The Law (god's Law, Not The Civil Law)

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Aug 22 2004, 03:18 PM'] I said that in following the law, we better prepare ourselves to accept Christ's graces.  It is not in following the law that we accept those graces, but only that we prepare ourselves to do so.  For instance, it is God's law to honor the Sabbath.  Does one who goes to Mass on Sunday honor or glorify God?  Yes.  Does God require this?  No.  Rather, our going to Sunday Mass increases our knowledge of how much we need God, increases our anticipation of Heaven, and increases our appreciation of God.  With such increases, we are better preparing ourselves to accept God' grace by our faith.  The law is to support our faith.  It is to protect us from the devil.  In protecting our faith from sin, it allows our faith to blossom and thus allows us to receive graces from God through that faith. [/quote]
Semi-Pelagianism, all!

Has anyone here read Martin Luther's "On the Bondage of the Will"?. This is the perspective I'm arguing from...

We are better preparing ourselves? So, our salvation comes partly from our own preparing ourselves, and partly from God? This is textbook semi-Pelagianism!

Edited August 23, 2004 by ICTHUS

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 22 2004, 01:19 PM'] So, a Roman Catholic could agree with the idea that the Law chases us to Christ by fear of judgement, and we consequently take refuge in Him from said judgement? [/quote]
ICTHUS, can you contravene the moral law by committing fornication, adultery, bestiality, homosexual acts, murder, theft, etc., with impunity and still be saved? If you commit these acts are you a member of Christ?

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law are not identical. The judicial and ritual precepts of the Mosaic Law have been fulfilled in Christ. Thus, those elements of the Mosaic Law are not binding on a man; instead, because Christ fulfilled the Law of Moses all of those elements have been kept by those who have been incorporated into His Body. But by the power of God's grace a man must keep the Moral Law, and so, he cannot commit the sins of the flesh and be in a state of grace, he cannot break the moral law and be in Christ. In other words, by the power of God's grace a man must keep the Moral Law, and when he does keep it, it is Christ who keeps the Moral Law, in, with, and through the justified man. All is by grace and yet man is not passive in his own salvation. [cf. Philippians 2:12-13]

[ICTHUS]

Galatians 3:23 says that the law was our disciplinarian for Christ.

A disciplinarian is one who disciplines - one who beats and threatens to beat, who curses at us (as the law curses those who fail to keep us).

So, why do we see the Law as something helpful? The ONLY purpose of the Law is KNOWLEDGE OF SIN, and consequently, God's wrath against such sin.

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Aug 23 2004, 05:30 PM'] ICTHUS, can you contravene the moral law by committing fornication, adultery, bestiality, homosexual acts, murder, theft, etc., with impunity and still be saved? If you commit these acts are you a member of Christ?

One other thing to keep in mind is that the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law are not identical. [/quote]
[quote]ICTHUS, can you contravene the moral law by committing fornication, adultery, bestiality, homosexual acts, murder, theft, etc., with impunity and still be saved?  If you commit these acts are you a member of Christ?[/quote] No. A person who does such things without repenting of them shows by their evil ways that they are not (nor ever were, for that matter) in Christ.

[quote]One other thing to keep in mind is that the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law are not identical.[/quote] Why? Show me Scripture that establishes this dichotomy.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 03:36 PM'] Galatians 3:23 says that the law was our disciplinarian for Christ.

A disciplinarian is one who disciplines - one who beats and threatens to beat, who curses at us (as the law curses those who fail to keep us).

So, why do we see the Law as something helpful? The ONLY purpose of the Law is KNOWLEDGE OF SIN, and consequently, God's wrath against such sin. [/quote]
ICTHUS, you are confusing the Mosaic Law, which had elements that were temporary, and the Moral Law, which must be kept by all men through grace.

[ICTHUS]

I'm confused. I thought that the whole law was intended to bring knowledge of sin, and God's judgement, so that we may be aware of our sin and come to Christ...

[Apotheoun]

Grace empowers man to act, and so it is not merely "divine favor." Thus, the man who has been incorporated into Christ's Body must live his life in the Spirit and power of God, for ". . . it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." [Galatians 2:20] Grace is a supernatural and dynamic principle of life, it is the infusion of God's own life into man.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 03:42 PM'] I'm confused. I thought that the whole law was intended to bring knowledge of sin, and God's judgement, so that we may be aware of our sin and come to Christ... [/quote]
That is the Reformers view of the Law (but they often confuse the Mosaic Law and the Moral Law), but that is not the view of anyone prior to them. The Mosaic Law and the Moral law are not identical. No man can live an immoral life and still be saved. [cf. 1 Cor. 6:9-11]

Faith in Christ is not a license to commit sin.

[ICTHUS]

So, is any part of the Law intended to be our disciplinarian for Christ, to 'chase us to Christ', so to speak?

[Apotheoun]

The Mosaic Law was given only to the Hebrews, and so Luther's view of the (Mosaic) Law, i.e., that it was meant to convict all men of sin, makes no sense when talking to non-Jews. Luther's view can only make sense in a Jewish, or a medieval Christian context, and to think that Paul ran around preaching to the gentiles telling them that a Law which they never received has shown them that they are sinful, is really the height of lunacy. Paul preached Christ crucified and risen from the dead, and so he didn't give the gentiles he came across an education in the Torah before preaching Christ.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 03:49 PM'] So, is any part of the Law intended to be our disciplinarian for Christ, to 'chase us to Christ', so to speak? [/quote]
No. ICTHUS, I don't buy into the 16th century Reformation notion that God is a punishing and vindictive being who must frighten man into a relationship with Him.

[ICTHUS]

Luthers view was that the whole law - the command to 'Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself' was meant to chase us to Christ, because nobody could keep it perfectly.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 06:49 PM'] So, is any part of the Law intended to be our disciplinarian for Christ, to 'chase us to Christ', so to speak? [/quote]
I answer that with a question: would coming to Christ out of fear be an act of faith?

I don't believe so, unless what is meant is faith in the ability of God to punish, but that is not God's angle. If you threaten a person into submission, that isn't real submission, because it's not willed by the subject, it's just chosen as a lesser evil to submit than to be punished. God does not present us with an evil, He presents us with a good. God's Law is not to scare us with damnation, it is to lead us with the goal of salvation.

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='Raphael' date='Aug 23 2004, 05:59 PM'] I answer that with a question: would coming to Christ out of fear be an act of faith?

I don't believe so, unless what is meant is faith in the ability of God to punish, but that is not God's angle. If you threaten a person into submission, that isn't real submission, because it's not willed by the subject, it's just chosen as a lesser evil to submit than to be punished. God does not present us with an evil, He presents us with a good. God's Law is not to scare us with damnation, it is to lead us with the goal of salvation. [/quote]
We don't come to Christ because we love Him, at first. We come to Him because we fear the Father's Wrath. We love Him THEN, because He is our saviour...

Before regeneration, however, we hate Christ - we are the ones who nailed Him to the cross.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 03:58 PM'] Luthers view was that the whole law - the command to 'Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself' was meant to chase us to Christ, because nobody could keep it perfectly. [/quote]
Luther was psychologically a rather depressed person. I don't look on the Law as a way of "chasing" man to God. Luther liked to focus on a punishing God, but that is because he tended toward scrupulosity.

[Apotheoun]

The Mosaic Law did have a pedagogical value, and so it was intended to teach the Jews that they could not save themselves, but Luther overemphasized the Law as a way of punishing or "chasing" man to God, as if God needs to operate in a rather disingenuous way in order to trick man into coming to Him.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 04:01 PM']We don't come to Christ because we love Him, at first. We come to Him because we fear the Father's Wrath. We love Him THEN, because He is our saviour...[/quote]
We come to Christ because the Father draws us to Him by grace. So, we neither come to Him because we loved Him first, nor because we fear punishment. All is by grace.

[quote name='ICTHUS' date='Aug 23 2004, 04:01 PM']Before regeneration, however, we hate Christ - we are the ones who nailed Him to the cross.[/quote]
This is a Reformation notion, and so I don't accept it. It's far too Manichaean for me. The Reformers loved extremes, but I don't like them. This idea that all men "hate" Christ is connected to the Manichaean notion of "total depravity."

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Aug 23 2004, 06:03 PM'] Luther was psychologically a rather depressed person.  I don't look on the Law as a way of "chasing" man to God.  Luther liked to focus on a punishing God, but that is because he tended toward scrupulosity. [/quote]
The reason he was depressed is because he didn't know how to be saved. I'd be depressed too if I saw that God declared His wrath against me if I wasn't perfect... (which Christ has rendered me)

Edited August 23, 2004 by ICTHUS

[ICTHUS]

[quote name='Apotheoun' date='Aug 23 2004, 06:10 PM'] This is a Reformation notion, and so I don't accept it. It's far too Manichaean for me. The Reformers loved extremes, but I don't like them. This idea that all men "hate" Christ is connected to the Manichaean notion of "total depravity." [/quote]
You don't like it, but to the Scriptures teach it?

Also, I would posit that our pride being torn down so that we may fear God and come to Christ is all by grace, too.

[Mary's Knight, La]

What is the purpose of God's law?

hmmm it's a complicated ussue but i'm borrowing from sheed the way i understand what he said.

all things have laws of existence, cars need gas and oil in the right amounts in the right places, human bodies need vitamins, food, oxygen, water, etc. Sanctifying grace has laws of existance too, absence of sin, etc.

God's law shows us the laws of spiritual life in our souls. e.g. how now to kill the unmerited freely given life of heaven imparted to us in baptism and restored through reconciliation.