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The Law

Tumah

Veteran Member
You may find this information provided by Google, helpful.
Fulfilling the Law means to properly interpret it.
ful·fill
1.
bring to completion or reality; achieve or realize (something desired, promised, or predicted).
"he wouldn't be able to fulfill his ambition to visit Naples"
synonyms: achieve, attain, realize, actualize, make happen, succeed in, bring to completion, bring to fruition, satisfy
"he fulfilled his ambition to travel the world"​
gain happiness or satisfaction by fully developing one's abilities or character.
archaic​
complete (a period of time or piece of work).
2.
carry out (a task, duty, or role) as required, pledged, or expected.
"some officials were dismissed because they could not fulfill their duties"
synonyms: carry out, perform, accomplish, execute, do, discharge, conduct;More​
satisfy or meet (a requirement or condition).
"goods must fulfill three basic conditions"
synonyms: meet, satisfy, comply with, conform to, fill, answer
"they fulfilled the criteria"​
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
That's what the New Covenant is about. You need faith in Christ to be saved as specified by the covenant.

Faith at least works this way,

1. It's a fair measurement. You won't pretend to have faith in Christ, will you?
2. Only faith in God will secure your survival in the future Heaven. Genesis illustrates that Adam's fall is due to lack of faith and disobedience.

Faith along with Law thus constructs basically each and every covenant.
You are not answering the question. The "goats" know about Jesus and refer to him as "Lord", so why are they condemned and the "sheep" not? Please answer the question instead of avoiding it and citing something entirely different.
 

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
God however provides a solution for His Elect to be legitimately brought to Heaven. The solution is Jesus Christ. With Jesus Christ's once and for all sacrifice, it makes possible for God to grant a covenant to humans for them to be savable at all.

I would not call it a once and for all sacrifice since it lasted only three days (and two nights).

However as time goes by, even this chosen set of Law will put everyone to death, not even the righteous (people of God's Elect) can keep this chosen set of Law. Then God will upgrade the covenant with a newer one which will suppress the effect of Law while increasing the Grace in order for the righteous to be separated from the wicked.

Oh dear, another upgrade? I wonder if you are not confusing God with Bill Gates ;).

Ciao

- viole
 

Wharton

Active Member
You may find this information provided by Google, helpful.

ful·fill
1.
bring to completion or reality; achieve or realize (something desired, promised, or predicted).
"he wouldn't be able to fulfill his ambition to visit Naples"
synonyms: achieve, attain, realize, actualize, make happen, succeed in, bring to completion, bring to fruition, satisfy
"he fulfilled his ambition to travel the world"​
gain happiness or satisfaction by fully developing one's abilities or character.
archaic​
complete (a period of time or piece of work).
2.
carry out (a task, duty, or role) as required, pledged, or expected.
"some officials were dismissed because they could not fulfill their duties"
synonyms: carry out, perform, accomplish, execute, do, discharge, conduct;More​
satisfy or meet (a requirement or condition).
"goods must fulfill three basic conditions"
synonyms: meet, satisfy, comply with, conform to, fill, answer
"they fulfilled the criteria"​
How about to properly interpret the Law so that people can obey it as God intended.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
How about to properly interpret the Law so that people can obey it as God intended.
How is that part of the definition of "fulfill"?

I do think that we could create a new word: "deifinition" -- "In order to explain fulfill as having a religiously unique term applied to the Christian conception of Jesus requires that we create a new DEIFINITION of the word."
 

Wharton

Active Member
I have been puzzling over this for a while. Can you show me another context in which that is the meaning of the word "fulfill", especially as it relates to a law?
I read about it years ago. It's supposedly a Jewish idiom. To fulfill the Law was to properly interpret it. To destroy the Law was to improperly interpret it.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
I read about it years ago. It's supposedly a Jewish idiom. To fulfill the Law was to properly interpret it. To destroy the Law was to improperly interpret it.
Check your source. I've been a Jew all my life and have never heard that idiom.
 

leibowde84

Veteran Member
Do the Christian scriptures figure in your belief system at all Mattithyah?

Jesus himself said that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it. (Matt 5:17) He also condensed the entire law down to just two...often called the "law of love"....this is the law Christians are under. (Matt 22:36-40)

No Sabbath observance was mandated for Gentile Christians. It was a Jewish law that pertained only to Jews
The apostles made that clear when the circumcision issue was raised, that the law did not apply to any Christians as a set of legal requirements.....the only things "necessary" for Christians was to 'abstain from fornication, from eating the flesh of strangled animals (unbled) and from the consumption of blood'. (Acts 15:3-29) No Sabbath, no circumcision, and no festivals were observed by Christians. Christ was the end of the law. (Gal 3:24, 25; Rom 13:9, 10: 4, 7, 6)
It always makes me wonder why people base their argument that Christians don't have to follow Jewish traditional laws on the words of men, spoken long after Jesus' death. No one associated with the writing of Acts, Glaciations, and/or Romans ever even met Jesus. Thus, while you are fine with basing their validity on faith, Jesus never explicitly instructed any of his followers to disregard the "old law". This was an allowance made long after his death. Futher, since Jesus followed Jewish Law himself, it seems like it would have gone against his wishes. Jesus DID explicitly say that he was not there to change the law, and that his followers had to do what the Pharisees told them to. He basically said, they don't "practice what they preach", so follow their orders to the "t", but don't follow their example.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
I read about it years ago. It's supposedly a Jewish idiom. To fulfill the Law was to properly interpret it. To destroy the Law was to improperly interpret it.

Check your source. I've been a Jew all my life and have never heard that idiom.
Seconded. I've been a Jew all rosends life as well, and I've never heard of it either.
But I did do some research. Apparently unknown to Jews, a Mr. David Bivin has discovered that such an idiom existed in the ancient Jewish world. Isn't that amazing? And once he discovered that idiom, he was able to reinterpret (or should I say re-uphold) a number of passages in the Talmud! So although you can Google this idiom to your heart's content (a non-Jewish idiom), you will never find any mention of it on any Jewish site discussing Jewish/Talmudic passages.. But you will find tens of Christian sites speaking about this newly discovered ancient Jewish idiom.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
Bivins has a problem. He starts by assuming that k-y-m means "fulfill" and then he looks at what the word actually means and associates it with the word "fulfill." The problem is, k-y-m means something very different from "fulfill." In one of his examples (Pirkei Avot 4:14) the text, properly translated from the word "lehitkayem" is "Every gathering that is for the sake of Heaven, will endure; that is not for the sake of Heaven, will not endure." Will endure, not "fulfill" or anything of that sort.

K-Y-M means "to continue to exist" along with "satisfactory fulfillment."

The second, from the mishna in Horiyot, 1:3 which reads in Hebrew הורו לבטל מקצת ולקיים מקצת, הרי אלו חייבין , means in English "If they issued a ruling to nullify part and uphold part, they are liable. " The Hebrew, ul'kayem means "to uphold" - nothing to do with fulfilling. How could "fulfill" or any "interpret in order to do anything" be the opposite of "nullify"?

So the word in question not only doesn't mean "interpret so as to fulfill" but it has an additional meaning of "continue to exist"! Any notion of completion and removal is counter the meaning of the word.
 

Kolibri

Well-Known Member
What is the word used at Psalms 119:38?

Fulfill your promise (or "saying.") to your servant,
So that you may be feared. (Or possibly, "Which is made to those who fear you.")

Sorry for butting in at the last moment. But I do not read Hebrew directly. And I am expecting it would be different than k-y-m.

Other passages of note that give contextual meaning to how the word is used in the Hebrew Scriptures would be 1 Kings 2:27, 2 Chronicles 36:21, Psalms 20:5 and Daniel 9:2 provided that the same word is being consistently translated as "fulfill" in these locations.

An example of 'endure' can be found (as a contrast) in the same Psalm

The very essence of your word is truth,
And all your righteous judgments endure forever.
- Psalms 119:160
 
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metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
I read about it years ago. It's supposedly a Jewish idiom. To fulfill the Law was to properly interpret it. To destroy the Law was to improperly interpret it.
The vast majority of the 613 Laws involve actions to be taken or avoided, so exactly how is it that someone's politically-correct interpretation of a Law or even the entire Law somehow "fulfills" the Law? Interpretation are a means to an end but not the end itself. As an example, having a politically-correct interpretation of "kosher" does not mean that one automatically observes the kosher Laws.
 
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Tumah

Veteran Member
What is the word used at Psalms 119:38?

Fulfill your promise (or "saying.") to your servant,
So that you may be feared. (Or possibly, "Which is made to those who fear you.")

Sorry for butting in at the last moment. But I do not read Hebrew directly. And I am expecting it would be different than k-y-m.

Other passages of note that give contextual meaning to how the word is used in the Hebrew Scriptures would be 1 Kings 2:27, 2 Chronicles 36:21, Psalms 20:5 and Daniel 9:2 provided that the same word is being consistently translated as "fulfill" in these locations.

An example of 'endure' can be found (as a contrast) in the same Psalm

The very essence of your word is truth,
And all your righteous judgments endure forever.
- Psalms 119:160
The question is not about how Scripture uses the word, but the way that the Pharisees used the word. From there, the Christian poster is attempting to reinterpret the verse in Matt. about fulfilling and abolishing the law so that it doesn't contradict other verses in the NT where the Law is abolished.

Also, the word "endure" is not found in the Hebrew of Psa. 119:160. That was just added for the English. It says
[The] beginning/ [of] your word/ [is] true
And forever/ each / judgement/ [of] your righteousness
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
What is the word used at Psalms 119:38?

Fulfill your promise (or "saying.") to your servant,
So that you may be feared. (Or possibly, "Which is made to those who fear you.")

Sorry for butting in at the last moment. But I do not read Hebrew directly. And I am expecting it would be different than k-y-m.

Other passages of note that give contextual meaning to how the word is used in the Hebrew Scriptures would be 1 Kings 2:27, 2 Chronicles 36:21, Psalms 20:5 and Daniel 9:2 provided that the same word is being consistently translated as "fulfill" in these locations.

An example of 'endure' can be found (as a contrast) in the same Psalm

The very essence of your word is truth,
And all your righteous judgments endure forever.
- Psalms 119:160
Hakem means "establish" (or "make stand"). A choice to interpret it as "fulfill" is simply an interpretive choice. The Hebrew in 160 does not have the word "endure" -- that is a function of a particular translation. The Hebrew more literally means, "The beginning of Your word is true, and for eternity is each of your righteous judgment is."
Kings I, 2:27 has the word "l'malei" meaning "to fulfill" - no K-Y-M root there. 2 Chronicles 36:21 has "l'mal'ot". Psalms 20:5 has "y'maleh". Daniel 9:2 has "l'mal'ot" which, in context, means "since."
 

Kolibri

Well-Known Member
I appreciate your responses. Thank-you.

While I agree with the dictionary definition Tumah gave to the word fulfill, that it can mean to satisfy. or to bring to completion, I just could not follow the argument that it could mean "properly interpret". But again, I was not thinking at all about how the Pharisees may use the word outside of the Bible.
 

rosends

Well-Known Member
I appreciate your responses. Thank-you.

While I agree with the dictionary definition Tumah gave to the word fulfill, that it can mean to satisfy. or to bring to completion, I just could not follow the argument that it could mean "properly interpret". But again, I was not thinking at all about how the Pharisees may use the word outside of the Bible.
Wharton had said in post 84 " to properly interpret the Law so that people can obey it as God intended." I am still concerned by your understanding of it as "to bring to completion." I wonder for 2 reasons: 1 is that i don't offhand, know a situation where fulfill means that as it relates to law and 2. this still relies on translating a particular Hebrew word (which word) as "fulfill" which doesn't seem reasonable -- think about it -- you were looking for a word meaning "fulfill" and you brought up 4 verses which use a DIFFERENT word. Maybe this shows that the k-y-m root specifically does NOT mean "fulfill."
 

Wharton

Active Member
The vast majority of the 613 Laws involve actions to be taken or avoided, so exactly how is it that someone's politically-correct interpretation of a Law or even the entire Law somehow "fulfills" the Law? Interpretation are a means to an end but not the end itself. As an example, having a politically-correct interpretation of "kosher" does not mean that one automatically observes the kosher Laws.
As an example, explain how the Law was properly interpreted as God intended to allow an eruv?
 

Wharton

Active Member
The vast majority of the 613 Laws involve actions to be taken or avoided, so exactly how is it that someone's politically-correct interpretation of a Law or even the entire Law somehow "fulfills" the Law? Interpretation are a means to an end but not the end itself. As an example, having a politically-correct interpretation of "kosher" does not mean that one automatically observes the kosher Laws.
Don't get me started on kosher. That's the biggest scam foisted on the American consumer ever. Who interpreted the Law to determine that all bottled water needs to be kosher? Where is kosher water in the scripture?
 
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