Comments on: Who Needs Galatians 3?

By: Camassia

Camassia — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:45:42 +0000

Yeah Jeff, your description of civil and ceremonial law sounds familiar (comes from Calvin, I think?). Probably this is a bigger topic than can be properly dealt with in a comment thread. But thanks for the response!

By: Jeff M

Jeff M — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:19:46 +0000

Camassia,
I get where you are going I think. I had a class last year that sort of dealt with this issue, but it didn’t focus as much on how it came to be as how to handle the issue itself. The thing about the OT laws that makes them so difficult is that some of them pertain directly to sacrifices and such and so they became an obvious exclusion in NT times since Christ is the end of sacrifice so to speak. Some have tried to segregate the laws into three categories: ceremonial, civil, and universal (actually the term escapes me at the moment but the idea is those laws that are generally understood as still in force for all people). Frankly, it is tricky to try and do so in the least and I have no good answer for what brought it about. My own opinion of the matter is what I stated earlier. Those parts of God’s Law as revealed in the OT or NT that are upheld/fulfilled through love of God and neighbor are the parts that we are obliged to keep because of our love for God. This doesn’t mean we never fail to keep them, that’s where Jesus comes in. Does that help any or am I going off the rails completely?

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:00:14 +0000

Love ya…Josh. You are so on the right track to what you seek. He, also, is seeing you.

By: Camassia

Camassia — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:10:31 +0000

Thanks, Jeff, but your answer makes me think that I should rephrase the question. I didn’t bring up Acts 15 to argue in favor of those rules, but to point out that, when faced with the question of which Mosaic laws to apply to gentiles, the apostles did not break off the Ten Commandments and treat them differently from the others. Yet that is what most Christians seem to have done since then. So my question is, how did that happen?

By: Jeff M

Jeff M — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:59:32 +0000

Camassia,
The passage in Acts 15 can’t be seen in isolation. It wasn’t intended as a prescription for the entire church. The letter that was sent was only sent to a handful of churches that were involved in the original dispute. I think it actually reflects the attitude that Paul describes in Romans 14:19-21. The prescriptions there were designed to eliminate offenses between brothers and sisters in the Lord.
When it comes down to it, the best way to understand the law is the way Jesus taught. The first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength and the next is to love your neighbor as you love yourself. All of God’s commandments hang from these two. And frankly two are a lot easier to remember than 613.

By: MDS

MDS — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:48:45 +0000

Josh,

I can identify with your questions. They show you to be an honest seeker. I’m sure you’re familiar with Jesus words, “Seek, and you will find.” Through personal experience, I am fully convinced that if you are not simply looking to find a “truth” or “god” that fits whatever it is you would like to find, and you are genuinely open to a God who is True, He will reveal Himself at the right time.

After seven very intense years of seeking God (one that led me many places outside Christianity), and in a moment of deep frustration, I prayed to God telling Him that the Jesus Christians spoke about did not make sense to me. That I was told I should believe in Jesus simply because he died on a cross and rose again seemed nonsensical. I wanted to believe, but one cannot believe what one does not believe. And so I prayed telling God I could no longer waste time trying to believe, and so was going to throw my hat into the ring for a guru named Meher Baba. I went on to pray telling God that if the one I was to follow should instead be Christ, I would trust Him to let me know. But in the meantime, I was going this other way.

Within four years from that prayer, He answered me that it was Jesus I was to follow. I am fully convinced my prayer of faith was heard and answered by the Father in heaven. Though I had chosen the wrong name, the small amount of faith I had was used by God to eventually direct me to Christ.

No one knows how God is working to reveal Himself to you. That you follow with interest the conversations here is surely one of the ways. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened.

I pray for your continued openness to the One you seek.

By: Camassia

Camassia — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:46:51 +0000

This reminds me of something I’ve been wondering for a long time. Why do Christians feel bound by the Ten Commandments, but not the other laws of Moses? In Acts 15 the apostles decide that the sexual rules still apply to Christians, but also a couple of dietary rules that Christians no longer follow. Neither they nor Paul, in any of his lengthy discussions of “the law,” ever break out the Decalogue from other Jewish laws, that I recall.

I apologize if this is too far off the topic, but it seems relevant to the question of Jesus’ relationship to Jewish law.

By: treebeard

treebeard — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:27:21 +0000

“I will continue to attempt to the best of my ability to follow the prescriptions of Jesus.” – Josh Davis

Dear Josh, good luck with that, but you never can and never will. You are picking the prescriptions to follow, but if you violate one, you violate them all. The law needs to be kept in its entirety. If you’ve failed once, it’s too late for you, and the penalty is death. Your attempts are not good enough. God requires perfect righteousness.

It is much better to follow the prescriptions of Jesus by being clothed with Him as our righteousness, and then by living and walking according to the Spirit. But that can only come through faith in Him. You may not realize it, but your comments here make it very obvious that you are not a Christian. You do not realize yet who you are, or how much you need Him. I say this not to offend you, but to provoke you to keep seeking Him. Don’t try to be a good person – you’re not. My suggestion, for what it’s worth, is that when you read Paul and have a hard time understanding him, ask God to reveal to you the true meaning of the passage.

By: Jeff M

Jeff M — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 06:13:03 +0000

Josh,
You seem like a great guy, but the idea that there are multiple paths to God that it sounds like you are promoting in your last statement is a dangerous and false one. The only path to God is Jesus. There is no other name by which salvation has been given to man. (Acts 4:10-12)

By: Josh Davis

Josh Davis — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:47:25 +0000

Thanks for all the responses. I have to say, Carolyn’s response rings truest with me. Faith should, in my mind, lead to us not just to wanting to do good, but doing it without even considering whether or not we want to. It just flows out. Sadly, many Christians seem to claim the faith, but do show no sign of what should be the natural fruits of it. Jesus warned us about these folks, of course, but it sometimes seems that they are the rule and not the exception. More concerned with external intellectual assent to having “faith in Christ” than with seeing any of spiritual residuals that should come along with that faith, were it genuine and not merely external and intellectual.

I will continue to attempt to the best of my ability to follow the prescriptions of Jesus, such as that in Mark 10 to the rich young man: “Go and sell all that you have and give the money to the poor,” “Judge not lest you yourself be judged,” “If a man steals your coat, give him your shirt too,” etc. It works for me, and in me; and for me that is all the proof I require of the truth of Jesus’ message.

One last thought: whether one is “saved” by good works or by faith is a recurring debate within Christianity. In Hinduism, this topic is discussed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Both good works and faith can lead one to God, he says. One can either focus on performing good actions (so long as one doesn’t attach oneself to the results of that action), or one can simply devote themselves to the love of God. The first path is that of Karma Yoga, the second that of Bhakti Yoga. In the end, he says, both lead to the same place. Two paths both leading to the same mountain top, so to speak, that of salvation, of union with God.

Perhaps it is that the performance of good works and abiding by the law (so long as one doesn’t become self-righteous or think that they are purchasing salvation) will lead one to faith and devotion to Jesus or to God; and also that faith and devotion to God and Jesus will lead one to performance of good works and to the fulfillment of the law. Could it be that both roads lead to the same place? Could it be that the debate over salvation by works or by faith is nothing more than a misunderstanding of the various ways in which God works, trying to force all onto one path or the other, when both, in fact, lie open to humanity?

Prem ra Shanti : Love and Peace