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The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
http://biblehub.com/kjv/psalms/19-7.htm
http://biblehub.com/kjv/psalms/19-7.htm
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The Law of The LORD is Perfect.
- Thread starter WalterandDebbie
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- Jun 13, 2014
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Walter & Debbie,
What would you like to discuss about this topic?
Psalm 19:7 (NLT), dynamic equivalence translation, reads: 'The instructions of the LORD are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple'.
These 'instructions of the LORD' related to the Old Covenant for Israel. How do they relate to New Covenant believers since Christ's death?
Oz
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I'm just stating it is a fact, exactly what the OP is saying, for the old and new testaments.
- Jun 13, 2014
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Lev 20:10 (ESV) gives this law of the Lord: 'If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death'.
What does Deut 22:22 (ESV) state? 'If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel'.
Since you claim the law of the Lord is perfect, why don't Christians enforce capital punishment against men and women who commit adultery? Since Jesus' death and resurrection, where does the NT affirm capital punishment for adultery, homosexuality (see Lev 20:13 ESV) and bestiality (see Lev 20:15-16 ESV)?
I find it to be avoiding issues to claim the law of the Lord is perfect (OP heading) without dealing with these kinds of issues.
Oz
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JohnDB
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But first I would want to know who my neighbor is. A definition...Does Uriah fit that context? How so? What is a mighty man?
And then is there a context that could clarify this? Like we're they supposed to be on a super special mission?
Maybe that Psalm David wrote when he was caught in his sin "create in me a clean heart"...."do not remove your Holy Spirit" all works with all of this together of showing what is righteousness and what isn't...
And that everyone just about deserves the death penalty for what they have done. Because no one is worthy to receive any Gift of God's... Especially mercy.
So maybe a better explanation of terms and concepts is needed before going down that line of thought...
Or
We could just accept the Psalms announcement that "The Law of the Lord is perfect like silver refined seven times".
Jethro Bodine
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The perfection of God's law also includes the justice that condemns us to death.
But only a moron would insist that God enforce the just penalty for sin (Romans 1:32 NASB) of his fellow sinner (Romans 3:23 NASB). God will have to also slay us if we want everyone else to be put to death for their sins. But the point is, that hardly makes it so that the commandment for the just penalty for sin is not perfect: "the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good." (Romans 7:12 NASB).
Take the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11 NASB). Jesus did not insist she be spared the death penalty. Perhaps what he scrawled in the sand were all the other commandments that condemned a person to death. And this gave pause to those who by law were to be the ones to stone her to death (Deuteronomy 17:7 NASB). They knew that to stone her to death would mean they should be stoned to death for their own transgressions, too. They opted to leave her alone. Smart move.
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ezrider
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ALL men are your neighbor.
Luke 10:27-29
And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
Zechariah 3:8-10
Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou,
and thy fellows that sit before thee:
for they are men wondered at:
for, behold, I will bring forth my servant the Branch.
For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua;
upon one stone shall be seven eyes:
behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts,
and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.
In that day, saith the Lord of hosts,
shall ye call every man his neighbour
under the vine and under the fig tree.
If as the title of the OP suggests that the law of the Lord is perfect: with the law coming in the form of a covenant, if it were perfect, then why the need for a new covenant?
JohnDB
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Then....Can God do something that isn't perfect?
Or
Why have a Law that you never had any intention of enforcing?
Jethro Bodine
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Because of the fault of the people:
"7For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.
8For finding fault with them, He says,
“BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD,
WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT
WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH;" (Hebrews 8:7-8 NASB bold mine, italics in original)
Just because imperfect man can't keep a perfect law hardly makes that law imperfect.
The perfect law of God did not have in and of itself a way for imperfect man to keep it. The power to keep a perfect, and holy, and righteous law comes through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
If the first covenant had any fault it was that it was wholly unfitting for a fallen people who have no power to keep it. Thus the need for a New Covenant that makes it so fallen people can satisfy the requirements of a perfect law.
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John,
Surely Matt 5:43-48 (ESV) answers that question of who is my neighbour:
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
John, you didn't seem to address the issue I raised of the law of the Lord being perfect, capital punishment for adultery in OT but no such 'law' in the NT.
Oz
Jethro Bodine
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Yes, he did address the issue:
The lawful requirement for death was not somehow imperfect, and for that reason the people of God don't do that in this New Covenant.
We don't do that because in this New Covenant we are now keenly aware that ALL of us are deserving of the just penalty of death for things we've done.
Jesus did not start sermonizing how the law requiring the death of the adulteress was somehow imperfect. In fact, he invited the crowd to execute lawful judgment on her. What he was illustrating was the principle of "mercy triumphs over judgment", not that God's righteous justice in the death penalty for sin is somehow imperfect.
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Argument from silence is a logical fallacy. It is fallacious reasoning. We can only deal with what the text states, not what we think its content might have contained.
Jethro Bodine
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So in other words we can completely ignore the part of the story about him writing in the sand.
Whatever he wrote in the sand caused them to not carry out God's holy and righteous and perfect law of justice. That we know.
Your argument is that the law of punishment for adultery is not part of the New Covenant because it was imperfect. But your argument is flawed because the premise is wrong. The death penalty did not disappear in this New Covenant. What happened is we now have the spiritual revelation to know that only a moron would insist that a fellow sinner be put to death for their sin (Romans 1:32 NASB, Romans 2:1 NASB). And that what could not be atoned for in the old covenant can be atoned for in the New Covenant through Jesus Christ (Acts 13:39 NASB), as Christ himself demonstrates with the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11 NASB). Those two truths disrupt any argument that the law requiring death disappeared in the New Covenant because it was imperfect. Your reasoning is not based on fact.
The Bible plainly says the law is perfect. We need to go with that. It's not right to try to argue that it is imperfect. Even the author of Hebrews points out that it was the people who were at fault, not the old covenant law. There is no verse of scripture that I'm aware of that says the law of God in the old covenant was imperfect. But there are plain passages in the old and new Testaments that say it was.
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It is a fact about the Law of The Lord, and I was just speaking out about what his Law had done for me and others that agrees. We also establish his Laws: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=we establish the law
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It's great to hear this.
Too many people take it all too lightly, as though they have better answers.
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So in other words we can completely ignore the part of the story about him writing in the sand.
Whatever he wrote in the sand caused them to not carry out God's holy and righteous and perfect law of justice. That we know.
Jethro,
You took no notice of what I wrote. I said that argument from silence is a fallacy. We do not have one word in Scripture of what Jesus wrote in the sand. You assumed you have some idea. None of us knows what he wrote. Please do not engage in fallacious reasoning. We reason from the exegesis of the content of Scripture - not what we think he wrote in the sand.
Now you give me a red herring.
I raised the issue of the law of the Lord is perfect as in the OT Psalms and its applicability to New Covenant believers, using Old Covenant punishment for adultery as an example.
You have not liked the issue I raised so you flay these spin offs that do not deal with the matter I raised.
Rational conversation is halted when you use logical fallacies.
Bye, bye
Wrg1405
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Ok here's my thoughts as limited as they may seem and I'm open to corrections as always.
Forgive me if my post is a bit clunky.
My understanding is that Law was given to ancient Israel who were a theocracy.
Surely if the Law of God is given by God then it must be perfect.
The law of God was given to Israel as a standard he expected keep to set them apart from the rest of the world around them. To reveal the perfect standard of God and his holiness. They were about to enter into a land that in the eyes of God was so corrupt particularly with sexual licentiousness.
A land that was promised long before they entered it (side note I'm sure I read that God said they could not enter it until the sins of the inhabitants had gone so far that they could/would not repent of that but I can't find it at this moment)
Why some sin under the old Covent was punishable by death and some not I don't know.
We know that when Adam and Eve sinned then death entered to world.
Adam and Eve were created for each other, joining of the flesh. One man one woman. To me it seems obvious that God took sexual sin-adultery very seriously along with other sins like murder, idolatry.
Under the Old Covenant both parities involved in adultery were to be put to death.
What I find interesting about the adulteress woman bought before Jesus it was only her, what about the man?
A trap me thinks, one that Jesus doesn't fall into. "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone"
Wow what a statement.
The wages of sin is death. And that is not limited to what I've mentioned above.
So I do not think in the New Covenant were are under the theocracy of Israel. Jesus is the High Priest that governs his new Church after his death.
Jesus when he walked the earth came to reveal the true heart of the Father. He didn't come to do away the law but to fulfil it. He knew we could not keep it. We can't keep to Holy standard of the father. He did.
The wages of sin is death, capital punishment.
Jesus took that capital punishment on the cross.
He died for every sin that mankind will do on the cross. All of our sins were placed on him, including adultery and other sins under the Old Covenant that required death.
Price paid, punishment exacted, sins forgiven when we accept his death for us.
For those who don't accept it their sins are still forgiven, price still paid. That is the Gospel, it's down to us to tell them and up to them to accept it.
My limited thoughts
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To the above, some people have their way of thinking, about what is sin,but by its definition, Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. http://biblehub.com/1_john/3-4.htm , And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin. http://biblehub.com/romans/14-23.htm , But evenso, but he or she that commieth sin is of the devil, http://biblehub.com/1_john/3-8.htm , So then! this is my way of thinking also, Who is to say that we are wright or wrong but GOD and his Son/The righteous judge. https://www.icr.org/article/9493
dianegcook
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Maybe we should put them to death, lol
Would be less of it, certainly.
Would be less of it, certainly.
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