Christian Laws

Regarding the second part of your post about the Greeks following the Jewish law, I’m not sure whether you mean the ‘national’ law of the Jews or the Mosaic Law, the religious law of the Jews. I will assume the later. I thought of several instances of what you say: 1) circumcision, 2) animal, or I will call them ‘typical’, sacrifices and 3) dietary ordinances. I will take the first one in this post.There was a sharp contention in the early church about circumcision of Gentile converts. The contention was regarding the relationship of the Gentiles to the Mosaic Law and, perhaps, the necessity of the Gentiles becoming Jews (being circumcised) in order to receive salvation. Acts and Galatians mention this incident. Galatians deals extensively with Paul’s warning to the Galatians not to turn the Jewish legal system signified by receiving circumcision as it was attended by the principle of justification by works of law. The conclusion of the issue was that circumcision was not enjoined on the Gentiles. The conclusion was not based on whether or not the Jews were a reigning nation. I'm not sure if there is a definitive answer about circumcision of Jewish followers of Jesus as Paul circumcised Timothy.Paul does give a spiritual application of circumcision - applicable to all Christians. By the way, if I understand it right, I say peshat too (most of the time).

I was looking at a few comentators on the verses you mentioned and all of them understand 'the law of commandments in ordinances' to refer to the entire law of Moses. It is hard to make the word 'ordinances' stand for only the non-moral laws, like the dietary laws and the law of circumcision, etc., especially when modified by 'the law of commandments in'.There is another possible solution to this seeming contradiction in the Bible besides the one mentioned by you which is noted in a footnote in the Recovery Version on Eph. 2:15. The contradiction being a) Jesus came to fulfill the law and not one tittle of the law will fall away until all is fulfilled and yet b) Paul says that He abolished the law of commandments in ordinances.The other possible solution is to construe 'abolish' as 'made of no effect'. This is an acceptable translation and can be seen in the word 'annulled' in Rom 6:6 'Knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we should no longer serve sin as slaves;'We know that the best we can hope for now is for 'body of sin' to be made of no effect. We know it is not abolished because it is still there and can easily affect us.Paul describes in Romans 7 how the law becomes 'of no effect' to the woman - the husband dies and he reiterates the same thought in Gal 2:19 'For I through law have died to law that I might live to God.'How does this strike you?

One thing is for sure - justification is not by law or by 'works of law', but but grace through faith. And yet this free, gracious, righteous justification does not nullify the law, but establishes it!