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Saul of Tarsus
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Isaac Newton was the man who began the revolution that would recover much lost knowledge of our Universe. Knowledge that could only be recovered by a God-Fearing, Truth-Seeking Law-Keeper (as much as he could know). By the same token, this same knowledge could only have been lost during the dominance of lawless heathens such as the ones that ruled secular and religious life during the Dark-Ages. Truly can "you know them by their fruits".
Sir Isaac Newton once declared prophetically:
He was only partly right because "WE" are turning our attention to ALL SCRIPTURE -Torah, Prophecy, Wisdom Writings and Epistles. And in that spirit it is time to declare that Saul of Tarsus, the last Apostle (called Paul), was a devout Law-Keeper and Teacher of the Law. |
Paul the Law-Keeper
by David HinkleyScholar vs. Blind Faith
There is a large community of people who are church leaders and educators thoroughly versed in scripture and many others who are mature, reasonably educated, adults that have lived as Christians or Jews most of their adult lives. And yet they still prefer the traditions of men over the simple, eternal truths of God. Some are worse. Ones, such as those of the World-Wide Church of God, that deliberately turn from sound doctrines and refuse to advance their poor ones in favour of appeasing the broad "main-stream" community.
However, I should make it clear that I know first-hand that there are many sincere "seekers" and "believers" out there that honestly believe many of the doctrines of lawlessness that are attributed to Paul's epistles. Perhaps many of you reading this now. And I think that explaining the trap you've fallen into is a good place to start and I don't think I can improve on the words of Samuele Bacchiocchi, Professor of Church History and Theology at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Michigan.
Dr. Bacchiocchi, originally from Rome, Italy, came from a devout Catholic family that turned to Sabbath worship after they began, for the first time, actually reading the scriptures for themselves. His family eventually became Seventh-Day Adventists and Samuele went on to be the first non-Catholic student at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He has authored 12 published books on biblical topics beginning with the now famous From Sabbath to Sunday. His latest book God's Festivals in Scripture and in History is a reversal in one of his scholarly opinions. He once presumed that only the "10 Commandments" were completely binding on Christians and that all other laws were done away -his latest book re-evaluates his former stance.
In his book, The Sabbath in the New Testament, Dr. Bacchiocchi devotes an entire chapter (Ch. 6) to "Paul and the Law". The section "A Resolution of Tension." contains these words about Paul:
"A popular explanation has been to say that Paul's negative statements refer to the Mosaic, ceremonial law, while the positive ones refer to the moral law of the Ten Commandments. Such an explanation, however, is based on an arbitrary distinction between moral and ceremonial laws which cannot be found in Paul's writings.
"The correct explanation is to be found in the different contexts in which Paul speaks of the law. When he speaks of the law in the context of salvation (justification--right standing before God), he clearly affirms that law-keeping is of no avail (Rom 3:20).
"On the other hand, when Paul speaks of the law in the context of Christian conduct (sanctification--right living before God), then he maintains the value and validity of God's law (Rom 7:12; 13:8-10; 1 Cor 7:19). For example, when Paul speaks of the various forms of human wickedness in 1 Timothy 1:8-10, he explicitly affirms 'now we know that the law is good' (v. 8).""Is it possible to reconcile Paul's apparently contradictory statements about the law? How can Paul view the law both as 'abolished' (Eph 2:15) and 'established' (Rom 3:31), unnecessary (Rom 3:28) and necessary (1 Cor 7:19; Eph 6:2, 3; 1 Tim 1:8-10)?
Dr. Bacchiocchi then goes on to make some of the same points, from scripture, that I intend to make to you. He concludes this section with a very succinct conclusion that attempts to explain why many have easily accepted, and presumed to be true, Romish teachings about Paul's attitude on the Law of G-D. I think his own words say it best:
"The mounting pressure of Judaizers who were urging circumcision upon the Gentiles, made it necessary for Paul to attack the exclusive covenant-concept of the law. 'But,' as George Howard points out, 'under other circumstances he [Paul] might have insisted on the importance of Israel's retention of her distinctiveness.'
"The failure to distinguish in Paul's writing between his moral and soteriological usages of the law, and the failure to recognize that his criticism of the law is directed not toward Jewish-Christians but toward Gentiles Judaizers, has led many to fallaciously conclude that Paul is an antinomian who rejected the value and validity of the law as a whole. Such a view is totally unwarranted because, as we have shown, Paul rejects the law as a method of salvation but upholds it as a moral standard of Christian conduct.""The conclusion that emerges from the foregoing considerations is that Paul does not attack the validity and value of the law as a moral guide to Christian conduct. On the contrary, he emphatically affirms that Christ specifically came 'in order that the just requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us' (Rom 8:4). What Paul criticizes is not the moral but the soteriological understanding of the law, that is, the law viewed as a document of election that includes the Jews and excludes the Gentiles.
Begin at the Beginning
Do you truly know the views and approaches that Jesus took towards the Law? Do you know why this is so important to the study of Paul? Or any other Apostle for that matter?
All serious students of scripture are familiar with Paul's words in I Corinthians 11:1. He said, "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ". Therefore, a truly appropriate way to begin to understand Paul's approach to the Law of God is to know and understand our Lord's approach. Wouldn't you agree?....
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Alfred Edersheim's List of Messianic Passages
MESSIANICALLY APPLIED IN ANCIENT RABBINIC WRITINGS
BY ALFRED EDERSHEIM
THE following list contains the passages in the Old Testament applied to the Messiah or to Messianic times in the most ancient Jewish writings. They amount in all to 458, thus distributed : 75 from the Pentateuch, 243 from the Prophets, and 138 from the Hagiographa, and supported by more than 658 separate quotations from Rabbinic writings. Despite all labor and care, it can scarcely be hoped that the list is quite complete, although, it is hoped, no important passage has been omitted. The Rabbinic references might have been considerably increased, but it seemed useless to quote the same application of a passage in many different books. Similarly, for the sake of space, only the most important Rabbinic quotations have been translated in extenso. The Rabbinic works from which quotations have been made are : the Targumirn, the two Talmuds, and the most ancient midrashim, ...
Read this now under /ALFRED EDERSHEIM "LIST OF OLD TESTAMENT PASSAGES MESSIANICALLY APLIED"
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