Mosaic Covenant – What is it?

[JKLeoPCA]

Just a thought I had by way of illustration. The CoW and CoG are running side by side through history, and the whole of the OT is to point to Christ, and God's dealing with the problem of mankind's sin as fallen in CoW, and to be restored within Christ by the CoG. So tell me if I'm off here. But my illustration would be such that if I take a child to a park and then, once home, ask him/her to draw the park, to show their friends what it is to like for when they go, as a child you will get some stick figures, and some child like trees and birds, and such. Take the same child again in his teen years, and require the same, and the drawing will improve with greater detail, and yet still be an image of what is to come for others that have not been. I see in the Mosaic, Davidic, and so on, covenants the greater and greater detailed pictures of what God in Christ is being revealed to do as Prophet, Priest, and King. Is this an incorrect way to look at the covenants, as a whole, in trying to think in a historical redemptive fashion?

- just asking.

 

[timmopussycat]

Further, if you argue that v. 17's "to fulfill" clause refers to the crucifiction / resurrection, this does not fit with the context (it may be true, but this passage doesn't support it).

Actually it does. You may not know that pleroo the Gk word translated "fulfill" has a number of meanings. One of which is the idea of "complete a period of time" or complete a time limited condition used in this latter sense in the LXX in Gen. 25,24; 29:21 or the sense of "bringing something to completion" a sense Paul used in Rom. 15:19. (see the BAGD lexicon on pleroo.)
Thus, in v. 17, Christ is saying he is not come to destroy the law but to bring it to its promised completion, something for which all Israel had been longing for centuries. And if you deny that "until all is accomplished" is a reference to the institution of the new covenant, how will you justify not living by ALL the Mosaic law today when Christ has said that not the least change will be made to it until "all is accomplished?

Tim,

Indeed I am aware that plae-ra-oe may have several different meanings, depending on context. The context of Matthew 5 dictates that fulfilling the law and the prophets has to do with how to obey the law and the prophets, vs. the pharisaical misconceptions of the law.

Christ's introductory remarks are framed in such a way that it would prevent the misunderstanding which people would have of His teachings.

Indeed.

The following discourse might lead them to misunderstand Christ's purpose in teaching on the law. They might think (as, I believe, you do) that He came to get rid of the law. He didn't. The only logical alternative is that Christ got rid of the Law and the Prophets when He died (all of the jots and tittles are gone). In other words, all of the OT is non-binding. This is Marcion's doctrine, and hard-core dispensationalism.

Marcion's view is not the only alternative. Although the Mosaic Law is no longer binding as the covenant law regulating an existing covenantal relationship, certain parts of it, as WCF 19:1-5 recognizes, remain applicable. First, the Moral law, having been given to Adam in the garden and written on the hearts of all who follow, was republished to Israel in the form of the decalogue (WCF 19:3) and still forever binds all (19:5) because it was given prior to Sinai and did not expire with it. Certain of the Mosaic judicial stipulations will also remain required depending on whether or not "the general equity therof may require" in the changed covenantal circumstances.

The choice is between theonomy and anti-nomianism. Your view represents the antinomian view, mine the theonomic. There really isn't a middle ground. If every jot and tittle passes away when Christ is crucified, then THE WHOLE OT SCRIPTURE is done away with, fulfilled, destroyed, etc. Choose you this day whom you will serve.

Me? I'm a WCF/OLC theonomist from a way back. I juast don't buy into "the ethical perspective of Christian Reconstructionism" publicized by Greg Bahnsen that, somewhat later, also acquired the name Theonomy.

The NT's teaching, however, is that we are to obey every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, and that all Scripture is profitable to teaching and practice.

Indeed it is. But thes questions we must answer are these: Did Christ or the Apostles tell us that we should carry all the Mosaic covenant's legislation into the NT or did they not? If they did not, and they did not, (the cermonials are clearly abrogated in Christ) we must determine whether the moral law and the civil laws remain. The moral law, as previously noted, remains because it was pre-Mosaic and the civil laws may or may not remain equitable in the present age.

And you still haven't anwered my question: if you deny that "until all is accomplished" is a reference to the institution of the new covenant, how will you justify not living by ALL the Mosaic law today when Christ has said that not the least change will be made to it until "all is accomplished"?

Godspeed