(mega-snippage)

> A change of atonement? Yes. A *return* to the intent of the Law? Yes. An abolishing or destroying of the Law? NO. Jesus himself says otherwise.

Change of atonement? Mind explaining this, please? I was under the impression Hebrews told us the burnt offerings were no atonement at all; they were merely a sign to foreshadow Jesus' atonement.

And I already talked about the meaning of "fulfill". I don't, in fact, see how you *can* interpret "fulfill" to mean "affirm" or "redefine". "I think capital punishment is wrong." "Well, I fulfill that, Sam." "Here's the new plan." "Mind if I fulfill it a little bit?" (?)

"Fulfill" has a pretty strong connotation of "end", at least to me. Maybe the original Greek has some nuance the translators missed?

So, what, exactly was the intent of the Law? I'm guessing you disagree with me and my interpretation of Paul that the Law was a stumbling block intended to highlight the sins of humanity and drive them to grace. (That's, after all, why its power is broken now, because grace is now here.) Can you tell me why you feel the Law was given, if (as you say later) it lacks the power to save?

>
> > God endorsed capital punishment in the OT for murder, true. He also endorsed capital punishment for adultery, for disrespecting one's parents and for worshiping other gods.
> >
> > But Jesus stopped the Pharisees from stoning the adulterous woman,
>
> Who was being unlawfully punished without the man involved.

So did Jesus ask them to bring the man out? No.

Yes, it does reflect badly on his persecutors that they weren't following the Law, either. But Jesus didn't do the "right" thing and ask them to go find the man. He let the woman go. "Neither do I condemn you. Go now, and leave your life of sin."

The point he made with the "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" was that *only* God really has the right to judge right and wrong, and Jesus *chose* not to condemn the woman. He chose to forgive her. (We later learn that God has chosen to forgive all who receive his atonement, in Paul's letters.)

>
> > and he never turned in any of the many people who came to him after living lives of sin. He went to pagan cities (the Decapolis) and taught the Baal-worshipers when the Pharisees, strictly following the law, wouldn't have touched them;
>
> Strictly following their traditions.
>

...which stated that since the Gentiles had not received the Law, they were good as dead anyway. The very few Gentiles with a chance at salvation were those who undertook the conversion to Judaism, a long and difficult process that few undertook.

Peter specifically went against this idea in the conversion of Cornelius, and Paul further explains this in his letters.

> > he let himself be taken by the pagan Romans and chastised Peter for trying to fight them in the style of the Macabees or of David.
>
> Incidentally, Peter was only trying to disqualify the servant for, well, service, not kill him.
>

Even so, Jesus stopped him. "He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword."

Probably not a reference to the "sword" of the executioner but the sword of the zealot, true, but a meaningful comment nonetheless.

The Church doesn't accomplish things with violence. Never has, never will. When it tries, we get perversions like the Crusades or the Inquisition. Or like the terrorist acts going on in the Middle East right now, many of them perpetrated by Christian partisans.

> > Jesus *did* have a different style; he spoke out against those who put the written Law (which came right out of the Biblical text) above the spiritual law of love.
>
> The Law is love; you say so yourself later, and one specific encounter with Jesus teaches the same thing.
>

*cough* I didn't say that, and neither did Jesus.

The Law comes from love; love encompasses the Law; the essence of the Law is love.

However, it is perfectly possible, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians and elsewhere, to follow the written Law exactly and be utterly lacking in love. The Pharisees were a prime example. One can also transgress the written Law and be serving the Law of Love; Jesus' healings on the Sabbath, his allowing the disciples to pick and eat on the Sabbath, his forgiving people the Law said were condemned, Peter's allowing Cornelius into the Church without going through circumcision or a ritual conversion to Judaism, the list goes on. And going backwards, too; Cain, Moses, Samson, David, etc. Those are just some obvious ones.

You have to ask yourself; are there two Gods, one of Law and one of forgiveness, fighting?

Or is there one God, who has one nature, of which Law and forgiveness are both facets?

Love is the Law. But the Law is not love.

> > The OT *specifically* said not to take consecrated bread for any use but the priests', yet David did it and he was not condemned.
>
> Aren't we talking about NT times? This is no argument for Jesus endorsing law-breaking; it merely shows us a merciful God.
>

It does when connected to the incident below.

> > Jesus' disciples broke the Law by picking and eating grain on the Sabbath without washing their hands; he defended them against the Pharisees.
>
> Two separate incidents:
>
> 1) Jesus's discples pick grain on the Sabbath and eat it; the Pharisees misinterpret this as harvesting, a type of work. This is not an argument for Sabbath-breaking by Jesus, but a record of misinterpretations by the Pharisees.
>

It *is* a form of harvesting, according to the Pharisees' super-strict interpretations (and you remember the reason for such interps, right? Otherwise you might as well have no Law, if the written Law is sacred and holy and all that and it's essential at all times to tell when one is breaking the law and when one isn't).

Jesus does not argue with the Pharisees about the definition of "harvesting", though. He doesn't give us some standard of scale to determine what constitutes work and what doesn't.

Instead, he brings up the incident of David and the consecrated bread, a very *definite* instance of lawbreaking, and compares it to his present situation, saying that the Law can be bent or broken to serve the needs of humans. Not because there is no Law, but because the Law of Love supersedes the written Law. ("Was the Sabbath made for man? Or was man made for the Sabbath?")

> 2) Jesus's disciples eat without washing their hands. This is against the tradition of the fathers, not against God's Law. The Pharisee even says that this is a tradition. A good one, but nothing to worry your soul over if you mess up.
>

BTW, *nothing* in the Law says anything about the soul or the afterlife (correct me if I'm wrong). The written Law's punishments are temporal; that's why the Hebrews had no concept of an afterlife beyond a hazy idea of Sheol, with some exceptions in visions from the prophets; the full Christian eschatology (Heaven and Hell) didn't come about until Jesus' time and after. Another sign that the Law of Moses is a lesser truth (not less true, a lesser truth) than the Gospel of Jesus...

Anyway, what's weird here is that for this tradition Jesus brings in a law. Of sorts. He doesn't dismiss them and say, "Tradition is less important than Law, you fools", he refutes the traditional commandment by citing a *higher* commandment; it is more important to have a clean heart before speaking than clean hands before eating. But, of course, no one can clean his heart, can he? Jesus has once again taken a followable law (like don't murder anyone) and replaced it with an impossible law (like don't ever hate anyone).

This is part of that whole stumbling-block thing I was talking about.

> > Jesus spoke out *against* the "eye for an eye" principle (that comes directly out of Exodus) and replaced it with the "turn the other cheek" principle.
>
> Which was the *maximum* Lawfully exactable punishment, not the required punishment, and the judge was to carry it out.
>

So? No offense, but I fail to see the point.

I'm not saying the Law was bad because it encouraged bloody vigilante justice. I'm not even saying the Law was bad at all. That's not the point.

*I'm* saying that the Law called for payback on criminals; even if the aggrieved party doesn't execute the judgment, the judgment was still executed based on the principle that everything you do gets done to you, that the one who lost gets what he lost back. (In the case of theft, he'd get his money or property back plus interest; in the case of murder, he'd get the satisfaction of knowing you'd died.)

Jesus said that rather than pursuing this principle, we pursue the principle of giving to those who take from us and doing good to those who do evil to us. Turn the other cheek; go the extra mile; hand over your tunic as well as your cloak. He says it in pretty clear, strong language, too.

> > So, yeah, he *did* change things.
>
> Not as much as people are content to think.
>

Content? If you're talking about liberal "everything's okay in God's eyes" so-called "Christianity", then amen. I'm all with you.

But if you mean that you *don't* believe that the Law's power was broken on the Cross, that the Mosaic Law and its commandments still hold and that the atoning power of Jesus means any less than a complete change in POV for us here on Earth, then I'm going to have to place myself in opposition to you. That's the center of my faith, right there, the very center. And it's not an easy way out for me, if that's what you're thinking. It means utter humiliation, utter surrender, utter helplessness as to one's destiny.

I'd just like to ask you how much you think things *did* change, then.

For instance, how do you deal with (leaving abstractions aside) the history of the Christian Church? There's evidence that there *were* two sects, one supporting the keeping of circumcision and the Law and the other supporting the repeal of the Law for Gentile Christians, with some exceptions for health reasons and to promote good relations with the Jews. (As I recall, they kept four commandments out of the whole Mosaic Law, three on food regulations and one on adultery. Could be wrong; someone check for me?) The Bible reveals that the second sect won over and convinced the Church councils that Scriptural authority and the leading of the Spirit was on their side; Paul speaks of how he defeated even Peter in an argument about circumcision. Though they kept the Ten Commandments as guidelines for life, the bulk of the Mosaic Law they simply dropped; they even moved the Sabbath to Sunday to emphasize this fact. (This was actually the cause of a major split between Western and Eastern Christians, I believe.) And in all of church history, though no one can deny the Roman Catholics created a legal system much more hideously complex than the Jews', the original Mosaic Law was never taken to be literally binding on Christians except by some heretical sects. (Most notably the Seventh-Day Adventists in this century, as well as, with changes, the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, etc.)

You didn't answer my earlier questions. Do you mulch your lawn with lawn clippings? Do you wear cotton/nylon weaves? Do you eat rare steak? Do you do any yardwork or paperwork on Saturdays? (Or Sundays, if you accept that change?) Etc., etc., etc....

Mosaic Law is hard to keep, you know. Look at Hasidic Jews. Most people don't, *especially* Christians. Does that make most of us condemned?

I'm leaving out the fact that Mosaic Law isn't the be-all, end-all Law; that's the Law Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount, which AFAIK *no one* can successfully keep.

(Okay, I apologize if I offend; I don't know you. For all I know, you may *be* a Seventh-Day Adventist. It's possible. But just to get it out of the way, I *do* consider such groups to be heretical. That's *not* what I believe. I don't think an honest reading of the whole Bible supports their interpretations. However, I'm very open to discussion.)

> > Paul changed things even more (or, if you prefer, elucidated changes that Jesus made).
>
> I prefer that.
>
> > He told us that we were dead to the written Law...
>
> Meaning?

Meaning that the Law says: "You abandon God, you get zapped, only Jesus goes free" and Jesus switched the clauses around: "You abandon God, Jesus gets zapped, you go free". The Law still applies, it still works, but now *its work is done*. No one left to punish; Jesus' last words on the Cross, "It is finished." (Okay, second-to-last.)

>
> > that the Law had no power to save,
>
> This isn't a change; the doctrine of salvation by the Law was a misinterpretation from the start.
>
> > and explained that the Law's purpose was to act as a stumbling block and point out sin.
> >

Again; explain what the Law's for, then.

> A merciful God in the OT? *gasp*
>

Did you read what I wrote earlier?

I didn't make the argument that God was a different *God* in the OT. Mercy and love are present from the very beginning; else, if Jesus' sacrifice came out of the blue, I would have a hard time accepting it.

But you can't deny the situation was different in the OT. The OT examples were of temporal mercy, that being all God could show at the time, as, in his plan, he had not yet revealed eternal truths to the people; the death of Jesus was the first (and only) example of eternal mercy. Once the consciousness of this mercy existed in the world, once people *knew* why God could be merciful, then the written Law lost its power.

To argue otherwise and say that the mercy was just mercy with no eternal significance is to have a capricious, inscrutable, and ultimately unjust God. "Oh, I feel like forgiving Cain, but all other murderers get zapped. David's after my own heart; he still gets saved, but someone else with the same crime? Hell-fodder." More like the Greeks' Zeus than the lawful, just God the Jews loved and worshiped, than any God I would care to worship. (That's less of an arrogant, self-serving statement than it sounds; it has to do with how I define God. Let's just say that if Zeus were real, I'd be prepared to call him a god, but never God. God *means* justice.)


> How, praytell, does a covenant said over and over by God, directly and through His prophets, to be perpetual, everlasting, for ever(KJV spelling), eternal, &c, which Jesus said He had not come to destroy, come to be considered as having passed away?
>

Because God said, directly and through prophets, that it had. You again didn't listen to (or, I guess, disagreed with but decided not to comment on) what I meant when I said the Law was eternal.

(Man, it is *late*. I should sleep. I should've waited to answer this post till tomorrow. Still, having begun tonight, it would be a shame to leave it unfinished. I beg your pardon if I'm even less coherent than usual. And if I'm for the moment too lazy to look up more than a few references: Matthew 5:17, Matthew 12:1-8, Mark 3:4, Acts 10:28, Acts 13:38-41, Acts 15:28-29, Romans 3:19-31, Romans 4:14-16, Romans 6:14, Romans 7:1-13, Romans 8:1-4, Romans 9:30-33, I Corinthians 9:20-21, I Corinthians 15:54-57, etc., etc., etc.... I'm too lazy to finish, but the theme keeps cropping up in the epistles. Basically the whole book of Romans is the outline, though.)

Yeah, the Law is eternal. It'll last forever. It'll never, ever happen that murder becomes okay. It'll never, ever happen that I'll deserve to go to Heaven. It'll never, ever happen that God will be unjust or that he'll ignore sin.

But the Old Covenant was *fulfilled* (*not* destroyed, *fulfilled*) by Jesus' crucifixion. *Yes*, murder is wrong; and Jesus was punished for it. *Yes*, I still deserve to go to Hell; and Jesus went in my place. *Yes*, God is forever just, and vengeful, and demands payment for sin; and he exacted that payment from Jesus.

The New Covenant does not replace or destroy the Old Covenant. It is an extension of the Old Covenant. It is, in fact, implied by the Old Covenant; the Old Covenant is its foundation, and without it the Old Covenant is incomplete. (*How* can God love us and desire us to be with him in Heaven if at the same time our sins are repugnant to him and he has no choice but to send sinners like us to Hell? It seems an impossible paradox, one the Law can't answer but Jesus can.)

> > I know that we are not meant to understand everything, but I don't believe God would directly contradict himself in Scripture or that he would expect us, Zen-like, to "transcend" that contradiction, accept that he doesn't make sense and get on with our lives.
>
> True. Man contradicts Him. :)
>

Of course.

> > I believe God is a rational God and that he loves us enough to make his Word comprehensible to us to the extent necessary for us to live godly lives, and so I refused to give up trying to reconcile "turn the other cheek" with "eye for an eye".
>
> Well, now you know.
>

If you mean, now you've explained your POV in a way that I will agree with you or at least fully understand your point... well, no I don't. It could just be me, but you didn't explain how you reconcile the two different philosophies. Or why you don't consider them to be different.

Ar"shouldn't try to argue theology on less than six hours of sleep"thur