Holy Hormones Bible Study: Teaching — not Entertainment
CHRISTIANS COMING UNDER THE LAW — PART 2
Be careful what you say about the Law.
How many sets of Laws in the Old Testament?
Brace yourself! This is more of a teaching blog than an entertaining one. It may not be an easy read because there is more here than a normal, well adjusted person would normally want to know but it will be worth it. It is the detail which makes me a boring person that brings the Bible alive for me. But if you happen to like what you read, there’s more to be found here.
[NOTE: Important words analysed below are identified with Hebrew/Greek transliterations into English and Strong’s Numbers so that whoever wants to can check them out — it is strongly recommended that you do. I use the Blue Letter Bible (https://www.blueletterbible.org/ )]
It is hoped that Part 1 of this series, CHRISTIANS COMING UNDER THE LAW, demonstrated that the Law mentioned in Romans 6:14(b) was not the entire Old Testament (OT) nor even the Five Books of Moses. Of the 17 G3551 nomos Laws in the New Testament (NT), it was demonstrated that the one of concern to the Saints is the Law of sin and death. It is intended to revisit that topic sometime in the future so don’t be concerned if the penny didn’t drop. I didn’t do a good enough job explaining it.
Blind to the familiar
It is a well established principle of language that everyone has four vocabularies; listening, reading, speaking, and writing; having a descending number of words in that order. That is, we understand far fewer words that we hear than we read than we use when we speak than we actually put to paper. In these days, especially, we are swimming in catch phrases and clichés which are widely used but the meanings of which are not actually known — it is more the emotions they bring to life. I’ve had personal experience with this when trying to extract the precise meaning of the term “hate speech” from the Crown Law Department of the State. The meaning was obvious until it had to be written down.
This condition is alive and well and living in the Church. Sin, Love, Grace, and Law being some of those that have amorphous definitions but the definitions of the definitions are not crisp. I’m open to correction but it seems that one of the causes of confusion in today’s fractured Western Society is that we talk at each other, rather than to, because the (small ‘d’) dictionaries have abandoned their post. They were once the custodians of the purity of the meaning of words in the language. Now they take delight in keeping score of the contamination of words. It may be possible to sink lower than the Word of the Year being the singular pronoun, THEY, but I can’t see how.
Keep in mind the relevant verse, Romans 6:14, “For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
The bight sized piece of the burger chewed for the next few posts will be LAW.
L-A-W vs L-O-R-E
Everyone knows what the Law is, right? But do we? A teaching by the late American Evangelist, Leo Schreven, presents evidence that not every Christian knows as much as we think we do (This author included). Diligent study (reading the actual words — not the words we think are there) shows there are two sets of Laws. The Law of God, which will be shown to be the Ten Commandments in a future post, and the Law of Moses, which will be shown to be the 603 others.
My job is to present you the evidence. It is up to you to decide what to do with it.
Who will have the temerity to despise the Law?! Are you on a pay-scale high enough to decide to reject 17% of the 66 books of the Bible? Once again — decide for yourself.
Who will spit on of Yehovah’s jaw dropping Prophecy in Isaiah 2:1–4?
It is written in Isaiah 2:-
Many people shall come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach (H3384 — yārâ) us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth the law (H8451 — tôrâ),
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
H8451 — tôrâ is the noun form of the verb H3384 — yārâ meaning to point out, show, to direct, teach, instruct
Read the words carefully, Christian.
Is God’s Law erased from the New Testament?
It is written in Matthew 5:17–19, “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
Have the 10 Commandments been erased from the NT?
Decide for yourself.
So what?
The practical application.
The difference between the OT and NT is that under the Old Covenant the Commandments began with, “You shall not,” while under the New Covenant the Commandments begin with, “You shall.” The difference in the Indwelling Holy Spirit.
I haven’t insulted your intelligence by trying to expand on the obvious. Meditate on these things while waiting on the next post. Part 3 will present a picture attempting to show how personal the Torah. Perhaps you will be interested.
So many nuggets — so little time. There is more good news than bad for the Child of God.
The forgoing evidence has not been presented to convince any reader but to allow a personal decision to be made. There is much more to know about this subject. Perhaps you’ll pay another visit, sometime.
All Glory to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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