A Humble Courage to Dare to Believe

In his book, The Sickness Unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard, in good Lutheran fashion, distinguishes between acts of sin and the state of sin. Each new sinful act is merely an expression of one’s sinful condition. When Kierkegaard goes on to speak of “the continuance of sin,” then, he does not mean the continuance of particular acts of sin, but the continual state of sin one is in. Whereas the first act of sin was a break with the good, the continuance of sin, what he calls the “second severance,” is not another act of sin but a break with repentance and grace. This second break, otherwise known as despair (this is the sickness unto death), “is an effort to give stability and interest to sin as a power by deciding once and for all that one will refuse to hear anything about repentance and grace” (110). With these distinctions in mind, Kierkegaard addresses the frequent misconception among people that despair over sin is somehow a thing to be commended. On the contrary, “despair over sin is not averse to giving itself the appearance of being something good”:

. . . The better a person is, the more acutely painful the particular sin naturally is, and the more dangerous is the slightest bit of impatience if he does not make the right turn. In his sorrow, he may sink into the darkest depression–and a fool of a spiritual counselor may be on the verge of admiring his deep soul and the powerful influence good has on him–as if this were of the good. And his wife, well, she feels deeply humbled by comparison with such an earnest and holy man who can sorrow over his sin in this way. His talk may be even more deceptive; he may not say: I can never forgive myself (as if he had previously forgiven himself sins–a blasphemy). No, he says that God can never forgive him for it. Alas, this is just a subterfuge. His sorrows, his cares, his despair are selfish (just like the anxiety about sin, which sometimes practically drives a man anxiously into sin because it is self-love that wants to be proud of itself, to be without sin), and consolation is the least of his needs; therefore the prodigious number of reasons that spiritual counselors prescribe for taking consolation merely makes the sickness worse.
- Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening, Ed. and Trans., Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), 112.

True humility is not resisting the Gospel, but receiving it. Kierkegaard calls this, “the humble courage to dare to believe.” The man who lacks such a faith will inevitably be offended by the gospel. Why? “Because it is too high for him, because his mind cannot grasp it, because he cannot attain bold confidence in the face of it and therefore must get rid of it, pass it off as a bagatelle, nonsense, and folly, for it seems as if it would choke him” (84-85).

Preaching Law & Gospel: Either/Or?

When it comes to the content of Christian preaching there are, in the most general sense, two options: (1)  preaching either law or  gospel, vs. (2) preaching both law and gospel. Obviously, within option (1) law and gospel are viewed as two mutually exclusive options, whereas in option (2) they are distinct, but are neither separated nor confused. Let’s see how this works out in the details:

(1) Preaching Either Law Or Gospel

(1a.) Preaching Law Without Gospel
There are several ways that this is done. Sometimes law (“do”) and gospel (“done”) are so fused together that to preach imperatives is seen as really just preaching the gospel. The failure to distinguish between the event of the gospel from the rest of Scripture leads this group to believe that the preaching of any portion of Scripture is preaching the gospel. As a result of hearing imperatives (law) apart from the indicative (gospel) the law is ironically relativized. The law, rather than being a pedagogue that leads us to Christ, becomes an end in itself. Rather than drive sinners to absolute despair in themselves, the law is a source of gracious self-improvement that helps sinners to become “better”. The preaching ends up being moralistic without anything explicitly Christian (except the vocabulary). While the intention of (1a) is commendable for seeking to show God’s holiness, the problem is that, ultimately, the law of God is muted. The thundering voice from Sinai that caused Israel to fear and tremble is transformed into a manageable to-do list. The sinfulness of sin is misunderstood, the goodness of the good news is lost, and messages become inherently semi-Pelagian.

(1b.) Preaching Gospel Without Law
Here, the gospel is preached exclusively without the law. Any preaching of God’s commandment is seen as legalistic. While the previous group fails in distinguishing law and gospel, this latter group errs by failing to see any relationship between the two. The consequence of preaching gospel without law is that the holiness of God is undermined. No longer are Christians aware of their sinfulness in light of God’s law. People here know/think that they are saved and that they are loved by God, but they have little idea why this is good news. Ironically, despite the fact that (1a.) and (1b.) are always reactions against one another, they function on the same ground: neither side is able to see how both law and gospel can be preached together. The results of (1b) is similar to (1a): the sinfulness of sin is misunderstood, the goodness of the good news is lost, and messages become inherently semi-Pelagian. In both, the holiness of God in the law and the grace of God in the gospel are hushed.

(2) Preaching Both Law And Gospel

This group functions on different assumptions from both (1a) and (1b). While seeing a necessary distinction between law and gospel, the relation between the two is neither severed nor confused. The voice of God thunders as his perfect law is proclaimed and it is preached in such a way so as to point despairing sinners to Christ. Like the Sermon on the Mount, hearers are told that God requires perfection, not simply good intentions. The law is not relativized but preached as it is in order to humble proud sinners. The pharisee who boasts in group (1) is unable to stand here. All are shut up by the law, and like the publican, we can only beat our breasts and plead Christ’s righteousness. Unlike group (1a) sinners are not pointed to the law as an end in itself, but are pointed to Christ through the law. And obviously unlike (1b) the gospel is not some random message about a loving God, but a message of redemption from sin and death. And rather than obeying out of fear, the motivation is gratitude in light of the gospel. The errors of the moralist (1a) and the antinomian (1b) are thereby avoided as well as the error of snatching passages of Scripture from their canonical context and preaching only bits and pieces (left to the preacher’s discretion). The choice is not either preaching the gospel or preaching the law, nor is it a balancing act between the two. Rather, both are preached to their fullest extent.

If the voice of God is to be heard, then both his law and gospel must be preached. The utter holiness of God’s law must not be suppressed, for when this is done the glorious grace of the gospel of Christ is inevitably silenced.

Moses: Law or Gospel?

Von Rad (Theology, II, 388ff.) has mounted the case that originally the Mosaic law was understood as Yahweh’s saving action. The law was not seen as a threat to Israel’s existence, but was understood as an act of divine grace, in the New Testament terminology, as gospel. It was the prophets, rather, who first pronounced Israel’s relationship to Yahweh as having been altered through their message of judgment. Obedience to the law became a measure to test Israel before the divine will, and Israel was condemned as fundamentally in disobedience. As a result, only a radically new saving event, different in kind from the past tradition, could redeem Israel from its punishment.
The most incisive exegetical and theological response to von Rad’s interpretation has come from Zimmerli (Law and the Prophets). Initially he finds it odd that von Rad has turned Moses in to ‘gospel’ and the prophets into ‘law’. Further he argues that the Mosaic law was dialectically structured from the start. On the one hand, it contained a promise to life to Israel, a saving act of divine grace. On the other hand, Israel always understood that there was a reverse side to the covenant (Deut. 27.1ff.). Disobedience called forth certain divine judgment before which the people of God had no privileged status. Zimmerli then makes the convincing case that the prophets understood their vocation as calling forth the divine judgment which was implied from the law from the beginning as an inevitable response to disobedience.
- Brevard S. Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments (Minneapolis, MN: First Fortress Press, 1992), 175.  

“Experiencing” Justification

While nothing is inherently wrong with experience, problems arise when experience becomes primary, especially in our assurance of justification. Faith is not experience, but a hoping in things unseen and often un-”experienced”:

There are indeed people who for the first time in their lives quite consciously experience God’s justification in a very personal and profound way. It is, however, not right to prescribe the experience of a few as a model for all. Others then await this special, overpowering experience, while–for a shorter or longer span of time that precedes it–they keep themselves far from the acceptance of the promise that Christ will be our righteousness. Faith in this promise is impeded by the thought that justification must first be experienced in a dramatic way before one can speak of Christ as “my righteousness.” In this scheme the significance of Christ is then identified with the experience of this special moment. This actually leaves no room for hesitant contemplation of God’s promise and growth for hope in Christ. There is only this indeterminate waiting for that one special moment. All contact with Christ in faith is marked by the liberating force of justification. Assurance of justification is not restricted to a unique form of experience, but characterizes all contact with Christ, who wants to be our righteousness. The danger is that this special (type of) experience is made into a prerequisite for justification. In this way faith is assigned much more than a functional (facilitating) role. 
. . . one can only experience justification through the preaching of the gospel. In this preaching salvation, including justification, is mediated. 
- J. van Genderen, W. H. Velema, Concise Reformed Dogmatics trans. Gerrits Bilkes and Ed M. van der Maas (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008), 622-23.   

What the Law Could Not Do… Christ Did.

During the free-will controversy between Pelagius and Augustine, the argument was repeatedly lodged against the latter that too much grace would render good works void. During the Reformation, also, Rome’s charge against the Reformers was similar: if justification is by faith alone, what happens to works? What will motivate men to obedience? The Reformers replied that genuine faith could not be divorced from truly good works but that one who was truly justified would, by faith in Christ, also be sanctified. Of course, the Roman Catholics didn’t buy this, and they still don’t. What was the problem? Well, it just didn’t make sense to the Roman Catholics. How could hearing justification by faith apart from works cause sinful people to obey? Rome knew well that what was needed was some incentive. And they did not fail to produce such incentives as we have seen throughout the course of Church history. 

Today, however, many protestants seem to oversimplify the Roman Catholic position, accusing them of justification by works apart from grace. In practice this may very well be the case. It behooves us, however, to hear what Rome really said. Did they ever say that anyone could be saved apart from grace? No! They called down fire on pelagianism for neglecting grace. They believed and confessed that God’s grace was absolutely necessary for anyone to be saved. So did the semi-pelagians, so did the Arminians, and so do many today.

What was the difference? Well, the Reformers believed that it was grace alone. Indeed, the believer does not have to cooperate with grace (that’s semi-pelagianism), but it is God who justifies and sanctifies the believer who looks to Christ alone for righteousness. The Reformers realized that sin was not merely an act (actus), but a habit (habitus). It was not through eliminating individual acts of sin that one was cleansed, but a divine intervention was necessary. So it would not be through preaching the law, but preaching the gospel of Christ, the object of our faith, that would cause believers to grow. It was not through exhorting man to obedience through the law, but by proclaiming the gospel. They preached that Christ’s active obedience, rather than their own, was what made them righteous before God. This is where Rome and Geneva split ways. Rome preached grace, but it was conditional. Geneva, on the other hand, proclaimed the free justification through Christ alone. 

The accusation made against the Reformers, was also brought against Paul. When Paul preached the gospel of free grace in Christ, the objection was made: “Are we to sin that grace may abound?” What does Paul say? Like the Reformers following him, he responded, “By no means!” (Rom 6:1-2). That believers who have been shown mercy and grace in Christ should continue to live in sin, is explicitly denounced by the apostle. Behind the question posed and the answer given by Paul, we can deduce two things. First, the apostle was not an antinomian. He did not think that free justification by grace meant license to sin. Second, however, it is implied that the apostles’ gospel did not follow the logic of the legalist–which went something like this: threats produce obedience, but grace will only produce laxity. It boggled the minds of the legalists that preaching a gospel of what Christ has already accomplished could possibly produce any obedience.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones has this to say regarding Romans 6:

‘The true preaching of the gospel of salvation by grace alone always leads to the possibility of this charge being brought against it. There is no better test as to whether a man is really preaching the New Testament gospel of salvation than this, that some peoplemight misunderstand it and misinterpret it to mean that it really amounts to this, that because you are saved by grace alone it does notmatter at all what you do; you can go on sinning as much as you like because it will redound all the more to the glory of grace. That is a very good test of gospel preaching. If my preaching and presentation of the gospel of salvation does not expose it to that misunderstanding, then it is not the gospel.

‘If our preaching does not expose us to that charge and to that misunderstanding, it is because we are not really preaching the gospel. – it was brought frequently against Martin Luther. … It was also brought against George Whitefield two hundred years ago. It is the charge that formal dead Christianity - if there is such a thing – has always brought against this startling, staggering message, that God ‘justifies the ungodly’, and that we are saved, not by anything we do, but in spite of it, entirely and only by the grace of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

‘ … I would say to all preachers: If your preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinner, to those who are dead in trespasses and sins, to those who are enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation … ‘
- D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans. Exposition of Chapter 6: The New Man, 8-10 

Therefore, to lodge the accusation of antinomianism against those who desire to hear the gospel preached purely, is nothing new. Paul was accused of it, the Reformers were accused of it, but they all held firmly that it was not our own method of justification or sanctification, but only the free gospel of Christ that could and would produce genuine fruit in us. God has promised to work through the preached Word (i.e., the gospel), not through our own performance.

Berkouwer comments on the connection between faith in the gospel of Christ and sanctification:

. . . Hence the sanctification of believers is never an independent area of human activity. The supposed antinomy is supplanted by the idea, clearly advanced in Scriptures, that the sanctification of the believer is a corollary of his faith.
. . . The immediate consequence of the “sola-fide” doctrine was exactly this indissoluble bond between faith and sanctification. And we speak of faith, not as a point of departure for a fresh emission of power, or as a human function or potency producing other effects, but of faith as true orientation toward the grace of God and as the life which flourishes on this divine grace, on the forgiveness of sins. 
- G. C. Berkouwer, Faith and Sanctification (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952), 26-8.  

Holiness is important, and it is precisely to maintain God’s holiness that we must preach the gospel. For, no one who thinks that they can do anything apart from faith in the gospel is going to please God. It is only in light of the gospel that we can offer any real obedience (and even then it’s imperfect). Any obedience that comes from our own self-willed righteousness is not obedience at all.

To hold sola-fide in one hand, and justification by works in the other may be illogical and unbiblical, but it is not impossible. It is, perhaps, acceptable that Rome would consistently preach faith and works, but for a protestant church to preach a legalistic scheme of justification or sanctification is unacceptable:

. . . Many people still acknowledge that we must be justified by the righteousness that Christ has acquired but believe or at least act in practice as if we must be sanctified by a holiness we bring about ourselves. If that were the case, we would not–contrary to the apostolic witness (Rom. 6:14; Gal. 4:31;  5:1, 13)–live under grace and stand in freedom but continue always to be under the law. Evangelical sanctification, however, is just as distinct from legalistic sanctification as the righteousness that is of faith differs from that which is obtained by works. For it consists in the reality that in Christ God grants us, along with righteousness, also complete holiness, and does not just impute it but also inwardly imparts it by the regenerating and renewing working of the Holy Spirit until we have been fully conformed to the image of the Son.
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 4, Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 248.  

Why Preach the Gospel to Believers? Why Every Week?

Historically, Reformational theology recognized three different uses for the law. The order is different between Lutherans and Reformed, but it comes down to this: the first use is the law as a pedagogue, to show us our sinfulness and lead us to Christ; the second, the civil use of the law; and the third, the law as a rule of faith and life.

In the Heidelberg Catechism the way this all plays out is through the scheme: guilt, grace, and gratitude. The first use of the law convicts us of our sin–guilt. In light of the greatness of our guilt we turn to the gospel of Christ in repentance, and embrace his righteousness through faith–grace. Finally, in light of the fact that Christ has accomplished all things for us, we respond with joyful obedience to God’s law–gratitude. 

The Problem:
Unfortunately, some have taken and twisted this scheme. Rather than guilt, grace, gratitude, some would rather be out with grace and jump from guilt straight to gratitude. The logic behind this goes something like this: Christians already know the gospel and to preach it repeatedly is redundant, impractical, and will likely end up comforting sinners. To preach the gospel occasionally is one thing, but who needs to hear it every week?

Perhaps if Paul had not written that he “decided to know nothing among [the Corinthians] except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2) there would be no problem. After all, if anyone needed to hear the law more and the gospel less, one is inclined to think that it was the Corinthians. But no, Paul did not go the route of legalism, but preached Christ. Is this foolish? Paul knew that people would think so, but this didn’t stop him. From the get go Paul refers to the Corinthian church as “sanctified in Christ Jesus,” and he calls them “saints.” Not only this, but the epistle is sprinkled with indicatives of what Christ has done. Paul tells them that they are “in Christ Jesus,” (1:30) that they “are Christ’s,” (3:23) that “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed,” (5:7) that they are “washed, . . . sanctified, . . . justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God,” (6:11) that their bodies are “members of Christ,” (6:15) “the body of Christ,” (12:27) that “Christ died for our sins,” (15:3) and so on. 

If Paul’s epistle to the “carnal” Corinthians is so full of the gospel, does it make any sense not to preach the gospel every week to sinful believers? 

Objections:
The objection is raised: what about comforting people who are sinful, those who sin repeatedly? To begin, who isn’t sinful? Are only the less sinful people “worthy enough” for the gospel? Didn’t Christ come to heal the sick? Christ already answered the question as to how to deal with people who sin again and again. Peter asks, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” What does Christ say? He doesn’t tell Peter to only forgive those who are worthy of forgiveness. No! Christ responds, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven.” For those who come to Christ seeking forgiveness, the preacher must not wait until they are “worthy enough” to hear the gospel! The preacher who does that is not doing his job! There’s a reason the Canons of Dort tell us that the gospel “ought to be declared and published to all nations, and to all persons promiscuously and without distinction, to whom God out of His good pleasure sends the gospel.” [emphasis mine]

For the sake of the argument let’s say that there are hypocrites who don’t care about Christ. Is it okay to exhort them with the law only? Well, if we are able to discern their hearts and if we think that the law has any power to change people, maybe. But for those of us who believe that it is the preaching of the gospel that saves, not our own wisdom, we ought to trust that God’s word will accomplish what He wills.

What about reading Christ into Scripture? Well, if we’re preaching from the New Testament there shouldn’t be any problems with preaching the gospel every sermon (though some have trouble with this). And the Old Testament? Isn’t it eisogesis (fancy word that means reading something into the text that’s not really there) to preach the gospel from every text of the OT? It’s actually quite simple here as well. We follow the example of the New Testament writers. They didn’t seem to have all the difficulty we do (mainly because they weren’t holding extra-biblical presuppositions). Some will retort, saying that it’s impossible and will necessarily result in allegory or “spiritualizing” the text. And to prove this they’ll quote a sentence or short paragraph from the OT and ask how it is that Christ can be preached from it. Now this is just stupid. No one is saying that we ought to preach Christ from individual sentences stripped of their redemptive-historical context. Let’s keep the context, but look past the shadows and types of the OT (as we are instructed to do in the book of Hebrews and as we see in the rest of the NT) and read it like Christians rather than second-temple Jews. 

Scripture tells us that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, not the law! To preach imperatives week after week, assuming that everyone already knows the gospel, is to overestimate the fact that we are all prone to works-righteousness. At heart, we are all pharisees, and the only way to kill a pharisee is not to give him a bigger list of things to do, but to show him that he can’t do anything! And from there it’s the gospel–again and again–not mere law! Paul said that the law is the pedagogue leading us to Christ, yet so many seem to think that Christ is the pedagogue who leads us to the law. Preach the gospel promiscuously, please.

Cutting the Gospel in Half: A Recipe for Despair

One should not treat the preaching of the law in isolation. The entire Word of God needs to be preached. This Word comprises both the law and the gospel. No one can preach the gospel while ignoring the accusation of the law. Theologically, the accusation comes first. How can the acquittal be announced before the accusation has been brought forward?
As accusation, the law always precedes the preaching of the gospel and resonates in it. However, by limiting oneself to the accusation, one would fall short of the mandate to preach God’s Word. By stopping after the word of the law, one cuts the gospel in half by eliminating its saving and purifying perspective. It causes despair without indicating the way back to God.
. . . It does not befit us to prescribe for the Holy Spirit how to do his work. We have the mandate to preach the gospel (as acquittal from the accusation of the law; i.e., in terms of both of these words). For some the accusation through the law will hit home, and for others, the graceful love of God for a sinner. At any rate, both need to be proclaimed: guilt and redemption; punishment and forgiveness; judgment and grace.
- J. van Genderen, W. H. Velema, Concise Reformed Dogmatics trans. Gerrits Bilkes and Ed M. van der Maas (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2008), 433-34.  

Ursinus on the Ministry of the Church

Questions 264-273 from Ursinus’ Larger Catechism:

264 Q. What is the ministry of the church?

 A. It is the public preaching of God’s Word, the administration of the sacraments and church discipline–instituted by Christ for bringing to completion the salvation of the elect.

265 Q. Why did God institute the ministry of the church?

A. So that through it he might receive us into his covenant, keep us in it, and really convince us that we are and forever will remain in it.

266 Q. Why do you say that we are received and kept in God’s covenant through the ministry?

A. Because it is the instrument of the Holy Spirit by which he works and confirms in the hearts of the elect the faith and conversion that God requires of us in his covenant.

267 Q. Isn’t the Holy Spirit’s own honor taken away when sanctification is attributed to the ministry? 

A. No, for the strength and power by which we are sanctified are all from the divine Spirit; the ministry is merely his instrument by which he moves the souls and hearts of the elect whenever and however it seems right to him–not because he could not do otherwise but because it pleased the divine wisdom, through the foolish preaching of the cross, to save those who believe.

268 Q. What should ministers preach?

A. Nothing but the Word of God contained in the law and the gospel.

269 Q. But how can we be certain that the Word of God is being proclaimed by ministers?

A. If they proclaim the teaching recorded in the books of the Old and New Testaments, and if what they say conforms to the Articles of the Faith and the commandments of God; in short, if they teach us to seek our entire salvation in Christ alone.

270 Q. Isn’t it enough to learn God’s Word privately?

A. It is indeed necessary for our salvation to meditate on it day and night, but if we want to be Christians, we must also make use of the public ministry when we are not prevented by circumstance.

271 Q. Why is this necessary?

A. First, because of God’s command. Second, so that God may be publicly glorified by the whole church in the sight of all people and creatures. Third, so that the unity of the church might be preserved and displayed.

272 Q. What does the Holy Spirit bring about through the preaching of God’s Word?

A. First, he teaches us what God promises us in his covenant and what he in turn requires from us. Next, he persuades us to believe and obey him more and more each day.

273 Q. But how does the Holy Spirit work in us through hearing and meditating on God’s Word?

A. When we learn it for the purpose of believing and obeying him in all things.

- Zacharius Ursinus, The Larger Catechism, trans. Lyle D. Bierma, from Lyle D. Bierma, An Introduction to the Heidelberg Catechism  (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 211-13.

Abraham and Sinai Contrasted in Galatians 3:6-14

Here are some quotations from T. David Gordon’s chapter, “Abraham and Sinai Contrasted in Galatians 3:6-14,” from the new book on republication: The Law is Not of Faith (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2009):

Here is Gordon’s argument:

. . . Paul perceived the new covenant realities in Christ as bringing in the final third of the Abrahamic promise to fruition [blessing to all nations]; and he perceived the Sinai covenant as a “parenthesis” between the promise pledged to Abraham and the promise fulfilled in Christ. (243)

And to support that argument he provides five differences between the Abrahamic and the Sinaitic covenant that Paul himself points out in Galatians 3:6-14:

First Difference: The Abrahamic Covenant Includes the Nations/Gentiles; the Sinai Covenant Excludes them
. . . For Paul, the reason the church could not require circumcision (or dietary laws or the Jewish calendar) was that they were part of a covenant-administration that excluded the nations. . . . But the original Abrahamic covenant comprehended the nations within its blessings, and envisioned the various nations of the earth as one day finding blessedness through the seed/Seed of Abraham. (243-44)

Second Difference: The Abrahamic Covenant Blesses; the Sinai Covenant Curses
. . . Paul does not condemn any alleged abuse of the Sinai covenant here. It is not those who abuse (“rely on”) the law who are under a curse; it is those who are covenantally under the law that are under its threatening curse-sanction. Twice here Paul quotes the law’s own words, indicating that the curse-sanction was an inherent part of the administration itself, long before anyone allegedly perverted it or distorted it. It was not, that is, some false reliance on the law that was cursed; it was disobedience to its statutes and ordinances in the first generation (and in all subsequent generations) that cursed. . . . What is “new” or distinctive about Sinai is not the (conditional) blessing; what is new or distinctive is the conditional cursing. (244-45)

Third Difference: The Abrahamic Covenant Is Characterized by Faith; the Sinai Covenant Is Characterized by Works of the Law
. . . Yes, Abraham was required to circumcise Isaac, but had God not already fulfilled his promise to give Abraham descendants, there would have been no Isaac to circumcise. So Abraham’s circumcision of Isaac was not a condition of getting Isaac; God had already fulfilled the pledge to give Abraham a seed before requiring that this seed be circumcised. At Sinai, however, the matter is entirely different: the conditional blessings depend upon Israel’s obedience. If anyone doubts this, just ask the question: How many long years of blessedness did Moses and Aaron enjoy in the so-called “promised land”? Zero. And why was this so? Because the people disobeyed. . . . If Abraham had one law (circumcise the males), Moses had hundreds of laws. What was therefore new and distinctive, compared to the earlier covenant, was this large body of legislation that required doing, not believing. (246-47)

Fourth Difference: The Abrahamic Covenant Justifies; the Sinai Covenant Does Not
. . . Paul argues here two things about the Sinai covenant: first, that no one is justified before God by the law, and second, that the reason for this is that the law is not characterized by justifying faith, but rather by works. Since the Sinai covenant requires doing, and is not characterized by faith, it justifies no sinners. The Abrahamic covenant, by contrast, is promissory, requiring nothing of Abraham or Sarah as a condition of the promise being kept by God; its recipients merely believe in the trustworthiness of the promising God. In so believing they are justified. (248)

Fifth Difference: The Abrahamic Covenant Is Referred to as “Promise”; the Sinai Covenant Is Referred to as “Law”
. . . Since law-giving so characterizes that covenant-administration [Sinai], it can be referred to by its dominating feature: law. Similarly, not that he can refer to the Abrahamic administration by a different synecdoche: promise (ἐπαγγελία). . . . This consistent use of the synecdoche ”promise” to refer to the Abrahamic administration, and the equally consistent use of the synecdoche “law” to refer to the Sinai administration, demonstrate convincingly that Paul did not conceive these two covenants as similar in kind, but rather as dissimilar in kind: one is characteristically promissory; the other is characteristically legal. (249-50)

Concluding Thoughts regarding the Five Differences
When one places portions of Galatians 3:6-14 in parallel columns side-by-side, these five differences are very pronounced. . . . Many are uncomfortable with such contrasts, fearing that they are implicitly Lutheran (or worse, dispensationalist). In an effort to diminish these unwelcome contrasts many in the Reformed tradition have dismissed the contrasts by suggesting that what Paul is contrasting is some first-century legalistic abuse of the Sinai covenant to the Abrahamic covenant, not the two covenant-administration themselves. The evidence of the text will not permit such evasive action, however. Throughout the critical section of 3:10-14, Paul consistently cited Old Testament texts to prove his point. It was not some first-century rabbi who introduced the idea “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Moses introduced this idea in Deuteronomy 27:26. Similarly, it was not some famous (or obscure) first-century Jewish sectarian who said, “The one who does them shall live by them”; it was Moses who said this in Leviticus 18:5. It was not the law as allegedly perverted a millennium after Moses that Paul discussed in Galatians 3, but the law which came 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant that Paul discusses (Gal. 3:17).  
. . .The Sinai covenant-administration was no bargain for sinners, and I pity the poor Israelites who suffered under its administration, just as I understand perfectly well why seventy-three (nearly half) of their psalms were laments. I would have resisted this covenant also, had I been there, because such a legal covenant, whose conditions require strict obedience (and threaten severe curse-sanctions), is bound to fail if one of the parties to it is a sinful people. (250-51)

  

Reformed-Baptist: An Oxymoron?

. . . they [Reformed Christians] cannot remain faithful to their theology while ceasing to regard infant baptism as legitimate and scriptural. When we are desired to believe the contrary, and when it is asserted that “some thousands of the Baptist Churches lay claim to Calvinist doctrine, like the Reformed Churches in the United States,” we at once demand that they should read the texts and study closely the confessions of faith, and they will then see whether these churches have remained “Calvinist” and whether their doctrine differs from “Calvinist doctrine” only on the question of baptism. Such assertions are not confirmed by facts. We are sufficiently well placed to know the gulf which separates the doctrines of those who “lay claim to Calvinist doctrine” and this “Calvinist doctrine” taken in its real and precise scientific sense. It is one thing to lay claim to a doctrine, and quite another to profess it!
- Pierre-Charles Marcel, The Biblical Doctrine of Infant Baptism: Sacrament of the Covenant of Grace, trans. Philip Edgcumbe Hughes (Cambridge, England: James Clarke Co., Ltd, 2002), 250-51.