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Dialogue with Trypho
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Chapter 92: Unless the scriptures are understood through God's abundant grace, it won't seem like God has always taught the same righteousness.
UNLESS A PERSON: by God’s great grace, receives the ability to understand what the prophets have said and done, merely being able to repeat their words or deeds will not benefit him if he cannot explain their meaning. Won't they surely seem contemptible to many if shared by those who do not understand them? For instance, if someone asks you why, though Enoch, Noah with his sons, and others in similar situations—who were neither circumcised nor kept the Sabbath—pleased God, yet God later required through other leaders and the law, after many generations, that those who lived between the times of Abraham and Moses be justified by circumcision, and those after Moses be justified by both circumcision and additional ordinances like the Sabbath, sacrifices, libations, and offerings—God will be spoken poorly of unless you demonstrate, as I have already said, that God, who foreknew, was aware that your nation would deserve expulsion from Jerusalem, and no one would be allowed to enter it. (For you are distinguished only by physical circumcision, as I mentioned before.
Abraham was declared righteous by God not because of circumcision, but because of faith. Before he was circumcised, it was said of him: ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’ Therefore, we, in the absence of physical circumcision, believing God through Christ, and having the beneficial circumcision of the heart, hope to be seen as righteous and pleasing to God, having already received His testimony through the prophets' words.) Furthermore, God will be slandered unless you show that you were commanded to observe the Sabbath and present offerings, and that the Lord allowed a place to be called by God's name, so that, as has been said, you would not become impious and godless by worshiping idols and forgetting God, as you always appear to have been. (I have previously explained that God commanded the Sabbaths and offerings for these reasons; however, for those who came today, I want to repeat nearly everything.) If this is not the case, God will be slandered as lacking foreknowledge and not teaching everyone to know and perform the same righteous acts (since many generations existed before Moses), and the Scripture would be untrue, which states that ‘God is true and righteous, and all His ways are judgments, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.’ But since the Scripture is true, God always desires that even you are neither foolish nor self-centered, so that you may obtain the salvation of Christ, who pleased God and received His testimony, as I have already said, by presenting proof from the holy prophetic words.