Quote:
Originally Posted by Humble Bricklayer
Does Paul view the Old Testament command to 'love thy neighbor as thyself' through the same lens as the New Testament command to 'love thy neighbor as thyself'? No.
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Are you saying that Paul is intentionally stating Leviticus 19:18 as a shadow of John 13:34 and expecting the reader to make that association? Perhaps he was aware of that, but stepping back a bit, I think we may be complicating things a little because after all this is a letter and not a doctrinal dissertation.
The Galatians believers at this point were going astray due to the circumcision party and I think Paul was really worried for their salvation. Paul was probably just trying to give them milk instead of solid food. If he re-stated Jesus' words with commands such as "If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. " it may have been too much for them.
Interestingly Paul does the same in Romans 13:8-10 and avoids restating Jesus' words, but focuses on restating the OT commands and again states that Leviticus 19:18 sums up all the law. So this may be a practice of Paul to give milk when he's not confident that "Christ has been fully formed" (Gal 4:19) yet in his audience.
"Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law."
Some people think of Paul as being extreme, but I think he was really gentle compared to Jesus. Jesus wasn't afraid to say "hell" in his sermons but Paul often used other metaphors like "death", "destruction", "cut off from Christ", "fallen from grace", “believed in vain” or "will not inherit the kingdom of God" and I think people have fallen into a trap of re-interpreting Paul's words to say something they are not.
I mean take this verse:
Galatians 6:8
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap
destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap
eternal life.
Paul is directly juxtaposing "eternal life" with "destruction", yet when people who hold to millennial exclusion read this verse it doesn't register in their heads that "destruction" = "hell" and Paul is using a euphemism so his language doesn't come across as too strong in his letters.
Compare this language again to Jesus' on the sermon on the mount.
Mark 9:47-48
It is better for you to enter the
kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into
hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’
Here Jesus juxtaposes the kingdom of God with hell.
Yet when millennial exclusionists read verses like 1 Cor 6:9-20
"... nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the
kingdom of God"
they read it to mean the difference between being inside the millennial kingdom and outside it when Paul's audience likely had no idea about the millennial reign of Christ and probably did not survive long enough into 95AD to read the book of Revelation.
What we're debating about now seems like splitting hairs compared to another kind of over-analyzing that could have eternal consequences.