Hebrew Roots & Legalism’s Fruits

The Hebrew Roots Society says that the nation is on a path of destruction because of Christmas & Easter observances & believers’ noncompliance with the Levitical dietary ordinances.  


By way of reply, we are only on the path of destruction if we do these things with the specific intention of worshipping the pseudodeities that underwrite those pagan holidays and/or if God judges people sinners without regard to the motives of human moral agents. 


What you’re peddling here is the same sort of thinking that plagued the members of the Corinthian church relative to food sacrificed with idols.   The LORD is isn’t as concerned about dietary laws & liturgical feasts not directly found in Leviticus 23 as you are. 


He moved the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) to instruct the churches & their individual members refrain from that which been polluted by idols (in general), & (in particular) sexual immorality, what has been strangled, & from blood.   All of these items have something to do with Greco-Roman idolatry.


If your POV is correct, then we’d expect Paul to forbid eating food sacrificed to idols altogether — but he doesn’t, proving that dietary laws & the liturgical calendar are modifiable outworkings of a larger, abiding principle, namely the prohibitions on worshiping pagan pseudodeities both without idols & with idols.  


If God judges us sinners in the legalistic manner you teach, then that both neglects to consider the purpose of these regulations & leads to a gospel of works righteousness in which God judges us w/o regard to our motives, contrary to 1 Samuel 16:7, Jer. 17:9-10, Mt. 5:28; & James 1:14-15.  


May God bless us all, each & every one, and “Go & sin no more.”

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Romans 1:18 - 32 & Leviticus 18

  Paul is following the basic outline of a suzerain covenant in general     & the outline of Lev. 18 in particular.   Shema & Decalogue (Rom. 1:18 - 20)  God’s Image testifies to His attributes & Law.    God created people. His temple bears His Image & runs according to his Law & Gospel.    This corresponds to Lev. 18 : 1 & 2. A - Rom.    1:18 - 19.  God’s wrath falls on those who suppress His image.   B - Rom 1:20  - For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made so that people are without excuse.  What is the teleological intent of the created order?    To serve as an epistemic warrant on par with God Himself? No!  It’s purpose is to serve as a pointer to God who is Himself the only sufficient epistemic warrant for all faith & practice....
Read more

Favorite Fallacies & Homosexuality

Thesis - The tradition bound view on homosexuality commits a number of logical, epistemic, & exegetical fallacies.  1-  Is - Ought Fallacy  - Human anatomy is said to provide    a blueprint for sexual ethics.  We examined this in my previous article.  A moral “ought” is derived from a physical “is.”  The disputant makes an illicit leap from what is to what ought to be. A classic example is the way some homosexuals defend their sexual ethics by appealing to their biology/genetics.  2 -  Vicious Circularity   - Human anatomy & physiology are raised to the status due a non-arbitrary epistemic warrant.    A non-arbitrary epistemic warrant must be necessary, reasoned, & principled.  In truth, the body is unnecessary to deduce sexual ethics. By way of contrast, God’s nature is definitionally necessary, insofar as God is a necessary being, &, since God is infinite, eternal, & unchangeable in being, w...
Read more

Covenant Theology In Outline Form (Part 11)

Isaiah 6:1- 13 Shema   In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. Historical Prologue   And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the  Lord  of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and...
Read more