In our quest to better understand and explain things, we like to organize or sort things according to the similarities or differences which we observe among them. Hence, it's not surprising that we have employed this same technique in trying to understand and explain Scripture. One of the oldest manifestations of this phenomenon is the way that the Jews have divided what Christians refer to as the Old Testament. What they call the Tanach is divided into Torah (Instructions/Law), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). What is Torah? Indeed, those categorizations are so ancient that they are referenced in several places in the New Testament - thus becoming a part of the Christian Scriptures. In similar fashion, Christians have divided the various letters which make up the New Testament into Prison, Pastoral, and General Epistles. Hence, it's no wonder that Bible students would do the same thing with something as complex as the Law of Moses (especially when trying to figure out its relevance to Christians).
In an article posted by Ligonier Ministries, R.C. Sproul wrote: "We make distinctions among the ceremonial law, the dietary law, the civil law, and the moral law. To the Jew, every law commanded by God in the Old Testament was moral in the sense that it had moral significance to it." Notice that it is "we" who make these distinctions - they are not made by God or Scripture! Indeed, throughout both the Old and New Testaments, Torah is treated as a unitary whole. Torah itself is very explicit in its expectation that the Israelites would observe ALL of its provisions (Exodus 23:22, Deuteronomy 8:1, 12:14, 28, 13:18, 28:1, 15, 30:2, 8) In fact, we are informed by Torah that the Israelites were told: "Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it." (Deuteronomy 12:32) Moreover, this view is also reinforced in the New Testament. Jesus spoke of himself as having come to this earth to fulfill the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 5:17-18). Paul told the Galatians that anyone who was circumcised was obligated to keep "the whole law" (5:3). Likewise, James wrote " For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it." (James 2:10)
Sproul continued: "It is a useful distinction to distinguish the moral law from the ceremonial law, because we know that the ceremonial law has been fulfilled in the perfect work of Christ. And we know that the dietary laws have been set apart. They had a historical significance that differs from the moral law of the Old Testament." It may be useful for us to distinguish the moral law from the ceremonial law, but I think that it is dangerous for us to use such distinctions to formulate doctrine - especially when Scripture itself makes a point of talking about Torah as a comprehensive whole! Moreover, are Sproul and his allies suggesting that Christ didn't fulfill what they consider to be the "moral" parts of the law? In other words, didn't Christ fulfill the entire law?
Dr. Sproul continued: "The distinction in view here is there are laws that God gives in the Old Testament (and in the New) that are an expression of His own character that is immutable. So that if He set them aside, He would be doing violence to His own character." Jesus Christ said that the law was comprehended in two great commandments: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind," and "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-38) He said, " On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." (Verse 40) Paul wrote to the saints at Rome: "Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." (13:8-10) Indeed, John said that God IS love (I John 4:8, 16) Hence, in so far as love is the epitome of God's character and the basis for Torah (ALL of it), this statement has some merit. The problem arises only when we attempt to exempt some of the laws from this general characterization. Indeed, even what many of us would consider to be the basis of all moral law and the entire Torah, the Ten Commandments, are comprehended in the two great commandments which Jesus alluded to in his answer to the Torah scholar.
"I remember making a statement years ago that to say that the moral law of the Old Testament has no relevance to the New Testament Christian is antinomianism." First, we are NOT saying that Torah has no relevance to the New Testament Christian. In many posts here, I have outlined precisely how the Torah pointed to Jesus of Nazareth. Also, I have talked at great length about how those two commandments which Christ used to summarize Torah are applicable to ANY circumstance we might face in this life - that they truly present a universal and eternal moral standard for humankind! Hence, I am perplexed by his charge of antinomianism - perhaps he didn't fully understand that heresy? OR He has wrongly assumed that we are advocating the abandonment of ANY moral standard?
- excerpted from What parts of the law are still relevant to us today?
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia's article on the subject, Antinomianism is "The heretical doctrine that Christians are exempt from the obligations of moral law. The term first came into use at the Protestant Reformation, when it was employed by Martin Luther to designate the teachings of Johannes Agricola and his secretaries, who, pushing a mistaken and perverted interpretation of the Reformer's doctrine of justification by faith alone to a far-reaching but logical conclusion, asserted that, as good works do not promote salvation, so neither do evil works hinder it; and, as all Christians are necessarily sanctified by their very vocation and profession, so as justified Christians, they are incapable of losing their spiritual holiness, justification, and final salvation by any act of disobedience to, or even by any direct violation of the law of God . This theory — for it was not, and is not necessarily, anything more than a purely theoretical doctrine, and many professors of Antinomianism, as a matter of fact, led, and lead, lives quite as moral as those of their opponents — was not only a more or less natural outgrowth from the distinctively Protestant principle of justification by faith, but probably also the result of an erroneous view taken with regard to the relation between the Jewish and Christian dispensations and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments . Doubtless a confused understanding of the Mosaic ceremonial precepts and the fundamental moral law embodied in the Mosaic code was to no small extent operative in allowing the conception of true Christian liberty to grow beyond all reasonable bounds, and to take the form of a theoretical doctrine of unlimited licentiousness." -Antinomianism - Catholic Encyclopedia Online
The fact that Christ has left in place the basis for the entire law (love for God and each other) makes us immune to the charge of antinomianism. Hence, if we retain these, we have done NO violence to God's character. In fact, Christ and we have preserved this expression of his "immutable" character. In other words, like God's nature and character, the underlying premise of the Law in both Testaments is the same - it is UNCHANGED! Moreover, in doing this, Christ rendered these distinctions between moral and ceremonial laws completely unnecessary. In other words, we don't have to decide which laws are moral or which individual laws still have relevance to Christians! God expects Christians to be faithful to their spouses, but not because God told the Israelites not to commit adultery. Instead, Christians are expected to be faithful because not doing so would hurt or harm another human - it would violate the command to love each other. Likewise, it is NOT permissible for Christians to engage in prostitution, or any other behavior which intentionally exploits another human for some personal advantage/benefit. The foundation is unchanged, but the legislation is different.
In a 2020 article for The Gospel Coalition, Pastor Matt Smethurst wrote: "This is the central message of the New Testament: God gives in the gospel what he demands in the law. At bottom, Christians aren’t bound by the Jewish law because our Lord Jesus kept it for us. He fulfilled its ceremonies, its festivals, its sacrifices, its moral demands. The law’s ultimate purpose was always to point to our need for a Savior—one who would forgive us and change us from the inside out, rather than leaving us to reform and redeem ourselves."
Why Don't Christians Keep the Jewish Law?
I like that. Jesus filled Torah to the full in EVERY way! He did that for us. In doing so, however, he did NOT give us a license to sin. No, he imposed on us the very same foundation on which Torah was constructed, and he did so in a way that is morally much more rigorous than the 613 commandments of Torah which the Israelites were expected to obey!
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