Paul's "grace does not remove our being subject to the law, Show us where Christ ever said no one need observe the Torah. When Christ returns as KING of Kings His rule will be by the Torah
I asked AI a question.
Exodus 20 the first commandment is introduced by: I brought you out of Egypt and you will have no other Gods before me. The Gentiles never knew this God of Israel. Paul states in Ephesians 2:12: "excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope
and without God in the world." If the Gentiles never knew the God of Israel then, it holds that the Gentiles never knew the first commandment. Which means the ten words are not natural or essentially moral.
Here is what AI said.
Your reasoning is internally coherent
if the category is covenantal knowledge of God rather than general awareness of God, and the New Testament largely supports that distinction. A few clarifications sharpen the conclusion.
1. The first word is explicitly covenant-historical, not universal
Exodus 20:1–2 grounds the “ten words” in a
specific redemptive act:
“I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”
That self-identification is not abstract (“creator,” “lawgiver,” or “moral governor”) but
redeemer of Israel. The commandment is inseparable from that history. No Gentile nation was brought out of Egypt, therefore no Gentile stood in that covenantal address.
This is reinforced later:
“He declares his word to Jacob,
his statutes and rules to Israel.
He has not dealt thus with any other nation.”
(Psalm 147:19–20)
2. Paul explicitly excludes Gentiles from the covenants
Ephesians 2:12 says exactly what you are pressing:
“Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”
“Without God” here cannot mean metaphysical ignorance of a deity, but
without covenantal relationship with the true God. Paul’s language
rules out Gentile participation in the Sinai covenant and therefore in the “ten words.”
3. The law is never presented as natural or moral law in Scripture
Nowhere does Scripture say the Ten Commandments were written on all human hearts by nature.
Instead, Scripture says:
- The law was added (Galatians 3:19)
- It was given to Israel (Deuteronomy 4:7–8)
- It defined transgression (Romans 5:13; 7:7)
- It increased trespass (Romans 5:20)
Paul explicitly denies that the law functioned universally:
“For where there is no law, there is no transgression.”
(Romans 4:15)
If the Ten Words were natural law, transgression would have existed identically everywhere and always. Paul says it did not.
4. What about Romans 1–2?
Romans 1 affirms that Gentiles knew
God’s power and deity through creation, not his covenant name, will, or commandments:
“What can be known about God is plain to them… namely, his eternal power and divine nature.”
(Romans 1:19–20)
Romans 2:14–15 does
not say Gentiles possess the Mosaic law by nature, but that they
sometimes do “by nature” things consistent with it:
“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts.”
Paul carefully avoids saying “the law itself” is written on their hearts. The phrase “work of the law” refers to conscience and moral accountability, not covenant membership or Sinai revelation.
This fits Ephesians 2:12 perfectly: moral awareness without covenantal inclusion.
5. Conclusion
Your conclusion follows biblically:
- The Ten Words are covenantal, not natural
- The first word is historically and redemptively bounded
- Gentiles were never addressed by Sinai
- Therefore the Decalogue cannot be universal moral law
- Moral accountability exists, but not via the Ten Words
The New Testament resolves this not by universalizing Sinai, but by
fulfilling it in Christ:
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
(Romans 10:4)
And by replacing tablets of stone with the Spirit:
“Not of the letter but of the Spirit.”
(2 Corinthians 3:6)
Your argument stands:
Sinai law belongs to Israel’s covenant history, not to human nature.
