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Thank you for your post and for your points.I wonder if you would be willing to acknowledge that the claim "This is ... the theology of Christ and His apostles." is rather astonishingly audacious? What if you were to say, "The following is what I understand Christ and the apostles to be saying..."?
I also stumble on the claim, "This is not really controversial Christian theology..." because, well, it is controversial. In order to demonstrate, I have chosen to quote just a few trustworthy and well-known Christian scholars.
Donald Bloesch, for example, observed:
“[T]heir stringent separation of law and gospel prevents them from acknowledging the unity and complementarity of law and gospel. …
Paradoxically hand in hand with the opening to works–righteousness is an antinomian strand that views Christians in the church age or age of grace as under the gospel only and not also under the law. The law is something that is done away with, though the moral teachings of Jesus in the New Testament continue to have force." (Donald G. Bloesch. The Last Things: Resurrection, Judgment, Glory. InterVarsity Press, 2004. 96–97.)
You see, Bloesch recognizes that historic Christianity has always believed:
…the Christian is saved by grace alone but for the purpose of living a holy life. Our responsibility is not simply to receive and believe but to take up the cross and follow Christ in costly discipleship." (Ibid, 97)
J.I. Packer, points out in his book, Growing in Christ, that:
"the love-or-law antithesis is false, just as the down-grading of law is perverse. Love and law are not opponents but allies, forming together the axis of true morality. Law needs love as its drive, else we get the Pharisaism that puts principles before people and says one can be perfectly good without actually loving one’s neighbor…. And love needs law as its eyes, for love (Christian agape as well as sexual eros) is blind. To want to love someone Christianly does not of itself tell you how to do it. Only as we observe the limits set by God’s law can we really do people good." (Crossway Books, 1996. p 232)
Later in the same book, Packer highlights the key to maintaining a proper perspective on the Law is to:
"Keep two truths in view. First, God’s law expresses his character. It reflects his own behavior; it alerts us to what he will love and hate to see in us. It is a recipe for holiness, consecrated conformity to God, which is his true image in man. And as such (this is the second truth) God’s law fits human nature. As cars, being made as they are, only work well with gas in the tank, so we, being made as we are, only find fulfillment in a life of law-keeping. This is what we were both made and redeemed for." (Ibid, 279, 280)
With this same perspective in mind, John Calvin remarked,
"If it cannot be denied that it [the Law] contains a perfect pattern of righteousness, then, unless we ought not to have any proper rule of life, it must be impious to discard it." (Institutes of the Christian Religion, II, vii, 13.)
Sinclair Ferguson reminds us of the traditional Christian view:
"This is why…the law of God is seen to play such an important role in sanctification. Its three functions or uses are well known: to convict of sin, to restrain evildoers and to instruct believers." (Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification. InterVarsity Press, 1988. 68-69.)
Lest anyone be tempted to think this is a strictly Reformed view, let's turn to John Wesley, well known as an Arminian theologian:
"I am afraid this great and important truth is little understood, not only by the world, but even by many whom God hath taken out of the world, who are real children of God by faith. Many of these lay it down as an unquestioned truth, that when we come to Christ, we have done with the law; and that, in this sense, “Christ is the end of the law to every one that believeth.” “The end of the law:” so he is, “for righteousness,” for justification, “to every one that believeth.” Herein the law is at an end. It justifies none, but only brings them to Christ; who is also, in another respect, the end or scope of the law, — the point at which it continually aims. But when it has brought us to him it has yet a farther office, namely, to keep us with him. For it is continually exciting all believers, the more they see of its height, and depth, and length, and breadth, to exhort one another so much the more, —
Closer and closer let us cleave
To his beloved Embrace;
Expect his fullness to receive,
And grace to answer grace."
(Sermon 34)
You see, the valid question is not if the law of God (from Genesis to Revelation) continues to instruct the redeemed, but how it is to do so.
The Westminster Confession, the London Baptist Confession, and the 39 Articles of Religion all agree that:
"The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral."
So, if brothers and sisters in Christ would like to disagree over which God-given instructions qualify as "moral" this is understandable, as nothing in Scripture specifically designates: this is moral, this is not. But, if a brother or sister suggests that the law of God has been in any way done away with: they are very, very much on controversial ground.
I believe I have worked out a helpful way of recognizing the prescriptive nature of all God's laws (in that they show us what His character would do in a given situation) without making the mistake of attempting to wholesale adopt teaching that includes both enduring principles and specific case-sensitive instructions, but that would be the topic of another post.
The New Covenant does not invalidate the Word of God. It re-affirms it (see Jeremiah 31:31-33). That's why Paul said,
Gal 3:19, 21-24 "Why then the Law? It was added because of transgressions, until the Seed should come to those to whom it had been promised, being ordained through angels in the Mediator's hand.
Is the Law then against the promises of God? Let it not be said! For if a law had been given which could have given life, indeed righteousness would have been out of Law. But the Scripture shut up all under sin, so that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
But before faith came, we were kept under Law, having been shut up to the faith about to be revealed. So that the Law has become a trainer of us until Christ, that we might be justified by faith."
Nothing you say or which you quote changes the fact that Jesus and Paul made a summation of all the law, making it abundantly clear what laws they regarded as moral and eternally applicable, and how those laws were fulfilled only by Christ, and how they can be produced as CHRIST'S fruit only in those who abide in Christ and live by faith in Him and in His righteousness.
This thread is therefore not controversial Christian theology - but now I can say tongue-in-cheek that after your post, I can see that it's just as well I posted the thread in the "Controversial Christian Theology" forum!
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