issue 185 march 2012 - cross to crown ministriespage 2 march 2012 issue 185 sound of grace is a...

Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. One person considers one day more sacred than another; another consid-ers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live,

Someone has said that New Covenant Theology (hereafter NCT) is a product of the Internet. I believe this is close to a correct observation. Before the Internet it was diffi cult to get your views known. It was expensive to publish a book. You had to print at least 2,500 copies of a book to get a reasonable selling price, and once printed you needed some method and outlet for selling them. The Internet changed all of that. Anyone can prepare a fi le which a printing house can use to print a book. Instead of needing to print 2,500 copies you can now print just a few copies. Anyone with access to the Internet literally has access to the whole world. Today you can Google any author’s name and get a list of everything he or she has written. Likewise you can Google nearly any theological subject and get a list of books and articles, both pro and con. Anyone with a computer can sound off with any and every thing that pops into his or her head. The result is a real mixed bag of serious, worthwhile thinking and stupid drivel that is good for nothing. One of the results of the Inter-net is the speed at which any new view is both criticized by some and promoted by others. NCT is no exception to these phenomena.

A little over 30 years ago, Jon Zens wrote a booklet titled Is There a Covenant of

I s su e 18 5 M a rc h 2 012

… It is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace … Hebrews 13:9

A Critique of the New View of NCT John G. Reisinger

Love is the primary Christian virtue. Biblical love is not abstract but is action grounded in an event. God has loved us, and we are called to imitate his loving action. We need to be robustly cross-centered, fi nding in the cross both the provision for salvation and the pattern of salvation.

The theme of cruciform love is laced throughout the NT. Cruciform means “cross-shaped.” Rooted in the cross, love is the giving of self for the benefi t of another. This pattern of cruciform love is the foundation upon which all the specifi c commandments of the Christian life are based.1 In Romans 14:1-15:7, Paul applies his master story to the issue of secondary matters and unity:

1 Michael Gorman, Cruciformity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 171.

Cruciform Love: Romans 14:1-15:7, Part III

A. Blake White

Reisinger—Continued on page 2

White—Continued on page 12

In This IssueA Critique of the New View of NCT

John G. Reisinger1

Cruciform Love: Romans 14:1-15: 7, Part III

A. Blake White1

Picture-Fulfi llment NCT: A Positive Theological Development? Part II

Zachary S. Maxcey

3

The Church and Israel

Nathan Lugbill5

The Grace of GivingMike Adams 7

March 2012 Issue 185Sound of Grace is a publication of Sovereign Grace New Covenant Ministries, a tax exempt 501(c)3 corporation. Contributions to Sound of Grace are deductible under section 170 of the Code.

Sound of Grace is published 10 times a year. The subscription price is shown below. This is a paper unashamedly committed to the truth of God’s sovereign grace and New Covenant Theology. We invite all who love these same truths to pray for us and help us fi nancially.

We do not take any paid advertising.

The use of an article by a particular person is not an endorsement of all that person believes, but it merely means that we thought that a particular article was worthy of printing.

Sound of Grace Board: John G. Reisinger, John Thorhauer, Bob VanWingerden and Jacob Moseley.

Editor: John G. Reisinger; Phone: (585)396-3385; e-mail: [email protected].

General Manager: Jacob Moseley:[email protected]

Send all orders and all subscriptions to: Sound of Grace, 5317 Wye Creek Drive, Frederick, MD 21703-6938 – Phone 301-473-8781 Visit the bookstore: http://www.newcovenantmedia.com

Address all editorial material and questions to: John G. Reisinger, 3302 County Road 16, Canandaigua, NY 14424-2441.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by Permis-sion. All rights reserved.

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Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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If you wish to make a tax-deductible contribu-tion to Sound of Grace, please mail a check to: Sound of Grace, 5317 Wye Creek Drive, Frederick, MD 21703-6938.

Please check the mailing label to fi nd the expiration of your subscription. Please send payment if you want your subscription to con-tinue—$20.00 for ten issues. Or if you would prefer to have a pdf fi le emailed, that is avail-able for $10.00 for ten issues. If you are unable to subscribe at this time, please call or drop a note in the mail and we will be glad to continue sending Sound of Grace free of charge.

Reisinger—Continued from page 1


Grace? This work caused a fi restorm that is still burning and provoked a split in the Reformed Baptist move-ment that still exists. I published several books including Abraham’s Four Seeds and Tablets of Stone. These books added fuel to the fi re. Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel wrote a book titled New Covenant Theology that helped to clarify what the posi-tion was really saying. About 20 years ago Sound of Grace started to publish a paper dedicated to the Doctrines of Grace and NCT. Recently a new view called “Picture-Fulfi llment NCT” has entered the scene. It is being promoted as “The Fourth Stream of NCT”1 The

1 For a defense of this view see: http.//Various Branches of NCT.com, http://ChristMyCovenant.com, http:’’ http://earthstovesociety.com. For a critique see: “Picture-Fulfillment NCT: A Positive

advocates of this new view are trying desperately to establish the view as a legitimate branch of NCT.

I hesitate to criticize the advocates of this new view. They are godly sin-cere brothers. These people have em-braced and unashamedly taught NCT. They have stood shoulder to shoulder with us in promoting the glory of NCT. Ostensibly their goal is to mag-nify the person and work of Christ. Many of the leaders of the Fourth Stream are personal friends for whom I have the deepest love and respect. They recently posted a book on the Fourth Stream and dedicated it to me.2

Theological Development?” on page 3 of Issue 184 of Sound of Grace and on page 3 of this issue.2 It is extremely awkward having a book dedicated to me when I don’t agree at all with its message!

New Web PageQuite a few years ago, a friend urged me to start putting material on the

internet. He offered to create and maintain a website for my ministry. He did an excellent job except for one important detail. He put everything, including the domain name (URL) in his own name instead of putting it in either my name or in the name of Sound of Grace. That meant that he literally had total legal control over everything on the internet under the domain of “sound-ofgrace.com.” We had of course assumed in the beginning that he was doing everything in the name of Sound of Grace and not in his own name. Upon asking the individual to turn over and relinquish control of the soundofgrace.com domain of our internet ministry, he refused to give it us. He also pulled everything pertaining to the ministry of Sound of Grace off the internet. We were forced to start all over from scratch, including a new name.

The new web page—when ready—can be found at www.SOGNCM.com. We apologize for the disruption but our options were limited. Not only would we have had to allow someone other than ourselves to control what we did, and did not, put on the internet, we would also have by implication been seen as endorsing anything and anybody that the legal owner chose to put on the page regardless of how much we disagreed. As painful as the decision to start all over is, it is far better than having your ministry totally under someone else’s control.

Any material, written, spoken, or otherwise which may be found at sound-ofgrace.com is not affi liated in any way or manner with Sovereign Grace New Covenant Ministries, Sound of Grace or New Covenant Media.

John G. Reisinger

Issue 185 March 2012

Maxcey—Continued on page 8

PICTURE-FULFILLMENT NEW COVENANT THEOLOGY:A POSITIVE THEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT? – Part II

Zachary S. Maxcey1

1 Zachary S. Maxcey is a Master of Divinity student at Providence Theological Seminary in Colorado Springs, CO (www.ptsco.org). This paper was written for a special studies course in New Covenant Theology (ST 410), fall semester 2011, taught by Dr. J. David Gilliland and Dr. Gary D. Long.

Is Christ Himself the Incarnate Law of Christ?

A third distinctive of Picture-Fulfi llment NCT is the claim that the Law of Christ is ontologically Christ Himself rather than a written system of New Covenant (NC) law. In support of this view, Chad Bres-son claims, “Christ is the Law of the New Covenant, incarnating the new standard of judgment as to what ‘has had its day’ in the law and what has abiding validity (Col. 2:17).”1 Else-where, he writes, “That the Law is a Person [i.e., Christ] means the Law of the New Covenant is not encoded in external imperatives or principles.”2 Advocates of Picture-Fulfi llment NCT base their assertion that Christ Himself is the Incarnate Law of Christ on a three-fold foundation. First, they rightly recognize that there is an intimate connection between law and covenant, especially with regard to the Old Covenant. For example, Bresson writes, “As to the connection between law and covenant....there is much correlation between ‘covenant’ and ‘law’... esp. in the Mosaic economy...so much so, that there are times, esp. in Hebrews, where the terminology is virtually interchangeable.”3 As a

1 Chad R. Bresson, “What is New Cov-enant Theology?”, Tenet 43. 2 Bresson, “The Incarnation of the Ab-stract”, 20. 3 Steve Fuchs, “The Various Branches of New Covenant Theology” (a ‘Christ Our Covenant’ blog) accessed 7 October 2011; available from http://christourcovenant.blogspot.com/2009/02/all-proponents-of-nct-believe-christ.html; Internet, Bres-

result, they argue that if Christ is the Incarnated New Covenant, He must also be the Incarnated Law of Christ. Second, they insist that if the Spirit is the law written upon a believer’s heart, Christ Himself must also be the Law of Christ. Steve Fuchs blogs:

I would add that when we under-stand Christ to be the Law, we are really saying the Spirit of Christ...aka the Holy Spirit, while attempt-ing to not short-change the ‘oneness’ between those two persons of the Trin-ity. Christ becomes Law, a Law which causes righteousness to be manifest in His people, by indwelling them as Holy Spirit. He and the Spirit are one, and in the same way we are made one in nature with them by their indwell-ing us.4

Thirdly, advocates of Picture-Ful-fi llment NCT believe that the Mosaic Law (as a system of law) typifi ed the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself is the Incarnated Law of Christ (i.e., the NC ‘system’ of law). Bresson writes, “Christ didn’t simply replace the law, but, having a typological relationship to the Mosaic law [i.e., not only in its component elements but also as an entire system of law], fi lled up the meaning and intent of that law in His obedience to the law and His death.”5 As a result, “Christ embodies the Law and becomes the standard by which all holiness is measured. In becoming the sum and substance of law by fi lling

son’s comments added on March 7, 2009 at 2:44 PM. 4 Ibid., Fuchs’ comments added on March 7, 2009 at 4:17 PM. 5 Bresson, “The Incarnation of the Ab-stract,” 3.

up the law to its fullest measure, in fulfi lling all that had been foreshad-owed in the law, this King sitting on the mount is the full and fi nal Torah, he is The Law of the New Covenant invested with all of its authority and glory.”6

Does the Law–Covenant Con-nection Truly Verify Christ to be the Incarnated Law?

As stated above, advocates of Picture-Fulfi llment NCT, using the law–covenant connection, unneces-sarily force an ontological relation-ship between Christ and the Law of Christ. In doing so, however, these individuals are incorrectly applying one of John Reisinger’s own teach-ings to support their own theological conclusions. In Tablets of Stone, John Reisinger astutely teaches that the Ten Commandments are the summary statement not only of the entire Mo-saic Law but also of the Old Covenant itself.7 Thus, the Ten Commandments can be equated with the Old Covenant (cf. Ex. 34:28; Deut. 4:13, 10:4). As a result, since Picture-Fulfi llment NCT’s proponents interpret the Lord Jesus Christ to literally be the New Covenant (using such passages as Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8) they proceed to literally equate Him also with the law 6 Bresson, “The Exceeding Righteous-ness of the New Covenant,” Paragraph 6 of “An Exceeding Righteousness” subsec-tion. 7 John G. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2004), 3-4, 13-14.

March 2012 Issue 185covenant of the people, a light for the Gentiles. No one would suggest that the word light in this text was to be understood in a literal sense. All agree the word light is used metaphorically. The Fourth Stream must prove, if they want to make the word covenant to be literal, that the phrase [give as a] “light” must be taken literally. Both words occur in the same verse and in the same structure. It is obvious that both covenant and light are used meta-phorically. The foundation stones of the new view are suspect from a NCT hermeneutic point of view. Further-more, the Apostle Paul does quote Isa. 49:6 in Acts 13:47, For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying ‘I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.’ Obviously, Paul is asserting that he is a metaphor-ical, not literal, light, as he will herald the gospel to the nations as an apostle of Christ. Since the New Testament must interpret the Old Testament and Paul understands ‘a light of the Gen-tiles’ in Isa 49:6 (two verses prior to the verse in question) metaphorically, we too should understand verses with similar phraseology metaphorically as the apostles did.

The Fourth Stream is built on the insistence that the words give thee for a covenant must be taken in an ontological sense. They say it must mean that Christ is literally the actual covenant. We would say the phrase is used metaphorically in the same sense as “I am the door” or “I am the Bread of Life.” Our Lord often used the words I am followed by a descriptive word to teach his person and his work. In the Gospel of John he said, “I am the door,” “I am the water of life,” “I am the bread of life”, etc.” In Isaiah, Christ is set forth as the “covenant” and the “light”. The word covenant is used in the two Isaiah texts exactly in the same manner as door, bread, wa-ter, light etc. in the Gospel of John.


If I were not convinced that this view is both wrong and dangerous I would never have written this article.

First of all, I want to correct a misconception. Several people have made it look like I was a proponent of the Picture-Fulfi llment NCT, or Fourth Stream, view. Nothing could be further from the truth. Steve Fuchs is an example of this miscon-ception. I assume he was unaware of my convictions when he wrote a short description of his perception of the various branches of NCT. He correctly identifi es me, Gary Long, Fred Zaspel and Tom Wells as holding the “classi-cal NCT view.” He then introduces the “Fourth Stream or Picture-Fulfi llment NCT” view as follows.

… this branch grew out of the genesis of Zen’s, Reisinger’s, Long’s and Well’s classical NCT and is spreading within the larger com-munity primarily via the Sound of Grace.3

Sound of Grace does not endorse this new view. If we have written or spoken anything that appears other-wise then we either did not express ourselves clearly or we were misun-derstood. I reject the Fourth Stream view of NCT and believe it opens up a can of worms. This article is not intended to be an in-depth study. See Zachary Maxcey’s articles previously mentioned for a detailed review. Like-wise, this article is in no way meant to be an attack on any individual. It is intended to be a short article on why I reject this new view. In this article I want to primarily, not exclusively, interact with a message given by Chad Bresson at the 2011 New Covenant Theology Think Tank, Rushville, NY titled The Incarnations of the Abstract: New Covenant and the En-fl eshment of the Law. The article is also available on the Internet at www.earthstovesociety.com.

Basically, the Fourth Stream is

3 See: Various Branches of NCT.com.

built on the idea that Christ, in his per-son, is the actual new covenant itself. One advocate of this view has a web-site on the Internet called “Christ My Covenant.”

My fi rst problem with the Fourth Stream is the fact that it seems to violate an essential principle of NCT, namely, that we must interpret the OT with the NT. The foundation texts used to establish this new idea by the Fourth Stream is found in two texts in Isaiah.

I the Lord have called the in righ-teousness and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles. Isa. 42:6 KJV

Thus saith the Lord, In an accept-able time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to estab-lish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolute heritages; Isa. 49:8.

It is quite clear that these two Scripture texts in the Book of Isaiah use the phrase “give thee for a cov-enant;” however, no NT text either directly quotes or refers back to these two verses as a fulfi llment. No new covenant text says, or intimates, “As it is written in the Book of Isaiah,” and then in any way mentions Christ as covenant.

The question is whether the two Isaiah passages are to be understood ontologically or metaphorically. The word ontological means a word or phrase is to be understood in a lit-eral sense. The word metaphorical means the opposite. It means a word or phrase should be taken as a fi gure of speech. Christ “lay down his life for the sheep” is metaphorical; it does not mean Christ died for four legged animals. When it is said “Christ rode a donkey,” the phrase is ontological, he literally rode a four-legged ani-mal. Isaiah 42:6 says two things were given, a “covenant” and a “light.” The text says I will give thee for a Reisinger—Continued on page 6


their Yes” (Gal 3:16; 2 Cor 1:20). As believing Jews and Gentiles partake in Christ by faith, they become heirs to-gether with him (Rom 8:15). In Christ, all believers inherit the Spirit and the corresponding hope of resurrection life in the new heavens and new earth (Eph 1:13–14; 1 Cor 15:20–25).

The new covenant interpretation of the OT emphasizes Christ’s role of fulfi lling the promises of God, not only for himself but for the people of God whom he represents. Since God is the author of all Scripture, and Christ is the center of his redemptive plan, it follows that Christ is the key to interpreting all passages, including those in the OT. New covenant theol-ogy holds that the NT use of the OT is our guide to handling the OT.

Fourth, and largely similar to the new covenant view, is covenant theol-ogy. The traditional covenant system considers Israel the old covenant form of the church, and the church likewise the NT equivalent of Israel. Whereas the church of the OT con-sisted of a nation, the NT church is an international body.8 Yet while noting this difference, the covenantal view maintains that the nature and struc-ture of the church is unaltered. Most signifi cantly, the community remains a mixed body consisting of believers and unbelievers. Covenant theology shares the new covenant approach to OT interpretation, emphasizing Christ’s fulfi llment of all God’s prom-ises.

Support

The following argument contends

8 Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 4th ed., rev. and enl. (Grand Rapids: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1941), 570–71.

fi lled nor inaugurated in the church.5

The second view, progressive dispensationalism, emerged in re-cent decades as an altered version of traditional dispensationalism. Progres-sive dispensationalists agree with their forebearers that Israel and the church are distinct, yet they contend that both groups make up the one people of God. Still, the church’s covenant blessings are derivative; its relation-ship to Israel is one of “sharing, but not identity.”6 Much more than a “parenthesis,” the church is crucial to God’s unfolding, Christocentric plan of redemption. Furthermore, Gentile believers will share with national Israel in its future millennial reign.

Progressive dispensationalism deems a strictly “literal” hermeneutic to be simplistic. Scripture must be read at multiple levels; the NT itself interprets various OT passages in diverse ways. Inaugurated eschatol-ogy––the already-not yet nature of the kingdom––is key to understanding the NT use of the OT.7 New covenant promises have begun to be fulfi lled in the church (see Heb 8), but their complete fulfi llment awaits the mil-lennium.

A third view comes from new cov-enant theology, another relatively new formulation. This view recognizes signifi cant continuity between Israel and the church, a continuity centered in Jesus Christ, the seed of Abraham in whom “all the promises of God fi nd

5 Ibid., 170–74. 6 Robert L. Saucy, “Israel and the Church: A Case for Discontinuity,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspec-tives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1988), 254. 7 Blaising and Bock, Progressive Dis-pensationalism, 181. Lugbill—Continued on page 19

THE CHURCH AND ISRAELNathan Lugbill

Issue

What is the nature of the church vis-a-vis Israel? Answers to this complex question vary widely among evangelical scholars. Though not a fi rst degree theological issue, how one approaches it signifi cantly reveals how one puts together the entire Bible.

Positions

As we begin the discussion, four leading views emerge. The order in this article travels along a continuum, moving from discontinuity toward continuity. First is the dispensational perspective.1 In this view, Israel and the church are utterly distinct peoples for whom God has distinct purposes. The “goal of history” will culminate in the millennial kingdom when Christ reigns on David’s throne in Jerusalem and the nation of Israel rules all other nations.2 Thus, the church is merely a “parenthesis” or “intercalation” in God’s plan for Israel.3

Dispensationalists claim that their view alone employs “principles of lit-eral, plain, normal, or historical-gram-matical interpretation consistently.”4 If God is to be true to his word, he must literally fulfi ll his physical and political promises to the nation of Israel (e.g., Gen 12:1; 17:7–8). Thus, the new covenant promised in the OT is for the nation of Israel alone, for prophecies for Israel are neither ful-1 This designation includes both the classical and revised dispensationalism. Where these views diverge the latter will be favored here since the classical form is almost entirely abandoned today. See Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1993), 23–46.2 Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), 17–18. 3 Ibid., 134. 4 Ibid., 20; cf. 82, 90.

March 2012 Issue 185


in 2 Corinthians 3,” in no way proves that statement to be true. In this case the judge would say, “Objection sustained. Strike that last statement.” I reject the idea that the Old Testament writers men-tioned agree with the Fourth Stream’s understanding of II Corinthians 3. (See Maxcey’s article for a clear exegesis of this text). What Bresson calls “biblical theology” and what we understand that term to mean are two different things. Our view of biblical theology means a point of theology is proven with Bible texts and not the “therefores” of systematic theology. The Fourth Stream is not textually driven. In fairness, we must acknowl-edge that Bresson admits this fact.

This presentation is different from those I have done in the past in that I do not plan to unpack one specifi c pas-sage, and in fact, the exposition of a text would be my preferred task. This is the address of a specifi c topic and the task is a bit broader. This does not mean I will not be interacting with any texts, but it does mean this will not be my primary purpose in this presenta-tion. Ibid, p.3

It seems to me that explaining the texts of Scripture that are used as primary building blocks of the new Fourth Stream view should be the fi rst order of business for a true biblical ap-proach. If Bresson’s “preferred task is textual exegesis,” why does he not use it and establish his theological points with Bible texts. Before I accept the Fourth Stream’s new idea that the Holy Spirit is “one and the same” as the “law written on the heart” I need a text or two unpacked that proves that statement is true. I think we have every right to expect something in John 14-16, where Jesus laid out some clear teaching on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, to show the evidence of the new view’s claims that the “Spirit has descended to indwell Christ’s people as the ‘law written on the heart.’” There is not a shred of textual evidence in the New Testament for the Fourth Stream’s claim of its novel view of the Holy Spirit being “one

The NT is quite clear that Christ is specifi cally called the Mediator of the new covenant (Hebrews 8:6, 9:15) but he is never called the covenant itself. He cannot be both the covenant and the Mediator of the covenant at the same time. Likewise, Christ is specifi cally called the Surety of the covenant in the New Testament (He-brews 7:22), but he is never identifi ed in the New Testament as the covenant itself. He cannot be the Surety of the covenant and the covenant itself at the same time. My question is this: Since it is perfectly clear that the New Testa-ment declares Christ is the Mediator and the Surety of the covenant, do we understand Isaiah 42:6 in the light of Hebrews 7:22, 8:6, 9:16, or do we interpret the New Testament Hebrews passages in the light of Isaiah 42:6 and Isaiah 49:8? Which interpretation constitutes legitimate new covenant hermeneutics?

My second problem with the Fourth Stream is its view of the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifi cation. Chad Bresson sets forth the view quite clearly.

A proper biblical theology of Isa-iah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel New Cov-enant passages show the “Law written on the heart” is one and the same as “the Spirit placed within.” This is Paul’s interpretation of the Old Testa-ment’s New Covenant passages in 2 Corinthians 3. Ibid, p. 45.

… Because Christ has become a Covenant for his people and the Spirit has descended to indwell Christ’s people as the law written on the heart …Ibid, p. 5

When I fi rst read these two quota-tions I wanted to play Perry Mason and say, “Objection, using facts not entered into evidence.” These things have not been established textually as new covenant doctrines. They are statements stated as facts before being established as facts. Saying, “this is Paul’s interpretation of the Old Testament’s New Covenant passages

and the same” as the “law written on the heart.”

Look at two texts in John 16.Buy when he, the Spirit of truth,

comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. John 16:13 NIV

All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of everything I said unto you. John 14:25-26q

The Holy Spirit is the teacher. He is not the lesson. The Holy Spirit does not decide on what to teach, He teaches the curriculum given to him by the Son. “He [the Holy Spirit] will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears …(John 16:13). There is no way these verses can be made to mean that the Holy Spirit is “one and the same” equal to the law written on the heart. Bresson makes some statements that sound like a charismatic. He says, “Obedience isn’t acquiescence to an external demand, but the manifestion of an inward real-ity.” I am not sure what he means by “the manifestation of an inward real-ity,” The point he is making is that the source of our knowledge of how we are to live under the new covenant does not come to us via anything outside of us. It comes to us directly from the indwelling Spirit who is the “law written in the heart.” How long will it take for that to mean “the Lord led me” and not therefore require any biblical collaboration? I am sure it is not the intention of the Fourth Stream to divorce the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifi cation from Scripture but that seems to be the result. We keep insisting that the Scripture is the ob-jective and absolute authority over a new covenant believer’s conscience. The written word of God, understood through the grid of the new covenant,



Adams—Continued on page 23

The Christian life is a gospel-centered and grace driven life. Or at least it should be. Gospel-centered and grace driven is one way to de-scribe the normal Christian life. Paul described it like this, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died.” (2 Cor-inthians 5:14) Paul’s gospel centered-ness (one has died for all, therefore all have died) resulted in his being grace driven (the love of Christ controls us). If anyone understood grace and the many ways it spills over into all of life, it was Paul. Paul understood the radical nature of grace, the freedom it brings, and how it can turn everything in our lives upside down. Or as one author put it, grace messes up your hair.

An area where grace hits close to home is in our giving. We get uneasy when someone starts talking about giving. We start to squirm. You might be getting uneasy just reading this. But humor me for a minute and keep reading. I think one reason we get uneasy (and there are many reasons we do) is because we bring miscon-ceptions to the discussion when we talk about giving. We’ve all heard our share of guilt-ridden and duty-ridden sermons on the subject of giving. Take heart. I’m just as tired of hearing those as you are! It seems that even good, gospel-centered folk are prone to wan-der when it comes to giving. Some are prone to wander away from the grace of giving into the deceptive minefi eld of law, duty, and guilt. In some ways, there seems to be a grace disconnect when the topic is giving. But like any-thing else in my Christian life, giving is a matter of grace – grace that fl ows from the gospel, not guilt or duty. Paul called giving an act of grace. He told

the Corinthians,But as you excel in everything—in

faith, in speech, in knowledge, in all earnestness, and in our love for you—see that you excel in this act of grace also. (2 Corinthians 8:7)

Giving is an act of grace, not duty. It’s an act of the heart. That means that giving is gospel-centered and gospel-driven, not duty, guilt, or law-driven. Giving has its eyes on Jesus plus nothing. In the same passage of Scripture, Paul said,

We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Mace-donia, for in a severe test of affl ic-tion, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overfl owed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For they gave according to their means, as I can testify, and beyond their means, of their own accord, begging us ear-nestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints—and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves fi rst to the Lord and then by the will of God to us. (2 Corinthians 8:1-5)

The Macedonians were gener-ous! But their generosity wasn’t tied to what they had. It wasn’t tied to their circumstances. They were poor. They lived in poverty and in some sort of severe affl iction. It was in this context that their joy exploded when presented with an opportunity to give and they begged Paul for a chance to participate in the relief of others. They begged him for an opportunity to give.

But as amazing as that is, and as much as it stirs my own heart to action and to want to give like they did, their giving isn’t the main point. Their giv-ing is an indication of the main point which is that they “gave themselves fi rst to the Lord and then by the will of God to us.” Grace targets my heart,

not my pocketbook. And because grace targets my heart, I draw near to God through Jesus and my motiva-tions change. Grace transforms me and rocks my world with other world thinking that changes the way I think about everything, including giving. Grace messes up my hair (or what’s left of it!) in the way I think about everything and it frees me to be gener-ous and give freely, not by compul-sion, guilt, or law. In fact, any time we sprinkle the tiniest bit of law on grace, grace ceases to be grace and I start giving out of compulsion or guilt instead of giving myself fi rst to the Lord, and then to others, by the will of God. When that happens, the grace of giving becomes the duty of giving and I lose my joy.

What about tithing?

I once heard a sermon preached on giving where the speaker referenced Matthew 23 which says,

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matthew 23:23-24)

It was reasoned that because Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for neglect-ing the weightier matters of the law (justice, mercy, and faithfulness) without rebuking them for tithing, that tithing was implied for us as a minimum starting point. But God doesn’t command us by implication. The commands of God in Scripture are very clear and we’re not left to guesswork or second guessing his moral will for us. Scripture doesn’t employ a passive-aggressive posture to get us to obey God. Second, such a statement amounts to what I’m assum-ing is an unintentional attempt to bind a law that is hostile to the church and because of that, has been abolished

The Grace of Giving Mike Adams

March 2012 Issue 185Maxcey—Continued from page 3

of the New Covenant (i.e., the Law of Christ). On the surface, this appears to be impeccable logic, except for one glaring detail: Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8 (as demonstrated above) cannot be le-gitimately interpreted to ontologically equate the Lord Jesus with the New Covenant. This fact invalidates this whole line of argumentation. Although the Lord Jesus is the Great Exemplar of the standards found in the Law of Christ, He cannot be literally equated with the Law of Christ.8 Moreover,

8 This author believes that the most ac-curate definition (to date) of the Law of Christ appears in A. Blake White’s The Law of Christ: A Theological Proposal (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2010), 154. Here, White defines the Law of Christ in the following manner: “It is the law of love, the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, the teaching of Jesus, the teaching of the New Testament, and final-ly the whole canon interpreted in light of the Christ event.” Advocates of Picture-Fulfillment NCT have attempted to argue that White’s definition of the Law of Christ is not accurate, since it ‘conflicts’ with a statement made by John Reisinger in the book’s forward (see the Earth Stove Society video review of White’s book at http://earthstovesociety.com/?p=172). Beginning on page 3 of White’s trailblaz-ing work, Reisinger writes: “The law of Christ cannot be reduced to a list of do’s and don’ts. It certainly involves specific things than can be ‘listed’ as right or wrong, but it is far more than a list like the ten words written on stone. The law of Christ is love, but it is also the example of Christ. Everything Christ taught is part of His law, but so is everything His apostles taught a vital part of his law. Christ him-self is his law personified. The whole of Scripture, as interpreted through the lens of Christ as the new covenant prophet, priest, and king, is a part of the law of Christ. These things are exegetically established in chapters 4-11.” Although Reisinger states that “Christ himself is his law personified,” he clearly does not invest his statement with an ontological sense. Rather, in light of the content of White’s book and in light of the fact that he agrees with White’s definition of the Law of Christ (as the context of his state-

Christ is the New Moses, the Law-giver of the New Covenant as Isaiah 42:4 indicates: “…the coastlands wait for his law.”

Does the Law of Moses Typify Christ?

As previously stated, proponents of Picture-Fulfi llment NCT believe that the Mosaic Law (as a system of law, not just its component ele-ments) typifi ed the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself is the Incarnated Law of Christ.9 As to which NT passages

ment indicates), he intends his statement to be understood metaphorically. In other words, “Christ himself is his law personi-fied,” in that He is the Great Exemplar of the inscripturated standards of the Law of Christ.9 See Bresson, “The Incarnation of the Abstract,” 11. Bresson quotes Gregory K. Beale in the following manner, “Typol-ogy therefore indicates fulfillment of the indirect prophetic adumbration of events, people and institutions from the Old Testament in Christ who now is the final, climactic expression of all God ideally intended through these things in the Old Testament (e.g., the Law, the temple cultus, the commissions of the prophets, judges, priests, and kings; emphasis mine). Everything which these things lacked by way of imperfections was prophetically ‘filled up’ by Christ, so that even what was imperfect in the Old Testament pointed beyond itself to Jesus.” In other words, Bresson understands Beale to be in agreement with his view that the Mosaic Law (as a system of law, not just its component elements) typified the Lord Jesus Christ, who Himself is the Incarnated Law of Christ. However, this is a clear misreading of Beale. By saying that “the Law” is typological of Christ, Beale is not stating or even implying that Christ is the Antitype of the Law of Moses in that He Himself is the incar-nated Law of Christ. It seems more likely that Beale uses “the Law” to encompass all the other typological components of the Law of Moses which are not included in the categories of “the temple cultus, the commissions of the prophets, judges, priests, and kings. These other typo-logical components, summed up by the term “Law” would include, among other

support this assertion, Bresson points to Hebrews 10:1 and John 1:1, 14, 16-18. Hebrews 10:1 declares, “For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never by the same sacrifi ces year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect those who draw near.” The author of Hebrews is emphasizing the power-lessness of the Law (i.e., the Old Cov-enant) and the ineffi cacy of the OC sacrifi ces to make anyone perfect and righteous before God. He is not indi-cating that Christ Himself is the direct NC equivalent of the Law of Moses or even the Old Covenant. If any typo-logical relationship exists in Hebrew 10:1, it is only that the imperfect OC sacrifi ces typifi ed the perfect sacrifi ce of Christ. To insist that the author of Hebrews is arguing that Christ is the NC equivalent of the OC Law of Moses is to make a false inference by eisogeting Picture-Fulfi llment NCT presuppositions into the text.

Regarding John 1:1, 14, 16-18, we must ask ourselves, “What is John’s purpose in calling the Lord Jesus Christ the Word of God?” First, John identifi es Christ as the Word (i.e., Lo-gos) to prove His preexistence, His di-vinity, and His divine creative power. Andreas K. Kӧstenberger writes:

The term ‘the Word’ conveys the notion of divine self-expression or speech (cf. Ps. 19:1-4). The Genesis creation provides ample testimony to

things, Adam (as the federal head of the fallen human race), the Garden of Eden (against Christ as the Temple of God), the exodus (against Christ’s own exodus from Egypt as a little child), the wilderness wanderings (against Christ’s temptation in the wilderness), etc. Or, he uses it as a summary classification which itself contains the sub-categories of the temple cultus, etc. Or again, Beale uses it to say that the Law of Moses is typologically replaced by the Law of Christ (which is not to be understood as Christ Himself). This quotation of Beale does not support the Picture-Fulfillment NCT position.



the effectiveness of God’s word: he speaks, and things come into being (Gen. 1:3, 9; cf. 1:11, 15, 24, 29-30). Both psalmists and prophets portray God’s word in close-to-personifi ed terms (Ps. 33:6; 107:20; 147:15, 18; Isa. 55:10-11), but only John claims that his word has appeared in space-time history as an actual person, Jesus Christ (1:14, 17).10

Second, the Apostle John is also connecting the Lord Jesus Christ with “the Word” (mymr – רמימ) of the Jew-ish Targums, an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in use at the time of Christ and the Apostles.11 It is important to note that the translators of the Targums frequently substituted the Aramaic mymr (רמימ) for or com-bined it with ‘elohȋm (םיהלא) and Yah-weh (הוהי).12 For example, the Targum version of Genesis 15:6 reads, “And he believed in the Word, the Lord, and He reckoned (it) to him for innocence / righteousness.” Or consider the fi nal clause of Isaiah 48:16, “and now the Lord God has sent Me and His Word;” “His Word” is substituted for “His Spirit” in the Hebrew Masoretic Text (MT).13 Thus, John is equating the

10 Andreas K. Kӧstenberger, “John,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. Gregory K. Beale and Donald A. Carson (Grand Rap-ids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 421. 11 See Michael Heiser, “An Unexpected Word” (Chapter 3 from an unpublished book) accessed 7 October 2011; avail-able from http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/Introduction%20to%20the%20Di-vine%20Council%20MTIT.pdf; Internet.12 Other passages in the Jewish Targums where the Aramaic mymr (רמימ) occurs are the following: Gen. 3:8, 10; 6:6-7; 7:16; 8:21; 9:12-13; 15:1, 6; 17:2, 7, 10, 11; 20:3; 21:20, 22-23; 22:16; 24:16; 24:3; 26:3, 5, 24, 28; 28: 15, 20; 31:3, 49, 50; 39:2-3, 21, 23; 48:21; 49: 24-25; Ex. 2:25; 3:12. 13 Even though the Jewish Targums were an Aramaic translation of the Hebrew Scriptures in use at the time of Christ and the Apostles, they do not constitute an inspired or inerrant transmission of the OT text. Thus, although the Targum translators substituted “His Word” in

Lord Jesus with “the Word,” the di-vine personage in the Jewish Targums. Third, it is also likely that the Apostle is connecting Christ with personifi ed Wisdom, whereby the Lord “founded the earth” (Prov. 3:19; 8:22-31; cf. 1 Cor. 1:24). In view of this evidence, it is illogical and exegetically dubi-ous to argue that because Christ is the Word of God and the Law of Moses is a word of God, Christ is the Law of Christ in typological fulfi llment of the Law of Moses. To argue in this man-ner not only misses John’s theological intent but also serves as an example of typology misused.14

Isaiah 48:16 for the MT’s “His Spirit,” it would be theologically perilous to infer from their translation that the Holy Spirit is also the Word of God, a title exclusively used of Christ in the NT. 14 This is not an isolated example of the misuse of typology. See Bresson, “The Incarnation of the Abstract,” 17. Bres-son argues that abstract ideas can also “be brought forward” as types. He states: “Abstract ideas could be brought forward as well. Christ has put flesh and bones on God’s Wisdom. Christ is our Incarnate Righteousness (having obeyed the Law on our behalf). Christ is the Incarnate Truth (which, it should be noted, also has connotations of Torah in John, but I digress). Christ is the Incarnate Life. All of these abstract ideas can be found as types in the Old Testament, and an intel-ligible correspondence can be established. Christ, the Antitype, has put flesh and bones on the Truth. When Christ says, ‘I am the Truth,’ he isn’t simply making a metaphorical analogy to help his disciples understand a little more about Christ’s relationship to things that are Truth or even the Truth that comes from God. Nor is Christ, as is a popular way of saying it today, telling his disciples that they can believe every word he says because he will always speak the truth. No, this is the I AM who appeared to Moses in the burn-ing bush standing in front of his disciples, in oneness with his Father, declaring himself to be the living and breathing enfleshment of the eternal reality, Truth, that has spoken all things into existence. Christ is making a sociological, philo-sophical, epistemological, soteriological,

The Implications of Picture-Ful-fi llment NCT

Can God be Ontologically Re-duced to ‘Law’?

One unintended consequence of the Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teaching that both Christ and the Spirit liter-ally are the Law of Christ is that the second and third persons of the Trinity can be ontologically reduced to ‘law’. How can the Lord Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, be ontologi-cally reduced to the Law of Christ, a law which will pass away at His return? How can the Holy Spirit, the Great Applier of our so-great salva-tion, also be ontologically reduced to the temporary law of the NC? In short, they cannot. Christ is the Lord, Mediator, Lawgiver and Surety of the New Covenant, not the covenant itself nor its law. The Holy Spirit is the Divine Agent who brings about a NC believer’s willing obedience (Ezek. 36:27) by giving him a new heart (Ezek. 36:26). Moreover, how can the triune God, who is infi nite, be onto-logically equated with the temporary Law of Christ? In short, He cannot. Although law is a refl ection of God’s perfect character, it is not the sub-stance of His persons, character, or es-

and yes, eschatological proposition about himself. Christ is the embodiment of an abstract idea, so that he in and of himself is everything one could say about the idea of Truth.” However, to state that Christ is the incarnation of God’s Wisdom or His Truth is not typology; it is merely the final manifestation of God’s Wisdom or His Truth. For example, to understand Christ’s incarnation of God’s wisdom as the fulfillment of a typological relation-ship would imply that God’s Wisdom was previously incomplete, mutable, temporary, not perfect, and now with the coming of Christ, God’s Wisdom is now obsolete. The antitype not only always makes its type obsolete but also always surpasses its type in significance, glory, and meaning by a vast, if not infinite, degree.


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March 2012 Issue 185White—Continued from page 1

we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards some-thing as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval. Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edifi cation. Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food. All food is clean, but it is wrong for a person to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble. It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall. So whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God. Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself by what he approves.

But whoever has doubts is condemned if they eat, because their eating is not from faith; and everything that does not come from faith is sin. We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please our-selves. Each of us should please our neighbors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please

himself but, as it is written: “The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.” For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endur-ance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God. (NIV)

The Situation

More disunity? Imagine that. It seems like almost every NT let-ter deals with disunity of some sort within the churches. Why is this? Was it because they were more sinful than we are? No, human nature hasn’t changed. There will be strife within the community when we are truly living life together. As one has said, “To dwell in love with saints above, oh that will be glory, but to dwell below with saints we know, well that’s another story.”

Paul is writing to a mixed audience of Jews and Gentiles. He has been unpacking the gospel. He has been laboring to explain the signifi cance of the newness that Jesus brings. The new covenant has come, and it has re-placed the old covenant. Now, the old way no longer holds. The people of God are no longer defi ned by the To-rah. Salvation is available to Jews and Gentiles. Apparently, there was con-fl ict because the Gentiles (the strong) were not following the law. Paul takes sides with the Gentiles theologically, but he is primarily exhorting the Gen-tiles as well.

The Solution

In this wonderful passage, Paul gives us three ways to deal with dis-unity over nonessentials:

1. Who are you to judge?

The Holy Spirit moves Paul to write, “Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? (14:4)…You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’ So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one anoth-er” (14:10-13a).

So much of the Christian life falls into place when we have a proper view of self and a proper view of God. God alone is the judge. We are mere servants.

Notice that Paul quotes Isaiah 45 here. What is fascinating is that in Philippians 2:10, Paul quotes the exact same passage but applies it to Jesus! In context, it is YHWH who all will bow to. Paul can use the same passage to refer to God the Son and God the Father, proving that Jesus is fully God and fully man.

Paul is insisting that we should just look out for ourselves when it comes to disputable matters. As a side note, I want to make an observation about the Sabbath. Paul says each should be fully convinced in his own mind (14:5). This is a far cry from “Thou shall keep the Sabbath day holy or die.” Do you remember the guy who was stoned for gathering wood on the Sabbath? Times have changed. The important point Paul makes, though, is do not judge each other over the issue. Often Covenant Theology criticizes New Covenant Theology on this very issue!

2. Know what time it is.

Jesus brought about the new covenant, which replaced the old covenant. In the old covenant, the law was all about externals: what to eat,



The 2012 John Bunyan Conference is scheduled for April 23-25 at Reformed Baptist Church in Lewisburg, PA

Speakers and Topics:

Chad Bressen Preaching the Psalms in New Covenant Theology - 2 MessagesJohn G. Reisinger Role of Conscience in Old and New CovenantsDr. Tom Schreiner The New View of Justification - 3 MessagesA. Blake White Cruciform Love - 2 MessagesSteve West Revisiting Free Will - 2 MessagesDr. Fred Zaspel (1) The Law Fulfilled (2) The Doctrine of Forgiveness

Lodging for the conference is available at a reduced rate at the Country Inn and Suites by Carlson in Lewisburg, PA. Just mention that you would like accommodations for the John Bunyan Conference to receive a double occupancy

room for only $89.00 per night which includes a nice continental breakfast.Reservations must be made by no later than April 7, 2012 to receive this reduced rate.

Reservations at the Country Inn and Suites may be made by calling 800-456-4000 or 570-524-6600. Their website is www.countryinns.com/lewisburgpa and the address is 134 Walter Drive, Route 15, PO Box 46, Lewisburg, PA 17837.

Meals for lunch and dinner will be available at the church.The registration is $65.00 per individual and includes four meals.

Space for meals is limited and registration will be restricted to the fi rst 80 individuals who register. Please register by no later than April 7, 2012. Sign-in for the conference will be from 12:00noon to 1:00pm on Monday, April 23, 2012

at Reformed Baptist Church.

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The John Bunyan Conference

March 2012 Issue 185Maxcey—Continued from page 9sence. God must be seen as transcend-ing His law. For example, Ephesians 4:28 declares that a NC believer is not to steal but work honestly. God cannot steal, since He possesses all things as the Sovereign Creator. Again, numer-ous NT passages command a NC be-liever to not lie (e.g., Jas. 3:14; 1 John 2:21). God cannot lie, because He is the embodiment of truth (Titus 1:2). In conclusion, these Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teachings are overly reductionis-tic and without scriptural warrant.

Are Believers Ontologically Made One in Nature With Christ and the Holy Spirit?

An unintended consequence of the Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teaching that both Christ and the Spirit literally are the Law of Christ is that NC believers are ontologically made one in nature with the second and third persons of the Trinity. Consider again a comment made by Steve Fuchs:

I would add that when we under-stand Christ to be the Law, we are really saying the Spirit of Christ...aka the Holy Spirit, while attempt-ing to not short-change the ‘oneness’ between those two persons of the Trin-ity. Christ becomes Law, a Law that causes righteousness to be manifest in His people, by indwelling them as Holy Spirit. He and the Spirit are one, and in the same way we are made one in nature with them by their indwell-ing us.15 [emphasis mine]

This conclusion appears to result from the following line of reason-ing: If both Christ and the Holy Spirit are the Law of Christ and if the Holy Spirit indwells us by being “the law written upon our hearts,” then the nature of both Christ and the Spirit is communicated to us, and we are made one in nature with the members of the Godhead. This is a theologically perilous line of argumentation. It is

15 Fuchs, “The Various Branches of New Covenant Theology,” comments added on March 7, 2009 at 4:17 PM.

undoubtedly true that Christ (in His divinity) and the Spirit are one, since both wholly share the same divine essence. It is also undoubtedly true that we are united to Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit (cf. Gal. 2:20). However, Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot be ontologically equated with the covenantal law of the NC. Furthermore, NC believers will never be made like God or become one in nature with the members of the God-head. When the Lord Jesus returns in glory at the end of the NC age, we will be “conformed to the image” of Christ (Rom. 8:29-30), and “we will be like Him” (1 John 3:2). However, these verses do not teach that NC believers will be ontologically made one in nature with the members of the Godhead. Rather, they teach that NC believers will be conformed to Christ’s glorifi ed humanity, when they receive their glorifi ed, imperishable resurrection bodies at His return.

Why Picture-Fulfi llment NCT?

At this particular point, we must ask, “Why do these fellow, Bible-believing Christians deem it necessary to ontologically identify Christ as the New Covenant and its Law, and the Spirit as the law written upon the heart?” They do so because their writ-ings clearly imply that any defi nition of the Law of Christ identifying it as a list of external, biblical imperatives is a manifestation of Christian moralism, perhaps even legalism. Consider the following quotations in light of one another:

That the Law is a Person means the Law of the New Covenant is not encoded in external imperatives or principles.16

The Law Incarnate has placed a Person, the Holy Spirit, within the believer as the law written on the heart. That’s the upshot of 2 Corinthi-ans 3’s understanding of Jeremiah 31. The law written on the heart should

16 Bresson, “The Incarnation of the Abstract,” 20.

not be identifi ed in its typical form, but its Antitypical… a Person, living and breathing life into and through the New Covenant member. The entire law “category,” as it moves from Old Testament to New, lands on a person. The trajectory of the fulfi llment of the law does not land on a new set of rules or principles, or even a summarized list of the law of Christ. The Law as a type has its end in Christ. The law as a type fades away into oblivion because all types do… it has become a person.17

The Law as the Incarnate Christ means life change that is imperative-focused or imperative-driven is simply Christianized behaviorialism. Strip-ping the imperatives from the Indica-tive (or simply always presuming the Indicative) results in an inherent moralism in our preaching and teach-ing. Allowing the Word to eclipse THE WORD results in an inherent bibliolatry.18

An Incarnate Law means the wrong questions are being asked in contemporary New Covenant Theol-ogy’s community. The question isn’t what is it I must obey, but who obeyed and died in my place and how does my union with him work itself out in my life? The question is not whether imperatives have a role in the New Covenant, but the question is what role do they occupy? The question isn’t what are the fi ve points of the law of Christ, but what is the nature of the law of Christ and how is it manifest in the life of the church? The ques-tion isn’t whether personal holiness is important, but what is the nature and motivation of personal holiness?19

Is it true that any defi nition of the Law of Christ20 which identifi es it as a 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 22. 19 Ibid., 21. 20 Again, this author believes that the most accurate definition (to date) of the Law of Christ appears in White’s The Law of Christ. On page 154, White defines the Law of Christ in the follow-ing manner: “It is the law of love, the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, the teaching of Jesus, the teaching of the New



list of imperatives21 is a manifestation of Christian moralism? I do not be-lieve so. Is it possible to avoid Chris-tian moralism, while not affi rming the defi ning distinctives of Picture-Fulfi ll-ment NCT? Yes, I resoundingly affi rm that it is not necessary to subscribe to the novel teachings of Picture-Fulfi ll-ment NCT in order to avoid moralism and a hyper-focus on law-keeping. So, how does one accomplish this? First, a believer must recognize and believe that it is the Holy Spirit who causes his willing obedience (Ezek. 36:27; Phil. 2:13) and empowers him to fol-low God and keep His inscripturated commandments. Second, a believer must maintain a biblical balance between the New Testament indica-tives and the imperatives of the Law of Christ, ever realizing that the NT indicatives provide his or her motiva-tion to obey. The Holy Spirit, through God’s inscripturated Word, informs and teaches all NC members how they are to obey Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord and the Creator King of the uni-verse. As a result, neither the ministry of the Holy Spirit nor Scripture are to be minimized in any way, no matter how slight.

Although advocates of Picture-Ful-fi llment NCT are not to be classifi ed as antinomians since none of them reject the NT imperatives, they appar-ently do not recognize that both their minimizing of those same imperatives

Testament, and finally the whole canon interpreted in light of the Christ event.” 21 See Schreiner, 40 Questions, 204-5. Regarding the citation of Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews 8, Schreiner writes, “The author cites the new covenant promise of Jer-emiah 31:31-34 that the law will be writ-ten on the heart of believers (Heb. 8:7-13). The author does not work out what the law written on the heart would mean in terms of giving specific prescriptions from the law. He clearly believes there is a place for commands and injunctions, as we learn from the parenesis in chapter 13. What he emphasizes, however, is that the cleansing of sins has been achieved once for all through the death of Christ.”

and their failure to properly defi ne the Law of Christ constitutes an unin-tentional, yet dangerous, movement toward antinomianism. This particular strain of NCT bears strong resem-blance to the antinomian approach of Gysbert M. H. Loubser, who writes:

In as much as law has no salva-tional role in his life, it also has no ethical roll. The believer receives the Spirit by faith in Christ. The Spirit who quickens new life in him, orien-tating him to Christ, also guides and enables him to do God’s will accord-ing to Christ’s faithfulness…Thus, the believer’s ethic of freedom is fully christological-pneumatological and anomistic without being libertinistic at all. Believers should not fear their God-given freedom by reverting to any form of law observance, but rather celebrate it by trustingly and freely walking in step with the Spirit.22

Elsewhere, Loubser states:The Spirit does not orientate the

believer to a form of law according to which he is to live, but to Christ whose faithfulness sets him in the new aeon which is free of fl esh’s dominance, and provides him with the example of faithfulness to God’s will. The Spirit guides the believer and enables him to do God’s will and serve his neighbor in love.…The christological-pneuma-tological ethic of freedom is essential-ly anomistic, but not libertinistic.23

Although the Picture-Fulfi llment NCT view of ‘law’ should not be fully equated with that of Loubser, his view is not only very similar to the former, but also may very well be its logical end state.

Conclusion

The recent development known as Picture-Fulfi llment NCT, although novel in its approach, cannot be viewed as a positive or worthwhile contribution or development in NCT.

22 Gysbert M. H. Loubser, “The Ethic of the Free: A Walk according to the Spirit! A Perspective from Galatians,” Verbum et Ecclesia JRG 27:2 (2006): 614.23 Ibid., 637-8.

Why? First, contrary to Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teaching, Christ is not the New Covenant. Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8 cannot be legitimately interpreted to ontologically equate the Lord Jesus with the New Cov-enant. Christ is the Lord and Mediator of the New Covenant; He does not incarnate the New Covenant. Second, contrary to Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teaching, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 36:24-27, and 2 Corinthians 2:14-4:6 do not teach that the Holy Spirit is the law written upon a believer’s heart. Regarding Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Ezekiel 36:24-28, to equate “my Spirit” of Ezekiel 36:27 with “my law” of Jeremiah 31:33 results in both an exegetical and logical fallacy. Furthermore, it neither logically nor exegetically follows that Paul seeks to contrast “the letter” (i.e., the Mosaic Law) and “the Spirit” as two forms of ‘law’ in the fi nal clause of 2 Corin-thians 3:6. Rather, Paul is contrasting two redemptive-historical eras via their respective covenants in order to demonstrate the New Covenant’s superiority over the Old Covenant. The Spirit is not the law written upon a believer’s heart, but as part of His New Covenant ministry, He Himself places a new heart in all members of the New Covenant, thereby caus-ing them to willingly obey God and keep His inscripturated command-ments (i.e., the Law of Christ). Third, contrary to Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teaching, Christ is not the Incar-nated Law of the New Covenant. The law-covenant connection, as taught by John Reisinger, does not logically support this Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teaching, since Isaiah 42:6 and 49:8 cannot be legitimately interpreted to ontologically equate the Lord Jesus with the New Covenant. Furthermore, to insist that Hebrews 10:1 and John 1:1, 14, 16-18 declare Christ to be the antitypical NC equivalent of the OC Law of Moses is to make a false infer-ence by eisogeting Picture-Fulfi llment


is the law of Christ for a child of God. We are guided in our understanding of the will of God, but we are guided by the Holy Spirit teaching us to correctly understand the objective commands of Scripture. The new cov-enant does not minimize the role of Scripture in sanctifi cation, it magnifi es its role. It seems to us that the Fourth Stream is doing the exact opposite.

We agree that the entire motiva-tion to obey God’s new covenant commands is internal via the Holy Spirit, but the commands are not dis-cerned by an immediate work of the Holy Spirit but by external inspired commands. It seems to me that Bres-son confuses the issue when he says, “Obedience isn’t acquiescence to an external demand ….” and, “The na-ture of the command itself is no longer external, but internal.” Every com-mand comes to us in words. God’s commands to us as new covenant be-lievers do not constitute some fuzzy, emotional, mystical experience that is centered inside of us, but all com-mands are verbal and objective. They all come to us externally and not in-ternally. They are directed to the mind not the emotions even as they must move the emotions. The motivation to obey the external commands is 100 % internal even as the commands are external.

… there is an altogether new dynamic inherent to the question of New Covenant ethics. No longer do imperatives fi nd their impetus from without as was true of the Mosaic Code (exemplifi ed in the Tables of Stone), but from within. The nature of the command itself is no longer external, but internal. Obedience isn’t acquiescence to an external demand, but the manifestion of an inward real-ity…. Because the external code of the Mosaic law has not been exchanged for external imperatives from the New Testament, but instead the Mosaic code has been exchanged for a person. Ibid, p.6

The last sentence in this last quo-tation throws me. The fi rst part says, “Because the external code of the Mosaic law has not been exchanged for external imperatives from the New Testament …” Isn’t that exactly what Jesus is doing in the Sermon on the Mount? If the “but I say unto you” statements by Christ are not external commands, pray tell what are they? Jesus is comparing the imperatives of Moses with the imperatives of the new covenant, and the imperatives in both cases come in the form and nature of objective commandments. The im-peratives have not changed in nature, if they did they would cease to be im-peratives. The indicatives upon which the imperatives rest have changed.

The last part of the last sentence in the quotation is an example of many statements in the article. It states, “the Mosaic code has been exchanged for a person.” How do you exchange a code of law for a person? A person and a code of law are two different things. They are two different catego-ries. A person can speak a code of law but a person cannot become a code of law. A code of law may defi ne a person in some ways but a code of law cannot become a person. Persons and codes of law cannot be interchange-able.

The Fourth Stream’s view that the Holy Spirit is one and the same equal to the law written on the heart is con-fusing at best and dangerous at worst. Most Fourth Stream writers are very careful to acknowledge that there are imperatives in the new testament and they rightly insist that the imperatives are grounded in indicatives. The word indicative means something is a stated fact you can take to the bank. An im-perative is a commandment or stated duty growing out of an indicative.

The real issue is the work of the Holy Spirit and the work of Scripture in sanctifi cation. Does the Holy Spirit work immediately in teaching us the will of God or does he work through

the Scripture. Romans 6:17 is a key verse. It lists three things that happen in true conversion and God is to be thanked for all three of them happen-ing. All three of these things must take place in a sinner in order to have a true conversion.

But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Romns 6:17 KJV

The mind must be illuminated with the truth of the gospel, or “form of doctrine.”

The heart must be penetrated with the truth of the Gospel, obeyed “from the heart.”

The will must be liberated by the truth of the Gospel, you “obeyed.”

It is possible to have any two of these things happen without having a true and real conversion. The Gospel must affect the mind, the heart and the will. The importance of the text for our study is the supremacy of the mind. God created us rational beings and God deals with us as rational be-ings. The Gospel addresses the mind as the means of reaching the heart. God deals with us as thinking as well as moral beings How often are we told to “think on these things”? The doctrine of justifi cation comes to us in propositional form. The doctrine of sanctifi cation follows the same pattern. Just as the Gospel addresses the mind with truth, so sanctifi cation begins with truth. We are sanctifi ed by the Holy Spirit using the objective truth of Scripture. Jesus prayed that we would be sanctifi ed by the truth and he does not leave us in doubt as what he means by the truth. He is talking about Scripture. He prayed, Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth (John 17:17). Peter tells us to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior (2 Peter 3:18). All we know about Christ is learned




what not to eat; what to wear, what not to wear; what days to work, what day not to work. All that has changed now. We are no longer bound to the law but are bound to Jesus. He has already made this clear in Romans. In 6:14, he said that we are no longer under law but under grace. In Ro-mans 7:4-6, he said, “So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. For when we were in the realm of the fl esh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.”

In this passage, he shows that the old ways have passed. He wrote, “I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is un-clean in itself (v. 14)…For the king-dom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (v. 17)…All food is clean” (v. 20).

It is important to note that ac-cording to this passage it is wrong to violate conscience, but our con-science can be informed. Paul was a very zealous Jew, but Jesus and his new ways informed and corrected his conscience:

Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this. Nothing outside a person can defi le them by going into them. Rather, it is what comes out of a person that defi les them.” After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defi le them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this,

Jesus declared all foods clean.) He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defi les them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immoral-ity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defi le a person.” (Mark 7:14-22)

3. Put others before yourselves (15:1-3).

Paul writes, “We who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Each of us should please our neigh-bors for their good, to build them up. For even Christ did not please himself but, as it is written: ‘The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me.’” The phrase we who are strong ought to bear could be translated as we who are strong have a debt to bear (opheilomen). This alludes back to Romans 13:8 where he wrote, “Let no debt [opheilete] remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfi lled the law.”

The verb bear (bastazo) alludes to Matthew 8:17, where Matthew quotes Isaiah to say Jesus bore our diseases. It is also the same verb Paul uses in Galatians 6:2 when he says we should bear one another’s burdens, and in this way we will fi ll out the pattern of self-enslaving love modeled by our Savior. The Revised English Bible translates Romans 15:3 this way: “Those of us who are strong must accept as our own burden the tender scruples of the weak.”

We will be helped to put the weak before ourselves by realizing that we too are weak. Several chapters earlier, Paul wrote, “For while we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom. 5:6 ESV).

We should put others fi rst because this is exactly what Jesus taught. The word neighbor echoes back to the great commandment. This word is

used 16 times in the NT, and all but three of them are found in quotations of or allusions to the love command of Leviticus 19:18: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”2 In John 13:34, Jesus told his disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Let us return to the passage we are focusing on. The centrality of love is taught throughout:

Romans 12:9 - Love must be sincere.

Romans 12:10 - Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Romans 13:8-10 - Let no debt remain outstanding, except the con-tinuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfi lled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfi llment of the law.

Romans 14:15 - If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.

Romans 14:19 - Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edifi cation.

Love was important for Paul be-cause love was important for Jesus.

We should put others before our-selves because that’s what Jesus did. Notice how Paul grounds his exhorta-tion not to please ourselves but please our neighbors for their edifi cation: For even Christ did not please himself! As Richard Hays notes, “Jesus was willing to die for these people, says Paul, and you aren’t even willing to modify your diet?”3 Paul doesn’t give 2 Douglas Moo, Romans (Grand Rapids:

Eerdmans, 1996), 867.3 Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the

White—Continued from page 12


March 2012 Issue 185Maxcey—Continued from page 15

NCT presuppositions into the text. Although the Lord Jesus Christ is both the NC Lawgiver and the Great Exem-plar of the standard within the Law of Christ, He is not the Law of Christ in any ontological sense.

In conclusion, proponents of Clas-sic NCT do have legitimate cause for concern with the rise of this novel NCT strain: the signifi cant defi ciency of biblical exegesis displayed in these Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teachings poses a genuine danger to Classic New Covenant Theology. Christ can-not be ontologically equated with the New Covenant, and neither He nor the Spirit can be ontologically equated with the Law of Christ. These Picture-Fulfi llment NCT teachings are overly reductionistic, unintentionally result-ing in the teaching that NC believers are ontologically made one in nature with the members of the Godhead. Additionally, these teachings may po-tentially contribute to the emergence of a new form of Sabellianism if the personal distinctions within the Trinity are obscured. Furthermore, Picture-Fulfi llment NCT’s failure to properly defi ne the Law of Christ constitutes an unintentional, yet dangerous, move-ment toward antinomianism. It is not necessary to subscribe to the novel teachings of Picture-Fulfi llment NCT in order to avoid moralism and a hyper-focus on law-keeping. Classic NCT and Picture-Fulfi llment NCT are incompatible strains of NCT, since there are signifi cant mutually exclud-ing distinctions between the two. The Holy Spirit is not Himself the internal law of the heart, but He is the One who causes a believer’s willing obedience (Ezek. 36:27; Phil. 2:13) by giving him a new heart (Ezek. 36:26) which seeks to follow God and keep His inscripturated commandments (i.e., the Law of Christ). Christ is not to be obeyed because He is the law or the New Covenant in an ontological sense. He is to be obeyed because He is the King of the New Covenant, and

His Word is the Law of Christ.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BooksBeale, Gregory K. and Donald A. Carson.

Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament. Grand Rap-ids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007.

Keil, C.F. and F. Delitzsch. Commentary on the Old Testament. Volume VII: Isa-iah. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publish-ing Company, 1973.

Long, Gary D. Biblical Law and Ethics: Absolute and Covenantal: An Exegeti-cal and Theological Study of Matthew 5:17-20. New York: Rochester, 1981.

O’Brien, Peter T. The Letter to the He-brews. Pillar New Testament Com-mentary. Edited by Donald A. Carson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010.

Reisinger, John G. Abraham’s Four Seeds. Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 1998.

_______________. Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption. Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2004.

Schreiner, Thomas R. 40 Questions about Christians and Biblical Law. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 2010.

Waltke, Bruce K. and M. O’Conner. An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syn-tax. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990.

White, A. Blake. The Law of Christ: A Theological Proposal. Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2010.

_____________. The Newness of the New Covenant. Frederick, MD: New Cov-enant Media, 2008.

Williams, Ronald J. Williams’ Hebrew Syntax. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1967; reprint 1976, 2007, 2008, 2010.

Williamson, Paul R. Sealed with an Oath: Covenant in God’s Unfolding Purpose. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2007.

Young, Edward J. The Book of Isaiah. Vol. 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972.

Zaspel, Fred G. The New Covenant and

New Covenant Theology. Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2011.

ArticlesBresson, Chad R. “The Exceeding Righ-

teousness of the New Covenant.” A message prepared for the Christ My Covenant website in June 2009. Ac-cessed 7 October 2011. Available from http://christourcovenant.blogspot.com/2009/06/exceeding-righteous-ness-of-new-covenant.html; Internet.

______________. “The Incarnation of the Abstract: New Covenant Theology and the Enfl eshment of the Law.” A mes-sage prepared for 2011 New Covenant Theology Think Tank, Rushville, NY. Accessed 7 October 2011. Available from http://www.earthstovesociety.com/essmedia2011/bresson%20-%20The%20Incarnation%20of%20the%20Abstract%20-%20NCT%20Think%20Tank%202011.pdf; Internet.

______________. “What is New Cov-enant Theology?” A list of NCT tenets prepared originally for the Christ My Covenant website but later posted to the Earth Stove Society website. Accessed 03 September 2011. Avail-able from http://earthstovesociety.com/?p=197; Internet.

Fuchs, Steve. “The Various Branches of New Covenant Theology.” A ‘Christ Our Covenant’ blog. Ac-cessed 7 October 2011. Available from http://christourcovenant.blogspot.com/2009/02/all-proponents-of-nct-believe-christ.html; Internet.

Heiser, Michael. “An Unexpected Word.” Chapter 3 from an unpublished book. Accessed 7 October 2011. Available from http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/Introduction%20to%20the%20Divine%20Council%20MTIT.pdf; Internet.

Loubser, Gysbert M. H. “The Ethic of the Free: A Walk according to the Spirit! A Perspective from Galatians.” Verbum et Ecclesia JRG 27:2 (2006): 614-640.

Reisinger, John. “The Marks of a New Covenant Ministry: A Study in 2 Cor-inthians 3 – Part 4.” Sound of Grace 166 (April 2010): 1, 2, 4, 14-17. m


Lugbill—Cont. on page 20

Lugbill—Continued from page 5

that new covenant theology provides the most biblical understanding of the relationship between the church and Israel: Jesus Christ fulfi lls and secures every divine promise, and it is only through union with him that both Jews and Gentiles are adopted as God’s children and share in his eternal covenant blessings. In Galatians 3 Paul lays out the clearest basis for this view. God’s covenant with Abraham is foundational to Gentile inclusion in the new covenant: “In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen 12:3). But this covenant also promises lavish physical blessings to Abraham and his descendants, promis-es that, according to dispensationalists of all stripes, can be rightfully given only to national Israel. Yet Paul argues here that the promises were made to Abraham and his singular Seed, “who is Christ” (Gal 3:16). Though Abra-ham had numerous physical descen-dants, Paul asserts that only this one Seed inherited the promises.

Thus Christ––not fundamentally the church––is what we might call true Israel. We see this refl ected in Je-sus’ earthly ministry. From birth he is identifi ed as the son of Abraham (Matt 1:1). A wicked king tries to destroy as an infant the future leader of Israel (Matt 2:13–18; cf. Exod 1:15–2:10). Like the Israelites fl eeing Egypt, Jesus crossed a river and was tested in the desert––for forty days instead of forty years––with the very temptations Israel faced (Matt 3:13–4:11; cf. Deut 8). But unlike Israel, Jesus conquered temptation by perfectly trusting his Father. He then ascended a mountain and told God’s people how to live (Matt 5–7; cf. Exod 19 ff.).

These intentional parallels high-light Jesus’ role as the true Israelite who succeeded where the nation failed. The promises to Israel were un-conditional in that God would surely do them, but they were conditional in that they required a faithful covenant

son. Jesus is that Son. More than a new Israel, he is the sole mediator of a new covenant (Heb 7–10), and in him all biblical covenants are fulfi lled (2 Cor 1:20). None of the OT covenant mediators fulfi lled the promises they were given. But Jesus is the better mediator of a better covenant, the so-lution to humanity’s damning problem which started with Adam.9 Jesus is David’s greater Son (Matt 22:41–46); the only sinless Israelite (Matt 4:1–11; Heb 2:14–18; 4:15–16); Abraham’s true Seed (Gal 3:16); indeed, Seed of Eve, the fi nal Adam who represents all redeemed humanity (Gen 3:15; Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:20–23).

Thus, it is only through Jesus, the covenant mediator, that the church relates to Israel and receives cov-enant blessing. This can be seen by returning to Galatians 3. After noting that Christ is Abraham’s seed who receives God’s promises, Paul shows that Abraham’s promise is given “by faith in Jesus Christ … to those who believe” (3:22). Indeed, all who are in Christ are sons of God, regardless of ethnicity (3:26, 28). “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (3:29).

So, believing Gentiles, along with believing Jews, are heirs together with Christ. Gentile Christians, once strangers to the covenant promises of God, are now “fellow citizens … of the household of God” (Eph 2:19) through the cross of Christ (2:11–22). They are “fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (3:6), all because they are “fellow heirs with Christ” (Rom 8:17). Only in Christ do believers, both Jews and Gentiles, receive their inheritance.

9 Stephen J. Wellum, “Baptism and the Relationship between the Covenants,” in Believer’s Baptism: Sign of the New Cov-enant in Christ, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Shawn D. Wright (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2006), 131–32.

Therefore, it would be strange to think––as dispensationalism teaches––that the old Jew/Gentile distinction, abolished in Christ, will once again prevail in the future, thus exclud-ing Christian Gentiles from many of God’s OT promises. “There is no second-rate citizenship in the kingdom of God.”10

Covenant theologians fail to recognize the radical newness of the church. Most signifi cantly, they miss the change in the nature of the people of God from the old covenant to the new––the mixed nation of believers and unbelievers gave way to a regen-erate body (Jer 31:34; Heb 8:11).11 And yet, they are not entirely wrong when they designate the church as new, or true, Israel. Paul seems to make this very point in Romans 2:25–29. He argues that physical cir-cumcision is worthless; what pleases God is obedience from the heart. “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision out-ward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter” (2:28–29). The people of God are no longer marked by circumcised fl esh but by circumcised hearts.

This is why Peter applies to the church titles once reserved for Israel: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Pet 2:9; cf. Exod 19:5–5). More overtly still, Paul is willing to refer to the church as “the Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). Not surprisingly, dispensationalists deny that this phrase designates the church, claiming instead that Paul had ethnic Jews, if only believing ones, in mind. Yet the context makes this unlikely. A main argument in the letter––made

10 O. Palmer Robinson, The Israel of God: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2000), 38. 11 See Wellum, “Baptism and the Cov-enants,” 144–47.

March 2012 Issue 185Lugbill—Continued from page 19

explicit in the previous verse––is that new creation alone, not physical cir-cumcision, marks the people of God (Gal 6:15). If Paul then singles out ethnic Jews as “the Israel of God,” he would seem to be violating the “rule” he just established.12 Thus, Paul gives biblical precedent for referring to the church as “Israel” due to her union with Christ.

Further support for the new cove-nant view comes from the NT authors’ use of the OT. Examples abound, but two should suffi ce. The fi rst is the use of Jeremiah 31:31–34 in Hebrews 8:8–12. Jeremiah’s prophecy promises a new covenant based on God forgiv-ing and remembering no more the sins of his people. The new covenant people would be marked by an inter-nalized law and universal regenera-tion. Hebrews quotes the prophecy extensively, proclaiming that this glo-rious covenant has now come through the mediation of its great high priest, Jesus Christ. The problem for the dis-pensationalist is that the promise was to be made “with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,” yet in Hebrews it is clearly fulfi lled in Christ and applied to the church. In the past, dispensationalists, maintaining that the new covenant promised in the OT was only for Israel, tried to argue for multiple new covenants. Thankfully most now agree that such promises are fulfi lled, at least in part, in God’s new covenant relationship with the church.

A second example is found in James’ use of Amos 9:11–12 in Acts 15:15–18. God’s promise through Amos to “raise up the booth of David that is fallen” is followed by descrip-tions of material blessing, ones that dispensationalists apply to Israel’s 12 So Robertson, The Israel of God, 39–44.

national restoration in the millennium. Yet James considers the prophecy ful-fi lled in Gentile conversion and inclu-sion, apart from the law, in the people of God. Thus the apostles would seem to violate the “literal” hermeneutic of dispensationalism. Again, the progres-sive dispensationalist claim of partial fulfi llment falls short. “If the blessing of God on the Gentile world assumes the restoration of the dynasty of Da-vid, the rebuilding of the tent of David could not be yet future.”13

Objections

Traditional and progressive dis-pensationalists offer several objec-tions to the new covenant perspective, many of which relate to hermeneutics. For instance, they deny that the NT should be the interpretive lens for the OT.14 Instead, OT passages must be interpreted according to the author’s original intent. The new covenant theologian agrees that OT texts should fi rst be understood in their original contexts. Yet it must be remembered that God is the ultimate author of Scripture, and his intent is clarifi ed through progressive revelation.15 The NT never contradicts the meaning of an OT passage, but it may draw out a deeper meaning that was previously

13 O. Palmer Robertson, “Hermeneutics of Continuity,” in Continuity and Discon-tinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton, IL: Cross-way, 1988), 106. 14 Michael J. Vlach, Has Israel Replaced the Church? A Theological Evaluation (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2010), 94–95.15 So Bruce K. Waltke, “Kingdom Promises as Spiritual,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Whea-ton, IL: Crossway, 1988), 284.

unseen.16 Thus an inspired OT author might at times have spoken better than he knew.

A related objection is that a text must be read as the original audience would have understood it, for the OT cannot be trusted if it deceived its fi rst hearers.17 Moreover, it is argued, if an OT prophecy was a mystery to the original hearers, then no revela-tion took place in the original con-text.18 Certainly, interpreters must not neglect the effect that each text had on its original hearers. But prophets often “talked down” to their original hearers, using images they would un-derstand.19 Furthermore, progressive revelation involves not only promises fulfi lled but also mysteries revealed (see Eph 3:1–13). An original audi-ence need not grasp the full meaning of a prophetic statement (e.g., John 2:18–22; 7:37–39). Only after Christ’s redemptive work did the full and fi nal meaning of many prophecies come into focus.

Finally, some dispensationalists may allow that christological/ca-nonical/typological interpretations are

16 "Positive Answer to the Question,” in The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testa-ment in the New, ed. G. K. Beale (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994), 393. 17 Vlach, Has Israel Replaced the Church?, 96–97. 18 Paul D. Feinberg, “Hermeneutics of Discontinuity,” in Continuity and Discon-tinuity: Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton, IL: Cross-way, 1988), 118. 19 Marten H. Woudstra, “Israel and the Church: A Case for Continuity,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspec-tives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1988), 232.

He who sings his own praise is usually off key.

Anon.

Issue 185 March 2012 permissible for NT authors––after all, they were penning divine revelation––but off-limits for the rest of us non-apostles. The question remains: What then should inform one’s approach to the OT if not the received example? To exalt a strict “literal” hermeneutic over the NT approach is suspect at best. That the modern interpreter is not inspired does not mean he may not follow the apostolic hermeneutic. Rather, it means simply that he is less certain about his conclusions and ap-plications than those of the inspired NT authors.20

Another dispensational objection is that the promised physical bless-ings––most importantly, Jerusalem and the land of the Bible––must be “literally” received by the nation of Israel. Otherwise, God’s truthful-ness is called into question; as one author notes, gospel promises can be discarded as easily as land prom-ises.21 The response to this rejection is twofold. First, the land promises must be understood typologically. Just as the promised temple (Exod 40–48) and the entire temple system

20 Beale, “Positive Answer to the Ques-tion,” 399.

21 Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., “Kingdom Promises as Spiritual and National,” in Continuity and Discontinuity: Perspec-tives on the Relationship Between the Old and New Testaments, ed. John S. Feinberg (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1988), 303.

is truly but typologically fulfi lled in Christ (John 2:18–22; Heb 7–10; Rev 21:22), so the “land” of worship has given way to a Person (John 4:19–26). Second, this typology does not negate the physical nature of the land to be received, for the land blessings extend beyond the Middle East to the whole world and will be inherited by all of God’s people in the new heavens and earth (Matt 5:5; Rom 4:13; Rev 5:10; 21:1–22:5; cf. Ps 37: 9, 22, 29, 34).

The major criticism of the new covenant position is that it is “replace-ment” theology. That is, it robs Israel of her inheritance and gives it to the church instead, thereby rendering God unfaithful to his people. In response, it should be noted that members of national Israel were never guaranteed God’s ultimate redemptive blessings (see Matt 3:9; Luke 16:8, 31–39; Rom 9:1–15).22 And yet, though Israel’s dis-tinctive claim to the kingdom has end-ed (Matt 21:43), she has not been fully and fi nally cut off (Rom 11:1–6).23 Indeed, it seems that a future mass conversion of ethnic Jews will occur (Rom 11:25–32). But this will happen only as they are united to Christ by faith. The new covenant contention is not that the church replaces Israel but that Christ fulfi lls Israel, inheriting every covenant promise and mediating

22 Wellum, 134; cf. Blaising and Bock, 132–33, 137. 23 Robinson, The Israel of God, 37–38.

them to all believers:Is there a future for Israel? Yes.

Does this future mean material and political blessings? Yes. Does this future mean the granting of all the land promised to Abraham in Ca-naan? Yes, along with the entire rest of the cosmos (Rom. 4:13). Does this promise apply to ethnic Jews? Yes, one ethnic Jew whose name is Jesus. Do Gentile believers share in this inheritance? Yes, if they are in Christ, one-fl esh with him through faith (Eph. 5:22–33), they receive the inheritance that belongs to him (Eph. 1:11).24

Conclusion

The relationship between Israel and the church is complex, and total agreement among evangelicals is unlikely this side of eternity. Yet the conversation is important, and the new covenant voice is needed to constantly point God’s people back to their covenant mediator. For only in Christ do God’s promises fi nd their Yes and Amen (1 Cor 1:20). m

24 Russell D. Moore, “The Doctrine of the Last Things,” in A Theology for the Church, ed. Daniel L. Akin (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2007), 907.

Editor’s note: Nathan Lugbill is a Master of Divinity student at The Southern Baptist Theological Semi-nary. He and his wife, Jess, live with their two children in Louisville, KY, and are members of Third Avenue Baptist Church.

This book addresses the biblical hermeneutic that gives the New Testament its proper hearing and allows the student of Scripture to be consistent with biblical revelation. Whatever the post-advent pe-riod looks like, it will be frosting on the cake, rather than returning the cake to the oven and rebak-ing it. New Covenant Theology, above all other theological systems available to modern scholarship, comes closest to giving Christ his glorious preeminence and his Holy Spirit-inspired New Testament

authors their decisive place in biblical interpretation.

This is a nicely bound reprint of Gary's Prophetic Fulfillment, Spiritual, Natural or Double?

To order see page 10.

Hermeneutical Flaws of DispensationalismGary George

March 2012 Issue 185the fl esh. Rather become slaves of one another humbly in love.

Cruciform love is the primary Christian virtue!

Finally, we should put others fi rst so that we will be united and give God glory. Verses 5-7 of Romans 15 say: “May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.”

Notice the parallels to what Mi-chael Gorman calls “Paul’s Master Story” (Philippians 2:3-10):

Philippians 2:2 - Make my joy complete by being like-minded (auto phronete), having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.

Romans 15:5-6 – May God give you the same attitude of mind (auto phronein) toward each other that Christ Jesus had, so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify God.

Philippians 2:5 – In your relation-ships with one another, have the same

them a list of rules but points them to a person.

Paul appeals to Psalm 69, which represents the attitude and prayer of Jesus at his death. He took on suffer-ing for the sake of others. Paul quotes it to appeal to Jesus’ giving of him-self in service to others as a model to imitate.4

Notice the similarities between Romans 15:1-3, Philippians 2, and Galatians 5:

Romans 15:1-3 - Bear the burdens of the weak, don’t please yourself but please your neighbor for their good because Christ did not please himself but gave of himself for our good (bore the insults we deserved).

Philippians 2:3-8 - Do nothing out of selfi shness. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but to the interests of others. Have the same mindset of Jesus who gave of himself for our good.

Galatians 5:13 - Although you are free, don’t use your freedom to indulge

New Testament (New York: Harper-One), 28.

4 Moo, Romans, 869.

White—Continued from page 17 mindset as Christ Jesus.

Michael Gorman writes, “In Romans 15, Christ’s dying is a paradigmatic act of burden-bearing and others-pleasing love that can engender a host of analogous acts by Paul and his communities.”5 Just think about how our relationships would be transformed if we adopted the Jesus mindset. Sibling to sibling relation-ships would change. Marriages would begin to refl ect Christ and the church. Co-workers would ask why you give of self for their good.

Today, we learn from this passage to act in love when it comes to disput-able matters. For example, consider how Christians have failed to practice cruciform love when dealing with eschatology, politics, alcohol, home-schooling, and even Sabbath keep-ing. See how Paul thinks about issues within the community. Cruciform love prevents community confl ict, and cruciform love is the solution to com-munity confl ict.

Don’t please yourself, but give of yourself for the building up of your neighbor, for this is what your Lord did! m

5 Gorman, Cruciformity, 172.

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by the cross work of Jesus (Ephesians 2:11-22, 2 Corinthians 3:2-18), on the conscience of a believer today. This type of declaration moves us away from giving as a grace and into giving by compulsion, duty, and law, some-thing Paul takes issue with.

Paul’s instructions on giving were simple:

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (2 Corinthians 9:7)

There is no minimum and there is no maximum because that misses the point. Grace has no minimum and no maximum. Grace captivates our hearts and transforms us into a giving people who love to share. The amount’s not important; the condition of my heart is. Do you think the Macedonians tithed to Paul? I don’t know, but I doubt it because Paul didn’t instruct them to. The percentage that they gave isn’t important because like everything else in the Christian life, having grace capture your heart is. Our eagerness to share with others in need is a direct indicator of the extent to which Jesus has captured our hearts and we’ve given ourselves fi rst to him. And that looks different for each of us. There is no one-size-fi ts-all cookie cutter mold that makes us all look the same in our giving because grace messes up our hair and gives us radical freedom in our giving just like it does in every other area of our lives. We seem to act like grace ceases when it comes to giving and that we need a little bit of law in giving or things will get out of hand. But grace liberates me to give radically and joyfully because that’s how grace works.

Paul knew the Old Covenant law inside and out (Philippians 3:2-11). Had he wanted to give the Corinthian churches a rule or law about tithing, he certainly could have. But he didn’t. Instead, he gave them this instruction,

Now concerning the collection for the saints: as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do. On the fi rst day of every week, each of you is to put something aside and store it up, as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when I come. (1 Cor 16:1-2)

I fear that even though we under-stand grace in so many other areas of our lives, we tend to often miss grace when it comes to giving and we tend to substitute or supplement it with some sort of law. I’m not sure why we do this. Maybe grace scares us when it comes to money because grace can be so unpredictable. Perhaps we’re a little insecure when it comes to mix-ing money with grace. If we make our living from the gospel and depend on giving for our income, perhaps we tremble a little at telling people grace liberates them in their giving. But Jesus wants us to excel in this grace of giving and we can’t do that without losing ourselves in his amazing grace, just like any other area of our lives. If you are a pastor, free your people to excel in the grace of giving.

I say this not as a command, but to prove by the earnestness of others that your love also is genuine. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. (2 Cor 8:8-9). m\

For other Excellent blogs by Mike Adams please visit:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JourneyInGrace

from the Scriptures. To down grade the Scripture in any way is disastrous. Psalm 138:2 tells us that God has magnifi ed his word above his name. In Psalm 119:89 it is written, thy word is settled in heaven.

It would be very wrong to accuse the Fourth Stream of deliberately downgrading the authority of Scrip-ture but it surely seems to be one of the implications of their view. Grant-ed, they constantly affi rm there are imperatives in the new covenant but in the same breath they insist there are no external commands in the new cov-enant. They can’t have it both ways.

At the end of the day, we might ask one question. How do you understand this text?

Circumcision is nothing, and un-circumcision is nothing, but the keep-ing of the commandments of God. 1 Cor. 7:19

Does that sound like there are no objective external commands in the new covenant? It seems to me that not only are there clear external com-mands in the new covenant, but those commands are of fi rst importance. To deny that is to deny true biblical NCT.

There is no question that preach-ing that Christ is our covenant appears to be very Christ honoring. However, it reminds me of Rolfe Barnard, a Southern Baptist evangelist, who used to say, “Son, that is mighty fi ne preaching, too bad it’s not in the text.”

Reisinger—Continued from page 16Adams—Continued from page 7

God does not bestow the Spirit on his people in order to set aside the use of his Word, but rather to render it fruitful.

John Calvin

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The Grace of Our Sovereign God

John G. Reisinger

Most of the material in this book was originally printed in booklet form. The chapter titled The Sovereignty of God in Providence has been translated into four languages. There are three known people who were on the verge of suicide and were brought to bow in faith, hope, and love to our sovereign God through God using this message in their life. The chapter on limited atonement has helped many so-called “four and one-half point Calvinists” see limited atonement as the foundation and linchpin of the Doctrines of Grace.

One of the constant comments about John Reisinger’s teaching in both the pulpit and writing is his ability to make difficult subjects easy to understand. Someone said, “He puts the cookies on the bottom shelf.” John says, “We are called to feed sheep, not giraffes.” This book is not written primarily for seminary students; it is written for the man in the pew. It is aimed at introducing God’s people to what has been called the Doctrines of Grace that cluster around the sovereignty of God. We know of no better book to introduce fellow believers in basic Reformed Theology’s view of sovereign grace than this book.

Abide in Him: A Theological Interpretation of John's First Letter

A. Blake White

John G. Reisinger says, “If I were to pick one section of this commentary that gives the heart-beat of both the commentary and of New Covenant Theology, it would be the following:

‘As should be clear by now, love for John is not an emotion but is always practical and active. Love of fellow Christians expresses itself with actions and in truth. Love and obedience go hand in hand. Jesus made this clear in the Upper Room Discourse. John 14:15 says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” In John 14:21, Jesus said that the one who has and keeps his commandments is the one who loves him. John is a faithful interpreter of the mind of Jesus.’”

Union with Christ: Last Adam and Seed of Abraham

A. Blake White

To be "in Christ" means everything! To be a Christian is to be in Christ. This is why Paul could say in 2 Corinthians 12:2 that he knew a man “in Christ.” He could have said, “I know a Chris-tian.” In Romans 16:7, Paul says that Andronicus and Junia were “in Christ” before he was. In other words, they were Christians before he was. Christians are those who are “in the Messiah.”

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