The Religious Spirit vs. The Pharisee Spirit

What a ridiculous and ignorant assertion!

Prior to his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul WAS a Pharisee. He did not continue practicing their errors! Rather, he followed Christ only, therefore we are NOT instructed to be the imitator of a Pharisee but of a man who follows Christ.

Another ridiculous argument. It doesn't matter what they got right when they got so much, including the identity of the Messiah, wrong!

How you can read the gospels and conclude that being a Pharisee is a good thing is beyond me. The only conclusion I can draw is that you are blinded to the truth.

In Acts 15:5, it states that Pharisees spoke up from among the believers, so there is nothing about Paul becoming a Christian that implies that he ceased to be a devout Pharisee, especially given the fact that he still claimed to be a Pharisee after he became a Christian. Jesus did not come to start a different religion following a different God, but rather he came as the Jewish Messiah of Judaism in fulfillment of Jewish prophecy and he set a perfect example for us to follow of how to practice Judaism by walking in sinless obedience to the Torah, so he was much more zealous for obedience to the Torah than that Pharisees were.

Jesus fulfilled the Torah by speaking his ministry teaching how to correct obey it by word and by example. Everything command in the Torah is either in regard to how to love God and our neighbor, which is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40 that those are the greatest two commandments and that all of the other commandments hang on them, so it has always been the law of love.

Jesus never criticized the Pharisees for be being Pharisees or for obeying the Torah, but he did criticize them for not obeying it or for not obeying it correctly. For example, in Mark 7:6-9, Jesus criticized them as being hypocrites for setting aside the commands of God in order to establish their own traditions. In Matthew 23:23, Jesus said that tithing was something that they ought to be doing while not neglecting weightier matters of the Torah of justice, mercy, and faith, so he was not opposing their obedience to it, but rather he was calling them to have a higher level of obedience to it in a manner that is in accordance with its weightier matters.

No, that's not accurate at all. The believing pharisees were going around starting trouble by saying gentile believers had to be circumcised and keep the law of Moses to be saved. Peter said they were tempting God by trying to put that unbearable yoke on their necks and James judged that the pharisees were subverting gentiles' souls with their teachings. The conclusion of the council was to reject the pharisees' teaching

Nowhere does the Bible state that Paul repented of the works of the Pharisees, but rather it states that he still claimed to be a Pharisee. In Acts 21:20-24, Paul planned to take steps to disprove false rumors that he had been teaching against the Torah and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. In Acts 24:14, Paul testified that according to The Way, which they called a sect, he continued to worship the God of our fathers, believing everything handed down in the Law and the Prophets.

In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the Gentiles, and the Torah was how his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is a central part of the Gospel of the Kingdom, which is in accordance with him being sent in fulfillment of the promise to bless us by turning us from our wickedness (Acts 3:25-26). Jesus also set a perfect example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Torah, and as his followers we are told to follow his example (1 Peter 2:21-22) and that those who are in Christ are obligated to walk in the same way he walked (1 John 3:4). So Jesus spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey the Torah by word and by example, which means that the way to follow him is by becoming obsessed with following the Torah. In facts, in Deuteronomy 6:4-7, the way to obey the greatest commandment in the Bible is by being obsessed with teaching the Torah. In Psalms 1:1-2, blessed are those who delight in the Torah of the Lord and who meditate on it day and night.

If Gentiles were never under the Torah, then why did the people of Nineveh need to repent? There would be no point in spreading the Gospel to Gentiles in that case. It is contradictory for someone to want to become a follower of Jesus while not wanting to be a follower of what he thought.

The people of Nineveh weren't under the Torah, but they were still extremely sinful and needed to repent.

That's incorrect. Jesus thought Himself to be God. Should we think ourselves to be God? No.

No he didn't. Paul was telling the Philippians what his former life was

Acts 23:6 Now when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, “Brothers, I am a Pharisee, a son of Pharisees. It is with respect to the hope and the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial.”

I do not see how you can deny that Paul claimed to. be a Pharisee in the above verse. He notably did not say that he was a Pharisee in his former life.

No, it was the men from Judea who held the position that Gentiles should be required to become circumcised in order to become saved in Acts 15:1 while the Pharisees from among the believers opposed them in Acts 15:5. In Acts 15:6-7, Peter said that the Gentiles heard and believed the Gospel, which called to repent from our disobedience to the Torah (Matthew 4:15-23), so he was affirming that Gentiles were obeying the Torah in agreement with the Pharisees from among the believers. In Acts 15:8-9, Peter said that God who knows the heart bore witness to the Gentiles, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, and He made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith, which is in accordance with Ezekiel 36:26-27, where God will take away our hearts of stone, give us hearts of flesh, and send His Spirit to lead us to obey the Torah, so again Peter was affirming that Gentiles were obeying the Torah in agreement with the Pharisees from among the believers. In Acts 15:10-11, Peter said in regard to salvation by circumcision that it is a heavy burden that no one can bear and again affirmed that salvation is by grace.

In Psalms 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 Torah, 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 what Peter affirmed.

In Romans 10:5-10, Paul referenced Deuteronomy 30 as the word of faith that we proclaim in regard to proclaiming that the Torah is not too difficult for us to obey, that obedience to it brings life and a blessing, in regard to what we are agreeing to obey by confessing that Jesus is Lord, and in regard to the way to believe that God raised him from the dead for salvation, so if Peter had been referring to the Torah as being a heavy burden that no one could bear rather than salvation by circumcision, then he would have been undermining his point in the preceding verses, he would have been in direct disagreement with God, and he would have been denying the word of faith that we proclaim.

Christ spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey the Torah by word and by example, so Acts 15 should not be interpreted in a way that turns it against following Christ as if it makes sense to think teaching people to follow Christ's example of obedience to God somehow subverts our souls or as if God shouldn't be trusted to guide us in how to rightly live through the Torah.

What book are you reading? It says plainly that the pharisees were the only ones saying gentiles must keep the law of Moses to be saved. The men from Judea in verse 15:1 were pharisees.

You didn't pay attention at all to what I said earlier about what Peter and James said in Acts 15. Why don't you address that before going off in another direction that contradicts what they said?

Paul called what the pharisees taught a yoke of bondage

Whatever we are, we don't want to be limited. If you insist on eating meat and find yourself in a place where you have no meat, it will affect you more negatively than if you didn't insist on meat. I'm just saying to be flexible. Flexibility is wise for everyone, not just for christians.

I've said little and you're complaining that I'm showing off my intelligence. Do you know the meaning of "outer fringe"?

I run through these threads, reply to comments as fast as I can, and write as little as I can. But you're angry because you feel offended at someone else's actions and supposed intentions. FASCINATING. Don't worry about this or my other threads. Goodbye.

No, Jesus fulfilled the OT by his sacrificial atonement per LK 24:44-47:

"This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses [Torah], the Prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, 'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins [the Gospel] will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.'" [i.e., beginning with the Pharisees]

HB 7:18-10:1 explains that having fulfilled the OT, the law [Torah/Phariseeism] is superseded by the new covenant/Gospel:

"The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God... Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant... the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises [eternal life, cf. JR 31:31-34]... By calling this covenant 'new', he has made the first one obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear... For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant... so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people, and he will appear a second time, not to bear sins, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting form him...The law [Torah/Phariseeism] is only a shadow of the good things that are coming--not the realities themselves."

May our minds be open and our hearts uncalloused.

And thanks to BC for this on the Speak Your Mind thread:

Our Lord has sent out an SOS to the world

The law Shows Our Sin . . .

Romans 3:20
Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. ~KJV

And the gospel Shows Our Savior . . .

Luke 2:11
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. ~KJV

You should have major problems with you interpreting Paul as speaking against obeying God, so it is important to recognize that the Bible can speak against obeying God for an incorrect reason without speaking against obeying God. For example, if Paul had been speaking against circumcision for any reason and not just incorrect reasons, then according to Galatians 5:2, Paul cause Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised right after the Jerusalem Council and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. In Acts 15:1, men from Judea were wanting to require Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the reason for which God commanded circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld the Torah by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect reason. In Exodus 12:48, a Gentile who wanted to eat of the Passover lamb was required to become circumcised, so the Jerusalem Council should not be interpreted as ruling against Gentiles correctly acting in accordance with God's commands as if they had the authority to countermand God.

In Isaiah 45:17, it says that all Israel shall be saved, which has led some to mistakenly think that was a Gentile needs to do in order to become saved is to become a Jew, which involved physical circumcision. The men from Judea in Acts 15:1, the Pharisees from among the believers in Acts 15:5, and Peter in Acs 15:6-9 all spoke in favor of Gentiles obeying the Torah, so the heavy burden that no one could bear does not refer to the Torah, but rather the ruling in Acts 15:11 that salvation is by grace shows that the heavy burden that no one could bear was an alternative to salvation by grace, namely salvation by circumcision (Acts 15:1). In Acts 15:5, the Pharisees from among the believers agreed with the men from Judea that Gentles should obey the Law of Moses, but they did not agree that Gentiles should do that in order to become saved, and again the topic that they were discussing was the means of salvation.

If God had saved the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt in order to put them under bondage to His law, then it would be for bondage that God sets us free, however, Galatians 5:1 says that it is for freedom that God sets us free. Moreover, in regard to Galatians 4, the Torah came through the line of the free woman, so you are incorrectly identifying what Paul was referring to as bondage. In Psalms 119:142, the Torah is truth, and in John 8:31-36, it is the transgression of the Torah that puts us in bondage while the truth sets us free.

Either Acts 15:19-21 contains an exhaustive list of everything is required for a mature Gentile to obey or it does not, so it is contradictory for someone to treat it as being an exhaustive list in order to limit which laws Gentiles should follow while also treating it as being a non-exhaustive list by saying that there are obviously other laws that Gentiles should follow, such as the greatest two commandments. In Acts 15:19-21, it was not given as an exhaustive list, but as a list intended to avoid making things too difficult for new believers, which they excused in verse 21 by saying that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues.

In Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus said said that he came to fulfill the law in contrast with saying that he came not to abolish it and he warned against relaxing the least part of it or teaching others to relax the least part of it, so you should not interpret fulfilling the law to mean essentially the same thing as abolishing it or as relaxing the least part of it. Rather, "to fulfill the law" means "to cause God's will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be, and God's promises (given through the prophets) to receive fulfilment" NAS Greek Lexicon: pleroo), so after Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law, he then proceeded to fulfill it six times throughout the rest of the chapter by teaching how to correctly obey it as it should be. In Matthew 5, Jesus didn't mention anything about suffering, rising from the dead on the third day, or repentance and forgiveness of sins, so you are anachronistically connecting Luke 24:44-47 with Matthew 5:17-20 and are ignoring what Jesus proceeded to do throughout the rest of Matthew 5.

According to Galatians 5:14, anyone who has ever loved their neighbor has fulfilled the entire law, so again it refers to correctly obeying it as it should be, moreover, it refers to something that countless people have done, not to something unique that Jesus did. In Galatians 6:2, bearing one another's burdens fulfills the Law of Christ, yet you do not consistently interpret that in the same way as you interpret fulfilling the Law of Moses.

Jesus spent his ministry teaching his followers to obey the Torah by word and by example and he did not establish the New Covenant for the purpose of undermining anything that he spent his ministry teaching, but rather the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33).

The Mosaic Covenant is eternal (Exodus 31:14-17, Leviticus 24:8), so the only way that it can be replaced by the New Covenant is if the New Covenant does everything that the Mosaic Covenant does plus more, which is what it means to make something obsolete (Hebrews 8:13), so the New Covenant still involves following the Torah (Hebrews 8:10) plus it is based on better promises and has a superior mediator (Hebrews 8:6).

Jesus saves us from our sin (Matthew 1:21) and it is by the Torah that we have knowledge of what sin is (Romans 3:20), so Jesus graciously teaching us to be a doer of the Torah is intrinsically the way that he is giving us his gift of saving us from not being a doer of the Torah.

Gibberish. The pharisees were telling the gentile believers that they had to become proselytes of righteousness in order to be saved, which required them to become circumcised and observe the law of Moses. ie become a Jew. James ruled that was not necessary as gentiles were saved in the same manner as they were, ie through grace rather than works of the law, and that following synagogue rules required of gentile proselytes of the gate would be sufficient. Those rules are listed in Acts 15:20, 29, which James said they would do well to follow, because that would keep them from being kicked out of the synagogues, which were their only source for gospel teaching at the time. That changed once Christians were kicked out of the synagogues because those rules have nothing to do with following Christ.

I think our main and perhaps only stumbling block to complete agreement is your ignorance of HB 7:18-10:1. "Superseding" means amending and reforming rather than abolishing. The main amendment/reform cited by Paul in EPH 2:11-3:12 is that God loves and wants to save everyone--not only Jews (cf. 1TM 2:3-4), which is why one (JN 13:35) or two (MT 22:37-40) commandments can summarize or replace--make that supersede--the Mosaic Laws.

You're reading something into the text that is not in Acts 15, ie Peter speaking in favor of gentiles obeying torah.

Also, it's plain that salvation by circumcision alone wasn't the issue, but rather salvation by circumcision and keeping the law of Moses (torah) was.

And it says plainly in the text that pharisees said gentiles had to observe the law of Moses to be saved

And again, the men who went down from Judea to try to convert gentile believers into becoming Jews by becoming circumcised and observing the law of Moses were pharisees. That's what they did.

You are a lawkeeper. Works of law are incompatible with grace

It does not. Those were synagogue rules that gentile proselytes of the gate had to follow in order to worship in synagogues. They have nothing to do with following Christ. For example, a person can eat whatever he wants if he has the faith to do so because Jesus said nothing a person puts into his mouth can defile him; and Paul said the kingdom of God is not about food.

--which ML had two purposes: 1. the moral commands summarizable by the law of love to make people aware of sin and thus their need for salvation from condemnation, and 2. the amoral commands for the purpose of keeping the Jews separate from other nations until they fulfilled the purpose of providing Messiah for the salvation of all who accepted Him as Lord.