Matthew 5:17 explanation?

[Julius_Caesar]

But Jesus himself says that He did not come to abolish the OT laws

But to fulfill, i.e. bring to completion.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

I am not the one creating two lawgivers. In fact, my objection to your critique is precisely based on the Triune nature of God.

Which one could accuse you of not doing by making Christ with an angel.

Your sword cuts both ways.

 

[Hodos]

Which one could accuse you of not doing by making Christ with an angel.

Except some people have actually studied the usage of the words Malak and Angelos in the Bible. They might understand that the word can mean a messenger or one bearing a message and has been applied to the Son, men, and actual angelic beings. So, no, not really. But hey, you go for it brother. Don’t let rock bottom stop you from digging.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

But hey, you go for it brother. Don’t let rock bottom stop you from digging.

From your answer it seems you’ve hit it. Which is due to you.I suppose. :man_shrugging:t6:

Either way, you have yet to prove Jesus wasn’t giving a higher standard. So far you have only pontificated.

You also seem to like tossing out commentary which contradicts you. Which shows from your not reading of the link.

 

[Gorgias]

The Pharisees were teaching that breaking one’s word is cool so long as you don’t use formulas that beseech God as the witness in some way.

No, what was at issue wasn’t “breaking one’s oath”, but rather “swearing oaths at all.”

“Let your ‘yes’ mean yes and ‘no’ mean no”, remember?

After all:

you have heard that it was said to your ancestors, ‘Do not take a false oath, but make good to the Lord all that you vow.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all."

So, yeah… big change. And it has nothing to do with “lying”, as you seem to want to assert.

 

[Noose001]

Let me see if i can help:

1. The command to love is a new one (new covenant):
   John 13:34 A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also must love one another.

It is only new because of the new understanding that is Christ based, otherwise…

1. The command to love is an old one (old covenant):

1 John 2: 7 Beloved, I am not writing to you a new commandment, but an old one, which you have had from the beginning. This commandment is the message you have heard. 8 Then again, I am also writing to you a new commandment, which is true in Him and also in you. For the darkness is fading and the true light is already shining.

9 If anyone claims to be in the light but hates his brother, he is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother remains in the light, and there is no cause of stumbling in him. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

Beloved, I am not writing to you a new commandment, but an old one , which you have had from the beginning. This commandment is the message you have heard

It’s old because they heard it from Jesus. Note, this is the message you have heard.

So it’s still the new commandment, but it’s old news.

 

[Noose001]

It’s old because they heard it from Jesus. Note, this is the message you have heard.

So it’s still the new commandment, but it’s old news.

With Christ, there’s a better and a new understanding but the command is old, very old, even at the time of Moses it was old. It is actually from the beginning because God’s command is God’s word and God’s word is God Himself, He doesn’t change.

Isa 58:
2 For day after day they seek Me
and delight to know My ways,
like a nation that does what is right
and does not forsake the justice of their God.
They ask Me for righteous judgments;
they delight in the nearness of God.”
3 “Why have we fasted,
and You have not seen?
Why have we humbled ourselves,
and You have not noticed?”
“Behold, on the day of your fast, you do as you please,
and you oppress all your workers.
4 You fast with contention and strife
to strike viciously with your fist.
You cannot fast as you do today
and have your voice be heard on high.
5 Is this the fast I have chosen:
a day for a man to deny himself,
to bow his head like a reed,
and to spread out sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast
and a day acceptable to the LORD?
6 Isn’t this the fast that I have chosen:
to break the chains of wickedness,
to untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and tear off every yoke?
7 Isn’t it to share your bread with the hungry,
to bring the poor and homeless into your home,
to clothe the naked when you see him,
and not to turn away
from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will come quickly.
Your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

 

[Noose001]

John’s emphases:

2 John 1: 5 And now I urge you, dear lady—not as a new commandment to you, but one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. 6 And this is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the very commandment you have heard from the beginning, that you must walk in love.

 

[Vico]

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."

Also see the Catechism

592 Jesus did not abolish the Law of Sinai, but rather fulfilled it (cf. Mt 5:17-19) with such perfection (cf. Jn 8:46) that he revealed its ultimate meaning (cf.: Mt 5:33) and redeemed the transgressions against it (cf. Heb 9:15)

Heb 9:

15 And therefore he is the mediator of the new testament: that by means of his death, for the redemption of those transgressions, which were under the former testament, they that are called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

 

[fhansen]

I’ll bite. Despite the fact that the text contradicts this and doesn’t say what you are saying…Who’s love if Paul speaking of in that passage? Yours? Or Christ’s?

Both, the love that Christ works in us. This righteousness in any case only “comes from God” as you quoted from Phil 3. And righteousness isn’t just a word-it has meaning and identity. The church historically has defined justice or righteousness for man with the three “theological virtues” of faith, hope, and love. With love being the most important and encompassing the rest.

No one is disputing the fact that we fail at keeping the law, or obtaining righteousness. That is entirely the point. And just as the Old Covenant required atonement by blood (only here it is not effective, it only points to the work of Christ), so does the New Covenant where Christ sheds his own body and blood for us that we might be accounted as righteous before God.

It’s not merely being accounted righteous, or declared or imputed to be righteous. it’s to made righteous, to become new creations as we’re not only forgiven but actually washed clean and given the grace of justice or righteousness, even if only in seedling form to begin with, needing to be exercised, “invested”, stretched, tested, challenged and increased. The problem was that, yes, we couldn’t be who we were created to be, we couldn’t fulfill the law, any of it apart from God-and that’s the most basic lesson for man to learn. So the Ten Commandments, as examples, cannot be authentically fulfilled by man- simply because we don’t love as we must. And we don’t love as we must because we lack fellowship with God, who, alone, can produce or grant that love in and to us, ‘placing His law in our minds and writing it on our hearts’. The purpose of the New Covenant is union with Christ- and the Father, and the Holy Spirit: union with God through the Son.
"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,” Jer 31:33-34

Without that union man already exists in an unjust, disordered state of being. With that union, all things are possible, all things can be as they’re intended as justice is restored to God’s wayward creation even if that wayward creation may still struggle at times to remain in Him, in that union-and away from sin. And that union is established by faith, even if relatively weakly at first, but intended to grow in strength. So faith doesn’t merely result in a legal transaction of our being translated to righteousness in God’s eyes while in fact we remain snow-covered dung-heaps. It’s not faith, per se, that makes us just, as if faith is the equivalent of righteousness for man. Nor is it a license to be free from our obligation to be actually righteous. Rather, our union or communion with God is the essence of our justice, and faith is the entry way to that union. We’re saved by faith, via faith, through and on the basis of faith.

continued, sorry:

 

[fhansen]

continued:

And the point is that under the New Covenant man is not relieved from his obligation to be righteous, to fulfill the law; rather he’s obligated to become united with God, and remain there, a partnership wherein the law becomes actually and truly fulfilled in us by Him, the right way now, finally. He did not create sinners after all-and has never intended for us to remain as such. And yet we must still cooperate in this endeavor; willful obedience is still the goal, since Eden, even as Gods initiative, grace, necessarily precedes and enables it:
“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

Anyway, the point is that justification is not intended to bypass or relieve us from the obligation to actually be just - and so the NC is not about freeing us from the obligation to be sinless. Rather it’s about finally achieving in us freedom from the sin that earns us death. And that’s how the law is upheld by faith.

 

[Hodos]

It’s not merely being accounted righteous, or declared or imputed to be righteous. it’s to made righteous, to become new creations as we’re not only forgiven but actually washed clean and given the grace of justice or righteousness, even if only in seedling form to begin with, needing to be exercised, “invested”, stretched, tested, challenged and increased.

No one has dismissed the role of sanctification in the life of the Christian as sanctification is the ongoing fruit of justification by faith. My point is that the Law continues to play a role in that sanctification. Not by making me Holy, but by acting as a guide to teach me God’s will for how I should live. Ask yourself, why do your children learn the 10 Commandments in Catechism class? This was my original point in saying that Christ did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. And again, faith, hope, and love are not new. Abraham was reckoned as righteous because he believed God. Abraham maintained hope in the promises that God made to him. And again, love was the requirement of the law. As stated earlier, the two greatest commandments were communicated to us in the book of the Law. The difference between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant is the coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Hodos]

Well said.

 

[fhansen]

And yet, we’ll be judged by the law, we must obey the commandments in order to inherit eternal life, and unless we put to death the sins of the flesh (lawlessness) by the Spirit, we won’t inherit eternal life. You’re leaving out the link between justification and being made just, between justification and sanctification, between the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the necessity of our utilizing that gift by living by the Spirit. The link between grace and fulfilling the law:
“For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” Rom 6:14

 

[Hodos]

And yet, we’ll be judged by the law, we must obey the commandments in order to inherit eternal life, and unless we put to death the sins of the flesh (lawlessness) by the Spirit, we won’t inherit eternal life. You’re leaving out the link between justification and being made just, between justification and sanctification, between the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the necessity of our utilizing that gift by living by the Spirit. The link between grace and fulfilling the law:
“For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” Rom 6:14

You forget the fact that Paul states he is still looking forward to its completion at the second coming of Christ in Romans 8 and still maintains his righteousness through Christ’s intercession before the judgment throne of God in Romans 8:34 . Paul maintains throughout Romans that justification is obtained by faith not works of the law; and yet he also exhorts the believer to sanctification through walking in the spirit. The two are not divorced, but there is a cause / effect relationship that is laid out by Paul throughout Romans where we are justified by faith resulting in sanctification by the spirit.

 

[fhansen]

You forget the fact that Paul states he is still looking forward to its completion at the second coming of Christ in Romans 8 and still maintains his righteousness through Christ’s intercession before the judgment throne of God in Romans 8:34 . Paul maintains throughout Romans that justification is obtained by faith not works of the law; and yet he also exhorts the believer to sanctification through walking in the spirit. The two are not divorced, but there is a cause / effect relationship that is laid out by Paul throughout Romans where we are justified by faith resulting in sanctification by the spirit.

You forget that Paul said we’ll be judged by the law in Rom 2 and that he was striving to attain to the resurrection in Phil 3 and that Jesus said we must obey the commandments to inherit eternal life in Matt 19 and in Matt 5 that our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, and that “anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” And all of romans is easily read and understood in the light of our needing to fulfill righteousness, the righteousness that comes from God, in order to be saved.

"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 ." Phil 3

“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

This righteousness is not only now doable, but necessary. IMO you need to stop reading Scripture through the lens of novel perspectives and at least try out the positions of the ancient churches, east and west.

 

[Hodos]

You forget that Paul said we’ll be judged by the law in Rom 2

And if you read that passage in context, he is saying the law will condemn you as a lawbreaker. He then makes this forcefully clear in the first half of Romans 3.

And all of romans is easily read and understood in the light of our needing to fulfill righteousness, the righteousness that comes from God, in order to be saved.

Yes. Exactly, Paul demonstrates in Philippians that his righteousness is based on faith and is given through faith to all who believe. He even acknowledges that his righteousness was not obtained through the law by your own admission.

I appreciate that you agree though that the per my previous explanation, the law still stands.

 

[Julius_Caesar]

And if you read that passage in context, he is saying the law will condemn you as a lawbreaker.

If you sin.

Romans 2 says more:

When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Romans 2:14‭-‬16 RSV-CI

 

[Hodos]

If you sin.

Romans 2 says more:

When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.
Romans 2:14‭-‬16 RSV-CI

Let’s start with the first quote discussed and move forward since you are already forgetting the first clause which defines the purpose of the second clause.

For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; 13 for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

As you can see here the first clause is completely devoted to demonstrated that all (Gentile first, and Jew as well) are condemned and are judged by the law. The point of the second half of the sentence is that the law cannot justify you just because you possess it.

Fast forward to the paragraph you posted and we see that Paul is making an example that when the Gentiles follow the law, not even having it, their behavior testify to the fact that the law is known and there is no excuse for the disobedience of the Jews. Again, in neither section have the Jews or even the Gentiles been justified by the law. On the contrary Paul is building up to his argument in Romans 3, that the law condemns them all. He posts a number of Psalms demonstrating this and comes to his conclusion about the hopeless state of man who seeks to be justified by his works:

ow we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law, so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; 20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

Going back to one of my earlier points, Paul is explicitly using the second use of the law, as mirror, to show us that we are sinners. He then begins his telling of the gospel.