1 of 5 for GT to Debate (The entire book of Galatians)
I have caused much cringing already. Even staunch advocates of Grace have been concerned that I may be an Antinomian.
I indeed approach all scripture with the idea that the entire Law/Moses has indeed been fulfilled by Jesus, and His fulfillment of Moses (The Pentateuch) has now been issued as a payment for ALL mankind so sin/rebellion/imperfection/missing the mark is no longer an issue to God.
Am I now saying that the entire Moral/Ceremonial/Cleansing/Dietary/Judicial/Stone Law is to be thrown in the garbage? Yes! I confess that it has no place in my life! It's only purpose was to show me that my flesh is sinful.
If I couple Moses with Jesus's beautiful Sermon on the mount, I find that Moses and ALL scripture can be read as Moral Compass and Law to flesh and spirit. If I utilize 1 extrapolated scripture to judge myself or others, I have begun to undo what Jesus fulfilled and I am rebuilding the system of sin/death/condemnation.
But N.I.G., what about Morality? Doesn't that mean that you are suggesting that God's law isn't God's Law? Morality is not just for followers of God! There are even Atheist's that have a solid moral compass that surpasses even the best Christian. And about God's law, it was a teaching tool, and governmental foundation of epic proportion that was given to a people that many misunderstand. Egyptian dwelling Hebrews had been subjected to spiritual practices that were terrible, and concepts about God / gods that were exceptionally wicked and destructive.
In case you didn't know, eating pork is prohibited in Moses. Wait, why do we call it Moses, when churches have the Ten Commandments up on their walls and call it God's Law. Hold on, let's get back to the pork thing. The Law calls Pork unclean. But we eat Pork today! See, Pigs were used to sacrifice to foreign gods. And, just in case you didn't know, people ate the meat of sacrificed animals. Priests offered an animal up and then they were to consume it. Also, remember that Jesus drove the demons into the pigs? That was symbolic of demons moving amongst unclean people.
This is where I implore you to listen up! You have been fooled to believe that the devil and his demons are out to make people commit sins of the flesh! This is a lie! We don't need any help doing that. The devil is all about contaminating people at the source. When he deceived humanity to try to be like God, that was our first warning. Who do you think inspired people to ascribe hostile, unloving aspects to God? Who do you think demanded punishment for people's failures? Who do you think deceived people that God is a tyrannical God that demands obedience, or people will burn eternally?
If you want to understand Satan, you can observe Islam. That is indeed the full culmination of the Accusers work. Tyranny, Death, Torture, Ritual, Impersonal God, Judgment, Slavery, Hypocrisy, Removal of free will, Global Domination and False Government, Deception, Women Blamed for sin, Shame, guilt, Pride, God of statistics that doesn't mind losing a bunch of people because they are flawed, lack of value assigned to the disobedient and many other traits that people today falsely ascribe to the God of biblical Canon!
The deepest mark of foreign gods is that they were without mercy and demanded child sacrifice and tyrannical following. Most foreign gods demanded strict religious observance! No, no, no, no, N.I.G., Foreign gods promoted Orgies and all kinds of sins of the flesh. Maybe, but their deepest mark was a requirement of deep religious custom that exalted ritual and obedience over relationship. God had to approach the Hebrews from the perspective of malice and cruelty that they had attributed to Him. He had to approach them as the hardened slaves they had become in Egypt. The example of Islam should help you understand how distorted Egypt had made the Hebrews!
See, to Jesus, even the most rebellious matter. Jesus looks past sin and past obedience! Because He was lashed, beaten, spit on, mocked, humiliated, condemned under the Law and much more, so He could do so.
Next time we point a finger at a believer or non believer, may we be quickened with fear! That person is as God, and our finger is judging God! Jesus seeks out relationship above ALL things. Jesus loved everyone so much that He showed us He would would rather die, then spend eternity without any of us!
Jesus never shunned anyone, accept the self righteous.. Note, He still Loved and forgave the self righteous.
N.I.G., what does this have to do with Galatians? Well, back to the Law. The Law/Moses contained hidden prophecies about Jesus and rituals that pointed to His sacrifice, but you must note, the Atonement blood covered all transgression of the Law.
But N.I.G., God commanded stoning and even directly ensured it happened to a man that gathered sticks on the Sabbath. You are correct. That man wasn't lost that day, but is one of God's greatest revelations. Jesus is our Sabbath rest and utilizing obedience to any point of scriptural law or holding others to it are like gathering sticks/ working on the Sabbath.
Jesus is teaching us to sin? NO!!!!! The Law was God's revelation to us, that we are condemned in our flesh and spirit because we are sinners that sin. The Sword of the Spirit divides to bone and marrow and the depths of our soul that we don't even know about. Whether a person likes it or not, they sin every day, with or without the Holy Spirit and with or without trying.
The stone Law consisted of 613 laws. It's penalty of transgression was Death!
But, Paul talks about the commandments and says they are Love? Paul talks about a fraction of the stone 10, let alone the fact that he left out the other 603.
You cannot break the stone. It is as solid as mount Sanai. Paul is expressing that Love is Superior to Law. Love builds relationships with mankind, but, above all, it is the gesture that we return to Him who Loved us before Creation!
Love does NOT Judge! Love protects and forgives!
Love does not demand obedience or ritual! Love simply demands that we value everyone as a child of God. Love demands that we open our eyes and see the heartbreak, of a loveless world that is growing colder. The chill is in and outside of the Church! The temperature is dropping!
The deepest transgression we can commit is to devalue any human being with the idea that they are unloved by Jesus as they are. The deepest transgression the devil can encourage is the shunning of a brother or sister in HUMANITY! Do I have to plunge onto a killers knife? No! But I have to believe that Jesus Loves them and died for them too. We do not serve an Eye for an Eye task master that demands perfect obedience, but a Father that Loves His every Child (EVERY!)
So yes, the stone idle of Moses is gone! It is even pointed out that it was given by a mediator in Galatians!
The glory of God initiated the Stone law through Moses, and impersonally to humanity. Jesus Royal decree to Love God with our all and Love one another as we Love ourselves was given on Calvary!
We are only... Only... ONly... ONLy... ONLY Clean by His Life in place of ours, His Death in place of ours, and His resurrection as a call to Hope. Love is now our unpayable debt. Love is the work we do with the aid of the Spirit and Faith in Jesus is our obedience. If we find morality springing up in us, as we walk this path, then count it joy and blessing! But, never count it of your effort and never be proud of your fleshly or spiritual righteousness. It's just borrowed bread in the mouth of a beggar! We must shun pride as our Servant King did, for life can level our flesh and spirit in an instant. God is our only Pride! We may boast in Him amongst us, but we must never cast stones and we must forever kneel on the blade of repentance in our hearts. It is He alone that is worthy to be PRAISED!
Galatians 2 (HCSB)
11*But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.
Paul had to rise up and chastise Peter in Antioch!
12*For he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. However, when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision party.
Peter was eating with the Gentile sinners and loving them as Jesus commanded him to do. But then, men of obedience and law keeping came to Antioch with James. These exalters of the Law created division between the gentile sinners and the self righteous. Peter was afraid of these self righteous people. He feared for his life, and temporarily gave up his freedom in Jesus for fear of his transgression of the Moses.
13*Then the rest of the Jews joined his hypocrisy, so that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.
Soon, all of the Jews that had turned from Moses to Jesus, turned back to Moses and shunned the gentile sinners. Even Barnabas, a close friend and companion of Paul, lost his Way.
14*But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everyone, “If you, who are a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews?”
Paul saw the evil of Satan amongst his friends in Jesus and proceeded to publicly rebuke Peter. He pointed out that Peter lived like the Gentiles in his Heart and Flesh, but he was now binding the Gentiles to be Self Righteous by Moses!
15*We who are Jews by birth and not “Gentile sinners”
16*know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.
And we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no human being will be justified.
Now it begins! I implore you to pay attention. I predict that my insane proclamations, that Moses/The entire Law has no place in salvation or revelation of the new wine, will be echoed throughout Galatians.
Jesus is the True, Perfect vessel of the True Water turned to New Wine of Love that bears no judgment. We are just fractured dipping jars that are only liquid tight by the covering mercy and grace of Jesus. Moses is a Man Created Jar that was guided by the true Craftsman's hands. His Wine is old and fermented to the point of bitterness and alcohol content that is destructively stout. We cannot dip into the Jar of Moses without the Loving Nature of Christ being removed from our cracked dipping vessel.
We are only renewed by dipping into the Loving vessel of Jesus!
Jesus said this another way:
Matthew 9
17*And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. But they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.”
If you put the new wine of Jesus in the old skin of Moses, the thin skin of the already stretched wineskin will bust as the new wine ferments (Holy Spirit teaching the fruit or grapes of the spirit) and expands the wineskin.
Believe me, I tell you, we are all gentile sinners though Jesus makes us as sinless Gentiles with His Love and Sacrifice. We once followed the Law, but only Jesus Saves us. We are only saved by the Grace of Jesus and never by 1 letter of obedience to the Law.
17*But if we ourselves are also found to be “sinners” while seeking to be justified by Christ, is Christ then a promoter of sin? Absolutely not!
So, what if we are sinners by the Law while seeking the Grace of Jesus? Does this mean this teaching of turning from the condemnation of the Law and towards the Mercy of Jesus makes Jesus a promoter of Sin? NO!
18*If I rebuild the system I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker.
If I lay one stone from the old covenant towards myself or another, I am now subject to Moses and a full transgressor of the Stone Law that brings DEATH!
19*For through the law I have died to the law, so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ
Because of the Love, forgiveness and Grace that are found in Jesus and taught to me by His Spirit of the Royal Law, I have died to the Condemnation of the Stone Law of Moses that brings Death! I am counted as dead with Jesus in His Tomb, but it is His resurrection and Perfection that are in the place of that crucified man of death that I am now in this fading kingdom of dust!
20*and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
I am DEAD in Jesus's tomb, yet Jesus lives in this dead flesh. I am only alive by my FAITH in Jesus! I only have this gift because Jesus Loved me and died for me.
21*I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.
I refuse to set aside Jesus's Grace, because Jesus's grace IS my Cloak of Righteous Perfection, over this Dead and Dying body of sinful flesh. If this were a lie and I personally could live a life of righteousness according to ANY part of the Law, then Jesus died for NOTHING!
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