Category: R2K Virus (Radical Two Kingdom Theology)

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.

MT writes,

7) Paul and Hebrews both explicitly identify the Ten Commandments, “the tablets of stone,” with the old covenant or ministry that was temporary. See Hebrews 9:4, especially in context of Hebrews 8:6-9:15. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3:3-18 explicitly identifies the Ten Commandments, in the context of Moses’ coming down from the mountain and his face shining, as the old covenant, the ministry of death, condemnation, and of the letter that kills, in contrast to the new covenant, which he describes as the ministry of righteousness and of the Spirit that gives life. As if to remind us that he is talking about sanctification, not simply justification, Paul concludes that it is through this new covenant that we are “being transformed into the same image [of Christ].”

Previously we already pointed out, more than once, that the quoting of Jeremiah 31:31-34 in Hebrews 8 teaches not the discontinuity that MT thumps for but rather it teaches the continuity of the law since the law that was written on tablets of stone in the Old covenant is now the law that is written on their hearts. In point of fact, Jeremiah and Hebrews teaches that what makes the new and better covenant new and better is that the same law, written on tablets of Stone in the OT, is now written on the hearts of believers.

Secondly, in terms of the Hebrews passage that MT cites (Hebrews 8:6-9:15) it is clear that what is spoken of as temporary is what we would call the Ceremonial aspects of the law. There is nothing in the passage that suggests that the Ten Commandments have been lifted or discontinued for the New Covenant believer. The tablets are mentioned in that passage solely as a description of the Tabernacle arrangements. The point is that now because of the finished work of the Lord Christ we now have obtained eternal redemption and have been delivered from dead works to serve the living God. The point is not that the Law that was written on tablets of stone, but which are now written on our hearts in light of this new and better covenant, is a law that we can summarily dismiss in order to follow a deracinated and abstracted R2K Jesus.

In terms of the Corinthians passage that young MT cites, the Apostle Paul also strongly suggests here that the very law that had been written on tablets of stone (Ten Commandments) is now written on the believers in Corinth’s hearts. In the new covenant God writes His laws on the hearts of His people. The reason why the Law is written on their hearts is because of the finished work of the Lord Christ, who was the very incarnation of God’s Character. God revealed His character in the Law in the Old Covenant but in the new Covenant God reveals His character in the Lord Christ. In the New Covenant the Lord Christ, in His life, death, and resurrection, keeps God’s law perfectly and dies as a substitute to satisfy God’s law. When God writes His law on the hearts of the new covenant community it is a writing of Christ upon their hearts at the same time. You cannot divide (though you can distinguish) between the Lord Christ as the Champion of God’s Law Word and God’s Ten Commandments. It absolutely boggles the mind that MT would be suggesting that the person who has God’s law written on their hearts can follow Jesus but not esteem God’s ten words.

MT writes,

8) Paul often explicitly identifies “the law” as that which came at a specific point in time, that is, at Sinai. It came “430 years” after Abraham as a guardian for the people of God (Galatians 3:17, 24). The Gentiles did “not have” the law, the “written code” (Romans 2:14-15, 27-29) because it was not given until the time of Moses (Romans 5:13-14, 20).

In Galatians Paul is dealing with Judaizers who are insisting that the Gentiles must become culturally Jewish before they can be Christian. As such what Paul is warring against is the attempt to add the works of the law to faith in order for people to justified. He is dealing with people who are seeking to use the law unlawfully. If this is not understood Galatians can not be understood. When Paul invokes against the law in Galatians it is often in the context of how the Judaizers were attempting to use the law unlawfully in order to bring people into a bondage that the Judaizers remained in, as they were seeking to use the law unlawfully as an addition to , and so a denial of, Christ alone and justification by faith alone.

MT is correct when he writes that, Paul often explicitly identifies “the law” as that which came at a specific point in time, that is, at Sinai. It came “430 years” after Abraham as a guardian for the people of God (Galatians 3:17, 24), but MT is in serious error when he implies that the law was opposed to the promise. In point of fact, St. Paul even says,

“Is the law against the promises of God? Certainly not! Gal. 3:21.

Paul is against those dogs who are seeking to use the law unlawfully as a means of securing favor with God, but Paul is not against the law being used lawfully because, after all, the law never was against the promises of God. Abraham and Moses are not opposed except when knuckleheads seek to be saved by law. If Paul can tell us that Abraham and Moses are not opposed then certainly it can not be the case that Moses and Christ are opposed.

The whole R2K project suggests that we are not to use the law (Ten Commandments) lawfully because the New Testament constantly warns against using the law unlawfully.

Mt writes,

9) In the same contexts as in Proposition 8, he interprets the same law as that which Christians are not under, because they are now in Christ. We are no longer under a guardian but have put on Christ (Galatians 3:25-27). We are not under law but under grace (Romans 6:14).

When the Master comes there is no need to be under a tutor because the Master is present. However, what MT is doing here is assuming that somehow all because the tutor did his job to bring us to Christ therefore Christ is opposed to the tutor. This, in no way follows. The tutor is not needed because the one whom the tutor taught and pointed to has come. With the coming of Christ we are now in union with the one whom the tutor was pointing to. One just can’t play off a lawful use of the law (the law as tutor pointing us to Christ) against the Master to whom the law was pointing to. Finally, we have to realize that when Paul says “we are no longer under a tutor” he is saying in the context of those who wanted to bring the Galatians back under a unlawful use of the law.

I also think that MT makes hash out of Romans 6:15. The point of Romans 6 is not that we have no relationship with the law. If we had no relationship to the law how could we know what sin is that we are to not let reign in our mortal body? If we are not under law the way that MT is advancing there could be even no category of “sin” for what else is sin except to walk contrary to God’s Moral law (Ten Commandments)?

“Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.”

Eliminate law the way MT and the Dispensationalists have historically done and you eliminate even the ability to categorize sin. Remember, Paul is writing to people who would have only had the OT at best. They would have had no understanding of a Law of Christ that was distinct from the Law of God (Ten Commandments).

When the Apostle says we are not under law the thrust is that we are not under the condemning power of the law. Sin can not have dominion over us because we are no longer under the condemning sanctions of the Law.

“Men like Rev. Todd Bordow, pastor of an Orthodox Presbyterian congregation in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, are saying this about bestiality:

“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.”

A.) If the State is not to enforce Christian morality whose morality should it enforce? Morality is an inescapable category. That States have to do with enforcing morality is seen in the legislation States advance and then enforce. All legislation is enforced morality. To say that it is not the State’s role to enforce Christian morality means it is the State’s role to enforce some other religions morality. There is no morality from nowhere. All morality that is enforced is the morality of some religion

B.) If it really is the case that that R2K doesn’t believe that it is the State’s role to enforce Christian morality then it is fair to ask if, whether in a R2K social order, the State should enforce laws against, murder, rape, incest, or theft. Really, any moral morality is, by definition, Christian. There is no genuine morality that isn’t Christian because apart from Christian presuppositions morality is a myth.

C.) If we are not to punish people for Sodomy, then why punish people for any sexual deviancy?

D.) Libertarian politics is a natural fit to ana-baptist theology.

E.) Would Todd Bordow be content to let the Lord, upon His return, judge the sin of a pervert homosexual sodomizing his son?

F.) Understand that what “Rev.” Bordow is advocating is a Church where two members, who both putatively love Jesus, contending in the public square for different positions regarding Bestiality. Some Church members will be pro laws allowing Bestiality. Some members will be anti laws allowing Bestiality. Neither are challenged by the Church. Indeed the Church goes out of its way to say anything on the subject. The State and the Church, according to “Rev.” Bordow should be morally indifferent to these Biblically named crimes.

MT offers,

Here are my propositions.

1) The category of ‘moral law’ is an extra-biblical category that should play a role in our reflection but should not be brought to bear inappropriately on the primary work of scriptural exegesis. To quote New Testament scholar Doug Moo, “As has often been pointed out, the threefold distinction of moral, ceremonial, and civil law as separate categories with varying degrees of applicability is simply unknown in the Judaism of the first century, and there is little evidence that Jesus or Paul introduced such a distinction.” For more on this see Moo’s excellent article, “‘Law,’ ‘Works of the Law,’ and Legalism in Paul,” Westminster Theological Journal 45 (1983): 73-100 [85]).

First, by his own admission Doug Moo is a “modified Lutheran.” Some have suggested that Moo has been a significant contributor to the New Covenant Theology that has been embraced by so many Baptists. The only reason for mentioning this is to say that if MT is drinking heavily from the Moo well it might explain partially why he is coming up with non standard understandings of Covenant Theology.

To agree that the three fold distinction is an extra-biblical category is not the same as saying that distinctions in the law are not used in Scripture. Even our Lord Christ made a distinction between weightier matters of the law and matters that were not as weighty. So, though that distinction is not the same distinction that we are speaking of here, we still see that distinctions concerning the law are used in the New Testament. We will return to this later, but we should say here that what MT is doing at this point is a quite Dispensational move. If we go where MT is treading, and if we are consistent with this trajectory of thought, then when we come to passages that say “you are not under law but under grace” we are going to have to teach that since “the law” is always unitary therefore that must mean that we, as new creatures in Christ, can have no relationship whatsoever to that Law that Christ incarnated and that Paul can elsewhere say in Romans is “Holy, Just, and Good.” Of course this is a recipe for autonomous humanism and sounds a great deal like what the Serpent said in the garden when he asked Eve, “Hath God really said?”

MT writes,

2) When scripture uses the word ‘law’ it ordinarily refers to the law given at Sinai, that is, the Mosaic Law, representative of the of the whole Mosaic Covenant as a unit, encompassing all three categories of what later theologians called the moral, ceremonial, and civil law. (Sometimes, of course, it also refers to Old Testament scripture in general. But the former is the default meaning.)

This is just not true. The word “Law” in Romans alone has up to 7 or 8 shades of meaning. MT is arguing that the very law that was to be written on our hearts … that law that had formerly been written on tablets of stone (thus revealing that we are talking about the same Mosaic covenant of grace law here) is a law that believers no longer have any relationship to in terms of ongoing sanctification.

In Hebrews 7 we are told that a change in the Priesthood means that there is a change in the law as well. Referring to that change in the law the writer to Hebrews can say the former commandment is set aside. By MT’s reasoning this is proof positive that the law (Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial) is a dead letter to Redeemed Christians. And yet, the book of Hebrews can later recite that the very law that MT suggests is a dead letter to Redeemed Christians is a law that is written on their hearts.

15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”
17 then he adds,

“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.

Now, is MT suggesting that the law written on our hearts (and remember this is the same law that had been inscribed on Mosaic tablets of stone — No abstracting of a Kernel allowed here) includes the ceremonial law as well so that we still have to do with it?

All this to say that it is obvious that the writer to Hebrews is making distinctions concerning the law. The change in the law mentioned in Hebrews 7 is a reference to the change in the Ceremonial aspect of the law. A New Priesthood (the Lord Christ) means a new law (the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin so that is finished). The law written on the hearts in Hebrews 10 is a reference to the Ten Commandments written on the hearts of God’s people.

Of course all of this is driven by MT’s insistence that the Mosaic covenant is a two tiered covenant. In this two tiered Mosaic covenant understanding there is one tier that does not belong to the covenant of grace but rather belongs to the covenant of works. So what MT has to do is to find ways to eliminate those lower register aspects of the Mosaic covenant from the covenant of Grace. Much of this stems from Kline’s sui generis teaching of the republication theory of the covenant.

MT writes,

3) Scripture decisively, explicitly, and repeatedly identifies the Ten Commandments as the Sinai (or Mosaic) covenant itself. The Ten Commandments were the “tablets of stone” placed in the ark of the covenant. Exodus 34:28 declares of Moses on Mt. Sinai, “And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” This is a fundamental claim in my argument. See Exodus 34:1-4, 27-30; Deuteronomy 4:11-13; Deuteronomy 9:9-15; Deuteronomy 10:1-5. Cf. 1 Kings 8:9; 2 Chronicles 5:10; Jeremiah 31:31-34; Exodus 24:12.

A fundamental claim that is undone by the reality that it is those very commandments that are written on the heart of the New Testament believer thus indicating that they belong to a new and better covenant. It is the Ten Commandments that are written on the hearts of the younger siblings of the Lord Christ.

MT writes,

4) Scripture never identifies the Ten Commandments in this way with the timeless, eternal moral law of God, despite the substantial degree of overlap between the two.

And yet Hebrews offers,

15 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying,

16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws on their hearts,
and write them on their minds,”

Under the old covenant the law of God, given in the Mosaic economy, was engraved on tablets of stone and placed in the Most Holy Place. In the new and better covenant that same law is written on the minds of His people. The idea that law is written on the minds of those in the new and better covenant reveals the univocal nature of the author of Hebrew’s analogy with the God’s Ten words written on tablets of stone. The analogy can be extended to reveal even more continuity with our Old Testament brethren by observing that in the new and better covenant the people (Church) are like the OT Temple inasmuch as the law of God is within them. This fits the theme of the New Testament believers being God’s Old Testament Temple because they are a Temple in which the written law of God rests.

Mt writes,

5) The New Testament writers decisively, explicitly, and repeatedly direct our attention from “the law” to Jesus, whether as the true fulfillment and interpreter of the law (Matthew); as the one who, in contrast to Moses as the giver of the law, brings grace and truth and directs his followers to “my commandments” (John); as the one who has made a new and “better” covenant and thereby rendered the old one “obsolete” (Hebrews); as the one who has fulfilled and abolished the law, creating in himself the new man (Paul).

Of course the NT writers focus our attention on the Lord Christ. We should keep our eyes on Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith. He is the fulfillment of all that was shadowed in the unfolding covenant of grace. However, the focus of our attention being upon the Lord Christ could not have happened unless He was the one who gave substance to all that shadowed Him. Because this is true, Christ should not be pitted against the Ten Words but instead should be seen as the apex of what the Ten Words mean.

The fact that St. Matthew has Christ as the fulfillment of the law means that all the law harbingered is found in Christ. There is no opposition between Christ and the law as the law is used lawfully by the Redeemed saint in union with Christ.

When John writes,

17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

He is not teaching that there was no grace and truth in the Old Testament economy as MT seems to imply by his quoting of this text. What St. John is contrasting here is the shadow with the reality.

When MT quotes the Lord Christ as saying, “If you love me keep my commandments,” is MT really implying that Jesus had another set of commandments from those issued by the Father so that we are to believe that God the Father had one ethic while God the Son has another ethic? What of immutability?

When MT quotes Hebrews as the old covenant being obsolete is he going all dispensational on us? Is MT contravening centuries of Reformed and Covenant understanding that the new and better covenant is new and better because it fulfills all that the unfolding covenant of grace anticipated? The new covenant is new and better because it is all that the previous covenants were progressing towards. Is the bloom of the tulip inconsistent with all of the tulip that came before in terms of the anticipated bloom?

Typically the passage in Hebrews 8 that MT cites

“13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”

has been understood to mean that,

“the whole dispensation of Moses, as far as it was opposed to the dispensation of Christ, has passed away, then the ceremonies also must have ceased. (John Calvin)

But of course the Ten words of God as used lawfully, by the Redeemed saint, as united to Christ, as a guide to life, has never been opposed to Christ.

You know, over the years I have entered into apologetic discussions with Dispensationalists. I am now using many of the type of arguments that I’ve had to use with Dispensationalits in the past.

MT writes,

6) The New Testament writers decisively, explicitly, and consistently describe the Christian life, including what we would call obedience to the moral law, in terms of obedience to Jesus, following Jesus, putting on Jesus, conforming to Jesus, walking in Jesus, walking worthy of Jesus, or living in the Spirit (of Jesus). The New Testament almost never summarizes Christian obedience (including to the moral law) or sanctification primarily in terms of obedience or conformity to the law.

This is not a problem if one assumes that there is no dichotomy between following Jesus and walking consistent with God’s Ten words. This is only a problem if one presupposes discontinuity in their hermeneutic between God’s ten words which preached Christ to the Old Testament believer and Christ Himself. If Christ is the fulfillment of the law why would the inspired writers reach back to the shadows when they had the reality?

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.