My answer has the potential of starting a new topic altogether. Here’s my response to Matt earlier in the thread:But what do you do with this verse?
1 Samuel 11:6 (New King James Version)
6. Then the Spirit of God came upon Saul when he heard this news, and his anger was greatly aroused.
And was Moses not righteously angry when the people made the golden calf and when they kept some of the manna? See Exodus 32:19 & 16:20.
I do see a difference in ethics under the OT as compared to the new. For example, in 1 Sam 11 a little later in the chapter you read the following:That being said, I do think there is a distinction between the two covenants. I think we have, in a sense, “turned our swords into plowshares” and physical armour has now become spiritual armour. I do think there is a distinction in how we treat others now (under the new covenant).
1Sa 11:11 And the next day Saul put the people in three companies. And they came into the midst of the camp in the morning watch and struck down the Ammonites until the heat of the day.
Also later in the chapter in Exodus 32 you read:
Exo 32:20 He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it.
And
Exo 32:27 And he said to them, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel, 'Put your sword on your side each of you, and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp, and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor.'"
I’m sure you’d agree that we are not to engage in these actions. As I mentioned in my response to Matt, I see Isaiah 2:4 as having a fulfillment in the present Kingdom. Therefore I think we are to live according to a different set of ethics. I think it’s possible that even a Historic Premillennialist (and an inconsistent Dispensationalist) could see a partial fulfillment of this passage in the present. The reasoning would be that although a Kingdom reign is still to come, His kingdom has indeed already started. Hence, we are living according to His kingdom’s dictates now.
The fact that Paul points to spiritual armour and weapons instead of physical armour and weapons seems to accentuate this point:
2Co 6:7 by truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left;
2Co 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
Eph 6:11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
Eph 6:12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood…..
Blessings
Steve
PS...thanks for making all your points Homer. Our house Church is meeting on Saturday for a family picnic and I'll definitely be bouncing your thoughts off a few of them....sometime between the kids playing the hayloft and the barbeque