We may be telling ourselves we are following Jesus, but are we? How do we know? Because our hearts are deceitful, we need objective standards to test ourselves against. Paul and James, at least, tell us to do exactly that.
But that’s not an answer to the question.
And it contradicts James, who says that you cannot follow “just part of the law.”
Right. The fruit of the Spirit is a measure. Not a rule to follow.
The Old Testament is:
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An example for us (Romans 15:4).
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The promise for which Jesus is the fulfillment.
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The liturgy of the early Church.
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The foundation for the understanding of sacrifice, atonement, covenant, messianic expectation, etc.
And more.
Is anybody actually recommending discarding the Old Testament?
I don’t understand “unhitching” to mean “discarding.”
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Acts 3:22 is very interesting, because Peter is quoting Deuteronomy.
.For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you must listen to everything he tells you.Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people.’
Maybe you should listen to Stanley’s sermons or read his book “Irrestible” He doesn’t want anything to do with the Old Testament.
Right. And he was not talking about escargot. What law was he talking about? He was talking about the laws of love, the moral law.
Is the suitor thinking about rules? No, they are in his heart. Can hearts be ‘forgetful’? Yes, I think so.
You are mistaken – they are not talking about just the fruits of the Spirit. There are discrete measurables.
I don’t know if anyone made this point, if so no doubt better, but I don’t have time to read all the posts.
In my opinion:
- The OT is absolutely vital in understanding the NT, and vice versa.
- I do believe this happened, logically simultaneously:
- a) The entire Mosaic law was nullified, including the decalogue
- b) Jesus became the new law giver, primarily via the Sermon on the Mount, the “you have heard it said” statements, and the two great commandments
- c) The decalogue (with the possible exception of the Sabbath), though no longer the official criminal code, is derivable from the two great commandments
- d) So we are, in effect, still bound by the decalogue, but they are corollaries of Jesus’ law rather than axioms in their own right, and the argument about whether or not the 10 commandments are void is somewhat a technical argument about whether they are primary or contingent law. In either case, we are still commanded to obey them.
I still have no answer from Stanley’s supporters about which 10 commandments we can violate. If it is only the Sabbath, then this is much ado about (almost) nothing. Christians have, for the most part, agreed to disagree about the Sabbath for most of Christian history.
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As somebody who, I guess, qualifies as a ‘Stanley supporter’ here, allow me to attempt some answer.
Actually, if you’re going to put it that way (which ones of these can we ignore now?), I’ll respond back that if anyone is even asking that question in earnest, they show that they missed Jesus’ entire point!
Consider this (not entirely fictitious) analogous situation. An employer develops a specific list of rules for the employees of a business. They included:
- Do not take cash that isn’t yours out of the register.
- Do not help yourself to any store inventory or equipment without authorization.
- Do not take care of personal business on store time that you can do instead on break or lunch times.
This employer later tells all the employees: you know what? Instead of all those detailed rules, I’m going to just give you this one imperative: Don’t steal.
So what you would you then think, David, of the employee that then begins asking … “okay - so which of those initial rules am I permitted to start ignoring now?”
Such an employee is showing that they just aren’t understanding the later general imperative which covers all the first three and more. The fact that they wish to pursue the question at all shows that they aren’t ready to keep any of them (old or new).
Now - it isn’t a perfect parallel. You have in part answered your own question I think, with the question of the sabbath. There are details that have changed. But what hasn’t changed is the spirit behind it all (both old and new). “On these two commands (loving God and neighbor) hangs all of the law.” In other words, the old commandments were some of the specific ways people were expected to love God and neighbor in their context. Our context may be a little different (for sabbath, for example), but not very different. In any case, (and much more importantly!) we still have exactly the same spirit behind it all: we are charged to love. In seeking obedience to that charge we do well to neither ignore the ten commandments as given then, nor to consider them any sort of final word that is sufficient to our task of love either. In most cases, it would appear that our context demands we not only obey the commandments, but go considerably beyond them. In short, I think Stanley is right that the O.T. is not our final authority for rules/laws today. But to the extent that Stanley insists that the same is entirely useless towards the project of the mature Christian studying and understanding the new covenant and its roots, I would then part company with Stanley on that point. [While a few isolated quotes from detractors can make it sound like Stanley goes there, I’m not convinced that’s where he’s actually at.]
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Wait, what? Not eating escargot was part of the law! So he says you can’t keep just part of the law and you’re saying that he is just referring to part of the law when he says “the whole law”?
Are you really saying that?
“I’m not under law” does not mean I don’t have to obey the laws of the land. Although when it comes to God’s requirements (remember: we obey him, not rules), we might be required to disobey the laws of the land.
If we are living the Spirit-led life, we will not be violating the intent of the 10 commandments.
I stand corrected – James is talking about the entirety of Mosaic law, but with respect to salvation and the impossibility of obtaining righteousness before God by obedience to it. Do not continue to make the category mistake of equating moral law with Mosaic law. Moral law is contained within Mosaic law, and is still the family rules of God’s household, so to speak.
That is is true, but. I repeat, our hearts are deceitful and we can fool ourselves into a complacency and that we are living the ‘Spirit-led life.’ There are are explicit, articulate and objective moral laws that we can and need to test ourselves against. If an usher is pocketing cash from the offering, when caught do we say "Shame on you, you are not leading the leading 'the Spirit-led life’”? No, we say “You are stealing.”
What are God’s requirements? What does that look like? Be explicit.
We obey the rules, the moral law that God has given us. And sometimes, yes, that does mean disobeying the laws of the land, because we are obeying a higher law.
Ultimately, in a word: “Christlikeness.” Paul writes a fair bit of what that “looks like” and how it is to be expressed in Christian community and in interaction with the world.
Which rules? Where’s the list? And why are some things “no longer on it”? And why does Paul specifically and explicitly say that following the law is:
- Ineffective?
- Temporary?
- Contrary to God’s current intention?
What do you do with those verses? Pretend they’re not there? Slice away the “rules we’re supposed to follow” from the “ones we’re supposed to follow”?
And how does that work exactly? How do certain rules “make us more Christlike”?
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Sorry, I missed this.
There is no distinction anywhere in scripture between “moral law” and “Mosaic law” or between “moral law” and “sacrificial law” or between “moral law” and “purity law.”
Any such distinction must be imposed on the text, and I’m not sure how appropriate that is.
Actually, I’m pretty sure it’s completely inappropriate. That’s eisegesis, not exegesis.
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That is a generalization – worthy, but it is still a generalization. What did you do with the usher that was stealing?
You can’t tell the difference between the laws of love and eating escargot. Huh.
Are you a Trinitarian?
That was the whole problem of the Pharisaic way of life and what Christ tried to expose. To the Pharisee all laws were equal. Unfortunately some biblical fanatics have the same problem with Scripture. They cannot differentiate one text (or style of text) from another. It would appear that the route of this discussion stems from such a view of Old Testament texts…
All or nothing is neither Biblical, nor valid. Not as a whole, nor as Old Testament Law.
Richard
Christlike?
Irrelevant.
The Old Testament doesn’t distinguish.
Also, it’s not about “what is obvious.” What about where it is not obvious? And why not forbid eating escargot?
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Very much so. Not sure where that question comes from nor the relevance…
That’s certainly part of the problem.
What are the criteria by which we interpret? What are the criteria by which we say “not this part of the Old Testament” but “that part”?
For that matter, what are the criteria by which we say “not this part of the New Testament” but “that part”? I ask this second question especially in light of Paul’s comments talking about the futility and temporary nature of the first covenant (for which “the Law” comprises the defining terms).