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Author
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Topic: The One Who Obeys My Laws Will Live
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Forever His
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Member # 25
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posted
Thank you for your warm words lonlesol. It means a lot to know that others care.
God Bless you
Forever His
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lonlesol
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Member # 4511
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quote:
Posted by Forever His
Actually it has been just over three years since my wife passed away at christmas 2004. I haven't posted much here since back then. I am now engaged to the sweetest and most Godly woman that I have ever met. I am hoping to move to Oregon this year and we are hoping then to be married.
I am so sorry to learn that your wife passed away...but how blessed you are for finding this Godly woman and soon to marry her... ![[clap2]](graemlins/clap2.gif)
I am wishing you two all the best!... ![[hug]](graemlins/hug.gif)
Posts: 478 | From: Quebec | Registered: Mar 2005
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CWO4GUNNER
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Member # 6971
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"You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions. On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws."
“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”
Mathew 7:16-27
I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
2 Timothy 4: 1-5
Posts: 54 | From: Bullhead City, AZ | Registered: Jan 2008
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Forever His
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Member # 25
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posted
becauseHElives... it seems like 30 years since I have talked to you ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ![[type]](graemlins/type.gif)
Actually it has been just over three years since my wife passed away at christmas 2004. I haven't posted much here since back then. I am now engaged to the sweetest and most Godly woman that I have ever met. I am hoping to move to Oregon this year and we are hoping then to be married.
I really liked what you posted about the 3000 men. In fact I love seeing all of thoses "type" of parallels. There is so much hidden below the surface in the Bible for those who wish to seek it out and the Exodus is rich with shadows and types of Christ.
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becauseHElives
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Member # 87
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posted
Forever His ![[wave3]](graemlins/18.gif) ![[thumbsup2]](graemlins/thumbsup2.gif) I have been saying almost the same thing in a different way for a long time.
I too have been studying and praying about this for about 30 years....
The 1st Pentecost the Law was given, wrote in stone and 3000 died at one time.
The Fulfillment of Pentecost, recorded for us in the Book of Acts tell us ....
The day of Pentecost was the birth of Christianity. It was on this memorable day that repentance and baptism in Jesus' name for the remission of sins was first taught and experienced (Acts 2: 38). The height of Joel's prophesy had been "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered" (Joel 2: 32). When those whose hearts had been pricked asked what must they do, were told, and did it, they were calling on the name of the Lord (Acts 2: 37-42). People today are thus saved in the same way by calling on Jesus' name (Rom. 10: 13).
Now with the Law written on the hearts of men instead of tables of stone 3000 souls are made alive at one time.
A Christian does not keep the Law of necessity to be right with Yahweh...
A Christian keeps the Law because it is part of his new nature, the very nature of Yahweh ...
an apple tree bears apples because it is an apple tree.
If a person abides in Christ, that person will produce fruit in character with its source... life
If a person does not abide in Christ, their source is this world , Satan, self and their fruit will be ....death
Every day a person must choose their source of abiding.... everyday I choose life or death
take up your cross and follow me daily Yeshua said
one day your race will be over, but for now...
we walk after the Spirit and have life
or
we walk after the Flesh and have death
Law on stone
or
Law on the heart
its either or not both
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
Posts: 4578 | From: Southeast Texas | Registered: Jun 2002
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Forever His
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Member # 25
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You have asked a good question and one that I believe a lot of christian's have asked over the years. I have not shared here for some time now but I thought perhaps I would stop in and share something I have learned from the gospel of Mathew.
As you know in Jesus day the Jewish leaders were really big into "legalism" and "outward show of piety". In fact they took the book of Moses and in order to show how pious they were they wrote books and books just to show how to keep all of God's laws and comandments. Many spent their lives in a coninious round of rituals and routines in order to "please" God.
Yet this was not ever what God required of mankind... for from the giving of the law I believe that God wanted to write His Law upon the tablet of their hearts for He said through Moses... [ Duet 6:6 ] And these words which I have commanded you today shall be in your hearts.
So when Jesus came along and preached His first sermon He was preaching to religious leaders and an audience that was very much into an "external" form of religious worship. Outward obedience was considered to be Godliness.
Now... lets have a look at the sermon on the mount. Jesus clearly shows the " utter futility " of a religion of mere externals. He starts off with what we call the beatitudes. Have you ever noticed ? These pertain not to externals... but to matters of the heart... a foreign concept to the Scribes and Pharisee's.
-blessed are the poor in spirit
-blessed are the meek
-blessed are the "pure in heart"
etc.
Now to jump ahead just a little bit...
Mat. 5:21 You have heard it was said... Though shalt not murder [ a direct quote from the ten comandments ]
but I say to you.... [my paraphrase] murder is a matter of the heart !!!
Mat. 5:27 You have heard it said...
Thou shalt not commit adultery [ comandment 7 ]
but I say to you... adultery is not an external event... but a matter of the heart !!!
What was Jesus doing ??? Well some years ago God opened up my mind and I began to see what Jesus was doing. If you go back to verse 17 you will read
Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. Are you aware that the word for "fulfill" as used there is the word "pleroo" and that the meaning is not what we have often thought, or been told. The word "pleroo" does not mean fulfill... it actualy means " FILL FULL "
Now stay with me because I believe that what Jesus did was "very" cool. If you look back in Jeremiah 31: 31-34 you will find out that the whole point of God's new covenant with "the house of Israel" [ I find that interesting] was that God would WRITE HIS LAW... " ON THEIR HEARTS " That is what the "new covenant" is.... God writting His laws upon our hearts.
I belive that what Jesus was doing in the sermon on the mount was this... He was showing the Leaders of Israel that they had missed the most important part of God's plan for their redemption... Jesus had come to [pleroo] or FILL the law Full of new meaning as understood in light of the "new covenant" .
Hence... Jesus said... you have heard it said [ God's law as written upon stone ]
but I say to you... [ God's law written upon your heart ]
The law was not something that you "keep" as a requirement for salvation... God's law concerns matters of the heart.... and ONLY HE can write His Law upon man's heart... this is why Jesus said in John 3 .... Ye must be born again. The moment that we surrender to God He saves us " by grace alone " and at that moment He begins to change our hearts and He begins to write His law upon the tables of our hearts. We live totaly by His grace alone and by His grace... one day we will be like Him.... for He is the potter... and He will complete the good work in us that He has begun in us.
I hope this doesn't sound "preachie" ........ and I hope that it will be a blessing to someone out there who might be looking for answers... this took me almost 30 years to fully understand yet it has made the scriptures come alive with deeper meaning.
God Bless you
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Eden
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Hi, Michael Harrison. You said: quote:
If you are listening to the Spirit, He will lead you somewhere. It's in His love. If your nose is running, you will wipe it. If your diaper needs changing, you will change it.
I agree that most people, if their nose is running, will wipe it. And I agree that most people will change the diaper if it needs changing.
But listening to what the Spirit is saying to a man's spirit is not as automatic as your two examples.
For one thing, all men know they have a nose and that poop in the diaper smells. But many men, including many Christians, have no idea that they even have a spirit to which they need to listen if they want to hear from the Holy Spirit.
Unlike the nose and the poop smell, the spirit of man and the Spirit of man needs to be found by the unregenerate man.
The words in the Word of God are spirit and life:
John 6:63
It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life.
The spirit is stirred by the words of the Word of God and the soul repents. But the doing here was reading or hearing the Word of God, without which a man’s spirit can not come back to life.
Secondly, after a soul repents of self-rule, the soul need to actively listen to his spirit because the Spirit of God can only communicate to man’s spirit, and not to man’s soul. So what the soul must do is listen to his spirit, otherwise again nothing new will happen to the soul.
Yes, it is a surrender of the self-rule by the soul, but then it does not become just sitting back and “watch the Holy Spirit work in me”. No, I have to do something, namely read the Word (which takes hours and time and real effort and work) and I have to actually stop the soul=rule in favor of spirit=rule.
If the soul begins to rule by himself again, the Holy Spirit can talk all He wants to the spirit of man, but if the soul isn’t listening on an active, ongoing 24/7 basis, then not much is going to happen to that soul. These are all things that the soul must still do even after salvation, are they not, Michael Harrison?
love, eden
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Michael Harrison
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If you are listening to the Spirit, He will lead you somewhere. It's in His love.
If your nose is running, you will wipe it. If your diaper needs changing, you will change it. You won't go around miserable over something that you can do something about. If someone needs to be spoken to about Christ, and you realize it, you will do it. Why does anyone get caught up with the pettyness of doing, as though there is some significant charitable sacrifice involved, and overlook the overwhelming abundance of what we cannot do anything about, but go ahead and try for our whole lives anyway. It is an attempt to rob God and steal His Glory, but it is not evident until we realize something.
On the subject of doing, don't say that you are listening to the Spirit when you only think that you are. (Don't let the devil dazzle you only to find out later that it is a clever distraction.)
Dig deeper! Seek and ye shall find. Knock and it will be opened. If you are listening to the Spirit, He will lead you somewhere safe in the embrace of God our Father.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Eden
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Hi,Michael Harrison. You quoted Eden quote:
I do think that repenting unto salvation includes making a decent effort to do the 10 commandments, particularly "do not lie", "do not steal", "honor your father and mother", and that those can be summed up in these two commandments, "to love the LORD God with all my heart" and "to love my neighbor as myself".”
Then you went on to say: quote:
”But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Php 4:19)
Okay, but the riches that God supplies God supplies to me in 3 ways that I know of.
1. God supplies my needs through my spirit. God talks to my spirit by way of the Holy Spirit. (Spirit talks to spirit)
2. God supplies my spirit needs through my reading or hearing of His Word, because His words are spirit. (God's Word to my spirit)
3. God moves circumstances around to favor me or to work a purpose in me.
So Michael Harrison, then you further said quote:
If all of your need is met, why do you need to covet? Why would you steal? To what advantage is a lie? The purpose of these things (even murder) is to get gain. If all of your need is met, and you believe it, what do you have to ‘do’ - in order to have?
What do you have to ‘do’ - in order to have?
First I, which is the soul, has to listen to my spirit if I want to get the right instructions for my soul. That is something that I must do; if I don't do it, the soul won't hear from the Spirit because only the spirit of man can receive what the Spirit says.
Secondly, I, the soul, have to take up a Bible and read the Word of God or hear the Word of God on CD. That is something that I have to do or else again my spirit won't hear anything.
Now, in the third matter of God moving my circumstances around in my favor or to accomplish a purpose in me, for that, I can sit back and just watch God 'do' as you said.
What do you think, Michael Harrison? If all of your need is met and you believe it, What do you have to ‘do’ - in order to have?
with love, eden
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Michael Harrison
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Quote! “I do think that repenting unto salvation includes making a decent effort to do the 10 commandments, particularly "do not lie", "do not steal", "honor your father and mother", and that those can be summed up in these 2, "to love the LORD God with all my heart" and "to love my neighbor as myself".”EndQuote!
![[Bible]](graemlins/bible.gif) ”But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Php 4:19 )
If all of your need is met, why do you need to covet? Why would you steal? To what advantage is a lie? The purpose of these things (even murder) is to get gain. If all of your need is met, and you believe it, what do you have to ‘do’ - in order to have?
Then why would you have to ‘try’ to keep the Ten Commandments, if you do not have to do the things that come out of a bankrupt state of being, which is faithless and apart from God, and which leads to these amoral actions?
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
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It truly is a mystery ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
"What shall we say then? That the Gentiles who followed not after righteousness, have attained unto righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith?"(Romans 9:30)
.....even the righteousness which is of [having]?" (Romans 9:30)
-For by grace-
![[Cross]](graemlins/cross.gif) are ye saved through faith.
Through believing, I am saved; for grace is saving me! And the faith that i am being saved, is not even of myself. I chose [however it happened] to believe. The rest is His Story!
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Eden
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I do think that repenting unto salvation includes making a decent effort to do the 10 commandments, particularly "do not lie", "do not steal", "honor your father and mother", and that those can be summed up in these 2, "to love the LORD God with all my heart" and "to love my neighbor as myself".
One who loves his neighbor does not steal from his neighbor or lie to his neighbor or bear false witness about a neighbor.
Additionally, the LORD also asks us to make an effort to seek after righteousness:
Proverbs 15:9
The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the LORD: but he loves him who follows after righteousness.
Proverbs 21:21
He who follows after righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honour.
Matthew 5:6
Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Romans 9:30
What shall we say then? That the Gentiles who followed not after righteousness, have attained unto righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith?
1 Timothy 6:11
But you, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
Seeking after righteousness means to make an effort to do the 10 commandents. In the family of God, we have to behave too.
love, eden
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Carol Swenson
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Galatians 2:16 - 21 (NLT)
16Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”
17But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law. Would that mean Christ has led us into sin? Absolutely not!
18Rather, I am a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I already tore down.
19For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me. So I died to the law—I stopped trying to meet all its requirements—so that I might live for God.
20My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
21I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.
Romans 6:15 - 19 (NLT)
15Well then, since God’s grace has set us free from the law, does that mean we can go on sinning? Of course not!
16Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living.
Romans 8:3 - 6 (NLT)
3The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
4He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
5Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.
6So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.
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becauseHElives
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Member # 87
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Jhn 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments
Jhn 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
Jhn 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
1Jo 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
1Jo 2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
1Jo 3:22 And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.
1Jo 3:24 And he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him, and he in him. And hereby we know that he abideth in us, by the Spirit which he hath given us.
1Jo 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
1Jo 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
2Jo 1:6 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.
Rev 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Rev 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here [are] they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
Rev 22:14 Blessed [are] they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.
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Strive to enter in at the strait gate:for many, I say unto you will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. ( Luke 13:24 )
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Carol Swenson
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Hard Sayings of the Bible
The One Who Obeys My Laws Will Live?
(Leviticus 18:5)
This saying’s importance is assured by its appearance in such later contexts as Ezekiel 20:11, Luke 10:28, Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12. But it is also a hard saying. The text appears to offer an alternate method of gaining eternal life, even if only theoretically. Is it true, in either the Old Testament or the New, that a person could have eternal life by perfectly keeping the law of God? In other words, can we read this saying as “Do this and you will have [eternal] life”?
Unfortunately, all too many teachers of the Scriptures have uncritically assumed that the words live in them meant that “eternal life was to be had by observing the laws of God.” Accordingly, if a person were to keep these commandments perfectly, the very keeping would be eternal life.
But this claim misses a major amount of contrary evidence, foremost that the benefits of God’s promise-plan to the Old Testament believers were not conditioned on anything, much less on obedience. Such a position would reverse the unconditional word of blessing God gave to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and David.
But what about the “if you obey me fully” statements of Exodus 19:5, Leviticus 26:3-13 and Deuteronomy 11:13-15 and 28:1? Do not these texts flatly declare that without obedience salvation is impossible?
The if is admittedly conditional, but conditional to what? It was conditional only to enjoyment of the full benefits of a relationship begun by faith and given freely by God. Israel must obey God’s voice and heed his covenant and commandments, not “in order to” establish their new life in God, but “so that” (Deut 5:33) they might experience completely this new life begun in faith.
The very context of this verse speaks against a works salvation. First, Leviticus 18 begins and ends with the theological assumption that the hearers have the Lord as their God. Thus, this instruction deals with sanctification rather than justification.
Second, “those things” which they were not to do were the customs and ordinances; in short, the pagan idolatries of the Egyptians and Canaanites. This is a whole world apart from the question of salvation.
Third, never in the Old or New Testaments has pleasing God constituted the external performance of acts; these acts carried with them the evidence of a prior attitude of the heart. For instance, circumcision of the flesh without the circumcision of the heart was wasted effort.
In fact, our Lord coupled the act and the heart when the people pledged, “All that the Lord says, we will do.” Imperiously, some call such a pledge rash, judging the people foolish for falling for an offer they would never be able to live up to.
But our Lord did not see it that way. Rather, he said in so many words, “Oh that there were such a heart in them that they would always fear me and keep my commandments.” Our Lord connects their doing with the heart. He never reproved them by saying, “Oh, what deluded people! Given your previous track record, how on earth do you ever expect to enter my heaven by keeping any of my laws?” There is not a word about this. Therefore, this verse cannot be said to teach a hypothetical offer of salvation by works.
Some may argue that the words live by them, quoted in Romans 10:5 and Galatians 3:12, surely means in those contexts that salvation was “by means of” works (an instrumental use of the preposition). I respond that this expression should be translated live “in the sphere of them” (a locative use of the preposition).
Moses, therefore, was not describing the means of attaining salvation but only the horizon within which an earthly, godly life should be lived.
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