Deut 4:13 The Old Covenant IS the Ten Commandments

 

Deut 9:1, 9, 15 The Old Covenant IS the Ten Commandments.

 

Hagar - Pauls imagry

 

5.         Rabbinic law:                                       

Added by religious authorities, who wanted to prevent another Apunishment@ of God, like the Babylonian captivity.   Based upon interpretations of Old Testament Scriptures by the religious teachers.  Very detailed.  There were 100s of regulations just concerning Sabbath observance.   The authorities had completely missed the point.  Israel had turned away from God in their hearts - this is why God allowed the captivity. Their neglect/failure to obey God=s commandments was only the outward sign of their heart condition.  The religious authorities thought to keep the people in line, but even the leaders themselves had become hard of heart, because they were focused only on outward obedience to the law.  They were hypocrites. Their treatment of God=s Own Son revealed their true love of power. 

 

Christ taught that true obedience is from the heart - and only God can change the heart -- therefore Awithout faith it is impossible to please Him@ (Hebrews 11:6).

 

What about tradition?  

 

What did Paul say about the law?

 

ROMANS 10:4  AFor Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.@

 

Christ is the end of trying to keep the letter of the law, in your own strength, in order to be righteous before God.. Christ is the end of legalism.

 

II CORINTHIANS 3:5‑6  ANot that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter (legalism), but of the Spirit; for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.@

 

ROMANS 3:27  AWhere is boasting then?  It is excluded.  By what law?  Of works?  No, but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.@

 

The works which we do in order to win God=s favor, in order to be saved, are useless, because we cannot, out of our unsaved hearts perform works that are free of selfish intent.  We must first receive grace, the healing purifying power of God.  Then we will do good works, we will bring forth the fruits of the spirit, not in order to be saved, but because we are saved.

 

PHILIPPIANS 3:3‑9 Paul says that he kept the law perfectly as far as was humanly possible, but when the Holy Spirit convicted Him of the true spirit of the law (that is loving ones fellow men) he realized he was lost and could never meet the requirements in his own strength. He had no confidence in his own ability to obey God perfectly, but trusted to the power of the Holy Spirit in him.

 

ROMANS 6:7  A... a woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives, but if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband ...  You also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God ...  But we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so the we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.@

 

You have become dead to law keeping as a means to salvation.  You still keep the law, but not as a way to be saved.  You now keep the law because you have been saved, and have received power from Christ. 

 

Paul here is contrasting the attempt to gain salvation by our own works, which is futile slavery, the Aoldness of the letter,@ with the Anewness of the Spirit@, the indwelling power of grace, which produces inward change, true righteousness, not just outwardly correct behavior.

 

The law was the first husband, but he was a tyrant which could only point out her sins (Gal. 7:7‑23).  When you realized the impossibility of keeping the law in you own strength you  Adied to the law@ as a means of salvation, and were married to Christ. The law didn=t love you and the law could not help you to obey.  Jesus loves you, and He gives you power to obey willingly and joyfully. This new marriage is happy!

This same symbol of marriage Paul uses in Galatians 4:21 and Galatians 5:6. Abraham=s taking Hagar represents our attempt to gain salvation in our own way, by works. The miracle child given through Sarah symbolizes salvation by grace, the gift of God. Paul went on to say that clinging to circumcision or to any of the ceremonial laws, was to continue trying to achieve salvation by works. 

 

ROMANS 9:30-32 ************************