What is the Non-Theonomic, Reformed understanding of Matthew 5:17-20?

Christ did not come to overthrow or abolish the moral law of God -- it endures forever -- or the end for which the Scriptures were given, which is, that God might be glorified among men.

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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

I think the difference is in how we understand the word "fulfill". In the context of the gospel itself, and of the Sermon on the Mount, Christ clearly meant that His messianic mission, to suffer and die for the sake of sinners, so that they could be roconciled to God the Father, was to fulfill all the requirements of the law to the fullest, so that the law no longer had a claim on sinners.

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JohnV :detective:

John Vandervliet
Ontario, Canada
member of: Canadian Reformed Church
"In coming to understand anything we are rejecting the facts as they are for us in favour of the facts as they are" C.S Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism

Does this "fulfill" mean that the law is completed and over with?

Not at all. We don't overthrow the law by this; rather, we uphold it.

That is to say, by having and holding the claim of being reconciled to God we are not being illigitimate, and do not oppose the law which says we have sinned; nor do we thereby blaspheme against God by saying He forgives sins out of His good pleasure, as if sin did not matter for Him in some cases. We can claim reconciliation with God through Christ and uphold the law entirely. If Jesus had not accomplished the law on our behalf, then even Theonomy would not be an option.

No.

Read Calvin, Matthew Henry, Matthew Poole, Owen, Edwards, Watson, Vos, or just about any other Reformed divine before Rushdooney.

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Fredrick T. Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA (Katy, TX)
Christ Church Blog

"The heart is the main thing in true religion...It is the hinge and turning-point in the condition of man's soul. If the heart is alive to God and quickened by the Spirit, the man is a living Christian. If the heart is dead and has not the Spirit, the man is dead before God." (J.C. Ryle)

I would agree that theology comes first. It is, after all, more important even to such ideas. It must be within a solid theology that we must form our ideas concerning secondary matters. And a clear ethic is already traced out in such theological works as Calvin, Henry, Owen, Edwards et al. A solid theological training would certainly have avoided such fiascos as I encountered, one would think. Directly countering Jesus' teaching is quite an audacious thing to do. It is even more audacious for a church not to notice.

The law of God was never created with the goal of abolishing it once it was fulfilled. We do not see this anywhere in scripture.

In fact,

Mat 5:18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Has all been acomplished?

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Scott Bushey
Husband to Tina, father to Nicole, Danielle and Zoe
Member First Presbyterian Church of Margate PCA

OOps.

While I agree John, what I meant was that you can read any Reformed divine temporally before Rushdooney's time and they will provide a proper interpretation.

But I also would read Rushdooney last after the others. ("Confession is guilty of nonsense," my foot!)

[Edited on 12/14/2004 by fredtgreco]

I am saving my lunch money for The Institutes of the Christian Religion and The City of God.

I already have a paperback, abriged Institutes though.

I wish there was a list of all the essential theological books that every Reformed person must have.

Mark,

There are tons of lists like that all over the internet. None of them are divinely inspired however...

Yeah, but I admire the people at this site, and only care about what you guys have to say. I like the "basic library" list that Matt. McMahon made on A Puritan's Mind.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.


Christ here refers not to the moral law per se, but to the totality of the law and prophets as a literary document.

How do theonomists interpret John 8? Christ gives the adulterous woman a religious forgiveness, but it never says that he pursued her case any further, i.e. finding her husband to accuse her so that she could be stoned according the law of Moses.

How many Christians living today, much less atheists and pagans, would be/should be killed in a theonomy?

How would we find out about a man copulating with his wife while menstruating?

Edit: I'm still new to theonomy and I'm just looking to have questions answered. I haven't really decided yet, but I still have inclinations against it.

[Edited on 17-12-2004 by Authorised]

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Aaron Cowart
member, Covenant PCA
Houston, TX

Student at Southeast Missouri State University (SEMO)
Cape Girardeau, MO

"The hypocrite's religion is divine in name, but human in deed."

-Richard Baxter

Quote from Matthew Poole's Commentary:

What do you all mean though? I mean, how rigorously should what parts of the law be upheld? It was my impression (from Calvin!) that much of it was, well, to be thrown out the window, because it was meant to be a preparation for Christ, who has now come. So what parts of the law (other than the Commandments, obviously) are you referring to?

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"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." Eccl 9:10

G.S.Harwood
Member, St.Paul's Presbyterian
student, University of Toronto (unfortunately)

That's why Calvin, the Westminster Confession and most sound historic Reformed theologians and creeds make a three-fold distinction in the law: moral, ceremonial and judicial.

Moral -- The Ten Commandments (ie., Decalogue) endures forever because it reflects the perfect holiness of God in a universally applicable way.

Ceremonial -- The sacrificial and carnal ordinances of worship in the OT were fulfilled in Christ and therefore abolished. We have been liberated from them. They pointed to Christ and were binding upon OT believers, but one cannot argue that these are included in Christ's statement in Matt. 5.17 without becoming a Judaizer.

Judicial -- As the Confession says, the legislative ordinances given by God through Moses to Israel as a body politick have expired along with that body politick. They were designed for a specific time and place which no longer exists. Insofar as the universally applicable moral law of God which undergirded those laws, the "general equity" is still binding. But to say that the judicial laws of Israel are still binding per se is to yoke us to the body politick of an expired state.

Bottom line: only the moral law of God is still binding today.

Aaron:

For what it's worth, here is my understanding of what you bring up in your post, and in relation to some of the things mentioned subsequently.

The text that says that not one jot or tittle sould pass from the law is wholly consistent with the NT theology that Christ came to satisfy all the law for us, so that we are no longer under law but under grace. That does not mean, and I don't think at all that Calvin says either, that any part of the law is just cast out. In fact, when Calvin speaks about the law being abolished, he is speaking about that the law being against us is abolished, as in Eph. 2, I believe. He upholds the teaching in Rom. that says that we were saved while we were yet sinners.

What you are referring to, Aaron, is a kind of dispensational view of the OT/NT relationship. But the OT is still just as much part of revelation in all its detail. On the other hand, it is not the opposite, that there is no distinction betweent the OT and the NT. The entire OT is recast in the revelation of Jesus Christ. Neither the law that is intrinsic in man, being created in the image of God into an ordered world, nor the legislated law added thousands of years later are meant to pass away without there first being a new constitution, so to speak. Christ is that new constitution, and in that new constitution do we find the true meaning of the laws that originally pointed to Him from the beginning.

So I believe you are right, Aaron, in pointing to John 8. We can either read it as a specific abrogation of law, in that promiscuity is no longer a sin for which stoning is the proper punishment, but is to be merely let go with a warning; or we can read it to show us how under the new constitution of Christ there is a fulfilling of the law on behalf of the sinner, so that all the ordinances against her have been abolished in Christ. Notice carefully that in no way does this latter interpretation cast aside even one small law or part of a law, but is wholly consistent with the keeping of all the law.

Now that is the law in relation to us personally. In relation to the state, it is not as though there is another moral standard to go by other than the perfect holiness of the Biblical standard. But we cannot apply, and should not apply, the OT laws without the context of the new constitution to the entire society. We can order the moral grounds and equity of any legislated law upon the the intrinsic laws of the created order as well as the legislated laws of the nation of God's people.

Legislated law is the application of the moral intrinsic law upon the situations in society, and is subject to change and even nullification based upon the equity of the application. (By intrinsic law, again, I mean the law that is founded upon God's character set within man at the ordering of creation. )This is not situational ethics, but is rather its opposite; in the sense that situational ethics allows for a change in ethic based upon the situtation, while the legislation of the society upon an unchanging moral ethic allows latitude in the particular application which suits the situation according to that unchanging moral code. We find that even God changes His own legislation from time to time to the particular situation, so that His glory and His righteousness remains perfectly intact, and that the law will not be misapplied. I think of the David and his men eating the showbread, and that they did not go through any kind of cleansing ceremony, of the daughters of Zelophehad, of Naaman and the widow of Zeraphath, which Jesus mentions, and such like. This, then, coincides completely with John 8, and Jesus sending the woman away with forgiveness. Also the man on the cot let down through the roof tiles. The idea would be the unbreakable moral code upon which legislated law rests.

So we can have a society which punishes a certain offence with very serious consequences to the offender, or we can have a society which punishes that same offence to a lesser degree. This would happen for two basic reasons: first would be that the second society has a lowered its moral standard; the second would be that the society has sustained its moral standard, but has taken into account the particular application to its societal order to maintain that standard. A lesser punishment does not necessarily mean a lowering of the standard.

The concept of theonomy, as I understand it, is a call back to the Biblical standard for law in this nation and others. There is no other standard; there is no other moral; there is no other just principle. Our societies are falling prey to a "new morality", in that they justify the most heinous of crimes, namely abortion, as well as the perversion due to godlessness known as homosexuality, among others. Surely the Biblical standard has gone from the law of the land. In our time, one would think, the basis of law should be harder, not softer, on certain offences, so as to be a deterrant, according to the second use of the law, to restrain evil. This, however, though it should never be done in absence of the third and first uses of the law, namely to call the unregenerate unto the goodness of God's grace, and the reflection of God's holiness, yet neither should the third and first applications of the law be without the second. For either one of these misapplications would constitute another standard than the Word of God. And that is the basic notion of theonomy, as I understand it.

This verse in Matthew about the law is what eventually wore me out from other schools of Christian thought as, after ten years, I never found anyone to give an adequate interpretation of it.

The implications of this one verse alone would demolish many dispensational and other frameworks if taken at face value.

I found it very interesting that Bahnsen's whole theonomic view hinges on this verse that for so long caused me to dissent from the charismatic churches that I attended (and was percieved of as being "legalistic").

The woman caught in adultery:

It seems to me that the greatest import of this section in John is what Paul touched on:

"The law teachers were trying to trap Jesus, then."

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Christopher
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man."
Ecclesiastes (12:13)
Church Affiliation: Faith Presbyterian OPC

Christopher:
I'm not really sure what you mean by inadequate interpretations of the Matt. 5 verses. But I am supposing that there must be a heavy Dispensational influence in the things you struggled against. I think you are right in your assessment of the basis for Theonomy, but that's not universally agree upon.


As to John 8, the first thirteen verses or so have been questioned as to being authoritative. But I think we are limited in our choices in either direction. If the text is Scriptural, then it needs to intepreted by the ordinary rules, namely that the text must be taken in its plain reading, and within the context and consistency of the whole of Scripture. We cannot go supposing what we want to suppose. So the implications that we must take from it are to be natural implications. But if this section is not Scriptural, then it is akin to being apocryphal, and we must follow the rules concerning such writings.

Numerous passages have been attacked in the last few decades, calling things into question that the church have taken for granted; passages like Gen. 1-3, like 1 Cor. 11, 1 Tim. 2, etc. In effect, other "possible" interpretations have been raised which are technically within the bounds of the Confessions, or perhaps not, so as to provide an alternative rendition which conforms more to the present trains of thought; i.e., different views on creation, the dress and place of women in church, and allowing women into the offices of the church, respectively.

We could do the same thing with John 8. And we might think ourselves more free to do so, since it may or may not be Scripture. But I would suggest that we need to think through some things first. If this passage has been added it is more serious than just putting this text in brackets or italics, or in the footnotes. Someone has added to Scripture, and that is a serious offence. And that is part and parcel of the consideration first and foremost, regardless of what interpretation we put onto it. If we think that adding the text to the footnotes instead of in the text of Scripture settles anything we are gravely mistaken. We are talking about a serious thing here. And we need to handle it with respect. Perhaps we may call the use of this Scripture in regard to doctrine into question, but we may not then liberally use it to our own advantage. We certainly may not make of it what we will.

Now we may also call certain things about this passage into question without calling its inscriptruation into question. But again, this is not a licence to fill in the blanks we create with things that suit us. We have to abide by the plain meaning of the text. Calling that into question is only calling that into question, and can be no more. We can't add our own "what if's". Jesus said "Neither do I condemn you; go, and sin no more." That leaves us with very few options as to the reading of the entire text. The text, like so many others, is short on some detail, but long on doctrinal significance. Whether or not we call this passage or its details into question cannot effect that doctrinal significance within the context and consistency of the whole of Scripture.

What I am trying to say is that calling the text itself or its meaning into question limits us even further; it does not open the doors to other interpretations, but closes them even tighter. If we take this dilemma seriously, then that is the only route we can go.

So this text has two parts, namely how Jesus deals with the accusers and His attackers, and how Jesus deals with a woman for whom there is no plea but and admission of guilt. She could as easily have been found pregnant as with another man, or with the "proofs" of broken virginity. At any rate, she is on trial as much as Jesus, in the eyes of the accusers. And this seems to be the context.

First off, denial of John 8 is not even an option. I really don't care what a bunch of "scholars" think about ripping a section of the Bible out. They can have the fruit of that (Rev. 22).

Second, this section, neither proves nor disproves theonomy. How could it? Jesus lived under the "body politic, {to whom God} gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require." So even if we can show that Jesus' actions were in line with Theonomic principles, that proves nothing.

I don't agree, Fred. What I agree with is that to take from Scripture is as bad as to add to it. The bottom line is that the question of John 8's authenticity is much more serious than the versions which bracket it, or italicize it, or footnote it, make of it. They make it look like the Bible has options. That was my point in bringing up the other issues that I noted. The people who advocate new interpretations of texts to coincide with modern notions only undermine Scirpture for themselves and others. It matters not a whit to them whether or not we all believe their version of the creation, or their views of the new roles of women in the church, as long as they have undermined the plain reading of Scirpture sufficiently to undermine the faith of the weak. Why else would they dare to clouden the plain reading of Scripture, to undermine an ages old rule of interpretation?

What I don't agree with is that it does have an impact on Theonomy, or at least some versions of it, in a very negative way. It does indeed prove the passing of one administration of law into a second and fulfilled administration of that same law. Not that it wasn't there all along, but that in Christ it was revealed as a New Covenant, or new constitution, as I put it above. Just punishment for the offender is not the only aim of the law; and in the NT dispensation Christ has indeed paid the penalty for real offences, so as to legitimize Him saying, "Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more."

It doesn't matter about the man; it is the personal guilt of the woman that the elders have taken up with Jesus. The fact that it was not both is of no consequence at all, for those details are sparse in the teaching narrative. The minimal point of the wording, "caught in adultery" is that she was absolutely proven guilty, whether or not it means that she was caught red-handed. The detail on that is as minimal as can be, but is strong on the address of personal guilt being forgiven and upon the false meting of justice the elders had in mind. They felt they had Moses on their side, but Jesus proved that to be wrong. Not only does He forgive sins, but He then heals; so He has the authority to forgive sins. And it was Him Moses was pointing to. So even at that time an appeal to the judicial code to stone someone caught in adultery, without considering the means of grace, was an abrogation of the OT judicial system.

So we are left with the fact that we cannot dismiss this section from Scripture; and that it speaks clearly of Jesus' messianic fulfilling of the law on behalf of sinners. There is very little room left for Theonomy, except as I outlined above, taking into account all three uses of the law. To suggest otherwise is to make another standard, for not even the OT was under the kind of theonomy the elders wished to impose. That, I believe, was Jesus' point in the Sermon on the Mount as well.