Establishing the Law: Romans 3:31

[Ron Amnsn]

On 5/26/2019 at 1:26 PM, R. G. White said:

Sadly, they crucified the One who said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father."

According to Scripture, dying for sin was one of the important objectives of Jesus coming to earth.  If he was going to be successful, Jesus would die one way or another.  Had the Jewish rulers and Jewish people unanimously accepted Jesus as the Messiah, it still would have been necessary for Jesus to die -- perhaps in a manner more like Abraham offering Isaac.  Nevertheless, it probably would have been the Jewish leaders who killed Jesus.  So, the traditional emphasis on the role of the Jewish leaders in having Jesus crucified seems rather over done -- as if their part in God's plan made the Jews as a whole some sort of permanent villain.  According to Scripture, that's hogwash.  In Peter's sermon in Acts 3 he brings up this very topic and speaks about it quite differently than Gentile Christians have spoken of it over the centuries.  There's no "Sadly, they crucified..." in what Peter says.  Instead Peter confirms, " those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled."  Peter offers to those Jews who participated in the death of Jesus exactly the same remedy that is offered to us, "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."  According to Scripture, a large portion of the Israelite people accepted that offered remedy.

[Ron Amnsn]

On 5/29/2019 at 4:24 AM, GHansen said:

Seems right to me. Better than lying to myself or going through mental contortions to reconcile the passages. 

It doesn't take mental contortions when you read the New Testament in the context in which it was written.

If you imagine Paul to be teaching a "law free" gospel, you're going to have to disregard significant portions of Scripture.  But if you accept Paul's own testimony about his own teachings, it all fits together.  Paul testified regarding his own beliefs, "I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets." (Acts 24:14 NIV)  At that time the Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) was referred to as "the Law and the Prophets", or "the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings", where "the Law" refers to the books of Moses. 

I have never heard anyone who believes in a "law free" gospel ever testify as Paul did that they "believe everything that agrees with the Law and is written in the Prophets".  So it seems utterly evident that a "law free" gospel is a different gospel than what Paul himself taught.  There are several other passages where Paul himself says that his gospel agrees with the Scriptures that were available in his day.  If he had taught contrary to the Scriptures, his gospel would have been rejected by those who valued the Scriptures, such as the Bereans -- just as today Christians who regard the Bible as truth would reject a traveling preacher who was teaching something directly contrary to the Bible.

Ironically, many Christians today, especially those who hold to a "law free" gospel, do the exact opposite of what the Bereans were commended for doing in Acts 17:10-12.  The Bereans used the Old Testament Scriptures to determine whether Paul's teachings were true, and were commended for doing that.  In direct contrast to that, many Christians today use their [out-of-context] interpretations of Paul's writings to test the Old Testament Scriptures (which the Bereans used as the standard of truth) and to declare parts of the Old Testament as no longer relevant or trustworthy.  In some cases, they also use their [out-of-context] interpretations of Paul's writings to also declare some parts of the New Testament to be invalid. 

The story of the Bereans shows that at the time Paul visited Berea, his gospel agreed with the Scriptures that were found in the Jewish synagogue at Berea.  The Old Testament Scriptures can still be used to test each interpretation of Paul's writings to see whether those interpretations are true. 

[R. G. White]

3 hours ago, Ron Amnsn said:

According to Scripture, dying for sin was one of the important objectives of Jesus coming to earth.  If he was going to be successful, Jesus would die one way or another.  Had the Jewish rulers and Jewish people unanimously accepted Jesus as the Messiah, it still would have been necessary for Jesus to die -- perhaps in a manner more like Abraham offering Isaac.  Nevertheless, it probably would have been the Jewish leaders who killed Jesus.  So, the traditional emphasis on the role of the Jewish leaders in having Jesus crucified seems rather over done -- as if their part in God's plan made the Jews as a whole some sort of permanent villain.  According to Scripture, that's hogwash.  In Peter's sermon in Acts 3 he brings up this very topic and speaks about it quite differently than Gentile Christians have spoken of it over the centuries.  There's no "Sadly, they crucified..." in what Peter says.  Instead Peter confirms, " those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled."  Peter offers to those Jews who participated in the death of Jesus exactly the same remedy that is offered to us, "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord."  According to Scripture, a large portion of the Israelite people accepted that offered remedy.

Of course your analysis is correct. Jesus would die for the sins of mankind, regardless. Nevertheless, Stephen, when on trial before the Sanhedrin, the representatives of the Jewish nation, called them the "betrayers and murderers" of "the Just One." What's sad is not the outcome, but the rebellion and murder that was in their hearts. Stephen was, of course, pointing it out for a good purpose, in order to bring them to repentance.

We are ALL guilty of the blood of Christ. There is absolutely no ground for looking down on the Jewish nation, who are prophesied to eventually repent as a people. That's more than can be said for many who judge and look down upon others.

[GHansen]

6 hours ago, Ron Amnsn said:

Paul testified regarding his own beliefs, "I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets." (Acts 24:14 NIV)  At that time the Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) was referred to as "the Law and the Prophets", or "the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings", where "the Law" refers to the books of Moses. 

Ron, Paul said he believed everything written with reference to the resurrection. If you go back to chapter 21 vs 17 and onward, Paul was accused of teaching Jews to forsake Moses, forsake  circumcision and  the Jewish customs. He was sent to the temple to convince the Jews that he was law observant. Obviously, it was well known that Paul was teaching a law free gospel by that time.

Your understanding of the term law in the NT is simply wrong. The term "Law" in the NT was often a reference to the Scripture in its entirety. Romans 3:9-19 is a good example. Paul refers to several OT passages, none of which are in the books of Moses and calls them law. Jesus, at least, twice referred to Psalms [10:34, 15:25] as law and Paul quoted Isaiah and called it law in both 1 Corinthian 14:20 and Galatians 4:21,27.

 

Torah, in its earliest sense, simply referred to teaching as in Job 22:22. You need to move aside from Bible Readings for the Home and "Amazing Facts" brochures if you want to actually understand the NT. 

[Ron Amnsn]

36 minutes ago, GHansen said:

If you go back to chapter 21 vs 17 and onward, Paul was accused of teaching Jews to forsake Moses, forsake  circumcision and  the Jewish customs. He was sent to the temple to convince the Jews that he was law observant. Obviously, it was well known that Paul was teaching a law free gospel by that time.

If it was "well known that Paul was teaching a law free gospel" how effective would it be for him to go up to the temple to convince the Jews that he was law observant?  That wouldn't have worked any better than if you went up to the Temple to try to convince the Jews that you are law observant.  Were the Jewish followers of Jesus at that time all simpletons that could easily be fooled?  Probably not. They had already been persecuted for their beliefs.  They also knew that a few years earlier people had dropped dead for trying to fool the leaders of the Jerusalem congregation, so that isn't something that Paul or others would attempt lightly.  The most likely reason that Paul went up to the Temple at Jerusalem was because in Acts 18:18 he had started a vow, which many commentators identify as a Nazarene vow (from Numbers 6).  The Nazarene vow required the person to complete the vow by offering sacrifices at the Temple, so Paul was probably already intending to go to the Temple long before he arrived in Jerusalem.
 

47 minutes ago, GHansen said:

You need to move aside from Bible Readings for the Home and "Amazing Facts" brochures if you want to actually understand the NT. 

Of course, you don't know what I've read or what sources I rely on.  If you were actually trying to teach truth, I don't see the point of trying to belittle those who disagree with yourself.  It appears that you attempting to distract from the fact that you haven't even attempted to effectively respond to several of the issues that have been raised in this thread regarding your "law free" interpretations of Scripture.

[GHansen]

I have tried to respond to the most important point, Ron i.e., you completely misunderstand the use of the term "law" in the NT. The "law" may sometimes refer to the torah but it depends on context. When both Jesus and Paul quoted passages from the Psalms or Isaiah and referred to the texts as "law," they weren't referring to the torah. Paul considered the "law" a revelation of Christ. That's the purpose it served for him and the Gentiles to whom he ministered. Paul was sent to the temple to prove to the Jews he was zealous for the law because he had a reputation  for teaching a law free gospel to the Gentiles and the Jews "They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses"... (Acts 21:21).

Sorry if you felt I was belittling you but when a person makes patently false statements as you have about the law some type of accountability is required. Of course disparaging, belittling, ridiculing, laughing at, etc. is not the correct way to handle the difficulty. Perhaps you have a pastor who you pay to not hurt your feelings. Talk to him/her if you want a more tactful approach. I'm not a Bible teacher. No one is paying me to be nice. I'm just sharing what a well educated high school student with a concordance could be aware of.

The denomination, with notable exceptions, has been perpetuating falsehood on this topic for decades but since you are not an SDA, that's not an excuse for you.

Paul chose Abraham to illustrate the plan of salvation, a man who lived previous to Moses, prior to the torah because that's how the gospel is best understood i.e., law free

[Ron Amnsn]

1 hour ago, GHansen said:

Perhaps you have a pastor who you pay to not hurt your feelings. Talk to him/her if you want a more tactful approach. I'm not a Bible teacher. No one is paying me to be nice.

I have attended the same non-denominational community church for 29 years with some extended absences when my work took me away to areas where there was no church.  The current pastor is "law free" and declines to discuss the Bible with me or to answer my emailed questions regarding how he reconciles his beliefs with various Bible passages.  I'd guess from his responses that I'm not paying him to not hurt my feelings.  Because his "law free" teachings tend to be self-contradictory even within the same sermon, those sermons have not been very convincing even to those who have never been SDA.  Some of his other sermons are very good, especially when he upholds the Old Testament teachings of Jesus.

I am far more aware of how the term "law" is used in the New Testament than you give me credit for.  In one passage in Romans Paul uses the term in at least four different ways, possibly six.  But I wasn't quoting from Romans.

1 hour ago, GHansen said:

The "law" may sometimes refer to the torah but it depends on context.

Yes, it does.  And the context in Acts 24:14 is one of the times when "the Law" and "the Prophets" refer to the main sections of the Old Testament. Paul was speaking in Israel within the Jewish culture so we would need to find out what those terms mean in that culture rather than project our own modern Christian interpretations anachronistically back onto what Paul stated.

[GHansen]

1 hour ago, Ron Amnsn said:

Paul testified regarding his own beliefs, "I believe everything that agrees with the Law and that is written in the Prophets." (Acts 24:14 NIV)  At that time the Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) was referred to as "the Law and the Prophets", or "the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings", where "the Law" refers to the books of Moses. 

Ron, I understand the expression "at that time" to refer to the time the NT was written. If I understand that correctly, the rest of the sentence is at best incomplete. Romans 3 refers to the OT as the "oracles of God" and then further explains that the oracles of God are the law, which includes Psalms and other books of the OT which are not part of the writings of Moses. Jesus himself called the Psalms "law." Excuse me for repeating myself but the remark I quoted above is only partially correct. It depends on who is writing to who, when, and under what circumstances. Luke divided Scripture into "the law, the prophets and the Psalms." Jesus and Paul called the Psalms "law "and Paul referred to Isaiah as "law."  Paul said in Romans 3:31 we establish the law by faith and that the OT, [properly understood] requires faith rather than works. He then proves/illustrates his point by referring to Abraham a man who lived previous to Moses and by extension, the "law."

Job, who lived in the same era, refers to law, commandment, statute, or ordinance but one time. He uses torah in the sense of teaching or words. Neither Job nor Abraham were subject to Moses.