Subject: What is the law? |
Bible Note: elder4yhwh, Let me first confess my fears to you and then I will point you to answers. Now my fear is that you do not ask this question in sincerity. What I mean is that you ask me which laws he has fulfilled or done away with and you don't truly want to learn anything from any answer I might give. Rather that you think to be asking an impossible question and thus from the impossibility of answering it you have proven your point that such a notion is nonsense. Now I do not accuse you of this, I am simply afraid it could be the case. So here is how I shall answer your question, I shall point you to the answers and if you are willing to pursue them you shall have your answers. But if you are asking only in attempts to prove a point, then I will have no waisted my time arguing about it. 1.) First, you need to have a right understanding about what Christ has done. When we say that due to the work of Christ we are no longer under the law, we don't mean to say that the law is no longer a picture of righteousness any longer. We simply mean that our acceptance or condemnation before God is no longer based upon our fulfillment of the law for those who are in Christ. So due to what Christ has done and my partaking of the benefits via faith, I no longer am accepted or rejected by God based upon whether I have committed adultery. What we DO NOT mean is that I am now free to commit adultery. We do not hold to antinomianism, or lawlessness. The moral law remains our sure guide to right and wrong and rightly restrains wickedness. Now this could have a lot more to be said about it. Namely that Paul goes through lengths to show that the Spirit is the driving force of righteousness in Christians rather than the law. However, I simply want to assert that Christ has freed us from the covenant of the law, not the expectation of the law. I point you to a book called "The Marrow of Modern Divinity" to learn more about this. This book is a very easy and enjoyable read. I do not wish to push you to accept every doctrinal thought the author holds, but it very much helps to get the broad concept of being free from the law as a covenant while still holding to the law as the picture of righteousness fit to instruct the saints and sincerely obey. Oh, this book is available online in its entirety for free. 2.) Now we rightly say that some things have passed away entirely due to Christ having fulfilled them. And this point is more to what you are pressing for an answer on. I point you to John Calvin in the "Institutes of the Christian Religion." He deals with this very well. He will expound upon concepts such as the moral, ceremonial, and civil aspects of the old testament law. I think he rightly teaches it. So I offer these two sources for you. If you truly wish to know the answers to your questions, you will do well to pursue your answers in these sources. If you are in truth not seeking answers, but rather have begun this thread asking a question only to start a debate over a topic which you previously were quite convinced of your own position, and rather than seeking an answer were really only trying to engage in a discussion to sway others, then I suspect you will continue debating in this thread while putting out no effort to look into these books. I wish you well in your study. In Christ, Beja |