“We are not under obligation to keep the Ten Commandments to be in right standing with God any more. That’s the old covenant.”
I am sincerely grateful that you wrote the above. I do not understand such. I was in a group discussion just week or so ago and that issue was brought up and still has me perplexed. One individual stated we are free to do anything and used 1 Corinthians 8 as the basis of such. The context is regarding food sacrificed to idols and in verse 9 we are warned to not be a stumbling block to those who are weak. So if we are no longer obligated to keep the 10 commandments, can an individual be an adulterous murderer so long as such is done in secrecy so as not to wound a weaker individuals conscience? I had thought Christ came to fulfill the law rather than abolish it.
Again, I ask in all sincerity, and apologize for further going off topic, but this concept baffles me, and perhaps you can shed some light on this for me. Thanks.
We are justified by faith in Christ, not by keeping the law. The Law was put in charge to lead us to Christ (Galatians 3:24) that we might be justified by faith. It does not mean that one can sin with impunity. Anyone with that attitude is not saved. You can’t have the Holy Spirit within you and live like that.
Keeping the Law never saved anyone in the first place and there’s a WHOLE lot more than just the Teen Commandments. We CAN’T keep the Law because Jesus revealed that it’s more than just doing the externals, it’s a matter of the heart. So someone can keep all the laws and appear perfect and still sin in their hearts and not be saved.
What were the two commands that Jesus said were the greatest?
If we do those, we fulfill the law inwardly, and when we sin, we confess and are forgiven.
Christ came to fulfill the Law so that He could be the perfect sacrifice for our sins and that he could impute, or credit to our account, HIS righteousness, a righteousness that comes through faith.
When someone who is truly saved sins, God will discipline and they will be miserable from the sinning.
You do know that the more you try to not sin, the more you do, don’t you? I don’t see the point of trying to beat the flesh into submission because it can’t be done in human strength. The more we try, the more we fail.
If we focus on being Christlike, and like Him, going about doing good, we won’t have the time or inclination to sin, not for trying, but as the natural outworking of our faith.
I don’t worry about trying to keep the Ten Commandments because the Christian life is about more than the negatives.
Don’t forget, King David WAS an adulterous murderer, and yet God still called him a *man after my own heart*.
Also, It's not that keeping the Ten Commandments is a bad thing, but that's not how we are in right standing with God. We are in right standing with God because of being in Christ. There's a difference.
The Pharisees had the Law nailed down and Jesus called them hypocrites and white-washed tombs.
It's funny that people can't seem to imagine NOT being bound by the law...If you're not bound by the law, you going to go rob and murder people because there's no consequence???
God doesn't leave us high and dry to figure it out for ourselves...
Paul answers that question in Romans 7...In his spirit he desires to do good...It's a constant battle with his sinful flesh (the old man)...
He can't seem to do what he wants to do and finds himself doing things he doesn't want to do...
After reading through this later this morning, when I'm more awake, I see that I didn't respond to what you really asked. Sorry.
To answer that question, my conclusion is that anyone who thinks they can do that for that reason, is not a Christian.
The passage about wounding a weaker brother's conscience is not about SIN, moral wrongdoing. It's about things that are preferences, things that are what Paul calls *disputable matters*.
Sin is NOT a disputable matter.
I think a present day example would be drinking wine of beer. Some Christians are fine with it. Others are not.
If you know someone has a problem with Christians drinking, then doing it in their presence is not acting in love and thinking of the weaker brother, whose conscience is wounded by seeing you drink. Or maybe they are tempted beyond what they can control and will drink themselves and that could be a problem if they have a past where alcoholism is a factor in their past.
I hope that answers it better. I'm not a morning person and should know better than to try to post that early.