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The Ten Commandments
Topic Started: Apr 20 2008, 10:03 PM (376 Views)
lightninboy

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim Poulos
I feel I got a better handle (I hope) on the Law
with a big L and thought I'd pass it on.

The Law of Moses (the Torah) is intended to be a
unit. During the reformation the law was
separated into ceremonial, civil, and ethical.

It is now understood that this is not a valid
separation that is sanctioned in the Word and to
make it such confuses the Christian era of the
Spirit and the Mosaic era of the Law.

I saw on the News the Rev. Jerry Falwell and
another minister debating the stone monument of
the 10 commandments in the Courthouse in
Alabama. I was amazed that neither understood
the ramification of the Law to the Christian era.
Both had their stand pro and con but neither
argued biblically.

Someone here help me with the right term, but the
10 Commandments was never intended to stand
alone but as a written sign of the covenant of the
entire corpus of regulations in the Pentateuch.
Violating anyone of them was a violation of the
entire Law.

James 2:10 For the one who obeys the whole law
but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

Cal Thomas wrote a good commentary of the
Christian's witness. And it is hardly what the
believers are protesting about a stone monument.

Embracing the Law is at the least confusing and
at the most in direct conflict with the spirit Grace
dispensed by God's Spirit.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gerry Neal
Jim,

You are quite right. The 10 commandments cannot be divorced from rest of the Mosaic Covenant at Sinai. The traditional division of the Mosaic Covenant into Moral/Civil/Ceremonial is not found in Scripture.

Early in the history of the church there arose gnostic heretics who questioned the divine origin of the Old Testament. Marcion, for example, believed the teachings of the Old Testament to be incompatible with the teachings of Christ. And so he concluded that the YHWH of the Old Testament was not the loving God who was the Father of Jesus Christ. He taught that YHWH was the Demiurge. In Gnostic theology, as earlier in Plato's teachings, the Demiurge was the creator of the physical world, subordinate to the Supreme God. Contrary to Plato, however, who believed the Demiurge to be good, the Gnostics believed the Demiurge to be antagonistic to the Supreme God. And so the OT YHWH in Marcionite Gnosticism pretty much became the equivalent of Satan in orthodox Christianity. Marcion taught that it was the duty of the followers of Christ to actively disobey the commandments of YHWH in the OT. We can see modern Marcionism every time we hear the statement, usually by those ignorant of Biblical teachings both OT and NT, "the God of the OT was a God of wrath, the God of the NT is a God of love".

It was largely in response to this kind of heresy that the Christian Church began emphasizing the importance of the OT, including the Mosaic Law. The Moral/Civil/Ceremonial distinction was created to explain why sacrifices and dietary laws no longer applied but the 10 commandments still did.

As often happens, in responding to one extreme false doctrine, the church fell into another. The Mosaic Law was given to Moses by YWHW who is the God of the NT as well as the God of the OT. But the Mosaic Covenant is not the Covenant by which God's people are now related to Him. We are responsible to love God and obey Him, not because God commanded the Jews to do so in the Ten Commandments and other commandments of the Mosaic Law. We are responsible to do so because we are commanded by Christ Himself to do so in the New Commandment. "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another" (John 13:34).
No I will not, No I will not
Not go quietly
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