faith for faith

This is repost from Justin Taylor’s blog. I was studying to write a piece on it myself, but this is far better than anything that I would done:

Tom Schreiner’s 40 Questions About Christians and Biblical Law releases later this month. As I’ve said before, I think it’s now the go-to book for an accessible introduction to all the major issues related to gospel and law, the role of law in redemptive history, application of the law today, etc. I could not recommend it more highly.

Kregel has kindly given me permission to reprint some of the entries. I’ll do so throughout the week. I won’t reproduce the footnotes or the discussion questions, but other than that it’s the full entry.

Today I’ll reprint question #37, “Is the Sabbath Still Required for Christians?”

Believers today continue to dispute whether the Sabbath is required. The Sabbath was given to Israel as a covenant sign, and Israel was commanded to rest on the seventh day. We see elsewhere in the Old Testament that covenants have signs, so that the sign of the Noahic covenant is the rainbow (Gen. 9:8–17) and the sign of the Abrahamic covenant is circumcision (Gen. 17). The paradigm for the Sabbath was God’s rest on the seventh day of creation (Gen. 2:1–3). So, too, Israel was called upon to rest from work on the seventh day (Exod. 20:8–11; 31:12–17). What did it mean for Israel not to work on the Sabbath? Figure 5 lists the kinds of activities that were prohibited and permitted.

Read more…

Being that in our course of questions we have to the question, “Why then the Law?” it is fitting that we remain with the one who drove us most quickly to the point—the apostle Paul. He answers this question, writing:

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe (Gal. 3:19-22).

To answer our present question, “Why then the Law?” the most obvious course is to unpack the answer that the apostle gives. However, before we begin to answer that question, it is good to reiterate what has brought us to this point.

Read more…

When we speak about the Law in Christianity, it is an extremely touchy subject. It is such because there are so many varying understandings and applications of it that one can scarcely make any comment on the subject whatsoever without offending someone. And because the responses to critiques are such, few venture to comment on it not wishing to dirty their hands in the process. Therefore, we have little in way of healthy discussion upon the Law and its implications on Christian life, and we see bits and pieces taken from the Law applied here and there in church settings without much explanation as to why some laws are valid and why others are considered annulled.

However, when we turn to the New Testament and especially in the writings of Paul, we find that the authors are not hesitant in the least to address the matter. Paul’s letter to the Galatian church, for example, is almost in full an explanation of the Law and a critique of the Galatian church’s view and practice of it. Since the New Testament writers (i.e. those who lived and wrote after the coming of Christ) are not silent on the Law, why have we become so? And even if we have not been silent, why is there a seeming disparity between our own interpretations and applications?

Read more…

When it comes to fate of those who die apart from hearing the Gospel, according to some theologues, there is some ambiguity in the Scriptures that arises from a philosophical problem. That supposed problem essentially is this: “If men are saved only through the preaching of the Gospel, and some men have died apart from hearing the Gospel, their fate then is uncertain for they cannot be held accountable for that which they have not heard.” And such a statement is not found merely among those who would call themselves liberal in the faith, but I have personally heard it from the mouths of those who call themselves conservative, Bible-believing evangelicals.

The problem with such a belief is clear when seen in light of the salvific exclusivity claimed of faith in Christ by the Scriptures, but its root is a much deeper issue, namely a fundamental misunderstanding of the Gospel itself.

Read more…

What is baptism? Having grown up a Baptist, I have been taught and have held the typical Baptist view that baptism is merely a symbol and an ordinance, administered rightly by immersion and done as an “outward expression of an inward reality.” And in my many years as a Baptist, I have heard countless preachers and seminary professors give a thousand explanations and arguments concerning the mode of the “outward expression” of baptism from Scripture and from Church history, but I have yet to hear one sermon or lecture on the inward reality that the outward expression represents. For this reason, I am convinced that we who call ourselves Baptists have focused so much on the proper mode and administration of baptism that we have lost what baptism truly is. In this way we are much like the Jews of old who properly administered circumcision on the eighth day of a child’s life (even if that eighth day fell on the Sabbath), who yet forgot and neglected the reality that that practice represented, namely the circumcision of the heart by the Spirit of God to love God and to obey his law (cf. Deut. 10:16; 30:6; Jer. 4:4; Ezek. 44:7; Acts 7:51; Rm. 2:29).

And because of our focus on the physical ordinance of baptism and our neglect of the reality of baptism, we as Baptists are terribly confused by such declarations as that of the apostle Peter, who wrote, “Baptism now saves you” (1Pet. 3:21). For we have so ritualized and despiritualized the practice of baptism that we have become unbiblical in our understanding of it despite our denomination’s title. And instead of doing as we ought and running to the Scriptures to discover what true baptism is, we do as many have done with other doctrines by forming our doctrines and then explaining away passages that do not fit our doctrinal understanding rather than explaining them.

Read more…

The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s (Rm. 14:6-8).

In Christian practice there exists two categories–that which is doctrine and that which is opinion. And though these two categories exist and have existed since the creation and more so since Christ fulfilled the ceremonial and civil requirements of the Law, their ends have ever been the same, namely to glorify God. Therefore whether one submits to doctrine or whether one submits to a certain opinion, it is to be done for the sake of the glory of God alone lest that which is not sin become sin.

Read more…

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law (Rm. 13:8).

While the interpretations of the apostle’s command to the church at Rome, “Owe no one anything, except to love one another,” are many, his purpose can be surmised in the verses that follow his exhortation. And though it is wise not to owe any man anything at all, e.g. lent money, etc., and to pursue such lack of indebtedness is a godly pursuit, that particular debt is not what the apostle is speaking about chiefly, though it cannot be discounted totally.

The debt about which the apostle is speaking particularly is the debt of sin or transgression. For the apostle’s command, “Owe no one anything,” is fulfilled by the command, “Love one another.” This is the same debt that Christ speaks about in his model prayer where he says, “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Mt. 6:12). The idea is the same as that which the apostle presented in the previous section of his discourse, namely that we as Christians have an obligation to our fellow men to obey the law, be it God’s law or a government’s law, and we are to pay our debts according to the law, be it taxes or honor (cf. Rm. 13:7). Therefore, the Christian is a debtor in this life to the laws under which he finds himself.

Read more…

Whether you knew it or not, the greatest truth in the world lies in Romans 10:4, namely “Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” This statement is the very core of the Gospel, and it is a condensed version of the already condensed declaration of the Gospel by the apostle in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Though these two verses arrive to these declarations from different paths in different contexts, their conclusion is singular: To the one who believes, Christ is his righteousness. There is no greater truth than this, and to miss this truth is to miss the Gospel.

I emphasize these points that this truth is the greatest of all truths and it is the very core of the Gospel because I wonder how many in our churches who claim to have submitted to the Gospel can articulate this truth. This truth is not something that is merely nice to know about or is some meat that one learns later in one’s life as a Christian, but it is essential to one’s salvation. For in the verses preceding this declaration, the apostle writes, “I bear them [the Israelites] witness that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness” (vv. 2, 3). In the case of the Israelites (consequently, as it is with all people) their ignorance of the righteousness of God manifested in the work of Christ imputed to those who believe in him led them to establish their own righteousness. In other words, their disregard for the gift of Christ’s righteousness led them to a salvation by deeds, which is no salvation at all.

Read more…