Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The Church is imploding

The Lord came to fulfill the law, not abolish it.

But, the Sabbath was OT, new Christians started worshiping on Sunday, the day the Lord arose from the dead. And that tradition has persisted for 2,000+ years.

I have Seventh Day friends who love the Lord. I just think they may be stuck a bit in tradition. That's their thing, not mine.

You know, I think those who really love the Lord are blessed inspite of doctrinal quirks. We may not all interpret Scripture exactly the same. What do ya'll think?

DF

They found the idea that they’d need a Savior like Him to be offensive because they had (in their minds) earned salvation for themselves by their adherence to the law of Moses.

As you say, those who knew the OT best missed the whole point of the exercise… that man cannot “work” his way out of fallenness but must rely wholly and solely upon the grace of God.

This is the point where both legalisms and liberals (theologically speaking) miss the bud to this day, and there will always be people in the visible church who make these errors.

It’s just human nature.

If not for the resurrection, I wonder how many of us today would recognize Him? His own disciples somewhat misunderstood him during his ministry.

Paul and the other disciples made it clear that us gentiles are NOT under the law. That was for Jews only. When they met in Jerusalem to decide how to handle the gentiles, they decided that the gentiles weren't under it. They only required a few things from the gentiles - avoid sexual sin, don't eat meat that was strangled, and don't eat blood. Even circumcision was dropped. This passage makes it clear that this came from God himself, through the Holy Spirit, that the gentiles were exempt from the law.

Acts 15:28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements:
29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

And the only reason those things were even mentioned…the “not eating meat from strangled animals, and from blood, and food polluted by idols...” is because those things were really offensive to Jews and it would cause fellowship problems within the ekklesia. He’s saying to the Gentiles to not cause strife with their fellow Jewish Christians over these particular cultural sensitivities, and to be gracious towards them. Go along to get along.

The sexual immorality part speaks for itself.

1 Corinthians 1:10.

You can't understand what Jesus meant when he said he came to full fill the law, not abolish it unless you understand lots of things. First that doesn't mean Jesus liked the law, at least not in the sense that you might think.

The law was only there for one purpose. It was "NOT" there to show a man how to live. At least not in any useful sense. God gave the law in response to his people telling him they could keep any commandments he asked of them. God gave the law to show everyone that nobody could keep it. Nobody could keep up with and do everything that would be necessary to be perfect on their own merits. The whole purpose of it was to cause anyone to realize that their only protection came from the sacrifice made when they didn't keep the law.

When Jesus said he came to fulfill the law, he meant that he came to be the one and only sacrifice ever needed so that by that sacrifice everyone would be well with God.

If you look at it in that light, there is now no law except the law of love which fulfilled every expectation of God through faith in His sacrifice, which is really just God saving us all by himself.

With genuine respect, I say the following: I've read most of what you've written here and don't find it much different from what's been said/taught in several Christian churches that I've attended. It seems that you've mostly parted ways with the church (small c). I'm not clear on where your beliefs differ that much. If I'm understanding, you've gone from a warrior to a watcher, so to speak. I'm not diminishing the value of what you post here, as this is certainly an outreach. I just wonder if the "belief gap", if you will, is as great as you think. Apologies in advance if I'm misunderstanding, and best wishes to you.

"Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine, Praising my Saviour all the day long."

I'm not as fundamental as that post might have suggested. I was trying to illustrate how even fundamental Christians lose sight of the big picture, even when it is spelled out in scripture. It has been my experience that most Christians focus on the rules, so pointing out how rules never mattered except to illustrate that no rules could accomplish anything is amusing to me.

I wouldn't be able to tell you what I am at the moment except that I look for truth everywhere I can. That's a hard thing to find. It mostly means knowing you don't really know very much beyond personal experience.

Yea,I may be a watcher at this point,but I'm still interested in the game,just not so sure about the rules anymore.

That's where Paul was clearing up claims that some were of Peter, some from Apollos. He was pointing out to those factions that it's all about the Cross of Christ.

And in v 18, he pointed out that the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to the saved, it's the "Power of God".

So, as some here have already posted, focusing on Jesus and the Cross vs. depending on various factions (the wisdom of man) is the way to go.

DF

Thanks for your gracious reply to my post, which was a bit intrusive, to say the least. A forgiven sinner myself, I’m now a child of God. I’ve done nothing to deserve this title. I couldn’t. Rules? I try to live as Christ commanded. Not in some futile attempt to earn my salvation, but to please my Heavenly Father and to better live out my witness. Sure, I fall short , but once in a while I get it right. 😀

The Pharisees were constantly dogging’ Jesus everywhere He went, and they’d tell Him “your followers don't observe the tradition of the elders.” The tradition of the elders, also sometimes called the Oral Torah, was just a buncha laws made up by legalists to prevent people from accidentally breakin’ the Law of Moses and…according to them…defile themselves and put themselves at odds with God.

For example, the Mosaic Law said you can’t do business on the Sabbath. But the ‘tradition of the elders’…or the Oral Torah…said you're not even allowed to touch money on the Sabbath ~ because if you’re not allowed to even touch money on the Sabbath ~ then you won't accidentally do business on the Sabbath. The legalists just made this schit up as they went along, tweakin’ it as time went by.

The Law of Moses was difficult enough to keep on it’s own. We know that from the testimony of first century Jews themselves; the Apostle Peter made that crystal clear, as did James (the brother of Jesus).

So they (Peter and James), as church leaders, made it crystal clear that Jesus’ followers (Gentiles ‘or’ Jews) were not bound by the Law of Moses in any way whatsoever. At all. Anymore. Peter made it crystal clear that there was now no longer any distinction between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, and that Jewish Christians would “be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus”…NOT by abiding by the mosaic Law…just as Gentile Christians are.

The Jews had never been saved by the law of Moses. That law was only to teach them to have faith in the sacrifice. All failed under that law and had to make appropriate sacrifices. To top it off a sacrifice for everybody was made for everything and anything you might have missed every year that covered you for the whole year. It was always their faith in God, through the means of sacrifice that saved them, rather than in the keeping of law.

I agree. But ‘they’ thought otherwise. Even to this very day, some think that abiding by a few of those 613 rules that they’ve cherry-picked…like not eatin’ frog legs and obeying the sabbath…is gonna get em’ there.

Well, the bible did predict that babylons waters would dry up! Babylon the great the world empire of false religion is about to see what it like when the image of the wild beast/ the united nations turns on her and completely destroys her. Serves her right for committing spiritual fornication with the kings of the earth! The fact is Jehovah's Witnesses exposed false religion and all her hypocrisy 100 years ago. Now almost everyone can see it

Despite their smug arrogance and self-righteousness, they knew Him not, nor the voices of the prophets which they read every sabbath. But your point is well-taken.

The resurrection is what ultimately and finally and definitively convinced 1st century Jesus followers, and others in the 1st century who’d refused to follow Jesus, that Jesus was who He claimed to be. When He rose from the dead, it convinced His closest followers…who had all run away by that time…and it also convinced people who’d decided not to follow Him, that He was who He claimed to be.

And the resurrection has been convincing people ever since. The story of Jesus wasn’t even worth telling apart from the resurrection. Apart from the resurrection, no one would have even documented the life of Jesus. Apart from the resurrection, He was just another wannabe rabbi that went off the rails and threatened the legalists. Apart from the resurrection, He was just another promise maker who’d failed to keep His promises.

The reason we even know His name, and the reason His name is proclaimed throughout the world today…even though His teachings and claims about Himself were profound…is because He rose from the dead. His resurrection punctuated everything He taught and claimed about Himself.

I think the evidence shows that there really was a man named Jesus 2000 years ago who walked the earth and performed miracles and predicted His own death and resurrection ~ and accomplished it…! And the evidence for that is very good. There were Mosaic Law following Jews converting completely to Jesus’ brand new belief system and paying for it with their lives. If a man can predict His own death and resurrection…and pull it off…I’m gonna go with whatever He says.

I agree 100%