MSN Home  |  My MSN  |  Hotmail
Sign in to Windows Live ID Web Search:   
go to MSNGroups 
Free Forum Hosting
 
Important Announcement Important Announcement
The MSN Groups service will close in February 2009. You can move your group to Multiply, MSN’s partner for online groups. Learn More
MrWonder's Bible Chat[email protected] 
  
What's New
  
    
  Home page  
  SEARCH SITE  
  Why Join?  
  Message Board  
  General  
  NLS Devotionals  
  Jesus Christ Claims To Be God  
  Pictures  
  Paradise/Hell 1  
  Paradise/Hell 2  
  Paradise/Hell 3  
  Spiritual Headship  
  Dynamic Atonement  
  Original Sin  
  Sabbath Answers  
  Sabbath Revisited  
  Chess Page  
  Chess Games  
  Chat  
  
  
  Tools  
 

Was the Law given only to the Jews, or does it also apply to the Gentiles? Are believers in Christ obligated to follow the Law? The answers to these questions are not as difficult as they are often made out to be. The Law, as written by Moses according to God's instruction, was specifically prepared for and delivered to the Jews. But what was it composed of? It is inaccurate to break the Law into the popular categories of "moral" and "ceremonial", because all of the Law was moral to the Jews. The so-called "ceremonial" laws were just as morally significant to the Jews as the prohibition of eating the fruit was to Adam. [Even the first sin of mankind was a transgression of a dietary law]. For this reason, I prefer to use the terms, "General Law" and "Special Law". The general laws are written on the hearts of all men, Jews and Gentiles alike, and were confirmed in writing in the Law of Moses. These are the laws dealing with such offenses as murder and adultery, which all men naturally know to be morally wrong. We have this innate knowledge and sensitivity because we are made in the image of God, as spiritual beings, with what we call a "conscience". This is what it means to have the Law written on our hearts. It is a knowledge we are conceived with, though we may lose some of it through the searing of the conscience. (See Rom.2:14-16). The special laws were God's additional laws made specifically for His chosen people, the Jews. These additional laws were not written on the hearts of men, but were written only in the Law of Moses.These are the laws regarding such things as the Sabbath, the Year of Jubilee, the tithe, the Temple, the diet, etc. We have no innate knowledge of any of that, including the Sabbath.
 
Therefore, I submit that the law of the Sabbath was a special law for Israel only, even though it is found in the Ten Commandments. The tablets were, after all, prepared for and delivered to Israel--and no copies were made to be distributed to the Gentile nations. Those foreigners who lived in Israel were required to "do as the Romans do while in Rome," so to speak, but they were not obligated to keep any of the special laws upon leaving Israel. There is incontrovertible proof in Scripture that the command to keep the Sabbath was not given to those who lived between Adam and Moses. Rom.5:14 says, "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come." If such a command had been given, then--most assuredly--people would have broken it. As verse 13 makes clear, there was no law until the law (of Moses)--not even the law of the Sabbath.
 
The Law was like a roadmap of the way of righteousness. It was a guide to living righteously before God. For believers, the Holy Spirit within us is a far better guide. We need no roadmap, because Christ has walked this road before, and He knows the way! I might look at a map to follow directions to your house, but if you are in the car with me (and better still, driving), then why would I need the map? You may even take a route that I think is not in accordance with the map, because the knowledge of the one who knows the way is complete, but the knowledge of the one who only reads the map is incomplete. This was demonstrated by Jesus' continual violation of the Pharisees' interpretation of Sabbath law. The Author of the Law always knows more about it than the readers. Christ told them something that was not on the roadmap: "Man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man." Our knowledge of the Law is imperfect and incomplete, because the Law did not cover every possible situation in life. People would have to go to the priests with questions of law and disputes. Christ is within believers, and has perfect knowledge. His Holy Spirit is our constant guide in every detail of life--not life according to the letter, but life according to the Spirit.
 
Believers' "transgressions" of the written Law are not imputed to them. The "letter" no longer kills us because Christ died for us, and we died with Him. Dead men are not under the Law. "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin." Sin to the believer is to go against the Spirit in anything or any way. Far beyond Law, the Spirit may want me to speak to someone and if I do not do it, it is sin [not condemning sin, imputed to my account, but displeasing sin that hinders fellowship with God]. The Law was written to give people a guide for how to follow God's way for their everyday living in the absence of both the internal prompting of God (the Holy Spirit) and the external voice of God (like the burning bush). We believers live not in the absence, but in the presence of the internal prompting of God. We have the ultimate guide! God's personal and perfect direction is what the Law was aiming at, but failed to accomplish in us!

When Jesus said that the greatest commandment in the Law was, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind," and the next one was like it, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," He said also that all of the Law hangs on these two. In other words, if you obey these two, you will have obeyed the entirety of the Law. As Christians, we are no longer held to the letter of the Law, but we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to love God with all our hearts, souls, and minds, and to love our neighbor as ourself. Now, we are not perfect yet, and will not be as long as we are in these bodies of death, but God's grace is sufficient for us.

Ken Hamrick