C
CarrieMG
Guest
I have read several times that we are no longer bound by the laws of the Old Testament. What about the Ten Commandments? Why are they different than other Old Testament law?
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T
thistle
Guest
Jesus said we must keep to the 10 Commandments.
D
Dandelion_Wine
Guest
Actually I think it’s a wee bit more than that.
The dietary laws are the ones that we no longer have to follow - so enjoy that cheeseburger. And the Ten Commandments are moral laws. In essence, the two ‘laws’ that Jesus gave us (loving God and our neighbor) include the Ten Commandments.
The dietary laws are the ones that we no longer have to follow - so enjoy that cheeseburger. And the Ten Commandments are moral laws. In essence, the two ‘laws’ that Jesus gave us (loving God and our neighbor) include the Ten Commandments.
F
Fidelis
Guest
The general principle is that Christians are not bound by the ritual or purity laws of the OT, while at the same time we are held to the moral laws (including the Ten Commandments). This is because, with Christ’s definitive sacrifice, the laws for ritual are fulfilled. By the same token, the purity laws were tied into the ritual laws and became obsolete with them. Only the moral laws remain, since they are tied in to the Natural Law which applies to all times, all places, and all peoples (Romans 2:14-15).
How do we know which biblical laws were strictly moral, you ask? That’s why Christ left us the Church.
How do we know which biblical laws were strictly moral, you ask? That’s why Christ left us the Church.
J
Jim_Baur
Guest
It is a lot more than what I am going to say, too.
In my little head, I think of the first law as the law of prophecy or incomplete law, et cetera.
In my little head, I think of the second law as:
The Law of Fulfillment, or
The Law of Fruition, or
The Law of Completion, or
The Law of Perfection.
In my little head, I think of the first law as the law of prophecy or incomplete law, et cetera.
In my little head, I think of the second law as:
The Law of Fulfillment, or
The Law of Fruition, or
The Law of Completion, or
The Law of Perfection.
J
Jim_Baur
Guest
His Ten Words
A Portrait of Our Beautiful God
Oh, to One who believes
God is Love, be filled with love, and one will not hate.
God is Truth and one will not deceive.
God is Life and one will not commit murder.
God is One and one will shun strange gods.
God is All-powerful and filled with blessing,
And one will live a life worthy of your Father’s name.
God is Holy and Eternal and one will keep holy the Sabbath.
God is Creator and one will honor your parents.
God is Fidelity and one will be faithful to your spouse.
God is Justice and Benevolence and one will give and not steal from one’s neighbor.
God is Faithful one will not covet your neighbor’s spouse.
God is All-giving and is Happiness, and one will covet not your neighbor’s belongings.
A Portrait of Our Beautiful God
Oh, to One who believes
God is Love, be filled with love, and one will not hate.
God is Truth and one will not deceive.
God is Life and one will not commit murder.
God is One and one will shun strange gods.
God is All-powerful and filled with blessing,
And one will live a life worthy of your Father’s name.
God is Holy and Eternal and one will keep holy the Sabbath.
God is Creator and one will honor your parents.
God is Fidelity and one will be faithful to your spouse.
God is Justice and Benevolence and one will give and not steal from one’s neighbor.
God is Faithful one will not covet your neighbor’s spouse.
God is All-giving and is Happiness, and one will covet not your neighbor’s belongings.
L
Lazerlike42
Guest
This question is a little more complicated than simply which laws we are to follow. However, the truth of this matter is just really fascinating once you understand it. This will be a bit long, but I highly recommend it because it is incredibly interesting and I believe it is the key to understanding virtually all Catholic teachings.
Technically, we are not bound to any law. This does not mean that we need not behave morally however. That may seem confusing, but it will make sense when I am done.
Often, we say that killing is wrong because God said so (in the 10 Commandments for instance). We say that stealing is wrong because God said so. It is true that disobeying God is wrong, and so if God says killing is wrong then it is. However, imagine the example of a Jew in the time of David. If he killed, was it wrong because he was disobeying God, or was it wrong because killing is wrong? The answer is that it was both. He was sinning by disobeying God, but also he was sinning because killing is naturally and intrinsically wrong.
Consider Cain. Cain lived long, long before any law had been given. In fact, Scripture does not record God telling anyone not to kill until after Cain killed Abel. That did not change the fact that Cain sinned in killing Abel. Even without the law, it was still wrong to kill Abel. All of Genesis occured before the law was given. Nevertheless, we see that killing, theft, homosexuality, and many other acts are clearly punished by God in Genesis because of their sinfullness.
The truth is that some things are intrisincally, naturally wrong. That is why we talk about natural law. Natural law is not some law code that is written down somewhere. It is simply a set of moral principles that are naturally true. When Adam and Eve were created, they were created without knowledge of anything evil. They could not kill one another because they did not know such a thing existed. To understand this, imagine a 5 year old. A 5 year old cannot have sex because he does not even know that such a thing exists (aside from the biology of it). Similarly, Adam and Eve did not know evil. When they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they gained that knowledge that evil existed. That is why the serpent said that they would be “like gods,” because it was only God’s knowledge that evil existed.
Because of the original sin of eating that fruit, humans were now born with the knowledge of evil things as well as good things. While they did in general know what was right and wrong, they were not able to control themselves to do good. They tended to do sinful acts because of their newly corrupt nature.
At the same time, we must consider the soul of man and its relationship to this sin and to God. In God’s original creation, souls were created pristine. They were created as what God intended a human soul to be. Through original sin, souls ever since the fall come into the world corrupted, and not what God intended a human soul to be.
continued in next post
Technically, we are not bound to any law. This does not mean that we need not behave morally however. That may seem confusing, but it will make sense when I am done.
Often, we say that killing is wrong because God said so (in the 10 Commandments for instance). We say that stealing is wrong because God said so. It is true that disobeying God is wrong, and so if God says killing is wrong then it is. However, imagine the example of a Jew in the time of David. If he killed, was it wrong because he was disobeying God, or was it wrong because killing is wrong? The answer is that it was both. He was sinning by disobeying God, but also he was sinning because killing is naturally and intrinsically wrong.
Consider Cain. Cain lived long, long before any law had been given. In fact, Scripture does not record God telling anyone not to kill until after Cain killed Abel. That did not change the fact that Cain sinned in killing Abel. Even without the law, it was still wrong to kill Abel. All of Genesis occured before the law was given. Nevertheless, we see that killing, theft, homosexuality, and many other acts are clearly punished by God in Genesis because of their sinfullness.
The truth is that some things are intrisincally, naturally wrong. That is why we talk about natural law. Natural law is not some law code that is written down somewhere. It is simply a set of moral principles that are naturally true. When Adam and Eve were created, they were created without knowledge of anything evil. They could not kill one another because they did not know such a thing existed. To understand this, imagine a 5 year old. A 5 year old cannot have sex because he does not even know that such a thing exists (aside from the biology of it). Similarly, Adam and Eve did not know evil. When they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they gained that knowledge that evil existed. That is why the serpent said that they would be “like gods,” because it was only God’s knowledge that evil existed.
Because of the original sin of eating that fruit, humans were now born with the knowledge of evil things as well as good things. While they did in general know what was right and wrong, they were not able to control themselves to do good. They tended to do sinful acts because of their newly corrupt nature.
At the same time, we must consider the soul of man and its relationship to this sin and to God. In God’s original creation, souls were created pristine. They were created as what God intended a human soul to be. Through original sin, souls ever since the fall come into the world corrupted, and not what God intended a human soul to be.
continued in next post
L
Lazerlike42
Guest
continued from previous post
Now a soul can move in two directions in life. It can grow closer to God’s origianl “blueprint,” or it can grow further away. This is where we begin to understand sin better. Earlier, I wrote that sins are naturally wrong beyond the fact that God says they are. What actually makes an act a sin is that it, in its nature, is something which moves a soul further from God’s original “blueprint.” Killing, thus, is sin because through the act of killing, our souls move away from God’s original plan. What makes an act good is that it helps a soul to move closer to God’s original plan. Prayer, for instance, helps form souls into that original “blueprint” of God.
So, throughout the times of Genesis, souls were moving away from God’s original intent because of the sin that was being commited in those times. Therefore, in Exodus, God decided to help people out. He thus provided the law. The purpose of the law was, as St. Paul explains in Romans, not to set what was sinful and what was good, but was to point out what was sinful and what was good. It was given as a way to help people recognize sin - to recognize what acts would hurt their souls - and to therefore avoid doing them.
To understand how this works, think of our government’s laws. We know the moral principle that stealing is wrong. However, the state’s laws against it help us to follow that moral principle. If there were no written law about it, we would have a harder time abstaining from theft. I say this to illustrate the point that even though a person knows something is wrong, he will not necessarily avoid it. The Israelites knew, in general, what was wrong, however they had difficulty avoiding it. God’s law, however, aided the people in being moral for the same reason that state laws aid people today: when something is actually declared as unlawful, it tends to encourage people to avoid it.
However, the law was really inadequate. Even with it, people still could not follow moral principles. In fact, the law even prescribed punishments for its violation, yet this did not help. The law was inadequate and served but one purpose: to declare moral truths and to help people behave morally, but did it by setting penalties for not doing so. As we see today, the fear of a penalty does not keep people from behaving immorally.
This is where Christ comes in. He fulfills the law by accomplishing it’s purpose: helping people to behave morally and move their souls toward God’s “blueprint.” He accomplishses it’s purpose by doing two things.
One is by bestowing Sanctifying Grace. I wrote earlier about how our souls were no longer pristine but were corrupt. Sanctifying Grace restores our souls to the point where they can become what God made them for. It does not make them pristine. It does, however, put them at a point where they can grow into what God intended. Without Sanctifying Grace, a soul just can’t match God’s “blueprint.” It doesn’t have the capability. Sanctifying Grace puts it at a point where it does. Throughout our lives, we seek to grow our souls into what God intended. We also seek to purify our souls and make them pristine. In other words, we seek to free our souls from any attachement to doing sinful things. We seek to make our souls totally free of even the desire to sin. Whatever of these two acts is incomplete upon death, thatis what purgatory accomplishes. It finishses that job. Our soul is already capable of becoming what God wants it to be because of Sanctifying Grace, but Purgatory actually finishes whatever work of growth and purification that is necessary.
concluded in next post
Now a soul can move in two directions in life. It can grow closer to God’s origianl “blueprint,” or it can grow further away. This is where we begin to understand sin better. Earlier, I wrote that sins are naturally wrong beyond the fact that God says they are. What actually makes an act a sin is that it, in its nature, is something which moves a soul further from God’s original “blueprint.” Killing, thus, is sin because through the act of killing, our souls move away from God’s original plan. What makes an act good is that it helps a soul to move closer to God’s original plan. Prayer, for instance, helps form souls into that original “blueprint” of God.
So, throughout the times of Genesis, souls were moving away from God’s original intent because of the sin that was being commited in those times. Therefore, in Exodus, God decided to help people out. He thus provided the law. The purpose of the law was, as St. Paul explains in Romans, not to set what was sinful and what was good, but was to point out what was sinful and what was good. It was given as a way to help people recognize sin - to recognize what acts would hurt their souls - and to therefore avoid doing them.
To understand how this works, think of our government’s laws. We know the moral principle that stealing is wrong. However, the state’s laws against it help us to follow that moral principle. If there were no written law about it, we would have a harder time abstaining from theft. I say this to illustrate the point that even though a person knows something is wrong, he will not necessarily avoid it. The Israelites knew, in general, what was wrong, however they had difficulty avoiding it. God’s law, however, aided the people in being moral for the same reason that state laws aid people today: when something is actually declared as unlawful, it tends to encourage people to avoid it.
However, the law was really inadequate. Even with it, people still could not follow moral principles. In fact, the law even prescribed punishments for its violation, yet this did not help. The law was inadequate and served but one purpose: to declare moral truths and to help people behave morally, but did it by setting penalties for not doing so. As we see today, the fear of a penalty does not keep people from behaving immorally.
This is where Christ comes in. He fulfills the law by accomplishing it’s purpose: helping people to behave morally and move their souls toward God’s “blueprint.” He accomplishses it’s purpose by doing two things.
One is by bestowing Sanctifying Grace. I wrote earlier about how our souls were no longer pristine but were corrupt. Sanctifying Grace restores our souls to the point where they can become what God made them for. It does not make them pristine. It does, however, put them at a point where they can grow into what God intended. Without Sanctifying Grace, a soul just can’t match God’s “blueprint.” It doesn’t have the capability. Sanctifying Grace puts it at a point where it does. Throughout our lives, we seek to grow our souls into what God intended. We also seek to purify our souls and make them pristine. In other words, we seek to free our souls from any attachement to doing sinful things. We seek to make our souls totally free of even the desire to sin. Whatever of these two acts is incomplete upon death, thatis what purgatory accomplishes. It finishses that job. Our soul is already capable of becoming what God wants it to be because of Sanctifying Grace, but Purgatory actually finishes whatever work of growth and purification that is necessary.
concluded in next post
L
Lazerlike42
Guest
continued from previous post
The second way Christ helps is that He writes the law on our hearts. Does that mean that he tells us what is right and wrong so that our hearts naturall know it? No, because we have always known what is generally right and wrong, we just tend to choose not to do what is right. This is an often misunderstood passage in Scripture. What it means is that Christ writes the law on our hearts in the sense that he makes our hearts serve the purpose of the law: to help us avoid immorality by declaring what is right. He causes our hearts to be offended at sin, so that our hearts point out to us what is sin so that we may avoid it. We become a law to ourselves. This is what St. Paul means in Romans when he says that those who have not the law but follow it “become a law unto themselves.” We all do this through Christ. Our hearts become the law for us because they tell us what is right and what is wrong in such a way that we are encouraged to do what is right.
Allow me to explain a bit further. With the law that God gave, we were encouraged to behave morally because we knew that violating the law was an offense against the law, and an offense against God. Nevertheless, we did it anyways because we, being selfish, often do not care about offending God, or offending the law. However, when it is not God who is telling us what is sin, and when it is not the law, but it is us, then to sin is to become an offense against ourselves. The strongest aid in our battle against sin is to make it offensive to ourselves. This is what Christ does for us. Not everyone heads this, of course. Many people become drunk to the point of illness or engage in sex promiscuously, acts which even secular society recognizes as offenses against one’s very self. This is why so often we talk about how people today do not respect themselves, and when it comes to sexual morality we tell people that they must respect themselves. By making sin an offense against our own hearts, Christ has given us the strongest control over sin that could possibly be done. He also give us the Holy Spirit, which strengthens us to resist sin.
Therefore, technically, we are not bound to any law. We are bound, however, to morality, and to follow the moral principles which move our souls toward God. We are bound to those moral principles which bound Cain and Abraham and Noah even before there was a law. We are not bound to them because there is a law. We are bound to them if we wish to seek God, because these principles are those which are true by the fact that they move our souls to or away from God. When Paul says, “all things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial,” this is what he means. In saying that all things are lawful, he does not mean that for Christians there is no concept of sin or that any behavior will lead to Heaven. He means that there is no law in place to condemn him for anything, but not everything he can do will lead him to God.
We are “bound” by these moral principles only if we wish to go to God. The reason that we hold such a high emphasis on the 10 Commandments is because they sum up in general all those principles which are moral or immoral. The dietary laws and the ceremonial laws were only intended to aid the Israelites in various matters of control, matters which to us are now unecessary by merits of the Holy Spirit. These are in no way necessary, therefore, if we wish to seek and live in union with God (although as Father Groeschel points out, we can still learn much from them, for instance in terms of these matters of self control that I wrote of). The 10 Commandments is still to us a guide against sin, however not one binding in any “legal” way, and not one necessary by merits of the law being written on our hearts by our most precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The second way Christ helps is that He writes the law on our hearts. Does that mean that he tells us what is right and wrong so that our hearts naturall know it? No, because we have always known what is generally right and wrong, we just tend to choose not to do what is right. This is an often misunderstood passage in Scripture. What it means is that Christ writes the law on our hearts in the sense that he makes our hearts serve the purpose of the law: to help us avoid immorality by declaring what is right. He causes our hearts to be offended at sin, so that our hearts point out to us what is sin so that we may avoid it. We become a law to ourselves. This is what St. Paul means in Romans when he says that those who have not the law but follow it “become a law unto themselves.” We all do this through Christ. Our hearts become the law for us because they tell us what is right and what is wrong in such a way that we are encouraged to do what is right.
Allow me to explain a bit further. With the law that God gave, we were encouraged to behave morally because we knew that violating the law was an offense against the law, and an offense against God. Nevertheless, we did it anyways because we, being selfish, often do not care about offending God, or offending the law. However, when it is not God who is telling us what is sin, and when it is not the law, but it is us, then to sin is to become an offense against ourselves. The strongest aid in our battle against sin is to make it offensive to ourselves. This is what Christ does for us. Not everyone heads this, of course. Many people become drunk to the point of illness or engage in sex promiscuously, acts which even secular society recognizes as offenses against one’s very self. This is why so often we talk about how people today do not respect themselves, and when it comes to sexual morality we tell people that they must respect themselves. By making sin an offense against our own hearts, Christ has given us the strongest control over sin that could possibly be done. He also give us the Holy Spirit, which strengthens us to resist sin.
Therefore, technically, we are not bound to any law. We are bound, however, to morality, and to follow the moral principles which move our souls toward God. We are bound to those moral principles which bound Cain and Abraham and Noah even before there was a law. We are not bound to them because there is a law. We are bound to them if we wish to seek God, because these principles are those which are true by the fact that they move our souls to or away from God. When Paul says, “all things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial,” this is what he means. In saying that all things are lawful, he does not mean that for Christians there is no concept of sin or that any behavior will lead to Heaven. He means that there is no law in place to condemn him for anything, but not everything he can do will lead him to God.
We are “bound” by these moral principles only if we wish to go to God. The reason that we hold such a high emphasis on the 10 Commandments is because they sum up in general all those principles which are moral or immoral. The dietary laws and the ceremonial laws were only intended to aid the Israelites in various matters of control, matters which to us are now unecessary by merits of the Holy Spirit. These are in no way necessary, therefore, if we wish to seek and live in union with God (although as Father Groeschel points out, we can still learn much from them, for instance in terms of these matters of self control that I wrote of). The 10 Commandments is still to us a guide against sin, however not one binding in any “legal” way, and not one necessary by merits of the law being written on our hearts by our most precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
S
SPOKENWORD
Guest
St. Paul said if it were not for the law he would not have known sin. The law is like the sun shining through the window and exposing the dust in the air. It shows us our sins and why we need a savior. The law is our schoolmaster. The 10 commandments will never change. Jesus said not one dot or tittle would change. It was written by Gods hand both in stone and also in our hearts. God Bless
M
Marian_Carroll
Guest
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K
kidrome
Guest
I Can Show U Numerous Places In The New Testament Where The Commandments From The 10 R There And Say Follow All Not Some…
John 14:6–i Am The Way,the Truth,and The Life, Noman May Cometh Unto The Father,buy By Me…meaning Christ Not A Priest Or The Pope.
John 14:6–i Am The Way,the Truth,and The Life, Noman May Cometh Unto The Father,buy By Me…meaning Christ Not A Priest Or The Pope.
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