Authority on Earth

[dominikus28]

Now, we have the Church to guide us morally.
Before Christ and His Church, Jews has the ten commandments.
My Question is, what was before that? Did God speak to the Jews directly?

I understand that the reason why Jesus left a Church on Earth was to guide His flock - He didn’t just leave another ten commandments because as time went on, there would be new things which would need moral analysis (I’m sure if Jesus talked about cloning, the apostles wouldn’t know what He was talking about. SO he left it up to His Church).
God left an unevolving ten commandments because over that time, no new moral threats came about. Is this correct? Otherwise, were the Rabbi’s infallible?
What came before the ten commandments? Unless God spoke to them directly, how would they know good from evil?

 

[dmar198]

Now, we have the Church to guide us morally.
Before Christ and His Church, Jews has the ten commandments.
My Question is, what was before that? Did God speak to the Jews directly?

He sent them prophets and spoke to the Jews through them. In the in-between times when one prophet died and another had yet to arrive, they were expected to try their best to live up what the prophets had taught.

I understand that the reason why Jesus left a Church on Earth was to guide His flock - He didn’t just leave another ten commandments because as time went on, there would be new things which would need moral analysis (I’m sure if Jesus talked about cloning, the apostles wouldn’t know what He was talking about. SO he left it up to His Church).
God left an unevolving ten commandments because over that time, no new moral threats came about. Is this correct? Otherwise, were the Rabbi’s infallible?

The Prophets were inspired by God and what they taught, since it was the Word of God, was infallible. Not the Rabbis – they, like our priests, had the task of encouraging the people to live up to the Word of God, but were not able to infallibly declare, for example, that doctrine X is part of or implied by the Word of God. The Jewish scribes and pharisees did have a binding legislative authority, however, and Jesus referred the people to that authority until He established the Church. Thus He says, for example, in Matthew 23:2-3, “The Scribes and Pharisees have sat on the chair of Moses. All things, therefore, whatsoever they command you to do, you shall do it. But do not act as they do; for they bind heavy burdens, and will not lift a finger to carry it themselves.”

 

[fhansen]

Now, we have the Church to guide us morally.
Before Christ and His Church, Jews has the ten commandments.
My Question is, what was before that? Did God speak to the Jews directly?

I understand that the reason why Jesus left a Church on Earth was to guide His flock - He didn’t just leave another ten commandments because as time went on, there would be new things which would need moral analysis (I’m sure if Jesus talked about cloning, the apostles wouldn’t know what He was talking about. SO he left it up to His Church).
God left an unevolving ten commandments because over that time, no new moral threats came about. Is this correct? Otherwise, were the Rabbi’s infallible?
What came before the ten commandments? Unless God spoke to them directly, how would they know good from evil?

We have to understand the meaning of the fall. By rejecting Gods authority man rejected God as God and thereby separated himself from Him. This was no mere physical separation-as with a divorce-this was a separation from the Spirit of God operating within man- an internal rift. From then on, Scripture tells us that sin abounded as man was now totally his own arbiter of morality.

At some point God began to reveal Himself to fallen man, working with him towards the end of reconciling this disordered and self-destructive situation. He chose a people through which to work His plan of salvation. His plan involved teaching, forming, and drawing man back to right relationship with Him, but not through coercion-it must be man’s choice, decided by each of us as we come to recognize our need for Him. He made covenants with man; one of them involved giving Moses the Law, sort of an instruction manual on how man should behave if he were to be righteous-if he were to be just in God’s eyes. Centuries later, when, we’re told, the time was ripe, God sent His Son to give us the fullest revelation of Himself and His will. From this revelation we learn that the Law had been a teacher, which gave man the experience of learning that he actually could not be righteous, by himself, by merely striving to fulfill an external law. Man must come to fulfill the law internally. This is the New Covenant prophesied by Jeremiah in Jer 31:

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to[d] them,[e]”
declares the LORD.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

This is Gods promise to man, to restore His Spirit to us as we come to learn our need for Him-like Prodigals who’ve come to finally see the goodness and wisdom of their Father. This New Covenant is the purpose of Jesus’ coming and of His Atonement. The fulfilling of the Law in man is accomplished as He comes, with Gods help, to love God with his whole heart. soul, mind, and strength and his neighbor as himself, because, as Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount, love is the greatest commandment and, as stated in Rom 13:10: …love is the fulfillment of the Law."

 

[SunshineZA]

The progress of scripture history is linked to Cain, Abel and Seth.

It’s object is to set before us the history of the Kingdom of God.

Adam, Seth, Enos all walked with God. Adam was alive to tell the history of Paradise and the fall and to repeat the word of promise, which he had personally heard from the mouth of God.

We read in Gen. 1 – 3 of the loss of physical dialog with God when man was driven out of Paradise - and the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, which prove that they knew and worshipped God.

Gen. 2 – The two Ways and the Two Races. Cain, proud and jealous, murderer. Abel God fearing – refer to scripture re their sacrifices and worship to God.

The bible traces Cain’s descendants to the 5th and 6th generations when that race was fully formed and established – The Cainite race showed all the tendencies for evil – Every commandment and institution of God was openly set aside, and violence, lust, and ungodliness prevailed upon the earth by the Cainites. That is where the biblical record of the opposition to the kingdom of God stops.

The record of the Kingdom of God continues with Seth, believer of the promise of the deliverer who would bruise the head of the serpent and destroy his works.

Two different choices have ever since divided mankind. All offspring of A. and E. Would group themselves according to their spiritual tendencies. Faith v. Worldly wisdom.

Gen 4:. Genealogy of believing race through Seth. – Birth of Enosh “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.” Gen 5: Mixed marriages between Sethites and Cainites – Gross evel and universal disregard of the promise of redemption.

Gen 6 and 7: Paradise destroyed and swept away by the flood, Noah in absolute obedience, awaited the express command of God before leaving the Ark.
God makes a Covenant with Noah.

The History of the Kingdom of God continues in Holy Scripture, documenting the walk of man in ‘The Way’ in faith, until the written law was given to Moses as renewed covenant - man in obedience to God and the promise of a Saviour.

Deut 30:19 19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: