In another thread we broached an interesting topic namely, the eternality and the keeping of the 10 Commandments: Here is one ineteresting support: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15) What does this mean? There are 10 Commandments from God, and Jesus is God. He did not issue any new or other Commandments, else he is not God, or there is a divergence within the Trinity. Remember that the 10 Commandments weren't like the later ceremonial laws, but even written "by the finger of God"! Deuter 9:10: "the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God". That's preposterous. So if Jacob were to curse at God, or turn atheist, or if he stole, then that would be ok as long as he were circumcised? If Adam were to curse out God or kill Eve it would be ok? I don't know if you realize that Christ is the same God that wrote the laws of the Old Testament. So if I think it's better for my brother to be dead, and I kill him out of love, that would be ok? No I'm sorry the 10 commandments have never been abrogated. I saw your quotes against keeping the Law; they are true and valid. However within New Testament theology there has always been a tripartite understanding of what the Law is: the Ceremonial, the Civil, and the Moral. The Deuteronomy laws were all Ceremonial and Civil, while what Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai was the Moral Law.
Stalwart, I never said that God would be ok with his children cursing him out or becoming atheist. I honestly don't see where you could get that from anything I have said. I think you're having an argument that I never engaged in. Jesus didn't have a problem with the Pharisees because of the commandments, whether keeping them or not, but for their lack of faith and their willful rejection of the Christ.
Admittedly off topic a bit, but I always appreciated Martin Luther's comment in the small catechism where he stated that it was impossible to keep the commandments while isolated in a cave, we must have fellowship with one another to be compliant Jeff
Nice. There's also the Anglican catechism: " Catechist. My good Child, know this; that thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to ,walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him, without his special grace".
You expressed antinominian views in the other thread about the crucifixes, disregarding the eternal moral law inscribed in the Ten Commandments and confusing the distincton between civil, cerimonial and moral laws of God that Christians have always made.
So did Saint Paul: "All things are lawful for me..." If that's heresy, then I am in good company. First off, the commandments aren't ten in the bible, they are just commandments. Man's traditions, seperated them into ten, and as the article I posted earlier pointed out, they were divided one way nearly thousands of years until the Calvinists decided they wanted to push an iconoclastic agenda, and so seperated them another way. I do not see where you find this distinction between the civil, ceremonial, and moral commandments in scripture. I think it is read into the scriptures rather than pulled from them. The commandments were not made for the righteous but the unrighteous. The Law is is a tutor until faith comes, but once it comes there is no need for a tutor. Why because, faith accounts a man righteous and the righteous will live by faith, not the keeping of the law (which none can do). For this very reason, the commandments are called a ministry of death, because they lead us not to life but to death. Through them we see we are sinners who will die without hope without a savior who has fulfilled the Old Covenant, thus setting it aside and establishing a new and everlasing one. With a change of covenants comes a change in the priesthood and in the law. The sabbath provision was set aside, and as I have shown it is not the only one. Does that mean there is nothing by which to hold a Christian accountable? No. The law of Chirst has been set in place: Walk in love as Christ has loved us, do unto others as you would have done unto you, love one another, beleive in Christ Jesus, love God with all your heart, with all you soul, and with all your spirit, etc....a Christians, the eternal law of Christ has been written on our hearts not on stone tablets. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end...the "10" commandments, as wonderful as they are, were given only to get us through the middle.
"All things" including idolatry, murder, theft? All those things are "lawful" to the Christian man? No-one is arguing that men can be justified by the Law, we are justified by faith alone, but that the Christian man cannot disobey God's Commandments without sinning. "For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." (James 2:10-11) The Apostle puts all of the Ten Commandments on the very same footing. All the Commands are founded upon God's character. While the civil and ceremonial laws of the Israelites were abrogated as they were fulfilled in Christ, the moral law which is inscribed in man's heart since the beginning can never be abrogated because God's moral character can never be abrogated. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Perhaps these inputs might be of interest to you: The Perpetuity of the Law of God by C.H. Spurgeon The Perpetuity and Change of the Sabbath by Jonathan Edwards Eschatological Fulfilment and the Confirmation of Mosaic Law by Greg Welty, a critical evaluation of D. A. Carson's exegesis of Matthew 5:17-48. Carson's interpretation of this crucial text — which includes Jesus' relation to the law (vv. 17-18) and the nature of his six 'antitheses' (vv. 21-48) — is often appealed to by New Covenant Theology (NCT) advocates as emphatically supporting their distinctive teachings concerning the moral law of God, and as undermining the traditional Reformed or classical covenant theology (CCT) view of the same.
I have to agree with Layman that those articles have little relevance to us. On the other hand Paul never taught the literal antinomian view that he could do anything.
The belief that the Ten Commandments represent the eternal moral law of God, which cannot be by definition abrogated, is not an exclusive Reformed stance but a universal Christian stance.
actually the eastern churches number the commandments the same as the reformed and is a much older way of numbering them than the latin and lutheran way. It's a pedantic point I admit but could'nt resist