this is, imho, one of the prime examples of human traditions making the commands of God to no effect. very sad. through sola scriptura they have managed to eliminate the very words of Christ himself! i would challenge him to show where, in the bible alone and in the plain sense of scripture, he found this little nugget of knowledge, but i understand how debates with friends go.
under the law or not, you cannot separate Christ from his judgement - you cannot dethrone him from his judgement seat…but as i write this i’m thinking of “imputed righteousness” which
has dethroned Christ from his judgement seat. stupid traditions of men!
perhaps, instead, you could appeal to Rev 12:17:
And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
prots understand the Woman of rev 12 to be the church (which we understand as well, but only as a secondary meaning). as they believe the Woman is
only the church, to be one of her seed you must
keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. there is simply no way to get around this.
new tact: you may say, “if what you say were true, you have to deal with why gospel writers would record things that are completely irrelevant to anyone after Christ’s death while writing after Christ’s death.” after all, space is limited, and not everything Christ did was written down. why clutter up a perfectly good book with inane details that are completely useless, like Christ telling us that we need to obey the commandments when we obviously don’t? didn’t Christ *know *that he was going to die and grant a free ride, no commandments asked? if he has thick skin, i would then show him this:
catholicoutlook.com/rpv.php. if he doesn’t have thick skin, i would start looking at
www.scripturecatholic.com and memorizing verses.
do not be trapped into verse slinging! examine every verse, and demand that he do the same. typically, you can see the error of the prot understanding of a verse by reading up 4 verses and down 4 verses.
final tact: his assertion is that Christ told people to obey the law prior to his death because until Christ died,
all were under the law…right? i would ask him to explain one of the penultimate examples of the baptist view of “faith alone”/baptism not necessary, only belief. i would ask him how the thief on the cross was promised heaven without observing levitical law. through his faith (catholics would say “and suffering”) he was promised heaven. it was
not through levitical law, however, and that is
very explicit. he can’t have it both ways - either the thief was saved through “faith alone” or he was saved **only **through the works of mosaic law (which he must then demonstrate from scripture alone) and Jesus had nothing to do with it. this should stump him.
if you feel saucy, you may ask him what happened to all the baptist bishops. bishops are found
all over the new testament…why aren’t there any in his “bible believing” church? either ask that or ask why there’s no incense (mal 1:11) in his “bible believing” church, as this verse is
clearly prophetic…
RyanL
hope this helps,
RyanL
