Christians and Biblical Law

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Well, good evening.
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This is Lecture 2 of Introduction to Christian Ethics, and tonight's subject is going to be Christians and Biblical Law.
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Your homework was twofold.
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You were to listen to the briefing and write a short summary to turn in of at least one of the episodes, and I see that many of you did that and have already turned it in, but if you did not have the opportunity to do that this week, please make sure you do it this coming week.
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It is part of your participation grade for the class to turn this in every week.
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As I said, this semester, this term, our papers are shorter because you're doing part of the paperwork each week by turning in your briefing paper.
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You were also supposed to read pages 67-76 and 40 questions about Christians and Biblical Law.
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That should have, if you read it, set you up for tonight's lesson because tonight's lesson is on Christians and Biblical Law.
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I believe everyone except for one of you were here last week, and so I do want to remind us what we talked about and set us up for a good lesson tonight.
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Our subject from class one was why study ethics.
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We said last week that the reason why we study ethics is to help us conform our understanding to the perfect standard of God.
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Our minds are not perfect.
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Our rational thinking is askew because of the fall, and so we study ethics so that we can conform our thinking to the Word of God, which is the written will of God.
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We also asked the question, what is goodness? We said that ultimately God is the standard of goodness.
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There isn't a standard of goodness above God to which he reaches, but he is the standard, and therefore what he determines to be good by his nature is good.
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We also asked the question, we talked a little bit about the euthyphro dilemma.
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Is something good because God decrees it, or does God decree something because it's good? I even posted an article about that on the Facebook page.
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So if you're not on our Facebook page, I would encourage you to go on and like the page so that when I post articles like that, you will see them.
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If you don't use Facebook, send me an email and remind me, and I'll email you when I do those, when I post an article, that way you'll have it.
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I don't want anybody to miss out on something that's helpful.
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But basically the article just said that it's not so much that God is reaching for goodness, but that he is good himself.
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Goodness is God, and God is good.
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It was a very good little article about how we understand the goodness of God.
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We also talked last week about subjectivity and objectivity, and we made the point that all truth and all right or rightness is subject to God, and thereby it is objective for us.
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It is subjective because God is the one who determines it, but it is objective for us because we do not get to determine right from wrong.
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God is the one who is the determiner of what is right and what is wrong.
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Tonight we're going to look at three important subjects.
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We're going to look first at perspectives on biblical law.
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We're going to look at grace as an excuse for sin, and we're going to look at subjectivism as an excuse for sin.
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We're actually going to look at a particular passage example that people use to argue for subjective ethics from Romans 14.
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So we're going to look at perspectives on biblical law, grace as an excuse for sin, and subjectivism in Romans 14.
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Now we have two videos tonight.
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That's why I asked people not to sit over here because I have Megadesk, and it makes it hard for you to see.
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Yes, this is Megadesk.
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It's hard for you to see the TV if you're sitting right there.
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This first video is from the television show The West Wing.
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So if you've ever seen this show, this is about politics and the White House, and the Martin Sheen character is the president, and he is going to make a very common liberal argument regarding ethics and Christianity.
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And this is from the television show.
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Hopefully you'll be able to hear it well.
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Those in the back, everyone, if you will, please be quiet so that everyone can hear.
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Excuse me.
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Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.
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Thank you very much.
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Thanks a lot.
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I wish I could spend more than a few minutes with you, but the polls don't close in the East for another hour, and there are plenty of election results still left to falsify.
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You know, with so many people participating in the political and social debate through call-in shows, it's a good idea to be reminded every once in a while, it's a good idea to be reminded of the awesome impact, the awesome impact.
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I'm sorry, you're Dr.
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Janet Jacobs, right? Yes, sir.
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It's good to have you here.
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Thank you.
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The awesome impact of the airwaves and how that translates into the furthering of our national discussions, but obviously also how it can, how it can, forgive me, Dr.
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Jacobs, are you an M.D.? A Ph.D.
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A Ph.D.? Yes, sir.
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Psychology? No, sir.
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Theology? No.
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Social work? I have a Ph.D.
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in English literature.
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I'm asking because on your show people call in for advice, and you go by the name Dr.
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Jacobs on your show, and I didn't know if maybe your listeners were confused by that and assumed you had advanced training in psychology, theology, or health care.
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I don't believe they are confused, no, sir.
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Good.
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I like your show.
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I like how you call homosexuality an abomination.
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I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr.
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President.
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The Bible does.
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Yes, it does.
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Leviticus 18.22, chapter and verse.
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I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here.
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I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery, a sanction in Exodus 21.7.
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She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn.
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What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo McGarry, insists on working on the Sabbath.
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Exodus 35.2 clearly says he should be put to death.
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Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important, because we've got a lot of sports fans in this town.
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Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean.
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Leviticus 11.7.
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If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing.
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While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the ignorant tight-ass club in this building where the president stands, nobody sits.
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Toby? Yes, Mr.
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President? That's how I beat him.
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Alright, there's a larger context to that that involved a conversation with a guy named Toby that I can't really get into, so I heard somebody say what did he say at the end? I don't know.
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What he said at the end was highly inconsequential to tonight's discussion.
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I do want to add, though, that I do apologize there was a small bad use of language there and I did not bleep that out.
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So I hope that we're all adult enough to not be too offended by that.
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But it is important that we understand that this clip, I call this the West Wing Question.
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I've used it for several years in teaching.
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And I've used this clip several times in teaching because this is probably one of the most difficult questions that Christians are faced with and the one that we tend to respond to with the least amount of knowledge because the average Christian has not really given a lot of thought to how they understand the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
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And thereby, when a person challenges you about something from the Old Covenant, well I don't want to say you, but the average person doesn't really know what to say.
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And usually stands just as dumbfounded as the woman in the video.
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A person puts forward a particular ethical perspective which they base on Scripture and another person accuses the first person of cherry picking.
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That's ultimately the argument.
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Well, yes, homosexuality is an abomination but so are these other things.
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Why are we right about this but we don't hold to that? And it certainly does make a lot of Christians seem very inconsistent with their ethics.
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This is why I didn't have you buy an ethics book.
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I had you buy a book about Christianity and biblical law.
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Because if you can't answer the West Wing question you don't really understand Christian ethics.
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If you can't address that you might as well stop.
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Because that's the basic question.
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And all the things he asks are legitimate questions if you can't make a distinction in how you understand the Scripture and the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
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So tonight, my goal is to give you four perspectives on biblical law and why I believe one is the better of the four.
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But at the end of the night, I am willing to say this you may choose a different perspective but how you choose will determine how you answer the question posed by the fake president.
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So we're going to look at four views of Christians and biblical law.
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And this is where we're going to spend the majority of our time tonight.
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And so I want to encourage you to be ready to take notes.
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I'm going to put things on the board that you can write.
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Again, I'm sorry about Megadesk being tough.
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I'll try to write high so you can see.
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Eventually I may chop the legs low of Megadesk and it will become not so Megadesk.
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I hate to do it though.
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It was supposedly owned by a teacher at Duke University.
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I don't want to go cutting on it.
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I thought about building the floor up.
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The first perspective on Christians and biblical law is a position called Torah observance.
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And I am not putting these in any particular order.
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I'm just giving them to you as they come.
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So don't think that because this one is first it makes it the least or the best.
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It's just the first one we're going to look at.
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Torah observance is the idea that the Old Testament laws which were given to Moses and to the people of Israel are intended for Christians today in their totality.
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Some would say salvation is still of grace but that a truly saved person will want to obey the law and therefore will want to keep the Torah.
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So it's sort of a catch-22.
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Yes, you're saved by grace but if you don't want to keep the Torah then you can't be saved.
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You see how that sort of becomes a catch-22? Because, yeah, grace is what saves you but if you're not interested in the dietary restrictions and the other laws that are held in the Old Covenant Scriptures the some 600 plus Levitical laws then you are without hope because you are hopelessly lost if you don't love the law.
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You know, doesn't the Scripture say how I love your law and meditate on it day and night? And if you don't love the law and meditate on it day and night then how can you think that the Holy Spirit of God abides within you? Often, the most specific rules which are demanded by the Torah observant group are dietary restrictions I'm going to put that down because that's important and Sabbath keeping.
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And this does make sense because if you go back to the 1st century and you look at the Judaism of the 1st century you will notice that one of the things that made the distinction of the Jews was primarily circumcision how they ate and when they worshipped.
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Circumcision was the outward sign of the Covenant what they ate was the dietary restrictions they didn't eat shellfish, they didn't eat pork they didn't eat unclean animals and they worshipped on the Sabbath they didn't do anything on the Sabbath they had restrictions and rules for how they kept the Sabbath so it makes sense that the modern Torah observer would focus on these two points and circumcision is not really a big issue because most people are circumcised as a pretty American tradition now not everyone is circumcised but it's a fairly routine thing so often they don't have to address that issue because it's already done I don't know if they would go out and get circumcised if they weren't I guess it's possible but I've never asked that question so I wouldn't be able to give you a good answer however, I have had several conversations I was actually asked to debate this subject I was given a call a couple of years ago and the guy said, are you willing to debate someone from the Hebrew Roots Movement that's what this is typically referred to and I responded as I always do if anybody calls me for a debate my response is always, I need this much time to prepare and for that I think I asked for a month I said I need at least 3-4 weeks to prepare so that I can provide a good, solid argument that I have sourced and researched and obviously it's not my only thing that I'm doing I'm a pastor and teacher so I need time and they said, no we need somebody to do it right away I said, well I'm not going to walk into a wood chipper because that's what this guy who wants to do the debate that's all he does all day long is argue the Sabbath and argue Hebrew Roots and so the guy said, well we'll go to somebody else I said, ok, go ahead I'll debate just about anything regarding theology but I have to have time to prepare I'm not going to be walking into a meat grinder and so, my point is I've dealt with some of these guys one of the guys I met he came and talked to me and immediately I want you to know this isn't a salvation issue but I think we should keep the Old Testament law to what extent that's always my question to what extent do you believe we must keep the law because obviously you're not sacrificing animals well no, we get arrested for that but would you, could you well I guess so we still need to be sacrificing animals if we could that was this guy now I'm not saying all had that position I'm saying this is the one guy just like any group, you're going to get guys who have differing opinions but his opinion, I asked him, are you circumcised? Yes I said, do you wear mixed fibers clothes? clothes with mixed fibers and he said, I try not to and I said, well I wonder how that would have worked out with Moses you know Moses, I try not to anyway, so we went back and forth for a while basically I just told him I thought he was wrong and I'll tell you all I do not think this position has merit but it is held by the Hebrew Roots movement by the Seventh Day Adventist movement and by many but not all Messianic Jewish movements who would hold themselves to a different standard than their Gentile counterparts and I've been around some of those guys they very much behave like Jewish people in a Christian setting they have the yarmulke and the prayer shawls and the different accouterments that usually accompany Jewish behavior and so we see that as part of a Torah observant and their scriptures would be Matthew 5.17-19 where Jesus said I didn't come to abolish the law that is one you will hear they will argue to the hilt Jesus said he didn't come to abolish the law how dare you? It says if any man teaches to break even the least of one of these commandments he'll be the least in the kingdom of heaven so you have to watch your step you understand right? this is the scripture that they use to argue from and there are others but that's a primary one I'll give you the other scriptures you can look them up on your own John 14.15, Hebrews 8.10, 1 John 2.3 those passages all address loving God's law or having God's law in your heart the first one was Matthew 5.17-19 John 14.15, Hebrews 8.10 1 John 2.3 those aren't the only ones but those are four scriptures that will usually come out if you're having a conversation if you're a Hebrew Roots person as I said I'm not going to assume anything tonight you might have come tonight as a Hebrew Roots person and if that is the case we can have a conversation later but if I'm misrepresenting please tell me because I'm trying not to, I'm trying to be fair I even gave you the scriptures they would use to make their argument so I'm trying to be fair but I'm not going to say I agree because I don't but I'll be honest about their position not so much we'll use what now? to a lesser degree Catholics have a unique perspective on law they fall more on the tripartite distinction and that's what I'm about to bring up they fall in a little different group so we have the Hebrew Roots or what we call the Torah Observant and then we have the second group which is known as the tripartite distinction the tripartite distinction says that the old covenant is to be broken down into three types of law the old covenant law is to be broken down into three types of law those types are moral, ceremonial and civil and this is normally the way this argument goes the civil laws were given to national Israel and because we are no longer a part of national Israel the civil laws are no longer enforceable therefore we are bound to live by the civil laws of whatever government we live under Romans 13 obey the authorities that are placed above you so they would say the governing laws of Israel are not enforceable today and thereby have been abrogated the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ and given over to new ceremonies this is where Roman Catholicism would come in because they would say the ceremony has been given over to the mass where it was the ceremony of the Passover and then the ceremony of circumcision has been given over to baptism so there is some hold over but they would see a transfer of type but there is still ceremonial law it's just a new ceremony but the primary point that they would make is that there are moral law that are found in the Old Testament that are for all time and are not ever abrogated typically those are found in the Ten Commandments so I'm going to write that right here when you talk to someone and they talk about moral, ceremonial, civil law and you say well what is the moral law the Ten Commandments are the moral law of God and the 600 and some odd Levitical statutes are simply extensions of the Ten Commandments and how they would be exercised among God's people thereby you could take the issue of adultery and you could apply that to all sorts of other sexual sins fornication prostitution even rape and so they would say the Seventh Commandment do not commit adultery actually applies to all sexual sin and so they take the Ten Commandments and they sort of spread out the meaning and each commandment then becomes sort of a broader scope the First Commandment, have no other gods before me and then the Second Commandment, make no idols those are broader in the scope and that's where you get down to the things like not building idols out of wood and all those different things would apply Is that the Catholic religion now? Because I thought they didn't have the Second Commandment Well, they number them differently In their Bible The first two commandments are one commandment in the Catholic Bible and the last one is numbered rather than coveting as one commandment coveting becomes two commandments don't cover your neighbor's house or his wife and those are two separate So they don't? No, they do, it's still there, it's just part of the first one they combine it as one commandment don't have any idols, don't make any gods before me and they put that as one we make that two Protestants typically number it differently it's still the same, it's Exodus 20 it's the same scripture they're reading the same text, they're just giving a different numbering system they separate the coveting into two parts coveting thy neighbor's property versus coveting thy neighbor's wife and they distinguish those two as two different forms of coveting that's the modern commandment this is the tripartite distinction is found in Roman Catholicism and Reformed Theology now I'm Reformed, so you might think that means that I land there well, we're going to see in a minute that not all Reformed ducks walk alike did you say it fell in, Roman Catholicism? Roman Catholicism and Reformed Theology both would affirm in general, in fact if you read the Westminster Confession, chapter 19, verses 3-5 it outlines the moral, ceremonial, and civil law that's the Westminster Confession that's used by all Presbyterians all Anglicans, and it's similar to what is used by Reformed Baptists in the 1689 Confession so the tripartite distinction, as I said I'm not putting these in order of importance I understand this one and if you hold to it, that's fine, we're not going to necessarily disagree the biggest distinction between my position and his position is the Sabbath, and we're going to talk about that later I understand where this is coming from and if you do take this position it does make, at least in a sense an easy answer to the West Wing question because all the things he referred to were either ceremonial or civil, and those things are now abrogated so we don't have to worry about them anymore it might be tough to explain that to a guy who's chewing you out, but you understand it what I mean is, if you hold this position you could say that's part of the ceremonial, that's part of the civil law it's no longer enforceable, that's the answer at least you have the answer but here's my question, and if you do hold this position my response is fairly simple where do you find these distinctions in scripture where does the scripture say this law is moral, and this one's not this law is ceremonial, and this one's not this law is civil, and this one's not because I tend to find that all civil law is based on some form of morality and all ceremonial law, if it is commanded by God is morally demanded God tells me to do something, whether it's a ceremony or not I don't do it, that's immoral so I have an issue with the tripartite distinction only because I don't find it in scripture but, it's in the Westminster Confession so somebody saw it Westminster Confession 19.3-5 read it, I encourage you, please read everything I'm giving you, because I'm not here to tell you what to think I'm here to tell you, I'm trying to teach you how to think how to go and make these things understand these things, not what to think it's not my job to tell you what to think but to help you learn how it's up to you to come to your conclusions I'm not the Holy Spirit you look at my driver's license, it doesn't say Holy Spirit so it's going to be up to you where you land if you come back next week and say, I ain't no longer eating shellfish because I took the Torah position I won't invite you over for shrimp salad because I will definitely honor your decision, and we're going to talk about that when we get to Romans 14 because I do think some of this falls under that category alright, so the third one and I'm just going to turn the board over give me more room, it's like a magic trick this has been up here a while don't worry about this ok, the next one is called Theonomy Theonomy, this is number 3 Theonomy comes from the root namos, which means law and theos, which means God so therefore Theonomy means God's law or the law of God Theonomy teaches that while a tripartite distinction in the law does exist the civil law given to Israel should be the standard for all governing law for all time therefore, right government is government according to the standard of God because it represents the character of God yeah I didn't read it, I just said it, but I'll read it this position would say that the civil law of Israel should continue as the standard for right governing in all times and all ages because it represents the character of God if you want to make a note, page 223 in your textbook explains this further so I would encourage you to take it home, read it to understand it better, page 223 it's not quite 556 oh come on, did you get it? I said it's page 223, not quite 556 you gotta be a rifle guy 223, 556, they're the same round anyway so you've got the adherence to this, this is important to know because typically Theonomy isn't found in a denominational system, but rather it's found in the teachings of certain teachers and if you've ever heard of R.L.