Some people like a religion of rules and regulation and church services etc. But the law of Christ[1] is above all that and says we should be motivated by love in all we do. We are no longer under a Don't Do religion, but a Do religion: go sell all you have and give to the poor,[2] go into all the world and preach the gospel,[3] love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you,[4] heal the sick,[5] cast out devils, freely you have received freely give.[6]
But most people like to feel righteous so they would rather have a Don't Do religion and then they can feel justified because they didn't break the Ten Commandments and didn't break the kosher laws and have kept the Sabbath. Read Isaiah.[7] It’s a condemnation of self-righteous religious church service and rule keeping, which make God sick. That's how God feels about your service to him if you are not out living the gospel message by actively loving others! Love is above all those other things.[8]
Each fellowship has their rules and regulations, but they must remember that most of those rules are ones that they have decided are important and therefore they follow them. The trouble comes in when they try to use God's word to justify the rules they wish for their congregation to keep, and condemn others who don’t. We do not need more rules. We need more people getting out loving others into the Kingdom of God. If your rules and regulations are not motivating you to love others then what good are they, but to make you feel righteous before God. Yet your righteousness is nothing but stinking menstrual clothes in God’s eyes.[9]
This has been the raging religious controversy since the time of Cain and Abel to the present. Abel’s simple obedience pleased God and showed that obedience is what God wants, not sacrifice.[10] Cain wanted to show his righteousness by his works. He was not humble enough to obey God and sacrifice the lamb God desired. No, he would offer a sacrifice of the works of his own hands.[11] Here's the problem: Abel an honest sinner was willing to obey God and depended on God's righteousness to save him. Cain thought he was righteous enough since he was hard working, much more so than his brother who did nothing but watch sheep all day. Thus we see the beginning of the battle royal between those who believe in God's righteousness, that God alone can save them, and those who believe God needs some help from us and prefer to trust in their own righteousness to save them.
I would rather stand with Mary Magdalena,[12] Rahab,[13] Ruth,[14] Tamar,[15] David, Paul, and the prophets who stood by faith alone in God's righteousness to save them and keep them saved. My own righteousness fails me many times a day. If righteousness comes through our rule keeping, kosher laws and church attendance and services then Christ has died in vain.[16] Jesus alone, He is all I need! That’s what Paul argued.
But the whole point is that the law of love is in fact more than the Ten Commandments. Instead of NOT lying and NOT killing and NOT stealing etc, which obviously you will not do if you are walking in love, it's about treating others how you would want to be treated in any given situation.[17] We now have a Proactive religion instead of a Don't Do religion. That's why the Bible says that love is the fulfillment of the law.[18] By walking in love for those in need Jesus showed us that love was higher than the law.
We as sincere Christians have graduated from the old school, or at least we should have. But a lot of people would prefer to have a Don't Do religion and feel righteous in their don't doing, rather than a Proactive religion which motivates you to get out and help others. Not only does the book of Galatians talk about this, but Romans and Hebrews and James and John. By reading the gospels if you look carefully you find the Son of Man breaking the Sabbath,[19] just like the high priest would do and be guiltless.
We shouldn't be striving to keep the Ten Commandments, but striving to keep the New Commandment;[20] to love and treat others as we would want to be treated.[21] We should be striving to keep the commandment of forgiveness,[22] of giving unto others,[23] of preaching the gospel, of loving our enemy,[24] of doing good to those that hate us,[25] of helping the widow and the orphan and the poor,[26] of speaking the truth with our neighbor,[27] of not loving money[28] nor material things.[29]
By accenting the Ten Commandments you're going back to kindergarten. When you should be those that can take meat, you are still feeding on the milk.[30] But many churches teach this sort of stuff and it's a shame. God wants more than your don't doing. He wants to come into your life and make you a vessel he can use to love and help others.[31] It's more complicated, and most people don't want complications.
You see the focus is different. Paul says, do not use your liberty as an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.[32] The focus is on love and helping others,[33] being proactive, getting out witnessing[34] and helping the poor, etc. Jesus took following God to a different level and Paul seemed to get the point more than any of the disciples. He tells us that love is a more excellent way![35] Some people call it Old Testament Christianity vs. New Testament Christianity.
Peter and James in Jerusalem had to compromise to please the many Jews who converted and still kept the law.[36] Paul was out with the Gentiles and though the Jews persecuted him wherever he went he preferred to convert the Gentiles and make new bottles out of them instead of trying to pour new wine into old bottles.[37] When Paul did go back to Jerusalem and compromised with James on this very principle, Paul ended up losing his head.[38] But we got all those epistles to read because of it, so God does get great victories out of seeming defeats.[39]
Search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life,[40] and the scriptures if read and studied with an open heart and mind, I believe, will lead you to these conclusions. Ask God by His Holy Spirit to open your eyes to the wonderful things contained in His Word.[41] The Holy Spirit promises to lead and guide us into all truth.[42] Could the Holy Spirit perhaps be speaking through these words? Pray and ask God to show you himself what interpretation is correct. Please let me know what He shows you.
When I had my God experience I found out that God was love[43] and that love was the answer. I was able to go home and apologize to my father whom I had not spoken to for various years due to a physical fight we had had. It was not rules that motivated me to do that, but was God's spirit of love working in my heart. From my reading of the gospels I see Jesus going around doing good and breaking the religious rules over and over again purposely to try to help us get the point that it is not in that direction.[44] The letter kills but the spirit gives life.[45]
But this debate reminds me of the evolution/creation controversy where both sides look at the evidence and come up with totally different conclusions. Just like the evolutionists cannot understand the creationists view point because "they are spiritually discerned,"[46] you brethren that still want to keep the law,
"have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For you being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish your own righteousness, have not submitted yourself unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes."[47]
Jesus has saved me and Jesus will keep me saved. It is none of my own self-righteousness.[48]
"have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge. For you being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish your own righteousness, have not submitted yourself unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes."[47]
Jesus has saved me and Jesus will keep me saved. It is none of my own self-righteousness.[48]
Every church has their rules as every club does. But let us not confuse church or denomination rules with God's law. Many churches give lip service to Salvation by grace[49] but in fact have a mixture of grace and works. The obligating of these Sabbath and kosher and Ten Commandments laws is actually a mixture of grace and works. Jesus saves me, but I need to keep myself saved? Sorry, I can't do it. I couldn't save myself, nor am I able to keep myself saved by a keeping of some old religious rules that could never save in the first place.[50] The rules were meant to show us that we are incapable of saving ourselves and are completely dependent on the love and mercy of God.
“The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto to Christ that we might be justified by faith.”[51]
“The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto to Christ that we might be justified by faith.”[51]
"That if it be by grace, then is it no more works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace, otherwise work is no more work."[52]
For me, I am totally dependent of the complete mercy and love of God. My own righteousness is stinking filthy rags.[53] Sorry, fellows, I do not think you understand salvation yet. You are still trying to save yourselves, even though you say you are not. Maybe it's the self-righteousness you get by rule keeping that blinds you to the simple truth of the gospel. We have a new a better covenant.[54] It's just so simple that many miss it. What about you?
For me, I am totally dependent of the complete mercy and love of God. My own righteousness is stinking filthy rags.[53] Sorry, fellows, I do not think you understand salvation yet. You are still trying to save yourselves, even though you say you are not. Maybe it's the self-righteousness you get by rule keeping that blinds you to the simple truth of the gospel. We have a new a better covenant.[54] It's just so simple that many miss it. What about you?
Footnotes:
[1] Galatians 2:16
[2] Matthew 19:21
[3] Mark 16:15
[4] Matthew 5:44
[5] Mark 16:16
[6] Matthew 10:8
[7] Isaiah 58:1-14
[8] Gaçatians 5:14
[9] Isaiah 64;6
[10] Hebrews 11:4
[11] Genesis 4:2-5
[12] Luke 8:2
[13] Hebrews 11:31
[14] Ruth 1-4
[15] Genesis 38
[16] Galatians 2:21
[17] Luke 6:31
[18] Romans 13:8
[19] Matthew 12:10, John 5:10, John 9:14
[20] John 13:34
[21] Luke 6:31
[22] Matthew 18: 21,22
[23] Matthew 5:42
[24] Matthew 5:44
[25] Ibid
[26] James 1:27
[27] Ephesians 4:15
[28] 1Timothy 6:10
[29] 1John 2:15,
[30] Hebrews 5:12
[31] 2Corinthians 5:17
[32] Galatians 5:1
[33] Matthew 25:35-40
[34] Mark 16:15
[35] 1Corinthians 12:31-13:13
[36] Acts 21:20
[37] Acts 18:6, 28:28
[38] Acts 21:21-24
[39] Romans 8;28
[40] John 5:39
[41] Psalm 119:18
[42] John 16:13
[43] 1John 4:8
[44] Mark 7:6-9
[45] 2Corinthians 3:6
[46] 1Corinthians 2:14
[47] Romans 10:3,4
[48] Titus 3:5
[49] Ephesians 2:8,9
[50] Romans 7:18.19,24,25
[51] Galatians 3:24
[52] Romans 11:6
[53] Isaiah 64:6
[54] Hebrews 12:24
