This is of course one of those things you grow up with a "feel" for, but then when you are pressed, you really don’t know why you believe like you do. Not only do we tend to pick some elements of the law to follow (10 commandments) and ignore others (stoning adulterers), but we also ignore certain elements of the 10 commandments! Not many of us modern American Christians really pay attention to the Sabbath (Friday evening to Saturday evening) these days.

For a long time, I was taught that there is a distinction between "ceremonial" law and "moral" law. But I was never given any clear teaching on how this distinction was defined or why it existed. New Testament teaching on this issue gradually became clearer over time.

I would suggest looking at the OT law as having two purposes. Purpose number one was to teach the people "right" behavior. This would include rules against stealing (Deut. 5:19), kidnapping (Deut. 24:7), and homosexual intercourse (Lev. 18:22) among many others. These rules flow out of the person of God, His goodness and purity, and His wisdom concerning the human condition.

Purpose number two was to teach people about the relationship of Israel to God. This included at least two elements. The first was teaching on how the people of Israel could connect with God. There were washings and sacrifices and ceremonies and gold and incense and clothing and offices and seasons and festivals, all to be meticulously observed in order for Israel to connect with God, for He is holy. There is a gap between us and Him, and it is only by carefully following all these instructions that the gap can be bridged.

The second element of what might be called "relationship" law had to do with teaching Israel more about holiness and distinguishing itself from other nations. Do not wear a shirt made from two kinds of fibers. Do not plant two kinds of crops in a field. Why? To teach that holiness involves purity. Your devotion is to be UNMIXED. You cannot serve the true God and the gods of the other nations! You cannot eat certain kinds of food. Why? To teach that that which is "unclean" should not be a part of the life of a holy people dedicated to a holy God.

As Israel wrestled with the law for centuries, humanity was prepared to understand: 1) God’s absolute holiness, and 2) our total inability to attain such holiness. Enter the Incarnation. God becomes human to "fulfill the law."

Jesus fulfilled both purposes of the law. First, He lived totally "right." He never did a Thou-Shalt-Not. And more than that, He taught us how to look beyond the law to the heart behind it. ("You have heard it said…but I say to you…") Second, He bridged the gap between God and humanity by being both. As the temple veil was torn, God was saying, "No longer do you need to follow all these procedures to come to Me, for I have come to you!"

So, those of us who are in Christ no longer need to worry about sacrifices and threads, because the gap has been bridged, and God is no longer relating primarily to one representative nation, but to all humanity throught Jesus. And yet, His goodness, purity, and wisdom remain, and so He still insists it is wrong to steal, kidnap, have homosexual intercourse, and a number of other things.

I have put this in a summary form because it was easier for me to do it that way than to build a case from a multitude of Scripture passages, but now that I have shared my interpretation, I want to show how the NT itself looks at the law in this bifurcated way. In particular, let’s look at what Paul has to say.

In Galatians, Paul is worried about some believers who are being led astray. They are being taught that in order to be right with God, they not only need faith in Jesus, they also need circumcision and other things that the Jews had done under the law. Paul says:

"we know that no one is justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ." (2:16) "The law, then, was our guardian until Christ." (3:24) "Do you want to be enslaved…again? You observe special days, months, seasons, and years. I am fearful for you." (4:9-11) "Every man who gets circumcised…[is] trying to be justified by the law [and is] alienated from Christ." (5:3-4)

Paul is speaking strongly against the idea that it is through the ritual of the law (circumcision, days, etc) that we can bridge the gap between us and God. BUT THEN, he turns right around and condemns the following: "sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery…" (5:19-20), all of which are elements of OT law teaching! But they are elements of the "moral" law, that law which teaches us what is "right" behavior.

I am running out of time for this post, but you will see this distinction throughout the NT. Law in terms of circumcision, abstaining from certain foods, etc, is not held up for the Christian to follow, but law in terms of not stealing, not lying, not mistreating others–this IS held up for the Christian to follow.

With your permission, I will quote you and repost my response on my myspace blog for my students’ benefit.

–Jason

This has to be the longest and most thought out comment ever made on Nailscars.com. Thanks Jason. And sure copy whatever you want.

Be sure you pick a better example than stoning adulterers. I’m pretty sure we don’t do that anymore because it’s against the law of our land, which we are also subject to. I probably didn’t get the phrasing right, but I hope you get what I meant.

I may be crazy here, but isn’t the purpose of all those laws also to show us that we can’t follow them and point us to Christ? or are we taking that as commonly understood?

I always refer to Galatians 5, where Paul teaches that our freedom in Christ isn’t license to indulge the sinful nature, and then describes the difference between living by the Spirit and not. Sexual immorality is one of the sins in the list he gives.

If a teen asks why homosexual sex is sexual immorality (especially if gay marriage is legalized), I send them to Romans 1:24-27, and even further for more evidence of someone who’s in rebellion against God.

As much as possible, I try to stay away from the OT when talking about sin, except to point to the Law as our "tutor" to show us how depraved and in need of a savior we are.

Hmm. Well, it seems I am about the only person who ever posts here that doesn’t think that homosexuality is a sin, so I guess I’ll be a little lonesome over here, but here’s my answer and let’s start out more generally.

Clearly we couldn’t live up to the many laws, and more importantly we couldn’t even live up to the ten commandments. So, God sent Jesus. Jesus gave us two commandments to live by: When Jesus was asked the greatest commandment, he said to love your God with all your heart, with all you mind, with all your soul and with all your strength. He said the second is this, to love your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus summed up everything there is in the ten commandments in his two. Many passages in the Bible point to the fact that Jesus the Messiah, coming and being crucified and rising again for us did away with the need to follow the amazingly huge list of do’s and don’t's that the Jews had compiled. If we say we have to follow all of the ancient laws for salvation, then we dimish what Jesus did for us. We essential say, "Great. Thanks, but I got this one myself." I think we all know, we can’t do it ourself.

For me the importance of the Old Testament lies in what God did for mankind throughout our history, not in the reading and following of a bunch of laws written down by people. The Bible didn’t drop from heaven complete. Yes, God inspired it, but the Bible proves the man messes up all the time. Paul reminds us that you can’t even take scripture out of context, but you must examine everything against the whole body of scripture.

Some of the comments indicate that we can pick and choose with the lesser laws, but not the big stuff. Who is the judge of which is which? Here are some gems that I didn’t see mentioned. According to Leviticus we can’t eat pork (I live in Iowa, imagine no pork, gasp!) or shellfish. We can’t grow more than one kind of crop in a field (we know this isn’t necessarily a good thing for the Earth). Women must be banished to the outskirts of towns while menstrating because they are unclean (if we didn’t menstrate there would be no babies, why would God design the process this way if it is so unclean?). And if we happen to be raped, stone us to death for our adultry.

People try to say, well, obviously those are silly things, but I say God never once made us judge of what he finds acceptable and unacceptable. If Jesus came and abolished the list of do’s and don’t's then he abolished the whole list.

We are all sinner’s begging for his mercy and I believe that he granted that mercy by the sacrifice of his son. His son told me to love people. I was never told to be the judge. For me it is that simple. Our real need for Law is to remind us to get off our self-centered egotistical butts and help those around us.

Everything in the Bible that has ever made us say homosexuality is wrong can be seriously and theologically questioned when looked at in the context of both the entire Bible and human history.

gaychurch.org deals with the issue of those who use the Bible to condem homosexuality. Even if you don’t agree, it’s worth reading.

I know some of you will want to tell me why I am wrong to say homosexuality is not a sin. I could debate with you for hours, but I am not going to. That is not what this forum is for. We all need to continually pray for God’s guidance on this and educate ourselves. God gave us curiosity and the ability to gain knowledge, so we use those gifts.

To go back to the general question at hand, I think it is an interesting question as to why we fight to have the ten commandments in public and government buildings. Should we? One of the comments pointed out that Jesus didn’t walk around giving a bunch of "thou shalt’s…" He lived his life as an example (and expamle that completely smacked the faces of the religious establishment, i.e. old testament law). Maybe we shouldn’t worry so much about whether or not the court house has the ten commandments, as we should worry about living our life as a called disicple of Christ. Just a thought.

Lots of good thoughts. One day soon I will try to put together another post specifically about homosexuality and we can kick this discussion off full scale.