Is there any differences in meaning or the sense of each of these words found throughout Scripture?

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Andrew Barnes
Husband of Dena
Pastor of Tchula Presbyterian Church

I know Law can take on different nuances. It can sometimes be God's revelation, the whole OT, the first 5 books, something really bad, etc.

I remember reading somewhere that statutes can be a bit broader. While I am hesitant to recommend it, Jim Jordan had an interesting discussion on this in his off-balanced critique of theonomy.

But if you don't want to go that route, Vern Poythress delves into this.

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J. B. Atken
John Knox PCA
Layman, M.A. student at Louisiana College

I always find Genesis 26:5 interesting,

"...because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my laws."

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Wes Bredenhof
Co-pastor, Langley Canadian Reformed Church
Langley, British Columbia
www.bredenhof.ca

Here is what Matthew Poole notes in his Synopsis on that text:

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Andrew Myers
Husband of Jessica, Father of Jackson, Katie and Samuel
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church of Northern Virginia
Warrenton, VA USA
Editor, The Matthew Poole Project

"Let your Morning Thoughts, and your last Evening Thoughts, be what shall become of you to all Eternity." -- Matthew Poole

Any decent commentary on Psalm 119 (or on Psalm 19:7-9) should delineate the nuances of those terms.

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Richard T. Zuelch, M.Div
Ruling Elder, OPC (not currently serving)
Westminster Presbyterian Church, CA (OPC)
www.reiterations.wordpress.com
www.foft.wordpress.com

Faith and repentance are born together and aid the health of each other. - Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), on July 23, 1865

As with most issues of language, we should probably realize that terms like these are not hermetically sealed off from each other. There is significant overlap in the freight each one of these carries, although we tend to note various shades of meaning or emphasis in each one. The "heaping up" of such terms is probably meant to convey first of all the completeness, totality, or unity (or all three) of God's counsels. The verse regarding Abraham is emphasizing that Abraham was thoroughly obedient (which, interestingly, is of course not LITERALLY true--but still God considered him as perfectly compliant! -- only in Christ, only in Christ).

But it is still worth thinking through the varied terms, and thinking of what they can be used to emphasize in relation to the other terms, without trying to say that a "statute" cannot be at the same time a "commandment" or vice versa.

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Rev. Bruce G. Buchanan
ChainOLakes Presbyterian Church, CentralLake, MI


When posting friends, kindly bear those words of earthly wisdom in mind:
Oh, that God the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us.
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You are referring to "The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses" right?

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In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham, Dip. CS (Regent College)
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC

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"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar of 1500-year-old, 200 proof grace—a bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all these centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your own bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home-free before they started. Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale." – Robert Farrar Capon