The Highway Forums General Discussion Theology Discussion Forum ...The people miscalled Antinomians ?

Mark,

This is a strawman argument at best. As an explanation for those writers that have referred to the Moral Law as being "eternal" in regard to man knowing them, etc.... the word "eternal" cannot be restricted to one solitary meaning ("psycho-statistical mean" hermeneutics). There are many instances where "eternal" can be seen to have a beginning, e.g., Gen 17:9; and an end, e.g., the promises given to Israel concerning the land, e.g., Ex. 6:4. Thus the words, "eternal", "everlasting" and "forever" should not and cannot be restricted to one meaning only.

Secondly, the text you chose to quote actually goes against your Antinomian view and answers the question beautifully when taken in context:

Romans 5:12-14 (ASV) "Therefore, as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so death passed unto all men, for that all sinned:-- for until the law sin was in the world; but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the likeness of Adam's transgression, who is a figure of him that was to come."

Paul's point is to show that the Moral Law was existent long before it was written on tablets of stone and given to Moses on Sinai. Sin was "in the world", says Paul. The wages of sin is death and all men died, thus they sinned. And sin is the transgression of the law. If there was no law, no one would have died or had sin imputed to them, which they did. I've elsewhere challenged you to explain how men could have experienced guilt and fear for the things they did which were direct violations of those laws which are found in the Ten Commandments, but thousands of years before they came into existence? (cf. Gen 6:5, 6) How could God punish people for doing something "wrong" (aka: sin) if there was no law against what they did? If Sodom wasn't guilty of breaking what the 7th Commandment forbids, then on what legal ground did God destroy those people? (cf. Gen 13:13) How could Er have been "wicked" if there was no standard of moral righteousness known by which he was judged and consequently killed by God? (Gen 38:7) And the same for Onan his brother, whom the Lord also killed for being "wicked". (Gen 38:10)

Paul says, "but where there is no law, neither is there transgression." (Rom 4:15) And since the biblical record shows that there were millions of people who were punished as sinners, surely they transgressed some Moral Law of God. The truth is inescapable; the Ten Commandments were not "new" but iterations of that which had been known intuitively.

In His Grace,