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The Law In Psalms

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We often see the Law mentioned in the Psalms. In Psalm 119 we see constant reference to the law with such words as "commandments," "testimonies," "precepts," "word." As well as law.

Psalm 119:34-35 Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it.

So how does this apply to the one who belongs to Christ and is in the new covenant with no laws?

It is true that this Psalm and all the Psalms when referring to the law through various terms, is directly related to the Mosaic covenant law. There is a reason for that to be so and the reason is that they were under that covenant law. So they wrote accordingly. That was their relationship to God, through covenant, and this covenant was bilateral---that is, it was made by God, with Israel, and was a covenant of works. It had laws they must obey.

Was it strict obedience to these laws alone that the Psalmists are referring to? I think verse 105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. makes it clear that it was not.

It was the things that God taught them through and in the law about Himself and about righteousness, and about their relationship and position with Him as King, the true and living God, the only God. Those things that Jesus pointed out again and again, particularly to the teachers of the law, as them being completely lacking in understanding and devoid of faith.

In that sense the law of God is just as necessary and valid for us today as it was in the days of the Mosaic covenant. Not in ordinances and laws, but for what it also teaches us of who God is and who we are in comparison. Hopeless, helpless, poor and needy without Him as our merciful covenant King. The difference is we don't come before Him with the blood of bulls and rams and the shadows of Christ, but in Christ Himself and His shed blood, the blood of the new covenant, with which we boldly come before His throne of grace. This is by grace through faith, just as it always has been. Faith in the old covenant was seeing and bowing down to what the law was teaching. About God, and where our allegiance lies.
 
We often see the Law mentioned in the Psalms. In Psalm 119 we see constant reference to the law with such words as "commandments," "testimonies," "precepts," "word." As well as law.

Psalm 119:34-35 Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law; indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, for I delight in it.

So how does this apply to the one who belongs to Christ and is in the new covenant with no laws?

It is true that this Psalm and all the Psalms when referring to the law through various terms, is directly related to the Mosaic covenant law. There is a reason for that to be so and the reason is that they were under that covenant law. So they wrote accordingly. That was their relationship to God, through covenant, and this covenant was bilateral---that is, it was made by God, with Israel, and was a covenant of works. It had laws they must obey.

Was it strict obedience to these laws alone that the Psalmists are referring to? I think verse 105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. makes it clear that it was not.

It was the things that God taught them through and in the law about Himself and about righteousness, and about their relationship and position with Him as King, the true and living God, the only God. Those things that Jesus pointed out again and again, particularly to the teachers of the law, as them being completely lacking in understanding and devoid of faith.

In that sense the law of God is just as necessary and valid for us today as it was in the days of the Mosaic covenant. Not in ordinances and laws, but for what it also teaches us of who God is and who we are in comparison. Hopeless, helpless, poor and needy without Him as our merciful covenant King. The difference is we don't come before Him with the blood of bulls and rams and the shadows of Christ, but in Christ Himself and His shed blood, the blood of the new covenant, with which we boldly come before His throne of grace. This is by grace through faith, just as it always has been. Faith in the old covenant was seeing and bowing down to what the law was teaching. About God, and where our allegiance lies.
In Jeremiah 31:33 and Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts, so I don't see how you can claim that it has no laws. Moreover, there are 1,050 things that are instructed in the NT.

The Psalms express an extremely positive view of God's law, such as with David repeatedly sayin that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so if we consider the Psalms to be Scripture and therefore express a correct view of God's law, then we will share it as Paul did (Romans 7:22) while having anything less than the the that we ought to delight in obeying it is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture. In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faithfulness by setting God's law before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.

The Hebrew word "yada" refers to intimate relational knowledge gained through experience, such as in Genesis 4:1, where Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave brith to Cain. God's way is the way that He expresses aspects of His nature, such as righteousness and justice (Genesis 18:19) and in Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he might know (yada) Him and Israel too. In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6, they did not know (yada) God and refused to know Him because in 9:13, they had forsaken the Mosaic Law, while in 9:24, those who know God know that he delights in practicing steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all of the earth, so delighting in practicing those and o there aspects of His nature is the way to know God, and Jesus, who is the exact image of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3). Furthermore, in 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Jesus, but don't obey his commands are liars, in 1 John 3:4-6, those who continue to practice sin in transgression of God's law have neither seen nor known him, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the law is to teaching us how to know God and Jesus though experiencing/believing in His nature, which is eternal life (John 17:3).

God's nature is eternal, so any instructions that God has given for how to have a relationship with Him through experiencing His nature are eternally valid regardless of which covenant we are under. The set of laws that God has given paint us a picture of the nature of who He is, such as if God had commanded His children to commit adultery, then that would have revealed something very different about His nature. As followers of the God of Israel, we should live in a way that testifies about His eternal nature through following the instructions that He has given for how to do that rather than a way that bears false witness against His nature by not following those instructions. For example, our good works in obedience to God's law testify about His goodness, which is why they bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), but if someone refused to do good works, then they would be living in a way that testifies that the God that they follow is not good, and the same goes for other aspects of God's nature. There would be no point in the Bible teaching us about the nature of who God is if it doesn't impact the way that we live in obedience to His laws.
 
In Jeremiah 31:33 and Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts, so I don't see how you can claim that it has no laws. Moreover, there are 1,050 things that are instructed in the NT.

The Psalms express an extremely positive view of God's law, such as with David repeatedly sayin that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so if we consider the Psalms to be Scripture and therefore express a correct view of God's law, then we will share it as Paul did (Romans 7:22) while having anything less than the the that we ought to delight in obeying it is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture. In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faithfulness by setting God's law before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.

The Hebrew word "yada" refers to intimate relational knowledge gained through experience, such as in Genesis 4:1, where Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave brith to Cain. God's way is the way that He expresses aspects of His nature, such as righteousness and justice (Genesis 18:19) and in Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he might know (yada) Him and Israel too. In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6, they did not know (yada) God and refused to know Him because in 9:13, they had forsaken the Mosaic Law, while in 9:24, those who know God know that he delights in practicing steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all of the earth, so delighting in practicing those and o there aspects of His nature is the way to know God, and Jesus, who is the exact image of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3). Furthermore, in 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Jesus, but don't obey his commands are liars, in 1 John 3:4-6, those who continue to practice sin in transgression of God's law have neither seen nor known him, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the law is to teaching us how to know God and Jesus though experiencing/believing in His nature, which is eternal life (John 17:3).

God's nature is eternal, so any instructions that God has given for how to have a relationship with Him through experiencing His nature are eternally valid regardless of which covenant we are under. The set of laws that God has given paint us a picture of the nature of who He is, such as if God had commanded His children to commit adultery, then that would have revealed something very different about His nature. As followers of the God of Israel, we should live in a way that testifies about His eternal nature through following the instructions that He has given for how to do that rather than a way that bears false witness against His nature by not following those instructions. For example, our good works in obedience to God's law testify about His goodness, which is why they bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), but if someone refused to do good works, then they would be living in a way that testifies that the God that they follow is not good, and the same goes for other aspects of God's nature. There would be no point in the Bible teaching us about the nature of who God is if it doesn't impact the way that we live in obedience to His laws.
When you read the entire OP and consider what I said about the law and our relationship with it, and respond to that, then we can continue. As it stands you give the impression that you are disagreeing with me, which is fine, I don't have a problem with that, then proceed to say some of the things I did say as though I hadn't said it, and I needed to be corrected.

And as I said in the other thread, it still is not clear what you mean when you say law. Do you mean we are to keep all the laws given in the Mosaic covenant law, including but not limited to, the Sabbath laws, festivals, dietary, penal consequences etc?
 
In Jeremiah 31:33 and Hebrews 8:10, the New Covenant involves God putting the Torah in our minds and writing it on our hearts, so I don't see how you can claim that it has no laws. Moreover, there are 1,050 things that are instructed in the NT.

The Psalms express an extremely positive view of God's law, such as with David repeatedly sayin that he loved it and delighted in obeying it, so if we consider the Psalms to be Scripture and therefore express a correct view of God's law, then we will share it as Paul did (Romans 7:22) while having anything less than the the that we ought to delight in obeying it is incompatible with the view that the Psalms are Scripture. In Psalms 119:29-30, he wanted to put false ways far from him, for God to be gracious to him by teaching him to obey His law, and he chose the way of faithfulness by setting God's law before him, so this has always been the one and only way of salvation by grace through faith.

The Hebrew word "yada" refers to intimate relational knowledge gained through experience, such as in Genesis 4:1, where Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave brith to Cain. God's way is the way that He expresses aspects of His nature, such as righteousness and justice (Genesis 18:19) and in Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he might know (yada) Him and Israel too. In Jeremiah 9:3 and 9:6, they did not know (yada) God and refused to know Him because in 9:13, they had forsaken the Mosaic Law, while in 9:24, those who know God know that he delights in practicing steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in all of the earth, so delighting in practicing those and o there aspects of His nature is the way to know God, and Jesus, who is the exact image of God's nature (Hebrews 1:3). Furthermore, in 1 John 2:4, those who say that they know Jesus, but don't obey his commands are liars, in 1 John 3:4-6, those who continue to practice sin in transgression of God's law have neither seen nor known him, and in Matthew 7:23, Jesus said that he would tell those who are workers of lawlessness to depart from him because he never knew them, so the goal of the law is to teaching us how to know God and Jesus though experiencing/believing in His nature, which is eternal life (John 17:3).

God's nature is eternal, so any instructions that God has given for how to have a relationship with Him through experiencing His nature are eternally valid regardless of which covenant we are under. The set of laws that God has given paint us a picture of the nature of who He is, such as if God had commanded His children to commit adultery, then that would have revealed something very different about His nature. As followers of the God of Israel, we should live in a way that testifies about His eternal nature through following the instructions that He has given for how to do that rather than a way that bears false witness against His nature by not following those instructions. For example, our good works in obedience to God's law testify about His goodness, which is why they bring glory to Him (Matthew 5:16), but if someone refused to do good works, then they would be living in a way that testifies that the God that they follow is not good, and the same goes for other aspects of God's nature. There would be no point in the Bible teaching us about the nature of who God is if it doesn't impact the way that we live in obedience to His laws.
I am gathering, not from this post but from one in another thread where Psalm 1 was being discussed, that you do not give credence to the deity of Christ. And do think that we are to keep the Mosaic covenant law and our own righteousness is our means to salvation. You indicated that to you Jesus came to show us how to keep the law. To discuss that here of course would be off topic. I suggest that you take the content of that post #32 in A Few Thoughts on Psalm 1 and start a thread on it. Then we can discuss those things. :)
 
I am gathering, not from this post but from one in another thread where Psalm 1 was being discussed, that you do not give credence to the deity of Christ. And do think that we are to keep the Mosaic covenant law and our own righteousness is our means to salvation. You indicated that to you Jesus came to show us how to keep the law. To discuss that here of course would be off topic. I suggest that you take the content of that post #32 in A Few Thoughts on Psalm 1 and start a thread on it. Then we can discuss those things. :)
Sorry, for missing this. For the sake of clarification, I do believe in the deity of Christ, I do think that we need to keep the Mosaic Law, I do not think that we are required to have first done righteous works in obedience to the Mosaic Law in order to become saved as the result, and I do think that Jesus came to show us how to keep the Mosaic Law.
 
When you read the entire OP and consider what I said about the law and our relationship with it, and respond to that, then we can continue. As it stands you give the impression that you are disagreeing with me, which is fine, I don't have a problem with that, then proceed to say some of the things I did say as though I hadn't said it, and I needed to be corrected.
I was commenting on the the topic of law in the Psalms and the way to have a relationship with God. While agreed with some things, I disagreed with others.

And as I said in the other thread, it still is not clear what you mean when you say law. Do you mean we are to keep all the laws given in the Mosaic covenant law, including but not limited to, the Sabbath laws, festivals, dietary, penal consequences etc?
Indeed. Jesus gave himself to pay the penalty for our sins, so while the law still has the same penalty, it would be unjust to enforce a penalty that has already been paid.
 
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