Theology Thursday - Dispensationalists on the Law & the Christian
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On “Theology Thursday,” we feature short excerpts on various areas of systematic theology, from a wide variety of colorful (and drab) characters and institutions. Some are orthodox, but decidedly outside the Baptist orbit. Others are completely heretical. Regardless of heresy or orthodoxy, we hope these short readings are a stimulus for personal reflection, a challenge to theological complacency, and an impetus for apologetic zeal “to encourage you to contend earnestly for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3).
Myron Houghton
“Those who believe that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone recognize that the role of the law is to show sinners that they are, in fact, sinful and that they need a Savior. Once the law has accomplished this purpose, it ceases to function as a part of salvation: ‘Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes’ (Rom 10:4).
This use of the law in showing the lost their need of a Savior becomes a hermeneutical principle. Any passage that makes demands by causing the reader to be afraid of God, whether in the Old or New Testament, is to be considered law. By the same token, any passage that offers God’s free forgiveness apart from demands, whether in the Old or New Testament, is to be considered gospel.”1
“[T]he word ‘law’ can be used in several different ways in Scripture:
- the Ten Commandments (Rom 7:7-13),
- the civil law of the Old Testament (Lev. 11:16, cf. vv. 1-45),
- the ceremonial law in the Old Testament (Lev 6:9, 14),
- the first five books of the Bible (Rom 3:21c),
- any statement in Scripture that condemns or makes a person feel guilty (Rom 4:14, 15),
- God’s Word in general (James 1:25),
- the righteous standard of moral law (Rom. 8:4),
- a principle or fact (Rom 8:2a), and
- Christ’s command for believers to love one another (Gal 6:2).
I previously mentioned these in the context of the Reformed theology articulated in the Westminster Confession, which teaches that numbers 2 and 3 of this list do not apply to the believer today. However, I mention them again to show that in my understanding of dispensational theology, numbers 1-5 do not apply to the believer today. The believer is not under law when ‘law’ is used in the first five ways listed above. However, one can still affirm the meanings of law as described in numbers 6-9: the role of God’s Word in the life of the believer, the role of moral law’s righteous standard, the law as a principle, and the role of Christ’s command for believer to love one another.”2
“Is the believer today under the law? We have seen that the law makes demands, shows us our guilt, manifests God’s wrath, and terrifies us of Him. The gospel, however, does not make demands, but shows us God’s promise of salvation and forgiveness based upon Christ’s death and resurrection. But we know that the New Testament Epistles clearly make demands under believers today. If Law and Gospel are the only two categories available, the believer must be placed under Law. To me, there is another category: Grace. While grace in the form of Gospel does not make demands, grace as guidelines for managing a believer’s life does make them. So, rather than placing today’s believer under the law, since Paul stated in Romans 6:14 that today’s believer is not under law but under grace, it seems better to view believers as under grace as a set of guidelines that makes demands upon them.”3
Alva McClain
“The charge has been made that in affirming the believer is not under the law we are rejecting a part of Scripture. This slanderous charge has been answered already by the Biblical evidence presented earlier, but I wish to deal with it more specifically.
First, we deny categorically any rejection of the law. On the contrary, we accept the law of God in Scripture in its totality, including all its elements—moral, ceremonial and civil—not merely a small part of the law stripped of its penalties, as our opponents are accustomed to do. They, not we, are the real rejecters of the law!”4
“To summarize: In relation to the Christian, the law, as law, having been completely fulfilled and satisfied in Christ, has been “done away.” But as law it still remains to operate as an external restraint upon the ungodly. On the other hand, the law, as inspired Scripture, abides for all the saved and as such is ‘profitable’ in all its parts. Only the soul is saved by grace, understanding clearly what took place at Calvary, can truly delight in the law of the Lord. Such a one has seen in the cross the awful severity and doom of the law and rejoices in the assurance that its demands have been satisfied to the last farthing by the Lamb of God.”5
Charles Ryrie
“If Christ ended the Law, then why does the New Testament include some laws from the Mosaic Law in its ethic? How could the unit end and yet have specifics in it still binding on the Christian? …”6
“The only solution (which I have never seen proposed by anyone else) that seems to do full justice to the plain sense of these various Scriptures distinguishes between a code and the commandments contained therein … The Mosaic Law was done away in its entirety as a code. It has been replaced by the law of Christ. The law of Christ contains some new commands (1 Tim 4:4), some old ones (Rom 13:9), and some revised ones (Rom 13:4 with reference to capital punishment). All the laws of the Mosaic code have been abolished because the code has. Specific Mosaic commands that are part of the Christian code appear there not as a continuation of part of the Mosaic Law, or in order to observed in some deeper sense, but as specifically incorporated into that code, and as such they are binding on believers today. A particular law that was part of the Mosaic code is done away; that same law, if part of the law of Christ, is binding. It is necessary to say both truths in order not to have to resort to a nonliteral interpretation of 2 Corinthians 3 or Hebrews 7 and in order not to have to resort to some sort of theological contortions to retain part of the Mosaic Law.”7
Notes
1 Myron Houghton, Law & Grace (Schaumberg, IL: RBP, 2011), 115.
2 Ibid, 116-117.
3 Alva McClain, Law and Grace: A Study of New Testament Concepts as They Relate to the Christian Life (reprint; Winona Lake, IN: BMH, 2011), 120.
4 Ibid, 70.
5 Ibid, 72.
6 Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth (Chicago, IL: Moody, 1999), 350.
7 Ibid, 351-352.
Tyler Robbins 2016 v2
Tyler Robbins is a bi-vocational pastor at Sleater Kinney Road Baptist Church, in Olympia WA. He also works in State government. He blogs as the Eccentric Fundamentalist.
- 194 views
Dispensationalism, as a system, has never been quite sure what to do with the New Covenant.
Huh? I think dispensationalism has handled the New Covenant quite well, far better than the alternatives. Here’s a good article on Dispensationalism, The Church, and the New Covenant that will be helpful to those who think dispensationalism doesn’t know what to do with the new covenant: http://archive.dbts.edu/journals/2003/Compton.pdf
When I wrote that, I mean that dispensationalism has in the past century had:
- Some who think the NC has nothing at all to do with the church
- Some who think there are two New Covenants; one for the church now and another for Israel later
- Some who think the church participates in the soteriological aspects of the New Covenant only, with the full thing applied to Israel in the future (Compton’s view)
- Others who think the church fully participates in the NC now (Decker)
In sum, dispensationalists don’t know what to do with it. Ask a dispensationalist church member about the New Covenant, and see if you get more than a blank stare. Ask a dispensationalist Pastor, and see the pain appear on his face and the fidgeting begin. Ask a dispensationalist professor, and watch him exhale heavily and ponder how to navigate this morass in a timely manner.
Dispensationalists don’t know what to do with the NC. Compton’s view is the most popular one today, I believe.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Scott, do I understand you to say that eating pork is equivalent to murder, based upon James 2:10?
I won’t answer for Scott, but James 2:10 is pretty simple in its context: If you keep every part of the Law and don’t love your neighbor (show partiality), then you are a lawbreaker. The point is that the law is a whole and when you break part of it, you are guilty of all of it. It is not that eating pork and adultery are equivalent sins. One can look at the penalties and see that isn’t the case. It is that you can’t be a law keeper if you are a law breaker. And keeping 612 of them won’t offset breaking one of them.
Wouldn’t it be better to understand James as saying the moral law (adultery, murder, etc), is what is binding on NT believers, and breaking any part of the moral law equals breaking the whole?
No, James’ point is you aren’t a law keeper because you only commit adultery but not murder.
Tyler, Your comment makes no sense to me. The fact that dispensationalists don’t all agree on what to do with the New Covenant doesn’t mean they don’t know what to do with it. As a dispensationalist pastor, you won’t see any pain on my face or any fidgeting about it. I don’t know any dispensational pastors who would be pained or fidget about it. As you can see, dispensationalists have dealt with it and give answers for it and reasons for it. They deal with it as well as anyone does. I think Compton’s view is the best one because it takes full account of the Scriptures. I think the view that the church fully participates in the New Covenant now is easily disproven simply by reading the New Covenant passages, since they clearly involve Israel being restored to the land in peace. That is not true now, and certainly not true of the church. Therefore, at best, we can say that the church participates in the soteriological parts of the New Covenant. We cannot in any sense say that the church participates in the full New Covenant now.
I’m saying there is widespread disagreement, going back a century, about the New Covenant among dispensationalists. There is even disagreement among faculty members at fundamentalist seminaries. It is not even close to being a settled issue. This is why RBP published a three views book on the issue back in 2012 - it’s one of dispensationalism’s most pressing problems.
I understand you like Compton’s view. So do I; it’s a whole lot better than the “no participation” view!
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
What role does “righteousness” play in salvation in this context? Whose righteousness? How earned? Credited to whom? How do the answers to these questions bear on the meaning of the phrase “end of the law?” What is Paul’s usage of telos in the Epistle to the Romans? Termination or culmination?
JSB
I’m saying there is widespread disagreement, going back a century, about the New Covenant among dispensationalists. There is even disagreement among faculty members at fundamentalist seminaries. It is not even close to being a settled issue.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t know what to do with it. Other alternatives have similar issues with various things. There are always these kinds of debates about issues.
You make it sound like dispensationalism is totally at a loss to explain the New Covenant, and the truth is that they are not in the least bit hardpressed to explain the New Covenant. It is actually the alternatives views such as amillennnialism that have a hard time explaining the New Covenant.
Larry wrote:
You make it sound like dispensationalism is totally at a loss to explain the New Covenant, and the truth is that they are not in the least bit hardpressed to explain the New Covenant. It is actually the alternatives views such as amillennnialism that have a hard time explaining the New Covenant.
When I’m talking about dispensationalism, I’m talking about it as an entire theological framework and skeleton you interpret the Scriptures by. Amillennialism is simply a particular view of eschatology, a subset of a theological system.
Regarding the dispute about the New Covenant within dispensationalism, I believe it is a much larger issue than you give it credit for. I’m actually thinking of asking Ed to run a survey on this. RBP published an entire book on it. I suspect if you polled every Professor at Maranatha, Central, Detroit, Faith and Piedmont, you’d get the entire spectrum of positions I outlined above. This means the men who graduate from these institutions will reflect this disparity.
You may run in circles where Compton’s view is the prevailing one. I came from circles where nobody even knew what the “New Covenant” was - beyond a reference to the Lord’s Supper! There are still plenty of classical dispensationalists out there who teach the church has absolutely no relationship to the New Covenant. Dr. Randy White, founder of Dispensational Publishing House (for example) holds and promotes this view.
I get what you’re saying, Larry, but this issue is far from settled. I’m not saying some dispensationalists haven’t provided answers. I’m saying most disensationalists cannot even agree on this point; we’re badly split into different camps on this one. You are lucky to come from an orbit where this is a settled matter - I never even knew what the “New Covenant” was.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I was planning to share this via a message with Tyler, but thought I’d post ‘em for everyone.
The Law and the Christian,IMO, is quite complex. I don’t know if you are familiar with the view of H. Wayne House and Thomas Ice, and some of the many views out there advocated by various Messianic Jews and their friends, like Dr. Ron Mosely, for example. There are so many. D.A. Carson’s (editor) 2 volume set, Justification and Variegated Nomism is good stuff when it comes to the relation of the Torah to salvation, but not the specific issue we are discussing..
House and Ice are particularly interesting. They view God’s eternal Law as grounded in His character, and, if you see where the Torah and the New Testament converge, that represents His eternal Law, while the difference (things not repeated) refers to God’s special purposes for Israel or the church, respectively. Their argument is that it is impossible to separate the moral from the ceremonial from the civil — how do we know which is which? Is forbidding tattoos a moral issue, or a ceremonial issue, for example. How do we know wearing fabric of one garment is ceremonial?
Mosely suggests that the Jewish rabbinical understanding of which Torah commandments relate to gentile believers (who are not full converts to Judaism) comes to bear. Some good thoughts in all of these, yet some viewpoints are not well known. Some Messianic Jews believe the Torah is still the standard for Messianic Jews and gentiles, others believer for Messianic Jews only, while others believe being Torah observant is an option (but not a requirement). Others believe that Messianic Jews have no special relationship to the Torah.
Although some “neat” systems seem to satisfy folks, I personally have yet to see one that is fully adequate. Anyhow, looking forward to your further thoughts.
"The Midrash Detective"
Scott, my point in questioning the pork/murder pairing was to highlight that James is writing to New Covenant believers. I don’t see how he could be equating eating pork with adultery and murder after the coming of Christ. To say eating pork was as much a violation of the Law of Moses as murder under the Old Covenant is true. I have no problem with that equation. However, to use this text to support your contention that there is no distinction between civil, ceremonial, and moral law in the Old Covenant misses the point. James is not talking about the Old Covenant, and therefore could not be supporting the point you are making. (Unless I am misunderstanding something here.)
G. N. Barkman
What I find particularly interesting about James is that he cites OC law as if it is perfectly applicable for the NC believers he’s addressing - and he doesn’t bother to explain the distinctions on how to apply them. Something basic and fundamental seems to be assumed; that is, the “whole law” is in some way applicable to them. They “have become” (perfect tense-form, active voice) guilty or liable for all of it.
I recently re-read the Sermon on the Mount, and James sounds precisely like Jesus. He speaks of the OC law as being perfectly applicable to NC believers. This is very interesting stuff. Something for me to ponder. Perhaps, like the Grinch, I shall puzzle and puzzle, ‘till my puzzler is sore …
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
Tyler as you ponder how applicable the OC law is, make sure to do a thorough reading of Galatians. I say this because I have recently run into a number of Torah followers in a variety of settings who want to take the church back under the Mosaic law (I do not say this to imply that is what you are suggesting). In case you or anyone else runs into such teachers, the book of Galatians is very effective in exposing their heresy. Ch 4 even talks about a couple of contrasting OT covenants. Then ch 5 shows the application to the NT believer and leads up to vs 18 where we are shown that if we are led by the spirit we are not under the law. Then right after that the works of the flesh are contrasted with the fruits of the spirit showing that being led by the spirit does set us apart from those who have totally rejected God’s expectations.
JD:
You are right about Galatians. One thing I am cautious about, however, is that Paul was not arguing against the Old Covenant as it actually was. He was arguing against the perversion of the Old Covenant which was being propagated by the Judaizers. I am with you (and the Bible!) that nobbody can be justified by the works of the law - Galatians 2:21 is perhaps my favorite verse!
But, I worry sometimes that dispensationalists who cite Galatians forget that Paul wasn’t arguing against the Old Covenant law as it was meant to be interpreted - he was arguing against the perverted, apostate form of it which had become common by his day.
I think we all probably need to take the Sermon on the Mount as inspired commentary to Old Covenant believers on the how the law was really meant to be applied. It’s not an external thing; it’s an internal love for God which produces external obedience because of that love.
My puzzler isn’t quite sore yet, but it is getting there …
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
To G. N. Barkman and Tyler R.
James is writing to ethnically Jewish Christians (James 1:1), so as Tyler noted, “something basic and fundamental seems to be assumed” by James, but I do not think it is “the ‘whole law’ is [emphasis added] in some way applicable to them,” as Tyler went on to state, but rather that it was applicable. That is, I do not see that James is even specifically equating “adultery and murder after the coming of Christ” in this passage, for he is using that equation as an example of how the OT law worked: that it was a single whole. So because he is referring to OT law as OT law, that is why (1) the statement still implies eating pork was sin just as adultery or murder and (2) why the civil, ceremonial, and moral distinction within the law is a false distinction, since it was all moral, whether the individual command related to civil matters, ceremonial worship, or interpersonal relations.
He is using this illustration of OT law to contrast to these Jewish Christians, for they will not be judged by that Law, but rather the “law of liberty” and should walk as such (James 2:12).
So that is how I see the tie in to the pork/adultery/murder equation and the tie in to the improper civil/ceremonial/moral distinction.
Still not sure if that is clear, but maybe so.
Scott Smith, Ph.D.
The goal now, the destiny to come, holiness like God—
Gen 1:27, Lev 19:2, 1 Pet 1:15-16
Scott, you wrote:
I do not think it is “the ‘whole law’ is [emphasis added] in some way applicable to them,” as Tyler went on to state, but rather that it was applicable.
How do you get a past-tense flavor with no ongoing consequences from the perfect tense-form of this verb? The entire passage (Jas 2:1-12) is predicated on a violation of Lev 19:8, and James seems to indicate that violation of this law results in one becoming guilty (“has become” - perfect tense-form) for violating all the law.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
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