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Old 04-17-2006, 05:08 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by Soul Invictus
Yeah Paul even admits that the doctrine he preaches is of his creation alone.
Really, where?
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Old 04-17-2006, 05:22 PM   #12
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The teaching in question has been around for a long time; see Acts 15. I think the canonical arguments for it are based on a few things Jesus said in various places. The best summary I've seen of the doctrine is Romans 14, but that's not necessarily proof that it's true, just a summary of what most Christians believe. (Well, except when they're talking about specific laws that they would like other people to follow.)

I think the case for freedom from the ritualized law is a decent one. I've seen people make a very good case for it, starting with the sheep and the goats and working from there.

But it's not just Paul; all of the Apostles seem to view the Law of Moses as secondary at best, and in some cases even harmful.
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Old 04-17-2006, 06:46 PM   #13
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Originally Posted by noah
Xians are bound by the Law unless they want to call themselves Paulinians.
Good point but Christians who still seek their justification in the law have severed themselves from Christ and fallen from Gods favor (Gal.3:4). Freedom in Christ includes freedom from religious slavery and sin. Ie, no law = no sin.
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Is Paul a member of the Trinity?
The Trinity is resolved when "he father and I [became] one" and the dove descended Jesus. The dove is symbolic of Mary so here we have father, son and Mary as one going concern instead of a unruly troika pulling in different directions.
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What or who was Paul's authority to rewrite and undo the Law of JC and his Father Yahweh?
The law was given to Moses for the conviction of sin for which the orgy must go on, or the law cannot convict anyone of sin. Indeed, if the cross of eternal salvation is for sinners only, sin is good, and for sin to be known the law is required to make it known and that is the only reason why sin is sin. IOW the law was for the Jews only and therefore Pilate did not see anything wrong with Jesus-the-man when Jewish law was used to condemn Jesus the Jew. They said to Pilate "we have our own laws and by those laws he must be crucified."
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What was his scriptural support for calling the Law a curse? Did JC say his Law was a curse? Did Yahweh say his Law as a curse?
If Jesus and his Father Yahweh's Law was a curse why did JC and his Father Yahweh say it was the key to salvation?
JC said his Law, his Father's Law, was the key to salvation.
The law is the heart of every mythology which ends when it has served its purpose. It is through the law that the inner man must convict the outer man of sin . . . after which it is easy to be condemned by the puritans who do not see it that way. This would be when and where the revolution ends in the mind of the ex-sinner = to understand that sin is an illusion with a purpose.

Having said this I must add that there is a difference between theology and reality wherein also our sin nature must be set free and that is why crucifixion is needed so that burial can follow wherein our sins of the clan, tribe and nation are set free. Resurrection is evidence that this has been accomplished . . . or resurrection can not follow.
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Old 04-18-2006, 06:03 AM   #14
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I should say from the outset Nuwanda, I am singularly unimpressed by quoting from the Greek. I am uninterested in translations of translations of original manuscripts that don't exist. Scholars don't agree on the translations or even which texts the translations should be based on. So I see no reason to pay any heed to the "Greek". Besides, it's God's word and god would never allow his word to be distorted or compromised when the salvation of his children depended on it.
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Originally Posted by Nuwanda
Noah, to begin with your entire argument is crippled with one sentence: the old law was not written for gentiles. If you don’t buy this, find a practicing Jew who believes that the old law was written for anyone outside of the nation of Israel, and second explain why the Jerusalem council decided not to hold the gentile church responsible for the old law in Acts 15:22-29.
Problem is Nuwanda JC is your saviour and he says all His Commandments apply. Your move.

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You have another problem here. You're assuming without a lot of evidence that JC was sane.
Okay, are you willing to claim that the billions of followers and those artists, philosophers, politicians, musicians, etc, who were inspired by this lunatic are all insane as well? If not insane at least hoodwinked by the greatest hoax in history? I don't find this argument to be particularly sane. We disagree, that's fine, just make sure the disagreement is clear. You are posing an extremely fringy belief that very few non-believers take seriously.
You're making a mistake here. It's not logical to assume that you have to be insane or stupid to follow someone who is insane. Sometimes you don't even know the person is insane at first or ever.
Not everyone who is insane betray their insanity until it is too late. Hitler and Stalin come to mind. There are many others of course.
You can simply be mistaken and think at first at least, that he makes a lot of sense.
Charismatic leaders beguile the best of us. It doesn't make us insane. Fooled does not mean nuts or stupid. Many of us choose not to doubt or second guess people we think we should trust.
It is sane to suppose that JC was insane. Look at the claims he made for example. Don't forget I offered the insane scenario as an explanation as to why he would demand a degree of righteousness which you thought impossible to attain.
The "greatest hoax in history"? Hmm. Are you forgetting Hitler? How about Mohammed? Mohammed told everyone that Gabriel gave him the Koran over the course of 40 days in a cave.
The belief is not fringy. It is considered a very real possibility by non-believers. Just ask some of the members of this forum sometime.

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How do you know it's impossible to be more righteous than the Pharisees? JC said they were a bunch of hypocrites? If the Pharisees did not keep the Law in JC's judgement than it makes sense to assume he was saying to his followers to keep the Law better than the Pharisees did.

Another point - Just because JC was might have been exaggerating about the degree of obedience to the Law that he expected of his followers does not mean that he expected no observance of the Law. In fact, we know from the other verses in this passage that JC did expect obedience of the Law and that JC promised entry into the highest ranks of heaven for those that kept the Law.
More righteous than Pharisees whos fulltime job it was to keep the law? Nobody could do it, and to instead raise the bar and say "be better than the Pharisees" would not have been gospel (good news).
You missed my point. JC said the Pharisees were hypocrites. It's quite possible he was telling people to keep closer to the Law than those who professed to obey it but never really did - hypocrites.

You're making too much out of verse 20. You have yet to account for 17-19 which are not so extreme sounding.

The gospel by the way does not say believe in me as a human blood sacrifice.
The gospel says follow the commandments.

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Here's the "will of the Father" (Mat 7:21)
Mat 7:12 - "Everything you wish others to do for you, do also for them, for this is the law and the prophets" (Greek translation)
Mat 22:40 - "On these two commands the entire law and the prophets hang" (to love God and love your neighbor).
John 15:12 - "This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."
See also Luke 16:16, and John 1:17.
Yes that makes sense. There would be no point in honoring all the 613 commandments if you could not keep these most basic commandments. But you still have to keep all the other 611. There is no indication that the other 611 of JC's commandments are cancelled in this statement. Remember JC said not one jot or tittle shall pass.

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John 6:29 - "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent" (Jesus).
And if you believe in him then do as he says no? JC said obey all his commandments. So did his Father who according to the Trinity, is JC.

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You keep going in Mathew and you find Matthew 19 where once again we find JC telling someone that keeping his commandments is the path to salvation:

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16 And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

17 And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

Was JC joking? Any mention of faith in JC as a human blood sacrifice as the only means of salvation?
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Mathew 19:16,17 is answering the question "what must I do to enter the Kingdom." If mans efforts are the way, then you must "keep the law." He does not include having faith in Christ's shed blood for a number of reasons. Jesus is talking to an old covenant man pre-death and resurrection of Christ. What Christ tells him is exactly right under those conditions.
I don't get this one. What has the time frame got to do with it?
JC/Yahweh says his Laws endure forever and are salvation.
Revelations 14:12 and 22:14 confirm this.
There is no such thing as an old covenant. Yahweh/JC makes clear in his delivery of his new covenant that it is to last forever, that it upholds the enduring nature of his Law and is to be stamped on the hearts and minds of men:
Jer 31:31-34
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31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
You see there's no mention of JC or Paul here anywhere. God never cancelled this covenant. Paul had no authority to cancel it. The covenant wasn't erased by the death of JC. It lasts forever.


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Christ's whole point was: you will never complete the law so I'm going to complete it for you

Book/Chapter/Verse? This is nothing less than a blatant misunderstanding of not only JC's Law but of any law at all. JC's Law was not made to be fulfilled or completed. You can't complete a law. The term makes no sense at all.
Fair enough. Isaiah 53:5,12; Jeremiah 31:31, 32; Habakkuk 2:3,4; Mark 2:5-11, 9:13, 16:16, Luke 5:20, 22:20 (Christs blood was shed for sin, just as Israel was saved from the death plague in Egypt by the blood of lambs, those who believe in Christ are saved by His shed blood), Luke 24:44-49; John 3:3, 15, 16, 19; 6:40; 10:9; Acts 26:18; Heb 9:12, 14, 28; 10:2, 12, 38; 11:6; James 1:25; 2:5; 1 Peter 1:13-21; 2:24; Jude 1:21; Rev 2:5 (work of faith); Rev 3:10 (keep His command, love and faith).
I don't see logic between a lot of these verses of yours. If you are going to quote all these verses please tell me what you think they mean and present them as proof of each point you make so I don't have to extrapolate on my own here. Please flesh this out for me point by point as I'm generally interested in what you have to say.
BTW, the Son of Man is a worm (Job 25:6)
Christ's blood can't be shed for sin. It violates his own Law. Redemption/salvation is gained through righting your ship (Ezekiel 18:20-21) and keeping the commandments see Psa 119:1-5 Isa 56:1-8 Mathew 5:17-20, Revelations 22:14 Revelation 14:12.
You can also attain salvation as JC himself says through bearing the appropriate spiritual features, see the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount aka the Beatitudes. Note he makes no mention of belief in him as a human blood sacrifice.


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You also made the point that much of John tells believers to keep the commands. Ex: John 14:15 "If you love Me, the commands of Me you will keep" (Greek translation). Again what are Christs commands? - love and faith in Him. Good Hermeneutics would allow the reader to see that Jesus is saying "if you love Me you have kept My commandments." See the difference? See also: Mat 7:12; 22:40; Luke 16:16; and John 6:29.
Actually no. Good hermeneutics would teach that the reader should look for continuity and consistency between texts. Your version of this text signals a break between what JC/Yahweh says elsewhere about his commandments. For the texts to be consistent that verse should be read in the same spirit of
verses that affirm the eternal perfect nature of JC/Yahweh's Laws for example: Ezekiel 18:20-21Psa 119:1-5 and Mathew 5:17-20

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You also said the idea of "fulfilling the law" is weird. The best way to explain is through the law of marriage. A woman is married to her husband until he dies. Once he dies the law of marriage that bound them together is no longer in effect. She is free to marry whoever. This is similar to the law of covenant which God had with Israel. Jesus' death was the fulfillment of the covenant and the end of it. His resurrection was the start of a new covenant.
Yes this is the Pauline explanation but it's hardly sound. Marriage is an arrangement which lasts until the death of one party.
The problem here is that no one has died. Life as JC/Yahweh say over and over again is achieved through obeisance to the Laws of Yahweh/JC. Likewise life is lost when one strays from the Laws of God.
This life through belief in JC as a human blood sacrifice is a Paulinian contrivance and is supported nowhere else in scripture. God lays his Laws down in the so-called Old Testament and makes no allowance anywhere for a human blood sacrifice to show up and undo everything he said. God is the last word on his Law.
Paul certainly had no authority to cancel Yahweh/JC's Laws.
In my estimation, you're either a member of the Trinity or you follow Jesus' and His Father's commands.

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and
You're right, I apologize.
Good man.

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I'll let you have the last word, Noah. I enjoyed this discussion.
Thank you. I enjoyed our exchange as well.
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Old 04-18-2006, 08:07 AM   #15
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Quote:
Originally Posted by noah
You're making a mistake here. It's not logical to assume that you have to be insane or stupid to follow someone who is insane. Sometimes you don't even know the person is insane at first or ever.
Not everyone who is insane betray their insanity until it is too late. Hitler and Stalin come to mind. There are many others of course.
You can simply be mistaken and think at first at least, that he makes a lot of sense.
...
The "greatest hoax in history"? Hmm. Are you forgetting Hitler? How about Mohammed? Mohammed told everyone that Gabriel gave him the Koran over the course of 40 days in a cave.
Another example that Nuwanda may be more familiar with is Joseph Smith.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuwanda
The best way to explain is through the law of marriage. A woman is married to her husband until he dies. Once he dies the law of marriage that bound them together is no longer in effect. She is free to marry whoever.
Unless she doesn't have a son, then she has to marry her brother-in-law.
Deuteronomy 25:5
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Old 04-18-2006, 03:25 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Crucifiction
Any good passages refuting the Christian assertion they are no longer bound to the Law?
No, but many verses to the contrary:

Romans 7:4 - Likewise, my
brethren, you have died to the law
through the body of Christ, so that
you may belong to another, to him
who has been raised from the dead
in order that we may bear fruit for
God.

Romans 7:6 - But now we are
discharged from the law, dead to
that which held us captive, so that
we serve not under the old written
code but in the new life of the Spirit.


Galatians 2:19 - For I through the
law died to the law, that I might live
to God.

Galatians 3:10 - For all who rely
on works of the law are under a
curse; for it is written, "Cursed be
every one who does not abide by all
things written in the book of the law,
and do them."

Galatians 3:23 - Now before
faith came, we were confined under
the law, kept under restraint until
faith should be revealed

Galatians 5:4 - You are severed
from Christ, you who would be
justified by the law; you have fallen
away from grace.

Galatians 5:18 - But if you are
led by the Spirit you are not under
the law.

Ephesians 2:15 - by abolishing
in his flesh the law of
commandments and ordinances,
that he might create in himself one
new man in place of the two, so
making peace,

Hebrews 7:12 -
For when there
is a change in the priesthood, there
is necessarily a change in the law
as well.

Hebrews 10:1 - For since the
law has but a shadow of the good
things to come instead of the true
form of these realities, it can never,
by the same sacrifices which are
continually offered year after year,
make perfect those who draw near

James 1:25 - But he who looks
into the perfect law, the law of
liberty, and perseveres, being no
hearer that forgets but a doer that
acts, he shall be blessed in his
doing.

James 2:10 - For whoever keeps
the whole law but fails in one point
has become guilty of all of it.

To summarize, there is no doubt that the NT teaches Christians are not under the law. That's the essence of what it means to be a Christian: to seek salvation not in observance but through acceptance of the gospel message. Thus when Jesus said he fulfilled the law, he indeed did: by making it irrelevant, since it was only meant to teach us that we are not righteous enough to follow it, and thus need a savior. If the law still applies, then in what possible sense could Jesus fullfill it. It would need know fullfilling if it had been interpreted correctly. But its meaning only became evident through Christ and the gospel of salvation through faith, not works.
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Old 04-18-2006, 03:35 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigJim
Unless she doesn't have a son, then she has to marry her brother-in-law. Deuteronomy 25:5
That's pretty funny. Touche.
I'm going to post a new thread soon on the difference between the Old and New Covenants, which will touch on the old law and it's context within the OT. It seems this is a subject that comes up alot in these threads and I think it deserves some finer clarification than what it has been given. I hope you and Noah will join me. Peace.
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Old 04-18-2006, 05:43 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamera
//

To summarize, there is no doubt that the NT teaches Christians are not under the law.

//
Nice passages but do they not include freedom from religion as well? It seems to me that Judaism had to come to and end in the life of Jesus.

Let's put it this way, neither faith nor doubt can be tickets to heaven or doubters would go to heaven since faith cannot be conceived to exist without at least some doubt. That would be why ascension followed after the removal of all doubt in Thomas, who was the twin of Peter in faith and doubt.
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Old 04-18-2006, 05:53 PM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamera
To summarize, there is no doubt that the NT teaches Christians are not under the law.
But there is doubt that Jesus taught that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gamera
But its meaning only became evident through Christ and the gospel of salvation through faith, not works.
Do you not know the verse that says the opposite of this?
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Old 04-18-2006, 08:58 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nuwanda
That's pretty funny. Touche.
...
I hope you and Noah will join me. Peace.
Thanks, but I have nowhere near the knowledge and expertise as Noah. I'll definetly be an interested observer, and perhaps I'll be able to occasionally chime in with a relevant comment or two.
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