By GC: As MountainMan stated, during the time of Moses, the government was a Theocracy. Nowadays, if you were to cut off a woman's hand, you would be imprisoned by our non-theocratic government. You would be looked upon by society with disdain, and in so doing would besmirch the name of Christ.

God expects us to "obey them that have the rule over you." This means we are no longer expected to comply with the civil laws which Moses had commanded under the Theocracy where they are trumped with our current government's laws, for they have essentially been replaced by the laws of the authorities God has allowed to rule over us.

Hi GC,

Do we break the Sabbath when the government in authority makes a law forbidding worship on the Sabbath?

scott

Scott,

Do we break the speed limit when we are late to the evangelistic meeting, since that is the work of God (to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin), and there is no law in the Bible against speeding?

Green Cochoa.

This is sarcastic.

To know God's character, we should look to Jesus Christ, not Moses. We see how God would have acted in how Jesus treated the woman caught in adultery. You wrote:



So we have:
1.Jesus did not undermine the law of Moses.
2.Jesus' instruction was that the law of Moses should be obeyed.
3.The woman was not stoned.

So there's your answer.

Maybe you're confusing voices here.

You seem to be confused to an extent, because you cannot answer a simply question like why God would want women's hands to be cut off. You just say, "I don't know." That sounds like confusion.

I'll repeat it, to make the post easier to follow:

Scott's question: "Do you think that Jesus’ words, to those who caught the woman in adultery, would have been the right words in Moses’ time to someone who caught a woman in adultery?"



I agree with the "yes, of course" part, but the explanation is a bit disappointing as it appears you don't believe Jesus responded the way He did because of His character, but because of special circumstances. You seem to take this same stance in general, that a thing is not a sin because it violates the law in general, or is wrong in general, but whether a thing is right or not depends upon the circumstances. E.g., polygamy is a "sin," it is "contrary to the will of God," a "violation of the law," "not sanctioned by God in a single instance," yet you see it as being not necessarily a sin, depending on the circumstances. You appear to take this same position in other contexts, so I commend you on being consistent.

Leviticus
5:11 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
5:12 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man's wife go aside, and commit a trespass against him,
5:13 And a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept close, and she be defiled, and [there be] no witness against her, neither she be taken [with the manner];
5:14 And the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:
5:15 Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest, and he shall bring her offering for her, the tenth [part] of an ephah of barley meal; he shall pour no oil upon it, nor put frankincense thereon; for it [is] an offering of jealousy, an offering of memorial, bringing iniquity to remembrance.
5:16 And the priest shall bring her near, and set her before the LORD:
5:17 And the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put [it] into the water:
5:18 And the priest shall set the woman before the LORD, and uncover the woman's head, and put the offering of memorial in her hands, which [is] the jealousy offering: and the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse:
5:19 And the priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness [with another] instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water that causeth the curse:
5:20 But if thou hast gone aside [to another] instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain with thee beside thine husband:
5:21 Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell;
5:22 And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make [thy] belly to swell, and [thy] thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen.
5:23 And the priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot [them] out with the bitter water:
5:24 And he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, [and become] bitter.
5:25 Then the priest shall take the jealousy offering out of the woman's hand, and shall wave the offering before the LORD, and offer it upon the altar:
5:26 And the priest shall take an handful of the offering, [even] the memorial thereof, and burn [it] upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.
5:27 And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, [that], if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, [and become] bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people.
5:28 And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.
5:29 This [is] the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside [to another] instead of her husband, and is defiled;
5:30 Or when the spirit of jealousy cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall execute upon her all this law.
5:31 Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity.

Do you see exceptions as being possible for any violation of the law? Is it limited to polygamy and killing? Or are their circumstances when lying and stealing, for example, might not be sin?

Ok. Here's an example:

This is a really strange thing for you to assert, as it's meaningless for you. For example, God's law says, "That shalt not kill" (or "thou shalt not murder" if you prefer). You believe that God killed people, but it wasn't a violation of His law, because He was doing it. If someone else did it, it would have been a violation of His law, but God cannot violate His own law. So your assertion that God has never acted contrary to His law is meaningless, as, by definition, you interpret anything that God does as not being contrary to His law, regardless of what God does.

Scott and I, otoh, do believe that God has never acted contrary to His law. He has always acted like Jesus Christ.

Regarding your question on polygamy, my answer is that polygamy is contrary to God's will, was never sanctioned by Him in a single instance, and is a violation of His law.

Hi MM,

If Jesus fulfilled the law of Moses when He didn’t stone the adulteress then would you say that anyone at anytime could have fulfilled the law of Moses without killing those who broke it?

If Jesus commanded Moses to stone the Sabbath breakers in the OT, but in the NT he told them that they could only stone them if they had no sin in their lives would it be a ok to suggest that those meeting out the punishments in the OT also could have turned and walked away feeling that the sin in their lives was too great to meet judgment and punishment on others? Jesus is, after all, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow!

I would never, even if God told me to, pick up a rock, join a mob, and stone a scared cornered sinner. Not to mention his whole family!!!! Can you really see Jesus acting that way? Wow!

Can't you see how barbaric this is and that the only reason it is mentioned in the Bible is because it reflects the reality of how deteriorated man's conscience had become.

Let me ask you this question: Had the Father commanded Jesus to call fire down from heaven to punish those cities who scorned His disciples do you think Jesus would have killed them? Or would Jesus have questioned whose voice He was hearing?

Yes, Scott, I believe God can do things that would be sinful for us to do. For example, God can command holy angels to punish and destroy impenitent sinners, but it would be a sin for us to do something similar (unless, of course, we are Moses, who obeyed God's command to stone the Sabbath-breaker to death).

GC 614
A single angel destroyed all the first-born of the Egyptians and filled the land with mourning. When David offended against God by numbering the people, one angel caused that terrible destruction by which his sin was punished. The same destructive power exercised by holy angels when God commands, will be exercised by evil angels when He permits. There are forces now ready, and only waiting the divine permission, to spread desolation everywhere. {GC 614.2}