 Review of "In Defense of the Decalogue"
John G Reisinger
Part Six
This is the sixth article in our review of the book In Defense of the Decalogue, a detailed attempt to refute New Covenant Theology, by Richard Barcellos. As mentioned several times previously, the review is longer than the book. We decided to not just answer the specific arguments of Barcellos, but also to lay out exactly what we do believe in the areas he discusses. We have called our review In Defense of Jesus, the New Lawgiver. The two titles clearly show the main thrust of both Barcellos' book and our review. Our claim is that Christ replaces Moses as a new lawgiver in exactly the same way that he replaces Aaron as a priest. We would no more send a believer to Moses to function as lord of his conscience than we would send a believer to Aaron to find a sacrifice for sin. Barcellos' position is that the Decalogue, was, is, and shall forever remain the "unchanging moral law of God," therefore Jesus cannot be a new lawgiver. We say Jesus is a new and higher lawgiver and Barcellos insists that Jesus never contrasts his teaching with Moses, but merely gives us the true interpretation of Moses. Barcellos is defending the rights of Moses to be the final and highest revealer of God's "unchanging moral law," and we are defending the right of Christ to change and add to the Law of Moses and thus be the full and final lawgiver. The bottom-line question remains the same: Is Jesus merely a rabbi or a scribe giving the true interpretation of Moses, or is he a new lawgiver who gives higher laws than Moses? Does progressive revelation in the area of morality end at Mount Sinai, or does a new lawgiver raise those standards to a higher level? Barcellos has entitled the second chapter of his book "New Covenant Theology and the Identity of the Old Covenant." This is by far the longest (it comprises almost a third of the book) and the most carefully argued chapter in the book. I doubt if I would have responded to In Defense of the Decalogue if this chapter had not been included. This chapter is more than a caricature of our position; it is a deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of known facts. Here are several quotations used by Barcellos to represent what I personally believe about the identity of the Old Covenant.
Barcellos argues quite effectively, and correctly, that the Old Covenant cannot be equated one-on-one with the Ten Commandments. Why then am I complaining? Did I not say in the above quotations the very things that Barcellos attributed to me? Is he not accurately quoting material that I published? The answer is yes to all the questions. Barcellos accurately states the precise position that I held when I wrote those books. The only problem is that I changed my position on that particular point and Barcellos was fully aware that I had changed my position at the time he wrote the above! He represented me as believing what he knew I did not believe. For thirty-six pages (out of a total of one-hundred twelve), Barcellos beats a dead horse and is well aware of what he is doing. It might be argued that Barcellos was interested in New Covenant Theology and not just what I personally had written. If that were true, it does not excuse his use of statements by me that he knew I no longer believed. The above quotations are taken from things I had written in the past, but I have since changed my view, and Barcellos knew that I had changed. He deliberately credited me with believing what he knew I did not believe. Chapter two in his book is a giant straw dummy and Barcellos was fully aware of that fact. On page 7, Barcellos writes,
I phoned Barcellos and asked him if he meant me and my change of view concerning the identity of the Old Covenant. He said yes, and I asked him why he chose not to mention my name in that particular spot when he did not hesitate to do so over thirty times in the rest of the book. He replied that the information was given to him in a personal email. On page 28, Barcellos, under the heading of "How the Bible Identifies the Old Covenant," says the following:
Barcellos then adds this footnote:
Greg Welty and I indeed had a discussion but it was neither an email nor a private discussion. It was a public discussion on a Reformed Baptist chat room on the internet. It is true that Greg Welty and I wound up as the primary contributors in this open discussion. However, I think Barcellos was also involved in the chat room. The entire discussion involved whether the Ten Commandments were, one-on-one, to be equated with the Old Covenant. I took the position which Barcellos correctly quoted me as holding at that time. The debate lasted quite a while and, as I mentioned, wound up mainly between Greg Welty and me. I thought I was going to win until Welty quoted Jeremiah 43:13-14 and Ezekiel 44:6-8. Those two texts clearly proved I was wrong, and I immediately posted on the chat room both an admission that I was wrong and a personal thank you to Greg Welty for his patient arguing with me. I also posted a paragraph stating my new position on this one point. As I mentioned, all of this was part of a public chat room discussion of which I think Barcellos was a participant. Granted, he could have missed the posts where I admitted I was wrong. Regardless of whether Barcellos saw, or did not see, my post admitting I was wrong is of no consequence. What is beyond question is the fact that by his own admission he was fully aware of the change in my position when he wrote his book. He was fully aware of my change of position and my exchange with Welty. The very verses Barcellos used in this chapter are the specific texts that Welty used to convince me I was wrong. All Barcellos has done is republish the arguments and texts that had already convinced me I was wrong, and, sad to say, his own words prove that he was fully aware of my change. Whether Barcellos saw my stated change of position on the chat room or whether he got the information in a personal email is immaterial. Either way he was fully aware that he was deliberately misrepresenting what I currently believed and taught. To accuse me of holding a position which he knew I had publicly repudiated is simply dishonest and inexcusable. In Defense of the Decalogue is not the way to foster honest debate and discussion among sincere brethren. Since there is nothing in this chapter that deals honestly with what NCT believes, there is no need to discuss it. I only want to a make one comment. Because the Ten Commandments are not, and cannot be, equated one-on-one with the Old Covenant does not mean that the Ten Commandments are not a vital part of the actual Old Covenant that was done away in Christ. The main point still remains the same: Is Jesus a new lawgiver who replaces Moses just as he replaces Aaron as priest, or is he merely the true interpreter of the "unchanging moral law" given through Moses? We now turn our attention to chapter three, "New Covenant Theology and the Abolition of the Old Covenant." Under the section with the subheading "The Issue at Stake," Barcellos writes:
It sounds like Barcellos has become a New Covenant theologian! He is stating precisely what we believe. We are in total agreement that the Old Covenant has been abolished. But wait a minute. Look at the very next sentence. It really was not the actual Old Covenant that was abolished after all.
The italics are Barcellos'. The question we would ask is this: "Exactly what is the Old Covenant that has been abolished?" Barcellos is emphatic that the "Old Covenant has been abolished" but about what exactly is he talking? The above statement by Barcellos is a masterpiece of sophistry. He has totally separated the Law of Moses, including the Ten Commandments, from the Old Covenant. The Decalogue and the rest of the Law of Moses are no longer a part of the Old Covenant but have become "the law of the Old Covenant."
These are nonsense statements. The "whole Law of Moses" is not "the law of the Old Covenant." The "entire Law of Moses" was, in and of itself, the "Old Covenant!" That is precisely the point that Barcellos argued in chapter two concerning the identity of the Old Covenant. There he was emphatic that "the Old Covenant" refers to
Log those statements into your mind: The Old Covenant includes the Ten Commandments! The Old Covenant is the "whole of the Mosaic legislation." Barcellos acts upon the truth of these statements when he insists that the Old Covenant included more than the Ten Commandments. However, he acts as if they are not true when he writes that the Old Covenant is "done away." The Decalogue somehow gets divorced out of the Old Covenant before it (the Old Covenant) is done away and it (the Decalogue) becomes merely "the law" of the Old Covenant. Now the law of the covenant and the Old Covenant are two totally different entities. This is the opposite of what Barcellos has argued at other places.
When Barcellos says, "The revelation of the Decalogue does not constitute the totality of the Old Covenant" it sounds like he believes the Decalogue is a vital part, but not the whole, of the Old Covenant. But he only believes that when it suits his argument. All three of the things mentioned go together when Barcellos is proving that the Decalogue cannot be equated one-on-one with the Old Covenant. These three things do not all go together when he wants to talk about the abolition of the Old Covenant. Two of them go and one of them remains fully intact. I am sure the reader can see the double talk in these statements. First of all, when Barcellos is showing that the Decalogue cannot be identified one-on-one with the Old Covenant, he insists that the Decalogue is only a "part of the Old Covenant." The Old Covenant definitely "included the Ten Commandments." The Book of the Covenant is just as much a vital part of the Old Covenant as the Decalogue. Again, we agree. We are convinced. The Ten Commandments are only a part of the Old Covenant, but they are a real part of the Old Covenant, and as such, are done away along with the rest of the Old Covenant. But again, Barcellos both denies and affirms this at the same time. The problem is that Barcellos really does not believe what he says he believes. When he comes to discuss the "Abolition of the Old Covenant" he wants to insist that the Ten Commandments are not an integral part of the Old Covenant but merely the law of Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is abolished but "the law of the Old Covenant" is still in force, although it "no longer functions as law". This is confusing and not supported biblically. In chapter two of his book, his argument hinges on the Decalogue being a vital part of the Old Covenant. In chapter three, his argument hinges on the Decalogue not being a vital part of Covenant, but only the "law of Old Covenant." By miraculously excising the Decalogue out of the actual covenant he can discard the Old Covenant "in its entirety, including the Ten Commandments," and at the same time hang on to the Ten Commandments as the "unchanging moral law of God." Barcellos wants the Old Covenant to "include the Ten Commandments" (p.29) when it suits his purpose and argument but does not want the Ten Commandments to be part of the Old Covenant when "the Old Covenant is abolished" (p.61). He cannot have it both ways. Barcellos here reminds us of that famous exchange in Alice in Wonderland. I think it was between Alice and the Cheshire cat: "What does that word mean?" was answered with, "It means whatever I want it to mean." Barcellos' discussion of Matthew 5:17-20 demonstrates that he really does not understand what New Covenant Theology teaches concerning the relationship of the Old and New Testament Scriptures. He lists five things that he somehow feels we cannot deal with. For instance, he insists:
The death penalty has absolutely nothing to do with the Old Covenant. It was not given by God to Moses. It was given in Genesis 9:6, long before Moses and the Old Covenant. Barcellos chose the wrong illustration. If he wants to talk about capital punishment, he is the one with the problem, not New Covenant Theology. Here is our question for Barcellos. Since you believe (as we do) that the magistrate has the power of the sword to inflict capital punishment, then who informs the magistrate as to when and on whom the sword is to be used? You cannot ground the death penalty in the Old Covenant theocracy without also using the Old Covenant instructions as to who should be put to death. This is the very dilemma that John Cotton and the New England Puritans used to silence their critics when they justified whipping, and in some instances, putting to death, Baptists and others who disagreed with the state church. Cotton argued on the basis of "one unchanging rule of conduct." Did God hate and put to death false prophets in old time? Yes. Has either God or his law changed? No. It is true that Jesus set up a new of form of worship, but did he ever set up new moral laws? No. Where in the New Testament Scriptures does our Lord give the magistrate instruction on whom to use the sword? If none can be found, and of course there are none, then why, insists Cotton, should we not use the instructions already given his church (remember Israel is the church in this view) in old time? On what grounds do we refuse to put to death homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and Baptists? When Cotton's critics insisted that we dare not put men to death for breaking the first table of the Decalogue, he argued that (1) if a man sold poisoned milk and killed children would we not put him to death? (2) Is a person's body worth more than his soul? (3) Why then should we not today, as God did in the old time, put the false prophets (Romanists, Baptists, etc.) to death? On this view, the Theonomists are right after all! The entire question of whether (1) Once a law is in force it is always in force unless later revelation specifically annuls it, or (2) no Old Covenant laws are in force today unless repeated in the New Testament needs to be discussed. I personally believe both of these things, with qualifications, are half true. We will discuss this in detail later. After Barcellos sets forth a much distorted view of what he thinks we believe, he gives us his version of what Matthew 5:17-20 really means.
But that is precisely what New Covenant believes! When we make that identical same statement, we are antinomians. When Barcellos makes that statement it is good theology. Barcellos then quotes New Testament scholar Vern Poythress.
Again, we could not state what we believe any better or any more clearly than Poythress has done. One of the things that Barcellos fails to do is to make, and maintain, a clear distinction between the Old Testament, meaning the thirty-nine books of Scripture written before Christ, and the Old Covenant made with the nation of Israel at Sinai. We believe the Old Testament Scriptures are just as authoritative today as when they were first written. We also wholeheartedly agree with the Poythress quotation that "the way in which they are binding is determined by the authority of Christ," or as Barcellos stated, "the Old Testament is still binding upon His people, but not in the same way it used to be." If Barcellos really believes his own statement and his quotation from Poythress, then he has no basis upon which to condemn New Covenant Theology. His hermeneutics are identical to ours as they relate to the authority of the Old Testament. Having said the above, we also insist, along with Barcellos, that the Old Covenant, in its entirety, (p. 61) has been abolished. However, Barcellos keeps mixing the Old Covenant and the Old Testament. He somehow imagines that we are throwing out the Old Testament when we insist on the abolition of the Old Covenant. This is inexcusable since Barcellos claims he believes the same thing. The only real difference is the slight-of-hand idea of making the Decalogue to be the law of the Old Covenant but not an actual part of the Old Covenant. That way you can say as loudly as possible, "The Old Covenant is finished" and at the same time say, "But the Decalogue was not an actual part of the Old Covenant and is still in force." In chapter four, entitled "New Covenant Theology and the Sermon on the Mount," Barcellos issues the following challenge.
If the "Moral Law of God" equals the Ten Commandments, then this is not an accurate statement. The Sermon on the Mount is not basically expounding the Decalogue. In the six "But I Say unto You" statements that Jesus makes, he cannot be expounding the true meaning of the Ten Commandments. This could be possible, though not at all certain, in some of the Sermon on the Mount, but not all of it. For instance, Matthew 5:27, 28 may well be the consistent logical application of the adultery commandment. The rule that the "greater includes all of the lesser" would logically yield the idea that lust in the heart is sin, regardless of whether there is the overt act. However, it also may be an advance and expansion of the seventh commandment. In the case of verses 34 and 35 it is a different story. These verses cannot possibly be expositing the Ten Commandments.
There is not a single word in the Ten Commandment about divorce, nor is it possible by "good and necessary consequences" to deduce anything about divorce from the Ten Commandments. In these verses, Jesus is not expounding the Decalogue, or Moral Law; in this instance, he is contrasting his teaching with that of the Law of Moses (the entire law). Jesus is changing the rules of marriage that God gave to Israel. This is a clear example of the new Lawgiver raising the law to a higher level. It might be well to digress for a moment and deal with the change that Jesus made in the Law of Moses. This one change alone is enough to refute Barcellos' claim that Jesus is not a new lawgiver who changes, by raising to a higher level, the Law of Moses. First of all, we need to identify exactly what law Jesus is quoting in Matthew 5:34, 35 and Matthew 19:1-9. All agree that he is quoting from Deuteronomy 24:1-4. Here is the passage:
Verse 1 is emphatic that a man could divorce his wife for reasons other than adultery. "Indecent" could mean just about anything the man wanted it be mean, however, it could not mean adultery since that was punishable by stoning to death. Jesus is emphatic that in his kingdom, the rules are changed, and now the only ground for divorce and remarriage is martial unfaithfulness. Is, or is not, Jesus changing the Law of Moses on divorce and remarriage? The answer is, "Yes, beyond question." Verse 4 also shows change. Suppose a man today divorces his wife and marries another woman. The second wife dies in an automobile crash. His first wife has never remarried. The man and first wife are reconciled and decide to remarry. Would Barcellos say, "Sorry, the Law of God forbids that?" Or would he believe that Jesus changed the rules and say, "It is fortunate that you live under the New Covenant. Under the Law of Moses, I would not have been allowed to marry you again to your first wife." In the next issue of Sound of Grace, I want to deal with the subject of polygamy. Understanding this subject was the final straw in my struggle with Covenant Theology. For Covenant Theology to be correct in its view of "Moral Law," polygamy has to be just as sinful for David and other godly men who lived under the Old Covenant as it is for a believer today. If this is not true, then there are two different canons of conduct, one for Israel and one for the church. Two canons of conduct are the death knell to Covenant Theology. John Murray, in his book Principles of Conduct, stated this fact and sought to prove that polygamy was just as sinful for David as for us today. His book pushed me out of Covenant Theology. Did you ever reflect that the twelve tribes of Israel came from one father and four wives? If polygamy was a sin under the Old Covenant, then most of the clan leaders of God's earthly people were born out of an adulterous situation! Barcellos devotes most of chapter three to an exposition of Matthew 5:17-20 and Ephesians 2:14-16. His treatment of Matthew 5:17-20 begins with his perception of a common understanding of this text, which he views as erroneous. He lists five reasons why he views it as erroneous, followed by three observations that attempt, in his words, "to give a more plausible understanding of this vital text" (p.64). It is a well-argued position, and one with which we have no major quarrel. The "common understanding" (p.62) against which he argues is not our understanding at all. Barcellos has not grasped what we believe when we speak of the abrogation of the Old Covenant; he has confused Covenant with Scriptures. Here are some clear facts that either get lost or clouded concerning texts like Matthew 5:17-20. Fact number one: Matthew 5:17-20 has nothing to do with the Decalogue. Barcellos himself admits that in Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus is talking about the entire Old Testament Scriptures and not the Ten Commandments.
We basically agree with these quotes. However, we must then ask, "But what does that have to do with defending the Decalogue?" Barcellos constantly mixes oranges and apples. He jumps from treating the Ten Commandments as "THE unchanging Moral Law" to talking about the "whole Old Testament Scriptures" as if they were equal terms. We also ask this question; "Exactly what place does the whole Old Testament have under the New Covenant? Does that part of the Law of Moses (Deut. 24:1-4) that clearly allows easy divorce control our theology and practice of divorce today? Does Deuteronomy 24:4 still have the "authority" to keep a man from marring a woman he has formerly divorced? It is certainly still part of the authoritative Word of God, or Old Testament Scriptures. Exactly what specific authority does it have in the Church today? " If Barcellos would remarry the man mentioned above to his first wife, then Barcellos needs to give us his theological reasons for "jettisoning the authority of the Old Testament as set forth in Deuteronomy 24:1-4." Fact Number two: We dare not confuse the Old Testament with the Old Covenant. The Old Testament Scriptures, meaning the thirty-nine books of the Bible written before Christ came, are still part of the inspired Word of God that is given to us as our rule of life. The Old Covenant, meaning the entire Mosiac legislation, all its laws, regulations, feast, etc. has totally ended. It no longer has covenant authority over the conscience of a believer. The Old Covenant is finished and done away. The Old Testament is still exactly what it always was, a vital part of the Word of God. Barcellos constantly confuses these two things, as is demonstrated from his exposition of Ephesians 2:14-16, on pages 66-69. Here is one illustration from that section:
We totally agree with that statement. Notice that here Barcellos correctly uses the words "Testament" and "Covenant." The Old Covenant is gone but not the Old Testament. We agree. Now notice the very next sentence.
Barcellos is now using the phrase "Old Covenant" to mean "Old Testament." In other places already quoted he insists that his first support reference, Matthew 5:17-18, refers to the "whole Old Testament," but now he wants it to mean the "Old Covenant." Nowhere does the New Testament view the Old Covenant made with Israel as having any binding ultimate authority on the church. The Old Covenant, and everything that it brought into being, has been abolished. The New Testament indeed binds the whole Old Testament upon the church. Both Barcellos and New Covenant Theology will qualify that last statement by saying, "The Old Testament is binding on the church as it is interpreted and applied by our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles." However, the New Testament insists that the Old Covenant has, in its totality, been done away. Barcellos will acknowledge this when it suits his purpose, but consistently refuses to accept the clear implications of this truth. Barcellos concludes chapter three with his usual "Challenge to New
Covenant Theology." It is difficult on two fronts to address his concerns:
they are not drawn from an accurate understanding of NCT's position, and
they reflect his continued confusion of the terms Covenant and
Testament. Perhaps it is best to close this section of our review
with Barcellos' own words. "Simply put, the Christian ethic involves the
whole Bible. The abrogation of the Old Covenant does not cancel the
utility of the Old Testament" (p.69). We wholeheartedly concur. We only
ask that Barcellos stick with that statement and work out its clear
implications. |