The Dilemma of Neo-Antinomian Dispensationalism
In a certain Brazilian SDA Orkut community an Evangelical pastor started a new topic for discussion with the challenging question, “Where is there an order for the Church to keep the Sabbath?”
In the development of the discussions what happened is that we answered his question fully, and in retribution addressed him another question which he NEVER answered: “Where is there an order for the Church NOT to keep the Sabbath?”
In answering his question we simply quoted what orthodox Protestantism has been teaching along the centuries--that the 10 Commandments are the rule of Christian life in ALL their precepts. Those Mother-churches (like the Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational, Lutheran, Anglican) from which so many other Evangelical/Protestant movements have stemmed have in their confessional documents this basic and official teaching, which is something that the majority of Evangelicals ignore.
There is, of course, the “detail” that they reinterpret the 4th commandment to apply to Sunday, which is ANOTHER DISCUSSION. Actually, they are right in teaching the validity of the 4th commandment, even recognizing its Edenic origin, thus being a commandment of MORAL and UNIVERSAL character (the Westminster Confession of Faith even stresses that it is of the NATURAL LAW). However, they are WRONG in arguing that Sunday took the place of the seventh-day Sabbath in the event of Christ’s resurrection. The texts they quote trying to prove that simply don’t deliver. . . They simply don’t prove that allegation.
Then, to show how unfounded is this neo-antinomian dispensational theology of modern Evangelicalism, we addressed him the question, “How were sinners saved in Old Testament times?” His answer to this question revealed the tremendous confusion that prevails in Evangelicalism today due to the preaching of these neo-antinomian dispensationalist theories since the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.
Analyzing briefly his answers we collected the following strange ideas:
a) there was no grace before Christ and some who were saved, that was due to the pure “mercy” of God.
Then I asked what difference is there between “grace” and “mercy”. So far he did not answer, in spite of my insistent questioning on that.
b) He also said that Jesus went preach to “the spirits in prison”. But the text, from 1 Pet. 3:19, 20 (considered an obscure passage in the Bible), says that such “spirits in prison” were limited to the DAYS OF NOAH!
I asked him why, first of all, Jesus went preach to spirits “in prison”, that is—condemned ones. And since they were of “the days of Noah,” what happened to those who were of other times?
Besides, if those who were convicted could repent and be saved, that would be antibiblical, in the light of Heb. 9:27--granting a 2nd. opportunity to unsaved people.
Do I need to say that he hasn’t answered this also?
I cannot generalize, but on the evangelical field, after the tremendous “dispensationalist” brainwashing, the confusion on this and other points is really widespread.
Most evangelicals simply don’t know how to answer this question. They face a tremendous dilemma: if they allege that salvation in the OT times was by the keeping of the law (as some say), that would be an impossibility. Never a man was able to gather to himself enough virtue and credit to deserve going to live with God forever. If they admit that salvation then was also by grace that destroys the foundations of this dispensationalist division of the law/grace eras.
The Sabbath ordinance was recommended to “all people” in Isa. 56:2-7 when God called the foreigners to join Israel in accepting His special covenant with that nation, so that His ideal to the world were accomplished, as expressed in vs. 7, “for mine house shall be called a house of prayer FOR ALL PEOPLE.”
The Sabbath was chosen among all the commandments as a certificate of the conversion of peoples worldwide, for what Israel was to act as a divine instrumentality, placed at the crossroads of three continents, with the mission to be “IHWH’s witnesses” (Isa. 43: 10, 11) “light of the nations . . . unto the end of the Earth” (Isa. 49:6).
What we see among many Evangelicals is a micro worldview regarding God’s plan for Israel and the world, which characterizes this neo-antinomian theology, whose fruits can be seen in the total confusion regarding their understanding of the way by which sinners were saved along human history. That certainly is the “other gospel” (Gal. 1:8) that Protestant Christianity was submitted to since the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Anyway, the participation of this pastor in our community with his challenge has been a blessing to show our brothers and sisters who also participate as members of the community, or anyone who just accompanies the discussions independently, the total fallacy of these neo-antinomian sophistries. As we put this material into English and Spanish this blessing will be multiplied to many more people around the world, thanks to our analyses of these errors.
This is what I call the BALAAM FACTOR again in action, as has already been shown here with other studies that accompany these discussions.
Dear friends Later on I will publish our customary comments on the last Proclamation! Magazine issue [Fall 2009], which was out of circulation for a good time. So, the triumphalistic claims that God provided miraculously for its regular circulation won't seem so convincing by now. . . Anyway, most of this last last issue is dedicated to Ellen White, for which we have enough material to defend.
But, let's see how Mr. Ratzlaff in this last issue of his anti-SDA publication struggles again with the God's law theme, this time resorting to a passage that simply explodes on the face of those who do it—2nd. Corinthians 3. Instead of being an anti-Sabbatarian asset, this passage is a tremendous argument IN FAVOR of the Sabbath truth, as we have discussed already, giving response to the 36th question of a challenging questionnaire of "40 Questions for Seventh-day Adventists" as published in the Adventist Forum, that can be accessed by this link:
http://www.adventtalk.com/forums/index.php/topic,1698.0.html
But we added a little detail of how John Calvin helps us wonderfully to reinforce what is exposed in said discussion. How about reproducing, then, the entire text once more?:
36th. Question: The Ten Commandments written in “letters of stone” are a ministry of death, according to 2 Corinthians 3:7. This ministry of death would perish (2 Cor. 3:11). However, it is not certain that you Adventists, when quoting the commandments, often leave out these introductory words? Would it be because this text shows that the commandments were given only to Israel (no matter how much they show to us, Gentiles, the holiness of God), and are unable to understand that the Adventist doctrine is wrong?
ANSWER: It is amazing how something so meaningless could be said on this text, presenting God to us as a terrible executioner who delivers to His chosen people a law of death! Let us see how we have discussed this text, revealing that those who resort to that argument don’t realize they are engaged in a shot that backfires: Some imagine that in 2 Corinthians 3 Paul is discarding the Decalogue, to replace it for another set of rules for the Christian community. But what the Apostle is really doing is contrasting the ministry of the old covenant with the new covenant. As he applies the qualification of “ministry of death” by mentioning the “tables of stones”, some Bible interpreters hastily take his language to mean that the contents of these tables of stones represented a “ministry of death”.
Then, we have something very strange—God, who presented Himself to Israel as “longsuffering, merciful, good, forgiving” actually prepared a terrible trap to that people at Sinai: He offered them there a legal code that would result inescapably in death! He reserved the “law of love and grace” only to the New Testament folks! Is that the God Who is no respecter of people?
Going back to the scenery of where God’s law was solemnly proclaimed to the people we can read in Exodus 19:10ff God’s order that Israel purified and even abstained from sexual activity (vs. 15) for an integral dedication to Him in preparation to the utterance of the law. Limits were set around the mount so that not even animals should roam across the area. Finally the Ten Commandments were audibly pronounced before being recorded on the tables of stones. Now, all this preparation, expectation and remarkable solemnity for the deliverance of a . . . “law of death”! That’s incredible!
Any one would feel cheated! Notwithstanding, that is the bottom line of the exegesis that can be read in the writings of certain interpreters of a neo-antinomian orientation, who are unable to realize that “the law of the Lord is perfect and restores the soul” (Psalm 19:7). Truly, David has in mind the entire law (Torah), but that means the inclusion, not the exclusion, of the Decalogue.
Anyway, something went wrong in that agreement, turning its ministry into a death-producing factor. Why? Where was the problem? Was the law of such a tenor—generator of death? Then it couldn’t be “perfect.”
What some people can’t understand is that the problem was not with the law, but with the people who, even before knowing fully what would be proclaimed, precipitously declared regarding the Sinai proclamation: “we will do everything the Lord had said” (Exo. 19:8).
But that was a stiff-necked people, so often condemned for their stumbling. Thus, it’s easier to understand: the problem was not in the law, but in the people. That is made very clear in the promise of the New Covenant at Ezekiel’s time— “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Eze. 36:26). The ones who had the wrong heart were the people, then the necessity of this people to change their attitude allowing God to perform a serious change—their stony heart removed and replaced by one of flesh.
And a noteworthy detail is that as Paul utilizes the “tables of stone/tables of flesh” metaphor it is implied that he intends to include ALL the commandments belonging to the “tables of stone”, as now transferred to the “flesh stones”. Otherwise, the use of the comparison wouldn’t make sense and he would have to employ a different and more appropriate language in vs. 3:3, something like “being manifested as letter of Christ, ministered for us, and written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in tables of flesh of the heart, i.e., only nine commandments of the tables of stones, excluded that of the Sabbath day. . .” But that was not Paul’s language. Consequently, the Sabbath commandment SHOULD BE INCLUDED on the tables of flesh.
Let’s see how John Calvin explains wonderfully this principle, establishing the necessary connection between Heb. 8:10 (the New Covenant promise that God Himself writes His law in the hearts and minds of those who accept the terms of the New Convenant [New Testament]):
In vain then does God proclaim his Law by the voice of man, unless he writes it by his Spirit on our hearts, that is, unless he forms and prepares us for obedience. . . . . Thus it comes that the Law is ruinous and fatal to us as long as it remains written only on tables of stone, as Paul also teaches us. (2 Corinthians 3:3.) In short, we then only obediently embrace what God commands, when by his Spirit he changes and corrects the natural pravity of our hearts; otherwise he finds nothing in us but corrupt affections and a heart wholly given up to evil. The declaration indeed is clear, that a new covenant is made according to which God engraves his laws on our hearts, for otherwise it would be in vain and of no effect.
Source: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calcom44.xiv.ii.html
Conclusion: In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul doesn’t say that the law is of death, but the ministry of the old covenant came to be like that. The Pauline illustration of “tables of stone/tables of flesh” deals with the old divine promise to Israel in Ezekiel 36:26, 27 that by the action of the Spirit the stony heart would be removed from them so that a more malleable fleshy heart were granted. On the heart of flesh the complete God’s moral law would be written, as promised in the New Covenant (Heb. 8:6-10).
As Paul employs the “tables of stone/tables of flesh” allegory, which is about the same used by Ezekiel (see 11:19, 20 and 36:26, 27), he certainly wouldn’t think of excluding any part of the “tables of stone”, as Ezekiel wouldn’t either. Otherwise the Apostle would have to explain that the Christian would be a letter written, not in tables of stones, but in tables of flesh, excluding the Sabbath commandment, or something on this line. Paul’s intention is to show that for the Christians renewed by the Spirit, the terms of the divine moral law leave the cold tables of stone to be recorded on their hearts warmed by God’s grace (see Rom. 8: 3, 4). That makes Ratzlaff’s neo-antinomian interpretation of 2 Corinthians 3:3ff another interpretative “shot” that backfires.