OT saints' obedience to the law

[chuckd]

Was it upon legal or evangelical grounds?

 

[KMK]

Are you asking upon what grounds people of the OT were commanded to obey?

 

[chuckd]

Yes, and preferably from a Biblical Theology perspective. How did they receive the commands to obey? I frequently hear "the Jews tried to earn their salvation" and I don't necessarily think that's true.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

You probably need to distinguish between that which was expected by God (his decretive will), and what his will was taken to be by many who missed the point.

I would say a saint's obedience was, is, ever will be on "evangelical" grounds; that is to say in view of Christ's sacrificial atonement, even in anticipation of the event.

Now, there was certainly some obscurity to the OT believer's apprehension of grace-and-truth-through-Christ; they had the Law through Moses, and that relationship through Moses to Christ gave a quality to their relation to the Law that bore the effect of the added layer of mediation. No one who was "under" that "yoke" is able to bear it in that sense, Act.15:10. It had an oppressive, chafing quality, which was part of the intent in giving it.

One might well say that the ceremonial/separation aspects of the law were peculiarly "legal" in the way the people related to them. This aspect of the Law not only functioned in a typological way, but also markedly in a "because I said so" way. Morally, this is a 1st and a 5th commandment matter, thus "evangelical" in the highest sense. But the typology is faint, until the antitype/explanation has appeared; and the legal nature of those commands stand out starkly. And deviations from them were met with the same strict judgment, apparently (to some estimates) all out of proportion to the "ethic" of those laws, which had the appearance of arbitrary constructs.

Moreover, one can easily describe the value of a "legal" obedience to judicial laws, for the maintenance of social peace. Such compliance brings no eternal credit to a man, but it is obvious that every man bore that kind of relationship to the law, on a penultimate basis, and it might bring him social credit ("but not before God" Rom.4:2). So then, in this sense the saints' (believers') obedience had a legal basis, but only after it's evangelical basis.

 

[Peairtach]

Was it upon legal or evangelical grounds?

You have to remember too, that even in the New Testament period, to the extent that believers' hearts aren't sanctified, and they have within them, the flesh in which no good thing dwells, to that extent our obedience will not be evangelical.

But "Israelites indeed" were "men [and women] after God's own heart" , otherwise they could not be His if their hearts weren't reconciled to His, although they didn't have the wonderful privileges that we enjoy.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2

 

[timmopussycat]

Yes, and preferably from a Biblical Theology perspective. How did they receive the commands to obey? I frequently hear "the Jews tried to earn their salvation" and I don't necessarily think that's true.

According to the Apostle Paul, the statement you heard was true at least for many. Paul writes that "Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone." (Rom. 9:31,32)

 

[chuckd]

Thank you Rev. Buchanan. Very helpful as always. If they obeyed upon evangelical grounds, when a distinction is made between law and gospel, is it synonymous with the covenant of works and grace? (i.e. was the gospel preached from Adam to Christ?)

According to the Apostle Paul, the statement you heard was true at least for many. Paul writes that "Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law.Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone." (Rom. 9:31,32)

Couldn't the same be said of Christians though? I hear it said as if there were a dichotomy between the obedience Israel expressed (legal) and the obedience Christians express (gospel). "Don't return to the law" as if it were impossible to express gospel obedience prior to Christ's appearing. If this were true, how then were there "men [and women] after God's own heart" as Richard pointed out?

 

[JMKing]

I think it's evangelical, look at the concomitant statements to the Decalogue, ie. Exodus 19:4 and 20:2.

As Vos indicates:

Some preparations for the promulgation of the Decalogue should be read together with this chapter, Ex. 19. It should be noticed, that here the berith appears for the first time as a two-sided arrangement, although that is by no means the reason of its being called a berith. The reason lies entirely in the ceremony of ratification. As to the arrangement itself, great emphasis is placed on the voluntary acceptance of the berith by the people. It is true, the initiative in designing the terms is strictly vindicated for Jehovah. No parleying, no co-operation between God and man in determining the nature and content are from the standpoint of the narrative conceivable. It is Jehovah's covenant exclusively in that respect. Still, the berith is placed before the people, and their assent is required.

Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), 121–122.

The voluntary assent here, in my understanding, would be evangelical.

Consider also the redemptive-historical significance of the time that the law was given. It was not given prior to the great redemptive act of the OT (deliverance out of Egypt) but rather after as God sanctifies a people for his worship.

 

[Peairtach]

There are plenty Christians - or ''Christians'' if you like - who've tuned the New Testament into a covenant of works, as there were Israelites who turned the OT into a covenant of works. The real dichotomy isn't between law and grace, but between treating our unclean and paltry obedience to the law as a means of getting right with God, and reliance upon God as Saviour in Christ in order to be right with God and obeying the good law in response to that. Not so much law pitted against grace and faith, but justification by works or works + grace, pitted against justification by faith alone.