I hope you will take the time to read my notes on this very important subject. I am not releasing these for the sake of controversy, but for the edification of the saints, especially my colleagues in the ministry. These are my personal notes on the subject. Reforming the Reformers.
My notes, (incomplete)
I. The Covenant of the Law – Westminster
(1689 London Baptist confession basically says the same.)
1. It appears to me that when the confession speaks of “The Law” it always comes back to being “The Ten Commandments”. And it states that It forever binds all, both justified and not. That may sound good, but it just isn’t true. There is no binding of “New Covenant” believers to the law, spoken of in scripture, but the exact opposite. Scripture also indicates “those who are without law” 1 Corinthians 9:21. This indicates that the law was not given to the gentiles.
2. It (the confessions) indicates that God gave to Adam the same covenant of works in the garden as later was given to Moses on the mount.
This is not true, he did not say “do this and live or do this and die”. Adam was already alive, the commandment was simply, “do not eat and the day you do you will die”. There is no perpetual binding of his posterity to an over arching covenant of grace or of works that seems to be implied in the confession and that somehow this covenant with Adam was actually the Ten commandments, and was later given to Moses, it also implied that it is perpetuated as the “new covenant” still binding all, believers and others as well. Section V.
3. Reminding myself also that what the confession says about the “covenant of Grace” made with Adam in the garden Gen 3:15, is also not true. That statement was not to Adam but to the devil himself.
The Westminster Confession (Chapter XIX [19]):
I. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which He bound him and all his posterity, to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.
II. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.
III. Besides this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. (All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the New Testament.)
IV. To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging under any now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
V. The moral law does forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. Neither does Christ, in the Gospel, any way dissolve, but much strengthen this obligation.
My Notes:
The moral law does forever bind all, as well justified persons? This was given to Israel called the covenant, Deut 4:3, not to all. And it was abrogated, which abrogation dissolved the state of the people.
This implies in articles 1 and 2 that the Law on Sinai was given in the garden to Adam. That after the fall it was binding upon all men and was then given on Sinai. There is no scripture proof of these assertions though they have been treated for hundreds of years as fact.
Next the covenant of the Law given at Sinai is represented as three separate laws, when in essence there is one covenant, the Ten Commandments (See Deuteronomy 4:13). The civil and ceremonial being certain precepts and principles that God commanded Moses to teach the covenant people Israel (Deut 4:13-14). To say that the civil and ceremonial were alone abrogated, is to deny plain scripture, the 10 commandments were the old covenant displaced by the new and which had not existed prior to the giving of the covenant on Sinai. To say that it was written as a body of commandments, upon the hearts of man prior to being given at mount Sinai violates scripture regarding the law, for in one sense, then it could not be said , “to them that are without law” (Rom. 2:16)
1Cor. 9:21 and that “the Law was added” Gal. 3:19. There is no scripture stating that the Ten Commandments were written on mans heart.
Next we are told that the Ten Commandments are still binding “The moral law does forever bind all” (What is here called “the moral law” is in scripture called the covenant) while, they say, the Ceremonial and judicial laws are abrogated, by this statement, in essence making them the covenant in place of the Ten commandments, notwithstanding, by their own admission, it, the old covenant is abrogated, displaced by the new. The error is to change what is the covenant in order to spare and make perpetual, the Ten Commandments as being the forever binding body of Gods law, when in essence it is itself the covenant which is abrogated in light of the new. We will note here that what is said of the Civil and ceremonial law, is true of the Ten Commandments; it is abrogated, being fulfilled for it is the covenant (Deut 4:13). The three parts (The Covenant of the Law and the precepts and principals) are a whole contrary to article two of the Westminster confession, as shown above. The Law of Moses in any of its parts was never existent until it was given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai and is said to have been abolished by Christ in Eph 2:15. It was a covenant that constituted them as a national covenant people, and it was temporary in nature as the following text will show, “The law was added…till the seed should come to whom the promise was made”, and it was distinct from the New Covenant. Gal 3:19 Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.
According to this verse, the law of Moses in its complete form (all three aspects) was added 430 years after the promise to Abraham Gal 3:17 and so therefore it was nonexistent before it was added. It was not a continuation of something not mentioned in scripture as being given to Adam in the garden. All that was given to Adam was that he could eat of every tree except one and that the day he ate he would die. There is no positive agreement given in it that promised eternal life as a covenant of works, if he did obey. Very simple, to say more than what scripture says, adds to the word of God. Adam was already alive, the warning was, “the day you eat thereof you will surely die.
Both the Westminster and the 1689 Baptist confessions are wrong on this issue.
“These be thy Gods O Israel that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt”. These creations of man, on this subject, are just as much Golden Calves as the one that Aaron made.
We will note here also that the Old and New Covenants are represented by the confession, as two administrations of the same covenant which they call “The Covenant of Grace”, Instead of what they are, “Two Distinct Covenants”. The New Displaces the Old.
Hebrews 8:6-9 But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. 8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: 9 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
The New Covenant and the Old Covenant are distinct covenants, not different administrations of the same covenant that is bound together by the Ten Commandments.
Written in the Heart
Finally The law written in the heart is not a reference to the body of commandments contained in ordinances “The Ten Commandments” in particular, which was the covenant, but what was written in the heart of man (being in the image of God) whatever truth is reflective of the image of God, called natural law. While the Law spoken of as being added, is the Ten Commandments, being itself the Old Covenant made with Israel, a body of commandments contained in ordinances, something that prior to its giving was nonexistent and after its abrogation, is again nonexistent, being fulfilled and done away in Christ. Notwithstanding those natural laws, precepts and principals that exist in the natural order and creation of God, his Devine Person and his word. Romans 2:15 does not say that the Law (ten Commandments were written in mans heart. But that certain deeds of man show “the works of the law written”, that is character, not commandments.
II. The Sabbath
We will argue next that the Sabbath, as presented by the Confession, that it is a contradiction to the assertion of the perpetuity of the Ten Commandments, commonly but erroneously called “The Moral Law”.
1. The Sabbath was the Seventh Day, not the first. To change it is to nullify the whole of the covenant. It was not changed, it was fulfilled.
2. The Sabbath Prohibited work, not a designation of a day of Worship
3. Those exhortations and Prohibitions stated in the confessions (W.C Chapter 21 Sec 8, FLC 1689 Chapter 22 sec 😎 as being representative of the New Covenant Sabbath are nowhere found in scripture, but are fabrications of man, designed to bind the consciences of men to unscriptural mandates, however good the ideas may be.
4. The Sabbath was a ceremonial type of Christ which was fulfilled in his finished work on the cross, which rest we enter through faith in Christ. God rested the seventh day and was refreshed (which rest was perpetual), which rest we enter through faith in Christ its foreshadowed fulfillment. This is the refreshing wherewith he shall cause the weary to rest.
Hebrews 4:2-6 For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them: but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.
[Note: The meaning and purpose of the Sabbath rest of God]
3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works. 5 And in this place again, If they shall enter into my rest. 6 Seeing therefore it remaineth that some must enter therein, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in because of unbelief:
This is written to the Hebrews who at the time of its writing, some were at a halt between two opinions and were in danger as their forefathers of failing to enter his rest through faith in Christ, but returning to the Law which was now abrogated.