Pennylynn wrote:
“You believe that Jesus chose Saul as the Apostle of the Gentiles. However, Saul alone calls himself that. Hence, it is self-serving and thus invalid.”
Hi Pennylynn,
It seems to me your primary thesis (topic) has at least a few holes in it.
Luke (witness #1) wrote the book of Acts, wherein Ananias (witness #2) testified that Saul would be a witness to all men:
“12One Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well reported of by all the Jews who lived in Damascus, 13came to me, and standing by me said to me, 'Brother Saul, receive your sight!' In that very hour I looked up at him. 14
He said, 'The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear a voice from his mouth. 15For you will be a witness for him to all men of what you have seen and heard. 16Now why do you wait? Arise, be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.'” Acts 22:12-15 (See also Acts 9:15 where Luke records that the Lord had told Ananias that Paul would bear his name before the Gentiles.)
Luke also recorded, in Acts 13:1-2, that the church there heard from the Holy Spirit to separate Paul and Silas for the work which he had called them, and again that the whole body of apostles together sent Paul and Barnabas in Acts 15:22.
Peter (witness #3), in his 2nd epistle, wrote:
“2that you should remember the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets,
and the commandments of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior:... 14
be diligent to be found in peace, without blemish and blameless in his sight. 15Regard the patience of our Lord as salvation;
even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you; 16as also in all of his letters, speaking in them of these things. In those, there are some things that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unsettled twist, as they also do to the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.” 2 Peter 3:2, 14-16
Paul addressed most of his epistles as “Paul an apostle” in some fashion. It would hardly seem that Peter thought Paul was a false apostle, or a perverter of the gospel that he had personally been mentored to by Jesus Christ.
In Acts 15 Peter did not say he was chosen to be the only “apostle to” the Gentiles, he merely said the Gentiles would hear his word, which he said had already happened. If Peter thought by hearing from his mouth meant that he was an apostle, then he effectively silenced anyone else than apostles from speaking about the Christian faith.
Pennylynn wrote:
“The Messiah's promise in Isaiah 42:21 was to bring a New Testament / New Covenant based upon "magnifying the Law" and making it better "honored" and followed. The promise in Isaiah 56 of salvation to Gentiles ("my salvation is about to come", 56:1) was predicated on two things: "keep the Sabbath from profaning it and keep his hand from doing evil." (Isaiah 56:2) or "who keep My Sabbaths, and choose things that please Me, and take hold of my covenant." (Isaiah 56:4,6).
“The Messiah's promise in Isaiah 42:21 was to bri... (
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Scholars tell us that the book of Hebrews was written by a close associate of Paul, after Paul. In it, nowhere do we find such Pauline statements, as are exaggerated and unbalanced as today’s “Protestant Evangelicals” interpret them. As a matter of historic fact, the only ones who interpreted Paul in such extreme ways were Gnostics such as Marcion the heretic:
“Early Christian patristic literature shows that
no writer promulgated Paul’s anti-legal theme except Marcion the heretic. Even the epistle to
the Hebrews interprets the Gospel as a new covenant of both law and grace.” E. G. Weltin, “Athens and Jerusalem; An interpretative Essay on Christianity and Classical Culture, Scholars Press, 1987, pgs 130-131
Please keep in mind, that when you are dealing with “interpretations” of Paul as being “anti-law”, you are dealing with the aberrant Gnostic heritage, not the heritage of the actual known companions and successors of Paul. In other words, the idea that Paul was “anti-law” is a straw man argument. Today’s neo-Gnostics will content for that position, but it is NOT the position of the vast majority of Christians from the early centuries of Christianity. Paul himself prophesied that they would get more and more effective at deceiving:
“But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” 2 Timothy 3:13
This explains why neo-gnostics are so sophisticated in their “arguments.”
It is written:
“Behold, the days come, says Yahweh, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel…
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband to them, says Yahweh. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:31–33)
Even Jewish sages teach that the New Covenant would make the Old Covenant look like vanity in comparison with the new:
“‘The
Torah which a man learns in this world is vanity in comparison with the Torah (which will be learnt in the days) of the Messiah.’“Isaiah’s prediction for the days to come, ‘With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation’ (12:2), is explained by Rashi in the following way: ‘
Ye shall receive new teaching, for the Lord will widen your understanding…’” Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man; A Philosophy of Judaism (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1983), 264.
If Yahweh said the new covenant would not be according to the old covenant, and even Jewish sages realize that they could not comprehend what the New Covenant would be, what makes them the judges of the New Covenant? Is God restricted to the understanding that they call “vanity”?
Is it not true that it is written in Psalm 110:4: “Yahweh has sworn, and will not change his mind: ‘You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.’”
The writer of Hebrews uses this verse as justification for saying:
“11Now
if there was perfection through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people have received the law), what further need was there for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, and not be called after the order of Aaron? 12For
the priesthood being changed, there is of necessity a change made also in the law. 13For he of whom these things are said belongs to another tribe, from which no one has officiated at the altar. 14For it is evident that our Lord has sprung out of Judah, about which tribe Moses spoke nothing concerning priesthood. 15This is yet more abundantly evident, if after the likeness of Melchizedek there arises another priest, 16who has been made, not after the law of a fleshly commandment, but after the power of an endless life: 17for it is testified, "You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek." 18
For there is an annulling of a foregoing commandment because of its weakness and uselessness 19(for the law made nothing perfect), and a bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.” Hebrews 7:11-19
So then, those who properly understand Paul, including those who were his companions (i.e. Barnabas), and disciples, didn’t understand Paul as abolishing law completely, but of being a minister in transforming from the Old Covenant (“of vanity” according to Jewish sages) into the New Covenant, even a new “law”, based on better promises (Hebrews 8:6):
“Concerned as they were with ethical questions as much as with doctrinal issues, the apologists [writers after the apostles] also sought to prove and defend the superiority of the Christian ethic. Of the devices employed in this defense,
the most important doctrinally was their interpretation of the Christian gospel as ‘new law.’ When Barnabas spoke of ‘
the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is without a yoke of necessity,’ he set forth a pattern followed by many later theologians. Justin called Christ ‘the new lawgiver,’ and Origen termed him ‘the lawgiver of the Christians”... The ‘new law’ implied new demands (the knowledge of Christ, repentance, and a sinless life after conversion) as well as new promises...” Jaroslave Pelikan, “The Christian Tradition; A History of the Development of Doctrine”, The University of Chicago Press, 1971, pgs 38-39
“Justin replied to Typho’s charge by, in effect, stratifying the Old Testament law. The Christians retained whatever in the law of Moses was ‘naturally good, pious, and righteous’...
Irenaeus...affirmed that ‘the words of the decalogue’ had undergone ‘extension and amplification’ rather than ‘cancellation’ by Christ’s coming in the flesh...
Tertullian argued that a ‘new law’ and a ‘new circumcision’ had replaced the old, which had been intended only as a sign or type of what was to come...” ibid., pgs 16-17
The thing that many ignore and/or negate is that Paul used Abraham as his model for faith:
1What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh? 2For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God. 3For what does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness." 4Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed. 5But to him who doesn't work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness. 6Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,
7"Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.
8Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin."
9Is this blessing then pronounced on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For
we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. 11He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision,
that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them. 12
He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.” Romans 4:1-13
To which the writer of Hebrews, close companion of Paul, noted that “by faith Abraham...obeyed... by faith Abraham...sojourned”:
By faith Abraham, when he was
called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance,
obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went...” -Hebrews 11: 8-16
So then, even Paul qualified his statement against “working” for salvation, not on “no works, period”, and never on “faith alone” or “faith only”, but for those who also walk in the steps of Abraham that he walked in uncircumcision:
“…
that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them. 12He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but
who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.” Romans 4:1-13... -Romans 4:11-13
The question isn’t whether Abraham had to be faithfully obedient to God or not, the question is what was the heart or attitude of Abraham’s response?
James wrote, also after Paul, as you know, that faith and works are only effective in synergy. Not that works are a “result”, or a product, rather, the faithfully obedient steps were the proper response, and that was what was the heart of Paul’s message, that those who don’t harmonize Paul with the other apostles totally miss and consequently pervert.
“
Was not Abraham our father
justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how
faith wrought ("sunergo –1, to work together, help in work, be partner in labour 2, to put forth power together with and thereby to assist") with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was
fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness... Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and
not by faith only…
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” James 2:21-26, KJV.
This is the only place in the New Testament epistles where the words “faith” and “only” or “alone” are in the same place, and it specifically says, “not by faith only.” Paul never said we are saved or justified by “faith only”, rather, he qualified that by saying that we walk in the steps of Abraham.
Furthermore, in James 2, James
James tied faith and works together with the word sunergo, which, as is defined and inserted above, imparts a clear and specific sense of
partnership, rather than result. Sunergo is the root of our English word synergism, which literally means "like-energy." The Dictionary meaning of synergy, in harmony with the definition of sunergo above, says it is, "
The action of two or more substances, organs, or organisms
to achieve an effect of which each is individually incapable."
In the clearest of terms, James was
denying that we display works
as a result of already inherent faith as many attempt to impose upon James' words.
In previous post on another thread (which I see you’ve posted at), I posted an abundance of scriptures showing that Paul did not abolish law completely, rather, he upheld the new law of Christ:
https://www.onepoliticalplaza.com/t-174455-26.html#3178147So, my questions to you are, first, was Abraham counted righteous *AND* was his faith fulfilled, by the law of Moses, or, without the law of Moses?
Secondly, If God’s covenant was to NOT be after the manner of the former, then what gives you, or any of us, the right or authority to demand God to conform His new covenant to the previous form?
I would also like to see your references before commenting much further on them.