First Things Blogcast #5: Catholics vs. Evangelicals on Justification

BURDEN

Michael,
I hear you saying that ‘faith alone’ relieves us of the burden to properly respond to God. Don’t you think the OT burden was anticipatory, and the burden after Calvary is commemorative? Should this burden be removed?

Using the analogy of the scale, to remove the burden is to create imbalance. for balance, the burden must be equally distributed on a scale. the burden of properly responding to the law is still there.

Chris, not sure what you mean by “anticipatory.” I think that they OT burden was real. Notice here:

Acts 15:10 10 “Now therefore why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

It was preparatory is how I would put it. The revelation of the fullness of the Gospel was a relief. This is not to say that people were in any way saved by faith + works in the OT, but, the way I see it, they did not know that Salvation was by faith alone.

I believe the burden of the Law produced in people, as a school master, the ability to appreciate the Gospel of grace in a way they would not have been able to otherwise. The Law is good in that is shows us our need. For thousands of years before Christ, the Bible demonstrates our need for mercy and our utter sinfulness. God may have allowed it for so long so that no one could say, “We could have done it without grace.” The long history of human failure says that this is not true.

So…what was the yoke?

Have you entertained N.T. Wright’s view about this?

What were the works of the law?
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Do try not to include the words “danger” and “NT Wright” in the same sentence (big laugh!)

Well, to some degree, but I think Paul defines the Law for us in Romans 7. I don’t think he had a different law in mind there and in chapter three. Therefore, the burden comes back to the good and the bad of the Law. It is good in that it reveals our sins. It is bad in that it offers no solutions. It is misunderstood when people try to ad to it in order to protect it. It does not seem that you can say that Paul had one or the other in mind. It was the whole package for him.

Therefore, the legalism he fought against was not an either/or, but a both and. To the Jew, you could not have one without the other. Therefore, N.T.’s argument does not fair well in my theology. Don’t get me wrong, N.T. is the man, but he just needs to stick to the historical Jesus 🙂 . Kinda like Geisler needs to stick to apologetics!

“N.T.’s argument does not fair well in my theology”

>

in perfectly good fun!

No fair!
Your com-box filters latin slurs…

probably for the best

let’s try a complement

nemo nisi per amicitiam cognoscitur