Is Abraham’s salvation (through Jesus) a fulfillment of God’s covenant of the Law?

[Steven_Merten]

Jesus assures us that Abraham is in heaven.

NAB LUK 13:28

And there will be wailing and grinding of teeth when you see **Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of **God and you yourselves cast out.

Old Testament people are under God’s covenant of the Law. God promises Old Testament people that they will live if they obey His commandments.

NAB DEU 30:15 The Choice before Israel.

"**Here then, I have today set before you life and prosperity, death and doom. **If you obey the commandment****s of the LORD, your God, which I enjoin on you today, loving him, and walking in his ways, and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees, you will live

**NAB MAT **19:16

“Teacher, what good must I do to possess everlasting life?” He answered, “Why do you question me about what is good? There is One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.”

NAB DEU 30:19

“I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:** I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life**, then, that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God, heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.”

NAB DEU 6:1

"These then are the commandments, the statutes and decrees which the LORD, your God, has ordered that you be taught to observe in the land into which you are crossing for conquest, so that you and your son and your grandson may fear the LORD, your God, and keep, throughout the days of your lives, all his statutes and commandments which I enjoin on you, and thus have long life. Hear then, Israel, and be careful to observe them, that you may grow and prosper the more in keeping with the promise of the LORD, the God of your fathers, to give you a land flowing with milk and honey." The great commandment. Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.
NAB LUK 10:25

**“Teacher, what must I do to inherit everlasting life?” Jesus answered him: ****“What is written in the law? How do you read it?” **He replied:

**"You shall love the Lord your God **
**with all your heart, **
**with all your soul, **
**with all your strength, **
and with all your mind; **
and your neighbor as yourself." **
Jesus said, "You have answered correctly. Do this and you shall live."

 

[Steven_Merten]

**NAB DEU 7:9 ******

"Understand, then, that the LORD, your God, is God indeed, the faithful God who keeps his merciful covenant down to the thousandth generation toward those who love him and keep his commandments, but who repays with destruction the person who hates him; he does not dally with such a one, but makes him personally pay for it. You shall therefore carefully observe the commandments, the statutes and decrees which I enjoin on you today."

NAB SIR 45:5

Where, face to face, he gave him the commandments, the law of life and understanding,

NAB PRO 4:4

**"Let your heart hold fast my words: **

keep my commands, that you may live!"

NAB JOH 12:50

"Since I know that his commandment means eternal life"

NAB EXO 20:5

“. . . you shall not bow down before them or worship them. For I, the LORD, your God, am a jealous God, inflicting punishment for their fathers’ wickedness on the children of those who hate me, down to the third and fourth generation; but bestowing mercy down to the thousandth generation, on the children of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

God tells man that He has set before them life and death. God tells man that man has free will to choose to love Him through obedience to the commandments and live or choose disobedience and die.

NAB SIR 15:11 Man’s Free Will.

Say not: “It was God’s doing that I fell away”; for what he hates he does not do. Say not: “It was he who set me astray”; for he has no need of wicked man. Abominable wickedness the LORD hates, he does not let it befall those who fear him. When God, in the beginning, created man, he made him subject to his own free choice. If you choose you can keep the commandments; it is loyalty to do his will. There are set before you fire and water; to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand. Before man are life and death, whichever he chooses shall be given him.

 

[Steven_Merten]

We know that the only way the Father can promise life to man, New Testament or Old Testament, is through the blood of the Son. Isaiah tells the Israelites that the sins of all will be put upon Jesus. Murderous, adulterous sinning, then repentant, King David proclaims salvation in God’s Right Hand Jesus.

**NAB ISA 53:4 **(Isaiah to the Israelites.)

Who would believe what we have heard? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot from the parched earth; There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him. He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, One of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, While we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed. We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all.

NAB PSA 118:15

The joyful shout of victory in the tents of the just: “The right hand of the LORD has struck with power: The right hand of the LORD is exalted; the right hand of the LORD has struck with power.” I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the LORD. Though the LORD has indeed chastised me, yet he has not delivered me to death.

Open to me the gates of justice; I will enter them and give thanks to the LORD. This gate is the LORD’s; the just shall enter it. I will give thanks to you, for you have answered me and have been my savior. The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. By the LORD has this been done; it is wonderful in our eyes. This is the day the LORD has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it. O LORD, grant salvation! O LORD, grant prosperity!

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Is Abraham’s salvation (through Jesus) a fulfillment of God’s covenant of the law?

 

[Ghosty]

I believe that Jesus is actually the fulfillment of the Covenant with the Hebrews, so in a sense the answer is yes. Abraham is saved through Jesus, and Jesus comes through the Covenant. Jesus is a direct component of the Hebrew Covenant, the final piece if you will.

The disposition of the people who follow the Incomplete Covenant is known only to God, but Paul assures us in Romans 11 that God’s work with the Jews is not yet finished, and that the seperation of a portion of them until the full amount of Gentiles come in is very much a part of the Salvation Plan. We can only praise God and hope for the best, as we don’t know what exactly the full plan yet is.

 

[francisca]

Surely Abraham was saved before the ten commandments was there. Paul teach us about this (That Abraham believed and counted righteous when he was uncircumcised).

And Jesus said this to the Jewish people : “before Abraham, I AM”.

God’s Mercy and Lovingkindness and Grace was there before the Law was there.

It is because of the golden calf that Moses came back with the ten commandments.

But the law of God is there from the begining of time too. This law is this : that you don’t eat from the tree, so you will not die.

Instead of believing God, Adam & Eve chose to believe “the other one”.

But before the command about the Tree of Knowledge, God’s Grace was all over the earth FIRST. Adam was covered in God’s Glory… they, Adam & Eve, they walked with God and talked with Him…

Because of our sin we cannot walk with God neither can we talk with Him anymore. So God has to teach us about sin using the law.

The law itself is-- I would put it this way-- “neutral”. Because without the law man will die in sin, so with the law, man will die condemned by the law. Both ways, man dies in sin. The Law cannot save. Such is one of Paul’s Letters.

What can save is is God’s Mercy, His Lovingkindness is our salvation. Because when God forgive-- believe it or not-- one will stop sinning ! Believe then that God forgive sin (providing one repents, because God cannot forgive one who does not feel sorry of his sins. It is said that “a contrite heart and a broken spirit” God will not dispise. John’s letter say that “we have to confess sin, because if we say we don’t sin we are a liar, and that the truth is not with us”. To recognize sin as sin is important. Once one have repented, the next step is God’s works not his anymore)

So… I would say :

Abraham believed God’s Word, then God Himself fulfill His own Word.

 

[Steven_Merten]

Hello Francisca,

Would you not say that anytime God commands a free-willed person to do something, God is giving the law?

We can see from the above scripture that Love for God is accomplished through obedience to the law. God tells us that those who love Him through obedience will live.

Abraham obeyed God when God commaneded him to make a sacrifice of Isaac. God recognized Abraham’s obedience to the command of God (law) as faith. Faith expresses itself through obedience to the law.

In Old Testament, God swears that He will give life to those who obey Him. Was God writing a check that could not be cashed? Did God give Old Testament people and invalid covenant with no power to bring people into heaven? Is not Jesus the way God offers life to those who obey Him in Old Testament? Can you provide Old Testament scriptures where God says that the law cannot save but faith alone?

If “faith” were something seperate from obedience to God’s command (law), what power does “faith” have that God’s sworn oath to grant life to those who obey the law, does not have?
Will God say that you, an Old Testament person, obeyed My will with all your heart, as I commanded for eternal life, but you do not have “faith” therefore I have no power to save you?

What do you think? Is faith separate from works of obedience or does faith express itself through works of obedience?

Faith, love and obedience are one in the same. Those who bear the fruit of faith, love and obedience, Old Testament or New Testament, will be brought into heaven through the blood of Jesus.

 

[Steven_Merten]

Hello all,

These statments were stated on the “Luther read” thread. I think these thoughts pertained to this thread. There are two thoughts; One that the Law and Grace combination changed in the New Testament. The other that the Law and Grace combination is the same for Old Testament and New Testament people.

What do you think?

contarini:

**
This isn’t a wacky idea of Luther’s–it’s basic, orthodox Christianity. You want to attack Luther, you’re going to have to pick another ground for it than the claim that Abraham was saved by faith in Christ. That’s something all Christians have believed for 2000 years, and if you don’t believe it then *you *are the heretic.

Edwin

reen12:

In short, the game is up.

No longer will we be subject to the Law, but will, rather, enjoy sonship
…and the priviledges thereof, namely Grace, poured out through relationship.

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*reen12 *