The Rejection of Obedience
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I’ll give it another shot.
When the Rich young ruler said he kept all the commandments, did Jesus say he lied?
You have completely missed the whole reason God had to become human, be tortured, and die on a cross.
If we COULD keep His commandments perfectly, then there would have been no need for Him to die for us.
You also neglected to say if you did what Jesus commanded was necessary for eternal life.
Have you sold ALL your possessions and given them to the poor?
After all no interpretation can change them!
21 Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Do you understand that they were never born again? Jesus never knew them. The “knew” in that passage is the same usage as Adam “knowing” his wife, and Eve conceiving. Jesus never made them a new creation.
Do you understand what their “iniquity” was?
They were relying on THEIR “dead works” to save themselves.
In effect trampling on the Blood of Christ. Same as the dudes in Hebrews 10 that basically said “yeah, Jesus is great, but we STILL need to sacrifice bulls and goats to atone for our sins”
Both, are trampling on Jesus’s Blood.
Jesus prayed 3 times to His Father that if there was ANY other way to save humanity, to please take it. We all know what His Father’s answer was. So we need to see how offensive it is to try and add to His Sacrifice by saying our obedience and works are necessary to add to our being saved.
Finally, it’s the Holy Spirit that sanctifies and transforms the born again child of God into the likeness of Christ.
Our obeying His commandments to love Him and our neighbors is a byproduct of that transformation HE does in our hearts.
We can't earn our righteousness even as the result of having sinless obedience to the Law of God, so that was never a requirement (Romans 4). In Romans 3:21-22, it does not say that the Law and the Prophets testify that the righteous of God comes as the result of sinless obedience, but rather the only way to become righteous that is testified about in the Law and the Prophets is through faith in Christ. If we needed to have sinless obedience, then repentance would have no value, but the fact that repentance has value demonstrates that we are not required to have sinless obedience. The fact that everyone who has been or will ever be declared righteous has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God again demonstrates that it does not require sinless obedience.
While it is true that Abraham was declared righteous because he believed God, it is also trust that he was a doer of righteous works in obedience to the Law of God because he believed God (Genesis 18:19, 26:4-5) and that he obeyed the command to offer Isaac because he believed God (Hebrews 11:17), so the faith by which he was declared righteous was also embodied through his works, but he did not earn his righteousness as the result of his works.
In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus was speaking about having a love that is full, mature, or complete where we don't just love those who love us but where we also love our enemies, not about having sinless obedience. There would be no point in telling people who have already sinned that they need to have sinless obedience. In Matthew 7:21-24, Jesus did not end the Sermon on the Mount by saying that he was just kidding and that we can't actually do what he said because we fall short of sinless obedience, but rather he said that everyone who hears his words and does them is like a man who builds there house on a rock.
Rather, if you wish to be lawless, then you are in serious trouble.
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 Law of Moses was ho w his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is a central part of the Gospel message. God did not give the Law of Moses in order to teach us how to establish our own righteousness, but in order to teach us how to submit to the righteousness of Christ. In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession whoa re zealous for doing good works, so the way to believe in the Gospel that Jesus spent his ministry teaching and in accomplished through the cross is by repenting and becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to the Law of Moses (Acts 21:20).
Jesus affirmed that the way to inherit eternal life is by obeying the greatest two commandments of the Law of Moses. The way to have a happy eternity is not by refusing to follow Christ's example of obedience to what God has commanded.
The rich young ruler did not claim to have perfect obedience and Jesus did not deny that he would enter eternal life or say anything about him needing to have perfect obedience in order to do so. If we needed to have perfect obedience, then repentance would have no value, but the fact that repentance has value demonstrates that we are not required to have perfect obedience.
In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus said that only those who do the will of the Father will enter the Kingdom of Heaven in contrast with saying that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the reason why our entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven requires us to choose to be doers of lawfulness is not in order to be good enough to earn our way there as the result but because that is the way to know Jesus.
God is trustworthy, therefore His law is also trustworthy (Psalm 19:7), so the way to trust in God is by obediently trusting in His instructions and it would be contradictory to think that we should trust in God instead of trusting in His instructions. Someone who is trusting in themselves is not trusting in anyone else, so someone trusting in their works would be doing something that is completely indecent of anything that God has instructed and it would be contradictory for someone to trust in themselves by trusting in God's instructions.
In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way, so the goal of the Law of Moses is to graciously teach us how to know God and Jesus, which is His gift of eternal life (John 17:3). It is contradictory to trust in Jesus instead of in his instructions or to trust in God's Word made flesh instead of in God's Word. Jesus saves us from our sin (Matthew 1:21) and it is by the Law of Moses that we have knowledge of what sin is (Romans 3:20), so Jesus graciously teaching us to experience being doers of it is intrinsically the way that he is giving us his gift of saving us from not being doers of it.
In Deuteronomy 27-30, the way to be blessed is by relying on the Book of the Law while the way to be cursed is by. not relying on it, so Galatians 3:10 should not be interpreted as Paul quoting from that passage in order to support a point that is arguing the opposite of that passage. In Deuteronomy 11:26-32, the difference between being under God's blessing or His curse is not based on whether or not we have perfect obedience but on whether we choose to serve God or to chase after other gods. If we needed to have perfect obedience in order to avoid being cursed, then the fact that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God would mean that all are cursed, however, all being cursed does not reflect the reality of what is recorded in the Bible about those who served God, just those who chased after other gods. The Law of God came with instructions for what do when His people sinned, so someone could continue to do be a doer of it by repenting in accordance with its instructions without coming under its curse.
In James 2:1-11, he was speaking to people who had sinned by committing favoritism, so he was not telling them that that they needed to have perfect obedience because that would have already been too late and he was not discouraging them from trying to obey the Law of God, but rather he was encouraging them to repent and obey it more consistently. The fact that he was encouraging them them to repent is the opposite of saying that they need to have perfect obedience.
In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so if it were true tat no one could be zealous good works in obedience to the Law of God, then that would mean that Jesus accomplished nothing through the cross. In Romans 10:5-8, Paul referred to Deuteronomy 30 as the word of faith hat we proclaim in regard to the righteousness that is by faith proclaiming that the Law of God is not too difficult for is to keep and that keeping brings life and a blessing while not keeping it brings death and a curse, so choose life! So it was presented as a possibility and as a choice, not as something that no one can keep.
God never gave His law as a way of justifying ourselves even as the result of having perfect obedience, so that has always been a fundamental misunderstanding of why we are required to obey it.
So to sum up the consensus to the people who don't believe you have to be obedient, is essentially, you don't have to so, you just do whatever you want and it's fine because Jesus on the cross?
I want to make sure I'm getting that right. Because that seems like that's the answer to my OP.
I want to make sure I'm getting that right. Because that seems like that's the answer to my OP.
How are we to expect you to rightly interpret God's words if you can't even rightly interpret his creature's words?
If He is gracious and merciful now, then He should've been gracious and merciful then, unless he changed, of course.
He regretted making man, and I don't wonder why. Do you?
You must be an expert on anger.
So, God was like, 70,000 you say? Really? Well, now, I wouldn't count on that...
Do you mean to say that God spoke out of a donkey's mouth like Satan spoke out of a snake's mouth? What a copycat!
Maybe He just has a hard time "getting it."
Not even the Moslems would disagree with that.
That strategy works for the devil. That must be where all his ideas come from.
I'm not convince that the generations that knew the Torah existed knew about the Torah
It says that Enoch was translated so that he didn't see death. This sounds like he might've been KJV'd and so no one understood him.
I wonder if it isn't the host of known and unknown men reading their hearts into the Bible.
Because people want to do, what they want to do, and not feel guilty about it.
John 3:19 NASB
And this is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light; for their deeds were evil.
Your wrong actually
If you from birth could keep the law perfectly. you would never have sinned, having never sinned, you would not need saved.
since Christ is the only one who kept the law from Birth. he is the only one who has fulfilled Gods righteous standard.
its why he died on the cross. as the lamb of God without spot.. for the sin of all mankind..
You have two ways to heaven
1. Perfect obedience (only Christ met this standard)
2. Grace through faith in the work of christ.
there is no third way.
your preaching works my friend.
You have not kept even the two commands.. Most of us break the first command every day. by chosing to serve self and not God or others.
and most reject that fact that loving our neighbor equals loving even our enemy.. so most of us can not keep this command either.
Look to christ for salvation.. Then use the love God gave you to learn to love him and others.
we love because he first loved us.
I am not talking about being blessed
I am talking about being right with God so we enter heaven, and are not cast down to hell..
if we do not have this set in stone.. then being blessed does nto matter
does it help if I am blessed for 50 years. but spend eternity in hell?
Hello PennEd,
I never said we can keep His commandments perfectly as you say. That would completely miss the reason why Jesus was crucified and resurrected. I am often accused of promoting sinless perfection, but I have never taught that. We all fall short and need God's mercy every day. What I do believe is that we should sincerely try to obey Jesus with the help of the Holy Spirit, growing in faith and obedience throughout our lives.
People often judge me by things I never said. Some even accuse me of being Seventh-day Adventist, but I am not. I do not belong to any denomination. I belong to and follow Christ only and forever.
You said, "You also neglected to say if you did what Jesus commanded was necessary for eternal life."
In many posts I have already explained what Jesus taught about eternal life: repentance, a changed heart, faith in Him, perseverance, obedience, and following the commandments He told us to keep. In the account of the rich young ruler, many people make the whole discussion about the man himself. But the main lesson is not about the rich man's failure. The lesson is what Jesus answered when He was asked, "What good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" Jesus replied, "If thou wouldest enter into life, keep the commandments." That is the answer Jesus Himself gave.
You asked whether I have sold all my possessions and given them to the poor.
No, I have not sold everything I own. But neither did Jesus command every person to do that. He spoke those words to that particular man because He knew his heart. His wealth was his idol. Jesus put His finger on the one thing that kept him from fully following Him. The command to keep the commandments was given first. Selling his possessions exposed the man's love of riches over God. The lesson is that we must be willing to surrender anything that stands between us and Christ.
You said those in Matthew 7 were relying on their dead works to save themselves.
Jesus tells us exactly why He rejected them. He did not say, "You trusted in your works." He said, "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity," or "practice lawlessness," depending on the translation. They called Him "Lord" and even performed miracles in His name, yet they continued living in disobedience. Jesus gave the reason. We should not replace His words with our own explanation.
You also said they were never born again.
That may be true, because Jesus said, "I never knew you." But why did He never know them? Because they did not do the will of His Father. Just a few verses earlier Jesus said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven." Jesus Himself connects knowing Him with doing the Father's will.
You mentioned Hebrews 10 and those who wanted to continue sacrificing animals.
I agree that Christ's sacrifice was once for all and that no animal sacrifice can add to what He accomplished. I have never argued otherwise. But rejecting animal sacrifices is not the same as rejecting obedience to Christ. Jesus never taught that His sacrifice removed our responsibility to obey Him. Instead He repeatedly said, "If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments," and "Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?"
You wrote that saying obedience is necessary is adding to Christ's sacrifice.
I disagree. Obedience does not add to His sacrifice. It is our response to His lordship. There is a difference between obeying to earn salvation and obeying because we believe and follow Jesus. Jesus never presented those as opposites. He consistently called people to believe, repent, obey, and follow Him.
Finally, I agree that the Holy Spirit sanctifies and transforms believers. We cannot change ourselves apart from God. But the Holy Spirit does not transform us so that obedience becomes optional. He transforms us so that we increasingly live according to the teachings of Christ. The fruit of the Spirit is seen in a life that follows Jesus, not one that dismisses His commands as unnecessary.
So my question remains the same. If Jesus repeatedly taught that those who love Him keep His commandments, those who do the Father's will enter the kingdom, and those who hear and do His words are like the wise man who built on the rock, why should we tell people that obedience is not necessary when Jesus taught the opposite?
Blessings
Just going to address this one point. No sense going round in circles.
The issue of doing the Will of the Father comes up quite often from those that think following the Law will save them.
THIS is what Jesus tells us is the Will of the Father:
John 6:40
40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Seeing that the Hebrew translation of Adonai Elohim is the LORD God throughout the Tanakh (Old Testament) we know this is the WORD before becoming flesh. And from John chapter 1 we know that the WORD made flesh is Yeshua (Jesus) tells us it was the WORD who wrote the 10 Commandments and gave the 613 Laws.
In 2 places found in the Gospels we have an example of the WORD made flesh (Yeshua-Jesus) explained the 2 greatest Commandments, being a condensed version of the Law, was to love God with all that we are and our Neighbors as ourselves.
The real Commands given were basically to preach the Gospel and make Disciples. But none of that actually is required until you are first already Saved.
So works after Salvation is merely God doing His Works by using us. They count up as Rewards but not as requirements towards Salvation.
In 2 places found in the Gospels we have an example of the WORD made flesh (Yeshua-Jesus) explained the 2 greatest Commandments, being a condensed version of the Law, was to love God with all that we are and our Neighbors as ourselves.
The real Commands given were basically to preach the Gospel and make Disciples. But none of that actually is required until you are first already Saved.
So works after Salvation is merely God doing His Works by using us. They count up as Rewards but not as requirements towards Salvation.
If He is gracious and merciful now, then He should've been gracious and merciful then, unless he changed, of course.
He regretted making man, and I don't wonder why. Do you? The options are not pleasant
You must be an expert on anger. We are all "experts" in anger.
So, God was like, 70,000 you say? Really? Well, now, I wouldn't count on that...
Do you mean to say that God spoke out of a donkey's mouth like Satan spoke out of a snake's mouth? What a copycat! There is no biblical data that says Satan had anything to do in the garden. If Satan was there it would either mean Satan was as Powerful as God+ or that God+ put Satan in the garden. Fortunately, we only have a talking snake.
Maybe He just has a hard time "getting it."
Not even the Moslems would disagree with that. In the Torah, Men sold their daughters. Men purchased their wives but could still have concubines.
That strategy works for the devil. That must be where all his ideas come from.
I'm not convince that the generations that knew the Torah existed knew about the Torah
It says that Enoch was translated so that he didn't see death. This sounds like he might've been KJV'd and so no one understood him.
Enoch's Story - choose your translation
Elijah's Story - choose your translation
- Reference: Genesis 5:24
- Summary: Enoch walked faithfully with God, and then he was no more because God took him away. This indicates that he did not die but was taken directly to heaven.
- Reference: 2 Kings 2:11
- Summary: Elijah was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind, accompanied by a chariot and horses of fire. This dramatic event signifies his ascension without death.
I wonder if it isn't the host of known and unknown men reading their hearts into the Bible.
The story of God killing 70,000 Israelites as punishment for King David's actions is found in the Bible, specifically in 2 Samuel 24:1-15 and 1 Chronicles 21:1-14.
In these passages, David conducts a census of Israel, which is seen as an act of pride and a lack of trust in God. As a result, God sends a plague that leads to the death of 70,000 people. The narrative highlights themes of divine judgment and mercy, as God ultimately halts the destruction when David repents
normally of someone "believes" in Christ he will do as he asked us to do. Belief in Christ its an active faith and not a passive one and I am not talking of doing works here.
you are right no point going round and round.
If I say to a red delicious apple, “ I want you to act sweet, and crispy, look bright red, and be nutritious,” what do you think that apple would say?
I’ll tell you. He’d say “ what are you talking about!? You are describing what I am, NOT what I do! “
Do you see the point?
But on the bright side:
Scholars estimate that the population of Jerusalem around 950 BC was quite small, likely between 500 and 700 people. This estimate reflects the early urban development of the city, which was not yet a major metropolis. Some estimates have varied, with earlier scholars suggesting numbers as low as 300 or as high as 1,000, but the consensus remains within the lower range.
Minimalist Israel Population Estimates (e.g., Israel Finkelstein): Minimalist and "low chronology" archaeologists estimate that the southern region of Judah was sparsely populated—comprising about 20 to 30 small rural settlements and villages with a total population of roughly 5,000 to 10,000 people. If including the northern central hill country (the areas of Ephraim and Manasseh/Samaria), demographic estimates for the entire combined region range from 40,000 to 50,000 people.
Maximalist & Centrist Estimates (e.g., Magen Broshi, Amihai Mazar): Scholars using broader density-coefficient models across all highland and foothill sites estimate the total population across Israel and Judah in the 10th century BCE at around 50,000 to 100,000 people.
So, God did not kill 70,000 Hebrews as that would have been the entire population. The numbers used in 2nd Samuel and Chronicles were written over 500 years after the fact. Then, 70,000 would not have been everyone because those writers could only based their stories on what they knew of their present and supposed it was the same in the past.
Keep reading the rest of John. This is not the “whole will of God” or the “only will of God”.
There’s several more “do’s and don’t do’s” for Christian’s in the first few chapters of Revelations.
This is why people need to read the Bible themselves. There will always be someone to distract you with ‘the easy path’.
