Fascinating discussion in post-graduate seminar today of some of these issues.
See also Tuesday, February 06, 2007 and Monday, Feb 26th: Law, Faith, Works, Obedience & Justification (versions 1 & 2); (v5) Updated: 2/3/07 - Nos 28- new today
1. No one has ever been or will ever be justified by what they do on the basis of merit (with the possible exception of the Lord Jesus Christ, though even in his case we may distinguish).
2. Justification is only ever in union with Christ alone, in the Spirit, through faith alone.
3. The Old Testament law could be kept in the sense that one could be a faithful covenant keeping member of the people of God and blameless because of the grace of God and forgiveness of sin under the terms of the covenant (sacrifice etc).
4. The Old Testament law could never be kept by human sinners in the sense that once could attain sinless perfection and merit salvation.
5. The Old Testament law always had 3 purposes:
(a) Mirror / sword - to reveal sin and condemn
(b) Telescope / signpost - to point to salvation by the sacrifice of Christ
(c) Light / blueprint - to show God's people how to live
and continues to fulfil each of those functions today.
6. Present justification is God's verdict of the future announced in the present on the basis of trust in Christ; future justification will be according to works as a genuine (evidential) non-meritorious ground on the basis of a whole life fundamentally lived on God's side.
7. The Old Testament law is not abolished or abrogated by Christ but fulfilled, transformed and renewed.
8. The (propitiatory) sacrificial and Aaronic priesthood ends with Christ (and AD70) in the sense that it is not to be set up again today in the Jerusalem temple.
9. The Mosaic administration is ended and the Covenant is now in its (re)newed administration.
10. All God's laws have lasting force but must be applied according to local circumstances and in a manner appropriate to the stage of salvation history.
11. Attempting to be justified by supposedly meritorious human works legalistic righteousness was always and is an abuse of the law.
12. Christians are not under the Mosaic law in the same sense that Mosaic believers where; Christians are under the law of Christ which is the Mosaic law renewed.
13. Christian believers keep the law / terms of the new covenant by a faithful life empowered by the Spirit.
14. Mosaic saints were marked out by visible obedience to the law (e.g. circumcision); New Testament believers are defined and marked out more obviously by baptism and allegiance to Jesus as the badge of New Covenant membership.
15. The active and explicit command to the all nations to repent and trust in Jesus is a new element of the New Covenant since the risen Jesus is now enthroned as king of the world in a new way, though this is anticipated in the Old Covenant.
16. Under the Old covenant everyone of all nations ought to have attached themselves as much as they could to God and his people. People could participate e.g. in the Davidic covenant without being fully under the Mosaic law as full Israelites.
17. Being grounded in the nature and will of God, the Torah is a manifestation of God’s Law which applies more generally, a particular instance from which we may generalise.
18. “Being under the law” (of Moses) can be a particular technical term for having the law of Moses promulgated to you at Sinai.
19. “Law” in the Bible almost always means something like Torah, God’s Fatherly instruction to his people, especially as in the law of Moses of the Pentateuch.
20. Faith is true covenant loyalty, submissive obedience. All real faith is obedient faithfulness which perseveres in good works.
21. Good works function as evidence of faith(fullness) for God in a rather different way than they would for a finite human judge, but part of their character is as public legal vindication of God’s accurate assessment that these are his people who are in the right and should be declared so.
22. Deuteronomy is primarily concerned with the national life of Israel and prophesies the inevitable death of the nation as covenant breakers.
23. The covenants should be understood in both individual and corporate terms: a corporate view tends to include individuals and individuals tend to make up a body.
24. Inability to keep a law does not show a law to be deficient in itself. Israel’s inability to keep the covenant does not mean that the New Israel cannot keep the covenant since the Spirit is now poured out in a new way to ensure that it is kept by God’s elect.
25. Christ keeps the law perfectly for his people but they also keep it truly in him and adequately though not perfectly in their own experience, through the strength that he gives.
26. We may distinguish civil, ceremonial and moral aspects of the law and of many individual laws but the Law does not easily divide up in this way.
28. It seems historically doubtful that the law of Moses was every strictly applied "as is" or that it was ever intended to be so. It is not statute law or even quite case law in our modern sense. Much of it is story. It embodies principles which need to be applied in differing contexts in different ways. Some of the stipulations are culture specific, though easily transferable: we need not fence our roofs but we might fence our swimmin pools.
29. The law of Moses probably give maximum penalties.
30. We must destinguish crimes with legal and/or divine covenantal sanctions from sins, which may result in loss of blessing but not criminal or civil disabilities or the status of covenant breaker. The law gives the floor (minimum requirements for life in the covenant, e.g. no murder) and ceiling of full perfection (love the Lord your God with all your heart etc. and love your neighbour as yourself).
31. The law is a present standard and a future aspiration (e.g. there shall be no poor among you...)
32. The law is given for an imperfect sinful context to tell you what to do in the situation of sin and in reaction to it (e.g. sacrificial system, crimial codes esp. e.g. rape laws). The law does not always lay out an ideal but takes account of hardness of heart (e.g. write her a certificate of divorce).
33. Under both old and new covenants, those professing faith and having duly recieved the sacrament of initiation into the covenant (circumcision in the Old Covenant and baptism in the New) must be treated as members of the covenant in a full, objective, real, legal way, unless they are covenant breakers under legal church discipline. They enjoy all the genuine rights and privileges of outward membership of the covenant including participation in the sacraments though they may not be believers and may be damned at last.
34. Under both Old and New Covevants, any child of a believer is entitled to covenant membership and to the sacraments and is to be treated as a believer, unless they prove to be a covenant breaker.
35. Under both Old and New Covenants the sacraments have a real objective significance and affect those who participate in them, though they are always to be recieved with faith if benifit rather than condemnation is to be recieved.
36. It is never possible to tell with certainty whether or not someone is a believer and it is not our business to judge the servants of the Lord in that way. We must proceed on the basis of a person's profession and his visible legal status with regard to the covenant. If someone commits covenant breaking crimes, he should be subject to a public legal process of church discipline.
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8 comments:
Helpful helpful distinctions Marc - thank you.
This list leaves me with two questions. To distinguish (!) - that's me, who's nowhere near fully up on the debates surrounding NPP and FV. That's "two questions" in the sense of those questions that first come to mind, including some that would be eliminated with more thought, excluding others that more thought would raise.
1. In what senses (plural) is the new covenant new. Yes - "Mosaic renewed" is probably the most helpful phrase in what you wrote. Yes - different badges. But that doesn't exhaust it does it? What of stone versus heart? Where does the Spirit fit in? How are OT believers also regenerate without heart/Spirit levels operating?
[I know - if I was less busy/lazy I could have a good stab at those. I'm hoping to precipitate you to articulate it better for me though!]
2. I'm still not completely clear how Paul uses "law" in Galatians 5 and 6. Yes, he may mean "Mosaic law unrenewed as given at Sinai", but why would one go for that option. The Lutheran argument, as I've met it, is: "Galatians 1-4, Law is removed as a category of justification. Galatians 5-6, Law is removed as a category for upright living." In other words the third use is abrogated.
Keep blogging!
Thanks, James. Good QQ.
1. Maybe we might also say Abrahamic covenant fulfilled. The New Creation will be the original covenant with creation consumated. So there is an already not-yet-ness to the renewed covenant, but it is all part of the one great covenant of grace between God and his creation flowing out of the covenant of creation and redemption between the members of the Trinity.
I think the new ness includes:
- new circumstances and situations
- abrogation of Aaronic cult as cult to be performed like this, no Jeruselem temple
- internationalization, no state of Israel, inclusion of Gentiles
- renewed sacraments of baptism and communion
- pouring out of the Spirit - greater extent and intesity
- hearts of flesh
- law written on the heart
Yes, OT believers are regenerate and empowered by the Spirit to a degree and from time to time esp. for particular tasks and offices but not all true believers are permenantly filled with the Spirit.
2. I think it would be great to have one basic sense of Nomos which could always be the meaning though there would be different nuances / senses / forces in different places. This is not the only option, of course. But I think the burden of proof is massively against equivicoation (using the same word in 2 very different or even contradictory ways in the same place) unless there are clear markers in the text.
Torah (with the law of Moses in mind) seems to me the best translation / always underlying meaning not things like "principle".
Do these call for extra theses?
Hi Marc
I broadly agree with most of this, but I'm nervous about number 20:
"Faith is true covenant loyalty, submissive obedience. All real faith is obedient faithfulness which perseveres in good works."
I can't help wondering whether defining faith in terms of obedience like this risks confusing the crucial distinction between faith and works. Is it not preferable to say that faith is belief or trust (i.e. notitia, assensus and fiducia), which is evidenced by good works?
Thank you, Chris.
Your mention of latin made me look up fides in Richard Muller's dictionary of greek and latin terms drawn principally from protestant scholasticism, where many happy and helpful distinctions can be found.
He defines it as: "the firm persuasion of the truth of God's revelation ... as it is manifest in Christians".
I am happy with that and / or with what you say. Fiducia is the essence of it and suggests a disposition of the whole life / heart issuing in a lifestyle.
I am happy with the works as result / fruit of faith language as long as they are seen as distinct but inseperable. (c.f. works as evidence of salvation).
As I think Luther says, we are justified by faith alone, but the faith that justifies is never alone: works (as faithful orientation of whole life) always go with it.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Marc. Yes, that's very helpful.
I think the move in some quarters to say that we're justified by "faithfulness" rather than by "faith" obscures the vital distinction you make between works as necessary evidences of faith and as part and parcel of faith itself.
Although pistis can be translated as "faithfulness" in some contexts, Paul's use in Gal 2:16; 3:6, 22 of the verb pisteuo (which means "I believe," not "I am faithful" - cf. BDAG, LSJ etc.) indicates that we need to understand his parallel use of pistis in Gal 2:16; 3:8 etc. in the same way.
Well, Chris, I think faithfullness might very often be the sense even if not the translation as we've agreed that the faith involved is covenant loyalty, disposition of the heart issuing in actions etc.
This keeps the unity we both see without destroying the distinction, perhaps? Though I admit a danger in the way you suggest too.
Faithfullness would fit with the faithfullness of Christ too, wouldn't it? I think Paul Mayo did his dissertation on this but I think his conclusions are pretty anti-New Perspective?
My point is that Paul seems to treat "by faith" as equivalent to "by believing." So I'm not sure I'm comfortable defining faith in terms of "loyalty" and "faithfulness." Doing so seems to introduce an ambiguity which I don't believe is present in Paul's use of the terminology, and one which is exploited by some writers in such a way as to cloud the distinction between faith and works.
But I absolutely agree that we need to make it crystal clear that true belief in Christ will lead to good works and a life of loyalty and faithfulness. So I agree with the WCF, which defines faith as "the act of believing" and says: "Faith, thus receiving and resting on Christ and His righteousness, is the alone instrument of justification: yet is it not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but works by love." (Ch. XI)
Sorry - just realised I misread WCF ch. XI when I took "the act of believing" in apposition to "faith itself." But I think ch. XIV certainly defines faith in terms of believing and that also seems to be indicated in ch. XI.
Must get back to work.
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