A Bald-Faced Contradiction in Paul's Writings? (Messiah, beliefs, sinned, disciples)
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No more, I suppose than it being a double standard that a US passport holder can walk right in but someone without has to get a Visa. The point about Paul's messianism is that Jesus was a short cut to salvation. His view was that the Law does not and could not save but was imposed because of Adam's sin.
I'm not saying I agree with him and no Jews would (certainly not Jesus' apostles) but this was his argument.
Adam sinned. Sin death was imposed. The Law was given for Jews to live up to to be worthy of being saved. Paul argues that very few can (certainly he couldn't) and thus when the end times come, only a tiny remnant of really virtuous Jews are going to be saved.
Jesus with his obedience to blood - sacrifice changed all that. Through Faith in him (as the resurrected messiah) you could be saved without the Law.
But the Jews were still subject to the law. He says so pretty clearly in Romans that even if they believed in Jesus, the law was still imposed on them (I note that he seems to think that he is free of the law through Jesus -faith, but then I say that Paul is a self serving contradictory liar all the way through).
Thus he argues that gentile believers should NOT be circumcised or allow themselves to be because (he argues -probably on the basis of circumcision being a symbolic act of the Mosaic Law - you might Ask a Jew ) because if they do, they become Jewish believers and the whole law becomes imposed on them.
If you understand the way Paul was thinking, then everything else he says makes sense. Everything in Acts and the Gospels relates back to that and without understanding this, nobody can really understand the NT.
Paul & Jesus both kept the feast days.
Paul & Jesus both kept the Sabbath.
Paul & Jesus both kept the dietary laws.
Paul & Jesus both taught to keep the commands of God.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eusebius
Paul, in Romans 1-3 is proving all mankind sin and are wanting of the glory of God. So if there are any doers of the law among humanity, they will be justified before God. But in Romans 3:10 Paul writes:
Rom_3:10 according as it is written, that "Not one is just- not even one."
Therefore there are no doers of the law who did the law perfectly.
I agree with both of you. But what seems to me to be missing is the "Big Picture". Putting the whole thing together so it makes sense. But the problem is that most believers prefer to have their own beliefs and just quotemine this or that bit of text to underpin their own opinions.
P.s what I'm suggesting is that, once you understand what Paul argues in Romans (his Thesis) you can go back and read all these posts and see that they are all seeing some correct fact (that is where they are seeing anything at all rather than just text-quoting) but not getting them into the Real "Context" which is the Big Picture understanding of what Paul -and the whole NT -is about.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 10-15-2015 at 06:00 AM..
No more, I suppose than it being a double standard that a US passport holder can walk right in but someone without has to get a Visa. The point about Paul's messianism is that Jesus was a short cut to salvation. His view was that the Law does not and could not save but was imposed because of Adam's sin.
I'm not saying I agree with him and no Jews would (certainly not Jesus' apostles) but this was his argument.
Adam sinned. Sin death was imposed. The Law was given for Jews to live up to to be worthy of being saved. Paul argues that very few can (certainly he couldn't) and thus when the end times come, only a tiny remnant of really virtuous Jews are going to be saved.
Jesus with his obedience to blood - sacrifice changed all that. Through Faith in him (as the resurrected messiah) you could be saved without the Law.
But the Jews were still subject to the law. He says so pretty clearly in Romans that even if they believed in Jesus, the law was still imposed on them (I note that he seems to think that he is free of the law through Jesus -faith, but then I say that Paul is a self serving contradictory liar all the way through).
Thus he argues that gentile believers should NOT be circumcised or allow themselves to be because (he argues -probably on the basis of circumcision being a symbolic act of the Mosaic Law - you might Ask a Jew ) because if they do, they become Jewish believers and the whole law becomes imposed on them.
If you understand the way Paul was thinking, then everything else he says makes sense. Everything in Acts and the Gospels relates back to that and without understanding this, nobody can really understand the NT.
Arequipa- you are obviously a bible student(or have a good grasp of how they have been interpreted by the fundamentalists), so could you quote a scripture that tells us exactly what we are saved from please. Better still a scripture that says death was imposed upon us all, if i stick my fingers on a red hot stove.... is the stove imposing punishment on me ?.
Getting a jew to see that he is free from the law that brings self condemnation upon him, is like getting a fundy to see we are led by the spirit not the bible.... nigh on impossible.
Arequipa- you are obviously a bible student(or have a good grasp of how they have been interpreted by the fundamentalists), so could you quote a scripture that tells us exactly what we are saved from please. Better still a scripture that says death was imposed upon us all, if i stick my fingers on a red hot stove.... is the stove imposing punishment on me ?.
Getting a jew to see that he is free from the law that brings self condemnation upon him, is like getting a fundy to see we are led by the spirit not the bible.... nigh on impossible.
Pretty much all of Romans is on this subject but these quotes probably are bullet -points in the argument.
1. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
2. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
This is talking about Jews and the Law
25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.
Paul’s next argument is that acting righteously (and he is talking of gentiles here because even for righteous Jews – though he argues there aren’t any – the law is mandatory ) is a sort of ‘spiritual’ circumcision. And what this does is make a Gentile as good a Jew as a Jew.
26 So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised?
Note that the ‘requirements’ are not the Mosaic rules but acting in accordance with the natural righteousness that existed before the law was given.
We can skip over ‘What advantage has the Jew –
1 What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? 2 Much in every way!
he says ‘Much’ and then forgets the whole thing and argues that they have none. He is a dissembler.
4. “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”[4 Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. 5 However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness
Thus his God –belief, not his observance of the Law made him righteous (of course Paul forgets about God –belief and makes it Jesus- belief that makes people righteous but I am explaining Paul’s argument. Even though I know it is a self –serving crock.
Now comes the essential Nub where Paul sidelines the law and makes the gentiles equal participants in the Promise (of being saved when the end times come).
4. The promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15 For the law brings wrath, but where there is no law there is no transgression.16 That is why it depends on faith,
Faith in what? Not Abraham’s God faith – But by the one who came as the new Adam and by obedience, undid the sin of Adam’s disobedience.
Let’s have the Kjv on this one.
5 10 Fore yff, when wee were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of hyss Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be all saved by his life. 11 And not onlie so, but wee alsoe joi muche in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now receivethed the atonement. 12 Wherefore, as by one man did sin entereth ynto thee world, and alsoe death by sin; and therebye death passevthed upon all men, being that all have sinned: 13 For until the Jewwish Law was givethen we sure had sin in the world: but they were not called sinful because there was not as yet any law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even if they had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the simalcrum of that him who was to come.
Him that was to come is
5.17 For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.
(Paul in Galatians 3 sets out the Thesis again. Having understood it from Romans it becomes clear in Galatians.)
The rest is commentary, but that is the basic argument without understanding of which nothing in Paul and nothing in the Gospels that were based on Pauline theory can be understood.
So that is the answer to the apparent contradiction. Jews are still judged under their law (never mind that Paul later convinces himself that Jesus -faith frees him from it) but Gentiles are judged on the basis of Godfaith (read Jesus -faith).
As you say, Jews would never accept nor welcome being 'freed' from that law (even though Paul says they are still obliged to observe it - so trying to make a Christian out of a Jew is like making a fish out of a cow (1). Indeed there is a reason why this is not welcomed and it explains why Judaism has survived despite centuries of attempts to rub it out. The rules and observances are a very effective way of maintaining Jewish identity, even though it is not always easy to say what a Jew is other than one who keeps the Jewish Laws.
That is (I am obliged to say) the explanation behind that puzzling remark of Peter's in Acts 15.
Acts 15 Certain people came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. 3 The church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news made all the believers very glad. 4 When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done through them.
(underlining mine)
5 Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”6 The apostles and elders met to consider this question. 7 After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. 8 God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. 9 He did not discriminate between us and them,for he purified their hearts by faith. 10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
There is no protest from the "Circumcision" that the Laws are a delight and a privilege for them. The writer of Acts is following the Pauline view that it is a burden they could not bear themselves and (by arguing that circumcision is needful for becoming one of God's people), they are trying to lay the same burden on the gentiles.
Paul is already confused (or dissembling) in Corinthians 1.18 Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. 19 Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.(he has forgotten that 'Keeping the commandments of God -in the Mosaic law form - is a bad as being circumcised) it is Godfaith (remastered as Jesusfaith) that matters.
In Gal 5 Paul is appalled to find that someone has been convincing his converts that they have to be circumcised. (underlining mine)
Gal 5. 1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. 2 Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. 3 Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. 4 You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.
I, Arq., say unto you, that unless you understand this, you cannot enter into understanding of what the NT is really all about.
(1)
A Jewish man moves into a Catholic neighborhood. Every Friday The Catholics are driven crazy because, while they're eating fish, the Jew is outside barbecuing steaks. So the Catholics work on the Jew to convert him to Catholicism. Finally, after many threats and much pleading, the Catholics succeed. They take the Jew to a priest who sprinkles holy water on the Jew and says, "Born a Jew, Raised a Jew, Now a Catholic." The Catholics are ecstatic. No more delicious, but maddening smells every Friday evening. But the next Friday evening, the scent of barbecue wafts through the neighbourhood. The Catholics all rush to the Jew's house to remind him of his new diet. They see him standing over the cooking steak. He is sprinkling water on the meat and saying, "Born a cow, Raised a cow, Now a fish.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 10-15-2015 at 08:43 AM..
Reason: copy -paste the Council of Jerusalem
1. Nowhere to be found in the Bible
2. Invented by Augustine
3. Three--count 'em--THREE doctrines of original sin:
a. The Augustinian Theory
b. The Federal Theory
c. The Theory of Mediate Imputation
4. 1/2 of 1% of Christians actually know about any of this. Why do so many believe in original sin ? Why, because their
pastors teach it from the pulpit. If they only opened their Bibles and read it like they claim they do they would know
it's a fraud.
5. Original sin is an excellent example of how corrupt churchmen have hijacked Christianity and turned it into something
evil, nefarious, and corrupt.
6. The average sincere, Bible-believing, churchgoing, get-on-their-knees-and-pray-till-their-knees-are-bloody Christian
hasn't a clue about all this, which is why today's Christianity is so reprehensible.
Well, I believe the idea or concept was there in the whole Eden story, though I believe that the Jews regard the gentiles as having taken that particular ball and run with it in completely the wrong direction.
No more, I suppose than it being a double standard that a US passport holder can walk right in but someone without has to get a Visa. The point about Paul's messianism is that Jesus was a short cut to salvation. His view was that the Law does not and could not save but was imposed because of Adam's sin.
I'm not saying I agree with him and no Jews would (certainly not Jesus' apostles) but this was his argument.
Adam sinned. Sin death was imposed. The Law was given for Jews to live up to to be worthy of being saved. Paul argues that very few can (certainly he couldn't) and thus when the end times come, only a tiny remnant of really virtuous Jews are going to be saved.
Jesus with his obedience to blood - sacrifice changed all that. Through Faith in him (as the resurrected messiah) you could be saved without the Law.
But the Jews were still subject to the law. He says so pretty clearly in Romans that even if they believed in Jesus, the law was still imposed on them (I note that he seems to think that he is free of the law through Jesus -faith, but then I say that Paul is a self serving contradictory liar all the way through).
Thus he argues that gentile believers should NOT be circumcised or allow themselves to be because (he argues -probably on the basis of circumcision being a symbolic act of the Mosaic Law - you might Ask a Jew ) because if they do, they become Jewish believers and the whole law becomes imposed on them.
If you understand the way Paul was thinking, then everything else he says makes sense. Everything in Acts and the Gospels relates back to that and without understanding this, nobody can really understand the NT.
Dear are,
Circumcision is the covenant which God made with Abraham (meaning father of peoples), which was "my covenant which I had made with all the peoples" (Ze 11:10). Even Abraham's slaves, who were not blood kin, were brought under the covenant if circumcised. This covenant was "cut in pieces" when the shepherd "Favor"/Paul (Ze 11:10), was chosen to pasture the "flock" "doomed for slaughter". The "Christian" church, the "flock doomed to slaughter", is founded on Paul, and Peter, who was termed the "worthless shepherd" (Zech 11:17), and who would not feed, care or tend the sheep. (Ze 11:16)
The "Christian" church, established at the Council of Nicaea, which was convened by the Roman emperor, is simply another of the harlot daughters of Babylon, and its days are numbered per Is 22:25, whereas "in that day"/Day of the lord, the successor/pope of the steward of the house of David with the keys of David, which when he "opens no one can shut" (Is 22:22) will "fall" and all those "hanging" on him will be "cut off". (Is 22:25)
Paul is a pompous fraud, but he is a prophesized pompous fraud, just as Judas Iscariot (Zech 11:12-13) is the 3rd shepherd of Zech 11, who was to be annihilated (Ze 11:8) in the same month/generation as Peter and Paul. Judas was covetous, Paul was pompous, and Peter was full of himself. They were all chosen for a reason.
Thank you for sharing that with us all. You are of course entitled to draw what conclusions you can from the available data. But I obviously will not agree with your views and I doubt that many will.
Well, I believe the idea or concept was there in the whole Eden story, though I believe that the Jews regard the gentiles as having taken that particular ball and run with it in completely the wrong direction.
Of course, if they agreed they would become Christians not stay Jews (Religiously). Note Jews who are Christians generally agree with Paul. Some don't as they are trying to mix the two beliefs while keeping Judaism elevated.
Of course, if they agreed they would become Christians not stay Jews (Religiously). Note Jews who are Christians generally agree with Paul. Some don't as they are trying to mix the two beliefs while keeping Judaism elevated.
No, I didn't quite mean that - I have an idea..I am not too clear on this and you'd have to ask Jews.. that they don't see original sin or Adam's fall in quite the same way that Christians do. In any case, they certainly don't believe that Jesus faith saves them as much as Torah observance does, because if they did - as you say, they would effectively have become Christians, even if they still observed Jewish law.
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) because if they do, they become Jewish believers and the whole law becomes imposed on them.
. Better still a scripture that says death was imposed upon us all, if i stick my fingers on a red hot stove.... is the stove imposing punishment on me ?.
