The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality, Part 2

I explained in yesterday’s post about Puritan spirituality that it was the conviction of the Puritans (as well as my own) that the inherent righteousness of every believer was to be shaped by the Ten Commandments, the moral Law of God. This is because the Puritans rightly understood that the moral law provides the Christian with both light from heaven to expose his sin and truth from God to guide his feet in righteousness. Continue reading “The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality, Part 2”

The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality

One of the saddest effects of Scofieldian Dispensationalism on the landscape of the American  church is the almost wholesale disregard for and discarding of the Moral Law. Scofield taught a stark division between Old Testament Israel and the New Testament church, a division so great that the two were not one people or one church or under one covenant of grace, but were rather two peoples under two covenants, and two churches in two different administrations. Indeed, the New Testament church hardly needs the Old Testament, according to Scofield, since it is a book of the Jews, by the Jews, and therefore for the Jews. The New Testament church has all it needs in the New Testament revelation.  Continue reading “The Moral Law and Puritan Spirituality”

No longer a slave to sin, Part 2

In yesterday’s post I explained from Rom 7 that in regeneration believers are freed from the dominion of sin as a law over them. They are now placed under the law of the Spirit of life, by which they delight in good (6.17-18) and desire to do good (7.18, 21). And the discovery of the opposition and resistance of sin in them when they would do good (7.21-23) is actually an encouraging sign of grace. Continue reading “No longer a slave to sin, Part 2”

No longer a slave to sin

I want to explain what Paul means in Rom 7.21-23 by the believer finding sin to be a law within him. Many Christians struggle with the entire passage of Romans 7.7-25, and we can’t take time to deal with it as a whole. But if we can understand what Paul means by the law of sin, it’ll illuminate not only this passage but every letter Paul wrote. If this gets a little foggy at times, just keep reading. It will get clearer, and the payoff is gloriously liberating.   Continue reading “No longer a slave to sin”