One more final stands in front of me before I am off from school for a month and a half and on for full-time work.
This morning I took my Old Testament final. As part of my preparations, I had to read the portion of Peter Enns' commentary dealing with the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:1-21. I found his thoughts on the significance of the Ten Commandments in today's world to be fascinating, and possibly a bit controversial (emphases from Enns, pp.432-433).
We should never wonder when God's law is broken by people who were never intended to keep it in the first place. Moreover, by chiding these individuals for doing so, are we not sending the wrong gospel message, that being right with God is primarily a matter of proper conduct?...We are saying to them that God demands a high moral standard apart from the work of Christ, that proper behavior is what makes us right with God. But the opposite is true. Apart from being in Christ first we are incapable of good works that please God.
Expecting unbelievers to keep God's law, or even to respect it, blurs the sharp divide between those who are God's people and those who are not...To single out the Ten Commandments and set them up as a standard of conduct for unbelievers or American society in general indicates not only a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Ten Commandments, but of the good news itself.
What do we hope to accomplish by imposing God's law on those who do not know him? To make better citizens? To make better-behaved children? Neither of these goals is wrong. In fact, they are important. They are not, however, the goal of the gospel, which is to change those who are not God's people into those who are. Better people and citizens, these things are byproducts (again, important ones) of the spread of the gospel.
I really like Enns' argument. Christians are quick to jump on the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in courthouses and schools. While the Commandments present an ethic valuable for society, they will not change it. They cannot, because they were never given such a task.
What if Christians were quicker to jump on board with spreading the good news of Jesus Christ?
For with the Gospel comes the law of God written on hearts of flesh given through the power of the Holy Spirit.
This morning I took my Old Testament final. As part of my preparations, I had to read the portion of Peter Enns' commentary dealing with the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:1-21. I found his thoughts on the significance of the Ten Commandments in today's world to be fascinating, and possibly a bit controversial (emphases from Enns, pp.432-433).
We should never wonder when God's law is broken by people who were never intended to keep it in the first place. Moreover, by chiding these individuals for doing so, are we not sending the wrong gospel message, that being right with God is primarily a matter of proper conduct?...We are saying to them that God demands a high moral standard apart from the work of Christ, that proper behavior is what makes us right with God. But the opposite is true. Apart from being in Christ first we are incapable of good works that please God.
Expecting unbelievers to keep God's law, or even to respect it, blurs the sharp divide between those who are God's people and those who are not...To single out the Ten Commandments and set them up as a standard of conduct for unbelievers or American society in general indicates not only a misunderstanding of the purpose of the Ten Commandments, but of the good news itself.
What do we hope to accomplish by imposing God's law on those who do not know him? To make better citizens? To make better-behaved children? Neither of these goals is wrong. In fact, they are important. They are not, however, the goal of the gospel, which is to change those who are not God's people into those who are. Better people and citizens, these things are byproducts (again, important ones) of the spread of the gospel.
I really like Enns' argument. Christians are quick to jump on the inclusion of the Ten Commandments in courthouses and schools. While the Commandments present an ethic valuable for society, they will not change it. They cannot, because they were never given such a task.
What if Christians were quicker to jump on board with spreading the good news of Jesus Christ?
For with the Gospel comes the law of God written on hearts of flesh given through the power of the Holy Spirit.
No comments:
Post a Comment