Countermanding God

[Soyeong]

Man does not have the authority to countermand God, so when God has commanded something and man says not to obey what God has commanded, then it should not be difficult to figure out which one has the higher authority and which one we should follow. The bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so we should be quicker to disregard everything that any man has said than to disregard anything that God has commanded. In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from what God has commanded.

In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone is a false prophet who was not speaking for Him was if they taught against obeying what He has commanded, so God did not give His people any room to follow someone who does that even if they performed signs and wonders, but rather that is a test to see whether we love God with all of our heart and with all of our soul. It should not make sense to interpret God's word as speaking against following other parts of God's word. So if someone interprets a verse as saying that God's law has ended, then they should either conclude that they must have misunderstood that verse or that it is the words of a false prophet, but in neither case should they think that it is a good idea to promote the position that God's law has ended.

 

[Eleanor]

Man does not have the authority to countermand God, so when God has commanded something and man says not to obey what God has commanded, then it should not be difficult to figure out which one has the higher authority and which one we should follow. The bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so we should be quicker to disregard everything that any man has said than to disregard anything that God has commanded. In Deuteronomy 4:2, it is a sin to add to or subtract from what God has commanded.

In Deuteronomy 13:1-5, the way that God instructed His people to determine that someone is a false prophet who was not speaking for Him was if they taught against obeying what He has commanded, so God did not give His people any room to follow someone who does that even if they performed signs and wonders, but rather that is a test to see whether we love God with all of our heart and with all of our soul. It should not make sense to interpret God's word as speaking against following other parts of God's word. So if someone interprets a verse as saying that God's law has ended, then they should either conclude that they must have misunderstood that verse or that it is the words of a false prophet, but in neither case should they think that it is a good idea to promote the position that God's law has ended.

Do you still obey God's word and offer animal sacrifices?

If there were a Temple where Jews did so, would you do so?

 

[Soyeong]

Do you still obey God's word and offer animal sacrifices?

If there were a Temple where Jews did so, would you do so?

The Israelites were given a number of laws that had the condition "when you enter the land..." while they were still wandering the wilderness for 40 years, so there is nothing wrong with not following laws that can't currently be followed, which is different from claiming that those laws have ended. The Israelites didn't followed laws in regard to temple practice after the construction of the first temple, they didn't follow them after its destruction, they followed them once again after the construction of the second temple, and they didn't follow them once after its destruction, so there is nothing about the destruction of the second temple that means that those laws have ended, or that they will not be followed once again after the construction of the next temple (Ezekiel 40-46).

In Acts 18:18, Paul took a vow involving shaving his head and the vow that involves doing that which is prescribed by the Bible is a Nazarite vow, which involves making offerings (Numbers 6). Likewise, in Acts 21:20-24, Paul planned to pay for the offerings of others in order to disprove false rumors that he was teaching against God's law and to show that he continued to live in obedience to it. In Hebrews 8:4, it refers to offerings that we still being offered in accordance with God's law and if those laws had ended, then they would not prevent Jesus from being a priest if he were still here on earth. So offerings did not cease with the death or resurrection of Jesus or because those laws have ended, but only ceased because of the destruction of the second temple. If all of Israel had accepted Jesus as the Messiah, then the second temple would not have been destroyed and there would still be offerings being offered. Eternal instructions for how to testify about God's eternal nature can't be ended without first ending God.

 

[Eleanor]

The Israelites were given a number of laws that had the condition "when you enter the land..." while they were still wandering the wilderness for 40 years, so there is nothing wrong with not following laws that can't currently be followed, which is different from claiming that those laws have ended.

I'm thinking God gives no operative law to his people that cannot be followed.

I'm thinking there are laws of God that are no longer operative.

 

[Soyeong]

I'm thinking God gives no operative law to his people that cannot be followed.

I'm thinking there are laws of God that are no longer operative.

If I were to describe the God of Israel to someone, then I would start by speaking about what He has commanded. By seeing that the God of Israel has given wise laws they could see that He is wise, by seeing that He has given righteous laws they could see that He is righteous, by seeing that He has given holy laws they could see that He is holy, and so forth, so His laws teach us about the nature of who He is. By doing good works in obedience to God's law I am testifying about His goodness, which is why our good works give glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), so by doing what is wise, righteous, holy, and so forth in obedience to God's law, I would living in a way that testifies about what I believe to be true about the nature of who the God of Israel is. As such, the only way for a law to become no longer operative is if what it testifies about nature of the God of Israel is no longer true, however, God's nature is eternal, therefore all of His laws for how to testify about His nature are also eternal (Psalms 119:160).

For example, in 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to be holy for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to do that, so by following those instructions we are testifying that we believe in God's eternal holiness, whereas if someone refuses to follow those laws, then they are living in a way that breaks false witness against the God of Israel by living in a way that testifies that that God that they follow is not holy. The only way that we should no longer follow laws for how to be holy as God is holy is if God to no longer holy.

 

[Eleanor]

If I were to describe the God of Israel to someone, then I would start by speaking about what He has commanded. By seeing that the God of Israel has given wise laws they could see that He is wise, by seeing that He has given righteous laws they could see that He is righteous, by seeing that He has given holy laws they could see that He is holy, and so forth, so His laws teach us about the nature of who He is. By doing good works in obedience to God's law I am testifying about His goodness, which is why our good works give glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), so by doing what is wise, righteous, holy, and so forth in obedience to God's law, I would living in a way that testifies about what I believe to be true about the nature of who the God of Israel is. As such, the only way for a law to become no longer operative is if what it testifies about nature of the God of Israel is no longer true, however, God's nature is eternal, therefore all of His laws for how to testify about His nature are also eternal (Psalms 119:160).

For example, in 1 Peter 1:16, we are told to be holy for God is holy, which is a quote from Leviticus where God was giving instructions for how to do that, so by following those instructions we are testifying that we believe in God's eternal holiness, whereas if someone refuses to follow those laws, then they are living in a way that breaks false witness against the God of Israel by living in a way that testifies that that God that they follow is not holy. The only way that we should no longer follow laws for how to be holy as God is holy is if God to no longer holy.

So you still offer animal sacrifices.

I'll take a pass on that law.

 

[Soyeong]

So you still offer animal sacrifices.

I'll take a pass on that law.

Do you affirm or deny that we should trust God with all of our heart to guide us in how to rightly live through what He has instructed in His law?

 

[Eleanor]

Do you affirm or deny that we should trust God with all of our heart to guide us in how to rightly live through what He has instructed in His law?

Non-responsive.

The question regarding your offering animal sacrifice remains unanswered.

 

[Soyeong]

Non-responsive.

The question regarding your offering animal sacrifice remains unanswered.

I thought my answer was clear. Laws in regard to tempe practice can't be followed when there is not a temple in which to practice them. Do you affirm of deny that God should be trusted to guide us in how to rightly live when it comes to that law?

 

[Eleanor]

I thought my answer was clear. Laws in regard to tempe practice can't be followed when there is not a temple in which to practice them. Do you affirm of deny that God should be trusted to guide us in how to rightly live when it comes to that law?

And food laws, defilement laws, purification laws, do you obey them?

 

[Soyeong]

And food laws, defilement laws, purification laws, do you obey them?

I do refrain from eating unclean animals and follow family purity laws. Do you think that God should be trusted to rightly guide us when it comes to these laws? I do.

 

[atpollard]

I do refrain from eating unclean animals and follow family purity laws.

• Were your fathers brought out of Egypt?
• If not, then are you not following a covenant that God made with another people?
• Was Paul wrong that such "circumcision" renders the cross of no value to you?
• Was the Holy Spirit wrong in advising the Jerusalem Council on the laws that Gentiles were to follow?

[All this to say: I do not follow your logic of abrogating the clear words of the New Covenant to embrace an Old Covenant that has "passed away" ... been fulfilled and perfected ... swallowed up in the New.]

... but "carry on" with my blessing. It is silly, but it is not forbidden.

 

[atpollard]

but in neither case should they think that it is a good idea to promote the position that God's law has ended.

• Matthew 5:18 [NASB20] "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!"

• John 19:30 [NASB20] Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

Not "ended", but "accomplished" (γένηται) and "finished" (τετέλεσται).

• (γένηται): to become equivalent to to come to pass, happen, of events; a. universally: Matthew 5:18; Matthew 24:6, 20, 34; Luke 1:20; Luke 12:54; Luke 21:28; John 1:28; John 13:19, etc.

• (τετέλεσται): to perform, execute, complete, fulfill (so that the thing done corresponds to what has been said, the order, command, etc.), i. e.
  • α. with special reference to the subject-matter, to carry out the contents of a command": τόν νόμον, Romans 2:27 (cf. Winer's Grammar, 134 (127)); James 2:8; τήν ἐπιθυμίαν (i. e. τό ἐπιθυμουμενον), Galatians 5:16.
  • β. with reference also to the form, to do just as commanded, and generally involving a notion of time, to perform the last act which completes a process, to accomplish, fulfill: ἅπαντα (πάντα) τά κατά νόμον, Luke 2:39; τήν μαρτυρίαν, the duty of testifying, Revelation 11:7; τό μυστήριον, passive, Revelation 10:7 (cf. Winer's Grammar, 277 (260)); τό βάπτισμα, passive, Luke 12:50; πάντα, passive, John 19:28 (the distinction between τελέω and τελειόω may be seen in this verse); τούς λόγους (τά ῤήματα) τοῦ Θεοῦ, passive, Revelation 17:17; ἅπαντα (πάντα) τά γεγραμμένα, Acts 13:29; passive, Luke 18:31 (see γράφω, 2 c.); with ἐν ἐμοί (in me) added, in my experience, Luke 22:37; ἐν πληγαῖς, in the infliction of calamities, Revelation 15:1; τετέλεσται (A. V. it is finished) everything has been accomplished which by the appointment of the Father as revealed in the Scriptures I must do and bear, John 19:30. equivalent to τελειόω, 2, which see (made perfect): 2 Corinthians 12:9 L T Tr WH.

I will let you figure it out for yourself (it is more satisfying, that way).

 

[Soyeong]

• Matthew 5:18 [NASB20] "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!"

While Jesus accomplished much through the cross, there is still the second coming and all that comes with it that is left to accomplish. Furthermore, heaven and earth have not passed away.

• John 19:30 [NASB20] Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, "It is finished!" And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

In Titus 2:14, Jesus gave himself to redeem us form all lawlessness and to purify for himself people of his own possession who are zealous for doing good works, so becoming zealous for doing good works in obedience to God's law is the way to believe in what Jesus accomplished through the cross (Acts 21:20) while someone returning to the lawlessness that he gavIfe himself to redeem us from would be the way to reject what he accomplished.

• Were your fathers brought out of Egypt?

That fact that God saves His people out of bondage teaches us something that is true about the nature of who He is and we should live in a way that testifies about what we believe to be true about the nature of who God is regardless of whether we are physically descended from those that God brought out of Egypt. In John 8:39, Jesus said that if they were children of Abraham, then they would be doing the same works as him, so the way that the children of Abraham are multiplied in accordance with the promise is not through having many physical descendants, but through teaching people to do the same works as him in accordance with spending the Gospel.

• If not, then are you not following a covenant that God made with another people?

In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves God putting the Mosaic Law in our minds and writing it on our hearts, so that is the way to live under the New Covenant.

• Was Paul wrong that such "circumcision" renders the cross of no value to you?

Either Paul only spoke against incorrect reasons for becoming circumcised or Galatians 5:2 means that Paul caused Christ to be of no value to Timothy when he had him circumcised and Christ is of no value to roughly 80% of the men in the US. In Acts 15:1, they were wanting to require all Gentiles to become circumcised in order to become saved, however, that was never the reason why God commanded circumcision, so the Jerusalem Council upheld the Mosaic Law by correctly ruling against requiring circumcision for an incorrect purpose. The Jerusalem Council did not have the authority to countermand God, so they should not be interpreted as trying to do that.

• Was the Holy Spirit wrong in advising the Jerusalem Council on the laws that Gentiles were to follow?

The Spirit has the role of leading in truth (John 16:13), the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey the Mosaic Law (Ezekiel 36:26-27), and the Mosaic Law is truth (Psalms 119:142). In John 16:8, the Spirit has the role of convicting us of sin and in Romans 3:20, it is by the Mosaic Law that we have knowledge of sin. In Romans 8:4-7, those who walk in the Spirit are contrasted with those who have minds set on the flesh who are enemies of God who refuse to submit to the Mosaic Law. In Galatians 5:19-23, everything listed as works of the flesh that are against the Spirit are also against the Mosaic Law while all of the fruits of the Spirit are aspects of God's nature that are in accordance with it. In Acts 5:32, the Spirit has been given to those who obey God. In Romans 2:25-29, the way to see that a Gentile has a circumcised heart is by observing their obedience to the Mosaic Law, which is the same way to tell for a Jew (Deuteronomy 30:6), and circumcision of the heart is a matter of the Spirit, which is in contrast with Acts 7:51-53, where those who have uncircumcised hearts resist the Spirit and do not obey the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law was given by God and the Spirit is God, so it is the Law of the Spirit.

If someone interprets Acts 15 as the Spirit countermanding the Father, then that would be a pretty strong indication that they were falsely claiming to be advised by the Spirit, which in part is why I don't think that interpretation is correct. Either the Acts 15:19-21 contains an exhaustive list of everything that would ever be required of a mature Gentile believer or it does not, so it is contradictory to treat it as being an exhaustive list to limit which laws Gentiles should follow while also treating it as being a non-exhaustive list by saying that there are obliviously other laws that Gentiles should follow, such as the greatest two commandment. Moreover, Jesus said in Matthew 22:36-40, that all of the other commandments hang on the greatest two, which means that they are all connected, so if you think that Gentiles should obey the greatest two commandments, then you should also think that Gentiles should obey the commandments than hang on them. In Acts 15:19-21, it was not intended as an exhaustive list for mature Gentile believers, but rather they stated that it was a list intended to not make things too difficult for new believers, which they excused by saying that they would continue to learn about how to obey Moses by hearing him taught every Sabbath in the synagogues.

[All this to say: I do not follow your logic of abrogating the clear words of the New Covenant to embrace an Old Covenant that has "passed away" ... been fulfilled and perfected ... swallowed up in the New.]

Where do you find fault with the reasoning that I used in the OP?

 

[Eleanor]

I do refrain from eating unclean animals and follow family purity laws. Do you think that God should be trusted to rightly guide us when it comes to these laws? I do.

So you are in disagreement with apostolic revelation that no food is unclean (Ro 14:14).

I am not under the OT, I am under the NT and its law of love.

I don't need a written code to tell me not to rob or kill my neighbor.

That's the job of the Holy Spirit, and he does it well, better than the law can do.

 

[Soyeong]

So you are in disagreement with apostolic revelation that no food is unclean (Ro 14:14).

No, you are equivocating by treating two different words that are translated as "unclean" as both referring to the same concept. In Romans 14:1, the topic of the chapter is in regard to how to handle disputable matters of opinion, not in regard to whether followers of God should follow God, so nothing in the chapter should be interpret as teaching rebellion against what God has commanded. Where God has given a command, human opinion must yield, but where God has give no command, then we are free to have our own opinions. For example, in Romans 14:2-3, they were judging and resenting each other over the matter of whether only vegetables should be eaten, however, God gave no command to eat only vegetables, so whether to do that is a disputable matter of opinion.

I am not under the OT, I am under the NT and its law of love.

About 1/3 of the verses in the NT contains quotes or allusion to the OT, which its authors did thousands of times in order to show that it supported what they were saying and to show that they hadn't departed from it, so they certainly saw the OT as still being authoritative. In Acts 17:11, the Bereans were praised because they diligently tested everything that Paul said against OT Scripture to see if what he said was true, so according to that precedent, agreement with the OT is the standard by which we should accept the truth of the NT and the NT should not be understood as countermanding what God commanded in OT.

In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus said that all of the other commandments hang on the greatest two, so if you think that we should obey the greatest two commandments, then you should also think that we should obey all of the commandments that hang on them. In Matthew 24:12-14, Jesus said that because of lawlessness the love of many will grow cold, so that does not allow room for thinking that we only need to obey the command to love instead of God's other commandments.

I don't need a written code to tell me not to rob or kill my neighbor.

The greatest two commandments are a lot easier said than done, and God could have just given those commands, but thankfully He thought that we needed more commands and gave all of the other commands to unpack what it looks like to correctly obey the greatest two. God would not have given commands if He thought that we didn't need them. The Psalm express an extremely positive view of God's law, such as with David repeatedly stating that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so do you agree that he was expressing a correct view of God's law? It will not surprise me if you continue to ignore my questions.

That's the job of the Holy Spirit, and he does it well, better than the law can do.

In Ezekiel 36:25-27, the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey God's law.

 

[Eleanor]

No, you are equivocating by treating two different words that are translated as "unclean" as both referring to the same concept. In Romans 14:1, the topic of the chapter is in regard to how to handle disputable matters of opinion,

So Paul does not state in Ro 14:14: "I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself."

That's some kinda' weird hermeneutic of unbelief.

 

[Soyeong]

So Paul does not state in Ro 14:14: "I am fully convinced that no food is unclean in itself."

That's some kinda' weird hermeneutic of unbelief.

Paul did that but the Greek word that he used that is translated "unclean" is not the same as the Greek word that is consistently used in the Septuagint to regard to clean and unclean animals, so they refer to different concepts. Those words refer to different types of impurity that are not interchangeable, so translating both words into English as "unclean" leads to the error of equivocation. For example, in Acts 10:10-14, Peter said both that he had never eaten anything common or unclean, but if they had the same meaning, then he wouldn't have needed to use both words.

Paul did not have the authority to countermand God, so even if Paul had used the word for unclean animals, then that would mean that we should obey God rather than Paul. Again, the bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so we should be quicker to disregard everything that Paul said than to disregard anything that God has commanded, though the reality is that Paul was a servant of God who never spoke against obeying anything that He has commanded, so it doesn't need to come down to that.

 

[Eleanor]

Paul did that but the Greek word that he used that is translated "unclean" is not the same as the Greek word that is consistently used in the Septuagint to regard to clean and unclean animals, so they refer to different concepts.

Unblelief of the NT is showing again.

There is more than one word for unclean.

 

[Soyeong]

Unblelief of the NT is showing again.

There is more than one word for unclean.

I believe the NT, not in your misinterpretation of it. Indeed, there are more than one word for unclean, but they don't all refer to the same type of uncleanness.