Search results for “Are Believers Under The Law As A Schoolmaster”

Are Believers Under The Law As A Schoolmaster?

by R. Scott Clark on April 26, 2018 | 5 Comments

For confessing Protestants, there is no question whether believers are under the civil and normative uses of the law. To deny the normative use (the third use) is the definition of antinomianism, a scourge which Martin Luther opposed in the 1520s, against which the Lutherans confess in the Book of Concord (1580), and which the Reformed have always opposed. The Heidelberg Catechism (1563) organized the Christian faith under three headings: Guilt (Law), Grace (Gospel), and Gratitude (Sanctification). The third part of the catechism contains an exposition of the moral law of God, the decalogue (Ten Commandments). The Westminster Standards also affirm and explain the moral law and apply it to the Christian life not in order that we might be keep it and thereby be justified and saved but because we have been justified and saved by grace alone (sola gratia), through faith alone (sola fide) in Christ alone. Continue reading →

The Law Of Christ Is The Moral Law

by R. Scott Clark on April 27, 2020 | 8 Comments

In his provocative March (2020) essay, Matt Smethurst asked “Why Don’t Christians Keep the Jewish Law?” He reminds us that the “Bible is a thoroughly Jewish document,” a note that has been regularly (and properly) sounded in modern biblical studies. From this premise, he asks the provocative question before us. He notes that “God’s people kept it for centuries in the Old Testament. What happened?” He answers by observing that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God kept and completed “the law of God in his people’s place. Jesus embodied in himself everything the law demanded.” Smethurst recognizes two functions of the “Jewish law:”  “God designed the law both to instruct and guide his people and also to expose their sin and need for a Savior.” In the magisterial Protestant traditions we have spoken of these as the normative (third use) and the pedagogical use. Historically there was also a “civil use,” the function of which, according to Louis Berkhof, is to restrain sin and to serve “the purposes of God’s common grace in the world at large.” According to Smethurst, the “Jewish law” is a signpost that is no longer needed now that the “new covenant and new age ushered in by a new king” has arrived. As he puts it, “The signage of the law, therefore, can be taken down. It served its purpose.” Continue reading →

Yes Virginia, There Is A Law-Gospel Distinction

by R. Scott Clark on May 22, 2014 | 42 Comments

When Martin Luther appeared before the Diet of Worms (1521), on the day after he asked for time to think, his examiner asked whether all the books stacked on the table were his. Luther began to answer by distinguishing between the various . . . Continue reading →

Resources on the Law/Gospel Distinction

by R. Scott Clark on January 13, 2011

There’s been some discussion at the Puritanboard about the distinction between law and gospel. It seems like it might be a good time for a refresher course. Here are some resources on the classical Reformed approach to this question. “Letter and Spirit: . . . Continue reading →

Resources On The Covenant Of Works

We might say that the Reformed doctrine of the covenant of works, or better, adherence to the doctrine, is recovering from an illness. The doctrine itself is fine. It is what it has long been but from the early 20th century until . . . Continue reading →

The CRC Is Right About Kinism (Part One)

by R. Scott Clark on April 3, 2023 | 4 Comments

The Covid crisis and lockdowns did a lot of damage physically, spiritually, and emotionally. One effect of the lockdowns is that it has given credibility to some who opposed the lockdowns. Christians who would have never countenanced the errors of theonomy, Christian Reconstructionism, or postmillennialism are . . . Continue reading →

Are The Ten Commandments For Christians?

by R. Scott Clark on May 19, 2018 | 13 Comments

This is a significant question for many evangelical Christians, particularly for those influenced by Dispensationalism. E.g., Charles Ryrie, a self-described “classic” Dispensationalist,1 wrote: …Even though a dispensation ends, certain commands may be re-incorporated into a later era. Nine of the Ten Commandments . . . Continue reading →

Ishmael and Infant Baptism

by R. Scott Clark on July 25, 2013 | 44 Comments

We heard a sermon from Genesis 17 this morning, and I couldn’t help but draw some conclusions relative to the current discussion about infant baptism that is ongoing at Together For the Gospel and at Between Two Worlds. Of course this is . . . Continue reading →

On the New Covenant

by R. Scott Clark on January 1, 2011

Arguably two of the issues that separate confessional Reformed folk from their Baptist friends are the Sabbath and Baptism. For many Baptists (but not all—there are confessional Baptists who agree with the Reformed on the Sabbath) it is a given that the . . . Continue reading →

Some Of The Differences Between Baptists And Reformed Theology On The New Covenant

by R. Scott Clark on December 27, 2010 | 3 Comments

Introduction In my response to Tom Schreiner’s critique of the Reformed confession of the Sabbath I wrote, “Underlying Schreiner’s approach to both the Baptism and Sabbath questions is a very large but often unstated a priori conviction about the nature of the new . . . Continue reading →