“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matt. 5:31, 32 NIV)

When we study the subject of divorce in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, we find that Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount constitutes a change and an ad­dition to the law of God given to Moses. This difference does not involve a contra­diction in the sense that Moses was wrong and needed correction. The law of Moses was holy, just, and good for his particular time and situation because Moses was dealing primarily with lost sinners. The new law, brought by Christ in the New Covenant, is holy, just, and good for the fullness of time because Christ, in dealing with the church, is dealing entirely with regenerate saints. God based Israel’s special national status on a dif­ferent covenant from that upon which he based the church’s special spiritual status.

The nature of any covenant makes it binding upon all who are governed by it. Therefore, the New Covenant, like the Old Covenant before it, comes with objective rules. The New, however, is characterized by grace in contrast to the Old, which was characterized by merit. The means by which God’s people profit under the terms of the New Covenant is through the work of someone else: specifically, the work of Christ. The means by which God’s people profited under the Old Covenant was through their own work. The benefits of Christ’s covenant come to his people because he has earned those benefits himself. This is why the New Covenant is a gracious covenant.

Grace, by its very nature, produces a higher morality than the Mosaic law could ever demand. Christ changed the rules on the subject of divorce and remarriage when he changed the covenant foundation from merit to grace. Christ rejected uncleanness as a ground for divorce (Matt. 19:1-9), even though Moses allowed it (Deut. 24:1-4). The grace that rules a believer’s conscience appeals to a differ­ent motive for obedience than the idea of merit does. Grace reminds us of all that Christ has done for us, while merit reminds us of all that we must do for ourselves. In this way, grace produces behavior that transcends what the Mosaic law demanded, let alone actually produced.

Ironically, the strongest argument for this position comes from the people who vehemently disagree with our view of Christ as a new lawgiver. Pink’s comments on Matthew 5:31, 32 illustrate:

Moses had been indeed divinely directed to allow divorce in cases of uncleanness, for the prevention of worse crimes. But that which had been no more than a temporary conces­sion was changed by the Pharisees into a precept^[1] and that so interpreted as to give license to the indulging of their evil and selfish desires ….

Let us now consider a few details in Deut. 24:1-4. The first thing is the kind of statute there given. It was not a moral but a political or civil one^[2] for the good ordering of the state. Among such laws were those of tolerance or permission, which did not approve of the evil things concerned,^[3] but only suffered them for the prevention of greater evil—as when the sea makes a breach into the land, if it cannot possi­bly be stopped, the best course is to make it as narrow as pos­sible … These laws tolerated what God condemned, and that for the purpose of preventing greater evils.

When Pink gets to the point of telling us what Christ actually did mean in his But I say unto you contrasts in Matthew 5-7, he explains Christ’s words this way:

“But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causes her to commit adultery: and whoso­ever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery” (verse 32). Here Christ refutes the cor­rupt interpretation of the scribes and Pharisees, and posi­tively affirms that divorce is permissible only in the case of that sin which in God’s sight disannuls the marriage cove­nant, and even then it is only allowed and not commanded ….^[4]

Neither Deuteronomy 24:1-4 nor Christ’s words about divorce and remarriage in the Sermon on the Mount sug­gest what Pink is saying. He has read his entire position into the text. The two biblical passages affirm the follow­ing:

1. The law of Moses, recorded in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, allowed divorce for reasons other than adultery. Whatever Moses would have defined as uncleanness, he could not have included adultery. Adultery was punishable by death.
2. Christ, in Matthew 5:31, 32 and 19:1-9 rejected unclean­ness as grounds for divorce, and allowed di­vorce only on the ground of adultery. The law of God given through Moses positively allowed what Christ specifically rejected. Christ’s law that allows for di­vorce in cases of adultery means that he did not command death as punishment for adulterers. Jesus changed the rules. The texts of Scripture are clear.
3. If the above does not constitute clear and specific change, then words have lost meaning. Jesus rejected uncleanness as a ground for divorce. The very thing that Moses allowed (divorce for reasons other than adultery), Jesus disallowed.

A comparison of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 with Matthew 5:31, 32 makes it clear that Christ, in Matthew 5:31, 32 is not correcting the distortions of the Pharisees. Here, as in the other contrasts, our Lord mentions neither the Pharisees nor their teaching. He quotes the exact words of Moses in Deuteronomy 24 and contrasts the law of Moses with his new laws. It simply is not being honest with the words of Moses to say that the words to which Jesus refers are words of distortion by the Pharisees. Pink’s position is biblically untenable.

Lloyd-Jones shares Pink’s approach. After showing that it was God’s original in­tention at creation (Gen. 2:24) for marriage to be one wife for one husband, Lloyd-Jones raises the obvious objection to what he is stating:

“If that is so,” asks someone, “how do you explain the Law of Moses? If that is God’s own view of marriage, why did He allow divorce to take place on the conditions which we have just considered?” Our Lord again answered that question by saying that, because of the hardness of their hearts, God made a concession, as it were. He did not abrogate his origi­nal law with regard to marriage. No, He introduced a tempo­rary legislation because of the conditions then prevailing.^[5]

Unwittingly, Pink and Lloyd-Jones offer support for our position:

1. A change of covenants brings a change in the laws (“original law and temporary legislation”).
2. The specific covenant laws under which individu­als live are the basis upon which they are to order their lives and by which God will judge them (“God made a concession and allowed the lesser of two evils”).
3. Israel and the church have different canons of con­duct, or laws, because they live under different cove­nants. Israel lived under the Old Covenant of Moses and the church lives under the New Covenant of Christ (“The law of Moses is a temporary legislation”).
4. God does not deal with regenerate saints the same way he deals with unregenerate rebels (“because of the hardness of their hearts”).
5. Circumstances in a given society may necessitate God making and applying different laws (“conditions then prevailing”).

Pink and Lloyd-Jones advocate the right of Moses to make laws (they call them “temporary legislation”) that are both useful and necessary in certain dispensations charac­terized by sinful circumstances. Moses had the right to change God’s “original law” because the spiritual condi­tion of the Israelites was different from the spiritual condi­tion of Adam and Eve when they received God’s original law. This principle underlies our view that a New Cove­nant with new laws has replaced an Old Covenant with its old laws. Calvary and Pentecost introduce a new kingdom of grace. Jesus Christ has the right to change Moses’ tempo­rary legislation because the spiritual condition of Christ’s New Covenant people is different from the spiritual condi­tion of those who received that temporary legislation.

Pink and Lloyd-Jones make the case that one canon of conduct governed God’s people prior to the fall; a different canon of conduct governs them after. A change in the spiritual condition of people necessitates a change in the laws that govern those people. The principle is the same for our tenet that one canon of conduct governed the life of the nation of Israel; a different canon of conduct governs the life of the church. It seems to us that Pink and Lloyd-Jones not only prove our point, but they add to the very problem they are trying to solve.

Pink writes that Moses received divine direction to allow divorce in cases of uncleanness. He calls this a temporary concession that tolerated what God condemned. He then concludes that Christ positively affirms that divorce is permissible only in the case of that sin which in God’s sight disannuls the marriage covenant. If Christ is correcting pharisaical distortions, as Pink maintains, he also is doing more. According to Pink, Christ is restoring God’s law to its original demands, temporarily altered under the Mosaic legislation. It is impossible to fit Pink’s statements into the framework of Covenant Theology’s view that Israel is the church, therefore the same covenant and identical laws govern both. We cannot say that God instructed Moses to allow legitimate divorce for uncleanness in Israel, but Christ refuses to accept the same uncleanness as a legiti­mate ground for divorce in the church, and then teach that Christ never changed the law of Moses. Pink’s explanation contradicts the third elementary maxim of Covenant The­ology: there is one unchanging canon of conduct for the one redeemed people of God.

Pink’s problem becomes more complicated by his ad­mission that God allowed Moses to make the concession concerning uncleanness, even though that concession vio­lated the revealed will of God as seen in the Creation Ordi­nance. Pink recognizes that God instructed Moses to give certain laws to govern Israel’s conduct (Deut. 24:1-4), but Christ will not accept those same laws to govern his church. Pink’s understanding of Christ’s rationale is that Moses’ laws about divorce are contrary to the real law of God given in Genesis 2:24. If this is true, then why would God give the laws to Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 in the first place? Pink answers that it was for the prevention of worse crimes, without specifying what those worse crimes might be. Pink’s reply however, has God, or at least Moses, changing the law. The law about marriage, recorded in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, is different from the law about mar­riage, recorded in Genesis 2:24.

Let us be sure that we understand what Pink and Lloyd-Jones are saying, and then we will see if that is what Christ is teaching:

Christ was showing that the Pharisees had changed a concession concern­ing divorce into a precept, and this somehow gave them the license to indulge evil and selfish desires. Christ was condemning the Pharisees for abusing the law of Moses; he was not in any way contrasting his teaching with what Moses actually had said.

God allowed, but did not command, divorce in Israel on the grounds of uncleanness. But uncleanness could not mean or include adultery, since God commanded that adultery be punished by death.

Divorce for uncleanness was a concession that was nec­essary at that time because of Israel’s hardness of heart and the conditions that resulted from their attitude. God al­lowed easy divorce and polygamy (even though both actu­ally were adultery and a violation of the Seventh Commandment), but he did not legitimize either of them.

The sole purpose of this particular law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was to narrow or confine the effects of sin and mis­ery. It accomplished this by condoning a breach of God’s original moral law (one man and one woman, as given in the Creation Ordinance) through legislation that would control to some degree an intolerable situation of the mo­ment and protect women from the cruelty of Israel’s hard-hearted men.

God did not mean for his allowance of divorce for un­cleanness to be a permanent part of his law; he gave it only for that particular time and situation.

For the moment, let us assume that the texts of Scripture show that all of these statements are correct. The state­ments would still miss the point under discussion. They never touch the heart of the problem in trying to under­stand Christ’s contrasts in the Sermon on the Mount. In fact, if the statements are true, we have difficulty fitting them into Pink’s own theology. This view makes the prob­lem worse. The cure is worse than the disease. Moses, in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, contradicts himself and the real law of God concerning marriage that he, Moses himself, re­corded in Genesis 2:24. God is now instructing Moses to give this contradictory legislation on dispensational grounds due to Israel’s hardness of heart. Covenant Theol­ogy vigorously opposes a Dispensational approach to Scripture; it seems strange that they take that very ap­proach to explain these verses.

The point of Matthew 19:1-9, where Jesus explains why his teaching differs from that of Moses, is this: the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 legislated and allowed cer­tain conduct for an Israelite (divorce on the grounds of uncleanness) that Christ will not tolerate in the life of a Christian under the New Covenant. The reasons for Moses’ legislation and Christ’s reversal, while important, are sec­ondary in our discussion; the issue is that Christ does in­deed change a law that Moses had made. Christ rejects the grounds for divorce and remarriage that the law of Moses allowed. An objective comparison of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and Matthew 5:31-32 allows for no other conclusion. The questions of the Pharisees and Christ’s answers in Matthew 19:1-9 offer further support. Christ is a new lawgiver who gives new law, and he has every right to do so.

Moses, not the Pharisees, wrote the legislation in Deu­teronomy 24:1-4 allowing divorce for uncleanness, and it is that specific law that Christ refuses to allow in his church. The situation that necessitated the law concerning divorce that Moses gave in no way changes the fact that he, by God’s authority, gave that law. However, understanding why Christ changed the law of Moses on this point strengthens our case further.

It is impossible to be honest with words and deny that the law of Moses, given by God, allowed what Christ spe­cifically rejected. It is likewise not possible to accept the fact that Christ changed one of the laws that Moses gave and at the same time hold a “one canon of conduct for all ages” view. The moment we take Christ’s words of contrast seri­ously, we see that he is contrasting his teaching with the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, and not with the Pharisees’ supposed distortion of that law. The logical question is, “Why would God instruct Moses to write a law about the marriage relationship for Israel’s conduct that Christ would not allow an apostle to write for the conduct of a Christian under the New Covenant?” Such a scenario is impossible under Covenant Theology’s premise that Israel and the church constitute one redeemed people of God, governed by the same canon of conduct. The answer to that question lies in understanding the difference be­tween a covenant designed specifically for sinners and a covenant made only with saints.

Let us look first at the specific law of Moses that Christ rejected and changed:

“When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favor in his eyes, because he hath found some unclean­ness: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is de­parted out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorce­ment, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; Her former hus­band, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.” (Deut. 24:1-4 KJV)

Pink implies, and we agree, that uncleanness here is not the sin of adultery. “[Christ] positively affirms that divorce is permissible only in the case of that sin which in God’s sight disannuls the marriage covenant.” Adultery disan­nuls the marriage covenant. This marks a change and dif­ference between the law of Moses and the law of Christ both on the subject of adultery and on the subject of di­vorce. It would have been impossible for Moses to legislate the new law of Christ that allows divorce only for adultery without contradicting himself on two fronts. Moses al­lowed divorce for uncleanness; he mandated death for adultery (Deut. 22:22). When Christ gives his new law that allows for divorce only in the case of adultery, he overturns the law that mandates death for adultery.

Furthermore, the reason Christ refuses to allow the same easy divorce that Moses permitted is that “hardness of heart” is no longer a possibility among God’s people. Christ is giving laws to people whose hearts are soft. For Christ to accept divorce for the same reason Moses did (hardness of heart) would be to contradict the nature and power of the grace that has changed the hearts of his New Covenant people. For Christ to accept the law of Moses concerning divorce for uncleanness as the rule for the church would be to say that New Covenant believers were, like the Israelites, hard-hearted people. Such an admission would be a denial of the power of the Holy Spirit in regen­eration and the rule of grace in the hearts of God’s people.

This change proves our thesis that Christ gives new and higher laws in the Sermon on the Mount than Moses gave in the Old Covenant. Christ gives a different law for the church on the subject of adultery and divorce than Moses gave to Israel. These are biblical facts, as are the reasons for the change.

The second thing to note is the circumstances under which Moses gave the concession of Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Our Lord tells us in Matthew 19:1-9 that Moses, by inspira­tion, gave a law that tolerated what was clearly contrary to God’s original purpose for Adam and Eve at Creation. It seems obvious from Christ’s words that the purpose of the law in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 was to control the effects of Israel’s hardness of heart. We all agree so far. However, at this point, some theologians make wrong assumptions. We must start with the information in the text itself before we start deducing any good and necessary consequences to fit our particular theological system.

At no point in either Matthew 5:31, 32 or in Matthew 19:1-9, does Christ attack or correct a rabbinical distortion of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, nor is he giving the true spiritual meaning of what Moses meant in these verses. In order to do this, Christ would have to tell his audience exactly what Moses meant by uncleanness. Our Lord is not concerned with the correct meaning of uncleanness, since it is no longer a factor in divorce under the New Covenant. Christ is not merely interpreting Scripture; he is giving us new Scripture. He is changing the law of Moses from allowing divorce for uncleanness (regardless of what that means), to allowing divorce only for adultery. Matthew 19:1-9 has nothing to do with the pharisaical interpretation or appli­cation of Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Christ is dealing with Is­rael’s hardness of heart that caused Moses to give the concession concerning uncleanness in the first place. Christ condemns, not the abuse of Deuteronomy 24:1-4, but the very need of such a law.

Christ is not saying to the Pharisees, “I will not tolerate your distortion of the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1-4,” but rather, “In my kingdom, I will not tolerate the leg­islation on divorce that Moses gave because of the hardness of heart of your rebellious fathers.” It is impossible to have Christ merely giving us the true exposition of the law of Moses in these particular passages (Matt. 5:31, 32; 19:1-9). Our Lord is not settling the argument between liberal and conservative Pharisees by telling us what Moses meant by uncleanness in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. It does not matter what uncleanness there means. Not any, or all, of the defi­nitions of uncleanness put together can justify divorce under the New Covenant. Christ is saying, “The law of Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1-4 that allowed uncleanness as a ground of divorce is no longer accepted as part of the new canon of conduct for the church. The only ground for divorce under my law is adultery.” Christ changed the law of Moses on the subject of divorce. The texts can mean nothing else. We simply cannot make this passage teach that Christ is only reinforcing and rubber-stamping the law of Moses on the subject of divorce. Such a view misses the point.

It is essential that we see the radical difference between the two groups of people for whom the two different laws (Deut. 24:1-4 and Matt. 19:1-9), or canons of conduct, con­cerning divorce were given. This difference provided our chapter title, “Laws for SINNERS and Laws for SAINTS.” The purpose of the laws of Christ in the kingdom of grace is not control of hard-hearted sinners, as is the case in the law of Moses. Christ gives his law to regenerated saints who have a desire to obey and please God. Covenant The­ology cannot grasp this because it views Israel as the church, as God’s redeemed people under the older admini­stration of the Covenant of Grace. It cannot accept that under the New Covenant, all the members of the church are regenerate (Heb. 8:11). If Israel and the church are the same church, their spiritual conditions are the same. Both groups, although redeemed, must still contain a mix of regenerate and unregenerate people despite what Hebrews 8:11 teaches. Therefore, both need the same kind of laws to govern them. Covenant Theology cannot believe that Israel was under a conditional legal covenant at Sinai. This will not fit into their system. Covenant Theology confuses a physical redemption from Egypt with a spiritual redemption from sin. They confuse an earthly theocracy with a spiritual kingdom. They believe that redeemed people are never under a covenant of works. Therefore, the Old Covenant is part of the over-arching Covenant of Grace; the New Covenant is simply a newer administration of that Cove­nant of Grace.

It is impossible for the situation that occasioned the law of Moses concerning uncleanness to exist in Christ’s church under the rule of grace. Under the New Covenant, God’s people, without exception, all are regenerated saints with new hearts (Heb. 8:10, 11). There are no hard-hearted sinners in the Body of Christ. The situation described in Matthew 19:8 that existed in Israel cannot possibly exist in the church. It would deny both the reality and the power of the grace of God. It would turn salvation from sin into salvation in sin (Matt. 1:21).

The third item we must discuss under this point is Pink’s designation of Creation Ordinances as the real, un­changing law of God with higher authority than the law of Moses. Covenant Theology builds a complete system of morality and ethics on revelation given prior to the fall. These laws, called Creation Ordinances, are considered the real revealed will of God to which all people in all times are always subject. They supposedly are written on man’s heart, and therefore no special revelation from God is needed in order to make them known. The Creation Ordi­nances thus become the real unchanging moral law of God for all ages, regardless of what any later revelation may or may not say.

This concept of Creation Ordinances creates problems. In the case we are discussing, it means that the later reve­lation given by Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, under God’s direction, was nonetheless in direct opposition to the Crea­tion Ordinance given in Genesis 2:24 concerning marriage. This is the thesis of Professor John Murray in his book, Principles of Conduct. The stated purpose of that book is to prove that both easy divorce and polygamy were just as sinful, even though not punished, in the Old Testament as in the New. The practice of polygamy was just as sinful for David as it would be for a Christian today. According to this view, David broke the Seventh Commandment and lived most of his life in multiple adultery. God simply overlooked his sin and did not punish it, even though David had every reason (because of the Creation Ordi­nance) to know that he was committing adultery in his polygamous relationships.

Several key issues make Murray’s view impossible. Only a scholastic theologian could attempt to figure out what constitutes the ‘real moral law of God’. The ordinary Christian (as well as the Israelites to whom it was written) would read Deuteronomy 24:1-4, where divorce is allowed for reasons other than adultery, and assume that those words were actually part of the “moral law of God” given to Israel to govern her life. Professor Murray, tediously arguing the position of Covenant Theology, informs us that the ordinary reader would be wrong:

The only thesis that appears to me to be compatible with these data is that polygamy and divorce (for light cause) were permitted or tolerated under the Old Testament, tolerated in such a way that regulatory provisions were enacted to pre­vent some of the grosser evils and abuses attendant upon them, and tolerated in the sense that they were not openly condemned and censured with civil and ecclesiastical penal­ties, but that nevertheless they were not legitimated. That is to say, these practices were basically wrong; they were viola­tions of a creation ordinance, even of an ordinance which had been revealed to man at the beginning. Therefore they were inconsistent with the standards and criteria of holy living which had been established by God at the beginning. They were really contrary to the revealed will of God and rested under His judgment.^[6]

Professor Murray immediately acknowledges the obvi­ous question raised by his statement:

The insistent question immediately arises: How could this be? How could God allow his people, in some cases the most eminent of Old Testament saints, to practice what was a vio­lation of His perceptive will? It is a difficult question.^[7]

It is a difficult question indeed. How can God appear to approve, or at least not to disapprove, of godly people living in adultery? We cannot agree with Professor Murray’s answer, but we are grateful that he had the cour­age to raise the question. It makes it impossible to accuse us of caricature. Professor Murray is one of the most honest writers that we have ever read. He does not evade the hard questions that his own system raises. Few writers admit to the serious problems that they must honestly answer in order to be consistent with their position. Murray is the exception.

Professor Murray’s book, Principles of Conduct, was the final straw that led us out of classical Covenant Theology. His answers to the difficult questions confronting his own Covenant Theology view of law are by far the best answers we have read. If Murray’s answers are not adequate, and they are not, then there simply are no answers and the view of law demanded by that system is without biblical foundation.

What is the basic problem that Professor Murray is try­ing to resolve? He is dealing with the same problem that we have been dealing with in this book, except he is giving a different answer. Professor Murray is trying to prove that Christ cannot change the law of Moses, given to Israel, as a canon of conduct. Since he assumes there is only one cove­nant, there can only be one unchanging moral law for the one unified church of God in all ages. Since Israel is the church in the Old Testament (according to Covenant The­ology), then it logically, and necessarily, follows that Old Testament Israel and the church today must be under the same law, or canon of conduct.

Murray’s exegesis must prove that Israel and the church are under the same canon of conduct or else he loses one of his theology’s basic presuppositions. It had to be just as sinful for David to practice polygamy as it would be for a Christian to do so today, or else Israel is under a different canon of conduct than the church is under. If that is so, the foundation of Covenant Theology is destroyed. Murray acknowledges and faces this fact; his book is his earnest attempt to solve that very problem. He himself states the major problems to his own theology in the following:

1. It is a patent fact that Abraham and David’s polyg­amy would be recognized and condemned as adul­tery in the church today.
2. Yet the Old Testament Scripture gives no evidence that either Abraham or David felt guilty for their po­lygamy.
3. It is clear that God did not punish Old Testament be­lievers either for the easy divorce of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 or for polygamy.
4. God gave Moses clear laws (Deut. 24:1-4) that were sanctioned and approved by God and clearly recog­nized as regulative for that period of time and those cir­cumstances, even though those very laws contradicted the perceptive will of God as seen in God’s Creation Ordinance in Genesis 2:24 concerning marriage.
5. God both allowed and inspired Moses to give laws to regulate easy divorce for uncleanness (Deut. 24:1-4) and other laws to govern polygamy (Ex. 21:10, 11), but did not legitimate either set of laws. The practices regulated were sinful even though tolerated by the laws given.
6. These laws actually tolerated the sin of adultery, by allowing easy divorce and polygamy, and did not punish it, even though those who practiced it were responsible to God to know that such behavior was a clear breach of the Seventh Commandment as seen in the light of the Creation Ordinance of Genesis 2:24.

The first time we read these problems as Murray set them forth in his book, our reaction was to say, “Professor Murray must have some very strong answers to the prob­lems that he has raised or he would not have admitted them so openly.” Not everyone agrees that Murray’s an­swers to his own difficult questions are correct. Some feel that Murray’s case is weak, even though we admire his honesty. What Murray is saying is this: God’s revealed, or perceptive, will (Creation Ordinance) is different from, and sometimes opposed to, the canon of behavior God gave Moses in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, even though those very laws were recognized as regulative in the Old Testament pe­riod.

Murray’s Covenant Theology dictates his viewpoint as a good and necessary consequence. Scripture teaches neither the concept of Creation Ordinances nor their status as the real law of God. Theologians must arrive at this idea first by logic, and then read it back into the Scripture as theo­logical truth. In reality, Murray must assume as a fact, and then use as proof, the very point that he is trying to estab­lish.

Another problem with the concept of Creation Ordi­nances is that it ignores the situation created by the en­trance of sin into the world, as well as ignoring the stated purpose for which the law, as a legal covenant, was given at Mount Sinai. The position assumes that Abraham, Moses, and David all were responsible to understand and apply Genesis 2:24 exactly as Christ did in Matthew 19:4, 5. If this were true, it would have been impossible for Moses to have given the law of Deuteronomy 24:1-4 in the first place. Moses knowingly and deliberately would have been contradicting what he knew was God’s unchanging per­ceptive will given in Genesis. After all, Moses was the one who wrote Genesis 2:24. How could Moses write Deuter­onomy 24:1-4 if he knew that he was contradicting Genesis 2:24? We cannot escape this dilemma. There is no middle ground. Either Genesis 2:24 was the rule of life for Israel, by which God will judge her, or Deuteronomy 24:1-14 is her rule of life and basis of judgment. It cannot be both.

Professor Murray declares that God allowed Moses to give a divorce law for uncleanness that was a clear contra­diction of the Creation Ordinance that is the real law of God. Was the law given in Deuteronomy 24:1-24 part of the law of God or was it only the law of Moses? Does Moses have the authority to write laws for Israel that are ap­proved and sanctioned by God, but are still not really the law of God? Again, Professor Murray is both clear and em­phatic:

It is quite obvious that this statement of the case poses sev­eral questions. And the most basic of these is the question: Is there in the sense defined, a biblical ethic? Is there one coher­ent and consistent ethic set forth in the Bible? Is there not di­versity in the Bible and diversity of a kind that embraces antithetical elements? Are there not in the Bible canons of conduct that are contrary to one another? To be specific: Is there not an antithesis between the canons of conduct sanc­tioned and approved of God in the Old Testament and those sanctioned and approved of God in the New in respect of certain central features of human behavior? It is a patent fact that the behavior of the most illustrious of Old Testament be­lievers was characterized by practices which are clearly con­tradictory of the elementary demands of the New Testament ethic. Monogamy is surely a principle of the Christian ethic. Old Testament saints practiced polygamy. In like manner, under the Old Testament, divorce was practiced on grounds which could not be tolerated in terms of the explicit provi­sions of the New Testament revelation. And polygamy and divorce were practiced without overt disapprobation in terms of the canons of behavior which were regulative in the Old Testament period.^[8]

Professor Murray gives an honest and clear presentation of the problem. He answers his question of two different canons of conduct with an emphatic no. He must, and does, insist that there can only be one canon of conduct, simply because his theology cannot allow any change in God’s one unchanging moral law. In other words:

1. God clearly gave, through Moses, a canon of behavior that allowed divorce for uncleanness (Deut. 24:1-4) and also gave specific rules for a polygamous mar­riage that forced a man to sleep with both, or all, of his wives (Ex. 21:10, 11).
2. Both the laws for easy divorce and for polygamy were clearly recognized as regulative in the canons of be­havior that governed the moral life of Israel.
3. Despite these facts, those very laws were still contrary to the perceptive will of God as seen in the Creation Ordinance, and also in the canon of conduct under the New Covenant, and therefore rested under the judgment of God even though ignored and unpun­ished by God.
4. Both Moses and Israel were responsible to know and believe that easy divorce and polygamy were sinful simply because it had been clearly revealed in the Creation Ordinance as God’s unchanging moral law.

The final problem with making Creation Ordinances to be the real law of God to which we must compare every­thing else in Scripture is that it effectively renders all Scripture written after the fall secondary in the area of morality. In this view, all we need to do is apply correct logic to the Creation Ordinances and we have resolved all problems of morality. We can consider nothing as absolute in ethics or morality unless it has its roots in, and gets its sanction from, a Creation Ordinance. Progressive revela­tion cannot in any way change or add to the will of God as revealed in Creation Ordinances. Later revelation can only clarify, explain, and reinforce the original and permanent law of God revealed in those ordinances.

When we think this through, we see that this position denies the very principle that it is trying to defend, namely, that the laws of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount are the true and spiritual interpretation of the law of Moses and in no sense a contrast. This idea is destroyed if Moses himself gave Israel laws that contradict Genesis 2:24. This is a clas­sic Catch 22 situation. The Sermon on the Mount has now become, not the true interpretation of the law of Moses, but the true interpretation of the Creation Ordinance of Genesis 1-3. Worse yet, Christ appeals to the Creation Ordinance for the specific purpose of showing that the law of Moses was wrong. It is a hollow victory that keeps Christ from contradicting Moses at the expense of having Moses con­tradict a Creation Ordinance!

It might be well to raise a few problems that Professor Murray did not raise that could easily lead to a denial of the inspiration of the Bible. If Deuteronomy 24:1-4 is part of the law of God that God gave to Israel, then how can it contra­dict a Creation Ordinance (the real law of God) that God gave to all of humanity without pitting the law of God against the law of God?

If we object that this is exactly what Christ did in Mat­thew 19:1-9 when he appealed to Genesis 2:24, then the argument would prove too much. It would prove that Christ was reproving and contradicting Moses as being wrong in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. This objection would de­stroy the very thing that the position is seeking to prove, namely, that Christ never, in any way, contrasts himself with Moses. If Murray’s application of Matthew 19:4, 5 is correct, Christ would be accusing Moses of knowingly contradicting God’s revealed will as seen in the Creation Ordinance of Genesis 2:24.

It seems much better to view Christ as having authority to use a so-called Creation Ordinance (or any other Scrip­ture) as a proof text in a manner that we dare not. Does Christ’s use of Genesis 2:24 give us the authority to use pre-fall revela­tion arbitrarily to construct our own system of ethics? Can we, by logic alone, with no New Testament corroboration at all, discover in Genesis 1-3 the real law of God for all people in all ages irrespective of the entrance of sin or any later revelation? We think not.

Regardless of which approach we take in understanding Deuteronomy 24:1-4 and Matthew 19:1-9, we find it impos­sible to maintain that the canon of conduct for Israel and the canon of conduct for the church is the same, with no changes. Moses allowed divorce on the grounds of un­cleanness; Christ refused to allow divorce on the same grounds. One thing is certain: the law that God gave to Israel is different from the law that Christ gave to the church on the subject of divorce and polygamy. We do not believe it is possible to deny this obvious biblical fact. When we see that there has been a change of covenants, we have no problem with either the laws or the passages of Scripture under discussion. We allow the specific covenant under which any individual lives to be the law of God to that individual. We agree with Pink and Lloyd-Jones that circumstances in one dispensation may very well require laws that would not be suitable in another.

In order to keep Christ from in any way adding to or changing the law of Moses, Professor Murray allows Moses to change the real law of God as seen in the Creation Ordi­nance that condemns both divorce for any reason and po­lygamy. Simply stated, Professor Murray’s Covenant Theology is telling us that Christ may not in any way change the canon of conduct given by Moses, but Moses may, because of Israel’s hardness of heart, temporarily change the canon of conduct given by God in Creation Ordinances prior to the fall.

If Professor Murray is correct in accusing Moses of giv­ing a law that violated the Creation Ordinance of marriage, then does not Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7:12-16, violate both Genesis 2:24 and Matthew 19:1-9 by adding yet another ground for divorce? We realize that some people do not believe that Paul allowed divorce and remarriage in this passage. However, Professor Murray, in his own book on divorce, clearly sets forth his position and proves that the Apostle Paul went beyond the Creation Ordinance, the law of Moses, and the teaching of Christ by giving the addi­tional ground for divorce.

Would it not be better to see that Christ, in Matthew 19:1-9, is doing exactly what Paul is doing in 1 Corinthians 7? We have no trouble seeing that Paul gave new law that neither the Creation Ordinance nor Christ’s interpretation of it in Matthew 19:1-19 anticipated. Paul is covering a situation addressed by neither Moses nor Christ. Likewise, Moses covered a situation that cannot exist in the church, and Christ gave new laws covering a situation that did not exist in the time of Moses. We must not strangle progres­sive revelation just to retain a theory of one covenant with two administrations that has no textual basis in Scripture.

One last thought before we leave this point. Can we use Israel’s hardness of heart as the sole justification for easy divorce and polygamy under the Old Covenant? Can we honestly say that they were breaking God’s real law as found in a Creation Ordinance and therefore they were guilty in God’s sight of violating the true meaning of the seventh commandment, but God simply chose to overlook their sin and not punish it? Such a view allows Moses to give legislation that made certain behavior legally accept­able even though that behavior was morally wrong.^[9] Such a view (allowing the sin of adultery and polygamy and making laws to control their effects) appears to be nothing less than “shall we sin that grace may abound,” or “it is right to do wrong if the goal is good.” Furthermore, it cre­ates the greater problem of trying to know what the real law of God is to which we are subject and by which God will judge us.

We have previously noted that both Covenant Theology and Dispensat­ionalism have a defective view of Israel’s status before God. This defective view forces Covenant Theology to approach Matthew 5:31, 32 in the manner in which it does. It is a classic example of theology dictating what a text has to mean instead of letting the text drive its own meaning. Covenant Theology will insist that the na­tion of Israel cannot be put under a legal covenant at Mount Sinai because it is the church, the redeemed people of God under the everlasting covenant of grace, and it is impossible to put the redeemed church under a legal cove­nant. Yet, it must find a way to justify Moses in giving laws to the redeemed church that clearly contradict a Creation Ordinance (allowing divorce on the grounds of unclean­ness and also allowing polygamy). Covenant Theology insists that the same redeemed church members are such hard-hearted sinners that God himself was forced to allow them to practice the sin of adultery as the only means available to bring order into a chaotic situation. Their posi­tion is internally inconsistent and untenable.

How can we possibly believe both of the following ten­ets? (1) The people at Mount Sinai were so hard-hearted that their sin created a moral situation so chaotic that spe­cial legislation had to be given that condoned the actual sin of adultery as the only means available to avoid worse sin. (2) Those same hard-hearted sinners were God’s redeemed church under a covenant of grace. And if we can somehow merge these two opposites, how do we, (3) explain that a man after God’s own heart, who meditated in the law of God day and night, practiced multiple polygamy all of his life without any pangs of conscience or condemnation by God? We cannot possibly lump godly David into the same group of hard-hearted sinners about which Jesus speaks in Matthew 19:1-9. Yet, this is the very thing that Covenant Theology is forced to do.

The idea of Israel as the redeemed church raises yet an­other question. If Israel is the church, the church is Israel, and they are similar in spiritual condition, why is the church not allowed the same concession that Moses gave Israel? The church must have as many hard-hearted sinners in it as Israel had. How can God justifiably demand more from hard-hearted sinners now than he did then? If God allowed David and Abraham to commit polygamy, why will God not allow us to do the same?

If Covenant Theology is correct and David’s polygamy was adultery under the Old Covenant, we can no more excuse his sin because of hardness of heart than we could excuse a Christian doing the same thing today. Surely, no one can honestly believe that God allowed Abraham and David to practice, for their entire life times, adulterous polygamy without punishment, just because they were hard-hearted sinners living in chaotic times. We cannot solve the problem of polygamy by turning David and Abraham into ungodly hard-hearted sinners. Resolution comes only by seeing a change of coven­ants wherein Christ sets a new and higher canon of conduct for the church than Moses set for Israel.

Godly David was not breaking the seventh command­ment by living with more than one wife simply because the Mosaic covenant, or canon of conduct given to Israel, under which David lived, clearly did not consider polygamy a sin. How could David have written Psalm 1 while living in multiple adultery? How could he, (1) have the same Holy Spirit indwelling and guiding him that believers have to­day, and (2) mediate day and night in the same moral code that has been given to us, and (3) yet not feel the least bit guilty for having multiple wives and thereby continually committing multiple adultery? A believer could not do the same thing today without feeling guilty before God be­cause believers now meditate on a higher law. The New Covenant that lays down a higher canon of conduct for Christians than the canon of conduct laid down for an Israelite makes a situation similar to David’s a sin. The new canon makes polygamy a sin.

No one wants to suggest that Christ would ever instruct the apostles to give legislation to govern the conduct of his church that allows one kind of sin as the only means of controlling worse sin, especially if it involved a com­mandment as clear as “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Neither the legislation itself in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, nor the reason or situation that occasioned the legislation in the first place is possible under the New Covenant in the life of the church. The power of the grace of God makes both of those things impossible today (Titus 2:11, 12).

This subject becomes clear when we see that Christ es­tablished a New Covenant that replaces the Old Covenant, and that the New Covenant brings with it new and higher laws of conduct that are based entirely on grace. These new laws are just as objective as any laws under the Old Cove­nant. These objective commands can demand a kind of behavior that Moses could not, simply because Christ bases these new laws on the truth and power of grace. He gives these new demands to true believers and not to a nation of lost rebels.

It seems to us that both Lloyd-Jones and Pink unknow­ingly prove the basic thesis of this book. They say that the law of Moses concerning easy divorce and remarriage was absolutely essential for that time, for those people, and for that situation simply because the Israelites were hard-hearted unregenerate rebels that needed a covenant of law both to convict them of unbelief and to control their rebel­lious, hard hearts. The Body of Christ is NOT made up of hard-hearted, unre­generate sinners. Every member of Christ’s church is regenerate and has a new heart (Jer. 31:33 and Heb. 8:8-12). All the members of Christ’s body not only have God’s law written on their hearts, but they, without ex­ception, also have the indwelling Holy Spirit of God as their personal pedagogue to teach and direct them. Christ is a new lawgiver who gives new laws to a new group of people, all of whom have new hearts.

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