Thank you for sharing but I disagree.
How is it that the Jews failed to keep the laws under the Old Covenant other than they were not able to love God with all their might and heart and mind?
Wrong question.
The Law was not there to keep. It was there to show them their sin. Obedience to the Law and loving God are not mutually exclusive conditions. One of the laws in the Law is to love. It was not that they were unable to love God with all heart, mind, etc. that kept them from keeping the Law that is summarized by love. That is a circular argument.
You may disagree but logic is not a matter of debate or opinion. Paul makes it quite clear no one can keep the Law, everyone is a sinner, none are wholly obedient, none are wholly faithful, and to break one law is to violate the whole. It has nothing to do with being Jewish.
Hence no matter how much the spirit is willing,
That is true of everyone, not just Jews.
...the flesh is weak, therefore what is impossible with man...
Now you're contradicting yourself. If it is impossible to keep the Law then the Jews did not fail; they did exactly what they could do: fail at the impossible.
.....is possible with God...
In case I have not been clear: I and everyone I've read so far acknowledges, and zealously embraces the work of God as necessary for us to be saved do what God expects. You keep belaboring this, but it's not a point in dispute. You and I do not disagree here and neither does anyone else. BUILD ON IT! Don't divide over that with which we agree.
...for why I believe that first greatest commandment is switched out under the New Covenant to believe in Jesus Christ as it is by faith in Him in doing His work in us, is how we can love God and others, even our enemies, by Him.
I'm curious. Do you find scripture to report any Old Testament person claiming God did not work in them and what they accomplished op-relevantly was done in their (sinful) flesh? I think I've missed that report. Could you maybe quote one or two examples in which scripture has an OT person doing so?
If there's no such scripture, then that is a red herring.
Not only is it a red herring, but if there is no such scripture then Jesus did not "switch" anything. When Jesus and Paul say, "
Who has believed our message?" they're quoting Isaiah. They're not asking some new, something never asked before, something uniquely New Testament. Likewise, when Paul and the author of Hebrews write about the righteous living by faith, they are quoting Moses and Habakkuk (and others). They're not stating some new, something never asked before, something uniquely New Testament
Otherwise.... this verse below cannot be true.
1 John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.
Think. Think that through. Did Abraham love God on his own, or because God first loved him? How about David. Did David initiate his own love for God before God showed up to love David? Is it okay to take John's sentence and remove it from its specific stated context and apply to individuals, groups, conditions, and context not relevant to what he was writing?
Again: Logic is not a matter of debate or opinion.
The only change that occurred between Old and New was Calvary and Pentecost. All the NT conditions existed incompletely in OT times and righteousness and salvation were never obtained by the Law.
So there is a vanishing of the things of the Old Covenant whereby the emphasis is no longer on us, but under the New Covenant, all He asks from us is to believe Him for all things since it is on better promises; His promises to us for why all He asks from us is to believe Him.
I am really trying very hard to find points of agreement, note them, and affirm them but it's difficult. Yes, some things of the Old Testament (not the Old Covenant) vanished and, yes, there is an emphasis in the New Testament on faith/belief BUT salvation, righteousness, and justification were never by works of the Law. The Law itself makes this clear.
Tanakh is always correct. The Jews and Judaism were often incorrect. Failing to correctly discriminate between what Tanakh
states as a whole, and how the Jews practiced what was stated leads to false equivalences and false dichotomies. Tanakh (what we call the Old Testament) contains most of what is found in the NT, including the emphasis on faith and the disdain for works and perfect by way of the Law. It is impossible to keep the Law apart from God being at work in the person to believe.
Hebrews 8:6 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
11 And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
Which is exactly what I said: Calvary changed everything. The mediator of which the author of Hebrews wrote was an Old Testament mediator, a mediator first disclosed as a promise of the "old covenant." That mediator is not solely a mediator between God and man, but also a mediator between old covenant and new, Old Testament and New. Nothing got "switched."
It got fulfilled.
It's odd that an appeal using Hebrews would be made because Hebrews is rife with OT content, not exclusive of it. The appeal itself points to the continuity between old and new, even when Hebrews says things like, "
the former is set aside," or "
He has made the first obsolete." The author of Hebrews cannot constantly reference the OT, actively teaching it to his NT/NC audience and unilaterally mean everything he's doing is irrelevant, set aside, and obsolete. That makes scripture contradict itself inter-testamentally, intra-testamentally, and internally with Hebrews itself. When the author of Hebrews says he'll make a new covenant he implicitly states a common ground exists by explicitly stating the Law of God will be written internally. The old and new share the Law and, therefore, the new was not entirely abrogated.
The OT/OC contains commandments to love.
The OT/OC requires faith.
The OT/OC first spoke of righteousness by faith.
The OT/OC first spoke of the inadequacy and impossibility of keeping the Law.
The OT/OC reports many examples of God at work in his people.
The OT/OC/ foretells of a future mediator who would be perfect and through whom others might also be perfect(ed).
That list could be a little longer but the salient point is that all this stuff is found in the Old, so Jesus did not "
switch" anything, especially not anything away from works of sinful flesh to God. It simply fulfilled or finished what had been foretold and the Jews mucked up. If we're going to speak of "switching" then Jesus did not switch the Testaments' contents. He switched what the Jews were erroneously teaching with what he, the logos of God that is God, had always taught. That is why our two-kingdoms and Judaizing brothers and sisters stumble over this. They think what the Jews taught is what Tanakh taught.
Tanakh is always correct. Judaism is often incorrect.
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