Yesterday we celebrated my son Rylee’s 1st birthday. Rylee is named after the 19th century Anglican bishop, J.C. Ryle (along with my dad, Chandler, which is Rylee’s middle name).

Before we lit the cake and sang to little Rylee, I briefly explained to our friends and family what made J.C. Ryle so special, and why I’d name my son after an Anglican.

Broadening those thoughts just a bit, here is a good summary of what I admire most in Ryle, taken from Ryle himself in Knots Untied:

Ryle was an Evangelical

What is Evangelical Religion?

1) The first leading feature in Evangelical Religion is the absolute supremacy it assigns to Holy Scripture, as the only rule of faith and practice…

2) The second leading feature in Evangelical Religion is the depth and prominence it assigns to the doctrine of human sinfulness and corruption…

All men…are not only in a miserable, pitiable, and bankrupt condition, but in a state of guilt, imminent danger, and condemnation before God…

Hence we protest with all our heart against formalism, sacramentalism, and every species of mere external or vicarious Christianity. We maintain that all such religion is founded on an inadequate view of man’s spiritual need.

3) The third leading feature in Evangelical Religion is the paramount importance it attaches to the work and office of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the nature of the salvation which He has wrought out for man…

4) The fourth leading feature in Evangelical Religion is the high place which it assigns to the inward work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of man…

We maintain that the things which need most to be pressed on men’s attention are those mighty works of the Holy Spirit, inward repentance, inward faith, inward hope, inward hatred of sin, and inward love to God’s law…

5) The fifth and last leading feature in Evangelical Religion is the importance which it attaches to the outward and visible work of the Holy Ghost in the life of man…

The true grace of God is a thing that will always make itself manifest in the conduct, behaviour, tastes, ways, choices and habits of him who has it. It is not a dormant thing…

To tell a man he is “born of God”, or regenerated, while he is living in carelessness or sin, is a dangerous delusion…

Where there is the grace of the Spirit there will always be more or less fruit of the Spirit.

I am thankful for Ryle and his legacy of Gospel faithfulness. And I encourage you to get to know him better if you’re not familiar with his writings.

First, Fesko begins by examining the Prologue to the 10 Commandments (Ex 20:1-2), brilliantly demonstrating how this introduction is absolutely vital to a proper understanding of what follows –specifically because the prologue and a proper understanding of what it refers to in Israel’s history is a proclamation of the gospel before the Law is ever administrated. If we miss the prologue, we miss the gospel, we miss Christ, and we will misinterpret the Law that follows. Moralism/Phariseeism/antinomianism abounds because this prologue is neglected and ignored when so many come to interpret the 10 commandments.

From there Fesko breaks down each commandment in its historical, covenantal, and redemptive context, as well as its vertical dimension. Regarding this last perspective, Fesko stresses that although we may loosely identify the ‘two tables’ of the law as the first 4 being our duty to God and the last 6 being our duty to man, he rightly identifies that each one of the commandments has both vertical and horizontal dimensions. The 4th commandment, for example, is directed towards God but also has specific application towards man and animals. Another example would be the 5th and the 7th commandment, which David upon committing declares to God that “Against you, you only, have I sinned”.

But the redemptive context perspective is what makes this book so special. Christ is the focus from beginning to end. The believer’s trajectory of interpretation for each commandment must be through the lens of Christ’s accomplished work. We are not to look at Law-Application, but rather Law-Christ’s Work-Application to our lives.

God has saved us to reflect His image as His chosen and beloved people. Our looking into the law, in addition to it serving as a constant reminder and goad to see our need and fix our eyes upon Christ, is for us to reflect the righteousness of Jesus Christ in all our obedience, as He is the exact impersonation of the Law of God.

This is a very special book. It’s concise, easy to read, and its application reaches far and wide. It will make both the antinomian and the legalist sqirm with discomfort, which what makes it such a special treatment of this subject. Not only that, but this book will continually point people to the cross and to Jesus Christ, on every page and with every point made. The gospel-centered approach makes this book really a book about the gospel, even an expounding of the gospel at that, as the Christ-centeredness transcends and even swallows up at times the book’s main subject matter, the 10 commandments.

Also see:

• How Jesus Transforms the Ten Commandments, by the great Ed Clowney
• Law of Perfect Freedom: Relating to God and Others Through the Ten Commandments, by Mike Horton

Update:

I made a comment in the meta below that I thought would be a beneficial part of this post. My thoughts here are related to the book recommendation only in that it’s a little of my own thinking on the subject. The author never explicitly comes to the conclusions I do below.

Let me give a further example of the love and Christ-centeredness of the Law:

The New Testament teaches that there is no greater love than laying down our lives for a friend. Pure love, as it were, is absolutely selfless, up to the point of death if necessary. And in the NT Jesus Christ is given as our supreme example in this sacrificial love. But when we look at His act of love, we understand first that He came to earth to ‘do the will of His father’. That is, His sacrificial death was in obedience to His father’s will, even as He wrestled in the garden with following through with it.

Thus, the 5th commandment commands us to honor and obey our parents. Jesus, in the greatest act of love in the history of the world, was actually obeying His Father’s will first and foremost (obeying the 5th commandment) in laying down His life. So if we look at the 5th commandment isolated from the rest of scripture, we will see nothing different than what pagan nations since the beginning of time have agreed with, and we will undoubtedly setup this command in a moralistic/legalistic/secularistic manner. But if we look at this commandment in light of Christ and how He fulfilled it, only then can we truly understand the ‘love’ that is at its root. In other words, Christ obeyed His father first and foremost, but it was through this obedience He subsequently performed the greatest act of love towards us as well. Therefore, the purest form of love always has obedience to God’s law (the Ten) at its root; and the purest act of obedience to God’s law always has love towards God/others at its root. The two are interchangeable, and cannot ever be separated, otherwise we will become legalists.

The issue of love and its relation to both God and man is explicit when we come to the 4th commandment (and even the 10th). For we not only obey our God in keeping the Sabbath holy, but we obey as an act of love towards our neighbors, family, foreigners, and even animals. This is one reason why the notion that the 4th is ceremonial cannot be biblically supported. Foreigners and animals don’t have anything to do with Jewish ceremonies/the covenant, and violating the command, per the text, is sinning against both God AND man. In other words, it is a failure to love God and a failure to love our fellow man when we break the 4th commandment. It’s not one or the other. Breaking the 4th commandment always results in a failure to love. And it is only when we throw out the notion that the Law=love do we then misunderstand and misapply (annul or legalize) the 4th commandment.

Thus, the Law serves as an explanation of the perfect life of Christ, as a demonstration of perfect love towards God and man. We don’t jump directly from the Law to application to our lives; we look at the Law, look at it in relation to Christ as an expression of love, and only then do we move towards application in our own lives.

“An idea is man, who attains knowledge by analysis, is brought in from things themselves. Things exist first in themselves and then come into the senses of men and finally to the understanding, where they can form an idea to direct a subsequent operation. But God knows all things by genesis and does not require knowledge through analysis of things; therefore all things are first in His mind before they are in themselves.” -i,vii,15

“In us the things themselves are the pattern and our knowledge is the image of them. But in God the divine knowledge is the pattern and the things themselves are the image or express likeness of it.” -i,vii,16

“An idea in man is first impressed upon him and afterwards expressed in things, but in God it is only expressed, not impressed, because it does not come from anywhere else.” -i,vii,17

“From this one foundation all errors of merit and forseen faith can be sufficiently refuted. For if a particular decree of God depended upon any foresight then an idea of God would have come to Him from somewhere else, which hardly agrees with His nature.” -i,vii,18

“A Middle Knowledge by which God is imagined by some to know by hypothesis before the decree of His will that certain things will be, if such and such free causes meet such and such conditions –knowledge of this kind cannot stand with the absolute perfection of God. For it both supposes that events will happen independently of the will of God and also makes some knowledge of God depend on the object.” -i,vii,28

“Therefore the opinion which holds that God will something antecedent to the acts of a creature and consequent to the acts…is not to be allowed. This makes the will of God mutable and dependent upon the act of the creature, so that as often as the act of the creature is changed God’s will itself is changed.” -i,vii,43

“According to the same opinion, that form of speech prescribed in the word of God whereby we commit ourselves and all of ours to God –I will do this or that, if God wills– is not always to be used: it should be turned around to state that God will do this or that, if man wills.” -i,vii,44

{Here is a brief synopsis of this book for those interested}

“[There is nothing] in theology which does not refer to the final end or to the means related to that end -all of which refer directly to practice.” – I, i, 11, P78

“This practice of life is so perfectly reflected in theology that there is no precept or universal truth relevant to living well in domestic economy, morality, political life, or lawmaking which does not rightly pertain to theology.” – I, i, 12, P78

{Here is a brief synopsis of this book for those interested}

Thus, in order to properly understand the context of this post, please start with Post 1 before continuing below, as I anticipate that each post to build upon each other.

Aim of this Review
Please understand that I have no intention of fully presenting each author’s point of view. Instead, my aim is to present a basic overview of each man’s position, as I understood it, and then provide some quotes to highlight the strength and weaknesses of each author.

Overview of Willem A. Van Gemeren’s “Reformed” Essay on Law and Gospel
Though I myself adhere to the ‘Reformed’ view on Law and Gospel, I found this essay by Willem A. Van Gemeren to be the weakest in the book. Though I agree with his view on just about every point, I did not find his essay convincing or properly presented for the format of this discussion (which was debate-style, apologetic type book). The essay simply seemed unorganized, broad, with no real progression of argument, and written as if the reading audience was one that was already convinced of his position.

Summary of the Reformed position:
The Reformed position is one that believes there to be continuity between the Old Testament and New Testament Law, with discontinuity only being identified by NT texts. This is in contrast to total discontinuity argued for by Dispensationalism/New Covenant Theology (NCT). The Reformed position divides the Law of God into 3 categories: Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial Law. Moral Law in the Old Testament is not repealed for Christians in the NT. Civil Law, in contrast to Bahnsen’s Theonomic view, has (largely) been repealed by the New Testament/New Covenant. And Ceremonial Law was fulfilled in the appearing, Person, and work of Jesus Christ. These categories are helpful in helping us understand the OT Law in relation to the NT law, but are not categories explicitly used in scripture. In addition to this, the Reformed position sees the 10 commandments as the summary of the ‘moral’ law, and from texts like Romans 2, would argue that this same moral law has been written on the hearts of all men.

Here are some choice quotes to help you understand for yourself what the author presents: [My comments here will be preceded by '--NW']

P15: “…Law and Gospel are not in opposition to each other because Law contains Gospel and the Gospel contains Law. Both Law and Gospel affirm the place of the moral law as a “perfect rule of righteousness.”

p16: “The total witness of the Old and the New Testament has a “basic unity and continuity of the biblical ethic.”

P16: “…the Reformed view of the law of God is the result of integration of exegesis” P16 –NW: On this point I believe the author makes a very important point. Throughout the book it becomes clear that Strickland and Moo, and to some extent Bahnsen, rely on arguments that are largely theology and structurally driven. However, I also saw Van Gemeren’s essay as severely lacking in exegesis as well, but I believe his overall position (which is almost identical to Kaiser’s) is the only one explicitly driven by exegesis of the text rather than an overarching system of theology ruling the interpretation.

P20-21: he argues from the Hebrew that the nouns and verbs that describe Noah being ‘righteous’ and Abraham who “obeyed Me and kept My requirements”, anticipated the revelation at Mount Sinai. In other words, the obedience of these men is described as synonyms of obedience to the Mosaic (moral) Law –thus the moral portion of the Law given to Moses was not something new, a very important point.

P20-21: he argues that the moral law revealed in the Creation order is the same law that Noah and Abraham had ‘internalized’, though unwritten, and that “the written law became necessary because of human sin and hardness of heart.” But “Since the will of God does not change, the law remains virtually the same throughout redemptive history.”

P25: after quoting Psalm 147 and Psalm 19: “Far from looking at the law as a negative experience, saints in the Old Testament rejoiced in this revelation…” Many similar passages/comments are made.

P27: “Moses’ ministry prepared the people for the coming of Christ. Hebrews portrays him as a witness to the coming of Jesus Christ (Heb 3:5)…Moses witnessed through the Torah to the spirituality of the covenant and to the need of a redeemer whose atonement would remove the burden of the law.” –NW: Here is a great section identifying the Christocentric nature of the OT Law, culminating in the following statements, which show that the Law has never been an end or focus itself, but has always had Christ at its center.

P28: “The Mosaic covenant is a development of God’s covenant with creation…and with Abraham…In other words, the Mosaic covenant is a sovereign administration of grace and promise by which the Lord consecrated a people to Himself under the sanctions of His holy law…The Law was never intended to be the focus or the end in itself.”

P29: “The Decalogue…opening provides a constant reminder that the context of law is God’s work of redemption: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Ex. 20:2)”. Obedience to the commandments is in response to God’s grace in being Israel’s deliverer.” –NW: A good point when we consider all the NT texts which refer to our salvation as ‘redemption’, and other phrases drawing from the imagery of the Exodus from the bondage of Egypt. The people of Israel and their Exodus is a picture of the People of God and the Exodus found through faith in Christ. And the giving of the Law has always been an act of God’s grace; and our obedience has always been first and foremost out of love in response to what God has done for us.

P34: Regarding the concept of love that underlies the Law: “C. Craigie sees rightly law and covenant in the context of love: “The Decalogue was representative of God’s love in that its injunctions, both negative and positive, led not to a restriction of life, but to fullness of life.”

P34: “Obedience to the law always begins with a heart that fears the Lord…” And he goes on to examine several Old Testament texts such as Prov 3:5-7, Psalm 15 and 24, Isa. 57:15 and 66:1-2, Mic. 6:8, Hos 6:6 and Zech 8:16-17, to demonstrate that obedience to God’s law, even OT law, always entails heart obedience rather than just outward obedience.

P36: “The Ten commandments, as a summary of the moral law, are a guide in the imitation of God. By the Spirit the letter becomes alive and powerful within the hearts of the godly.”

P38: “Jesus gave a stricter observance of external concerns than the rabbis. He rejected the mere observance of external concerns and complacency with tradition…He abrogated not one commandment but instead intensified them all.” –NW: Furthermore, the entire New Testament intensifies the commandments. The New Testament opens them up, expands them in revealing their true nature, builds principles/inferences upon them, and presses them home at the root level of the heart. This is much different than the replacement idea of a ‘new’ law that is argued for by Dispensationalism/NCT.

P38: quoting John Murray: “…Jesus came to realize the full measure of the intent and purpose of the law and the prophets…to bring to full fruition and perfect fulfillment the law and the prophets.”p39: “…Jesus simplified the complexity of the Mosaic law by focusing on one word (“love”)…Because He is greater than Moses…He authoritatively summarized the moral law of God in two commandments…”

P42: “…I agree with Ladd when he says, “more than once he [the apostle Paul] asserts that it is the new life of the Spirit that enables the Christian truly to fulfill the Law (Rom. 8:3-4; 13:10; Gal. 5:14).

P45: Quoting E.F. Kevan: “Any change in relation to Law that occurs in Christianity is not in the Law but in the believer…To say that Christian conduct is now governed by holy principles is…incorrect…if it meant that any withdrawal or modification of the Law.”

P45: Discussing the need and relevance of the Law: “Sin and rebelliousness keep humans from reflecting the divine perfections and from understanding the moral law as revealed in creation….The Law at Mount Sinai made much more explicit the moral law and supplemented the moral law with ceremonial and judicial regulations.”

P48: “The Mosaic administration by itself is incomplete but has an eschatological and Christological focus.”

P51: “The law is “the heart and core of Scripture” (quoting Hesselink on Calvin). “…the prophets and psalmists, apostles and Christ Himself are all nothing but expounders and interpreters of the law.” –NW: Again, Christ and the NT authors expound and interpret the Law; they never replace it.

P51: The law…”used to be a pedagogue…but now that Christ has come, He is the focus, the perfection, the complement, the fulfillment of the law…whatever perfections the law has, they reveal Christ.” –NW: Again, the Christocentric nature of the OT Law clearly continues on, as Christ continues on. To replace the OT Law is to annul its Christocentric nature.

P51: Quoting Hesselink, “The whole of the law then -not only the covenant but also its promises, threats, rules and regulations, sacrifices and ceremonies- finds its meaning in Christ who is its life, soul, spirit, substance, fulfillment and goal.”

P52: “What then is the power of the moral law since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Negatively, it no longer has the power to bind (Rom 7:6; Matt 5:17) or condemn us…by its teachings, admonishments, reproofs, and corrections, the law is the instrument of growth in faith and sanctification (2 Tim 3:16-17).

P53: “The moral law is summarized in the Ten Commandments and was supplemented by the ceremonial and judicial laws.”

P53: “The moral law is the rule of perfect righteousness.” –NW: This is supplemented by Jesus and the Apostles as well (Matt 19:16).

P54: “These commandments (Ten) put our love for God to the test, because it is all too easy to assume to one’s relationship with God is good.”

P55: “Berkouwer express it pointedly, “There is no difference between Christian liberty and being ‘under the law of Christ.’”

Here are some excerpts of Greg Bahnsen’s reply to this essay:

P59: “Our hearts surely beat in tune with the recurring and tender not throughout Dr. VanGemeren’s essay that Sprit-given understanding of the Law of God serves to magnify our need and love for the gospel of God’s grace in Christ.”

P61: “The task of critically analyzing VanGemeren’s essay…however, is made almost impossible by his manner of presentation. To go right to the point: there is simply nothing like an argument here -no discursive and systematic unfolding of a particular and clearly defined conclusion (or interrelated set of conclusions)…It is sometimes not easy to find natural transitions, logical connections or subordination between points, interfacing of of interpretations of texts, conceptual synthesis, or precision.”

P64: “…the judicial code is simply the application of the Decalogue (and thus an unpacking of its meaning).” –NW: With this I agree, though I do not see how his argument for Theonomy then follows from this premise. (More on this when we get to Bahnsen’s essay.)

P65: “…when God’s people get embroiled in moral dilemmas, they desire more inspired law (guidance), not less. It is surely no blessing to be left only with broad generalities: e.g., see how many people are blessed and happy by trying to play a basketball game under the single rule of ‘play fair’.” –NW: A very poignant reminder that all forms of antinomianism down through history have lead to eventual shipwreck.

P65: “In the teaching of Jesus (as well as of Paul), love does not replace the law (or its complexity then), but provides a summary statement. A summary does not abrogate that which it summarizes.”

P67: “The judicial law was not…’abrogated’…what was binding in the judicial laws was not their specific cultural form, but their underlying principle or purpose.” –NW: Here Bahnsen simply disagrees with the statements made by VanGermeren that the judicial laws have been abrogated. I think Bahnsen makes a great point, but again, I do not see how his position then follows; this is something I will expand upon when we get to his presentation.

Here are some excerpts of Walter Kaiser’s reply to this essay:

P70: “The covenant of Grace is divided into two ‘administrations’: Law and Gospel, even though neither administration is devoid of either Law or Gospel, since Law contains the Gospel and Gospel contains the Law.”

P70: “The focus of biblical ethics remains very much the same for both Old and New Testaments…It is the call for holiness of life. Since God is holy, His moral law is holy.”

P71: “Following the lead of Calvin, VanGemeren argues for the existence of a moral order in creation prior to the publication of the will of God in the Mosaic covenant…This natural law reveals both the will of God and His attributes. It is for this reason that the human race was accountable to the same standard of righteousness even prior to the publication of the law of God under Moses…I find this to be an especially strong argument.”

P72: Discussing apparent contradictions in statements of the Apostle Paul, “…the Christian belongs to the new creation of God and therefore may use the law of God only as it is internalized by the Holy Spirit in producing righteousness and in creating a new community that fulfills the law of love. This is not to argue for some new replacement theology wherein the Spirit now replaces the law, but it is to recognize the key role that the Holy Spirit plays in transforming us to apply the moral law of God.”

P75: Discussing the third use of the law, Kaiser says, “This third use of the law guides believers in righteousness, provides a basis for obedience, yet does so without enslaving any who are so bound to this, which may now also be called the “law of Christ”.

P75: “God’s law can only be kept by His grace. Moreover, as VanGemeren concludes, it may only be appreciated in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ and kept by the power of the Holy Spirit –all this is true for either Testament!”

Here are some excerpts of Wayne Strickland’s reply to this essay:

Strickland focuses on some details like some NT commands that aren’t found in the Old, or that contradict the Old, like marriage to non-Jews (P79).

P80: commenting on Heb 8:6, “…there has been an abrogation of the entire Mosaic law with the coming of Christ…”

P80: “…it is not the moral law of the Mosaic code that the Holy Spirit employs to supervise the believer; rather, it is the law of Christ that is made imperative by the Spirit.” –NW: Note, throughout the book, neither Strickland nor Moo ever really define this ‘law of Christ’, other than implying that it only contains what is repeated in the New Testament alone. Very ambiguous.

P81: Strickland mentions that the Sabbath commandment ‘provides a mechanism for testing the accuracy and coherency of the Reformed paradigm with regard to the applicability of the law in ethics.” –NW: This is an fairly accurate observation, but it fails to recognize the greater implications of the differences between the Reformed and Dispensational/NCT position. The Sabbath is often seen as the crux, but it is the overall hermenutic that has greater (often unseen on the surface) and more serious implications.

P81: Strickland then goes on to argue that the Sabbath was never a creation ordinance, that it has been abrogated in the NT, that it has not changed to Sunday, thus the authority of the entire Decalogue is undermined. –NW: Weak arguments that fail to account for the development and support of the Sabbath in the New Testament, not to mention the explicit upholding of the Decalogue in the New Testament. But this is surprisingly one of the only times in the book the Sabbath comes up, so I will not deal with it here.

P82: “…submission and obedience must be to the law of Christ rather than to the law of Moses.” –NW: A very misleading statement, for Reformed theologians would agree that Moses is not our head or our teacher. We would argue that the ‘law of Christ’ has the Law of Moses as its foundation and support. Just like the ‘Israel of God’ is not an entirely new creation, but a starting with ethnic Isreal and then expanding to all the nations, the Law of God starts with Israel as its foundation and is opened up by Jesus and the Apostles to reach its true meanining/intention.

Here are some excerpts of Doug Moo’s reply to this essay:

P83: “I commend VanGemeren for insisting on the clear and unchanging standards of God’s moral law.”

P85: “I want to make clear that I am not denying that the Mosaic law, especially the Ten Commandments, contains principles and requirements that reflect God’s eternal moral will. My point, rather, is that the Mosaic law is not identical with this eternal moral law.” –NW: Reformed theologians would agree that the 10 are not exhaustive of the moral law, but is rather how God/scripture summarizes the essence of the moral law, but would disagree that the Ten are (ultimately) subjective/optional principles, retaining instead their status as commands.

P85: “What is the evidence for treating the Ten Commandments as eternal moral law in distinction from the rest of the Mosaic Law? VanGemeren provides little. He notes that these ‘ten words’ are apodictic in form, expressing therefore principles upon which the rest of the law is built.” –NW: He is right in that Van Gemeren provides little justification of this, but he would be wrong in assuming that this Biblical justification does not exist.

P85: Commenting on Col. 2:14: “Clearly…Paul would not be thinking only of sins committed against the ceremonial law; he must be thinking of the Mosaic law as a whole.” –NW: Of course, but this fails to grasp the Reformed position, and deal properly with the issue of obedience/sanctification of the law, rather than simply justification only. This error by Moo and Strickland can be seen throughout.

P86: “Paul claims explicitly that Christians, led by the Spirit and subject to the ‘law of Christ’…are not ‘under law’ (the Mosaic law).” –NW: A shallow dealing with Paul’s argument, what Paul means by ‘law of Christ’, and how not being ‘under law’ means the Mosaic law only. Too many questions/contradictions not dealt with here.

P87: “There is no evidence that Jesus isolated the Ten Commandments from the rest of the Mosaic law and put them in a separate category.” –NW: One wonders how Moo can say this considering the most famous and far-reaching sermon of all time, the Sermon on the Mount, not to mention Matthew 19…etc.

P87: commenting on Mark 7 where Jesus declares all foods clean, “…Mark is telling us that Jesus teaches that His followers need no longer obey large sections of the Mosaic law. I am not necessarily claiming that this means that we, as new covenant believers, no longer obey the law in the form it was originally given; we are not directly under its authority.” –NW: We are not under the Old Covenant, but the Old Covenant Law is the foundation upon which the New Covenant is built and sustained.

P87: “It is only as we look at the way that Jesus and the writers of the New Testament treat the commandments of the Mosaic law that we can know which ones continue to apply directly to us and which ones no longer do.” –NW: This is as close as he gets to defining this ‘law of Christ’. However, Moo makes a great point here; the NT and the Spirit teach us how to interpret, apply, and divide the OT Law.

P88: “…(Christ) is the ‘filter’ through which the whole law must go…”

P88: “…worshiping on the first day of the week is not what the fourth commandment requires: It explicitly requires cessation of work on the seventh day.” –NW: Clearly Moo misses the point of the command, and fails to account for the full, biblical development of the 4th commandment (which continues on into eternity…thus it is a moral issue; a baffling oversight on his part), particularly in what we see in Isaiah 58, etc.

P88: Just like Strickland, Moo argues that the Sabbath commandment is the “crucial ‘test case’, suggesting that the Ten Commandments, in their Mosaic form, were not intended by God to be eternally binding on all people everywhere.” –NW: This, like Strickland, fails to see the greater implications of the disagreement.

P89: Speaking of the other 9 commandments (minus the Sabbath), “They are binding on us not because they are in the Ten Commandments but because the New Testament makes clear that they are expressions of God’s eternal moral law.” –NW: One is left wondering how such a position can be consistently maintained and applied. This example shows why Moo is repeatedly the most ambiguous and subjective of all the participants in the book.

P89: “…Christians live under the ‘law of Christ’ and not under the Mosaic law.” –NW: The crux of the matter here is that Moo (as we will see) argues for a form of Replacement theology that exegesis simply cannot support.

That is certainly more than enough for this portion. Next I will attempt to review Greg Bahnsen’s Theonomic position, which I hope will be a much shorter post.

The contributors and their respective positions are as follows:

• Wayne G. Strickland: Dispensational
• Dr. Walter C. Kaiser Jr.: ‘Evangelical’
• Douglas J. Moo: ‘Modified Lutheran’
• Willem A. Van Gemeren: Reformed
• Greg Bahnsen: Theonomic

Because of the book’s length (416 pages of heavy material), I have decided to break up my review into 6 sections: this introduction post and 5 posts examining each position and their counter-points. This way there will be room for me (and you) to examine the claims and counter-claims.

Introduction

I have found the book fairly easy to read, but somewhat redundant. 400 pages is just too short of a space to present 5 different views. So because of the short space, there is not as much interaction as one would hope for. Basically, the author’s present their position based upon a number of proof texts, and the other authors don’t have the space to do much more than state broad counter-arguments and deal with one or two texts in depth. But as an broad overview of the respective positions, this book is a good introduction.

In reviewing this book, please note that I come at this discussion from a particular position, a Reformed Baptist position, you might say. You can cross-reference my confession for its statement on this issue if you like. Thus, my objective is not to present each position equally per se, but to simply cherry-pick a few statements where I agree or disagree, sharing a few thoughts of my own along the way. No matter where you come down on this issue, there are going to be stronger and weaker points of your position –and I hope to highlight some of these for each position, including my own.

Other important thing to remember about this book is that there are obviously strengths and weaknesses of each author and their ability to communicate and debate. This is unfortunate, in a way, because it can sway the reader in the direction of a particular position simply because the argument is better (rather than the truthfulness of scripture).

For example, I found the Reformed view, written by Willem A. Van Gemeren, to be the weakest in the book. Now on paper I agree with his view on just about every point, but he clearly did not write his essay from an apologetic or debate-like standpoint, and he is much less convincing than any of the other authors.

Another example with be Greg Bahnsen’s essay. I’m probably futher away from Bahnsen theologically, but he is a brilliant debator and I found his paper much more convincing than I anticipated.

So keep these things in mind, including the fact that we all approach this subject with presuppositions, when trying to be fair and objective in examining this book.

General Observations

When we get to where the rubber meets the road, I found that the authors had much more agreement than disagreement. Basically, from my perspective, they all agree with some continuity of Law between Old Testament and New Testament, thus they end up spending their time arguing over how much, and what theological perspective we use in determining this.

Bahnsen, Van Gemeren, and Kaiser are in almost 100% agreement, with Bahnsen’s theonomy being the only significant point of disagreement.

On the other side of the ring, Moo and Strickland are in almost 100% agreement, though they differ on how they each get there.

Thus, the book really ends up being 3 against 2, with Bahnsen kind of being the odd man in the middle (all disagree with him on theonomy).

Furthermore, I found Kaiser to be the most exegetical (which isn’t surprising), with Bahnsen and Moo close behind. Van Gemeren was clearly the most dogmatic and theological.

Note the length of each essay:

• Wayne G. Strickland: 50 pages
• Dr. Walter C. Kaiser Jr.: 22 pages
• Douglas J. Moo: 57 pages
• Willem A. Van Gemeren: 45 pages
• Greg Bahnsen: 50 pages

From a personal standpoint, I found myself aligning most with Kaiser’s view (his essay was the strongest, IMO, even though it was by far the shortest), followed by Van Germeren, then Bahnsen, Moo, and least of all, with Strickand. I certainly wish that some of the key texts were isolated and all 5 guys presented their own exegesis for us to review, but there is enough here to form some very clear opinions.

Conclusion

A good introduction to the Law/Gospel issue, though there are some pretty big theological words used throughout. I would recommend it to the semi-advanced student of theology and layman.

Next post: I will examine the introductory essay, the Reformed view, by Willem A. Van Gemeren, and the counter-arguments from the other men.

I think the paragraphs below, particularly the last one, aptly demonstrates how biblical history is bound up and structured as a whole through God’s covenants with man. The structure and unity of the Bible from beginning to end, I believe, can only be properly understood by examining the covenants and their role in the final consummation of the Kingdom of God ruled by our Lord Jesus Christ.

“…I AM’s refreshing initiatives and these faithful leaders are usually associated with I AM’s epoch-shaping covenants, wherein He obligates Himself, sometimes unconditionally and at other times conditionally, to His people’s keeping the ethical obligations He imposes upon them. Moshe Weinfeld affirms that “the idea of a covenant between a deity and a people is unknown to us from other religions and cultures” and “the covenantal idea was a special feature of the religion of Israel.

“To Eve He unconditionally obligated Himself to give her an offspring who would crush humankind’s Adversary. To Noah, because he proved himself faithful, He promised unconditionally never again to destroy the earth. To Abraham, because he too obeyed God, He promised unconditionally to give him an eternal seed and land. Through the mediation of Moses, God obligated Himself conditionally to bless Israel. To David, also because of his prior demonstration of faith, He unconditionally covenanted to give an eternal house, kingdom, and throne.

“…As for the prophets, Israel’s memories of these epochs, personalities, and covenants lay the foundation for the prophetic expectation that Israel’s history will culminate in a greater epoch, which they often referred to as “in that day.” In that day, I AM, Israel’s covenant keeping King, promises to restore His universal rule through His covenant people. Through Jeremiah and other prophets, God indebted Himself unconditionally to make a new covenant whereby Israel would obey God from their hearts and so meet the obligations of the Mosaic covenant and be blessed…In that day, the prophets announced, all people will worship God on Mount Zion, learn His law, and beat their swords into plow tips.

“…The covenants attached to these epochal events are described in ways that bring out their continuity with the concerns, themes, and trajectories of the founding moment. As noted, the seed promised to Eve is foundational to all the covenants in making God’s kingdom [my note here: the author is referring to the Covenant of Grace]. The Noahic covenant guarantees a firm stage on which God can build His kingdom. The Abrahamic covenant identifies the covenant people and the land that will sustain them. The Mosaic covenant articulates the teachings or law that will bind the nation together under God’s rule. The Davidic covenant provides the nation with the unchanging political leadership necessary for God’s theocracy to be firmly established.” – Bruce Waltke, An Old Testament Theology, P148-149

“Although there is not a single passage in the Bible that tells us what Jesus would do on a whole host of personal and social issues of morality, economics, politics, and law, we often hear confident jeremiads and assertions by the same people who express ambiguity (disguised as humility) about matters clearly addressed and treated as matters of great importance in Scripture.” (Mike Horton, Christless Christianity, P110)

“Why must denominations commit their entire membership to very specific policies while often leaving matters of doctrine and worship more ambigious and open-ended?” (P214)

I think the above quotes by Mike Horton identify a very accurate characteristic of many Christians today. I likewise find it odd that so many Christians can wax eloquent on issues such as politics, alcohol, music and movie preferences, homeschooling, modest dress for women, tithing, duty of evangelism, duty of ‘quiet time’, and a host of other ‘practical’ issues of Christianity and this culture, but yet do not know the first thing about such things as the doctrine of election, or sanctification, or worst of all, justification, etc.

A modern example of this would be the Southern Baptist Convention’s system of ‘resolutions’, in which they will condemn the drinking of alcohol, or state conclusions on issues such as global warming, and yet taking serious steps to reform their church membership, worship, evangelism, and most importantly, doctrine, fall by the wayside. They are more sure that they are right about alcohol than they are about monumental issues such as Calvinism –and there is something seriously wrong with that.

Post-modernism has also played a role in blurring matters of doctrine by convincing people that the truth on any hotly disputed point is ultimately unknown, but amazingly, this hasn’t hit the ‘practical living’ side of Christianity near as hard (yet). We still have a dedicated ‘conservative’ Christian center which, despite being amazingly shallow, still ‘clings to guns and religion’ when it comes to drinking, dancing, smoking, etc.

I am frankly shocked at how many Christians that I’ve run into who believe that things such as the free-will versus predestination debate are really just ‘words and names’, that it really doesn’t matter what side you come down on regarding this, and that maybe even the truth of what scripture teaches here is unknowable. Yet these same people will often disown you for not meeting their preferences in some of the practical issues I mentioned above –a fact that I find astounding.

As I have said before, I highly recommend Christless Christianity to you, as I consider it to be one of the most important books written in the last few years.

Today’s topic: What is the Gospel?
Recently, on a discussion list I am a member of, a friend of mine asked the following question, requesting a response:

What is the Gospel?

A. A Command
B. An Announcement
C. An Offer
D. All of the above
E. Something else

How would you answer this question? I certainly think there is some legitimacy in “all of the above”, but if we’re completely honest about how scripture presents the gospel, I must say that ‘B’, an announcement, probably begins to answer the question best.

Consider this in light of the following excerpt:

“J. Gresham Machen’s cry, directed at Protestant liberalism, can as easily be addressed to evangelicals today: “What I need first of all is not exhortation, but a gospel, not directions for saving myself but knowledge of how God has saved me. Have you any good news? That is the question I ask of you. I know your exhortations will not help. But if anything has been done to save me, will you not tell me the facts?”

As I read through this book, I begun to realize how our culture, and certainly myself included at times, have gotten the gospel backwards. Even in solid, bible-believing reformed circles, too often the gospel is a great exhortation to ‘believe’, or ‘repent’, or ‘place faith in Christ’, or ‘deny yourself’, or any number of things which center on us doing something. This, I fear, many otherwise sincere believers sometimes misunderstand.

But the gospel and our response to the gospel are two different things. We cannot preach our response to the gospel and call it ‘the gospel’; to do so would just preach ourselves. Rather, we must understand that we only call for our response to the gospel after the proclamation of good news has first been given, instead of the other way around.

More on this to come.

The purpose of my mention of it today is not to discuss Gay marriage, the Bible’s specific teaching on the subject, our even our attitude to the culture’s slow-but-sure acceptance of sodomy. Mohler does a good job hitting a few high points, and over at Phil Johnson’s blog, Frank Turk posts some valuable insight as well.

Rather, I would like to briefly discuss interpretation of scripture. So let’s start by considering a few quotes out of this Newsweek article, which again, is labeled a “Religious” (or ‘biblical’) case for the acceptance of homosexual ‘marriage’:

“Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does. Shall we look to Abraham, the great patriarch, who slept with his servant when he discovered his beloved wife Sarah was infertile? Or to Jacob, who fathered children with four different women (two sisters and their servants)? Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon and the kings of Judah and Israel—all these fathers and heroes were polygamists.”

“…in the Old Testament, “examples of what social conservatives call ‘the traditional family’ are scarcely to be found.”

Miller also goes into the New Testament teaching on marriage, seemingly arguing that it’s a matter of confusion and ambiguity rather than clarity, but again, what struck me about this article is how the author interprets scripture.

At face value, Miller is dead-on with her assertion that the Bible, especially the Old Testament, presents heroes and righteous men who had their serious defects regarding ‘traditional’ marriage. She mentions Abraham, Jacob, Solomon and others above, but there’s also Samson, Hosea, and who can forget ‘Rahab the Harlot’. Not only are these figures spoken very highly of in the Old Testament, but they are in the New Testament as well, as even Rahab and Samson are mentioned in the ‘Faith Hall of Fame” in Hebrews chapter 11.

So given the serious moral defects of many righteous believers in scripture, we must ask the question: Why has God preserved this record for us? Would it not be better to edit out the fact that Rahab was a prostitute, or that Samson was given over to sexual lust, or that David and his son Solomon, forerunners to Jesus Christ, were adulterers and men of seemingly uncontrollable (at times) sexual passion?

There are, of course, many reasons we could give for why God preserved this record for us –even more so for why He has exalted these men and women as great people of God. For starters, it speaks to the authenticity of scripture, the depravity of our nature –even redeemed nature, as well as the depths of God’s love and forgiveness through the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on behalf of these sins.

But what troubles me about this article is not what Miller is doing, for clearly she has entirely missed what the Bible clearly teaches in these areas. Rather, what troubles me about this article is that Miller is simply doing what conservative evangelicals all across our nation are doing, and indeed, have been doing for many ages: she is looking at scripture, particularly the examples of those who are presented as righteous believers, as if they were given to us chiefly as a moral, pious examples that we should follow.

Who can blame Miller for interpreting scripture like this when this Sunday countless pastors will stand in the pulpit and preach sermons such as ‘Dare to be a Daniel’, or ‘Slaying the Giants in your life’, etc.? For there is no doubt that evangelical culture in which we live has deadly assumption that the people in scripture, particularly the narratives of the Old Testament, are given to us primarily to provide us patterns of faith and behavior that we are to imitate. Friends, this is nothing less than ambiguity and situational ethics on the negative side, and moralism at it’s finest on the positive side.

Consider on the negative side, that the examples in scripture teach us what is wrong: if Abraham lied in certain situations, then maybe it’s OK for us to do likewise, in certain situations. Or if David was culpable to adultery and murder, and he was a great man of God, then although adultery and murder are not preferrable patterns of behavior, at least we know that it cannot be that big of deal in God’s eyes.

So taking the examples in scripture as helping us define right from wrong, we end up with ambiguity, situation ethics, and a flat out denial of scriptural truth, as in the case of Miller above.

But this pattern of interpretation couldn’t be further from the truth –and I hope to briefly illustrate this below. For even on the positive side, that scripture helps define for us what is right, the figures in scripture are not given to us primarily that we may follow their example, for that does nothing but preach to us a gospel of man, not a gospel of Jesus Christ. Indeed, even the ethical example of Jesus Christ are “secondary to and dependent upon the primary and unique work of Christ for us” (Goldsworthy, P4). Clearly, man is not in any way saved by his effort to imitate Jesus Christ, thus even His perfect ethical example is superseded by the message of the gospel itself.

Therefore, viewing scripture as if the men and women are given to us as examples of how we should or should not live, will always, always lead to some kind of error. Sure, we may not go to Miller’s extreme and use these examples to justify sodomy or adultery, for those sins are obvious in scripture. But take, for example, Gideon’s fleece in Judges 6:36-40: is this practice of testing God an acceptable practice for us to implement in this day? What about the story of Jephthah’s tragic vow in Judges 12:29-40? Or what about David’s dancing before the Ark (2 Sam 6:14); does this justify a similar practice in our day?

You see, in the three examples I give above, scripture is somewhat unclear on whether these actions, blessed actions by Godly men, are acceptable or not for us to imitate. And when we consider the great distance that stands between our situation and those events back then, we should be even more convinced that it is dangerous for us to use these events and others chiefly as examples for us to study and imitate.

In conclusion, the message of scripture is primarily and chiefly about what Jesus Christ has accomplished in His life, death, and resurrection. The stories and examples we have in scripture, though in some manner serving as an example for us, are given first and foremost to testify and exalt the gospel and the Person and work of Christ. All of scripture, from beginning to end, is given primarily to point to, communicate, and exalt the grace of the gospel found in Jesus Christ and His accomplished work.

Looking at scripture as a ‘how to’ guide, and using the men and women in scripture chiefly as moral examples of right and wrong will consistently and undoubtedly undermine the primary message of the accomplishment of Jesus Christ. Moralism is deadly subtle, and it is even deadlier to the soul. Even when we use these examples conservatively and properly, being careful to let the Law and the didactic portions of scripture interpret the moral examples for us, we still do an injustice to the ultimate message if we fail emphasize Christ, His work, and His gospel of grace as being the centrality and primacy of the Bible’s message.

“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” – Luke 24:25-27