Tuesday 28 October 2014

God's Law

In mentioning God's moral law, I think it's important to distinguish it from Moses' Law.

Some people hold that although we're no longer under Moses' ceremonial laws, we're still under Moses' moral laws. The problem with that though is it requires us to be absolutely certain about what points of the Law were only ceremonial and what parts were actually moral.

And people can't seem to agree on that. Some consider the Feasts and associated sabbaths were only ceremonial - others consider them to be an everlasting moral duty.

So, dividing Moses' Law up into two parts - parts that don't apply and parts that still apply - can be problematic.

On one extreme it can result in believers feeling obligated to observe facets of Judaism, and on the other hand it can result in believers being worldly in ways that aren't appropriate.

Paul's approach seemed to be to say we're not under Moses' Law at all, without distinguishing between ceremonial and moral - because he treated the Law as a whole - as a package deal. To be guilty of part of the Law made a person guilty of the whole Law, he said. A person either kept all of it or he didn't keep it at all.

So God brought something entirely new - the grace of God - a New Covenant.

Moses' Law was a package deal which attempted to model God's unchanging laws, given temporarily to the Jews. The Gentiles also had God's unchanging laws written on their heart. But the Gospel actually empowers us to follow it - made us sharers in God's own nature - love and righteousness.

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