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Originally Posted by Esaias
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Originally Posted by mfblume
That reaosning fails.
We need records of specific words that are not referring to the things that morality would instinctively tell us about. Committing beastiality or dishonouring your parents is not something God needs to write down for us, for we already know that is immoral by sheer conscience. But no one would ever naturally think that the seventh day must be kept without work.
Romans 2:26.. Therefore if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision?
No pagan or heathen would know of the seventh day like they would prohibition against beastialilty or disrespect. It's ceremony they do not know about.
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Man will not discover his duty to God and his neighbour strictly by "conscience", which is why God gave His Word.
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I agree. I did not say otherwise. But conscience does instruct us in many ways. And it is enhanced by Spirit baptism, or even the word of God
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Man is not to be trusted with determining right and wrong, it requires Divine revelation because the heart of man is desperately wicked. To suggest God didn't specify an obligation because it is already known to everyone is to suggest the 5th commandment and most others were originally irrelevent and superfluous.
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Heathen nations know enough to not kill and not commit adultery. Morality is built into the human conscience. It simply is. Not as fine-tuned as it should be, though, due to the fall. But there are pagans who fulfilled the one part of law that forbids adultery without knowing about it each and every time they refused to commit adultery.
Some things were known by conscience, but not everything, such as the sabbath day. But all that is moral was simply known by conscience, though perhaps in a far more vague way than they were commanded in Law.
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Moreover, it assumes the error that the NT Scriptures are a replacement legislation. Which basically reduces Christianity to a type of legalism (just NT legalism instead of OT legalism).
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I do not follow how you arrive at that conclusion, whatsoever.
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Also, you are misapplying Romans 2 to heathen idolaters. The uncircumcised in Romans 2 are gentile CHRISTIANS WHO KEEP THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF THE LAW.
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That is pure assumption. How do you know that? Gentiles in Chapter 1 were by no means believers. The context shows Paul talking about gentiles in Romans chapter 1, because Chapter 2 begins by referring to the Jews, by contrast, are no less guilty. And this makes the Gentiles that are mentioned later in the same chapter to be heathens. If Paul contrasted the people of Romans Chapter 1, whom he said were sunken into homosexuality and idolatry, and then tells the Jews in Chapter 2 that they are just as sinful as those Gentiles if they do not obey what the Law told them to obey, then we understand that the contrast noted later in verses 26 to 29, where holier living gentiles are putting to shame the Jews who know law but do not obey it, must be also between heathen gentiles and Jews.
He is still comparing the heathen Gentiles of chapter 1 with the Jews in chapter 2:26-29, that He compared with the Jews in
Romans 1:18 – 2:24.
In fact, Paul referred to heathen gentiles when he wrote this:
Romans 2:19-21 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, (20) An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. (21) Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? (22) Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? (23) Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? (24) For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you, as it is written.
The reference to Gentiles in verse 24 is certainly not believers in the church who are of gentile descent. And nothing in the context changes from that to believers in verse 26.
The contrast is lost when the reference to gentiles is changed from heathens from Chapter 1 through 2:24 if we say that verse 26 speaks of gentile believers.
Paul contrasted heathen gentiles without the Law from the Jews who knew the Law, and said that possession of the law means nothing if those same Jews do the same things that the lawless Gentiles do in their sins. Then he flipped the tables and offered the hypothetical scenario of heathen gentiles knowing enough in their consciences to do what the law said about moral living while the Jews who possessed law continued in sinful activity. This is how the context is laid out, but is lost when we cut off the reference to the heathen gentiles of
Romans 1;18 - 2:24 from the gentiles mentioned verses later in verse 26.
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They show the work of the law written in their hearts, a reference to Jeremiah 31:33. This is not referring to heathens whose "conscience" directs their morality, but to Christians in the new covenant even if they are not circumcised physically.
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Sorry, but
Romans 1:18 – 2:24 says otherwise.