How will you get yourself into heaven? On your own merit or via a scapegoat?

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


The tradition was the Law, and Jesus specifically stated that He came to fulfill the Law. Jesus came specifically to fulfill the role as Lamb of God.

reply to post by BELIEVERpriest


He also said that he desired mercy and NOT sacrifice. But I guess that doesn't matter?

By the way, fulfilling the law is to love your neighbor as yourself. Even Paul says so in Romans 13.

Romans 13
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1


Did Jesus not express love by dying for our sins?

reply to post by BELIEVERpriest


Not in any logical sense, no. Paul also had this to say:

Romans 6
14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

So it seems as though Paul is saying that you have no need to love your neighbor. Why would he say that when Jesus tells us to love one another?

He also had this to say:

Galatians 3
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole."

I guess that means Paul considered loving one another as a curse and that Jesus told us to curse ourselves.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

The answer to your question is Romans ch7 v6, which expands on the verse quoted;
"We serve not under the old written code, but in the new life of the Spirit".
The obligation to love the neighbour now comes not because the written law says so, but because the Spirit says so.

reply to post by DISRAELI


I edited my post to include Paul calling love a curse.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

No, you quoted him calling the written law a curse.
But, as I said, his claim is that we live "in the new life of the Spirit", and he would certainly regard love as one of the demands of the Spirit. The connection is almost the central theme of 1 Corinthians.

Besides, the phrase "the curse of the law" means "the curse that is included in the statements of the Law", as you can see by reading down from v10 in the same chapter.

reply to post by DISRAELI


The written law is the law, you're separating the law into two categories for the sake of your argument. What other law is there but the written law?

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

Paul's distinction is between the "written code" and the guidance of the Spirit, which is not in writing.
He says the first has ben replaced by the second.

This is not "for the sake of my argument".
What i am doing is making clear what Paul himself is saying.

reply to post by DISRAELI


If Paul is replacing the old law with a new one then he is contradicting what Jesus said about not abolishing the law. You're making your argument up as you go.

If love fulfills the law, the same law that Jesus said hung on his two commandments, and Paul calls the written law a curse (which is the same one Jesus fulfilled), then he is calling loving one another a curse. You're making your own doctrine up to ignore the contradiction.

Show me where there are two different laws in the bible, because Jesus said he came to fulfill the one.

Greatest I am

rickymouse
I'm kind of looking at qualifying for a job in the other place. I think if you are a good honest person, you may get a job guarding those in hell. Even Satan has to be able to trust his workers to do what he needs done.

Never put your faith into getting to a place where only a few chosen people will ever make it to.

It is lonely at the top.

Regards
DL

I do not think so but I also think many people on this planet has an overrated sense of where they fit in. Some do not understand that a place that is heaven, became heaven because they are not there since if they where they and had any free will they would turn it into a hell dimension. Better to be on a lower level if you are causing suffering to innocent loving beings at a higher level. The loving ones have to be protected from the fallen ones.

3NL1GHT3N3D1
You're making your argument up as you go.

These are not my personal arguments.
They are the statements of Paul, just as the church has been understanding them for the last two thousand years.
You need to catch up with some reading on the theology of Paul's writings and the history of the interpretaion of Paul's writings.

Paul made a statement in plain language, and I have just been repeating it;
He says that they are no longer serving under the "written code", the written Mosaic law, but under the guidance of the Spirit. Reference already given.

ChuckNasty
You keep saying you are a Gnostic Christian....
Do you mean Agnostic Christian?

Too much twisting and vitriolic anger; too many questions (or exasperation expressed) to be Gnostic; I think you are right ChuckNasty; "Agnostic" fits (as would discribe the frustration of NOT KNOWING what the hell its going on here); expelled in a high temperature fever. All due respect Greatest I Am; you are not Gnostic; or not of the kumbyah hand clap joke variety as I am (snicker).

reply to post by DISRAELI

Matthew 5
18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

Heaven and Earth are still here meaning nothing has disappeared from the law, including Christians, yet Paul says otherwise. If nothing disappears from the law then the law cannot be replaced, but you say it has been replaced.

If the written law is not the same as the law of the spirit, does that mean the OT law does not have the spirit in it? If it doesn't have the spirit in it how can you consider it the word of god?

What you are saying is that Paul contradicted Jesus, it's as clear as day. You're making swiss cheese of yourself.

reply to post by 3NL1GHT3N3D1

I would say that the written law DOES contain the Spirit, but the operative word is "contain".
The written version is also embellished with things which are not of the Spirit.
The clue to that is in something Jesus himself said, when he affirmed that the permission to divorce was not what God really wanted, but was only included as a concession to men's "hardness of heart".
Whereas "You shall love your neighbour as yourself" is a principle which Paul would certainly accept as coming from the Spirit of God.
The task is to live by the "spirit" of the law (the basic principles which God wants out of it) rather than the letter of the law.
My current series on the Pentateuch laws has exactly that end in mind.

Incidentally, you may have missed a point I added to a previous post.
"The curse of the law" in Galatians ch3 v13 actually means "The curse which can be found as one of the statements in the law", as you can see by reading down from v10.

reply to post by Greatest I am


If God does something then it is righteous, regardless of what it is. Humans deem other people innocent, however there are no innocent people in God's eyes because we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). God is not capable of sinning, or else He wouldn't be God. Sin is a human condition. There is only one way into heaven, through Jesus Christ.

reply to post by DISRAELI


So which law did Jesus fulfill?

If the written law was embellished how can you call the OT the word of god? If god's word can be corrupted by embellishment, what makes you think the NT is fully the word of god and not embellished in itself?

If all of the law and the prophets hung on Jesus' two commandments, that means even the written law hung on it. If the law is a curse, that also means that Jesus' two commandments are a curse.

Galatians 3
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”

The scripture he refers to does not say that the law is a curse, it says that those who do NOT follow the law are cursed. Since loving others fulfills the law that means whoever does not love others is cursed, not that those who love others are cursed as well as Paul claims.

If everything in the book of the law is a curse as Paul says, loving others is also a curse which is what the law hangs on.

Paul clearly contradicts Jesus on many things within his epistles.

LittleByLittle
Greatest I am
rickymouse

Greatest I AmIt is lonely at the top.

LittlebylittleI do not think so but I also think many people on this planet has an overrated sense of where they fit in. Some do not understand that a place that is heaven, became heaven because they are not there since if they where they and had any free will they would turn it into a hell dimension. Better to be on a lower level if you are causing suffering to innocent loving beings at a higher level. The loving ones have to be protected from the fallen ones.

Overrated is the idea that there is a heaven and hell; its a perception the Bible gives as to two etheral worlds good/bad. Your soul goes to one or the other depending upon your recent shenanigans on this planet as a human. None of it is true. There are many layers of consequence, depending upon how you improved your soul. Its not a cut and dry black hat or white hat destination. Conciousness as a human comes with the variable of 'freewill' to improve the specie. In the etherial; not so much as is not necessary; it becomes/as it a "what did you do to improve your soul or impede its progression". You are going to have to answer this question (you will not wind up in hell). The truely irreversable, or incorragable are simply extinguished, (yes energy can be destoyed) and not inficted upon other potencially salvagable soul personalities. Hey it all good just have to trust the absolute unbounded manifold; it knows what impeeds and what progresses the system dynamic; its in its OWN best interest to not kill itself.

reply to post by Greatest I am

When you die, Satan will ask you; how was your ticket to heaven purchased? With innocent blood?

In an indirect way, and symbolically, yes.
Jesus set up a path for us to follow and it included having his life taken from him by evil people representing a corrupt form of pretend righteousness through taking on the outward form of religion.

We don't want to follow in those people's footsteps and crucify Jesus again by claiming a fake righteousness that we only pretend to have.
God demands real righteousness and that was the whole idea behind sending Jesus in the first place, to show us what it is.

3NL1GHT3N3D1
If all of the law and the prophets hung on Jesus' two commandments, that means even the written law hung on it. If the law is a curse, that also means that Jesus' two commandments are a curse.

I have pointed out twice- but they were both late additions, so you may have missed them- that Paul does NOT say "the law is a curse".
Go back to v10; There is a statement included in the statements of the law which declares a curse.
The phrase "the curse of the law" means "the curse which belongs to the law as one of the statements found there".

The scripture he refers to does not say that the law is a curse, it says that those who do NOT follow the law are cursed.

Yes exactly. It does not say "the law is a curse"

Since loving others fulfills the law that means whoever does not love others is cursed, not that those who love others are cursed as well as Paul claims.

Paul has never at any stage claimed that those who love others are accursed. That is something you manufactured yourself out of your misunderstanding of the phrase "the curse of the law". Which is why I came in.

If everything in the book of the law is a curse as Paul says, loving others is also a curse which is what the law hangs on.

But since he does not say that, the conclusion does not follow either.