(July 11, 2012 at 1:01 pm)Undeceived Wrote: The Mosaic Law, or "letter of the law" does not need to be followed. This includes traditions such as Sabbath keeping and sacrifices at the temple. It seems the law you mean is the Ten Commandments. Yes, adultery has always been wrong and will continue to be wrong until the end of time. Moral codes don't change or they wouldn't be codes. What is 'good' and what is 'bad' was inherently declared before human existence. In Acts 15, the disciples are discovering they no longer have to follow Jewish customs. But they should follow the ten commandments, or the condensed two (love God and love neighbor) which automatically cover the ten. The two came first. The ten are more specific guidelines, given to the Israelites so they might understand and so we would have a two-part Bible today to fully show Christians the Law, and fully show Christians the Grace to overcome that Law. By your own concession, the only 'change' Jesus made was in adding thought to the crime. Well, this is nothing new. If you consider a crime in your head, your mind is not on God. Deuteronomy 6:5 says to "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength." It's the thought that counts. God doesn't want us simply to obey. Our obedience should be out of love. Action without the mind is meaningless! We are like children to Father God, or the wife to Husband Christ. If we only paid lip service and refrained from doing anything nasty, what kind of relationship would it be? Jesus explains the positive response the Israelites were too blind to see: love in place of hate. Do good because we want to do good. There's not just "thou shalt not"s but "thou shall"s. God wants our mind and soul, not our bodies.
Obviously we cannot follow this law. We do our best, out of love. Christ shows love for us first, by paying our debt--being righteous where we could not. Taking the punishment of death for us. No law is required for salvation, though full observance of the law (impossible) would still obtain salvation. Both are still in existence. If the law were not, we would have no need of Christ's sacrifice. The OT shows the presence of the law that never leaves. The NT shows God's planned response. We are unable to follow the law, but Jesus will follow it for us.
First, thanks for an honest answer and not the typical obfuscation.
The law still exists and always will, but is not required for salvation. Damnation is really only invoked for those that blaspheme the Holy Spirit and/or deny Christ as the savior. You claimed that Christians should abide the law. I understand this within the context of loving God, meaning that one could make an argument that serial murderers couldn't possibly love God, but even a serial murderer is not necessarily denied salvation.
From this I go to Matthew 5:19. According to this verse there will be a hierarchy of how those in heaven will be considered from least to greatest based on each's ability to adhere to the law. If I take the love God and neighbor maxims I can quickly run through all 613 commands and reasonably determine what the most important might be to a Christian.
Let's assume there are two people that follow 612 of the 613 commands. One man is homosexual, the other eats shrimp and lobster everyday. Will both be considered the same in heaven? Will both be considered far ahead of most based on their observance ratio?