Dr Greg Bahnsen - Normative Ethics: The Sufficiency and Unity of Scripture (Part 19)

Over the work we have done previously, bring ourselves up to date, know where we are in the outline, and then we'll have two more hours and this course on normative ethics will be wrapped up. We began our study in this course by looking at the importance of ethical study and then introducing ethics in general. And after that introduction we were able to make the application showing why we need to study normative ethics as a distinct perspective. The Deontological Approach to Ethics as a Distinct Approach to the Question of Ethics first unit in our course after that introduction dealt with apologetical ethics or the philosophy of deontologism. After I characterized the deontological outlook in ethics, we'd be able to recognize that we surveyed important deontologists throughout history, beginning with Eastern religions and the pre Socratics, coming down to the intuitionists of the 20th century and a few quasi deontologists. I pause to note for you the key notions in the survey of deontologism that have emerged from our discussion. And then we turn to central criticisms pertaining to Christian deontologism, sorts of critical attacks that are made on Christianity as it tries to formulate a normative ethic. I concluded our philosophical section of the course with an overall apologetical critique of non Christian metaethics, which was an effort to summarize in very broad strokes what we've been saying about metaethics in all three of our courses. Then we, after taking this philosophical approach to the subject, turned to a theological development of an ethical norm, and I opened with a lecture on the necessity of an evangelical normative ethic, noting that Christianity is uniquely the religion of salvation by grace and one that teaches the interdependence of grace and godliness. Pronomianism and antinomianism were thus discussed in the history of theology, looking at the authority of the Old Testament in particular, and various forms of opposition to the law of God. And after a number of illustrations of the current trend to rid Christianity of external rules, I gave a formal reputation of the view that Christianity does not have an ethic of external rules. Then, after a disclaimer that our interest in norms is not a matter of wooden legalism, we began to develop that norm by noting that God himself is the norm of Christian ethics. That norm has been expressed in both general and special revelation, but our emphasis is going to lie in this class, for appropriate reasons, on the written word of God. Scripture as the norm and thus we pursued various relevant attributes of the written Scriptures for ethics, notably the unity of Scripture, the power of Scripture, the authority of Scripture, the clarity of Scripture, the necessity of Scripture, and then the sufficiency of Scripture. I turn from that to the question of using Scripture and ethics, noting the different literary genres and the need for a proper hermeneutical treatment of biblical literature in the derivation of norms for our present living. The question arises, finally, after we've narrowed this down to the written Scriptures. Specifically, what about the Old Testament law, whether it is normative for today? And I argued from a prima facie case that it was normative today, and then looked at the Old Testament law itself and what it taught with respect to the perpetual nature of God's law. From there, we took the step to an explicit confirmation of the law in the New Testament and then followed various theological corroborations of our conclusions, beginning with the unchanging holiness of God, working down through the power of the Holy Spirit and the work of the Spirit and sanctification, having established then the normativity of God's written word for ethics and specifically the Old Testament law, the question became whether even the sociopolitical portion of the law was binding today. And I argued from the uniform doctrine of the civil magistrate throughout Scripture that it was, and that even the justice of God's law regarding punishment of criminals should be held to bias today. Then we took up the question of discontinuity between the Old and New Covenants, pointing out that all of this emphasis on unity does not mean that we don't recognize important differences. And I summarized those differences in four particular propositions having to do with this continuity. And then we looked at the law and redemptive history, the Lutheran discussion of law and Gospel, and the Reform triplex as a division of the law, trying to summarize the various functions of the law. And then finally, we summarized the theonomic perspective and ethics into six propositions. Following that, we had four lectures on the critics of theonomy, looking at the various illustrative discontinuities that are offered, various ways that the general validity of the law is counting, countered by critics today, and then in particular the attack upon the sociopolitical use of the law of God in our own society. We have been in a long process of apologetically and now theologically exegetically establishing that God's written word, and that includes the Old Testament law, is fully normative for our living. What I want to do in our last few minutes together is to deal with misunderstandings of Christian normative ethics, misunderstandings that need to be dealt with before we leave off on the subject of the Christian norm for living I'm going to look in these last two lectures at misunderstandings of the sufficiency of Scripture, then misunderstandings of the unity of Scripture, misunderstandings regarding the scope of Scripture under which we'll be looking at Adiaphora, the question of love and law and priorities within the law. And then finally I'd like to summarize in terms of the proper functions of God's law and the improper functions of God's law. To begin this next lecture, then we'll look at misunderstandings of the sufficiency of Scripture, and they are four in number. This discussion follows, for the most part, Mr. Frame's discussion in the syllabus on Christian ethics. However, I've summarized some of this material somewhat differently and added a little bit to it. The way I would put it is the sufficiency of Scripture must be understood as comprehensive in scope. So that's the first area of misunderstanding, not seeing the comprehensive nature of the sufficiency of Scripture. And I'll say something about that when we come back to it by way of summary. The second way that you can misunderstand the sufficiency of Scripture is why understanding scriptural sufficiency as merely being a supplement to the study of the world. Scripture supplements are study of the world in ethics. A third way to misunderstand the sufficiency of Scripture is to go to the other extreme and say, that's what Scripture stands completely alone in ethics and therefore is sufficient all by itself. And the fourth way to misunderstand the sufficiency of Scripture is to take it as a mere shortcut for the unspiritual. A shortcut for the unspiritual. Let's back up into the first one. Scriptural sufficiency is comprehensive in scope rather than being restricted, for instance, to matters of salvation. When salvation is understood in a narrow sense, obviously somebody can say scriptural sufficiency is restricted to the scope of Scripture, which is salvation. But if you mean by salvation the salvation of the entire man, the salvation of his marital relations, the salvation of his society, the salvation of his economic, the salvation of the economic realm, the salvation of his body and his health and all that, that if you have a very broad view of salvation, so it's not simply the spiritual salvation of the soul in the afterlife, there wouldn't be much difficulty in admitting this. However, most people understand by matters of salvation or religious proficiency that the Bible speaks in a narrow or almost cultic way to the God man relationship. We want to say that the sufficiency of the normative ethic we've now done developed is much broader than that. Indeed, it's a comprehensive sufficiency showing us God's will in all matters whatsoever. That isn't to say, of course, that Scripture is a textbook on politics, for instance, or a textbook of sexual ethics. This is the pervasive slogan that is thrown back in our teeth about our view of the sufficiency of Scripture. People will say, well, Scripture is never intended to be a textbook of politics. You can't pick up Scripture for any number of reasons. Consider this was written just to give us guidance in politics, or written to be systematic in the presentation of a political outlook. Well, that's all well and good, but that doesn't discount that what Scripture does say in politics is sufficient to guide us. The only all the norms necessary for a Christian political stance can be found in the Scripture. We believe that indeed they can be found there. The confession of faith does not mention the sufficiency of Scripture in terms of salvation explicitly. The confession does say that Scripture is sufficient for man's salvation, but it does not explicitly limit it to some narrow view of salvation. Indeed, this confession of faith doesn't ever regard salvation as narrowly religious as opposed to some other area of life, as though just some modal sphere called faith is the scope of scriptural teaching. Salvation always means salvation of the whole person. Besides, when we do read in the confession of scriptural sufficiency, we read that it's sufficient for man's salvation and for all things necessary for God's own glory and our faith and life. All things pertaining to life and the glory of God are touched upon by the Scriptures. So let's remember also that it's not possible to confine faith and life to some particular area of life. Faith is what we believe and life is what we do. And that's about as broad and comprehensive a way of speaking of the whole man as one could imagine. So, first of all, sufficiency of Scripture is not a narrow sufficiency. It's comprehensive. And that's not an embarrassment to us. Although today, especially among the Doi verdians and others, the attempt is made to ridicule this as a biblicistic outlook. Secondly, the sufficiency of Scripture is not merely that it supplements the study of the world. It's not merely that it supplements the study of the world. The Scripture places no limit on the sufficiency of Scripture in telling us the will of God. What we read of, rather, is comprehensive sufficiency to equip us for every good work. It's not as though we first of all go to the world to find out about good works, to some kind of natural law ethic or some law built on the autonomous use of man's reason. And then we add to that the icing of the cake or the second story or what have you. That is whatever Scripture teaches. Rather, scriptural sufficiency is that it tells us everything we need to know about ethics and and not simply in a supplementary way. Scripture is not merely sufficient as a general guide by which we discover ethical norms. Scripture contains all of the norms over against the Dolly Verdian idea that norms are found in each one of the modal spheres. Just remember that Scripture does draw a sharp distinction between the sufficient word of God and and the traditions of men. So that if we promulgate a norm of God, a norm which supposedly presents the will of God, which is not an application in some way of Scripture, we are really denying the distinction between Scripture and tradition. We're really saying that there are norms that Scripture doesn't give us but are based upon. Our human reason or tradition or independent research are natural studies. Now, a lot of people are misled at this point, especially as they hear the polemic of the doyavirdians. Misled by the fact that we really do need information about the world in order to make the norms of Scripture applicable. We need to learn something about the world before we have an adequate Christian ethic. However, the fact that we need information about the world doesn't does not lend support to the idea that the norms that we apply to the world are actually taken from the world and the study thereof. Applications of Scripture to the world are applications of Scripture to the world, not applications of what you learn in the world to the world. And so although there's a kind of plausibility that's gained from pointing out that you can't have the Bible all by itself if you're going to live in terms of applying God's will to our current situation. The fact remains that there's nothing in that that indicates that the world supplies its norms not to be found in the Bible. Remember Romans 3:1 already indicates that there are no extra biblical norms which cannot be found and supported by the Bible itself. Scripture, moreover, is not simply sufficient as a way of completing a man's study of natural law. We studied natural law in our previous course on consequential ethics and ethic of the situation. So I won't say a lot about that right now. But do remember that natural law schemes of theology are built on A radical distinction between natural and supernatural ends for man. Thomas Aquinas said that man is a natural law end as well as the supernatural end. And when Aquinas said that man could find out the proper norms for his natural end with his unaided human reason, he was not reckoning with the failure of man's mind due to sin. The effects of sin were not taken into account. More often than not, those who propose a natural law ethic are dealing not with the world interpreted in light of God's revelation, but rather an interpretation of natural processes, or, if you will, an Aristotelian view of the way things work out naturally in the world as a foundation for ethics. Given the natural law ethic of Thomas Aquinas, as one illustration, you don't really have a sufficient scripture and any meaningful step, because what happens is that our natural reason, using Aristotle and observation, is sufficient as well to supply us with an ethic. And so to say that scriptural sufficiency is merely a supplement to the study of the world is, in a roundabout way to undercut the sufficiency of Scripture, as though the world could supply us with something that Scripture doesn't, or that Scripture is not really necessary. This applies with an ethics pertaining to the world itself. The third way in which the sufficiency of Scripture for ethics has been misunderstood is by people holding rather insensitively that the Scripture can stand alone in ethics. You have kind of a fundamentalistic and wooden approach that says that if the Bible alone is our standard and ethics, if we're going to hold truly to this idea of sola scriptura, then we don't have to know anything about the world. We can ignore modern studies. We can ignore sociology. We can ignore the study of the civil realm or the study of nature, the study of psychology. We can ignore any kind of study apart from the word of God, because the only thing we need is the Bible. It's not only among fundamentalists that you get this kind of feeling, this wooden attachment to the Bible, as though we can close our eyes in an obscurantous way to everything else that is to be found in the world. You find that even in a sophisticated, a somewhat sophisticated philosopher like Gordon Clark, who says you can't know anything outside of the Bible, so much do we hold the soul of scriptura, that knowledge is not possible apart from what we learn in the Bible itself. You can't know anything about the world. Well, if you can't know anything about the world, quite obviously that means you don't know the difference between your wife and your next door neighbor's wife. But if you don't know the difference between your wife and your next door neighbor's wife, then to say that I know from Scripture and Scripture alone I'm not to commit adultery is not very helpful. That's such an abstract idea of ethics that it prohibits me from engaging in any kind of sexual intercourse for fear that I might in fact be having sexual relations with my next door neighbor's wife. The only way I could be sure I'm keeping the prohibition about adultery is to know something about my wife and how she's distinguished from my next door neighbor's wife to know the difference between my car and your car. So we don't really honor the sufficiency of Scripture by holding in an obscurantous way to the idea that we don't know anything apart from the Bible, or by saying that the Bible and the Bible alone is our standard so we can close our eyes to the rest of the world. The Bible does not contain all of the world's information. The Bible doesn't tell us about atomic bombs. It doesn't tell us about grain shortages, doesn't tell us about ecology and the details of, say, the particular swamp down the street here. Not everything, not all information about the world can be found in the bottom. Moreover, the Bible doesn't instruct us in all human skills. So the point is that in any area of life, our duty toward God will have to be an application of Scripture to what we do know about the world and in terms of the skills that we have learned as human beings. Theology and ethics, from a Christian standpoint must be matters of application. And that means that the sufficiency is of Scripture cannot be interpreted as the view that Scripture stands alone and I don't have to know anything else but the Bible itself. Sufficiency of Scripture doesn't rule out the use and indeed the necessity of extra biblical information in the determination of our duties. Remember that the the use of normative ethics or the pursuit of normative ethics involves the application or the involves some kind of facility in the use of moral syllogisms. Moral syllogism may begin with an abstract moral principle, thou shalt not steal. But a moral syllogism will not be helpful until you can add the second premise. A factual observation about the world that that wallet is your wallet, not mine, and therefore I shouldn't take the money out of that wallet because that would be stealing. Scripture from beginning to end assumes that man is going to be using his knowledge of creation to apply God's word. God doesn't bother to give us all information about the animals or about the cultivation of the garden, because it was Adam's task even before the Fall, to learn these things, to make a godly use of his intellect. So God supplies him with norms. Adam then learns about the world, and indeed the extension of God's kingdom is the use of those norms and applying them to the world. You'll find in various Bible passages, in fact, that men are being rebuked often enough for failing to make applications to current questions. Rebuked for thinking that if they just know the Bible in some general way, that they've done their duty as God's people. Knowing the Bible, however, is not sufficient in itself. Knowing the Bible is a means to the end of living as God's people in the world. Among the things that man must do in applying Scripture to this world is to use his human reasoning. Reason does have a place in moral discourse. After all, when a man is inconsistent in his applications of the Scripture, inconsistent in his exegesis of the Scripture, he's not going to be able to live in a God glorifying way in this world. So we do not object to the use of reason. What we object to is the use of autonomous reason. Moreover, we don't object to the use of logic in ethics. After all, the confession of faith tells us that good and necessary consequences can be deduced from the Bible which carry the authority of the Bible itself. And the reason for that is that a logical deduction is simply the rearrangement of concepts. A logical deduction is not adding more information or a new perspective. It's simply putting the same information into a new form, the same information as the information found in the premises of your argument. And thus the confession of faith tells us that certain matters are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the Word. These things are always to be observed. Our confession in teaching the sufficiency of athletes does not teach that the Bible stands all by itself. And of course the Bible doesn't stand by itself as though you can understand it in and of itself. All I mean by speaking of the sufficiency of Scripture, we don't by any means suggest that you can rule out the illumination of the Holy Spirit for a saving understanding of what the Bible is teaching and a proper application of it to our lives and behavior. Confession teaches the need for the Holy Spirit's illumination. And we would know that, if nothing else from our study of the personalistic approach to ethics, that in order to live in a godly way in this world, we need the regenerating, illuminating, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Of course the Spirit works with the Word and that's the point. Scriptural sufficiency does not mean the Scripture stands alone, just in some kind of monolithic or block sense out here. You don't have to use your reason or be illumined by the Spirit or know something about the world in order to have a proper norms of Christian ethics. Well, the last thing I want to say about a misunderstanding of spiritual sufficiency has to do with the whole idea of guidance. There are many people today who tell us that they pray for guidance from the Holy Spirit. And that's how they decided, that's how they made the decision that they did and decided to do what they did, for instance, go to the mission field rather than to be a plumber or what have you that you have to pray for the Holy Spirit to lead you. Now, the danger in this whole idea of guidance that the Holy Spirit leads us or gives us some kind of direction as to what we should do in our lives or how we should apply the Word of God, apart from what the Word of God itself would teach us as applied to the known facts of the world, is that it adds information, adds moral duties to the Bible which cannot be, strictly speaking, founded in the Bible itself. So that if the Holy Spirit has actually given me guidance that I should be a missionary to Australia rather than a lecturer in Tyler, Texas, then I am guilty of sin. And guilt for sin always means subject to eternal damnation. That is, it is a damnable thing that I have done in becoming a theological instructor rather than a missionary to Australia. There's quite a bondage inherent in the idea that the Holy Spirit guides us to make these decisions. The Scripture teaches us that the canon was to be closed. God would give no further revelation. And if God has not revealed things to us by the Spirit, then we, we are not under moral obligation to do the things which are said to be based upon the guidance of the Spirit. We need to remember with respect to the guidance of the Spirit as well, the ambiguity of those signs which people say have been given to them by the Spirit. The ambiguity of certain signs from the Spirit. Let's say that I am contemplating becoming a missionary to Australia now. Then something happens that makes it very easy for me to go to Australia. Let's say what falls into my hands is an all expense paid trip to Australia. And I could use that as my airfare, my passage to Australia, if I wanted to. And if I'm going and it's going to be that easy to get there, and it's not going to cost me anything, isn't that God telling me that I should be a missionary in Australia? Well, there's a real ambiguity about this alleged sign from heaven that I should be going to Australia. After all, somebody could say that's not really a sign from God that you should go to Australia. It's a temptation that Satan has thrown down into your life to lead you to do that which you're not really competent to do, to do missionary work in Australia. But Satan wanting you to become ineffective for the kingdom makes it very easy for you to go. So is God opening the door or is Satan trying to lure you? Is this really a sign from heaven, or is it in fact a snare from the devil? How do you ever know that when you look at something in the world that it's God trying to lead you down a certain path rather than Satan tempting you to go down that path? There's always a certain ambiguity about certain signs. There's an ambiguity about these indicators that we're supposed to have in the world showing us how we should live. The fact of the matter is that we can speak of the Spirit directing us and moving us and guiding us, but we cannot mean by that the Spirit is giving us information that goes beyond the word of God and its application, its known and objective and public application to the facts of the world around us. The direction of the Spirit, the guidance of the Spirit, must always mean the illumination of the Spirit giving us wisdom to read the Bible and see its application to the relevant facts around us. For instance, if I ask God to guide me by his face and to give me wisdom about my choice to go to Australia or to be a theological lecturer, God might very well enable me to see that. As a matter of fact, I don't meet people well and I don't do well in adjusting to new cultures. But I do enjoy reading books, outlining material, explaining things to people, answering their questions, devising ways of dealing with their challenges. And therefore. So what I've seen is, since the Bible requires me to use all my gifts and not to stress ones I don't have, that this perception about the world and the facts enables me to know, if you will, the Spirit guides me to see that I should really be a lecturer rather than a missionary. Now, that's all different from saying that, you know, it's really Quite obscure to me how the world should be understood and what the Bible says in a relevant way about my life. Just, Holy Spirit, show me what I should do. Just give me some kind of hidden sign that the public at large couldn't understand if they had all the information that I do. So the fourth misunderstanding of the sufficiency of Scripture for normative ethics amounts to the idea that the Bible is a shortcut for those who are so unspiritual as not to receive their guidance in some existential and subjective personal way that, well, if you can't, if you're not really a prayerful person, you're not in tune with God, so the Spirit's not guiding you, then you might take the baby steps of going to the Bible to find yes and no answers to certain questions. We have maintained the sufficiency of Scripture and that sufficiency is comprehensive in scope. It's not merely a supplement to the study of the world in natural law. However, that sufficiency doesn't mean that the Bible stands all by itself without the use of reason, factual information, that sort of thing. And the sufficiency of Scripture is not a sufficiency, meaning that it's a backup for those who are unspiritual and cannot receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, any questions about the sufficiency of Scripture and ethics. Another area of sufficiency is the area of adiaphora, but I'm going to be dealing with that under the proper scope of the Bible. Whether the Bible has as its scope to give us yes and no answers on every particular or possible answer, every particular possible issue or question that might be asked about how we should live, decisions that should make any questions on scriptural sufficiency and ethics. Okay, well, then let's look at the unity of the Bible and specifically the unity of the law of God with respect to normative ethics, If you will. The Spirit guides me to see that I should really be a lecturer rather than a missionary. Now, that's all different from saying that, you know, it's really quite obscure to me how the world should be understood and what the Bible says in a relevant way about my life. Just, Holy Spirit, show me what I should do. You know, just give me some kind of hidden sign that the public at large couldn't understand if they had all the information that I do. So the fourth misunderstanding of the sufficiency of Scripture for normative ethics amounts to the idea that the Bible is a shortcut for those who are so unspiritual as not to receive their guidance in some existential and subjective personal way that, well, if you can't, if you're not really a prayerful person, you're not in tune with God, so the Spirit's not guiding you, then you might take the baby steps of going to the Bible to find yes and no answers to certain questions. So we have maintained the sufficiency of Scripture in ethics, and that sufficiency is comprehensive in scope. It's not merely a supplement to the study of the world in natural law. However, that sufficiency doesn't mean that the Bible stands all by itself without the use of reason, factual information, information, that sort of thing. And the sufficiency of Scripture is not a sufficiency, meaning that it's a backup for those who are unspiritual and cannot receive the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise. Any questions about the sufficiency of Scripture and ethics? Another area of sufficiency is the area of adiaphora, but I'm going to be dealing with that under the proper scope of the Bible. Whether the Bible has us at scope to give us yes and no answers on every particular or possible answer, every particular possible issue or question that might be asked about how we should live, decisions we should make. Any questions on scriptural sufficiency and ethics? Okay. Well, then let's look at the unity of the Bible and specifically the unity of the law of God with respect to normative ethics, and try to dismiss some of the misunderstandings that arise there. We have said, just by way of rehearsal, that Christ has confirmed the law of God for the New Testament believer. Matthew 5:17 says he did not come to abrogate the law. Matthew 5:18 says that the law, in its slightest details, has an eternal validity. And verse 19 of that same passage reinforces this confirmation of the law by teaching that loosening even the least commandment will lead to the lowest position in the kingdom of God. We've seen the unity of God's law from the perspective of the unity of the covenant as well. Ephesians 1:12 speaks of the covenants of the promise singular. Galatians 3 shows us that the covenant with Moses was not against the covenant with Abraham. So there are many covenants with one basic root promise. And all of these covenants must be joined together and unified. Now, since covenant contains the concept of stipulations, if there's one basic covenant, there's one basic set of stipulations or one basic legal outlook. That's why the new covenant tells us the terms of the new Covenant tell us that the law of the older covenant will be written on the heart. One covenant and one law. The New Testament substantiates that view of unity by, through many passages, teaching the authority of God's Old Testament word and law. And there are certain negative passages, passages that can be brought up against this. But the negative passages don't really, it seems to me, undergird, excuse me, undermine the unity of God's law. But simply show that the unity of God's law in the areas of its shadow provisions, its foreshadowing of the economy of redemption presented by Christ, brought in by Christ, that that unity is a historical, developmental, un unity from shadow to reality, and therefore there are changed applications. But it's the same meaning, the same basic principle, the same substance that we're following in both dispensations. Grace, faith, and love all support the law of God in the perspective that we have brought. Grace enables law, obedience. Faith, as false, as in Romans 3 is false, establishes the law. And love, as we're told in a number of places, summarizes the demand of the law. And yet we don't mean to suggest, after all of this, that we don't need to study love or the fruit of the Spirit or the Beatitudes, that the law, because of the unity between Old and New Testament ethics, that the law is the only thing we should consider. Love and law are different perspectives on the same moral duties, the same holiness that God requires of us. And to look only at the law is to fail to have an appreciation for the motivational and personalistic perspective that's supplied by the demand of love. Love is, as our syllabus tells us, a provocative characterization of the law. It presents the law in a light which we wouldn't see if we only studied Thou shalt shalt and thou shalt not. So the unity of Old and New Testament ethics doesn't mean that the emphasis on love in the New Testament is unappreciated or that a new dimension or emphasis hasn't been added. We certainly would allow for that. Indeed, John tells us that the love command is in a certain sense a new commandment, the new commandment seen in Christ giving his own life and showing how sad, sacrificial, and how positive the law of God is, or the demands of God's law. The unity of ethics should not be construed as meaning that we keep the ceremonial law in the same way that we keep, as the Old Testament Jews kept the ceremonial law, we do keep that law. But we do so in a different manner with the establishment of the New Covenant. Redemption is grounded in God's free decision to save people. It's not inherent in God's justice and holiness. He could be a just and holy God without choosing to redeem anyone. God chose the work of redemption and the plan of redemption to be worked out through history. And that's why the history of redemption provides for different perspectives on the accomplishment of the ceremonial law. The Old Testament looks ahead to redemption with foreshadows, typology, promises and prophecies, whereas the New Covenant looks back on the accomplishment of these things, the reality that came in with the work, the person and work of Jesus Christ. And thus it's highly appropriate, given the historical character of redemption, that the restorative or ceremonial laws defining the redemptive economy of Christ would find different ways of observation throughout history. And not only is it appropriate, but certain language in the book of Hebrews would suggest that it's absolutely necessary. It's necessary that Christ would offer his life in the way that he did, and that now we don't follow the sacrificial ritual of the Old Testament, but we rather come to God through Christ. So there we have the sufficiency and the unity of ethics having high visibility in our presentation of the normative perspective. But we do want to make sure that certain misunderstandings are not to be allowed. We don't allow people to think about our unified approach to the law of God, that we do everything literally or observe in the same manner. Any law that you find in the Old Testament. Any questions about the unity of God's law before we leave that subject behind Now. Okay, you all seem to understand that I'd like to proceed, if we can change gears, to a question of the proper scope of obedience, proper scope of the teaching of God's Word for our life and behavior. A number of common moral mistakes are made by believers even after they come to the realization that God holds them accountable to his revealed commandments. Even after people see the sufficiency and the unity of God's revealed commandments, they still make some common moral mistakes. And among those mistakes, two can be focused upon here as the root of many other misconceptions. On the one hand, people often fail to see that God's law requires obedience from the heart. And on the other hand, people make the mistake of thinking that it is sufficient if their obedience is restricted to matters of the heart. Both of these errors opposite in character but equal in destructive force. Both of these errors are addressed by God's Word, showing us the full dimensions of true obedience to the Lord. So the first error with respect to the scope of obedience is that obedience need not be from the heart. In Matthew 5:20, Jesus taught something which must have been shocking to his hearers. He said, except your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven. The shocking thing about this was that the scribes and Pharisees have a reputation, one which they themselves were anxious to promote for a deep commitment to obeying even the minor details of the law of God. But the fact of the matter was that the Pharisees were far from living up to the demands of God's commandments. They had distorted the law's requirements, reading them in a perverse, self justifying and externalistic fashion. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exposed the shallow obedience of the Pharisees just for what it was, pointing out that God is not satisfied with anything short of a full, heartfelt obedience to his law as comprehensively interpreted. By contrast, the Pharisees had appealed to the law in a way calculated to escape God's true and original demands, placing a hypocritical veneer of piety upon all of these actions of theirs. You see, the Pharisees made a religious show of adhering to the law, but Christ saw that it was nothing but a facade. He said to them, you hypocrites. Isaiah was right when he prophesied of you, saying, these people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men, the Pharisees actually overlooked the weightier matters of the law, like justice, mercy, and faith. Matthew 23 tells us they were blind guides who trimmed down the requirements of God's law so that it could be made to appear conformable to their own cultural traditions. Matthew 15. And he answered and said to them, why do you also transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, but you say so you have made void the word of God for the sake of your tradition. So you see, it's quite possible to take an avid interest in the commandments of God and still have a heart that is far from the Lord, still have a lifestyle which is anything but pleasing to God. Since our attitudes and motives are out of line with the moral guidance of Scripture, we can take a concern for the finest details of the law of God, and indeed we should. But we should not do that in a way in such a way that we miss the main point in all of it, namely the display of such godly attitudes as are mentioned in the list of the Fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self control against which there is no law. When we see a person following the fine details of the law, but in such a way that we would say of him in all honesty, he's not joyous and loving and patient exercising self control, then he is indeed abusing the full scope of God's law. In the Sermon on the Mount, after Christ declared that all only a righteousness exceeding that of the scribes and Pharisees would gain entrance into the kingdom of heaven, he went on to deliver a series of illustrations of how the scribes and Pharisees held to a truncated understanding of God's requirements. He set their approach to various commandments over against his own interpretation of God's commands, thereby restoring the full measure of the God's purpose and requirements through the Old Testament law. His illustrations all began with words like you've heard it said by those of old, but I say to you in such sayings, Jesus was not, and it's very important to see this was not personally dissenting from the law of God, but rather dissenting from the Pharisaical understanding and the undervaluating of the law of God. After all, if the Pharisees really were living up to the law and then Jesus added something to the law's demand, that is, if Jesus said, well, you've heard what the law said and the Pharisees have lived up to that, but now I'm telling you something that they're not living up to, that is, if Jesus actually added to the law's demand, then his ex post facto condemnation of the first Pharisees for not living up to his additions would be quite unfair in the extreme. But Jesus wasn't being unfair to the Pharisees. He indicted the Pharisees for not living up to what God originally had required. You have heard it said by those of old, his language referring to the rabbinic interpretations of the law passed on from generation to generation describing commonly taught him this way, Rabbi so and so has said and Rabbi so and so other than that has said and another rabbi has said. The amazing thing to the crowds who heard Jesus Sermon on the Mount, if you look at the end of Matthew the seventh chapter, is that he didn't teach as one of the scribes, but as one who had authority in himself. So he didn't appeal to the scribes and Pharisees you've heard, you know, as it was said by those of old, rather Jesus said, I say to you, the problem with scribal or Pharisaical understanding of the Old Testament law was that it was trite and externalistic. Jesus, you see, had to point out, in accord with old Testament teaching, for instance in Proverbs 6, that hatred and lust were the root sins of murder and adultery. That's what he did in Matthew, fifth chapter, verses 21 to 30. When God commanded that his people not kill and not commit adultery. He did not merely require abstaining from the outward acts of assault and fornication. His requirement always went to the heart, requiring that our thoughts, our plans and our attitudes be free from violence and unchastity as well. True obedience to the law therefore stems from the heart, a heart that is right with God, a heart that seeks to please the Lord and not simply out of outward conformity. We must have pure attitudes as well. And thus we see why the obedience of the Pharisees was not acceptable in God's eyes. They were not truly obeying the law in its comprehensive demand, inward as well as outward. Any obedience that we render to God's law today, then, which is going to be pleasing to God, must be heartfelt obedience, not externalistic, hypocritical, self righteous Pharisaism. So with respect to the scope of God's demand, the first thing we must see is that it is not a matter of external that it must be obedience from the heart. But the second misunderstanding of the scope of obedience makes us say that obedience cannot be restricted to the heart. There are plenty of people today who are pietistic in their approach to Christian ethics who say obedience must be from the heart and then leave it at that. Say that true ethics, Christian ethics, deals with internal matters and not social ethics, economic ethics, those sorts of things. A man who refrains from physical adultery while cherishing lustful thoughts is self deceived if he thinks he's obeyed God's commandments. We've already seen that obedience must be from the heart. But on the other hand, a man who thinks that he has a pure attitude and motive, even though he engages outwardly in an act that transgresses the law of God, is equally self deceived. The man says, well, God requires love from my internal heart, and therefore I have this love, even though my body may be engaged in an adulterous act with my neighbor's wife. But I please God because obedience is restricted to the heart. He's just as self deceived. God's law does not place a premium upon inwardness and attitudes of the heart at the expense of overt obedience to his requirements. When it comes to obeying the Lord, it's not simply the thought that can, as we say about gifts that we give to one another. Situational ethicists who say a man can act out of love to God and love to his neighbor when he commits adultery will stand condemned by God and by his word on the final day. I trust that should be obvious to most born again Christians. They will know that walking by the Spirit means that unlike those who are in the flesh, they can keep the law of Christ. Romans 8:5,10 Indeed, it's the ordinance of the law which is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8:4 those who have hearts that have been made right with God, those who have been given new hearts by God, those who wish from the heart to please God will seek to walk according to God's commandments. That much is clear from Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 11:36. A proper heart attitude should lead to proper outward conduct as well. From out of the heart are the issues of life Obedience cannot be restricted to the heart. Jesus not only wanted the Pharisees to realize the inward values of mercy and faith, he went on to say, he didn't want them to leave undone the minor outward matters of tied to their garden vegetables. Matthew 23:23 so, just as obedience cannot be restricted to the heart in the sense of forgetting the need. For outward conformity to God's stipulations, it can likewise be said that obedience, if it's genuine biblical obedience, cannot be restricted to a concern for our own personal conduct. Full obedience embraces an interest in the obedience of those around me to the laws of God. The Christian must assume responsibility to exhort those in his home, in his church, in his society, to keep the commandments of the Lord. David put it this way in Psalm 51:13 restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners will be converted unto thee. The great commission laid upon the church by Christ calls for us to teach the nations whatsoever Christ has commanded. Anything less than this concern for obedience in those around us is disloyalty to the Lord, and it fails to qualify as true obedience. John Murray said in Principles of Conduct, and I think he said it well, the least of God's commandments, if they bind us, bind others we must resist the virulent poison of individualism which tolerates in others the indifference and disobedience which we cannot justify in ourselves. The moment we become complacent to the sins of others, then we have begun to relax our own grip on the sanctity of the commandments of the God and are on the way to condoning the same sin in ourselves. Heartfelt obedience to God's law will lead us to promote obedience to the same law on the part of others. Indeed, true saints have indignation for those who break God's law, Psalm 119, 53 says, and they are not ashamed to promote that law publicly, According to verse 13 of the same chapter. If they would keep silent in the face of disobedience, Psalm 50:18 says, they would become culpable for the sins that they witnessed. When you saw a thief, then you consented with him, the psalmist says, and you did so by keeping your peace. Ephesians 5:11 exhorts the believer to reprove the unfruitful works of darkness. Consequently, Scripture is quite clear in teaching that the requirement of full obedience to God's commands extends to the active promoting of obedience to those commandments in others. The Scripture guided believer is in a position to offer genuine counsel, in a position to offer genuine help to others and to his society, for he knows the purity of God's law. He is, as Romans 15 says, able to admonish, and so he shouldn't be quiet in the face of transgressions. That would be a guilty silence if you were to exercise it. We are to be the light of the world, and it's impossible that we will be this if we put our life under a basket. Consequently, true Christian obedience to the law of God takes us beyond a concern for ourselves to a concern for the obedience of others. Churches which preach, even by default, moral individualism are failing to to preach the whole counsel of God. You can't sweep the sins of your society under the rug when you're preaching the whole Bible. And so what we've seen then are two errors regarding the scope of true obedience. The one says true obedience is a matter of externals and doesn't see that it must come from the heart. True obedience is heartfelt. But on the other hand, true, true obedience is not restricted to the heart either in the sense of just my internal behavior, not my external acts. And true obedience cannot be restricted just to my own behavior, overlooking the sins of others and the sins of my society around me. Well, we'll take a break and then come back to a third form of misunderstanding, the scope of obedience, another kind of mistake that says there is no such thing as Audiophra.