what being apart from the law means.

[Neo-Scholastic]

PLEASE do not take this the wrong way, as I am not trying to insult or invalidate your beliefs... But take note as to how you use scripture. You will quote one verse, and then tag a meaning onto that verse that the orginal text does not support.

I have nothing by respect for the zeal with which you present your ideas and extensive scriptural support.

I have spent the majority of my christian life following what 1thess 5:21 tells us to do: Question all things and hold on to what is Good. This does not mean question only the questionable. It means to also question the foundational.

We are alike it this respect, even though we have reached different conclusions. We have both demonstrated our willingness to follow the evidence wherever it may lead and change our beliefs accordingly. It is evident that you have come to your interpretation through much study and earnest thought.

If I were in your place my first question would be: "Why Can't my doctrinal arguement (The one I used here today) Be found in One place, One Chapter, or even One Book? Why do i have to take a single verse from multiple places and put them together to say what i believe? Is God really so ellusive? Or is that my denomination being ellusive?

I pull verses from multiple places to show that a doctrine is presented throughout whole of scripture. I only point to specific verses 1) for the sake of brevity and 2) so that you do not have to wonder which verse out the entire context I believe is critical. To demonstrate that I have not cherry-picked one verse I will provide detailed commentary for each verse for both Rom 7 and Matt 5 below. From this you will see New Church doctrine enjoys more scriptural support than you believe is warranted.

ROMANS 7:
1. Brothers and sisters, you all understand the Law of Moses. So surely you know that the law rules over people only while they are alive.
By this time in history people had lost the spiritual import of Mosaic law. As such they had become purely civil in nature, external gestures and prohibitions without spiritual significance.

2 It’s like what the law says about marriage: A woman must stay married to her husband as long as he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage.
3 But if she marries another man while her husband is still alive, the law says she is guilty of adultery. But if her husband dies, she is made free from the law of marriage. So if she marries another man after her husband dies, she is not guilty of adultery.
Here Paul starts to use a familiar, but now merely civil law, to demonstrate a spiritual principle

4 In the same way, my brothers and sisters, your old selves died and you became free from the law through the body of Christ. Now you belong to someone else. You belong to the one who was raised from death. We belong to Christ so that we can be used in service to God.
When Paul says “your old selves have died” he means that earthly motivations of loving the self and the world have been replaced by love of God and neighbor. To be “free from the law” means that we are not bound by external motions. The “body of Christ” means a spiritual community governed by love. The rest is self evident.

5 In the past we were ruled by our sinful selves. The law made us want to do sinful things. And those sinful desires controlled our bodies, so that what we did only brought us spiritual death.
To be “ruled by our sinful selves” is to be swayed by the ego’s love of self and the world. The statement “the law made us want to do sinful things” means that compliance with letter of Mosaic law had become contrary to the spirit of the Law. People were performing rituals for show to feed their pride and glorify themselves.

6 In the past the law held us as prisoners, but our old selves died, and we were made free from the law. So now we serve God in a new way, not in the old way, with the written rules. Now we serve God in the new way, with the Spirit.
The “law held us prisoners” means that the rituals and prohibitions, performed without love for the Lord or neighbor, were pointless restrictions and strict compliance was a form of bondage.
…

Now having given examples and contrasting civil compliance with spiritual obedience, Paul offers himself as an object lesson, but only rhetorically. We know that it is rhetorical for the following reason. First, post-conversion Paul was not a wicked man. We hold up his life as an example of obedience and love of Christ. Second, Paul was writing as a believer, i.e. we was reborn and thus, according to the traditional view, he was saved. As a saved believer is ceased being a slave to sin and by his own account was a bondservant of Christ

14 We know that the law is spiritual, but I am not. I am so human. Sin rules me as if I were its slave.
The spiritual law is to love the Lord and our neighbor as ourselves. When he says, I am so human (not spiritual0, he means that sin comes from our earthly human nature which is love of self. When he says, “sin rules me as a slave”, he intends for the un-saved listeners to identify with that as a rhetorical device, not as a statement literally applying reborn Christians like himself.

15 I don’t understand why I act the way I do. I don’t do the good I want to do, and I do the evil I hate.
This means that if your motivation comes from yourself, and not from the Lord, is evil That’s because the good that we do is from the Lord and not from ourselves.

16 And if I don’t want to do what I do, that means I agree that the law is good.
The “law” in this verse means the spiritual commandment to love the Lord and our neighbor like ourselves.

17 But I am not really the one doing the evil. It is sin living in me that does it.
The meaning of this verse is a bit trickier. Here Paul acknowledges the limitations of mortal flesh and the difference between man’s natural will and the Lord’s. This will become more clear in later verses.

18 Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is not spiritual. I want to do what is good, but I don’t do it.
Here is the qualifier. The natural man, apart from Christ, focuses only on earthly concerns. Man on his own does not do good. The good that we do comes from the Lord and not from ourselves.

19 I don’t do the good that I want to do. I do the evil that I don’t want to do.
This means that the good the natural man thinks he does is not really good at all, because it stems from self love. Only evil results when a man acts from his own inititiative, and not from the power of Christ within him.

20 So if I do what I don’t want to do, then I am not really the one doing it. It is the sin living in me that does it. 21. So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me.
In this world, we have both a spiritual and earthly nature. Thus we are challenged to chose between our earthly body’s evil desires and the divine spark inside us that longs for Jesus. When Paul says, “I am not the one doing it” he is blaming the natural man.

22 In my mind I am happy with God’s law.
This means that his rational mind accepts the truth of God’s commandment to love.

23 But I see another law working in my body. That law makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and that law makes me its prisoner.
This means that although he knows the truth, he is still unwilling to do it. This is because the will to do good does not come from man, it only comes from the Lord.

24 What a miserable person I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death?
Jesus of course, but how. Paul is saying we have to die to self so that we can live in the Lord. That means we shun the dictates of our natural will, which is evil, so that God’s will which is good, can act through us.

25 I thank God for his salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my mind I am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin.
The salvation of Jesus Christ comes from his power over sin. When we bring him into our heart, his love drives out the sinful desires of our selfish will and replaces it with His own. But in his final statement he recognizes that in our earthly embodiment we always still face a choice between our will and God’s

MATHEW 5:
…
17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill.
18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”

At that time the only way to obtain righteousness was obeying the rule part of the law.

Jesus was not saying that the Pharisees were really really close to being absolutely perfect and that you have to be even better at following the Mosaic laws than them, i.e. perfect. Conforming to external rules and regulations never made anyone righteous. That is because you could do them with evil intentions. Those were the Pharisees. The only way to become righteous is to love God and your neighbor as yourself, the spiritual meaning inside the Mosaic laws that had been lost. Now if we weren’t able to do that, then why would that be the consistent admonition throughout the whole Word?

You do not have to be perfect to be in the presence of the Lord. Heaven is not a one-size fits all solution. There are many mansions and rewards proportional to the degree that we can receive the Divine Love and Wisdom of the Lord. It is through reception of these that gives us the power to love the Lord and our neighbor as our selves.

(James 2:14-26)

i was waiting for this one…Love is the missing element.

Indeed it is.

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See what I said Drich. You can hear the heckling from the peanut gallery already.