I hear what you are saying, and I agree that this is what Paul teaches. More on this below.
First of all, I think God works differently at different times. There have been times, for example when God was having Moses lead the Israelites out of Egypt, where there was very frequent instruction given. Other times, not so much. For example (1 Sam 3):
Meanwhile, the boy Samuel served the LORD by assisting Eli. Now in those days messages from the LORD were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon.
In Paul's time, the Holy Spirit seems to have been very active. It is recorded that Paul would lay hands on believers and the Holy Spirit would come on them. And he appears to have raised the dead back to life, when Eutychus fell out of the window. Isaiah promised (Isa 30:21) that in the future,
"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, 'This is the way; walk in it.'" So it seems to me that Paul was operating in just such a time. He was following God's will, and the power of God was with him and guiding him.
Against this situation, whereby Paul has access to a real-time guidance system (the Holy Spirit) that instructed him how best to move forward, the concept of going back to old-fashioned rules such as "don't eat something you find dead in the forest" must have seemed so restricting and unnecessary. Every rule has good and bad aspects. For example, we tell our children to stay out of the street because we don't want them to be hit by a car. But if the house were on fire, then it might be the appropriate time to flee into the street. But any rule that contains all the possible exceptions and provisions becomes unwieldy and unusable. So I agree you that Paul was against a two-tier system of converted Gentiles vs circumcised Jews, but I also think there was more going on.
In the world today, I am not aware of anyone operating with the power of Paul, or evidence of the action of the Holy Spirit as was the case in the time of Christ and immediately afterwards. I occasionally hear other Christians say the Lord (Holy Spirit) told them this or that, as if they picked up the phone and got a message just for them. And in the 1980's, Oral Roberts claimed that God told him He was going to call Oral home, and he would die, unless $8 million dollars was raised. It is possible that this is true, but it seems more likely the consequence of an overactive imagination. So it seems to me that we are back into a times of Samuel's youth where the messages from the Lord are rare.
So what should we do when we don't have new instructions from God? I think that we should follow the last guidance we were given. And this is where the problem of rules comes in. Consider this text:
1 Cor 5: It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. 2 And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have gone into mourning and have put out of your fellowship the man who has been doing this? 3 For my part, even though I am not physically present, I am with you in spirit. As one who is present with you in this way, I have already passed judgment in the name of our Lord Jesus on the one who has been doing this.
Paul is criticizing a Gentile man for a particular action that was prohibited in Jewish law. Lev 18:8 says "
Do not have sexual relations with your father’s wife; that would dishonor your father." But in addition to being against the Mosaic law, it was also understood to be a bad practice, such that "even the pagans do not tolerate" such actions. So what to do in this situation? Note that in addition to criticizing the man, he is also chastising the other church members because they had failed to act. In fact the entire text is written to
them, not the immoral man.
So on the one hand, in Paul's system of following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and not relying on unwieldy written regulations, we have a principle whereby an individual is supposed to following God and being "free from the law." On the other hand, we have counsel that when we see others doing something wrong, we are subject to censure if
we don't address the problem. If I was in that church at that time, then I would have been personally responsible to call out the bad behavior. As Jesus said (Mat 18):
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector."
So let's bring this to today. Imagine a church where a member has been found to embezzling money. It is wrong, and it is the responsibility of the fellow believers to confront the person and encourage them to do right. They should pray to God for wisdom of how best to address the situation. But at the end of the day, if they turn away and consider this to be someone else's problem, then it is just like the Corinthian church failing to address the sexual immorality there.
So there IS a role for written rules. It helps make clear what is right and wrong. Gal 3:24 says
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. The goal is for the church member to not steal, and to be "saved" from a life of criminal behavior. The role of the others in the church is to confront the error. And it is the role of God and the Holy Spirit to enable the person to change, when they ask for help. But how will the person be motivated to ask for help unless their error is plainly brought before their eyes?
So are there rules and regulations whereby we can (and actively commanded to) judge others? Yes. Does that mean we are "under the law"? I have no idea since this concept has been twisted so many ways, and the word 'Law' so overloaded, that it seems to have lost any meaning for me. Am I "saved" because I don't embezzle? Yes, in part. I am saved from that particular criminal act, but that doesn't mean that I don't still have many many other areas on my life still in need of God's saving instruction. I don't see "saved" as "get-into-heaven" status, but more as a freedom from shooting myself in the foot all the time as a result of God's patient teaching.
So at the end of the day, it drives me crazy when someone justifies doing something that seems objectively wrong to me, on the basis of them not being under the law and being "Free in Christ". To which I think, "Fine. Go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot and see how it goes."
What do you think about this?
Best wishes,
KT