MT writes
10) We are not under law, not only with reference to justification, but with reference to our Christian service, or sanctification. “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18). “But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit” (Romans 7:6).
In the Galatians passage that MT cites the immediate context informs us that Paul is continuing to deal with the issue of the Judaizers insisting that the Galatians must become cultural Jews in order to become Christians. The Galatians must take up the ceremonial markers of being a Jew if they desire to belong to Christ. Hence in 5:2, 6, 11 the aspect of the Law (Circumcision) that Paul is speaking of is brought squarely front and center. The Galatians must not allow themselves to seek to use the ceremonial cultural markers of Judaism as some kind of law pole vault to fling themselves into acceptability with God. Such a usage of the law is unlawful and is a denial of justification by faith alone. As such, when Paul writes, “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18) he is not saying that Christ has abolished the ten words for the saints but that Christ, having fulfilled the law, there is therefore now no necessity to be concerned with the legal ceremonial markers of Judaism. The fact that the ten words still function in the Galatians life is seen by what they are not to practice (Galatians 5:19-21). If the ten words was not functioning at all in the Christian life there could be no way in which the Galatians could even know what Paul means when he writes against adultery, fornication, uncleanness, etc. The Christian only knows what to avoid because the ten words remain the standard for ethics and obedience in the Christian life.
In the Romans passage that MT cites clearly what Paul is teaching is that the believer, having died with Christ, has died to the condemning power of the law. This is why Paul can say in Romans 8:1 that, “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Is MT really suggesting that the ten words have been abolished and no longer function as a guide to life for the Christian? But this cannot be for the Lord Christ said that he did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. MT and R2K reinterprets this by thinking that Jesus said, “I have not come to fulfill the law but to abolish it.” Our Lord Christ esteemed the written law so highly that He insisted that the tithing of mint, dill, and cumin ought to have been done. The only way this can be escaped is to somehow dispensationalize portions of the New Testament.
MT writes,
11) The law is good, righteous, and holy (Romans 7), but it is bad news for sinners, to whom it brings death. Yet by following Christ and walking according to the Spirit believers fulfill the righteousness of the law (Romans 8:4) because love fulfills the law (Romans 13:10). The best way to honor the goodness and righteousness of the law is therefore by putting on Christ and conforming to his image. The law is still useful for Christian instruction (2 Timothy 3:16), but only as interpreted through the paradigm of walking in Christ (i.e., Ephesians 6:1-3). The law, as such (i.e., as a covenantal document), is only used “lawfully” and “in accordance with the glorious gospel” if it is used for the ungodly and the wicked (1 Timothy 1:5-11).
This statement is incredibly confusing and full of contradictions. Consider what we find here.
a.) The law is still useful for Christian instruction (2 Timothy 3:16)
b.) The law, as such (i.e., as a covenantal document), is only used “lawfully” and “in accordance with the glorious gospel” if it is used for the ungodly and the wicked (1 Timothy 1:5-11)
So on one hand we are told that the law is still useful for Christian instruction but that in this Christian instruction we can only use the law lawfully if we are instructing the ungodly and the wicked.
Secondly, the fact that the law is bad news for sinners, to whom it brings death, is good news for elect sinners. Elect sinners could not come to Christ if they had had not the bad news come to them in order that it might bring death. Viewed from the other side of Redemption, we who have been conveyed from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of God’s dear son, now see what good news the bad news was to us. All that to say that sentence #1 in MT’s proposition #11 is not entirely true.
MT admits that the law is holy, just, and good but he spends his whole post telling us why the law is not holy, just and good. What examples in this whole essay of MT’s have we been given of the ten commandments for the believer being holy, just, and good? What we’ve been told instead is that the ten commandments was for the Mosaic epoch and that only an abstracted moral law is holy, just, and good. However, it is not that abstracted law of MT that Paul is speaking of as holy, just and good. Paul is speaking of the ten commandments.
No one denies that Christians are to walk according to the Spirit. What we deny though is that walking according to the Spirit is somehow in contradiction to walking consistently with God’s revealed law word, as if now that people are Christians they now only have to tangentially be concerned with the ten commandments through a abstracted moral law, or through a “law of Christ,” that is distinct from the ten words.
Note here also, that MT suggests that unlike the OT saints who walked in the law the NT saints walk in love. But of course we only know what it is to love inasmuch as God’s ten words defines what that love looks like. How do I love my neighbor? I treat him respective of the second table of God’s law.
As to the necessity of conforming to the image of Christ — well of course we agree. But if Christ was the incarnation of God’s character and if God’s character in the OT was known via the ten commandments, how can it be the case that we can conform to Christ without at the very same time walking ever more increasingly in terms of God’s ten words?
Finally, on this score, the passage that MT cites from Ephesians 6:1-3 makes it clear again that ten commandments remain in force. Paul brings forth the 5th commandment (leaving the promise attached) as the ground why children are to obey their parents. Paul does not see the abstraction of a Moral law that is disconnected from the ten commandments.
MT writes,
12) The word ‘law’ in the New Testament almost exclusively refers to the old covenant, to that which believers were once “under,” and almost never to the framework, model, or mindset of the Christian life. Of the very few times where the word ‘law’ is used with reference to the Christian life of sanctification, even in James, it is almost invariably qualified by a reference to liberty, or to Christ, indicating that it is not “the law,” as such, that is in view. If you don’t trust me on this, run a word search on the word ‘law’ in the New Testament. It’s startling how rarely it appears in contexts of the Christian life or sanctification, or what we would call obedience to the moral law. The most obvious explanation of this emphasis is 1 Corinthians 9:20-21, where Paul says he is “not under the law,” though he often becomes like one under the law to win over Jews, but that he is “under the law of Christ” (Cf. Galatians 6:2).
This is an argument from silence. A notoriously weak argument. The Baptists use this same kind of argument when they say “don’t trust me on this, run a word search on the phrase “baptize your babies” in the New Testament. It’s startling how it never appears. Of course our response to that is, is that the reason that it never appears is that it is the default position and in the NT era no one would have been so stupid as to suggest that children were not part of the covenant.
Just so this idea that there is an explicit necessity in the NT for there to be language on every page that those united to Christ have to do with the ten words as a guide to life. It is true that we only get a few times where we are explicitly told that we have to do with the ten commandments (Eph. 6, Hebrews 8, Matthew 5) but that is because, like children being part of the covenant, no one would have thought to question such a basic truism.
In both the case of the Baptist hermeneutic and MT’s hermeneutic what is assumed, contrary to Reformed Hermeneutics, is a hermeneutic of discontinuity.
MT writes,
I want to close with this reminder. That I personally hold to these views is entirely irrelevant. But if I am right about the emphasis of the New Testament, then we are wrong to identify the ten commandments as the primary or best expression of the moral law, let alone as the framework for the obedient Christian life. In contrast, we should (following the cue of Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 33, as one pastor pointed out to me) identify the best expression of the moral law as Christ himself. The framework for the Christian life is therefore putting on the new man Jesus an conforming to his image (See especially Ephesians 4:17-32 and Colossians 3:1-17, both of which set the framework for those letters’ household codes).
I quite agree with MT. We should follow the cue of Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 33,
91. Q.
But what are good works?
A.
Only those which are done
out of true faith, 1
in accordance with the law of God,
and to his glory, 3
and not those based
on our own opinion
or on precepts of men.
The Heidelberg expressly tells us that our good works are in accordance with the law of God. The scripture it uses to support the idea that good works are according to the law of God underscore the written law. The Heidelberg Catechism uses the ten commandments as a teaching template to answer the question about how Christians should live lives of gratitude for the fact they have been delivered from their sin and misery. The Heidelberg catechism gives us a foundation for Christian ethics. That foundation is God’s ten words.
In closing, I understand that MT is not advocating complete anti-nommianism. MT still appeals to a moral law that has significant overlap with the ten commandments. MT appeals to following Christ and the law of Christ and I’m sure that likewise has many overlaps with the ten commandments. The appeals to the “Law of love,” which I’m sure has many overlaps with the ten words. The problem here, even if MT is not a full blown anti-nomian, is that when MT introduces subjectivity (abstracted moral law that interpreters have to argue over) in Christian ethical determining what inevitably results is ethical reductionism. When subjectivity is introduced into what constitutes the moral law the result is the defining downward what is and is not ethically in bounds.
Of this there can be no doubt. Can anybody reading this imagine B. B. Warfield, or J.Gresham Machen or even a young Arminian like Billy Graham saying what some of our good guy White Hats Reformed Theologians and Ministers are now saying in terms of what is acceptable to advocate in terms of the moral law?
“Not being a theonomist or theocrat, I do not believe it is the state’s role to enforce religion or Christian morality. So allowing something legally is not the same as endorsing it morally. I don’t want the state punishing people for practicing homosexuality. Other Christians disagree. Fine. That’s allowed. That is the distinction. Another example – beastiality (sic) is a grotesque sin and obviously if a professing member engages in it he is subject to church discipline. But as one who leans libertarian in my politics, I would see problems with the state trying to enforce it; not wanting the state involved at all in such personal practices; I’m content to let the Lord judge it when he returns. A fellow church member might advocate for beastiality (sic) laws. Neither would be in sin whatever the side of the debate. Now if the lines are blurry in these disctinctions,(sic) that is always true in pastoral ministry dealing with real people in real cases in this fallen world.”
Rev. Todd Bordow — Reformed Minister
R2K Practitioner
“Although a contractual relationship denies God’s will for human dignity, I could affirm domestic partnerships as a way of protecting people’s legal and economic security.”
“The challenge there is that two Christians who hold the same beliefs about marriage as Christians may appeal to neighbor-love to support or to oppose legalization of same-sex marriage.”
Dr. Mike Horton — Reformed Theologian
R2K Practitioner
75 years ago no one who took Christian ethics seriously would have gotten anywhere near these kinds of statements.
