Dr Greg Bahnsen - Normative Ethics: Critics and Criticisms of Theonomy Pt 2 (Part 16)

However, we continue to look at arguments that can be used or have been used against what we call the theonomic perspective in ethics. In our last lecture I took some time to deal with what is perhaps the most difficult illustration or counter instance to unity between the covenants, and that would be the case of marital laws having to do with polygamy divorce. Having dealt with that, I'd like to move on to more general grounds for disputing with the thesis that I've set forth in my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics. As you will know from that book, a passage of Scripture which I take to clearly teach the presumption of moral continuity today with the Old Testament commandments is Matthew 5:17, 19. And yet there have been those who write as though this passage as nothing of the sort. I think here especially of Dr. Paul Fowler, also of Gary Long. Both of these have written fairly lengthy papers in making the attempt to undermine the interpretation of Matthew 5 that I have set forth in my book. For instance, they both argue that verse 17 in Matthew 5 does not deal with Christ's attitude toward the Old Testament law, but rather verse 17 deals with Christ's life, not his attitude. And it's Christ's life as the prophetic realization of everything in the Old Testament canon, the emphasis being upon prophetic realization coming to do certain things and to embody certain things in his life, rather than taking an attitude toward the specific law of God, the prescriptions of the Old Testament themselves. Now, of course it's true that the scope of Christ's declaration in Matthew 5:17 is the entire Old Testament law and prophets, and by that he means the entire Scripture. However, there is absolutely nothing in the context of the verse or in the wording of the passage which touches on the life of Christ in distinction from his teaching. And you won't find anything in all of Matthew 5 dealing with the life of Christ, his behavior, his lifestyle, that sort of thing. It does say I came not to do the following but to do this. By contrast, the I came talks about Christ doing something. He is the sent one, the Messiah, the one who came into the world. But as far as the 10 task of the Messiah, his redemptive work, or his function in terms of prophecy and type and all the rest, there's nothing like that in all of the pericope. Moreover, there is no emphasis on prophecy or typology in Matthew 5. Matthew 5 is straightforwardly a sermon on ethics, on practical living and behavior. The focus of attention is obviously the moral stage standards by which Christ would have his disciples live. And in particular, the question in verses 17 to 19 has to do with the Old Testament commandments. Notice that verse 16 in Matthew 5 speaks of our good works. Verse 17 twice denies that Christ abrogates the Old Testament revelation, in which case any interpretation that makes fulfill imply the abrogation of the law simultaneously renders the verse self contradictory. Verse 18 goes on to specify more clearly the law. And in verse 19 Jesus refers back to the object of his remarks in verses 17 and 18, and he says, these commandments. That word these is, is a real linchpin in my argument here because Jesus speaks of good works, verse 16, law of prophets, verse 17, the law, verse 18, and verse 19 he says, therefore anybody who teaches the breaking of even the least of these commandments. Which commandments? Well, the ones he's just been talking about. He's been talking about the commandments. Therefore, in all of the old Testament, verses 20 and following, moreover, speak of the question of righteousness and how the Pharisees have distorted the requirements of God's commandments. It's quite evident, therefore, that when you look at this passage in context, that we find in this passage a direct statement on the validity of the law by Jesus, and what he said was that not the least commandment, not the smallest stroke of the law had been abrogated or were passed away until the end of the spatio temporal world. The first step, therefore, in the arguments of both Dr. Fowler and Reverend Long, the first step to try to make Matthew 5:17 deal with the life of Jesus as a prophetic embodiment or realization of everything in the Old Testament simply is not legitimate. The wording doesn't support that. The only way they try to support that is, is by pointing to Jesus saying I came and also to the word fulfilled. But of course, the I came only has to do with the relationship with Jesus coming to the validity of the Old Testament law. And therefore that's not a very telling point. And the word fulfill is one of the words that's being disputed and what it means. Consequently, you can hardly prove your point by appealing to your point. It has been suggested, especially by Mr. Long, that the word but in Matthew 5:17 need not bespeak a direct contrast between abrogate and fulfill. Mr. Long's argument is that when Jesus said I came not to abrogate but to fulfill, he wasn't contrasting fulfillment to abrogation. You can see how necessary it is to say that if he wants to protect himself from the charge of self contradiction in the verse. Because if the word but does not indicate direct adversative contrast. Jesus could then be saying, I've come to abrogate, even though in one sense I say I don't come to abrogate. And what Mr. Long wants to appeal to here is the idea of relative negation. Before I get on to relative negation, I simply have to point out from the semantic standpoint that the but in Greek in Matthew 5:17 is the word Allah, which is the strongest form of conjunction in the Greek language. It's not the more mild or common word death. So Mr. Long is not starting out on very good footing when he says this doesn't have to be direct contrast. However, he can rescue himself from that counter observation by suggesting, as we'll go on to look at here, that the word not when Jesus says, I've come not do the following, but to do this, that the word not there is not absolute. Jesus is not saying, absolutely, I have not come to do this. He's rather using what is called in Greek grammar relative negation. Relative negation. The passage reads, not this, but that, and the sense is relative rather than absolute. Instead of saying, by no means did I come to do this, but just the opposite, I'm doing the following. The passage would read, I didn't come so much to do this, but all the more to do the following. It isn't so much that I came to abrogate the law, although as a matter of fact I did. But the point here is that I came to fulfill. Now that's how Long wants to take the passage. Jesus is not saying that he didn't absolutely abrogate the law. Should that. That isn't the main purpose, or that isn't what's important here. It's not so much this, but that. Now the difficulty is that in such cases of relative negation in the Bible, in the New Testament, we have something of a paradoxical introductory formula used. Something is a affirmed and then it is denied, or it doesn't have to be in two steps. What is affirmed is denied either in one or two steps. The paradoxical introductory formula is used only then to have that apparent contradiction resolved by the relative negation. I'll give you an example of this. Mark 9:37. Jesus says, Whoever receives me does not receive me, but the one who sent me. That's a rather classic case of relative negation. Jesus says, it's not this, but that. And he doesn't mean it absolutely. He doesn't mean, as a matter of fact, you don't receive me, you receive only the Father who sent me. It's relative. What Jesus is saying is, it's not so much that you receive me, but in receiving me, you're receiving the Father. Whoever receives me does not receive, but even more, the one who sent me. Now, you notice there. There you have the paradoxical introductory formula. What is affirmed is denied. You have what appears to be a direct contradiction. Jesus says, whoever receives me does not receive me. Whatever is black is not black. It is white. You see, you have a paradox. And that paradox is resolved by Jesus pressing, or whoever else is using the relative negation, pressing beyond that to a deeper truth or to a more comprehensive or a broader truth, something that resolves the apparent paradox by bringing in another perspective. Jesus, in another point, says that when his followers are hauled before the tribunals, that when they present an answer, it says, when you answer, it's not you who answers, but the Holy Spirit speaking in you. Does that mean that these people aren't using their vocal cords in their tongue? You know that As a matter of fact, it looks like they're talking, but it's not them talking. No. Jesus is saying, it's not so important that your physical organs are being used to pronounce the words, but the Holy Spirit is the one that stands behind your speech. But anyway, the relative negation is clear because of the paradoxical beginning. When you answer, it's not you who answers, but the Holy Spirit speaking through you. If somebody receives me, it's not me he receives, but it's the one who sent me. So now, with that understanding, with a little bit of comparative work on relative negation in the Greek, let's go back to Matthew 5 and ask whether Mr. Long is right to see relative negation there according to him. Again, Jesus says, I did not come so much to abrogate, but far more importantly to fulfill. Is there a paradoxical introductory formula? Jesus says, I came to abrogate, but not to abrogate, but rather to fulfill. Far from finding a paradoxical opening remark, instead of something being affirmed and then denied, what we have is something denied twice in a row. Jesus says, think not that I came to abrogate the law of the prophets. I came not to abrogate. You see, you have just the opposite, precisely the opposite of a paradoxical opening statement. You have reiteration, not paradox. So this is not a paradoxical introduction, but a downright emphatic denial. Matthew 5:17, along with the vast majority of instances of a not this, but that formula in the Greek expresses strong contrast, antithesis and not relative negation. As we move on, then, we see, first of all that Long and Fowler both are mistaken to think that the general thrust or scope of the passage has to do with Jesus as the prophetic fulfillment of the Old Testament types and promises. That isn't what the passage deals with. And if that one verse were meant to say that simply on the basis of alephon and plera in the Greek, that would just come virtually out of the blue, because everything else in the passage has to do with, with a moral precept and how Jesus followers are to live. And then just with those two words, somehow it's now what Jesus is in terms of its function in the history of redemption just really comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere because Jesus doesn't develop it either or make any application of that idea. So that's the first mistake. Secondly, Long very creatively tries to introduce relative negation to get away from the idea that self contradiction is created if he holds that Jesus abrogates the law. Dr. Fowler's approach there is simply to deny what I have said in my discussion of the text, claiming that there is no absolute contrast at all, that a law does not mean just the opposite, that if you have A and then Allah, that the B follows, it has to be just the opposite of the A. And it's rather embarrassing, I have to admit. But I'm afraid Dr. Fowler hasn't understood the Greek point or the point of Greek semantics with the use of that word because he wants to prove that Allah doesn't mean that. And he uses the following kind of illustration. He says in the Lord's Prayer we have lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And the word there is Allah but. And he says obviously you don't have this direct antithesis because the one phrase says lead us not into temptation, the other one deliver us from evil. And you have temptation and evil being the key terms. But temptation and evil are not directly contrary. Consequently Allah does not mean direct contrast. Well, the problem is of course that the phrases are in fact directly contrary, even though the two words that he's isolated are not. The idea of lead us not into temptation is just the opposite of delivering us from evil. And so here what you have is just a rather crude mistake. And Greek semantics not understanding the point. In my book at all, as in Matthew 5, the contrast is between two singular words, ple, rao and kataluo. However, in the counterexample or the putative counterexample offered by Dr. Fowler, the contrast he tries to make between two words. But Allah still has its contrasting nature. It's just that the contrast is between the two phrases now being led into temptation and delivered from evil. So there's no counter instance whatsoever. Well, then, how about the word fulfill? Both Long and Fowler try to use the word to make the word fulfill mean something other than confirm. However, both have to admit that fulfill could mean confirm. Dr. Fowler is a bit reluctant to do that. He says no recognized lexicon countenances the translation confirm. That's what he said in the first version of this paper. I pointed out that Art and Gingrich in one of their revised versions, does include that. And so in Dr. Fowler's revised version of his paper, he now says, but that's only a hypothesis. Nobody takes that very seriously. Well, I don't know how seriously people take it or not. The fact is, it's a possibility. The question is, does this possibility fit here in this particular verse? And as a matter of fact, it does. Should be pointed out also that for my interest in the verse, you could use the word fulfill and leave it at that. My point in trying to go further than the word fulfill is to offer a precise English definition of what fulfill means or what as fulfill means in this passage. Because as many commentators point out, fulfill could be taken in the sense of fulfill and do away with, that is fill up and thereby lay aside. Or it could be meant in the sense of fulfill and thereby endorse. And so we do have to go beyond simply fulfill and. And find the precise sense in which fulfill is being used. And that's what I'm doing in my book. But by no means is my thesis dependent upon the translation confirmed. We could leave it at fulfill, and the thesis could still be argued on other grounds. Well, now, Dr. Fowler goes beyond this. Mr. Long's argument, for the most part rests on Matthew 5:17. Although he deals with the other verses, the linchpin of his argument is how he treats Matthew 5:17. Because when he deals with Matthew 5, 18 and 19, he keeps referring back to what he has supposedly shown in verse 17 as the defense for reading these ideas now into 18 and 19, reading this qualification about fulfill and relative negation into verses 18 and 19. So if we've taken that ploy away from him, his treatment of verses 18 and 19 is impotent as well. But now Dr. Fowler's case very much rests on verse 18. Dr. Fowler wants to say that in verse 18, Jesus says, For until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle will pass away from the law. Until then, the Greek says, Until it actually being the neuter plural, for all. All things. Genatai is the word genomai, become or happen, come about until all things come about, till all things happen, until all things become. We want to put it very broadly now, Dr. Fowler takes this obviously colorless Greek expression, panta, one of the most common, common substances you can think of just being a neuter, plural, everything. And genatai, which is one of the most common Greek verbs, it's a helping verb in many cases, takes genomi and pas or pont, all things becoming, and reads into this. Now Jesus says that no jot or kittle will pass away from the law until everything he's come to do has been done. Or more precisely, that's the way Long takes it. Fowler takes it, in the sense until all of the law has been obeyed. He says ponto refers back to the jots and kittles of the law referred to earlier in the verse, again, a tithe till these things are accomplished. So Jesus says that no jot or tittle will pass away until all the jots and tittles have been performed or accomplished, that is, until he perfectly keeps the law. Well, there's just a host of problems with that approach to the verse. In the first place, panta does not refer to the jots and tittles of the law and cannot, on ordinary Greek grammar, do something. Jots and tittles in the Greek expression goes together, that is a united expression, jots and tittles. And so if Jesus is referring back, he must be referring back to the expression and not to just one word in the expression. However, Dr. Fowler tries to justify making jots and tittles the referent of, by pointing out that both pontoff and tittle, excuse me, jot, the stroke of the law. These two are both in the neuter gender. But the difficulty is you don't ask about the gender of the individual word. You ask about the gender of the phrase jots and tittles. And as a matter of fact, it's a standing law of Greek grammar that if you're trying to determine the gender of a phrase, you determine the gender of the word closest to the referent. And so here you would have not the word jot, but the word tittle determining the gender of the entire phrase for the sake of referring back to it. And tittle, as it turns out, is feminine, not neuter. Consequently, jots and tittles would not be referred to as panta. Besides, what Jesus says is not one jot or one tittle, to be very precise. Now, if he. Now, if that one jot or one tittle is supposed to be taken as a joined expression, then it would have to be taken as a neuter, excuse me, as a feminine expression because of the tittle rather than neuter, and so ponta would not agree with it in gender. However, when you recognize that it's not one jot or one tittle, Ponta doesn't agree with it either, because both of the expressions are singular. And even when you join the two together, you have a singular expression because the word or is used rather than the word. And I realize this is highly technical and more detailed than we usually get into in our lectures in this course, but this has to be said because Dr. Fowler is supposed to be a New Testament instructor. But these are notorious mistakes. In Greek grammar. There is no agreement in gender and there is no agreement in number between ponta and the phrase not one jot or one tittle. And consequently ponta does not, as a matter of fact refer back to that, but must be taken, I think, as I do in my book, in the most general sense, as all things in general. Moreover, if you take Ponta genitai as meaning that nothing will pass away from the law until Jesus performs all of the law, the verse becomes self contradicted because Jesus is open by saying, not until heaven and earth pass away will anything pass away from the law. Dr. Fowler has to deal with that, and he deals with it in the following way. He says that Jesus opening remark is just to give the broad context, the broad parameters of the law passing away. And then he specifies this later by saying more precisely, it passes away when all the jots and tittles have been accomplished. So the verse says, not until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle will pass away. But they will pass away when all of them are accomplished. Now you notice that when I express Dr. Fowler's position there, I can express it without inserting a conjunction in the case just before us. I said, but till heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tibble will pass away from the law. But they will pass away when Jesus keeps them all. I could also use the word or until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tibble will pass away from the law, or they will not pass away until Jesus keeps them all. The difficulty is that conjunction is missing in the Greek. There is no expression of a conjunction there. And therefore what you would have is contradiction, similar to the quarterback is not going back into the game until I send him well, no, the quarterback is not going back into the game until the end of the game, until I send him in in five minutes. You know, if the coach were to say that, you'd say you must have meant quarterback's not going into the end of the game, or unless I change my mind, he'll go in in five minutes. Something like that. There has to be some logical relationship between the one time referent and the other time referent. And without that logical relationship being expressed, Dr. Fowler is simply reading into the verse to achieve his desired end. Well, not only do I have semantic and syntactic difficulties with this interpretation, there are theological difficulties too. Because if not one jot or one tittle passes away until all the jots and tittles are accomplished, then it would seem to me that we're not under the law today. And ironically enough, although Dr. Fowler's first attempt to rebut theonomy appeared to move in the direction of an antinomian conclusion or to defend only the Ten Commandments, his second attempt is clearly an attempt to uphold the reformed view of the law of God. That it's binding today, but not in the way that Dr. Bronson says, not with all these details, especially not with the civil details of the Old Testament. Well, but on his interpretation. Interpretation. Not one jot or tittle is binding today, not even the Ten Commandments, because Jesus accomplished them all. And why, after all, would Jesus make such a point with such a flourish that these things are not to be tampered with when as a matter of fact, they'd be tampered with in about two years, 24 months after the statement, it'd be alright to blaspheme God and to steal from your neighbor and to rape and to pillage and kill, because after that all the jots and tittles would have been accomplished, salvation was now made possible, and we can go about forgetting the law. Now I don't suggest for a moment that Dr. Fowler really wants us to do that or to see it in that way, but I am suggesting that is what his interpretation entails. However, he doesn't want to swallow the entailment and consequently I don't think even he holds to this interpretation. But now, more importantly, we come to verse 19, because in verse 19 we have the real crunch for anti theonomic interpretation. Jesus says don't even teach, but the least commandment can be broken. Mr. Long, when he comes to verse 19, tells us that we can't understand verse 19 by itself because clearly it will be qualified by other verses. Nobody believes we have to offer animal sacrifice. The dietary laws are not upheld by all theonomists anyway. And so verse 19 is not absolute, that is, in the sense that it can't be qualified by other passages. Dr. Fowler tells us that we can't take verse 19 at face value as absolute because we know there are other passages of Scripture that would qualify it. So they're essentially saying the same thing. And to that my answer is, you're absolutely right. Verse 19 cannot be taken absolutely. It must be qualified by everything else the Bible has to say at this point. Now, Mr. Long and Mr. Fowler are under obligation to show specific qualifications for any difference with the Old Testament law that they want to teach. But you see, they want to say, ironically, verse 19 commits them to showing a qualification on the teaching of the Old Testament. But they take verse 19 as teaching that since it has to be qualified, they're not under obligation to show a qualification. You get my point? Verse 19 has to be qualified, they say. And then they leave it at that since it has to be qualify it anyway. Well, then we can go about making the changes we want, apparently. No, the point is, since it has to be qualified, you have to show the qualification. That's the point of verse 19 in Matthew 5, Mr. Long tells us that we are in his paper, he throughout emphatically states that we are to presume that the Mosaic covenant has been laid aside with its stipulations. And we don't follow those stipulations unless they are repeated in the New Covenant. However, verse 19 of Matthew 5 shows us just the opposite presumption by saying that you don't dare teach the breaking of even the least of these commandments. And we all know that can be qualified. The point is we don't dare teach it unless the qualification can be found. And so that's the covenantal presumption rather than the dispensational presumption that Mr. Long wants to endorse. So it seems to me that neither of These attempts from Mr. Long, Dr. Fowler, to undercut the exegesis of Matthew 5 have proven to be very successful. In fact, I don't think they're successful at all. I want to add, since we're on the subject of Mr. Fowler or Dr. Fowler's paper written against the theonomic perspective that when he goes about to qualify Jesus endorsement of the law, that his argument runs something like this. In the Old Testament there was no separation, or there was not a sufficient anyway separation of church and state qualify it anyway. Well, then we can go about Making the changes we want, apparently. No, the point is, since it has to be qualified, you have to show the qualification. And that's the point of verse 19 in Matthew 5. Mr. Long tells us that we are in his paper he threw out emphatically that we are to presume that the Mosaic Covenant has been laid aside with its stipulations, and we don't follow those stipulations unless they are repeated in the New Covenant. However, verse 19 of Matthew 5 shows us just the opposite presumption by saying that you don't dare teach the breaking of even the least of these commandments. And we all know that can be qualified. The point is we don't dare teach it unless the qualification can be found. And so that's the covenantal presumption rather than the dispensational presumption that Mr. Long wants to endorse. So it seems to me that neither of These attempts from Mr. Long, Dr. Fowler, to undercut the exegesis of Matthew 5 have proven to be very successful. In fact, I don't think they're successful at all. I want to add, since we're on the subject of Mr. Fowler or Dr. Fowler's paper written against the theonomic perspective, that when he goes about to qualify, to qualify Jesus endorsement of the law, that his argument runs something like this. In the Old Testament there was no separation, or there was not a sufficient anyway separation of church and Spirit. The Old Testament was a church state. That's what he means by theocracy. And therefore the laws of the Old Testament are theocratic, I.e. united Church State laws. The New Testament teaches us that clearly the people of God are not a church state. They are an international church body. So he contrasts the form of God's people in the Old Testament Testament to the form of God's people in the New Testament. And he says, since there was no separation in the Old Testament, but now in the New, there is a separation that the laws that applied in the Old Testament to civil affairs cannot apply today. Well, all sorts of counter remarks can be given to this come to mind. In the first place, this argument proves far more than Dr. Fowler wants it to prove. Because if there has been this radical change in form between Old and New Testament, then all of the laws of the Old Testament are affected by that, not just the subclass of laws that he personally doesn't want to see us follow. It's not just the civil laws, but it's all laws, because all the laws dealt with people in a church state relationship and Therefore, all of the laws addressed to a church state people would pass away when the church state passes away, at least on the logic of Dr. Fowler. Secondly, there's just the gross historical mistake of saying that Israel was a church state. If Israel was a church state, Uzziah would not have been struck with leprosy for trying to play the part of a priest when he in fact was a king. Israel was not a church state. There was clearly a difference between the priest and the king and any number of other differences that can be pursued in my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics. Moreover, even if Israel of old was a church state, the fact of the matter is that the law of God applied outside of Israel in non church state cultures. And therefore, if we were to buy the premise that the Old Testament church state has become the New Testament church separated from the state state, that wouldn't affect the validity of God's law and sociopolitical affairs in the New Testament because that law applied to sociopolitical affairs in non church states in the Old Testament too. So the universality of God's law in the Old Testament has not been taken into account. So there are large number of logical and theological mistakes in the Reasoning used by Dr. Fowler at this particular point. Let me stop at that point and open up the floor for your discussion or questions. My personal conviction is, though, we're going to be looking at a number of critics of the theonomic position in these lectures today, that those who deal with basic exegetical points and deal with them at some length as both Dr. Fowler and Mr. Long have, deserve our attention and in some degree, and we are respect much more than the other critics who are not bothering to argue their points on explicit biblical evidence. And so I've given some extended remarks to these two because I think it's noteworthy. Yes, I haven't read that material. But do some say that until heaven and earth pass away means the end of the old covenant? And do you understand that to mean that when heaven and earth do pass away, I'm assuming that means the second coming of Christ a long ago, some rapid change. The first question is do some people interpret Till heaven and earth pass away as being the end of the old covenant? And the answer is yes. However, neither Fowler nor Long do anything better but grope at that. I think one of them hints at that possibility once, as I recall, but neither of them explicitly set it forth. You will find it set forth in this monograph from the Roman Pontifical Institute. The author's name escapes me right now, but anyway, he deals with Matthew 4, 17:20 in the attitude of Jesus toward the law and his approach. It's also, as I recall, Miller Burroughs approach says that when heaven and earth passed away, that was a symbol for the old order. That is when the old creation passes away. And after all, in the new covenant all things are made new. And therefore Jesus was saying when the old covenant or old creation passes away, then the law passes away with it. I think that's a rather creative and speculative hypothesis. The difficulty is that there's just no support for that use of imagery anywhere else in the Scripture and it does create other forms of contradiction within the pericope itself. Now the fellow from the Pontifical Institute, you see, not being an evangelical in his approach to Scripture, says, well of course it, I mean the whole passage is put together by a redactor. He didn't realize that one part of the passage teaches that the law is always binding and this part of the passage teaches that it's not. But of course for us that's not acceptable. And so the lack of parallel use of heaven and earth in that way I think is telling against it. And the self contradiction it creates makes it impossible on an evangelical approach. Go ahead. Well, for us and for most people who want to remain somewhat traditional Calvinists, it would prove far too much because the entire law then passes away. Exactly right. You would have a dispensational rather than a covenantal approach. The other question that was asked is if I take the passing away of heaven and earth as being the end of the world, and I do, in that more or less literal understanding, does that mean the law undergoes some radical change at that point? Now, commentators have taken two approaches to that kind of questioning. Calvin says, and this is not meant to be unflattering to the questioner, but Calvin says those sorts of questions are just too silly to take up. That Jesus doesn't really intend to tell us anything about the status of the law afterwards and we are being futile to try to delve into that. Others say, well perhaps there will be a change in terms of the neighbor relationship in heaven, or the law will undergo radical change. But we don't know what that would be like. All we know is that Jesus says until such time you shouldn't presume such change. And I guess that's more or less my attitude. My attitude is I don't know that the Bible gives us any positive indications of what the law will be like after Jesus returns. Heaven and earth passes away. And all Jesus is saying in verse 18 is that until that time you should go on the assumption that it's binding. Well, there is one other approach to that that I should mention to be complete in the answer. Some people say that that was a Jewish expression, that its functional equivalent is never the law will never pass away because heaven and earth are permanent, as it was assumed. So it could be that Jesus is using an idiom of his day to express the eternality of the law. Some would say you shouldn't ask the question. Some would say all we know on the information given is that until such time it will pass away. And others would say that it's not going to pass away at all. And that's idiomatically, that's what the expression is getting at. If you have other questions on the exegetical approach to this, I really do not mind taking lecture time to deal with them, because this is an important matter. If I understand the thrust of the question, the question is, isn't there another verse in Luke that says about the same thing as Matthew 5? And how do the critics deal with that verse? If I understand the thrust of it, Luke only repeats the part that heaven and earth may fall, that my. How does Jesus put it in Luke? Heaven and earth may fail, but not one stroke of the law, or the law will not fail. Something like that. One word from the law. I forget the exact expression right now. Now, in that context, you don't have all the other things that are found in Matthew. And obviously the critics are trying to use the other verses in Matthew to escape the thrust of the idea that nothing fits can fail from the law until heaven and earth pass away. And so if they had to deal with Luke, wouldn't they be caught short? Well, now I think that's true. I think that since Luke can express the point without the context there that is being used to qualify it, that therefore we have biblical evidence that the whole idea is that heaven and earth will be at least the measure of the temporal validity of God's law. But in defense of the critics, they could undoubtedly point to other illustrations where qualifications in one gospel are not explicitly mentioned in another gospel. And so they would want to say, you can't interpret Luke. I think it's 1146, whatever, you can't interpret it properly unless you put it into the context of the broader teaching of Matthew. Luke is just giving one aspect of what Jesus said, but that has to be understood against the qualifications of the fuller teaching, Other matters. Okay, well, then let's move on to another form of dealing with the theonomic thesis One procedure for arguing against the general validity of the law of God is to point to New Testament passages which appear to dismiss the Old Testament law for today. The treatment given such verses by some of my critics, by the way, often overlooks the way those verses are dealt with in theonomy and Christian ethics or like literature, by other authors. That is, critics have an authority taken upon themselves to deal in a cross examining way with the possibility that those verses are just as congenial to the theonomic thesis as the interpretation of the critic themselves. Now, the theonomist, you see, can always say we have an interpretation of these other verses that seem to speak against the law. An interpretation that allows us to keep Matthew 5 and other supportive passages as well as these negative appearing passages. And since our interpretation allows for accepting both, that should be preferred to accepting your interpretation of the negative passages which would create a contradiction with those that support the law in a positive way, that is the critic. One way to express my criticism here is that the critical critic has not done his job. If he only points to passages which could possibly be interpreted as against the theonomic view, he has to point to a passage first of all, that's not just possibly, but necessarily is against the theonomic view. And not only must he point to such a passage which necessarily is against the theonomic view, must be interpreted that way. He must now deal with all the positive evidence that theonomist and show some credible way of handling that. Because if he doesn't do that, what he has created now is a contradiction within the Scriptures which theonomists don't create. But even more importantly, the critics that I have read have not ever shown a passage which must be interpreted against theonomy. At best they have passages which they think could be interpreted in the following way, and that is in a way that that is contrary to theonomy. Let's look at a few of these passages that appear often in the polemics of those who oppose the general validity of God's law. Today, Acts 15 is commonly cited as though the Apostolic Council's decree was intended to delineate precisely those laws and only those laws which remain valid in the New Testament from the Old Testament. But that view is utterly incredible. The Apostolic Council. No matter how you understand the four items prohibited by the Council, the Apostolic Council was not intending to say that these are the only laws we have to keep. After all, the Council did not forbid blasphemy and stealing. Does anybody want to assume that therefore it's our right to blaspheme and to steal a script Christian, since those things were not condemned by the Apostolic Council. Of course nobody wants to hold that position. The prohibition of such things carries over from the Old Testament. And you must see the Apostolic Council as dealing in some sense with a special class of laws that would not ordinarily have been understood to be binding. And so in that general class of things that would not ordinarily have been binding, they specified four things that should be kept either for that culture to smooth the table, fellowship between Jew and Gentile on that day, or for all time. I don't know. We won't get into that. But clearly the Apostolic Council was not trying to tell us the only things that are prohibited in the Christian lifestyle. We turn to another passage, First Corinthians 9:20, 21, where Paul says that he was not under the law and could behave as one without law. However, let's remember that these remarks come in the context of saying that he behaved one way among the Jews and behaved another way among the Gentiles. The difference here was surely not one which pertained to moral matters, as though Paul had one morality for the Jews and one morality for the Gentiles, as though he could be a thief among the Gentiles, but he wouldn't be a thief among the Jews. Whatever the difference is that lies behind these expressions, the difference had to be a difference pertaining to laws separating Jews and Gentiles that would legitimate Paul's diverse treatment or behavior among Jews and Gentiles. And therefore it seems reasonable to me that Paul is speaking here of the ceremonial law, which, according to Ephesians 2, created a wall of separation between Jew and Gentile. In order to save all men, to be all things to all men, so that by all means he might save some in order to save all men. Paul observed such laws among the Jews, but disregarded ceremonial laws among the Gentiles all the while. He declares, though, that he was not without law to God, but rather under the law to Christ. Obviously, Paul is not dismissing the law of God. He kept the law, he says, under the authority of Christ. And Christ himself, as we know from Matthew 5, taught that every least commandment of the Old Testament is binding today. And so I don't see First Corinthians 9 as a counter instance to theonomy in any way. Turn to Another illustration, Galatians 3, 4. Paul speaks in Galatians 3. Four of a historical epoch wherein the law served as a prison, master and tutor, until the object of faith Jesus Christ came and made believers mature sons who no longer need such a tutor. Now some people have seized such metaphors and statements and jump to the hasty conclusion that that the entire law of God, which Paul called in Romans 7, holy, righteous, and good, is nothing but weak and beggarly rudiments. John Zinn, you see, treats Galatians 3. 4 as though what Paul calls weak and beggarly rudiments applies to all the Mosaic Law. That's utterly impossible. Paul elsewhere calls the Mosaic law holy, righteous, and good. And so unless Paul has had a change of mind or contradicts himself or is in some way schizophrenic, you can't call what is holy, righteous and good weak and beggarly. So Paul's not talking about the whole law of God. And it's to Walter Chantry's credit that in his interpretation of Galatians3.4 he recognizes that. He says Paul is not talking against the entire law. Paul is not talking, Chantry Sundays, against the Ten Commandments. And then he supports that by saying, if you read verses elsewhere, you know Paul believes in the Ten Commandments, so you can't interpret Galatians 3 and 4 in that way. Well, that's all very healthy. One wants to applaud that. Obviously we have to take all of the teaching of the New Testament into account, and I'm glad Mr. Chantry's willing to do that. And as a matter of fact, his interpretation of Galatians 3 and 4 is on the whole, very good. I find it quite acceptable. I would agree with the vast majority of it. The rub comes in that Mr. Chantry says that the tutor spoken of that we are no longer under According to Paul, that tutor can't be the whole law. But that tutor includes the ceremonial and the civil law of the Old Testament. I disagree with that. It does not include the civil law of the old testament. And Mr. Chantry's argument for that is really quite poor. But let's see, first of all, that it does clearly refer to the ceremonial law. First, let's pay attention to the historical context of Galatians. Galatians is a polemic against the Judaizers who insisted on keeping the ceremonial law as a way of justification. We see that in Galatians 5:1, 6 and also in Galatians 2, where Paul says that if you keep the law, if you are circumcised to be justified, you are in fact under God's curse. Acts 15 shows us the historical circumstance. Since Galatians is directed against people who want to use the ceremonial law to justify themselves. It seems quite reasonable to impossible tells us we're no longer under this tutor. He's talking about the ceremonial law which is relevant to the historical setting. Moreover, the portion of the Old Testament law which Paul is speaking of in Galatians 3:23 and following to chapter 4, verse 10, Paul describes this law as a tutor unto Christ which taught that we should be justified by faith. Faith is a tutor unto Christ teaching justification by faith. Now, as a matter of fact, the moral law doesn't fit that description. The law that says you shall not steal does not serve that function, does not teach justification by faith. It shows us God's righteous demand, but does not indicate the way of gracious salvation for those who violate the demand. Moreover, the law that says you should put a railing around the roof of your house does not lead people to Christ in the sense of teaching justification by faith does not point to Jesus Christ teaching justification by faith. Now, the older Reformed commentators usually took this as that the tutor was driving the students to Christ as the only alternative, because since they couldn't keep the law, they needed a savior. Well, that's a legitimate theological point. But that is not what Paul is teaching in Galatians 3 and 4, because here the tutor is unto Christ teaching justification by faith. Now, there is a portion of the Old Testament law that teaches justification by faith, and it's the ceremonial law, the sacrificial system and temporal ritual, and all the rest. Indeed, the ceremonial law is a pointer to Christ, a tutor unto Christ, an instructor in salvation by grace, typifying the redemptive work of Christ. And now that the object of faith has come, we're no longer under that tutor, no longer under the ceremonial law. We're mature sons who enjoy the reality which was only foreshadowed previously. When we were but children. We were under what Paul calls the rudiments, the weak and beggarly rudiments. If you look at Colossians 2, 16, 23, you'll notice that rudiments and ordinances are mentioned there, and they are called a shadow of the things to come. But the body, the reality, is Christ. And so it's clear, I think, from a cross reference as well as the function of the passage itself, that Paul in Galatians 3, 4 was speaking of the ceremonial law which foreshadowed the work of the Redeemer, but which was weak and impoverished in comparison to the reality brought in by the body of Christ. If this is not evident enough from the historical context, Judaizing insistence on circumcision from the vocabulary Paul's using the word rudiments, and from the function assigned to that law that that Paul had in mind pointing instructively to Christ and to justification by faith. It should be obvious from the example which he immediately offers at the end of this passage. The example in chapter 4, verse 10 is that of observing the ceremonial calendar. So Galatians dismisses the shadows of the ceremonial law as a tutor, but endorses the continuing demand of the moral law, as you can see in chapter five very clear clearly that those who keep the fruit of the Spirit do so because it does not violate any law from God. Well, we'll take a brief break and then come Back to Galatians 3, and Walter Chantry is dealing with it.