The Heart of Modesty

Are you claiming they actually have a good point? That Lev 18:22 or Lev 20:13 have no legitimate say any more?

No, what I am saying is that those particular laws were nullified by the death of Christ, who fulfilled the Law in our place. They have now been rendered moot.

My question for you is if you don’t understand that principle now, how on earth are you going to handle it when a liberal or pagan (someone not on your side and who is less charitably inclined to you) throws that same line back? You want to use Leviticus to ban ‘nakedness’? That’s fine, but you have to reinstate all the other Levitical laws as well to be consistent. Good luck squaring that with the NT.

I think the point Jay and others are making is that sometimes we pick and choose the OT laws we want to apply in this dispensation (did I just say dispensation?). We sometimes also derive a Christian principle from some of those laws and give it the same weight as the law itself.

[Jay]

Are you claiming they actually have a good point? That Lev 18:22 or Lev 20:13 have no legitimate say any more?

No, what I am saying is that those particular laws were nullified by the death of Christ, who fulfilled the Law in our place. They have now been rendered moot

[Ron Bean]

We sometimes also derive a Christian principle from some of those laws and give it the same weight as the law itself.

Christ fulfilled the Law of Moses and we are no longer under it. We are under the Law of Christ as contained in the NT commands.

Agreed. Yet how do you answer those who say, for example, that the NT says nothing about beastiality? Are we to assume that its OK for New Covenant believers. (God forbid!) Don’t we need the Law of Moses to help inform us about this?

No, because Jesus defined marriage and sexuality in Mt. 19 as between one man and one woman.

I actually taught Matthew 5:27-32 at a nursing home last Sunday—it’s more applicable than one would think, as my eldest is a pretty CNA working at a nursing home—and one of the things I noted is that the word generally translated “uncleanness” in Deuteronomy 24:1 is actually the word for nakedness. I found it fascinating that what Jesus is doing in Matthew is to note that His position IS the Torah position. A look at Leviticus 18 was also helpful, as it has a bunch of uses of the same word.

No argument that the New Testament perspective on sexuality is sufficient; it is. No argument that the Law is completed in Christ, and that its demands—and especially the demands of Oral Torah—on us are no longer functional. That’s 100% true.

But that said, it’s useful to consult for a number of reasons. It shows that Jesus and Paul are not really treading that much new ground in many areas, and that the character of God is consistent. That goes even to a lot of places where I cannot help but see the Gospel—places like Psalm 110, the curses spoken at the end of Deuteronomy, Genesis 1-3, etc..

The danger I see here is that we’d almost abandon the Pentateuch, or even the entire Old Testament, and thus lose all that it says about our faith, and how it clarifies New Testament theology. God gave the whole Word to us for a reason, no?

I’m not one to die on the hill defending dispensationalism, and I know much smarter men than I have debated this through the centuries, but I’ve never understood why this is so difficult.

1. You cannot pick and choose which laws of a law code are still in effect and which aren’t. The Law of Moses is a code of law, and you are either under it or you are not. The tripartite division of the Law (civil, moral, ceremonial) is completely foreign to it (just ask any Jewish interpreter), and it breaks down completely once you start trying to categorize each law.
2. Just because certain laws are common to both the Old and the New Testaments doesn’t mean they “carried over” from one to the other, it simply means that they reflect God’s higher moral law that he has applied to both His people Israel in the OT and to NT Christians. The fact that murder is against the law in both the US and Zimbabwe does not mean that somehow I am under certain aspects of Zimbabwe law; it just means there is a higher moral law that is reflected in both law codes.
3. The New Testament says the Law of Moses has been abrogated. The “ministry of death, written and engraved on stones (Ten Commandments),” was “passing/fading away” (as pictured by Moses’ fading glory) (2 Cor. 3:7-16). NT Christians are “not under law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:14; 7:4; Gal. 2:19; 4:4-7; 1 Tim. 2:8-9).
4. For people to argue that this perspective results in the OT becoming meaningless is just silly. There are so many reasons why the OT is important and helpful (showing us sin, showing us God’s moral law, pointing to Christ, prophecy, etc). Paul himself tells us why the OT is important, “Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Cor. 10:11).

And that’s how we differ, because I believe the Reformed attempt to divide the Law of Moses into 3 breaks down when you actually do exegesis. And note my answer was based on Scripture, not on dispensationalism. In fact I really don’t care one way or the other that it happens to be a tenet of dispensationalism (I shouldn’t have even mentioned that word in my post); I believe it because it seems to me to agree with biblical teaching.

Saying that the Law has been abrogated seems to go further than what the NT text will allow.

First, there is Christ’s statement in Matt 5:17 that he did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. On top of that he says, that anyone who “relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.” So, right of the bat, I think we need to tread carefully here. To say the Law has been rendered moot doesn’t seem to line up with what Christ is saying here.

Second, we have the very clear statements from the Apostle Paul regarding the continued significance of the Law under the New Covenant. For example, at the end of Romans 3, after Paul has detailed the principles of justification by faith alone and the redemption that is ours through the propitiatory work of Jesus Christ on the cross, he asks, “Do we then overthrow the Law by this faith?” The answer is NO – we “uphold the Law.” In fact, according to Rom 8:4, the “righteous requirements of the Law” are fulfilled in us who are in Christ.

So, here is my question, if the Law has been abrogated or rendered moot, why is it important that I meet the demands of the Law in Christ? Why does it matter if the Law is upheld or not?

Then I can also ask, why does Paul in Romans 8:7-8 equate (1) being hostile to God and not pleasing to God with (2) not submitting to God’s Law?

And further, if the Law has been done away with, doesn’t that vitiate Paul’s argument regarding the universal sinfulness of mankind in Romans 2 because both have violated God’s Law, whether they have heard it directly (Jews) or had it written on their hearts (Gentiles)?

Where does that leave us? For my part I think (1) we are no longer under the Law in terms of its condemnation, and (2) the fulfilling of the Law by Christ and the initiation of the New Covenant has rendered certain portions of the Law obsolete – the sacrificial system is no longer needed and the dividing wall of hostility between Jew and Gentile has been broken down. For me, it’s not a matter of which laws are repeated and which are not. To me it comes down to this – how has Christ impacted each aspect of the Law and what does it mean to obey a command now in light of Christ’s fulfillment?

This is a difficult subject and I don’t claim to have it all figured out but this is how I approach it.

Andy, these are good questions, and I don’t have answers to all of them but I’ll give it my best shot.

So, here is my question, if the Law has been abrogated or rendered moot, why is it important that I meet the demands of the Law in Christ? Why does it matter if the Law is upheld or not?

When Jesus came - or when the Apostles preached about Him - they always call for repentance based on sin. They don’t spend time explaining the Law or defining it. They call for repentance. Romans 1-3 is pretty clear that all have sinned, either by being crushed by the burden of the Law into a knowledge of sin or by violating the inherent moral principles that all men know and hold to even though they deny the God that created them and rules above all. See Romans 1:18-23 and 3:14-15:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things… (1:18-23)

…For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus… (3:14-15)

Those are my first attempts at an answer for you. Maybe someone else can explain it better than I could.

Then I can also ask, why does Paul in Romans 8:7-8 equate (1) being hostile to God and not pleasing to God with (2) not submitting to God’s Law?

Well, if the two great commandments are to love the Lord with all the heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 10:28-34), then no human out there has ever done that for even half a second. That’s why God can rightly charge us with sin.

And further, if the Law has been done away with, doesn’t that vitiate Paul’s argument regarding the universal sinfulness of mankind in Romans 2 because both have violated God’s Law, whether they have heard it directly (Jews) or had it written on their hearts (Gentiles)?

I think Paul’s point is that there is no inherent merit in obeying the Law, so we shouldn’t expect that to help us (Romans 2). As he says later on - the point of the Law is to bring us to the place where we realize that we can’t obey it or fulfill it; it is a schoolmaster that is in place to point us to Christ’s fulfillment of that for us (Galatians 3:23-29). It is through Christ’s work that we are redeemed, and it is a gift of grace, not of works (Ephesians 2:8-9).