|
TeacherAide Case For Freedom SESSION 10 ILLUSTRATING THE POINT Late
one evening a professor sat at his desk working on the next day's lectures. He
shuffled through the papers and mail placed there by his housekeeper. He began
to throw them in the wastebasket when one magazine--not even addressed to him
but delivered to his office by mistake--caught his attention. It fell open to an
article titled "The Needs of the Congo Mission." The professor
began reading it idly, but then he was consumed by these words: "The need
is great here. We have no one to work the northern province of Gabon in the
central Congo. And it is my prayer as I write this article that God will lay His
hand on one--one on whom, already, the Master's eyes have been cast--that he or
she shall be called to this place to help us." The professor closed the
magazine and wrote in his diary: "My search is over." He gave himself
to go to the Congo. The professor's name was Albert Schweitzer. That
little article, hidden in a periodical intended for someone else, was placed by
accident in Schweitzer's mailbox. By chance his housekeeper put the magazine on
the professor's desk. By chance he noticed the title, which seemed to leap out
at him. Dr. Schweitzer became one of the great figures this century in a
humanitarian work nearly unmatched in human history. Chance? No. Providence. THE MORE YOU KNOW A
very in depth study of Galatians 4:21-31 can be found a this website. http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/83/052283.html The
book of Galatians covers the theological topic of law and grace. There are
several schools of thought on what it means. Below is an article summing up the
different positions concerning the law taken from desiringgod.org. There
are three main theological camps on the issues of law, gospel, and the
structuring of God's redemptive relationship with humankind: dispensationalism,
covenant theology, and new covenant theology. Many have written to us asking
about the differences between these three views, and so before discussing John
Piper's perspective we will give an overview of each. Dispensationalism
First,
dispensationalism sees God as structuring His relationship with mankind through
several stages of revelation which mark off different dispensations, or
stewardship arrangements. Each dispensation is a "test" of mankind to
be faithful to the particular revelation given at the time. Generally, seven
dispensations are distinguished: innocence (before the fall), conscience (Adam
to Noah), promise (Abraham to Moses), Law (Moses to Christ), grace (Pentecost to
the rapture), and the millennium. Second,
dispensationalism holds to a literal interpretation of Scripture. This does not
deny the existence of figures of speech and non-literal language in the Bible,
but rather means that there is a literal meaning behind the figurative passages. Third,
as a result of this literal interpretation of Scripture, dispensationalism holds
to a distinction between Israel (even believing Israel) and the church. On this
view, the promises made to Israel in the OT were not intended as prophecies
about what God would do spiritually for the church, but will literally be
fulfilled by Israel itself (largely in the millennium). For example, the promise
of the land is interpreted to mean that God will one day fully restore Israel to
Palestine. In contrast, non-dispensationalists typically see the land promise as
intended by God to prophesy, in shadowy Old-covenant-form, the greater reality
that He would one day make the entire church, Jews and Gentiles, heirs of the
whole renewed world (cf. Romans 4:13). In
many ways it is thus accurate to say that dispensationalism believes in
"two peoples of God." Although both Jews and Gentiles are saved by
Christ through faith, believing Israel will be the recipient of additional
"earthly" promises (such as prosperity in the specific land of
Palestine, to be fully realized in the millennium) that do not apply to
believing Gentiles, whose primary inheritance is thus "heavenly." Covenant Theology
The
covenant of grace is one of two fundamental covenants in covenant theology. It
structures God's post-fall relationship to mankind; pre-fall, God structured His
relationship by the covenant of works. The covenant of grace is best understood
in relation to the covenant of works. The
covenant of works, instituted in the Garden of Eden, was the promise that
perfect obedience would be rewarded with eternal life. Adam was created sinless
but with the capability of falling into sin. Had he remained faithful in the
time of temptation in the Garden (the "probationary period"), he would
have been made incapable of sinning and secured in an eternal and unbreakable
right standing with God. But
Adam sinned and broke the covenant, and thereby subjected himself and all his
descendants to the penalty for covenant-breaking, condemnation. God in His mercy
therefore instituted the "covenant of grace," which is the promise of
redemption and eternal life to those who would believe in the (coming) redeemer.
The requirement of perfect obedience for eternal life is not annulled by the
covenant of grace, but is rather fulfilled by Christ on behalf of His people,
since now that all are sinners no one can meet the condition of perfect
obedience by his own performance. The covenant of grace, then, does not set
aside the covenant of works but rather fulfills it. As
mentioned above, covenant theology emphasizes that there is only one covenant of
grace, and that all of the various redemptive covenants that we read of in the
Scripture are simply differing administrations of this one covenant. In support,
it is pointed out that a covenant is in essence simply a sovereignly given
promise (usually with stipulations), and since there is only one promise of
salvation (namely, by grace through faith), it follows that there is therefore
only one covenant of grace. All of the specific redemptive covenants we read of
(the Abrahamic, Mosaic, etc.) are various and culminating expressions of the
covenant of grace. New Covenant Theology
NCT
argues that one cannot divide the law up in that way, as though part of the
Mosaic Law can be abrogated while the rest remains in force. The Mosaic Law is a
unity, they say, and so if part of it is canceled, all of it must be canceled.
On top of this, they say that the New Testament clearly teaches that the Mosaic
Law as a whole is superseded in Christ. It is, in other words, no longer our
direct and immediate source of guidance. The Mosaic Law, as a law, is no longer
binding on the believer. Does
this mean that believers are not bound by any divine law? No, because the Mosaic
Law has been replaced by the law of Christ. NCT makes a distinction between the
eternal moral law of God and the code in which God expresses that law to us. The
Mosaic Law is an expression of God's eternal moral law as a particular code
which also contains positive regulations pertinent to the code's particular
temporal purpose, and therefore the cancellation of the Mosaic Law does not mean
that the eternal moral law is itself canceled. Rather, upon canceling the Mosaic
Law, God gave us a different expression of his eternal moral law--namely, the
Law of Christ, consisting in the moral instructions of Christ's teaching and the
New Testament. The key issue that NCT seeks to raise is: Where do we look to see
the expression of God's eternal moral law today--do we look to Moses, or to
Christ? NCT says we look to Christ. There
are many similarities between the Law of Christ and Mosaic Law, but that does
not change the fact that the Mosaic Law has been canceled and that, therefore,
we are not to look to it for direct guidance but rather to the New Testament.
For example, England and the US have many similar laws (for example, murder is
illegal in both countries). Nonetheless, the English are not under the laws of
America, but of England. If an English citizen murders in England, he is held
accountable for breaking England's law against murder, not America's law against
murder. The
benefit of NCT, its advocates argue, is that it solves the difficulty of trying
to figure out which of the Mosaic laws apply to us today. On their
understanding, since the Mosaic Law is no longer a direct and immediate source
of guidance, we look to the Law of Christ for our direct guidance. Although the
Mosaic Law is no longer a binding law code in the NT era, it still has the
authority, not of law, but of prophetic witness. As such, it fills out and
explains certain concepts in both the old and new covenant law. |