In some secular schools, Christians will face a dilemma in basic philosophy lessons: is the law good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? Both options are problematic. If the law is good because God commands it, then the commandment seems arbitrary. Perhaps he could turn what we think is right into evil or what we think is wrong into good. In the Middle Ages, some took this position, claiming that God was ex lex or « outside the law. » One of the best and most useful answers, in my opinion, was given by the Geneva reformer John Calvin. In his venerable systematic theology, the institutes of the Christian religion, Calvin expounded three « uses » of God`s moral law. The Lord of history gave His law, writes Calvin, to serve as: Thus, as noted above, there are two results in not distinguishing between moral or natural law as permanent and ceremonial (religious) and judicial law as temporary. One of the results is that, as we see in Smethurts` approach, with the death of Christ, the entire law of the Old Testament dies with him. The other, as already mentioned, is the theonomic approach, in which court laws are not considered « expired » and therefore continue to exist. This contrasts with the Westminster Confession of Faith (19:3-5), where the Reformed confess: This is a big problem and the Old Testament has a lot to say about it. See my article « Why Does God Allow Divorce? » to examine Moses` divorce from Christ and then from the apostle Paul. Smethurst`s essay is useful because it is a clear and concise account of how many evangelicals think and talk about God`s law. It is also fundamentally alien to the way the broad Christian tradition, including the Reformed tradition, has spoken of the Ten Commandments as a moral law. Now we will examine some moral laws that stand by themselves, as well as some moral laws contained in civil laws to illustrate how we can seek and find God`s moral law in the Old Testament.
Paul does not take the bad news from his readers: neither Jews nor Gentiles can keep the law. By the way, we cannot even live up to our own moral standards, let alone the moral standard God has revealed to us. We all walk in disobedience to God. In many cases, the punishments prescribed for these violations of moral law fell to the civil government of Israel as a theocracy (consisting of the elders of the city of Israel, judges, prophets, kings, and priests). Israel`s theocracy is now gone. We live today under our various governments in the nations of the world, and the Church is now a group called by every tribe and nation in the world. If our various governments would adopt some of Israel`s punishments for the laws that were in their God-given power to do so. As individual Christians, or even as families and churches, we do not have the right to apply these punishments – but that does not mean that we cannot abide by the moral law found in these civil laws. Especially with regard to the Ten Commandments, we can say that a negative prohibition such as « Thou shalt not steal » means more than simply staying away from this crime. The Great Catechism of Westminster says: « Where sin is forbidden, the opposite duty is commanded. » 13 The ban on flying stems from God`s greater concern for private property and how we use it. Similarly, the commandment against adultery takes a greater perspective on the nature of sexuality and marriage. The condemnation of murder takes a stand on the dignity of life.
In the same way, Jesus taught that the Spirit of the Law is contained in the letter of the Law. A secular writer argued that Jesus was an evil ethicist because he said that anger was as bad as murder and lust as bad as adultery. However, this is a misunderstanding of what Jesus said. As mentioned above, it almost recognizes what magisterial and confessional Protestants (Lutheran and Reformed) called (and called) the third application of the law. Christ is our Vicar. The law and its punishments were nailed to the cross (Colossians 2:14). Christ is our victorious vicar, but this reality never means to Paul that the moral law, which is the law of Christ – after all, it was Jesus who led us out of Egypt (Jude 5) and the rock from which we drank in the wilderness, and the manna that fed us was Christ (1 Corinthians 10: 1-4) – and Paul regularly applies it to Christians as the norm of their new life.