LBCF Chap 19 Of the Law of God

We're up to chapter 19, titled of the Law of God. Now, this chapter is divided into four parts. It has seven paragraphs, and so it's divided into four parts with the seven paragraphs. And we got a little dive bomber going through there.

This chapter is still in part two of the confession. Remember how we talked about the confession being divided into four basic parts? First part being the foundation, second part being an explanation of the covenant.

This is still part of the covenant. And then next week we'll look at the gospel and its gracious intent. Then we'll go into the third part, which is Christian liberty and Christian living. This chapter presents a particularly Reformed view of the law of God.

You've seen this through many of the chapters, especially in this part, starting with chapter 7 of the covenant and going right through chapter 20. You will see that these are explicitly Reformed explanations of these doctrines.

And it separates us very definitely from dispensationalism and from charismatic theology, etc. So this, another one, is particularly Reformed. It's an important chapter in light of the antinomian teaching that is prevalent in the church today.

Now, that being said, this chapter is still somewhat controversial, even within the Reformed community, based upon how far we take some of the things into theonomy. And obviously some Reformed Baptists reject theonomy, others accept theonomy.

The wording of the confession kind of allows for both views. And so that's why you find that even within the Reformed community, there are some differences of opinion as to how it should be interpreted.

But we'll go through that little by little. That being said, it is in complete harmony with the Westminster Confession and the Savoy Declaration. In other words, the wordings of all of these three documents are almost identical.

There might be a few variations, but nothing of any significance. That being said, let's start right in with the Confession. And part one, as it's broken down in Sam Waldron's book, is the original dispensation of the law of God and its substance.

Now, here is the first paragraph, the first part of the first paragraph. And the first thing we look at is its substance. And the thing that we're looking at here is that it's a universal law. God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart.

Okay. A lot of people have the mistaken understanding about the law of God that, well, it's only for Christians or it's just for unbelievers. It is a universal law that was written on the heart of man.

All right. We'll see that. Its substance, there was a specific precept. Not only do we have the universal law, all right, which we'll see is codified in the Ten Commandments, but there was a very specific precept given to Adam and Eve of not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So you have the universal aspect of it, and then you have the specific aspect of it. Okay. Paragraph 1B talks about its obligation. In other words, what is the obligation that God gave to Adam and Eve, and by them to all mankind?

By which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience. That's pretty specific, isn't it?

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Notice, not only to Adam, but to his posterity, personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience. You don't really have any wiggle room here, do you? Okay. And then we see for the enforcement of it, life is promised for obedience.

And again, I'm moving through this pretty quickly because this is, I'm presuming that everybody's got this part of it down pretty well by now, I would hope. Life for obedience, death for disobedience upon the breach of it.

Okay. And then the last part of paragraph 1, its accompaniment, and endued him with power and ability to keep it. Remember, when Adam sinned, it was his sin. God didn't make him. He had endued him with everything he needed to keep the law.

Okay.

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We move to part 2, and the way our confession breaks it down is the Mosaic codification of the law.

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Paragraph 2a, the repetition of the moral law. That same law was first written in the heart of man, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall.

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That's just basically saying the fact of its repetition. Written in the heart of man, all right, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness even after the fall,.

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And then was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in the form of the Ten Commandments.

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That's the circumstances of its repetition.

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What's significant here is the law didn't start on Mount Sinai. The law was given to man in his creation, written on his heart. Okay. And again, I'm not going to go through the scriptural proofs for that.

That's not the purpose of this class. I'm not trying to prove each of these. The main purpose of this class is just what does the confession teach.

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And then if you have any situations or any problems with any of it, then we can bring those up at some other time.

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So that's the circumstance. It was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai in Ten Commandments and written in two tables.

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First four containing our duty towards God and the other six, our duty to man. And whether you want to break it up four and six or five and five, I really don't have a problem either way. Okay.

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So that's the repetition of the law. Still under the mosaic codification of it, we have the addition of the ceremonial law.

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And this is the way our confession states, the purpose of the ceremonial law. Besides this law, commonly called moral, all right. In fact, let me just pause here. This might be a good part to say it. Reformed Baptist theology, most Presbyterian and other reformed, break the law into what we would call a tripartite.

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That comes under debate in all different sides. The way we break it down is we say there's the moral law, the ceremonial law, and the judicial law.

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It's the judicial law that brings on the theonomic debate.

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But we'll get to that later on.

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But even between the ceremonial law and the moral law, we need to understand that when you go into the Old Testament, there are parts of the law where all three of those principles are mixed.

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In other words, you might have some laws that have ceremonial aspects to it, judicial aspects to it, and moral aspects to it.

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Let me say this, too. I highly doubt that Israel, in the Old Covenant, viewed this tripartite nature of the law that we do, because to them it was all the law of God for them, and therefore it was all moral.

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Since we live in the Age of Grace, in the New Covenant, we can look back and we can distinguish between the law, because we know what Christ fulfilled, and we know that that is not binding on us today.

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So even as we go through this, you will find Reformed scholars who disagree with certain aspects of it in its interpretation. And we're not going to debate all of those tonight. Okay. So anyway, besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give the people of Israel ceremonial laws containing several typical ordinances.

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Partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, suffering, and benefits and partly holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. Okay. That's just a vast generalization of the purpose and of the ceremonial law.

Okay. Now then, still under the addition of the ceremonial law and the abrogation of it. And this is one of those things. I don't like the word abrogate. Okay. It's fulfilled. It's not really abrogated.

So this is one of those areas where I understand what the framers of the Confession are saying, but I think they would have done better if they had used the word that these were fulfilled, not abrogated.

Abrogated seems like, well, you just push them aside. And maybe that's just my connotation, but does that make sense? Okay. With ceremonial laws being appointed only to the time of Reformation or by Jesus Christ, the true Messiah, and only lawgiver who was furnished with power from the Father for that and abrogated and taken away.

Now again, what I would rather say and put it this way, when Christ came, he fulfilled these, and of necessity, they passed away. I know it's maybe semantics, but I like it. And this is, like I say, for the most part, I'm standing with the Confession all the time, but occasionally there's a word or the way they phrase it that I'm not that happy with.

Okay.

So we got this, the abrogation of the ceremonial law, and I'm only using their terminology.

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Still under the codification of it, the addition of the judicial law.

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To them, he also gave sundry judicial laws.

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And now here's where, this is where we start to come into some issues, and especially those of us who have either call ourselves theonomists or have theonomic leanings or theonomy with a small t. However we want to call ourselves, we run into a little bit of a problem here.

He gave sundry judicial laws. Do you understand what judicial laws, what we mean by judicial laws? Well, these are how do you enforce the moral law in specific cases? So, for example, thou shall not commit murder.

What does that mean?

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Well, we know if you go into the Old Testament, Leviticus and Exodus, you have laws dealing with what happens if you let your ox get out and he's gored somebody. There's different things. That's the judicial law.

I like what Gary North, Gary North calls them the case laws, which I think is, I think that's the best phrasing for it. The case law is how do I deal with this law in a real life situation?

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And that's what God did. And I think if you look at it in that light, it pushes you more towards theonomy. But I'm not going to go there.

Okay.

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In fact, you know what this is like? We have the New York State penal law. This is not it. I chose this book because this is about the size of it, all right, which is pretty massive even in itself. But if you go into the law library, you will find rooms, and I mean rooms full of volumes, which is the case laws, explaining how the penal law should be applied.

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And that's kind of the way the judicial law works. Now, the ancient expiration, he says, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution. The way the framers of the confession put it was, when Israel ceased to be a nation, all right, the judicial laws were no longer binding.

Okay. But they put the caveat in. Their general equity only being of moral use. In other words, what they're saying is the equity, in other words, the teaching that is in the moral law should be used in our society today.

And now this is where we have the big debate. Are you a theonomist or not? Now, Sam Walton, who wrote this book, is not.

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But a lot of us in the reformed Baptist movement would consider ourselves to be theonomist. And we would look at the judicial law as these things, the principles by the way it says that the general equity, these principles should be enacted in the laws of our society.

Our society should reflect those laws.

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Part three, the inherent obligation of the law of God. Paragraph 5A is its permanent duration. The moral law does forever bind all as well as justified persons as others to the obedience thereof. This is one of the things that makes this a distinctively reformed confessional statement.

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Because notice what it says. The moral law binds forever, not only justified persons, but the unregenerate. It's the law of God that is used as the measuring, as the standard to judge.

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And that's why it's binding.

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And notice it's permanent in duration.

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It's universal scope and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God, the creator who gave it. In other words, it's not just for the specific statutes, but the generalities behind it.

It goes to the authority of God who has authority over the entire earth. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. It's, you know, what this really shoots down is that two kingdom, a lot of two kingdom theology and whatnot.

Okay. Christ is the king.

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And he has authority over all, even the nonbelievers. And remember, although it's not contained right in here, but remember Satan is under the dominion of Christ. He can only do what Christ allows him.

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Remember even with Peter, Peter, Satan has requested permission, you know, to sift you like wheat.

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And then it's heightened strength. And this goes into the new covenant. Neither does Christ in the gospel anyway dissolve, but strengthens its obligation.

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So, and this is where it comes in that Christ didn't come to abolish the law. You know, he came to fulfill it. And not one jot or tittle of the law is going to pass away.

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And that's what it's saying. So, far from this idea that you get in a lot of theologies in the church today, that says that, well, no, we're not under the law, we're under grace. Bible doesn't teach anything near to that.

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In fact, teaches just the opposite. And you'll see that coming up. Special functions of the law of God for Christians. Paragraph 6a is the assumed qualifications of these functions. Although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works.

And here's where the rub comes in with a lot of theologies today. You can be under the law of God, just not under the covenant of works. That's the distinction. And a lot of people today, they can't get over that distinction.

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So, all true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works. To be thereby justified or condemned.

Right.

What covenant are you under?

Grace.

The new covenant.

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So, but that doesn't mean that the law, which was the mediating factor of the covenant of works, doesn't mean that it was abrogated. It's not.

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Yet it is of great use to them as well as to others in that as a rule of life, there's the difference. Not as a covenant of works. You're not going to be justified, no matter how many good deeds you do, no matter what you do.

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But it's your rule of life. How do I know as a Christian what the standard is? What should I be doing? What shouldn't I be doing? You come to the law of God. That's the rule of life. If you take away the law of God, what is your standard?

Right. You're left without a standard.

OK.

And what does it do? It informs of the will of God and their duty. You go into the scriptures. It tells you very clearly what the will of God is for your life. What your duty is as a Christian.

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And it directs and binds them to walk accordingly. In fact, I wish I had thought of it. I have a great quotation from Arshtuni on this where he talks about the Bible is not merely a devotional. It's not merely to go and sit and meditate and feel good, but it's marching orders.

It's the marching orders given to the army of God as to how they are to go about daily life. Special functions, the specific enumeration of these functions.

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This is still in paragraph six. Now we're in to be discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature's hearts and lives. It is the law of God that you hold up. And it's like that mirror that you look in and you see yourself as you really are.

Remember what it Paul says is. I saw the law of God and I saw that I was a covetous man.

Right.

That's part of the that's part of the function. So as examining selves, themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of humiliation for and hatred against sin. If you're a believer in Christ and you're reading the scriptures and specifically if you're reading any parts of the law, if you don't see yourself as a sinful person and you're not reading it right.

Because that's one of the purposes of it. And together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and of the perfection of his obedience. There is nothing. Nothing more beneficial to the Christian to sit down and read the law of God.

And see how far from it you really are. You know, when you do that, when you've done something really, really good. And you're really feeling good.

Yes.

Today was a good day. I did all of this. Well, go back and read the law of God. It'll bring you down because you don't want to get too cocky. Don't get me wrong. We should be encouraged on when when things go right.

But you don't want to get. You don't want to get overly confident. I'm still in paragraph six B. This is a lengthy paragraph, by the way. All of this, all of this, what you see, this is all of paragraph six.

It is likewise to use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions. In other words, it's telling you what you can do, what you cannot do. We all have corrupt, a corrupt nature. Right. We all have corrupt nature.

I left the house just before and had three of the grandchildren over. Corrupt natures.

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In that it forbids sin.

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There's nowhere in Scripture you can go in and get the idea. Well, it's OK. It's not that sin wasn't so bad. You don't find that.

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And the threatenings of it to serve to show what even their sins deserve. You know, that's something that we need to keep in mind. Is that even as a believer, when you have assurance of salvation, it's always a good thing to realize that, you know, when I sin, I know what that deserves.

And it's only by the grace of God that I'm not condemned for what I've just done.

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Because don't forget, you ever get really, really angry at somebody? Even other than your spouse. And at least for a moment, you have that hatred in your heart, right? Who here can say that you haven't come this week?

This week. How many of us can say, no, there's no circumstance that I can't say that I didn't actually have some hatred in my heart towards somebody. Even if you're just watching the news.

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You realize that you just murdered somebody. It's the word of God that shows you what your sin deserves. And what affliction in this life they may expect for them.

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Although freed from the curse and unallayed rigor thereof. In other words, even though I know that my sins are covered by the blood of Christ, it's always a good thing to say, but I still remember what they deserve.

But for the grace of God, I stand condemned even now. Okay. Still in 6B, this is a big, big paragraph. The promises of it likewise show them God's approbation of obedience.

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And what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof. In other words, there are promises in scriptures for keeping the law of God. And not only eternal, but there are temporal consequences.

And I shouldn't say consequences because that seems like a negative, but it's not. Consequences not always negative.

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For example, honor your father and mother. What's the benefits of keeping that commandment? Long life. Prosperity.

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Things will go well with you.

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Though not as do them by a law as the covenant of works. In other words, when you obey that command, all right, it's not that it's owed you.

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It's still a gift of grace because that's how you come into the covenant of grace.

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So, as man's doing good and refraining from evil because the law encourages the one and deters the other. Now, look at this. Is no evidence of his being under law and not under grace. Now, there's a reason why they put that in here.

Because this is what your typical Arminian and antinomian will say. No, if you have to, if you're required to obey the law and you do it, you're working for it. And they put this in the confession to say, no, just because you obey the law.

Doesn't mean that you're submitting to it as a covenant of works. You're submitting to it as a rule of life. For a couple of reasons. One, because it's the right. It's what God expects of you. It's what he desires of you.

And it's a fruit of the repentance that you desire to do what is well, what is right and what is well. Okay. So, this is one of the arguments that if you ever get involved with an antinomian or an Arminian.

There's no evidence of his being under law. No, by doing that, you're under the law. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's not, it doesn't even fit logically. Part 4C. The special functions of the law of God for Christians.

The harmonious operation of these functions. I love the way they put that. Neither are the aforementioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel. Now, this section is put in because, again, this is where you're going to get into the arguments with other believers.

They say that the law and the gospel are at odds with one another. And this part of the confession is saying, no, contrary to that. These uses of the law are not contrary to the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it.

What are the fruits? What is the major fruit of repentance that you are truly saved? Peace with God? What else? Conviction? But what are the fruits that manifest themselves?

Yeah.

Yeah.

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Now, can they be evidenced by other people?

Yeah.

That's one of the things that the elders of the church look for when somebody comes and makes a profession of faith. Do you evidence the fruit of the spirit? Okay. And it says, but do sweetly comply with it.

The spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully, which the will of God revealed in the law and required to be done. In other words, when you read the law as a believer, you see what God requires, and you cheerfully and willfully do it, not as under compulsion, but out of the desire of your heart, because your heart is now changed by the spirit of God who bends your spirit into his will.

And you want to do the things that he tells you to do.

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So far from being at odds with it.

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And that's why this is important. This whole section here. I guess that was that's paragraph seven. That's the last one. Now, questions. Ted. Yeah, I can do that. Theonomy, it comes from two words, theos and nomos.

Theos meaning God and nomos meaning law.

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So it's God's law. Now, in our society today, what it means is that theonomists believe that God's law, judicial law, the whole law of God, except, of course, the ceremonial aspects that have been fulfilled in Christ, should be used in the construction of any society, government.

So, in other words, in the United States, we should not be enacting any law that is not in line with the laws of Scripture. And that's about as short an explanation as I can. Now, again, there are different factions within theonomy.

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As to how strict that has to be and then whether or not the punishments of the Old Testament come into the into the new covenant. There's disagreements over that. But at its heart is that that any society should be erected around God's law.

As I think Cornelius Van Til put it, he says, you have two choices, theonomy or autonomy. So there have actually been more than one case of a person who came to faith on death row. And he says, and I am not seeking appeal.

He says, I know that this is what I deserve. And I could pull out several cases where that has, in fact, happened. In fact, one of them is David Berkowitz, son of Sam. Not that he got the death penalty, only because we didn't have one in New York at the time, but he would have gotten one.

And but he has never sought to get out of jail. He's noticed where I belong. He says, I've repented. And I've talked to people who have talked to him personally, and they are absolutely convinced that he has made a true, has a true conversion experience.

And that was one of the evidence to me that I was looking for. He's no, I don't, I don't, I'm not seeking to get out. This is where I belong. I did. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

Again, the nitty gritty details is where the rub really comes. What do they say? The devil is in the details.

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Okay.

This is what, this is where we really need to be careful. And remember, I said, it's not crystal clear all the time that the law is broken up and extremely in this tripartite or trichotomy view.

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Sometimes it overlaps. But this is why I like the threefold division of the law, because there are times that the New Testament is referring to personal behavior and other times it's referring to governmental behavior.

And those are two different things.

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For example, you as an individual, you don't have the right to put somebody to death. The church doesn't. When the church was doing it all those years, they were wrong. Government has the power of the sword.

You see. So, so, for example, take the Sermon on the Mount. You have a lot of churches today, all right, who misunderstand the law and Christ's exposition of it in the Sermon on the Mount. And they use the Sermon on the Mount to say we should never have the death penalty.

Christ is not talking about governmental power there. He's talking about how do you deal with your personal enemies. You follow? Turn the other cheek. A government doesn't have to turn the other cheek.

Somebody lobs a bomb at us, there's something that we can do and retaliate to retaliate. We don't have to say, well, we don't do that again. No, we, we, we hold very strongly to the separation of the powers of the church and state.

We just don't think that you remove God from government. There's a difference. No, there are three basic covenant institutions. The church, the government, and the family. And God, if you go through the scriptures, God has given each one certain powers and certain limitations.

And none of them, anytime one of them oversteps its bounds, you have trouble. For example, what happened in Middle Ages? Church, you usurp the power of the government and the family and look at the disaster.

Look at our society today and what has happened in our society. The government has vastly overreached and look at the state that, that our nation is in.

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You have times also where the church has overstepped its bounds in regards to, to the family. And that's not good either. You have, God has set it up very carefully, perfectly, you know. All we have to do is go to the scriptures and apply it.

Yes. There's no such thing as not getting caught. Well, I mean that you would have to be in a, in a society where, where theonomy is, is already in practice. Well, that's, that's, well, that's with any crime.

I can rob a bank if I don't get caught. Well, remember what's forbidden is the actions. You have to be caught.

Yeah.

Or, or the person confesses.

No.

And nor are we to prosecute people for the attitudes of their heart that don't go into. Our government is trying to do that now. Our government is, is trying to get the attitude of your heart. If you're, if, if they categorize you as a, as a racist, you're guilty.

Final thoughts.

Okay.

I knew this would be a good one.

Yeah.