The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Progressive Christianity

Pilgrim, this sort of dialogue is so profitable for me, because I usually learn something new each time. You referred to: "There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?" (Jas 4:12, KJV) I learned that the English "lawgiver" here is the Greek νομοθέτης nomothetes, and this is the only occurrence in the NT, but it occurs once in the LXX in the following, showing a similarity and probably what James had in mind:

"Appoint, O Lord, a lawgiver over them: let the heathen know that they are men. Pause." (Ps 9:20, LXXE)

But to your point, I agree God alone is the lawgiver, but I do not see that to mean that God gives the exact same law to all men in all times, in the details. There was the law about animal sacrifices in the Law, and from the account of Cain and Abel, it apparently existed there as well; but it is done away with in Christ. I see another continuous pattern starting in Genesis going through the Law and into the New Covenant, I mean working 6 days and the 7th is special, a day of rest and for Christians a day of worship and meditation on God. The early church honored Christ by meeting on the 1st day of the week, the Lord's Day instead of the 7th day of the week, the Sabbath. So the core value or meaning exists from creation, in the Law of Moses and into the New Covenant. But it is not presented to us as it is presented to Israel in Ex. 20:8-11 and Deut. 5:12-15.

In reading the command about coveting in the Law, it is expansive in Ex. 20:17 and Deut. 5:21; but when quoted by Paul in Rom. 7:7, 13:9 it is the basic "Thou shalt not covet". I believe man knew he was not to covet before Moses lived, as in Genesis 13:10,11; and I believe that probably the core teaching of all Ten Commandments existed in Genesis as well as in the New Covenant. I do not need the Ten Commandments from the Old Covenant, because I have the same in the New Covenant. My understanding is as taught in the Appendix of the 1646 First London Confession of Faith:

Appendix by Benjamin Keach to the 1646 London Confession of Faith:
"Though we be not now sent to the law as it was in the hand of Moses, to be commanded thereby, yet Christ in His Gospel teacheth and commandeth us to walk in the same way of righteousness and holiness that God by Moses did command the Israelites to walk in, all the commandments of the Second Table being still delivered unto us by Christ, and all the commandments of the First Table also (as touching the life and spirit of them) in this epitome or brief sum, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, etc.,” Matt.22:37,38,39,40; Rom.13:8,9,10."

My problem is with the traditional tripartite division of the Law of Moses into "moral, ceremonial & civil" and it is similar to the problem I had as a teenager accepting that there are 7 Dispensations taught in the Bible. I could find them in the footnotes of the Scofield, but not in the Scriptures themselves. That tripartite tradition is then built upon to interpret a passage like Eph. 2:15 by saying this did not apply to the "moral law" as seen in Ten Commandments, meaning as it stood in the Law of Moses. So, the first step in man's tradition was to divide the law into 3 pieces and then upon that tradition, say only two of the three were abolished in Eph. 2:15. I do not become antinomian by believing that verse means the entire law of Moses was abolished, because God's enduring law for all men in all times was existing prior to Moses and still exists today.

John Gill is one of my favorite pillars of the faith and on Lev. 26:46 he comments: "These [are] the statutes, and judgments, and laws,.... Which refer not only to those in this chapter, but in all the preceding chapters in this book, and respect them all, whether ceremonial, moral, or judicial, which may be signified by these three words:"

That is common among almost all the men of God out of the past whom I admire and love; but I believe it to be a tradition that can be misleading. Who then determines what is moral in Leviticus or any other part of the Law of Moses. Isn't any law commanded to man in its context, "moral"? I do not feel I have departed so far from orthodoxy in this and I do not separate from the body of Christ over this. I do strive to adhere to Sola Scriptura.