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NASB | Exodus 1:1 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; they came each one with his household: |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Exodus 1:1 Now these are the names of the sons of Israel who came to Egypt with Jacob; each came with his household: |
Bible Question:
Is the Christian under Law? Dear Joe and Christiankl, God's design for our lives as Christians is to let Christ live His life thorugh us, not to keep the law. Please look at the Scriptures, brothers: Consider the church in Galatia. Paul had preached Christ crucified and risen again in their midst. This was a church of, as far as we can tell, believers in Christ who the Judaizers were trying to put back under the law and all it's requirements. Notice Paul's admonitions: Galatians 2:19 - Paul died to the Law so that he could live to God 3:10 - If you're under law, you're under it's curse - if you sin, you die 3:13 - Christ redeemed us from this curse 3:19 - The Law was added UNTIL the seed (Christ) would come 3:23 - Before faith in Christ came, we were under law's custody 3:24 - Law leads us to Christ so we can be justified by faith 3:25 - Now that faith in Christ is reality, we are no longer under the tutor (the Law) Romans 6:14 - we are not under the law but under grace 6:15 - again, we are under grace 7:4 - we were made to die to the Law so that we can be joined to Christ 7:6 - We have been released from the Law so that we can serve in the newness of the Spirit NOT according to the letter (law) Brothers, are these Scriptures not clear? If you were married to a woman you loved (see Paul's analogy in Roman's 7) and she died, as horrible as that would be, what relationship would you have with her? She would be dead and all the duties you had to her would be null and void. Would that mean you were against her or hated her? No. You would still, in fact, love her. But, you would no longer be in a relationship with her. The relationship is over. She would be dead. Now, Paul says that we were made to die to the Law through Christ's death (Rom 7:4) so that we could be joined to Christ. The first relationship has to end before the next can be binding. But the Law didn't die. We did. We are free of ANY relationship to it, not because there is something wrong with it, but because it has fulfilled it's purpose. It showed us exceedingly sinful so that we could come to Christ. And our relationship with Him will lead us to go places that the Law could never touch. The Law buried us under sin, as Christ did in the gospels (...the Law says...but I tell you...) so we would see our need to be justified by His death and saved by His life. So, obviously, I have a contention with your 3 conclusions: 1. The Holy Spirit now convicts the believer of sin and points us to Christ as sufficient - not the Law. 2. God doesn't want a moral people. The Pharisees were very moral. God wants a people who have Christ living through them. This goes beyond morality to miraculous. We don't need to eat from the morality Tree (of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, right and wrong), we need to eat from the Tree of Life, Jesus Christ. 3. We live out our sanctification. We do nothing to obtain it. Our spirits are 100 percent sanctified at conversion and we have the privelege of seeing that 'worked out' through our souls and bodies as we trust in Christ as our sufficiency and grow in His love. See Titus 2:11 - God's GRACE, not the Law, teaches us to live righteously and godly lives. As you said, God, through Christ, has met all His own moral demands. We, on our own, never could. We have been made holy not by our actions, but by His. We have HIS righteousness, not our own. And we have the joyful experience of living it out. We don't live holy, godly lives to gain sanctification. We live holy, godly lives because 'by this will (New Covenant) we have been sanctified through the body of Jesus Christ ONCE FOR ALL. For by one offering He has perfected for ALL TIME those who are sanctified.' - Hebrews 10:10,14 What do you think? In Christ, Bill Mc In Christ |
Bible Answer: On with the show! You wrote: "God doesn't want a moral people. The Pharisees were very moral. God wants a people who have Christ living through them. This goes beyond morality to miraculous. We don't need to eat from the morality Tree (of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, right and wrong), we need to eat from the Tree of Life, Jesus Christ." I think the "tree" exegesis is a stretch, Bill. Show me that one from Scripture. In any case, God wants righteousness from His people, which includes moral living (John 14:15, 1 Peter 1:14-16; Philippians 2:12-13; 1 Thessalonians 4:7-8 and on and on and on). Secondly, the Pharisees were not moral. They were hypocrites, "whitewashed tombs", "sons of the devil." Their so-called "morality" was a prideful attempt at self-glorification, not a God-honoring righteousness. Jesus repeatedly told them that their devotion to external obedience without a proper grasp of the spirit of the Law was their downfall. The Father places commands upon His followers; so does Christ; all of them are in accordance with the moral law. It is the Holy Spirit who teaches us, reminds us of them, and enables the believer to follow them (Romans 8:7-14). You wrote: "We live out our sanctification. We do nothing to obtain it. Our spirits are 100 percent sanctified at conversion and we have the privelege of seeing that 'worked out' through our souls and bodies as we trust in Christ as our sufficiency and grow in His love. See Titus 2:11 - God's GRACE, not the Law, teaches us to live righteously and godly lives." You, like many Christians today, are confusing justification with sanctification. Justification is totally a work of God; we do nothing to obtain it. Our spirits however, are not 100 percent SANCTIFIED at conversion. There are three dimensions to our sanctification as revealed in Scripture: initial, progressive, and final. Initial sanctification occurs when we become believers, and in that sense we are "set apart" from those who are perishing, for a holy purpose (1 Peter 2:9, 10; Ephesians 2:10). Progessive sanctification is the Lord's work in a believer from conversion until death, in which we are gradually conformed to the image of Christ in this life, bearing spiritual fruit. While it is the Holy Spirit who brings about this change, there is a clear cooperative dimension on our parts, involving our wills and yes, our WORKS (Philippians 2:13). These works are not the basis of our justification, but are a component and result of our sancification. Final justification occurs when the believer enters God's presence, and is made perfect in righteousness. Titus 2:11-12 does not contradict the role that God's moral demands in the Law have in revealing to us what God's will is. As I stated before, the Holy Spirit does not work in a vaccum, but rather utilizes His word (his moral commandments) in our sanctification as well. Lastly, Hebrews 10:14b is most likely rendered best in a progressive sense ("those who are being sanctified", as we see in the NKJV, NIV, and as an alternate rendering in the footnote in the NASB). This is in keeping with the idea of "progressive sanctification" that we see above. We may positionally be seated with Christ, but I think you would agree that that is practically not the case in our lives as we now live them. Bill, Paul himself cites God's moral law as something that should be practiced by the Christian, quoting from the Ten Commandments in Ephesians 6:1-3. If Paul and Christ and John and James all testify to the value of law in holy living of believers, why can't you? --Joe! |