There are questions within the Christian community about the relationship of a "New Covenant" believer in Christ to the "Old Covenant" law of Moses. Let's think briefly on God's law in its "old" and "new" contexts. Application of any meaningful truth into a person's lifestyle requires contextualization.
God gave the ten commandment law to Moses and the children of Israel as they wandered in the wilderness. They needed to be liberated between their own ears from a tyrranical slavery under which they had lived for over 430 years. They didn't know how to live well and love well of their own free will. They needed clear guidance and a specific framework for morally constructive living in relation to God, self and others.
The content of the New Testament moral law is identical to the Old Testament, but the context is different. The Old Testament law applied in the context of a theocratic nation. The moral commandments in the New Testament apply to individual believers in Christ.
It is important to know that the eternal ethical principles embodied in the Mosaic Law are the same ones restated in the New Testament. But the context in the New Testament is GRACE instead of judgment, since Christ has taken the judgment on our behalf. If a person commits adultery under grace, they have violated God's law, but they won't have to pay with their life as they would have had to under the Mosaic law 3,000 years ago. Christ paid with his life once for all (Hebrews 10:10). That is why St. John wrote: "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
Christians are not under Moses' particular edition of God's ethical directives. When a Christian lies or steals, they are not breaking Moses' law, nor do they pay the consequences of Moses' law. They are, however, breaking God's eternal law of LOVE.
God has not changed (Hebrews 6:18; 13:8). He is still the God of love in the New Testament as he was in the Old Testament. The moral principles that express his love to us and show us how to share that love with God and others are still the same.
Jesus spoke of at least two laws of love: one for loving God and one for loving people (Matthew 22:37-39). He also said he came to fulfill the law, not to abolish it (Matthew 5:17). There is synergy between the Old law and the New because when we truly love God and our fellow humans, we will find ourselves not breaking the ten commandments (Romans 13:10).
Each of the ten commandments gives us the loving thing to do and the unloving thing to avoid in our relationship with God, self and others. Each law is love put into words!
1. "You shall have no other gods before me" says that loving devotion to God is a pure and wholehearted lifestyle unrivaled by any person, idea or thing.
2. "You shall not make for yourself an idol" says that loving devotion to God focuses on God, not on religious or secular practices, props or substitutes.
3. "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God" shows that loving devotion to God includes respect and reverence for God's unique person and identity.
4. "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy" says that loving devotion to God includes time spent each week (regularly) in worship and rest.
5. "Honor your father and your mother" says love for parents is expressed through recognition, respect and showing them high esteem.
6. "You shall not murder" says that love for others respects their right to have their life preserved.
7. "You shall not commit adultery" says that love for spouse (or future spouse) is demonstrated through sexual purity and faithfulness that empowers intimacy.
8. "You shall not steal" says that love for others is expressed by respecting their property, possessions, reputation and identity.
9. "You shall not give false witness against your neighbor" says that love for others is shown through dealing in relation to them honestly and truthfully.
10. "You shall not covet" says that love for others focuses on what we can give to others through our personal investment and service, rather than considering what we might be able to get that belongs to them.
Love is the heart of each of God's commands.
In both the Old and New renditions of God's moral requirements we see that LOVE is the only life-giving way to respond and be in constructive relationship with God, self and other people.
God wants us to be clear on his call to live lives fully committed to love, so he spelled out what the life of love looks like in very specific terms in his laws. God's law is love put into words.
We can say, "Love is the one moral absolute."
God is revolutionizing our individual lives and this world with his love!
Praise God!
I love you,
Duff
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Totally agree with the love theme but:
10. "You shall not covet" says that love for others focuses on what we can give to others through our personal investment and service, rather than considering what we might be able to get that belongs to them.”
Does this include not invading a country and occupying that country on lies and deception because that country has 40 years of oil reserves? America the most Christian nation on earth and they have the largest military and the largest military complex in the world. Why is this?
Was Jesus an imperialist and advocated bases all over the world? Do Christians actually read what Jesus said?
5. "Honor your father and your mother" says love for parents is expressed through recognition, respect and showing them high esteem.”
Does this include children that have suffered emotional, physical, and sexual abuse? These parents deserve recongntion, respect, and to be shown high self esteem? Maybe more should be added like the need to forgive rather just blind honor because they brought children into this world. Pretty easy to have children
3. "You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God" shows that loving devotion to God includes respect and reverence for God's unique person and identity.”.
God is a person. Reread the mark twain quote. Surely as a pastor you have thought about such things.
“God made man in his image and then man returned the favor. Mark twain.”
"Love is the one moral absolute."
Would the concept of divine work better than moral? Synonyms for divine appear to work better than moral.
One person's idea of moral is another person's idea of sin.
Anyhow what a wonderful profound statement.
This quote I think was the true essence of the teachings of Jesus. The biggest mistake I made in my life was to criticize and judge the followers of Jesus rather than dwell in on the teachings of Jesus. I have noticed the atheists are also very good at this.
Don’t know about your church but I have found the evangels may be even worst warmongers than the atheists. How can this be?
I find nothing in Jesus teachings that suggest we should invade and occupy a country for their oil under the false pretense of giving them democracy or that they are or were a threat to us.
Well I reread your quote several times and you are right. The one moral absolute of all the often-insane perceptions of morality that we humans have is love. My mistake.
Dear Anonymous,
You clearly have a struggle relating to our nation being at war in Iraq. I respect your stand and personally lean toward the ideal of pacifism, particularly in the context of following Christ's example on non-violent engagement. I left South Africa as a young man partly to "dodge" the required military service in their war against terrorists in that 1970's context. (Not only did I not want to fight, I couldn't support the apartheid policies of the day and therefore would have nothing to fight for--quite a position to be in!).
Regarding the USA's approach to war, I think it is useful to not define this country as a "Christian nation." Even though we have a Christian president and a strong evangelical presence in the country and government, I'm convinced it's important to keep a clear separation between church and state. Our founding fathers formed the constitution to make certain the state was not too closely aligned with religion--especially a religious form that takes to itself political power. They did not want to reproduce the European experience of their day where the church and government were generally too cozy in sharing political and religious power.
It seems to me Christians should be active like salt--seasoning our culture and the world with God's compassionate, saving love and Christ's rich and beautiful life-giving flavors. We deal primarily in inner-life changing spiritual realities.
It should not be a surprise when the democratic processes of government sometimes take our country's policy in directions to which we are opposed. And Christians, like all other citizens, have the power of our vote.
Also, as hard as it is for us to accept, we are not completely united into a "voting block" as Christ-followers. Following Christ is an individual process that has a community component (participation in the church community) and we commonly do not find full agreement on all details of what it means to authentically follow Christ in a given situation. Nor do we share the exact same strongly held convictions on all issues. This was true with Christ's original disciples and is clearly true today.
I guess our unity is in how much we love each other, not how much we agree on things like whether our country should go to war.
Sorry to be so long today!
I'm enjoying the dialogue.
Blessings,
DG
"I guess our unity is in how much we love each other, not how much we agree on things like whether our country should go to war."
I will think on this comment but what keeps running through my mind is I suspect the Germans loved each other and their war and aggression cost the world how many lives?
And I suspect the German Christians lined up to fight and invade Poland, France, and Russia.
We Americans call our soldiers war heroes for fighting in these illegal wars like Vietnam and Iraq. Is that not the very definition of imperialism? How many men women and children did john mc Cain kill and wound while he was bombing the North Vietnamese? Not sure he would be considered a war hero in Jesus eyes.
I have read that sometimes our bombs would have plastic pellets inside them so the Vietnamese X rays could not find the pellets in the wounded and they would have suffer terrible pain. How many of those pilots were Christians? I seriously doubt if Jesus teachings advocated imperialism.
My point is maybe loving each other in church is not the whole thrust of Jesus teachings. It is exponentially easier to love those that think like us. Like attracts like and we tend to “love those that think like us”.
If I came to your church and preached my thoughts on this war, I suspect I would be shunned by most in attendance and I seriously doubt showed much love.
Thank you for your response. Your views were very well stated and appear to be in line with Jesus’ teachings.
Although you did not address the Will Rogers comment. I was wondering about how you felt about his comment that:
“God made man in his image and then man returned the favor. Mark twain.”
Think about it, a perfect infinite love and intelligence getting angry? That appears to be more of a human trait than one of infinite perfection.
The term Christian nation is not my term but the term of many of our politicians and citizens.
My point was and is that indeed compared to all other industrialized nations we have the greatest percent of people calling themselves Christians and attending church on a weekly basis.
That being the case we are also the most aggressive when it comes to wars and I have read spend more on our military and have a mega industrial military complex than all other industrial nations combined. Could this be due to the large Christian aspect of our country? Should we not be the most peaceful nation, not the most hostile?
I suspect over 80 per cent of your attendees support this war and this mega industrial military complex. Probably best you don’t discuss the war in your sermons as Joel Osteen does not and he tends to have a large turnout on Sunday.
To emotional: should we Americans not be emotional and struggle with our conscious about this illegal war. I mean a war with thousands of Iraqis being killed and Americans keep shopping till they drop. Almost compete apathy. And for the most part our politicians talk only about the cost of the war and Americans lives lost and every little about Iraqi deaths, suffering and displacement.
Is American style capitalism really what Jesus taught? Cannot find anywhere in Jesus teachings that Greed is good like Wall Street advocates. As a Christian nation should our politics reflect the teachings of Jesus in compassion and love for all including Iraqis. We have destroyed a very fragile religious country in our lust for oil.
Like to end with two things. One a new movie is out you many want to see. “Expelled” with Ben stein. It takes on evolution and how the Darwinists do not allow dissent.
And with some humor:
Did you hear about the dyslexic insomniac agnostic?
“He lies awake at night wondering if there's a dog.”
Post a Comment