sacrifices are no longer possible, the vow has become a historical thing, no longer a current option.
Can you please support that claim with scripture? Note, the payment for someone's sin does not require that the person accepts it, just that the payment be made, so if Jesus paid the price for humanities sin, it is for all humanity, not part.
You literally quoted me and then said I said something I didn't. Not surprising from a semi-Arian.
This has been discussed ad nauseum at CC. If Jesus paid for the sins then they're paid for. If someone goes to my bank and pays off my loan, I don't have to "accept it." It's simply paid. You think Jesus paid for all sins except the "not accepting" one.
Are you aware of the Jewish concept of "tzekhut"? This is basically acting righteously and could be described as "anti-sin" acts. If one performs sufficient such acts, one could, in the Jewish understanding, become sinless, their righteous acts actually wiping out their sinful ones. In fact, if one accumulated sufficient "tzekhut", more than enough to wipe out one's own sins, one could share it with other people.
Salvation earned by self-effort and obedience, Christ Jesus teaches otherwise if you understand His message.
so Dave, you keep the Ten Commandments just like Jesus asked us to do to enter into life?
continue to contradict Jesus, the son of God, then.....and dont do what is said....
Luk 6:46 Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ but not do what I say?
Luk 6:47 I will show you what he is like who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them:
Luk 6:48 He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid his foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the torrent crashed against that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.
Luk 6:49 But the one who hears My words and does not act on them is like a man who built his house on ground without a foundation. The torrent crashed against that house, and immediately it fell—and great was its destruction!”