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In this Striving for Eternity Theology Discussion, we will discuss 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 Montijo, 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 Supereframundum, 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. Oh, and Always Reforming. And he is going to take the position of Covenant Theology. It is pronounced lines, right? Yes. Okay, and he's with Emmaus Road Baptist Church.
Yeah, Emmaus Road Church. Go ahead. Yeah,.
Emmaus Road Church. Emmaus Road Church. But we are Baptist 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 had Reformed to be New Covenant Theology and then they both Reformed 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 Luis 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 Luis 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 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 a 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 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 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, the covenant, and so, if you think about it in terms of marriage, you have, 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, 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, and that would be the, 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 inferlapsarianism and superlapsarianism, but basically, the issue is that because God had the end in mind, and so, therefore, he had, his end in mind, that he had in mind, was to glorify himself.
And so, and 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 dire, in the exact opposite condition, and whereas Adam failed miserably, Christ passed perfectly with flying colors.
And so, it's 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 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 want 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. And 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 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, that 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 in, 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.
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. 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 First Corinthians, Paul especially shows us how he deals with the law of Moses. For example, in First Corinthians 5, remember that you have the circumstances with the man that has his father's wife, and Paul 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, 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 Louis 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, is that 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, 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, 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, see 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, the Schofield study Bible, where he did say that, or things that at least really seem to be saying that. People say that's not what he meant, but that argument could be made.
And then they, 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, I'm like, these guys are killing trees.
Much of what they're doing is talking past one another. And if they'd actually listened to what each other is saying, they would realize they're both making the same false argument against each other, 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, just really, I just want to open 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, and 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 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 because of the fact that it wasn't just the explicit command not to eat 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 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 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 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 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 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's due. 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, keep them concise. 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?
Okay, 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, when he says we have to keep the law of not muzzling the ox.
Those sorts of things which aren't to be followed by the letter, but the spiritual 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 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.
Okay, Carlos, now you mentioned law in a three-fold. So, I mean, you would see, you know, 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, I forgot, the judicial, and the immoral.
And so, 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, 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, you know, and so forth, to everybody after that.
And so, the issue is, and 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, you know, 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, and so, the ceremonial basically being the ritual, priests, 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, it can still be applicable for today, but it doesn't apply exactly the way it did before. So, yeah.
And to be fair, dispensationalists also sometimes will, not just New Covenant theology, will get on Covenant theologians on the three-part, you know, three-fold division of the law.
So, we've got to be fair. Yeah, I just learned that. I didn't realize that dispensational guys also rejected that distinction, I guess, but yeah.
Yeah, that's Carlo saying, yeah, I've been studying on that for my show. We're addressing New Covenant theology, dispensationalism.
Yeah, heads up, heads up, yeah. Shots fired.
Yeah. So, okay, so, I mean, you guys got to hear each other. Where do you, I mean, 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 Reformed 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 Reformed 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 Reformed Baptist view says, okay, so the decalogue's 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 then 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 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 Reformed guys in saying, look, you guys want to say that all 10 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. I'm not, personally, I'm not a Sabbatarian. Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians are, by and large, Sabbatarian.
The Confessions are Sabbatarian. The Westminster and the Second Lent of Baptists 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, it's, 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 the time to rest from your regular working, you know, 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 seventh day or something like that, because you were supposed to store on the day before, in order to keep that Sabbath.
Yeah, it was a matter of trust. Right, right. And so, that's what I still hold to, and that's what, you know, not so much, I'm not, I find the arguments, 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, God's sovereignty, you're guilty of breaking the Sabbath. And so, that's what I would say with respect to that. And because the principle there is, again, is to trust God and to trust in Christ, is to trust in the finished work of Christ, not just for salvation, but for everything else.
It's like the New Testament says, you know, 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, the Reformed teaching is basically that the ceremonial aspect of the Sabbath was abolished, but the moral, 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, that's 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, you know, the two great commandments, He's basically summing up the Ten Commandments in those two commandments.
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 so, and that's what Christ said, that they hang, on all of these, these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
And so, yeah. Now, you guys, I mean, I mean, first off, Carlos, you said one thing that was new that I haven't heard Bill say as far as the, every day you could be breaking the Sabbath, that, it's unnew to me, so I'm curious about that one.
But as a Reformed Baptist, you would not be a Sabbatarian, correct? Right. I, I'm, I'm still working on... So you actually agree on 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, but... In what sense? As far as, you know, the laws of not being, not being able to start a fire, not being able to walk a certain distance, things like that. Right. So, I mean, you would, 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, not for this, not for this. I'm actually, I'm actually diabetic, so that would not sit well with me. Yeah, no, the, right, the, the thing, the thing becomes the, so, the issue with...
I'm using that example only because I was actually, I was speaking at a Presbyterian church, and I'm a Baptist, so I'm not a Sabbatarian, and I stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee at the way, 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, Lewis, you wouldn't, you wouldn't be holding to the Sabbath the same way Israel did, would you?
Oh, no, no, no, in fact, I'm, I'm surprised. I, I hold to the Sabbath the same way Carlos does. I, Carlos sounds a lot like a NCT guy more than a CT guy, so I'm surprised to hear him say that.
Well, but he's, but as a Reformed Baptist, I think that's, 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 the, 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, 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, it's, I think I, wait, wait, it's, the issue is that I, 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, everyone, you know, it looks like you got some charts back there, and everyone gives the dispensationals 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, the, I still believe the Sabbath is a moral law, that we're still obligated to keep the Sabbath, but the way I just, 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, the other issue behind, okay, 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 the command, because God rested on the seventh day after creating the universe, you know, the world and everything else in six days, that the command was implicitly there, because in Exodus 2011, when he's, or is it 2011, where he says to, you know, remember, he also says to remember the Sabbath, implying that the command was already there.
And so, and the reason he gives is because in six days he made the earth, and so that's why Presby, or 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, 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, right, right, yeah, I'm still Reforming in that, in that area, and, 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, 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, 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 1 Corinthians 5, where Paul says you have a moral obligation to keep the Passover, would you agree with that, that, well, 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, to do that? Say that again? Uh, okay, in 1 Corinthians 5, let me pull it up so that I can, I can 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 the 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, you know, hey, we're cool, we're not, we're not judging this guy, we're not, you know, so they're boasting about how, how cool they are with that, and so Paul says in verse 6, he says, 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, the Passover 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?
Um, well, my understanding is that that's talking about the Lord's Supper, right?
Uh, no, no, no, no. He's, he's addressing the issue with the, the man caught in, 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, right?
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.
See, he takes, 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, to, 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, um, of evil, and then he's speaking to their, their moral obligation.
Yeah, yeah, I, I think I, I guess I confused this when he was also, uh, rebuking them for abusing, yeah, the Lord's Supper, and, um, they were also abusing the Lord's Supper, but yeah, right, the purging the leaven, meaning, you know, to purge out, to judge the, the, the unrepentant sinner from your midst and remove him from, from, 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, okay, I see what you're getting at. Um, well, the, uh, so the Passover, I guess would fall under ceremonial in the sense that Christ fulfilled it, um, because he is our Passover lamb, and so I think I, this is basically an application of, I guess he's showing that because Christ himself is our Passover lamb, um, that we should therefore by, uh, by implication purge away that, that old leaven of malice, and so, um, yeah, I mean, I don't, it's, uh, it's, um, yeah, that's an interesting, I haven't really thought about that, that's an interesting, that's an interesting point.
Um, but, but yeah, obviously that's a moral, you know, where, this is, and this is part of the law of Christ, like we don't, we obviously hold to the law of Christ as well as Reformed Baptism, uh, even Presbyterians hold to it as well, um, but, uh, yeah, that, that by, there, there's obviously cases of where you, the, the ceremonial, uh, and civil law are, are applied to, um, I guess moral commands or part of the law of Christ in the New Testament, such as, you know, 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, um, the, uh, the Passover.
But, yeah, so that, that wouldn't, but obviously what we mean is the fact that we don't literally celebrate the Passover the way that the Jews did. That aspect of it is abolished, and, you know, it's by way of the, uh, implication or the spiritual, you know, spiritual implication behind that, uh, would be, can still apply.
Right, that's, 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, and you take a spiritual principle out of that, and, and you adhere to the spiritual principle.
Would.
You agree with that? I, I think so, yeah, I think so.
Okay, but that, 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, in a new spiritual way.
We keep the Sabbath, which is the definition.
Of a ceremonial law. Right, so the, because I'm not a Sabbatarian, I don't hold to that, you know, I don't fully hold to setting, I'm, yeah, I'm still kind of not fully there as to, you know, you have to set apart the whole day to, to public and private worship.
I'm, 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 a, uh, 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 that, the moral principle behind trusting God, and so, yeah.
Okay, so, so I get, 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, but, okay, so would you agree, then, that, uh, unbelievers.
Are guilty of breaking the Sabbath? Uh, 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 have, 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 Him, 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, yeah, in a sense, this ties into my, because I hold to the doctrine of the moral law, and so, in other words, I'm not sure where you would be at 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 in. And I know another major point of, potential point of disagreement is the fact that the concept of, the law that, the Reformed teaching that, with respect to active obedience, that Christ, that it's not just the passive righteousness of, 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, you know, the fact that, 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.
So, 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, right?
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, a law that is applicable to the letter.
And so, I'm just curious how, I mean, I don't know 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 a special case because of the fact that there's so many different things that come into play and there's 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 Ten 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, it's not, so, in terms of, the moral law is not just the literal, keeping the letter of the law. It's also, it was also a sin 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.
But 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, I guess, setting apart, or I guess taking a break from, well, no, that's kind of getting into the whole point of like, 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, you know, providentially speaking.
Right. 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 the 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's something that I'll have to consider.
I'll 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! No, that's going to take a lot more than just that one. But, I think, and I'm curious, I did want to ask this question because I know, I've heard a lot of, I've heard 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, 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's 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. Okay, 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, or 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's 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 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 that covenant was abolished, as both New Covenant and Reformed Baptist would agree, that covenant is abolished, and then that's what Barcellus was getting at, is that all of it, all of it is abolished.
The moral, the civil, the ceremonial, the whole covenant's 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 that new mortgage, I don't go back to the old mortgage, rip out page nine 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 they're 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 agree, though, that there are certain aspects of the law that are trans-covenantal, right? There is. You know, it's still a sin to lie, and it's always been a sin to lie, right?
For example. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So now, my question is, so would you agree with the statement that you cannot have a law without a covenant? You can't have a law without a covenant?
Yeah. 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 until God punished the people through the flood of Noah. So there were demands on people. Well, I guess there wasn't a law, even in that case, that Scripture said there was a law.
Go ahead. Yeah, 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. 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 that the law was put into effect. God did hold them... 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 when did that come into... 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 the conscience, as we're all probably familiar, if anybody has paid attention to any of the way the Master stuff, conscience, of course, is conscience, or consciencia, 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're sinners before God.
Yeah, so I see that as a... 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, or the Reformed 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.
But so, 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're made alive. And if you're not in Christ, you're 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 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? You have such a close view.
There has to be a law with a covenant. You can't have a covenant without law. Yeah, right. So, and I mean, 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, you know, in order for that law to have been in effect and, you know, so on and so forth.
But I think it's a little bit more complicated than that. Because if you're 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, so is everybody first parents?
But in terms of things like that, you know, 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, 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...
And that ties into the Seventh Commandment, right?
Right, yeah, yes, 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, like, that doesn't, 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 there should, that the, I guess, the ideal, or the ideal of marriage is between one man and one woman, and so, 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 are, you know, that the children of Adam and Eve married each other is because that's all they had, and so, and 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 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, you know, what, 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, you know, from what 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 mean, 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 laws.
Well, it's sort of, it's a moral law, I mean, 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, you know, until whenever God first placed that command explicitly.
So, again, 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, you know, there's 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 porneia, which is easily translated sexual immorality.
Of course, it's where we get the word pornography from. Any sort of sexual immorality, avoid porneia, avoid porneia, again and again, we have it, and the question then becomes, well, what's porneia? What is sexual immorality?
You can't just say, avoid sexual morality, 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 this might be an anomaly in New Covenant theology, too. It's not just the fact that, because it's such a special case, and 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, then you would say, or you wouldn't need to try to say, you're going to break the commandment.
Right? Right? You were kind of breaking up there. Can you say that again?
Okay, so you would say, would you agree with saying that... Hey, Carlos, maybe try turning.
Down your bandwidth a little bit. Okay. Do you know how to do that on the hangar? 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? 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 basically bind a sinner to the Ten Commandments? So, would you think that it's wrong or not biblical 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 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 Ten Commandments. Right, 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. He said, 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 a monolith. 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? 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.
Okay. Is that better? Much. All right. 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 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 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, I guess, in an indirect way, for wisdom and instruction.
I guess they say things like that, and 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 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, incest was condemned.
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's 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.
Oh, okay. Okay. 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. And 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. So, but now it sounds like you're putting Gentiles under the Mosaic law, because why would... Well, 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, U .S. 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 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, or not Adam, sorry, 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? Yeah, I think this would be a major problem. And I think this is why new covenant, I guess a lot of 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 Reformed 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 in saying, 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.
Let's see here. There we go. Is that better? Yeah. 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 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 judgment's 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 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. I think the fact that you would agree that Gentiles are not under the Mosaic Law. And so why then is it, see, because then the issue is, so if they're not under the Mosaic Law, then why don't you hold to the view that Christ imputed his active obedience of satisfying the law of conscience to Gentiles, but 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. 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've 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, or 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 is the Mosaic Law, the full obedience of the Mosaic.
Law applied 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 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, the 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, that's, I don't, yeah, I think, I don't think the analogy would be, I guess, fully applied to the, at one point, it sounded like you were just 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, I think that seems to be a problem to me with that view, is that 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 seems like a problem to say that, you know, 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 doesn't really, you know, because God in the Bible is described as a just judge, and as the fact that every, you know, in terms of like, there's a, you know, where does it say that in Proverbs, somewhere in Proverbs it says that, you know, to condemn the wicked, or the righteous, and to clear the guilty is an abomination in the eyes of God.
And so, to me, that seems like, well, I don't see how that would apply in this case, because that would seem to apply that they were guilty of breaking it, in order for that righteousness to be applied to that, you know, for the full Mosaic law to be applied in that sense.
So, I guess that's the, 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, and 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 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, there's a, 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, for, and this, 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 into that, also into that as well, and how, I think it's, you wouldn't, it doesn't, it's not, you can't say that God is gracious in the same way to Adam, because he blessed, you know, he blessed the Garden of Eden, and he, you know, he was gracious in the sense of like, it was unmerited favor, but the Biblical, I mean, the, 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. And so, because you sinned. And so, I think, I don't think, it sounds like you're taking that concept of, like a sort of general concept of graciousness, and sort of applying it in this aspect of the, you know, the fact that the full Mosaic Law was imputed as an act of obedience to non-Jews, and I don't think, I don't think the Bible uses that concept of grace in that way, because of the fact that, again, like, because God is such an exacting judge, and he holds us accountable for every thought, word, and deed, his, 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, you know, that, to me, that's a very slippery, I guess, concept of saying, you know, 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, you know, the Bible describes subsequently to that, in the sense that grace is giving you unmerited favor for, you know, forgiving you for the wrong that you've committed, and so, yeah, 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. No. What are you saying? They're under the moral law. Okay. So, the moral law, you would define as what we've seen tonight, the Ten Commandments.
Summarizing the Ten Commandments, yeah.
Okay. So, were the Gentiles under the Fourth Commandment? Yes. Yes. So, 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, that the Gentiles are under the Sabbath because it's a creation ordinance, and therefore it was revealed to Adam in his posterity in the Garden.
And so, I would at least say that Gentiles are guilty of breaking the Sabbath in principle by not trusting God, and by not trusting Him and His promises and His providence.
Okay. This is Nehemiah chapter 13. He says, in those days I saw in Judah some who were treading 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. See, 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 the 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 the Gentiles were not condemned for this, in this case?
Here in Nehemiah 13. Nehemiah condemns the Jews. Yeah. What verse? This is chapter 13, verses 15 through 18.
Okay. Yeah, 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 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. So, I mean, I'm not sure... Yeah, 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, yeah, 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, right? Mm-hmm. And if you take circumcision, then you're accountable to the whole law.
Right. 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. Well... 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, in the Reformed 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 how, I'm actually not too sure how the Reformed view or the Reformed 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 Fourth Commandment.
But I guess it's only pertaining to the explicit command in the Fourth Commandment that you have to rest on the seventh day. And so, yeah, I'm not sure what the Reformed Baptist answer is. But I would just say that 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 Israelites are bearing sin for not keeping the Passover, Gentiles aren't bearing sin for not keeping the Passover?
So, your point is that, I guess, would they be guilty of breaking the Passover?
Yeah. 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 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 Reformed 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 everybody, 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, that's 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, I mean, 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.
So, it's not, that wouldn't be possible because God predestined it that way. And so, 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, right? 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. And so, you can't, it's not really, you can't really interpret it or criticize it in isolation to the other things that it's bearing on.
So, yeah, but that was, that's basically, I mean, a lot of good discussion. It's 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, 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. Oh, I didn't get that in. Hold on. Heretic!
Carlos, is your turn to call him an unbeliever?
Oh, he's a pervert of God's law, definitely. You too, Andrew.
You see, we, I mean, 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. You know, I would, of course, I'm going to show my bias here a little, Carlos.
I would challenge you not to turn to your system to answer the Sabbath issue, but go to the Scriptures. I know, I know, the system is based in the Scriptures. That's your answer, I know. But I would say, I mean, it is a well-developed system.
I'm not denying that. It's not 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, to go back to say, well, this is what, 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. And so I would say that what we'd 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 goodnight. We do want to thank Carlos from, I'm going to try to say it again, my Latin's 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 Wingnut Network. So if you want to listen to more of that podcast, you can go to, just search iTunes for Bible Thumping Wingnut, 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 Wingnuts? 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 Wingnut 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, but 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.
Okay, 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.
Again, I don't know if I even mentioned that. I'm Andrew Rappaport from Striving for Eternity, and this was hosted by one of the Striving for Eternity theological discussions. We're glad to have you with us.
And remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.
