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fhansen
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And yet Jesus told the young ruler he must obey the commandments in order to gain eternal life. And Paul tells us in Rom 13 which laws (the ten commandments) are fulfilled by love. And Paul tells us in Rom 2 that we’ll be judged by the law-even as he knows that the law cannot possibly justify us but, rather, only serve to convict us of sin. And in in Rom 7 he then says that the Law is holy, good, right, and spiritual. But that we are not spiritual.
So the difference between the old and new covenants, the difference between being under the law vs being under grace, is not that the law no longer needs to be fulfilled, but rather that it is to now be fulfilled the the right way, by the Spirit, by love as the Spirit indwells and lives and loves through us. To attempt to fulfill the law by being under the law is to attempt to fulfill it on our own, as if we actually possessed our own independent righteousness apart from God. But Paul said in Phil 3 that he excelled at such things as fulfilling the law as a Pharisee and then went on to say,
"I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith."
“now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” Rom 3:21-22
“For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” Rom 6:14
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fhansen
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It’s been made obsolete by a new and better covenant (Heb 8:13) that could accomplish what the OC could not. The OC did accomplish God’s true plan, however, in that it taught us that we cannot fulfill its demands on our own, apart from Him. This is the basis for our coming to the understanding that we need God, first of all, in order to be righteous rather than proving our righteousness, first of all in order to please and “obtain” God.
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fhansen
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And since we haven’t yet been perfected, totally bound to God as the catechism teaches is the goal, we often still fail to live by the Spirit which is why the church teaches that we still need to hear the law.
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Julius_Caesar
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Julius_Caesar
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“This is the Chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the New and eternal Covenant.”
If something is new, it’s in force.
You have an old controller. It’s set aside for a new controller.
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Julius_Caesar
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Who were still debating whether to come back to Moses. The Scriptures say no.
The New Covenant is salvific. It has render the Mosaic Covenant obsolete.
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Hodos
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There are a few things going on here. Jesus affirms that the law is still in effect. He has not removed the law. He has come to fulfill it. When you read the remainder of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus makes it clear that the moral requirements of the Mosaic law are still firmly in effect. When we read Paul and James and others, who constantly refer back to the law, they constantly quote it either to testify to a New Testament reality, or to instruct the believers on a certain point of behavior. Paul even uses the Mosaic law that states Israelites are not to muzzle the ox while it is treading, for example, to demonstrate that congregations should see to the physical needs and support their pastors. James, in Acts 15, mentions that the law is taught even to the Gentiles. That being said, Jesus has fulfilled the law. He came as the high priest and the lamb to offer himself as a sacrifice that we might be made righteous. In doing away with the penalty of sin in his own body, he did away with the distinction between Jew and Gentile, and in so doing, those requirements of the ceremonial law drawing distinctions between the two peoples and for making atonement through sacrifice were fulfilled and no longer binding.
That being said, Paul upholds the law in Romans and elsewhere. He seems to allow for three uses of the law: 1) as a curb, 2) as a mirror; and 3) as a guide. In Romans 1, 2, and 13, Paul indicates that the law is used to communicate what bad behavior is and empowers the government to punish evildoers in order to maintain order on earth. In Romans 3 and 7, Paul indicates that the law shows us our sin and drives us to Christ as our savior, through whom we are made righteous by faith. And in Romans 12, Paul uses the law as a guide to show Christians how they ought to function as the sanctified body that we might do the works God has set out for us to do and to demonstrate our love for one another.
That being said, Paul upholds the law in Romans and elsewhere. He seems to allow for three uses of the law: 1) as a curb, 2) as a mirror; and 3) as a guide. In Romans 1, 2, and 13, Paul indicates that the law is used to communicate what bad behavior is and empowers the government to punish evildoers in order to maintain order on earth. In Romans 3 and 7, Paul indicates that the law shows us our sin and drives us to Christ as our savior, through whom we are made righteous by faith. And in Romans 12, Paul uses the law as a guide to show Christians how they ought to function as the sanctified body that we might do the works God has set out for us to do and to demonstrate our love for one another.
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fhansen
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All true. And in Rom 2 he also tells us that we’ll be judged by the law, which coincides with Jesus telling the rich young man that he must obey the commandments in order to enter life. Real righteousness, IOW, is accomplished or given us as a result of the work of Jesus and our faith in Him. We are justified by faith.
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Julius_Caesar
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Not exactly.
“You have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not kill; and whoever kills shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that every one who is angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council, and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32 RSV-CI
Jesus introduces a standard higher than the Law of Moses.
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Hodos
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Yes, this is my point regarding the first use of the law. We shall be condemned by the law as lawbreakers.
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fhansen
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Yes, all people, including believers- if they return to the flesh, to sin. And this is who Paul addresses here:
“Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.” Rom 8:12-13
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Hodos
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Jesus is not actually issuing a new command here. He is correcting a new and more libertine understanding set by the Pharisees. When he mentions that anyone angry with his brother shall be liable to judgment, Jesus is not introducing new law. He is actually referring back to the original expectation given in the law. So for example, Jesus is referring back to Leviticus 19:17, you shall not hate your brother in your heart…nor bear any grudge against them.
With regard to looking lustfully at a woman, Jesus is merely referring back to the commandment not to covet your neighbor’s wife in Exodus 20:17. With regard to divorce, Jesus is referring back to the original meaning of Deuteronomy 24:1.
Jesus is not introducing a new standard, he is correcting a wrong teaching about the law that was already given.
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fhansen
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I think the real point is that until man is united to God in an intimate relationship-a communion- involving faith, hope, and, most importantly, love, legalism is virtually the only way we have to obey, virtually guaranteed. And that more immediate relationship, begun here and only fully consummated in the next life as per 1 Cor 13, is what Jer 31:33-34 is speaking of.
"I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
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."
And to truly know God is to have faith in, hope in, and love for Him. This is the God Jesus came to reveal and reconcile us with:
"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." John 17:3
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Julius_Caesar
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When He said, “I say to you,” He was doing just that.
“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that every one who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, makes her an adulteress; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery. “Again you have heard that it was said to the men of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.
Matthew 5:31-34, 37-39, 43-45 RSV-CI
The Law of Christ is the only thing here
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Gorgias
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No. “Fulfill” is what Jesus says about what He’s doing. The question of when it will pass away is answered by the phrase “ἕως ἂν πάντα γένηται”, which means “until all has happened.”
We won’t be in the situation that “all has happened” until “the heavens and earth pass away”.
I think you’re conflating “fulfill” and “happen”; Jesus is talking about two distinct notions here.
For those under the New Covenant? Yes. For all? No.
I guess St Paul was mistaken, then, when he wrote “in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church, of which I am a minister in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God”?
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Julius_Caesar
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And all is accomplished with the death nd ressurection of Christ.
Not everyone acknowledged it. Doesn’t make it invalid.
You are mistaken, not Paul.
Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian;
Galatians 3:23-25 RSV-CI
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Hodos
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Not really. I don’t think this is a faithful interpretation. Jesus starts off this section of the sermon on the mount saying that he didn’t come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them. He says that whoever annuls any of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so is condemned. So his entire message is not one of creating something new, but fulfilling what has been given. His formula for refuting the teachings of the scribes and the Pharisees is… you have heard that it was said…But I say to you… The entire dialogue is in a structure designed to contradict the teachings of the scribes and the Pharisees. And again, as I demonstrated earlier, Jesus isn’t pointing out anything new, he is actually pointing out the law in its totality as had been handed down at Sinai. Christ is not handing down a new law. This would be like saying God’s law is insufficient. Or that we need a new lawgiver. He is confirming the original intent of the law as given, and he himself will fulfill it in his body, all of it. Even John in his first epistle says I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning.
You also seem to be missing the fact that what has been said by the scribes are intentional misquotations and interpretations of the law. The Second commandment forbids the bearing of God’s name in vain, which particularly covers using it as an oath. So the Pharisees taught to swear by something else so that they would not be bound if they broke their word. This is against the original intent of the commandment. Same with eye for eye and tooth for tooth. People were using it as a limiting factor for vengeance, but that was a corruption from the original intent of the law, which was that the state when it imposes a penalty could not impose drastic punishment for lesser crimes. It was intended as a limit on the judicial process, not as a maxim for inflicting personal vengeance or responding to insults such as a back-handed slap. Again, I think your understanding lacks some critical context. The point of the law from the get-go is to teach us what it looks like to love God and love our neighbor in word and deed.
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Julius_Caesar
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I can say the same for yours.
No, His message is fulfilling what has been created, by making it New!
Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:14-17 RSV-CI
What we see in the Sermon on the Mount is the New Law, not a repetition of the Old.
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Julius_Caesar
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And the majority of those statements were quotations from the Law of Moses.
So yes, Jesus is setting a higher standard. In his passage, He is the New Moses.
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