Yes… “Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it?”
No, it’s simply good ole’ ‘bait n’ switch’ / ‘sleight of hand’ — create an air of ‘guilt by association’ with a rather generalised comment, something like… it seems Jesus contrasted what He taught in “The Sermon on the Mount” with the Mosaic Law, but then covering one’s tracks with a lukewarm caveat something like, I don’t know the source of the command to which Jesus referred — but of cause enough mud sticks. The truth is as stated here…
You are right… Jesus NEVER did! In fact Jesus legitimised as kosher that which some people call error; take for example Jesus backing what Moses said as being the command of God…
Mt 15:1-4Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’
Jesus was in nowise muddled over Moses… He knew and indicates by this testimony that Yahweh had spoken explicitly to and through Moses.
Oh yes. but there is a idea that somehow God changed… But to understand that there never was and has never been a change (took me a while to figure that out) is to have to re look the covenant relationship between God and man in a different way than evangelicals’ have been doing it.
It is actually kind of being freed from a slog… (my terminology)
I never met anyone who thought that God changed. I certainly do not think that God has changed. But I think Moses sometimes thought God had spoken to or through him, when in fact, he came up with his own ideas as to how to deal with Israel.
If you want to know what God is like in character, just look at Jesus. Jesus is Another exactly like His Father. He is the exact image of the Father’s essence (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus never ordered His disciples to kill anyone, or to put to death rebellious childen, or to cut off women’s hands for certain offences as God supposedly did,.
The Pharisees were about to stone to death the woman discovered in adultery. Had Jesus followed the Mosaic law, He would have said, “The law is clear; she must be stoned” and perhaps would have cast the first stone Himself. Instead He shamed the Pharisees into inaction, and then simply said to the woman, “I don’t condemn you; go and sin no more.”
Not only was it said, it is also written in Lev. However, Neither God nor Moses commanded it. Jeremiah tells us where it came from- the false pen of the scribe.
“He who is speaking evil of father or mother – let him die the death.” YLT.
The unchanging God is only about abundant life (Jn. 10:10). Jesus was NOT reaffirming a supposed divine command to kill disrespectful children. Rather, he was sarcastically confronting religious hypocrisy, as he goes on to say:
But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’ they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you…
Jesus indeed sometimes contradicted Moses:
‘You have heard that it was said [through Moses]…But I [Jesus] tell you….’ Mt. 5.
‘Eye for an eye’…’Turn the other cheek.’
‘Moses commanded us to stone such women’…’Go now and leave your life of sin.’
Subject to bleeding [unclean were to remain apart]…’Who touched me?…Go in peace.’
‘MOSES wrote you this law…because your hearts were hard.’
In the Old Testament we see breakthroughs of the progressive revelation of God’s true nature that subvert the law of Moses. For example, Isaiah 1:11 says, “I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.”
Paul highlighted imperfections of the law of Moses thus: “The ministry that brought death…engraved in letters on stone…The ministry that brought condemnation.” 2 Cor. 3:7-9.
In the Sermon on the Mount, lusting became adultery; anger became murder. Jesus was NOT reaffirming the law of Moses. He was jerking the “works rug” out from under his listeners’ feet and pointing them to the grace of God, himself, the savior of all mankind. (He did the same thing with the rich young ruler, who insisted that he had indeed faithfully kept the commandments.)
Thank you for your enlightening post, Hermano, ad for your quote from Richard Murray (above).
In early Hebrew days, Satan was depicted as a servant of God through whom God sometimes worked. Later he was understood to be an enemy of God.
Notice in the texts below, in 2 Samuel it is state that the LORD (Yahweh) incited David to number Israel, whereas in 1 Chronicles it is stated that Satan incited David to number Israel. This suggests that the LORD incited David to number Israel by means of his servant Satan.
2Sa 24:1 Again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.” 1Ch 21:1 Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.
This is deep water, David ‘Wanted’ to do this thing. I say there was no outside influence ‘making’ him do it, but he was ‘compelled’ by his personal need, thus Satan was brought forth, and David succumbed to the same temptation that we all face, and as a side note, the same temptation that Christ faced.
I agree Jesus WAS confronting their religious hypocrisy. Do you agree that the text CLEARLY has Jesus stating that Moses’ words WERE IN FACT God’s words, i.e., “the commandment of God”? Or do you maintain that like Moses Jesus was himself likewise deceived by Satan in attributing to God (as the TEXT clearly indicates) said… “commandment of God”? What other consistent conclusion can your position lead to?
Hermano, you said: Paul highlighted imperfections of the law of Moses thus: “The ministry that brought death…engraved in letters on stone…The ministry that brought condemnation.” 2 Cor. 3:7-9.
You mentioned this in another thread. However, the law of Moses which was written in stone was the Ten Commandments. This means they are firmly established and cannot be changed. Jesus DID NOT do away with them. They are included in His ministry as well.
Mark seems to recall the word choice of Christ differently in this incident than Matthew:
For MOSES said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, He who is speaking evil of father or mother – let him die the death. Mark 7:10. YLT.
To reiterate, I believe Moses sometimes mistakenly embellished his communications from God, adding threats and curses that were never from God. As I said earlier, I believe Jesus was sarcastically confronting the hypocrisy of the priests in nullifying the fifth commandment in deference to their selfish monetary interests.
That Jesus in the same breath mentions capital punishment for those who speak evil of their parents, which was an embellished dogma “commandment,” only adds to his sarcasm against the priests, who were guilty of the greater sin for leading people into deception—and therefore more “worthy” of death, according to dogma.
I do not in any way believe that Jesus was reaffirming a neglected “commandment” that called for the execution of children who dishonored parents. Do you? (Or should we suppose the Savior of the woman caught in adultery, the Savior of mankind, was actually frustrated by the Roman occupiers—because they were impeding executions that needed to be carried out by the Jews?)
The accuser is Satan (Zech. 3:1, Rev. 12:10); and sometimes it is Moses; but it is never Jesus:
Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. John 5:45.
Jesus is our advocate (1 Jn. 2:1). Satan’s weapon against us was Mosaic dogma(“the rules and requirements of the law of MOSES; carrying a suggestion of severity and of threatened judgment”), which God took away, nailing it to the cross. Col. 2:14-15.
Moses got things wrong every time he added vindictive dogma embellishments to God’s communications, and we recognize he added a bunch:
Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the Law. Romans 13:10.
Let’s not redefine “love” to include “honor killings” and genocide, saying they are somehow “helpful to neighbors,” even in the Old Testament. God is love. God is unchanging. Let’s not take dogma down off the cross, insist it’s divine, and hand it back to the devil!
Mk 7:9-10He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’
Both Matthew and Mark are on the SAME page… you however are skirting the issue, i.e., what Moses reiterated WAS “the commandment of God” — it is actually there in the text — Jesus affirms that what Moses spoke was what God did speak. It seems the embellishment is in the denial of the text.
So I ask again Hermano… do you agree that Jesus affirmed Moses’ words to be… “the commandment of God” as per the witness of these two text — YES or NO?
Davo, if you re-read my previous answers about this, you should see that, no, I do not believe Jesus was reaffirming honor killings to the Pharisees and teachers of the law, as a true “commandment of God.” Rather, in light of the tenor of his entire ministry, as well as additional revelation from the epistles concerning God’s true nature, I argue Jesus was using sarcasm against them, throwing Moses (and his intermixed law), in whom they mistakenly put their hopes, in their faces. --And let me point out, sarcastic quotes around any “commandments of God” to kill people, would not come through in the Greek.
He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Cor 3:6.
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. John 1:17.
Romans 7:2, 6-7 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. 7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” [Exodus 20:17; Deut. 5:21]
The passage is showing that just as a wife is “released” from the law of her husband when he dies, even so, through the death of Christ, people were “released” from the obligations of the Mosaic law. That the law here contemplated is the law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments, is demonstrated by the reference to the tenth commandment in Romans 7:7.
As Paul later will argue that if a man receives one portion of the law [as binding for justification], he is a debtor to do all of it:
Galatians 5:
3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law.
Hermano, I appreciate what you wrote about God not commanding that people be killed. I am in basic agreement with your explanation.
Yes, it APPEARS that Jesus is saying that Moses’ words are the commandment of God. But He may have been saying, “God said…” because the Jews BELIEVED that God had said what Moses stated that He had said. And so Jesus then showed that the Jews weren’t really carrying out the commands that “God gave them” (according to Moses).
Let me give you a more recent example in Islam:
27 ¶ O ye Children of Adam! Let not Satan seduce you, in the same manner as he got your parents out of the Garden, stripping them of their raiment, to expose their shame: For he and his tribe watch you from a position where ye cannot see them: We made the Evil Ones friends only to those without Faith. 28 When they do aught that is shameful, they say: “We found our fathers doing so”; and “Allah commanded us thus:” Say: “Nay, Allah never commands what is shameful: Do ye say of Allah what ye know not?” 29 Say: “My Lord hath commanded justice; and that ye set your whole selves to Him at every time and place of prayer, and call upon Him, making your devotion sincere as in His sight: Such as He created you in the beginning, so shall ye return.” (Koran 7)
From verse 24, these words are quoted as the words of Allah. “Allah” is simply the Arabic word for “God.” When a Muslim who speaks Arabic becomes as Christian, he continues to address God as “Allah,” for that is the word “God” in his language.
A Christian missionary to the Muslims might say to them, “As Mohammed wrote, God said that He commands justice and never commands what is shameful,” but YOU say, “It is just and not shameful for us to rape non-Muslim women in the name of God—thus you make the commandment of God of no effect!” This doesn’t imply that the missionary believes that God actually said those words, but since Muslims BELIEVE He said them, the missionary talks to them as if He had said them. I think Jesus was doing the same thing with the Jews.
Amazing and almost amusing, but no! Though thoroughly not unexpected… your twists and contortions are worthy of gymnasts, but not the Scriptures. Such Islamic and so-called honor killing comparisons to Jesus’ intent of these passages are a fraudulent joke — have to call it for what it is.
No doubt you would say Jesus was on-the-money with Mt 15:4a BUT poorly lacking thereafter with Mt 15:4b — bad Jesus! Who knew the Koran could be so vital in understanding Jesus… go figure!?
Here is the TRUE basis of Jesus’ reference to “the commandment of God” TO Moses/Israel…
Ex 21:17“And he who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
Lev 20:8-9And you shall keep My statutes, and perform them: I am the Lord who sanctifies you. ‘For everyone who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother. His blood shall be upon him.
Prov 20:20Whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp will be put out in deep darkness.
Life for the Hebrews under that old régime was indeed tough… little wonder God chose to do a new thingin Christ for the benefit of all, not just Israel.
Hermano and Paidion… according to your questionable renditions of the OT there is simply just way too much: “Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying…” that Ezra, or whoever it was who composed the text, got SO wrong (according to you guys) there must be little value in you guys believing ANY of it — and indeed it seems you don’t.
Go ahead, Davo. Keep on believing God kills people, commands rebellious sons to be killed, commands women’s hands to be cut off without mercy, nations to be wiped out including women and children (but not virgins who are to be saved for the army’s use), etc.,etc. Try you best to keep believing that all of this harmonizes with His essence which is LOVE as John affirmed—not merely one of His characteristics, but His very essence.
Then you have to fit in Jesus’ description of God, too—that He is kind to evil people and to unthankful people—that His kindness is intended to lead people to repentance, whereas with your belief one would expect His harshness, vengeance, and murder of people would lead to the repentance of the survivors.
It’s up to you to fit it all together in a harmonious whole! With us, that is unnecessary as, unlike you, we see no contradictory aspects to His character.
I simply BELIEVE Jesus at his word WITHOUT trying to arbitrarily explain away selective TEXTS for conveniences sake.
And Paidion… as for what John affirmed, BE CONSISTENT — HOW do you know or by what measure do you say John heard what he heard correctly? According to your modus operandi there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to treat John any differently to any other biblical author who you wilfully pillory as wrong, deceived, misguided, uniformed, or just basically stupid just because what they affirm utterly undermines your own presuppositional doctrines.
I’ve adopted this and bored ya’ll with it many times, but the more I read the more I see its usefulness and wisdom. Channing:
“We regard the Scriptures as the records of God’s successive revelations to mankind, and particularly of the last and most perfect revelation of his will by Jesus Christ. Whatever doctrines seem to us to be clearly taught in the Scriptures; we receive without reserve or exception. We do not, however, attach equal importance to all the books in this collection. Our religion, we believe, lies chiefly in the New Testament. The dispensation of Moses, compared with that of Jesus, we consider as adapted to the childhood of the human race, a preparation for a nobler system, and chiefly useful now as serving to confirm and illustrate the Christian Scriptures. Jesus Christ is the only master of Christians, and whatever he taught, either during his personal ministry, or by his inspired Apostles, we regard as of divine authority, and profess to make the rule of our lives.”
