Below is a brief piece I wrote for a class I am taking. It should be viewed as only an outline. There is much that could (and should) be filled in. Till another time. Well, let me know what you think.
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I believe that the law was used in
Second, the law was to declare the glory and absolute holiness of the God who revealed the law to them.
Third, obedience to the law was important for personal purity. Psalm 119:9-11: “How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. 10 With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments! 11 I have stored up your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.” Knowledge of and obedience to the law was to keep God’s people from sinning against him.
Fourth, the law also served as
Fifth, it was to show forth sin (Romans 7:8-9). As Paul says we would not know our sin apart from the law (whether written in Scripture or on human hearts). It leads us to the necessity of Christ (Heb. 10:1 – shadow of things to come). The multitude of blood sacrifices demanded by the law only showed forth the law’s inability to save. Instead it pointed to the absolute necessity for a savior – someone to perfectly obey the law and then grant that righteousness onto our own accounts.
The tertius usus legis argues for the necessity of the law for Christians. For those who have been saved by the grace of Christ the law no longer stands as judge and jury to condemn, but it stands as a norm of conduct, a pattern of life and behavior for the regenerate. It teaches us the way of righteousness. It is not adhered to out of guilt or duty but out of delight in light of the free salvation which God has bestowed on us through the death and resurrection of his son on our behalf.
In regards to the relationship of the law in the OT and the law in the NT I would hold to a basic continuity and unity. However, a threefold distinction of the law must be made. As traditionally stated I believe that the law can be broken up (although at times with difficulty) into lex ceremonialis, lex civilis, and lex moralis.
The lex ceremonialis is the law of the cult. It encompasses the stipulations and commandments which governed the proper conduct of the tabernacle and then temple. This aspect of the law has found its fulfillment in Christ who was the perfect sacrifice and has since been abrogated through his fulfillment.
The lex civilis, is the judicial and civil aspect of the law of God. This encompassed such laws which organized Israelite society. I believe that Christ has also fulfilled this aspect of the law, but as to its abrogation this is a much more difficult question. I am not a full fledged theonomist by any means, but I often wonder in my heart if we should seek to align the law of the land more with the law of the Lord. Just how this would look I don’t know.
Lastly, there is the lex moralis, which is the abiding moral law of God. It is best summed up in the Ten Commandments of which I believe ALL remain valid for today. It might be fair to say that the lex civilis was the cultural outworking of the lex moralis for
Therefore, it is the moral law of God which remains valid for today’s Christian and this law must be correctly interpreted and applied to each cultural context. The application may change with time, but the basis for those laws, found in the Ten Commandments, will not change.
[1] In using this phrase I understand that I am not using it in the same way as the New Perspective proponents.
3 comments:
"The tertius usus legis argues for the necessity of the law for Christians. For those who have been saved by the grace of Christ the law no longer stands as judge and jury to condemn, but it stands as a norm of conduct, a pattern of life and behavior for the regenerate."
But, in all honesty, it works the same for the Jew. The Theocracy is long gone, a relic of history. The Law can no more put a man to death for his sins today than Obama can reign in out of control spending! So, the Jew also is no longer condemned by the Law, or as you put it "the law no longer stands as judge and jury to condemn" but rather, the Jew also is under the Law in the sense of the tertius usus legis, that is, as a norm of behavior rather than as a compulsory behavior "extorted" (as the Formula of Concord puts its) by threats.
I recognize, of course, that in the above presentation I silently ignored that the Lutheran interpretation via Galatians is that everyone who breaks even a minor command of the Law is damned to hell unless they put their faith in Christ. But inasmuch as the Law does not actually say this, it is safe to say that the "curse of the law" which is made so much of in Galatians is none other than physical death (the author of Galatians himself doesn't say anything about eternal hell when interpreting Deut 27:26; you just import that from some other Christian source into the text)--and so my statement above that "the law no longer stands as judge and jury to condemn" is also true of the Jews holds good.
In fact the "curse of the law" is fully explained in Deut 28 as being the Babylonian Captivity, so how exactly anyone every came up with the idea that it is eternal hell I will never figure out.
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