Covenant Theology vs New Covenant Theology

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity. This is another one of our theological discussions. Today's discussion is going to be on the topic of Covenant Theology and New Covenant Theology.

Why do we do these hangouts? We do these specific theological discussion hangouts for the one purpose, well, actually two purposes.

The one purpose is so we can better understand what different people believe, different views of different theological systems or beliefs within theology.

But a second reason is because we want to try to be an example to those of you who would be watching of how we can disagree theologically with people without the name calling.

Well, okay, okay, we can use first names. But other than that, we don't want the name calling.

You're not going to hear anyone calling someone a heretic or anything like that tonight. You're going to see people that can discuss where they agree or disagree with one another and not be all mean and bitter toward one another.

So the guest we're going to have tonight is, and I'm probably going to butcher Carlos' name, but he's going to correct me,

I hope. I'll butcher his podcast even more. But it's

Carlos Montego, if I got that right. Did I get that right?

Montego, or Montego, think of the Beach Boys song. Yeah, okay, so anyone that knows me knows that Carlos does not know me well.

I'm pop culture challenged. I don't know music. I don't know movies. So that doesn't help me at all.

And Carlos is with a podcast called Super Reformandum, which I probably butchered as well.

You want to correct it? Yeah, Semper Reformanda Radio. And that stands for Reformed and Still Reforming, correct?

Right, Reformed and Always Reforming. And Always Reforming. And he is going to take the position of Covenant Theology.

Lewis Lyons, it is pronounced Lyons, right? Yes. Okay, and he's with Emmaus Road, is it

Emmaus Road Baptist Church? Yeah, Emmaus Road Church.

Go ahead. Yeah, Emmaus Road Church. Emmaus Road Church. But we are Baptists, but we don't have Baptist in the name.

Okay. And he's going to take a New Covenant Theology position.

Now, as a joke, this is clearly just a joke, but if Carlos is Reformed and Ever Reforming, he'd reform to be

New Covenant Theology and then they'd both reform to be Dispensational as they're going to be in Heaven and we'll all be happy.

You guys can't see that they are laughing. They got the joke. But that's the spirit that we want to have tonight.

We want to have a good dialogue. And with that, I'm going to ask Carlos if he would just give 20 -30 minutes of explain to us what

Covenant Theology is, and then after that we're going to have Lewis explain what

New Covenant Theology is. So go ahead. Sure. It might not take that long, but I first of all did want to thank you,

Andrew, for reaching out to us and for encouraging this kind of dialogue. I think it really is important and I think it really does help, especially in situations like these with respect to in -house discussions and debates and whatnot.

And I'm also grateful for Brother Lewis for his willingness to engage on this topic.

And so I'm grateful for you guys and I'm looking forward to this. So just a quick overview of,

I guess, what I hold to. I do hold to Covenant Theology, but since I'm a

Reformed Baptist, it's not exactly the mainline version of Covenant Theology. And I also do want to preface the fact that since I do consider myself confessional, holding to the

Second Lenten Baptist Confession of 1689, there are some... I don't fully subscribe to it, but it's for the most part

I do agree with, I guess you could say 95 % of it. But just to give a brief overview, in Covenant Theology and the basic issues with Covenant Theology is that there's the three covenants that,

I guess, NCT by and large rejects, which would be the Covenant of Works, the

Covenant of Redemption, and the Covenant of Grace. And so by and large, there's...

it's really not that much variation. There is obviously variation, but since we have standards in the

Reformed tradition, like the Westminster Confession and the Lenten Baptist Confession, the standards kind of,

I guess, in some ways help to keep it somewhat monolithic, even though there's obviously nuances between individuals and things that are not...

that the confessions don't explicitly address. But by and large, Covenant Theology is...

there's a lot of overlap between Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists. Some of the main differences would be that since we are not

Paedo -Baptists, since I'm not a Paedo -Baptist, I'm obviously a Baptist, and so there's very crucial and important differences between how we view, in particular, the

Covenant of Grace. And so, I guess I'll start with that. The Covenant of Grace is essentially just the covenant that God the

Father made with Christ, and we all who believe in Him, Christ -elect in Him, elected to...

well, basically purchased our salvation for us in the New Testament.

So, in Reformed Baptist theology, the New Testament, by and large, is basically what we call the

Covenant of Grace. And one of the things that happened with me that got me going in this direction was

I remember reading through Calvin's Institutes, and when he was explaining the differences between the covenants and how he was saying that there's really not that big of a difference, that it's mainly a difference of administration and not so much of substance, that kind of got me thinking a little bit as to how that could be possible, because especially in Jeremiah 31 and how the

New Covenant is substantially different in certain ways from the Old, and so that kind of didn't sit well with me, and so I realized that Presbyterians, they have the view that the

Covenant of Grace began, basically, in the Old Testament, and it was just mainly a difference of administration.

In other words, it wasn't really a difference in substance, but in administration. And so, as opposed to Reformed Baptist theology, it's much more redemptive and much more historical, in the sense that it takes into account the fact that there are substantial differences between the

Old and the New Covenant, and so, therefore, the Old Covenant, the

Covenant of Grace is definitely hinted at, and it is announced, and it is typologically suggested, such as the

Abrahamic Covenant and things like that, but it's not actually realized until the

New Covenant with Christ's coming. And so, that's the major key difference between the two different types of covenant theology.

And another one, because of this fact that there is a difference between in the

Old Covenant, where there was a corporate election of Israel as a nation, and therefore, it included unbelievers in that covenant who weren't necessarily the elect or the remnant.

In Reformed Baptist theology, the New Covenant, the Covenant of Grace does emphasize the fact that the covenant is composed only of believers, and not necessarily of believers' children.

And so, if you think about it in terms of marriage, the

Bible describes marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, and that's basically what covenant theology is with respect to the

Covenant of Grace. So, obviously, the

Bible describes us as being the bride of Christ, as being married to Christ, and that is the

Church, is the body, and Christ is the head, and so on and so forth. And in order for that to happen, however, there had to be some previous circumstances that Christ had to meet.

And so, that's what we call the Covenant of Redemption. And the Covenant of Redemption is basically the eternal, the covenant that the

Trinity made with itself from eternity past, that in order for, that God was going to bless

Christ with a gift, and that gift would be the elect, but in order for him to have the elect, he would first have to purchase the redemption, and bear the full wrath of the

Father. And so, that's what we call the Covenant of Redemption, in the sense that there was an eternal, from eternity past, there was an agreement that Christ would fulfill the

Father's will through the Incarnation, and through his life, and fulfilling the law, and in order to redeem us from the curse of the law.

And so, that's essentially what we call the Covenant of Redemption. And so, they're interrelated,

I know there's some differences, and some people say that there's, they kind of subsume the

Covenant of Grace under the Covenant of Redemption. There is obviously a precursor, you kind of have to have the Covenant of Redemption prior to the

Covenant of Grace, because of what Christ had to do in order to make us his bride. And so, and now, as to the

Covenant of Works, the Covenant of Works was basically, and there's really not much difference, almost at all, from what

I've seen, between the Presbyterian Covenant Theology and Reformed Baptist Covenant Theology.

That would be, basically, the covenant that God made with Adam in the

Garden to not eat of the forbidden fruit. And so, it was a test, essentially, that it was a test, it was testing

Adam, and to see if he would, and if he would keep the test, or pass the test, then he would have been able to stay there, and fellowship with God, and have eternal life.

But because God made Adam fallible, and therefore capable of falling, which is what fallible means,

God obviously did that for a reason. There was a test, because ultimately, and then this is a question,

I like how Paul Washer puts this. The question really is, did God cause the fall, or was there a fall because of the cross, or was there a cross because of the fall?

And so, your answer to that question will determine a lot in how you view God's redemptive plan and God's purposes.

And this kind of touches in on the issues of infralapsarianism and superlapsarianism. But basically, the issue is that because God had the end in mind, and so, therefore, his end that he had in mind was to glorify himself.

And so, he wanted to glorify his son, and also to redeem us, the elect. And in order for that to happen, in order for there to be a cross, in other words, there had to be a fall.

And so, God predestined the fall through the covenant of works by testing Adam in a state of, basically, in paradise, when he didn't need anything.

But that's also showing, in order that Christ could be magnified and glorified, when he was tested in the desert for 40 days, in the exact opposite condition, and whereas Adam failed miserably,

Christ passed perfectly with flying colors. And so, basically, making sense of the

Bible as a whole and recognizing that God deals with men and with himself, even, in terms of covenants.

And so, just a basic definition of a covenant would be, it is a commitment with divine sanctions.

And a covenant is not always made with God and man. It can be made with God and God, or with himself, within the

Trinity. It can also be made among people, like in marriage, even though God is, the divine sanction is obviously the fact that God brings two people together, so therefore, let no one, therefore, rend them asunder.

And so, that's what we, that's basically the covenant of grace,

I mean, I'm sorry, the covenant of works. And so, there's lots of overlap between the Presbyterian view of covenant theology.

The major difference would be in the covenant of grace and the fact that we consider the covenant of grace the

New Testament. And so, I think that about sums it up. And so, yeah,

I don't think I left anything major out. Yeah. Good, thank you.

And now, I'll let Louis Vuon explain kind of what your view is, and then we'll have some interaction between us.

Okay. Excuse me. So, new covenant theology is actually very similar to what

Carlos described as Reformed Baptist covenant theology. And since the discussion tonight is billed as new covenant theology and covenant theology,

I just wanted to clarify, and I think that Carlos would agree, that he holds to Reformed Baptist covenant theology and not the two administrations of one covenant of grace,

Presbyterian form. And I would say because of that, both

Carlos and I are very close. New covenant theology and Reformed Baptist covenant theology are very close.

The difference between the two, primarily, is going to be the way that you view the law.

How do you look at the law of Moses? How do you look at the Decalogue? Within new covenant theology, there are those who would affirm that there was a covenant made with Adam in the garden.

There are some who would deny. I take the perspective, personally, that where Scripture is silent, then we should remain silent.

Where Scripture speaks, we should speak. There is one text in Hosea where there's mention of, it's one little verse, mention of how

Adam broke the covenant. I tend to believe that that is referring to Adam and that there was some form of a covenant in the garden.

But beyond that, I can't speak to that.

The reason I say that is because what covenant theology puts forth is the idea that Adam was being tested in the garden and if he would have lasted without eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, if he would have lasted through that probationary period, however long it was, then he would have been allowed to eat from the tree of life and secure eternal life and ultimately glorification, if you will, for the human race.

That is where I think Scripture is silent and Scripture doesn't teach those things.

It doesn't put those things forth. And so I'm going to remain silent on what exactly that covenant with Adam involved.

If indeed that one verse in Hosea is referring to a covenant with Adam. From my perspective, and I think

Carlos might agree with this, that whatever covenant was entered into in the garden, whether you want to call it a covenant of works or whatever you wish, covenant of creation, some are calling it, whatever you wish to call it, whatever you wish to believe about it,

I think that perhaps we would find some agreement in the fact that we both agree that that covenant, whatever it was, was only for Adam.

And in 2016, it has no real bearing or effect on us now.

And so the question that New Covenant Theology really wants to answer is, what covenant are we in now?

And what sorts of stipulations and requirements belong to that covenant that we're in now?

And that's really, I think, where we're probably going to break with our agreement of what it is that the

New Covenant requires now. We agree that the covenant of grace, as covenant theologians put it, is the

New Covenant. That's what the covenant of grace is. It's the New Covenant that Christ is the mediator of.

The writer of Hebrews says he's the mediator of a better covenant enacted on better promises.

So we agree there. So the general outline of New Covenant Theology is really based upon trying to answer the question, how do you deal with the

Old Testament? And I really think that almost all of the covenant views, even

Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, New Covenant Theology, Baptist and Presbyterian forms of Covenant Theology, they're all trying to answer the question, how do we deal with the

Old Testament, the Law of Moses, what we see there? Obviously we don't take all of Moses and bring it over.

We eat bacon. I eat bacon. I love bacon. And praise God that He's given us the freedom to do that.

So there's a lot of Moses that we ignore. And this is usually a critique that you'll hear from an atheist or a skeptic who will say, yeah, yeah, yeah, you quote

Leviticus when it comes to something like homosexuality. But what about not wearing a fabric made out of two different types of material?

What about not eating from a tree until it's more than, what is it, three, four years old, whatever the limit was?

And so they bring up those sorts of things. And I think each covenant view is really designed to answer the question, what does pertain and how does it pertain to us in the

New Covenant, in the Church, to Christians, in 2016 and so forth.

And so New Covenant theology is going to answer the question this way. The covenant that was entered into with Moses at Mount Sinai was entered into with the people of Israel.

And the commandments that were given to them were given only to them. And it did not pertain to any other nation, any other people.

They were the chosen people of God, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And so when you get to the New Covenant, Jeremiah 31, from 31 on, where Jeremiah promises that God would make a new covenant with his people, not like the covenant that he made with the people as he took them out of the land, the covenant that they broke, but he would make a new covenant with them.

New Covenant theology sees that that old covenant with Moses is abolished completely, wholly, that take every law that is in there, it has been fulfilled, it has been abolished, disannulled, it's gone.

And what Christ has put in its place is a New Covenant. And the

New Covenant comes with new stipulations. In fact, that's the very definition of covenant.

A covenant is an agreement that imparts stipulations on both parties or on one particular party within that covenant that someone is required to do something or not do something.

And so since we have a New Covenant, we can be assured that there is a new standard, a new requirement, that there's new stipulations that are in place that were not in place in the old covenant with Moses.

And so we're going to see the New Covenant that Christ instituted as better, as greater, as heightened, so that you have

Christ as the ultimate moral standard.

And it's no longer that we are to live our lives according to the law of Moses because that covenant has been abolished.

And the New Covenant has been established. And so we live our lives according to Christ. And I think we see that throughout

Scripture when you look in Philippians 2. Paul says, look to Christ as your example, considering others more important than yourselves.

And he says, just like Christ, who, though he was equal with God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he emptied himself, dying, even a criminal's death on a cross.

And that's the standard that we're called to. You look in the old covenant and the commandment is, love your neighbor as yourself.

You look in the New Covenant and the standard is, love your neighbor more than you love yourself.

Jesus says, this is the new commandment that I give you, I believe it's John 13, this is a new commandment that I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.

For greater love has no man than he lay down his life. And so, when you look at the old covenant, it was a standard to show

Israel their sin, their need of a Savior. But now that the Savior has come, now that Christ is here, we're no longer in need of that old covenant, that old law to show us our sin.

And now, we walk according to the Spirit, which I think Paul highlights that idea in Galatians when he says that the law was like our nanny, our babysitter until Christ should come.

Excuse me. So the way that New Covenant theology looks at the question of how do we deal with Moses, the answer is, we deal with Moses not as law as something that is binding on us, but we look at Moses and we deal with Moses as something that is didactic.

It's a teacher. It teaches us. And, to give a quick example of that, you see throughout the book of 1

Corinthians, Paul especially shows us how he deals with the law of Moses.

For example, in 1 Corinthians 5, remember that you have the circumstances with the man that has his father's wife, and Paul says he says that we, as Christians, now we have the true

Passover lamb. The true Passover lamb has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the

Passover in truth, without malice, without sinfulness. Let us get the leaven out.

And so, Paul looks to the law of Moses, specifically the law governing how you observe

Passover in the week of unleavened bread, and he applies it to the church, but not as binding law specifically, but he pulls it through what a

New Covenant theologian guy would call the lens of Christ, or through the lens of the

Gospel, and he applies it to the church, because what I think is happening, and what

I think Paul sees, is that the people of Israel, the earthly people of Israel, were created to be a type and a shadow of the true people of God, which

Paul says again in Galatians, that those who are of faith are Abraham's children.

And so, what Paul does is he takes that law that was given to the earthly shadow, and he takes the spiritual truth out of that law, and he applies it to the true spiritual children of Abraham, those who are of faith.

And he says, yes, back in the Old Testament, they had to get yeast out of their house. They couldn't have yeast in their bread, they had to sweep their houses clean, clean out their pantries, have no yeast at all.

He applies that in a truer spiritual sense to the truer spiritual people of Abraham, those who are of faith.

And he says, listen, the spiritual truth of this commandment is that we celebrate the

Passover without the leaven of malice and sinfulness, and the things that he mentions in that passage.

You see it again with not muzzling the ox, which

Paul says, God wasn't concerned with the ox, was he? No, he was concerned with those who ministered the

Gospel. It's an earthly picture that has spiritual realities to it.

And so that's how New Covenant theology is going to deal with the question of how do you deal with Moses?

Well, we agree with the Reformed Baptist Covenant guy who says, yeah, the whole thing is abolished, but we're going to disagree at the point where the

Reformed Baptist Covenant guy is going to say, yeah, well, it's abolished, but we're going to go back, and we're going to pick up the

Decalogue, and we're going to bring it into this New Covenant, and that's going to be the summation of moral law and our guide for living, which

I think is selling the New Covenant short, because you look at the

Decalogue itself, and you have commandments like thou shalt not steal. You look in Ephesians 4, for example,

Paul says the thief who used to steal let him no longer steal, but let him work with his own hands so that he might have something to give to those who are in need.

And so the commandment is furthered, it's heightened, it's made to where it requires truth from the inward parts, where under the

Old Covenant Israel would have been allowed to live in the land as long as they didn't make idols, as long as they honored their father and mother outwardly, as long as they did these things, they were allowed to stay in the land and to live in the land.

It wasn't until they began to make idols and worship idols and break the commandments outwardly that God brought oppression upon them throughout the

Book of Judges and then later ultimately dispersed them with well, took them into captivity with Babylon.

So I think the New Covenant theologian is going to look at the

Law of Moses, see it as something that we can glean spiritual truths from, spiritual realities from, and use it after we pull it through the lens of Christ, through the lens of the

Gospel and apply it to the Church, the children of Abraham who are of faith.

And so that's ultimately I think New Covenant theology. Okay, so and before we get into you guys discussing it, one of the things

I always use as an example when I was in a class on dispensationalism so I actually would be the third major category between these and you're hearing some of for folks who might be watching you're seeing both

Carlos and Lewis saying where they agree or disagree with each other. I remember taking a dispensationalism class and so at the seminary

I went to you always had to read the opposite side of an argument which

I really appreciated that being forced into me because it helped me to get to the point where I could argue someone else's position before I try to attack that position which is something we should all try to do.

But the thing is I remember taking this class and reading through dispensational books explaining dispensationalism and at a high level,

I'm paraphrasing the book but basically this is what it said that a dispensationalist, it said that New Covenant theology believes in two ways of salvation.

Grace in the New Testament and works in the old. But dispensationalists always believed that ever since the beginning it has always been by grace.

Now that ever since the fall I should say. And so the argument they made against Covenant theology was that there was this covenant of works and you heard

Carlos mention a covenant of works and they go oh covenant of works that means works salvation.

So okay I read everything on dispensationalism. I go to read some stuff on Covenant theology and by the way this was before there were books on New Covenant theology but I do have a paper on New Covenant theology when it was just getting started.

But the thing was that I'm reading on Covenant theology and here they have and I'm paraphrasing again but basically it said the exact same thing.

They said dispensationalists you know the problem with dispensationalism they believe in two ways of salvation works in the

Old Testament grace in the New. And what they quoted was the original Schofield study notes to the

Schofield study Bible where he did say that or things that at least really seemed to be saying that.

People say that's not what he meant but that argument could be made and then what the

Covenant theologians went off to say is that hey we Covenant theologians believe that ever since the fall it's been by grace and I went wait a minute.

Pulled the other book off the shelf I'm comparing and I'm like these guys are killing trees. Much of what they're doing is talking past one another and if they'd actually listen to what each other's saying they would realize they're both making the same false argument against each other and making the same claim for themselves and I often find that to be the case

I'm glad to see here that as both of these guys were discussing they explain where they agree and where they disagree so I just want to put that out there.

So now I'll just you know Carlos I'll just ask what you know if you have any questions with you know really

I just want to open it up for you two to have an exchange and I might just butt in every once in a while Sure I actually

I did want to kind of maybe get into a little bit of the difference between our views and so yeah

I agree with a lot of what Lewis was saying that there's actually a lot of common ground with Reformed Baptist Theology and New Covenant Theology but yeah as he was saying one of the main differences is how we view the law and the

Old Testament law and how it relates to the New Testament and one of the things that I guess that he had mentioned earlier was that with respect to the

Covenant of Works being exclusively for Adam that's actually not quite what the

Covenant Theology holds to the issue with the Covenant of Works or the teaching behind it is that when

God made that covenant with Adam it was a this is where the concept of federal headship or representative comes in and so basically the

Covenant Theology teaches that in that that covenant was made with Adam and all of his posterity and so basically the issue becomes that in order to be saved the reason we're condemned is because Adam broke the

Covenant of Works and so we are therefore guilty of breaking that covenant in Adam and so this is where we start tying into I guess the differences between the concept of the moral law and the because of the fact that the it wasn't just the explicit command not to eat of the fruit of the forbidden fruit the implication that we see as Covenant Theologians in the text is that he also revealed the moral law to Adam in addition to that you have instances like Cain obviously knew it was wrong to commit murder and things like that and so I think this is where some of the differences come into play where from my understanding

New Covenant Theology holds to the fact that the law the absolute law or the law of conscience they hold as being the two great commandments whereas in Covenant Theology the view is that the moral law that is that was revealed to Adam and all of us in Adam is the moral law which would be summarized in the

Ten Commandments so it's almost the same thing and I see a lot of overlap there I think one of the main differences is the fact that the

Sabbath comes into play and things of that sort but really the issue is that what we must be redeemed from as unbelievers is because in Romans 5 and in 1

Corinthians and places in the New Testament where it says in Adam all die in Adam we're all condemned and that's because we are guilty of breaking the

Covenant of Works and of not just our personal sin in other words but of also breaking the

Covenant of Works in Adam and so we must be redeemed from the curse of the law that was imposed on us by the

Covenant of Works and therefore that's where this whole issue of the moral law and the ceremonial and the civil law comes into play as well so a lot of that stems from where some of our slight disagreements come into play

Yeah so let me ask this because I think both of you mentioned and I think for people that may not be super familiar with the differences law becomes a big thing so let me ask

Louis first what would you define as the law are there different meanings of law and then Carlos what's the law?

Well I would say that within just to be clear within New Covenant Theology there are four different streams that try to answer that particular question

What is the law? How do you identify what the law is? You'll hear Paul in 1

Corinthians 9 talk about being in law to Christ and in Galatians 6 bear one another's burdens and therefore fulfill the law of Christ and the question is what is this law of Christ and there are different camps different streams that attempt to answer this in different ways the answer that I personally give because I'm a bible guy and I want to stick to scripture and stay as close to scripture as I can and what

I see is within the Old Covenant in order to receive the blessings of the covenant you had to keep the law and not just most of it but you had to keep all of it and when you break the law of the covenant then the curses of the covenant are to come upon you that's what to do there were blessings and curses offered at Mount Sinai and so you have within that Old Covenant a responsibility to keep the commandments within the

New Covenant what do you have to keep in order to remain in that covenant well there's only one commandment specifically that brings you into the covenant and keeps you in the covenant and that's faith that's faith in Christ we're saved by faith and it's faith in Christ that sustains us it's believing you look in Romans 11 go ahead

I want to try to keep so we can get through lots of questions in New Covenant Theology you would refer to you would view an

Old Testament law and then a law of Christ you have a law of Christ why don't you differentiate those two ok so the law of Christ I'm going to say is the spiritual principles that are pulled out of the law of Moses like I described

Paul doing in 1 Corinthians when he says we have to keep the Passover we have to keep the law of not muscling the ox those sorts of things which aren't to be followed by the letter but the principle comes out of that so there's all of scripture both

Old and New Testaments interpreted rightly through the lens of Christ that puts forth the law that we are to follow or I would prefer to say the ethical standard that we are to follow there's the example of Christ as I mentioned in Philippians 2 you see in 1

Peter 2 Christ suffered that we might have an example to follow Christ when he washes his disciples feet he says

I've given you an example that Christ is the example of the ethical standard that we are to follow to love not just our neighbor as ourself but to like the commandment says husbands love your wife just like Christ loved the church so you have

Christ as an example that we are to follow that's a law that we are to follow and you have specific imperatives throughout the epistles that are written in the

New Testament that those are commandments those are imperatives that we are to follow so I would say those three things the example of Christ the

Old Testament passages read correctly and the New Testament imperatives are the

New Testament law although you can break those laws and not be out of the covenant just like very unlike the

Old Covenant and that's what I was trying to say is that the only true law of the covenant is faith ok

Carlos now you mentioned law in a three fold so you would see really

I'll let you explain what's a three fold view of the law yeah so in the reformed tradition

I think there's again a lot of overlap between the Presbyterian view and the Reformed Baptist view it's basically the law of Moses the

Old Testament law of Moses was distinguished by three parts which would be the ceremonial the civil or the judicial and the immoral and so the reason there's a lot of reasons why the distinction is made and I think one of the issues that I've seen when

New Covenant theology guys interact with our view is I think there's a misunderstanding between distinction and division there's like a semantic criticism that I don't think really applies it's mainly just the fact that so a lot of the criticism that I've heard from New Covenant theology guys is that we divide the law of Moses into three separate parts as if we didn't recognize that it's the same law we do believe that the law of Moses is a unit that it is a whole but within that law there's three primary distinctions you can say being those three so we don't deny that the law of Moses is a unit or that it's a whole one of the reasons that distinction is made is because of the concept of the doctrine of the moral law which predates

Moses and so the moral law is prior to Moses because that's in Covenant theology that's essentially the law that is always binding on men at all times from Adam to everybody after that and so the issue is obviously and I don't think

New Covenant theology guys would necessarily disagree with that I think a lot of that might just be there might have been a misunderstanding as to what reformed theologians, maybe they could have used a better terminology but division doesn't mean that we break it up into three separate parts it just means that it's distinguished into those three parts the ceremonial basically being the ritual priest sacrifices and the food laws and things like that which were abolished because Christ fulfilled them and then the civil law is basically the moral application the application of the moral law to the political or to the society and so that obviously we don't have to follow letter for letter because we are not a theocratic nation of Israel and so that's why the confessions say that the general principle of it can still be applicable for today but it doesn't apply exactly the way it did before and to be fair dispensationalists also sometimes will not just New Covenant theology will get on on Covenant theologians on the three part you know three fold division of the law so I just learned that I didn't realize that dispensational guys also rejected that distinction

I guess but yeah that's

Carlos saying yeah I've been studying on that for my show we're doing addressing

New Covenant theology dispensationalism hands up yeah shots fired yeah so so okay you guys got to hear each other where do you just back and forth where do you guys see agreement where do you see disagreement in your systems short answers you can go ahead

Lewis okay well let me read this from Richard Barcelos really quickly this is the

Reform Baptist Covenant view and this is where we agree so this is from Barcelos this is from his book in defense of the

Decalogue he says hardy agreement must be given when New Covenant theologians argue for the abolition of the

Old Covenant the Mosaic Covenant this is clearly the teaching of the Old and New Testaments he lists a couple passages to back up that claim he says the whole law of Moses as it functioned under the

Old Covenant has been abolished including the Ten Commandments not one jot or tittle of the law of Moses functions as the

Old Covenant law anymore and to act as if it does constitutes redemptive historical retreat and Neo -Judaizing and basically what

Barcelos is saying is look that covenant given to Moses the moral, the civil the ceremonial, all of it's been abolished and New Covenant guys would say you know what we agree with that and that's what he's basically saying he's like hardy agreement must be given to the

New Covenant guys this is what Reform Baptists teach so we agree that the

Old Covenant has been abolished the point of disagreement is going to come from how you view the

Decalogue the Reform Baptist view says ok so the Decalogue has been abolished and it no longer functions as Covenant law but because it's moral and it binds all men in all ages at all times we have to take it, pick it back up and bring it back into the

New Covenant and that's where I'm going to disagree with that statement I'm going to say well one the

Decalogue is not all moral the Sabbath commandment is not a moral commandment, that was a ceremonial commandment and if you remove the that moral commandment then the

Decalogue as a moral standard, as a pure moral standard ends up falling to the ground and that's where I would disagree with the

Reform guys in saying look you guys want to say that all ten of these commandments are moral but they're not and because they're not you cannot use that as the summation of morality upon which you hang all the rest of moral law yeah

I think so with respect to the Sabbath that's obviously a major point of contention and I will qualify personally

I'm not a Sabbatarian Reformed Baptists and Reformed and Presbyterians are by and large

Sabbatarian, the Confessions are Sabbatarian, the Westminster and the Second London Baptist is also

Sabbatarian but I do and by Sabbatarian I mean that basically the command to keep the

Sabbath was modified in the New Testament to on Sundays because that's when the

Lord was risen on a Sunday and you're supposed to dedicate that day to public and private worship and so the

Sabbath is very complicated, there's a lot tied into it and so this is one of the things, there's basically three parts to it from what

I understand there is the rest aspect of it where you should take you should take the time to rest from your regular working employments and things like that and take a time to dedicate completely to the

Lord specifically in public and private worship and then there's the other component of it would be the moral aspect being, the moral principle behind the

Sabbath that I still hold to as applying to the New Testament is the fact that the principle behind the

Sabbath is to trust God and so trusting God specifically for example when

God was delivering Israel out of Egypt and feeding them manna, He told them not to store anything

I think something having to do with not to store anything for the Sabbath day or something like that because you were supposed to store on the day before in order to keep that Sabbath it was a matter of trust right and so that's what that's what

I still hold to and that's what you know, not so much I'm not that, I find the arguments very

I'm still working through that basically but that's the principle and especially so basically that means that you can break in the

New Covenant, you can actually break the Sabbath any day of the week because whenever you're, every time you're anxious every time you don't trust

God's sovereignty you're guilty of breaking the Sabbath and so that's what I would say with respect to that because the principle there is again is to trust

God and to trust in Christ it's to trust in the finished work of Christ, not just for salvation but for everything else, it's like the

New Testament says, be anxious for nothing and so there's that and then the other aspect of the

Sabbath is of course the ceremonial aspect in the Old Testament where you know, you have the issue of and you have different kinds of Sabbaths and things like that and so it's not just the seventh day

Sabbath but also all of those other different Sabbaths and so reformed teaching is basically that the ceremonial aspect of the

Sabbath was abolished but the way that it still applies morally is basically those modifications that they make to dedicated to public and private worship to set the whole day aside to not work or to cook and things like that unless it's out of necessity or mercy and so yeah, that's basically one of the major points of contention as to why

I guess they don't hold the Ten Commandments and really when you see Christ saying the two great commandments he's basically summing up the

Ten Commandments in those two commandments and that's what we, the reformed teaching is that the two great commandments are a summation are a summary of the

Ten Commandments and the Ten Commandments are a summary of basically the whole law and that's what

Christ said that they hang on all of these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets and so you guys,

I mean first off, Carlos, you said one thing I was new that I haven't heard Bill say as far as the everyday you could be breaking the

Sabbath it's new to me curious about that one but as a reformed

Baptist you would not be a Sabbatarian, correct? Right So you actually agree that the

Sabbath let me try to word it correctly would you both agree that the laws for the nation of Israel about the

Sabbath are not applied to the church I tried to word it carefully

In what sense? As far as the laws of not being able to start a fire not being able to walk a certain distance things like that I mean you would let's put it this way you would not have a problem

Carlos going into a Dunkin Donuts and getting a cup of coffee on a Sunday Well I would but for different reasons

I'm actually I'm actually diabetic so that would not sit well with me yeah right the thing becomes so I'm using that example only because I was actually speaking at a

Presbyterian church and I'm a Baptist so I'm not a Sabbatarian and I stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee on the way in and I had left my coffee in the car

I didn't finish it, I forgot it there and I said to my wife like oh I forgot the coffee and in the

Sunday school the pastor of the church who was speaking during the Sunday school was talking about the

Sabbath and how it's a sin to go to a Dunkin Donuts and get coffee on a Sunday and I realized that was

God's providence keeping me from finishing my coffee because I would have been in big trouble walking in with it

So Louis you wouldn't be holding to the Sabbath the same way Israel did would you? Oh no no no in fact

I'm surprised I hold to the Sabbath the same way Carlos does Carlos sounds a lot like a

NCT guy more than a CT guy so I'm surprised he can say that Well but he's a

Reformed Baptist Carlos correct me if I'm wrong a Presbyterian covenant theologian some would hold to a

Sabbath being still applicable correct? Yeah obviously they believe it's in the sense that you're supposed to dedicate so in other words you shouldn't be watching you know football, secular

TV and some people I guess argue you shouldn't go out to eat in restaurants because that would cause somebody else to work and so but the main, it's because part of the issue behind this is also the fact that oh

I just lost my train of thought it's I think I, wait wait the issue is that so I do believe you know this gets worse as you get older Carlos I'm just warning you and you know

I'm noticing in the background it looks like you've got some charts back there and everyone gives the dispensational guys a hard time for charts look at that that's actually some of those are from my

King James Only days some of those are from Ken Holden but yeah no but so basically

I still believe the Sabbath is a moral law that we're still obligated to keep the Sabbath but the way

I see that is in the fact that you have to trust God and trust Christ providentially and savingly for your salvation and so the other issue behind, ok now

I remember the other issue behind the Sabbath is whether a big debate or the big dividing line

I guess becomes as to whether the Sabbath is a creation ordinance or a positive law revealed in Moses and so I'm studying those arguments right now

I find them very compelling I'm not fully convinced of them yet but Presbyterians and I think

Reformed Baptists would hold that because God rested on the seventh day after creating the world and everything else in six days that the command was implicitly there because in Exodus 20 .11

where he says to he also says to remember the Sabbath implying that the command was already there and so the reason he gives is because in six days he made the earth and so that's why

Reformed guys hold to the Sabbath as still binding in the sense that you should set apart that one day fully to the

Lord to rest and to dedicate it to public and private worship and so on and so forth but yeah

I'm not quite there yet I'm still kind of wrestling through that aspect of it.

You're still reforming you're saying. Right. Yeah I'm still reforming in that area but I do believe the

Sabbath is part of the moral law in the sense that you know you trust in Christ for your salvation and you trust

God providentially and so you can be guilty of breaking the Sabbath Gentiles can be guilty of breaking the

Sabbath therefore as well because they don't trust Christ for salvation and they don't trust God providentially each and every day.

Okay so Lewis you agree with all or most of that? No I well okay you're asserting that you believe it's part of the moral law but then you describe it as a ceremonial law you say you're not a

Sabbatarian but you believe that it's a moral law to follow Yeah to well

I mean it's moral in the sense that with respect to trusting in Christ for salvation and trusting in God providentially

Okay but in his providence Okay earlier when

I talked about in 1st Corinthians 5 where Paul says you have a moral obligation to keep the Passover would you agree with that that he doesn't use the word moral but he says that we have to keep the

Passover in truth moral obligation on believers to do that say that again okay in 1st

Corinthians 5 let me pull it up and have it word for word here although this might take a while here for my phone to pull it up sorry

I was adjusting my brightness okay so you have a situation with the man who has his father's wife and the

Corinthians are boasting of how loving they are and how accepting they are and how we're not judging this guy we're not you know so they're boasting about how cool they are with that and so Paul says in verse 6 your boasting is not good do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened for Christ our

Passover lamb has been sacrificed let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven the leaven of malice and evil but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth so he says look let us celebrate the festival you have an obligation to celebrate the festival to celebrate the

Passover how do you see that well my understanding is that that's talking about the

Lord's Supper right no no no no he's addressing the issue with the man caught in sin with his father's wife and he's saying cleanse out the old leaven get rid of the leaven get it out of here cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump as you really are unleavened for Christ our

Passover lamb has been sacrificed let us therefore celebrate the festival not with the old leaven the leaven of malice and evil he equates the old leaven as being symbolic of malice and evil and he says now let us celebrate the festival with the new leaven or without leaven sorry with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth and he's speaking to their moral behavior that they ought to they ought to be sincere they ought to be true they ought to get rid of malice they ought to get rid of of evil and then he's speaking to their their moral obligation yeah

I think I guess I confused this when he was also rebuking them for abusing the

Lord's Supper they were also abusing the Lord's Supper but yeah right purging the leaven meaning to purge out to judge the unrepentant sinner from your midst and remove him from the church yeah right so is there a moral obligation for the church to do that?

absolutely yeah so is the Passover festival a moral law or is it a ceremonial law?

oh ok I see what you're getting at well so the Passover I guess would fall under ceremonial in the sense that Christ fulfilled it because he is our

Passover lamb and so I think this is basically an application of I guess he's showing that because Christ himself is our

Passover lamb that we should therefore by implication purge away that old leaven of malice yeah

I mean it's yeah that's an interesting

I haven't really thought about that that's an interesting point but yeah obviously that's a moral and this is part of the law of Christ we obviously hold to the law of Christ as well as Reformed Baptists even

Presbyterians hold to it as well but yeah that by there's obviously cases of where the ceremonial and civil law are applied to I guess moral commands or part of the law of Christ in the

New Testament such as don't muzzle the ox in other words pay pastors well compensate them well for what they do and you know this other example that you mentioned about the

Passover but yeah so that wouldn't but obviously what we mean is the fact that we don't literally celebrate the

Passover the way the Jews did that aspect of it is abolished and you know it's by way of implication or the spiritual you know spiritual implication behind that can still apply right that's

I think the very definition of a ceremonial law is that the actual external practice has been abolished and is gone and you take a spiritual principle out of that and you adhere to the spiritual principle would you agree with that?

I think so yeah I think so ok but that's also what you're doing with the

Sabbath when you say that the external keeping of the Sabbath is gone we don't have to keep all these external aspects of it but we keep it in a new spiritual way we keep the

Sabbath which is the definition of a ceremonial law right so because I'm not a

Sabbatarian I don't hold to that you know I don't fully hold to setting yeah

I'm still kind of not fully there as to you know you have to set apart the whole day to public and private worship

I'm starting to go in that direction a little bit more as I read these you know the arguments behind it being a creation ordinance versus specifically a mosaic command but yeah

I would hold to the Sabbath in the sense that it's still I don't hold to I guess the ceremonial aspect being carried over in terms of setting apart a day but in terms of the principle and the fact that yeah basically in terms of the moral principle behind trusting

God and so yeah okay so my point is it seems like you are taking a new covenant approach to interpreting that fourth commandment as not as a moral law that you have to follow but you're taking the spiritual principle out of it the way that you would do any other ceremonial law so okay so would you agree then that unbelievers are guilty of breaking the

Sabbath are they guilty of breaking the spiritual application of the

Sabbath sure because the spiritual application I would agree with you is to trust

God to rest in Christ which is why in Hebrews 4 it says those who believe enter into the rest therefore let us strive to enter into that rest lest we fall by the same sort of disobedience he's talking about resting in Christ like if you're not resting in Christ if you're not observing that he is the

Sabbath if you're not observing that then you're going to fall by the same sort of disobedience and so you strive to continue believing and trusting every day you believe every day you trust and so I mean

I agree with your position on the Sabbath 100 % which is why what

I'm telling you is I don't think you you're recognizing that there's a moral principle that comes out of it but I don't think you realize that when you do that when you only recognize the principle that you're actually defining it as a ceremonial law and not a moral one well so in a sense this ties into my because I hold to the doctrine of the moral law in other words

I'm not sure where you would be yet with respect to the Sabbath being before Moses but I would say that because it's part of the moral law everybody is guilty of breaking the

Sabbath from Adam to today and so I think this is where this also ties and I know another major point potential point of disagreement is the fact that the concept of the law the reformed teaching that with respect to active obedience that Christ it's not just the passive righteousness

I'm sorry the passive obedience of Christ but also the active obedience of Christ that's imputed to us as believers the passive obedience being the terms can be a little bit misleading because Christ himself was actively obeying on the cross he didn't complain and he didn't blaspheme

God and he didn't sin the concept is basically that it's not just the passive obedience that's applied to us as believers but also his active obedience and by active obedience the reformed teaching is that Christ fulfilled the he fulfilled the entire law the

Mosaic law but his active obedience was applied to us because we broke the covenant of works and therefore the moral law and so that would include breaking the

Sabbath in principle what my view would be in principle and so that is where I guess those differences start to be drawn out a little bit more because my understanding of it is tied to the doctrine of the moral law as well

I want to read something to you real quick this is I don't know if you're familiar with Philip Ross his book

From the Finger of God are you familiar with that? I think I've heard of it yeah. It's a defense of the tripartite distinction of law the civil ceremony and moral in the beginning of his book he addresses the

Sabbath issue he says here and he's a

Presbyterian so he's coming at it from the Westminster he says if the

Westminster Confession were a garment you would not want to pull at that thread he's speaking of the thread of the

Sabbath don't pull at that thread unless you want to be altogether defrocked and he says if you unbuckle the

Sabbath you're well on your way to mastering theological escapology let me say that biblical law with its

Sabbath is no easily dispensable part of the reformed doctrinal infrastructure and what applies to the theology of the reformed churches often applies to wider

Protestant theology therefore attempts at performing and this is the important part

I suppose attempts at performing a precision strike on the Sabbath produce an embarrassing amount of unintended damage if you strike out the

Sabbath you shatter the entire category of moral law and all that depends on it and what

I'm saying is if you take the view that you do on the Sabbath and you say that the

Sabbath is only to be obeyed in principle the same way that you obey any other ceremonial law and it's not to be obeyed in actual word by the actual letter which is what moral law is do not commit adultery it's not saying well you can commit adultery as long as you don't lust in your heart it's not saying that you can murder someone as long as you don't hate them the moral law is by definition law that is applicable to the letter and so I'm just curious how

I mean I don't know if you're if you've really considered that you're approaching the

Sabbath law in the same way that you would any other ceremonial law yeah well the

Sabbath is definitely like it's a special case because of the fact that there's so many different things that come into play and there's like at least those three layers that I was describing and in terms of I guess your point is the point that you're making

I guess is that you're saying we should keep to the 10 commandments to the letter not just the principle is that what you're saying?

yeah that's what moral law is to be kept to the letter well the it's not so in terms of the moral law is not just the literal keeping the letter of the law it was also said to to lust in the

Old Testament Proverbs 24 9 for example I think says the thought of foolishness is sin so it just wasn't punishable by death not everything was punishable by death

I think partly because it had to be witnessable and so the moral law is not just I don't know if this is another point of dissension or disagreement but the moral law encompasses the spirit and the letter and so with respect to the

Sabbath I guess I would say that the way that it at least applies or as far as I'm willing to go right now to say is that you would have to keep it in terms of trusting

God providentially and for your salvation and maybe also in terms of resting resting

I guess setting apart or I guess taking a break from well no that's kind of getting into the whole point of you're resting from your regular routine in order to dedicate the whole day to God so I at least would say that in terms of trusting

God providentially and for your salvation that's how the Sabbath would apply and so obviously you were guilty of breaking the

Sabbath in the Mosaic Covenant if you broke that literal command as well so if you were a

Jew but if you were an unbeliever in the Old Testament I would say that you're guilty of breaking the

Sabbath in that way in the spiritual way of not trusting God for your salvation and for providentially speaking so and I agree with you you said that the moral law has to be kept by spirit and letter but when it comes to Sabbath you're saying it only has to be kept by spirit yeah yeah

I guess it's one of those yeah so maybe that might be that's another good reason for me to become a

Sabbatarian or closer to that position it's just it obviously with respect to unbelievers or to Gentiles it doesn't apply in the sense that it does to the nation of Israel so there's obviously a difference there with respect to the

I guess part of the issue is that because this also touches into the fact that how we do church and so the command to keep the

Sabbath in some sense also has bearing on the church because you know you should set apart that day to worship

God publicly and privately and so whereas in the Old Testament as well you know you have to keep the

Sabbath by resting completely and so on and so forth so yeah

I mean it's in terms of yeah I guess that might be something that I have to consider

I have to give it more thought well you said it might be a good reason for you to become a full Sabbatarian but it might also be a good reason for you to become a

New Covenant theologian I was going to say that that's going to take a lot more than just that one but I think

I did want to ask this question because I know I've heard a lot of New Covenant theology guys say things like you can't divorce the law from the covenant things like that right and so what does that mean exactly does that mean that so does that mean that you have to be under a covenant in order to be if you're under a law does that mean that you have to be under a covenant because you would agree that everybody is under some form of law right covenant by definition is law you can't have a covenant without a law would you agree with that sure yeah so covenant by definition is a law and to give a human example when you enter into a mortgage to buy a house you enter into that mortgage you agree on the purchase price you agree on the interest rate whether it's a floating interest rate or a fixed interest rate you agree on a bajillion thing anything you could possibly agree on you agree on it once you sign that covenant it's established it's done it's firm right you've entered into that agreement now there are stipulations upon you and there are stipulations upon the lender and both of you have to fulfill your obligations because that covenant has been cut so both of you are held under different law if you will different obligations that you have to keep and there's usually penalties if you don't keep the law if you decide the next day that you know

I don't like the interest rate that I got it went down yesterday and I want the lower one now you can't go to your bank and say hey the interest rate is lower now so I want to change the mortgage that we signed and I want to change it to the lower rate they're going to say sorry dude you signed it's it it's firm you can't change it and when when

God entered into the covenant with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai it was firm

Moses took that blood and he sprinkled it upon all the people confirming this is ratified by blood this covenant is firm you are under a law of the covenant to keep the stipulations and the requirements thereof and so when when that covenant was abolished as both new covenant and reformed baptist would agree that covenant is abolished and then that's what

Barcelos was getting at is that all of it all of it is abolished the moral the civil the ceremony the whole covenant is abolished if I pay off the house right

I fulfill the demands of the covenant or the contract I pay off the house it's mine and then

I go and I enter into a new mortgage and I buy a new house when

I enter into the that new mortgage I don't go back to the old mortgage rip out page 9 from the old mortgage and staple it to the new mortgage because that was part of the old covenant so you don't transfer stipulations from one covenant and assume that just because their moral for whatever reason that you have to take those stipulations and attach them to the new covenant the new agreement you look at the new agreement for what it is and you take it for the terms that are set out in that covenant and you don't staple on any extra pages or in this case the decalogue yeah but you would so you would agree though that there are certain aspects of the law that are trans covenantal right there is there is it's still a sin to lie and it's always been a sin to lie right for example sure yeah so now my question is so you would agree with the statement that you cannot have a law without a covenant you can't have a law without a covenant that's a good question

I've never considered the reverse perhaps I know you can't have a covenant without a law can you have a law without a covenant

I would say yes you can because God did put demands upon even

Cain and Abel to bring a sacrifice there were demands placed on people up into God punished the people through the flood of Noah so there were demands on people there so there was well

I guess there wasn't a law even in that case but you would call that go ahead you would call that the law of conscience right or the law of absolute law yeah right so what covenant is tied to that law there is no covenant tied to that law so okay so how could it not be so how was the law in effect then if there wasn't a covenant attached to it how was it put into effect

I don't think I don't think that the law was put into effect God God did hold them yeah go ahead well so in Romans it says there is no sin where there is no law right so at some point where was that law introduced or you know when did that come into you know when was the absolute law binding the absolute law has always been binding on man because man is created in God's image and being

God's creation made in his image there is a moral obligation for man to worship

God to serve God and to please God and God has placed within every man a conscience as we are all probably familiar if anybody has paid attention to any of the way the master conscience of course is conscience which is with knowledge so every man has a conscience to know one that there is a

God Paul says that even the works of creation testify and every man is without excuse because they know

God and they know God's attributes and they know they ought to worship God and they know that they are sinners before God yeah so I see that as an inconsistency in saying that you know the absolute law is binding but there wasn't a covenant attached to it and so obviously the reformed

Baptist answer to that would be that that law was I guess instituted in the covenant of works and so that was the covenant stipulation that was tied to that law and so therefore you know you gave the illustration of a mortgage and not putting the old mortgage to the new one and things like that I guess what we would see is that when you talk about the covenant that was broken that covenant is still in effect the covenant of works is still in effect because you know as the bible says in Adam we all die in Christ we are made alive and if you are not in Christ you are in Adam you are still tied to those covenant stipulations that were broken in Adam and that you continue to break to this day because of your personal sins and so I think

I would see that as as an inconsistency especially because you guys are so you yourself said that a covenant or what did you say that a covenant is law or something like that there has to be a law you can't have a covenant without law yeah right we agree completely on that but that's exactly why

I think that would be what I see as an inconsistency with respect to the absolute law that unbelievers are going to be condemned under when they are judged by God because there has to be a covenant attached to that in order for them to in order for that law to have been in effect and so on and so forth but I think it's a little bit more complicated than that because if you are going to assume that morality was that the demands of the law were given to Adam from the very beginning then

I think you have to deal with what I think is a very troublesome idea namely where would you classify incest was that a moral obligation given to Adam was that a ceremonial law, is that a civil law where does incest come in yeah those are one of those

I guess that would be one of those special cases where there's some I've heard some different interpretations about regarding the incest or you know because Adam and Eve had kids after that and so who did they marry

I think I've heard some commentators say that God actually populated the earth somehow after Adam and Eve but that wouldn't really make sense because Adam and Eve are first parents is everybody first parents but in terms of things like that you know incest incest is a little bit

I think that's kind of a sort of a special case with respect to the moral and so with respect to the moral law you have other cases the reason the

Reformed teaching is that the Ten Commandments are a summary is because bestiality for example is also part of the moral law it's always a sin to have sex with animals or you know anything that's not your wife or your husband and so that ties into the

Seventh Commandment right right yeah essentially and so I think that's one of those that might be one of those that doesn't usually in other words that's not really that's an exception that's sort of a special case and you have another issue with respect to like marriage and polygamy but I would actually say that because of what

Christ said in Matthew that from the beginning God made them male and female that the clear teaching there is that I guess the ideal or the ideal of marriage is between one man and one woman but those

I think were more like special cases that are you know that some people say like well okay the reason that they obviously had you know quote unquote incest or whatever that their daughters or you know that the children of Adam and Eve married each other is because that's all they had and so there's also the case where I think that would probably be one of those cases where incest wasn't fully wasn't actually instituted as a law until I guess the

Mosaic Covenant or whenever it came into effect or you know maybe before that I don't remember but yeah that might be one of those cases so being that it's instituted later then it would have to fall into the category of civil or ceremonial not necessarily and a lot of this

I think a lot of this is also because it's tied to because it's tied to genetics and the

Bible deals a lot with genetics obviously you know the Jews and Christ being the

Jew and the seed and all that stuff so I think that's really that's kind of a tricky one

I haven't really given that too much thought and I'm not really sure what like if there's like an official reform view of that or reform baptist view or whatever but yeah obviously it's still a sin to commit incest especially because from what the law of Moses say

I'm sorry the law of Moses says and the fact that that's still you know and that's actually a good point because in the

New Testament there is no at least from what I've seen there is no explicit command against incest or against marrying your wife or I'm sorry your sister or your sibling and so I think that's one of those cases where it's helpful to look back to the

Old Testament to recognize that hey you know there's a reason why God put that law into place and so that's important to think about the fact as to why those laws were put into place and so on and so forth so yeah

So it sounds like you kind of have established a quadruple division of the law that there's civil, ceremonial, moral and then special special laws

Well it's sort of it's a moral law it's a sin like if a gentile or if an unbeliever if anybody marries their sibling now it's a sin and so it's part of the moral law

I guess it just didn't come fully that one didn't come fully into effect until whenever God first placed that command explicitly so I think that's a very kind of a special case and so I mean because I would ask you the same question like how would you in the

New Testament there's obviously no explicit command against marrying your sister right so how would you justify not marrying a sibling or that being a sin

Right I think that's one of the strengths of New Covenant Theology is that the way that New Covenant Theologians view the law of Moses in the

Old Testament in particular being a didactic resource when you look at the

New Testament specifically you look at the gospels, the epistles you have command after command to avoid pornea which is easily translated sexual immorality of course it's where we get the word pornography from any sort of sexual immorality, avoid pornea avoid pornea again and again we have it and the question then becomes well what's pornea what is sexual immorality you can't just say avoid sexual immorality and not tell me what it is and I think when you look back to the

Old Testament as a source of information and teaching and understanding then we see that that was one of the things that God included in his list of sexual immorality which although it's not moral, binding on all men in all times in all ages

God listed it in a list of sexual immorality which he now tells us to avoid from the

Reformed or the Covenant perspective they are pretty much unable to list it as a moral command because by definition moral command is binding on all people in all ages and stemming from the very character and nature of God himself so that when

God created the world Adam and Eve's children had in fact were commanded to multiply and fill the earth to actually commit acts of incest and at that time it wasn't binding on them it wasn't a moral issue for them and so I think if the

Covenant theologian is going to be consistent in their view and say well if it's not binding on all men in all time then it has to be classified as either civil or ceremonial and it sounds like you've developed a fourth classification of special cases which

I totally understand that but I think that becomes necessary because you're not a new Covenant theologian well

I think I think this might be an anomaly in new

Covenant theology too it's not just the fact that because it's a special case and that the moral law and the fact that the moral law or I guess it came later on into effect as a moral law

I think new Covenant theology still has the same problem because if you consider for example and you can correct me if I'm wrong about this but my understanding with respect to for example evangelism when a new

Covenant theology guy evangelizes a sinner and you would say or you wouldn't need to try to say you're guilty of breaking the commandment right?

You were kind of breaking up there can you say that again? Okay so would you agree with with saying that Hey Carlos maybe try turning down your bandwidth a little bit

Okay Do you know how to do that on the hanger? Yeah let me see

We're also getting a little bit of echo I don't know if that's from you or Louis Is that better?

It sounds like the echo is from Louis So yeah that's better Okay so my question is do you think it's wrong to quote or to to basically bind a sinner to you know the

Mosaic the Ten Commandments would you would you not would you think that it's wrong or not biblical to say to accuse sinners of breaking the

Fifth Commandment or one of the Ten Commandments? Personally I don't have a problem with using the commandments in evangelism

I know most new covenant guys probably do I don't think so because I am going to agree with what you mentioned earlier the act of obedience of Christ that Christ came and fulfilled the law on our behalf securing the blessings of that covenant for himself as Paul says all promises are yes and amen in Christ all the promises made through to Abraham and through that Mosaic covenant belong to Christ the curses of that covenant also belong to Christ for cursed is every man who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to keep them and cursed is the one who hangs on a tree so Christ is the recipient of all the blessings and promises

Christ is also the recipient of the curses which is why he had to hang on the tree so Christ fulfilled that covenant on our behalf so that we would be considered righteous because he is righteous

Paul says in Romans 8 that God did what the law could not do because of our weak flesh and that he condemned sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us so Christ is all

Christ is everything and so I don't know why I started telling you this what was your original question yeah my question was whether you think it's wrong to accuse sinners of breaking any one of the 10 commandments so I would say listen the

Mosaic law promised life again in Romans Paul says Moses writes of the righteousness that comes through the law that listen

God sincerely promised life you keep this and you live you remember the rich young ruler that came up to Jesus and he says hey what must

I do to inherit eternal life Jesus says well you know the commandments well what commandments and Jesus lists a few he says you keep these and you will inherit eternal life and so a lot of new covenant guys would disagree with that position but then it's not that aspect of theology is not necessarily a monolithic area of new covenant theology it's where a lot of guys disagree so I'm going to say listen the law promised life you want life keep the law but you can't keep the law can you right so you need

Christ who kept the law on your behalf yeah that's very interesting

I was not aware of that or that you held to that hold on Louis I'm just going to ask if you can mute yourself we're getting a lot of echo from you

I'm sorry ok is that better much so the reason

I asked that question was because from my understanding and I took a lot of heat for saying on one of our episodes that new covenant theology guys don't believe that you should preach the law to gentiles and that's what

I meant what I meant was that a lot of them seem to believe that you shouldn't preach that you shouldn't bind the sinner a gentile especially to the ten commandments because that was a codified law for the

Israelites and only the Israelites and so that's why I brought that issue up because with respect to incest there is no clear indication in the new testament that incest is wrong as far as I know and so you would have to go back to Moses and it's you know there's one sense in which

I think this is an inconsistency in new covenant theology because they would say well the old testament law is still useful for you know

I guess in an indirect way for wisdom and instruction I guess they say things like that and you know

I would want to know what specifically they mean by that because in order for incest to be a sin it has to be clearly you know somewhere and it's not that clear in the new testament so pointing back to the old testament would seem like a contradiction or an inconsistency for a new covenant theologian to go to the old testament and say hey it's a sin because in the old testament it was you know incest was condemned and so and the other now this actually opens another interesting issue with respect to what you said about believing in active obedience because if you believe in the active obedience of Christ then what exactly so does that mean that you believe that Christ active obedience of fulfilling the entire

Mosaic law was applied to both Jews and Gentiles that was a question who believes?

yeah sorry about that he forgot to unmute himself go ahead ok you can hear me? yeah

Christ's active obedience is applied to everyone who believes right but what law did he fulfill?

he fulfilled the Mosaic law right the Mosaic law so therefore his active obedience that's imputed to all who believe would be the fulfillment of the

Mosaic law right? exactly that's why he said I did not come to abolish the law I came to fulfill it and that goes back to the example that I gave of the mortgage once you fulfill the mortgage once you keep it once you pay it off and meet its demands and receive the rewards and even the curses in his case it's gone right but now it sounds like you're putting

Gentiles under the Mosaic law because why would my reasoning is why would

Christ impute the active obedience of the Mosaic law if the Gentiles are not supposed to be under that law and therefore not guilty of breaking the

Mosaic law well they were not under the law and you have to understand that when

Paul says in Ephesians that listen you as Gentiles were once without God in the world without hope cut off from the promises cut off from grace cut off from God cut off from forgiveness that what he's saying is you're not under the law you have nothing to do with God God has nothing to do with you but that's the glory of the new covenant is that God has ripped the veil from the temple and has has entered into a new covenant through the mediator of Christ with everyone who would come to him and so the reward that Christ received by working as one pastor of mine used to say listen

I'm saved by works you're saved by works we're all saved by works Christ works

Christ is the one who worked Christ is the one who completed his mission Christ is the one who said it is finished he's the one who did the work and we're the recipients of grace we're the recipients of promise the children of promise and so when you consider

Adam's act Jesus' active obedience Christ kept the Mosaic law but the

Gentiles had no hope in the world before Christ they weren't under the law but the question is if a

Gentile before Christ wanted to know God wanted to be known by God what would they have to do?

I think this would be a major problem and I think this is why new covenant

I don't know if it's the majority that would reject the active obedience of Christ but I think this is a major problem with holding to that and then at the same time saying that Gentiles are not under the law of Moses because why would the fulfillment of the entire

Mosaic law have to be applied to Gentiles if they weren't guilty of breaking it and so in the reform view you have the active obedience being the fulfillment of the moral law and so because the moral law was fulfilled that was broken under the covenant of works that is the restitution that Christ makes on our behalf by satisfying the covenant of works and applying that righteousness that active obedience of fulfilling the moral law perfectly to our account and reckoning us therefore not just blameless but also perfectly righteous and so I think that's a major problem under NCT and saying like well

Gentiles are not under the Mosaic law so if they're not under the Mosaic law then why would and therefore they wouldn't be able to be guilty of breaking it why then would

Christ impute the Mosaic law the fulfillment of the entire Mosaic law ceremonial and all to Gentiles if they were not even under the law in the first place you get my point?

oh I think you're on mute there we go is that better salvation was promised through the law right?

what do you mean? okay when God entered into covenant with Israel he only entered into covenant with Israel the blood was only sprinkled on Israelites that covenant only pertained to Israel not to anyone else

Paul is very clear about that in Romans 2 when he says the Gentiles who are without law if if the

Mosaic law applied to everyone else then everyone else would be guilty of breaking the

Mosaic law if you read the book of Amos when you read the judgments against the Gentile nations it's for breaking the law of conscience is what you see again and again but when he gets to Israel he says the judgments coming against you for not keeping the law of Moses that's why

I'm bringing judgment against you but he doesn't bring judgment against the nations for not keeping the law of Moses they were never under the law of Moses but God promised salvation by grace and the way that grace is to come someone had to earn it first and so God created the

Mosaic covenant promised life for the keeper the one who could keep it life is yours

Christ comes is born under the law keeps the law fulfills the law so that the he buys the house essentially he pays off the house it's his house now a

Jew can come to him and say hey can I have that house yeah sure I'll give it to you too I'll give you the house it's mine to give a

Gentile can come to Christ and say hey can I have the house he can say yeah I'll give it to you I earned it it's mine and so salvation isn't like a house in that it's an object that can only be given to one person but salvation

Christ earned salvation he became the savior of all mankind which is what he did in keeping the law in taking the benefits and the blessings of having kept it and in suffering the curses for those who haven't kept it and so what

Christ does is he earns the blessing of life and then he turns around and he says hey who wants life come to me and take water without price and he looks to Jew and he looks to Gentile and he looks to everyone and says life is in me

I am the life I'm not going to point you to life I'm not telling you how to get to life I'm life I'm the source of life come to me yeah that's interesting the fact that you would so you would agree that Gentiles are not under the

Mosaic Law and so why then see because then the issue is so if they're not under the

Mosaic Law then why why don't you hold to the view that Christ imputed his active obedience of satisfying the

Law of Conscience to Gentiles but the Mosaic you know the active obedience of the full Mosaic Law on Jews because God never promised life to anyone who could keep the

Law of Conscience that blessing remember a covenant is you do this and you receive that right that's a covenant do

A you receive B the Law of Conscience was never a covenant it was never there was no promised reward for keeping that but God instituted the

Mosaic Covenant so that he could promise reward for the keeper so that Christ could come and keep it so that salvation wouldn't be by works but by faith in Christ the keeper right so righteousness is the reason that righteousness is imputed or the reason we need salvation is because we've broken

God's laws right we sinned right we yeah like you mentioned in Adam we're all guilty we all need life and how was life promised it was promised by obedience to the

Law of Moses right so why then does so why then do

Gentiles have to have the entire Law of Moses apply to them if they weren't guilty of breaking because they weren't under the entire

Mosaic Law or at all they weren't under the Mosaic Law at all according to NCT right right they're not under the

Mosaic Law God had nothing to do with them right so then why so then why right so then why is the

Mosaic Law the full obedience of the Mosaic Law apply to Gentiles let me give you a human example okay let's say

I come to you and I say Carlos I know you like baseball

I know you've always wanted to play in the major leagues so I work for the

Chicago Cubs and I'm going to bring you on to our team and we're going to sign a contract okay and the contract that we're going to sign is

I'll pay you a million dollars a game I will pay you that million dollars and that's my end of the agreement your end of the agreement is every game you have to hit three home runs if you fail to hit three home runs then we're going to take you out into the street and shoot you and that's the agreement and you sign that agreement you say sure why not and so we we bring you on you step up to the plate and first game ends and you didn't hit any home runs you're damned you're condemned you have no hope you were under the law you were in that agreement right now the guy standing on the street corner wasn't in that agreement but Christ comes in and Christ says listen

Carlos I'm going to bat for you and Christ comes in and he hits three home runs in every single game every time up to bat he hits a home run he keeps the terms of the agreement for you so the reward the million dollars per game goes to Christ and since Christ owns that million dollars every game it belongs to him so now he can look to you and he can say

Carlos hey come here I'll give you the money guy on the street corner come here I can give it to you you weren't part of the agreement you weren't part of the covenant and contract that Carlos and the

Cubs had but I can give it to you if I want to I can give it to whoever I want to because it's mine and that's what

Christ does with eternal life it's mine he earned it all the blessings of the covenant belong to him and so even though the

Gentiles weren't under that law he fulfilled the blessing that the law obedience of the law gave for them so that he could look to them look to everyone and say come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest yeah that's

I don't think the analogy wouldn't be

I guess fully applied to the at one point it sounded like you were describing my view actually because you know the covenant works but it's kind of it seems a little odd to me to say that you know you weren't under that covenant or you weren't guilty of breaking that law but yet the active righteousness of fulfilling that law is applied to you

I think to me that doesn't really seem to correlate with the way the bible describes the fact that God is an exacting judge he's a just judge and so it's implying that why would he impute active righteousness without the implication that you would be guilty of breaking it and so I think that's the problem that seems to be a problem to me with that view that actually implies that the reason that we had to have

Christ's active obedience imputed to us is because we did not fulfill it ourselves and we broke the law not just by omission but commission as well and so to me that doesn't that seems like a problem to say that we're receiving the fulfillment of the law of Moses even though we didn't break it and even though we weren't under it even though we weren't bound by it in any way shape or form and yet he's imputing that righteousness to us that kind of doesn't really

God in the bible is described as a just judge and as the fact that every in terms of there's a where does it say that in Proverbs somewhere in Proverbs it says that to condemn the wicked or the righteous and to clear the guilty is an abomination in the eyes of God to me that seems like I don't see how that would apply in this case because that would that would seem to apply that they were guilty of breaking it in order for that righteousness to be applied to that for the full mosaic law to be applied in that sense so I guess that's at least that's the problem that I'm seeing there and I think again that's why it seems to me that new covenant theology guys don't hold to the act of obedience of Christ for that very reason because that would that implies that they would have to be under the law of Moses in some way if it were the case that Christ fulfilled that the act of obedience of Christ is the fact that he satisfied the entire mosaic law see

I don't think so at all I'm wondering why you're having a hard time understanding that someone who is not part of a covenant agreement can receive the benefits of that covenant agreement so again back to that the example of a mortgage you enter into a mortgage and you default on it someone comes in and saves you from your default and pays it off for you and they give it to someone who wasn't they give the house to anybody not you they give it to someone else and that's exactly what

Christ did right he took the vineyard away from the vineyard owners and he gave it to someone else right no

I understand it I understand what you're saying I just don't think I just don't see it in the bible because in the sense that you have in the sense of earning something on our behalf it doesn't the biblical reason for having for that being done in the first place is because we fell short and that's what sin is falling short of the glory of God and so I think this also ties into the issue of like you know was

God gracious to Adam in the garden of Eden prior to the fall because the bible says

God made man upright and so why would God have to deal graciously with Adam if he wasn't guilty of anything before the fall and so I think part of this might tie also into that as well

I think you wouldn't you can't say that God is gracious in the same way to Adam because he blessed the garden of Eden and he was gracious in the sense of like it was unmerited favor but the biblical in terms of grace when the bible is describing the concept of grace it clearly implies that it was forgiveness of sins it's a forgiveness of something that you violated under the law of God because you sinned and so I don't think it sounds like you're taking that concept like a sort of general concept of graciousness and sort of applying it in this aspect of the fact that the full mosaic law was imputed as act of obedience to non -jews and I don't think the bible uses that concept of grace in that way because of the fact that again because God is such an exacting judge and he holds us accountable for every thought, word, and deed when it comes to dealing with righteousness and condemnation and wickedness

God is very exacting and so I guess to me that would be a problem for me seeing that to me that's a very slippery concept of saying did

God give grace to Adam before the fall? Well I don't think he did in a sort of it would have to be qualified it's not grace in the same sense that the bible describes subsequently to that in the sense that grace is giving you unmerited favor forgiving you for the wrong that you've committed and so I guess that's the problem that I'm seeing there

Well you're saying that the Gentiles were under the law of Moses No What are you saying?

They're under the moral law Ok So the moral law you would define as what we've seen tonight the

Ten Commandments Summarizing the Ten Commandments yeah So were the

Gentiles under the Fourth Commandment? Yes So when when the

Gentiles were selling to the Jewish people in Jerusalem and Nehemiah said hey get out of here close the gates don't come back here again to break the

Sabbath for my people to break the Sabbath why is Nehemiah only condemning the

Israelites and not the Gentiles? What passage was that again? It said

Nehemiah give me a second I think well

I guess the confessional answer to that would be that yeah the

Gentiles are under the Sabbath because it's a creation ordinance and therefore it was revealed in Adam to Adam in his posterity in the

Garden and so I would at least say that you know that Gentiles are guilty of breaking the

Sabbath in principle by not trusting God and by not trusting him in his promises and in his providence

Okay this is Nehemiah chapter 13 he says in those days

I saw in Judah some who were trading wine presses on the Sabbath and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys as well as wine, grapes, figs all kinds of loads and they brought them into Jerusalem on the

Sabbath day so I admonished them on the day they sold food also men of Tyre were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise and sold them to the sons of Judah on the

Sabbath even in Jerusalem then I reprimanded the nobles of Judah and said to them what is this evil thing you are doing by profaning the

Sabbath day did your fathers do the same so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble that you are adding to the wrath on Israel by profaning the

Sabbath so you have Gentiles who are coming into Jerusalem and they're selling their merchandise in Jerusalem Nehemiah says he admonishes those of Judah and that they're going to add to the wrath on Israel by profaning the

Sabbath So your point is that the

Gentiles were not guilty of breaking the Sabbath Right because they weren't under the

Sabbath and this is where I think you're having an inconsistency in that you're saying that hey it's okay to not outwardly observe a

Sabbath but back then Gentiles because it's a moral law they had a moral obligation to observe the

Sabbath but now Gentiles don't have a moral obligation to observe the Sabbath only in principle so where are you saying that they were that the

Gentiles were not condemned for this in this case here in Nehemiah 13

Nehemiah condemns the Jews what verse this is chapter 13 verses 15 through 18 because I'm not seeing where men of Tyre okay so you're saying the men of Tyre living there sold them to the sons of Judah who does he reprimand only the men of Judah who's going to bring wrath upon themselves the people of Israel by profaning the

Sabbath and again it seems like it seems like there's an inconsistency there in your thought that you're saying that back then there was a moral obligation on Gentiles because they're under that law there's a moral obligation for them to observe the

Sabbath but now there's not a moral obligation on them to observe the

Sabbath just in principle yeah

I'm not sure I'd have to study this passage more carefully because I'm not sure how because my understanding is that if you were a foreigner and wanted to be in Israel you had to pretty much become a

Jew and so I'm not sure what the text is on I guess

I'd have to study it more carefully because if a Gentile wanted to live in Israel he had to become a

Jew right so I mean I'm not sure yeah

I don't I'd have to think about that more to study that what

I mean by breaking the Sabbath is not in the sense that in the ceremonial sense

I would say that they're basically guilty of breaking it because they don't trust

God and they don't trust God for their salvation and for their sovereignty so I guess it wouldn't

I don't think it would necessarily apply to my view but yeah

I'd have to look at this more carefully because my understanding is that if you were a Gentile and wanted to become you wanted to live in Israel you had to become a

Jew pretty much well not necessarily to live in Israel but if you wanted to be counted among the people of God you had to become a

Jew right yeah I guess so you had to take circumcision and if you take circumcision then you're accountable to the whole law right so if a

Gentile wanted to be counted among the people of God wanted to come to God and worship

God the only way he could do it was by becoming a Jew right right which proves that he wasn't under the law who wasn't under the law?

the Gentile he had to come and put himself under the law if he wanted to come to God he wasn't under the law there was no demand on him to circumcise himself there was no demand on him to submit himself to the law of Moses there was no demand on him to do anything right the overlap between the

Mosaic law and the law that Gentiles are under and the Reform view would be the moral law the moral law being summarized in the

Ten Commandments and so in terms of how the Sabbath would apply to that currently the way

I see it right now and I'm only speaking for myself because I'm not sure I'm actually not too sure how how the

Reform view or the Reform Baptist view is with how Gentiles in the

Old Testament were held accountable to the Sabbatical law to the law of the Sabbath in the 4th commandment but I guess it's only pertaining to the explicit command in the 4th commandment that you have to rest on the 6th day on the 7th day and so I'm not sure

I'm not sure what the Reform Baptist answer is but I would just say that the moral law yeah the moral law is the overlap between Jews and Gentiles Gentiles are not under the entire

Mosaic law it would just be the aspect that overlaps which would be the two great commandments and the

Ten Commandments but I would qualify the Sabbath in the Old Testament with respect to Gentiles, how it applies to Gentiles okay so it's interesting because even for an

Israelite if you look in the Book of Numbers, Israelites were to be cut off from Israel if they didn't keep the

Passover God says everyone who doesn't keep the Passover is to be cut off from his people that man shall bear his sin so if if Israelites are bearing sin for not keeping the

Passover Gentiles aren't bearing sin for not keeping the

Passover are you so you're saying so your point is that I guess would they be guilty of breaking the

Passover yeah if Jews if God says it's sin to not keep

Passover and Gentiles aren't keeping

Passover is it counted as sin for them yeah

I mean that's an interesting question I guess that kind of bears into how what would happen to a

Gentile if he believed a believing Gentile I mean if a Gentile believed in the promises of the

Messiah then what would happen to him would he have to become a Jew I haven't really studied that issue

I would have to look into that more because I'm also not sure what the reform view of that is but I guess

I mean yeah I'm not too sure I guess believing in the promises of the

Messiah would that imply that you would then have to join the nation of Israel I'm not sure

I guess possibly I'm not too sure about that but yeah it's something that I have to look into further so would you say that a

Gentile who was this is before the cross he's keeping the moral law he is not making idols and worshipping them he's not murdering and stealing and that sort of thing he's faithful to his wife he's keeping the moral law although he's a sinner like everyone else he hasn't kept it perfectly does

God have anything to do with that man yeah right

I mean it's obviously impossible for anybody to keep the law because we've all all like sheep have gone astray and so I guess can

God save a Gentile in the Old Testament by revealing himself to him and not necessarily bring him under the nation of Israel that would be an interesting question

I'm not entirely sure about that but I think and I guess maybe we can

I can conclude with this that one of the things that I've noticed in respect to how New Covenant Theology interacts with Reformed Theology is it kind of came up when you brought up the notion of the

Covenant of Works and how I guess New Covenant Theology guys don't see a test in the

Covenant of Works but the reason that I guess the ways in which you can't really isolate doctrines especially like the

Covenant of Works from other doctrines that Reformed Theology holds to and so obviously because of God's predestination the fall was already predestined and it wasn't possible in other words it wasn't possible for Adam to fulfill that covenant it's impossible in the sense that God predestined it that way in order to glorify his son on the cross and redeem the elect in the future that wouldn't be possible because God predestined it that way the reason it's a test is because God obviously had to make a test or some form of a trial so that Adam could actually break that covenant and so that's why

I guess I would just sort of point out that observation to be mindful of the fact that all of this stuff is related because it's a system

Reformed Theology is obviously a very well defined system and so everything is related all of the doctrines are related to each other it's not really you can't really interpret it or criticize it in isolation to the other things that it's bearing on but that was basically a lot of good discussion certainly raised a lot of issues that I need to look further into but yeah

So with that since we've been going a little bit over two hours it might be a good stopping point you know one of the things that I want folks to see is unless I missed something did you guys call each other heretics throughout this?

I didn't think I heard that I didn't get that in hold on, heretic! Carl is it your turn to call him an unbeliever?

Oh he's a pervert of God's law definitely You too Andrew You see two hours of good theological discussion

I hope that it was good for folks to witness that we can discuss theology, you saw a lot of give and take, a lot of trying to understand one another's position trying to get a feel for where each other, what they actually believe, not what you think they believe

I hope you heard that tonight I hope you heard that there was a lot of where they know they agree, they know they disagree discussing that I would of course,

I'm going to show my bias here Carlos, I would challenge you not to turn to your system to answer the

Sabbath issue but go to the Scriptures I know the system is based in the

Scriptures that's your answer right now but I would say it is a well developed system

I'm not denying that it's not based in men's understanding of Scripture but I do think

I personally think that we have a tendency to do that whether it be covenant theology, new covenant dispensational a lot of people tend to go back to the system because someone smarter than them has figured it out but men smarter than us has also gotten it wrong at different times so I would say that what we want to do is as my encourage for all of us is to have the same charity that you've seen here displayed when discussing issues like this, try to take the time to understand one another and know what someone's actually saying not what you think they're saying and respond to what they're actually saying and all of us need to really be men of the

Word not men of a system not men of no matter how good that theological system is

I think every one of us are wrong theologically somewhere we just don't know where if we did know where we would change that but we don't know where that is but I also think that all of us that know

Christ will agree that the moment we sit at the feet of Christ we will be so glad to be corrected because we're going to be corrected by the

Lord and so with that we want to say good night we do want to thank Carlos I'm going to try to say it again my

Latin is just not that good why don't you say it for us give us the podcast Semper Referendum Radio Semper Referendum Radio and that can be found on the

Bible Thumping Wingnet network so if you want to listen to more of that podcast you can go to just search iTunes for Bible Thumping Wingnet yes, it is a strange name, it's a catchy name but it started because they were responding to atheists and took that name on for themselves said okay you guys want to call us

Bible Thumping Wingnets we'll take it and that's how they started and so they're part of it now

Lewis is not part of another Bible Thumping Wingnet podcast on that network which is called the

Conversations from the Porch I think the real problem I have with that podcast is there is no porch

I want a video of those guys doing a podcast on an actual porch I mean really but they are new covenant theologians so on the same network you have these two views you heard tonight so if you want to dig in more those would be two places you can go however if you specifically want

Lewis you want to go to as he had on his name tag underneath the whole time in case anyone rips this to audio to Emmaus Road Church and it's

Emmaus Road give me the URL again it's www .emmausroadsugarland

.org ok emmausroadsugarland .org so that you can get more about Lewis there

I want to thank both of you guys for taking the time such a good cordial discussion showing a lot of charity and love for one another as Christians should do and I appreciate that I'm again

I don't know if I even mentioned that I'm Andrew Rapoport from Striving for Eternity and this was hosted by one of the