I agree whole heartedly Tom, but it is new to many. You can tell by some of the titles of the threads:

Can the law save us?

What kind of question is that for a New Testament Christian?

scott

Didn't Jesus summarize the law as love? Didn't Paul say that love fulfills the law?

I don't think the Gospel frees us from the law. I don't think anyone is saved outside the law. It is the carnal who are not constrained by love. The saved, OTOH, have been saved from..... un-loving-ness.

In short, we are saved in order to keep the law, not in spite of it.


Love conquers all, even being lost.

Actually the law is not summarized by love, but love is summarized by the law! The law can't possibly contain all that love is! God is love! The 10 Commandments are not the eternal law of love, but an expression of it within the context of the Old Covenant. In the New Covenant Jesus is the expression of love in its fullness.

The law of love has existed for eternity, but the 10 Commandments have only been around since Sinai. Love will last forever, but the 10 Commandments are just a symbol of the true law. They are obsolete once the heart knows God through Jesus.

scott

Are the 10C an accurate expression of love? Or does being loving sometimes mean breaking one of the 10C?

Well, first the enmity is not synonymous with the carnal mind. The carnal mind is the cause of the enmity between human beings, and not the enmity itself. Besides, neither the carnal mind nor the enmity can be described as a “law of commandments contained in ordinances.”
Second, I can’t agree that the ten commandments were abolished. Romans 3:31 (besides many other passages) says unequivocally that they weren’t, the same verb is used in both texts, and the Bible does not contradict itself.
So, sorry Tom and Scott, but I can’t agree with the position of neither of you.

I can go for that. But since the law is the transcript of God's character, it can't be too incomplete.

Which hearkens back to the OP. Do you agree that the statutes and ordinanaces God gave to Moses were an expounding of the 10C? And do you agree that the basis for all that God commands, even at Sinai, is always love?


Does Jesus ever confict with the 10C? Did Jesus ever do anything that was condemned by the 10C?

Going further, what do you think is the "law" Paul "established" in Rom 3:31? Do you think he was talking of the 10C, or something else?


Does Jesus write anything on the heart that contradicts the law He wrote on stone?

Hi Arnold,

Maybe this will answer your questions. Does my hand belong to my body? Does the hand act for the body? Can you see my whole body when you see just my hand?

The law doesn't express fully the character of God. It is an expression, a transcript of God's character described in words, a single dimensional picture of God that deals with behavior. Jesus, in Matthew 5, explains righteousness much better than did the 10 Commandments and extends the law into our very thoughts and feelings. It is easy to look at the 10 Commandments and mistake their purpose, but to look at Jesus and believe what He said is hard to mistake.

The 10 Commandments clearly say that sin is the transgression of the law, but where in the 10 Commandments does it tell us that sin is anything not done in faith? How about anything good that we could have done, but neglected to do? Do you really think they are complete in themselves as a standard of righteousness? Maybe to govern a bunch of slaves, but never to guide God’s spiritual temple into unity!

Of course the 10 Commandments fit into the love that Christ taught, but don’t think for a minute that they incorporate all of what it means to “LOVE”!

scott

Romans 8:7
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.


The law is descriptive of the carnal mind constantly reminding it that it is out of touch with God. It describes what sin is. It points out sin. Paul says that we wouldn’t know sin if not for the law.

The 10 Commandments play no roll at all in our salvation other than to lead us to the Savior. They are abolished once we come to Him. We are no longer under them. They are obsolete. They are a retired schoolmaster. They are nailed to the cross because once Christ was lifted up He is the one that draws men to God.

You seem to think that words have more power than context. Isn’t that the fundamental principle of “word inspiration”?

scott

Paul said:



Some translations













These all say the same thing. It is enmity against God.



Even Ellen White agrees. It must be true!

Here's something I wrote in a previous posts:

14For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15by abolishing in his flesh (something). His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. 17He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. 18For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.


Here I put in "something" for the part being debated. What would make sense here if this were just a blank to be filled in, just by looking at the argument?

Again, returning to the point you made previously, the Jews had been perverting *both* the ceremonial law and the moral law, and it was this perversion of both that led to hostility. So how could Paul be suggesting that peace came about by abolishing one of these things? This doesn't make sense.

You are trying to make a grammatical argument which doesn't seem to fit the context or make logical sense. If the Jews were perverting *both* laws, and this was causing enmity, how could abolishing *one* of them fix anything? Also, isn't it clear that the real problem the Jews and Gentiles had was not knowing Christ, and that what they needed was Him? Paul says that in Christ we have peace. How would abolishing the ceremonial law given anyone peace, or lead anyone to Christ?

What about the many statements that the law can only condemn, it cannot forgive? If it were a complete transcript of God's character, that would mean that God can only condemn and not forgive.