Throughout the history of the church, the question of the role of the law in the Christian life has been of paramount importance. Indeed, as witnessed to by the writers of the New Testament themselves, the issue was of pressing concern to all involved. In the prologue to John’s Gospel, we hear the radical profession that “the Law came through Moses, but Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” What exactly is this distinction between the two about? Why didn’t he simply say, “The Old Law prohibiting shellfish and bacon came through Moses and the New Law of Love came through Jesus?” That would have been a bit easier!
Instead, at the heart of the witness about the importance and significance of Jesus–at least according to the Bible–is a distinction. This is not surprising, however, given the fact that Jesus is the one who repeatedly placed himself and his own teaching in direct opposition to Moses, i.e., the Law. “You’ve heard it said. . . but I tell you” he says time and time again in the Sermon on the Mount. “This is my blood of the NEW covenant,” he says at the Last Supper, thus ensuring that the distinction between the Old and New covenants would become a central part of Christian worship until he returns. Now, in the history of the church, this relationship is tumultuous and fraught with misunderstandings and fear; however, the fact remains that it would have been easier for Jesus and the writers of the New Testament to leave us with a more positive view of the Law and its role in the Christian life had they simply said something along the lines of what can be heard in many pulpits across denominational lines every Sunday, namely, “now that you’re a Christian, you have the power and ability to fulfill the law—so do it.”
Undergirding this type of theologizing is an inveterate moralism that has threatened actually to extinguish the joy of the Gospel throughout the history of the Church. But like Americans totally against immigration, at the end of the day there is just something incoherent about these appeals to a legalistic life, because there is something constitutive to the Christian message that forces the scales to tip towards grace, amnesty, and mercy rather than the law. No matter how meet, right and good it is to go to church, do good works, etc. . . the thief on the cross only believed. Like the green on a roulette wheel, this simple fact, combined with Jesus’ own moniker as the “friend of sinners,” means that, thankfully, the House always wins.
That doesn’t mean that there is no shortage of discussion about the issue of the law in the Christian life, and over the next few weeks I’ll be looking at some of the history of the debate and current discussion surrounding the ways in which people have understood this concept. In all of this, however, it is important to remember what we’ve alluded to before, namely, that it is ONLY theological systems that take seriously both the supercession of the demands of the Law by Jesus and the subsequent negative judgment on those under the “curse” by the Apostle Paul that force such introspection. Whatever it means to be “under the law,” evidently that was part of the “curse” from which those who believe in Christ are free, because he, born of a woman and subject to said law, said it was finished.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vw05OasXSQ&w=600]
Next installment: Marcion and Tertullian.
COMMENTS
16 responses to “Why Then The Law? Part 1: A Lawful Mess”
Leave a Reply
That we might live together, as best is possible for sinners…and to expose our sin and great need of a Savior.
That’s it.
Two uses.
Any more and it opens the door to legalism. Anymore and it is letting the fox back into the henhouse.
From the 39 Articles…
VII. Of the Old Testament.
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.
“Jesus is the one who repeatedly placed himself and his own teaching in direct opposition to Moses, i.e., the Law.”
I missed that part of the NT where Jesus directly opposed Moses, as did the authors of Article 7, apparently. The Transfiguration: a Jesus vs. Moses cage fight refereed by Elijah 😉
“Whatever it means to be “under the law,” evidently that was part of the “curse” from which those who believe in Christ are free, because he, born of a woman and subject to said law, said it was finished.”
If by that we mean “free from the condemnation of the law” rather than “free from obedience to the law” (the latter of which would, of course, contradict Article VII), then yes. Or maybe we simply disagree with Article VII, which is of course another matter.
I am not a 39 Articles absolutist, but they are helpful to me in keeping these law and gospel matters from falling into some shading of either antinomianism or legalism, particularly in reading Article VII in the light of the following two:
XII. Of Good Works.
Albeit that Good Works, which are the fruits of Faith, and follow after Justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively Faith insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.
XV. Of Christ alone without Sin.
Christ in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things, sin only except, from which he was clearly void, both in his flesh, and in his spirit. He came to be the Lamb without spot, who, by sacrifice of himself once made, should take away the sins of the world; and sin (as Saint John saith) was not in him. But all we the rest, although baptized and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things; and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
I think that very generally speaking, the church has too often failed to keep the teaching of these two articles in mind, and has been too prone to focus on the teaching of Article VII, particularly when it comes to the libido issues 🙂 On the other hand, when it comes to Jesus’ own unpleasant teaching on serving God and Mammon, we have been either experts at casuistry or antinomian to the core.
Michael—good points, as always.
I don’t want to give away all of my material for the next few weeks:), but the issue here is that a distinction does not always carry within it a value judgment. FWIW–I think that Jesus’ opposition to Moses is pretty clear from the New Testament, actually, and can be seen not only in the Sermon on the Mount, but in his breaking of the Sabbath regulations, purity codes, and with respect to divorce. Unlike Hegel, we don’t have to synthesize where there is clearly some distinction!
However, as you are right to point out, and as Article VII is quick to echo, this does not mean that the Old Testament was somehow made inconsequential because of Jesus. BUT, and I’ll argue this on Thursday, in their haste to retain the fear of the “Commandments which are called Moral”–something that is akin to emphasizing that you shouldn’t forget the law of gravity;-)–they left the door open to A way (but not the only one) by which the Gospel could be turned back into a law. Interestingly enough, this is exactly the door left open by Tertullian vs. Marcion –that Luther took such great pains to close (more on that later).
It is true that the Old Testament contains moral laws and ceremonial laws, but, as I will argue, the distinction between the two does more harm than good, because at the “heart” of the prohibition against shellfish was not that eating them was specifically sinful, but the simple argument that since God had so decreed, therefore it must be done. In this respect, eating shellfish or not is equally as “moral” as a question regarding adultery, because it all comes back to what God has said and who should follow it. At the heart of human activity lies the great “either/or” of Kierkegaard, and in this respect, either you eat shellfish because you believe that God said so, or not. Certainly, this pertains to more weighty matters as well, but at the end of the day, we (as are people at all times) operating out of this type of assent or denial; the bible calls this faith or unbelief. The question from the Garden “did God really say?” continues to haunt the human race and is exacerbated by the demands of the law each and every day. BUT–more on that later (get me off of my soapbox:)
There is something even more profound and fundamental operating in and through the Old Testament witness than simply an iteration of the “commands which are called Moral.”
Anyway, more on this Thursday. I will try to answer your questions and, as always, look forward to the discussion!
Interesting that you have parted with the 39 Articles in these matters. I do not believe that the 39 Articles are attempting to make a false distinction here, nor were the authors unfamiliar with the NT and Jesus’ teaching concerning Moses. This is why Article 7 so clearly states that the OT and the NT are not opposed to each other. But aside from that, the “law” as that broad concept has existed in various cultures, has always made the distinction between “malum prohibitum” and “malum in se”, Kierkegaard notwithstanding. The dietary laws are clearly in the “malum prohibitum” category, since they have never applied to Gentiles but only to the Jews as a mark of their distinction as “God’s people” saved from Egypt by God’s gracious hand. The dietary laws were part of the fabric of daily life for the Jews that was intended to point them continually to the fact that they had been rescued by God’s might in the midst of their utter weakness in Egyptian slavery, and to point to their being set aside as a peculiar “people” as a result. To violate these laws was to forget that one’s daily existence depended entirely on God. But even if one ate shrimp as a Jew, one became “unclean” until evening…you were not stoned to death. So the “malum prohibitum” and “malum in se” distinction is present, even within the Jewish community. Jesus maintains that distinction when he says that it is not what goes into a man that makes him “unclean”, meaning morally unclean, but what is in his heart. Jesus says this, even though he commands the Jews elsewhere to follow the Jewish tithing requirements meticulously, while “not forgetting the weightier matter of the law” i.e. the “malum in se” matters. We see this distinction again in Scripture, post-resurrection, in God’s revelation to Peter that these “malum prohibitum” dietary laws had been superseded by Jesus’ common rescue of both Jew and Greek with His death and resurrection. No longer would the Jew see his identity as one rescued by God through Moses, but rather as one who was finally and completely rescued by Jesus, along with the Gentile believer. This is why both Jew and Greek were to share in the same new ceremonial food of Jesus’ body and blood, as a remembrance of that ultimate saving act and a mark of their shared distinction as God’s people.
In addition, I do not know of any passage of the OT in which God announces his judgment on non-Jews for eating shrimp, but there are numerous instances of God’s judgment on non-Jews for violating those aspects of “the Law” which are “malum in se”, i.e. murdering their children, etc. So, I would have to go with the authors of the 39 Articles and disagree with you that the distinction between the ceremonial law and the moral law is a false one.
Michael, thanks, as always, for the prodding! We’ll get this all figured out someday:)
I don’t think that I’m really parting from the 39 Articles, but can’t there be room for various interpretations of how they are to be applied and understood? You’re right, and they’re right, that there are distinctions between the laws in the Old Testament, but for the purposes of “why then the law?” I’m more interested in how the law operates theologically as a general category of God’s demand on human beings than I am in the specifics of how that demand is understood to be manifest in different times, peoples and places. For what it’s worth, I didn’t say the distinction was false, but that it can (and has) outside of a more fundamental awareness of how the law operates theologically (following the Apostle Paul) be utilized in service of simply “moralizing” the Old Testament.
By reducing the importance of the Old Testament for the Christians as that which illuminates the “Commandments that are called Moral,” we run the danger of losing the weight of the actual argument of it which is much, much more disturbing, namely, that of the 1st Commandment: “You shall have no other Gods before me.”
The audacity of this claim–both then and now–far surpasses the shock of any claims to morality, and actually constitutes the affront of the Cross much more than do appeals to timeless moral injunctions that are shared across many different religions and cultures. It is true that Christians are not to murder, steal or commit adultery, but those are pretty much recognized across the board (and certainly by Greek philosophy B.C) and, as such, play a part in why Jesus came, but not the whole part.
Sin, i.e., those transgressions of the “Moral Commandments,” is a symptom of a deeper problem that is often times (but not necessarily!) obscured by an appeal to said commandments. Jesus did not come, to borrow a phrase from Ravi Zacharias, to make bad people good, but dead people alive. What this means, with respect to your distinction between that which is prohibited vs. what is wrong in and of itself, is that the distinction between the two, while certainly valid, is placed in a position of secondary importance to the spiritual role of the law (cf. Romans 7:14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.”) as that which rightly convicts, terrifies, instructs and accuses. It is that which drives sinful people to Christ.
Anyway—more later! Thanks for the stimulating discussion!:)
Jady, you are right that you did not say that the distinction made by the 39 Articles between the ceremonial law and the moral law is “false”…this was my mistaken understanding of your position, which was based on your statements that the distinction made between the two by the Article “does more harm than good” and that “eating shellfish or not is equally as “moral” as a question regarding adultery..” I guess the better description of your position might be “potentially misleading and harmful” rather than “false” but I probably should not attempt to restate it at all. I was just saying that it seems to me that the distinction is not only valid but important in understanding the relation between the OT and the NT, else I doubt that the Anglican divines would have bothered including it, since they were very judicious in what made it into the Articles. Anyway, I am more concerned with your claim that Jesus taught in direct opposition to Moses. I’m just not seeing that one…but I await further installments 😉
Michael,
I’m interested in why you are having such trouble with the statement that Jesus put himself in opposition to Moses? That seems to be pretty clear cut from the texts I’ve referenced, plus the witness of Paul–particularly in 2 Corinthians. That Jesus claims not only to emend Moses’ teaching, but outright contradict it w/respect to his teaching on divorce. This teaching in opposition to Moses does not invalidate the Torah, but offers a clear distinction between what is being offered, i.e., the demand vs. the fulfillment, the law vs. the Gospel.
I’m pretty sure that I’m on fairly solid historical footing here and am surprised that you are having trouble with it. . . it’s basically the straight teaching of both Luther in How Should Christians Regard Moses and, I’m sure, somewhere in Calvin:) Jesus claimed to not only have authority over Moses, but to have ratcheted up the demands and closed the loopholes by forcing the question deeper than what people did, i.e., the “Moral Law,” (why do you call me good?, he asks) all the way down to the very essence of what it means to be human, thus necessitating not a whitewashing, but a new birth by faith.
One more thing, the discussion of the relationship between Jesus and Moses has nothing to do with doing away of the Jewish aspect of the Gospel, quite the contrary.
The most radical thing about Judaism–to this day, really–is the audacious (and quite biblical, of course) claim that they are the chosen people of God. That Jesus opposed Moses’ teaching was in service to the deepening of this radical aspect by putting himself in the place of all Israel as the chosen Messiah not only for Jews, but for the world. Therefore, there is a sense in which the ceremonial and moral laws have been done away with, but because the purpose for which they were enacted, i.e., to point towards the unique and set-apart people of God, has been fulfilled by Jesus himself.
In that respect, Jesus’ opposition to Moses had the result of actually deepening the radical claim that lay at the heart of Jewish exceptionalism by acceding it to himself alone, and only then could this fulfillment by him be appropriated by faith, not by birth or moral exertion.
Jady,
I do not see anything in the Sermon on the Mount that is “in opposition to Moses.” Moreover, Jesus himself told the Phrases that he “did not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them.” I assume that Jesus did not wish to “fulfill” that which he “opposed”! Nor, I would think, did Jesus summarize the law and the prophets in order better to state his opposition to them! When Jesus says “you have heard that it has been said…but I say unto you…” he is usually talking about the accretions of 1st century Jewish tradition on the texts, not Moses. As for the Sabbath and the purity regulations, Jesus does not say that he is opposed to these regulations; rather, he affirms them but teaches that they are to be understood in light of their original intent, rather than being outwardly observed in letter as signs of one’s own righteousness. Jesus’ teaching is that this shallow view of the law of Moses results in the letter of the law being kept while the fundamental teaching of the law is violated, i.e. in physically refraining from adultery, while looking with lust on a woman not one’s wife. As for Jesus’ teaching on divorce, he does not say that Moses is wrong, but that Moses was given by God himself the accommodation of the certificate of divorce because of the evil of men’s hearts, presumably as a “lesser evil” to abandoning a woman without divorcing her and thereby preventing her from remarrying, while noting that this was not to be taken as Moses’ endorsement of divorce as God’s original plan. Far from “opposing Moses and the law” Jesus constantly defends the law of Moses against all attempts to tame it through casuistry.
There are two primary reasons why saying that Jesus taught in “opposition to Moses”is such a serious problem, other than the fact that the gospels don’t support this view. One is that if Jesus taught “in opposition to Moses” then either Moses did not speak the words of God as he claimed, or Jesus the Son taught in opposition to God the Father.
The other reason this is such a problem, and in particular Luther’s views on Moses’ law in “How Should Christians Regard Moses?” are so off the mark, has much more contemporary implications. Luther, as you know, says in that work that the entire law of Moses, lock, stock and barrel, is of no consequence whatsoever to non-Jews. The law of Moses, be it moral, ceremonial or civil, is only for the Jew, period. The non-Jew need have no regard for the “law of Moses” , according to Luther, because the non-Jew has the law of God in his heart, inherently. (Luther’s is a far broader claim than Paul’s argument in Romans concerning those “without the law”, by the way, but that’s another post) Now, it is easy to see how Luther could make the mistake that some supposedly universally inherent human morality would naturally line up with “God’s law” without regard to Moses, since the consciences of Germans had been schooled in the moral teaching of Christianity that were based on Mosaic law for a thousand years by Luther’s time. The moral code of pre-Christian Germanic tribes, along with the moral codes of the post-Christian German volk, the Aztecs, Carthaginians, etc. is another and very problematic matter. We also know that for the ancient Greeks, what we now view as disgusting pedophilia was considered perfectly acceptable and even godlike behavior, not to mention the whole issue of “loving” same-sex relationships generally being now seen by perhaps most in the west today as inherently good and even “holy” to the extent that concept still exists. If we go with Luther’s view of Moses, then we must say that maybe such things are not permitted “for the Jew” but that it’s “to each his own” as far as what “the law” is for the rest of us, based on what we feel like in that time, place and cultural context. As an Aztec, then, Jesus may have died to save the Jew from his failure to keep the law of Moses, but he died to save me from my failure to meet my human sacrifice quota. Luther, of course, would be appalled at that conclusion, but I see it as is the logical conclusion of his position.
I don’t exactly follow the argument made in your most recent post above concerning how Jesus’ claimed opposition to Moses was somehow in furtherance of his alleged substitution of himself for the Jews as the chosen people of God. I’ll have to think about that one for a while, since I have not come across it before in the NT 😉
Well, Michael, I guess you may not like what is going to come next:)
I think that maybe I should strike the word “opposition” from the record, counselor, and substitute “distinction.” Jesus placed himself and his work in distinction to Moses and the Old Covenant. At the heart of the New Testament–simply by fact of the name itself–lies this distinction. Although, I don’t see how “love your enemies as yourself” is a deepening of “and eye for an eye, tooth for tooth.” But I digress. . .
As for my last comment, the references to Jesus as the substitutionary Israel of God, the entire argument of the New Testament is that Jesus—not ethnic Israel–is the “seed” to which the promises to Abraham were made. For more on that, check out: http://clark.wscal.edu/israel.php
As for your take on Luther, well, you’ve given a pretty good summary of how many contemporary people view his take on the Law, but as we have argued on this site for years now, you know very well that is not the view that we take. SO. . .
Once again (but this time with feeling:), the law is not eliminated by the Gospel, but they stand in a distinction to one another; where one speaks the other is silent and vice versa. This side of heaven, we will not be free of the curse nor the just accusation of the law, but its final condemnation, and thereby its power, is removed by faith in the one who “did not come to abolish it, but to fulfill it.” That means that our act of worship, this side of heaven, is actually to “establish the law by faith,” as those who affirm its just condemnation because we have the freedom to rest in our absolution. The height of justification is to ascribe to God the honor he is due by agreeing, “amen-ing”, his judgment and his solution to our problem, i.e., distinguishing Moses from Jesus.
Therefore, our task this side of heaven, is to simply fight to keep separate and distinct the two lines deriving from Abraham to Jesus on one hand, and Moses to our justly condemned hearts on the other, and letting them inform each other but never cross. At least, that’s the hope. So, you’ve heard it said that Jesus is a new and better Moses, but I tell you—that’s wrong!
Jady,
I am very happy with the word “distinction”! I completely agree with the law/gospel , Moses/Jesus, distinction, since our very standing before God depends on it.
I looked at the Clark article, and for the most part he is simply restating the familiar tenants of Covenant theology, which as a Calvinist I grew up with and still agree with. Calvinists make very poor Christian Zionists, and I think the NT lends no support to the odd American phenom of Christian Zionism. The new wrinkle he throws in in the article is his idea that Jesus himself is the new Israel of God. According to Romans anyway the Israel of God are the elect, both Jew and “Greek”. Now, if we extrapolate from that we might correctly say that the elect are the church and the church is the body of Christ, therefore in that sense Jesus is the Israel of God. This does not seem to be the road St. Paul went down in Romans 11:25-32 where he says that “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in…” and in referring to ethnic Jews, “as far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” There still seems to be a special place for ethnic “Israel” and that God’s promises to the patriarchs was concerning them, although also of course concerning Jesus as well. What exactly this means for the Jewish people, Paul himself says is a mystery. It is certainly a mystery to me! I am just very glad that for the Jew and the Greek, “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.”
This series is excellent! I like the comparison to immigration laws; it is roundly publicly opposed, but the economy could barely run without the illegal immigrants. This series is on of the reasons why I am so glad to support Mockingbird, and I wish I could scrounge up more support. I’m just now reading this so I can read all of them at once.
BTW, one of the solutions to the third use of the law question is to simply throw it out. It isn’t scripture. Throwing things out is at the heart of the reformation spirit. Sola Scriptura! The law came through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ.
20 because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.
21 But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction;
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus;
(Romans 3:20-24, NASB).
As far as questions of sanctification, even Kevin DeYoung admits in his “Hole in our Holiness” book that nowhere does the NT use the word to mean anything except a singular setting apart, the same way we use the word justification:
“But when the NT uses the verb “to sanctify” or the noun “sanctification,” it regularly refers to the saving work of God already true of us because we belong to Christ. According to hebrews 10:10, we were sanctified once for all through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ.”
In context, DeYoung is trying to say that nevertheless we should be all about sanctification — in fact it is the whole point of his book. Honestly doesn’t it seem like the “third use of the law” idea might ought to be thrown out and the idea of progressive sanctification perhaps revisited with a shred of skepticism? It is not our fleshly determination to repent in a more “Christian” way that is going to purify us, but our hope fixed on Christ which we get through faith in His propitiation and the one-way love He has for us:
3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.
(1 John 3:3, NASB).
At which point did Christianity become about measuring how well we behave, as opposed to how greatly we are loved by God? It never changed. In general the line between sanctification and sanctimony becomes very blurred under this “third use of the law” idea. I’ve read the actual text in the confession about the third use, but lets face it, it is a lot of garbled nonsense which basically ends up meaning “throw out the good news, cover up the scandal of grace, and put Christians back under the tyranny of old covenant law.” The one-way love which God has for us is what changes us. How weird is it that we should depend wholly on faith in God to achieve our transformation? In Christ it isn’t weird at all!
What if in Christ we really move beyond questions of measuring the success of our behavior and our life becomes concerned with meshing with the giftings of others as we walk together in the Spirit? We can poo poo it all we want but if we don’t bend our understanding of gospel imperatives around the central message of Romans 3-8 then I think we can be pretty sure we have a flawed view of Christian praxis.