A Critique of John Colquhoun's The Law and The Gospel (Pt.11)

Section 3: The Law in the Hand of Christ the Blessed Mediator as a Rule of Life to All True Believers?

Now, I want to begin this portion with a brief encouragement to the Covenant Theologians who still use the wisdom of our ancestors of the faith to try to answer this question. While I still judge Covenant Theology as heresy, not everything associated with it is false and to be cast out without a hearing. They are correct in continuing to believe that the law in the hand of Christ is still a rule of life for all true believers, but we must associate this not in the context of the Ten Commandments as they do but a fulfilled at the cross as God does for those who believe (Rom.1:16-17). The law, as a rule, then, does issue "directly" from Christ as the glorious Mediator of the new covenant (Heb.1:1-4). It is He who now condemns through the blood of His cross (Rom.8:34), which is why the Covenant Theologians like John are wise to point out the Father's voice in the covenant of Christ. While I can't agree with those who judge this a "precise" relationship between the law and gospel like Beeke does as an editor of the book, it is still good to retain the wisdom of the doctrine of God's voice in the law and the gospel. However, their definition of these terms is far from "precise."

I also want to try to answer some of the questions I proposed in the previous post with more detail if the Lord wills. What "law" do we then establish? What form of law divests us of the law under the form of the sabbath and circumcision that made Israel a holy nation set apart for God (Jn.5:17-18; Gen.17:11; Ex.31:13; Ezk.20:20; Rom.7:1-6; Phil.2:5-11; 1 Cor.7:17-19)? Why is "the church" free from this obligation as also a holy "people" set apart for God (Heb.13:8-15; Matt.21:43; Rom.9:24-26, 33; 11:13-36)? But first, I need to address the presupposition that continues like this: "The law as a rule, then, is not a new preceptive law but the old law, which was from the beginning, issued to believers under a new form" (pg.29). The problem with this is that it ignores what the nature of the law is in its weakness by virtue of the nature of the flesh. There must be a change in the precept of the law for us to obtain the new nature that is in Christ (1Cor.15:21-22; Jn.3:3-8). We cannot go back to the old law, which, if we truly trace it back, is traced all the way back to "the work" of the law in Adam (Gen.1:26-27; 2:9, 15-17; 3:10-11, 22-24), who corrupted the likeness of the economic liberty of the law of the garden of God (Rom.5:12-21/emphasis: v.14).

So then, for us to obtain the new nature of the moral law of eternal life (Mk.1:15; Rom.10:16; 2Thess .1:8; 1Pet.4:17; Jn.3:16; 5:24; 12:50; 17:3; Matt.5:48), we must be given the nature from above according to the economic liberty of the faith of Christ (James 1:16-18; 2:1; Jn.3:3-8; Jude 3; Eph.2:1-10), who is the express image of God (1Cor.15:21-22; 2Cor.4:4; Col.1:15, 19-20; Heb.1:1-4). So then, there is a change in the image that we follow as the pattern and way to God (Rom.8:29-30; Phil.3:10; Jn.14:1-4). We can't go back to Adam because, "by" Christ as the last Adam (1Cor.15:45-49), the image of our former life is destroyed (Gal.2:17-20; Rom.6:1-6, 23). Therefore, in fulfillment of the old law (Gen.2:17; Rom.8:3-4), a new law must be established and not just in form because the new covenant is not bound to a form but to the substance of a new creation (Rom.3:27-31; Jer.31:31-40; Gal.3:26-29; 5:6; 6:15; Rom.2:25-29; 2Cor.5:16-17; Col.2:9-17/ emphasis: v.17).

Therefore, "we" agree together with the Covenant Theologians that Paul styles it "the law of Christ" (Gal.6:2), but this law is derived not from the original law in the nature of its weakness according to the flesh as the law was in Adam, as "they say," because of its work through Adam (Rom.2:15; 5:14), but according to the Lord from heaven whose soul is incorruptible as the Scripture and the Spirit demands (Rom.5:14; Acts 2:23-27; 1Pet.1:4, 23; 3:4). Now "we" can agree, again, that "it is a law that He ... inscribes by His Holy Spirit on our hearts," but if there is no new law, then what is the law of Christ (Heb.10:16)? How can it be the same law of nature but in a new form if Christ is now the nature of the law (Mk.2:27-28)? If Christ inscribes it by the Holy Spirit on our hearts as fulfilled, how can this new law be the same law of nature "according to" the Ten Commandments, when the Ten Commandments are the very form of the old covenant, signified by the Sabbath and the Circumcision? That doesn't add up to the same law if the law is fulfilled, which is why the law of Christ is much lighter as a new law (Matt.11:29-30; Acts 15:5-21/ emphasis: v.10; Jn.3:16; 6:27-29).

Now, lest my brothers "of the Lord's table" be discouraged by being named as heretics of the baptism (1Cor.11:17-19; James 2:6-9; Acts 10:47-48), we need to hold onto what is good from this fellowship of communion with the Lord (1Thess.5:19-22). I am helped by the fact that John and his proponents remember to use wisdom to derive the voice of the Father as coming through the Son since it was the Father's will to reveal Himself through the image of the Son (Jn.14:6-12). This faithful saying thunders truth to us: "The name of the Father is so in Him that His voice in the law is the Father's voice, for it follows in verse 22, "But if you shall indeed obey His voice, and do all that I speak (Ex.23:21-22). Therefore, to be under the law of Christ is to be under the law of God" (pg.30). But I can only agree with this "in the context" of Christ as the law was actually in the hand of Christ (Jn.10:1-8, 15-18, 24-38/emphasis: v:35). If the law of nature, being under the terms of Covenant Theology as the same as the Ten Commandments, is the Father's voice, then the nature of the commandments in the form of the Almighty Ten demand our immediate death (Ps.51:5-6; Gen.2:17). But if Christ is the fulfillment of that "voice" that caused Adam to hide and Cain to murder (Gen.3:9-11; 4:4-10/emphasis: vs.11-12), the voice of the nature of that law is silenced (Rom.7:14, 24; Heb.12:18-24/emphasis: v.24), and a new voice emerges with a new law written upon the heart (Rom.7:25-8:2; Heb.3:7-4:16), not through the work of Adam's representation of the likeness (Rom.2:15; 5:14), which was corruptible (Rom.6:23), but through the work of Christ's representation of the likeness (Jn.3:11-15; Eph.2:1-10), which was incorruptible (Matt.5:17-20, 48; 2Cor.1:22; 2Tim.2:19).