COMMANDS IN THE BIBLE

One of the great interpretive debates over Christianity’s two thousand year history is how one should interpret the many commands in the Bible. Martin Luther dealt with the issue by dividing all scripture into two mutually exclusive categories, law and gospel. Gospel included any statement about what God would do irrespective of man’s contribution. This would include all the promises in the Bible and all the indicative statements that assert what God does for sinners. For example the entirety of Ephesians 1:3-14 is one long statement about what God has done in His work of redemption. There is not a command in the entire section. The same goes for the first 11 chapters of Romans, where, for the most part, Paul is telling the Romans what God has done for them as those who were once rebellious sinners. The law part of the Bible includes any command or duty laid on the audience. For example there are commands to take up one’s cross and to love one another. But how exactly are we to take these commands? If salvation is free gift of God from beginning to end, then it would seem contradictory to say that you must obey the commands of the Bible to be saved. But there are many commands in the Bible and they cannot be ignored. So why are they there? This is the issue Luther struggled with and everyone else since him. There are two issues this article will discuss. First, since the commands are essentially God’s law, we will discuss the very nature of the law of God. Having established the character of God’s law we shall move to discuss how the law then functions with respect to two categories of people, unbelievers and believers. As to the first question, “What is the nature of God’s law?” we begin by categorically stating that the law demands absolute perfection in every respect. Keeping one part of the law while violating another part of the law accrues no merit to the person whatsoever. James 2:10 says that “He who keeps the whole law but is guilty in one point, is guilty of all.” That is, the system of law is a system of absolutes. Either one keeps the entire law in all respects or is guilty and condemned with even one infraction. In other words, the law is not given as a general guide to living as if keeping most of the law puts you in good standing with God, but it is a black and white demand for complete fulfillment. This means that the law condemns every one of us because the Bible is clear that no human keeps the law for there is “none who does good, no not one.” If that be the case then the law as it pertains to fallen humanity can never be good news. As Romans chapter two clearly teaches, if someone wants to gain access to God through law he must be absolutely perfect. Either one gains eternal life by “patient continuance in doing good” or one is completely guilty for falling short of this standard. This law applies to all men, “to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” For when it comes to law all men are under the same set of rules. Indeed there is “no partiality with God” (Rom 2:13). And so all men are guilty under the inflexible demands of the law which is absolute perfection. To any son or daughter of Adam this is eternally bad news. In contrast to law, we have gospel. Now in order for gospel to be gospel it cannot be tainted with any smidgeon of law. The reason for this is evident. If man is condemned by law, then it can have no role to play in a system of free grace. Gospel is the free choice of God to save sinners apart from any contribution by man. The gospel is made effective to sinners through the medium of faith. Some have argued that faith itself is a work because it demands something of men. There are two reasons why faith is not a work. First, a work, to be a work, must be something a man does to give him acceptance with God. Any duty or feeling or principle or motive may be considered a work. But faith is not something ‘done’ but is something ‘received.’ Faith is a conduit whereby all gospel blessings are realized. It is the pipe that brings the water of life to the thirsty soul. Second, faith, even if it was a work, would not qualify because the Bible says it is a gift of God (see Phil 1:29; Eph 2:8-9). The gospel is the sole work of God. It allows for no admixture of works. The works of Jesus Christ alone saves. We have none to offer. Thus, the gospel does not say, ‘believe and be obedient.’ The gospel does not say, ‘believe and make Jesus your Lord.’ The gospel does not say, ‘forsake your bad habits and trust Jesus.’ The gospel does not say ‘love Jesus and flee to Him.’ The gospel says confess the Lord Jesus and believe Him. That’s it. The gospel says, “Look unto Me and be ye saved all the end of the earth.” The gospel says “trust in Jesus in all your defilement and live.” What have we learned so far? Law is miserable news and it demands something we can’t give, perfection. Law stands as firm as Mount Sinai from which it came and destroys all who try to climb it to obtain glory. So far from being a way that brings us to God, the law actually makes us know the very thing that keeps us from God: sin. Paul says, “By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in HIs sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin” (Rom 3:20). Therefore, if commandments do nothing more than increase our guilt, then we as Christians are authorized to “cast out the bondwoman.” Nevertheless commandments do exist in the Bible and plenty of them. Why are they there? Here we must put on our hermeneutical thinking caps and pay close attention to the way the law is used in the Bible, specifically how the law is used differently for different groups in different contexts. Lets look at the law as given in the gospels. When we read the gospels we are reading the words of Jesus to an Old Covenant and disobedient Jewish nation. In the gospels Jesus is trying to show Himself as the Messiah and that a new age of grace is being ushered in. He exhorts them to participate in this New Age by believing He is the Messiah. To these unbelieving Jews, Jesus will use the law to destroy their spiritual bigotry and self-satisfaction. This is the main purpose for His preaching the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5-7). He comes to an unbelieving Jewish audience and crushes them with the law. He tells them they must exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees to be saved. He says the measure of salvation under law is to be “perfect as just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt 5:48). He tells them that the law they were trying to keep was actually much deeper than what they had thought. To look upon a woman to lust was tantamount to adultery. Moses never said any such thing. When the Rich Young Ruler comes to Jesus obeying all the commands externally, Jesus tells him he falls far short of obeying the law (Mt 19:16-22). The greatest proponent of grace the world has ever known at one time believed he had obeyed the law perfectly (Phil 3:6). Yet later on, after grace had taken hold of his life, he knew that he was nothing more than the chief of sinners (1 Tim 1:15). For the unbelieving Jews and by extension unbelievers of every age, the commands of the law are not intended to save them but to drive them to despair. The law used in this way has the design to cause men to ask the same question the apostles once asked, “Who then can be saved?” The law must be used to show those who are smug in their righteousness the utter depth of their sin. All men in their unconverted state think they are basically good. The law alone is the axe that chops them at their proud knees and hopefully drives them to seek another remedy. However —and this is a huge point —the law has a completely different function when ministering to believers. As we said before, commands are frequent in the epistles. They are all given by the apostles to Christians. Should we view those commands the same way we view Jesus’s commands to unbelievers? Not hardly. Paul and Peter and John give commands to believers not to drive them to out of themselves as in the case of Saul in Romans 7:7-8. Nor to threaten them with a ‘do this or else you might not be saved’ ultimatum. The law is to be used to exhort those who already know their status as favored ones of God. Indeed the law is already in their hearts by virtue of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:33-34). Therefore, the way to use the law with believers is totally different than the way to use the law with unbelievers. In speaking to Timothy, Paul told his young associate to use “the law lawfully” (1 Tim 1:8). What did he mean? Paul goes on, “The law is not made for a righteous person, but for the lawless and insubordinate, for the ungodly and for sinners” etc. (1 TIm 1:9). For unbelievers we are authorized to use law to threaten in order to change behavior. But let us never forget that the commands or imperatives given by the apostolic authors to their believing brothers and sisters are never to be used to threaten them. Rather the law is used as a reminder for the saints of who they are as believers before God. Family members who know the family values need only a gentle reminder of who they are in Christ. This is exactly how the great apostle uses commands in the various epistles. Take, for example, a statement Paul makes to the church in Thessalonica. We read, “But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. And we urge you brethren that you increase more and more” (1 Thess 4:9-10). Do you see Paul’s heart? He acknowledges that the church should love better. But instead of threatening them with law (which would only make matters worse) he reminds them of what they already know. Yet he still exhorts them to love because exhortation can be wonderfully used in the life of believers so long as it is done in a gracious and non-threatening way. John the apostle speaks in the same matter in his first epistle. Note what he says in 1 John 2:20-21. “But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.” John is reminding his ‘little children’ that they have the truth abiding in them and they have all they need to obey the truth. Later on in verse 27 the apostles adds, “But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you and you do not need that any teach you; but the anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in him.” Because the saints have the Holy Spirit abiding in them John really does not need to teach them anything. Of course he does teach them but not to coerce them into obedience. This is how the New Covenant works (Jeremiah 31:31-34). Believers already know the truth and need only be reminded of it. All of this is to say that for Christians the commandments have value only as they serve to stimulate the thinking of believers and to remind them of their high calling in Christ. So do imperatives have a use for Christians today? Yes. They serve as a wonderful guide to those who already know the truth. Traditional Reformed theology calls this ‘the third use of the law.’ So the question is not whether or not the law is used but how the law is used. One last thing needs to be said. What of those ‘believers’ who live reckless lives and show no regard for obeying God? What of those ‘Christians’ who say, “It doesn’t matter how we live; we’re forgiven?” The answer to that is clear. No Christian would ever live this way for any length of time. The New Covenant has placed the law in the hearts of those who believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and that law continually reminds them of the ways of God. Christians desire to obey the law of God after the inward man. However, anyone living with a lawless mindset must be treated in a different way. The Bible says he is to be viewed as a publican and sinner, that is, as an unbeliever. In such cases the law is to be laid on that person in all its fury. And after that the gospel must be preached lest he despair. None of this applies to those weak, struggling, Christians who fall into sin though they hate it and whose lives are oft filled with inconsistencies though they mourn. To our weak and doubting brothers and sisters let us gently come around them and remind them once again of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection and that in Him is complete forgiveness of sins. This alone will give them the strength to get up and move forward to face another day.