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. 

This division naturally poses a problem for the New Testament church when the New Testament revelation appeals, as it does in so many places, to the Old Testament revelation for prophecies being fulfilled in the New and for precepts still applicable in the New and for promises still valid in the New. Scofield had an explanation for all these Gordian knots, which we need not consider here. For now, what we need to understand is that this resulted in a large-scale throwing off of the Ten Commandments in Christ’s church. Since the Ten Commandments were given to Israel through Moses in Exodus 20, it was obviously an Old Testament code of conduct, claimed Scofield, that was no longer applicable to New Testament saints.

To be sure, this is not a 20th century American phenomenon. The church of Christ has always been plagued by false teachers, who, in one way or another, has shut up the Ten Commandments to the pages and history of the Old Testament. But the chief cause of the prevalence of such thinking in the American church is largely due to Cyrus I. Scofield, who popularized and disseminated his theological views via his Scofield Study Bible in the early 20th century.

The results of this throwing off of the moral law of God are painfully obvious in the church. Without a fixed rule of conduct, the church is plagued with relativism: every man does what is right in his own eyes. Without a fixed rule of conduct to guide their behaviour, Christians are tossed by every wind of pragmatism. Without a fixed rule of conduct, Christians’ lives are so entangled with the world that worldliness is the church’s greatest bane. Christians are hardly distinguishable from the world anymore. Indeed, one might argue that in most cases, the most significant difference between the unbelievers and professing believers is that the latter go to church on Sunday–and even that is questionable since so many go on Saturday night or just tune in from home or on the go via any number of media. In short, the Christian church is plagued with many ills because of its low and despising view and consequent neglect of the law of God as the believer’s rule of conduct.

Is there a remedy for this plague? There is! And I believe with all my heart that it involves a return to and recovery of some of the significant marks and contributions of Puritan spirituality, one of which was the unshakable conviction that Christian spirituality, holiness, and piety are to be shaped by the moral law of God.

But to begin, let’s be very clear about something. The English Puritans were staunch believers in and preachers of the gospel of God’s free grace in Jesus Christ. They insisted upon the testimony of Scripture that Jesus came to fulfill the demands as well as satisfy the penalty of the law of God for His people, and thereby deliver them from both the demands of the Law as a covenant of works and from the curse and penalty of the Law as transgressors under it. His righteous life is imputed to them by faith, thereby satisfying the justice of God towards them; and His righteous death is imputed to them by the same faith, thereby satisfying the wrath of God towards them. So that by faith in Him, all true believers are counted righteous as regards the Law’s demands and free as regards the Law’s claims. Their righteousness before God is an imputed one and their acceptance by God is a gracious one by virtue of their being united with the Beloved.

The believer therefore rests for his salvation solely upon the meritorious righteousness of Christ, the atoning work of Christ, and the continual intercession of Christ. Christ is his all and Christ’s righteousness is his only boast. He has nothing of his own of any merit or value or claim. He lives by self-denying, self-abandoning, Christ-clinging faith. This is the gospel the Puritans so plainly and boldly preached.

But here’s the rub. The Puritans insisted upon the testimony of the same Scripture that this very gospel not only provides for deliverance from the curse of sin, but deliverance from the dominion of sin as well as conformity to the righteousness of God. The gospel, in other words, provides not only justification in Christ but sanctification by Christ as well. It provides for: the declaring of one to be holy and the making of one to be holy, the giving of the title to heaven and the making fit for heaven, the taking away of the guilt of sin and the taking away of the pollution of sin, the changing of a person’s status before God and the changing of one’s nature by God, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness and the infusion of an inherent righteousness concomitant with it and arising from it.

And the Puritan conviction regarding this spirituality which Christ secured and which the gospel proclaims, is that this inherent righteousness of every believer was to be shaped by the Ten Commandments, the moral Law of God.

Come back tomorrow and I’ll explain how…