Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

To: ArrogantBustard

I’ve always considered the label somewhat misleading. The “Old Testament” might be more correctly labelled “God’s revelation before Christ walked the earth” and the New Testament “God’s revelation since Christ walked the earth”.

The first relates God’s attempts to interact with sinful man on his own terms and, since the fall of Adam and Eve, finds him unholy and unrighteous despite every attempt to bridge the gap. Even when man seeks God and is willing to clean up his act to win God’s favor, he will continue to fall short of attaining God’s holiness and righteousness.

Like Isreal itself, the constant history is of periods of sin followed by periods of atonement followed by more periods of sin.

Enter, Jesus, God’s incarnate being, to serve as the ultimate atonement to make us holy and righteous with God. It is His gift, not something we could achieve by ourselves.

The Old Testament was a religion of laws which the Pharisees then piled on their own man-made laws in an attempt to keep followers from sinning against God’s laws.

Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it so that those who believed in Christ could live a new freedom built less upon laws and more on the relationship we wave with God through Christ.

That is, I think, the stumbling block of both the Jews and the Mormons (and some Christians too). Now freed from the laws of sin thanks to the grace and sacrifice of Christ, these religions still wish to deny men their freedom which Christ died for by stacking up more laws.

The thrust of Paul’s teaching is that we have the freedom to drink alcohol - just don’t get drunk or lead others to drunkeness by your behavior. We have the freedom to eat meats of all kinds - just don’t eat meats that you are aware were sacrificed to false idols. God does not care as much what goes into a man as what comes out of him and so should we.

There are, of course, social and health reasons why we should not do certain things with regard to eating, drinking and sexual activity because of the negative effects on our bodies and minds if we indulge in these things but, under Christ, these behaviors should not define us. Rather, it is what we have in our hearts and the relationship with God and Christ that we seek through a life of prayer and obedience which matters most to Him.

As I get older, I realize that we are children in God’s eyes, never in this life able to grasp and comprehend the world God understands so we must depend on His leading just as young earthly children trust their earthly parents even as they don’t understand and sometimes rebel against their wisdom. But as badly as we behave, our earthly parents love us with a special love because of our position in the family.

So, too, through Christ, we have a special position and receive a special love from God which we may at times rebel against yet our Heavenly Father is ready to forgive as long as we want to maintain that relationship. He will guide us if we will let Him do so. That’s a salvation based on status, not on laws, thus freedom so we are not constrained by a list of “dos and don’ts” that we can never adhere to no matter how hard we try.


6 posted on 07/02/2013 6:59:28 AM PDT by OrangeHoof (Howdy to all you government agents spying on me.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies ]


To: OrangeHoof
I may very possibly agree with your thoughts, there ... certainly I am inclined to see the Bible as a unified whole, even though of 73 distinct "books" (somewhat of a misnomer) written at different times and in different ways.

Still, that "King James" Holy Bible title page, printed in 1772 (long before Joseph Smith suffered from hallucinations), exists as an historical artifact. That Anglicans (and other Protestants) used the terms "Old Testament" and "New Testament" long before there was mormonism is simply inarguable.

7 posted on 07/02/2013 7:08:25 AM PDT by ArrogantBustard (Western Civilization is Aborting, Buggering, and Contracepting itself out of existence.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson