Posted on 04/12/2015 11:16:47 AM PDT by RnMomof7
The following is an edited transcript of the audio.
Are Christians under the 10 commandments?
No. The Bible says we're not under the law.
I love Romans 7:4-6. By way of analogy, it says that you are married to the law. And you better stay married because if you leave this husband and go marry another you are going to be called an adulterer. But if your husband dies, then you can go and remarry.
And then Paul draws the analogy out—a little complex the way he does it—saying that you died to the law. You aren't married anymore, you can have another husband, namely Christ. He's raised from the dead.
So, our approach towards ethics is different. We don't ask the question, "Am I under the law?" We are under grace. The law is already fulfilled perfectly by Jesus. We are in Jesus and as far justification goes, God sees it as completed for you, one-hundred percent. He says, "You've trusted my Son. You've been grafted in him. You are in Christ Jesus and he fulfilled the law perfectly. He covered all your sins." God sees you in and through Christ, therefore, as far as final judgment goes God is 100% for you. That is settled and nothing is going to change it.
Now, shall we sin that grace may abound? Paul says, "Dead men don't sin." If you've died to sin, how can you still live in it? The new birth is the writing of the law on our heart so that we are not under it, it is under us. It is just coming out.
The way we strive towards being obedient, holy and loving people is not by getting up in the morning and pulling the list out of our pocket. No! We get on our knees and we open ourselves to the whole counsel of God in the Bible. We saturate and shape ourselves by everything he has done, he is doing and he will do. We stake our lives in the gospel and then instead of serving the law, we serve one another in love.
Love is the fruit of faith in Jesus—faith working through love. And if you ask, "What does love look like?" First John says, "It keeps the commandments." That brings us back to the question, which commandments? I would say, the ones that are loving.
Love God and do as you please is not bad advice, if you're bent on holiness. If you're bent on love the ten commandments are really important. You should hang them on your wall and you should measure your life by them, but in a very different way than when you were under them, because they have been kept for you.
You are now married to the risen Christ. You are not married to the law and the oldness of the letter, but to the newness of the Spirit. Our whole approach towards transformation, love and life is different than list keeping.
The Jewish leaders Pharisees are true sticklers of the law, and they can’t be faulted by keeping “ the letter of the law “ however they totally missed the “ spirit “ of the law.
The letter, the spirit, and grace all converged in the person of Jesus Christ.
For all the law and the prophets spoke of him and pointed to him.
But now we live, we walk, in the spirit of grace.
No, we are not under the law, but we should keep the spirit of the law in our moral code in honoring God.
We don’t honor to earn our salvation, but to help us live with the holy spirit’s help to live a holy, righteous, moral life.
The letter of the law died with Christ like a bill of divorce, for we were crucified with Christ.. And now alive together with Christ, married to Christ.
Jesus Christ, the giver of the law, the keeper of the law for us...
Yes, the letter of the law and the Old Covenant died with Christ unto a New and Living covenant.. In Christ..
We keep the spirit of the law because we are ambassadors for Christ in this age of grace. We preach that Christ was crucified for our justification and salvation, that it is a free gift and it is all by the grace of God. We love because He first loved us. THAT is the spirit of God's law.
Consider that there are two parts to the 10 Commandments; three and seven Commandments. If you were to summarize the first three Commandments, you could quote Deuteronomy and Christ; “You shall love the Lord your God with all your hearth, and with all you soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30). The other seven could be summarized as “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That is the whole Law and it is the Law of God summarized. We, as God’s people still obey (1 John 5:1-6).
The problem that most people fall into is a failure to recognize that there are two sets of laws for the Israelites. God’s Law was given to them directly by God Himself and is the 10 Commandments. When the Israelites failed to keep the covenant with God, God commanded Moses to give the Israelites the “Second Law” or “Deuteronomy” or “Law of Moses”. This was a yoke placed on a “stiff-necked people.” Without this understanding of two laws, it is easy to make Scripture sound schizophrenic in that the Law has been fulfilled and yet the Law will never pass away.
The yoke has been lifted. We are no longer bound by the Law of Moses. However, the Law of God remains... unless you think you would bear no blame for breaking any of the 10 Commandments. They are our code of conduct... of negative things we "shall not" do... summarized in the two things we "shall" do; love God and neighbor.
Yes indeed, agreed
There were a few typos...
I should have said that the Jewish leaders , the Pharisees were true sticklers of the law.
The letter of the law, and the spirit of the law, and grace all converged in the person of Jesus Christ.
He was and still is the perfect man.
And we love our brothers because of the Christ in us..
Makes perfect sense: Christians can now lie, murder, dishonor their parents, break the Sabbath (oh, that’s right - today’s Christian don’t even know when the Sabbath is), covet, commit adultery, etc. - Piper claims to be Reformed but is nothing but a Pied Piper leading flocks astray.
According to Romans 2:28-29 all disciples of Christ (the Hebrew word is Messiah) are to be circumcised inwardly in the heart. Gentiles are no longer gentiles because they have been adopted by God our Father, grafted in to the Vine. All believers are to be holy (which literally means to be separated - from the world, which is the Hebrew name for Gentiles or ‘goyim.’
Messiah said, “If you LOVE me, KEEP my COMMANDMENTS.” John 14:15 Since the gospel hadn’t been written when He said those words, CLEARLY He is referring back to Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings of the Old Covenant. 2 John 1:6 defines exactly what LOVE means: “And this is love, that we walk after His commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.”
What part of “And this is love” doesn’t anyone get? So God=LOVE=keepin His commandments. Makes sense because the commandments mirror the character and attributes of Almighty God. His Law which is His Word is manifested in the new hearts of all He has written His Law upon (see Jer.31:31-34; Ezek.36:24-28; 2Cor.3:3; Heb.8:10; 10:16
But the apostate “church” left the Law of the LORD (which is perfect and converts the soul: Ps.19:7) centuries ago. The modern whore knows nothing or very little about the Feast Days of the LORD, the Sabbath, or Torah in general. These are eternal and perpetual holy days as commanded by the Most High and the book of Revelation is replete with allusions to this truth.
Instead they teach Christ Mass which isn’t Messiah’s birth and Easter, a pagan name for an eastern fertility goddess. The way of Messiah is narrow and few there be that find it. Leave the harlot Babylon now and seek the LORD while He may be found. Do you really think a Holy God and His Messiah, King of Israel are to be found in today’s modern buildings masquerading as His church? That’s insanity!
You did a most masterful job of explaining this, thank you.
The second command of the decalogue is???
Jesus said a lot of thing before the cross. In the Sermon on the Mount, He even made the law harder than what the Pharisees thought they could do. God's law isn't hard, it's IMPOSSIBLE. Why did God give the law than? Galatians tells us: it is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Christ kept the law because we couldn't and he bore all of our past, present, and future sins because we can't.
The cross of Christ changed everything in time and eternity. Full forgiveness to those that believe is the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ as embodied in the New Covenant in His blood (Heb 8:10, 10:16-17, 13:20).
The New Testament calls the Ten Commandments "the ministry of death [and] condemnation" superseded by the "ministry of the spirit [and] righteousness" which "gives life" and is by grace (2 Cor 3:6-9).
unless you think you would bear no blame for breaking any of the 10 Commandments
Jesus bore all the blame 2000 years ago. That's what the New Testament means by we are no longer under the law, we are under grace (Rom 6:15).
The law actually activates sin in us (Rom 7:8-13), whereas grace activates HIS righteousness as a gift to us (Rom 5:17). The strength of sin is the law (1 Cor 15:56).
>>For the life of me, I will never understand how people conclude that just because we are not under the Law any more, Christians think that gives them a license to sin.<<
That’s because they fail to connect Jesus Christ’s dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3 is about Ezekiel 36.
Some miss the point God promises to put His Spirit in us and cause us to walk in His statutes:
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. (Ezekiel 36)
Considering some here can’t even tell me the second command of the decalogue tells me something.
>>The post I responded to said the Commandments are dead. If that’s true, why honor them? Let the dead bury the dead.<<
We uphold the Law. We are no longer under the condemnation of the Law.
From Ezekiel 36:
25 Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
>>Perhaps you should read John 13:34. It’s NEW.<<
I would say it was a much higher standard.
Amen
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I'm afraid I have to interject a little thought or two here.
You don't get anything for doing anything. We are sinners, If we Love the Lord Jesus Christ then He loves us and the GRACE of God applies to us. There are many ways to prove that love, obeying His commandments is certainly one of the ways that we can show our love BUT saying we are born again, a pastor saying we are born again is meaningless. The Lord has said “by their fruits ye shall know them”. That is how The Lord will know us too.
When Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden of Eden they lost not only their immortality but also the ability to be in the presence of God.
We die and are separated eternally from God, or said another way we go to Hell, regardless of what we do here because of Adam and Eve. Even if we were perfect in this life, which is impossible, only Christ has done that, but even if we were perfect we would not “earn” a heavenly reward. There is a price to pay for us to come back in the presence of God and that price was paid by The Son of God who offered himself a sinless sacrifice so that we could reenter the presence of God.
God does not grant every person entry into the Kingdom just because Christ was punished, He only gives that to people who accept Christ. God does not grant entry into heaven because someone says they Believe in Christ, or that they have been saved. Those who accept Christ have still not earned anything. Those people may have shown that they really accepted Him by having good works but the good works don't get you anything. Only the Grace of God allows us to enter back into the presence of God.
It is most unlikely that that Grace will be offered to people who haven't proved their love of The Lord, as James says, “Show me your works and I will show you your faith.”
Accepting The Lord Jesus Christ is a lot more than mere words. The Lord paid a really great price for the privilege of offering grace, it will not be given willy nilly. I expect that on the day of judgement there will be a lot of surprises and broken hearts, or perhaps weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth.
You need to change your about page to read "Conservative Evangelical Christian"
Bravo and AMEN !
True!
States with NO speed limit out in the boonies can STILL ticket folks for RECKLESS DRIVING!!
'Orders' TO whom?
Not.
Doesn't the word GENTILE mean ANYTHING?
You typed a lot of stuff in this reply.
I’ve but one question:
Can we keep ALL of these laws or not?
Your reply sounds like a proper and concise description of Truth to me!
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