There's a lot of subject change between verses 15 and 22, but that's okay. I am good with what I have presented in regard to the giving of the Commandments at Sinai.
Subject change? Please speak more specifically, with quoted examples from that context rather than to speak in generalities. I don't understand your doubts, for I see no change in the subject matter. I provided highlighted and underlined emphasis for the continuity. Can you do the same, or even better? I welcome that.
We can next discuss what would make all of that almost irrelevant - what Jesus says and does in the NT concerning the 10 Commandments.
Then do you offer up the sacrifices such as what Jesus instructed the healed leper. After all, there were many types of sacrifices for thanksgiving, sin, peace, etc. If we pick and choose from what Jesus said, and we wish to hold to integrity, then we should define for the benefit of all here how you make those determinations in your system of teaching. I'm asking this of you because your posit seems to be all or none, right? If not, then how do you pick and choose what is relevant for today, and what is not? What's the basis?
If they were only given to a specific race of people and never intended for Christians of today, we need to discuss Jesus' handling of them during His lifetime. John tells us in 1 John 2:6 that we are to live as Jesus lived. Without going overboard on taking that to the extreme, I think it's fair to propose that we should obey what He obeyed. Especially since He taught all of the 10 Commandments to His disciples - the first Christians.
Did you see what I quoted from the Greek Lexicon from the very words of Jesus? The meaning of that key word, "fulfill" means that He showed to us how to live the Law of God, not the Mosaic Law. The Law of God is the very foundation upon which the Mosaic Law was constructed. The Mosaic Law was a schoolmaster, and one that was fulfilled, and therefore our not having any need for that schoolmaster...we who are indwelt by the Spirit, and the Handwriting in our hearts made by that Spirit of the Lord.
It's good to study Torah, and learn it, and in so doing, the student becomes acutely aware of ALL our inadequacies in trying to keep it to the letter. I suspect we both agree on that point, but to try and lay upon all others, like a load of chains and weighted steel ball.
2 Corinthians 3:6 Who also hath made
us able ministers of the
new testament;
not of the letter, but of the spirit: for
the letter killeth, but
the spirit giveth life.
There are many verses throughout the NT that show Jesus discussing each individual Commandment, and some will argue the details of those passages, but we also see Him telling His disciples to obey what the scribes and Pharisees taught, but not to do as they did in Matt. 23:1-3 as they taught the 10 Commandments, but they never obeyed them. "do as they say, but not as they do" He said.
Yes. He did instruct that to them.
There is also the passage of Luke 23:54-56 that shows Christ's followers, the earliest Christians, observing the Sabbath Commandment the very night of His Crucifixion; a time when the Commandments are said by many to have been nullified.
I would ask that we let go of the extreme of "nullified" and such. I at no time ever referred to the Mosaic Law as having been nullified. I repeatedly referred to its "fulfillment." There is a difference.
How do we reconcile these things with the modern teachings that claim obedience to the Commandments is Legalism and Works Salvation and a curse, etc.?
I cannot reconcile your assumptions to the text. I say that because you are trying to assign to me an impossible task. The dichotomy I see between your assumptions and the text are too vast for reconciliation. The Jewish people practiced as they practiced. They had that freedom. The Jews in Jerusalem were zealous for the Law, as it is written. Can you show to me such a statement made in relation to the Gentiles churches? The Epistles show to us no examples of the Gentile believers in all of Asia Minor or anywhere else adhering to Sabbath observance requirement as a perpetual, ongoing practice that even Paul, Peter, or any other of the apostles taught that they should do.
The strength of your arguments seem to rest upon what they, who were under the Law, did, before the cross. I already answered that. Those same people did MANY things that we today simply cannot do, as I'm sure we can both agree. The Sabbath is indeed different, in that we don't need the temple or the priesthood to do it. We have the freedom to observe it as did they, or we can continue working. Some even observe their sabbath on Wednesday. What is that to you, or to me? That's an item I don't understand in your doctrinal stack.
MM
