We have not knowingly taught anything in this book that is contrary to either the texts of Scripture under dis­cussion or anything else in the rest of the Word of God. We are fully aware that we can be blind to our own errors and would beg any who differ with us to point out our mis­takes. The approach we have taken sets forth both the Old Testament Scriptures and Christ’s statements in the Sermon on the Mount in their contexts and at face value. The rest of the New Testament Scriptures support a clear contrast between Israel’s being under the law and the church’s being under grace. The only things contradicted in this book are the dictums of some theological systems.

The law of Moses, enforced by a magistrate, can measure and punish only outward acts of behavior. It cannot deal with the heart and inward motives. This is an important element in an honest discussion of law and grace. The point is not whether a Christian is responsible to obey objective laws or to follow an emotion called love. The matter under consideration is whether the law of Moses, even correctly understood, can deal with the heart and motives, or whether only the indwelling Holy Spirit given at Pentecost can accomplish this. We maintain that the Tablets of Stone cannot be the foundation of the Christian’s rule of life. However, this is not because the Tablets contain laws and the Christian is somehow against laws and exempt from them because he or she is not under the law but under grace. Nor is the problem that the law of Moses is too high a standard for a Christian today. The reason that the laws on the Tables of the Covenant are not the foundation of the Christian’s rule of life is because they are not high and spiri­tual enough for a full-fledged son of God who lives under the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant, with all of its laws, was a fitting and suitable method for dealing with immature children. The law of Moses was an excellent pedagogue from the time of its institution at Sinai until the Day of Pentecost (Gal. 3:24). That law served well the purpose for which God designed and gave it– conviction of sin that leads to justification by faith. God’s people are now grown-up sons (Gal. 3 and 4), indwelt by a new pedagogue, the Holy Spirit himself. The wineskins of the Old Covenant cannot handle the new wine of the New Covenant. The New Covenant people of God are not under a pedagogue whose job is conviction of sin unto justification. All the members of the New Cove­nant are already justified (Heb. 8:10, 11). The new peda­gogue’s ministry is to equip the grown-up children to glorify their Savior.

Must we make the law of Moses to be equal, one-on-one, to the teaching of our Lord in order to protect Covenant Theology’s particular view of the so-called moral law of God?^[1] Why do some theologians insist that Christ’s law must be on par with the law of Moses? Why do some of those theologians depict the position of New Covenant Theology (that Christ’s laws are higher and greater than the law of Moses) as a denial of the holy law of God? Why is it wrong to make Christ a new lawgiver who replaces Moses, just as he is a new high priest who replaces Aaron, as long as we give Moses the honor that Scripture gives to him? Are we so married to Moses that we insist on making him equal to Christ as a lawgiver? Or, even worse, must we, like Dabney, exalt Moses even above Christ?

The answers to all of these why questions are simple, but carry serious consequences. If Christ is a true lawgiver in his own right, then Covenant Theology’s view of law is not biblical. If Christ gives any laws that are different in any way from the law of Moses, then we have two separate canons of conduct: one for Israel and a different one for the church, and that is impossible in Covenant Theology. If, in fact, Christ has established a New Covenant that has some new laws, and the New Covenant replaces an Old Cove­nant made at Sinai (Ex. 34:1, 27, 28; Deut. 4:13-18), then the foundation of Covenant Theology’s “one covenant with two administrations” is destroyed.

When the very foundation of a theological system is challenged and its adherents do not have clear biblical texts to prove their basic presuppositions, then there are three courses of action open to them.

1. They may examine their system in the light of biblical evidence and accept or reject certain tenets accord­ingly.
2. They may hurl odious labels such as “antinomian” at those who challenge them.
3. They may build and then destroy straw men.

If creeds are the primary proof of theological tenets, it is much easier to say, “How dare you question the great creeds of the church?” than it is to openly discuss the Scriptures themselves. In this book, we have attempted to exegete Bible verses; we have not tried to deduce anything logically. We have no need to protect creeds or theological presuppositions; we simply want to know what the Scrip­tures teach.

We are not discussing whether a Christian governs his or her life by objective truth or subjective love. We whole­heartedly agree that a Christian is not in any sense lawless. Anyone who suggests that we are pitting love against law and leaving Christians with only subjective feelings to govern their lives has misunderstood us. The question is not over objective law versus subjective love as the rule to govern our lives as Christians. We all agree that the be­liever’s rule of life comprises clear objective laws or com­mandments. The issue is where the New Covenant believer finds the full and final objective laws that are to govern his or her life and attitude. The key question is this: Are the Ten Commandments, as they were spoken and then writ­ten on the Tablets of the Covenant (Ex. 34:27; Deut. 9:9-11) the highest standard of moral conduct that God ever gave, or is the teaching of Christ in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Holy-Spirit inspired Epistles of the New Testament Scripture an even higher standard? We reject the former and accept the latter. Covenant Theology does the oppo­site.

Is the teaching and authority of Christ merely equal to Moses or does our Lord go beyond Moses and make higher demands that cannot be found in the law of Moses? Do both the Sermon on the Mount and the New Testament Epistles contain ethical and spiritual demands that go be­yond anything found in the Old Covenant? Do both our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles insist that the New Covenant brings with it a new and higher set of objective laws and demands? The greater and final authority of our Lord Jesus Christ as the new and final lawgiver is the heart of the issue. Who is really the ultimate ruler in the con­science of a child of God living under the New Covenant—Moses or Christ?

In stating our answers to these questions, we are not demeaning Moses any more than we demean Aaron when we say that Christ replaced him as high priest. We are saying that a new lawgiver has superceded and gone far beyond what Moses and his law could ever do. We refuse to belittle Moses in order to establish Christ. However, we also refuse to demean Christ by making him an equal moral authority with Moses. We do not believe that Christ came merely to interpret and approve Moses. Christ has given us new laws based entirely on grace. Christ is the new lawgiver over the true house of God.

A correct understanding of the Sermon on the Mount must establish at least the following:

1. Christ is making new demands on New Covenant be­lievers that cannot be found in the laws that governed Israel. There is a new canon of conduct for the church.
2. These new demands of Christ grow out of the reality of the New Covenant’s being rooted in pure grace, and, although the New Covenant in no way demeans or contradicts Moses and the law, its demands go far beyond Moses.
3. Christ is giving us more than just a correct interpreta­tion of Moses. As that prophet who replaces Moses (Deut. 18:15; Acts 3:22, 23) as the new and greater lawgiver, Christ gave new and higher laws for the kingdom of grace. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ is contrasting living with the conscience under the law as a pedagogue with living with the conscience free from the law and married to Christ. He is also showing why the latter is superior to the former, even though both were established by the same God at dif­ferent points in history.
4. Christ is not implying that Moses was in any way wrong or that the law of Moses was either cruel or in­humane. He is showing that both a rule by a legal covenant and a rule by a gracious covenant are holy, just, and good. However, one arrangement is superior to the other because it is based on better promises (Heb. 8:6). Both covenants have the same author; both reveal the character of that author; but both function differently. The Old Covenant was given to hard-hearted sinners as a ministry of death (2 Cor. 3:7; Rom. 7:10), and it preached condemnation to the con­science. In contrast, the New Covenant is given to saints with new hearts as a ministry of life (2 Cor. 3:9), and it sets the conscience free from condemnation (Heb. 10:16-18; Rom. 8:1, 2).
5. The law of Moses was given to a physical nation consisting mostly of unregenerate sinners, but the law of Christ is given to a spiritual nation composed entirely of regenerate saints. Both the purpose and the nature of the objective laws are different in each case. The des­ignated purpose of the law of Moses is conviction of sin in the conscience of sinners that leads to justifica­tion by faith. The purpose of the law of Christ is to furnish the renewed mind of saints with truth that leads to a more sanctified life.
6. The Sermon on the Mount clearly shows that grace can and does make legitimate demands that law can never make. Christ can demand behavior from the church that Moses could never demand of an Israelite. The church has objective laws that demand behavior based entirely on grace and the power of the in­dwelling Spirit. Moses could neither demand that kind of behavior nor punish its absence by the sword.

Those who consistently apply Covenant Theology’s view of law miss the entire thrust of Christ’s but I say unto you contrasts whenever they attempt to establish a theoc­racy with the use of the steel sword. The eye-for-eye and tooth-for-tooth law of justice stated in Matthew 5:38 and the-turn-the-other-cheek law of grace given by Christ in verses 39-42 are mutually exclusive principles. Either may control the conscience of an individual. However, they both cannot rule in the same conscience at the same time. The eye-for-eye principle ruled the life and conscience of the Israelite because he or she was under the Old Covenant or law of Moses. The turn-the-other cheek principle rules the life and conscience of a believer today because he or she lives under the New Covenant of grace established by Christ.

We cannot possibly turn the Old Covenant eye-for-eye principle into the New Covenant turn-the-other-cheek principle. Nor can we make turn-the-other-cheek the basis upon which a judge settles fights among individuals in society. How could the law force a man to turn his other cheek if he refused to do so? The moment you use the power of law to force someone to turn the other cheek, you have violated the very law of turn the other cheek.

Some Christians advocate that we should fight to have the letter of the Old Covenant law become the law of our country. They want the power of civil government to en­force that law. May God save our country from such peo­ple! However, we would also hope that no one makes Matthew 5:39-42 the law of the land. We are glad that the principle, and not the letter, of the law found in Matthew 5:38, is the law of our land today. We rejoice in the princi­ple of grace taught in these verses. However, a judge can­not use the force of law to apply to society the demands that Christ laid on his disciples in these verses.

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is a good and righteous basis for the law of the land. It was Israel’s rule of life under the Old Covenant, but it is not the believer’s rule of life in the church under the New Covenant. We have a much higher and more demanding rule, stated in the clear objective commandments contained in the Sermon on the Mount and the rest of the New Testament Scrip­tures.

“If any man shall sue you at law, and take thy coat, let him have thy cloak also” is beyond the power of a law or a mag­istrate to either demand or enforce. But the power of grace can and does both demand and enable us to keep this very law. In fact, when the situation involves a brother and the reputation of the gospel is at stake, this new law tells us to suffer being defrauded for the testimony of the gospel. Christ tells us to give our adversary both our coat and our cloak without even going to court to seek justice if the testimony of the gospel is at stake. The true legalist neither understands nor practices this kind of law.

Law based on strict justice demands that evil be resisted and punished. Grace can suffer injustice for Christ’s sake. Some may say we have tolerated evil and despised the law, but our new lawgiver has so commanded us, and we leave our defense to him. The victory of grace by the power of love is greater than the victory of law by the power of the sword. The law of Moses would not have allowed Paul to write the following:

“The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?” (1 Cor. 6:7 NIV)

Why not indeed be wronged without retaliation, if we are truly under grace and our obedience to this new law pleases our Sovereign King? We love our Lord Jesus Christ, and our hearts desire to please him in everything that we do. We subject our souls to him alone; he is our lawgiver.

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