TheoLog

Gospel plus Law?

by Mark Bonnington, 19 Jan 2009

It has been a great privilege this Autumn to be involved in preaching through one of the great charters of Christian freedom, Paul’s letter to the Colossians. One of its great themes is the freedom of the Christian from the rules set out in the law of Moses.

Just as there are many things an omnipotent God cannot do, so there are many things that are biblical but which have no place in Christian life and discipleship. God cannot lie, or be untrue to his word or fail to keep a promise. So too in discipleship there is no place for circumcising our children, tithing our goods or keeping a day of rest. All these are commanded in the Bible, but could be better described as biblically non-Christian. But it’s worse than this: they are biblically anti-Christian because they are denials of true Christian freedom. The gospel plus circumcision is the gospel minus grace, the gospel plus tithing is the gospel minus true freedom in Christ. In essence they involve legalism because they add to the gospel certain practices that are regarded as incumbent on believers and by which their true spirituality is judged when in fact these very things are a matter of Christian freedom: ‘these have the appearance of wisdom...but they are of no value...’ (Col 2.23)

This freedom from the Law is absolutely vital but also quite subtle. Paul will have no truck with those in the Galatian churches who insisted that his converts add circumcision and keeping the law of Moses to faith in Jesus. He goes as far as to say that he wishes they would castrate themselves (Gal 5.1 - not a verse for those who think that pastoral sensitivity is final arbiter of good theology!). In accepting these obligations the Galatians would be falling away from God’s grace (Gal 5.4). But the same Paul is quite happy to circumcise Timothy as a matter of Christian missionary strategy (Acts 16.1ff). What matters about circumcision for the apostle is that it doesn’t matter. This is his consistent principle: circumcision and uncircumcision are nothing what matters is the new creation in God’s love (Gal 5.6; 6.16). That way you can do it or not do it. But insisting on it misses the point altogether – it is and must remain a morally and spiritually neutral act.

Perhaps circumcision is not much of a temptation today, but thinking that we should Keep Sunday Special or tithe our income is the sort of legalism that we might allow ourselves to come under if we are not careful. One preacher asked about keeping a day aside for God preached a sermon series called Keep Monday Special about the grace of God in the ordinary things of our lives. That rest is holy is a great biblical principle (it’s on the first page) but when people are approved or disapproved for what they do or don’t do on Sunday (or Saturday) we’re coming under legalism.

Other preachers instruct people to tithe and even try to use the NT to justify it. They even argue that because Jesus told the Pharisees to be consistent and tithe their herbs Christians should too. I’ve noticed that pastors whose salaries or projects are dependent on tithing seem especially keen on the idea. One even told me bluntly that if he stopped teaching tithing people would give less and his salary would be in danger. Asked if would tell his congregation that this was the real reason for teaching tithing he went very silent. I felt sure that I heard the faint lowing of sacred cows being led to slaughter. Beware any church or leader who thinks that your generosity or spirituality can be judged by whether you give over or under the 10% mark. Such teaching kills the grace of the gospel and takes away from Christian freedom.

Occasionally I hear of a dogmatic or exclusivist evangelical preacher who suggests that charismatics are adding to and thus subtracting from the gospel, by ‘adding’ spiritual gifts to the ‘pure’ gospel. I only wish I were making it up. One came from another northern city a few years ago and spoke in Durham on enemies of the cross of Christ in Philippians 1. He quoted charismatics as those who added to the gospel and a senior Churchman of his own denomination as one who subtracted from the truth of the gospel. The latter comment was spectacularly and publicly ungracious about one of those whose authority he has sworn to obey. It was also said in front of bunch of young people who were mainly unconcerned with the politics of his particular denomination. His comments on charismatics seemed to suggest that speaking in tongues and the like were some kind of imposition by one group of Christians on another of legalistic ephemera to the gospel. He seemed not to have noticed that the same apostle who wrote of the freedom of God’s grace also wrote ‘I would like all of you to speak in tongues’ (1 Cor 14.5). Inconvenient, but true. Paul also teaches that the gifts of the Spirit are precisely gifts of God’s grace offered to his people for their edification until the day of the full unity and maturity of the church (Eph 4.13).

Are believers then without obligations? Not at all. Quite the reverse. There remains a fundamental obligation to live in a way that pleases God. As Augustine put it: ‘love and do what you will’ – Christian freedom is limited not by Moses law but the law of Christ, not by human rules but by the law of love. But this new way stems from God’s grace and our relationship with Christ. The story of Jesus has become our story – we have died with him and been raised to a new life. Christian obligation is real but it flows not from rules but relationship. The great Welsh preacher of the last century Martyn Lloyd Jones said that our preaching of grace ought always to prompt this question: doesn’t it sound like you can do what ever you want? It ought, he said, to sound dangerous otherwise we haven’t seen the full force of radical grace.

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