Law: Calvinism’s Achilles Heel
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The Potter’s House 6/2/2013: Law’s Relationship to Justification and Sanctification
I think if there has ever been a Dark Age in Christianity we are in it. If you think about it, Christ wasn’t concerned with a bunch of ism’s, He continually warned about the traditions of men. I only now understand how powerful that is. I have been a Christian since 1983, and since then I have been functioning as a Christian on rudimentary information. And often in my life, it has shown. And the following is frightening: I was often considered to be an annoying zealot who dared to proclaim that he knew something.
Contemporary Christianity functions on the traditions of men. When people write me to make a theological case, it is made with a long list of quotations from men. “Orthodoxy” is a word that has become synonymous with truth itself. How can this be when orthodoxy is the creeds, confessions, and catechisms written by men? One advertisement for a Seminary boasts that they are “confessional.” We refer to it as “subordinate truth” to the Bible while we wait with bated breath for its next contemporary addition to be available at the Christian book store. While there, we will often pick up a little plaque or bumper sticker to add to our orthodoxy. “What! What do mean when you say that ‘Footsteps in the Sand’ is not in the Bible? That’s blaspheme!”
Truthfully, even though I have learned more in the past six months than my whole Christian life, I now see that I am really just beginning to learn, this is all new to me and I am rethinking everything. But this I do know: Christians in our culture really struggle with a biblical understanding of law. And here we are, Romans 10:4;
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
This is what is really difficult for us to understand. I had to learn it on my own with the help of the Holy Spirit. I went to Bible college—they didn’t teach it to me. I went to Seminary—never learned it there either. I have been to countless Bible conferences—ditto. No wonder that John said that we have no need for anyone to teach us; that is a good thing, because apparently, they aren’t going to do that anyway. But here it is:
For the believer, law and righteousness are mutually exclusive. Shock and dismay now equals traditions of men. This verse states that the law had to end in order for us to be declared righteous. The law “ended” “for” righteousness. This is to everyone who believes in Christ—that’s why Paul states that He is the end of the law.
As Christians, we don’t obey the law perfectly. That’s unfortunate, but in regard to our just position and present righteousness—it doesn’t matter. The law can no longer condemn us or judge us. Our salvation is lawless. The law doesn’t exist, so there is no sin (ROM 5:13), and it has nothing that it can say to us (ROM 3:19).
Because the apostle Paul knew that law being a standard for our justification would completely sap our salvation power in sanctification, he drives the point home in many different ways. Let’s start with Christ. Turn to Romans chapter seven and we will begin reading in verse one:
Romans 7:1- Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? 2 For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. 3 Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.
4 Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God. 5 For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. 6 But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.
Who is the spouse that died in this case so that we are no longer under the law? Christ, and we died with Him. We are also the other spouse who was resurrected with Christ and is now free to remarry another so that we can serve in the new way of the Spirit. Christ bore our sin on the cross (imputation) so that we could die with Him and be resurrected with Him in the new way of the Spirit—not the old marriage covenant. The old us died with Christ, and our sin died with Him. The new us is no longer under that covenant—the covenant of the law. If we remarry, that law cannot condemn us. The dead are never prosecuted and brought to court. If a cold case is solved and the suspect is dead, he is not indicted by a grand jury. The dead are not exhumed and brought to court. Do you believe that a perfect keeping of the law is required in your Christian life for your just standing? Then the old you is still alive and you are an adulteress.
Paul explains this another way. The law was a will.
Hebrews 9:15 – Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. 16 For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. 17 For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. 18 Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood.
The law was a will, and like any other will it promised an inheritance. Like any other will, those named in the will are partakers in that promissory note. And before Christ went to the cross all who believed in Him were heirs of the promise. It was a covenant inaugurated with blood because all of the sins of those who believed on Christ were imputed to that covenant. This is yet another thing that I have never been taught before in regard to the subject of imputation. There is the imputation of the Father’s righteousness to us, the imputation of our sin to Christ, and the imputation of the believer’s sins prior to the cross. Our sins were imputed to that covenant/will with the promise of the inheritance upon the death of the testator, forgiveness of sins and eternal life. I am convinced that Old Testament believers were completely aware of this and understood it. Undoubtedly, this fact also opens up an additional wealth of understanding while reading the Old Testament with this in mind.
Let’s look at this a little deeper. Please go with me to Galatians chapter three and let’s start at verse 19:
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Notice that Paul said that sin was imprisoned in the Scriptures. As we have discussed before, the law is the same thing as the Bible. Again, we see that here in verse 22. Many teach in our day that this passage means that the law continually shows us our need for Christ and a perpetual forgiveness. The law is a “schoolmaster” that continually leads us to Christ. That’s not what this passage means at all. Ironically, the ESV has this right: the old covenant was a “guardian” that kept us safe from the eternal consequences of sin until the death of the testator. The full inheritance was received when Christ died. Now the law serves a different purpose which we will look at later.
But herein lays the Achilles heel of the Reformed gospel. Herein lays the reason that Calvin’s gospel is a doctrine of demons. It teaches that Christ fulfilled the law for us so that we could be declared righteous. It teaches that Christ is the end of the law in regard to us keeping it. Hence, there is really no END to the law. But worse yet, let’s compare this reasoning with a few texts in the same vicinity of where we are presently:
Galatians 3:10 – For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.
15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
To believe that Christ fulfilled the law for us is to also contradict what our beloved brother has said here in the following ways:
1. It relies on the works of the law; who does the perfect work is not the point. If Christ fulfilled the will perfectly, and we could have received the promised inheritance by His fulfilling of the law, why did He have to die? That’s the Hebrew writer’s point: IT’S A WILL—somebody had to die.
2. The law cannot justify because it is not of faith. It doesn’t matter who keeps it. “The law is not of faith.” If Christ fulfilled the law, that fulfillment makes us righteous and we are then indeed justified by the law. Christ’s perfect obedience is transferred to us and then we are in fact justified by its perfect keeping. By the way, this is exactly what Luther himself propagated. He stated that Christ’s obedience becomes our obedience and that obedience is transferred to us by faith alone. It’s backdoor law-keeping. Said Luther,
Mine are Christ’s living, doing, and speaking, His suffering and dying; mine as much as if I had lived, done, spoken, and suffered, and died as He did . . .(Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press; St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1955), Vol. xxxi, pp.297,298).
This makes an imputation of law-keeping the standard for righteousness. The law is therefore not ENDED. For all practical purposes, we are credited with keeping it for our justification albeit by faith in Christ.
3. Furthermore, if the fulfilling of the law by Christ brings righteousness, that means that the law has life. Note verse 21:
For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.
This brings us yet to another way that our brother Paul wants us to get this; OFFSPRING. If the law could give life, there is more than one offspring:
Galatians 3:15 -To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
This is also why the promise could not come through Ishmael; it had to come through Isaac because the promise concerned Sarah and not Hagar. Hagar represents the Mt. Sinai law, and Sarah represented the promise:
Galatians 4:21 – Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise. 24 Now this may be interpreted allegorically: these women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery; she is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. 27 For it is written,
“Rejoice, O barren one who does not bear; break forth and cry aloud, you who are not in labor! For the children of the desolate one will be more than those of the one who has a husband.”
28 Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. 29 But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. 30 But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” 31 So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.
Pray tell, why would Christ come to fulfill a covenant with Hagar so that we could be righteous? Christ is the end of that covenant. He came to ABOLISH it—not to fulfill it:
Ephesians 2:11 – Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.
“But Paul, what then was Christ talking about in the Sermon on the Mount when He said He didn’t come to abolish the law?” Well, he wasn’t talking about that law, He was talking about the law of love. Same words, different law. Hence:
Galatians 5:1 – For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. 2 Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. 3 I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. 4 You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
Now, look at what he says in the very next verse:
Galatians 5:7 – You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?
So, what are we to conclude? We are to conclude that faith working through love….
1. Works (“working”).
2. Runs.
3. Obeys.
4. Is guided by an objective truth.
5. Defines love as truth (2Thessilonoians 2:10).
6. Can be hindered from obeying the truth.
This gives new meaning to Christ’s words, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” In Matthew 5:18 Christ isn’t talking about the Mosaic Law, He’s talking about the law of love. He didn’t say that our righteousness needed to surpass that of Pharisees as a challenge for us to let Him fulfill the Mosaic Law for us because the Pharisees were really, really good at obeying the Mosaic Law, why would He do that? That’s of Hagar and not Sarah; it’s a law that has no life. He fulfilled that law perfectly by virtue of who He is, but not for the purpose of justifying us because after its inherent fulfillment there is still nothing but the dead letters of that law. His problem with the Pharisees is that they sought righteousness in the law rather than in Him. This is why Paul wrote the following just prior to our text at hand:
Romans 10:1-3 – Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. 2 For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. 3 For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.
Christ’s indictment against the Pharisees was that they sought the Mosaic Law rather than faith working through love. They put faith in the Mosaic Law instead of Christ (JN 5:39). Said another way: they sought the Mosaic Law rather than the law of love. And since love fulfills the law (GAL 5:14, ROM 13:10, EPH 3:14-21, DUE 6:5, LEV 19:18), that is the righteousness that surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees. It is a righteousness APART from the law (ROM 3:21).
So in what way did Christ come to fulfill the law of love? Not by fulfilling the Mosaic Law—that is certain. It has no life! He came to fulfill the law of love. I would say His death on the cross would be a description of that. But the idea here is a constant fulfilling of the law. As Susan brilliantly pointed out two Sundays ago, the law is not completely fulfilled because of all of the things in the law that haven’t happened yet. Not only that, all of the references in the Bible that pertain to the fulfilling of the law by single acts of truthful love are in the present tense. If Christ fulfilled the law completely, how is that possible? (GAL 5:14, ROM 13:10, EPH 3:14-21, DUE 6:5, LEV 19:18).
Romans 8:3,4 makes it absolutely clear how Christ is fulfilling the law; He is fulfilling it through us as we walk in love. To say otherwise deprives us of our ability to love Christ and others and creates cold-heartedness in the vacuum. Wherever anti-law of love reins, cold-heartedness makes its abode (PS 119:70, MATT 24:12).
Anyone who uses the imperfect law-keeping of the Christian to prove that the law is still the standard for our justification also proves that they believe in a vicarious law keeping of a law that has no life for our salvation. It teaches salvation on Mt. Sinai rather than salvation at Galgotha. Christ was the end of that law because he put it to death along with the sin that held us captive to it (GAL 3:23). He did not end it by fulfilling it. He abolished it on the cross and raised us to a new life that is sanctified by obedience to the perfect law of liberty. Be careful to note James 1:25 on that. The blessings are in the “doing,” not meditation on Christ’s obedience to the dead letter of the law. The standard for that law is a perfect keeping of every letter (GAL 5:3, ROM 10:5) while the Christian fulfills the whole law perfectly with every act of obedience. We are blameless before Him in love (EPH 1:4).
Our Lord’s yoke is a light one for the impossible demands of Mt. Sinai do not terrorize us. We are free to love God aggressively. We bemoan our sin, but the old us who would be judged by that failure according to justification died with Christ (ROM 7:20), and the new us is under grace and not under law (ROM 6:14). There are relational consequences, but not eternal ones.
This is my prayer for the Potter’s House: as we strive to walk in loving obedience to Christ more and more, that our brother Paul’s prayer would be answered:
Ephesians 1:16 – I do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might 20 which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
Now, how does this all relate to the perseverance of the saints? Is our perseverance necessary to confirm or salvation? Does salvation require God’s call and our perseverance? I am going to address this next week because there is much confusion in regard to this subject, and I will tie it in with the issue of assurance—that’s next week.
Paul's Passing Thoughts 
Reblogged this on Clearcreek Chapel Watch.
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[…] Law: Calvinism’s Achilles Heel. […]
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““But Paul, what then was Christ talking about in the Sermon on the Mount when He said He didn’t come to abolish the law?” Well, he wasn’t talking about that law, He was talking about the law of love. Same words, different law.”
I’ve been doing some research lately on Hebrew idioms, and it has been an interesting study. The expression of destroying/fullfilling the law is a Hebrew idiom that has more to do with proper interpretation of the law that with abolishment/keeping of the the law. To quote one Hebrew source on the topic:
“Remember that an idiom is an expression from a local culture. One such statement, understood by those in the Hebrew culture, was used by Rabbi Yahshua [Jesus]. Matthew 5:17-18 says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily, I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, not one jot or one tittle shall pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled.”
For the modern-day Christians the previous verse means that the Torah and the others books of the “Old Testament” have been fulfilled, or done away with. They say that, “all was fulfilled” when Yahshua [Jesus] said, “it is finished” and the Law is no longer relevant. Such a belief about the Torah could not be farther from the truth. Just consider the Master’s own words. Has heaven and earth passed away? Of course not! Then, the Torah and the prophets remain necessary and essential to living the Almighty’s will.
Yahshua [Jesus] quoted a Hebrew idiom when He said He came not to destroy the Law or the prophets. He was using a familiar phrase easily understood during Biblical times. Yahshua [Jesus] had been accused of misinterpreting the Torah, yet He said that He was actually rightly and correctly teaching it. Traditional Jewish writings support this idiom, “Should all the nations of the world unite to uproot one word of the Law, they would be unable to do it,” Leviticus Rabbah 19:2. To understand the meaning of this verse, everything hinges on the meaning of the words “destroy” and “fulfill” in verse 17. What does Yahshua [Jesus] mean by “destroy the Law” and “fulfill the Law”? “Destroy” and “fulfill” are technical terms used in rabbinic argumentation. When a sage felt that a colleague had misinterpreted a passage of Scripture, he would say, “You are destroying the Law!” Needless to say, in most cases, his colleagues strongly disagreed. What was “destroying the Law” for one sage was “fulfilling the Law” (correctly interpreting Scripture) for another,” wrote Bivin and Blizzard in their book Understanding the Difficult Words of Jesus (Yahshua).
In plain English, Yahshua [Jesus] is saying, “Never imagine for a moment that I intend to abrogate the Law by misinterpreting it. My intent is not to weaken or negate the Law, but by properly interpreting Yahweh’s written Word, I aim to establish it, that is, make it even more lasting. I would never invalidate the Law by effectively removing something from it through misinterpretation. Heaven and earth would sooner disappear than something from the Law. Not the smallest letter in the alphabet, the jot or yod, nor even its decorative spur, the tittle, will ever disappear from the Law,” wrote Bivin and Blizzard on page 155.”
So then, by Jesus properly inerpreting the law, He is putting the law in its proper place, that the law does not justify, but as you have said before, it informs our sanctification. This also fits in with the explanation you have given here on the law being a will.
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Don’t post this. You don’t need the heat from the Calvinists accusing you of possibly thinking like me. But think about this. I often think what it would have been like to sit in a church established by one of the original apostles, and then have Paul blow through town. I think I would have reacted against him much the way the first church that had Calvinism blow into town must have: “Who the hell does this guy think he is?” Accusing Peter of hypocrasy for bending to the scruples of the men from James and not eating unclean meat while they were there; and then turning around and teaching us to do the same thing in Romans 14! What a jackass hyprocrite, Talking about false teachers who teach about the law “neither understanding what nor from where they affirm” and what is he always teaching? Strange theories about the Law, that it was “given by angels” which the Old Testament never says but makes it given by God himself, or that it was only given “to increase transaction” which makes no sense, or that there is some kind of “curse of the Law” for breaking its most minor commandment once and repentance is of no avail against it — where does the Law say that? If anyone is a false teacher trying to teach about the Law but not knowing what he affirms, its this guy. He teaches the traditions of men — well he’s beginning a tradition of men, since obviously nobody before him taught this but many will after him. The Jews even to this day reject Christianity not because of Jesus but because of Paul: its not the cross that is the offense, its the Gnostic apostle. A crucified Messiah is not such a big deal: the modern Orthodox Jewish party called Lubavichters believe some rabbi who died in the 1900s was the Messiah and he will rise again! Its not that Jesus died that’s the problem: its that his movement was taken over by a Gnostic lunatic afterwards.
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“2. The law cannot justify because it is not of faith. It doesn’t matter who keeps it. “The law is not of faith.” If Christ fulfilled the law, that fulfillment makes us righteous and we are then indeed justified by the law. Christ’s perfect ”
This is the apostle of Gnosticism’s most idiotic statement. The Law is not of faith? What does that even mean?
1. That the Law doesn’t command faith? The first of the Ten Commandments commands faith “I am the LORD your God who brought you out of Egypt; you shall have no other gods before me.” FAITH IS COMMANDED BY THE LAW!
2. That the Law doesn’t create faith? What monotheistic faith is not based on Genesis 1?
3. That you can obey the Law without faith? Not so: you can’t obey the first commandment without faith! And many of its commandments have a tacked on reason for why they’re given, which is “FOR I AM THE LORD THY GOD.” THE LAW IS OF FAITH.
What then can the Gnostic apostle mean by “The law is not of faith?” Only that the Law is not about faith in Jesus’ death; since obviously it is about faith in GOD.
To say “the law is not of faith [in Jesus’ death as a substitute for the law] is a pointless tautology: its the same as saying “the law is not opposed to itself.”
Yet Paul wants it to be opposed to itself: all he does is oppose the law to itself!
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“Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to the one that belives.”
Why does the Law need to end?????? If a murder kills your family, do you complain “The Law is bad; it condemns this man!!!! Get rid of the Law!!!!!” No. So why should it be that way in religion? Why must the Law be condemned so Paul the murdering thug can be justified? Maybe the murdering thug should NOT Be justified.
But why does the Old Testament speak of repentance justifying???? And that without the Law having to be done away with??? Like in Ezekiel 18??? The Law doesn’t have to be tossed ; God forgives on repentance, and the Law remains without condemning the repentant man!!!!!!!
Now, see Micah 6:8. The ceremonial side of the Law was robbed of any power to condemn (if it ever had any) by the prophets: Some guy asks what sacrifice God wants: “SHould I sacrifice my firstborn?” And Micah doesn’t give him an answer that sacrifice is the most important thing in the world and God requires a perfect sacrice, or any nonsene that the Law must be destroyed.
Micah says “He has told you, oh man, what is good, and what does the LORD require but that you love mercy/kindness, do justice, and walk humbly with your God?” In other words, God requires only a general moral life, mixed with repentance and humility, and monotheism. Not a perfect obedience of the Law, certainly not of the cermonial Law (See ISaiah 1).
Even without Christ, without Paul, without sacrifices, without the law being killed or removed, God is pleased with and forgives the man who repents and who is kind and tries to do justice, who walks humbly with God.
This nonsense that the Law “Arouses sinful passions” and thus had to be destroyed is GNOSTICISM. Paul was a Gnostic and not one WORD of anything he says is valid. In fact, so long as CHristianity is about some notion that the LAw condemned us and Jesus needed to save us FROM THE LAW, CHristianity is entirely INVALID because nowhere does the Old Testament teach the LAw condemns us!!!!!!! NOWHERE!!!!!! Under the LAW there was MORE GRACE than under Christianity as far as I can tell, since God forgiveness by repentance alone without metaphyiscal dogmas and without us having to beleive in any moronic contradictory nonsense gnostic teaching against the Law and against morality!!!!!!!!!!!
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Descriptive,
I am posting your comments for educational purposes. Again, like many, you miss Paul’s point concerning the law’s relationship to justification versus sanctification.
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“Descriptive, I am posting your comments for educational purposes. Again, like many, you miss Paul’s point concerning the law’s relationship to justification versus sanctification.”
Fine, go ahead and post everything I say. But I contend that it is Paul who misses the point. In the Old Testament it nowhere says perfect lawkeeping is required for justification. It teaches justification by repentance. Which means, justification NEVER required perfect lawkeeping. Like a good little Calvinist/Gnostic heretic, Paul has redefined reality,
Paulpassingthoughts, You should read Heikki Raisanen’s Paul and the Law. Its an excellent book from a scholar who used to hold the Lutheran view of the Law but studied and found it lacking. If you truly are new to the question of Paul and the Law this is the book to read: he demonstrates how contradictory Paul’s view of the Law is, or rather Paul’s many different tentative views he haphazardly tosses out in a violent wish to somehow make something stick against the Law. And finally he compares Paul’s contradictory treatment of the Law to more consistent treatment’s like Justin Martyr’s treatment.
But again, to my point: SHOW ME WHERE in the Old Testament it says perfect lawkeeping is the standard, rather than repentance and keeping the moral law as best one can until they need to repent again!!!!!!!!!! Paul’s whole system is built on a lie: the lie that if you break the Law one time then you will need some major cosmic event, something bigger much bigger than repentance to undo that……this is Gnostiism and misinterpretation of the Old Testament.
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I should also have said here the most important thing: There is no ‘original sin’ in the sense of default status condemnation to hell in the Law. There is no mention of hell at all. Justification, which is by repentance in the Law, has nothing to do with escaping from a hell that the Law doesn’t recognize as existing. Even Paul in Romans 5 doesn’t mention hell, and never does. Romans 5:12 says that Adam’s sin brought death, that is, mortality on us all. Athanasius properly interpreted this as meaning that since Adam we are all tending towards nonexistence (in the treatise, the Incarnation of the Word of God) because there is no hell in Paul, and there is no hell in the Old Testament. Jesus indeed taught hell, but he said things like “Whoever says to his brother ‘you fool’ is in DANGER of hell-fire.” Hell is a danger for those who sin and never repent; it is not a certainty and certainly not a default status that we are born into…not even Paul, for all his Gnosticism teaches default damnation to hell.
Having said that, you must understand, that to me justification is freed from the baggage the Calvinists/Augustinians have put on it. Justification is not escaping a default status damnation to hell you were born into. Its rising beyond neutrality to be considered righteous. A person can also go in the opposite direction and become wicked. But one can be justified from that even and become righteous again by repentance; so saith Ezekiel 18, and all of that without “faith alone” in dogmas and councils or metaphysical definitions of God’s nature beyond that God is One. Christianity should focus on following Jesus’ example in living a life conforming to the standard of righteousness, of repenting when we need to even as he was baptized by a John with a baptism of repentance (whether he needed it or not) and lived a moral life. IT should not consist in Paul’s Gnostic hatred of the Law and his lies that we need “faith alone” in faith alone or in his metaphyiscal dogmas or whatever.
Yet, again, even Paul didn’t teach default damnation to hell, and if the Gnostics/Calvinists still taught what he actually taught, it wouldn’t be as offensive (Although it would still be wrong). What he taught was that all of us are damned to die and cease to exist. And only a certain lucky set of cosmic lotto winners will escape this because only they can believe. So everyone dies and ceases to exist because of Adam’s sin, except Paul’s lottery winners who were chosen to be given faith (“it is the gift of God”) and thus be resurrected, for Paul (the Paul of the epistles) beleives that only believers will be resurrection per 1 Cor 15 “First Christ as 1st fruits, and then at his coming those that are his” (no resurrection of unbelievers for Paul, despite what Acts might say). If Calvinists taught this, and said Arminians will all cease to exist, who would even care? But its because they’ve tacked HELL onto Paul’s Gnostic system and are teaching that everyone will go to hell unless they embrace Calvinism, that’s why people get upset by it.
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Descriptive,
Note Drew’s questions for you in regard to your statements.
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Descriptive, please, answer. What do these verses mean?
Romans 7:
9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Romans 8:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh,[b] God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.[c] And so he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
“This nonsense that the Law “Arouses sinful passions” and thus had to be destroyed is GNOSTICISM. Paul was a Gnostic and not one WORD of anything he says is valid. In fact, so long as CHristianity is about some notion that the LAw condemned us and Jesus needed to save us FROM THE LAW, CHristianity is entirely INVALID because nowhere does the Old Testament teach the LAw condemns us!!!!!!! NOWHERE!!!!!!”
The above is your quote. I have given you your answer as to where the Bible says that the law arouses our sinful desires and condemns us. Hence our need for Christ, to no longer be under CONDEMNATION as those who are still under the LAW.
The stuff coming out of you is really disturbing.
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Drew,
Ooops, sorry, I misunderstood–yes, thank you because I am really too busy to address Descriptive–thanks for your help!!!!! I don’t like, in most cases, screening out comments, so thanks again for addressing this for me.
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Descriptive, your comments are scary and heretical, and they bother me so much I will no longer respond to anything you say. Unfortunately I am going to have to use a John MacArthur quote to refute your brand of personal “truth”:
[Contemplative Spirituality aka] Mysticism is perfectly suited for religious existentialism; indeed, it is the inevitable consequence. The mystic disdains rational understanding and seeks truth instead through the feelings, the imagination, personal visions, inner voices, private illumination, of other purely subjective means. Objective truth becomes practically superfluous.
Mystical experiences are therefore self-authenticating; that is, they are not subject to any form of objective verification. They are unique to the person who experiences them. Since they do not arise from or depend upon any rational process, they are invulnerable to any refutation by rational means… Mysticism is therefore antithetical to discernment. It is an extreme form of reckless faith
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Drew, you say: “Mysticism is perfectly suited for religious existentialism; indeed, it is the inevitable consequence.”
Paul was the mystic, not me. Where did I appeal to any revelation I received on being “caught up to the third heaven”, or some fancy nonsense that God chose me to “reveal his son in me”? I’m appealing to nothing but the text of the Old Testament. Show me where the Old Testament, not Paul, but the Old Testament says that we are damned to hell unless we keep the Law perfectly. That’s my response to every last verse from Paul you quoted, whether from Romans or Galatians: show me from the Law itself that the Law damns us to hell for not keeping it perfectly. Until you can do that, it is you who are appealing to personal mystical experiences, namely the false experiences Paul claims to have had.
“Mystical experiences are therefore self-authenticating; that is, they are not subject to any form of objective verification.”
That is, rather than acknowledge that the Old Testament does NOT say we are damned to hell if we don’t keep the Law perfectly, you feel Paul’s mystical experiences which never took place but which he says did about being caught up to the third heaven and so on prove that he is right in his assertions that cannot be demonstrated by the Law itself. For a mystic like Paul to say the Law damns us to hell for not keeping it perfectly when the Law itself is silent on this, is laughable. Paul and his fellow mystics refuse to submit to “objective verification,” that is, to the plain text of the Law itself.
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Drew, you say: “Mysticism is perfectly suited for religious existentialism; indeed, it is the inevitable consequence.”
Paul was the mystic, not me. Where did I appeal to any revelation I received on supposedly being “caught up to the third heaven”, or some fancy nonsense that God chose me to “reveal his son in me”? I never claimed I saw a light that spoke to me. I’m appealing to nothing but the text of the Old Testament. Show me where the Old Testament, not Paul, but the Old Testament says that we are damned to hell unless we keep the Law perfectly. That’s my response to every last verse from Paul you quoted, whether from Romans or Galatians: show me from the Law itself that the Law damns us to hell for not keeping it perfectly. Until you can do that, it is you who are appealing to personal mystical experiences, namely the false experiences Paul claims to have had. Unless the Law says it damns us to hell for not keeping it perfectly, then Paul’s mystical experiences lack the “objective verification” you speak of.
“Mystical experiences are therefore self-authenticating; that is, they are not subject to any form of objective verification.”
That is, rather than acknowledge that the Old Testament does NOT say we are damned to hell if we don’t keep the Law perfectly, you feel Paul’s mystical experiences which never took place but which he says did about being caught up to the third heaven and so on prove that he is right in his assertions that cannot be demonstrated by the Law itself. For a mystic like Paul to say the Law damns us to hell for not keeping it perfectly when the Law itself is silent on this, is laughable. Paul and his fellow mystics refuse to submit to “objective verification,” that is, to the plain text of the Law itself.
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“Pray tell, why would Christ come to fulfill a covenant with Hagar…”?
This mystical/Gnostic interpretation that sets the plain text backwards, that changes Isaac into Ishmael and Ishmael into Isaac is not valid. It is clear that Paul had reversed the text to suit his purpose, and this is not valid interpretaiton. Mccarthur and every other Calvinist or those who function as essentially being Calvinists because they accept this sort of interpretation can call this an “objective truth” all they want. But this is nothing but a lie. The Jews did not descend from Hagar and the Gentiles did not descend from Sarah. The Muslims take Paul all to literally here and make the Ishmaelites to be the children of the freewoman and the Jews the children of the bondwoman, just as Paul argues, and this is one reason they hate Jews so much. The only thing this “allegory” of his is worth is fomenting anti-semitism. It offers us no light in understanding the true relationship of Christians to the Law.
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