Who was the author of the Torah, God or Moses?

Shalom,

JS5777

   There is so much to the Law through Moses that is typing and preparing for the reality.  I think the main danger in the insistence that the Law be part and parcel of life in Christ is that the Law appeals to men's soul to perform good and refuse evil.  Yet in the new covenant that reality of men's need to preform died with Christ.  What rises with Christ is a new nature realizing that it's only hope and joy is living through the risen glorified Christ by faith.  The accuser has no power as that life grows and becomes the reality of the believer.  Satan's primary tactic is to lure men to what all men's his earthly experience tells him = his life with GOD depends upon his performance, and this at the expense of the grace and mercy of GOD establishing life in Christ Jesus.  Yet what is defined as life from GOD in the law is indeed of increasing import to those coming to Him through Christ.  As the love of GOD clears out all that nature of man which would at any point displease GOD, the holiness of GOD finds ever increasing manifestation in His own.  This not through the insistence on performance, but rather in the reality of relationship growing into Christ Jesus' love, trust, and fear of GOD.

If you will notice that in every posting that I have made about the Law of God, I am very careful to state, without fail,

that the fulfillment of the Law of God IS NOT by our own works WITHOUT HIM, and that it is ONLY possible by and through the power of His Life dwelling within us to fulfill His own obedience through us.

Sadly, there are some people that think that ANY fulfilling of ANY part of the Law of God has been completely eliminated.

But the Law of God describes how His character behaves, and if THAT is eliminated... then the result is that we can behave in just any way that the flesh in its fallen condition imagines to do, and STILL claim salvation.

But there ARE changes in our behavior that naturally and automatically happen when we have been saved and filled with the very Life of God.

Those changes reflect His character and fulfill every description of His behavior.

Just because it happens THROUGH our flesh, does NOT mean that it is being done BY the nonexistent abilities of the fallen flesh WITHOUT Him.

This is a concept that is difficult for some people to understand because they have not experienced the living reality of the power of His Life dwelling within themselves.

But just because they do not understand it, or just because they have not experienced it, DOES NOT mean that it does not exist or that it is impossible, or that the manifestation of the power of His Life through us to fulfill the expressions of His character through us, in some way bring us into bondage.

Just the opposite, THAT expression of the power of His life is the very thing that shows us that our experience with His salvation is a living reality.

We are NOT saved by the works that we try to do WITHOUT Him, but if we are saved, His works WILL follow and demonstrate the living reality that He is, even through our flesh, because the Power of His Life is far greater than ANY and ALL of the results of the fall in sin, so much so that there eventually is coming a change in our mortal bodies.

But the change begins in the inner man being conformed to His divine nature FIRST, then the change in our bodies will follow at its ordained time.

It is ALL a resurrection, either from the dead works of sin, or from the saved physically coming forth from the graves, and the most of the time it is BOTH.

Shalom,

JS5777

   James:   Sadly, there are some people that think that ANY fulfilling of ANY part of the Law of God has been completely eliminated.

   Paul:   sad indeed.  1Pe 1:14-16 As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance:  But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; 16 Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.   This with all it means is fulfilled in the life promised us.

JS5777 said:

If you will notice that in every posting that I have made about the Law of God, I am very careful to state, without fail, that the fulfillment of the Law of God IS NOT by our own works WITHOUT HIM, and that it is ONLY possible by and through the power of His Life dwelling within us to fulfill His own obedience through us.

I have noticed this brother. 

What we are contending for here is the faith, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures. What is commonly thought, by Christians everywhere, is that we are saved by grace through faith, but then we are perfected by Jesus helping us keep the law. There is an entire denomination with maybe millions of adherents, who has codified this doctrine and made it the foundation of their faith, the Seventh Day Adventists.

According to Paul, who was saved out from under the law (Galatians 2:19), we received the Spirit through the hearing of faith, we are being perfected through the hearing of faith, and we are supplied with the Spirit through the hearing of faith. Our full salvation has literally nothing to do with the works of law.

Galatians 3:2-3 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now being perfected by the flesh (works of law)?

3:5 He therefore that bountifully supplies to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

The hearing of faith is through hearing the word of God.

If you ask these dear ones who have placed themselves under the law, do you know that you have a spirit? They will answer, no. Do you know that God is Spirit? No. Do you know that the Spirit Himself is with our spirit, and even mingled with our spirit? No. 

According to the plain words in Romans 7, which I have cited over and over, either in part or in whole, to make up our good mind to keep the law is to do it without Christ, because Christ is in our spirit. To bring ourselves under the law is to be in the flesh and to walk according to the flesh. Jesus, who is in our spirit, cannot help us if we do not substantiate, experience, and walk according to the Spirit with our spirit.

Here are the main points as I understand them:

1. The person that was held in slavery under the law was crucified with Christ. It is not that the law died, but we who were under law died.

Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

2. This is the basis to say that we are not under law, because we died.

Romans 6:14 For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.

3. If we no longer live, but Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20) then the law no longer has dominion over us.

Romans 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?

3. We are now like a widow, free to marry another, to be joined to another, to Christ, who is the Spirit with our spirit.

Romans 7:4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

We can be either people in the flesh trying to keep the law (with Jesus' help) or people in the Spirit living Christ, not both. If we could make up our good mind and Jesus would help be good law keepers then there would have been no need for Romans chapter 7. 

JS5777 said:

Who was the author of the Torah, God or Moses?

I would answer, "yes."

JS5777 said:

But the Law of God describes how His character behaves, and if THAT is eliminated... then the result is that we can behave in just any way that the flesh in its fallen condition imagines to do, and STILL claim salvation.

The Law of God has not been eliminated. The person that was under the law was crucified with Christ. Now, in us, Christ has replaced the law.

Galatians 2:19-21 For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.
I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

I am dead to the law...Christ lives in me...if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

I would take that response as meaning that you think that BOTH God AND Moses authored the Torah.

How do you determine which parts of the Torah were authored by God and which parts were authored by Moses?

Shalom,

JS5777

JS5777 said:

Who was the author of the Torah, God or Moses?

I would answer, "yes." 

   Paul:  LOL.   

JS5777 said:

I would take that response as meaning that you think that BOTH God AND Moses authored the Torah.

I'm not trying to be cute brother.

All Scripture is God -breathed and therefore profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. Therefore the Torah is of God and out of God.

The man who produced the first 5 books of the Bible and whose name is on them is Moses. Therefore they are called by Luke, "Moses." 

Luke 24:27 And beginning at Moses and -- all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

I think we are still discussing what Paul meant by "the law?" Because he uses "the law" and "the commandment" interchangeably in Romans 7, I do believe that is what he meant: the commandments, with the attending ordinances and statutes. 

Galatians 5:14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

What do you think Paul meant by "all the law"

v. 18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

Always this is presented as mutually exclusive. If we are under the law, we are in the flesh. If we walk by the Spirit, we are not under the law. There is no such thing in the Bible as Jesus helping us keep the law.

Romans 13:9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended (sum up, gather into one) in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

What do you think Paul means by "and if there be any other commandment?" I believe, based on so many verses, that he was definitely talking about the commandments, all of them.