Exploring Christian Doctrine

A Guide to What Christians Believe

Tony Lane

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830896233
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This reliable and highly readable textbook provides comprehensive coverage of core Christian beliefs. Based on the author's introductory Christian doctrine course, the book rests firmly on biblical foundations while providing a balanced discussion of areas where evangelicals disagree. The text includes essay topics and further reading suggestions.

Part D:

REDEMPTION: GOD AND HIS WORK

Chapter 11

The Law and the Old Testament

Aims of this chapter

In this chapter we look at the law and the Old Testament, asking:

• Is the Old Testament Law Binding on Us Today?
• What are the uses of the moral law?
• Is love all that we need for moral guidance?
• What Is the Role of Law in the Christian Life?
• How does the New Testament relate to the Old?

What Is the Role of Law in the Christian Life? (CCC 1950–86)

Grace and Law

Even in the Old Testament the law is seen as a response to God’s grace. The Ten Commandments begin with an account of what God has done – ‘I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery’ (Exod. 20:2) – before moving on to what he requires of us. The law is not the way of earning God’s favour but, rather, of responding to it. ‘Theology is grace and ethics is gratitude.’ Psychology teaches us that people work better from a basis of being accepted, rather than striving to be accepted. This is how God deals with us. We are unconditionally accepted in Christ – but that does not mean that obedience is optional or that there are no conditions once we are accepted.

Is the Old Testament Law Binding on Us Today?

In 2000 there appeared on the Internet a spoof letter seeking advice about how to apply various Old Testament laws today, including the following questions:

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

Leviticus 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him? Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them (Lev. 24:10–16)? Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws (Lev. 20:14)?

A humorous real-life example illustrating the problems of applying the Old Testament law is seen in the man who had Leviticus 18:22 (which denounces homosexual practice) tattooed on his arm, apparently unaware that Leviticus 19:28 prohibits tattoos! The fundamentalist atheists use such examples as a basis for rejecting Christian ethics.

There is a serious issue here. Are Christians committed to such laws? If not, why not? In my experience all Christians realize that they are not so obliged, but few are able to explain why not. Many suggest that it is because our culture is different, but were that the ground we could equally dismiss the teaching of Jesus on the ground that our culture is different from his.

There is a witty poster doing the rounds of Facebook:[1]

This is intended as a riposte to those who appeal to the ‘traditional view of marriage’ and the web address describes it as ‘Marriage according to the Bible’. In fact it offers some Old Testament teaching on sexuality and completely ignores the teaching of the New Testament, which for the West has been the ‘traditional view of marriage’ for some 1,500 years.

There are two points to be made in response to such presentations.

1. The fallacy underlying them is that they ignore the transition from Old to New Testament/Covenant. The laws quoted there do not apply today, not because the Old Testament was written a long time ago, not because we live in a different culture, but because Jesus has come and changed the basis of our relationship to God, as we shall see shortly. (The ‘spoof letter’ was written in the context of Judaism, not Christianity, as presumably was also the poster, which is why they ignore the New Testament.)
2. Christians may not be subject to such laws, but those who accept the Bible as God’s word still need to consider why such laws were ever commanded. *Calvin’s teaching is quite illuminating on this point. He accepts without question that these laws were given by God, but at the same time does not hesitate to call some of them ‘barbaric’, such as the provision for the enslavement of Israelites. The reason for such barbarity is that God needed to accommodate his law to the barbarism of the people at that stage, to their hardness of heart (Mark 10:5), as he progressively led them through his prophets towards a truer understanding of the standard of behaviour he requires. For accommodation, see Chapter 3.

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Sceptic’s corner

What about Old Testament passages where they are told to exterminate their enemies, such as Deuteronomy 20:16–18; 1 Samuel 15:1–3?

Answer: This is a tricky question but there are three basic points that can be made:[2]

1. These commands are not for Christians. A good case can be made for the legitimacy of just wars, fought in the name of the state, but there is no place for a holy war, fought in the name of the Church or of the Christian faith. This is an important difference between Christianity and Islam. In short, we can take up arms for the United Kingdom, but not for the kingdom of God.
2. The comments just made about barbarity and accommodation apply.
3. The God of the Bible is not a pacifist. The End will bring judgement on specific groups. For example: ‘So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence’ (Rev. 18:21). The fate of those who remain opposed to God will be eternal death, on which see Chapter 28. It is true of the present age that ‘God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him’ (John 3:17), but this is a postponement of judgement, not a renunciation of it.

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Three Types of Old Testament Law

Traditionally the laws given in the Old Testament (especially in the law of Moses) have been divided into three types:[3]

1. The moral law, which is eternal and unchanging. Murder, theft and adultery are always wrong. In different generations the Church will be pressured by the surrounding culture into giving way on different areas of the moral law. In today’s Western culture the pressure is to adopt a libertarian view of sex, in which any consensual sexual activity is OK, whether pre-marital or extra-marital. Giving in to such pressures is always the easiest option, but the episodes of church history that we are most ashamed of include those where there was such capitulation.
2. The civil law, which was intended for the Jewish state, but contains abiding principles. For example, Deuteronomy 22:8: ‘When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.’ This was given because people spent time on flat roofs and there was a safety issue. I have a flat roof without a parapet – but no one ever goes onto it except to repair it. An equivalent to the Old Testament command today would be to ensure that balconies are designed so that people will not fall off them. It can be seen as the principle underlying modern health and safety laws – which is certainly not to say that every modern bureaucratic regulation is justified! Likewise the establishment of cities of refuge (e.g. Num. 35:10–12) was intended to curb private vengeance – something that we do in a different way today by our criminal justice systems. In short, the principles of the Old Testament civil laws apply; the specific laws do not.
3. The ceremonial law, which was a preparation for Christ and is fulfilled in him. As Christians we, unlike Jews in Old Testament times, are allowed to eat bacon sandwiches. The Old Testament food laws no longer apply to us. Mark records Jesus’ words: ‘Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?’, and concludes, ‘Thus he declared all foods clean’ (7:18–19). We no longer offer animal sacrifices and Hebrews explains that these have been superseded by the one sacrifice of Christ (9:6 —10:18).

This division of the Old Testament law into three is not explicitly biblical. In the Pentateuch all three types are found side by side without distinction. Nowhere in the New Testament is this sort of division set out. But although the division is in that sense not biblical, the conclusions that it reaches are biblical. Paul clearly expected his converts to refrain from theft, murder and adultery – the commands of the moral law are repeated time and again in the New Testament. Paul also vigorously opposed the idea that Gentile believers be told not to eat bacon sandwiches and he never suggested that Christians should seek to implement the provisions of the Old Testament civil law. To pick up our earlier example from Leviticus, the prohibition of homosexual practice (18:22) is reaffirmed in the New Testament, the prohibition of tattoos (19:28) is not.

While the division is very helpful, it does not resolve all issues. For example, the Sabbath command is among the Ten Commandments, but is a mixture of civil law (treatment of servants) and ceremonial law (observation of a particular day). The early Christians met for worship not on the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) but on the Lord’s Day (Sunday). There are abiding principles such as the need to rest, the proper treatment of employees and the need for regular times of corporate worship.[4]

What do you think? The question

Is love all that we need for moral guidance?

Three Uses of the (Moral) Law

The sixteenth-century Reformers taught that there were three uses of the law – i.e. three different functions or roles of the law. These apply to the moral law in general, whether this is found in the Old Testament, the New Testament, our conscience or the law of the land.

The First Use of the Law

The First Use of the law is to convict us of sin, to show us our moral inability and our bondage to sin – and thus our need of Christ to rescue us. This is done by external commands, but most effectively by internal commands, such as ‘You shall not covet’ (Rom. 7:7–12) and, supremely, the command to love. Attending worship is relatively easy; loving God with all our hearts is a different matter. Abstaining from literal murder is not too hard for most of us; loving our neighbours as ourselves is rather harder. As Paul said, ‘through the law comes knowledge of sin’ (Rom. 3:20) – the law shows us what we are like. ‘If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin’ (Rom. 7:7).

The Second Use of the Law

The Second Use of the law is to restrain the ungodly. In other words, pe...