Against the Law

Since Christians are no longer under the law but under grace. Are we still required to follow the Old Testament laws. Stay tuned.

Renewing Your Mind is next. The difficulty in answering the question arises from the fact that at least some aspects of the Old Testament law had been notified the same time.

Jesus told us that he didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.

So how do we square those reality there is Dr. RC school from his series, God's law and the Christian. Recently I had the opportunity to teach a course to men who were studying for their Dr. of Ministry degree in the seminary and in the opening day of that course, I sprang a pop quiz on them, which of course is the bane of every student in every classroom. I asked them the opening moments of the class to take out a piece of paper number from 1 to 10. Then I proceeded to give them one question I said please write down on this paper, the 10 Commandments in order and after sufficient time has elapsed. We had them check their papers. Mercifully, I didn't collect them and asked them simply to grade themselves and discovered that 20% of these pastors who were working on their doctor's degree in ministry were able to get all of the 10 Commandments in order 80% were not able to do, and about 50% of them were able to name all 10 but were not able to do it in order. You may want to take that same test right now, unless you driving down the Thruway somewhere, at least in your own mind.

See if you can think through the 10 Commandments and give them in order or at least be able to name them all. I've done this frequently at conferences with large groups and found out that less than 10% of the people that I've asked this to in large groups were able to name all 10 Lot dimension in order but just to name all 10 of the 10 Commandments. That means that in my little universe. 90% of the people I've asked this question are not able to give the 10 Commandments in their entirety, and I found that somewhat striking indeed astonishing and I've asked this question, what does that signify some may say well it's a simply means that were not very good at memorizing her that we've moved away from learning by way of rote memory and we have a basic idea of what the law commands but just because we can't name all 10 of them should be no major concern to us, but when we understand the central significance of the 10 Commandments to the Old Testament and the 10 Commandments to the New Testament Christian life. It is an amazing thing that even leaders within the Christian world cannot name these basic foundational elementary Commandments of God and I think that what it reflects partly at least, is something of the climate in which the church is functioning at the end of the 20th century, historians and analysts have suggested that we are living in perhaps the most anti-know me in Iraq and the history of the church. Now that's a fancy word, anti-know me and I think we all know what anti-means against antinomian comes from the Greek word, no moss, which means law and so anti-know me and is him is that theory within theology that the law of God.

At least the Old Testament law is in no way binding or relevant to the Christian life. We read frequently in the New Testament passages such as the apostle Paul writes that we are no longer under law but we are under grace and that is routinely taken to mean that we are no longer responsible in any way to conform to the law of the Old Testament because the Old Testament law was only relevant to people in Israel in the theocratic system of that day and all that was done away with.

With the entrance of Christ in the beginning of the new covenant and the establishment of the Christian church. John tells us that the law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, and in that contrast, we see that we are no longer under the law, meaning the law has no binding significance or influence upon us. I remember last year I was engaged in some theological debate with one branch of Christendom and I mentioned that this particular school of thought was characteristically anti-know me and in its theology and one of the leading scholars from that branch wrote me a lengthy letter in which he protested my charges of antinomianism against his group and he said to me we are not anti-know men because we believe that every Christian is responsible to obey the commandments of Christ, but are found in the New Testament we simply believe that the Old Testament law has no bearing or relevance to the New Testament Christian and I responded to him by saying, historically, the term antinomian as it is been used throughout church history refers precisely to the statement that he is just made and that he just gave the classic definition of antinomianism by saying that the Old Testament law as no relevance to the New Testament Christian.

So were not just talking about pure lawlessness. Here again, there are many people who believe that the New Testament has its set of commandments and that obviously as Christians we are obligated to obey the rule of Jesus Christ and the law that he gives to his people.

But again, the question is what about the Old Testament law. This is no easy problem to deal with for several reasons. The first of which is that we see in the Scripture itself that certain elements of the Old Testament law have clearly been abrogated in a sense, for example, the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. The ceremonial law refers to the rites and rituals that were performed in the worship experience of Israel. For example, the offering of sacrifices, the offering of sacrifices was not to simply a suggestion that God gave to Israel. It was by his command that they had to celebrate the day of atonement than they had to make their burnt offerings and so on. And all of those ceremonies. The New Testament tells us were shadows or types of the final sacrifice that was to be offered once for all in the death of Jesus, and in fact we see the New Testament struggle with the group who were trying to influence the New Testament church to continue with the ceremonies and that group was called the Judaizers, who insisted that the Old Testament rituals be continued in perpetuity in the New Testament church.

And, of course, that view was hotly contested and fiercely resisted by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians, as well as by the author of Hebrews and the thinking was this that after Christ has offered the perfect sacrifice once and for all. If we were reverted back to the types in the shadows.

We would in effect be denying the fullness of light that is calm and the total fulfillment of all of this ceremony in the perfect sacrifice of Christ that is made once for all.

And so, historically, the Christian church in terms of her orthodoxy has made it clear that we are not to continue these cultic ceremonial practices of right and ritual from the Old Testament.

Also, we find a segment of the law in the Old Testament, called the dietary laws which we remember God gave to Israel and so he prescribed what foods they were allowed to eat and what foods were considered unclean. They were not allowed to eat pork for example. And we know that in the New Testament when the New Testament church expanded to include Gentiles who followed a different rule of diet. The question became a hot issue in Jerusalem and the first ecumenical Council of the church was the Council of Jerusalem that's recorded in acts 15 where this question of diet was brought up and Peter and had the vision, whereby Christ had told him not to declare unclean things that he is now made plain, and the list of prohibited foods was greatly reduced by the Council of Jerusalem we are not allowed to eat blood and so on, but for the most part the restrictions of diet that were established in the Old Testament were now lifted and the economy of the New Testament situation. So we see who ways in which it seems to be playing that the laws of the Old Testament are seen as no longer absolutely binding upon the lives of Christians. Now, again historically, the church made a distinction among these different types of law. The dietary laws.

The ceremonial laws and then the third group which was called the moral law of the Old Testament. Now before we go any further with this, let me give a little caveat. Keep in mind that as helpful as this distinction may be where you say there's the moral law, and then there's the dietary the ceremonial law or the civil law of Israel, which is another question altogether. But we look at these distinctions. Keep in mind for the Jew in the Old Testament.

These distinctions would've been basically meaningless because all of the law was moral to the Old Testament Jew, that is, it was a moral issue to Daniel to Shadrach me shack and Abednego whether or not they obeyed the dietary laws of God while they were in exile. It was a moral issue for Israel whether the people of Israel obeyed the ceremonial law they saw these moral mandates. Of course, so that's a given. But we still understand why this distinction has been made that the idea is that still there is a substantive stratum of law in the Old Testament that seems to continue into the life of the New Testament church. One of the important texts that we find in the New Testament is found in the sermon on the Mount where Jesus makes this observation. Think not. He said that I came to loose or to destroy the law but to fulfill it well in the same regard, the apostle Paul when he speaks in glorious terms of how we have been redeemed from the curse of the law and that we are no longer under the law. He's careful to warn us against jumping to the very conclusion that anti-no means do, namely that we have disestablished the law and completely remove the law from any consideration to the life of the Christian. He says that the law is not a bad thing that the law is holy, and that the law is to be established in the whole tenor of the apostolic writing of the New Testament in James for example, when he talks about the royal law of obedience in the teachings of Jesus himself, where many of the Old Testament laws are reiterated for the benefit of the Christian church, we see that the substantive content of the moral law of the Old Testament still has a vitally important place in the New Testament community but again the question is what is that place all this was a question during the Reformation. And one of the most significant and important contributions to the Reformation that was made by John Calvin in his institutes of the Christian religion was his exposition of what he called the threefold use of the law.

The threefold use of the law. In other words, what Calvin was saying is that there are three distinct ways in which the Old Testament law is very useful to the new testament Christian. Three distinct ways and he deferred at some fine points from Luther on this, but Luther also believed that the law had a significant role in the life of the Christian. And so what I want to do with the rest of the time I have today and then on into our next lecture is given exposition of these three uses of the law of first well do you simply state them and then expand upon them individually. The three uses of the law that Calvin outlined for first of all the laws, use or function as a mirror. The second is the loss of function as restraint and the third use which is called simply in theology the tertius use this. That's the Latin for third use the tertius uses of the law which Calvin saw as the most important was what we regard as the revelatory use for function of the law. The revelatory function of the law. Well, let's look at them now in order, beginning with the first use of the law as a mirror what Calvin had in mind.

Here was this that we have to understand that the law of God is not something that exists abstractly hanging suspended somewhere in the distant universe east of the sun and west of the moon is not that God had to go to a heavenly mountain and climbed the mountain and receive from some greater God tablets of stone by which God himself was called to be obedient, but rather the source for the Old Testament moral law is found in God himself. Now that raises a question that was a fierce question. In the Middle Ages and that is the question. Is God himself outside of the law or is God himself bound by some greater law and that controversy was called the acts lacks controversy. I said acts lacks not acts lacks Ex-Lax means outside of or apart from law, lacks Lex means law. The idea was this.

Is there some law above God to which God owes obedience and allegiance that is does God function some Lego is God under law himself well.

The theologians of the Middle Ages, said a thousand times no. We have to scratch out some Lego because if we said that God was under some law that was outside of himself.

There would be something higher than God, and that something higher than God would have to be God and God would no longer be God, so there's no law outside of God that imposes obligation upon him.

Well if that's the case, wouldn't follow then that God is a lot less he can do whatever he wants. If he is not some Lego that he must be Ex-Lax.

He must be outside of all law and can act in an arbitrary and capricious or whimsical manner without any sense of order well with the Middle Ages theologians did was said lacks that out to and say a pox on both of your houses and that God is neither under law nor apart from law, but there is 1/3 alternative, namely but God is a law unto himself. Now how does that differ from being Ex-Lax. What that means simply is that the behavior of God is never lawless. The actions of God are always in conformity to the law of God's own nature, his own character, which is inherently righteous which is eternally holy, all of his actions come forth.

According to who I will look at that more fully in our next session and we do hope you'll join us for that message tomorrow your on Renewing Your Mind that Christian should never act in a lawless manner, in a way that is opposite of the character of God you're listening to Renewing Your Mind. I'm Lee Webb, and that this week we're looking at the Christian's responsibility to God's law of S. Dr. Steven Nichols to join us here in the studio and Dr. Nichols, one of the things that the RC talked about today is anti-no mechanism are we seeing a rise of this attitude in the church today Lee. Sadly, we are seeing arise of it in the church today, but the reality is we've always been seeing a rise of it in the church. You know this is curiously enough to hear your fall 2020.

This is the 500th anniversary of Luther's famous three treatises written back in the fall 1520 and one of those was on Christian liberty.

And if you were to ask Luther hey Dr. Luther as a rise of anti-no mean is him in the church today, he would say yes and here we are in 2020 Sing Sing thing Italy out. Probably one of the most abused notions both in culture and in the church today is the notion of freedom. We so miss understand that when we misunderstand it politically or culturally well were headed for trouble. And when we misunderstand it spiritually or theologically within the context of the church in our Christian life.

Well, we are deftly headed for trouble and we think that being a Christian means total freedom. Like I can do whatever I want whenever I want and it's all covered by by the blood of Jesus Christ and by God's grace and even the apostle Paul said it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. That's rightly and so I think that that tension that we see sometimes between the freedom and the law. We don't know how to hold it together and we do have Christians who are legalistic right and that they fall on that side of law, but we have many Christians who are libertarians and they fall on that side of freedom. I think we see this and I think it's reflected in into things in the church today. One it's reflected in timeout. Christians and in Christians having a far too casual attitude toward sin, here we are talking about God's law right in these teaching series and recognizing that sin is missing the mark and falling short of obeying and keeping God's law is also reflected in our casual attitude towards God, the lawgiver, the one who is Dr.'s process is a law unto himself. And sadly, Lee that shows up in our lack of worship. And I'm not just talking about one hour and Sunday morning talking about our whole life is worship before God and obedience to him. And so the answer to the question, is there a rise in antinomianism today hits her. Sadly, yes, and the solution. The prescription here for the cure is for us to once again put ourselves right into the center of God's word and let God's word infiltrate and penetrate our minds and work its way out through our lives. Thank you Dr. Nichols and that's exactly why were making the series available to our listeners today in 15 messages.

Dr. Strohl shows us how the Old Testament law harmonizes with our lives today. Under the new covenant would like to send you this five CD set when you give a donation of any amount to look in her ministries that will also include RC's booklet. How does God's law apply to me. It's an easy to read explanation of the purpose of God's moral law will send you both resources when you give a donation of any amount today. You can find us online@renewingyourmind.org or you can call us with your gifted 800-435-4343 and before we go today there's RC with a final thought for us as we look at this question of law. It's important for us to remember that the fundamental problem in all of creation is the problem of evil. The fundamental problem in our lives is the problem of sin, and sin and evil.

Both are defined in light of law, the fall of Adam and Eve was a transgression against the law of God. Absolute wickedness in the Scriptures is associated with law, less mass, the supreme manifestation of evil incarnate. Is the man of law, less mass, so when we deal with this question of law, particularly with respect to the law of God. We are not dealing with a peripheral matter. A tangential question, but something that comes to the core of our lives as human beings who were supposed to live before the face of God core day so far this week. RC usually some of the purposes of God's law. Tomorrow he'll show us how the law is a mirror into her own hearts. We hope you join us for the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind