aj OwO
Garland-Green
aj OwO
what about shellfish, clothing with mixed fabrics, or working on the sabbith, are these things ok?
Even if no one manages to follow the Law, it doesn't mean that the Law is not good. If anything it reflects mans inadequacy and need for a Savior. Can you be perfect like God is perfect? I admit that I can't, and that I need a Savior. I admit I fall short to the glory of God.
Romans 3:21-26
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Unlike shellfish, mix fabrics etc. Sexual sin comes from within. It is a problem of the heart.
Matthew 15:18-20
"But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. "These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."
Here's what the Messiah had to say about the Sabbath:
Matthew 12:1-14
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
If you want to be justified by the Law, you are going to find that you will come very short. The demand to keep it fully down to the letter is on you to show you your need for Jesus. If you break but one letter of the Law, you have broken the whole of the Law and if that is the covenant you are under then you are going to receive the condemnation and punishment breaking the Law requires. There's no one who manages to live up to God standards. There is no one who has not sinned. It is good for you, and good for me is it that there's someone who did live a holy and just life who died for you and me, because death is the punishment for sins. Death is the punishment we deserve for not managing to keep the Law and fulfill our part of the old covenant. it doesn't mean that the Old covenant failed, or that it was weak or imperfect but that we are. Should we turn from our sins he is quick to forgive, and we will be a part of a new covenant one that is different from the old covenant in this;
‘I will put my law in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people’" (Jeremiah 31:31, 33). Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law of Moses (Matthew 5:17) and create a new covenant between God and His people. The old covenant was written in stone, but the new covenant is written on our hearts, made possible only by faith in Christ, who shed His own blood to atone for the sins of the world. Luke 22:20 (ESV) says, "And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’
We have be brought into a family relationship with God where we had no relationship before.
Galatians 4: 1-7
What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
The Law still hangs over you to point you to Christ. It doesn't hang over me. It has done its work and pointed me to Christ. I have repented and I am in a new covenant through Jesus' blood, one that is not dependent on my ability to keep the Law.
Romans 6:13-14
and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
God gives those in the New Covenant a new Spirit that testifies to us what is good, and leads us on the road that leads to life eternal life.
Acts 5:32
We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."
Romans 8:3-5
For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit
Romans 3:31
Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
The Law shows you what is required of you. So you need to clothe yourself in Jesus through faith.
Romans 13:13-14
Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.
If this was too long to read:
The Law is there to point you to Christ. To bring you into a New Covenant where what is right and wrong is written on your heart. That we do not follow a part of the Law doesn't negate the Law, the Law still stands as it is and will never be diminished by our inability or unwillingness to follow it. Our inability points to God greatness our weakness. The weakness is not the Law, but us.
Romans 3:21-26
But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Unlike shellfish, mix fabrics etc. Sexual sin comes from within. It is a problem of the heart.
Matthew 15:18-20
"But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. "These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man."
Here's what the Messiah had to say about the Sabbath:
Matthew 12:1-14
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.”
3 He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. 5 Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? 6 I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. 7 If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
9 Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, 10 and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
11 He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus.
If you want to be justified by the Law, you are going to find that you will come very short. The demand to keep it fully down to the letter is on you to show you your need for Jesus. If you break but one letter of the Law, you have broken the whole of the Law and if that is the covenant you are under then you are going to receive the condemnation and punishment breaking the Law requires. There's no one who manages to live up to God standards. There is no one who has not sinned. It is good for you, and good for me is it that there's someone who did live a holy and just life who died for you and me, because death is the punishment for sins. Death is the punishment we deserve for not managing to keep the Law and fulfill our part of the old covenant. it doesn't mean that the Old covenant failed, or that it was weak or imperfect but that we are. Should we turn from our sins he is quick to forgive, and we will be a part of a new covenant one that is different from the old covenant in this;
‘I will put my law in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people’" (Jeremiah 31:31, 33). Jesus Christ came to fulfill the law of Moses (Matthew 5:17) and create a new covenant between God and His people. The old covenant was written in stone, but the new covenant is written on our hearts, made possible only by faith in Christ, who shed His own blood to atone for the sins of the world. Luke 22:20 (ESV) says, "And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.’
We have be brought into a family relationship with God where we had no relationship before.
Galatians 4: 1-7
What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world. But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
The Law still hangs over you to point you to Christ. It doesn't hang over me. It has done its work and pointed me to Christ. I have repented and I am in a new covenant through Jesus' blood, one that is not dependent on my ability to keep the Law.
Romans 6:13-14
and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
God gives those in the New Covenant a new Spirit that testifies to us what is good, and leads us on the road that leads to life eternal life.
Acts 5:32
We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."
Romans 8:3-5
For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit
Romans 3:31
Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.
The Law shows you what is required of you. So you need to clothe yourself in Jesus through faith.
Romans 13:13-14
Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.
If this was too long to read:
The Law is there to point you to Christ. To bring you into a New Covenant where what is right and wrong is written on your heart. That we do not follow a part of the Law doesn't negate the Law, the Law still stands as it is and will never be diminished by our inability or unwillingness to follow it. Our inability points to God greatness our weakness. The weakness is not the Law, but us.
with all that said, then why bother with the intolerance and hatred of the LGBT community? or using the bible to justify hatred and intolerance of said community?
@aj OwO: For the record, there are Christians—myself included—who obey the Sabbath, the distinctions between clean and unclean, and the other laws found throughout the first five books of the bible (since it's God commanding it, not man-made tradition, nor the rules of this world, but of God).
Emphasis on God's commands.
I do not keep the added restrictions of the Pharisees which they had made up by Jesus' day. Where, in the written Torah, is it prohibited to rub two ears of wheat/corn together? Nowhere. YHWH commanded us to refrain from cooking on the weekly sabbath day; thus, why he commanded that we cook double on the sixth day, the day prior to the sabbath (way easier to do in modern times; we have refrigerators, they didn't). Thus, on the next day, the seventh day, the sabbath, they would not cook, everyone can abstain from work, and can rest—like YHWH commanded us to. The Pharisees added conditions—which they themselves did not observe by the way—that resulted in making the Sabbath observance heavier than it needs to be.
We do not observe God's light yoke of commands to obtain salvation, but to follow Christ's instruction to obey what is read from Moses' seat.
- Matthew 23:1-4 (NIV)
23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
What gets read from Moses seat:
- Exodus 18:13-16 (NIV)
13 The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. 14 When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?”
15 Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. 16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.”
The Pharisees, on the other hand, added on to God's Law (which is also a sin to do):
- Deuteronomy 4:2 (NIV)
2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.
And that sin/transgression of the Law, continues to this day, by Jew and Gentile alike: some Jews won't even turn on a light switch on the Sabbath, even though the laws in the Torah only speak about lighting a fire FOR COOKING on the sabbath. Again, this is why we're told to cook double on the day before, the sixth day [day before the Sabbath] (Exodus 16:22-26; Exodus 35:3).
- Exodus 16:22-26 (NIV)
22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much—two omers[a] for each person—and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: ‘Tomorrow is to be a day of sabbath rest, a holy sabbath to the Lord. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.’”
24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 “Eat it today,” Moses said, “because today is a sabbath to the Lord. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.”
Exodus 35:3 (NIV)
3 Do not light a fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day.”
Thus the reason that the guy got stoned for picking up sticks on the Sabbath; he was going to light a fire with them. It's not a simple flick of a switch. And clearly, he intended to cook.
On the other hand, Christians today try to do away with the whole Sabbath command itself, if not try to interpret it in such a way where it's no longer what's literally commanded: either (A) no longer 24 hours long or (B) no longer on the seventh day, but any day they like [due to a loose, and erroneous, interpretation of Romans 14:5; and Colossians 2—two of Paul's epistles, writings which the apostle Peter warned were hard to understand due to Paul's difficult writing style and that people were twisting Paul's words, like they do the rest of the scriptures, in order to live lawless lives i.e 2 Peter 3:15-17).
- 2 Peter 3:15-17 (NIV)
15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
17 Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.
I am not lawless. Christians like myself keep the law because we're saved (not to earn salvation; we're already saved). We keep God's Law because we walk in the Spirit—instead of the flesh, which wants to sin (transgress God's Law) and is hostile towards God's Law, never able to submit to God's Law.
- Romans 8:7-9 (NIV)
7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to
God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot
please God.
9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the
Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the
Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.
Ezekiel 36:25-27 (NIV)
25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you
from all your impurities and from all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give
you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow
my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
That is distinctly different from wanting to keep the law to earn salvation/justification (what the Pharisee party, which Paul spoke against in Acts 15, tried to argue: insisting that Gentiles must keep it for salvation/justification's sake. Big difference. The Pharisees did not accept Jesus as Messiah nor accept him as their justification).
It has always been salvation by faith, followed by obedience to God's Law. Just like Abraham.
- Genesis 15:6 (NIV)
6 Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
- Genesis 26:5 (NIV)
5 because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.”
And even though the Laws point to Christ, there's no reason to suggest the literal keeping is done away with. The Holy Spirit we received under the new covenant gives us the desire to obey YHWH's commands/decrees/law/instructions, making no differentiation between keeping passover or loving your neighbor. They're both in Leviticus. It's God's Law. And we live by every word that comes out of the Mouth of God—whether native-born or foreigner living amongst them / grafted into Israel.
- Matthew 4:4 (NIV)
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on
every word that comes from the mouth of God.’[a]”
Footnotes:
a. Matthew 4:4 Deut. 8:3
Exodus 12:49 (NIV)
49 The same law applies both to the native-born and to the foreigner residing among you.”
Leviticus 24:22 (NIV)
22 You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.’”
Numbers 15:16 (NIV)
16 The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you.’”
Numbers 15:29 (NIV)
29 One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether a native-born Israelite or a foreigner residing among you.
Every word. Not some words. Same law for both native-born and foreigner living amongst them.
I don't believe in "we don't keep parts" of God's Law under the new covenant "because we don't need to". I highly disagree with Garland's handling of Paul's epistles. If we're not keeping something, it's only because there's no temple. A great chunk of God's commands rely on a temple / altar in Jerusalem; so, those commands can't literally be kept, in full, without the temple and a trained Levitical priesthood. This is the reason why the apostle Paul continued to schedule sacrifices after Jesus "once and for all" offered himself as the atonement sacrifice for our sins (i.e. Acts 21:19-26). Paul could do this because the temple was still up. Paul was not denying Jesus as Messiah for continuing to live in obedience to the law. Nor was he obligating himself to keep the whole law for salvation/justification, for attempting to live in obedience to it.
- Acts 21:19-26 (NIV)
19 Paul greeted them and reported in detail what God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
20 When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law. 21 They have been informed that you teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn away from Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or live according to our customs. 22 What shall we do? They will certainly hear that you have come, 23 so do what we tell you. There are four men with us who have made a vow. 24 Take these men, join in their purification rites and pay their expenses, so that they can have their heads shaved. Then everyone will know there is no truth in these reports about you, but that you yourself are living in obedience to the law. 25 As for the Gentile believers, we have written to them our decision that they should abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.”
26 The next day Paul took the men and purified himself along with them. Then he went to the temple to give notice of the date when the days of purification would end and the offering would be made for each of them.
Jesus promised to eat the passover meal again when he returned i.e. Luke 22:14-16 (a temple will be up by then, though it is not edified now, in Jerusalem). Passover requires animal sacrifices; thus, the reason Jews are observing a passover "seder" nowadays and not the commands as instructed by God in the written Torah—there's no temple, ergo no way to obediently observe this.
The notion that the new covenant discriminates between "which" of God's Laws should be kept (or not) is not biblical.
The apostle Paul comments on two types of observances (one prohibited and one not, and this latter one is to be left to one's own discretion/conscience):
(1) what has never been commanded/prohibited by God (like extra fasting days, and festivities like Purim and Hanukkah, that you don't find commanded in Leviticus 23, but that you also won't find any prohibitions against), thus being convinced in our own minds about whether to observe that or not i.e. Romans 14:5; they neither violate God's commands, nor were given as God's commands—neither prohibited, nor commanded) They are acceptable man-made traditions that do not nullify a command written in God's Laws.
...and...
(2) days and traditional observances which nullify something God actually did command (or prohibited); we cannot be convinced about these in our own minds; the very observance of such days and traditions is sinful (transgresses the law or tries to do away with part of the law)—which is what Jesus rebuked the Pharisees of doing in Matthew 15:1-20 and Paul warned about in Colossians 2, with their "worship of angels", "self-imposed worship", and "harsh treatment of the body" (Colossians 2:16-23) which are not things commanded by God, but that human beings impose on themselves. Not a reference to anything YHWH commanded: which is neither harsh, nor self-imposed. The Law of Moses—the Law of YHWH—is the light yoke that offers rest for our souls.
- Jeremiah 6:16 (NIV)
16 This is what the Lord says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
Matthew 11:29 (NIV)
29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me,
for I am gentle and humble in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls.
So, to suggest that any part of God's laws is "done away with" is a misapplication of Paul (which happens quite often) due in large part to a misinterpretation of what Romans 6:14 is referring to—and I see Garland has fallen prey to this, once again. Why do people easily fall into this? Because of a failure to identify which "law" Paul speaks against in the following verse:
- Romans 6:14 (NIV)
14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.
Of the following laws, which fits the description above?
- Romans 7:25 (NIV)
25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature[a] a slave to the law of sin.
Footnotes:
a. Romans 7:25 Or in the flesh
Which law do you think we're no longer suppose to be slaves too? The Law of Sin in our flesh. Roman 6:14 even starts out by saying, "For sin shall no longer be your master". And as a saved person in Jesus Christ, Paul is a slave to God's law in his mind. That's a good thing. Thus Paul, in the whole of Romans 6, goes on to describe how we've been freed from sin, and made slaves to God and slaves to righteousness.
Whenever you see someone making a distinction between "grace and God's Law", it's a dead giveaway that they're misinterpreting Paul—and only Paul. Because none of the other apostle's writings are mistaken to be describing a difference between God's Law and God's grace: they even identify the law of Moses as an act of God's grace:
- John 1:16-17 (NIV)
16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
"Truth" = the reality of what was once prophesied in shadow in the Law of Moses. The Law—which YHWH gave to us through Moses—was considered an act of grace (favor, nothing we deserved): it was guidance to mankind for how to stay prosperous and stay in God's blessings. They were/are commands which watch out for our well-being, and the well-being of the land (even the land gets a Sabbath). As long as we live on this earth, that is the function they serve.
Sin (defined as "transgression of the law" by 1 John 3:4) is not suppose to be our master anymore. We're suppose to be freed of that nature that is hostile to God's Law. People who do not have the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of them, are the ones reliant on the letter of the law, before they can see the spiritual application. It is a schoolmaster in that sense, because upon believing in Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit, we share his mind and can see how it fully applies. And it's not that we no longer keep the literal, we do. But we keep it in the truest sense of the command (don't commit adultery physically in the flesh, but also, don't even look at another person lustfully, or else you're cheating on your spouse and committing adultery there too, by a mere look).
God's Law has always been spiritual. But the nature and mindset we're born with is blinded to its intention.
- Romans 7:14 (NIV)
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
2 Corinthians 3:14 (NIV)
14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away.
Luke 24:44-45 (NIV)
44 He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
Thus our need to be born-again, under the new covenant, receiving the Holy Spirit which writes God's law on our heart and has us walking his commands in the fullest, sincere application of what he intended.
To summarize up to this point: yes, we are suppose to keep God's Law if we're obeying Jesus' command to obey what is read from Moses' seat. The Holy Spirit, who is in us, for believing in Jesus Christ, longs to obey God's Law, seeing as He is the Spirit of God / the Spirit of Christ. God's Laws written on our hearts and in our minds, is NOT an entirely different set of laws from what he gave to Moses. Same God, same Laws. The difference is the sincere, full adherence to God's Law, even in its spiritual application, without trying to circumvent the literal nor spiritual, like the Pharisees would do.
The Pharisees didn't keep God's Laws. They kept their own version of it (that sounded religious, and Godly, but denied the very God's commands who they claimed to worship).
█ = Jesus rebukes
█ = Jesus speaks well of
- Matthew 15:1-9 (NIV)
15 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”
3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’[a] and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ 6 they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 “‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’[c]”
Footnotes:
a. Matthew 15:4 Exodus 20:12; Deut. 5:16
b. Matthew 15:4 Exodus 21:17; Lev. 20:9
c. Matthew 15:9 Isaiah 29:13
Garland here failed to define three things for you:
- 1. Pharisaical / Rabbinical tradition and traditional interpretations (thus merely human rules),
2. God's Law
3. the Law of Sin (the "law" / regulations of our flesh which Paul speaks against in his epistles, that we no longer should be under—the sinful nature we're born with. This is not a reference to God's Laws).
That is what's throwing off his interpretation of Paul's epistles.
I'm quite surprised that Garland reiterated this stance to you. By this point, I've already spoken against this numerous times, and shown scriptures at length to prove this popular interpretation wrong, exposing it for the error that it is—on numerous occasions already in this guild.
TL;DR - we are suppose to keep those commands, even if it's not for justification. We obey the Law of Moses out of obedience to Jesus Christ's command to obey what is read from Moses' seat. The New Covenant did away with the hostility we had towards God's Law and each other; it does away with our fleshly nature / sinful nature of the flesh—thanks to the promise of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was not promised to everyone under the Old Covenant. The Holy Spirit wants to walk in and submit to YHWH's laws. The flesh does not.