Law and Gospel - Theology Throw Down

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00:02

Behave, Phil. This is as close to behaving as we get. All right,

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Phil. Welcome to Theology Throwdown!

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We, the Christian podcast community of podcasters, gather to discuss our theological differences with love and charity.

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This is a ministry of striving for eternity. All right, well, welcome to another

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Theology Throwdown. This is where the Christian podcast community of podcasters, we get together, we have discussions on different theological topics, and we, well, we try to disagree, and hopefully we do so as Christians with love and charity, as was said in the intro.

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So we have a larger number than usual of podcasters here, so it is going to be,

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I think there's nine of us right now, and so I'm going to have everybody introduce themselves one at a time, and tonight's topic we're going to get into is,

01:32

I was going to say law versus gospel just to get Colleen to correct me on record, but no, it's law and gospel.

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It's, you know, Colleen's like, you know, she's a mom of several boys, so it's just like, you know, when you record with her son, the mom comes out, and I tend to be like the child who gets into trouble.

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I don't know why. It should be Phil Sessa's job, but he's a natural at it, so we'll start.

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It's your spiritual gift. All right, so let's start.

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I'm going to, because we've got a number of guys, and the order keeps changing in my list there, I'll just name you guys off so you can introduce yourselves, your podcast one at a time.

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So Keith, why don't you start us off? Yeah, this is Keith Heltsley from Quest for Truth, located at life -truth .com.

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I do about three different flavors of podcasts, including an audio drama, which is always a fun thing to do.

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And we try to dig into the Bible once a month, and the Quest for Truth is we kind of go casual, a bit lighthearted, and try to take a look at some cultural worldviews, both in the church and out of the church.

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All right, Eve, how about you go next? Hi, I am

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Eve Franklin, and I co -host the Are You Just Watching podcast, where we talk about movies from a

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Christian worldview. And my co -host is Tim Martin. And Colleen?

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I am Colleen Sharp, and I host TheologyGals podcast, and you can find us at theologygals .com.

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All right, and then how about we go with some of the newer faces, or newer names, maybe.

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We'll start with Eric and then Dylan. Yes, good evening.

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My name is Eric Leupold. I'm an elder at Hilltown Baptist Church, and co -host for the podcast

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Two Guys and a Bible. First time on the Theology Throwdown here tonight, but our podcast just talks about a variety of topics, cultural, theological, and always, hopefully, scriptural.

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That's the goal here. So, yep, that's us. We can be found at twoguysandabible .org.

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Dylan, you're up. How's it going, everybody? My name is Dylan Keniston, also co -host of Two Guys and a

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Bible podcast, although Eric's co -host, I'm a co -host. The real star is the

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Bible. But, yeah, we have conversations about theology, culture, and God's most holy word.

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And as Eric said, twoguysandabible .org. Okay, so we got those two guys down. Do we have two other guys that should go together?

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So, Phil and then Gilroy, why don't you guys go? So, Glenroy and I are the hosts of the

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Stop and Think About It podcast. Our focus is to bring a podcast to people and just speak about things that are going on, issues in the world through a biblical lens and compare it to how things going on in the world aligns with Scripture.

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And so our target is just your everyday person who's going to church, not seminary students and the like.

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I'm an elder at Grace Baptist Church and director of Soul Fishing Ministries. And we can be found at stopandthinkcrew .com.

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And we're also going to be having our podcast move over to soulfishingministries .org.

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And Glenroy is my favorite Jamaican who co -hosts with me, and I'll let him introduce himself. Yes, so my name is

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Glenroy Clark. I am a co -host with Phil Sessa on Stop and Think About It.

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My job is to keep Phil sane, keep him grounded and biblical as he tends to go off on tangents.

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I'm a deacon at Grace Baptist Church, which he's an elder at. And like he said, we just want to bring theologically complex ideas simply to people who may not have the time to do the study and research, but they have these questions.

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That's what we're here for. All right. Sorry, I mispronounced your name, by the way. No, remember, it's a funny story,

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Andrew, about why. That's why. Someone called me that. That's why you remember it that way. See, once I get it stuck in my head, but trying to keep

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Phil in line is an impossible task. Anthony is one of our newest podcasters.

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And if you want to introduce yourself and your show for folks. Yeah, sure. It's also my rookie time here, so thanks for having me.

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I am the host of thykingdom ,com. That's where you can find the podcast,

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Thy Kingdom, Comma. And the way I try to describe it, it's a Christian living blog and podcast.

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I try to have engaging conversations with those who are listening about applying God's word to everyday life.

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So thykingdom ,com. And thanks for having me. And I am

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Andrew Rappaport, the host of a couple of podcasts. Andrew Rappaport's Rappaport, which is a weekly hour -long show.

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I have the Andrew Rappaport's Daily Rappaport, which is Monday through Friday, two minutes long.

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So if you like more shorter devotional stuff. And then on Thursday nights, we do a live show. If you have any

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Apologetics questions, challenges, that is called Apologetics Live. You could go to ApologeticsLive .com

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and come in and ask anything. Any challenges that you might have or that others may have given to you that you want answers, we will attempt to answer them.

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If not, we'll ask Phil and he'll make up an answer. But we also have

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Colleen and I are the co -hosts of So You Want to Be a Podcaster for people who want to learn about podcasting.

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And I think I kind of just try to moderate this one.

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And so that's enough of that. You can check all of the podcasts, though, out at ChristianPodcastCommunity .org.

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So tonight's topic is Law and Gospel, which is something that Theology Gals, Colleen's podcast, did several.

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They've done actually several episodes about this topic. And so what

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I want to do to start us off is let Colleen kind of just start us off with giving a framework of what are the issues.

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There will be some differences between the Baptists here. And I think Colleen is like probably the sole

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Presbyterian here, so she may be outnumbered. But, you know, she can handle it.

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She has a Westminster Confession. Always a good weapon to have on your hip.

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Yeah. Yeah. And she didn't have any comment back at me for that. Wow. Well, I don't know.

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I think if we're talking law and gospel, I'd probably point people more to the Heidelberg Catechism. But I'll just give a really quick kind of framework.

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And within that, I'll say what we believe, so you can kind of disagree when other people talk.

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But there is a difference between the law and the gospel. The law is good. It's useful.

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The law restrains sin in God's common grace. We see that it restrains sin in society.

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That would be the civil use of the law. The pedagogical use, it acts as a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ.

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And then the normative use is it instructs Christians in godliness. And so the law is good, but the law is not the gospel.

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The law says do this and live. And the gospel has promises. I'm going to grab a real quick quote from Michael Horton, because I like what he says.

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Sometimes the gospel, especially today, we know the gospel, all kinds of things are thrown into the gospel.

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People will say something is a gospel issue. We often say on our podcast, the only gospel issue is the gospel.

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And so it's easy to throw all kinds of good things and call them gospel. But the gospel is something very specific.

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And I'm going to use this quote from Michael Horton to kind of use what I'm talking about when

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I'm talking about gospel. Gospel is a very particular word or kind of speech in the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, the gospel is

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God's promise of a son who will crush the serpent's head, forgive the sins of his people, raise them from the dead, and give them everlasting life solely on the basis of his grace for the sake of Christ.

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Another thing that we'll often talk about, if anyone's ever listened to the White Horse Inn radio show, you've maybe heard this.

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We talk about the indicative and the imperative. So the indicative is a declaration of what God has done and of who we are in Christ as a result of what

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God has done. And then the imperative, hold on,

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I just lost my place. So let me get back to that. The imperative tells those of us who are in Christ, who we know who we are in Christ, it tells us how we should then therefore live.

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But it's important to distinguish between these two things. And I know Andrew will say that as a dispensationalist he doesn't distinguish between the two, but I think it's very, very important to distinguish between law and gospel.

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Well, and I'll give just one example, is if we include law with gospel, it changes what we mean by things.

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And I'll give one example of sola fide, faith alone. So sola fide, or faith historically, has been defined as knowledge, assent, and trust.

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That's how faith has historically been defined. If you confuse law and gospel and you add law to gospel and you redefine faith as not just knowledge, assent, and trust, but you now add repentance to it or some sort of law to it, it completely changes what we're talking about when we say faith alone.

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Now faith includes works. So that would be my position. Okay, and I'm not going to say, maybe you don't know dispensationalism that well.

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I'm going to throw this out actually. Son, you said I was going to ask Phil to address the use of the law in sharing the gospel.

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So Phil, you can get ready for that one. But one of the things that you mentioned about the,

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I was thinking when you were talking about the law and gospel, I was thinking about a conversation I had with a theonomist who, for folks who don't know some of the theonomy, not to get into all of it, they will argue that we should be practicing

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Old Testament law today, essentially, that there's no difference. And the issue there is they would talk about taking dominion over things.

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When you were saying they add things to make it a gospel issue, I remember talking with a theonomist, and he was saying that we have to take dominion over everything.

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Now, this is a gentleman who likes to drink alcohol. We're not getting into whether that's good or bad here, whether we should or shouldn't.

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Maybe that's a throwdown we could do at a future time. It'd be interesting. We kind of dealt with that under Christian liberties a bit.

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But the position he had, though, is as Christians, we not only should drink, we must drink because it's a gospel issue to take dominion over alcohol.

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Well, that's a law gospel confusion also. And real quick, and then

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I'll shut up for a little bit because you said you want to address the importance of the law in sharing the gospel, just so in case

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I was confusing. Yes, we share the law to share the gospel.

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There is no good news if there's not bad news. So when I talked about the usefulness of the law, one of the uses is to show us our sin, that we're in need of a

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Savior. But, yeah, I would say that the theonomists have a law gospel confusion, plus we would say that the law is civil, ceremonial, and moral, and that we are no longer bound by the civil and ceremonial law.

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That's what we would say, only the moral law. And I'll be quiet now. Anyone, before we go to talk about the laws, the use of the law in the gospel, go for it,

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Eric. Oh, yeah, I know there's a variety of flavors of theonomists, right?

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So, I mean, there's a spectrum of theonomy because the word simply means God's law, right?

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So I've heard some people say that there's always a God and there's always a law. So if you worship

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Moloch, Moloch requires child sacrifice. So if you worship something else, if you worship

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Allah, He requires, you know, the dying jihad and things like that.

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So I think in some broad sense, perhaps, we're all theonomists, right?

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But the question is, how does that play out? And, you know, the civil, ceremonial, and moral aspects of the law can be helpful.

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But I always found a good passage of scripture that kind of, for me, kind of guides me very well is 1

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Corinthians 9, where the Apostle Paul quotes from what we would say would be probably a civil law.

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He says in verse 8 of chapter 9, Do I say these things on human authority?

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Does not the law say the same? For it is written in the law of Moses, You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.

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Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does he not certainly speak for our sake?

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It was written for our sake, because the plowman should plow in hope, and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop.

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So just to point out that even the Apostle Paul there is using a ceremonial law,

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I'm sorry, a civil law, has to do with oxen. But he even says, was it really written for oxen?

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Not really, it was actually written for our, so I'm assuming, you know, Christian sake. And it has to do with the principle of basically paying your pastors.

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So just two points there about theonomy, and about there are some limitations to the civil ceremony on moral division.

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I find it to be very useful, but I do think there might be some limitations there. Well, before we go to using the law in evangelism, there was a discussion, we went out to eat on capital punishment.

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And so, you know, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If someone kills someone, should they then be killed according to the law?

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And so several people said, well, yeah, you know, capital punishment is fine. It's not us killing them, it is the government doing it.

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And then it raised the question, so what if you have a mother that aborts her child, and now that mother becomes a

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Christian? Should we kill that mother? Question mark.

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That wasn't a comma. No. Okay. So just to throw that out there for Anthony.

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Yeah. Anthony Russo was really smiling. So I'll jump in on that.

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So I would say no, for a couple different reasons. And I think, you know, when we talk about killing, and the sword in particular in Romans 13 being given to the state, right?

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I think when we're talking about capital punishment, it has that flavor of murder, kind of unlawful killing.

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I want to address something that Eric said as well. I completely agree with everything Eric said. And I think, you know, that notion that in some sense we're all theonomists is a helpful one, because, you know, if we just mean

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God's law, you know. But if by theonomy we mean, you know, do we take the penal sanctions of the old covenant and apply them in the new covenant, that's where I would pump the brakes a little bit.

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You know, if we're talking about taking dominion, it seems to me that, you know, I know that that can be a broad phrase, but, you know,

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I take every thought captive for Christ. You know what I mean? Like that to me sounds like we're taking dominion.

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Now, how exactly that gets applied in the weeds, and whether or not we're taking dominion of alcohol and, you know, the sense that your friend meant it,

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I don't know. That sounds to me a little bit of a stretch. You know, normally when

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I think of taking dominion, it's kind of reclaiming all of those things that the world thinks it has claim on despite the fact that Christ is king.

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So it seems to me like, you know, when we're talking about theonomy in a broad sense, sure, taking dominion, absolutely.

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You know, I think all of those are generally good things. So, yeah.

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Well, one thing I would say, because I often hear theonomists do this,

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I'll hear covenant theologians do this, that is a fallacy of equivocation. Theonomy is, as was said,

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God's law, right? Eric had said that. But theonomy is different than theonomy, the theological system, right?

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So you have theonomy referring to God's law, and you have a theological system that uses the same name. I'll hear sometimes covenant theologians.

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A good friend of mine, Matt Slick, does this all the time, and it drives me nuts when I tell him all the time, but he'll say, well, covenant theology is biblical because covenants are mentioned in the

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Bible. Well, covenants are mentioned in the Bible. You have covenants, but that's not covenant theology.

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Those are covenants. They just share a same name. And by the way, for the record, dispensationalism is based on covenants, just for the record.

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So I jokingly said, Matt, we're the ones that actually rely on covenants. He only has two of them.

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We have all of them, right? But we'll do covenant theology and dispensationalism another time,

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I'm sure. So let's deal with, I want to come back to the whole view of the three, the tripart view of the law.

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But before that, to get one thing kind of out of the way is this idea that there's some people, when it comes to law and gospel, and a reason

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I called on Phil was because I know Phil has been, Phil and I have been out on the streets evangelizing a lot.

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I know how he evangelizes. I know that he's been influenced by the way of the master and that style that is done.

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And so, Phil, there's some people, there's people, I don't know if there's anyone here that would espouse new covenant theology.

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Anyone hold to that? Okay, Dylan does. It depends what you mean by that. That's a good response.

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Yeah, I mean, so new covenant theology sometimes has an issue with using the law in sharing the gospel, sometimes.

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So I don't know if we'll get any disagreement there. But Phil, why don't you explain the use of the law when sharing the gospel?

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Yeah, so the Bible tells us that the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And I believe Colleen mentioned that, if I'm not mistaken.

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And so I do believe that it's a mirror to show man their sins. Of course, we're born sinners.

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We're sinners by nature. And we are sinners by choice. And so many people, when they evangelize, they might say, you know, come to Jesus.

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He has a wonderful plan for your life. And people never seem to deal with sin. But if you don't bring sin up, then why does man need to turn to the

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Lord if it's not to flee from their sin? Of course, we want to turn to the

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Lord because he's good and because he's kind. And not just the fear factor only, but that is definitely there.

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That I've committed a cosmic offense against a holy God. And the law shows me that I'm guilty.

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And all humanity is condemned as a result of it, which we see throughout the book of Romans. And so Paul takes what the first 11 chapters to just condemn everybody.

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And when you look through, especially like Romans chapter three, you know, we are just, you know, even our throats are like an open sepulchre.

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And it really, I believe, helps it to be very simple where you're not just trying to say, hey, take these

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Jesus pills because you have a problem. But I really think it kind of weaves a thread through what the problem is.

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The problem is that we've sinned against God. And when people think that they're good and you start to take them through the law and show what goodness is and that we all have fallen miserably short and we've missed the mark of perfection, people,

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I think, are able to see themselves in light of the mirror of God's law that they are absolutely guilty, that they're morally and totally depraved and that they ultimately need a savior.

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And I think that a lot of people are afraid to bring up sin because someone might not like you or someone may get offended.

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But that's exactly what the law does. It's an offense. And so that we would turn to Christ.

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So I would just say, as somebody who espouses New Covenant theology kind of broadly understood to Eric's point, we need to kind of define the term a little bit.

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But I agree. I agree with all that. Okay. Yeah, because I know

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Colleen and I used to be with some other podcasters that were

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New Covenant theology and they would actually argue we should, we're, their view was the

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Old Testament law. You should not be referring to Ten Commandments or any of the Old Testament law. It's only the

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New Testament law. That's how they would define it different. And so in their position, they were saying basically nine of the

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Ten Commandments were repeated. So those are, they would call that the law of Christ. Right. And Colleen.

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You mean Paul would call it that? Well, Paul meaning the podcaster or Paul the apostle?

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So obviously Dylan knows exactly who I'm referring to. But the thing is, is that there's actually five uses of the word law.

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And that's why it was good to have Colleen start us off because there's also a fallacy of equivocation people do when we talk about law.

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I mean, you have law, the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, that's law. You have law, the

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Ten Commandments, or which sometimes to summarize, really, there's 316 commandments in the

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Old Testament. Is it 613? No. I think it's 600.

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Your Jewish dyslexia just kicked in. That's your prayer shawl.

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Get out your prayer shawl and start counting those little threads on the end there. All I remember is,

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I asked the rabbi once, what do the Gentiles have to do since they don't know all the laws?

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He says, oh, they only have six, which are, if you think about the Ten Commandments, it's the last six of the Ten Commandments.

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And I remember going, I can't even keep those. Why do I want to keep the rest? Like, I literally, this is not the thing to say to your rabbi.

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I think I'd rather be a Gentile. Things rabbis never want to hear.

25:55

Yeah, then he told you a dong and smacked you and smitten you in the mouth. Yeah. But any other comments with what

26:03

Phil was talking about as far as the law, using it with the gospel? I have a question.

26:10

I think it might fit in here. I'm not sure. If I understand, we're talking about new covenant is basically someone saying all we need is a

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New Testament. All the Old Testament don't count. Throw it away. No. In an extreme point of view.

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Yeah. But yet Jesus says, if you love me, you'll obey my commands. So what commands is there that Jesus is talking about that we should obey?

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So maybe Dylan could clean up the understanding of new covenant first.

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Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, at a high level, it's just to say there's a difference between kind of old covenant, new covenant.

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I think, you know, if we were going to take any position and try to, you know, contend for or against it from its point of strength, right from where it's most most defensible, you know, we want to,

27:05

I'm going to get my heretics mixed up, but wasn't God, not origin, but who is the way back guy who wanted to get rid of the

27:15

Old Testament? Marcion. Yeah. Marcion. Marcion. We're not Marcionist.

27:21

Yeah. No, no question about that. I think, you know, we would look at, I can't say it's me personally, right?

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Like Eric, I agree that the moral civil ceremonial kind of the tripartite division of the law is is tough to like,

27:37

I don't know that when the New Testament authors write about, you know, the law, you know,

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I don't know that they have that same tripartite division in mind. You know, I think if you if you read through,

27:50

I think that I think the distinctions are useful. But, you know, when it comes to kind of how that moral law gets defined and the content of that, you know, that's where I think you know, you could look at kind of the

28:04

Old Covenant Ten Commandments as the apex of the Old Covenant law or, you know, another position might be, you know, to I think

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Phil was Andrew was referring to the law of Christ, right? So when we're talking about the law of Christ, what content fills that phrase, right?

28:18

And the content broadly that would fill that phrase would be those commandments that because there are plenty of commandments that are issued in the

28:26

New Covenant and, you know, essentially from well, I'll leave it at that. So within the

28:31

New Covenant, there are stipulations for how we are to live. You know, Christ has a lot to say about how we are to live.

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And we would say that that would, you know, represent and that content includes the law of Christ.

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And that is the law that, you know, kind of under which I would say Christians are bound by conscience today.

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But that's going to be a little bit different than the law as it's manifest in in the

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Old Covenant. You know, one example, and I think, gosh, who is it? Carson has his book From Sabbath to Lord's Day, I think is the book.

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And he makes the point that, you know, one main difference between, you know,

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Sabbatarians or those who would hold to kind of the moral law and the Ten Commandments in the Old Covenant being the apex of the moral law, a difference between that ilk and those who would espouse kind of a law of Christ from the

29:24

New Covenant would be one's view of Sabbath, right? Because if Sabbath -keeping, if you see the Ten Commandments as the apex of the moral law in the

29:32

Old Covenant, it would follow to be Sabbatarian, at least, you know, on this view. Versus, you know, you have, you know, the

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Apostle Paul will say, you know, one man considers one day more esteemed than another. Another considers all days the same.

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Let each be fully persuaded in his own mind. So, you know, one of the big differences would be your view of Sabbath.

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So, not that that's the topic for this particular issue, but I think it's a good test case, Sabbath, for, you know, how we put our whole

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Bibles together and how we put the whole question of law and gospel back together in light of, kind of, the law of Christ on one hand and, you know, seeing the

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Ten Commandments as the apex of the moral law from the Old Covenant in the other hand. All right.

30:16

Now, so, one thing that I think when we look at the

30:23

New Covenant theology, they're going to see, they're going to come generally, right, out of a covenant theology background.

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For folks who are not familiar at all with them, I'll just give a quick, real quick overview. They're typically from a

30:37

New Covenant, from a covenant theology background, typically, they see a distinction between Israel and the church.

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And so, some people may go, oh, that sounds dispensational. Yes, but no. Right. So, they're making, they make some distinctions.

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In the early years, there really wasn't as much distinction. They've made a little bit more now.

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But, they're going to see, they're going to see a distinction between Israel and the church. They're going to take a more, what we would call literal or normal hermeneutic, less allegorical.

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But then they do, they have some other things they end up doing with their views on the law, as I mentioned, with the law of Christ.

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And they'll see that Christ was the fulfillment of the law. And so, the Old Testament laws were fulfilled in him.

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And now he gives kind of like a new law. And so, that's just a high level view for anyone who doesn't, doesn't understand, doesn't know the terms.

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Because these may be new terms for folks. So, just wanted to throw that out there. And I'll look to Dylan or Eric to tell me if I'm right or wrong.

31:44

They're giving a shug like. No, I think the latter part of the summary you just gave about Christ fulfilling the law and now issuing, you know, what

31:54

Paul would call the law of Christ, I think, is a fair summary. Yeah, I would completely agree.

31:59

I mean, just again, recognizing that there's been a change of some kind.

32:05

You know, you could even think about perhaps, let's see, in Hebrews chapter 7, which talks about verse 12, talks about when there's a change in the priesthood, there's necessarily a change in the law as well.

32:20

Christ being better than Melchizedek or better than the greatest high priest, right?

32:26

So, I mean, why can Jesus declare all foods clean now? That seems a little contrary to the

32:33

Old Covenant law there. But that's because, you know, he's fulfilled in that regard.

32:41

But what matters is what comes out of your mouth, not what goes into your mouth, right? So, that's really what we're getting at.

32:47

But there is a, there's a spectrum of New Covenant believers, and there are some that go off the diving board of heresy and that we need to stay clear of.

32:57

So, would you say the Paul that I think we're both talking of would be in there? No, no, okay, we won't go there.

33:04

That's a conversation for a porch of a different kind. All right, so, let's, real quick, we do have

33:13

Daniel Minnick joined in. So, maybe I'm going to just unmute him real quick so he can introduce his podcast since he joined in a little bit late.

33:22

Maybe we'll get some espresso from him. Daniel, go for it. Just introduce yourself and your podcast real quick.

33:31

Unless, of course, we won't be able to hear you. He was able to hear us. okay,

33:37

Daniel, you may need to check your audio because I know you were having some trouble earlier. I think he's having trouble, but I'm messaging him to see if I can help.

33:45

Okay. So, if when he thinks, when you guys think you got that figured out, just put a note in the chat.

33:52

So, that way we can make sure we're hearing him. Oh, he said he was off by an hour.

33:59

So, he thought he was starting at the beginning. All right. So, anything else with ideas that anyone wants to discuss with this law of Christ?

34:11

I'm going to just say something really, really, really fast. It's not really the time for it because it would be a whole nother discussion, but just to know that what the

34:20

NCT guys say, that both on the dispensational side and on the reformed side.

34:28

And when I, when I say reformed, I'm speaking of those hold to the reformed confessions that we would strongly disagree.

34:35

But I don't want to get into a distraction on that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's going to be some disagreements there, but, you know, it's kind of interesting on my rap report that will air end of this month.

34:53

If any of you testing one, two, three testing. Here we go. We hear you. Okay, Dan. Okay. So, somehow

35:07

I did not check that my microphone switch was turned off, you know, the ATR 2100.

35:15

But I guess you can hear me and I can hear you. So everything's good. Yeah. So why don't you introduce for folks who don't know your voice and your podcast.

35:24

Just introduce yourself and your podcast. Okay. Well, my name is Daniel Minnick and I host the

35:30

Truthspresso podcast. And we cover a lot of different topics on Truthspresso from the political to the theological.

35:40

And usually you try to take a slightly different angle than what you might get in the mainstream.

35:48

Very technical, but my last episode was on the economics of the coronavirus.

35:56

And I invite everyone to check that out. Check out Truthspresso and see you there.

36:04

All right. So we're talking law and gospel. so we were,

36:11

I forgot where I was just going with new covenant. yeah, any you were going to mention that you were going to mention something about your last upcoming rap report.

36:23

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So the for folks who don't know on the Andrew Rappert's rap report, the weekly one, we've been doing a series this whole month on the church.

36:33

And if anyone didn't hear from Shepard's conference, John MacArthur dealt with a topic of dispensationalism.

36:41

Covenant theology did an excellent job in my opinion. I might be biased, but I might be switching camps.

36:51

No, no, I hold the same as MacArthur biblical view. I'm praying for you. But but actually one of the things

36:59

I did was I took that I took a response from Emilio Ramos who would be a covenant theologian.

37:06

And I pointed out that where a lot of people claim there's so much difference is a lot of times when we actually get together and deal with scripture there's not as much as people think.

37:17

And so I sent it to Emilio. He said I didn't misrepresent him. And then he's now we're going to get him on. So he'll be a bonus episode.

37:24

But that aside, I think that's one of the things I see with in my opinion when and when new covenant theology was kind of just starting their whole issue of law.

37:34

I I really saw it as kind of emerging between covenant theology and dispensationalism.

37:40

Like it was somewhere in the middle. And I think that when it comes to for some guys and I'm saying some guys because obviously

37:49

Eric and Dylan are not agreeing with some of the guys who would say, no, you don't use the law at all.

37:55

You use the law of Christ. And so I think it's I think it's is good to use as Colleen said to use the law as a schoolmaster to show people their sin.

38:07

I think Phil said the same. Any thoughts on that from anyone? Yeah, I'll chime in.

38:15

I agree. I mean, I I think it's good to use the law in evangelism to point people to Christ.

38:21

I think it helps set the stage that God is the the law giver that God is the authority in this universe.

38:32

And we are not that the person we're speaking with is not that we can't make up our own roles.

38:38

And then I think also from there again, as you step through the gospel, right? You're you're showing them how they have broken the laws of the law giver how they are now guilty.

38:50

And then, of course, how Christ steps in and how they can be forgiven.

38:59

And so, you know, and and how he he paid their fine as Ray Comfort likes to say. And so, yeah,

39:06

I think it's I think it's the most God honoring way to do evangelism because it really shows the the supremacy the authority of God and the sinfulness of man it shows them their true condition and then it it exalts

39:23

Christ so much more. I mean, he is literally the star, if you will, of the gospel narrative when you when you present it in a law and grace format so much more than just you know

39:37

God's got a wonderful plan for your life and God is sad and weepy and knocking at the door of your heart and would you please, please, please let him in kind of a thing.

39:47

Because the handle is only on the inside and you have full control over that handle. Right, yeah, there's that too.

39:53

Yeah, exactly. And then, yeah, there's also the reality that that Christ did keep the law and he kept it perfectly for us and so you know, that we we need someone to pay our fine for us.

40:04

We need the law keeper and in Christ you know, all the the law is satisfied as we rest in him.

40:12

Right. That'll preach. That'll preach. Now I had

40:18

I had some questions about this distinction between the law of Christ and the and the many different types of laws

40:25

I think in evangelism you can all be used you know referencing the the first five books can be used in evangelism you know this distinction between the law of Christ and the the old law

40:37

I think any of it can be used at any point because it's the full counsel of God I don't know if I agree necessarily with this law of Christ distinction that we're bringing up just because it's not as if he was made up new laws he kind of amplified and clarified the laws are already there even the one about nothing is unclean it's it's this idea that you know there is nothing that's unclean even at that time it was it was a tool to teach them and so I kind of I see what they're coming and I kind of agree in a certain sense but I don't know if it's necessary to create these like grand distinctions at the end of the day it's all the law of God yeah

41:18

I would definitely agree with that and I think like a proper understanding of the law of Christ is really how

41:26

Christ illuminated the law under the new covenant and under the the revelation of the new covenant

41:33

I would say that we understand the purpose of the law like it's not just you know a set of rules you know for a nation it shows

41:41

God's holiness and it points to Christ and how he fulfilled things and yeah

41:47

I would like to mention as was discussed earlier I know I missed some of the discussion here but yeah the law is not antithetical to grace it's you know two sides of the same coin law and grace and you know when

42:03

I kind of grew up as like a typical kind of independent Baptist person who didn't like not bashing independent

42:12

Baptists but I didn't have a real deep understanding of how the law relates to grace it's basically okay law was in the past you have grace now but you don't understand how the two connect together and I think my evangelism has been a lot better since I recognized how they relate because you know

42:34

I got to talk to a Muslim coworker over a year ago like over the course of several days for a total of about five hours of discussions with him and one of the most fruitful discussions

42:49

I had with him was about the law of God and what sin is and what forgiveness is and so I you know

42:58

I spent like 40 minutes of that of one of these conversations really getting into like what exactly does forgiveness mean and how does the law of God stand and is forgiveness waiving the penalty of sin or is it need does the law need to be fulfilled and so then

43:21

I was able to point him to why I believe that Jesus had to be both God and man and so understanding the law and grace actually even gets into Christology because then you understand what is the incarnation why is that important what about the atonement why does it need to be substitutionary and the whole life of Christ is you know birth and and life and miracles and death are all important not just death but he had to live under the law to be our substitute and you know that's why

43:57

I think the law is so integral to presenting the gospel and understanding the gospel that I think evangelicals do a disservice when they try to decouple it from the gospel and I agree with you everything you just said and I think one way to look at it is we have this idea that we were under the law then we were saved and now we're under grace which is 100 % true but in a sense

44:25

Christians need the law not to follow it necessarily but they need the law more than anyone else because why?

44:31

We continually fall. We're not now on this path where we're just perfectly righteous perfectly good all the time.

44:37

We need to constantly be reminded that there is a moral law that there is this law of God that is right and we are not living up to it.

44:46

It's not as if now we have the grace now it's in faith alone. The law is something we can forget.

44:53

It's amplifying it. We're still kind of recognizing

44:59

I sinned again. I don't know how many of you hear but I sin constantly and that's a sin.

45:14

I broke it. It's still teaching me. It's still guiding me. So I'm very uncomfortable with the decoupling of it.

45:23

You have to do it to a certain extent but not to this great extent where we can get intellectual about it and forget it's necessary for a believer right now.

45:34

The law can't save you. And the law doesn't per se keep you safe but obviously the law has a place still in the

45:43

Christian's life because you would then go into antinomianism where you're like I'm under grace

45:50

I can do whatever I want now and I have the get out of hell free card and I can just do whatever

45:55

I want. And so that is just down a very slippery slope but it's not like okay well the law said thou shalt not lie.

46:05

Now I'm a Christian I can lie all I want. You can't get there from here. That just doesn't work.

46:11

And so I think that the law still is guidelines for the oh man there you go.

46:19

For the Christian that we still need to you know to be truth tellers but I think it's not just because the law says thou shalt not lie but also because Christ always told the truth.

46:34

We want to be more like Christ and so we're being more like more and more into the image of Christ.

46:40

We want to exemplify him in our thinking and our words and thoughts and deeds and all of that.

46:49

Can I ask a question? Dylan and Eric. You just did. Can I ask several questions.

46:57

I think I'm trying to understand because I'm not really as familiar with new covenant theology but are you from the way

47:05

I'm understanding it because I agree to a certain extent. I think you guys are making a great point as to why there's a distinction but are you really saying that we should give more weight to the things that God said or Christ's law because of how it's clarified, amplified and given more meaning to us as believers?

47:30

If I may, I'll speak and maybe Dylan can help me out there. I'm trying to understand.

47:39

like, for instance, I'm in the military and if people were to talk about, let's say, laws of armed conflict or rules of engagement, rules of war,

47:50

I will happily go to Deuteronomy chapter 20 talks about not chopping down fruit trees when you're waging war against the other cities because God even says are you waging war against the trees?

48:05

Not at all. There's a principle there of restraint in warfare. I do believe that all of our western rules of war are built upon Christian principles.

48:17

You can tie that to scripture, to just war theory.

48:23

So I do find the law to be extremely useful. I use it in evangelism all the time.

48:30

I think really the distinction has come down to application really, right? So when we're talking about using the principle of a law to apply to a

48:41

New Testament context, right, just like the apostle Paul takes a civil law regarding not muzzling an ox and he says that has to do with paying your pastors.

48:51

Okay, so what's the principle behind that? And that principle doesn't just apply to pastors.

48:58

It might even apply to businesses. So maybe a business should think about allowing the workers to enjoy and partake of the fruits of their labor while they're laboring.

49:10

So I think that principle applies all the way through and it's just really comes down to how in light of Christ do we apply that principle.

49:22

And that's really how I view it there. Dylan, you want to help me out there? I agree with that wholeheartedly.

49:28

I guess the only thing I would add to that is, and then kind of tying it back to the law is, kind of an attempt at a high -level definition of that.

49:44

It would be that Christ came to be that to which the law points.

49:52

And this ties back to evangelism. One of the most useful tools in my evangelism toolkit is typology.

49:58

And I'm not going to use that word with an unbeliever necessarily. But while it may be the case that I as a

50:04

Christian still have much to glean from God's law in terms of informing how

50:09

I should be living my life and giving consideration to ethical norms and the rest,

50:15

I do understand that the nonbeliever is still under wrath and still under the curse of the law. And I'm under the law in some sense because in Christ I'm under the blessings of the law because of Christ's obedience.

50:27

If I were going to come to evangelism, someone who's under the curse of the law, and Romans 1 is telling me they know it, they know

50:35

God, I'm going to say, look, here's God's word. Look at how beautifully it fits together.

50:42

Here's the old covenant. What a tragedy it would be to get rid of this. Every bit of it points to Christ.

50:54

There's not a page in the old covenant where I'm not seeing my Savior. That is a tremendously useful tool in evangelism.

51:02

Part of it is the way of the master. I came up on some of those evangelism tactics in college, using the

51:10

Ten Commandments as a mirror to show the unbeliever. I think that's a super useful tactic.

51:16

I also find another tool in the toolkit is to show the coherence of Scripture in how it all points to Christ and it all synthesizes in Christ and culminates most fully in the gospel.

51:32

Thank you. That makes sense. Thank you for that. Just for a record, not only do

51:39

I have my get out of hell free card, but I have a stay out of hell free card. I wanted to stay out of hell free one.

51:49

You became a Wesleyan right there. Right on the spot. Does that make you a dispensational

51:56

Wesleyan? No. That's a new camp. Hey, look, theologically,

52:03

I am very clear, I am a reportian. There you go. I believe in reportianism.

52:08

There you go. You guys did hear the illustration of the guy who is found on a deserted island.

52:24

He's rescued. Helicopter. They have three huts. He's being taken off.

52:30

There are other people here. We see three huts. That one there, that's my house.

52:37

That's my church. What's that one over there? That's my old church. There are a bunch of heretics there.

52:46

Let's get into one thing that I think I may be the one in disagreement with everyone here, probably.

52:53

We'll see. Maybe Dylan and Eric, New Covenant theology, depending on where they are in it.

53:05

I agree with John Riesinger, who's known in New Covenant theology. In the trying to divide this, the law, those

53:15

Old Testament commandments into moral, civil, and ceremonial,

53:23

I don't see how you do that. I know John Riesinger said he went through all the laws trying to categorize them.

53:34

I think my view of the law is that there's universal laws for all of mankind, laws that every human being is expected to obey because we're created in the image of God.

53:49

Then I believe there's laws that were given specifically to the nation of Israel that they're to honor because they were a nation that was following the commandments that God gave to them.

54:01

And then there's laws that we see in the New Testament that are for the church that maybe the

54:06

Old Testament didn't apply. I would see things like the idea of keeping kosher, which is to keep us separate from the other nations.

54:18

Well, that separation was not needed once Messiah came. It was to keep them separate from the world, keep them separate from the nations for the

54:27

Messiah. Now Messiah has come. Okay, so do those separation laws still apply?

54:33

Well, I would say as a Christian, no. To a Jewish people today, they would still say yes.

54:39

But I think those are laws that were given to a nation. And one of the things,

54:46

I'm going to specify this, this is something in my rap report podcast that will come this

54:52

Sunday. I think the biggest thing I've heard from dispensationalism.

55:06

It's kind of one of these lightbulb moments when I was responding to Amelia's response to John MacArthur.

55:17

The big issue I think a lot of people have in this is Israel and the church and some of these laws is the idea of when we speak of Israel, when we speak of the church,

55:28

I think we all understand the terminology of visible and invisible or local universal church.

55:35

Local gathering which is visible, that's made up of unbelievers and believers. But the universal church is just the universal

55:48

In Israel, there was an elect Israel and a non -elect Israel. They're all part of Israel, the nation, but we refer to them as spiritual

55:56

Israel from the New Testament. Sometimes the problem we have is when we'll speak of Israel, we don't specify whether it's the nation as a whole, unbelievers and believers, or just the elect.

56:10

So I think there were laws given to the nation, in other words, the elect and non -elect to Israel, and they were to obey them, but not all of those carry over to the

56:21

New Testament. And so I don't see, and I'll put this out as a challenge,

56:28

I don't see this tri -part view of the law of moral, civil, ceremonial.

56:34

Now, I know that I used to, when I was less mature, I'll put it that way,

56:39

I used to argue that wow, Phil's surprised because he thinks I'm still not mature.

56:44

Shots fired. Drop the mic. When Phil says hello, shots are fired.

56:54

I used to argue that all law is moral, right? And therefore civil and ceremonial are moral, but that wasn't the proper usage of it, okay?

57:04

So, you know, if people make the argument that all laws are moral, well, they are, but the tri -part view is separating it differently than just saying whether it's a morality, it's a way of categorizing it.

57:18

But I just don't see that category breakdown in scripture or laid out that way.

57:28

Now, granted, I'll give it to you guys, my view is not that you don't see anything about a universal law in scripture either, but what

57:35

I take it is I see that there are things that are, let's take the

57:41

Sabbath, for example. There's going to be disagreements on the view of the Sabbath here, but I believe that on the seventh day of creation, there was a

57:50

Sabbath that was established for all of mankind because it was given to Adam and Eve and they were to give it for all of mankind.

58:00

But then when Moses came along, there were specific laws on the Sabbath that were given to the nation of Israel that carried for them that I don't believe all of those carry over into the

58:12

New Testament time. And so because of the way I'm going to view those laws,

58:18

I'm going to see that we as believers are more under that universal law and not the law given to a nation.

58:25

So what are your thoughts on that? So that Sabbath law is the one where you can't press a button in the elevator so it declines and flights the stairs?

58:39

Okay, listen. Wait, am I the only Sabbatarian here or are there others?

58:48

Any continentals here? I'm not a Sabbatarian but if it came to a vote in the culture,

58:55

I would vote alongside you, sister. Yeah, let me,

59:01

Keith, I'll tell you why the pushing the button doesn't have to do with work. It has to do with starting a fire.

59:09

There's works of necessity and mercy. Yeah. I beg to differ.

59:15

I work in elevators and even the electronic eye, they want it to disable that.

59:23

I don't know how that starts a fire. It's the spark in the light that's the argument.

59:30

Oh, got it. Yeah, that's the extreme they'll do. Walking is more work than driving the car but the pistons and spark plugs are going to create a small fire.

59:44

You wouldn't disagree with Colleen's point. I agree with her. There are works of mercy.

59:50

And necessity. Even my father is working to this day when he heals the man on the

59:56

Sabbath. We all agree with that. I think a lot of what you see is with Christ.

01:00:05

I'm going to argue that a lot of the laws that were given to the nation of Israel were in the

01:00:11

Talmud. A lot more added on top of it. That's where a lot of rabbinic thought is today.

01:00:19

It's on the Talmud and the laws of the Sabbath you can't find in scripture. I'm going to say real quick because I feel like gone a little bit all over the place and I'm not going to respond and offer a biblical defense of why

01:00:35

I'm a Sabbatarian right now. Although you can listen to theology gal's episode. Everything you guys have been talking about.

01:00:46

I'm talking to you guys. I have my microphone off to everything the NCT guys are saying.

01:00:53

My family thinks I'm crazy right now. Who are you screaming at, mommy? I just think the conversation has got a little.

01:01:04

The one thing I did want to say and theology gal's has done some basic episodes and we always offer lots of resources is all of the discussions on the sabbath and all of that.

01:01:23

If anyone wants to know the reformed view, I think about everything has been discussed on our podcast.

01:01:29

I'll leave it at that. I'm not reformed. Did she say that? I don't know if anyone here is actually reformed but me.

01:01:38

I do agree with the tripart division of the law but I'm not a septarian.

01:01:44

I see it as a lord's day and strictly a sabbath. Colleen, would you consider a 1689 federalist

01:01:55

Baptist reformed? For the sake of peace, I will refer to you as reformed

01:02:02

Baptist but I think historically a reform would hold to the reformed confessions which would be the

01:02:13

Westminster standards. But I think that reformed Baptist has come to be recognized.

01:02:21

The 1689 federalist position basically holds to the 1689

01:02:26

London confession which I know there is a lot of cross -over work.

01:02:33

Are you a Sabbatarian? I kind of struggle with that issue a little.

01:02:40

I'm still kind of on the fence researching that. I know the official 1689 federalist position is

01:02:48

Sabbatarian. I'm just trying to research that but I struggle with how to understand that.

01:02:58

We could probably I'll actually mention Andrew and I did an episode together where we discussed our differences on the

01:03:06

Sabbath. Send me the links of your different shows if you could too.

01:03:17

I personally am not a Sabbatarian but I do find the Sabbatarian position very defensible.

01:03:24

Very defensible. If I were put on the spot and pushed into a corner to debate a really well informed

01:03:33

Sabbatarian I would be super cautious because I think it's such a defensible position.

01:03:39

I think it's consistent with covenant theology. You know, Colleen mentioned the podcast that she and I did together on the

01:03:45

Sabbath. I had a lot of response, actually I think three or four episodes response from the guys at Theology Driven Podcast.

01:03:53

If you know who they are and you haven't heard today they're ending their podcast after two years, which is really sad.

01:04:02

They actually responded. We got together, their podcast and us, we did a small

01:04:10

Christian podcast community thing down at the Museum of the Bible. We got together over lunch to discuss our different views of the

01:04:18

Sabbath. They were saying we should have recorded it. They ended up realizing there was very little difference between our views.

01:04:26

But they assumed a position because they assumed I'm dispensational, but I don't fit perfectly into any camp, so that always is a problem.

01:04:37

That's one of the things that Colleen and I did was to talk through the issues and be able to say let's be clear on what each other is saying.

01:04:45

And that's important to do. That's why we're doing this podcast. I used the

01:04:52

Sabbath as an example. Really what I wanted to do is talk about this three -part division of the law.

01:05:00

I know Colleen's view, she's done a podcast on it. Anyone want to discuss that?

01:05:06

The view of the three -part, it looks like Eric does. I know I mentioned it before, and I'm very teachable on this, but how

01:05:14

I've always understood and taught, obviously, when Jesus asked what the greatest commandments are, love

01:05:22

God, love neighbor, he's quoting from Deuteronomy and Leviticus, he's quoting from Old Testament law.

01:05:27

The first four refer to more so loving

01:05:40

God. The last six categorize under loving neighbor. Every other law is kind of a commentary or a case law that can fall under one of those ten.

01:05:53

So, I guess, in that sense, I think there is some usefulness in dividing laws between civil, ceremonial, and moral, but for the nation of Israel, every single law that was given to them was a moral law.

01:06:09

If they broke one, they violated the covenant. So, that's just some thoughts there, and I do believe that the covenant that is under administration is important because, for example, you have in the creation mandate, you have

01:06:29

Adam and Eve are allowed to eat the green fruit trees or the green plants. Noah is allowed to eat meat without blood in it, and then

01:06:38

Israel is not allowed to eat the unclean animals. So, you see this change taking place.

01:06:45

Does that mean that God's character has changed? No, I think all of them in their context reflect

01:06:50

God's character and God's nature, but there is a change there with the change in covenant, their amendment, if you will, to the covenant.

01:07:00

So, that's all that really I'm getting at as far as a new covenant theologian perspective.

01:07:06

Saying that all of it is moral is just like you guys trying to say every Christian is a theonomist.

01:07:14

That kind of ignores our definition of what we're talking about. I just want to say that real quick. I mean, it's just like I think it's silly to say every

01:07:22

Christian is theonomist because we know what we're talking about. We're talking about something specific.

01:07:28

We're not saying the other laws aren't moral. When I look for principles from a law,

01:07:37

I think some principles are more out in your face. For example, thou shalt not murder.

01:07:43

That is a principle that is a universal principle. But then muzzling an ox while shredding out the grain, you have to flesh out the principle that Paul is fleshing out when he applies that to the paying of ministers.

01:08:02

While that is a moral

01:08:10

Whereas the law don't steal, that is the moral principle already out in your face.

01:08:16

Like I said, I find it very useful, civil, ceremonial, moral. I just look for the principle from each there.

01:08:24

But wouldn't thou shalt not steal be an imperative not a principle. Principle would be more like raise your child the way he should go.

01:08:33

That would be more of a principle base. Thou shalt not murder.

01:08:41

Maybe it is nuance but I would use the word command for those in every way shape or form.

01:08:48

We ought not to steal. If you steal time at work, you are stealing.

01:08:54

Maybe the principle for not murdering is protecting life. Lots of laws could fall under that category.

01:09:04

Application. Not sending soldiers out to war that just got married and they haven't really enjoyed their spouse for a year.

01:09:17

Stealing is protecting the property. Adultery protects the principle of marriage and family.

01:09:26

That is important. Honoring your father and mother is the principle of authority. Standing up when the elderly enter the room.

01:09:36

Showing respect for authority. I guess that is how I was getting at it.

01:09:41

My favorite example is in the Westminster confessions laying out of the catechisms laying out of the ten commandments.

01:09:52

The answers are fleshed out with application. It is beautiful to read.

01:09:59

If you haven't checked that out, I would highly recommend it. Do you use one of the confessions? I have a soft spot for the

01:10:11

Westminster confession. I would not call myself a covenant in the camp.

01:10:18

I would call myself a reformed Baptist. I would adopt that broad camp.

01:10:29

We are going to let Eve jump in here. She will be quiet there.

01:10:38

Anthony is saying, Eve, jump in. She is like, I tried a couple of times. I unmuted my mic.

01:10:48

I don't feel strongly about this topic. I don't really have anything to defend.

01:10:56

I have some friends that are, I guess, what you would call messianic

01:11:01

Christians, where they keep the Sabbath and are kosher and basically follow the law like they are

01:11:08

Orthodox Jews. I see them getting heated arguments against Christians because we don't keep the law.

01:11:19

I don't agree with them because I feel like Christ has fulfilled the law and we don't need to keep it to the extent they keep it.

01:11:26

I don't feel strongly enough about it to fight them to get in arguments with them about it.

01:11:37

I just wanted to throw that out because I know Andrew has

01:11:42

Jewish background and I'm curious what you would say to a messianic

01:11:48

Christian. Actually, I'll put this in the show notes, but I recently did an episode with Robert Solberg on his book

01:11:59

Torahism. Basically, that's what we were addressing. The people who are claiming to be

01:12:07

Christian and putting themselves under law and where many of the people in Hebrew roots movement is what it's often called, you'll see what they do a lot of times is they start to deny the deity of Christ.

01:12:19

They'll say that's a Roman invention and things like this because they put themselves fully under the law where they see the law as giving them obedience to getting right with God.

01:12:40

It's a very simple use the portion out of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus said that one jot will not be removed from the law until all is fulfilled.

01:12:53

They use that as an argument for saying the law still exists in its entirety and if you're not keeping it you're not truly a

01:13:01

Christian. I don't agree with that but I'm not as learned as you guys to be able to defend that position.

01:13:10

This is the book and I'd encourage anyone to get that.

01:13:17

It's the only book I know that addresses Hebrew roots. The only one that I'm aware of. It goes through every one of those arguments.

01:13:25

The issue I think when he's saying again we did it on Apologetics Live also so now he was on the rap report he's on Apologetics Live.

01:13:36

When he came on Apologetics Live we had a guy who holds the Hebrew roots that came in making some of the same arguments.

01:13:44

And the issue is what law is being discussed there? Who is it being written to and what's being discussed?

01:13:53

What does it mean that Christ fulfilled all the law? What does it mean that no jot or tittle of the law will fade away?

01:14:02

Does it mean you have to have obedience to it or does it mean it was fulfilled in Christ?

01:14:08

Were some laws pointing to what Christ would do as a sacrifice? Do we need to continue having sacrifices?

01:14:16

I would say no, not once Christ came. He was a final sacrifice. I doubt they're keeping that law of sacrifice without attempt.

01:14:30

Orthodox Jews can't do it either. Andrew, am I correct in saying that?

01:14:38

I was going to say you were a good -looking guy. You're wrong.

01:14:44

I'm wrong already. That book is unapologetic against the

01:14:50

Hebrew Roots movement? The title of it, are Christians required to keep the law of Moses?

01:14:59

His secretary contacted me to have him on.

01:15:05

I thought it was promoting Hebrew Roots.

01:15:11

I'm going to be a little bit critical. I'm also from a Jewish background. He's like,

01:15:17

I'd really like you to read it. It's an apologetic against the

01:15:23

Hebrew Roots movement. It's the only one I know of. It's very, very well done. I highly recommend it.

01:15:32

It's a tourism book .com. You can get it.

01:15:41

It's also on Amazon too. Amazon probably won't give the author as much because Amazon takes the majority of the money.

01:15:53

The author will get a little bit. Got you. Only because there's a lady that I know and he's not even a pastor in my eyes.

01:16:03

He's all into that. Everything you just said, he espouses too. This has become a very big thing, the

01:16:15

Hebrew Roots movement. Some of the people don't even understand what they're hitching their wagon to when they get involved in this.

01:16:25

I know Colleen has dealt with this in her theology gal's

01:16:33

Facebook group. I know that's a constant thing they deal with as well.

01:16:40

Actually, not in the group so much. I think we're at 6 ,000 women now.

01:16:50

I run a very tight ship. There was another women's

01:16:55

Facebook group that was putting themselves out as a Christian women's Facebook group.

01:17:00

A couple of the gals in my group decided to learn everything they could about it.

01:17:09

One of them runs a page exposing these women roots. They've gone so far as to basically embrace and disciple women that are coming out of the

01:17:21

Hebrew roots. It's been really encouraging to see just the heart that these gals have for these women who are coming out of some pretty awful dangerous theology.

01:17:37

Yeah. Yeah. So, Colleen, would you say that one of the problems with especially people who get into Hebrew roots from a more,

01:17:48

I don't know if you call it mainstream understanding from Christianity would be a failure to understand the three -fold division of the law?

01:17:57

I think that's part of it. I think maybe even a bigger part. I texted Andrew while we were all talking.

01:18:03

I said, I don't think this is an episode on law and gospel. I think it's an episode on law, which is fine. But I actually think it's a failure to understand law and gospel.

01:18:13

Because if you really press these people in the Hebrew roots, they are ultimately including works for salvation.

01:18:22

They don't understand things like the imputation of Christ's act of obedience, that Christ obeyed the law perfectly for us.

01:18:30

They really don't have a clear understanding of both law and gospel, where each of those things appropriately fit.

01:18:42

Now, would this be a question along this line, where sometimes an atheist might say, how can you call yourself a

01:18:49

Christian if you don't follow all the laws in the Bible? Clearly, we don't need to follow the

01:18:59

Old Testament laws exactly, but people seem to think that we should. Is this part of this?

01:19:06

Well, that actually happened to me. I don't know if Andrew was there or not, but I think it was at Washington Square Park open -air preaching.

01:19:16

No, it was at Union. A lady came over and said, do you eat shell fish?

01:19:23

Do you have different kinds of garments? And she goes, what about all that?

01:19:30

I said, are you talking about the Old Covenant or the New Covenant? She said, what do you mean?

01:19:37

I said, just answer the question. I said, but you're not asking the right question. You're not understanding what you're actually asking.

01:19:46

She got very frustrated because she was just trying to play stump the

01:19:52

Christian. That's where I think asking questions is very helpful.

01:20:00

But no, you can eat shell fish if you want to. Bacon wrapped scallops.

01:20:08

And bacon, which is a wonderful thing to discover. My dad was a convert from Orthodox Judaism, but he was fairly new convert.

01:20:20

He was at his pastor's house for dinner. He hadn't had pork yet at this point in his life.

01:20:26

He said, wow, this is the best beef roast I've ever had. The pastor's wife looked at her husband and said, should we tell him now?

01:20:37

That was his first question. They did tell him. He knew,

01:20:43

I think for my dad, he was an Orthodox Jew. Kosher, everything.

01:20:49

There was a lot of changes for him after he became a

01:20:55

Christian. Even though he knew that a lot of things were okay, like eating pork and some other things, it took him a while.

01:21:06

It's a very big life change. One of the things that was of interest to me when

01:21:13

I became a Christian, there's different things in Judaism.

01:21:20

One of the things was the way you would handle the Bible. I remember when

01:21:25

I started going to church and I'd see people put a Bible on the floor or on a pew next to them.

01:21:33

You would never do something like that in a synagogue. I struggled with it at first.

01:21:40

These Christians have such a low view of God's word that they would put it on the floor under their feet.

01:21:47

It took some adjusting. Probably even more so if your dad who kept kosher.

01:21:54

The whole idea of keeping kosher is keeping every aspect of your life separate from the other nations.

01:22:03

It's in the way you dress, the way you eat, the way you go about your day.

01:22:10

It's very different. It's hard to get out of that culture and adjust to saying oh, this isn't, to get out of the legalism.

01:22:21

One of the questions I had written down to ask, and I don't know if we fully answered

01:22:27

Eve's question, but this is a question. You got close. I'll have to read the book you suggested.

01:22:36

I think it would be good. Here's a question that is really asked in the book.

01:22:44

Should we as Christians, those of us who have the gospel, should we keep the law?

01:22:52

Phil, you mentioned antinomianism. That means without law. I think one of the things in discussing law and if we're under grace, does that mean we don't have any law?

01:23:08

We don't have to follow anything? Or is there a connection between the law even though we have the gospel?

01:23:19

If we're children of the king, we should act like members of the family.

01:23:25

I try to explain to my children very simply. I say, hey, girls, you got to brush your teeth, make your bed.

01:23:35

You don't do those things to earn my love, but because you love me, you need to obey daddy.

01:23:44

If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. If we love

01:23:53

Jesus, we're going to keep his commandments. If we love the father, we're going to act like sons of the father.

01:24:00

Contrary to that, Jesus criticizes the Pharisees because they act like their father, the devil.

01:24:09

I think at the end of the day, we obey the law not because we have to, but because we love

01:24:16

God. There's a delight in God's law that we didn't have prior before the law condemned us.

01:24:25

We want to live and obey the Lord because we love him. I think it's in Nehemiah, the delighting in the fear of God.

01:24:38

Some of the terminology gets twisted sometimes because these are just fear tactics and you're being a fear monger.

01:24:49

I know that God is providing and protecting me.

01:24:57

It's for my own good and protection in addition to or as a fruit of wanting to please him because I love him.

01:25:07

So Andrew, the question, are we obligated to obey the law?

01:25:13

Does that question presuppose anything about that the word law is used in different ways?

01:25:20

Is this a question of are we under the mosaic law or are we under the law of God?

01:25:27

I'm not a new covenant theologian, so I'm not saying the law of Christ in that sense, but I mean under the universal law of God, is the question, are we under the mosaic law like the 613 commands as a covenant or are we obligated to follow the law as in God's revealed universal moral law throughout creation?

01:25:57

Well, I'll let everyone define it how they want and then answer it. I mean, because you could have, I think,

01:26:02

I believe all of us here would agree that we don't keep all 613 laws, right?

01:26:10

No one's going out and doing a sacrifice of blood to make up for their sin, right? So I think like that's pretty safe that it's not all, you know, which is, but there are laws, we were talking earlier the

01:26:25

Sabbath and you know, we'd have some differing views there. But then

01:26:30

I think the way some people will argue it, there's some and Phil mentioned the people that will make the accusation of antinomianism that if you're not keeping those, you know, if you look at the moral, civil, ceremonial, some people are going to break those down differently.

01:26:52

If you're not keeping those things, some people say, oh, you think you're not under law at all. Do we have the freedom to do whatever we want?

01:26:59

I think everyone here, I hope everyone here would say no. But then what basically the thing to struggle with,

01:27:11

I think we're all going to come to different conclusions here, what is the role that the law has in the life of a believer?

01:27:19

Can I bring up Galatians 4? I think you just did.

01:27:27

Can I bring this up?

01:27:33

I think we all understand that we're not under the mosaic covenant, the law contained in ordinances, that form of the law, those specific commandments, but I say as Christians, by definition, we are the people of the law of God in the universal moral sense, and since the word law is used in different ways, so in Galatians 4, we see the apostle

01:28:02

Paul uses this illustration that we're heirs, even as children, until we have the revelation of Jesus Christ, verse 4, but when the fullness of the time was come,

01:28:17

God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, and we probably understand at least that that references the fact that he grew up under the mosaic law and fulfilled that, but then verse 5 says to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons, and because you are sons,

01:28:40

God sent forth his spirit into his son, or his son into your hearts crying,

01:28:45

Abba, Father, so like we're the child of the king, as I think was mentioned earlier, and being children of the king, that doesn't mean we're above the law, it says that we're no longer servants, but sons, so we have the privilege of being children of the king, and so as children, we are lawful, but not in the sense of being under the mosaic covenant,

01:29:14

I think the Christian life, as we're sons of God, by regeneration, we desire to keep the law of God after the inward man, anyone want to comment on that?

01:29:30

I can say something, if we're united to Christ, we are being sanctified, which means we are dying more and more into sin, and growing more and more into godliness, and so those that are truly in Christ will be sanctified, and will grow in obedience and desire to obey.

01:29:56

I think a key thing there is in the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, which was mentioned in that Galatian passage, and it's the

01:30:03

Holy Spirit that causes us to be sanctified, and causes us to be led, and the

01:30:08

Holy Spirit won't lead us into a place we ought not to go, so that's pretty key in my opinion.

01:30:18

Unless we go back to another argument where we talked about quenching the Holy Spirit. Yeah. I guess as far as to what degree do we as Christians keep the law,

01:30:33

I would say, and I'm going to try to do this in about a minute and a half, so where is it,

01:30:40

Matthew 23, where Jesus is, and I just lost my place there, oh, talking about the greatest commandment, right, you shall love the

01:30:50

Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and then this is the first and greatest commandment, and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, so on those two hang all the law and the prophets, and then in John 13, where he says a new commandment

01:31:08

I give you, that you love one another just as I have loved you, you are to love one another, by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another, and then we see that again in first John and second

01:31:19

John, so I think really, to me, it's harder to keep that commandment, that aspect of law, you know, because it's,

01:31:33

I think love is the hardest commandment to keep, but I think it's the one that we are to keep, you know, doing things, the classic example

01:31:42

I give as a husband is, you know, I don't feel like taking out the trash or I don't feel like doing the dirty dishes in the sink or whatever, but because I do love the

01:31:52

Lord, because I do know that he saved me and everything and I want to please him, I do those things, and it is that idea also of, you know, beating down the flesh and doing those things that your flesh doesn't naturally want to do or not doing those things that it wants to do.

01:32:16

Can I stir the pot a little bit here if I haven't done so enough already tonight? I'm going to anyway.

01:32:24

So I agree, by the way, with everything that's just been said. I think all of those are fantastic articulations of an answer to Andrew's very well -put question.

01:32:37

In addition to that, I also think that so when we think about, you know, love being the fulfillment of the law and kind of, you know, loving

01:32:46

God, loving neighbor, and how those, as Eric was saying earlier, manifest themselves through the different laws including in the

01:32:52

Old Covenant. So I would say part of what that, so if I say, what does it look like for me to love my neighbor?

01:32:59

If I'm going to look for content to go fill that, I am also going to look in the

01:33:05

Old Covenant. Here's an example of what I mean by that. If we were looking at Deuteronomy 22 verse 8 about building parapets around roofs.

01:33:13

I might not look at that and think to build a new house, I better have a parapet on my roof.

01:33:19

So at the level of application there's change. But it is still a manifestation of loving God, loving my neighbor, for me to make sure there are handrails on my stairs and gates around my pools.

01:33:31

So the principle underlying the law, I would say, still has some efficacy for us as Christians today.

01:33:38

And part of that is what fills that commandment to love.

01:33:44

So I'll throw that little minefield out there to see if anybody... No, I think that's great. There's also, you know, the whole idea where John talks about walking in truth.

01:33:53

It's this whole aspect to it. I wasn't just saying let's all just love one another. Like you said, there's a lot more to that.

01:34:01

Not disagreeing with you, brother, I think you put it really, really well. I'm going to try to articulate something that I'm not entirely sure how to put into words.

01:34:11

But I disagree strongly with the legalistic following of rules just for the sake of making yourself feel better because you followed a rule.

01:34:23

And I've always felt like internalizing the spirit as a conscience that keeps you walking the straight and narrow and following Christ to the best of your ability.

01:34:37

And so when I take positions on things, it's usually like this is what I feel like is my commitment with the

01:34:45

Lord, what the Lord has told me to do in following Christ, but I don't feel strongly enough about it to try and force other people to follow the same route that I am.

01:34:55

I dress up for church. I go to a very casual church. Most people don't dress up for church.

01:35:00

But I feel like if I'm going to go in God's presence,

01:35:15

I'm going to dress up because that's just respect. But I don't feel like we should pass rules that say you have to dress a certain way when you go to church because I feel like that's a personal conscience thing having to do with your own relationship with the

01:35:32

Lord. When it comes to saying following the law, I would say you internalize the law in the way you wish to respect

01:35:41

God and your view of God and your conscience of the

01:35:47

Holy Spirit so you're not just following rules for the sake of following rules because rules don't save you.

01:35:53

Does any of that make sense? This Sunday with this whole coronavirus stuff, going to church online and doing live streams, we actually had issue with that because we couldn't set it up online quick enough so I actually recorded the message.

01:36:17

This is my personal conviction. I got dressed in a suit and tie even though I sat here to record the message because it was still a

01:36:25

Sunday worship service being used that way. The interesting thing is when

01:36:32

I speak at conferences, people will joke, and for those that don't realize, the shirts

01:36:40

I usually wear at Donald Trump shirts, they're different.

01:36:47

They have a white collar and a white sleeve. I only wear them at conferences where I'm going to be preaching but a suit would end up being different.

01:37:03

I don't wear these any other time. Again, it's the idea of having it set apart.

01:37:10

That's what the word holy means. Phil Johnson challenged me and said, when you're out on the street sharing the gospel, do you wear something different proclaiming the gospel because you're still proclaiming the

01:37:23

Bible. I think there's a distinction there that I make in my life.

01:37:31

with people at a pulpit at a conference or on a

01:37:38

Sunday service proclaiming God's word or attending, I want to dress different than I do the whole week for a similar reason.

01:37:51

However, I wouldn't require anyone else to do that.

01:37:57

who are in my house, I would teach them that but I wouldn't require that if that makes sense.

01:38:09

I just silenced everyone. Go for it, Eric. It makes perfect sense.

01:38:18

Does anyone think that suit and tie is part of the law of God? The only thing

01:38:25

I would add to what I just said is we can get into the whole discussion about the conscience and who gets to bind the conscience.

01:38:33

You got self -government, family government, church government, civil magistrates.

01:38:42

How does the law get enforced and or applied there? How come so many

01:38:47

Christian universities have we will not allow our students to watch rated R movies except Passion of the

01:38:54

Christ. That was Liberty University where I went to.

01:39:00

My seminary, you couldn't have a beard.

01:39:07

I challenged it and asked them why. They said in the 60s that was a sign of rebellion.

01:39:14

I said we're now in the 90s. I'm sorry.

01:39:21

Cut you off there. That's a whole other discussion about how do you enforce.

01:39:26

It's one thing to say I'm feeling convicted to do this but I'm going to pass a law that says no one can have rated

01:39:34

R movies even if you're 18 or older. It doesn't matter what it is. Period. Except Passion of the

01:39:39

Christ. I think that was the opposite of my point. I don't feel strongly about any of these positions.

01:39:48

When we were talking about divorce I personally do not believe in remarriage after divorce.

01:39:54

I believe it's wrong. I feel strongly enough to live that way in my own life but I'm not going to force that on anyone else because I feel it's a matter of conscience between you and God.

01:40:10

Divorce is an interesting one because that plays into church whether a person is going to become a deacon or elder.

01:40:19

How does that play out? What was the context of the divorce whatever the case may be?

01:40:26

What is the civil government's job? Should there be no fault divorce?

01:40:33

I think there are some laws that have to get enforced. I wish

01:40:44

I could remember who was having the conversation but the story was one pastor walks in on another who was reading his

01:40:53

Bible and he says what are you doing? I'm looking for another commandment to obey.

01:41:00

The idea wasn't that he was trying to put himself under legalism. He loved the

01:41:06

Lord so much that he wanted to be obedient to the commands of God.

01:41:11

This goes back to the parapet example you brought up earlier. I think that's always stuck with me as far as a desire to obey

01:41:22

God's law. It's just trying to find obeying everything in here that still applies.

01:41:30

It's not eating shell fish or whatever. And that would be obeying

01:41:35

God because you love him, not obeying a set of rules because you feel like that's going to somehow get you to heaven.

01:41:45

I think that's where the legalistic push of the law gets into trouble, especially with these friends

01:41:51

I have that are the Hebrew roots. They have so many rules and laws they're following.

01:42:00

What are you trusting to get you into heaven? Are you trusting God, the sacrifice that Christ paid, or what you're doing?

01:42:12

I've just seen legalism destroy so many lives that I'm just very adverse to it.

01:42:17

They put themselves back under the law. They need to read Galatians.

01:42:23

That is what the whole book is written about, Jewish people that want to put themselves back under the law.

01:42:32

And they'll ignore clear texts like Colossians where it says not to judge anyone on a festival day or a

01:42:42

Sabbath day. I think that there is, so in my view there are some laws we do obey.

01:42:51

God gives us commandments and we shouldn't lie, we shouldn't steal.

01:42:57

Those still apply to us even though we have the gospel, even though we're under grace. But I think then there's areas of, and we did a theology throwdown on Christian liberty.

01:43:10

We talked about this and the idea that there are some things that are gray areas. There may be things that are a, you know, would be a sin for me and not for you guys.

01:43:20

It may be that it's a sin against my conscience. And this is where I think we have to be careful is there's so often where one person will basically feel that someone else is in sin because of something that's on their conscience or they'll try to push someone to say, okay, that's not really an issue, get over it.

01:43:40

Like what Colleen was saying with her father, if he was still struggling with pork, just telling him, hey, we're free to do this, just get over it, it causes a person to feel like, no, wait,

01:43:53

I'm doing something wrong. The worst thing we could do is get someone to convince themselves that just because, like, even though I feel this is wrong,

01:44:01

I have a guilty conscience over it, let me just ignore that because then I can ignore guilty conscience on other things that God says we should do.

01:44:09

And so I think there is a, there are some laws, and this is where for me, just the way it's helpful for me to understand, maybe my own tripartite law, right, is universal laws that are for every single human being.

01:44:24

No human being should lie ever because that's rooted in the nature of God, God's not a liar, we shouldn't lie.

01:44:33

No human being, whether believer or unbeliever, should steal. Why? Because God's not a thief and therefore we shouldn't be, you know, so that we get those, the morality based on the nature of God.

01:44:48

But then we get into areas that, you know, we see in the New Testament of eating meat offered unto idols.

01:44:54

Was that a sin? Well, to someone's conscience it was, but yet Paul would say that it wasn't a sin.

01:45:01

But if your brother is struggling with that then don't do it. You know, we talked on the

01:45:09

Theology Throwdown on Christian Liberty about different things like smoking or alcohol or things like that and, you know, we got into that discussion of okay, alcohol, it's clear, the command, don't be a drunkard.

01:45:23

But is it a command not to drink? Well, we'd have to say no, it allows for it.

01:45:31

But then again, we can sit there and say it allows for it in a time where water had, you know, caused dysentery and things.

01:45:38

So is that, does that make it the difference? Then you get into the question of, you know, if you have a background, like I have a friend of mine,

01:45:46

Chris Arneson, he has a background, he was an alcoholic. He doesn't say others shouldn't drink.

01:45:52

He just says it would be a sin for him to drink. So his conscience won't allow him to do it. But he doesn't put that on others to say they have to.

01:46:06

I don't know if anyone has thoughts on that. Keith, your microphone went.

01:46:18

It's kind of, I guess, a side note. Like when we speak about lying, of course

01:46:24

I agree with you, we have Rahab who lied. Yes.

01:46:33

However. Go ahead, Eric. No, nothing. Oh, Eric, go.

01:46:39

Put him in his place. No, no, no. I have something similar with regards to pacifism and taking of human life as a military person.

01:46:51

I get that question a lot. You're a Christian, right? So how can you be involved in the military?

01:47:00

there's a conversation there, but I do believe it's allowed. But I think if someone really does feel strongly against it,

01:47:09

I'm not going to say they're living in sin by holding to a position where they don't want to take life.

01:47:18

You're living in sin if you're living in the Bronx. Oh, sorry, Phil. With Rahab, Phil, I'll just put it out there.

01:47:27

What the Bible records is what she actually did. She lied. What you don't see in scripture is that God condoned that lie.

01:47:36

Yes, she's in Hebrews 11 for her faith, not for her lie.

01:47:43

So I would say that no, she was wrong for lying. I would say that was a sin on her part.

01:47:50

And you don't do that. But that doesn't mean that she didn't have faith, and for that reason she's in Hebrews 11.

01:48:01

Did God use her sin? Well, yes, God used the sin of Joseph's brothers to save a whole people.

01:48:13

So... And then lying is meant to deceive normally for evil ends as well, and it seemed that in her weak faith she did it to save life, if you will, which is not normally the case.

01:48:31

Again, not that that condones lying. What about the Christians who hid

01:48:37

Jews during the Holocaust? A lot of them had to lie. No, I would say they didn't have to lie.

01:48:44

They chose to lie. So when it comes to ethics, what's called the non -conforming absolutist, and what that means is that I don't believe there's ever a case that we conform to the culture or to make acceptable a situation that would allow something

01:49:04

God calls sin to not be sinful. The question becomes what makes it sinful?

01:49:10

In my view, what makes something morally sinful is because it goes against the nature of God.

01:49:16

Lying is a sin because God's not a liar. It's God's nature that defines that.

01:49:22

Now, could they hide Jewish people and still not sin?

01:49:28

And I give this example all the time. Yes, someone comes to my door. The classic example for situational ethics.

01:49:34

The German soldiers knock on the door and are you hiding Jews? If you say yes, they're going to come and get the

01:49:43

Jews and kill them. And somehow that's supposed to be your fault. However, the issue there is there's so much in hypotheticals.

01:49:53

If the Germans are coming to your door asking if you're hiding Jewish people, they probably already think that you are.

01:50:00

So saying no doesn't save their lives. So what does the lie get you?

01:50:05

Well, it may save their lives but you have no guarantee of that. But you do have a guarantee that you lied.

01:50:11

But there's plenty of other ways you can save their life without lying like challenging them, getting in their face and asking why in the world they're asking such a question.

01:50:21

I'm not saying I'm not hiding Jews and I'm not saying I'm hiding Jews but I'm also doing something to try to protect their lives without sinning.

01:50:34

So there's lots of other ways. There's always another way that God will provide without sinning to handle the situation.

01:50:47

With the gun in your face, yes or no? Who's asking?

01:50:53

Well, then they're going to have to shoot me and they can search the house anyway which they would probably do. So I would say in addition to the question about lying which is complex and maybe a couple of different angles could be given on that one,

01:51:11

I think the broader question of what if we were going to ask what constitutes right action or morally good behavior?

01:51:21

In my mind, what fills the content of that is really scripture,

01:51:30

I think, is God's word. So if one were to say this is why

01:51:35

I personally might not take quite the same angle, even though I would end up in the same place Andrew would end up at the end of the day by rooting some of the moral premises on the nature of God, where do we go to for the nature of God?

01:51:53

Natural theology might give us a little leeway. If we were to lean on that, we're preferring a sin than a

01:52:07

So when we're looking at what constitutes righteousness, not just for Christians but for humanity, the

01:52:14

Bible fills that content. We see some examples of that where the surrounding nations are called to account by God for their disobedience despite the fact they don't have the law.

01:52:25

I think that's super telling. When it comes to somebody who might not be a believer and yet is behaving in precisely the way we might expect an unbeliever to behave in not giving any thought or consideration whatsoever, conscience totally hardened towards what

01:52:47

God says, I say, look, there is grace for you. But in order to know that you need grace, you need to know there is condemnation on you.

01:53:01

This ties full circle back to what we were talking about originally. Here is the law. I would be jealous to guard the distinction between legalism and obedience.

01:53:18

I think obedience is a jolly good thing. In a new covenant context, we may have a different impetus for obedience because of the indwelling of the

01:53:31

Holy Spirit and the newness of the new covenant and the law being written on our hearts.

01:53:38

But I still would say if somebody were living, it comes back to who gets to bind the conscience.

01:53:51

If someone were to say, hey, I am living an adulterous life, if I had somebody come into me and say that, if they are a believer,

01:54:06

I would say, look, here is what

01:54:12

God says about that. You know this. You are suppressing the truth about this, but you know deep down that this is wicked.

01:54:22

You can repent and turn and be saved. Here is what God did for you. He sent his son to die because of that disobedience that you are working on and talking about right now.

01:54:34

It is disobedience. The content comes from God's word and even

01:54:39

God's law so we know what that grace saves us from the curse of. If I can end with a preposition.

01:54:52

I don't know if anyone else has any other last comments. We are going to wrap it up. Give it for anyone that has a last comment except for Phil.

01:55:05

I knew he was going to make the last comment.

01:55:12

I definitely think that this discussion shows that as Christians we have to have a proper balance for understanding the role of the law.

01:55:22

What the law of God means. We have seen two different extremes, two different sides of the pendulum.

01:55:31

We have antinomianism on one side which we don't want and we have

01:55:37

Torahism on the other side. I have witnessed both of those with friends in my life.

01:55:46

I had one friend in my life commit suicide on Easter Eve.

01:56:04

I the context of it. I am not sure

01:56:17

I was not familiar the You know go down the road like he started reading

01:56:25

Bonson and of course not to rip on Bonson because Bonson was a really good apologist Presuppositionalist and he started with Bonson, you know became a theonomist and I'm not ripping on theonomist either

01:56:38

You know, like Jeff Durbin is a great guy like him a lot is bottom -up theonomy and stuff

01:56:44

And then he went further down that down Theonomy to more extreme versions and now he's this last

01:56:52

I know he was a Kinnest and Kinnest say they're the only true theonomist. So it's basically the gentlemen's racism and then you know see a lot of his friends on Facebook would be

01:57:06

European Israelites and I'd see one guy wearing like a swastika and it's like, okay

01:57:12

That's you know, that's one extreme of thinking that you know You're under the law because you're you know, you've somehow descended from the

01:57:20

Israelites, you know You're the true Israelites and therefore you're obligated to keep Torah So you have that extreme and then you have yeah, as I mentioned antinomianism and I guess say a proper balance, you know is an understanding of type and shadow fulfillment and I know

01:57:41

Colleen would agree of the threefold division of law. I mean, I know you know

01:57:47

Andrew probably doesn't really Accept that but I think that the threefold division of the law

01:57:54

I don't believe is necessarily like you pick the three six hundred thirteen commandments and each one

01:57:59

Fits into one of those three. It's just it's kind of a matter of understanding

01:58:05

You know, what's the type what's a shadow and then the the civil aspects would have to do with like well

01:58:12

How do you apply the moral law under a nation like things? we mentioned adultery like do we you know adultery is a moral law, but Is the

01:58:22

United States a covenant nation that's obligated to stone adulterers. I don't think you know

01:58:28

That's how we'd understand the Bible applying the New Covenant to today but so I would just say that, you know maintaining a proper balance as a

01:58:37

Christian at recognizing the role of Christ type and fulfillment and we are the people of the law in terms of that we have the spirit within us and Regeneration allows us to fulfill the spirit of the law in our lives and don't go to one extreme versus the other

01:58:57

Yeah, and one of the things that You know, we it's I wouldn't hold to the the the division

01:59:05

I mean, I just would say it's not in the scripture not because the word is not in scripture I don't even think the idea is there in my opinion

01:59:12

But I think there's a different division that is which is just there's universal laws and there's laws given to God's people and so it's how is it given and that's where kind of some of my dispensationalism comes in in a bit because Because of that I'm gonna see that God deals differently with his people in different time periods

01:59:32

He gives a new covenant with every change in the in economy Which is what the dispensation would be in the way that he deals with people

01:59:40

So he deals with Adam and Eve different than he does with Noah different than he does with Moses different than he does with us and each with each one of those is a covenant that we would see and so With the covenant is new responsibility new law

01:59:56

Shall we say and so you you have new responsibilities for the people and a new?

02:00:02

Change in some sense in the way God deals with his people And so that's what that's the reason

02:00:08

I would end up holding to dispensation because I see that change of law or change of relationship in the sense of how

02:00:17

Here's the responsibilities. I expect you to hold to So with that we're gonna end there's probably more we could do would probably would probably be a good topic would be the view of Shadows and and you know, like type of Huh?

02:00:35

Typology shadows. Yeah, that would probably be fun. But what I think Andy Olson from echoes always suggested the next one

02:00:44

For a topic and I'll throw this out to you guys. See if you guys are in agreement, you know He was saying we should do one on Voting for Trump because he figured there's no way we can all agree

02:00:57

But maybe broaden it. What do you think of for next episode? We do on you know, the

02:01:03

Christians Christians role with government, you know, do we not just do we vote but how what do we how do we vote?

02:01:11

Should we vote for someone like Trump who is just a wonderful moral, man? Yeah, okay

02:01:16

Okay, at least Dylan laughed at that Anthony just is like a complete straight -faced like, you know

02:01:26

So so how much longer you want to be here man? I can go new one. So we'll do it two full hours so I think that's we'll do next time is the the

02:01:35

Christians role with Political activism that could be interesting I will do on the apologetics live

02:01:44

The this week that we're recording which was when a lair I'm gonna be actually doing politics live.

02:01:51

We're going to ask the question should Christians vote for Trump. Dr Anthony special be the the guest apologist answering that so that's good

02:01:58

Everyone throws their tomatoes at him and I sit back and never have to say how I'm voting good It doesn't matter no matter how

02:02:05

I vote Phil's gonna hate me he's just a hater That's the way he is in the Bronx there. Look at him. Are you judging me?

02:02:13

um Yes All right, so folks we're glad I you know, appreciate each of the podcasters that are represented here and their podcasts go check them out if you go to Apollo, sorry

02:02:30

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02:02:38

It is a growing list If you're a podcaster and you're interested in in podcasting with us and be part of the community where we try to You know just act like Christians and promote one another and encourage one another and help one another

02:02:51

You can go to Christian podcast community. I think it's calm But just go to the about page click consider podcasting you could go there.

02:03:00

So till next throwdown We're going to ask you to just continue listening, you know, check out all the podcasts and Christian podcast community

02:03:10

There's a number of podcasts there for you to listen to and I hope you check them all out.