Grace and Law VI: The harmony between Moses and Jesus

Welcome to the Whole Council podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and with me again is Steve Crampton and we're looking at the theme of the Law and the Gospel and in our last episode we didn't make it as far as we wanted to so we wanted to kind of stop there and we don't want to rush through our next portion in this book because Reisinger in his book on the Law and the Gospel speaks to what John Calvin had said and we really find that those quotes are worth looking at.

But before we get any further in this I wanted to call attention to this little bottle of dirt. We're not sure exactly that it's dirt. Steve and I think it's it's freeze-dried coffee but it's it's sold for people who are ready to believe you know and this is the world this is dirt from the World Series Game 6.

Field dirt bottled and MLB authenticated. Now this is for the Atlanta Braves right and the reason we have this here is because we have kind of an inter-team rivalry. Steve and I like the Yankees and it's easy to like them right now.

Teddy loves the Braves and there's another guy we hate to say it but he likes Boston. AC is eaten up with covetousness and so that reminded us of this and AC hopes that Boston will once again not embarrass themselves this season.

Moses and Christ in the Old and New Covenants

Alright so now back to the important stuff. Looking at the law and the the way the scripture speaks it often draws such a sharp contrast between the ministry of Moses and the Old Covenant and the ministry of Christ and the New Covenant.

I mean we can think of Hebrews where it says that the New Covenant is so glorious so full in its in its richness that what came before has no glory in comparison. We can think of a verse like that in the Gospel of John where John is speaking about the coming of the Son of God the Word made flesh and in verse 16 and 17 of his first chapter in his gospel he writes this for of his Christ's for of his fullness we have all received every Christian and grace upon grace wave after wave of grace for then he goes on to explain it for the law was given through Moses grace and truth were realized were actually you know embraced and in you know experience yes embodied through Jesus Christ who he says in the next verse is the only one who has seen the Father and he is the great image of the Father he has living in his life and teaching he explains he he manifests the Father so when you read a passage like that it's easy to see if we don't slow down and think about the context isn't John saying to us that law under Moses and grace under Christ are opposed so Steve what do you say to that absolutely.

Not as you might expect. Yes we have two covenants the old and the new and we have the Bible divided into two books in in a sense that way two halves. And yet it is one Bible one God one Father over all the same triune.

God who as we said last week gave the law at Sinai through Moses and fulfilled that law through Christ in at Calvary. And I do think John this is one of those really really monumental issues that we need to wrestle with and so I'm glad we can slow down and look at this.

Reisinger says in the introduction here the law like Christ has always been crucified between two thieves antinomianism on the one hand and legalism on the other. And so we have embodied in this question well if the law was completely fulfilled in Christ hasn't been done away with and we jump to the antinomian side or the other.

If the law hasn't been completely fulfilled or done away with then legalism. Aren't we stuck under the law. And yet what we have is rightly understood this wonderful reconciliation and the harmony between Moses and Christ and John Calvin and all the the Puritans the great reformers throughout the ages understood that they work hand in glove.

There is a wonderful harmony between the two. So we need to recognize that the law is what points us to brings us to sometimes has to push us to Christ. And then in Christ. What we find is not only that fulfillment but also how the law.

Has become our friend. Yes so what we talked about last week at the end that the triune God gave the law the I am I am the Lord gave the law at Sinai but the Eternal Son is part of that triune God and so the Son as God is lawgiver as much as Father and Spirit are and the Son is also the one who accomplished what the Father planned and what the Spirit now presently applies for our redemption.

So law and gospel law and grace are somehow connected and how we understand their connection really affects how we approach the Christian life and how we you know and how we appreciate the cross. Well so one lie would be that you know it almost as if Moses and Christ were the givers of the law and therefore there's a there's you know Moses gave the law Christ gives grace.

So there's a there's a sharp disconnect but we see that's not true. Another cousin to that lie is that with a kind of a strong dispensational approach to Scripture that God does things differently in different eras and and there is just enough truth in that to kind of confuse but the you know the error in strong dispensationalism is that God saves in different ways in different eras.

So God saved under Moses through law keeping but you know God saves now through grace. And is that true. And if so you know has grace replaced law and so long has no place in the Christian life. And I think as you mentioned that understanding the connection of the covenants and how they one leads into the next is really the way to answer that lie.

We could think of it this way there is an organic connection. It's not just the same God gave the law as gave the gospel but it is these perfections of God's character represented in the law which show us not only God's holiness but the path that pleases God and shows us a need for a Redeemer which of course in the Old Testament was clearly portrayed throughout the sacrificial system.

So they they were saved by faith looking to the coming of a Lamb of God we are saved by looking back at the Lamb of God so same means of salvation through the finished work of Jesus Christ received by faith and that is a gracious thing.

But when we think of the two covenants one covenant is like the root system and the other covenant is the flower that grows off the stem but there's a living connection the life and the roots is the same life in the flower petal while there is a difference in the fullness and in the experience and the freedom that the believer has it is not a difference that involves a moral difference in the sense that in the Old Testament the root system was right and wrong and in the New Testament the the bar is lowered now and so if you just mean well that's all it takes.

We were talking before one of the podcast about a debate that occurred in the 18th century. So this is during the the Great Awakening over in the UK which they called the evangelical revival. And if you're not familiar with that in England you had a pretty sharp division between the Wesleyan side and the Calvinistic side which was represented under George Whitfield's leadership in Scotland it was pretty much completely Calvinistic as also in Wales and really also in the colonies.

So Wesley was the odd guy out in especially in the early decades of that movement which may I just.

Interject is ironic because today looking back or at least in our country mostly what you see is the Wesleyan ism that has prevailed so historically he's.

Sort of one. Yeah yeah I think certainly the I do think that the organizational genius of John Wesley and his indefatigable labors did did prove beneficial to his people in ways that the Calvinistic side didn't have.

In the midst of this Wesley was looking at what he felt was a was a kind of an antinomian swing in his own people. That is he felt that they were beginning to take obedience after conversion as an optional thing.

You know we're saved by grace. So John Wesley called his men together with his annual meeting of ministers and they read from some Arminian books which he felt cleared up the issue. And Wesley's statement was this our Wesleyan groups in the in the revival are becoming too Calvinistic and that's why they take holiness as optional.

That's what that was his view of course of reformed theology. Now John Wesley tried to cure it by by separating justification into two events. Present justification was received solely upon the finished work of Christ received by faith.

Now not his life but his death. In John Wesley system if I understand it correctly I don't mean to misrepresent him although this would be an oversimplification. Christ's perfect life made him the spotless lamb and therefore an inappropriate sacrifice.

Okay. But Christ's act of obedience is not imputed to a believer. Christ's death washes the sins. And there's a big difference there between that view and what all the churches in the Reformation held.

So Wesley said because of that you can be justified right now by faith in Christ. But at the end when you stand before the judge you must add good works through your life to the finished work of Christ.

And there's a second justification now. That's why Wesley believed you could lose yourself your salvation. So the the Calvinistic wing of the revival of course you know just went berserk and said you know this is going back to Romanism.

You know we're back to to salvation by works. And Wesley disagreed. You know these works that come afterward are the fruit of the Spirit and therefore you can't say it's the same thing. And what. What happened then.

Of course was a lot of books back and forth. Four of those books were called checks to antinomianism. Actually I think there were five written by Wesley's right-hand man John Fletcher who was a very godly man.

Fletcher wrote and said that we must add good works. And you know. And and and he defended Wesley. Some of the Calvinistic wing wrote and said how many good works do you have to add. Because we need to know this if we can lose our salvation.

Why doesn't God give us a very clear line in Scripture. So we know. And Fletcher said well no it's not like that it is. These are things that flow out of a sincere heart. So sincere obedience became the term.

A guy named Berridge who was on the Calvinistic side said to Fletcher they were friends. He said how sincere. So does sincerity make my work acceptable before God. And what the Calvinist pointed out was this.

You have unlawfully used the law which is leading to our next points. You have used obedience to the law as a payment in order to add to Jesus Christ. And that is an unlawful thing. And the reason it's so wrong is this.

Our obedience is imperfect. Even as Christians our sincere obedience is imperfect. So what you're saying is this that after the cross God was willing to accept as perfect righteousness that which is imperfect.

So Jesus is perfect righteousness. Plus your imperfect righteousness equals a complete salvation. And so the Calvinistic said. Calvinistic side said you have lowered the bar. And we were talking that really that is kind of the fundamental view that we have if we're not careful at the scripture that the cross of Jesus lowered the bar of God's expectations and of the law.

And that's why obedience is perhaps not as important for us kind of optional. Yeah. When what actually happened was the law was perfectly satisfied at its height by the life of Christ. And the the punishment of the law was suffered in the death of Christ and everyone united to Christ that life being imputed to us.

The law treats us as a people who have satisfied it. Because our mediator satisfied it. And therefore what flows is not a lower standard but the father accepts. And we're gonna read a quote by Calvin on this the father accepts the childlike loving though imperfect expressions of obedience.

Why. Because it's not for justification. It's it's. It's an expression of love. So given that.

Lead-in why don't we start with that quote from right oven and we can flesh it out a little bit more. Calvin said no mortal will be found who can perform the law just as you mentioned John but in the gospel God receives with fatherly indulgence what is not absolutely perfect.

Now playing the other side for a moment that sounds very much like well he's lowering the bar after Christ and yet that's not the case. Correct. Yeah I not. Because what we what we have to do.

Is keep in our minds clear the the the category that we're talking about. Are we talking about our response to salvation which is obedience. Are we talking about that having a part in justification or is it sanctification.

And I think you know a real simple way to avoid about 90 of our errors when we deal with the issue of the doctrines of salvation is keep the great categories the scripture describes as as being a part of redemption.

Keep all of them in order. So obviously God's calling us and drawing us through the gospel precedes glorification you the order is not interchangeable. No question. Justification being declared right with the law precedes sanctification that rightness working itself out.

So we have an order. If you get them out of order you get into big trouble. If you blend them you get into big trouble. If sanctification becomes part of what makes me right with God that what what what allows God to declare me right justification then sanctification becomes salvation by works which by the way the word justification does not it is a legal term.

Does not describe a moral change. It describes a legal positional change. The the opposite of justification is not unholiness. The opposite of justification is condemnation. If we come to a judge and a person is innocent and the judge declares them right with the law he has justified them.

He has not made them a good person. They don't walk out of the courtroom a morally better person. He has simply declared their relationship to the law based on the facts. If a person comes in and they're guilty and the judge declares them guilty he condemns them from the law they don't suddenly become a morally more bad person.

He's just declared a position with the law. So our position with God is declared in justification based on someone's finished work. What flows out of that. The obedience to the law out of love is a separate issue.

One last thing about that we keep them in the right order. We keep from blending them. But we also do not let them become disconnected. So if we want to talk about justification and election and predestination until we're blue in the face but we don't love to talk about sanctification and perseverance then we know that we're unbalanced.

Yes because we have separated these great aspects of redemption which.

Cannot be separated. So and to underscore some of that as we've talked about repeatedly throughout this series God's law is unchanging immutable applicable at all times in all circumstances to all peoples it will never be a standard that is lowered.

He cannot. If he were to lower that standard he would no longer be God. All of his attributes are sort of bound up in that requirement that the law just as God is unchanging so the law and its standards can never be lowered.

So anytime you read Paul or Calvin or anybody else and think that's what they're saying either you misread them or they are off base right. I mean it is simply one of those foundation truths. Okay so give us another so another quote.

From Calvin and I mentioned that Calvin's helpful. I think one reason that John Calvin's helpful it's not because we call Calvin you know Spurgeon said I call no man master but Christ. So Spurgeon didn't go around you know parading Calvin though he was not ashamed of the doctrines of the Reformation that Calvin really clarified.

But I think one of the benefits of Calvin and the other early reformers is it was a it was a life-and-death issue with them. And so I mean really Pete their friends were dying. We think of Huss and others you know before them and then you know they they were seeing men die for truth.

And so that puts a keen edge on your theology. You know there's no you know there's no fuzzy edge. You know there's no kind of soft border. But also I think that they they were required since they were going back to scripture and rejecting church tradition.

They were required to basically rethink everything they could biblically and so in a way that's more direct perhaps than the Puritans after them. And in a way that is you know really helpful Calvin and the other magisterial reformers you know rethought a lot.

So I find the quotes helpful. Here's another one he says this Paul by the word law frequently intends the rule of a righteous life in which God requires of us what we owe to him affording us no hope of life unless we fulfill every part of it and on the contrary annexing a curse if we are guilty of the smallest transgression.

So that's I think that's the kind of the general view of law especially prior to Christ. But it's not just prior to Christ. It's today the law without the law fulfiller. Christ today has the same impact that it had in Moses his day without the law fulfiller.

If we are using the law to be right with God and we don't have a mediator that we belong to who has kept the law. Then the law is unsatisfied with us. And the law expects a perfect internal external do's and don'ts obedience or else we are condemned.

And therefore it's hopeless.

Yeah it's sort of like one of those bad horror movies where the monster is stalking you out there and it's it's accusing it's coming at you and in it you're just hopeless if it ever reaches you because it is completely overwhelming overpowering compared to your strength.

And that's one of those wrong views of the law that the Jews embodied right and the Judaizers at Paul's day that leads Paul to speak out in such harsh terms against the law.

Yeah really you could say a Christless application of the law. That's great. Yeah.

Yeah Christless give us another one. Steve all right. It is not unusual in scripture to seek a description of a pious and holy life from the second table of the law. That's really I think putting in a nutshell what we without maybe giving it much thought would say today who is the pious man.

Well it is the one that fulfills those set laws that the Ten Commandments in the second table right the honoring father and mother and not murdering not committing adultery and so forth. That's just sort of naturally I would say how we conceive of a righteous man.

So you see in that kind of default if you will of how we would define the righteous the pious man a recognition of the justness and the righteousness of God's holy law at least insofar as we're discussing just.

That second table. Yeah. So Calvin's argument I guess is that the law must the moral law must still continue to have impact yes on the believer. Because when Paul and those other men write to the churches and describe godly living it is always in harmony with that.

And it's not talking about you know that the vertical the first that the the more God were directly God word laws of the first half of the Ten Commandments. It's not saying that those aren't important.

But we notice yes not we don't we can't see a man's love for God but we can see it working itself out in the horizontal. Exactly. So the New Testament clearly goes back to that again and again proving that Paul feels that the law has a place in the Christian life.

Another quote. Calvin says. Free affection is the foundation and beginning of duly obeying the law. So a free heart a heart that freely loves God for what is drawn forth by constraint or servile fear.

You know. A fear of death fear of punishment. This cannot please God. I love that.

Because I think too it embodies what we are doing what the Pharisees did by and large what Christ condemned in the Pharisees the servile fearful attempt to keep the law outwardly without that inward as Calvin put it free affection I would say you know love for God.

It's really a denial of maybe the first table. You may not have a graven image but you certainly don't honor God as being the holy just righteous one to whom you owe all obedience. There is a reservation of the heart in an outward external attempt to keep the points of the law as we would say in the previous one the second table so that will never be pleasing to God and it clearly doesn't fulfill the call of God to righteousness.

Yeah and I.

Think that that's obvious especially in the New Testament you know the the Sermon on the Mount where Christ gets underneath the surface and talks about the heart issues. But it certainly is not only the New Testament.

The Old Testament is very clear that God is has never been only interested in external duty you know I was thinking of Psalm 119 that have been reading with a couple of guys in the church and the second one.

The second verse says that you know how blessed are the people that you know they walk this path. And then it says who seek the Lord with all their hearts. So feet on a path of obedience on a path of commandments.

Heart constantly yearning for God and I think of David. Speaking of Psalm 119 who is so often referred to as the man after God's own heart it isn't the external compliance that makes the difference it is the heart thing first right.

Another.

Quote the principle end and use of the law is to invite men to God. What a.

Wonderful way to put it. It doesn't look like an invitation. It's not doesn't look like the invitation I get in the mail for someone's wedding. And yet isn't that really a summation of its purpose. Its invitation works in the different way.

It first has to crush us in a way by showing us the holiness of God and that unreachable standard that he has there. But it points us in subtle ways and sometimes not so subtle ways to Christ the great law keeper the one who really fulfilled it and our desperate need for that Redeemer that one who would keep.

The law yeah if you think about the invitation of the law it you know I kind of feel like the law drives us. But think of it this way the law rips away the self-delusion. And the law shows us things about us stuff that we would never have said while we said we weren't perfect we would never have said things like this.

My soul is leprous that in every area I see self-staining my best religious works my kindest things I do in the family not to mention the things I would never say out loud. I'm leprous. And I I had this disease that I can't cure no matter how many doctors I go to.

And then when the law shows you that then it points you to the Savior who caused the leper to be cured. And before the law did that you would have thought well that's good for lepers but I'm not a leper.

Think about lameness. The law shows me that no matter how hard I I try no matter how strong my resolution I get up tomorrow morning and I'm determined to be a better man. And I just don't seem to have the legs to move forward you know and I go to walk and I can't make progress.

I you know I just live my entire life in these resolutions that never move. And the law shows me that to be true of myself. And then it shows me Christ who says you know where we see him healing the lame the blind the sick the stained.

In every area the law shows us the moral that what we are morally is exactly what Christ heals. And so the law in a sense is essential for any man or woman or young person to take the.

Invitations of Christ. Seriously. And what does that say about those that would preach only grace as they say in the pulpit today. Yeah well it's like.

Throwing. It's what Jeremiah in chapter 4 God says to break up their fallow ground and then then you sow the seed. You anyone that would throw seed. You know you plant a garden. If you just threw your seed on your yard you would expect nothing really.

So there must be a the plowing not as part of a payment. You know I feel so bad now I'm allowed to come. But as Ian Murray said in his book revival and revivalism which is a great book he said nothing is required of a man before he go to Christ for salvation.

But much is required of God to do in a man before he's willing to go to Christ for salvation. Well Steve our producer Teddy has told us that we've gone too long for this to be able to be one episode because we're not actually halfway through the quotes by the Reformer John Calvin showing the Reformation view of the law the gospel and the Christian.

And these are found in the book the law in the gospel by Ernie Reisinger and a link will be found in the show notes. So we're going to return to this and hit the second half of what Calvin said about this topic.