In todays Sun Sentinel:

New, Old Testament believers still must live by God's law

Posted November 6 2004


Q. I heard a minister say that since Jesus had fulfilled the law, we were no longer accountable to Old Testament doctrines such as Sabbath and tithing. I thought the law showed us God's standards to live by, and Jesus gave us grace when we mess them up. Can you clarify? -- L.M., Pompano Beach

A. It is erroneous for believers to presume the law has no bearing in their lives. Jesus said: "Nothing will disappear from the law until heaven and earth are gone. The law will not lose even the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter until all has happened" (Matthew 5:18).

The Bible teaches in both Old and New Testaments that we are justified by faith (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 3:28). For the Old Testament believers their faith was demonstrated in the sacrificial system of the law.

Our faith is demonstrated by a righteousness that exceeds the law (Matthew 5:20).

However, the law is still God's perfect standard of right and wrong and thus the measuring stick of how much we are walking by faith.

The difference is that the Old Testament believer could not keep the law because of the sinfulness of his flesh. In Christ, the New Testament believer is not only freed from the penalty of sin, but given the power of God's Spirit to fulfill the law.

The law still serves the New Testament believer as a gauge to let us know when we are walking after the flesh instead of God's Spirit.



The Rev. Bob Coy is senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Fort Lauderdale.


~Oh my........

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

Oy, I smell perfectionism! Do we ever keep the law?

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Meg
Blog
Member, Intown Presbyterian Church,PCA, Portland, OR

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This statement is what I find ridiculous:

"The difference is that the Old Testament believer could not keep the law because of the sinfulness of his flesh. In Christ, the New Testament believer is not only freed from the penalty of sin, but given the power of God's Spirit to fulfill the law."

When do we ever fulfill the law.........

"The difference is that the Old Testament believer could not keep the law because of the sinfulness of his flesh. In Christ, the New Testament believer is not only freed from the penalty of sin, but given the power of God's Spirit to fulfill the law."

That statement's implication on the Spirit's role in the Old Testament is Dispensational-esque. Its implication on the Spirit's role in the New Testament is Wesleyan.

[Edited on 7-11-2004 by Me Died Blue]

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Christopher Blum
Member of Trinity Presbyterian Church of Northern Kentucky (PCA) in Burlington, KY

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better hold to the law, cuz every time you've broken it you've lost your salvation. I asked this question a lot when I was challenging their teachings, "If you are sinning and you die, do you go to heaven?" No. Man were/are they messed up. Of course they don't all hold to the same doctrines, but quite a few.
We have to keep them in our prayers though, many are leaving, a pastor of one started a reformed church that meets where my son goes to school, I'm going to visit soon.

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Trevor
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Bethany Church, Sierra Madre, CA.
God is my King
"You've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmitive, and don't mess with Mr. in-between." Tony Bennett.

In a way this sounds like the Continental Reformed (Heidelberg Catechism) view of the law. Let me explain a bit.

The Heidelberg Catechism puts the Decalogue in its third section, the three which are usually described as sin, salvation, and service. So the law is not found under the heading of finding out our sin, nor the heading of receiving salvation. It is found under the section that deals with sanctification, the life of thankful living.

What this means, for the saved soul, is that if we do an act of love, of loving God and neighbour, we have kept the whole of the law. We have not done so in entirety, in all that we have done, but that in doing something under the sanctaifying work of the Spirit, we keep the whole of the law. Though we never keep the law, yet righteousness is accounted to us in the trying of it in faith and love.

This is often misunderstood as the law, for example, of the tithe being no longer applicable. It is not so, really. Though in effect we are free from the law, yet the giving even of a mite, out of our poverty, is considered a fulfilling of the law. Sure, it would likely be much more than ten percent, but that's not the redeeming quality of it. The smallest coin could make up more than the ten percent that we would give under the law. It is that it was done in love and faith: love for God and neighbour, and faith that God would bless and keep us. If we have abundance, then ten percent can get pretty sticky, at times, because no one knows how much we really have, and the big amount that we give will usually be seen as still being miserly. So the 'Scrooge the Latter' approach fulfills the law, not the ten percent. In this way the rich can give with the same faith and love.

In this way the tithe is not done away with at all, and yet is not a binding law upon faith, as if faith still somehow required works for salvation. Faith does demand works, but only as a proof that it is faith, not for salvation. It is the fruit of faith that the individual prays and works for in doing the works of the law, not salvation. And he knows that he keeps the law when he does that which the law intends, not the letter of it.

I don't know if that is what this minister had in mind. It could be. I'm just saying that this language does not sound so strange to me, who was brought up under the teaching of the Heidelberg Catechism.

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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

This statement is in error by telling people that when they receive of God's Spirit, they will, by God's Power be able to fulfill the law.

But, that is not our hope, nor our calling. What we do, as people who have received God's Grace and regeneration is look to the One (JESUS) who has kept the Law perfectly for us. We lean on Him and trust in him because we can not do it. We are just as Old Testament believers in that we can not keep the law either due to the sinfulness of our flesh (Or, to put it another way - "Our indwelling sin.")

That is defenitely a perfectionistic/holiness movement statement.

Christ alone is our righteousness! He alone can keep the whole Law! That is why He alone gets the Glory!

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Anthony Beadles
Christ The King Presbyterian
Clearwater, Florida

Also, notice how the peoples of God have been separated. The OT saint had this, the NT saint has that. This statement is bordering on hyper-dispensationalism at best; it's just bad theology.

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C. Matthew McMahon, Ph.D.
John 5:39, "...search the Scriptures..."

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Member - Christ Presbyterian Church, Professor at WTS for Puritan History & Theology.

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