Obstacles on the Way to God - #1

A few weeks back, we published a list of 12 obstacles on the way to God - 12 common misconceptions that appear to be a part of the great deception Jesus warns His disciples against (Mat 24:4). In the days to come, we will elaborate on each of these. Let him who has ears, hear.

1. God's Law as given to Moses and explained in the case laws in the Old Testament is not valid anymore.

Examples from Scripture that refute this notion:
  • Keeping the Passover is an everlasting ordinance: Exo 12:14.
  • The Ten Commandments are to be kept throughout the generations, for God is a jealous God and will show mercy to those that keep His commandments into the thousands generation, but if you work iniquity, it will be held against you and your family for up to four generations: Exo 20 and Deu 5.
  • You are defiling yourself or the land by things abominable to the Lord, by lawlessness: Lev 18.
  • There is severe punishment for changing the ordinance and breaking the covenant: Isa 24.
  • Jesus enforces the Law: "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." (Mat 5:18).
  • John stresses that the Law has been unchanged from the beginning in his 2nd letter: "And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another. And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it." (2Jn 1:5-6).
We are aware of the fact that Paul, who mentions the Law a lot, is often quoted as "proof" that the Law is done away with. If that's your position, are you aware of the fact that you are trying to trump Jesus with Paul ? Do your really want to suggest that Paul and Jesus contradict each other, and that Paul's word weighs heavier in the argument ? Since we hold that God is not the author of confusion (1Co 14:33) and does not contradict Himself, and Scripture is God's infallible word, our understanding must be wrong if we think God contradicts Himself. Besides, even according to Peter, Paul is difficult to understand and was misunderstood in his own times just like he is misunderstood now. Paul's teaching seems to us to be a as difficult to understand as Jesus' parables, and obviously, just like the parables, it is not meant to be understood by the multitude, but just by the elect (Mat 13:9-16, Mat 4:9-12, Luk 8:8b-10).

"And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness." (2Pe 3:15-17)

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