| Author | Message | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 883 Registered: 9-2006  |
Very recently my brother spent a week with me and of course being both Christians we talked Bible a lot and we both enjoy discussing the word. We were discussing the old covenant and the Ten Commandments and come to find out his take on the Ten Commandments is that they are not a part of the old covenant because the difference, he said, was that they were “written in stone”. I usually don’t argue with him but leave him with his views and besides, arguing with my older brother is like arguing with a fence post. Now the interesting thing is the following, as I was cruising along this morning in Deuteronomy (or as my grand daughter calls it “duternomy”) I came upon this verse in 4:13 So he declared to you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and he wrote on two tablets of stone. So much for the Ten Commands not being part of the old covenant! At least as far as I can tell since it pretty much named them as the covenant. Am I wrong or am I right? I do wish I had made him a 20.00 bet though, I need the money! Anybody out there who thinks the way my brother does? River | ||
| Jim02 Registered user Username: Jim02 Post Number: 69 Registered: 5-2007 |
I see his mechanical logic to that position. However , my recent months of study has led me to conclude that the 10C were in fact identified as inclusive to the OC. The mental interlocks is that it was on stone bt the very hand of God. Then when Paul says , "we have been instrusted with the very words of God" and "I would hav enot known what sin was......" These point to the tablets and tend to give continuity to the idea of perpetual. I still worry that I may be mistaken. But , sure enough, there it is , right in scripture. The 10C is the OC. and passage after passage has apparently , seemingly set it aside as being obsolete, the letter of the law etc. Oh that I am not steping into another error. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 6085 Registered: 12-2003  |
Jim, you're not stepping into error when you are faithfully following the Bible and praying for understanding. River, your are correct. the 10 Commandments were literally the words of the Mosaic Covenant. That is the only covenant God made with Israel. All other covenants God made were in behalf of Israel/humanity. In other words, the Mosaic covenant was a deal: you obey, I'll bless you. You stray, I'll let you reap curses. All other covenants God made "between Himself" on behalf of the humans. Think Genesis 15, where God made a covenant "with" Abraham. Abraham brought the sacrifices, but God put Abraham to sleep and did not allow him to participate in the covenant at all. God Himself came and moved among the sacrifices, "cutting the covenant" with Himself. No fallible human promise was involved. Only God's unfailing p;romises were involved. Ditto with the New Covenant. Jesus, as the representative of the Jews (and of all humanity) received the penalty and suffering belonging to the race. Jesus as God Himself sacrificed on our behalf and keeps the covenant for us with the Father. No human promises are involved. The moral principles contained in the 10 Commandments derive from the Person of God Himself. They are eternal. They were here long before there were 10 Commandments. They are still here in the writings of the New Testament and in the promptings of the Holy Spirit who demands much more from us than does the law. No, the 10 Commandments are part of the Old Covenant. Galatians 3 states that they came 430 after Abraham "until the Seed". Morality is not linked to nor limited to the 10 Commandments. God is capable of teaching us His eternal moral "law" without the help of stone tablets. (Stone tablets, by the way, were the standard means of transcribing covenants between conquering suzerein rulers and the conquered vassals in the ancient Near East. They always followed the formula of the Decalogue: the requirements the conqering king expected of the conquered were stated, and the sign the conquered were expected to practice to show they accepted the covenant was always in the middle of the covenant document--i.e, the Sabbath.) With the coming of Jesus, the Decalogue was WAY supplanted as the revelation of God's expectations and promises and righteousness. Now, as the Transfiguration teaches us, we listen to Jesus, not to the law and the prophets for our practical instruction on finding righteousness. Now we honor Him and accept His death in our place and the life of His resurrection in our spirits. Colleen | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 889 Registered: 9-2006 |
Since I started this thread I thought I better look up the text in all my translations so as to at least make you think I am not lazy (I can at least put on a front!) so here goes. Zondervan Amplified Bible. 4:13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. King James: Deuteronomy 4:13 And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. RSV: Deuteronomy 4:13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, that is, the ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone. Modern King James: Deuteronomy 4:13 "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. Darby: Deuteronomy 4:13 And he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to do, the ten words; and he wrote them on two tables of stone. Youngs literal translation: Deuteronomy 4:13 and He declareth to you His covenant, which He hath commanded you to do, the Ten Matters, and He writeth them upon two tables of stone. Tha, tha, thats all folks. Clearly it speaks of the 10C as A covenant in the least and while we can't make a doctrine out of just one scripture it clearly names the 10C as that covenant, all ten. But now if we drop down one verse to 14 is says: Deuteronomy 4:14 "And the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and judgments, that you might observe them in the land which you cross over to possess. Bearing out what Colleen just said. I do think that is enough to jump over to Paul with myself but if anybody got other O.T. scripture to add please do. Too many evangelicals don't know what you folks have learned from necessity. River | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 3806 Registered: 3-2004  |
River, I am blessed to have you here. God brought you here so I could learn from you. Thank you God for River. Diana | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 892 Registered: 9-2006 |
I am not done. 1. Now have we established that the rest of the 630 some odd were statutes and judgments, am I right there? 2. Is there any other covenants spoken of in the old testament besides Abraham? Comeon you guys and gals, I know you get tired of talking 10C but what I am trying to do is to cut the long explanations down to simple answers. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 6093 Registered: 12-2003 |
The entire Mosaic law of 613 (or whatever number!) commands WAS the Old Covenant. The 10 C's are part of those laws, and the Bible never separates them out. The OT also has God's covenant with Noah that there would never be another world-wide flood (symbolized by the rainbow) and the Davidic covenant that God would have a perpetual king in the line of David upon the throne. Jesus is the fulfillment of the Davidic throne. The Palestinian land covenant (part of the Davidic covenant that David would have a perpetual heir upon the throne in the land), many say, is yet to be fulfilled during the millennium. Our pastor, who does not take a strict Dispensational view of "things", nevertheless says he believes that the land covenant will be fulfilled because God made a unilateral promise that it would be so. The New Covenant is also promised in the OT—Jeremiah 31:31-34. The Mosaic covenant is the only one God made which involved human promises. All the others were unliateral promises of God. That's why they are UNCONDITIONAL, and the Mosaic, or Old Covenant, is considered "conditional". God Always keeps His unconditional promises, because His promises cannot be broken. The human promises of Israel had no hope of being secure. That's why Hebrews states the New Covenant is a better covenant founded on better promises. Colleen | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 899 Registered: 9-2006 |
Thank you colleen, I just couldn't bring all the things to mind and some I didn't realize. Thank you again for going to the trouble. River | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 908 Registered: 9-2006 |
Also a very interesting text of scripture in Deuteronomy you can find in Deuteronomy 12:6 "There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your TITHES, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. So this text seems to identify TITHES as one of the statutes and judgments in Mosaic law. Understand that I am holding this single verse in tension. Taking from verse one it says Deuteronomy 12:1 "These are the statutes and judgments which you shall be careful to observe in the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you to possess, all the days that you live on the earth. So TITHING would have been a statute but not a judgment. This would be a judgment Deuteronomy 12:2 "You shall utterly destroy all the places where the nations which you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains and on the hills and under every green tree. Am I right you Bible scholars? In fact I believe this is the first time the word TITHES is mentioned in the Bible (may be mistaken there), but to my way of thinking it definitely does Identify the word TITHE as a statute. Now this thing gets more interesting here Nehemiah 10:37 to bring the firstfruits of our dough, our offerings, the fruit from all kinds of trees, the new wine and oil, to the priests, to the storerooms of the house of our God; and to bring the tithes of our land to the Levites, for the Levites should receive the tithes in all our farming communities. So do we need to find ourselves a levite to present our tithes too? Now this is a very interesting text Nehemiah 10:38 And the priest, the descendant of Aaron, shall be with the Levites when the Levites receive tithes; and the Levites shall bring up a tenth of the tithes to the house of our God, to the rooms of the storehouse. Notice the Levites bringing a TENTH of the TITHES. I tell you if you search it really get interesting about tithes. If you ever heard a hellfire and brimstone sermon on tithing you would have heard this Malachi 3:8 "Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, 'In what way have we robbed You?' In tithes and offerings. Malachi 3:9 You are cursed with a curse, For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. Malachi 3:10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this," Says the Lord of hosts, "If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it. Malachi 3:11 "And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field," Says the Lord of hosts; But you probably would not have heard this Malachi 3:7 Yet from the days of your fathers You have gone away from My ordinances And have not kept them. Neither will he include this Malachi 3:1 "Behold, I send My messenger, And he will prepare the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, Will suddenly come to His temple, Even the Messenger of the covenant, In whom you delight. Behold, He is coming," Says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 3:2 "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire And like launderer's soap. Malachi 3:3 He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, And purge them as gold and silver, That they may offer to the Lord An offering in righteousness. Notice the last words? An offering in righteousness’. It just seems to me that the whole context of Malachi three has to do with Israel not keeping the Lords statues and judgments and ordnances. Now I am in no way saying to leave your individual houses of worship desolate but as said in somewhere in the New Testament to lay by what is purposed in your heart and to freely give to support the place you get fed every Sunday, you don’t go to a restaurant and tip the waitress in the restaurant next door, at least I hope you don’t. On the other hand, if we are going to preach the word then I think we should preach the word in context and avoid all this confusion, which by the way I think that is what Adventism is, confusion, or I ain’t never seen confusion! What has tithes got to do with the Ten Commandments? Well, just to my way of thinking, if the Ten Commandments have been identified with the covenant and the statutes have been identified with the covenant the tithes have been identified with the covenant it all ties together as part of the same covenant seems to me like. If I am thinking wrongly then where am I wrong? It seems to me like Deuteronomy 6:12 identifies tithe as a statute of the old covenant. Well if we have an old covenant and a new covenant then we best look for answers in the new covenant seems to me like. Preachers preach tithes from Malachi and it cuts the heart of tender hearted Christians out there and far as I understand the reason it cuts them is this. The word of God is sharper than any two edged sword, now we don’t take a sharp sword and go slashing among the troops fer cryin out loud. In my own opinion we shouldn’t take the word of God and just go slashing around helter skelter nor use it as a sledge hammer neither, I know I have been guilty of both but with Gods help I aim to get better. It ain’t no wonder the Lord likens us to sheep, we just go milling around. As we used to say in the military “quit milling around like a herd a sheep” River | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 6107 Registered: 12-2003 |
Excellent insights, River. Thank you. You make a great point about tithes being connected to the Levites. I love Hebrews 7:12: "For when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law." The passage continues by pointing out that Jesus is not from Levi but from a tribe from which no one "ever served at the altar." With the coming of Jesus' Mechizedek priesthood, the Levitical system became obsolete. All the statutes connected with the Levitical system are fulfilled in Jesus! Colleen | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 914 Registered: 9-2006 |
Hey ya know what Colleen I have read that Hebrews 7:12For" when there is a change of the priesthood, there must also be a change of the law" but I never really saw the "change of the preist hood thing, I saw it but didn't see it, know what I mean, of course the priest hood was changed, Jesus our great high priest. Awesome. Ya know, you men and women on here are such a great blessing to me, what you bring up is never brought up in our churches and it just seems to "round off" the bible teaching I had already been privy too. What a blessing you have been, I feel like I am blessed above my fellow Christians in the Evangelical world. I hate to say it but you could not have blessed me this way in the word if you had been raised evangelical, it pains me to know what you have gone through, but you folks (formers) come at it from such a diffrent direction, what a valuable people you folks have become to the Christian world, I think your value is beyond measure. You folks have really taught me through the word to rest in Jesus, I thought I was before, but wow! I can't thank you enough for tolerating me on here! River | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 6110 Registered: 12-2003 |
Yeah, I know what you mean, River. That keeps happening to me, too--I'll see a verse that I've never REALLY noticed before, and suddenly there's a whole new meaning! I have to say, River, that I thank God—at this point—that I was steeped in Adventism because I believe that His redemption of my past involves seeing the Bible through completely new "eyes". Isn't it great how God sends us "formers" and "never-beens" to each other to teach each other what we might not see on our own? I know for sure that the "never-beens" God has sent into my life have transformed my understanding of Scripture and of living a godly life. Thank you for teaching me, River! Colleen |
