Theology Thursday - More from Reformed Baptists on the Christian & the Law
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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. 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).
From Samuel Waldron and Richard Barcellos, A Reformed Baptist Manifesto: The New Covenant Constitution of the Church (Palmdale, CA: RBAP 2004), 41-47 (excerpts).
The first and central practical implication to be drawn from all that has been said this: We learn the delusion and danger of divorcing law and grace. Law and grace must be distinguished, but they must never be divorced.
Not a few in the history of the church have been guilty of divorcing law and grace and setting them at odds with one another. But in the last century and a half in Britain and America not a little of the blame for this problem must be laid at the feet of Classic Dispensationalism. It is a necessary and very logical outworking of that system. As we noticed in chapter one, it divides Israel and the Church and thus sunders the Old and New Testament. Thus, it is no surprise that many Classic Dispensationalists divorce law and grace … The divorcing of law and grace is a frontal assault on the very terms of the New Covenant. In light of this, several practical warnings are appropriate for us to consider.
Beware of Divorcing Law and Grace in Conversion
Grace is perverted when it is set over against, or made the opposite of obedience to commands. Faith both rests in Christ and works through love. Though faith does not justify through its obedience to God’s law, it is a kind of obedience and leads to obedience (Rom 1:5; Gal 5:6).
When it is taught that men may be saved without confessing and submitting to Christ as Lord, that is a dangerous divorcing of law and grace in conversation. Sad to say, such teaching is not uncommon among many Evangelicals … With such teaching so prevalent, it is no wonder we hear over and over again in Evangelical testimony meetings, “I received Jesus as my Savior first, and then several years later, I received Him as my Lord.”
Those who think this way have divorced grace and faith from having anything to do with practical submission to the laws of Christ, the Lord. They will even tell you that to insist on such submission for salvation is legalism and even heresy. Such teaching is a twisting of Scripture and a turning of the grace of God into license for sin. It is clearly Antinomian.
Beware of Divorcing Law and Grace in the Regulations of Your Life
This happens when men refuse to govern their lives by anything in the Old Testament law. This refusal is often justified by a false understanding of Paul’s assertion that we are not under law, but under grace (Rom 6:14). Such a divorce of law and grace manifests ignorance of two vital and basic Gospel distinctions.
First, we are not under the law as a way of justification, but as a rule of life (Rom 10:4). Second, we are not under the Ceremonial and Judicial Law as a rule of life, but only under the Moral Law (Jer 31:33; Rom 13:8-10; Eph 6:1-4; Jas 2:8-11).
The tragic thing about the neglect of the Moral Law as revealed in the Old Testament and the Gospels is that the mass of biblical teaching on right conduct is found in those parts of the Bible. No wonder the lives of so many Christians manifest so much folly, sin, and misery when modern teachers have so mutilated God’s instruction manual for the Christian life.
Avoid Confusing Law and Gospel
Those who fall into the trap of exalting law over grace often fall into another very serious error – confusing law and gospel. This happens when the Christian begins to live as if his obedience to God’s law is the ground of his acceptance with God. This, in effect, turns the law into another gospel and it is a practical repudiation of the work of Christ. It dishonors Christ, is a practical denial of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, cripples the soul and destroys assurance.
In our zeal to uphold the law of God, we must never allow obedience to it to become our basis for initial or subsequent acceptance with God. the Lord accepts us in His beloved Son based on what He did for us and not on what we do for Him.
If God’s law has been written on our heart, we will be humble. We will walk in a manner that properly balances law and grace. And when we don’t, we will go to the God of the law and the God of all grace for pardon and help in our time of need.
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.
- 4 views
There’s much to agree with here but also a good bit of category confusion.
An example
When it is taught that men may be saved without confessing and submitting to Christ as Lord, that is a dangerous divorcing of law and grace in conversation. Sad to say, such teaching is not uncommon among many Evangelicals … With such teaching so prevalent, it is no wonder we hear over and over again in Evangelical testimony meetings, “I received Jesus as my Savior first, and then several years later, I received Him as my Lord.”
The excerpt does cite some genuine errors of separation of law and grace. But the “Evangelical testimony” part is something else: usually nothing more than non-scholarly imprecision of communication. All most of these people mean is that there were major turning points in their lives as believers where their growth took the form of a major step forward (maybe including physically walking an aisle).
Theologians are constantly forgetting that the people in the pews are 99% non-theologians… and non-systematic thinkers of any sort. They don’t devote much time to sifting through abstractions and figuring out how they relate to one another. (Which is sad for them, really, but it has nothing to do with law vs. grace.)
But yes, there is also some theology that encourages this sort of second receiving as Lord rhetoric. So there is a third category implicit in the part I quoted: errors in understanding the role of repentance and surrender in conversion.
… also not really about law vs. grace.
One more example of category confusion…
This happens when men refuse to govern their lives by anything in the Old Testament law. This refusal is often justified by a false understanding of Paul’s assertion that we are not under law, but under grace (Rom 6:14). Such a divorce of law and grace manifests ignorance of two vital and basic Gospel distinctions.
The category of “law” and the category of “Mosaic covenant” are not the same, though they overlap a great deal. So agreeing w/the apostolic teaching that Moses has been fulfilled and set aside entirely (2 Cor. 3.7) is not rejecting “law.” The latter still exists and it’s what the Spirit is bringing us into conformity with in Romans 8. It’s what existed for centuries before Moses was born. (And exists to some degree among those who have never even heard of Moses: Rom. 2:14)
So setting aside Moses as binding on the body Christ (but still full of meaning for us, understood in its context) is not the same thing as setting aside obedience to the law of Christ.
(It is interesting that the excerpted portion doesn’t attempt to explain what Paul did mean in Rom 6.14)
Anyway, as much as they’ve got right here, all the lumping of dissimilar things into the same category is sure to breed confusion.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
I agree with Aaron’s remark about theological imprecision - wholeheartedly!
I agree that the issue of “the law” and the Mosaic Covenant overlap, but are not really the same. These discussions often seem to home in on the Old Covenant, without accounting for the fact that “law” existed before Sinai.
I think a watershed is how you view the New Covenant, with all the resulting implications for the new relationship of the NC Christian to the Mosaic Law. All the other discussions are merely window-dressing for this one issue. Just because you are not under the direct jurisdiction of a particular law code does not mean some of its laws are not binding in your new context. I recently compared the UCMJ and the laws of the State of Washington as a parallel to the New Covenant Christian and the Old Covenant law.
Waldron wrote:
Not a few in the history of the church have been guilty of divorcing law and grace and setting them at odds with one another. But in the last century and a half in Britain and America not a little of the blame for this problem must be laid at the feet of Classic Dispensationalism. It is a necessary and very logical outworking of that system.
In general, I think Classical Dispensationalism fails to explain the law and the Christian well. I am sympathetic to some of what Bro. Waldron wrote. I think Myron Houghton’s book is perhaps the best the classical dispensationalists have to offer on this, and I have trouble actually understanding his arguments. I’ve read the book three times. I think the arguments are bad. But, maybe I just don’t get it.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I don’t think the issue is so much over whether or not the Mosaic Covenant in toto is the Moral Law as whether the Decalogue is the timeless Moral Law—or at least the clearest expression of it—which predated Moses. That’s the key here: Waldron embraces the 3-fold distinction of the OT Law, with the Decalogue comprising the purest expression of the moral component. If we’re not dealing with the validity of that distinction, I don’t think we’re on the same page with him.
Not only do we have eternal Moral law, as well as civil, ceremonial, and moral components of the Mosaic Law, but we also have the commentaries on the law that became the “traditions” Jesus spoke of, and then the Midrash/Mishnah/Talmuds. All very complicated, and the various stripes of commentary on the law in the various churches often makes the issue worse.
For my part, the three parts of the Torah is a distinction that I can pretty much go with, with the caveat that even if we are not bound by it, we can learn a lot from the civil and ceremonial parts about the character of God. The problem is made somewhat easier by the fact that most of the Mosaic moral law is repeated in the NT.
Or perhaps the people that formulated “civil, ceremonial, and moral” inferred this very division from the NT’s stance? I’m not sure.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
AndrewK wrote:
That’s the key here: Waldron embraces the 3-fold distinction of the OT Law, with the Decalogue comprising the purest expression of the moral component. If we’re not dealing with the validity of that distinction, I don’t think we’re on the same page with him.
Appreciate the clarification. Hodge, for example, spent over 100 pages using the Decalogue as a springboard for his entire discussion of the law in his systematic. I’ve skimmed through it, but haven’t read it. I need to read it, so I better understand where Reformed folks are coming from on this.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
This is not helpful at all in talking about the law. As Aaron points out, it has some category confusion and it misunderstands dispensationalism. It is true that dispensationalism rejects the OT Law as authoritative for the church. It is not true that dispensationalism is therefore antinomian in the broad sense of the term. Dispensationalism does believe in obedience. It simply rejects the idea that the Law given to the nation of Israel is the standard of obedience for those who are not in the nation of Israel. It’s one of those things that we all recognize in daily life. No one suggests we are responsible to obey the laws of a country we don’t live in. Until you get to some Christians, but they only apply it to one particular country—an ancient, agragrian country. I wonder why these Christians don’t insist that Americans live under the laws of Iraq? Or why the French don’t live under the laws of China? I would suggest it it because they understand the point. They just don’t apply it.
With respect to the Decalogue, no it’s not in force as the Decalogue. All but the fourth commandment is in force because of it’s nature as moral law. It is similar to the idea that two states may have a similar, if not identical law. You are charged under the law of the state in which you broke the law. So if you steal something in New York, you are not charged under the theft laws of California, even though they may be substantially the same. You are charged under the which is authority at the time and place you broke it.
So we certainly need clearer thinking about the law, the Law, and the Christian. This kind of stuff is not helpful, at least in these excerpts. Maybe the fuller version is more clear.
Alva MacLain made a big deal about how Reformed theology puts Christians “back under the law.” I don’t see that. I never understood, practically speaking, how that charge could be made. I’ve never read anything from any Reformed-minded person which suggests this. Consider what Waldron wrote:
Those who fall into the trap of exalting law over grace often fall into another very serious error – confusing law and gospel. This happens when the Christian begins to live as if his obedience to God’s law is the ground of his acceptance with God. This, in effect, turns the law into another gospel and it is a practical repudiation of the work of Christ. It dishonors Christ, is a practical denial of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, cripples the soul and destroys assurance.
I’d be interested if somebody can actually point to a Reformed(ish) writer who disagrees with Waldron. I think, in his discussion, both sides are often talking past each other.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
[Larry]Leaving aside the question of whether Waldron accurately represents (Classic) dispensationalism or not, I don’t think you understand where the essential difference lies: Waldron, I believe, would hold that the Decalogue is the purest expression of the moral law, given in a negative form, then later summarized in a positive form by Christ’s two Great Commandments. Thus he would see the 4th commandment as binding on today. Most here would hold that the Decalogue, while containing elements of the moral law, also contains one extra stipulation, viz. the remembrance of the Sabbath. That is, the fact that the Decalogue was given to Israel as a law for them does not indicate it has no share in the universal moral law. Interestingly, recall that when Paul appeals to a moral law in the hearts of the Gentiles, he appeals to the Decalogue.This is not helpful at all in talking about the law. As Aaron points out, it has some category confusion and it misunderstands dispensationalism. It is true that dispensationalism rejects the OT Law as authoritative for the church. It is not true that dispensationalism is therefore antinomian in the broad sense of the term. Dispensationalism does believe in obedience. It simply rejects the idea that the Law given to the nation of Israel is the standard of obedience for those who are not in the nation of Israel. It’s one of those things that we all recognize in daily life. No one suggests we are responsible to obey the laws of a country we don’t live in. Until you get to some Christians, but they only apply it to one particular country—an ancient, agragrian country. I wonder why these Christians don’t insist that Americans live under the laws of Iraq? Or why the French don’t live under the laws of China? I would suggest it it because they understand the point. They just don’t apply it.
With respect to the Decalogue, no it’s not in force as the Decalogue. All but the fourth commandment is in force because of it’s nature as moral law. It is similar to the idea that two states may have a similar, if not identical law. You are charged under the law of the state in which you broke the law. So if you steal something in New York, you are not charged under the theft laws of California, even though they may be substantially the same. You are charged under the which is authority at the time and place you broke it.
So we certainly need clearer thinking about the law, the Law, and the Christian. This kind of stuff is not helpful, at least in these excerpts. Maybe the fuller version is more clear.
So I think that’s where the real debate lies. I think most here could agree that the Decalogue serves as an excellent negative statement of the timeless moral law with that one exception. For the Reformed, that is not an exception: a Sabbath principle exists that has been part of the moral law from the beginning and continues in force.
That is, the fact that the Decalogue was given to Israel as a law for them does not indicate it has no share in the universal moral law.
That is exactly my point. The law against theft, for instance, is a universal moral law. It is found in the law codes of the US, England, France, Germany, ancient Israel, ancient Rome, ancient Babylon, etc. The question is simply which expression of the law against theft is binding and chargeable? The answer is the jurisdiction in which you break said law. The Christian is not part of ancient Israel, and thus is not bound to obey that particular expression of the law. That doesn’t mean stealing is okay. The Decalogue was part of the expression of God’s will for that people in that time. We live in a different time under a different jurisdiction. I think people are missing that the Mosaic Law was, to Israel, what the US Code is to us in America (or wherever one happens to live). It was for the governance of civil life, which in Israel, included a religious element to it.
BTW, the admission that there is one added law to the moral law (i.e., the Sabbath) gives away the farm I think.
This article was pretty crummy. IMO, no one has really nailed it completely when it comes to the relationship of the Law (the Torah) to the believer. Maybe it cannot be nailed down?
Attempts to divide the law into 3 seems enticing, but many such divisions are purely subjective (e.g., tattoos, the Sabbath). Dispensationalists H. Wayne House and Thomas Ice (Dominion Theology: Curse or Blessing?) have one of the clearest possible paradigms: The eternal Law of God, based upon His character, is always to be enforced. The laws specifically given to Israel are not applicable — at least directly — to the NT believer. The only way to find out what from the Law God demands the Christian to obey is to read the NT. Since 9 of th e 10 Commandments are repeated, the Sabbath Day command (which is omitted) is not part of the eternal law.
It is not perfect, but at least it isn’t as subjective as trying to peg each of the 613 Torah commands into one of three categories. Because a majority of evangelicals embrace the idea of doing this adds zero weight to the argument. Truth is not something we vote upon.
House and Ice argue we gain wisdom from all the Law, and we learn principles that we can apply. The issue at hand is the constraints God puts upon us.
"The Midrash Detective"
Waldron has more points, but this was the most I felt comfortable using without permission! This is a short book, but it is thought-provoking.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
[Andrew K]I don’t think the issue is so much over whether or not the Mosaic Covenant in toto is the Moral Law as whether the Decalogue is the timeless Moral Law—or at least the clearest expression of it—which predated Moses. That’s the key here: Waldron embraces the 3-fold distinction of the OT Law, with the Decalogue comprising the purest expression of the moral component. If we’re not dealing with the validity of that distinction, I don’t think we’re on the same page with him.
My question would be why should any portion of the Mosaic Covenant be the timeless moral law? Where does Scripture tell us to expect this? There is no question that the decalog is set apart from the rest, but we are not told why.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Ed Vasicek]Attempts to divide the law into 3 seems enticing, but many such divisions are purely subjective (e.g., tattoos, the Sabbath). Dispensationalists H. Wayne House and Thomas Ice (Dominion Theology: Curse or Blessing?) have one of the clearest possible paradigms: The eternal Law of God, based upon His character, is always to be enforced. The laws specifically given to Israel are not applicable — at least directly — to the NT believer. The only way to find out what from the Law God demands the Christian to obey is to read the NT. Since 9 of th e 10 Commandments are repeated, the Sabbath Day command (which is omitted) is not part of the eternal law.
It is not perfect, but at least it isn’t as subjective as trying to peg each of the 613 Torah commands into one of three categories. Because a majority of evangelicals embrace the idea of doing this adds zero weight to the argument. Truth is not something we vote upon.
House and Ice argue we gain wisdom from all the Law, and we learn principles that we can apply. The issue at hand is the constraints God puts upon us.
I think that pretty much sums it up, and it’s really pretty simple, though I would not use the word “enforced”… but I think I understand what you mean there.
God always has requirements for His creatures and some of them seem to be unchanging and to underly much of the temporary Mosaic Covenant as well as specific applications we find in narrative, etc. So God’s standard of righteousness is absolute and unchanging and this is law, but not The Law or really any part of The Law. Mosaic law is a reflection of it as are the requirements given to Adam and Eve and to the church post-mosaically.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Aaron Blumer]Again, I would say that the NT’s assumption of continuing moral force of at least 9/10 the Decalogue (the issue of the 4th being the only item in question) argues this very thing. Where does the NT suppose the timeless, moral nature of not eating pork? Honestly, if carving the decalogue in stone, frequent references to it by the NT, etc. doesn’t at least assume a greater prominence/significance, what else could it mean? Let’s start there.Andrew K wrote:
I don’t think the issue is so much over whether or not the Mosaic Covenant in toto is the Moral Law as whether the Decalogue is the timeless Moral Law—or at least the clearest expression of it—which predated Moses. That’s the key here: Waldron embraces the 3-fold distinction of the OT Law, with the Decalogue comprising the purest expression of the moral component. If we’re not dealing with the validity of that distinction, I don’t think we’re on the same page with him.
My question would be why should any portion of the Mosaic Covenant be the timeless moral law? Where does Scripture tell us to expect this? There is no question that the decalog is set apart from the rest, but we are not told why.
Again, I would say that the NT’s assumption of continuing moral force of at least 9/10 the Decalogue (the issue of the 4th being the only item in question) argues this very thing.
Have you considered that the “continuing moral force” is not of 9/10 of the Decalogue, but of the principles that existed before the Decalogue. The engraving on stone was for Israel’s benefit, not ours, and I would be cautious of using that to make any statement about the significance of it. To enforce the Decalogue is to do the very thing the NT says you can’t do, namely, divide the Law.
Discussion