Hebrew Root

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Bugg's First Rebuttal 

In my opening statement, I left several specific questions from Myles’ opening unanswered, because before one can address specific objections to the Torah, one has to establish that despite how a misreading of the letters of Paul may make it seem, the Torah is not the enemy, or an oppressor to be escaped, or something flawed.

Myles asks in his opening, “[If you agree that we aren’t saved by the Torah,] why are you debating on if the Torah is binding?”  The answer has to do with my definition of “binding.”  None of us can keep the Lord’s commands (really, His commentary on Torah) in the Sermon on the Mount perfectly either—but nevertheless, these commands are still binding on believers, and when we sin against them, we are obligated to repent (turn back from sinning).  In other words, I believe that salvation is by faith, but that the commands of the Torah are still binding as a matter of practice for after one is saved, just as Myles would argue that the Lord’s Supper is.

Myles is making an assumption, and a mistake, that has been common throughout the Ekklesia for most of the last 2000 years: To believe that the establishment of a new covenant necessarily mandates the establishment of a new law as well.  This can be disproved not only by Jer. 31:33 (see point #5 in my opening), but by two separate examples from the Torah itself:

  1. When Moses descended from Mt. Sinai to see the golden calf, he shattered the tablets of the covenant containing the Ten Words to symbolize that Israel had broken their covenant with G-d by their idolatry.  When G-d forgave Israel that sin, He had Moses inscribe a second set of tablets to symbolize the restoration of the covenant—but the commandments remained the same.
  2. Likewise, when Moses re-established the covenant with the second generation of the Exodus after the first, disobedient generation had passed away, the commands of the covenant remained the same, though with some amendments due to the upcoming change in circumstances (that is, of entering the Land; e.g., Deu. 12:15 vs. Lev. 17:3f).