June 26, 2020 Show with Dr. Jeffrey Waddington on “The Role of the Law in the Christian Life”

Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions and now here's your host

Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com.

This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Friday on this 26th day of June 2020 and today we have returning after quite an absence,

I'm so glad he's back and I'm looking forward to an excellent interview today with Dr. Jeffrey C.

Waddington, the new pastor at Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

He's also an author, a conference speaker, vice president of the board of directors for the

Reformed Forum and articles editor for the Confessional Presbyterian Journal. Today we are going to be discussing the role of the law in the life of a

Christian. Yes, that is irrefutably the best version of this song,

I Fought the Law, and the law won by the class, one of my favorite teenage bands or when

I was a teenager anyway in the 70s growing up on Long Island, but that is not what we're talking about today.

We're talking about the role of the law in the Christian life and this is specifically going to be in regard to the law as the will of God for our lives and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharp and Zion Radio, Dr.

Jeffrey C. Waddington. It's my pleasure to be here. I was, you know,

I was wanting to find a recording of the special music at your church's worship service.

Yeah, I'm sure if any of my elders are hearing this they'll be thrilled to have that connection made.

I'm sorry. My privilege to join you brother, I'm sorry I've been away.

There's no good excuse for not being on the show much more frequently.

Now that I'm settled in Fong Grove just about what an hour or so from you in Carlisle.

Yes, somewhere in that neighborhood. Yeah, we're right on the, we're literally one half mile from the

Mason -Dixon line where I am sitting right now in the dance. Yeah, very close to Maryland.

Yep, very close. And I had the honor and privilege of being present as you were officially installed as the new pastor at Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Fong Grove, Pennsylvania and what a beautiful little country church that is.

And I'm looking forward to hopefully, God willing, many visits to that church in the future.

Yes. And hopefully you'll be able to at some point return as a guest right here in the studio as most of our previous interviews have been conducted.

Yes, no, definitely we'll be back for in -studio interviews, which had

I used my brain today, I probably could have done that brother, but we'll let that pass by.

Well, tell our listeners, before we go into our theme today, you're giggling about something,

I must have missed something. What would you like me to tell them about the church?

Yes, about Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fong Grove, Pennsylvania. Well, the congregation, not the current members, maybe with the exception of one, have been a part of the church the whole time it's been in existence, but we've been around for 84 years, so this congregation left

PCUSA Church in 1936 when Dr. Machen had his imbroglio with PCUSA, and the

Westminster Seminary was founded and then the OPC seven years later.

The congregation didn't come into the OPC right away.

For 18, make that 28 years, was an independent

Presbyterian Church, which is kind of an anomaly, but in 1964, the year

I was born, it came into the OPC. Wow. Yeah, and if any of the listeners have any books by a man by the name of Raymond Zorn, Z -O -R -N, he's written a few books on the church.

He was a pastor here back in the 40s. Wow. I gotta look him up.

Yeah, I'm also living in the parsonage of a 19th century

Presbyterian pastor. They call it the old manse around here, George Norcross, who was very prophetic in his day,

I don't mean with a divine gift of extra -biblical revelation, I mean, he really hit the nail on the head when he saw how devastating the encroachment of liberalism into the

Presbyterian Church was going to be, and I'm sure he'd be really spinning in his grave if he was made aware of what's going on in the denomination where he pastored.

But he was apparently a great man of God, and I'm honored to be conducting the program live from his home, which...

Yeah, it's a beautiful home, in a beautiful, right on the main drag there in Carlisle, which is in itself a lovely community with historical significance, especially for guys like me who are

Civil War buffs, and we're familiar with what went on in and around the

Battle of Gettysburg, and how the Carlisle barracks, I believe the Confederates burned them down in their working their way down to Gettysburg.

They went north and then south, kind of, you know, they enveloped the city of Gettysburg. But anyways, this congregation, so, came into the

OPC in 64, and my predecessor served for five years, and before him, the previous pastor served for 44 years.

Wow. That's quite a long time for any pastor. Yeah, that's virtually unheard of, right, in our day.

So it's a rarity. So it's a lovely congregation. There is a manse.

Not every OPC congregation has an official residence for the pastor, but we do here, on the property of the, with the church.

So it's a relatively large piece of property. I cannot measure it, but behind me is the cornfield, and in front of me, in front of the church, across the street, is another cornfield.

So, the Fong Grove was, I believe, incorporated in 1881.

It is exactly one square mile in the size. It is, what was the other thing

I was going to say, 1881, one square mile, and the population is 541 or 542 people.

Wow. That is one small town. Yes. Now, our congregation is made up of folk who are on the

Maryland, who live on the Maryland, as well as the Pennsylvania side of the Mason -Dixon line.

So we're, yeah, we're one and a half from here, in the manse, on one half mile to the Maryland border.

Cool. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Fong Grove, Pennsylvania, go to faithopc .net,

faithopc .net. And, well, Dr. Waddington, as I said before,

I know we were taking a general approach to the law of God as being the will of God for our lives.

And you do have to be specific when you mention law, because even before this show, there was some confusion by people who heard, or should

I say saw, the publicity for the interview. What do you mean by the law in America, and civil law in the 21st century?

Or do you mean the law of Moses? Or what specifically are you talking about? Those are good questions, right?

Generally, you know, as I said, as you said, broadly speaking, the law is the will of God for our lives.

And specifically, it's the word, the expression law, is used in different ways.

And so when we're reading God's Word, before we get to the issue of how do we relate to the law, but when we're reading, when we're looking at God's Word, any particular passage of God's Word, we need to consider what are we looking at?

What are we reading? And in a moment, I'll explain in a little bit more detail what I'm getting at. But you have the law as it was given to Adam and Eve in the garden prior to the fall.

It's also written on the heart. So the law, when

I think of the Garden of Eden, both refers to the unwritten law stamped upon the heart.

Not in a saving sense, okay? No, there is a sense in which God says that He will write the law upon the heart, and He's referring to the results of regeneration, okay?

I'm at this point referring to what we sometimes call the natural knowledge of the law, that that's stamped upon every human being, because we're all made in God's image.

Then there, of course, is the law, you know, if you're thinking in a more abbreviated sense, there's the law or the

Ten Commandments given through Moses on Mount Sinai to the children of Israel. Often, that's the sense that we most often think of.

Now, it can also be broadened a little bit, a little extended, a little more beyond the immediate Ten Commandments to the whole

Mosaic administration, which would basically be the first five books of the

Old Testament, or what's sometimes called the Torah or the Pentateuch, okay? Or, it may refer to the whole

Old Testament. Or, it may be all of the commandments of God that are found in the

Old Testament and the New Testament. There, you thought. So, depending upon where in the

Bible you are reading, it may have one of those views in mind, and you always have to read the particular passage in context to know what view.

Certainly, as you had folk who saw the announcement about our interview, might have thought we were referring to constitutional law.

But, of course, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about biblical law, or the law of...

Specifically, I have in mind the abiding aspects of the law of God.

Specifically, something like the Ten Commandments. That's really what I have in view.

Although all of God's Word is inspired by God, it is, or expired by God, breathed out, and is profitable for rebuke, correction, instruction, training, and righteousness, right?

So that every man of God may be equipped, the man of God may be equipped, made perfect, competent for every good work.

So, when you're reading God's Word, you want to make sure that you understand what aspect of the law is in view in any given passage.

Now, that's not all. There's two other aspects that need to be kept in mind before we deal with the progressive nature of God's work, and that is, the law has, at least since the time of the early church, the law of Moses in particular, of course, has been divided into three parts, a three -fold division.

Sometimes you'll see it referred to as the tripartite division, and that would be the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial.

Yes, anybody who listens to my show regularly knows that although I have, since my born -again experience with Christ and being regenerated and being added into the church and joining a non -Roman

Catholic Church, which is where I was raised, in the Roman Catholic Church, ever since being a

Bible -believing Christian, I have always been a member of a Reformed, Confessional, Covenantal Baptist Church.

But I have always, as long as I've been a Christian, maintained friendships with those whose theology has been nicknamed

New Covenant Theology, and they are Calvinistic Baptists who believe that there are no three -fold divisions of the law, or is no, perhaps is a better way of saying it, there is no three -fold division of the law.

They say that it's all one chunk, and therefore, as far as the

Old Covenant law is concerned, they say it was completely fulfilled in Christ, and the only law we have in the

New Covenant is that which is specifically commanded by Christ. So that would be the division amongst

Calvinistic Baptists. Of course, at that point, they depart from the vast heritage of the

Christian Church by saying that. The three -part division that I make mention of goes back at least to Thomas Aquinas, if not before that.

So you're going back to the 1200s, or earlier. And remember that we're not saying that this would have been recognized by Jews in the

Old Testament, or even after the closing of the Old Testament canon. Simply that, as we look,

I cannot agree with New Covenant folk and say that, now, we might actually agree on a lot of particulars, because I have also said that the

Old Testament now comes from the hand of Christ. But there's no particular text that I could go to that would tell me in the

New Testament that the Old Testament law as such is no longer valid in any sense.

And even if you go to Paul in Romans 6 -14, and in Romans 7, which, by the way,

I happen to be preaching through at Faith OPC in Fong Grove, a little shameless plug there, it's clear to me that Paul's using the idea of law in a restricted sense, which brings me then to the nice actual segue, because there's two three -fold divisions.

There's the three -fold division of the law, which, you know, we talked about, and the reason for that division is simply that we recognize there are portions, there are aspects of the law of Moses that are abiding for the

Christian, and there are aspects that have been fulfilled in Christ. The Ten Commandments, as far as I'm aware, as far as I can tell, are still abiding.

There's nowhere, in fact, almost all of the commandments are repeated in the

New Testament. And that's why the New Covenant folk believe that nine of the

Ten Commandments are commands of Christ. Well, but they're commands of Christ in the

Old Testament. Right. Right, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just... No, no, I understand that.

But they come from the hands of the Son of God, because it's the Son of God who is the communicator, you know, who does the speaking, right?

He is the Word Himself. There's more that could be said about that, but I mean, that's...

So, if we want to say, when we look at the law of Moses in particular, we see the

Ten Commandments, and even the...all ten are still abiding. See, this is where I would not agree with someone who thinks that only nine of the ten.

Typically, it's the Fourth Commandment that people think is no longer abiding, and I would say, while the way we understand its application has changed, the fact is we still ought to honor the

Lord's Day. Now, that's where, you know, I would be at odds with someone like D.

A. Carson, who I have a lot of respect for, but I would disagree with his understanding of the

Sabbath, or the Lord's Day, or Sunday. And John MacArthur, to be added to that.

It would also be, okay, that wouldn't surprise me. Again, another man who

I have a lot of respect for. So, the moral law would be the aspects of the law from a

Reform perspective that are abiding at all times.

Then there's the civil. Those are things, of course, that are specifically relevant to the nation of Israel as a political entity.

And, of course, with the passing of the theocratic state of Israel, those laws specifically dealing with that are fulfilled in Christ as our

King. But also, they are no longer binding, at least not in the way that they were for Old Testament saints.

And then finally, the ceremonial, of course, is related specifically to things like tabernacle and temple worship, the sacrificial system and the like, the feast days, and so on and so forth.

Those definitely, we argue, would be fulfilled in Christ, because three aspects, by the way, are types and shadows of the coming of Christ.

So when Christ comes, he is the fulfillment of those three aspects of the law, because he is the lawgiver.

He also will be the lawkeeper, but that's jumping ahead. So then there are three uses of the law, which are distinct from the threefold division.

Although, it might be easy to confuse them, because there is some tad bit of overlap.

There is the pedagogical or schoolmaster use of the law, sometimes referred to as the first use.

Although, if you look at some of the early reformers, they have a different sequence.

Therefore, we need to remember that the sequencing is not divinely inspired.

So you have the pedagogical, you have the civic, that's the second use of the law. And then you have what's called the third use of the law, the tertius usus legis in Latin.

That is, the law as a guide for the Christian life. So the pedagogical would be the aspect of the law that points out our sin, and therefore drives us to Christ.

That is its purpose. The civic is to provide a standard of righteousness among the nations.

And then, finally, the third use. We haven't come up, as far as I'm aware, with a better expression than third use of the law.

Most of us who are familiar with this know what that is. It's just the law as a guide to the Christian life.

And it's not, in that sense, and interestingly enough,

John Calvin held that the third use of the law was its primary use. And I would have to agree with him, and I'll explain why shortly.

We've already actually touched upon it. But basically because the law was given to Adam in the garden before the fall.

Now, I don't want to hijack or derail the conversation, but do you know, or have you a convicted opinion as to whether John Calvin was a

Sabbatarian because there seems to be support for him not being a

Sabbatarian? Well, it depends on what we mean by Sabbatarian. I mean, I understand that he's not a

Puritan. Okay, so he's not a Sabbatarian in the strictest possible sense of the expression, and we have to remember that he predates the

Westminster Assembly by almost 100 years.

And we have to recognize that there is development that occurs in the thinking of the

Church on various theological issues, right? So that I don't assume that Calvin got everything nailed down.

And I might be more sympathetic to Calvin than some others, but yes,

I'm aware of the fact that he's not a Sabbatarian in the

Westminsterian sense. That's a matter of historical situatedness, whether we like it or not.

He was who he was, right? When you're dealing with a historical figure, you have to deal with who was he, and what did he believe, what did he teach, and then you can deal with whether what he taught and believed was sound.

And when we return from our first break, which is coming up,

I'd like you to wrap up everything that you wanted to say in regard to the law before the new covenant, because we even, as you already hinted at, the

Lord brought the law even into the Garden of Eden before there was even any existence of Jews or Israel or an old covenant with Israel.

So we'll touch on that, and then we'll go into the main thesis today about the law being a part of the

Christian life, what role it plays in the Christian life. And don't go away, by the way, if you have a question of your own, send it to ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, and please give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you disagree with your own pastor or the predominant number of members of your church or denomination on a certain thing we're talking about, and you'd rather not draw identity to yourself,

I can understand that, and you might even be a pastor who disagrees with his fellow elders or denomination over something we're discussing.

I can understand you wanting to remain anonymous there as well, but if it's not a personal and private issue, please give us at least your first name, city and state, and country of residence, and we'll be right back with Jeffrey C.

Waddington after these messages from our sponsors. So don't go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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Thank you. Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned into our program today,

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington is our guest, pastor of Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania, and he is also the vice president of the board of directors for the

Reformed Forum. He's an author, a conference speaker, and articles editor for the

Confessional Presbyterian Journal, and we are discussing the role of the law in the Christian life.

And our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com if you have a question. chrisarnzen at gmail .com

And unless you had something you wanted to finish saying before we went on the break, tell us about this law that existed in the

Garden of Eden before there even was a nation of Israel. Let me just make sure

I finish with the distinctions when we think of the law, and yes, there's a real sense in which the law is one whole piece of fabric.

However, we do recognize that there are aspects of it that are still binding, aspects that are not.

Aspects that are repeated or spoken of again in the

New Testament, and some that are not. And so when we're looking at God's Word, before we get into the actual narrative of the

Word of God, so that when we're reading Scripture we want to note the use of the law in view of a given text.

How is it being used? I'll give you an illustration. When Paul talks about not being under law, but being under grace, in Romans 6 -14 and then again in Romans 7, he does not have in view the third or the second use of the law.

He has in view, primarily, the first use. That is, the law as a reminder of our sin, as a pointing to our sin, and ultimately as driving us to Christ.

And that aspect of the law is what is in view. And we err if we read what

Paul says there as a blanket statement for what we would call antinomianism, or against lawism.

Now, having said that, and also, so we want to keep in mind the uses of the law in a given text.

We also need to keep in mind the division of the law that may be in view.

That is, the pedagogical, or the pedagogical, the civic, and the guide of the

Christian life, as well as the division of the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial. And we also need to bear in mind where in the unfolding drama of redemption this particular passage is that we're reading.

Because there are things about believers in the Old Testament that do not apply to the

New Testament believer now that Christ has come. The most obvious example would be the sacrificial system.

That has been fulfilled in Christ, and it is an error to go backwards.

That's the whole point of the book of Hebrews. Okay, having said that, if we think about the fact that the law is not first given through Moses, that is a mistake.

If we think that the law is first given through Moses, the Ten Commandments in particular are a re -giving of the law to the children of Israel given in the context of addressing their particular situation in time, addressing their particular context of being a people in the wilderness.

In the book of Deuteronomy, of course, it will be the second giving of the law in terms of the second time that Moses gives the law.

Then the giving of the law will have in view the children of Israel going into the

Promised Land and settling in cities and villages and communities. But the law is actually given for the first time to Adam and Eve in the

Garden. In the first instance, it's given to Adam and Eve as written on the heart.

That is what we sometimes refer to as natural law. That is the law of God that is not verbalized, but is nevertheless known directly.

And Paul makes reference to that, especially as he addresses the relationship of Jews and Gentiles in the book of Romans.

You see that actually at the end of chapter 1, verses 18 to 32,

Romans chapter 2 as well. In both instances, you will remember that Paul is very clear that not only

Jews, but Gentiles also know who God is and what kind of behavior pleases

Him, and what kind of behavior displeases Him. That's because the law is engraved upon the heart.

And as I said, there is an additional sense in which that expression is used with regard to the law written on the heart of those who are regenerate.

So they not only know the law, they are actually given the Holy Spirit to help them obey it.

See, the law given initially that we now have written on our hearts naturally does not involve the

Holy Spirit enabling us to obey it, except maybe in very common ways, in a common sense, not in a saving sense.

But the law was given to Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall. Not only was it written on the heart, it was also spoken.

When God said to Adam, you may eat from every tree of the garden except for the tree in the middle of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You may not eat of that tree for the day you eat of that tree you will surely die. That's a commandment.

And the last time I checked, a commandment is a law from God is a law. So that is the...

That and the imprinting of the law upon the writing of the law upon the heart in a natural sense occurs prior to the fall.

Then, of course, after the... And the reason why it's given to Adam and Eve in the garden prior to the fall is it is meant to be the means by which

Adam and Eve, in obedience to which Adam and Eve will advance to a higher state of confirmed, unlosable righteousness and face -to -face intimate fellowship with God.

That was offered to Adam and Eve in the garden by means of obedience to the law.

Now, for Adam and Eve prior to the fall, that obedience was perfectly possible.

There was no reason for them to not be able to. Now, in fact, they did disobey. But they could have.

They could have obeyed God without any problem. And yet they didn't.

That is a situation where God gives the law to Adam and Eve in the garden prior to the fall is what, in our circles, we refer to as the covenant of works, sometimes called the covenant of nature or the covenant of creation, sometimes even called the covenant of life, because it's looking at different aspects of that.

But that is a covenant given by God to Adam and Eve.

And had they been obedient, they would have gone immediately to what we would say is the new heavens and the new earth.

But they weren't obedient. They were disobedient. And now, now the only way that we can have that kind of consummate, unsurpassable, intimate face -to -face fellowship with God is by way of the

Lord's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's why you'll often hear us say that Christ came to undo what

Adam did, in the one sense, and that on the other hand he came to do what Adam failed to do.

Adam failed to obey God and therefore brought guilt and corruption upon himself and Eve and the rest of the human race with one exception being the

Lord Jesus Christ himself. So the giving of the law was meant not to, in the first instance, was something in the garden, part of the forest, something like what we call now the third use of the law.

In other words, as a guide for the Christian. Something like, by that I mean it's not identical to that, but it's analogous to that.

And the law was given as a means of furthering advancement in God -glorifying activity.

And remember, the reason why we were created in the first place is the

Westminster Assembly, the divines at the Assembly tell us we, what is the chief end of man, man's chief end is to glorify

God and to enjoy Him forever. Now if that's true, and I believe it is, then the giving of the law in the

Garden of Eden was to further that end. And ultimately, even now for the

Christian, that's its purpose. Now of course, the law also has several other functions that we see in the history of, throughout the pages of the

Bible as we move from pre -fall garden, the fall, the expelling from the garden, the patriarchal narratives, and then eventually the children of Israel being constituted as a nation, as the people of God at the foot of Mount Sinai, the rise of the monarchy, the promise made to David that he would have someone on the throne fulfilled ultimately by the

Lord Jesus Christ, the new covenant that was promised to Ezekiel and Jeremiah, which is fulfilled in the

Lord Jesus Christ. For the Christian then, the law is something that, depending on its sense, because again, if someone, when

I say I want to talk about the law and the Christian life, if I could be using it in the sense of all the commandments of the

Old and the New Testament, then you would be wanting to look at the relationship of the commands of God to the gracious basis of the

Christian life in the personal work of Jesus Christ. Therefore, that is what we often refer to in our circles as the indicative imperative relationship.

In other words, the indicative would be the things that have been done, redemption accomplished, to use the language of John Murray.

And then the imperative would involve, although not be reduced to, but would involve redemption applied.

The imperative, of course, is one subset of that category.

We're going to have to pick that up right where you left off when we return from our midway break. And this is the longer than normal break, folks, so please be patient.

Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen, if you just tuned us in. Our guest today for the full two hours, with just a little less than an hour to go, is

Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, the new pastor at Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

And he's an author, a conference speaker, Vice President of the Board of Directors for the Reformed Forum, and articles editor for the

Confessional Presbyterian Journal. And we are discussing the role of the law in the Christian life.

If you have questions of your own, send them to chrisarnzen at gmail .com chrisarnzen at gmail .com

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Before we return to that discussion, we have some important announcements to make.

First of all, this Monday, my dear friend, Dr. Tony Costa, who is

Professor of Apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary, he is going to be returning to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio for what

I'm sure will be a fascinating interview. Monday, Dr.

Costa will be addressing something that's really shaking up the

Islamic world right now. There are two Islamic scholars, two top

Islamic scholars, admitting that the Quran is not a preserved text word for word, but contains textual variants.

Many Muslim apologists are trying to cover this up. As anybody knows who pays any attention to Muslim apologetics, they have been using against Christianity, ironically, people who might even be considered farther apart from Biblical Christianity, the liberals and the agnostics and the atheists, they have been using the rhetoric and apologetics information from men like Bart Ehrman to call into question the reliability of the

New Testament because of the textual variants that admittedly have existed in the translations, but Muslims have never admitted this, or they haven't admitted it in centuries anyway.

So, this is going to be a fascinating discussion to be sure. So mark your calendars for this

Monday, and that is the 29th of June, Monday the 29th of June, right here on Iron Sharpens Iron, with Dr.

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Waddington on the role of the law in the Christian life. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com And Dr. Waddington, if you could pick up where you left off after I had to interrupt you before the midway break.

That's quite all right. Thank you, especially for your wise words about people supporting the ministry here.

But there are many that wouldn't remind people of their primary obligations, which

I appreciate the fact that you did that. Thank you. And it speaks highly about that you are a churchman and that's one of the things

I love about you. So the law is given to Adam and Eve in the

Garden and then, of course, both in terms of being stamped upon the mind or the soul and because we're made in God's image, that's part of what it means to be made in God's image.

There's more to it than that, but certainly that is part of it. And then, of course, what we call a positive command that is spoken, command that God gave to Adam in the

Garden not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And if you're wondering which of the commandments is that, well, we remember that the commandments are all summarized in love the

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and your neighbor as yourself being the second greatest commandment.

We are reminded also by the Apostle Paul that love is the summing up of all the commandments.

And so we see that the commandment to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a test of obedience.

Would Adam and Eve obey God or would they begin to think that they were themselves the standard of what was true and what was right and what was good?

And the serpent in the Garden was of course enticing and the serpent that is

Satan was also beguiling and yet our first parents were very much responsible for their sin.

And we of course have inherited that sinful nature that we have from our first parents and that was all of course passed down through all of the generations to us.

The law is given therefore in the Garden not as, it doesn't have the we might say the first use of the law.

There's not a pointing out of our sin per se because there was no sin prior to the fall.

But all of that is to remind us that the law had a positive function both in terms of the law written on the heart and the law spoken by God about the eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Both of those were given so that Adam and Eve would eventually advance to a state where they could not lose their fellowship with God.

They did lose their fellowship with God. They were in a state of probation and we don't believe that that probation was intended to go on forever.

We believe that God tested Adam and Eve as a means of bringing that period of probation to a fine point, a laser pointed focus and of course they failed the test and they took us brought us all down with them.

Subsequent to the fall, the law then takes on what we call the pedagogical focus that is it points out our sin.

Even today as Christians, when we read the

Ten Commandments of course, we cannot help but I think recognize that we fail to keep those laws.

We fail even in the summary that our Lord gave when somebody asked him, well what is the first and greatest commandment?

And he said, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our strength, and with all our mind.

And then he said, the second is like unto it to love your neighbor as yourself and on these two laws hang all the these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Okay, so that's how we understand the two tables of the law, the first table being our relationship the laws directly related to our relationship to God the second table being laws related to our relationship with fellow human beings.

That law after the fall as I said, now has that aspect of pointing out our sin and ultimately driving us to Christ.

Now in the Old Testament that pointing out of our sin and driving us to Christ had a forward -looking aspect.

In other words they were being driven to the Christ who would come, the Christ who would die in their place and who would be raised again for their justification.

And now for us, we have both a backward and a forward -looking view.

We look back to the person and work of Christ in his historical ministry and we look forward to his coming again in glory in his second coming.

Now, in the because the law is has served several different purposes to ask the question what is the role of the law in the

Christian life and there is more than one answer. But I was wanting to stress the fact that the law, because it was given before the fall, it in its moral sense if we follow the three part threefold distinction the moral sense being basically the

Ten Commandments those continue. last time

I checked there was no rolling back now we might debate on the fourth commandment the

Sabbath. I believe that that commandment was not rolled back. However, that doesn't mean that I believe that we observe the

Sabbath day the same way that the Old Testament saints did. We don't. We observe it as Christians.

And as you know, Chris, even amongst OPC ministers there is disagreement over exactly what are the limits of what we can do on the

Sabbath. I've often said that that's actually the wrong question.

We should be asking what ought we to do on the Sabbath? Call the

Sabbath a delight. Now, yes, that's drawn from the Old Testament, but last time

I checked, that hasn't been withdrawn. That delight.

Psalm 119 is not an off -limits psalm because it was written in the

Old Testament. That psalm still is the Word of God.

That psalm still is appropriate for us as Christians to say that we can delight in the law of the

Lord in the sense that it is God's will for our life.

We might even be able to say that we delight in the fact that the law has pointed out to us our sin, because that's the way that God draws us to Himself, right?

That's the way it happens. We become aware of our sin, and we hear the

Gospel message proclaimed, or we read the message proclaimed in the

Word of God, and we respond in faith to that message and believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and trust in what He has done for us, so that we might be joined to Him in faith.

Now, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, Chris, the fact is we are united to Christ, and the

Christ to whom we are united obeyed the law perfectly for us.

Amen. That doesn't mean, as some I think erroneously think, that doesn't mean therefore we can just, you know, kick off our shoes, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.

That's not what is being said, because we are united to the

Christ who is forever holy. He's not just holy in the past, He's holy at all times.

And the Christ, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who unites us to Christ is just that, a

Holy Spirit. And what is holiness? So holiness is conformity to the image of Christ.

Well, what is the image of Christ? Well, the image of Christ is the Son who came to do

His Father's will. The Son came to do His Father's will. We're united to Christ, and in our union with Christ, we are to be conformed to Him.

That means we are to be conformed to the One who came to do His Father's will. Well, how do we know what that will is?

Well, we have to read God's Word. Well, we do have an anonymous listener who said...

Yes, we do. The anonymous listener says, I am embroiled in a controversy with some very close friends over something that you mentioned earlier on.

It is the second half of the summary of the law that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves.

There seems to be going around something that has been in existence for years and has never disappeared, this notion that we are to stress to people that they need to love themselves more.

Perhaps this is especially true with children who are trying to be dissuaded from the low self -esteem that they tragically, allegedly, possess all too often.

But this idea that if we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, we are commanded to love ourselves.

Is that really pushing the issue? Isn't it more that God is recognizing that people already love themselves and need no command to do so?

That would be, I think, the anonymous writer is spot on in the way the person has summarized that.

That when Jesus says that, or when the law says that, and Jesus summarizes it that way, he's not assuming, he's not thinking, well, you know, people typically suffer from low self -esteem, and therefore

I ought to command them to love themselves. The assumption is,

I think, on our Lord's part, that we do. By virtue, well, you know, by virtue of a fallen nature, we love ourselves after a certain fashion, right?

So we want to be careful that we understand that the way we love ourselves as fallen is not the way that God would have us love ourselves as restored.

However, I don't think the implication that we would want to draw from that fact that Jesus isn't commanding us to love ourselves because he knows that we already do.

In fact, that love is often inordinate, that is inappropriate, overdone.

We don't want to make it our goal in life to put everyone down. It's not our calling in life.

I don't think there's a gift of the Holy Spirit called putting people in their place.

A lot of Christians seem to have that gift. Well, I know that I do that on occasion, but I believe that's properly classified as sin.

That's a really good question, because that there's

Jonathan Edwards, who many, many of the listeners will know is who I did my dissertation about.

He talked about there being a sense of self -love that God recognizes and actually takes advantage of in the presentation of the

Gospel. So that's why I was wanting to be careful that there is such a thing as proper self -concern.

That's what I was wanting to get at, which is not the same as what we're swimming in, if I can put it that way.

In other words, we are, God has made us to be concerned with self -preservation.

Self -preservation is built into us by, is hardwired by God's intent.

Now, that has been twisted. That has been turned into, you know, saltwater taffy and turned in all sorts of directions.

That is damaging. So that's a problem. But there's no sense in which we're called upon to, we're commanded to love ourselves.

Now, the issue of how does, how do, are there people what we often label as low self -esteem?

I wonder, and this comes, you know, and I wrestled with what we would label as, at points in my life, as low self -esteem.

But I wonder if low self -esteem is rather high self -esteem that's disappointed with the fact that we haven't measured up to our own greatness.

Right. Or we haven't gotten what we think we deserve out of life. Right. I mean, and you know and I know from God's Word that what he tells us what we deserve is hell.

Right? Is eternal damnation. But we don't really believe that. So that question that the writer asks really is perceptive in the sense that getting at, but no,

I don't think, however, again, I don't think it's our calling in life to, now yes, there are times where parents have to be honest with their children, but I would say that and there are issues of abuse, there are issues of legitimate abuse and but I don't think those properly understood would be self -esteem in the way that we typically mean that because typically we are all by sinful nature, we have a high self -esteem and what looks like low self -esteem is just we're pouting because we haven't been treated the way we think we should be.

Or we haven't, we're mad at ourselves because we haven't had a break in life, or we haven't or if we're more honest with ourselves, we haven't done what we should have done.

So it's a complicated mess in other words, but it's certainly not, the command to love our neighbor as ourselves presupposes that we love ourselves, it's not a command to love ourselves.

Right? Right, and it's when people point out in attempts to refute what you are saying what about people who commit suicide and what about people who wind up in mental institutions because they claim to hate themselves so much?

Well, a lot of it is really self -absorption isn't it? You're thinking so much of yourself that you're driving yourself into a depression because Yeah, that's basically what

I was getting at, right? Because we think so highly of ourselves that we ought to get a better deal from life, from God, basically.

We're not happy with his providence at the end of the day. And even if one could legitimately find cases of people who really just flat out hate themselves with no explanation that we could offer to counteract that.

Aren't these principles most often or at least very often generalities that don't ever intend to take into consideration every single exception that could be made?

Correct. I was trying to think as you were commenting trying to think of, okay, what the what is it that's going on in the human heart when it when we look at someone and it looks well, the issue of, say, suicide suicides often and I don't, you know, you don't want to be unkind to the family that's left behind or the friends that are left behind or the church that is left behind.

I'm aware of circumstances where pastors have committed suicide. And you have to deal, you know, compassionately with that.

And maybe to say to those who think that denying that we're commanded to love ourselves is not compassionate.

Well, actually, it is compassionate because it's straightening us up or it's reminding us of the fact that we aren't the standard by which the world operates.

God is. And of course, that often goes against the grain of our wood, doesn't it?

And that really is a sense in which discussing the relationship of the law to the

Christian life is really about sanctification, right? For what we call progressive sanctification and what's the standard.

And again, depending on how broadly or narrowly we're defining the word law, and of course, you probably discovered that I'm weaving in and out of a broader and narrower understandings, and there's a sense in which you can't help that.

If we were to say, what is the role of the Mosaic Law in the Christian life? Well, I would say well, generically, the most, maybe dangerous in putting it this way, but I would say pointing us to the coming of Christ, and then pointing us to the

Christ who has come in various ways through typology, ceremonies, and things of that nature.

There is, when we look at the Ten Commandments, we realize, I do, when

I look at the Ten Commandments, I realize I've never kept those in the way that Jesus says we are intended to, which is that we not only conform to them outwardly, but that we conform to them inwardly or spiritually.

And that's where most of us would flunk. Right? All of us would flunk left to ourselves.

Even as Christians, we, and that's why I'm so glad that I'm, that Christ in His grace and mercy has clothed me with His righteousness.

Because my sanctification, my obedience, my endeavor after new obedience, to use the language of the

Westminster Standards, will never be sufficient. Yes, we're commanded to follow after Christ.

We're commanded as Christians to obey His Word. We're commanded to be conformed to the image of Christ, but in terms of our own life, we fall short until the day the

Lord takes us home. So there's that paradox in the

Christian life. On the one hand, the command to obey God's Word, and of course, to obey the law in one sense is a variation on to obey

God's Word. On the other hand, we recognize that in this life, we never get beyond the need to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ ever.

And yet, once again, going back, I feel like Gregory of Nazianzus who said, when

I think of the one, I think of the three, thinking of the Trinity. And when I think of the three, I immediately think of the one.

Coming back to the Christian life and the relationship of the law to the

Christian, we need to remember that for the believer, for the one who is believed on the

Lord Jesus Christ and is trusted in Christ, is received and rested in Christ alone as He is offered in the

Gospel, again, to use the language of the Westminster Assembly. For those of us who have by grace or faith have done that, the law is no longer a condemning thing.

It is no longer a means of condemnation. Even where it pricks our conscience, it doesn't condemn in the way that it condemns the unbeliever.

And we have to go to our final break, and you can pick up where we left off when we return.

I also forwarded you two questions from Johnny in Queens, New York.

Since his email was rather long, I figured it would be wise to have you be in possession of it during the break, so you can look it over and have time to think about what he's asking.

And we'll be right back after these messages. If you have a question, send it in immediately, because we're rapidly running out of time.

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com ChrisArnzen at gmail .com Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages.

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Welcome back, and Dr. Jeffrey C. Waddington, as you probably have in front of you, you received two questions from Johnny in Queens, New York.

It starts off with, despite the varied positions on the perpetuity of the Fourth Commandment, should the failure to observe and the breaking of the

Sabbath day be pointed out to unbelievers during a gospel presentation? That is certainly a legitimate thing to do, so it's never wrong.

The question would be, you know, is it the particular issue, it's probably one that most everybody has broken.

I mean, we've broken all the commandments, but in terms of outward behavior...

Speak for yourself, pal, speak for yourself. Yeah, well, okay. But I mean, in terms of,

I mean, prior to becoming Christian, okay, I was trying to think, it would be, there's nothing wrong with doing that.

I mean, I guess it depends on, were we working through the Ten Commandments in talking to people, that would be one way to go.

I guess he's probably, I'm assuming, and Johnny, you could chime in with another email, perhaps he's saying that unbelievers aren't going to care about the

Sabbath, or, you know what I'm saying? It's not like such a... Well, that's, of course, I would agree with him that they probably won't, but that would be their whole approach to everything related to God.

So, I mean, that hardly... Well, not necessarily. They might understand adultery being wicked.

Well, yeah, right, but they're still not going to necessarily...

Now, of course, the Apostle Paul says, we all know by nature, because God has implanted it in us, that what he expects.

So, in that sense, I don't think there's anything, and this is where sensitivity to the person you're talking to would help.

It may be, for instance, that you have a conversation on a Sunday, and that would be perfectly appropriate to see someone who sees you walking to your car as you're heading out for the evening service at your church on the

Sabbath day on Sunday, and say, hey, where are you going? We're going to church. Why do you do that?

Right? Then you could... That's a really good time to do that. I don't think there's any time it's wrong to, but, you know, it's a matter of where is the direction of the conversation, really.

And we probably just have enough time for a quick answer, too. For those who still honor the

Sabbath day, what encouragement would you offer to practically observing the day? What modern application of the law would you suggest for families?

Well, I kind of already mentioned it, but certainly the

Sabbath day, as Jesus said, is meant for man, and not man for the

Sabbath. But we certainly want to be in the house of God, worshiping and praising and glorifying

Him both as Creator and Preserver, but also as Redeemer. And so that would be the big thing.

If you have an opportunity to, as a Christian, between services, if you have a second service, an evening service, to go and to visit folk in your congregation who are sick or who are in the hospital or who are not able to make it out to worship, that's another thing that you could do.

You know, typically referred to as works of mercy. Taking, you know, visiting shut -ins, those who maybe aren't ever able to make it out to worship.

So that's a place to, family worship. Family worship.

Maybe after your dinner on Sunday, before you take a nap, or after you take the nap.

That's not dictated. Well, we are out of time, brother, and I want to make sure I have time to announce, once again, your website.

It's faithopc .net. Faithopc .net. That is for the Faith Orthodox Presbyterian Church of Fawn Grove, Pennsylvania.

Thank you for, as always, doing a wonderful job on the show. I look forward to your return very soon and very often.

And I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially the few that had the time to write in and send in questions.

And I hope you all have a wonderful, blessed, safe, happy, refreshing weekend.

And Christ -honoring Lord's Day. And I want you all to always remember, for the rest of your lives, that Jesus Christ is a far greater