Then why do you say we have to keep all 613 laws. The written code was not spiritual, it was literal. What was spiritual about it is that it came from God and contains within in training in righteousness----the moral character of God that His image bearers are to live every aspect of their lives, socially and morally, in accordance with.
This is a revelation that has only recently come to me. When I joined (aka Carbon) I told him I was not Reformed but tilted mostly towards that theology. But since then, I believe the Lord has opened my eyes to another way, a way back to Israel as the true Christianity of the Bible. I cannot tell you I know ALL the commands in the Hebrew Scripture for I do not know them all. There are many teachings in Scripture that come about in Sunday sermons with just a couple of verses at a time, but whatever the commands the Lord says we are to obey which will show our love for Him I know He will take me from glory to glory and reveal them as He took me when I was first born again from a hybrid Arminianism/Calvinism beginning to open my eyes to a Calvinistic conclusion without even reading or knowing about Calvin. I came to believe the things Calvin taught and never read Calvin. Then I learned about the Puritans and things really took off.
Now I see the connection of all things salvation as beginning with God and ending with God and His special choice of the Hebrews/Jews that has weathered all persecution and tribulations throughout human history. Now they have been back in their land and the speed of things regarding history are really taking off. I will not know everything before He comes but when He does come then shall I know even as also I am known (1 Cor. 13.)
As you do I do, and that is share what we think we know. But some things we do know we know as truth, and no one can change those things we hold unless wrong and only then by the Holy Spirit of Truth.
The Law is spiritual. It killed because there was a time man were natural, of the flesh. But now that we have become spiritual it cannot harm us. But the unsaved it will 'kill.' I believe the Law was type and shadow of the Holy Spirit. And what led and guided and convicted men from without written on stones or vellum (sic) is now written in our hearts and leads and guides and convicts us from within as the kingdom (Christ) is within us. I hold the Lord's hand and He holds mine. And I will learn all I am meant to learn and then my end will come. But until then I am going to learn what He has for me and given my call what He has for others whether they receive it or not. But to outright reject what I say is not wise. It may not come to you when I say it but if it is truth it will stand on its own even beyond my life here as teaching in the past has stood the test of time. And if I am wrong then it will not be nutritious to my brethren. Isn't that how God raises us? Fishbone theology? Holding on to those things that are true and throwing away the rest? And what I may say may not be meant for the person I am responding to. Others may read what I say and genuinely consider or leave it in the back burner of their minds for watering for another time. I only play a part, not the whole. And my part is known through what I say.
I do not believe we are righteous by the Torah/Law even though Saul said it did:
6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching
the righteousness which is in the law, blameless (justified?).
Philippians 3:6.
But I do know that after conversion the Law/Torah is profitable for instruction
in righteousness thoroughly furnish[ing] (me) unto all good works (2 Tim. 3:17) and those works come from God (Eph. 2:10.)
So, is the Law/Torah
really "abolished" or made "obsolete"? No, it is not. It is eternal and the wisdom of God gave it to the children of Israel, and I know in the Millennium Gentiles will not occupy the Promised Land but reside to the four corners of the earth (everywhere else) and what will they have to order their lives? The U.S. Constitution? No. The Constitution found in Matthew 5 and everywhere else God's commands in His Word, commands that I have only until recently begun to explore and learn. I know this is a Reformed forum. But at this time, I do not believe the Lord wants me at a Messianic Forum. Not yet. Maybe never. But I am true born of God 47 years. I know what I know through the suffering the Lord has put me through (Eccl. 1:18) since 1977. But as a man in whom Christ has put His Spirit I am of His body and no man has the authority to reject me for in doing so they reject Christ in me and is this right, is it biblical, to sever the mouth from the body of Christ.
I once applied to be a Moderator. What was done to me here was unbiblical, not of Christ and some here are guilty of offending the Lord. And yet no one has righted that wrong. But I moved on. But I love this site because this is where I was asked and where the Lord has permitted me. It allows me an outlet. For I do love the brethren even though some need a sock in the jaw to shake them up and I have had fistfights with brethren in my past over disagreements and I have learned that although not as extreme as Phinehas when the dust cleared me and that brother grew very close and the loyalty between us was deep. You don't know how much I want to sock that brother in the jaw and point my prophet finger at the rest of you that didn't intervene at the injustice done to me and Christ in me. But that's history. Would I have made a good Moderator? We couldn't know. But I am not keen on two things a Moderator does and that is does not let things play out between two 'adverasries' (1 Cor. 11:17-18) and this act of banning. I cannot ban any true born from fellowship for no real sin.
So here I am, as Martin Luther said, God help me.
I understand the difference between spiritual and natural when it comes to the law. I make the distinction. You conflate them--going one way when it is makes a convenient response to an error that you have had brought to your attention, and the opposite when it supports a different supposition. In addition you are Judaizing the New Covenant, just as was happening in Galatia
I am not Judaizing for I do not say we must circumcise our flesh to be saved as the Judaizers did in Saul's Galatian experience. The New Covenant
IS Judah, the New Covenant
IS Israel, and the Scripture says so. There are no Gentiles in any of the Jewish/Hebrew Covenants. None. And this blows my mind. So, it appears God is saving Gentiles without a covenant and that's what I see. But are we
really Gentile? I don't know my family history beyond the 1800s in this country. What I do see is the lesson in the gospels of how Israel had issue with Samaritans because they were not pure stock but half-Gentile. And yet the Lord ministered to them because the covenants of salvation is with Abraham and his seed and although half-whatever I also know God does not lie and if He said "your seed" then Samaritans no matter the offspring, if they have Abraham's DNA then they are his seed and in covenant with God. Since then, there have been two major scatterings of the Jews. Through intermarriages, rape, concubinage, etc., even during Jesus' day with the Roman centurion, not all of Roman Empire was populated with people from Italy. Maybe this centurion had Abraham's DNA in him. From a Reformed position Jesus doesn't save anyone who is not elect, right? Nor does God give that which is holy to dogs or cast His pearls to swine. So, what's indicated? I believe myself to be Gentile, but I am saved, and I cannot help but wonder whether Abraham's DNA isn't somewhere in my ancestors no matter the degree. Isaac had two sons in covenant. But the promise went to Jacob. Does this mean Esau ceased to be in covenant? No. He was Abraham's seed still. There are seeming paradoxes and things I have yet to understand, but one thing I do know is that God keeps His promises and if the promise is to Abraham and his seed and I am saved then what conclusion can I reach at this time but that I am his seed somewhere in my ancestral lineage. But there is teaching that ALL Gentiles are Abraham's seed (Gal 3) and I do not believe this. If Abraham and his seed are in salvation, and all Gentiles are in covenant then this leads to universalism and is this what a Reformer believes? Because that is the result of believing ALL Gentiles are his seed and in the Abrahamic Covenant.
I find the word [Strong's] " apōleia" (ruin) has three senses in which to understand its usage: physical, spiritual, eternal. Judas was the 'son of perdition' not the father of it. He was covenant. He was NAMED apostle (Lk. 6:13.) He killed himself. His ruin was physical, not spiritual for the Holy Spirit was not given and only rested on Jesus. It wasn't eternal for he was a Hebrew in covenant. He ruined himself through suicide. Physical.
What about those Hebrews who worshiped the golden calf? What was it? 23,000 who perished? Weren't they in the 'new' covenant God was establishing with Moses and were Abraham's seed? Was their ruin eternal, spiritual, or physical? Weren't they Abraham's seed and inheritors of the promise even though they were 400 years removed from their great-great-great-great, etc., grandparents' God before they went into bondage? God removed them physically. Took them out of the way to satisfy His anger and to teach a lesson to the rest. But they were Abraham's seed. Did God break covenant with them?
I haven't figured everything out. I only know what I know today. But go ahead and test me. Engage me. Challenge me. Sharpen me. God will either use you to refine me and take away the dross or use you and your challenge of what I say to enlarge my understanding like a balloon and as love does with a brick.
I welcome your challenge.
But do you welcome mine?