The Christian Life is About Following Christ Not the Law: 12 Clarifying Propositions
Keep in mind that MT is a advocate of R2K
Matthew Tuininga writes,
My difficulty, rather, was that it quickly became apparent to me that the emphasis on the Ten Commandments is not the approach of the New Testament to the Christian life; indeed, it was obscuring it. It became clear to me that the New Testament does not identify the Ten Commandments or “the law” as the primary framework for pleasing God or conforming to his moral law. Rather, it identifies Jesus Christ, whom we are to “put on” and to whose image we are to be “conformed,” as the only perfect model of God’s moral will (or moral law). Every single New Testament writing (with only the apparent exception of James), I realized, seeks to shift our focus away from “the law” and towards Christ. If I want to follow the New Testament’s own approach to ethics, this is what I have to do as well.
A.) Note at the outset, that unlike most Reformed hermeneutics, which emphasize continuity between the covenants as they progress redemptively, what young Mr. Tuininga has done here has been to assume and emphasize discontinuity. In doing so Mr. Tuininga has posited a false dichotomy between the Old Testament saints and their New Testament counterparts. According to Matthew the Ten Commandments were for the Old Testament believer to order his walk with God by, but the New Testament believer gets to order his walk with God by a Jesus who has had the Ten Commandments abstracted from his character definition.
B.) Mr. Tuininga (MT) insists that the emphasis on the Ten Commandments is not the approach of the New Testament to the Christian life. Mr. Tuininga even adds that the emphasis on the Ten Commandment is a positive obscurantist impediment as a New Testament approach to the Christian life. If this is so for MT then how can he esteem the third part of the Heidelberg Catechism which expressly teaches an approach to the Christian life of gratitude for Deliverance from Sin and Misery that is based on the Ten commandments? When the Heidelberg Catechism approaches the Christian life so as to answer the question, “How shall we then live,” it references the Ten Commandments. Is the Heidelberg Catechism mistaken?
C.) MT tells us that the way of “the law” (Ten commandments) is not the way that we conform to God’s moral law. Hence, we learn that we care to conform to God’s moral law apart from the Ten Commandments (“the law”). Obviously what MT has done here is to abstract the moral law we are to conform to, from the Ten Commandments. Interestingly enough, this is a old neo-orthodox game where they would constantly tell us that we had to put aside the shell of the word in order to get to the kernel contained therein. For MT the Ten Commandments are the shell and the kernel contained within is the “Moral law” with which we have to be concerned. When Jesus comes, he is the Kernel of God’s Ten Commandments and NT believers are now allowed to go with Kernel Jesus while dispensing with those nasty 10 commandments. Of course the problem with this is that once the Kernel is abstracted from the shell then it is anybody’s guess as to how the kernel is defined. One man finds in Kernel Jesus an ethic that allows and encourages young Christian women to go all Bikini on the beaches while another man finds in Kernel Jesus an ethic that would advocate something more demure.
D.) MT posits another false dichotomy between Jesus Christ and the Ten Commandments and yet Jesus himself went to the law to aid and assist disciples on the Road to Emmaus to see Christ.
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance and[c] forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
So, MT would have us to believe that the NT believer is not to be concerned with the law of Moses as an approach of the New Testament to the Christian life and yet our Lord Christ Himself used the “law of Moses” in order to expose Himself to fellow travelers. But perhaps someone will object that the Luke passage is not dealing with ethics but only with seeing (understanding) Christ.
However, in Jeremiah 31 we are told in the New Covenant that,
33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Are we to understand that “the law” mentioned here is not the Ten Commandments but is instead MT’s abstracted moral law?
E.) It seems natural enough that the NT texts would focus on Jesus, since he is the author and finisher of our faith. But the idea that such a reality means that Jesus is in some kind of dichotomous opposition to God’s covenant law in no way follows. The Lord Christ was the incarnation of God’s law Word. How could we put on Christ without at the same time delighting in God’s law? MT would have us believe that the Lord Christ, was born under the law, and fulfilled the law for His “Law written on their hearts” people so that once united with the Lord Christ His people could discover an ethic to live by that was distinct from the ethic of the Ten Commandments. When the Psalmist rejoices in God’s law isn’t he at that same time rejoicing proleptically in Christ? And when the NT believers rejoices in Christ is he not at that same time rejoicing in God’s Ten Words.
It is true that to concentrate on the law without seeing Christ would be a ugly thing. It’s also true that a gratitude driven ethic that does not emphasize the Ten Commandments, as the Heidelberg Catechism does, is a ugly thing.
MT writes,
This approach does not, it needs to be emphasized, separate Christ from his law.
Since MT slices the idea of the law up pretty thinly, I think we must pause here to ask if the law that MT is speaking of in his sentence above is a law that is different from the Ten Commandments? Or is it the case that MT is saying that his approach does not separate Christ from the law of Christ as distinguished from the Ten Commandments? It is rather obvious that MT’s approach wouldn’t separate Christ from the law of Christ but what we want to know here is whether or not MT is making a distinction between the law of Christ and God’s ten words.
“As the New Testament clearly teaches, Jesus is the one who fulfilled the law, and those who follow him and conform to his image thereby fulfill the law as well. Nor does it minimize the usefulness of the law, or of the Old Testament, for Christian ethics. All scripture is profitable for correction and instruction. The law was always intended to point us to Jesus Christ. But that does not mean that by focusing on the law, or by emphasizing it as the framework for the Christian life, we thereby emphasize Christ. By analogy, the entire Hebrew sacrificial system pointed forward to Christ, but that doesn’t mean that by observing the Hebrew sacrificial system we appropriately demonstrate our faith in Christ. Rather, we best learn from the law by doing what the law itself does – looking to Jesus Christ. There is an arrow between the law and Christ, not an equals sign.
Naturally, it is possible for someone to use the law unlawfully just as it is possible for someone to worship a Christ who is not Christ. It is possible for someone to emphasize the law wrongly and so miss Christ. Just as it is possible to emphasize a Christ that bears no relationship to the one who walks through Scripture and is now seated at the right hand of God. However, if one focuses on the law, as that law which Christ incarnated, then there is no way that one can emphasize the law and miss Christ. I fear MT is trying to cast asunder what God has joined when he tries to pit the Redeemed saints use of the law against Christ. Finally, on this score, we remember that the reason that there is an arrow between the law and Christ is because Christ is the fulfillment of the law. Yet all because Christ fulfilled the law does not mean that law as a ethic of gratitude for that fulfillment (see Heidelberg Catechism) is cast away as a shell.
MT writes,
It might seem surprising to some that this argument turns out to be fraught with controversy in certain Reformed circles. The main reason for this controversy, I believe, is that we tend to approach ethics through the lens of our systematic theology and tradition, rather than through the lens of the New Testament. Systematic theology and tradition are both very good things, of course, even necessary. But they become dangerous if they in any way replace scripture itself in regulating our Christian mind.
It is interesting that MT would put systematic theology in the dock. This was the same ploy used by some of those who championed Federal Vision. It seems that Systematic theology gets no respect recently.
Having said that, everyone needs to realize that MT has is own Systematic theology that is informing how he is reading the NT. Nobody comes to the Scriptures apart from a Systematic theology. MT would like to have us believe that his reading is “Systematic free,” but that just isn’t possible. MT is just as regulated by Systematic categories as the most turgid Turretin fan.
MT writes,
In this case, the classic medieval distinction of the Mosaic Law into the three parts of moral, judicial (or civil), and ceremonial is useful insofar as it clarifies for us that the moral truth – or the righteousness – of the Mosaic Law is binding on all times and places. It has become problematic insofar as it confuses believers into thinking that scripture itself uses this distinction, such that it should control our exegesis of specific passages, or that specific passages can be neatly categorized into one or another of these types of law. It has also become problematic insofar as many Christians have come to view any imperative or command in scripture as “the law”, failing to realize that this is not how scripture itself uses the word ‘law.’
First off, Scripture uses the word “law” in a plethora of ways.
Second, I quite agree with MT’s observation regarding the three parts of moral, judicial and ceremonial. The Law is indeed unitary, though quite obviously distinctions had to be made in order to see some aspects of the law fulfilled (ceremonial) while other aspects continue (Moral and general equity of judicial). So, we are agreed there.
Given the fact that for many people these are novel arguments, and that for others these arguments intuitively evoke a negative response, I want to clarify my basic argument through twelve propositions. At that point, all I can do is to point you, my readers, to scripture itself. Does the New Testament usually characterize the Christian life, and the Christian’s relation to the law, as I describe it here? If it does not, then you should reject my arguments. If it does, regardless of how any particular systematic theology approaches Christian ethics, my arguments are biblical. So look to the scriptures and see whether or not these things are true.
Again, MT wants to claim that his arguments are Biblical without being influenced by that wascally category called Systematic theology. This is smoke on MT’s part. No one reads the Scriptures apart from Systematic Theology. Those who try to are those who are locked up in padded cells. Our disagreement here thus extends not only to the relation to Christ and the law but also to the whole issue of hermeneutics and systematic theology. (And since Hermeneutics and Systematic theology is so foundational to Christianity we likely disagree on just about everything else.)
Before we look at MT’s let me just give a few words on the law. We do not look to the law for justification, but as our way of life; we are saved by Christ, and therefore because we are His people, we abide by His law, His way of life. To place a dichotomy between Christ and a lawful use of the law, as a guide to life, resulting from gratitude for Deliverance from sin and misery (third use) is to divide Christ from Himself.
End part 1
In part II we will consider MT’s 12 propositions.
