The charge is made that the writers of the New Testament did not treat the Old Testament as verbally inspired since they do not always quote the Hebrew literally. Christ and the Apostles gave their quotations from the Old Testament in three different ways:

First, they quote the Hebrew in the Greek making quite a literal translation.

Second, they simply quote from the Septuagint, using the Greek as expressed by the alleged “70″ (LXX) (Septuagint: Scholars who in Egypt translated the Old Testament Scriptures into Greek for the use of the Jews and the Greek converts to Judaism who lived there after the captivity at the end of the Old Testament).

Third, they make a very “free” and quite interpretive translation of the Hebrew. Since, therefore, the New Testament writers did not regard an exact rendering of the Hebrew as of importance, it is argued that this proves that we are not to believe in verbal inspiration.

But this does not, in fact, prove any such point, as one can understand if he think clearly about the matter. When we desire to express ourselves in a last will and testament–and to express ourselves exactly–we do often express ourselves in more than one way. If, for instance, we desire to leave our estate to one specific person we may give, devise and bequeath all that property, whether real or personal, of which we may be possessed upon our death, to…such and such a person. But we may well know that there is someone else who will try to make some kind of claim, perhaps that we simply forgot about them, or perhaps that we were under undo influence to forget them. To guard against this–though we have clearly said that we left ALL to one person–we WILL nevertheless add the name of the person who we fear may make a claim, and make it very clear that we did not forget about them by leaving them a specific amount–say, five dollars! We have by this means used two forms of expressing what we desired to make plain for the very purpose of making the matter specifically clear; and in the very forms used above more than one form is used. We do not simply leave all that we have–this might be misinterpreted, but we give, devise, and bequeath; and not merely all that we have, but all of our property whether real or personal. By saying what we have to say in more than one way, we have made it just that much more clear as to what our intention is. No judge or court comes along and then says, “Since this man expressed his desire in several ways so as to make very plain his meaning, we therefore judge that he was not interested in the words he used and we may therefore substitute for his words any other words–however they may reinterpret the matter.” The court concludes, from the above process, the very reverse: That the testator shows by his careful statement and restatement of his purposes how very jealous he was to have his words highly regarded so that he could cause to be understood his very and particular meaning.

What our liberal scholars are doing in this attack is to use the argument so that they may restate what God has spoken in such other words that His purpose is lost and their interpretation inserted.

Actually, God, the Holy Spirit, by whom God the Father, and God the Son, gave the Bible to mankind, has caused the writers thus to express the truths in several ways by transliterating under His control, the first appearance of the truth which He gave in different manners so that His meaning is thus made the more clear. The fact that the Holy Spirit thus re-expressess Himself gives no license to the readers to say that He was not jealous of the words He used! His very re-expression does, in fact, reveal just such a jealousy that His meaning be guarded and circumscribed!1

You can find several of Dr. Rudolph’s class lectures on ethics and theology below. I apologize for the poor audio quality. Please spread these around as Dr. Rudolph’s son, Karl, has given me permission to make them public.

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #1

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #2

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #3

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #4

Robert K Rudolph Ethics #5

Robert K Rudolph Theology #1

Robert K Rudolph Theology #2

Robert K Rudolph Theology #3: The Ordo Salutis

Robert K Rudolph Theology #4: The Problem of Human Goodness

Here are Dr. Rudolph’s notes comparing 1 Cor. 1:21 to Romans 1:18-25. You can see the influence that Van Til had upon Dr. Rudolph from these, and the former notes. Here are some of RKR’s brief, yet substantive, thoughts on the attributes of God. You can also read Dr. Rudolph’s notes on A Christian Theory of Knowledge, and on baptism. Thanks to Niel Bech and Paul DiBenedetto for making these available.

You can find a Facebook page commemorating the life and teaching of Dr. Rudolph here.

1. Robert K. Rudolph An Introduction to Theology (Unpublished) pp. 4-5

1) The Redemptive Role of Noah as a Type of Christ: Noah was a type of Christ. He was a typical second Adam, a typical redeemer, and a typical rest giver. Noah was given very similar instructions as Adam with regard to being fruitful and multiplying, filling the earth and subduing it. He was not the second Adam, but was a type of the second Adam. Jesus is the second and last (eschatological) Adam who redeems His people and fulfills the creation mandates. Noah was a typical redeemer. Everyone with Noah on the Ark was saved. Everyone in Christ is saved. Noah was not “the Redeemer.” He was a typical redeemer, providing typical redemption for all those who descended from him. Jesus came to redeem all those He represented spiritually. Noah was a typical rest-giver. Noah’s name meant ‘Rest.’ His father had named him ‘Rest,’ saying, “This one will give us rest from the ground which the Lord had cursed.” Noah only gives typical rest, as the remainder of the Bible bears witness to the ongoing need for redemptive rest. Jesus is the One who finally and fully gives rest to the people of God and to the creation that was brought under the curse at the fall. He is the One who said, “Come unto Me and I will give you rest for your souls.” He is the One who takes the curse on Himself when He wears the crown of thorns–the symbol of the curse on the ground.

2) The Redemptive Foreshadowing of the New Creation: The book of Revelation tells us that the “new heavens and the new earth” will be the new Temple where God dwells fully and permanently with the redeemed. Noah and all of creation were together in the Ark, as in a typical temple. This was foreshadowing the new creation-temple. Interestingly, the Ark and Solomon’s Temple had three levels. It seems that the biblical data substantiates that the Ark was a Temple where God dwelt with His creation.

Noah also lead the way into a typical new creation when he and his family stepped off of the Ark and into a world that has been typically cleansed of pollution. Jesus brought about the new creation through His death and resurrection. Noah knew that the flood had not really made “all things new,” because he sacrificed when he stepped off of the Ark. The flood waters could never cleanse the evil out of the heart of man. God had destroyed the earth with a flood because “every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). God promised never to destroy the earth with a flood again because “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). The reason for the latter declaration was that the flood was never meant to deal with man’s real problem–the sinful pollution of his heart. Noah’s sons would populate the earth with depraved sinners. Only the blood of Jesus could cleanse the hearts of sinners. The cleansed world onto which Noah and his family stepped when the waters receded was a type of the “new heavens and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.”

3) The Redemptive Purpose of Animals: Noah was commanded to take seven clean and two unclean of every animal into the Ark. The clean/unclean distinction was relavent in redemptive history for several reasons. First, it would be used in Israel’s sacrificial system. Because Jesus is likened to “a Lamb without blemish and without spot,” Israel would be commanded in the OT to offer spotless (clean) lambs to God. All of Israel’s sacrifices were to be clean. The cleanness was symbolic of the sinlessness of Jesus. When he stepped off of the Ark, the very first thing that Noah did was offer a sacrifice to God. The sacrificial system stretched back to Adam and Eve and was carried forward in redemptive history until Christ was sacrificed.

In addition to the preparation for the sacrificial system in Israel, the clean and unclean animals would, in time, become illustrative of the two groups of mankind–Jews and Gentiles. These two classifications represented spiritually clean and unclean groups of humanity in redemptive history until Christ came. The Scriptures expressly teach this in the account of Peter’s vision of the unclean animals brought down from heaven in the sheet for him to eat. (Acts 10:9-11:18). For a more thorough treatment see this post.

The final thing to note about the animals in the Ark is in regard to food. Before the flood it appears that man was only permitted to eat vegetation. After the flood, God told Noah that he and his descendants could eat meat (only without the blood). What was the reason for this shift? The eating of meat would not serve as a precursor to the eating of the sacramental and ceremonial redemptive meals, such as the Passover. There were no vegetarians in the Old Covenant church because God was foreshadowing the spiritual eating of the flesh and blood of His Son in the sacrifices. If man had not been allowed to eat meat, then the eating of the sacrificial meals–symbolizing the spiritual eating of the flesh of the Son of God by faith–would have been an unintelligible concept. God was preparing His people for what would come as the history of redemption unfolded.

4) The Redemptive Nature of the Death Penalty: The death penalty is clearly established in the Noahic Covenant. Again, this falls in the realm of redemptive history. If murderers were not put to death (a punishment fitting the crime in accord with the justice of God) then mankind would have a very difficult time “being fruitful and multiplying.” Human extermination was restrained via the death penalty. This served the redemptive purposes of God. Interestingly, this would also safeguard the coming of the Redeemer. In His human nature, Jesus may rightly be said to be in the loins of Noah. Each generation of Israel hoped that God would fulfill the promise of the Seed-Redeemer (Gen. 3:15). Unless God had protected His people–through whom the Seed would come–from mass murder, His promise would have failed. This is the purpose of the book of Esther. Had God allowed Hamen to exterminate the Israelites, the promise of the Redeemer would have failed. The same is true with regard to the animals that might shorten the population. God’s plan was the redeem a people “out of every tongue and tribe and nation and language” through the Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

In addition, God would save His people by Himself undergoing the death penalty. Though He did nothing deserving of death, He stood in the place of His people who did. If there were no death penalty, we would not be saved. Jesus died the death of a murderer, adulterer and every other death deserving criminal so that we might be redeemed.

In short, God was preserving the world to be the stage in which redemption would occur. Had God not promised to preserve the fallen world, He would have been untrue to His promise to redeem a people (Gen. 3:15). All of the features surrounding the covenant itself were aspects of redemptive history, which makes the Noahic Covenant more important than most have realized. Every time we see the rainbow we should remember God’s covenant faithfulness in sending the Redeemer to save a people for Himself. Just as God had placed a rainbow in the sky to show His steadfast covenant fidelity, so there is a rainbow around the throne of Jesus Christ in glory (Rev. 4:3). We, like Noah, are beneficiaries of the mercy established in the Noahic Covenant in Jesus Christ.

Friday, May 11
On Day One of the Spring Theology Conference, from 7:00pm to 8:30pm Burk Parsons will give two talks. Afterwards, Burk and Nick will moderate a Q&A session, followed by light refreshments.

Saturday, May 12
On Day Two of the Spring Theology Conference, from 9:30am to 11:30am, John Jones and Nick Batzig will give two talks followed by a Q&A session. At 11:30am, lunch will be provided at All Saints’ for all those who are interested, or you may wish to try one of the many downtown restaurants. From 12:30pm to 2:30pm, Nick will give two more talks followed by a Q&A session.

The writer of 1 Chronicles traced humanity from Adam to David (1 Chronicles 1 and 2) by means of historical genealogy. If Adam was not a historical being then neither were all the people from Adam to David.

Job likened the hiding of his sin to Adam’s covering his sin (Job 31:33).

Luke traced Jesus’ genealogy (from Mary) back to Adam (Luke 3:38). If Adam was not a historical being then neither were all the people from Adam to Jesus.

Jesus declared that “He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ (Matthew 19:4).

Paul explained that the reason for death and condemnation was the representative, imputed guilt of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:12-21).

Paul also explained that the external giving of the law was first with Adam and then with Moses. Those who were not given external law from Adam to Moses still had the sentence of death in them because of Adam’s sin. Paul explains, “death reigned from Adam to Moses” (Rom. 5:13). If Adam was not a historical being then neither was Moses.

Paul explained the solution to our deserved condemnation in the obedience of the second Adam, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:12-21). He explicitly suggests that the first Adam was a “type” of the second Adam. If Adam was not a historical being then neither was Jesus.

The apostle defended the role relation of men and women in the church by the order in which Adam and Eve were created and were tempted (1 Timothy 2:13-14). Eden was the prototype of every subsequent culture. No one can say Paul’s teaching was culturally bound because he takes it back to the Garden. He takes the Genesis account as an accurate historical record of Eden.

The apostle urged the NT church to defend the Gospel by reminding them of the way in which Satan had historically deceived Eve: “I fear, lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, so your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3).”

Herman Hermeneut: Can we come up with a “how-to” list for interpreting the Bible?

Dottie Doctrinalist: That’s definitely useful, provided it is based solidly on the Bible.

Oliver Objectivist: We certainly need such a list, in order to be rigorously objective in our interpretation, and to eliminate subjective biases.

Peter Pietist: I’m not so sure. Won’t a method interfere with my personal communion with the Lord?

Laura Liturgist: I’m just as uneasy as Peter. Does “method” mean something purely academic? Or would it include participation in worship?

Missy Missiologist: I can see both advantages and disadvantages. We certainly need to take steps in order to make sure we are not blinded by the blind spots of the culture in which we were raised. But we need to be careful. Our focus on method can introduce a Western bias. The idea of having a technique or assembly-line process for producing the right meaning seems natural within an industrialized society, where we pursue technique.

Poythress concludes the chapter by laying out 3 steps that he believes are indespensible in coming to the right interpretation of a passage of Scripture:

Step 1. Original time and context.

a. Understand the person who is God’s spokesman (for example, Micah the prophet) (personal).

b. Understand the text itself (normative).

c. Understand the situation of the times and the situation of audience (situational).

d. Understand the total import of God’s speaking to the people through his spokesman.

Step 2. Transmission and its context.

a. Understand the persons who engage in transmission: official tradition bearers, and more broadly the people belonging to God.

b. Understand the transmission of the text and its message (normative). Both text criticism and the history of interpretation are involved.

c. Understand the situation of transmission. Understand narrowly the concerns of scribes and broadly God’s plan for history.

d. Understand the total import of God’s speaking to the whole church through the Scripture.

(1) Understand with different foci.

(a) Understand later use of the passage (exegetical focus).

(b) Understand how the passage fits into growing revelation (biblical theology).

(c) Understand how the passage fits into an entire body of teaching on various topics and issues (systematic theology and practical life).

(2) Understanding Christocentrically.

(a) How does Christ fulfill the word of the passage, by climaxing its truths, and embodying its wisdom, righteousness, and holiness?

(b) How does Christ fulfill the facts of the passage, by fulfilling its promises and predictions and bringing to climax the historical struggle with which the passage interfaces?

(c) How does Christ fulfill the personal aspect of communication (the prophet as mediator)?

Step 3. Modern context.

a. Understand what God is saying now through the text and its larger biblical theological and systematic theological context.

b. Understand your situation, as controlled by God.

c. Understand your gifts and capabilities and those of other speakers or hearers with whom you are communicating.

d. Understand the total import of God’s call to you as speaker and/or hearer.

Among the more helpful volumes that have been written to address this subject include O. Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God, David E. Holwerda’s Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two, and Hans K. LaRondelle’s The Israel of God in Prophecy.

O. Palmer Robertson The Israel of God in the Past
O. Palmer Robertson the Israel of God Present and Future
O. Palmer Robertson Israel and the Priesthood of Christ (Heb. 7:1-15)
O. Palmer Robertson Israel and the Coming Kingdom (Acts 1:1-6)
O. Palmer Robertson The Israel of God and Romans 11 (Rom. 11:1-32)
O. Palmer Robertson The Gospel for All Nations (Matt. 24:1-14)
O. Palmer Robertson A Plentiful Harvest, Few Laborers (Matt. 9:18-38)

An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted Christian can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years this evil has developed at an alarming rate. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments!

The devil has seldom done a more clever thing, than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out the gospel, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses!

My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.” No such words, however, are to be found.

Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the apostolic Church to the world? “You are the salt of the world,” not the sugar candy; something the world will spit out, not swallow.

Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear him say, “Run after these people Peter and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick Peter, we must get the people somehow.” Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them.

In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement! Their message is, “Come out, keep out, keep clean out!” Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.

After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting but they did not pray, “Lord grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.” If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). That is the only difference! Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods.

Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of the conversion stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

(1834-1892)

]]> http://feedingonchrist.com/spurgeon-on-the-amusement-driven-church/feed/ 3 http://feedingonchrist.com/the-sermon-on-the-mount-and-the-savior-on-the-mount/ http://feedingonchrist.com/the-sermon-on-the-mount-and-the-savior-on-the-mount/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:35:17 +0000 Nicholas T. Batzig http://feedingonchrist.com/?p=4382 Read more→]]> It is one of the hardest–and yet most necessary–tasks of the exegete to deal carefully with a particular text in the Bible while not forgetting it’s redemptive-historical context. Forgetting this all-important principle will inevitably lead a man to misinterpret the text, and so to potentially do much harm to his hearers. One of the areas in which this principle must be rigorously applied is with regard to the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7). It is not uncommon to hear a minister preach a series of sermons out of this portion of Scripture without helping his hearers see their need for Jesus as Savior. “It’s Jesus as Lord that we must emphasize here,” they will emphatically respond. Such an approach divides the Person of Christ from the work of Christ. He is, to His people, both Lord and Savior–at ever point in His ministry. The salvation He alone accomplished must ever be the undergirding foundation upon which His Lordship finds significance in the lives of His people. To say that Jesus did not intend the teaching in the Sermon on the Mount to drive men to Him for salvation is to rip the Savior out of the redemptive-historical context in which He lived and breathed. He was always moving toward something. He was heading to the mount–not the mount upon which He taught the loftiest ethic any man has heard, but to the mount upon which He would die for His people’s violations of those ethical teachings. In his sermon “Hungering and Thirsting after Righteousness,” Geerhardus Vos masterfully explained this dynamic when he wrote:

It is not so much what people find in the Sermon on the Mount, it is what they congratulate themselves for not finding there, that renders them thus enamored of its excellence. It is because they dislike the story of the helplessness of man, of man’s utter condemnation in the sight of God, and the insistence upon the necessity of the cross…All such forget that both Jesus and the Evangelists expressly relate the Sermon on the Mount to the disciples, and consequently place back of what is described in it the process of becoming a disciple, the whole rich relationship of saving approach and responsive faith, of calling and repentance and pardon and acceptance and the following of Jesus, all that makes the men and women of the Gospels such disciples and Jesus such a Lord and Savior as this and other records of His teaching imply. It is therefore folly to suggest that no specific doctrine of salvation is here. It is present as a living doctrine in the Person of Jesus. We are apt to forget that in the days of our Lord’s flesh there was no need for the explicit teaching about the Christ found in the Epistles of the New Testament. At that time He, the real Christ, walked among men and exhibited in His intercourse with sinners, more impressively than any abstract doctrine could have done, the principles and the process of salvation. If we have but eyes to see, we shall find our Savior in the out-door scenes of the Gospels, no less than in the walls of the school of the Epistle to the Romans. And we shall find Him too in the Sermon on the Mount. For this discourse throughout presupposes that the disciples, here instructed, became associated with Jesus as sinner needing salvation, and that their whole life in continuance is lived on the basis of grace.1

Even a consideration of the Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount will lend itself to such an interpretation. Notice that at least three of the beatitudes reveal a consciousness of personal helplessness, and an acknowledgement of spiritual inability. Believers are poor in spirit because they acknowledge that “nothing good dwells in them.” They mourn because they know the sinfulness of their hearts. They hunger and thirst after righteousness because they know that the do not have “a righteousness of their own.” With the fourth beatitude, our Lord clearly articulates this sense of spiritual poverty and the need for them to be filled with a righteousness outside of ourselves–a righteousness that He alone can provide. Vos went on to explain the relationship between the “hungering and thirsting” and the “being filled with righteousness” when he wrote:

The Lord here assures the hungry and thirsty ones, that they shall be satisfied. Every instinctive desire, when normal, carries in itself the knowledge that there is that which can satisfy it. The great gifts of God and the great desires of life have been created for each other, and call for each other. If this be true in the natural world, it is equally true in the spiritual world, in the sphere of redemption. The craving described in our text is a prophecy; it tells of a law in the kingdom of God, a sure creative appointment, out of which, twin-children of the divine grace, the hunger after righteousness and the righteousness itself are born. It is God, and God alone, who can produce in the deepest heart of man a thing so instinctive as what is here spoken of. No sinner can give this to himself. If we feel it at all, to however slight a degree, it is from no other cause than that the love of God has found us, and the breath of the Spirit Creator has blown upon us, quickening us into newness of life. If this were a desire artificially awakened or stimulated by man, there could be no assurance of either the existence or the satisfying character of its object. Even in the case of our noblest and most elevating desires after the creature, we too often make sad experience of the failure of our ideals to meet the expectation. The reason is that in our dreams we ourselves are the creators of the excellence we crave, and because we cannot also create the satisfaction, we hunger in vain. But it is different here. He that gave the thirst likewise provides the water, and the one exactly meets the other.

It is not the will of our Heavenly Father that any longing in our hearts, prompted by Himself, and therefore sincerely seeking Him, shall perish unsatisfied. A satisfying righteousness therefore must be provided for the people of God. And it must be provided outside of us. To eat means to be nourished from without. Since the sinner is devoid of all righteousness, it is self-evident, that the source of his supply must be sought beyond the confines of his own evil and empty nature. For it to be otherwise would mean that hunger could be stilled with hunger. Our Lord’s meaning obviously is that the coming order of things, the new kingdom of God, brings with itself, chief of all blessings, a perfect righteousness, as truly and absolutely the gift of God to man as is the entire kingdom. What is true of the kingdom, that no human merit can deserve, no human effort call it into being, applies with equal force to the righteousness that forms its center. It is God’s creation, not man’s. The prophet recognized it as such when, despairing of sinful Israel, he promised that in the future, in the new covenant, God would remember the sin no more, and would write his law upon the tablets of the heart. Our Lord here simply declares that what prophets and psalmists saw from afar is on the point of becoming real. The acceptable year of Jehovah is about to begin. His beatitudes are the evangel, giving answer across the ages to the prophesies of old. It means that with comfort and riches and mercy and sonship and the vision of God, righteousness will be given in abundance to a destitute people.

True, Jesus does not enter here upon any description of the method by which this is to be accomplished. As little as He specifies what will bring comfort in the place of mourning, does He tell how righteousness will banish sin. But does not the very fact of his foregoing to tell this afford a presumption that He is conscious of carrying the source and substance of all these things in his own Person? The same Jesus who immediately afterwards in interpreting the law puts side by side with the commandment of God his sovereign, “I say unto you,” the same Jesus here takes into his hands all the riches of prophecy, as only the God of prophecy can take them, and disposes of them as his own sovereign gift: “Theirs is the kingdom,” and “They shall be filled.” What gives Him the right to speak thus, not merely in the sphere of power, but also in the sphere of righteousness? As God He could change sickness into health, and mourning into joy, but even as God He cannot change sin and guilt into righteousness by a mere fiat of his will. When, nevertheless, He here declares that this will be done, the reason is that in his own life, his life of a servant, this greatest of all tasks is being accomplished.

In one sense the Sermon on the Mount was a sermon preached out of his own personal experience. The righteousness He described was not a distant ideal, it was an incarnate reality in Himself. He alone of all mankind fulfilled the law in its deepest purport and widest extent. His keeping of it proceeded from that sanctuary of his inner life where He and the Father always beheld each other’s face. He made it his meat and drink to do the will of God, His human nature was an altar from which the incense of perfect consecration rose ceaselessly day and night. He submitted to the cross and endured the shame, not merely on our behalf, but first of all in order that not one jot or one tittle of the divine justice should fall to the ground. He not only hungered and thirsted but was satisfied with the travail of his soul. And now you and I can come and take of the bread and water of life freely. Through justification we are even in this life filled with the fulness of his merit, and appear to God as spotless and blameless as though sin had never touched us. Through sanctification his holy character is impressed upon our souls, so that, notwithstanding our imperfections, God takes a true delight in us, seeing that the inner man is changed from day to day after the likeness of Christ. And the full meaning of our Lord’s promise we shall know in the last day, when He shall satisfy Himself in us by presenting us to God perfect in body, soul and Spirit. Then shall come to pass the word that is written: “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.” For we shall behold God’s face in righteousness and be satisfied, when we awake, with his image.2

J. Gresham Machen also observed:

Without the cross the Sermon on the Mount would be an intolerable burden; with the cross it becomes the guide to a way of life. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus held up an unattainable ideal, he has revealed the depths of human guilt, he has made demands far too lofty for human strength. But thank God, he has revealed guilt only to wash it away, and with his demands he has given strength to fulfill them. It is a sadly superficial view of the sermon on the mount which substitutes it for the story of the cross. A deeper understanding of it leads straight to Calvary.3

Finally, Machen summed up everything said above when he wrote, “The Sermon on the Mount, like all the rest of the New Testament, really leads a man straight to the foot of the cross.”4

1. Gerrhardus Vos, Grace and Glory pp. 39-40

2. Ibid., pp. 54-57

3. J. Gresham Machen The New Testament: An Introduction to its Literature and History (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust) pp. 196-974.

4. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity And Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1923), 38

Next week I plan on talking about “The Church as Spiritual Israel.” Some of the more helpful book on this subject are O. Palmer Robertson’s The Israel of God, David E. Holwerda’s Jesus and Israel: One Covenant or Two, and Hans K. LaRondelle’s The Israel of God in Prophecy.

The Scriptures obviously do not teach that someone could have saving faith and then lose that faith, but they do teach that someone may have a profession of faith in Christ (that for a time may look sincere) and then turn away from that profession (1 John 2:19). The question of how the NT authors address the visible church is one of great importance in this regard. The apostles never give a warning without following it up with a promise, or by reminding the members of the church what benefits they have in Christ. In this way, they spoke with a “judgment of charity.” It was not merely for the sake of being “kind” that they did so. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians is a perfect example of the pastoral implications that such an approach has on the individuals in the church. No one will turn to Christ–and from their sin–merely out of fear of judgment. Believers do not merely need to be told to “stop sinning.” Surely they must be told to turn from their sin. However, unless once they are in a state of grace they need to again be persuaded of what Christ has done for them in His work of redemption. God does not call hypocrites to work hard at turning from sin. Hypocrites need to be converted to Christ. Even within the visible church (where there are many hypocrites) there is a “judgment of charity” that speaks to the members of the church as if they possessed what is most needed in Christ. Jonathan Edwards–in what is perhaps the most helpful analysis of this subject–went through many of the New Testament epistles to show that “the apostles continually in their epistles speak to them [professing believers] and of them as supposing and judging them to be gracious persons.” He wrote:

The apostles continually in their epistles speak to them [professing believers] and of them as supposing and judging them to be gracious persons.

Thus the apostle Paul in his epistle to the church of the Romans, ch. Romans 1:7, speaks or the members of that church as “beloved of God.” In ch. Romans 6:17-18, etc. he “thanks God that they had obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which had been delivered them, and were made free from sin, and become the servants of righteousness,” etc. The Apostle in giving thanks to God for this, must not only have a kind of negative charity for them, as not knowing but that they were gracious persons, and so charitably hoping (as we say) that it was so; but he seems to have formed a positive judgment that they were such: his thanksgiving must at least be founded on rational probability; since it would be but mocking of God, to give him thanks for bestowing a mercy which at the same time he did not see reason positively to believe was bestowed. In ch. Romans 7:4-6, the Apostle speaks of them as those that once were in the flesh, and were under the law, but now delivered from the law, and dead to it. In ch.Romans 8:15 and following verses, he tells them, they had received the “spirit of adoption,” and speaks of them as having the witness of the Spirit that they were “the children of God, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.” And the whole of his discourse to the end of the chapter implies, that he esteemed them truly gracious persons. In ch. Romans 9:23-24, he speaks of the Christian Romans, together with all other Christians, both Jews and gentiles, as “vessels of mercy.” In ch. Romans 14:6-8, speaking of the difference, that then was among professing Christians, in point of regard to the ceremonial institutions of the law, he speaks of both parties as acting from a gracious principle, and as those that lived to the Lord, and should die unto the Lord. “He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord,” etc. “For none of us liveth to himself, and no man” (i.e. none of us) “dieth to himself; for whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live therefore or die, we are the Lord’s.” In ch. Romans 15:14, he says, “I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye are full of goodness.” His being thus persuaded implies a positive judgment of charity.

And the same Apostle in his first epistle to the Corinthians directs it to “the church at Corinth, that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call on the name of the Lord Jesus”; i.e. to all visible Christians through the world, or all the members of Christ’s visible church everywhere: and continuing his speech of these, ch. 1 Corinthians 1:8, he speaks of them as those “that God would confirm to the end, that they may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ”: plainly speaking of them all as persons, in Christian esteem, savingly converted. In the 1 Corinthians 1:9, he speaks of the faithfulness of God as engaged thus to preserve ‘em to salvation, having called them “to the fellowship of his son.” And in the 1 Corinthians 1:30 he speaks of them as having a saving interest in Christ; “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus; who of God is made unto us, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.” In ch. 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, he says to the members of the church of Corinth, “All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and ye are Christ’s.” In ch. 1 Corinthians 4:15, he tells ‘em, he had begotten ‘em through the gospel. In ch. 1 Corinthians 6:1-3 he speaks of them as those who “shall judge the world,” and “shall judge angels.” And in v. 1 Corinthians 6:11 he says to ‘em, “Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of God.” And in ch. 1 Corinthians 15:49 to the end, he speaks of them as having an interest, with him and other Christians, in the happiness and glory of the resurrection of the just. And in his second epistle, ch 2 Corinthians 1:7 he says to ‘em, “Our hope of you is steadfast; knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.” This steadfast hope implies a positive judgment. We must here understand the Apostle to speak of such members of the church of Corinth, as had not visibly backslidden, as they whom he elsewhere speaks doubtfully of. Again, in the fourteenth and fifteenth verses, he speaks of a confidence which he had, that they should be his rejoicing “in the day of the Lord Jesus.” In all reason we must conclude, there was a visibility of grace, carrying with it an apparent probability in the eyes of the Apostle, which was the ground of this his confidence. Such an apparent probability, and his confidence as built upon it, are both expressed in ch. 2 Corinthians 3:3-4, “Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ, ministered by us; written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart; and such trust have we through Christ to God-ward.” And in v. 2 Corinthians 3:18, the Apostle speaks of them, with himself and other Christians, as “all with open face beholding, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord,” and “being changed into the same image from glory to glory.”

And in the epistle to the churches of Galatia, ch. Galatians 4:26, the Apostle speaks of visible Christians as visibly belonging to heaven the “Jerusalem which is above.” And vv. Galatians 4:28-29, represents them to be the children of the promise, as Isaac was; and “born after the Spirit.” In the sixth verse of the same chapter he says to the Christian Galatians, “Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, father.” And in ch. Galatians 6:1 he speaks of those of them that had not fallen into scandal, as spiritual persons. In his epistle to that great church of Ephesus, at the beginning, he blesses God on behalf of the members of that as being together with himself and all the faithful in Christ Jesus, “Chosen in him before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blame before him in love, being predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein God had made them accepted in the beloved; in whom they had redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.” In ch. Galatians 1:13-14, he thus writes to them, “In whom ye also trusted… In whom after ye believes, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.” And in ch. Galatians 2 at the beginning: “You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” With much more, showing that they were, in a charitable esteem, regenerated persons and heirs of salvation.

So in the epistle to the members of the church of Philippi, the Apostle saluting them in the beginning of it, tells them that he “thanks God upon every remembrance of them, for their fellowship in the gospel; being confident of this very thing, that he which had begun a good work in them, would perform it until the day of Christ: even” (says he) “as it is meet for me to think this of you all.” If it was meet for him to think this of them, and to be confident of it, he had at least some appearing rational probability to found his judgment and confidence upon; for surely it is not meet for reasonable creatures to think at random, and be confident without reason. In vv. Philippians 1:25-26, he speaks of his “confidence that he should come to them for their furtherance and joy of faith, that their rejoicing might be more abundant in Christ Jesus.” Which words certainly suppose that they were persons who had already received Christ and comfort in him; had already obtained faith and joy in Christ, and only needed to have it increased. In the epistle to the members of the church of Colosse, the Apostle saluting them in the beginning of the epistle, gives thanks for their faith in Christ Jesus, and love to all saints, and the hope laid up for them in heaven; and speaks of the gospel’s bringing forth fruit in them, since the day they knew the grace of God in truth, i.e. since the day of their saving conversion.

In ch. Colossians 1:8 he speaks of their “love in the Spirit.” Vv. Colossians 1:12-14 he speaks of them as “made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; as being delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son; as having redemption through Christ’s blood, and the forgiveness of sins.” In ch. Colossians 3 at the beginning, he speaks of ‘em as “risen with Christ”; as being “dead” (i.e. to the law, to sin, and the world); as having their life “hid with Christ in God”; and being such as, when Christ their life should appear, should “appear with him in glory.” In vv. Colossians 3:7-10 he speaks of them as “having once walked and lived in lusts, but having now put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.”

 In the first epistle to the members of the church of Thessalonica, in words annexed to his salutation, ch. 1 Thessalonians 1, he declares what kind of visibility there was of their election of God, in the appearance there had been of true and saving conversion, and their consequent holy life, vv. 1 Thessalonians 1:3-7. And in the beginning of the second epistle he speaks of their faith and love greatly increasing; and in v. 2 Thessalonians 1:7, expresses his confidence of meeting them in eternal rest, when “the Lord Jesus Christ should be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels.” And in ch. 2 Thessalonians 2:13 he “gives thanks to God, that from the beginning he had chosen them to salvation.”

In the epistle to the Christian Hebrews, though the Apostle speaks of some that once belonged to their churches, but had apostatized and proved themselves hypocrites; yet concerning the rest that remained in good standing, he says (ch. Hebrews 6:9), “I am persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany salvation.” (Where we may again note, his being thus persuaded evidently implies a positive judgment.) And in ch. Hebrews 12:22-23, he speaks of them as visibly belonging to the glorious society of heaven. And in ch. Hebrews 13:5-6 he speaks of them as those who may “boldly say, the Lord is my helper.”

The apostle James, writing to the Christians of “the twelve tribes which were scattered abroad,” speaks of them as regenerated persons (meaning, as I observed before, those which were in good standing), ch. James 1:18, “Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.”

The apostle Peter writing to the Jewish Christians, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia (large countries, and therefore they must in the whole be supposed to be a great multitude of people), to all these the Apostle in the inscription or direction of his first epistle [1 Peter 1:1], gives the title of “elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.” And in the verses next following, speaks of them as regenerated or “begotten again to a lively hope, to an inheritance incorruptible,” etc. And as “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.” And says to them in vv. 1 Peter 1:8-9, “Whom” (namely Christ) “having not seen, ye love; in whom though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory; receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” And in v. 1 Peter 1:18 to the end, the Apostle speaks of them as redeemed from their vain conversation, by “the precious blood of Christ,” and as having “purified theirs souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit… being born again of incorruptible seed,” etc. [vv. 1 Peter 1:22-23]. And in the former part of ch. 1 Peter 2 he speaks of ‘em, as “living stones, coming to Christ, and on him built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” And as those that “believe,” to whom Christ “is precious… As a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, called out of darkness into marvelous light.” The church at Babylon occasionally mentioned in ch. 1 Peter 5:13 is said to be “elected together with them.” And in his second epistle (which appears by ch. 2 Peter 3:1 to be written to the same persons) the inscription is, “To them which have obtained like precious faith with us,” i.e. with the apostles and servants of Christ.

And in the third chapter, he tells ‘em, both his epistles were designed to stir up their pure minds. In the first epistle of John, written (for aught appears) to professing Christians in general, ch. 1 John 2:12, etc. the Apostle tells them, he writes to them “because their sins were forgiven,” because they “had known him that was from the beginning,” because they had “overcome the wicked one,” etc. In vv. 1 John 2:20-21 he tells ‘em they “have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things”; and that he did not write to ‘em because they had not known the truth, but because they had known it, etc. And in v. 1 John 2:27, he says, “The anointing which ye have received of him, abideth in you, and ye need not that any man should teach you; but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” And in the beginning of the third chapter he addresses them as those who were “the sons of God,” who when he should appear should be like him, because they should “see him as he is.” In ch. 1 John 4:4 he says, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome,” etc.

The apostle Jude, in his general epistle, speaks much of apostates and their wickedness; but to other professing Christians that had not fallen away, he says (vv. Jude 20-21), “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto eternal life”: plainly supposing, that they had professed faith with love to God our Savior, and were by the Apostle considered as his friends and lovers. Many other passages to the like purpose might be observed in the epistles, but these may suffice.1

1. http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xMTo1OjM6MDo4MS53amVvLjcwNjU5Ni43MDY1OTguNzA2NjEw

Notwithstanding the diversity of opinion and debate that has surfaced throughout the last century and a half surrounding the nature of the Mosaic Covenant and the Law of God, Reformed theologians have constantly emphasized–with a great measure of uniformity–what has been denominated, the third use of the Law. With almost equal uniformity, myriads of objections continue to be raised when this subject is discussed among Christians today. Some of these objections appear to be warranted; after all, didn’t the apostle Paul triumphantly declared that believers are “not under law by under grace” (Rom. 6:14)? The Scriptures are equally clear that Jesus Christ was “born under the law, that He might redeem us from the curse of the Law” (Gal. 4:4). This has naturally led some to conclude that the moral Law of God is irrelevant to New Covenant believers. Most within evangelical Protestantism will agree with the idea of the schoolmaster use of the Law because the apostle Paul unequivocally asserts that the Law demanded perfect obedience (Gal. 3:10; 12), threatened the curse of it upon the smallest infraction (Gal. 3:10; Heb. 2:2), and that it is—in and of itself—”a letter that kills” (2 Cor. 3:6) and a “ministry of condemnation” (2 Cor. 3:9). The Law, in this sense, is meant to show us our sinfulness and our need for the Savior. Paul answers the question, “What purpose does the Law serve,” with the clear statement, “It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made.”

Elsewhere the apostle affirms that “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Rom. 3:19). Both in redemptive history for the Jews, and for all men who are unconverted, “Therefore the law was our tutor [i.e. schoolmaster; pedagogy] to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith (Gal. 3:24). While the schoolmaster use of the Law is explicitly taught by Paul, the apostle equally insisted that in the Gospel the law is established rather than made void (Rom. 3:31), and that love fulfills the law (Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14). The writer of Hebrews reiterates the promise of the New Covenant with regard to the law being written on the hearts of those whose sins God forgives. The law there mentioned is nothing less than the moral law of God. There is, perhaps, no more pressing need in our day than for a careful treatment of the relationship between the Law and the Gospel, a careful study of the historical development of the three uses of the Law and specifically a study of what has been called the third use of the Law.

In addition to a concern I have over so many laying aside the moral Law of God, there is another concern I have regarding, specifically, the third use of the Law. As a proponent of the third use of the Law, I am grateful for the attempts of many who sincerely seek to defend the holiness of God and the commandments of Christ. That being said, I have become increasingly concerned that the third use of the Law is frequently misrepresented by those who are zealous to uphold its application in the lives of believers. There are several reasons for this concern.

First, many modern defendants of the third use fail to place it solidly in its redemptive-historical setting. This was not a problem in the Westminster Standards or the Heidelberg Catechism. The writers of these documents made the careful categorical qualifications necessary to preserve Gospel foundations.

Another reason for my concern has to do with the real danger of conflating a defense of the third use of the Law with the warnings against apostasy found in the Scriptures.

Finally, I’ve noticed a failure on the part of some proponents of the third use to explain the all-important reality of indwelling sin and the nuanced relationship between progressive sanctification and assurance of salvation. It is only as we carefully define the legal categories into which God’s commandments fall and give consideration to the historical development and formulation of the three uses of the Law that we can come to a settle position on the issues set out above.

The Law and Its Threefold Division 

Prior to entering in on a thorough study of the uses of the moral Law it will be beneficial to establish what Reformed theologians have called the Tri-partite division of the Law. The three-fold distinction of moral, ceremonial and civil law reaches back to the earliest days of the Christian church. It was taught by the apostle Paul in different places as he came to deal with the application of the Law to the New Testament people of God. While the Mosaic legislation in its entirety is sometimes denominated “the Law” (i.e. Torah), the word Law muyst be understood and defined in the various contexts in which it appears in the New Testament epistles and narratives. For instance, the apostle everywhere declares the freedom that Christians have from observances of the ceremonial laws given to Israel. The book of Acts is replete with accounts of how the Gospel was being threatened by the call for ceremonial observations. The book of Galatians is also built around this error, in part, as well. The letter to the Colossians makes it as specific as possible when the apostle tells the Christians in Colosse not to loose their freedom in Christ on account of those who insist on “festivals, New Moons and Sabbaths” (Col. 2:16).

What to do with the judicial (or civil) Law is somewhat more difficult on account of the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a clear abrogation of it in the writings of the Apostles. While the nature and scope of this paper, prevents us from entering in here on a detailed interaction of specific penal case laws, their place in redemptive-history, and the spiritual application of them by the apostles in the New Testament epistles, we must briefly consider two NT passages in which civil Laws are utilized. The theological significance of one specific form of the death penalty is applied by the apostle Paul to the death of Christ on the cross in Galatians 3:13. The obedient Son is treated as the disobedient son (Deut. 21:18-21). Though He was sinless, He was accused of being a “drunkard and a glutton” (Matt. 12:19) In the Law the rebellious son was to be taken to the elders of the city, and—if found guilty—stoned and hung on a tree (Deut. 21:23). As to the spiritual application of the case laws to the New Covenant church, 1 Cor. 5:13 serves as the locus classicus. Adapting this OT text, the apostle exhorts the church to “put away…the evil person.” This direct quote from Deut. 17:7; 19:19; 22:21, 24; and 24:7, in its original OT context, is used with reference to putting to death one who has committed a crime worthy of the death penalty. In 1 Corinthians it is used with reference to church discipline. There is an obvious shift from the civil to the ecclesiastical sphere with regard to the applicability of the civil law. George Knight reflects on the significance of this hermenuetical principle of spiritually interpreting case laws in the NT when he writes:

[Paul] refers to one or more of the passages in Deuteronomy 20 in which God in his written word instructs the people of God to remove the unrepentant wicked man from their midst (which in the OT context is done by stoning him). And therefore Paul’s entire description of the action to be taken is that of removing the man from their midst and not associating with him, not even eating with him. We note however that the action Paul enjoins is not that of stoning but rather of putting him out of the fellowship with a view to his repentance (cf. 1 Cor 5:5). That this spiritual action becomes the NT principle for church discipline in general, rather than the act of stoning, is borne out by his comments in 2 Cor 2:6–8 where he urges that one who had been disciplined should be forgiven, comforted and restored (impossible if he has been stoned to death). Paul’s utilization of this theocratic case law shows that he regards it as teaching an important principle that must be followed by the Church, even though not in the theocratic form of stoning to death but rather in the form appropriate to the nontheocratic, nonnational spiritual entity that the Church is in distinction from the Israel of the OT. Here the apostle takes account of the difference that fulfillment has brought about and at the same time maintains the principle of continuity for the instruction as it relates to the Church, and in doing so he also has “written for our instruction.”1

While the apostles insisted that the ceremonial law had found its anti-typical fulfillment in Christ, there were many specific applications of the Ten Commandments frequently made in the New Testament with regard to the life of believers. Perhaps the most clear is that found in Ephesians 6:1 where Paul quotes the sixth commandment and makes it applicable to covenant children in the New Covenant church. In addition to this example, Romans 13:8-10 is an explicit reference to the abiding nature of the moral Law. Rather than setting the commandments aside, Paul explains that they are “summed up” in the saying, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Here Paul is interested in showing that the motivation to keep the moral Law is the principle of love. While time would fail us to give a full consideration of the Tri-partite division of the Law, Philip Ross’ excellent work From the Finger of God is the best modern treatment of the subject. I would also commend Jonathan Bayes’ pamphlet as a worthwhile (and considerably shorter) treatment of the subject.

Historical Roots of Three Uses

It might come as a surprise to some to discover that it was not the members of the Westminster Assembly, or the German theologians of Heidelberg, who first taught the categorical distinction between “three uses of the Law;” rather, among Protestants it appears to have been Philip Melancthon, the student of the Magisterial German Reformer Martin Luther, who initiated this systematization. John Calvin–who is often attributed with the deliniation as it is found in his Institutes–evidently developed what was already manifest in Melancthon’s Loci communes. Richard Muller notes:

Characteristic of Melanchthon’s 1535/6 Loci communes is the development of three, as opposed to merely two, uses of the law. The clear distinction between the pedagogical function and the normative function of the law was not evident in 1521 but arose out of Melanchthon’s debates in the early 1530′s. It is therefore of some significance that Calvin’s discussion of the law and its uses in the 1536 and the 1539 Institutes also reflects the Melanchthonian model. In 1536, Calvin followed a pattern much like that of Melachthon’s 1535/6 loci communes, placing the uses of the law after the exposition of the Decalogue, as the point of transaction to the doctrine of justification. In 1539, while adopting the broader outlines of the Pauline-Melanchthonian loci, Calvin retained the concept of the three uses of the law as the conclusion to his discussion of the Decalogue, although, given the other changes that took place in 1539, the third use of the law no longer led to the discussion of justification. Also in 1539, justification no longer immediately follows law but is separated by the chapters on faith and creed and on justification. Calvin has echoed Melanchthon’s Pauline order of law, gospel, grace (justification and faith), and the distinction of the Old and New Testaments by moving from law to faith and creed, repentance, justification and the distinction of the Old and New Testaments, but he has also managed to retain, as a broader and fuller discussion of the Gospel, an expanded version of his chapter on faith and creed.2

As Muller notes in his observations above, Calvin clearly set forth “three uses of the Law” in the Institutes. In the following manner Calvin expressed the threefold use: “Let us take a succinct view of the office and use of the Moral Law. Now this office and use seems to me to consist of three parts.”1 He first recognized the way in which the moral Law functions as a “schoolmaster” to bring men to Christ when he wrote:

Thus the Law is a kind of mirror. As in a mirror we discover any stains upon our face, so in the Law we behold, first, our impotence; then, in consequence of it, our iniquity; and, finally, the curse, as the consequence of both. He who has no power of following righteousness is necessarily plunged in the mire of iniquity, and this iniquity is immediately followed by the curse. Accordingly, the greater the transgression of which the Law convicts us, the severer the judgment to which we are exposed. To this effect is the Apostle’s declaration, that “by the law is the knowledge of sin,” (Rom. 3:20). By these words, he only points out the first office of the Law as experienced by sinners not yet regenerated. In conformity to this, it is said, “the law entered that the offence might abound;” and, accordingly, that it is “the ministration of death;” that it “worketh wrath” and kills (Rom. 5:20; 2 Cor. 3:7; Rom. 4:15). For there cannot be a doubt that the clearer the consciousness of guilt, the greater the increase of sin; because then to transgression a rebellious feeling against the Lawgiver is added. All that remains for the Law, is to arm the wrath of God for the destruction of the sinner; for by itself it can do nothing but accuse, condemn, and destroy him.

…that divesting themselves of an absurd opinion of their own virtue, they may perceive how they are wholly dependent on the hand of God; that feeling how naked and destitute they are, they may take refuge in his mercy, rely upon it, and cover themselves up entirely with it; renouncing all righteousness and merit, and clinging to mercy alone, as offered in Christ to all who long and look for it in true faith. In the precepts of the law, God is seen as the rewarder only of perfect righteousness (a righteousness of which all are destitute), and, on the other hand, as the stern avenger of wickedness. But in Christ his countenance beams forth full of grace and gentleness towards poor unworthy sinners.3

Calvin then proceded to categorize the second use of the Law as that of restraint. “The second office of the law,” he wrote, “by means of its fearful denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment, curb[s] those who, unless forced, have no regard for rectitude and justice.” Here, an interesting historical matter arises. It has been common for scholars to appeal to Calvin’s delineation of the second use of the law as referring to civil restraint However, it is not civil restraint that Calvin seems to be speaking about; rather, Calvin subsumed the second use of the Lawunder the schoolmaster category–as he had done with the first use:

To both may be applied the declaration of the Apostle in another place, that “The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ,” (Gal. 3:24); since there are two classes of persons, whom by its training it leads to Christ. Some (of whom we spoke in the first place), from excessive confidence in their own virtue or righteousness, are unfit to receive the grace of Christ, until they are completely humbled. This the law does by making them sensible of their misery, and so disposing them to long for what they previously imagined they did not want. Others have need of a bridle to restrain them from giving full scope to their passions, and thereby utterly losing all desire after righteousness. For where the Spirit of God rules not, the lusts sometimes so burst forth, as to threaten to drown the soul subjected to them in forgetfulness and contempt of God; and so they would, did not God interpose with this remedy. Those, therefore, whom he has destined to the inheritance of his kingdom, if he does not immediately regenerate, he, through the works of the law, preserves in fear, against the time of his visitation, not, indeed, that pure and chaste fear which his children ought to have, but a fear useful to the extent of instructing them in true piety according to their capacity.4

To summarize the first two uses then, we conclude that the the first use of the law is to lead the self-righteous to come off of trusting in his own righteousness and to trust in Christ for righteousness, and the second use of the Law is for the lawless to fear the inevitable outcome of their rebellion and so to flee to Christ for salvation. It is an important distinction that has seldom been observed in treatments on this subject. Calvin leaves no question that he believed that the first two uses of the law were “schoolmaster” to bring legalist and lawless to saving faith in Christ. He introduced the second use by saying “there are two classes of persons, whom by its training it leads to Christ.”

Transitioning from the uses of the Law which are meant to bring men into a state of grace, Calvin denominated the third use of the Law as “the principle use” when he wrote:

“The third use of the Law (being also the principle use, and more closely connected with its proper end) has respect to believers in whose hearts the Spirit of God already flourishes and reigns. For although the Law is written and engraven on their hearts by the finger of God, that is, although they are so influenced and actuated by the Spirit, that they desire to obey God, there are two ways in which they still profit in the Law.”

In his treatment of the third use, Calvin set out the two ways in which the regenerate profit from the moral Law as follows:

(1) “It is the best instrument for enabling them daily to learn with greater truth and certainty what that will of the Lord is which they aspire to follow, and to confirm them in this knowledge;”

(2) “Then…the servant of God will derive this further advantage from the Law…he will be excited to obedience, and confirmed in it, and so drawn away from the slippery paths of sin….The Law acts like a whip to the flesh, urging it on as men do a lazy sluggish ass. Even in the case of a spiritual man, inasmuch as he is still burdened with the weight of the flesh, the Law is a constant stimulus, pricking him forward when he would indulge in sloth.”

Calvin followed his statements about the use of the moral Law in the life of the believer with the necessary qualification that “in regard to believers, the law has the force of exhortation, not to bind their consciences with a curse.” In this way Calvin showed the implication of the believers’ justification on his pursuit of sanctification. It would be pastorally damaging for him not to do so. While Calvin used strong language about the Law acting as a “whip to the flesh” and as a “stimulus, pricking…forward when…indulge[d] in sloth,” He developed what he meant by the Law’s inability to bind the conscience of believers when he wrote:

What Paul says, as to the abrogation of the Law, evidently applies not to the Law itself, but merely to its power of constraining the conscience. For the Law not only teaches, but also imperiously demands. If obedience is not yielded, nay, if it is omitted in any degree, it thunders forth its curse. For this reason, the Apostle says, that “as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,” (Gal. 3:10; Deut. 27:26). Those he describes as under the works of the Law, who do not place righteousness in that forgiveness of sins by which we are freed from the rigour of the Law. He therefore shows, that we must be freed from the fetters of the Law, if we would not perish miserably under them. But what fetters? Those of rigid and austere exaction, which remits not one iota of the demand, and leaves no transgression unpunished. To redeem us from this curse, Christ was made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree (Deut. 21:23, compared with Gal. 3:13, 4:4). In the following chapter, indeed, he says, that “Christ was made under the law, in order that he might redeem those who are under the law;” but the meaning is the same. For he immediately adds, “That we might receive the adoption of sons.” What does this mean? That we might not be, all our lifetime, subject to bondage, having our consciences oppressed with the fear of death. Meanwhile, it must ever remain an indubitable truth, that the Law has lost none of its authority, but must always receive from us the same respect and obedience.5

The question naturally ought to arise here as to why Calvin would not have considered all three uses of the Law to be “principle” (considering the fact that there is always a mixture of spiritual conditions with the visible church to whom the word of God is addressed). It may be that Calvin was thinking about the abiding significance of the law in the life of the believer, and–on account of the lifelong usefulness–so denominated it the “principle use.” It does seem somewhat problematic to call it the “principle use” since the apostle Paul asked and answered the question concerning the purpose of God’s giving the law with what seems to have been the first two uses. This is not to say that Paul did not speak of a use of the Law for the believer. 1 Corinthians 9:21 and Romans 3:31 would be two passages in which the third use could be discovered. Before going into the biblical-theological nuances it will help to consider the development of the teaching of the Law and its uses in the Reformed Confessions and Catechisms.

The Third Use in the Reformed Confessions and Catechisms

Q. 95-97 of the Larger Catechism is likely the best place to start with regard to the question to the Law and its uses as described in the Westminster Standards. As they begin to provide answers to the question, “Of what use is the moral Law…,” the Divines unfold their understanding of the uses in relation to various groups. Accordingly, the Law is useful to all men. This is some sense, a summary statement of the following two catechism questions. There is a general use of the Law that affects all men, whether unregenerate or regenerate. WLC 95 puts it in the following way:

“The moral law is of use to all men, to:

1) inform them of the holy nature and will of God,

2) and of their duty, binding them to walk accordingly;

3) to convince them of their disability to keep it, and of the sinful pollution of their nature, hearts, and lives; to humble them in the sense of their sin and misery,

4) and thereby help them to a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and of the perfection of his obedience.

The Law is fundamentally pedagogical. It teaches men that God is holy, that they are not, and that they need Christ.

In question 96, the Divines ask, “What particular use is there of the moral law to unregenerate men?” The answer they give sounds very much like the second part of the previous question. They wrote, “the moral law is of use to unregenerate men, to awaken their consciences to flee from wrath to come, and to drive them to Christ; or, upon their continuance in the estate and way of sin, to leave them inexcusable, and under the curse thereof.” The only addition to the first use–which was for “all men”–is that there is a condemnatory use of the Law for unrepentant unbelievers. If men will not turn to Christ out of a sense of their sin and need for salvation in Him, then the Law will serve the purpose of being the condemning standard on Judgment Day.

Finally (and most important to this study) in question 97 the Divines ask the question, “What special use is there of the moral law to the regenerate?” Here, I think, is the place where so much confusion occurs. Many modern Reformed theologians, might answer this question (if worded a bit differently), by saying, “The moral law is of special use to the regenerate to be a rule of life to them.” This is certainly true in one very qualified sense, but it is not the qualified and nuanced answer that the Divines give. They first preface it and then give a three layered answer to the question:

(1) Although they that are regenerate, and believe in Christ, be delivered from the moral law as a covenant of works, so as thereby they are neither justified nor condemned; yet, besides the general uses thereof common to them with all men, it is of special use, to show them:

(2) How much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it, and enduring the curse thereof in their stead, and for their good; and

(3) thereby to provoke them to more thankfulness, and to express the same in their greater care to conform themselves thereunto as the rule of their obedience.

Note that the Puritans were insistant that our justification by faith alone in Christ alone is the fundamental first step in understanding the role of the moral Law in the life of the believer. They do not lay aside the implications of that justification. Rather, they root the third use of the Law firmly in the justification we have in Christ. To fail to make this first, fundamental step is to walk into the dangerous landmine-field of legal sanctification. If we forget that we are justified in Christ–and that we are neither justified nor condemned by the Law–then we will fail to live in the freedom and gratitude that we have in Christ. It is that freedom and gratitude that will enable us to run the course of God’s commandments.

Secondly the Puritans noted that the moral Law is useful in the life of the regenerate to remind them of the ongoing need they have for the finished work of Christ. It is not only the unbeliever than needs to know that Christ has fulfilled the Law for us and has taken the curse of it “in our place and for our good.” Believers continue to need this to be pressed into their minds and hearts. The reason is simple. The believer needs the Gospel too because the believer will continue to sin. We never grow in godliness so much that we do not constantly need that supporting grace of Christ. The writers of the Heidelberg and the Westminster Standards will certainly move the believer on to see their need for growth in godliness, but not without reminding them of this absolutely fundamental foundation. In fact, in WCF 19.6 the Divines explained that the moral law was useful to the regenerate in that “it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of His obedience.” This, it seems to me is the one emphasis that is often left out by those who are zealous to teach the third use of the Law. It is, however, only part of the third use.

The final layer of the Divine’s answer concerning the third use of the Law (WLC Q. 97) is what moves us on from our need for Christ to the necessary response to the grace of Christ in our lives. The Divines explain that the moral law is useful to believers in that it “ provoke[s] them to more thankfulness, and to express the same in their greater care to conform themselves thereunto as the rule of their obedience.” Here an exceedingly important nuance must be observed. The first thing introduced in the moral obligations of the Law in the life of the believer is not the sheer obligatory character, rather it is the heart motivation for obedience. The language of “thankfulness” is employed. It is not out of “servile fear” that the believer presses on in obedience. Elsewhere in the Confession, the Divines make it clear that “The liberty which Christ has purchased for believers under the Gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, and condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation;as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto Him, not out of slavish fear, but a child-like love and willing mind (WCF 20.1).” It is the “thankfulness,” and “child-like love” that are the proper motivations for the believer to obey God.

This is, incidentally, the same thing being spoken of in the Belgic Confession when they contrast the motives of obedience produced by justification with the improper motives to obedience in unbelievers. Article 23 notes that the justification we have through the finished work of Christ “is enough to cover all our sins and to make us confident, freeing the conscience from the fear, dread, and terror of God’s approach…” Article 24 declares that “far from making people cold toward living in a pious and holy way, this justifying faith, quite to the contrary, so works within them that apart from it they will never do a thing out of love for God but only out of love for themselves and fear of being condemned.” The writers of the Heidelberg sweetly comply with this in Q. 86 when they answer the question, “Since then we are delivered from our misery, merely of grace, through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we still do good works?” with the answer, “Because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by his blood, also renews us by his Holy Spirit, after his own image; that so we may testify, by the whole of our conduct, our gratitude to God for his blessings, and that he may be praised by us; also, that every one may be assured in himself of his faith, by the fruits thereof; and that, by our godly conversation others may be gained to Christ.” Someone may at this point object and say, “But doesn’t the Bible everywhere teach us that we are fear God and keep His commandments?” To this I would direct the reader to John Bunyan’s fine work, A Treatise on the Fear of God. It will suffice to say that godly fear is not a fear of God’s terror and wrath that causes a man or woman to seek to obey Him out of fear of going to Hell. Otherwise, the benefits of justification are made void. As John notes in his first epistle, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:17-19).”

The final part of WLC 97 most certainly teaches that believers may not lay aside the moral obligations of the Law of God; rather, out of gratitude for what Christ has accomplished for them they are to “express the same [i.e. their thankfulness for redemption] in their greater care to conform themselves thereunto as the rule of their obedience.” The 10 commandments form the sphere of our sanctification. They are the railroad tracts upon which the Spirit of God moves the believer along. They are the guiding pathway of the righteous. They are, in the words of the promise of the New Covenant spoken by Jeremiah the prophet (Jer. 31:33; Heb. 10:16), “written on the heart” of believers. Far from Christ’s finished work giving permission to lay aside the commandments, Jesus renews His people so that they grow in obedience to them throughout their Christian life.

The authors of the Heidelberg Catechism give similar answers about the Law and its use in the life of the believer as that of WLC 97. For the sake of this study we will only consider Heidelberg Q. 114-115. In Heidelberg 114 the question is asked, “But can those who are converted to God perfectly keep these commandments?” It is clear that the writers are seeking to guard against a unbiblical teaching of perfectionism. Having just taught that the Law demands absolute perfect obedience, someone might ask then if it is possible for the redeemed to attain to that perfection. The answer they give is extremely straightforward. They say, “No: but even the holiest men, while in this life, have only a small beginning of this obedience; yet so, that with a sincere resolution they begin to live, not only according to some, but all the commandments of God.” It is a two part answer that first guards against the abuse of some who might suggest that the practical holiness that believers attain to in this life is in perfect or nearly perfect. However, the writers are also eager not to say that it then doesn’t matter whether we pursue practical godliness in our lives. The first part of the answer is a reflection on what Paul teaches in Romans 7 and the second what he teaches in Romans 8.

The writers of the Heidelberg Catechism put it so nicely when they answer the question, “Why will God then have the ten commandments so strictly preached, since no man in this life can keep them?” (Q. 115), with these words: “that all our lifetime we may learn more and more to know our sinful nature, and thus become the more earnest in seeking the remission of sin, and righteousness in Christ.” The authors of the Heidelberg Catechism, in the same way as the writers of the WLC, are making the observation that we as believers need to recognize our sinfulness and trust in Christ and His finished work “all our lifetime.”

The Third Use of the Law and the Foundation of Christ’s Saving Work

The Divines begin to explain what Calvin had denominated the third use of the Law by emphasizing that “believers be not under the moral Law as a Covenant of Works so that they are neither justified nor condemned by it.” The Divines consider this to be the necessary first step in treating the usefulness of the Law in the life of the believer. Because even the best Christian discovers “sin that so easily besets them,” and often feels the weight of that sin and the accusatory voice of the evil one, they need to be reminded that the relationship which we sustain with God is not one built upon our performance to the Law of God. We are “neither justified, nor condemned by it.”

 While it is helpful to know the historical roots of these distinctions, it is important to note how seldom modern proponents of the “third use of the Law” will approach their defining of the third use in the manner in which the authors of Reformed Confessions and Catechism expositions of them (This is somewhat ironic, since those who are most zealous to defend the role of the Law of God in the life of the believer also often see themselves as gatekeepers of the Reformed Confessions). The Divines so carefully define the relationship of the moral Law to believer in light of the finished work of Christ in their defense of the third use. There is an undeniable redemptive foundation laid in the Reformed Confessions and Catechisms so often overlooked or ignored; and yet, it is precisely this foundation that is necessary for sustaining the obligatory aspects ofthe third use of the Law.

The moral Law demands perfect and continual obedience. Even after the fall, God demands perfect obedience. As was the case prior to the fall, so after the fall, the demand for perfect and continual obedience is coupled with the promise of “life upon the fulfilling, and threatening [of] death upon the breach of it” (WCF 19.1). The authors of the Westminster Confession of Faith expressly state this when they wrote: “ This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness…” Wherever the Law is found (whether it be in the Covenant of Works with Adam in the Garden or the promulgation of it to the Covenant people at Sinai) it demands absolute obedience. The Divines expressly teach this as a principle fundamental to the nature of the Law of God–and the relationship between the moral Law and the all mankind. Of course, no fallen man can keep even one precept of the Law, let alone keep the whole of the Law of God perfectly and perpetually. But that does not change the fact that God “directs and binds everyone to personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto, in the frame and disposition of the whole man, soul and body, and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness which he owes to God and man: promising life upon the fulfilling, and threatening death upon the breach of it.”

Jesus Christ, the second Adam and true Israel, fulfills the Law perfectly for His people, takes their curse in His death on the cross, and receives the blessing of life for them by His own merit. This is why the Scriptures say that He was “born under the Law.” That is why the Redeemer was an Israelite. This is why He became our “flesh and blood” brother. He took on a human nature, and put Himself in our precise relationship, to redeem us from the curse of the law. This is one eternally important reason why Israel received the Law in the Mosaic Covenant, with the associated typological promise of blessing and cursing. Christ, the antitype of Israel, takes the antitypical curse for the Covenant people and fulfills the righteous requirement of the Law to give them the antitypical (eternal) blessings by faith in Him.

The Divines, make it clear that no man or woman–as physically descending from Adam by ordinary generation–can fulfill the Law of God for their justification. Even when they enter in on the discussion of the role of the moral Law in the life of the believer, the Divines note that “though the regenerate be delivered from the moral Law as a Covenant of Works,” and that it continues to show believers “how much they are bound to Christ for his fulfilling it, and enduring the curse thereof in their stead, and for their good.” When the Law is divested of the fulfillment it finds in the finished work of Christ it becomes an unbearable burden. This is not only the case for the unbeliever who labors under the weight of unforgiven sins. In the believers’ life the law can function in a condemnatory manner if it is striped out of its redemptive-historical setting. If we left it there, however, we would surely be falling into the realm of an accidental antinomianism. We must always press on in obedience to the commandments of the Christ who redeemed and justified us. We can never rest in a lifestyle of sin and rebellion. We, out of gratitude and child-like love, pursue holiness in the fear of God. Our Lord Jesus did not redeem us to leave us in disobedience. We were purchased with His blood that we might be “zealous for good works.” May we always keep these two parts of God grace before us. Christ frees us from sins guilt and power. We receive both in the Gospel, both by faith, and both by grace.

1. George Knight, “The Scriptures Were Written for Our Instruction,” (an article published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society) JETS 39/1 (March 1996) 3–13, see esp. p. 10.

2. Richard Muller, The Unaccomodated Calvin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) p. 129

3. John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, Book 2.7.7, 1921) p.319

4. Ibid., Book 2.7.11 p.321

5. Ibid., Book 2.7.15 pp. 325-326

We may imagine a dialogue between the law of God and a sinful man.

“Man,” says the law of God, “have you obeyed my commands?”

“No,” says the sinner, “I have transgressed them in thought, word, and deed.”

“Well, then, sinner,” says the law, “have you paid the penalty which I have pronounced upon those who have disobeyed? Have you died in the sense that I meant when I said, ‘The soul that sins it shall die’?”

“Yes,” says the sinner, “I have died. That penalty that you pronounced upon my sin has been paid.”

“What do you mean,” says the law, “by saying that you have died? You do not look as though you had died. You look as though you were very much alive.”

“Yes,” says the sinner, “I have died. I died there on the cross outside the walls of Jerusalem; for Jesus died there as my representative and my substitute. I died there, so far as the penalty of the law was concerned.”

“You say Christ is your representative and substitute,” says the law. “Then I have indeed no further claim of penalty against you. The curse which I pronounced against your sin has indeed been fulfilled. My threatenings are very terrible, but I have nothing to say against those for whom Christ died.”

That, my friends, is what Paul means by the tremendous “therefore,” when he says: “One died for all, therefore all died.” On that “therefore” hangs all our hope for time and for eternity.

You can read the entire sermon here. (Incidentally, this is also one of the finest exegetical defenses of the doctrine of “particular redemption” found in all of church history!)

How to enter:

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Here is a description of the book:

Practical Sermons, Never Before Published by the late Reverend Mr Jonathan Edwards, President of the College of New Jersey. It was published in Edinburgh, Scotland and printed for M Gray, Front of the Exchange. 402 pages and 33 Sermons.

Top 1/3 of the advertisement page is missing but it contained no printed information. There is a small 3/4″ tear on one contents page by Sermon 19. The tops edges of the book are scuffed but the binding is intact.

“These Sermons were transcribed from the Author’s original manuscripts by his son, the Reverend Dr Jonathan Edwards of Newhaven, and never before published.’ — Contents: 1-2 The importance and advantage of a thorough knowledge of divine truth (Nov 1739) – 3 God the best portion of the Christian (Apr 1736) – 4 The sole considera tion, that God is God,sufficient to still all objections to his sovereignty (June 1735) – 5 Great guilt no obstacle to the pardon of returning sinner. [Note, p. 54] `Not dated. All the Sermons in this collection which are not dated, are supposed to have been written before the year 1733.’ – 6 The Most High a prayer-hearing God (Jan 8, 1736) – 7-10 Great care necessary, lest we live in some way of sin (Sep 1733) – 11-12 Great guilt of those who attend on the ordinances of divine worship, and yet allow themselves in any known wickedness – 13-16 World judged righteously by Jesus Christ – 17 Vain self-flatteries of the sinner – 18 Wicked men useful in their destruction only (July 1734) – 19-20 Fearfulness,which shall hereafter surprise sinners in Zion (Dec 19,1740) – 21 When the wicked shall have filled up the measure of their sin, wrath will come upon them to the uttermost (May 1735) – 22-25 Torments of the wicked in hell,no occasion of grief to the saints in heaven (22: Mar 1733; 24: Dec 1734) – 26-27 Sin and folly of depending on future time – 28 Sin of theft and of injustice (July 1740) – 29-32 Duty of charity to the poor – 33 The nature and end of excommunication (July 22, 1833) [excommunication of Mrs. Bridgman, previously admonished, for drunkenness].”

The First Fruits (Literally!)

The Bible opens with some very clear statements about food. Almost immediately upon the creation of mankind, the Lord blessed men and animals, and said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food” (Gen. 1:29). In the pre-lapsarian (pre-fall) state men and animals were given the right to eat vegetation. Prior to the fall all men were vegetarians. The goodness of God is seen in that He gave His image bearers the right to eat of “every tree of the Garden,” with one prominent exception.

While the Bible opens with a picture of blessing and delightful amazement at the newly created world, it doesn’t take long in the Genesis narrative to see how quickly and radically things changed. Instead of delighting in God and in His bountiful blessings, our first parents rebelled against Him. Adam chose a piece of fruit over the infinitely glorious God. It was in following his wife in this regard that Adam led the entire human race into destruction and misery. As C.S. Lewis so poignantly put it, “She who thought it beneath her dignity to bow to God now worships a vegetable. She has at last become primitive in the popular sense.”1 The first–and most destructive–sin of humanity involved food, and a single piece of fruit at that! It was not in eating meat that Adam sinned. It was in taking of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil–the only thing that God had withheld from him.

The sin of our first parents was not primarily a sin against fellow creatures, or creation in general. Surely, Adam’s sin had adverse effects on all of his descendants, thus making his sin a sin against humanity. In addition to effecting humanity, Adam’s sin brought a curse on all of creation (Rom. 818-23). Adam’s sin, however, was first and foremost sin against his Creator. The God who had given man freely to eat of all vegetation set off limits the fruit of one tree in order to test the obedience of His image bearers. God was King. In order for Adam to remember this–and for him to know this experientially–there had to be at least one object that was set off limits. In this way, the LORD would test Adam as to his knowledge of the distance between the Creator and the creature. Instead of choosing to love and obey his Maker, Adam failed the test and brought misery upon Himself and all His descendants. Thomas Boston, in Human Natures in its Fourfold State, put it this way:

Now this fair Tree, of which he was forbidden to eat, taught him…that his happiness lay not in enjoyment of the creatures, for there was a want even in Paradise: so that the forbidden tree was in effect the hand of all the creatures, pointing man away from themselves to God for happiness: It was a sign of emptiness hung before the door of the creation, with that inscription, “This is not your rest.”2

Cheeseburgers After Paradise

In the unfolding of redemptive history, a striking development emerged with regard to God-given directives concerning animals (Gen. 9). Noah was commanded to take two of every clean and seven of every unclean animal in to the Ark. Both land animals and birds were to be brought into the ark: “Then the LORD said to Noah, ‘Come into the ark, you and your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation. You shall take with you seven each of every clean animal, a male and his female; two each of animals that are unclean, a male and his female; also seven each of the birds of the air, male and female, to keep the species alive on the face of the earth’” (Gen 7:1-3). Just as God had given Adam creation mandates to be fruitful and multiply so He gave Noah re-creation mandates. The Lord had given Adam instruction concerning what he could eat. So too Noah received instruction concerning food. In redemptive history, however, man would not simply have the right to partake of vegetation. When He spoke to Noah concerning food, the Lord said, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood” (Gen. 9:3-4). One of the great questions we must answer is, “Why would God give man the right to eat animals after the fall when He did not give him that right prior to the fall?”

It is clear from Scripture that Noah was a type of “the second Adam;” he was not “The second Man,” or “the Last Adam,” but was a type of the One to come. Noah’s name meant “rest.” His father named him “Rest,” saying, “This one will give us rest from the ground that the Lord God has cursed.” Noah only brought that rest in a typical sense when he walked off of the Ark with his family to inhabit a typical new creation. But Christ, the greater Noah, actually gives rest to the souls of men and women (Matt. 11:25-30). Christ alone has secured the new creation through His death and resurrection. The Lord preserved mankind after the flood in order to fulfill His promise (Gen. 3:15) to send the “seed” of the woman to crush the head of the Serpent. He also preserved Noah on the Ark because the Redeemer was in his loins–so to speak (Luke 3:23, 35-37). Because Messiah had not yet come, God would have been unfaithful to His promise if He had utterly destroyed the world. He left a remnant so that men might multiply, and that the Christ might come and redeem a multitude of people to great to number. Though the flood had been a judgment on the wickedness of the fallen world, it could never take that wickedness out of the hearts of men, only the saving work of Christ could do so. God promised never to destroy the world in the way that He had done so for the very same reason for which He had destroyed it in the first place (Gen. 6:5-7; 8:20-22). In short, the humanity of Christ was in the Ark in Noah’s loins, and everything in the Ark with Noah was going to be used in the unfolding plan of redemption. Why did God preserve clean and unclean animals in the Ark? The most significant answer that can be given is, “For the work of redemption.”

When the waters receded, Noah stepped off of the Ark and offered an animal sacrifice to God for his sins. This, in part, accounted for the clean and unclean animal distinction which was already in existence. We know that the Lord had taught our first parents about the need to sacrifice, since their sons were proven to be what they indeed were in the act of sacrifice (Gen. 4:2-7; Heb. 11:4). The clean animals were set apart by God to serve as preparatory sacrifices–a practice that originated in the Garden immediately after the fall, and which would in turn be legislated into Israel’s worship. They were integral to the unfolding of God’s redemptive plan which was ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Jesus is the One to whom the animals were typically pointing. He is the “Lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet. 1:19) who would end all sacrifices by the sacrifice of Himself. This is demonstrated by Noah’s first act after leaving the ark: “Noah built an alter to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the alter. And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma” (Gen 8:21). It is abundantly clear from the teaching of the New Testament that the sacrifice of Christ was an “offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma” (Eph. 5:2)–the fulfillment of all the animal sacrifices in the Old Testament. The only conclusion that can be drawn is that God had revealed the clean and unclean animal distinction to Noah this early in redemptive history, and that he was aware of it at the time when he went to offer a sacrifice to God for his sins. The observations of C.C. Jones’ are noteworthy:

On Noah’s coming out of the ark, the use of ‘the alter’ in sacrifice is mentioned for the first time, but in such a familiar manner that we are constrained to believe that the alter is coeval with the sacrifice; and the same God who ordained the one ordained the other. Mention is made also for the first time of ‘clean beast’ and of ‘clean fowl,’ in distinction from the unclean, which assures us that the laws regulating the sacrifices were full and particular, and must have been so from the beginning.3

It is also clear from the New Testament that “these clean and unclean animals would, in time, become illustrative of the two groups of mankind–Jews and Gentiles. These two classifications represented spiritually clean and unclean groups of humanity in redemptive history until Christ came. The Scriptures expressly teach this in the account of Peter’s vision of the unclean animals brought down from heaven in the sheet for him to eat. (Acts 10:9-11:18). David Gooding explains the moral dimension of the clean/unclean distinction with regard to Israel’s relationship to the nations in the Old Covenant economy:

A widely held view has been that God [appointed the clean and unclean distinction with regard to animals] because He was concerned for the health and hygiene of His people. In those far-off primitive days, so the argument goes, when people had no scientific understanding of germs and viruses, and no refrigeration to stop meat going bad, God forbade the eating of certain animals, birds, and fish, to protect His people from the poison that those creatures could easily carry.

But this explanation is inadequate. When the Lord Jesus was on earth He canceled these food laws—see Mark 7:19: “In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.” And that was not because science and technology had advanced so far in His day that it was now safe to eat foods that up till that time had been a danger to health! If they had been dangerous to eat in Moses’ days, they were still dangerous to eat in our Lord’s time. If they were now fit to eat, it was because they were consecrated by the Word of God and prayer, as Paul subsequently put it (1 Tim. 4:4-5).4

During His earthly ministry, Jesus stood against the Israelitish perversion of making ceremonial practices (which were always meant to serve a redemptive-historical purpose) into a platform for ethno-religious righteousness. The majority of the nation missed the all-important truth that the clean/unclean distinction pointed forward to the moral transformation and cleansing that men would experience in Christ in the work of redemption. Significantly, this distinction had passed away with the earthly ministry of our Lord. Gooding further notes:

What our Lord was concerned about, therefore, was real moral uncleanness, and very forcefully He made the point that physical food entering the body cannot defile a man morally or spiritually: for it touches his stomach, not his heart.2 Now the very fact that the disciples did not at first understand Him (see Mk. 7:15-18), and He was obliged to repeat His lesson, shows that the apostles had originally confused these two things. They originally thought that eating “unclean food” defiled a man morally, when of course it did not. It was God’s prohibition on certain kinds of food that made eating it defiling, not the food in itself.5

Finally, Gooding offers an explanation of the distinction from the practical dimension for the clean/unclean distinction in Israel in redemptive-history when he notes:

These ceremonial and ritual laws would have both a positive and a negative effect. Positively, they reinforced in Israel’s thinking that as a nation they were separated to the Lord; specially set apart for Him. However morally and spiritually clean the members of another nation might have been, they did not have the role that Israel as a nation had. Israel’s role, as a kingdom of priests, was special, indeed unique. The ceremonial separation from certain kinds of food which other nations ate reinforced and underlined the fact that they were in a special sense separated to the Lord, especially “holy” in a ritualistic way.

Negatively, these food laws had an immediate practical effect: they made social mixing with Gentile nations difficult, since Israelites could not eat Gentile food. This would not only reinforce the fact that Israel was a special nation, but also act as a constant reminder that Israel was to avoid the moral and spiritual uncleanness of the Gentiles.6

Feeding on Christ

The Jew-Gentile distinction was not the only redemptive-historical meaning behind the clean/unclean animal distinction it he OT. There was also an important anticipatory dimension relating to the eating of meat. Until the flood all men were–by default–vegetarians; after the flood it pleased God to give men animal meat for food. This served as a precursor to the eating of the sacramental and ceremonial redemptive meals, such as the Passover. It was impossible, however, to be a Vegetarian if you were a member of the Old Covenant church, because God was foreshadowing the spiritual eating of the flesh and blood of His Son in the sacrifices. The apostle John began draws out this fulfillment when he wrote:

Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who was crucified with Him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you may believe. For these things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken.” And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced” (John 19:32-37).

The apostle Paul explained the significance of the crucifixion when he wrote, “Christ our Passover Lamb was sacrificed for us” (1 Cor. 5:7). Jesus Himself had taught the necessity of seeing in the animal sacrifices a prelude to His sacrificial death on the cross when He said:

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him…whoever feeds on Me, he also will live because of Me.(John 6:53-57).

Only those who partake of Christ by faith enjoy the blessings of His sacrifice. The same idea is conveyed in our Lord’s command to eat of His body and drink of His blood, as they are symbolized in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. The bread and the wine do not become the body and blood of Christ, rather they represent the reality of those things that are the sum and substance of our spiritual nourishment. The eating of the animal sacrifices of the Old testament was a prefiguring of the spiritual feeding on Christ by faith. The eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine is a reflective action by which we remember what our Lord has suffered for us in His sacrifice on the cross. The clean animals on the Ark and in Israel’s sacrificial system were meant, from the first, to be anticipatory expressions of the spiritual realities of Christ.

Eating and Drinking in the Kingdom of God

As has been already noted, Jesus alluded to the cessation of the clean/unclean food distinction in His coming into the world. In Mark 7:15 He explicitly said, “Nothing that enters the mouth defiles a man…” In this statement our Lord asserted the freedom that we have in the New Covenant era to eat any kind of vegetation and/or animal. Our Lord ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners. The repeal of ceremonial laws in the New Covenant era included not only meant the repeal of the dietary restrictions concerning ceremonially unclean animal meats–but also the abrogation of the vows that forbid the drinking of alcoholic beverages. It is clear from the teaching of Jesus Himself that He ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners. The Son of God contrasted His own festive missional outreach with the ascetic ministry of John the Baptist (Matt. 11:18-19). John did not come eating and drinking; the Son of Man came eating and drinking. Just in case someon might object by saying, “Well, Jesus doesn’t say that He drank alcohol,” our Lord added that He was called falsely, on account of what He was eating and drinking, “a drunkard and a glutton;” and just in case someone objected by saying, “Well, the wine He was driking wasn’t strong enough to get drunk on,” Jesus says they falsely accused Him of drunkeness–thus proving that what He drank was intoxicating drink. Now, to be sure, the Son of God never would have drank a sip of alcohol in any sort of excessive way. He was without sin. He would have drank alcohol to a non-sinful degree. But our Lord created wine for gladness of heart, the blessings of the New Covenant are symbolically represented under the figure of the redeemed of the LORD drinking new wine up in the mountains (Amos 9:13), and our Lord Jesus opened His ministry by miraculously turning 180 gallons of water into wine fora wedding party. In this final act Jesus shows that He is bringing the eschatological blessings of which Amos spoke.

The apostle Paul constantly seemed to be engaged in battling legalism in issues concerning food and drink. Whether it was Peter’s refusal to sit at table with Gentiles in Antioch, or the insistance of the false teachers in Colosse, Paul was relentless in insisting on the freedom Christians have from the ceremonial laws of the OT. Paul plainly declare that all foods and drinks “perish with the using,” and that the abstinence of such “are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.” It is for this reason that we cannot, and must not, bind the consciences of others with regard to what we eat or what we drink. We must not say, “do not touch, do not taste, do not handle” (Col. 2:20-23)–as if pure and undefiled religion consisted in abstaining from things that “perish with the using.” There is no intimation in Scripture that in the New Covenant era any foods are unclean. As a matter of fact, the opposite is true. Paul explained to Timothy that teaching others that they may not eat such and such food (as an ethico-religious principle) amounted to “doctrines of demons:”

Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:1-5).

Here, it is important for us to make a biblical and a modern application. There has been a rise of interest in the organic food movement among many Christians. This is in many ways a good thing. For instance, my wife is part of a co-op in which she and several other ladies in our church collectively buy grain to bake their own bread. I have, therefore, been the recipient of some amazingly delicious and healthy breads. There is certainly great benefit from eating foods that promote healthy bodily function. That being said, I’ve also noticed dangerous pitfalls with regard to the organic food craze. I took a seminary class several years ago and had eight hours of class nearly nonstop for one week. On one of the days in particular I brought some fast food back with me to class and was seriously into some fries. A fellow student walked by, looked at the fries and said, “Brother, ‘You shalt not kill.’” This person was attempting to bind my conscience concerning a personal (not a biblical) sanction. I instantly responded by telling him that I had thanked God for the delicious fries and that they were actually keeping me alive. This serves to show the kind of sinful conscience binding that can enter into the live of God’s people via an obsession with organic/health food.

Paul summs up his teaching on foods by saying “For all creatures of God are good and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Tim. 4:4-5). The Westminister Confession of Faith sets out the biblical teaching on liberty of conscience so well when it says, “God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship; so that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.” A friend of mine once gave one of the most helpful illustrations of the offense of making God’s word more narrow that it actually is. If the speed limit for the main road in your town is 35 miles per hour, and you don’t like that speed limit, you may choose to do one of two things. You may choose to break it by going 55 mph. Surely this course of action would be displeasing to the authorities and would probably result in a fairly sizable ticket. If, however, you choose to pull over on the side of the road by the speed limit sign with a can of paint, and proceed to change the 35 mph limit to 15 mph you would probably incur a greater punishment. It is one thing to break the law by surpassing the limits and quite another to try to change the law itself. When someone seeks to bind another’s conscience unbiblically they are doing the latter. It is an affront to God’s wisdom and holiness to tamper with the law of God.

The Apostle Paul wanted to ensure that believers understood that “that there is nothing unclean of itself;” and that “to him who considers anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean” (Romans 14:14). These are the two great categorical distinctions that must be kept in view when considering the ethics of food in the New Covenant. One the one hand, God has given us all good things to enjoy. This means that limiting the food we eat to vegetation or organic is to deny what God has said in His word. We have the right to eat all kinds of meats and all kinds of foods. Even food that has been offered to idols is cosher for the believer since “an idol is nothing.” There is, however, a significant “one another” factor to the liberty we enjoy as Christians–a “one another” factor that deals with stronger and weaker consciences.

Weak is Not Stronger

The biblical teaching on the weaker and stronger brother in the book of Romans is not easy territory to charter. On the surface it appears that Paul says that things that may be good in themselves may become sinful if they are done in the face of the unbelief of a weaker brother. Can the Scriptures really be teaching that something that is not sinful may become sinful on account of our brothers’ conscience? The easiest way to answer this question is to consider Paul’s teaching in Romans 14. The chapter may be divided into two sections: (1) The law of liberty, and (2) the Law of Love. It is in this two divisions that we find the biblical balance for how we ought to approach the biblical teaching on foods. Paul says very clearly at the outset, “For one believes he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats only vegetables.” There is clearly a principle of faith sanctifying foods. The word conscience means “with knowledge.” If someone has faith-knowledge that Christ has fulfilled all things, that an idol is nothing, and that nothing is–in itself–unclean, he can eat to the glory of God. If someone’s conscience has not been instructed adequately as to what God’s word says about these things–and his eating and drinking would be done so with a sense of guilt–it is sin. Paul insists that “One believes he may eat all things.” This is a statement of fact. If someone has faith in Christ he or she ought to be able to approach the question of food with a large and free conscience. Paul makes it very easy for us by asserting that “nothing is unclean of itself.” However, there are some believers who have weak consciences and who “eat only vegetables.” It is here that we must acknowledge the distinction between the stronger and the weaker brother.

The principle of Christian liberty is actually tempered by the principle of Christian love. Paul says that a strong brother is free in his conscience to eat meats and drink alcohol; nevertheless, if that liberty would cause a weaker brother to stumble (since he or she would not be eating or drinking in faith) he ought not to do so in that brothers’ presence. Love supersedes liberty in our everyday relationships with one another. Paul states very clearly that the danger for the stronger brother is to despise the weaker brother, and the danger for the weaker brother is to judge the stronger (Rom. 14:3). This does not mean that the stronger brother ought never eat certain foods or drink certain drinks for fear of offending a weaker brother. That would be making the weaker brother the stronger brother. Neither does it mean that the stronger brother should never instruct the weaker brother in the freedom he has to eat and drink, otherwise Paul’s writing of Romans 14 was in vain. The goal ought to be the maturing of the believer in the knowledge of the freedom that he or she has in Christ. Until this occurs the stronger brother must bear with the weaker brother in love. This means that he will be willing to lay aside his privileges in the presence of the weaker brother in order to have fellowship with the weaker brother. This highly nuanced and somewhat complicated subject can be simplified by understanding that, at times, “love supersedes liberty.”

 Meals in the Mission of Jesus

One final observation about the biblical theology of food and drink. It’s interesting to note just how prevalent a place meals played in the mission of Jesus. A large segment of His ministry took place around tables. Whether it was at the table of a newly called disciple and his friends (Matt. 9:9-13), around the table of a skeptical opponent and a prostitute (Luke 7:36-50), at the table of tax collectors and renown sinners (Matt. 11:18-19), with beloved friends (Luke 10:38-42), or in his final supper with the disciples where He predicted His betrayal (Matt. 26:20-25), Christ’s ministry was often carried out in the community-creating atmosphere of a dinner party. This is not an accidental detail, as Jesus Himself likened the eschatological Kingdom to a dinner party with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and as a feast where Jesus shares table fellowship with His disciples. In the book of Revelation Jesus promises to come in and have table fellowship with the one who overcomes by faith (Rev. 3:20). To the church of Ephesus, Jesus promises those who overcome by faith a right to the tree of life (Rev. 2:7). To the church of Pergamum He promised to give the hidden manna (Rev. 2:17). All of these symbols point to the believer’s eternal feeding on Christ. In one very real sense we can say that food was created for the purpose of showing forth the joys of being with Christ in the eschatological Kingdom of God. What Adam lost in paradise (i.e. a right to the Tree of Life) Christ, the second Adam, gives us access to by faith. Jonathan Edwards put it so masterfully when he wrote:

The gospel don’t merely offer to us such an opportunity as Adam had before the fall; we have the same offer made to us as Adam would have had after he should have finished his obedience. Then the condition would have been already performed, and he would have been immediately invited to the tree of life; and so we are now. So that we han’t merely the glad tidings of a restoration to that state that we were in before the fall. It is not merely the privilege of being tried once more to see whether we won’t obey and so obtain eternal life in that way; but all is done already that needs to be done. The obedience is performed already by another.

Christ himself now stands instead of that tree of life that grew in the midst of the garden of Eden. ‘Tis Christ that is meant by “the tree of life, that grows in the midst of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). And we are immediately invited and called to Christ to eat of the fruit of this tree without any sort of terms, but only to come and take and eat. The condition of righteousness is fulfilled already by our surety. God shows us which is the tree of life and where it grows, which Adam probably did not know, nor was to know, till he had finished his obedience. We are as immediately invited now as Adam would have been if he had stood and had finished his obedience.7

While food and drink do not form the sum and substance of the Kingdom of God (Rom. 14:17), the mission of God was, nevertheless, a mission built around table fellowship. This was true of those in the Kingdom in the days of Jesus (Luke 24:30; 41-42; John 21:4-14), it was true of the believers in the Kingdom of God in the first Century (Acts 2:46), and it ought to be true of our fellowships today. Believers gathered together around a meal presents the prelude to the eschatological feasting that we see in the Kingdom of God. It is for this reason that we ought to be inviting unbelievers to missional meals. When the world sees us feasting with one another on physical food while we feast on the rich banquet of God’s word and sacraments, they ought to see something of our hope in the eschatological feast in glory and long to come to the One who invites them to His redemptive supper (Matt. 25). Jesus Himself told His disciples at the last Supper (which was incidentally His first Supper with them) that He would not eat and drink with them until He did so anew in the eschatological Kingdom (Matt. 26:29). In the concluding section of his outstanding book, A Meal with Jesus, Tim Chester sums up the significant role that meals play in the Kingdom of God when he writes:

What are the Christian community’s meals for? They achieve many things. They express so much of God’s grace. They provide a glimpse of what it’s like to live under God’s reign. They express and reinforce the community that Christ has created through the cross. They’re a foretaste of the new creation. They’re a great context in which to invite unbelievers so they encounter the reality of God among us. But they’re not “for” any of these things. It’s a trick question.

Everything else—creation, redemption, mission—is “for” this: that we might eat together in the presence of God. God created the world so we might eat with him. The food we consume, the table around which we sit, and the companions gathered with us have as their end our communion with one another and with God. The Israelites were redeemed to eat with God on the mountain, and we’re redeemed for the great messianic banquet that we anticipate when we eat together as a Christian community. We proclaim Christ in mission so that others might hear the invitation to join the feast. Creation, redemption, and mission all exist so that this meal can take place.8

1. C.S. Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost (New Dehli: Atlantic Publishers and Distributers, 2005) p. 120

2.Thomas Boston, Human Nature in Its Fourfold State (Philadelphia: Towar and J. & D. M. Hogan, 1830) p. 28

3. C.C. Jones, History of the Church of God ( New York: Charles Scribner & Co, 1867) p.12 2.

4. David Gooding, True to the Faith p. 161

5. Ibid., p. 162

6. Ibid., p. 163

7. Jonathan Edwards, “East of Eden” (WJE Online) http://edwards.yale.edu/archive?path=aHR0cDovL2Vkd2FyZHMueWFsZS5lZHUvY2dpLWJpbi9uZXdwaGlsby9nZXRvYmplY3QucGw/Yy4xNjoxNy53amVv

8. Tim Chest, A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community and Mission Around the Table (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2011) p. 138

Nicholas T. Batzig is a church planter of New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Richmond Hill,Ga. New Covenant is a church plant in Richmond Hill. We are committee to the mission God with regard to the defense and propagation of the Gospel.

The nature of the punishment is obviously significant. Not just any punishment will do, but only a punishment that matches the crime. A suitable match is achieved by replicating or reproducing the effect of the crime, only in the reverse direction. If Bill stole from Al, he must give to Al the same amount. This process of replication in reverse is exactly what we saw in the case of murder as well. As a general rule, punishment in similar measure implies that the punishment should replicate the effect of the crime, only in reverse. Such a punishment embodies the basic principle of replication that is integral to God’s created order. Moreover, a punishment of this kind also embodies a kind of restoration of balance. Injury to one is balanced by injury to the guilty party. For convenience, however, I prefer to reserve the term “restoration” for the act of returning the original stolen ox. Restoration is appropriate in the case of borrowing, whereas punishment as an additional burden is appropriate in the case of theft.

In sum, double payment is the appropriate penalty for theft. The penalty must involve two parts, restoration of the original and punishment for evil intent. The double quantity involved is not an arbitrary amount, but is based on what is fitting. Through this rationale we also help to resolve an important exegetical question. Interpreters of Exod 22:4 and 22:7 are not sure whether these texts describe restoring the original plus one more or restoring the original plus two more.² 

The linguistic data of the texts by themselves do not point with absolute clarity to either one of these alternatives. But on the basis of the general principle of due recompense, the interpretation involving restoring the original and one more seems much more likely. Moreover, once we have penetrated to the principle behind the particulars, we are much more confident that the instances of double recompense are the rule, while recompense of four or five times represents the exception.

This punishment for theft reflects on a human level the nature of our obligations to God for our sin. Payment for sin must include both restoration and punishment. In restoration we must restore or repair the damage done to others and to God’s honor. In punishment we must in addition bear damage in ourselves corresponding to our evil intent.³

Both of these two sides to our obligations are fulfilled in Christ. Christ’s suffering and death were God’s punishment for sin. Christ’s earthly life of righteousness and his resurrection are his restoration of righteousness to God. In the promise of new creation, based on Christ’s work, we have hope for full restoration of the universe from the damage of all sin. In the suffering of Christ on the cross we have full payment for the punishment of sin as well as vindication of the honor of God.⁴

What do we now say about the fourfold and fivefold recompense in Exod. 22:1? 22:1 specifies that if an ox or a sheep is stolen and is not found alive, the thief must pay the owner five oxen in return for one stolen ox, or four sheep in return for one stolen sheep. Everyone has difficulty with this verse because no explicit reason is given why these cases differ from the general principle of twofold repayment (see 22:7). Several speculative reasons have been offered, but in the nature of the case none can be viewed as definitive. ⁵ I would suggest that we take our clue from the only direct information that we are given distinguishing the case of verse 1 from those of verse 4 and verse 7, namely the issue of whether the ox or sheep is found alive in the thief’s possession. If the animal is alive, the thief restores double, according to the pattern that we have already seen. But if the ox or sheep is not in the thief’s possession the process of restoration cannot take place according to the normal pattern. The thief’s further action in disposing of the beast has introduced a further element of guilt, in that he has intentionally damaged the possibility of making things good to the owner. Before the action of disposition, he was liable for two animals. After the action the guilt is doubled. He must pay two animals to restore balance, and then two more animals for the additional guilt and liability. By this process we get a total of four sheep.

But now why five oxen for an ox? I do not know. We may have reached the limit of our ability to account for recompense in terms of the principle of balanced punishment and restoration. What distinguishes the ox? In Israelite times in an agricultural economy the ox was the single most expensive possession and simultaneously the least dispensable possession that an average Israelite might have–other than land or a house that could not easily be stolen. The theft of an ox could easily threaten an average family with poverty, and the additional guilt involved may be what warrants the additional payment. There may also be a principle at work similar to Exod. 22:5. For accidental damage to a field, restitution is made from the best of the field. That is, in order to make sure that restitution is complete, the best quality product must be given as a substitute. Such a principle would certainly be just in the case of other forms of substitutionary restoration. In the case of the five oxen, the serious threat to the owner’s livelihood warrants a fifth ox to make sure about the fullness of repayment. I am not satisfied with this explanation, but neither am I satisfied with alternative explanations that I have seen. ⁶

 You can read Poythress’ entire chapter on civil punishment in redemptive history here.

1. Vern Poythress The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, http://www.frame-poythress.org/Poythress_books/Shadow/bl0.

Nicholas T. Batzig is the organizing pastor/church planter of New Covenant Presbyterian Church, a PCA church in Richmond Hill, Georgia.

This upcoming weekend (Feb. 17-19) I am scheduled to be speaking about church planting/gathering at Reedy River PCA church in Conestee, SC. The theme of the seminar talks is ”Filling the Shepherd’s Fold: Theological, Practical and Methodological Insights on Outreach.” Some of the topics that will be addressed are:

I. Being Attractional

The Biblical mandate, techniques & restrictions.

Congregational involvement (i.e. hospitality, inviting, etc.)

The importance of advertising.

Accessibility

Contextualization

II. Being Missional

Community engagement.

Personal evangelism.

The place and definition of Christian love.

Realistic expectations.

Time frames.

The cost of outreach (emotionally and materially).

The need for perseverance and prayer.

Is there a time to refocus? … to quit? Real life experiences … mistakes, griefs and joys.

The location and times of the seminars are listed below:

Reedy River Presbyterian Church
46 So, Main St., Conestee, SC
(south of Greenville, between Mauldin & Donaldson Center)

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17 ….. 7:30 – 9:00pm

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 18 ….. 10:00 – 12:00 noon
12:00 – 1:00 pm lunch provided at the church (RSVPs will be appreciated)
Fourth session ….. 1:00 – 2:00 pm

No nursery will be provided.

We would love to see you there and fellowship with you if you live in or near Greenville, SC.

Under the figure of a tree before the fall, after the fall, in light of the Gospel, and in glory, the painting captures the essence of what God is doing in redemptive history. Scotty has written an explanation of the symbolism of the painting. He writes:

God’s Story comes to us as a redemptive drama in four parts.

Creation—when everything was as God meant it to be.
Fall—the tragic intrusion of sin and death, resulting in the pervasive brokenness of all people and
everything God has made.
Redemption—God’s astonishing promise to redeem his fallen image-bearers and creation through
the grace-full work of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Consummation—the magnificent fulfillment of God’s plan to gather and cherish a people forever,
and to live with them in a more-than-restored world, called “the new heaven and new earth.”

Each panel of the painting presents one of the four interrelated parts of God’s Story, and each is replete with well chosen symbols. First you notice that a tree is the predominant image in each panel; each tree is tagged with an identifying word: life, loss, love, and again, life. Why was a tree chosen as the best symbol to tell God’s Story? When God first created mankind, he placed Adam and Eve in a garden paradise, called Eden. In the middle of the Garden was the tree of life, a clear statement and celebration of the fact that God is so very good and generous. It is from God that we receive life and it is from him that all blessings flow. However, the tree of life wasn’t placed in the center of the Garden just as a reminder of the goodness of God, but also of the “godness” of God. God is God, and we are not! The tree of life calls us to great gratitude and great humility.

You can read the complete explanation of the painting here.

People often ask me, “How did you gather people into the church plant?” There’s obviously not a single answer to that question. Sometimes, it is not always clear how the gathering has occurred. Honestly, there are many days that I ask myself the same question. The saying of the apostle Paul constantly rings true: “One man plants, another waters, but the Lord gives the increase.” The Lord has brought a variety of people from a variety of ecclesiastical (and non-ecclesiastical) backgrounds, in a variety of ways, to New Covenant. He is the one who is works in their hearts by His Spirit through His word. Still the saying is true, “One plants!” So what are some effective means of being attractional and missional in church planting?

Certainly praying for the Lord to send people is the most foundational thing that must be done in order to gather into the church plant. In addition, getting out into the community to know business owners, employees and locals is necessary. Spending time in places were people meet (i.e. the YMCA, restaurants, community events, etc.) to spread the word about the church plant is extremely important. Encouraging the people who begin to come to the church plant to invite neighbors, friends and co-workers is a key element. Personal and congregational hospitality is also foundational (as is clearly seen from this book). That being said, getting word out about the church plant via internet and local advertisement has been one of the greatest avenues to reach people. In our highly technological age, it is likely that “someone will visit your website before visiting your church.”1 So the questions becomes, “How will people find your website and visit it prior to visiting your church?” SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is vital. This post is not meant to be a guide for how to optimize a website; rather, it is a call for you to help a church plant do so. The following are some FREE and EASY ways for you to help a church plant:

1) Visit the church plant’s Google Place page.

2) Sign in to your Google account (or create a Google account so that you can sign in). Leave a review of the church that says something about the pastor, people, worship, preaching, values or vision of the church. You don’t have to have visited the church to do so. If you know something about the minister, ministry, have listened to sermons and know the vision and doctrinal commitments you can write something honest about the work.

3) Rate the site using the star system.

4) Email a link to the church’s website to people you know who live near the church plant. This will help generate traffic to the site, spread the word about this plant, and encourage those nearby to visit and send visitors there.

5) Post a link to the church’s website on your Facebook page and on Twitter.

I know of one church plant in particular that would be exceedingly appreciative of your help in this way! It would only take you 10 minutes to help a church plant gain some accessibility in their community! You would be sharing in the mission of God if you would be willing to do this simple thing. Its that cheap and that easy!

1. http://www.brnow.org/News/September-2011/Webmaster-shares-on-questions-with-technology.aspx

How Jesus Corrected and Confronted His Opponents and Hypocrites

1. Jesus Corrected and Confronted Publicly: Jesus corrected the false teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees by teaching His disciples to be on constant guard against it. He corrected their misinterpretations by appealing to His own authority. He repeatedly said, ”You have heard it was said…but I say to you…” Jesus would often speak with His disciples, and the crowds around Him, about the dangers of false teachers’ doctrine. It is not, as many suppose, godly not to talk about the problems with false teachers and teaching.

2. Jesus Corrected and Confronted Directly: Jesus directly confronted false teachers in the church with the repetitious, “Woe to you…hypocrites.” When they came to trick Him, Jesus frequently silenced the Chief Priests, Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees but putting them in their place with Scripture. On one occasion He came right out and said, “You’re wrong, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God.” Jesus was not afraid to tell people–in the most confrontational way–”You’re wrong.”

3. Jesus Resorted to Metaphorical “Animal” Name Calling: Jesus often exposed the true nature of the wickedness of false teachers by using animal names to metaphorically describe them. He called the Pharisees the “offspring of serpents,” Herod “a fox,” false teachers “wolves,” and unregenerate Gentiles “dogs.”

4. Jesus Corrected and Confronted by Means of Comparison: Jesus rebuked the unbelief of the covenant people by singling out the faith of a Gentile centurion who said to Jesus, “Only speak and word and my servant will be healed” (Matt. 8:5-13). Christ compared the greatness of their unbelief with the greatness of this man’s faith. He then went on to explain the eternal punishment those who did not believe would undergo.

5. Jesus Corrected and Confronted Wrong Motives and Excuses: A self-seeking man boastfully promised to follow Jesus anywhere because he thought it would mean political or financial gain for him. Jesus corrected his wrong motives by telling him that he would be following a homeless Messiah (Matt. 8:18-22). He then corrected another man who used his aging father as an excuse about why he could not follow Jesus at that time, by telling him that he was as spiritual dead as His father would soon be physically. An outstanding treatment of this passage can be found in Sinclair Ferguson’s sermon “The Cost of Discipleship.”

6. Jesus Resorted to a Physical Act of Righteous Anger: Jesus corrected the greed and corruption of the money changers in the Temple by making a whip and physically driving them out. He also threw their tables over. I’m sure that many in the church today would say that Jesus was “emotionally unstable” and “erratic.”

How Jesus Corrected His Beloved Disciples

When we see how Jesus corrected His own disciples (who gave Him plenty of opportunities to do so!) we find that there is a great deal more tenderness and patience. Jesus characterized Himself as being “gentle and lowly in heart.” While this was the characteristic mark of the Savior, it was often accompanied by strong, unexpected and confrontational rebuke of their actions. Consider the following:

1. Jesus Rebuked in Order to Correct Role Relations: Jesus corrected his mother at the wedding in Cana of Galilee by telling her “Woman, what of you and Me?” when she told Him “They have no wine.” He was rebuking he for thinking that she had authority over Him. The meaning of Jesus’ response was essentially, “This concern of yours is My work, not for you and I to take care of together. I am not under your authority in this matter.” (See George Hutcheson’s Exposition on John, p. 32 ff. for a good treatment of this text.) Jesus also confronted James and John when they tried to use Him to get to the top. Jesus responded to their request by saying, “Are you able to drink the cup that I drink and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with.” Basically, Jesus was telling them that He would pave the way to heaven for all His disciples by drinking the bitter cup of the wrath of God at the cross.

2. Jesus Rebuked Unbelief in His Disciples: Jesus corrected His disciples on a boat in a storm by showing off His power and rebuking their unbelief. He told them, “O you of little faith.” He then stilled the wind and the waves with a rebuke (Matt. 8:23-27) . He also rebuked the unbelief of the two on the road to Damascus, as well as the disciples in the house, after His resurrection.

3. Jesus Rebuked By Means of Comparison: Jesus corrected Martha’s anxious heart by pointing to her sitter sitting at His feet and listening to His word. He basically said, “You should be more like your sister.” This might strike some as being a psychologically harmful way to correct people, nevertheless, the Son of God did it! (Luke 10:41-42). Jesus also pointed to a woman putting a few pennies in the offering box to teach His disciples the value of having a generous heart, as over against the rich who putt in a little out of their abundance.

4. Jesus Used Tragic Circumstances to Call People to Repentance: Some people told Jesus that Herod had mingled the blood of some Galileans with animal sacrifices. Instead of telling them how tragic this was–and how sorry He was to hear about it–He reminded them about the tower that had tragically and unexpectedly fallen on 18 people. He then made the most unlikely application, saying, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish!” (Luke 13:1-5).

5. Jesus Corrected Bickering Men with a Child: Jesus confronted His disciples when they argued about who was greatest among them by taking a child and setting him in their midst. Correcting grown men with the mere presentation of a child was a seriously humbling rebuke.

6. Jesus Corrected Envy By Saying, “Worry About Yourself”: Jesus corrected Peter’s jealousy of John by telling him, “What if he remains until I come. You follow for Me.” (i.e. ”Don’t worry your pretty little mind about what I’m doing with anyone else. Just worry about your own relationship with Me.”)

Nicholas T. Batzig is the organizing pastor/church planter of New Covenant Presbyterian Church, a PCA church in Richmond Hill, Georgia.