Christian Laws

And I gave you quite a few principles and asked for their parellels in the Old Testament. You were not able to show me.So my point is that there is much more to the New Testament besides re-hashing old laws. It should be clear that the New Testament is not a re-hash of the Code of Hammarabi. That is unless you can point out the indwelling, the abiding in God as a living Person with whom man may mutually blend."Abide in Me and I in you" I previously submitted as the all-incompassing responsibility of the Christian. The crux of the matter is that Jesus is alive, knowable, and men and women can abide in Him as a living sphere and realm of divine life.If I wanted to add an 11th commandment to create a NT list is would be Thou Shalt abide in Jesus the resurrected Lord. Anyway, I think we have come full circle again.Too much of the New Testament has no parellel in any religious teaching of man on earth. There is no teacher I can think of promising to come to make an abode in His lovers with His Father God (John 14:23). And chapter 15 uses the verb form of the noun "abode" in saying "Abide in Me and I in you" (John 15:4)Jesus is clear in the fifteenth chapter of John that without abiding in Him the disciples can do nothing. Put another way - without abiding in Jesus we may do a whole lot. But it will count as nothing to God's eternal purpose and kingdom. This is because God only want Christ. He wants Christ lived out in and through man. He wants Christ to live again on the earth, but this time within you and within me and within those who believe into Christ.Romans 8 "walk according to spirit" for the fulfillment of the just requirement of the law of God is exactly equal to "Abide in Me and I in you" in John's Gospel. That is because "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17) And "The Lord be with your spirit" (2 Tim. 4:22)Sorry to bore you Purpledawn. This is written for reasons of repetition and for those who haven't yet seen it in this thread.Brother Richh, this question is for you.What does the term "lawlessness" refer to in so many places in, ie. letters to Timothy, Titus, and one of the Peter epistles?Perhaps you could also say a word about Christ having "abolishing in His flesh the law of commandments in ordinances" (Eph. 2:15) Is there particular meaning to the phrase "commandments IN ORDINANCES" as to specify ordinances of a perhaps reitualistic rather than moral content?I mean if "the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit" the Apostle Paul must mean the moral requirement of the law rather than the ritualistic ordinances which Christ has abolished.

Purpledawn, I would preface this post by reminding you that part of the new covenant that was promised through Jeremish the prophet was that God Himself would teach each one to live according to the living laws imparted into them:"For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will impart my laws into their mind, and on thier hearts I will inscribe them; and I will be God to them, and they will be a people unto Me.

​

And they shall by no means each teach his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will know Me from the little one to the great one among them." (See Heb. 8:10,11) Purpledawn, we have for the New Testament to aid in letting us know if we are abiding in Christ or not. When I come before the judgment of seat of Christ, I will not be able to use the excuse that the New Testament was filled with non- "things" and I didn't know if I was abiding in the Lord or not.Perhaps you feel this is an obstacle to you. I cannot for a moment reason that it is for me. If not in ALL instances I knew the will of God, in too many I DID know.If I elaborate on the many passages which indicate the indwelling Christ is teaching, training, leading the Christian, I think you will object because they are not real to you. "How does one know?" Are you raising this inquiry as one wanting the lordship of Jesus? Or are you asking from the standpoint of one skeptical of Christ's resurrection and ability to be known at all ?I am not going to refer to chapter and verse in this next paragraph. But what helps us to know is a number of scriptural matters, listed below:"For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, training us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust we might live soberly and righteously and godly in the present age." (Titus 2:12)Did you see that Purpledawn? No, I mean did you really SEE that? The grace of God is presently TRAINING the believers in the risen Jesus to live godly lives, soberly in this present age.As one who has received the living Jesus into my spirit, His grace is empowering me and TRAINING me to live through Christ. He can do the same thing with you.1.) The grace of God is training us to live godly. That is in the book of Titus. Christ's indwelling is the presence of indwelling grace. This grace trains us to live godly in this present world.2.) The anointing teaches us all things related to abiding in Christ. That is in the epistle of First John. The anointing is a kind of rubbing of God's Spirit into our soul. This movement, this anointing of God's Spirit teaches the Christians "all things" according to the apostle John. I think he means all things related to abiding moment by moment in the sphere of the presence of the Spirit of Jesus."And as for you, the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone teach you; but as His anointing teaches you concerning all thins and is true and is not a lie, and even as it has taught you, abide in Him." (1 John 2:27)Those are not just fancy words now Purpledawn. There is some couple millennia of experience behind them. A certain brother Lawrence wrote a classic Christian text called "The Practice of the Presence of God". You have the autobiographies of many Christians to consult as well as the teaching of the New Testament.3.) We have the Body of Christ, the spiritual community that acts as a kind of "organism". If you put a foreign object into your body, your body is liable to feel it and notify you that something not living is present in you.I am not taking the time to develop these concepts thoroughly. But the normal church life has the dicernment because of the presence of Christ her Head, what is of God.Do not take me mean that this is always easy. But in the last 30 some years I know that among the believers I meet with, the Holy Spirit eventually gets the last word. The mystical Body of Christ affirms who is walking according to the Spirit.4.) We have also the sense of life and peace which Paul speaks of in the book of Romans. The mind set on the spirit is life and peace. The mind set on the flesh is death. The small s spirit here is the regenerated human spirit indwelt with by the capital S Holy Spirit. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit. See Romans 8:16. This is closely related to the anointing talked about in First John.It could be ... that you simply underestimate the intimacy of the experience of the indwelling Spirit of Jesus. You could regard this kind of speaking as simply sentimental and poetic. When Jesus says [b]"Abide in Me and I in you"{/b you may not regard that as very serious. But to those of us who have discovered that this Jesus is knowable and "touchable" this is very real. The teaching of the Bible is that it is indeed very real.This is not to say that these matters are easy. This is not to say that Christians can be misled. You do not have to read too far into the books of Acts or the epistles to see that problems existed because of the superfiscial spiritual lives of Christians. But we are not going to quite because of that. Some of us intend to follow the positive encouraging examples of overcoming Christians. Some of us intend to seek help from the victorious brothers and sisters at this Chrisian walk and learn warnings from the negative examples of defeat.Anyway, I see no need to throw up hands in in perplexity at how to abide in Christ. Rather I take to heart the admonistion: "That you be not sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and long-suffering are inheriting the promises." (Heb. 6:12).

This paragraph I wrote contained a typo:I meant to write: There were other grammatical errors as well. Sorry. I am pressed as to time in the public library.

And I noticed that I responded to your Message 224 in the next Message 225. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Who is the "we" in this sentence ?

I don't think your reply to Rich answers the question that Rich asked.You speak here in a general way about "God's message" and how easy it should be to understand it. This actually skirts around the question that he asked.Try again. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

That is vague to me and confusing. You speak of what "we" are acountable to and "we" cannot be expected to be held accountible to a summary. Yet directions specifically to Paul's Christian audience is not the "we" of the whole world formed into a political theocracy governed by Pauline epistles.If a person has not received Christ as the Lord and Savior, their first obligation to God is to repent and become believers in Christ as their Lord and Savior.John spoke of those who were never a part of the brotherhood who made it clear that they stood apart from them:"They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us they would have remained with us; but they went out that they might be manifested that they all are not of us." (1 John 2:19)Now these people went out from the "we" of the Christian brotherhood to make it manifested that they were not of that Christian "we" but stood aloof from them.Maybe you are like this. Maybe you want to use the talk of we but in reality you are not one in the Christian brotherhood. So then you are complaining about how can "we" do this and how can "we" do that when you may have no intention of casting your lot among the disciples of Jesus.The judgment seat of Christ is for the disciples of Christ. No unbeliever in Christ will appear there. And if one does appear there she or he knows that they are eternally redeemed. But they still have obligation to stand examined before the judgment seat of Christ for the believers in Christ.Those have stood apart from the disciples that it may be manifested that they are not of the disciples have no need to speak of the obligation that "we" have in that judgment. The obligation of those people is firstly to become saved by receiving Christ as Lord.The unbeliever is not expected to have the teaching of the anointing or the leading of the Holy Spirit until they receive the Holy Spirit. When they receive the Holy Spirit they their consciences will bear witness within them to and what of any summary they are convicted concerning responsibility to. And this is a skill sharpened and developed with spiritual growth and maturity.If you are an unbeliever and you ask "How are WE suppose to follow Jesus" when you regard Him as dead or not the Son of God, you are just talking foolishly. For this person the first step is to become a genuine member of the Christian we and repent to receive Christ as the resurrected Lord and Savior.But if you reject to receive Christ as Lord, it doesn't matter about any Pauline summary directed towards Christians. You will perish because of your rejection of the Savior and His salvation.The "Christian Law" for the unbeliever is to become a believer and confess Christ as their Lord and be baptized to show the world that you are now one of the "we" of those who belong to Jesus.

Do you understand the difference between the judgment seat of Christ and the judgment of the great white throne?If you did you would have no problem understanding the obligation of the Christians.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I realize that perhaps you wish to be rid of me having now gotten my little contribution. But I can assure you that when it comes to the subject of the Christians responsibility at the judgement seat of Christ, we haven't even gotten started yet.But as long as you get the help, whether from me or from someone else, that's fine.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Rich didn't Paul say that it was "the commandments in ordinances" that were abolished in His flesh on the cross ? I think we would have to distinguish the moral laws from the commandments in ordinances. " ... having abolished in His flesh the law of commandments in ordinances, that He might created the two in Himself into one new man, so making peace." (Eph. 2:15)He is talking about ordinances which separated the Jews from the Gentiles. So I think ritualistic ordinance is what he has in mind and not mostly moral commandments.You shall not kill is moral. Keep the sabbath is an ordinance, or ritualistic commandment.The ordinance concerning eating this or that clean food Jesus nullified by teaching it was what proceeds out of the heart which defiles a man. The eating of specific foods were ordinances which separated the Jews from the nations. Jesus taught in Matthew to pay attention to that which defiles a man from issuing out of the heart.Yet the moral command of not killing He uplifted saying not even to be angry without a cause to your brother.This is the general thrust of Matthew, to uplift the moral side of the law and down play the ritualistic side. However some exceptions do apply where Christ did instruct someone to pay attention to the priest's instructions. For instance for the cleansed leper.Here is the ritualistic side of the law being as someone's instruction from Jesus. But if you look carefully the lesson was a deeper one than just religious adherance to custom. It had a moral emphasis in it which He emphasized.For example, if you have are offering a gift at the altar (clearly ritualistic) and you remember that someone has something against you, you are to go and first be reconciled to that one. Then having made peace you are to continue the ordinance.So I think each case of Christ speaking of the moral side or the ritualistic side of the law needs to be examined carefully in its own right.

I thought the New Testament shows Paul in transition. I think he may have wanted to placate the priests who had turned to the Christian faith. So he went out of his way to appease their suspicions. For many rumors were going about about Paul, that he was anti- Moses and anti- Jewish religion.The enfluence of James was in Jerusalem was at one time heavy on him. But it seems after things blew up in his face he wrote his strongest epistles saying that the old covenant was truly over.This New Testament does show early Christians like James and Peter and Paul in transition. I think it is realitic in that regard.

It strikes me as helpful. But I have been so long away from this topic review would be necessary for me to pick up where we left off.I have been reading something about the new covenant promised in Jeremiah 33.Good to see you here again. Let me read over your post one more time.

Richh,Over here in Thoughts.com we are talking about 1 Corinthians 15:45.The Room is "Christianity" and the Thread is "1 Cor. 15:45".
Come on over if you have some insight on this (and have time).Click here:http://www.thoughts.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=18Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.