INTRODUCTION
When I began this series last month, I opened it with a question: What does it mean that Christians are not under the law? Are we no longer obligated to obey the Ten Commandments? The first four parts of this series primarily dealt with the nature of moral, ceremonial, and judicial laws of God given in the Mosaic Covenant.
The final three parts of this series will begin explaining how the moral law of God relates to Christians under the New Covenant as well as the relationship between the moral law and the gospel. Today we’ll see that while we are under grace, nevertheless we are still obligated to obey the moral law of God.
1: The Law of God Given to Adam[1]
2: The Nature of the Moral Law
3: The Mosaic Ceremonial Laws
4: The Mosaic Judicial Laws
5: The Perpetuity of the Moral Law
6: The Moral Law and Our Salvation
7: The Moral Law and the Gospel
SECOND LONDON CONFESSION, 19:5
Today, we will consider paragraph 5 of chapter 19 which reads:
The moral law does for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof, and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it; neither does Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.
EXPOSITION
Why then the Law?
Galatians, Paul’s earliest letter recorded in Scripture, sets forth in clear and bold terms the doctrine of justification by faith alone. We cannot justify ourselves before God by keeping the law, but only “through faith in Christ Jesus.” (Gal. 2:16) If that is true, then a reasonable response is, “Why then the law?” If we in the flesh have no hope of keeping the law, why does God demand we keep it?
I regularly hear Christians and (God forbid) even Christian pastors conclude that if we are saved by grace through faith alone, then there is little or no need for God’s law in our lives.
Here, the London Baptist Confession (as well as Scripture no less) could not be clearer: the moral law of God is perpetually binding both for unbelievers as well as for those who God has declared righteous. Let’s hear the testimony of Scripture:
8 If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. 9 But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. 10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. 11 For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. 12 So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. (James 2:8-12)
If the Apostle James is not clear enough that we are to keep the moral law of God, listen to the Apostle Paul as he explains justification by faith in Romans 3:28-31.
28 For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30 since God is one—who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith. 31 Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law. (Rom. 3:28-31)
Even Christ himself says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matt. 5:17)
Some have used Christ’s words to argue that in fulfilling the law, Christ has set it aside for Christians. This is insane. Why? First, as we have seen, the moral law, is connected to and flows from God’s very nature and character. In other words, the moral law is as eternal and unchanging as God himself. Second, as the confession states, our obligation to obey this unchanging law stems from our nature as created beings and the debt we owe to our Creator.
This means that every single human being, both the unbeliever and those who have been justified by God through Christ, are perpetually bound to perfect obedience to the moral law. We are no less obligated creatures simply because we have been redeemed and declared righteous. Philip Hughes wrote: “The Christian is still under solemn obligation to keep the law of God, but with this difference, that he now has the power, the power of Christ by the Holy Spirit within himself, to keep it.”[2]
Freedom in Christ is not freedom from obedience. Rather, it is freedom and power unto obedience. Christ does not remove our obligation to obey God. He first obeys God in our stead and his obedience is imputed to us. Because we are born again, of the Spirit, we are empowered by grace to obey.
CONCLUSION
In the final two installments of our series, we’ll discuss in further detail how the law relates to our salvation and the gospel.
For now, remember that the moral law of God is perpetually binding. This is because God has not changed, nor have we as it regards our obligations to him as his creatures. You and I are bound to obedience. We ought to make it our aim to study God’s moral law, specifically as it is revealed in the Ten Commandments and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, asking God for the grace to obey with a joyful heart.
Grace to You,
Pastor Jonathan
[1] I have found Pastor Tom Hick’s expositions on the confession helpful. They can be accessed here: https://www.fbcclintonla.com/ss-1689-Confession.html
[2] Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 90.