Posted on 11/30/2006 9:04:35 AM PST by Gamecock
Every Christian wrestles with the question, how does the Old Testament law relate to my life? Is the Old Testament law irrelevant to Christians or is there some sense in which we are still bound by portions of it? As the heresy of antinomianism becomes ever more pervasive in our culture, the need to answer these questions grows increasingly urgent.
The Reformation was founded on grace and not upon law. Yet the law of God was not repudiated by the Reformers. John Calvin, for example, wrote what has become known as the “Threefold Use of the Law” in order to show the importance of the law for the Christian life.1
The first purpose of the law is to be a mirror. On the one hand, the law of God reflects and mirrors the perfect righteousness of God. The law tells us much about who God is. Perhaps more important, the law illumines human sinfulness. Augustine wrote, “The law orders, that we, after attempting to do what is ordered, and so feeling our weakness under the law, may learn to implore the help of grace.”2 The law highlights our weakness so that we might seek the strength found in Christ. Here the law acts as a severe schoolmaster who drives us to Christ.
A second purpose for the law is the restraint of evil. The law, in and of itself, cannot change human hearts. It can, however, serve to protect the righteous from the unjust. Calvin says this purpose is “by means of its fearful denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment, to curb those who, unless forced, have no regard for rectitude and justice.”3 The law allows for a limited measure of justice on this earth, until the last judgment is realized.
The third purpose of the law is to reveal what is pleasing to God. As born-again children of God, the law enlightens us as to what is pleasing to our Father, whom we seek to serve. The Christian delights in the law as God Himself delights in it. Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15). This is the highest function of the law, to serve as an instrument for the people of God to give Him honor and glory.
By studying or meditating on the law of God, we attend the school of righteousness. We learn what pleases God and what offends Him. The moral law that God reveals in Scripture is always binding upon us. Our redemption is from the curse of God’s law, not from our duty to obey it. We are justified, not because of our obedience to the law, but in order that we may become obedient to God’s law. To love Christ is to keep His commandments. To love God is to obey His law.
Summary
1. The church today has been invaded by antinomianism, which weakens, rejects, or distorts the law of God. 2. The law of God is a mirror of God’s holiness and our unrighteousness. It serves to reveal to us our need of a savior. 3. The law of God is a restraint against sin. 4. The law of God reveals what is pleasing and what is offensive to God. 5. The Christian is to love the law of God and to obey the moral law of God.
Biblical passages for reflection: Psalm 19:7-11 Psalm 119:9-16 Romans 7:7-25 Romans 8:3-4 1 Corinthians 7:19 Galatians 3:24
1. Calvin, Institutes, bk. II, 1:304-310. 2. Calvin, Institutes, bk. II, 1:306. 3. Calvin, Institutes, bk. II, 1:307.
Looks interesting - ping to read later
So if one tries to obey the Law without faith it is still impossible to please God.
So please correct me if I am wrong, but how by the Law can we please God?
Bless you for this study!b'shem Y'shua
Pleasing not in the sense of Salvation, but perhaps for the faithful to move towards Sanctification?
Any one else?
I thought the traditional enumeration has the first use to restrain evil, and the second to be a mirror...and a schoolmaster to drive us to grace?
Am I imagining things? Hard to think Sproul got it wrong.
The 3rd use has always caused controversy--but I think only to Christians who misunderstand it.
Only persons who have ALREADY submitted themselved to Christ's grace and been born again can please God in any sense...and all by the grace of the Holy Spirit working inside them.
However, once someone is born again--our conscience is seared, and we don't always know how to please our SAVIOR, hence we look to the law of God (the moral law, not directly the ceremonial and civil law) found in the Old Testament, so that we can please the one we know as Father. This 3rd sense is only for believers who have already recieved the gospel by faith alone...and out of grateful hearts want to please the Savior--NOT those seeking to justify themselves by their own works.
Again, I'm not seeing an explanation or scripture that shows how this pleases God as opposed to the scriptures in Hebrews about pleasing God. I understand the cleaning features of the Law and it's deterrents on lawbreakers, but I do not understand how looking to the law pleases God when I see clearly that only faith does: that is the outcome of taking in God's word and applying it by faith.
The other thing implied was that only the Old Testament commandments apply when there are New Testament commands "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you". Why look only to the Old Testament for the process of cleansing?
This idea of pleasing God by following the law seems to me, much as the Pharisees attempted. They thought by knowing and following the law they would be pleasing to God and accepted by him. Jesus rebuked them sternly because they were not doing this according to faith and neglecting the more important spiritual points of the law.. that of honoring ones parents, being reconciled and loving one another.
Jesus said that all the law and the prophets are based on loving God and loving your neighbor. Thus he pointed at the higher principle of love of God being our primary motivation and impetus to obey the commandments.
This idea that obedience to the law pleases God rather than loving him and following by faith is very strange to me. I am seeking to understand what this idea is based upon and I've not seen enough scriptural basis to give up love for God and following him by faith to please him and going to obeying the law to please God.
It is a fair question you know.
Which they believed superseded the written Word of G-d.The Pharisees were not following G-d's Law
b'shem Y'shua
but instead were following man's Tradition
as developed by Pharisees themselves.
Hence the rebuke by Y'shua.
I think you're pitting faith or love of God & man vs. the law...and that is not how Jesus or the Apostles put it.
The law and the commandments all hang on loving God and loving others...however, faith and love does not abolish those commandments.
The ethics of the New Testament are the same...actually stricter...than the ethics of the law. Now not only murder is proscribed, but any sort of hatred is openly seen as sin. I would not have known that but for Jesus pointing it out (and His words are now a part of God's word..."the law" even though they are in what we call the gospel.)
How did the New Testament believers (those who had already come to Christ by faith alone) who had been pagans...with no previous respect for Jewish moral laws, learn how to live? They read the Old Testament--and learned for example, that homosexual behavior (widely accepted by the Greeks) was wrong. St. Paul had to say very little (though what little he said is very clear) about it--why? Because the NT law of love superseded the OT law of works? This is what some very misguided liberal scholars say today.... No, because he knew they were following the eternal moral law of God, found in the New Testament--even AFTER they had come to faith, without works, in Christ. We need a practical guide to help us know HOW to love God, and love man now...and that is found in the moral teachings of both the OT and the NT.
I have always been interested in the Old Testament simply because I have felt that it shows how God personally interrelates with man. The Law was a main part of this interrelationship.
Exactly....[Mark 7:6-8] He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites (Pharisees); as it is written: These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men. You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men."
SORRYb'shem Y'shuaBless you for this study!
Obedience. Have you ever heard of obedience?
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