PB055
(126
pages) 1983 [Response to critique by Fowler & Long] © Covenant Media
Foundation, 800/553-3938
The
Exegesis of Matthew 5:17-19
By Dr. Greg
Bahnsen
By far the most important aspect of the debate over theonomic ethics is not the question of the acceptability of God's commandments in a secular culture, not the question of church tradition, and not even the question of some theologian's models or metaphors for redemptive history. The most important aspect of the debate is the exegetical question. Does Scripture specifically teach a theonomic approach to Christian ethics or not? If it does, then secular trends, ecclesiastical traditions, and theological models must all surrender before the authority of God's own word. "Let God be true, though all men are liars" (Romans 3:4).
For that reason Theonomy in Christian Ethics gave considerable attention to basic exegetical reasoning in advocating its thesis. Scripture was repeatedly cited as undergirding the premises utilized in arguments. Detailed matters of linguistics and interpretation were considered at crucial points as a large variety of lines of theological support for the theonomic thesis were advanced. And stylistically, the literary organizing scheme of the entire book could be likened to a flower which blossoms out of the seed planted at the beginning of the book - the "seed" provided by an extended exegetical treatment of Matthew 5:17-19, where Jesus speaks most directly to the issue of His relationship to the Old Testament law. In reviewing the book, Norman Jones pointed to its "massive" use of Scripture (Reformed Herald, vol. 33 [July, 1977]), Laird Harris spoke of "good exegesis in detail" (Presbyterion, vol. 5 [Spring, 1979]), and John Frame of Westminster Seminary wrote: the book "presents solid arguments which must be soberly discussed" and "shows impressive exegetical and logical skill" (Presbyterian Journal, vol. 36 [Aug. 31, 1977]).
Exegetical treatment of a theological subject is necessitated by a commitment to sola Scriptura. Sadly, many critics of theonomic ethics have virtually skirted such considerations in addressing the question of the validity of God's law today, thereby weakening the persuasive power of their efforts for Bible-believing Christians. For the believer committed only and totally to Scripture as the authoritative source of his theology, disputed issues must always be resolved on the basis of what God actually teaches in His infallible word. Did Jesus assume basic continuity or basic discontinuity between His ethic and that of Moses? In asking whether we should presume that the old covenant law is binding or abrogated today, one relevant and important passage which cannot be avoided is Matthew 5:17-19. Extended discussion of it was given in chapter 2 of Theonomy.
Paul Fowler and Gary Long are two critics of the theonomic position who have recognized the necessity of exegetical investigation and the centrality of Matthew 5:17-19 in the debate over God's law. Opposition to the theonomic position, if it is to have theological strength, would have to begin at this point.
Actually, Fowler has made two efforts at presenting a convincing exegetical argument against the treatment of Matthew 5:17-19 in Theonomy. In 1979 he distributed a 37-page discussion entitled "Theonomy" (hereafter designated "Critique of Theonomy" to distinguish it from the book), to which I subsequently distributed a thorough rebuttal. In February, 1980, Fowler privately published a revised paper entitled "God's Law Free From Legalism." The second attempt was considerably longer than his first paper, repudiated and reversed his earlier approach to verse 19 (and thereby the overall thrust of the passage), and shifted the crux of his argument away from exegesis to a theological discussion of "judicial laws" and the New Testament form of God's kingdom.
Gary Long's paper, entitled "Biblical Law and Ethics: Absolute and Convenantal (An Exegetical and Theological Study of Matthew 5:17-19)," was presented at the 1980 "Council on Baptist Theology" held in Dallas. Much of Rev. Long's treatment is both accurate and spiritually nourishing, in need of no answer; nor would I repudiate his criticisms of those who equate "moral law" simply with the Decalogue. Nevertheless, his treatment of the Matthew passage does suffer from exegetical and logical errors of which we must take account, and they are of such a nature as to deprive his criticism of the theonomic understanding of force. Fundamentally, what separates Long from myself is that he presumes abrogation, while I presume continuing validity, between the Mosaic law and Christ. Long's handling of Matthew 5:17-19 shows how frustrating it can be to try and maintain the presumption of discontinuity with the law. Honest scrutiny will indicate that even Long cannot support such a discontinuity exegetically from Matthew 5:17-19, but must turn to theological convictions he believes to be based on other passages outside of the one in question here. (After completing this chapter I have learned that Long's paper has been serialized in "Sword and Trowel" and is to be published as a monograph. Page numbers referenced in this chapter refer to pages in the original manuscript presented at Dallas.
FOWLER'S EXEGETICAL CRITIQUE OF THEONOMY
Opening Observations
Before coming to the details of Fowler's two papers, a couple of general observations must be made by way of overall evaluation. First, in considering the effectiveness of Fowler's exegetical attempt to criticize theonomic ethics, it is of telling significance that he has been compelled to change his original attitude toward Matthew 5:19. In that verse Jesus declared, "Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments [from the Law and Prophets, v. 17] and shall teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." Such a statement surely warrants the presumption of New Testament continuity with any Old Testament duty (until or unless that obligation is changed by the New Testament itself), as theonomic ethics teaches. Now in his "Critique of Theonomy," Dr. Fowler focuses his attention on the meaning of the Greek word translated "fulfill" in verse 17 and on the meaning of the phrase "until all things come about" in verse 18. I am not at all convinced by the details of his discussion of these two verses (see below), but even apart from a detailed rejoinder to his approach to these matters, it should be obvious that whatever you make of the disputed words in verses 17 and 18, the fact remains that Christ himself applies his meaning to the practical question of our reaction to the Old Testament commandments in verse 19 of Matthew 5. However you interpret "fulfill" and "until all things come about," you cannot - except at the cost of making Christ self-contradictory - interpret the Lord as teaching that it is acceptable to reject the validity or violate the obligation of any Old Testament commandment. Apart from New Testament qualifications upon that blanket affirmation, verse 19 condemns such an attitude. Consequently, verse 19 clinches the argument in favor of theonomic ethics, even if the treatment given to verses 17 and 18 should stand in need of some correction regarding details.
This being the case, the way in which Dr. Fowler attempted to handle Matthew 5:19 in his first "Critique of Theonomy" is especially noteworthy. The verse clearly offered him a difficult obstacle to overcome in his view of God's law revealed in the Old Testament. On pages 25-27 of his original paper he therefore attempted to repudiate the interpretation offered of the verse in my book (e.g., pp. 84-86 in Theonomy in Christian Ethics). Before making the attempt, though, he observed that some writers claim that this verse teaches the need for "meticulous observance by Kingdom citizens of the least details of the Old Testament law," and he then confessed, "At first glance, it might appear that this is exactly what verses 19 and 20 teach" (p. 25). He went on to try and raise some doubt about that interpretation, however, by asking just what the content of "the least" would have been in Matthew 5:19, and then by suggesting that Jesus had something "deeper and more profound" in mind than the Old Testament commandments since they were kept by the scribes and Pharisees anyway - contrary, as I see it, to verses 20-48 of Matthew 5 (pp. 26-27). Then Dr. Fowler did an interesting thing. In order to answer his own question about the proper content of "the least of these commandments" in Matthew 5:19 he turned away from an exegetical and technical exposition of the passage, saying "it is necessary first to consider a broader area of study, the reformed hermeneutical framework of the Old and New Covenants" (p. 27). That is, at just the point where an exegetical study looked like it would decisively refute Dr. Fowler's approach, he turned to a study of what he considered the Reformed tradition in interpreting the Old Testament law as divided into three separate categories (pp. 28ff). As I see it, he turned away from the direct teaching of Jesus on the subject to a survey of the opinions of fallible writers and theologians, for at first glance the teaching of Jesus certainly appeared to contradict what Dr. Fowler was hoping to establish.
Such was Dr. Fowler's treatment of Matthew 5:19 in his first effort, "Critique of Theonomy." I offered a rejoinder in a paper which was personally distributed a few months later (May, 1979). When Dr. Fowler composed his revised critique, "God's Law Free From Legalism," his approach to Matthew 5:19 was considerably different. Now he is not so eager to disagree with my interpretation of the verse. In his first paper Dr. Fowler questioned whether "the least" in Matthew 5:19 referred to detailed commandments of the Old Testament; now he says that there is "little doubt" that it refers to the minutiae of the Old Testament commandments (pp. 83-84)! In his first paper he claimed that Jesus modified the Old Testament law; in his revised paper he asks whether Jesus' words were critical of the Old Testament law, and he answers "Not at all!" - because Jesus was rather criticizing contemporary Rabbinic interpretations of the law (p. 90), as I argue in Theonomy, chapter 3.
In such crucial interpretative matters Dr. Fowler has found it necessary to abandon his earlier approach to Matthew 5:19 and agree with the original theonomic interpretation of the meaning of the verse. Of course, not wishing to affirm a theonomic outlook, Dr. Fowler has also found it necessary to change what he considers "the issue in question" when we look at Matthew 5:19. Originally, that issue was the content of "the least of these commandments" ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 25), but now the content is clearly seen as the minutiae of the Old Testament law. So in the revised paper, "the issue" has changed to whether Jesus' broad affirmation of the law and His all-encompassing statement are "meant to be qualified in any way" or not ("God's Law Free From Legalism," p. 84). I will discuss Dr. Fowler's misleading portrayal of the difference between us on this question below. The answer to his question is obviously yes; the broad statement of Jesus is meant to be qualified.
Because Dr. Fowler has come around to this (newly appreciated) approach to the meaning of Matthew 5:19, I would judge that some positive progress has been made in our debate. It is now commonly recognized that, by itself, Matthew 5:19 appears to affirm the continuing validity of each and every commandment of the Old Testament law. That is, the presumption of continuity with the Old Testament law at every point (a main thesis of theonomic ethics) must be granted. Now the only question to be resolved is how that fundamental presumption, based on Matthew 5:17-19, is to be qualified. By cultural tradition? By personal desire? By assumed dispensational antithesis? By ambiguous appeal to a misunderstood theological word like 'theocracy?' Or by specific Scriptural teaching. Theonomists accept only the standard of God's own word for qualifying the validity or manner of observing the laws of God. Accordingly, the question becomes whether Dr. Fowler has exegetical warrant for dismissing the validity of the civil laws of the Old Testament.
So then, by pursuing Dr. Fowler's changed attitude toward Matthew 5:19 we come to realize that his detailed exegetical discussion of my book's treatment of Matthew 5:17-18 does not in its basic and overall thrust refute the point which Theonomy in Christian Ethics makes: namely, that we are obliged to keep all of the Old Testament commandments unless they are qualified elsewhere. In order, then, to refute the theonomic application and conclusion (say) that current day civil magistrates ought to impose the Old Testament penal sanction for kidnappers, Dr. Fowler does not - in actuality - offer an exegetical refutation of my treatment of Matthew 5, but rather tries to supply reasons for believing that the civil aspects of the Old Testament legal code have been qualified (say, by the new form of God's Kingship which puts aside any church-state: cf. "God's Law Free From Legalism," p. 90). To put it simply: Dr. Fowler relinquishes his exegetical refutation of theonomic ethics in favor of a theological line of rebuttal in terms of church-state considerations and the form of God's new non-theocratic kingdom, etc. Therefore, it turns out that we can say that his exegetical criticism is not decisive.
A Second Observation
In addition to the overall observation made above, a second summary comment can be made about Dr. Fowler's discussion of the exegesis of Matthew 5:17-19 in Theonomy in Christian Ethics. The reader should notice that Dr. Fowler's critique of my exegesis is in reality a combination of two critical strategies. At some points he attempts a direct refutation of what is written in my book, saying that the exegesis is simply wrong. But at other points he does not attack my exegesis as mistaken, but rather offers an alternative proposal for understanding a portion of the pericope (thereby attempting to set aside or indirectly dismiss what I have written as less preferable than his own interpretation. The reader must distinguish carefully between these two different approaches to criticism, for they do no accomplish the same end at all. To offer an alternative interpretation of a text is not to demonstrate that a previous interpretation is mistaken or impossible. Moreover, as it turns out, the alternative interpretation offered by Dr. Fowler for Matthew 5:17-18, while differing from my interpretation in what is precisely spoken, nevertheless implies the same theological conclusion from Matthew 5:17-18 as that drawn in the exegesis offered by my book - namely, that the validity of the Old Testament commandments is confirmed in the New Testament. Dr. Fowler's interpretation more indirectly arrives at that inference than does my interpretation, but the crucial point is that it supports the inference nonetheless. So then, one of Dr. Fowler's critical strategies in his exegetical discussion of Theonomy in Christian Ethics detracts, if at all, little from what chapter 2 in my book aims to show (viz., the fundamental continuity between Old and New Testaments regarding the law of God).
It should be added here that, with respect to Dr. Fowler's direct line of attack on my exegesis of Matthew 5:17-18 (to show it mistaken, not merely less preferable), it does not appear to me to be telling except at a couple of minor points. On the other hand, it is my present belief that Dr. Fowler's exegesis of the passage - while nevertheless implying the continuing validity of the Old Testament law - is not only less plausible than that offered in my book, but actually erroneous in terms of the semantics and syntactics of the passage itself. With these opening observations we can now engage in a detailed examination of Dr. Fowler's exegetical critiques.
The Introduction to Fowler's First "Critique of Theonomy"
Dr. Fowler's first paper written in criticism of my exegesis of Matthew 5:17-19 contained an opening or introductory section (pp. 1-2) which was not repeated as such in the second paper. Because some of the issues discussed back and forth between us and arising from this section continue to be important for developing a proper theological perspective on God's law, it seems valuable to me to rehearse those issues again here.
Dr. Fowler began by stating: "The issue of Theonomy is: to what extent is the Mosaic Law valid for Christians today? All reformed scholars agree as to the continuing validity of the moral law. The question revolves around the extent to which the particulars of the Mosaic administration of God's law are still in effect" ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 1). In a footnote he explained that the phrase "particulars of the Mosaic administration" referred to the ceremonial and judicial laws of the Old Testament. I replied that this opening statement by Dr. Fowler revealed that the difficulty, complexity, and true character of the ethical question before us all had not been properly grasped.
The issue is broader that simply the Mosaic law, for one must also ask whether the ethical stipulations found in the poets and prophets are binding today, especially in light of very common evangelical practice of citing them with authority for present day believers. Since the poetic and prophetic ethic is rooted in the Mosaic law can we today continue to use the former while ridiculing and rejecting the latter? The issue, then, is the entire Old Testament law.
Of course all scholars (Reformed or not) agree that the "moral law" is continuing in its validity. That thesis is true by definition, for a command is deemed part of the moral law in virtue of its continuing validity (cf. Larger Catechism 93). The question is which of the Old Testament commands are "moral" in this sense?
The question to be answered cannot be reduced to "the particulars of the Mosaic administration" (by which Dr. Fowler says he means the ceremonial and judicial laws). The Decalogue is just as much part of the issue facing reformed and convenantal theologians as is the ceremonial or judicial law of Israel. One cannot suppress the fact that the Decalogue is not given in Scripture outside of the context of the Mosaic administration. The moral/judicial/ceremonial distinction is an appropriate and convenient theological distinction which can summarize our biblical study at the end, but it is not at all evident exegetically in the text of God's word nor can it be imposed at the outset of one's investigation. That would be to beg some very important and unavoidable questions. Fowler will have to present an argument from Scripture that dismisses the Mosaic law without simultaneously dismissing the decalogue as part of that Mosaic law. The way he defines the question (looking only at the judicial and ceremonial laws) skirts the difficult problem facing him and all Reformed thinkers who ask about the continuity of the Old Testament in the present age. It is not at all uncommon to take things for granted here, even though the things taken for granted are precisely part of the issue facing us. How can one consistently appeal to the ten commandments (as Mosaic as anything) and ignore or reject the case laws which explain and apply those decalogical requirements? Moreover, what would the exegetical basis be for that discriminating appeal - especially in light of the inductively ascertained practice of the New Testament writers to appeal indiscriminately to decalogue and case law alike?
For clarity of thought, an equivocation which was lurking within footnote 3 on page 1 should be noted, lest later discussion be confused and misleading. Previously Dr. Fowler had spoken of my commitment to the full "details" of the Mosaic law, referring thereby to the "particular of the Mosaic Administration," which in turn he specified as the judicial laws of Israel. Such a detail or judicial law would be, "You shall not tempt the Lord you God" (Deut. 6:16), and the question is whether such a command is binding in the New Testament, which it obviously is: (Matt. 4:7) However, in the footnote Fowler went on to speak of the "details of the judicial law" - not simply the detailed laws themselves (particulars of the Mosaic Administration). A detail of a judicial law would be, for example, the mention of an ox in "You shall not muzzle the ox when he treads" (Deut. 25:4). If the question is whether such a "detail" as this is the binding content of the law in the N.T., then the answer is "Not necessarily" (cf. I Cor. 9:9). By speaking of legal "details" in these two different ways - details which are judicial laws and details of judicial laws - Fowler had introduced a crucial ambiguity into his discussion. Moreover, this ambiguity leaves the cautious reader wondering just exactly what I mean now in saying that the Mosaic law is binding "in exhaustive detail." Do I argue in favor of the teaching of the detailed laws, thereby upholding the principle that the Lord is not to be tempted, and the principle that workers are worthy of support, or do I argue for cultural details which are mentioned to be re-enacted, such as oxen treading out our grain? It makes quite a difference!
Finally, it can be observed that the stated purpose of Dr. Fowler's original "Critique of Theonomy" was two-fold: to demonstrate the "tenuous" nature of my exegesis of Matthew 5:17-19, and to summarize "the basic reformed Biblical Theological approach to the Old and New Covenants" (p. 2). In the second paper Dr. Fowler goes further, claiming that he has shown the extensive exegesis offered in my book "to be unsound" ("God's Law Free From Legalism," p. 94), and not simply tenuous. The discussion below can help the reader decide if either has actually been demonstrated.
Fowler's second claim was to have summarized "the basic reformed Biblical Theological approach" to the covenants. The implicit assumption of a single, reformed school of thought here was pretentious and unhistorical. Moreover, the presumption that "Biblical Theology" is a specific and well-defined discipline (such that there could be the reformed "Biblical Theology") was equally as fault-ridden. The term "Biblical Theology" dates from 18th century, German pietism. In the context of the Enlightenment, those who did "Biblical Theology" had discovered the "historical" character of the Bible and used it as a battering ram against orthodoxy. One cannot properly understand Biblical Theology without noting that it has traditionally been understood in terms of the historical-critical method; especially has it been a label for the pursuit of internal conflicts within the Biblical material. Kuyper forthrightly rejected Biblical Theology as a tool of unbelieving scholarship, used to undercut the divine origin and unity of Scripture, and as a supporting device for rationalistic religion. Only the coming of Vos to Princeton's new chair of Biblical Theology opened up for conservative Calvinists the possibility of a reworked kind of Biblical Theology. The Biblical Theology movement does not date any earlier than the 1930's, when it was still widely caught in liberal categories of thought and an existential methodology. Since the 1960's "Biblical theologians" have come under severe scholarly attack, and the field has splintered more and more: perhaps one unifying feature has been the use of source criticism to completely wither any vestiges of biblical authority. Conservatives must, in all candor, be said to have done little better with "Biblical Theology" as a discipline.
As already indicated, only recently has Biblical Theology been accepted as an approach to the Scripture. Yet definitional and methodological problems have remained unresolved from the outset. The honorific and proud use of the terminology of "Biblical Theology" has been wide, yet thoroughly obscure. What is the subject matter of "Reformed" Biblical Theology. The history of the covenant, of special revelation, of redemption, of true religion, all of the above, none of the above, or just what? What kind(s) of relationships are involved in the "progress" of this history? How is the common "organic" metaphor to be explicated for precise purposes? What method does "Reformed" Biblical Theology utilize: structural, diachronic, lexicographical, thematic, a mixture of these, none of these, or just what? What are the kinds of evidence and argument which are determinative for "Reformed" Biblical Theology? Why do debates between schools of Biblical Theology appear so fruitless and unresolvable? If objectivity in the sense of a community of method among inquirers into a specifiable subject matter is a necessary condition of that inquiry constituting a science (which I firmly believe), then the much touted "Biblical Theology" of many is no science at all! (This is a fundamental critique of the ostentatious claim of some people to be doing "Biblical Theology" - not by any means a rejection of certain concerns, say, for the distinctiveness of revelatory periods or persons, the history of God's work of redemption, etc.) What Dr. Fowler later gave his readers was not at all "the reformed Biblical Theology," but only Dr. Fowler's Biblical Theology. Whether that theology is strictly biblical or reformed is for every individual to judge - and every individual indeed can, whether or not he has been initiated into the murky proceedings of "Biblical Theology." You need only compare what you are told with the word of God itself, totally apart from the "priestly" direction of the theologians.
The "Introduction" Common to Both Papers
After the general opening section of Dr. Fowler's first effort at a critique of theonomic ethics ("Critique of Theonomy," pp.1-2), he introduced his exegetical line of criticism to the reader (pp. 2-5). This "Introduction" to the exegetical discussion begins the material which is basically common to both the first and second papers written against the exegesis of Matthew 5:17-18 found in Theonomy in Christian Ethics, chapter 2. Except where otherwise specifically indicated, the page numbers hereafter listed for Dr. Fowler's paper will be taken from his revised publication, "God's Law Free From Legalism."
Dr. Fowler is perceptive and accurate to note (pp. 60-62) that the development of my book revolves around the foundational chapter dealing with Matthew 5:17-19: the book has a purposeful cohesion. (It is the book, by the way, and not the "thesis," that revolves around this text.) Fowler is, nevertheless, mistaken to confuse the stylistic structure of the book with the argumentative structure of my thought here. Contrary to Fowler's apparent suggestion, my thesis does not stand or fall with the interpretation of this one text. I do not for a moment wish to communicate doubt about my interpretation of that text, but neither should it be thought that such a text - relevant and important as it undoubtedly is - constitutes the sole ground for the convictions and conclusions I set forth in the book. My thesis would not really become "suspect" (as Fowler says) merely by casting doubt on aspects of my interpretation of it, and that is because my interpretation is not "crucial" to the book's thesis (as Fowler says, "Critique of Theonomy," p. 5). I feel that Matthew 5:17-19 is the clearest biblical expression of my theological thesis, and I have utilized it as the starting point and cohesive factor in the writing of my book. However, the thesis can clearly be established on many other grounds.
Indeed, my book argues the point on many other grounds which Fowler overlooks completely. I believe that Christians have a detailed obligation to the full word of God - including His ethical commands - in the Old Testament. I believe that Jesus said as much in Matthew 5:17-19, but even if He did not say that there, my thesis is supported theologically and inductively (from particular scriptural passages) by: (1) the unchanging moral character of God in Theonomy, chapter 5, (2) the exemplary behavior of God's Son in chapter 6, (3) the work of the sanctifying Spirit in chapter 7, (4) the continuity of the covenants in chapter 8, (5) the biblical conception of faith and love in chapter 11, (6) the use of the law in New Testament practice in chapter 12, (7) the apologetical results of metaethics in chapter 14, (8) the pointed illustration of civil ethics in chapters 16-22, and (9) the promised benefits of the law in chapter 24. Each one of these arguments separately establishes my thesis and leaves a heavy burden of proof on any opponent to demonstrate from Scripture that some element of God's law can be ignored or disobeyed today. My argument is many-faceted, thoroughly reinforced at many levels, and by no means dependent completely on the direct teaching of Matthew 5:17-19. By reducing everything to that text, Fowler makes his job much too easy and ineffective. He has at least nine other lines of proof to surmount, which I do not believe he can do and simultaneously retain both consistency and Reformed doctrine. Matthew 5:17-19 is indeed the locus classicus pertaining to Jesus and the law (as Fowler repeats, p. 62), but it is not logically the indispensable locus of argument in my book.
As indicated above, however, I am not willing to relinquish Matthew 5:17-19 as one of the biblical supports for my thesis. I believe that my general interpretation of the passage is sound and defensible, even if there be "flaws" at particular points which (as Fowler says) "need to be pointed out" ("Critique of Theonomy," p.5).
In his original paper, at the end of the "Introduction" to the exegetical criticism, Dr. Fowler had graciously complimented the exegetical scholarship in Theonomy, claimed that my treatment of Matthew 5:17-19 was crucial to my book's thesis, and asserted that "most commentators disagree with his exegesis" ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 5). We have already seen that this passage is actually not "crucial" to the theonomic thesis. However, we should go onto say, nevertheless, that Dr. Fowler's summary remark about most commentators disagreeing with me was somewhat mistaken. It turns out that the main thrust which my exegesis finds in this important declaration of Jesus - the central point about his passage in God's word - has not been difficult for a host of others to see as well. Apart from differences of opinion on specific exegetical matters, everyone should be able to discern that Jesus emphatically dismisses the idea that His coming has the effect of abrogating the Old Testament commandments. In vv. 13-16 He speaks of doing good works; naturally a Jewish listener would understand the Old Testament law to be God's standard of such good works or righteous living. In v. 17 Jesus denies abrogating that standard. In v. 18 He asserts the permanence of that standard. In v. 19 He makes it clear that His pointed interest is in the Old Testament commandments - even the least of them. Writers from many different times and with greatly differing theologies have been able to see the thrust of Christ's teaching here as being the confirmation of the law. Theonomy contends that Jesus did not relax the validity of the Old Testament law but rather confirmed and restored the full measure, intent, and purpose of it (e.g., p. 64).
Despite their detailed differences, personal inconsistencies, or qualifying remarks, a large host of scholars have found the same thrust in Matthew 5:17-19. Long ago Calvin said that here Jesus confirmed and ratified the former covenant (Harmony, p. 277) so that nothing is taken away from God's inviolable law (Institutes, 2:7:14). In 1645, Bolton, a Westminster divine, said that this passage fully and plainly speaks for the continuance of, and our obligation to, the law: rather than abrogating the law here, Christ strengthened and confirmed it (True Bounds of Christian Freedom, pp. 61, 62). In 1864, Plumer said of the same passage that in it nothing is said to depreciate, supersede, or contradict the law: instead, Christ came to establish the whole will of God as the law and prophets especially enforced it (The Law of God, pp. 32, 34, 86, 92-93). Fairbairn held that in these verses Christ substantiates the law, standing in a friendly and by no means subversive relation to it; because there is no antagonism between the new and old order, anyone who does not discern and appreciate the righteousness embodied in the smaller things of the law is out of accord with the new economy, he said (The Revelation of Law in Scripture, pp. 223-225). With respect to this passage Kevin saw that Jesus gives the law its proper exposition rather than giving new laws or a better way of holiness (The Moral Law, pp. 70-71). According to Warfield, in Matthew 5:17-19 Jesus asserts that the law in its smallest details remains in undiminished authority so long as the world lasts ("Jesus' Mission According to His Own Testimony," Princeton Theological Review, XIII, 1915, p. 558). Carl Henry found the "eternal oneness of the law" presented in this passage (Christian Personal Ethics, p. 310).
Such views of the general thrust of Matthew 5:17-19 are not restricted to these respected and biblically astute theologians from the past to the present. Many commentators have said as much also. Among those who explicitly say of this passage that Jesus confirms the true demand of the Old Testament law instead of abolishing it can be found George Campbell, David Brown, Charles Spurgeon, Hans Windisch, W.C. Allen, Herman Ridderbos, and John Murray. J.A. Alexander said in commentary on these verses that the Messianic age does not mean a change of moral principles, for Christ teaches the immutability of God's law without the least subtraction from it (Gospel Acc. to Matthew, pp. 125, 128-129). Christ insists that He is in no way contradicting the Mosaic law, said R.V.G. Tasker (Gospel Acc. to Matthew, p. 64). He demonstrates a zeal for the commandments, great and small (A.B. Bruce, Expositor's Greek Testament I, p. 104), not at all attempting to undo the revelation of His Father's will (Plummer, Gospel Acc. to Matthew, p. 76), or to detract from the obligations of the law (Lange, Gospel Acc. to Matthew, p. 110). According to Lloyd-Jones, what Christ teaches is in absolute harmony with the entire ethical content of the Old Testament: God's law is presented by Christ as absolute and eternal, for it can never be changed or even modified to the slightest extent (Sermon on the Mount, pp. 181, 185, 186). The covenantal scholar, Hendriksen, observes in Matthew 5:17-19 that kingdom righteousness is in full accord with the moral principles enunciated in the Old Testament, nothing being annulled or canceled (Gospel of Matthew, pp. 288, 292) - even as the dispensational scholar, Gaebelein, finds in the passage "the confirmation of the law" (Gospel of Matthew, p. 120). The passage exemplifies the central theme of Judaism - viz., the inexorable nature of the law of God - said Jeremias (Sermon on the Mount, p. 4), and Ridderbos notes that Jesus did not destroy the law but made plain its full demand (Matthew's Witness to Jesus Christ, p. 32).
Thus both older and contemporary, German and American, covenantal and dispensational, critical and conservative scholars have agreed with Theonomy's main concern and its view of the general thrust of Jesus' teaching in Matthew 5:17-19. That thrust is understood by theologians and commentators alike. I am not claiming, of course, that a list of authorities renders my view correct, much less that each author cited is in complete agreement with my treatment of every detail of the text. That is not important here. The point is that this general consensus that Jesus upholds rather than abrogates the full Old Testament law - regardless of how different authors respond to, qualify, or apply that general observation - is precisely (and most consistently) supportive of the thesis of theonomic ethics. One need not argue over every exegetical detail. The basic sense of the text cannot be missed (or at least not easily, without strong preconceptions). However one treats each particular in these verses, the thrust of the passage's teaching leaves a tremendous and unavoidable burden of proof on any Christian who desires to shave away or nullify portions and details of the Old Testament law. Christ fully upheld the law, and He here made no qualification about it - every jot and tittle, and even the least of the commandments, in the Old Testament was the object of His concern. What right or justification do we have to detract from the standard of the Lord? Minimally, my treatment of Matthew 5:17-19 advances that argument and challenge. If Christ does not abrogate the Old Testament commands, and if He does not restrict our obligation to a portion of them (indeed, a very small portion of them such as the decalogue), then we must assume the validity of them all, apart from Scriptural qualifications elsewhere.
Most recently there have been further, diverse indications from scholars that in Matthew 5:17-19 we do not find a detraction from the Old Testament law but rather a substantiation of its authority. In his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount, John R. Stott says of this passage that Christ's purpose was not to change the law or to annul it, but to declare its radical demands: the enduring validity and permanently binding nature of the Old Testament commandments is set forth here (Christian Counter-Culture, pp. 72, 73, 74). A Catholic, New Testament scholar with a critical view of Scripture, G.S. Sloyan, has written a challenging book entitled, Is Christ the End of the Law? (published by the less than orthodox Westminster Press). In the passage of concern to us he finds a rabbinic axiom about utter fidelity to the law - as the law is ultimately exposited and truly interpreted by Christ (p. 49). The prescriptions of the Mosaic law, he says, are assumed here to be true and are upheld, such that nothing of the law is to pass but is to be kept with perfect obedience (pp. 50, 51, 52). In the same year an evangelical press (InterVarsity) published a collection of essays on morality and law, among which we find the relevant observation that in Matthew 5:17-19 Jesus was not at odds with the Torah but upheld and strengthened the law; instead of abolishing it, He gave the law its full meaning and (prima facie anyway) inculcated obedience to the smallest commandment in the law (Robin Nixon, "Fulfilling the Law," in Law, Morality and the Bible, pp. 56-57). During the same time R.D. Congdon published an article, "Did Jesus Sustain the Law in Matthew 5?," in Bibliotheca Sacra (vol. 35): his dispensationally oriented conclusion was that Jesus confirmed the Old Testament legal injunctions instead of abrogating them - for the Jewish people living before Calvary (p. 125). Again, whether covenantal or dispensational, critical or evangelical, scholars continue to find the relevant and theologically important thrust of this passage to be supportive of the Old Testament law. As such, the main challenge of my chapter on this passage continues to be forceful.
Since Jesus unqualifiedly validates the commandments of the Old Testament, how can believers excuse themselves from the detailed demands of the law? Now, scholars such as Sloyan and Congdon had little difficulty perceiving the strong support Jesus gives the Old Testament law in Matthew 5:17-19. Troublesome or disliked sections of that law, nevertheless, do not become a problem for them due to their particular theological sympathies. Having a critical view of biblical authority, Sloyan can recognize the demand for utter fidelity to the law in Matthew 5:17-19 and still dismiss it as unauthoritative. Having a dispensation view of the Bible, Congdon can recognize the confirmation of the law in Matthew 5 and still dismiss it as pertaining to the Jewish people prior to Calvary. Things are not so simple, however, for Dr. Fowler if he does not wish to view sections of the Old Testament law as binding today. He believes in full biblical authority, and he is not a dispensationalist. Contrary to what so many people and scholars find apparent in the text, Fowler must strive to show that Jesus does exempt us (in some fashion) from observing the full law of God today. Fowler must find some reason why the "details" of the Old Testament law are not obligatory (even though the general principles of the decalogue are). I, for one, do not find his attempt cogent or convincing overall. In that case he would not even have deprived Theonomy of one of its numerous lines of argument in support of the full validity of God's law today. Although I have no jealousy for each particular element of my treatment of this text, it does not seem that Fowler's case against my view of Matthew 5:17-19 is either telling or significant for refuting my ethical point of view. I am still willing to defend the basic exegesis of the passage. Fowler has not found an adequate way to escape the prima facie thrust of the passage, thereby leaving us good reason to think that every command of the Old Testament is profitable for our instruction in righteousness (2 Tim. 3:16-17) and is a word from God by which we should live (Matt. 4:4).
It is of passing interest, anyway, that the original paragraph in which Dr. Fowler claims that "most commentators disagree" with my exegesis of Matthew 5:17-19 has now been dropped from his critique, not appearing in the second paper.
Fowler's Exegetical Discussion of Matthew 5:17
With "introductory" matters out of the way, we can finally get down to a detailed consideration of the way Dr. Fowler opposes the interpretation of Matthew 5:17-18 found in Theonomy in Christian Ethics, as well as of the alternative treatment he gives for it. We begin with his remarks centering on Matthew 5:17, "Do not think that I have come to abrogate the law or prophets; I came not to abrogate but to fulfill."
Dr. Fowler's remark (p. 63) that Jesus here refers to the entire Old Testament corpus and not simply to the Mosaic law is correct. (See Theonomy, pp. 48-51, e.g., "Jesus phrases His teaching in such a way as to embrace the entire canon of the Older Testament," p. 49). This fact does not detract from the ethical focus of the entire pericope, however: e.g., good works in v. 16, the legislative character of "abrogate" in v. 17, the specific mention of the law in v. 18, the application to the commandments in v. 19, the issue of righteousness in v. 20, and the illustrations from perversions of the Old Testament laws in vv. 21-48. Hendricksen notes well the paramount interest of Jesus in the ethical directions of the entire Old Testament according to this passage: "It was his aim that in the lives of his true followers the spiritual requirement of the Old Testament would receive its due, that is, that in these lives the vessel of the law's (hence also of the prophets') demand would become filled to the brim" (Exposition of Matthew, p. 289).
Again, Dr. Fowler's remark (p. 63) that Matthew 5:17 serves to clarify Jesus' mission is correct. (Cf. Theonomy, p. 52: the verse expresses "the purpose of Christ's coming with respect to the law.") If we consider the context and semantics of the verse, we should not overlook that Jesus is clarifying His own stand vis-a-vis the law of the Old Testament - not initiating a programmatic or systematic overview of His mission on earth. Many other ways of expressing His mission or many other facets of it are not touched upon here (e.g., Mark 10:45). Christ's specific interest is to state what His coming as the Messiah means with respect to the law's validity during the Messianic age (i.e., between His coming and the passing away of heaven and earth). "Here our Lord introduces this whole question of the righteousness and the righteous life which are to characterize the Christian," and to do so He first "deals with this specific matter of His relationship to the law and to the prophets" (Lloyd-Jones, Sermons on the Mount, pp. 180, 184). As before, we should not lose sight of the focus and purpose of Jesus' words.
There may be, as Dr. Fowler says (p. 64), various difficulties in interpreting this verse as it is considered from different angles, and indeed the understanding one has of "fulfill" is among them (Theonomy deals with six main alternatives, expressed by a wide range of interpreters!). However, Dr. Fowler's remark may give the impression that, with respect to the question before us and to the focus of the passage, the difficulty of translating plarosai is determinative. That would be incorrect, for Jesus does make very plain what His relationship to the standing Old Testament law is - even if we struggle somewhat to understand the exact sense of "fulfill."
Indeed, for present purposes (viz., finding out what authority the Old Testament law has in the New Testament era) we could even forego a complete exposition of the verse and table whatever difficulties attend the word "fulfill." Whatever sense one wishes to attribute to the word "fulfill," it cannot have the function of expressing abrogation of the law. The emphasis of the verse lies on Christ's twice denying, in categorical terms, that His coming abrogates Old Testament law. This point sufficiently establishes what is central to the theonomic position - totally apart from arguments over "fulfill." The Old Testament law is still valid today and cannot be dismissed as a bygone standard of morality because Jesus emphatically states that He does not abrogate that law. I wish to go on and respond to Fowler's treatment of my interpretation of "fulfill," but the matter is secondary; and it does not bear directly on the basic theonomic thesis. The verse may not be made self-contradictory, and Jesus says "I came not to abrogate."
When Dr. Fowler comes to portraying my own treatment of plarosai, two things should be noted. First, I would be perfectly happy simply to translate the word as "fulfill." I feel that we can understand that translation, especially in its context, and such a translation would have the benefit of unifying the various uses of the underlying Greek word as it appears in English translation. The problem is that the English use of that word in this particular place is prone to ambiguity, divergent opinions (some quite creative), and misunderstanding. The effort to go beyond "fulfill" and to give the Greek original a more specific sense is thus appropriate. "It is not obvious at first sight what Christ means by 'fulfilling the Law'" (Plummer, p. 76). "Christ protests that He came not as an abrogator, but as a fulfiller. What role does He thereby claim?" (A.B. Bruce, p. 104). In order to make clear the precise sense intended by plarosai and to indicate the role of Jesus in "fulfilling" the law, my book investigates the matter further.
Second, when Fowler portrays my view of the intended sense of "fulfill," he hardly does it justice. While "confirming" the law is suitable enough as an undetailed shorthand of my view, it hardly does the job of conveying a full impression of what I contend. The first introduction of my suggested alternative already indicated that the word would have the sense of "confirms and restores" (Theonomy, p. 53). When I begin my discussion of this alternative I say, "Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 that He came to confirm and restore the full measure, intent, and purpose of the Older Testamental law" (Theonomy, p. 64). On the same page I straightforwardly state that the Greek verb "should be taken to mean 'confirm and restore in full measure.'" Because of the distortion of the law at the hand of the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus confirmed the full measure of the law's demand over against them. Thus I say that the sense of "fulfill" is "to make plain (the law's) full demand, true content, and purpose in contrast to the Jewish interpreters: such was the effect of Christ's confirmation of the Older Testament law" (Theonomy, p. 72). Fowler does not convey this view to his reader and to that extent fails to give an adequate portrayal of his opponent's perspective. I feel that it sheds important light on the verse to see that Jesus not only supports the validity of the law (confirms it), but gives the law its proper and complete understanding (confirms it in full measure). Or to put it another way, Jesus "fulfills" the law.
On page 64 Fowler claims that by translating plarosai as "confirm," I seek to establish "the Scriptural foundation" for my thesis. I can quickly respond by noting what has already been observed above: (1) my thesis does not rest on the single support of this passage; (2) the general thrust of this passage as supporting the authority of the Old Testament law is not at all unique to me, and it is this thrust which sufficiently supports my thesis; and (3) the clear and emphatic element of Matthew 5:17 which substantiates my central point is that Jesus by no means abrogates the standing law of the Old Testament, thereby allowing that law to retain its moral validity for us today. Therefore, Fowler's attempt to reduce my argument to a debate over the precise translation of one word, plarosai, is both inaccurate and ineffective as a method of critique. Nevertheless, as insignificant as the discussion is in terms of my argument, I would still defend my treatment of this single Greek verb.
Dr. Fowler begins his narrow critique on page 64 by wishing to discuss "nuances" for the verb simply translated "fulfill." I am not sure just how much stock he is placing in his concern for "nuances" as he criticizes my interpretive handling of the Greek verb in question. It would be helpful to know, e.g., if he is taking into account the difference between lexical and precising definitions. Is he familiar with treatment of various kinds of meaning, in particular sense and reference? Does he distinguish between the understanding of connotation in literary study and in philosophy of language? How does he react to various debates pertaining to continuity, discontinuity, sameness, difference, relation, subordination, part and whole with respect to the sense (intension) of the words? What doctrine of synonymity does he subscribe to? How do such questions bear on parallel concerns regarding the referential meaning of words? A host of other issues come to mind: sign/interpretant, type/token, illocution/perlocution, expression/designation, behavioral meaning, regimentation of translation, functional equivalence in the target language, etc. Such matters do affect his method of argumentation: e.g., is it at all crucial to appeal to a single, conventional lexical authority (as Fowler does on p. 64)? After all, on what basis do the authors of a lexicon gloss a translational sense for a word? Should not that be the basis of argumentation rather than appeal to such authors themselves? Do alternative translations for the verb in question cancel, contradict, supplement, or implicitly contain the sense against which he argues? "Nuances" are not a precise matter of general discussion in linguistic science or philosophy of language, so we stop to wonder what Fowler's "nuances" correspond to in technical study. Even more generally, "nuances" (etymologically: shades of color) deal with subtle distinctions. In arguing about the sense to be properly given to "fulfill" in Matthew 5:17, is Fowler really only touching on something he deems a subtle shade of difference? What logical relations hold between a word's "nuances" for him? I raised such questions in responding to Fowler's first paper, but they remain unanswered.
Dr. Fowler says (p. 64) that one should be made wary of my treatment of plarosai because the "nuance" I suggest is not listed in Arndt and Gingrich. Does Fowler think Arndt and Gingrich have laid down absolute prescriptions or exhaustive descriptions of how Greek words are translated? Since Dr. Fowler's doctorate is in New Testament studies I hesitate to pin such a mistaken conception on him, but since he continues to argue in this fashion from a Greek lexicon (and a single one at that) I cannot easily dismiss the possibility either. Lexicographers write (essentially) history books, the history of how some words have functioned. Lexicographers are fallible historians who use particular lines of evidence to determine what they think foreign words have meant (note that lexical entries for the same foreign word vary and change from one lexicon to another). Not all such fallible historians have the same goals, audiences, or degree of specificity in mind when they author their lexicons, moreover. When Fowler chooses to debate a translational matter with me, he forces us to think and perform and reason like other lexicographers would do. The principles and procedures by which lexicographers make their entries are also the principles and procedures which determine the outcome of the argument between Fowler and myself - just as they direct the arguments between the lexicographers generally. Appeal to one of these other authors or lexicons is not telling at all: it only brings one more person (or book) into the debate - it cannot settle the debate. As good as Arndt and Gingrich are, they (and Bauer before them) do not aim to exhaust all possibilities, do not achieve the degree of detail sought by others, and do not pretend to be infallible; they have been known (by their own admission, and by comparing their results with the work of other New Testament scholars) to leave out matters from their particular history book of New Testament Greek words. Fowler's appeal to Arndt and Gingrich, then, does nothing serious to invalidate or cast suspicion upon my detailed and specific suggestion of a precising sense for the relevant Greek verb in the particular setting with which we are concerned.
The far less important (but perhaps more embarrassing) point to be made here is that, even if it should be appropriate to argue on Dr. Fowler's own grounds, he did not read his authority very cautiously. He attempted in his first "Critique of Theonomy" to prejudice his reader against the way I take "fulfill" in Matthew 5:17 by saying: "it may be noted that Arndt and Gingrich, the major New Testament Greek dictionary. . . , does not even list 'to confirm'...as a possible nuance. This should make one wary of such a translation from the start" (p. 7). Fowler's claim that "to confirm" is not even listed by Arndt and Gingrich was simply incorrect. On p. 677, column b (toward the bottom) of Arndt and Gingrich's lexicon, one will find "confirm" entered and italicized as one possible sense for the verb in question - and that sense is listed precisely under Arndt and Gingrich's discussion of the use of this verb in Matthew 5:17! If we were to put as much stock in Dr. Fowler's appeal to Arndt and Gingrich as he apparently does, then the argument between us on the incidental point of how to translate plarosai should now be over. However, the same statement which is quoted above reappears in the second or revised paper, "God's Law Free From Legalism" (p. 64) - with the exception that Dr. Fowler has added a footnote now, hoping to regain some (alleged) advantage in citing (the purported silence of) Arndt and Gingrich by "explaining" that, although my suggested sense of 'to confirm' is after all cited by these authors, it is not the most popular or common alternative offered according to their reading (p. 64, footnote 12). But of course, appeals to "general acceptance" are fallacious in scholarly argumentation, for the simple reason that the majority (especially an arbitrarily constructed majority) can indeed be wrong. What has come of Dr. Fowler's original claim that the utter absence in Arndt and Gingrich of my suggested sense for plarosai should make us wary of the suggestion? The charge that my suggestion is absent was mistaken, and the fact that it is not the most popular view need not in itself make any scholar "wary" of its credibility.
On pages 65-66 Dr. Fowler complains against my survey of various possible translations for plarosai in Matthew 5:17 (cf. Theonomy, pp. 52-53). He claims that I misrepresent the relevant scholars cited because some of them do not propose discriminating or precise senses for the word, contrary to the impression taken away from my survey by Fowler. This is strained. In Theonomy, the key possibilities for interpretation are illustrated by footnote references to works in which that possibility is mentioned or advanced (as the reader is clearly told by use of the conventional "E.g." - "for example" - before citing these works in each footnote). Nothing at all is said or implied, moreover, to give the impression that "each of these men fits only" under the specific interpretation or sense that he is said to illustrate. That various authors have "more complex" views than the particular sense for which they are cited is irrelevant (indeed, it is their own problem that they indefensibly try to make the word mean more than one thing in a single place!). I do not indicate otherwise or even take a position on such a matter. The fact remains that these authors do illustrate at least the specific sense for which I cite them, all further "complexity" (and problems) aside. Thus Fowler's strained attempt to make me out to be "creating straw men which are easy prey" is a scholarly faux pas. Whatever problems exist here are completely of his own making. Besides, this section of my book is not at all a critique of men (point by point dealing with their written material as such, in the way I am replying to Fowler's paper here) but of distinct ideas (which come to expression in various ways and even combinations, perhaps, in relevant books). No straw-men have been created. (Fowler seems especially concerned that Lloyd-Jones' complexity is denied by me, even though it obviously is not: Theonomy, p. 63, n. 74). I cannot find that Dr. Fowler has offered any reason whatsoever to hold that my classification of various possible senses for plarosai is either "arbitrary", "illegitimate", or improperly "pre-determined" (p. 66; "Critique of Theonomy", p. 9). I have simply listed distinct ideas for what the pointed sense of "fulfill" is in Matthew 5:17. Without separating such suggested senses for individual attention, one's discussion would quickly lapse into confusion and ambiguity. These suggested senses were not pre-determined (how would one guess in advance what relevant ideas will appear in the literature on this verse?). Nor is it illegitimate to evaluate each distinguishable sense on its own merits.
Dr. Fowler says (p. 66) that I should have listed the various possibilities "in an ascending scale of plausibility." I would simply respond that I did list my alternatives in that fashion. The first one (viz., to put an end to the law) is the very least plausible suggestion: the last one (viz., to confirm and restore the law) is the best suggestion, I believe, and the second to last one (viz., to enforce the law in his followers) is the next best suggestion, etc. Fowler says further that what I should have done is to deal individually with scholars who have contributed to the discussion. Well, I surely should not have done that, unless I was writing a completely different kind of book. I am interested in the thought of the passage and its application to the topic of Christian ethics, not in a survey of personal opinions. In analyzing and discussing the various ways in which a passage can be taken, it is far more important to cover the alternative ideas that may be associated with it than to go through an irrelevant list of authors who may have talked about those ideas. Doing firsthand analysis in the original subject is a higher priority than sifting through the secondary sources in print, for in the end my responsibility is to consider and present what Scripture says about ethics - not what others have said about Scripture here.
In footnote 19, on page 66, Fowler engages in another speculative attempt to find some "impression" I allegedly communicated by simply listing alternative senses for "fulfill" and footnoting illustrations of these senses being appealed to by various authors. He claims that my approach portrays the whole evangelical and reformed world as "hopelessly divided into five irreconcilable approaches" to "fulfill." Well, I had nothing so grandiose in mind at all! I simply offered some illustrations in a few footnotes. How does Fowler find in that conventional practice an attempt to cover "the whole evangelical/reformed world?" Further, isn't his reasoning a bit fallacious to move from the fact that certain senses for a word are distinguishable to the claim that the Christian world is hopelessly divided? Why would the division be a hopeless one anyway? And where does he get the idea that the approaches to "fulfill" which I set forth are all "irreconcilable?" (In point of fact, I explicitly indicate in my book that various distinguishable senses for translating the word are compatible: see Theonomy, pp. 59 [n. 67], and 63-64.) Again, the criticism here is rather strained.
Dr. Fowler continues his errant critique by claiming (pp. 66-67) that I do "not even mention the most prominent use of" the verb "fulfill" in Matthew's gospel - namely, of fulfilled prophetic promise. Once again, though, he is not at all accurate in his reading. I most certainly do mention and discuss this use of the verb - on pp. 68-69 of my book. Moreover, the very list of illustrations of this usage which Fowler footnotes is also footnoted by myself when I take up this matter (see Theonomy, footnote 84, p. 69)! Of the three major points Fowler has endeavored to bring against my treatment of "fulfill" thus far, two rest on patent oversights in reading; the other one was a strained misreading of my book. (Another example - though less emphasized by Fowler is found in his footnote 20 on page 67, where he claims that my study does not consider Matt 3:15. Yet the sense of that verse is in fact acknowledged by me in Theonomy on p. 60; cf. p. 150).
In the section of Fowler's critique which spans pages 67-71 he attempts to indict me for transgressing "the proper method of doing a word study." (p. 71). He emphatically declares, "This method defies all the accepted rules for doing word studies!" (p. 68). But to be accurate and fair, we really must inquire as to whose method and whose rules for word studies Dr. Fowler is following - his own? a former teachers? Which school of thought does he endorse - Kittel's? Barr's? etc. There is no more a single proper method of word-study with a well defined set of absolute rules than there is a single school of Biblical Theology (recall the discussion above). Fowler escalates his own outlook and priorities into "the proper rules" for word-study which no scholar dare violate. But until he can show why his own procedure and emphases are alone valid and beneficial, they will have no dogmatic authority over us. The simple claim to be championing "the proper method" and to be defending "the rules" of word-study does not make it so. We need a bit more reasoning and argumentation. Moreover, the way in which I examine the meaning of plarosai is well in accord with the procedures of respected biblical scholars, and my study has passed favorably through the professorial inspection of more than one. We can safely ignore Fowler's appeal to the single proper method and rules for word study (as non-existent) and pay attention instead to the actual handling of our relevant word (the substantial matter before us).
Next, it must be observed again that Dr. Fowler has not understood and thus has misrepresented my method of argumentation in dealing now with the verb plarosai in Matthew 5:17. Indeed, his misconstrual is of no small proportion. In the first place, I never contend in my published argument that therein I am "doing a word study," as Fowler claims. The surveying elementary word-study work was merely background and research for my linguistic argument about the specific sense in Matthew 5:17. I did not spread all my research out before the reader (or even claim to do so).
In the second place, Dr. Fowler does not pay attention to the full character of my discussion. For instance, he portrays my "first" step as the notation of strong contrast between "abrogate" and "fulfill" (p. 67), and he portrays my "final step" as finding verses where the possibility of my translation is substantiated (p. 68). Such a portrayal is terribly truncated. In point of fact, my discussion begins with a contextualizing consideration of theological and historical setting for the saying in question, indicating thereby the presumed movement of thought expressed with the help of the verb we are studying (Theonomy, p. 64). I next present a technical linguistic argument (also misrepresented by Fowler, as we will soon observe), and then finally my discussion concludes with the further consideration that my suggested sense for the verb ("confirm in full measure") conforms with the evident function, use, or purpose of the saying - as observed by scholars such as Calvin, Windisch, Campbell, Brown, Spurgeon, Ridderbos, Allen, Murray (and we could add: Bolton, Gaebelein, and Lloyd-Jones). Fowler has not only mistaken the first and final steps in my argument, he has suppressed a significant portion of the whole (ignoring its initial evidence and confirming conclusion)!
In the third place, the linguistic argument that is the core of my discussion is badly misrepresented. This argument is not set forth as a word study or as a complete analysis of the linguistic token being considered. It is explicitly pointed out that I am presenting what I believe to be, not everything that might be said, but rather "the best indicator" (Theonomy, p. 64) of the meaning of plarosai in this context. I propose to go directly to the heart of the issue and thus narrowly offer only a deciding argument for my suggested precise sense of the word (in contrast to merely surveying matters and speaking to other interesting but indeterminative issues relevant to the word). My strict and immediate aim was to give sufficient and necessary grounds (Theonomy, p. 71) from contextual and linguistic considerations (p. 70) for deciding in favor of the translation "confirm in full measure." Dr. Fowler does not seem to have understood that.
Even more, he appears to be completely confused as to the place and function which English word authorities have in my argument. He claims, quite preposterously, that I am so uneducated as to go to English word authorities "to establish the meaning of" the Greek verb in question. Wouldn't that be an embarrassing school-boy mistake! After all, the Greek words do not even appear in the English dictionaries, so how could I be so deluded as to hope to settle the dispute by appeal to them? By no stretch of the imagination do I attempt "to establish" (p. 67) or "to determine the precise meaning" (p. 68) of the Greek term by simply reading an authority in English word usage. The English authorities have a very circumscribed and appropriate use in my discussion - namely, to suggest what would merely be a suitable contrast accommodating the requisite antithesis with the English translation of "abrogate" (Theonomy, p. 67). Moreover, once that suitable possibility is located, I do not pretend that my ultimate conclusion has been established. In fact, I openly indicate in the midst of looking at the English antonyms that my "line of thought to this point" has been such and such. I have not claimed to establish the precise meaning of the Greek word by means of this discussion of English antonyms, but merely to have found a suitable possibility for an English translation. Having done so, it is obviously necessary to ask whether that possible translation - as appropriate as it may be as far as an English contrast to "abrogate" - accords with the Greek usage of the verb itself. I then examine Greek word usage, finding that the suggested sense was in fact expressed by the relevant verb. From the Septuagint and the New Testament it is evident (by inductive linguistic examination) that the requisite contrast, "to confirm," was a sense given the Greek verb in that day and thus available to Jesus and Matthew (Theonomy, pp. 67-70). Far from being as ridiculous as Fowler attempts to portray it, the consulting of the English word authorities was both proper and necessary - so that one could gain a correct functional equivalence in the target language of his translation (cf. p. 66 in Theonomy, where this is straightforwardly explained before I consult the English authorities). By falsely claiming that I used English dictionaries to establish the meaning of a Greek word, Fowler only gives his knowledgeable reader reason to think that his critique must resort to distortion and caricature in order to stay alive.
One wonders why Dr. Fowler would object to my linguistic argument and method for settling on a specific sense for plarosai (a precising sense for "fulfill") in Matthew 5:17. Granted that it is not a full-blown study or even meant to be, it is nevertheless a sound argument for determining an answer to the particular question before us. (1) The precise function of the Greek verb in this passage itself (rather than some other passage) and the internal syntactics and semantics of this particular passage (rather than a survey of extraneous other uses) is made strictly determinative for the meaning of the verb in translation. (2) In the given syntactic setting, the syncategormatic logical connective alla is of such a character as to yield a semantic rule for an acceptable translation of this saying: "any semantic term proposed as an elucidation of 'fulfill' in Matthew 5:17 must be, not merely different from 'abrogate' in some possible sense, but interchangeable in all contexts salva veritatae with precisely 'not abrogate'" (Theonomy, p. 66). (3) Then one must choose from the available senses of the Greek term in English translation that particular sense which is the best functional equivalent in the target language - paralleling the precise use of the term in its original, syntactic and semantic construction. Which of these principles would Fowler care to challenge? They are all important and proper guidelines in the translational task before us and endorsed by worthy linguists. If Fowler accepts such principles (as he should), then on what ground does he propose to rebut my argument for the sense of "confirm" being expressed by plarosai? (If he wants to argue on separate grounds that there is more to the sense than that, he is welcome to do so. But can he demonstrate that "confirm" is to be excluded from any part of the complex sense he proposes?)
In the first version of Dr. Fowler's exegetical critique of my book one reason offered for rejecting my argument in favor of taking plarosai in Matthew 5:17 in the sense of "to confirm" was this: there is no adequate ground for not seeing the meaning of katalusai as "to destroy" ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 11). In making such a claim, however, Dr. Fowler did nothing whatsoever to answer the argumentation set forth on pages 47-48 and 66 of Theonomy, where the translation of "to abrogate" is established over against that of "to destroy." In the verse before us Jesus is not speaking of destroying" (literally, "demolishing" or "annihilating," as one does to a building) the Law and Prophets, for what could that possibly mean? (Tearing apart the scrolls on which the Old Testament is written?) The verb in this context (as in similar Koine contexts) has the sense of "abolishing, annulling" the content of the Old Testament revelation, and consequently Fowler's argument would fall to the ground. We must be sensitive to the category of Jesus' discourse as that of legislative pronouncement (cf. remarks by J.A. Alexander, Dykes, M. Dibelius). This sense was likewise a common usage of the Greek verb in settings which do not refer to physical objects. Consequently my linguistic argument pertaining to "fulfill" retains its force: Jesus fulfills the law in some sense directly contrary to that of annulling its validity. In Dr. Fowler's second paper this line of criticism was dropped.
Dr. Fowler's second critique set forth a few new lines of argumentation to explain why he rejects the reasoning and method used in Theonomy to determine the precise meaning of plarosai in Matthew 5:17. For instance, Dr. Fowler observes that there is "a legitimate distinction" between common words for 'confirm' and 'fulfill' in the Hebrew and Greek languages (p. 69). This is not to be doubted! There is a legitimate distinction between the two words in our own English language, after all. But this is quite irrelevant to the argument at hand, for it does not show that the one word (in Hebrew, Greek, or English) cannot function in some contexts as a precising definition of the other word. The fact, moreover, that one common Hebrew word meaning "to confirm" is never translated with plarosai (or appropriate form of the same Greek verb) in the Septuagint - which Dr. Fowler wants to observe - is without bearing as well. That hardly precludes the (occasional) use of the Greek verb elsewhere in the sense of "to confirm" (in English)! Senses for words can be combined and divided from language to language, so that there need be no one-to-one correspondence between various languages for the extent of connotation of utilized words. Besides, in every language there is more than one way to express the same thing. Consequently, Dr. Fowler's observation about the Septuagintal translation of one Hebrew word for "confirm" is beside the point. His observation is even further weakened (if that is possible since it is basically irrelevant to the argument) when we point out that elsewhere Dr. Fowler must admit that linguistic authorities and translators recognize that a common Hebrew equivalent for plarosai appears in the Old Testament with the sense of "to confirm" (pp. 70-71; cf. Theonomy, pp. 67-68). Dr. Fowler's only recourse is to suggest, implausibly, that the verse might be differently translated (in a way which creates a totally unique Hebrew idiom) so that it would somehow imply confirmation of words in a way nuanced somewhat differently than the "confirmation" I find in Matthew 5:17. But the embarrassing counter-evidence remains what it is. Dr. Fowler's unsupported alternative translation is obviously an attempt (one not clearly explained) to obviate unwelcome rebuttal.
What other reasons can he offer for rejecting the linguistic argument in Theonomy for translating plarosai as "to confirm?" Dr. Fowler says that it accomplishes nothing to seek the sense of the verb in terms of the exact opposite (or antonym) for the other verb joined to it by the Greek word alla (pp. 68, 69). Why not? Apparently because Fowler does not think that alla, the strong Greek adversative, implies exact opposites - contrary to the teaching of Blass and Debrunner's Greek Grammar of the New Testament and inductive evidence (cf. Theonomy, pp. 64-65). The Greek grammarians say that alla states a strong adversative relation between things which are directly contrary to each other. Dr. Fowler demurs, however, when I make a similar remark in Theonomy, and he thinks to offer what he takes to be counter-instances. Sadly, though, the counter-instances reveal a failure of understanding. Dr. Fowler says that the use of alla in the petition of the Lord's prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" (Matthew 6:13), does not bring exact opposites into relation. One will wonder, of course, what is askew in Dr. Fowler's thinking here, for delivering from the evil one is precisely the direct contrast of leading one into temptation. The verse plainly seems to support the claim that alla implies direct contrast. Where Dr. Fowler has gotten off the track is made evident when he comments that the adversative nature of alla cannot determine the meaning of (single) terms in this verse, or else we would end up with "Lead us not into temptation, but mislead us from evil" (p. 69). Of course the claim that alla is used for strong adversative relations between exact opposites has nothing to do with whether the opposition is expressed in terms of one term, many terms, or the verbs in particular in a saying! Opposites of some kind (whether they be in action, attitude, object, or what have you) are adversatively related by alla, and that is the relevant point. Fowler simply misunderstood the grammatical point being made, for he confused concepts with words. Hence he cited as counter-examples instances which, in reality, only substantiate the original claim made for alla: viz., it relates things which are directly contrary.
Dr. Fowler's alleged counter-example from Matthew 5:19 regarding the strong adversative character of alla is also fallacious (p. 70). First, the contrast expressed here is not as "equally strong" (as he claims) as the contrast in 5:17. The latter utilizes alla, while the former utilizes only de; the adversative conjunction in 5:17 expresses direct contrast, but the conjunction in 5:19 is weak and general (and could even be translated "and," without losing much force). Fowler appears to have overlooked the significance of my argument in terms of these different conjunctions (Theonomy, pp. 64-65). Second, Fowler here commits the same error as Delling (see Theonomy, pp. 64-65, n. 78) in assuming that a complex word has the same meaning as one of its simple elements. Even if the contrast in 5:19 were equally strong as that in 5:17, the fact remains that 5:17 speaks of kataluo, while 5:19 speaks of luo. A word can be the antonym of one word without at all constituting an antonym for the other! (This is obvious enough in English, if one thinks of such combinations as 'to vent'/'to prevent', 'to ride'/'to override.' The fact that "does" is placed over against luo in Matthew 5:19 gives no support to the contention that "does" is an appropriate and direct contrast to kataluo in 5:17 as well. The contrast in 5:19 is between breaking and doing the commandment; in 5:17 it is between abrogating and confirming the Old Testament revelation. Thus Fowler's counter-example dissolves upon examination: the expressed contrast and the utilized vocabulary are both different between 5:17 and 5:19.
The only other reasons offered by Dr. Fowler for rejecting my treatment of plarosai in Matthew 5:17 are that (purportedly) I did not consider etymology, and I did not let the use of the verb elsewhere in Matthew play a role in my reasoning (p. 68). Such criticisms are not only baseless, but weak to begin with.
How is it that Dr. Fowler presumes to know that neither etymology nor the use of the Greek verb in Matthew played a role in my search for the verb's meaning? They most certainly were considered, even though they are not given lengthy discussion in the published text. Not all of my background studies needed to be included in the writing up of my conclusions or arguments. Further, etymology is not determinative in a dispute over the meaning of words, as modern linguists recognize. Nevertheless, the etymology of "fulfill" does show through in my suggestion of translating plarosai "confirm in full measure."
Secondly, the use of "fulfill" elsewhere in Matthew has indeed been considered (e.g., Theonomy, p. 69, n. 84). Yet even this cannot properly be made the deciding factor in identifying the precise sense of the word in the specific text before us. This should be obvious. Matthew, just as any other author, uses words in more than one precise specific or narrow sense (e.g., "land," "ground," and "earth" for the same Greek word in 4:15;5:18; and 13:23). No rule can be imposed from the outset that Matthew must avoid using the same word in a variety of senses, nor is there a rule to the effect that anytime he uses a particular sense he must use it at least twice! In that case, as interesting and enlightening as a survey of his uses elsewhere may be, they cannot limit or determine what the particular sense must be for the word in a specific context. (Implicitly Fowler recognizes this fact already; although he proposes his own interpretation of "fulfill" on the basis of usage outside of Matthew 5:17, even his associational word study does not incorporate the use of the word for "filling" a net with fish or "filling" a measure in 13:48 and 23:32.) We must respect the integrity and distinctness of each separate context in which a word functions, and therefore - contrary to the misleading style of Kittel (cf. Barr's cogent critique of its word-study methods) - the meaning of a word in a particular pericope is not somehow a corporate reflection of its uses everywhere else!
Turning now from Dr. Fowler's unsuccessful critique of my method of determining a translation for plarosai in Matthew 5:17, we come to his discussion of the relation of Jesus' life to His teaching, as it bears on the interpretation of the verse before us (pp. 71-75). In summary, my view is that in Matthew 5:17 Jesus is speaking specifically of His doctrine (pertaining to the law) rather than His behavior. This is a point so evident from the context of the Sermon (cf. Calvin's direct observation: "Here he treats of doctrine, not of life" Harmony, p. 275) that it should hardly require debate. But Fowler's rehearsal of my view is painted too extremely - in a way that is untrue to my exposition. First, he gives the impression that it is somehow necessary for me to avoid the word "fulfill" if I am going to protect my position. This is completely mistaken (see related remarks above). Second, he says that in my view this verse is so limited to Jesus as a teacher that it does not pertain in any way to His life. This is a misconception and overstatement, as should be obvious since I can give parallels from my book to Fowler's remarks on this issue. There are ways in which this verse pertains to Christ's life, to be sure, but that is not the focus or specific intent of His use of plarosai in this individual, particular setting.
Third, he wants somehow to make this (overstated) point "critical" to my interpretation of the verse (p. 72). This is directly contrary to what is explicitly said in the book, however. The opinion that in this verse Jesus states His intention to obey the law in His life is compatible with the point I draw from it: namely, the abiding validity of the full Old Testament law - which would be presupposed by Jesus' statement according to this interpretation (Theonomy, p. 64). In fact, we could even further note that, if Christ keeps the law perfectly and is our moral example according to the New Testament, then His keeping of the law has the effect of substantiating the law's validity (cf. Fairbairn, The Revelation of Law in Scripture, p. 224). So then, I could happily translate plarosai "to fulfill," but that would do little to resolve the debate over its interpretation. My concern is with the precise and intended sense of the verb, but I have no desire to deny various connections or connotations it may have pertaining to Jesus' life. And even if one could prove that the verb must specifically mean "to obey in life," that would not be destructive of my theological argument from this passage. Let us examine now the various comments made by Fowler in favor of his view that "fulfill" emphasizes the life and behavior of Jesus.
Dr. Fowler says (p. 72) that the "central figure" in Matthew 5:17 is "Jesus and His mission." Obviously he more exactly means the "central concern or issue" of the verse is this, for nobody proposes that some other person is a figure in the verse (and, besides, a "mission" is not a figure at all). Well then, is the mission of Christ the central concern of the verse? Yes and no, for that question is not a full statement of what is involved. As discussed earlier, the verse is not a programmatic remark about either the person or work of Christ; it deals pointedly with the mission of Christ as it bears on the Old Testament revelation of God's will. Thus Fowler's attempt to play off Christ's mission against the Old Testament law as the "central figure" of this passage is a misleading and fallacious manner of discussion; one does not have to choose between the two, for it is precisely the relation between them that is taken up by the statement of Jesus.
When Fowler next claims (pp. 72-73) that Jesus' use of "I came" suggests strongly that Jesus' task is to actualize the will of God in His life, we can only respond that Fowler is confusing and conflating two different things. The simple use of althon says nothing at all about the purpose or character of the "coming" which it expresses. Moreover, "I came" has no bearing on the specific semantic sense (intension) of "to fulfill"; it could be readily used with the sense of "to fill," "to finish," "to pay," "to complete" as with any other. Thus Fowler's comment is either a mistake (about what althon linguistically suggests) or an irrelevant argument (about what the different word, plarosai, would have to mean). Fowler's discussion leans too heavily on the presence of the verb "I came"; it does not settle or even suggest the correct interpretation of "fulfill."
As will become increasingly evident as we read along in Dr. Fowler's discussion, he wishes to pack into "fulfill" a great wealth of connotation about the life of Jesus (in the richest sense, including, but exceeding, His moral behavior). According to Fowler, God's appointed full measure as indicated in the Old Testament revelation (demand, promise, history, type, etc.) is "reached in Him" (p. 73). The full measure is Christ Himself, according to his manner of expression (which is repeated for emphasis in Fowler's conclusion, p. 75). Although the vague or metaphorical quality of such a thought is subject to alternating forms of expression (note how the statement that the whole Old Testament declaration of God's will is filled to the full in Christ grammatically suggests that the Old Testament is the object of this filling), it is obvious that Fowler - along with myself and many other theologians - wants to communicate that everything deposited in the Old Testament (the full Old Testament anticipation) finds its full realization in Jesus Himself. He is the fullness of all that the Old Testament intended. Christ is the full measure, not the Old Testament. This is a beautiful and important theological truth; it is one that deserves to be made. However, it is not the precise point being made in Matthew 5:17. Strictly speaking, the object of the "filling" (to remind us of the literal sense of the verb) is not Jesus here at all; He is not said to be the filled up, to be the fullness, to be the full measure. Rather He is the one doing the filling up to full capacity, and the object which is said to be "filled up" is the Old Testament will of God. As Ridderbos perceptively notes about plarosai in this particular verse: "The word suggests a vessel that is being filled. The 'vessel' of the law is given its rightful measure. For this purpose Jesus has come" (The Coming of the Kingdom, p. 294). Here it is not Christ who is the filled-up fullness, the full measure, or the vessel which is metaphorically implied. Rather Christ gives the full measure to - "fills up" - the vessel of God's law. Therefore, the point Christ is making is about the Old Testament law, not so much about His own life or behavior. What relation does His mission (His "coming") have to the previously revealed standard of God's will? Christ answers that He came to give the law its full measure - over against the cheapened and incomplete measure offered by the Pharisees and scribes (Matt. 5:20-48). Christ confirms the full measure of the law by interpreting its demands properly and requiring complete conformity to its every requirement (v. 19). This seems quite evident from the immediate context and from what Christ's statement is about. His life and behavior are not pointedly in view here.
On pages 73-74, Dr. Fowler offers an interesting homily on the appearance of "fulfill" in a few passages prior to Matthew 5:17. He does seem to me to push some questionable points of interpretation (e.g., by mentioning the baptism at the Jordan River, does Matthew really intend to harken back to Israel's crossing the Jordan and her unethical experience in the land?), and he does suggest mistakenly that the full context - along with unmentioned and unprovable allusions found therein - can somehow be "packed into" Matthew's use of the verb "fulfill," such that each mention of that word carries an accumulated load of connotations. However, his key point is that when Matthew uses the word "fulfill" it covers more than the mere fulfillment of prophecy (as such); it also pertains to Christ's life as an antitype of events in Israel's history (the type). I do not wish to dispute the point, even though it is overstated and weakly supported in places (the most likely evidence would be instances from chapter 2). I would observe, however, that this points is not one which I have somehow overlooked. I too can state that Jesus Himself is the law's fulfillment (Theonomy, pp. 41-42), and that He Himself is the "actual embodiment" of "the whole process of revelation deposited in the Older Testament" according to Matthew's Christology (Theonomy, p. 64). These are not new insights, and Fowler is mistaken to suggest that I have not even considered or referred to them (p. 74).
The relevant point is that Matthew's interest in typology does not determine the "primary usage" of the Greek verb in question (as Fowler alleges). It is used more often simply of fulfilled prophecy as such, used sometimes very mundanely (e.g., for filling a net with fish), and even when used of types does not create a new semantic sense for the word. The study of uses (and contexts) of the verb in other places is interesting, but we are wandering. The specific issue is the meaning of the verb in the particular saying and context of Matthew 5:17. This question cannot be answered by looking elsewhere. It must be answered by a linguistic examination of the syntactics, semantics, and immediate context of the verse in question - not by a loose and inexact, literary consideration of what might be typology in other passages altogether.
Dr. Fowler's next reply to me (p. 74) is the observation that Jesus' teaching and life can never be divorced. Of course, I never said they could or should be. On the contrary I make a point of observing that Christ's life and teaching are a unity; His life exemplifies His teaching (Theonomy, p. 51). But this is beside the point in trying to determine the linguistic sense of "fulfill" in the verse before us. Christ's life was not divorced from His teaching, to be sure; yet His life (behavior) and teaching (doctrine) can obviously be distinguished (e.g., that angels do not marry, Matt. 22:30, is part of His teaching; that Jesus sat by the seaside, Matt. 13:1, is part of His life). Many inseparable things are distinguishable (e.g., the color and the size of an apple; the heads and tails of a coin; Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens)! In Matthew 5:17 the distinct interest of the gospel writer is the doctrine of Christ regarding the Old Testament law, not the overt behavior of Christ; Jesus speaks of His viewpoint on the law, not focusing on His lawful life and conduct as such. (Obviously, He also lived according to His teaching, but that is not the point made here.) When Fowler asserts that "the real meaning" of "to fulfill" cannot be found "divorced from real life", he makes two mistakes: (1) he misses the specific intent and context of Christ's sermonic words here, and (2) he confuses a theological truth about the integration of Christ's teaching and life with the linguistic matter of a particular word's pointed meaning.
I have demonstrated in my book that among the senses for plarosai which the word expressed is that of confirmation. I have also indicated that if Jesus wished to speak of His own personal obedience to the law, other words were more readily available which directly expressed that thought. Furthermore, I have argued at length that the context of this saying is not that of Jesus' personal behavior and life, but rather that of His teaching as the Messiah on righteousness. There are no allusions to prophecy in the pericope. Throughout, it is the promulgation of God's will by the Messiah that is paramount. Matthew further stresses the moral authority of Christ's teaching stance (noting the "but I say to you" formula; cf. Matt. 7:28). Christ is legislating from the Mount (even as Moses previously did) regarding the status of the law within the kingdom. His own relationship to the former law is the leading question of the passage, a passage set within a Sermon that presents the righteousness acceptable to God. In this way He defines the standard of "good works" just mentioned in v. 16. He puts double stress on a denial of "abrogation," a thought with obvious legislative character. The direct contrast with this would not be a matter of personal disobedience or obedience in overt behavior, but rather a question of authoritative teaching on the law's legal or moral status in the eyes of the King. Christ's doctrine about the law (not His behavior) is explained in v. 18 (notice the opening "For...") by reference to the eternal validity of the law. In vv. 20-48 Christ corrects the mistaken teaching of the scribes concerning the law's meaning and full demand. One can hardly miss the fact that in this context the paramount issue is that of the Messiah's moral authority, pronouncement, and direction. All of these arguments are advanced in my chapter on the subject, but Fowler does not address even one of them.
In fact, it seems that Dr. Fowler has again severely truncated my argumentation in this regard. Having contended that Christ's behavior (His life or doing) must be part of the reference in the meaning of "fulfill" (on fallacious grounds discussed above), Fowler gives his reader the impression that I have only one counter-argument to this opinion (pp. 74-75). He completely omits a consideration or answer to the line of thought rehearsed above, which is central to my discussion and point of view! He narrowly focuses on one contention which I make - but that is not even the full sentence in which it appears. This is by no means adequate as an answer to my argumentation. Short-cuts aside, Fowler has not seen the main thrust of that truncated consideration which he addresses. Having linguistically and contextually argued against plarosai taking the sense of active doing, I add that such a sense for the term "always" takes the passive voice, whereas the active voice is used in Matthew 5:17 (Theonomy, p. 61). Fowler very properly corrects this overstatement by pointing to two counter-examples. With Arndt and Gingrich, I ought to have said that the notion of fulfilling by deeds "almost always" stands in the passive. Yet even with this proper correction of my mistake, the point of my closing observation remains the same: viz., it is at least unusual for this sense of the term to appear in the voice that it does. That does not conclusively prove anything, of course, and it is far from my only or even my main line of argumentation. It is merely a final and supporting observation, but one not addressed by Fowler.
(As follow-up reading on the fact that Matthew 5:17 deals not with fulfilled prophecy or with Christ's doing of the law, but rather with His moral teaching or interpretation regarding the law, one might consult: R. Bultmann, History of the Synoptic Tradition, p. 138; Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, pp. 295-296; Murray, Principles of Conduct, p. 149; Bornkamm, Barth & Held, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew, p. 68; H. Alford, Greek Testament, I p. 42; A. Jones, Gospel Acc. to St. Matthew, p. 79; Plumptre, Ellicott's Gospel Acc. to St. Matthew, p. 54)
At the end of his treatment of Matthew 5:17, Dr. Fowler claims that the interpretation which sees Jesus specifically teaching the law's confirmation (i.e., distinctly promulgating a doctrine of the law's confirmation, rather than speaking of His own behavior as embodying the Old Testament revelation) "must be rejected" (p. 75). But why must it? Fowler has not refuted that interpretation in any of his remarks, and I am far from the only writer who feels the plausibility of this view. Examples of scholars who find the focus of Jesus' saying as His doctrine of the law (rather than His own behavior) have been given above - from Calvin to Bultmann - as well as in my book. A large number of scholars explicitly say that Christ's point in this passage is the "confirmation" or ratifying of the Old Testament law. These scholars cover a wide range - as old and covenantal as Calvin and as recent and dispensational as Congdon, as liberal as Allen and as conservative as Murray. Jesus definitely did not "invalidate" the law (the translation preferred in the Kittel wordbook); instead, "Jesus refers to the function of validating and confirming the law and the prophets" (says Murray, Principles of Conduct, p. 150). Or as Lloyd-Jones says, "Our Lord Jesus Christ in these two verses confirms the whole of the Old Testament" (Sermon on the Mount, p. 187). Not only is the concept of confirmation recognized in the saying of Jesus here, the translation of the very word plarosai as "to confirm" is countenanced as legitimate by reputable New Testament scholars like Arndt and Gingrich (who also list Dalman and Hatch) and George Eldon Ladd. The latter says, "The word translated 'fulfill' can mean to 'establish, confirm, cause to stand' and need mean only that Jesus asserted the permanence of the Law..." (Theology of the New Testament, p. 124), and he cites Branscomb as advancing this view. This surely strikes many worthy scholars as a viable and likely alternative. Why, then, does Dr. Fowler so denounce the idea as one which must be rejected?
He pronounces further: "Verse 17 simply does not teach what Dr. Bahnsen says it teaches: the establishment by Jesus of the Old Testament law" (p. 75). But where, then, are his telling criticisms against the idea? A categorical rejection of what I claim the verse says ought to be accompanied with some really weighty arguments against it; yet we find none. Respected scholars have found in this passage the complete establishing of God's will according to Jesus' teaching (Bornkamm, Barth, & Held, Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew, p. 68), and some have ventured to say that plarosai should be understood in the sense of "to establish" (e.g., D. Hill, Greek Words and Hebrew Meanings, p. 128). So then, why does Dr. Fowler emphatically assert that the verse "simply does not teach" this? His attempted critique is far from commensurate with such a response.
When he offers his own conclusion about the meaning of plarosai, Fowler continually makes use of the word "fulfill" and thereby renders his opinion quite unhelpful. We wish to know the precise sense in which Christ "fulfills" the law and prophets as a declaration of God's will. Fowler answers by repeating the very word that is in question. He ways that Christ fulfilled kingdom righteousness (alternatively, fulfilled God's Word, or the whole Old Testament, law and prophets) "in His life and teaching." Yes, but in just what sense? Fowler's argument for including a reference to Christ's life or behavior in this saying has been seen to be quite weak and uncontextual, but even more we must note that the linguistic sense for plarosai has not actually been advanced at all.
Finally, for whatever faults we have found in his criticism of the confirmation interpretation and in his own particular viewpoint, we must still ask what effect his discussion would have, even if it were unchallengeable as to its scholarship. That is, even given Fowler's attempted critique and alternative interpretation, is his discussion of sufficient weight to do any damage to my thesis? It would not seem so, no matter how Fowler wants to translate plarosai. As the reformed, New Testament scholar, Ned B. Stonehouse, observed: "The explicit and emphatic affirmation of the authority of the law and the prophets excludes the interpretation of 'fulfillment' and 'accomplishment' as euphemisms for 'relaxation,' or 'invalidation,' or 'spiritualization'" (The Witness of Matthew and Mark to Christ, p. 202). For whatever else may be said about it, this passage certainly does not give anyone grounds to treat God's commandments as somehow invalid! Even if Christ were saying that He "fulfills" the law by keeping it or embodying it, that would lend no support to anyone's flight from his own moral obligation to keep the law as well. That law - to its very smallest details - is eternally authoritative, such that we are prohibited from teaching that even the least commandment in the Law and Prophets is not to be kept today (Matt. 5:18-19).
Fowler's Exegetical Discussion of Matthew 5:18
On pages 76-83 Dr. Fowler turns his attention to verse 18 in Matthew 5, "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall never pass away from the law until all things come about." Here the dispute between us is over the closing panta genatai clause. I will deal first with Fowler's critique of my position and then turn to a criticism of his own. According to him, my attempt to "fuse" the two heos clauses in Matthew 5:18 as "functional equivalents" (pp.78-79) is "fraught with problems" (pp. 79, 83).
I do not think that he has shown this to be the case, although he has beneficially pointed out a proof-reading mistake for me in the process. In Theonomy, I observe that panta in Matthew 5:18 does not have a definite referent or antecedent, pointing out that its gender does not agree with preceding nominal expressions: namely, "'law'...'jot' or 'tittle'" (p. 81, cf. p. 79). Dr. Fowler quite correctly points out that the neuter panta does agree with the neuter gender of the Greek word for "tittle" (p. 80). My assertion should have read that panta does not agree in gender with "jot or tittle" (as a phrase standing together in the text as the subject of its clause); note that this is the way it is treated just two sentences later in my discussion. "Jot" and "tittle" should not be treated as separate objects. Rejoining them as a phrase is a minor refinement of my original statement which needs correction, but it will hardly affect the argument (as we will see below). Apart from this help, Fowler's discussion will be found to lack force.
As before, Fowler's treatment has a tendency to misrepresent my thought: e.g., saying that I attempt to make the two heos clauses "read as one" (p. 83) and that I "translate" genatai as "become invalid" (pp. 81, 82). Such remarks confuse referential identity with connotational sameness (i.e., I contend that the heos clauses have the same denotation, but they certainly do not "read" as one because of their separate senses), or they confuse parallel thought or effect with translational assimilation (i.e., I take one interpretation of heos an pantas genatai to "create" the effect of invalidation for the law and prophets, but I by no means propose that as my own translation, (Theonomy, p. 81). Fowler also ignores some weighty aspects of my argumentation (e.g., the way Christ's statement about the law's eternal validity correlates with proverbial expressions, Jewish literature, and Old Testament theology which formed the mindset of his hearers - such that if His saying is not to be taken in this sense, one would have expected some cautious qualification in His wording).
Fowler says that there are four problems with my view that the two phrases, "until heaven and earth pass away" and "until everything comes to pass," are functionally equivalent, even as their syntactic and semantic (heos an) parallelism suggest. "Problems" two and four can be quickly dismissed as inaccurate and strained. Both matters raised here deal with my translation of genatai. Fowler claims that I "translate" this verb as "become invalid," which would be lexically wrong (p. 81), and he says that only in this way can a trivial tautology result from the interpretation that the relevant clause is speaking of Christ's realization of all the law's jots and tittles (pp. 80-81). As indicated briefly above, this is a mistaken treatment of my discussion. I am not translating but dealing with the effect created by the interpretation of some commentators, who say that Christ's observing of the law implies its subsequent invalidation. Moreover, I am dealing with the clause on the common assumption of its parallel to the previous clause, "until heaven and earth pass away" (an assumption recognized by Fowler on p. 81!). As long as this parallel has not been disproven, and as long as commentators continue to draw their fallacious inference to the law's invalidation, then the interpretation before us does in fact create a tautology (viz., the law's details will not pass away until - according to parallel and deduction - all the details pass away). But the most important point is that this is not part of my view at all. I do not translate genatai as "become invalid."
"Problem" number four as advanced by Fowler is that I translate genatai with the words "has taken place," due to my assumption of functional equivalence (p. 82). He claims that this contradicts my allegedly previous translation of "become invalid." Well, since I do not use the latter translation, the only contradiction to be found is in Fowler's imagination. He also claims that the translation, "has taken place," is both forced and inappropriate for an indefinite temporal clause such as this, but he does not give us any reason why. Since he is silent in explaining this criticism I am only surmising that Fowler is objecting to the past tense in my translation. However, I have absolutely no zeal for such wording, and it is by no means crucial to my point of view. I am merely following Arndt and Gingrich for convenience when they render the clause in Matthew 5:18 as "until all has taken place (= is past)" (p. 157b). Given Fowler's previously noted deference to Arndt and Gingrich, he should be satisfied that I was not smuggling anything unique or necessary to my interpretation into the proposed translation of this clause. Indeed, when he chides me that I should take Campbell's advice to translate genatai as "come to pass," I am more than happy to do so! (I was the one who brought up and quoted this advice to begin with.) My view would not be altered thereby in the slightest. "Until heaven and earth pass away" has the same denotation as "until all things come to pass" - namely, the end of the world. (Although it is not relevant to his point about my translation of genatai, Fowler wonders why I am concerned to criticize the use of "fulfill" both for plarosai in 5:17 and for genatai in 5:18. As explained earlier, translating plarosai as "fulfill" is no problem for me; it simply needs further precision to settle disputes among interpreters. My point is that Bible versions which choose to use "fulfill" for the two different Greek verbs mislead and prejudice the English reader.) So then, two of Fowler's four criticisms of my treatment of Matthew 5:18 are unnecessarily strained and can be dismissed from the outset.
Fowler's criticism number three against finding functional equivalence in Matthew 5:18 is really a handful of unrelated remarks on page 81, none of which are even argumentatively relevant. He says "most commentators" do not see functional equivalence between the relevant clauses in this verse. Well, given my limitations as to a knowledge of all foreign languages, as to availability of every relevant book written down through history, and as to accessibility even to all such books now in some library somewhere, I really do not know what "most" writers have said on this subject (and neither does Fowler, really). But it is not at all relevant, for truth is not based on a nose-count. The fact is that plenty of commentators do recognize the functional equivalence in question here, and those who do not have objective and insuperable problems of a grammatical and logical nature to deal with.
Fowler next observes that parallelism (which is evident in Matthew 5:18) does not automatically imply functional equivalence. I never said it did, but the presumption is surely in its favor. Fowler goes on to say that the fact that the verb changes between the first heos clause to the next one (from "pass away" to "come to pass") indicates that something new is being said. Such a remark is fallacious, failing to distinguish between what is said and how it is said. The use of a different verb can mean that something new is said or that the same thing is being said in a new way. For example, is "hungering" after righteousness and "thirsting" after righteousness in Matthew 5:6 referring to different things, or saying the same thing in two ways? When Matthew uses three verbs in 5:2 - "opening his mouth," "he taught," "saying" - is he speaking of three different actions or of one action with three expressions for it? Is the change of wording from "straight is the gate" to "narrow is the way" in Matthew 7:14 a matter of saying something different or differently? Moreover, since what I contend is that the clauses in Matthew 5:17 express parallel thoughts, Fowler's remark about different verbs within those clauses is all the more irrelevant; nobody is arguing that the verbs must be parallel for the assertions to be identical in denotation.
Finally, as best I can understand, Fowler's last remark in this paragraph amounts to an argument against my paralleling of the heos clauses on the basis of a preferred parallel - viz., between the position and function of "fulfill" in 5:17 and that of "come to pass" in 5:18. But preference is not argumentatively decisive. More importantly, the syntax and wording of these two verses are not nearly so obviously parallel as they are within v. 18 itself. The heos clauses are syntactically parallel to each other vis-a-vis the main clause, and both are identically introduced with heos an. Whatever vague possibilities for suggested parallels exist elsewhere, this one within v. 18 cannot be suppressed exegetically. Therefore it turns out that the scattered remarks under problem number three present no difficulty at all for the view that functional equivalence holds between the heos clauses of this verse.
This leaves, then, just one final argument in Dr. Fowler's arsenal to be used against my interpretation of Matthew 5:18. It is problem number one, both in order of mention and in remaining significance as found in Fowler's discussion. I have taken panta in the second heos clause of Matthew 5:18 in the absolute sense of "all things, everything" (cf. Matt. 11:27). What Jesus says, I claim, is that the law will not become invalid until heaven and earth pass away, which is to say, not until all things come to pass. This kind of functional equivalence, says Fowler, would hold only if panta had no antecedent (p. 79); however, he contends, panta does have an antecedent (namely, "one jot or one tittle") and thus the functional equivalence is defeated. Accordingly, his last argument against my view amounts to the case which he wants to make in favor of his own alternative view. If Fowler's view can be found wanting or at least very implausible from a grammatical and logical standpoint, then he will be left with no argument at all against the theonomic interpretation of Matthew 5:18. It is thus appropriate here to turn to a critique of Fowler's own remarks about this verse.
According to Dr. Fowler, for one who is quite familiar with Greek grammar, panta "obviously" refers back to the phrase "one jot or one tittle" (p. 80, cf. the paraphrase on p. 78). This is not at all "obvious," however, because of the lack of agreement between panta and that phrase, both in number and gender; that is why Fowler rightly feels a need to try and support the "obvious." His case for this tenuous opinion runs like this. Panta is plural as to number so as to agree with "jots and tittles" (in an inclusive sense), and it is neuter in gender so as to agree with "one jot" which has commanding position within its own phrase. One should not, I believe, contend that this is absolutely impossible. It is quite contrary, nonetheless, to common Greek grammar and to the semantics of the passage before us. Fowler's remark about the plural number of panta changes the wording and sense of its alleged antecedent, whereas Matthew treats "not one jot or one tittle" disjunctively and mentions two separate items (note how the adjectival qualifier "one" is repeated instead of used once to cover both items) for the sake of emphasis (thus rendering: one jot will not pass away or one tittle will not pass away), Fowler's interpretation requires a change to a conjunctive and inclusive treatment of the phrase (thus now grouping the items together: "jots and tittles"). This is not strictly true to Matthew's sense and syntax, and thus the change to a plural conception is read into the verse.
Fowler's remark about the neuter gender of panta is more clearly a violation of Greek grammar. He says the neuter was chosen to agree with the first mentioned - and thus commanding - item in the phrase "one jot or one tittle." This is wrong on two scores. Greek literary style allows for a climactic order of listing, and thus "one jot" need not be deemed to have "the commanding position." In fact, there need be no commanding position at all when repetition of items is for the sake of emphasis. (Besides, gender agreement is not decisively governed by "commanding position" anyway.) Secondly, Greek grammar has a fairly regular pattern for agreement in the case of compound nominal expressions, and Fowler's suggestion runs counter to it. You see, the Greek word panta is actually an adjective functioning in a substantive fashion. On Fowler's view panta is elliptical for "all the jots and tittles," and consequently he treats it as an anarthrous adjectival attributive (with a pronominal force). In such a case, with "all" referring back to and qualifying "one jot or one tittle," its gender would ordinarily agree with the last mentioned item in the complex subject; as closer to "tittle," "all" would be expected to be in the feminine gender (as is its antecedent). Blass and Debrunner's Greek Grammar of the New Testament puts it this way: "Attributives which belong to two or more connected substantives customarily agree with the nearest" (section 135). Therefore, if Fowler's supposition were correct that "all" refers to the phrase "one jot or one tittle," even if we suppress the disjunctive force of that phrase, "all" should agree in gender with "one tittle." However, it does not. Neither his explanation for the number nor the gender of panta, then, are convincing; in both cases there is a forced bending of the rules or a distortion of sense and syntax.
Although not cogent, the preceding explanation by Dr. Fowler for the neuter plural form of panta (taken as referring to "one jot or one tittle") strikes me as his most hopeful line of thought. As much as I would like to treat it as his main (and best) argument, it is unfortunately an explanation relegated to a footnote by him (number 44, on p. 80). His key argument appears in the body of the text, but it is even weaker. Because panta is neuter plural, Fowler must find some way to treat "one jot or one tittle" as a neuter plural unit as well, thereby qualifying as a possible antecedent for panta. His argument is that a grammatical rule for Greek dictates that a neuter plural subject takes a third person singular verb, which is what we find in the verb accompanying the relevant phrase (viz., pareltha: third person, singular, second aorist, subjunctive). He concludes, therefore, that the subject of this verb - "one jot or one tittle" - is deemed a neuter plural unit of speech and is "obviously" the antecedent to panta (p. 80).
There are a variety of mistakes incorporated into this line of thought. In the first place, the practice of using a singular verb with neuter plural subjects pertains to words, not phrases; at least Fowler offers us no examples at all of nominal phrases or compound subjects being treated in this way. The "well known" grammatical rule to which he appeals does not even apply in the case at hand. Secondly, he does not accurately state his "rule." This Pindaric construction (which is greatly weakened in usage in the New Testament in comparison to classical Greek) is not invariable in our literature: Fowler should therefore not have said that a neuter plural subject "takes" a singular verb, but that it "can take" a singular verb. There is quite a big logical difference!
Thirdly, even forgetting that his mistakenly stated rule is inapplicable to the case at hand, Fowler has committed a basic logical fallacy - namely, affirming the consequent. His argument runs like this: (1) If a subject is neuter plural, then it takes a singular verb: (2) "one jot or one tittle" is a subject taking a singular verb; and (3) therefore "one jot or one tittle" is a neuter plural subject. The pattern of thought is clear: (1) If P, then Q; (2) Q: (3) therefore P. The pattern of thought is also a classical fallacy in logic, as can be illustrated in the two following examples, both of which are formally identical with Fowler's reasoning. One example: (1) If something is a crow, then it is black; (2) my shoe is black; (3) therefore my shoe is a crow. A second example: (1) If Castro shot the president, then he is a scoundrel; (2) Castro is a scoundrel; (3) therefore Castro shot the president. There is obviously no way that we can accept Fowler's line of argument as valid; it is logically faulted. You see, there are other reasons why my shoe is black beside it being a crow, and there are other reasons why Castro is a scoundrel beside his shooting some president. Likewise, there are completely other reasons why the verb (pareltha, "pass away") which accompanies "one jot or one tittle" is in the singular form beside Fowler's inapplicable rule. Indeed, the proper explanation of this situation is quite common. Blass and Debrunner put it this way in their Greek Grammar Of The New Testament: "The singular (verb) is regularly used with two singular subjects connected by a (as in English...)" (section 135). That is, when two singular expressions function as the subject of a clause and they are connected by "or," then a singular verb is regularly used. Of course, this is precisely what we have in the clause "one jot or one tittle will by no means pass away," and it thus comes as no surprise that Matthew 5:18 is the leading example of this rule offered by Blass and Debrunner! Fowler has not at all shown that "one jot or one tittle" should be treated as a neuter plural subject, and thus he has no reason to treat it as the proper antecedent to the neuter plural panta later in the verse.
Fourthly, Fowler's line of argumentation (viz., since pareltha is third person singular, then its compound subject is deemed a neuter plural phrase) is open to a rather obvious counter-example (or logical reductio). In the very same verse this same exact verb is used with another compound subject phrase; Matthew has just written, "until heaven and earth pass away (pareltha)." Given Fowler's line of thought, this should mean that "the heaven and the earth" are being treated as a neuter plural subject in the Pindaric construction. Yet it is obvious that such a conclusion would clash with the well known fact that both "heaven" (ouranos) and "earth" (ga) are feminine in gender, not neuter. Consequently, Fowler's argument is shown fallacious by counter-example (or modus tollens). If the use of a singular verb pareltha proves that its compound subject is deemed a neuter plural expression, then "heaven and earth" should be viewed as a neuter plural expression. But it cannot be, and therefore the supposition is wrong to begin with. Statements which imply falsehoods are themselves false. (If it is wondered why "heaven and earth" take a singular verb, Blass and Debrunner explain: "When the subject consists of singular + singular...the verb agrees with the first subject if the verb stands before it" [section 135]; this is precisely the case here, and thus they list Matthew 5:18 as their first example of this phenomenon with impersonal subjects.) The odd thing is that Fowler recognized in a footnote the last two grammatical rules which I have rehearsed. Since they are destructive of his argument, one wonders why he continued to use it nonetheless.
What we have found to this point is that Dr. Fowler uses four "problems" to criticize my view that "until heaven and earth pass away" and "until all things come to pass" are functionally equivalent expressions in Matthew 5:18. Two of them can be immediately dismissed as assuming falsely that I mistranslated genatai. A third problem consists merely of scattered and argumentatively irrelevant remarks. The last problem depends for its validity on the case Fowler tries to make for "one jot or one tittle" being the antecedent to panta ("all") in this verse, and we have seen that case is riddled with semantic, syntactic, grammatical, and logical errors. All in all, Dr. Fowler has not challenged the view of functional equivalence between the heos clauses in Matthew 5:18 in any legitimate or forceful way, and his attempted critique must be judged unsuccessful. The theonomic view of this verse remains as strong as before.
Although we have already undermined Dr. Fowler's interpretation of Matthew 5:18 by showing that it assumes an illegitimate antecedent for panta (a problem which in itself is sufficient to refute his view), there are additional problems with it which are noteworthy. According to Fowler, in this verse Jesus is saying that no detail will pass away from the law (become invalid) until all the details of the law are "realized, accomplished or fulfilled" (cf. pp. 76, 78, 81). The idea is that the law of God was terminated in its validity (every detail of it) when Jesus personally fulfilled every jot and tittle by obeying it or embodying it - thus allowing that the details of the Old Testament law are invalidated "this side of the passing away of heaven and earth" (p. 78). There are serious theological problems with such a view, of course. As much as Fowler may not wish to be an antinomian, he would be forced to that consistent conclusion by such a viewpoint, for by it Jesus forces every jot and tittle (thus including such things as "Thou shalt not steal") to pass away from the law by fulfilling them all. Fowler's viewpoint on Matthew 5:18 simply proves too much if he is true to its wording. Further, is it not a bit incredible that Jesus would assert with emphasis and authority that the law must not at all be deemed invalid, when what He meant (according to Fowler) was that the law was valid only for the next three years of His life (and then passed away as "fulfilled")? Are we really to believe that it was eternally and absolutely imperative for Jesus to obey the prohibition, "Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain," but once He did and fulfilled all the law such a prohibition is no longer morally valid for His followers? The same questions can be asked about the case laws of the Old Testament. Although Jesus insisted that "do not defraud" was binding on the rich ruler, are we to believe that this law is invalid for us living after the Messianic fulfillment of all the jots and tittles by Jesus? Is it ethically plausible that the prohibition on bestiality from the Old Testament was absolutely right until Christ's "accomplishment" of "all things (the law's details)" but is now morally acceptable? No, Fowler's interpretation of Matthew 5:18 would be thoroughly objectionable on theological grounds.
Yet more to the point is the exegetical weakness of his approach to genatai here. As far as I can see, he offers four kinds of support for his treatment. First, he claims that "most versions" translate the word as "to fulfill" (p. 78), but the invalidity of such a line of argument has been pointed out already above. Secondly, he claims that genatai in 5:18 is parallel to plarosai in 5:17 on the basis of the structure of these verses (p. 81), but the presumed structure is far from evident. Indeed, Matthew's parallels of expression are concentrated altogether elsewhere when the full verses are taken into account. Thirdly, he claims that the "root meaning" of genatai "in this context" easily allows for the translation of "fulfilled" (p. 81), but he does not explain such a claim in any way so as to make it acceptable. That is, he offers no evidence for this (e.g., what is the root meaning he has in mind? What is it about the context that allows assimilation of the one verb to the other? etc.).
The fact is that this kind of treatment of genatai is eisegesis, not exegesis of a semantic term. It strains and reforges the meaning of genatai, which is one of the most common and colorless verbs in the Greek. As Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament puts it, "Usually the term has no particular religious or theological interest in the New Testament. Only at Jn. 8:58 is there any special distinction between ginesthai and einai" (I:681-682). As Campbell observed, to use "fulfill" for genatai as well as plarosai is misleading and spurious. Especially is this true when one considers the altogether general and vague character of both panta (the subject) and genatai (the verb) in this clause; they are extremely common words with very undeveloped intensions. Placing them together only increases the complete generality of the resultant expression. Reading heavy theological overtones (such as the fulfillment of all the law, the accomplishment of Christ's redemptive mission, or what have you) into this clause has very little semantic justification whatsoever. As I said in my book, such an unspecified general assertion in the Bible is prey for theologians anxious to find their preconceived doctrines reflected somewhere in Scripture. What is not at all explicit anywhere in the text can be "found" implicit in such an absolutely general and colorless expression as used in Matthew 5:18.
Finally, Fowler argues for his treatment of genatai by noting how "fulfillment" and an event "taking place" in Matthew 1:22 explain each other (p. 83), but this is not very telling. After all, ginomai in this verse has a definite antecedent - an event which is now said to happen. Further, Matthew himself is the one who draws together the event "coming to pass" as in order to "fulfill" a prophecy. No such connection is drawn (even implicitly) in Matthew 5:17-18, and in fact the two relevant verbs appear in completely different sentences there. The alleged connection between genatai and plarosai is Dr. Fowler's, not Matthew's. Moreover, how can the sense of "takes place" or "happens" which Fowler derives from Matthew 1:22 be appropriate to or reconciled with the subject of the clause in Matthew 5:18 and the earlier suggested translation by Fowler himself? What would it mean for jots and tittles to "take place" or "happen?" How can Fowler's translation of "realized" be supported by the sense of "take place?" The Matthew 1:22 "evidence" is simply not relevant or helpful to Fowler's contentions.
Note should also be made of the fact that, even on Fowler's understanding that Jesus is speaking of the realization of all the jots and tittles of the law in Matthew 5:18, he still must read into that "realization" the thought of one single individual (namely, Jesus) accomplishing that task. Granting the tendentious translation of genatai for a moment, why would it not be appropriate for us to see "all" the details of the law "realized" when nobody is violating them any longer? In that case, even on Fowler's interpretation of genatai, the realization of all things as mentioned in Matthew 5:18 would not take place until the coming of the new heavens and earth wherein righteousness dwells (cf. 2 Peter 3:10-13) - which coincides with the passing away of the old heaven and earth, also mentioned in Matthew 5:18. (Note: one might compare Stott's treatment of this verse, for he also takes genatai in the sense of fulfillment; however, he says that this does not take place until the end of the world!, p. 73). Not only is Fowler's treatment of genatai theologically unacceptable and exegetically unsupported, it still need not rid the verse of functional equivalence between the heos clauses (unless something extraneous is read into one of them).
To this point we have found numerous reasons to reject Dr. Fowler's treatment of the panta genatai clause in Matthew 5:18. He had no legitimate ground to reject its functional equivalence with "until heaven and earth pass way." He mistakenly tried to make "one jot or one tittle" the antecedent for panta, and his handling of genatai not only lacked defense, it did not eliminate functional equivalence anyway. Thus Fowler's discussion has been found wanting on grammatical, logical, theological and other argumentative grounds. Yet the most obvious difficulty with his interpretation has still not been mentioned. According to him, in Matthew 5:18 Jesus teaches that the details of the law will not pass away until they have been realized or fulfilled perfectly (by the individual Messiah); accordingly, the law's details have become invalidated prior to the passing away of the heaven and the earth (cf. p. 78). However, Fowler has recognized as clearly as anybody else that the clause "until heaven and earth pass away" is a proverbial way for Christ to say that the law will be valid forever (p. 77). The resultant difficulty in Fowler's view is now apparent. As I pointed out in Theonomy (p. 79), any interpretation of heos an panta genatai which renders the law invalid prior to "heaven and earth passing away" makes the verse self-contradictory, for one thing that is quite clear from Jesus' saying is that "it is asserted with an emphasis which could not be made stronger that the law in its smallest details remains in undiminished authority so long as the world lasts" (Warfield, "Jesus' Mission According to His Own Testimony," p. 558). On Fowler's interpretation we find Jesus stating that not one jot or one tittle shall by any means pass away from the law until heaven and earth pass away, but that they shall pass away when all are observed by Christ - which is hardly consistent. Thus Fowler has no choice but to alter the exegesis of this verse so as to minimize this self-contradictory effect. In doing so he only renders his case all the more unacceptable.
Because his interpretation would seem to create a self-contradiction in Jesus' saying, everything rests on the validity of Fowler's making the second heos clause a specifying of the broader, temporal thrust of the first one. According to him, the first clause ("until heaven and earth pass away") provides merely the temporal framework within which the second temporal clause functions (pp. 77, 78). No explanation is given for why Jesus would wish to make such an emphatic point about the passing away of heaven and earth (in agreement, remember, with Old Testament theology and with Jewish writings about the law's permanence), only then to narrow down His intention about the terminus of the law's validity to a point only three years ahead! (This would be akin to a mortgage company writing to tell you that, within the framework of the next century, your house payment is due on the first of the next month.) Why would any "framework" be mentioned at all for His allegedly particular point? This odd construction of Jesus' meaning calls for some explanation.
Secondly, Matthew 5:18 is, as far as I know, the only place in the New Testament where parallelism between two heos an clauses is found. Accordingly, Fowler cannot demonstrate that his interpretation of the relationship between the two clauses - as unusual as it is and contrary to the prima facie effect of the parallelism - is supported by literary style elsewhere. It is his own idea, imposed on the text without a lead from common practice.
Thirdly, Fowler claims that the second heos an clause is "more exact" than the first, but nothing could be more contrary to the facts of this case. The second clause uses, as noted above, a completely general substantive (panta) and an extremely colorless Greek verb (genatai) - in contrast to the very definite substantive of the first clause ("heaven and earth") and its quite precise verb ("pass away"). We have absolutely no reason to see the second heos an clause as a specifying of the first. It is rather a general reiteration of the thought of the first clause, added for the sake of emphasis.
Fourthly, for Fowler's interpretation to be true to the wording and syntax of the verse as we find it, some kind of conjunction would be required between the two clauses - which we do not find at all. If the second statement of a condition for an event to take place is meant to specify or qualify the first condition, then a logical connective between the two conditions would be expected. When that connective is not found, the sentence containing the two (allegedly different) conditions becomes nonsensical and contradictory. Consider these three examples which are parallel in form to Matthew 5:18 and which contain different conditions (one broad, the other specific). They are thus akin to what Fowler makes of the verse, and yet they do not make sense (unless one supplies a logical connective in his own thought). One example: "Until the end of the game the All-American quarterback will not be taken out, until he injures himself." That is as self-contradictory as this example: "Until the end of Winter the roses will not bud, until they are transferred to the greenhouse." A third example: "Until the end of the world ozone will remain in the atmosphere, until fluorocarbons are used indiscriminately." In all of these cases the two conditional clauses need to be brought syntactically together and connected with a logical particle that explains their relationship to each other. The quarterback will stay in the game until the end or until he is injured. The roses will not bud until Winter ends or until they are placed in a greenhouse. Ozone will remain until the end of the world or until fluorocarbons destroy it. Likewise, if Matthew 5:18 were intending to state two different conditions for the cessation of the law's authority (as Fowler contends), then it would be expected to relate the two conditions to each other by a logical connective: i.e., "For truly I say to you, one jot or one tittle by no means will pass away from the law until heaven and earth pass away or all (such details) are realized (by Me)." The absence of any such connective in the actual text renders Fowler's interpretation, even forgetting previous faults, completely unacceptable. In this verse there simply is no hint of a temporal qualification on the law's validity; the two conditional clauses do not indicate different things but are actually parallel to each other for the sake of emphasis. Otherwise a self-contradiction has been created out of an otherwise innocent and intelligible saying of Christ.
Finally, we are given abundant reason to dispute Fowler's interpretation of this verse when we compare it to Luke's version in Luke 16:17. In that place the invalidation of the "tittle" of the law is made dependent simply on the passing away of heaven and earth - with no mention of a qualification (such as the panta genatai clause is according Fowler's view). Luke says that it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for a tittle of the law to become invalid; that is, such invalidation will not take place at least until the end of the world. Now, if Matthew claims that such invalidation will indeed take place prior to the passing away of heaven and earth, then the two gospel writers have been made to contradict each other. It is unfair to make them do so when there is a perfectly legitimate, semantically and syntactically sound, way to understand Matthew's statement so that such a contradiction is not created.
Therefore, for all of these reasons, Fowler's interpretation of the clause, heos an panta gentatai, in Matthew 5:18 cannot be accepted by us. What Jesus actually communicates to us is that the law has "a basis firmer than the stability of the space-time universe" (Carl Henry, Christian Personal Ethics, p. 329). As long as we live in that universe we can be sure that God's law is a valid moral standard to which we are bound (cf. Isa. 40:8; 1 Peter 1:22-2:3; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).
It turns out, then, that contrary to Dr. Fowler's strong accusation against Theonomy, it is actually his view of Matthew 5:18 that is "fraught with problems" of an insurmountable character. It simply cannot be sustained upon cross-examination. When Fowler comes to Matthew 5:19-20, he is all the more up against opposition from the words of Christ. No matter how one interprets the word plarosai in v. 17, and no matter how one interprets the clause heos an panta genatai in v. 18, we find Christ's own application of His sayings to the practical life of His followers in v. 19. In that verse we find a strongly worded warning and prohibition against anyone teaching or behaving as though even the least commandment of the Old Testament is invalid. On the basis of vv. 17-18, Jesus says "therefore" we must not treat any detail of God's revealed will in the Old Testament as though it could be violated with impunity. What could be clearer? The entire law of God is in fact valid today according to the authoritative pronouncement and warning of the Lord. At this point all the grammatical and logical arguments about previous elements of His sayings shade into the background, being overwhelmed by Christ's direct and forceful application. We dare not contradict Him, lest we be demoted in His kingdom. Matthew 5:19 is the ultimate disproof of Fowler's previous exegesis. Jesus does not allow us even to teach contrary to the full validity of God's law.
Fowler's Original Treatment of Matthew 5:19
It strikes me as significant, therefore, that in his first paper ("Critique of Theonomy," pp. 25-27), it was just when Dr. Fowler came to Matthew 5:19 that he decided to depart from an exegetical and technical exposition of the passage (similar to his previous efforts with vv. 17 and 18) in favor of a general theological discussion of what others have said about the Mosaic law's validity today or a survey of what we find elsewhere in Scripture. I may not have agreed with the exegesis he offered for vv. 17 and 18 of Matthew 5, but I at least respected his effort to pay attention to the text and let it speak. He then felt the need to leave off textual exegesis of the relevant passage and depend on other kinds of considerations. This was not an inductive or very convincing way to handle the specific text before us, which reads so contrary to Fowler's viewpoint. The very fact that he changed the mode and scope of his discussion was a telling indication of how clearly he recognized the problem he was up against. It has been said that Matthew 5:19 teaches the need for "meticulous observance by Kingdom citizens of the least details of the Old Testament law." Fowler confessed, "At first glance, it might appear that this is exactly what verses 19 and 20 teach" ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 25). Consequently his plan was to look elsewhere to find encouragement for his preconceptions in some non-exegetical fashion, only then to return and read them back into the troublesome verse. His treatment of Matthew 5:19-20 was noticeably weak.
Dr. Fowler stated ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 25), that in Matthew 5:19 "the content of the term 'least' is the issue in question." Instead of answering that question himself, he spent the next three pages asking further (or counter?) questions in return. His reader was not told anything (except perhaps rhetorically). Yet the question of the content of "the least commandment" was not nearly so obscure or strained as Fowler indicated by his failure to answer it forthrightly.
The term "least" is obviously a relative term. What is least in one context may be greatest in another (e.g., the least able basketball player on a pro team is still the greatest player among high school candidates). Thus we must ask what the scope of Jesus' remark is when He refers to "the least" of the commandments. Is He speaking of the decalogue, the personal requirements of the Mosaic law, the social requirements of that law, the Mosaic law as a whole, the Pentateuch, the Poets, the Prophets, or just what? It happens that the context of His statement leaves us no doubt as to how to answer this question. To use Fowler's own words, "Jesus is referring to the entire Old Testament scriptures" when He speaks of the Law or the Prophets in Matthew 5:17, and the term "law" in 5:18 "most likely refers as well to the entire Old Testament as a declaration of the will of God" ("Critique of Theonomy," pp. 6, 19). So then, Fowler quite clearly knew what the content of "the least commandment" is in 5:19, given the context in which this expression is found and the scope of Christ's interest here.
Jesus warns us against deeming the very least significant commandment anywhere at all in the Old Testament as annulled. The thrust of His teaching is very much like an a fortiori consideration in an argument. If something is true in the lesser case, how much more is it applicable in the greater case! If Jesus will not permit us to deem the least Old Testament commandment as invalid, how much more are we bound to recognize all the rest of them (the ones greater than the least) as authoritative today. You see, since He does not abrogate the Law or Prophets, He expects them to be fully obeyed. Since not the slightest stroke of the Law will cease being binding until the end of the world, even the least command is our moral obligation. There is really nothing confusing, esoteric, or obscure about "the content" of "the least commandment" in the statement of Jesus. Fowler was raising the dust where the air is quite clear. It is beyond doubt that Jesus recognized that some Old Testament commandments were "weightier" than others; these were stipulations, for instance, dealing with justice, mercy, love and faith (Matt. 23:23; Luke 11:42). Nevertheless, as minor a matter (relatively speaking) as tithing your garden vegetables may be, the Lord firmly insisted on such a requirement as this as well. Indicting the Pharisees for straining at gnats and swallowing camels, Christ said of the weightier matters of the law: "these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone" (Matt. 23:23). He did not pit the greater commandments against the lesser ones, but insisted that they all were to be obeyed! As He rather straightforwardly says in Matthew 5:19, "therefore, whoever breaks one of these least commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven."
Dr. Fowler originally suggested ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 25), that since Christ finds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees inadequate (Matt. 5:20), and since these people kept some of the least important commandments of the Old Testament, therefore those minor details are not intended by the expression "these least commandments" in Matthew 5:19. But there was a serious error in such thinking. In the first place, it is logically fallacious - a form of hasty generalization (i.e., what is true of some aspects must be true of all aspects of the Pharisees' behavior). Fowler could just as well argue that, since the Housing Authority condemned the houses on Elm Street and those houses were built with foundations, therefore the Housing Authority does not believe that houses should have foundations - when the presence of foundations did not occasion the condemnation at all, but rather the threatened danger from fire and rats.
In the second place, Fowler's reasoning proceeded on a false assumption - one that in fact conflicts with the very point Jesus is trying to make against the scribes and Pharisees. Fowler reasoned that some of the least commandments "were kept by the scribes and Pharisees." Now that is what the general public in that day believed, and it is surely what the scribes and Pharisees believed (Luke 18:9-14); however, Jesus did not believe it for a minute. Although the minor things which the Pharisees bid people to do are to be observed, to the extent that they sit on Moses' seat (Matt. 23:2), Jesus did not believe that the Pharisees did such things themselves: "they say, and do not" (23:3). Further, they regularly distorted what Moses required (which is the point of the illustrations in Matt. 5:21-48). Furthermore, the Pharisees did their works for the wrong reason - motivated to be praised of men (Matt. 23:5). They appeared outwardly righteous but in fact were inwardly so polluted with lawless sinning (Matt. 23:25-28) that they were blind guides (23:16ff.) who make their followers twofold children of hell (23:15). Being full of hypocrisy and "lawlessness" (23:28), they could not enter God's kingdom (23:13). This was Jesus' attitude. This is why He said that our righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees if we were to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20). The whole point is that the Pharisees do not keep the law - either as they say to, or as the Old Testament genuinely required. Fowler's reasoning, then, used a significantly false premise.
Also in this vein, in this paragraph Fowler begins to talk of "something deeper and more profound" than some Mosaic laws ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 26); he said that Jesus has something "deeper" in mind at Matthew 5:19 ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 27 top). Jesus would interpret God's demands "in a higher key" ("Critique of Theonomy," p. 27 @1). Now apart from the confusion created by mixing metaphors of depth and height, what could Fowler have meant by such figures of speech? How is something "deeper" (or "higher") than one of God's commandments? Did Fowler mean that some of God's revealed will for our behavior is more important or weightier than other injunctions? If so, then we would answer him that in Matthew 5:19 Jesus is not speaking of such weightier matters of the law when He uses the expression "these least commandments." That is obvious. But if Fowler's metaphor of "deeper" things did not pertain to the weightier matters of the law, then I could not comprehend what he was trying to say. Why was he so vague and unclear here? There is no way to evaluate his opinion. However, whatever his point would be (if expressed unambiguously), I doubt that it could undo the obvious endorsement Jesus gives to the authority of every Old Testament commandment in Matthew 5:19. Apart from deeper and higher requirements, Jesus was also explicitly concerned for the "least" requirement as well. (It should be added, I think, that Fowler's original suggestion that God's concern for mother birds, human safety, and proportionate retribution is somehow shallow or unprofound ("Critique of Theonomy," pp. 26, 27 top), was less than acceptable or appropriate as an attitude toward the righteous standards and wisdom of the Lord).
On page 26 of "Critique of Theonomy" Fowler made the claim that Jesus modified some of the Old Testament commandments. Such a claim has been shown repeatedly to be in error by expositors of Matthew 5:21-48. An entire chapter is devoted to this subject in Theonomy (chap. 3: "Pharisaism Reproved"), and further convenient reading can be pursued in the works by Murray, Stonehouse, or Congdon that are cited earlier in this paper. The fact is that Christ challenged not the law of God, but the law of God as rendered and interpreted in what was "said by the elders" (as the introduction to each antithesis in Matt. 5:21-48 says). Christ modified the unrighteous treatment of the law at the hands of the Jewish interpreters, not the righteous law of His Father. Thus as it stands, chapter 3 in my book was a sufficient reply to Fowler's claim that Jesus modified the commandments of the Old Testament. Fowler offered no rebuttal of it.
Before going on, a further comment should be made about the discussion of Matthew 5:19-20 found in Fowler's original paper. Not only was Fowler's treatment marred by the problems rehearsed above, it could be faulted for its implications. According to Fowler, three things could be found in this passage (and following verses of the pericope): (1) the Pharisees kept the Old Testament requirements of God, (2) Jesus modified those Old Testament requirements, and (3) Jesus condemned the Pharisees for an inadequate righteousness that would have to be exceeded - matching up to His own intensified interpretation of the law. One does not have to be an exegete or a theologian to see on the very surface of this viewpoint a terrible injustice toward the Pharisees on the part of Christ. As unwitting as it is, to be sure, Fowler's remarks amount to an indictment of our Lord for condemning the Pharisees ex post facto - according to a standard which He only then introduced, a standard which modified the previous requirements that they diligently kept. That would be quite unfair, as anybody can see. It would be like a father telling his son to pick up his room and then punishing the boy because he did not clean the entire house as well. If Jesus really modified the previous standards of God, and if the Pharisees really had kept them (or at least the ones that Fowler thought Jesus modified), then the excoriation of the Pharisees was unjust in the extreme. The truth is that these suppositions were both inaccurate and were corrected on the theonomic approach.
Fowler's Revised Treatment of Matthew 5:19
Because of the very thorny difficulties attending Dr. Fowler's earlier attempt to deal with Matthew 5:19, and because his original approach could not easily surmount the apparent opposition offered by that verse to his view of the law, it is not surprising that the revised critique of my book chose to take a different tack regarding Matthew 5:19 (see "God's Law Free From Legalism," pp. 83-93). As discussed above, now Dr. Fowler is not so concerned to dispute the interpretation of that verse offered in Theonomy in Christian Ethics. Indeed, now he strongly affirms opinions which he previously denied: for instance, that the referent of "these least commandments" is the minutiae of the Old Testament commandments, and that in verses 20-48 Jesus is repudiating the Rabbinic interpretation of the law in His day (rather than modifying the law itself). In the second paper Dr. Fowler is now prepared to acknowledge that Matthew 5:17-19 calls (in some fashion) for a meticulous concern for the details of the Old Testament law (p. 89), rather than battling that interpretive claim. He even says that he agrees with me that attention to minutiae should not be distasteful or deemed legalistic (p. 84) - an attitude quite the opposite of that published in his earlier paper! Why has Fowler dropped his defensive stance and changed his approach to Matthew 5:19 (and apparently the implications of vv. 17-18)?
The answer to the preceding question seems to be that Dr. Fowler has chosen a new and different way of disagreeing with the theonomic conclusion that the civil matters of the Old Testament law ought to be deemed binding today. Rather than contending that there is inadequate exegetical support found in Matthew 5:17-19 for the claim that Scripture presumes the continuing validity of every Old Testament commandment, Dr. Fowler now wants to argue theologically that this presumption (exegetically supportable, to be sure) is qualified when it comes to distinctively civil matters of the Old Testament law. In "God's Law Free From Legalism" he changes his mind as to what the really basic issue is in the theonomic argument regarding Matthew 5:17-19. Now the issue is not the content of the "least commandments" mentioned in the verse, but rather the question of whether the all encompassing declarations of this passage are meant to be qualified or limited in any way (p. 84). Thus his new tack will be to argue that the civil portions of the Old Testament law which he does not believe are binding today are not covered by Matthew 5:17-19 when the passage has been qualified or limited by other considerations.
Having posed the question of whether Matthew 5:17-19 can be qualified as to its broad declarations, Dr. Fowler attempts first to portray me as denying that it can be (pp. 84-85). He quotes Theonomy as stating: "there is absolutely nothing which could be supposed to invalidate the law (not even the Messianic advent)" (p. 73). But this is strained misinterpretation. In context, the words quoted from my book are making the relative point that Jesus' words are broader and more absolute than Rabbinic parallels. Moreover, these words do not deny that qualifications can be made; they deny that anybody can approach the law with the supposition that it would be abrogated. Without a direct word from the Lawgiver, nothing (not even the Messiah's coming) can be assumed to invalidate the Old Testament law. Dr. Fowler really does not have any difficulty discerning that this is my meaning, for he goes on immediately to observe that I accept the idea that the verses, Matthew 5:17-19, can indeed be qualified by other Biblical teaching. His attempt to make this now appear contradictory to the quoted statement is only being obtuse - a critical maneuver as futile as is his assertion, based merely on arbitrarily stipulated meanings, that only if plarosai is translated "fulfill" (rather than "confirm") can we be released from observing the sacrificial rituals of the Old Testament law (p. 86).
Minor fallacies aside, Dr. Fowler's main line of thought in dealing now with Matthew 5:19 and the application of verses 17-18 is the acceptability of holding that Jesus' unreserved statements here can be qualified in our understanding of them. This he supports by quoting other New Testament teachers (Ridderbos, Wenham), reminding us of the hermeneutical principle of the analogy of faith, and illustrating the need to qualify broad statements of Scripture elsewhere (pp. 87, 88). No comment needs to be made in response, for these matters are not controversial; at least they are not in dispute between Fowler and theonomists. Unquestionably Scripture (as a whole) interprets Scripture (at particular passages), and qualifications - which are exegetically founded - can be brought to bear on the broad declarations of Matthew 5:17-19.
What reason, however, does Dr. Fowler have for thinking that the statements of Matthew 5:17-19 cannot be applied to civil matters in the Old Testament law? As much as I search his words, I can find only the hint of two possible reasons. First, he reasons that if particulars of the ceremonial law were altered by the coming of Christ, why would not "the same alteration be true with regard to the particulars of the judicial law of Israel?" (p. 89). This, of course, does not accomplish anything, for the rhetorical question has an obvious answer. What applies to one category of Old Testament laws does not automatically apply to another category of such laws just because they are in different categories! The judicial laws of Israel did not have the same shadow character of the ceremonial laws, and they did not function to restore sinful men to spiritual favor with God as did the ceremonial laws. The fact, therefore, that the Messiah foreshadowed by the ceremonial laws has come and accomplished the full salvation of sinners is quite pertinent to the question of continuing the observation of the ceremonial laws, but it has no bearing as such on the different category of judicial laws. Moreover, the reason we alter our outward performance of the ceremonial laws is that the New Testament explicitly guides us in doing so, teaching that the ceremonial practices have been put out of gear by the work of Christ. No similar and explicit New Testament teaching has been cited by Fowler for the deeming of Old Testament judicial laws inoperative. Consequently, his attempt to lump together the treatment of ceremonial and judicial laws is without force.
The only other reason offered by Dr. Fowler for thinking that the declarations of Matthew 5:17-19 cannot be applied to the judicial or civil aspects of the Old Testament law is that the Sermon on the Mount is defining the principles of the new form of God's kingdom which Jesus came to establish. This new form of the kingdom does not confirm the theocracy of the Old Testament, with its church-state, but is rather a church-body. So the accent in the Sermon is not on the civil, but on the personal (see pp. 87, 90, 92). This consideration is little more persuasive than the previous one. In the first place, even if the alleged accent of the Sermon was personal rather than civil, that would not by any means demonstrate the inapplicability of Jesus' general declaration about the law's validity (Matthew 5:17-19) to the judicial laws of the Old Testament; it would not show that His statements were qualified in such a way that He actually excluded those civil aspects of the law from His asserted meaning. At best, Fowler's point could only be that Jesus did not go on from His categorical declarations to make pointed application to civil matters - not that He could not or would not have done so. After all, from his general statement that the relationship between a husband and wife is analogous to that of Christ and the church, Paul proceeds to make the application that husbands should love their wives (Ephesians 5:22-33). Does his silence as to further applications - say, that wives should also love their husbands - lead us to conclude that wives, after all, ought not (or need not) love their husbands? Of course not. Similarly, at best, Dr. Fowler's observation that the Sermon on the Mount goes on to personal rather than civil applications is a fallacious argument from silence, when he concludes that the declarations of Matthew 5:17-19 cannot therefore apply to civil matters in the law. Besides, he is simply mistaken to think that matters of civil relevance are not in fact broached in the Sermon (e.g., 5:21, 22, 25, 40). He has yet to show, then, that the statements of Christ made in Matthew 5:17-19 must be restricted in application so as to exclude civil matters of the law.
Dr. Fowler's only remaining consideration by which he hopes to qualify the statements of Jesus in Matthew 5:17-19 is the claim that the new form of the kingdom established by Jesus is a church-body which annuls the theocratic church-state of the Old Testament (along with its laws). This is no longer an exegetical argument centering on Matthew 5:17-19 as such, but is a broad theological proposal which is adequately rebutted elsewhere in this book. In the end, Dr. Fowler has to hope that his general theological conceptions can now shield him from the specific civil applications of the particular declarations of Jesus about the law's continuing validity in meticulous detail today. In that case, his exegetical rebuttal has turned out to be indecisive.
We can add that his claims about the new form of the kingdom as a church are irrelevant to the continuing need for justice in civil relations for all nations today - and the need for that justice to be given divine definition and guidance in Scripture. Moreover, Dr. Fowler is simply mistaken to characterize Old Testament Israel as a church-state; not all citizens were church members. And his use of the word "theocracy" is not only vague and ambiguous; it can have no argumentative weight in itself. The issue is whether Scripture itself abrogates the civil laws of the Old Testament, not whether that conclusion is implicit in some person's chosen use of a theological word or label. Finally, since the requirement of God's law was laid upon all nations during the Old Testament era, even non-"theocratic" nations (or those, on Fowler's imagined scheme, which were not church-states) were obligated to obey its stipulations. Consequently, the establishment of the new church-form of the kingdom of God in the New Testament would not by any means - contrary to Fowler's proposed reasoning - logically imply that the common nations are free from responsibility to obey the civil aspects of God's Old Testament law. Dr. Fowler has simply found no grounds whatsoever for repudiating the theonomic point of view regarding Matthew 5:17-19. His exegetical discussion is crippled and finally de-emphasized, and his broader theological reasoning has shown itself fallacious.
Introduction to Gary Long's Exegetical Critique
Turning now from Dr. Fowler's two efforts at presenting an exegetically-based critique of theonomic ethics as it interprets Matthew 5:17-20, we can consider another paper which embodies the same intent. At the 1980 "Council on Baptist Theology" held in Dallas, Gary D. Long presented a paper entitled "Biblical Law and Ethics: Absolute and Covenantal (An Exegetical and Theological Study of Matthew 5:17-20)." The paper in manuscript form ran 49 pages, containing a thorough study of the mentioned verses in Matthew's gospel - verses which were likewise studied in detail in my book Theonomy in Christian Ethics (chapter 2). At least part of the motivation Rev. Long had for authoring his paper was to counteract and correct what he took to be mistakes in the theonomic approach to the passage. His title purposely parallels the title of chapter 2 in my book. The opening paragraph of his Preface states that the paper "addresses the present controversy among Reformed Paedobaptists due to the rise of the 'Theonomy Movement.'" His Introductory Section plays off of "the Theonomy movement" as a foil (p. 3), he jousts with my book throughout (e.g., p. 21), he explicitly takes up the theonomic position for criticism (e.g., pp. 23, 31, cf. pp. 37-38), and his Conclusion is pointedly written against "Theonomy's interpretation of the locus classicus of the Sermon on the Mount" (p. 43). Both by direct challenges and by alternative interpretation, then, Long's paper constitutes an exegetical critique of theonomic ethics which is worthy of our attention. The aim of this discussion will be to defend the integrity of the theonomic interpretation of Matthew 5:17-20 (to the extent that my interpretation is distinctive from Long's own interpretation) and more generally to defend the theonomic position from Long's criticisms, as well as to rebut the position taken by Rev. Long himself, a position reflecting and endorsing a Baptistic hermeneutic or attitude toward the relation of Old and New Testaments.
Obstacles to Analysis
The task undertaken here is impeded, however, by certain avoidable defects in Long's reasoning and discussion. In the first place, Long's paper does not evidence an accurate understanding of the theonomic approach to ethics, and in some cases it may even betray an unfairness of mind toward the theonomic position. For instance, he asserts that "Bahnsen's exposition of Matthew 5:17 . . . will lead to a Judaizing of the New Covenant" (p. 23). Such rhetorical overkill is unbecoming, a form of fallacious name-calling which (inaccurately) tries to create a guilt by association. It conveniently forgets or overlooks all that I personally have written in opposition to the Judaizers (e.g., chapters 4, 10, and Appendix 1 in Theonomy). Likewise, when Long says that theonomy leads to a "church-state" (p. 23), he is not true to my position (as is evident from one entire chapter from my book, as well as on numerous other pages: see Theonomy, chap. 20 and the index). Elsewhere Long lapses into misrepresentation, telling his hearers that Theonomy's view with respect to the Jewish case law is that "its theocratic Old Covenant form" continues in force with abiding validity (p. 31). Such a portrayal may make it somewhat easier to criticize the theonomic position, but because it is plainly erroneous (see, e.g., Theonomy, pp. 540-541), Long has settled for knocking down a straw-man. These mistakes are more than shortcomings in scholarship; they are reproaches against a Christian brother as well. To say that someone's position is Judaizing is to categorize him as "anathema" (cf. Gal. 1:6-9 and passim). To say he would introduce a church-state is to say he is undiscerning of the meaning of Christ's body (cf. I Cor. 12 and 11:29). To say he insists on the Old Covenant form of the case-laws is to characterize him as dull in comprehending what he reads (cf. I Cor. 9:9-10). These reproaches are unjust and uncharitable.
More specifically, we can see the mistaken character of Long's view of theonomic ethics revealed in his misportrayal of my treatment of Matthew 5:17-20. On page 3 of his paper Long asserts that "In its outworking Theonomy claims that the Sermon on the Mount affirms that all civil 'magistrates, past and present, Jewish and Gentile, are responsible. . . to enforce the law of God'," including its penal sanctions. Long here footnotes page 318 of Theonomy in Christian Ethics. Do I there claim that Matthew 5 teaches this civil obligation? As a matter of fact, no. In fact, it is made clear on that page - right where Long quotes it - that the civil obligation to enforce God's law is a particular application or extension of the more general principle taught in Matthew 5:17-19. The particular conviction about civil rulers, it is explicitly asserted, is founded not on Matthew 5:17-19 but on the Biblical teaching elsewhere about civil magistrates. Contrary to Long's characterization and misquotation, what I said is this:
While the general principle of continuity between the Older and New Testaments is established in Matthew 5:17-19, the particular doctrine of rulership in society as set forth throughout the Bible teaches that all magistrates, past and present, Jewish and Gentile, are responsible. . . to enforce the law of God.
Long's attempt to discredit my treatment as an overstatement - as claiming that something far more specific is taught in the Sermon on the Mount than is evident from a reading of it - must itself be discredited. Misquoting to that effect is especially irresponsible.
Likewise, the persistent charge made by Long that Theonomy is guilty of "abstracted exegesis of Matthew 5:17-20" - an exposition which is "abstracted from later New Covenant revelation" so that Matthew 5:17 is "made absolute" (that is, rendered without qualification), resulting "in placing an Old Covenant 'straight-jacket' upon the New Covenant" - is clever but irresponsible rhetoric (pp. 15, 21, 23). Nothing could be further from the truth. It is true that when the language of Matthew 5:17-19 is taken up for exegesis, Theonomy there bears accurate witness to the unqualified declarations of Christ Himself to the validity of every jot and tittle of the least commandment of the Old Testament. If looking for a moment at the issue of the law's validity without necessary qualifications is bothersome to Long, then I can only testify that his complaint cannot be with Theonomy. Christ was the speaker who strongly declared the law's validity without mentioning qualifications; if anyone, He "absolutized" the commandments and "straight-jacketed" the New Covenant. But to claim that Theonomy understands these declarations of the Lord apart from ("abstracted from") the rest of New Covenant revelation is preposterous. There is no question but that my book acknowledges and even insists upon qualifying the unqualified statement of Christ in Matthew 5:17-19, as already indicated in chapter 1 above. Theonomy countenanced changes made in the Old Covenant law, exceptions to its general continuity with the New Covenant. Theonomy recognized the progress of revelation, the changes allowed by redemptive history, the advances over the Old Covenant. It stated that some laws were laid aside and that the New Testament must interpret the Old Testament law for Christians today. Just re-read what the book itself said about the ceremonial law, typological laws, positive law and matters of administration, or regulations pertaining to the land of Palestine. Long is simply misleading his readers when he alleges that Theonomy advances an abstracted understanding of Matthew 5:17-19. He is making a false charge, one which might ease his burden of persuading others that theonomists are wrong about Matthew 5:17-19, but at the cost of increasing the burden of irresponsible argumentation and mistaken scholarship. Theonomy's qualifications on the endorsement of every Old Testament commandment's validity in Matthew 5:17-19 - qualifications grounded in other New Testament teaching - are simply too conspicuous to leave any justification for Long's characterization of my treatment as abstracted, absolutized, and straight-jacketed. We may not agree on all of the purported qualifications which are to be made, but that is a far cry from warranting the sweeping charge that theonomists make absolutely no qualifications. Long is using a meat cleaver where a scalpel is required.
The first impediment to interacting with Long's exegetical critique, then, is the inaccuracy of his portrayal of the theonomic position. A second impediment is ambiguity and equivocation which beset the statement of his own position, making it extremely difficult for a reader to understand precisely what Long is contending. For instance, he uses the word 'realization' (or 'bring to full realization') in so many different settings, with so many different objects, in so many different constructions, and with so many different entailments or results, that the careful reader must wonder if this word has not become elastic enough to accommodate just about any theological perspective the author wishes to read into it. According to ordinary English usage, realization involves some change, so that what previously existed only in plan, ideal, desire, dream, hope, etc. is actualized or made real. Long speaks of a large variety of things being "realized" from the Old Testament: its message, the law and the prophets, the canon, its teaching, Jewish history, God's revealed will, His commandments, the prophetic ideal, the promises, the developing truth, aspirations and hopes, the one unchanging standard of righteousness, etc. (e.g., pp. 7, 8, 10, 14, 21, 25, 26, 42). We readily understand how typology is realized, but how is past history actualized? How can it be thought that the canon existed previously as ideal, aspiration, or anticipation? What are we to make of the message (say, of creation, or of God's providence, etc.) becoming real? Long seems to have assimilated all Old Testament revelation to one aspect of the whole: prophetic-typological anticipation. Such reductionism is complicated for the reader by the vast array of ways in which "realization" is said to take place: by actualizing God's will, by accomplishing a prediction, by culminating a development, by doing a task, by satisfying a hope, etc. (e.g., pp. 25-26 alone). The suggestion of equivocation is reinforced when we observe that the single concept of "realization" has the plural and conflicting, resultant effects of developing some things, conserving other things, and abrogating yet other things, according to Long's discussion (e.g., pp. 25-28).
The combined problems of reductionism and equivocation appear to be incorporated in an expression such as "bring God's one unchanging standard of righteousness. . . to their [sic] full New Covenant realization" (pp. 7, 10). Realization involves change (if nothing else, change from ideal conception to actuality, but often enough a change in outward character, as with acorns developing into trees or animal sacrifices typifying a human crucifixion, etc.). But here Long speaks of something unchanging undergoing change ("realization"). If God's demand that we not steal has been altered, then it is not "unchanging"; yet if it continues as the same requirement today, then it makes little sense to say it is "realized" - unless the thought has now shifted completely for Long to that of supplementing the command or conforming to a law-code's overall ideal. The author may be able to regiment his thought and clarify his intent in each instance where he speaks of "realization," but the reader can hardly anticipate the precise way in which he would do so. As it stands, Long's use of the word makes it mean just about anything.
Vagueness and ambiguity interfere with understanding Long's words elsewhere as well. For instance, what does it mean to "accomplish" something's "true meaning" (pp. 8, 29)? A task or goal might be accomplished, but how is meaning accomplished? Again, is Long speaking of different aspects of something, or is he using interchangeable expressions when he insists on recognizing "the New Testament spirit of the ten commandments," "a distinctive New Covenant emphasis concerning biblical law," and "the New Covenant significance of biblical law" (pp. 2, 4)? Does a new spirit, emphasis, or significance for an ethical system amount to additions to the system, changes within the system, change of the system, or just what? If so, in what sense can it be considered the same system of law instead of a different one? We might not ordinarily stop to ask an author to make his meaning coherent and clear in cases like those above, but for Long his argumentation often turns critically on such expressions as "realization," "accomplish meaning," "New Covenant significance of the law," etc. The reader is left with the impression that the force of his argument (or lack thereof) has been obscured behind important-sounding, but unexplicated, theological locutions.
Equivocation hinders a proper grasp of Long's perspective at a foundational level. Given the context within which he wrote and presented his paper, we naturally expect him to address the question of whether and to what extent the Old Testament commandments have been annulled by Christ. Having read his paper, however, one may still not know how best to represent Long's answer. On page 10 Long states: "Jesus declares that His Messianic mission in no way disannuls the will of God taught in the Old Testament canon" (emphasis added). Yet on the very next page Long says that Christ was "disannulling the Old Covenant by fulfilling it" (p. 11, emphasis added; cf. pp. 17, 19, 24). We are told that the Old Covenant stipulations are annulled, even though in no way was there an annulling of the Old Covenant declaration of God's will. The ways of relieving this apparent contradiction all seem equally troublesome. Can the Old Covenant retain its character and integrity apart from its defining stipulations? Was the Old Covenant something other than the will of God taught in the Old Testament? How, then, can annulment be predicated of the Old Covenant (with its stipulations) and yet denied regarding the Old Testament will of God (involving, as it must, those stipulations)?
This contradiction is explicitly broached by Long on page 29: Jesus wanted "to prevent the disciples and hearers present from wrongly supposing that He had come to disannul the law and the prophets by setting them aside. Although there was a sense in which He had come to disannul, yet it was not in the sense of violating them." Jesus did not want to annul, but He did want to annul, the law and the prophets? Here at least Long indicates that he intends to distinguish different senses for annulment in the affirmative and negative statements made by him. So then, the impression of equivocation (one word used different ways) in Long's use of 'disannul' is not relieved for the reader after all. We know what Long wishes to affirm regarding annulment: namely, that "the Old Covenant was disannulled or abrogated in the New" (p. 27). But what does he wish to deny regarding annulment? That it was not by the means of "destruction" (p. 27), or not in "the spirit of a destroyer" (p. 27), or "not in the sense of violating" the Old Testament (p. 29), or not in the sense of coming "to contradict the Old Testament Scripture" (p. 30), or all of these?
Understanding Long's position is made even more difficult when we remember that Christ, in the verse under discussion (Matthew 5:17), emphatically and twice denies that He came in order to disannul the law or the prophets. For Long, Christ allegedly meant that He did not and yet He did come to disannul! The tension created here (if not downright contradiction to Christ's own words) is mitigated, thinks Long, by later saying "His primary purpose in coming. . . /was/ not to disannul the Old Testament canon" (p. 17, emphasis added). Forgetting for the moment the impression of weaseling here, my point is simply to ask after Long's meaning. In some places he asserts that Christ's denial of annulment indicates that Christ did not come to "destroy-violate-contradict" (or all three) the Old Testament, but rather to annul it in the sense of abrogating it. Yet elsewhere he states that Christ's denial of annulment indicates that Christ did not come "primarily" to annul, even though He did annul the Old Covenant in effect. If we combine these two different strands in Long's discussion, we would end up with this unacceptable hypothesis: Christ did not come primarily to destroy-violate-contradict the Old Testament, even though He did come to abrogate it! Obviously, before a reader can be expected to understand Long's position, the author will need to decide which of his interpretations of the annulment-denial he will stand by. He cannot credibly retain them both.
It must be stressed that I am not here saying that Long's position is wrong. I am saying that we cannot even begin to decide whether it is right or wrong because it is not clear just what his position actually is. He utilizes a large variety of senses for "bring to full realization," with contradictory entailments for them. Key phrases like "accomplish meaning" or "the New Covenant spirit, emphasis, and significance concerning the law" are unexplicated. He says that Christ annulled the Old Testament even though Christ Himself denied it. He gives annulment a confusing variety of different senses (some of which do not seem antithetical to an affirmation of abrogation), and finally he sets forth differing (and conflicting) senses for what Christ meant in His annulment-denial. A careful reader will find it burdensome to rectify these ambiguities and equivocations, and he will not be assured after doing so that he has been true to Long's intended position. It may be that Long unwittingly has a multitude of differing positions coming to expression under the guise of one point of view, thus creating the confusion for his readers.
Reasoning Fallacies
We cannot overlook the fact, then, that some large obstacles stand in the way of interacting with Long's exegetical critique of the theonomic position at Matthew 5:17-19. He is, first, unfair to the theonomic outlook, and second, unclear as to his own. In the third place, some notable fallacies of thought interfere with his making a cogent case. For instance, in setting forth the theonomic position and criticizing it, Long admittedly rests heavily upon the article which Meredith Kline published against the position (see, for instance, pp. 3, 12, 44). Not only is it fallacious to suppose that your own position is supported simply by calling upon the name of someone else whose opinion agrees with yours, but it is especially dangerous to do so at just the point where you seem to turn directly to a rebuttal of an opponent's perspective. Appealing to Kline is a key prop in Long's criticism of the theonomic position - a fallacy whose self-destructive character is but intensified when one realizes how terribly mistaken and how readily refuted Kline's article was. Long is leaning on a broken reed.
Conspicuous question-begging in Long's paper is another example of fallacious thinking or argumentation. Covenant theologians see an essential unity and continuity in all of God's (post-fall) convenantal transactions, so that the proto-evangelium with Adam progressively develops through the various Old Testament covenants (e.g., with Abraham, with Moses, with David) until the promise is fulfilled in Christ and the New Covenant; the New is the fruition or development of the Old Covenant. All believers, whether in the Old or New Testaments, are under the one covenant of grace. Baptistic theologians (or better, non-covenantal baptists) as we all know, usually disagree with this model (explaining in some measure why the one group does, and the other does not, baptize infants today). While covenant theologians hold that we are under the stipulations or principles of previous covenants unless the Lord revokes their provisions, baptistic theologians usually take the opposite approach, holding that the provisions of previous covenants are revoked unless repeated again for the current, New Covenant. Consequently, a question which separates a Calvinistic baptist on the one hand (like Long) and covenantal theonomists (like myself) is whether and to what extent believers today are legally under the Old Covenant - whether and to what extent its laws are established with abiding validity. I am convicted that believers are indeed bound to the laws of the Old Covenant unless altered by the New Testament; Long is convicted otherwise.
Now then, one of the ways in which I have tried to demonstrate to people like Long that the convenantal-theonomic approach is the Biblical position is by expositing Matthew 5:17-19. This has occasioned something of a reply and critique from Long in defense of his own outlook. The fallacy which afflicts his treatment, however, is that in dealing with an exegetical attempt to decide the question which separates us, Long at points simply assumes his answer to that question. He assumes what he should be proving. For instance, on page 17, he "argues" that his understanding of "disannul" in Matthew 5:17 must be correct, for otherwise we are driven to the (assumed unacceptable) conclusion that "in some legal sense, the New Covenant believer [is] still under the Old Covenant." Why should we not be taken to that conclusion, which the theonomic interpretation of Matthew 5:17-19 supports? Long's blunt answer is: "But such a position is utterly contrary to the New Covenant Scriptures." But that is precisely what is at stake in the exegetical debate between us! Long has simply begged the question from a baptistic starting point. He does the same thing on page 21, "arguing" that it "says too much" to equate 'fulfill' (Matthew 5:17) with 'establish', for that would affirm "that the abiding validity of the Mosaic covenant without its ceremonial dress is permanently established. . . including a divine mandate today for civil governments to enforce the penal sanctions of Old Covenant case law" (pp. 21-22). To assert that a proposal is mistaken because it leads to that implication is to take it for granted that the implicated point of view is wrong. But Long cannot take it for granted that the theonomic position is wrong - such is what he is supposed to be demonstrating! His procedure, then, is fallacious question-begging and cannot be accepted as legitimate or cogent reasoning.
Another instance of fallacious reasoning, one which again strikes at the very heart of Long's attempt to escape theonomic conclusions, is his qualification of his position to the point of tautology (thereby reducing to an assertion of nothing significant). This can be seen most evidently in his treatment of Matthew 5:19, a verse which certainly seems on a first reading to militate against Long's perspective. Long and I both wish to answer the question of the extent of the Old Testament law's validity in the lives of Christians, and we both pay attention to Matthew 5:19 for that reason. Jesus there said, "whoever shall break one of the least of these commandments and shall teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven." Presumably, then, Jesus' answer to the question of how extensive is the Old Testament law's validity was that all those laws are obligatory (apart from specific alterations taught elsewhere by Christ or the apostles). Long appears to recognize this, for he states the meaning of this verse on page 36 of his paper in a way which no theonomist could improve upon: "since the Old Testament never loses its authority as the revealed will of God, not one of the least of its commandments can be violated without suffering loss of position in the kingdom of heaven." How can Long, having admitted this, now escape the theonomic position against which he is writing? Well, as we would expect - and as is quite legitimate as a project to be accomplished from his point of view - Long wishes to posit some modification to his statement of the verse's teaching. In another context I might want to dispute the truth of particular modifications which Long would attempt to read out of the verse, but here I simply want to observe the nature of the modification which he here proposes and its resultant effect. It will appear that Long escapes the evident theonomic thrust of Matthew 5:19 only by legerdemain.
Earlier on page 36 he had, in discussing Matthew 5:19, referred to "each and every one of its commandments as brought to full realization in the . . . Word of God incarnate" (emphasis added). The meaning of this elaboration becomes clearer two pages later when Long says that what Matthew 5:19 requires us to keep is "every commandment of that which is truly moral law" (p. 38). According to theonomic ethics Jesus seems to have taught that we must presume (apart from qualification elsewhere) that every commandment of the Old Testament is to be kept, but Long's interpretation is that Jesus asserted the validity only of the moral law. Long elsewhere explains that Matthew 5:19 says "the commandments in [the Mosaic Covenant] that express God's absolute law - God's moral law --. . . are all eternally applicable and morally binding upon mankind in all ages" (p. 38, emphasis added). We need to step back and see what has taken place here. We have gone to Matthew 5:19 to see which of the Old Testament commandments are permanently binding ones ("absolute"), and Long says that they are those expressing absolute law - those which are permanently binding! This is either quite confusing or quite trivial, reducing Jesus' declaration to a tautology on the order of "The blue sky is blue." After many re-readings of Long's paper, it still seems that this tautology is unavoidable. Immediately preceding his Summary, he concludes that the Messiah came to fulfill "every binding commandment" (p. 42, emphasis added). And on page 38 the tautology is plainly expressed: "our Lord is here teaching the absolute inviolability of all applicable commandments" (emphasis added). So then, where theonomic ethics sees Jesus as asserting the presumption that every Old Testament commandment is applicable or binding, Long's defense is to reply that Jesus rather asserted that every binding (or applicable) commandment from the Old Testament was binding (or applicable). If Long's position can be defended only by reducing it to tautology (rendering it true by definition), the defense is more destructive of his position than the original challenge to that position. This move gains protection at the price of saying nothing.
So then, before we undertake a response to Long's exegesis of Matthew 5:17-20 as a critique of theonomic ethics, we need to be cognizant of certain avoidable defects in his discussion - impediments to understanding and reasoning with his point of view. Notably, these impediments are misrepresentation, ambiguity, and fallacious argumentation. The sections of his paper which partake of these difficulties will be of little help to the reader and of no utility in supporting Long's outlook.
Long's Direct Criticisms of Theonomy
In the course of his exegetical paper, Long levels four direct criticisms of the theonomic position in relation to Matthew 5:17-20, as well as offering an indirect rebuttal by means of presenting an alternative interpretation (at points). One of the direct challenges is that Theonomy is guilty of "heterodox lexigraphy [sic]" (p. 43; cf. pp. 21-23), meaning that my lexicon work or my lexicographical reasoning was mistaken regarding the English equivalent meaning of plro in Matthew 5:17. This kind of criticism has been refuted above, along with the salient observation that the English translation of plro is not indispensable to the case for theonomic ethics anyway (see parallel discussions in my response to P. B. Fowler). Long's challenge can be given a specific reply below, when we examine his exegetical treatment of Matthew 5:17. This leaves here three direct criticisms of theonomic ethics from him.
A second criticism of theonomic ethics made by Long is found on pages 43-44, where he argues in dependence upon Kline that Theonomy does not recognize that, because the Old Covenant is different from the New, the civil laws and penalties given to Israel are not binding upon us today. He offers little support for such a contention, beyond appealing to Kline's questionable "canon" argument (viz., the Old Covenant scriptures are not canonical for the New Covenant church, and specifically, canonicity is a matter of community life-norms). Since Kline's distinction here between faith-norms and life-norms (individual and community) is nowhere taught in the Bible and is without theological cogency, Long's use of it is hardly telling. The weakness of his effort at criticizing Theonomy is even more evident, however, from the fact that my book (pp. 576-580) already rebutted this line of argumentation, and Long has not offered any rescuing considerations whatsoever - especially to the observation that the "canon" argument against theonomic civil ethics reasons in a vicious circle, being thereby fallacious. As was said previously, Long is simply leaning on a broken reed. Also on page 44 of his paper Long suggests that the penal sanctions of the Old Testament were part of its typological, weak and beggarly, foreshadows. This opinion is contravened in Theonomy (pp. 449-458), as well as in my various replies to Kline (Theonomy, pp. 580-584). Far from being weak or beggarly they expressed the just recompense of God (Heb. 2:2b)! Thus Long's direct criticisms have reduced to two.
Long's third criticism of theonomic ethics is to the effect that "not all of Moses' commandments to Israel" pertaining to the civil sanction of capital punishment "are applicable to Christians under the New Covenant" (p. 37) - contrary to the distinctive thesis of Theonomy, as Long sees it (cf. pp. 3, 15, 21). Of course, theonomic ethics does recognize that in some cases the Old Testament law stipulated some capital crimes which were unique to Israel (Theonomy, p. 213); yet these are admittedly exceptions to the general rule that most all of the law's penal sanctions are applicable for us today. Long's argument is a fortiori in form, claiming that if not all of the Mosaic penalties "were still applicable to Israel in our Lord's day, it should be obvious that even fewer are applicable to Christians under the New Covenant." Should it be obvious? Perhaps it would be if one was committed in advance to a paradigm of progressive revocation of the revealed law of God - something of the opposite of the model of progressive convenantal development and revelation! Other than that, though, why should the inapplicability of some laws at one time imply logically the inapplicability of further laws later? Long's reasoning here appears purely arbitrary. But forgetting that crucial defect for the moment, what reason does he offer for the premise of his a fortiori argument, namely that not all of Moses' commandments to Israel (pertaining specifically, in the context of the argument, to penal sanctions) were applicable to Israel? Because "in our Lord's day," he says, "there were already Mosaic commandments that had, by virtue of dispensational changes become inapplicable to Old Covenant Jews." Specifically, "Rome not Israel had capital jurisdiction." Is this premise accurate? If it is not, Long's argument has been deprived of any support and force whatsoever; it has no foundation.
The first mistake incorporated in Long's premise is the claim that, because jurisdiction in matters of capital punishment had been pre-empted by Roman domination of Israel, God's stipulations in such matters had become "inapplicable." Strictly speaking, though, God's laws had simply become unenforceable by the Jews themselves; those laws had not become inappropriate, irrelevant, or unauthoritative - they still "applied" to the issues involved. God had not revoked them, and we can be sure that He did not consider pagan, human law authoritative in putting aside His own stipulations (or else the conflict with the Beast in Revelation 13 would be senseless). Long might claim that God's people were unable to carry out the laws (penal sanctions), but he has no ground for claiming that the laws were inapplicable in the sense of annulled. As a matter of historical fact, however, the Jews during Roman domination were not even completely unable to carry out those laws. They simply were forbidden to carry them out on their own, without Roman approval; they could, in principle, convict a criminal before the Sanhedrin and then ask the Roman praefectus to concur with their judgment, and they often could recommend the penalty, with which again he might agree. The unregenerate nature of Roman governors did not preclude the possibility that the Sanhedrin might convince one to enforce the penal sanction(s) of the Mosaic code. Therefore, Long's premise is simply mistaken in claiming that the penal sanctions were "inapplicable." They were morally relevant, remained divinely authoritative, and could (with effort) be practically utilized.
A second mistaken view involved in Long's a fortiori argument is the statement that whatever inapplicability had come to characterize the Mosaic penal sanctions did so "by virtue of dispensational changes." The change of political circumstances brought about by the rise of Rome and its domination over Israel - a political development which took place between the time of Malachi and the birth of Jesus - is not properly a change of theological "dispensation." No revelation from God had changed His relation to His people, the principles or provisions of their relation to Him, or the covenantal administration to which they were bound. Long's reference to Israel's having entered the "times of the Gentiles" is unsupportive of an alleged dispensational change from the standpoint of biblical theology, for the Biblical expression in Luke 21:24 seems to be judgmental and futuristic, referring to the time given to pagan Gentiles to desecrate the temple in A.D. 70 (cf. Dan. 8:13-14).
Thirdly, Long's argument is sullied by an irrelevant appeal to the fact that "our Lord never advocated revolution to throw off Rome's restriction on the Mosaic law" (p. 37). This is true, but not because Jesus was satisfied with the moral integrity of Roman civil law or uninterested in the obligatory force of God's own revealed standards, but rather because revolution is contrary to God's ordained way of bringing about political reform. Those who oppose the Roman Beast, according to Revelation 12:17; 14:12, do so for the sake of God's commandments (cf. Rev. 13:16; Deut. 6:8) - yet without the use of the sword (Rev. 13:10; cf. 2 Cor. 10:4-5). The power of Jesus' kingdom is not from this world, and thus His servants do not fight (John 18:36). The denial of revolutionary means, it should be obvious, does not in itself imply the validity or invalidity of any socio-political end, theonomic or not. Long's suggestion that Deuteronomy 20:10-18 required the Jews to revolt against Rome - so that the no-revolution policy of Jesus abrogated Moses and accepted the moral validity of Roman law - is strained at best, for the passage embodies positive law for a specific period of taking over and occupying the promised land, not standing law throughout Jewish history. And even if the Deuteronomy passage was contravened by the new teaching of Jesus against revolution, this is what theonomists would take as a legitimate Biblical qualification of the general presumption of the law's validity. Thus, either way, Long's argument here is pointless. Finally, when he appeals to the disputed passage, John 8:1-11, to support his contention about the inapplicability of Mosaic penal sanctions (a passage which, by the way, displays that Jews could seek to follow the law's sanctions, despite the complications posed by Rome's presence), he is apparently unaware that theonomists find it confirmatory of their convictions (see, e.g., Theonomy, pp. 230-232). Long does nothing to question that perception - the perception that Jesus enforces the whole law there against those who attempted to follow it but selectively. We must conclude, then, that this third of Long's four direct criticisms of the theonomic position is without foundation, as well as without a fortiori force.
This means we are left with Long's fourth, but most emphatic, criticism leveled at Theonomy in Christian Ethics. His main, persistent, and key complaint is explicitly stated after forty-two pages of exposition and polemic; in his theological conclusion at the end of the paper, Long forthrightly claims:
Theonomy's interpretation of the locus classicus of the Sermon on the Mount is not in harmony with the law of Christ. . . because it fails to distinguish properly between God's law as absolute or canon law and as God's law covenantly administered to different covenant communities under two related but different covenants - the Old and New (pp. 43-44).
The use of the adverbial qualifier 'properly' leaves the accusation here subject to two interpretations. Long might be saying that theonomic ethics does distinguish between permanent ("absolute") and temporary ("covenantal" - a misnomer) aspects of the Old Testament law, but not do the proper fashion. Or Long might be saying that theonomic ethics does not do the proper thing, namely to distinguish permanent and temporary aspects of the Old Testament law. Since Long offers no extended, systematic, or pointed discussion of the "proper way" to distinguish permanent from temporary facets of the law, and since the only examples he suggests for Theonomy's mistaken identification of a permanent facet of the law are relegated to footnotes (pp. 37-38, 44), the first interpretation of his accusation would leave him making virtually groundless charges. It is well, then, that we can fairly certainly detect from his paper that the first interpretation of his accusation was not the one he intended. Long rather intended to say that Theonomy, because it takes the Mosaic law's details as binding today, has failed to do the proper thing: viz., to distinguish absolute from temporary aspects of the law. This seems clear from a number of considerations.
The very title of Long's paper purposely and conspicuously (even though not perspicuously) announces the burden of his thesis: that an exegetical study of Matthew 5:17-20 shows us that Biblical law is both absolute and covenantal (where 'covenantal' is constrained to connote of-temporary-validity). This paper was written, as we observed earlier, with one of its main goals to rebut the theonomic interpretation of Matthew 5:17-19. On page 4 he writes: "Central to the thesis of this present study. . . is that a right understanding of the principles of biblical law will and must entail a distinguishing between: (1) that aspect of the law of God which is universally binding. . . ; and, (2) that aspect of the law of God not universally binding (i.e., as covenant law. . .)." On the very same page he had said: "Because this two-fold sense is not clearly observed the New Covenant significance of biblical law is . . . practically eliminated by Theonomy." Long hopes to escape the theonomic thrust of Matthew 5:18 by positing both continuity (the "absolute nature or aspect of the will of God") and discontinuity (the "covenantal aspect") with the Old Testament law (p. 35). On the same page where he states his accusation against Theonomy, he had just asserted that I Corinthians 9:20-21 and I Timothy 1:8 "forbid making the covenant law of Moses binding upon the New Covenant believer" (p. 43) - the very thing theonomic ethics is elsewhere said to do. Moving on from his theonomic accusation, Long deals with a second group of theologians, those who think in such a way that the "distinction between God's law as absolute and covenantal is blurred" (p. 44), which implies that the first group - the theonomists - was being accused of something worse than simply (like the second group) drawing the distinction improperly. On page 22 Long makes the intention of his accusation perfectly clear. He states categorically, "Theonomy fails to distinguish between God's law as absolute and covenantal." The concluding accusation, then, should be taken as alleging that theonomic ethics fails to distinguish between the permanent and unchanging aspect of the Old Testament law on the one hand and the changing and temporary aspect on the other - between the "absolute" and "covenantal" aspects, to use Long's chosen vocabulary.
Now that Long's accusation has been clarified, what can be said in reply? First, it is as preposterous as (if not identical with) his earlier examined charge that Theonomy delivers an "abstracted exegesis" of Matthew 5:17-19 which renders its message "absolute" or without any qualifications. To say that Theonomy does not distinguish between a permanent aspect of Old Testament law and an aspect which is temporary (due to the establishment of the New Covenant) is downright misrepresentation. It does not encourage confidence in the author's polemical fairness. Theonomic ethics explicitly teaches that the "ceremonial" laws pertaining to sacrifice, temple, feasts, circumcision, etc. were temporary in their specific, outward requirements - unlike the permanent laws defining the justice and righteousness of God (e.g., the prohibitions of murder, adultery, stealing). Theonomic ethics explicitly teaches that the cultural or illustrative form of the case laws (judicial laws) of the Old Testament may be temporary, such as flat roofs, flying axheads, and goring oxen - even though the underlying moral principle which is taught is permanently binding (e.g., protecting innocent human life from known dangers). Theonomic ethics explicitly teaches that symbolical-pedagogical laws which reminded the Old Testament saints of their separation from the unbelieving, Gentile world were temporary (e.g., laws about unclean meats and about mixing seeds or cloths), being laid aside in the New Covenant - even though the underlying or typological point, that the redeemed community must be separate from the unbelieving world (cf. 2 Cor. 6:14-18), is a permanent moral requirement. Theonomic ethics explicitly teaches that the provisions concerning the promised land were, in their Palestinian sense, temporary - even though what they looked forward to is realized as a permanent blessing in the New Covenant. And we could go on and on, demonstrating that in fact Theonomy did distinguish between permanent and temporary aspects of the Old Covenant law (as indicated in chapter 1 above), contrary to Long's outlandish accusation against theonomic ethics. As this criticism is his main challenge to the truth and adequacy of theonomic ethics, we must judge his overall effort squandered. As a critique of Theonomy, it proceeds on a conspicuous error.
There is, secondly, another false step evident in Long's charge that Theonomy fails to distinguish absolute and "covenantal" aspects of the Old Testament law. This charge is developed out of an exposition of Matthew 5:17-19 - in a paper partially written in criticism of my own exegetical handling of that text. Long announces in his Preface that "This study" of Matthew 5:17-19 "is an exegetical polemic for understanding the absolute and covenantal nature of God's law." The necessity of observing both continuity (the absolute nature) and discontinuity (the covenantal nature) in the law is constantly reiterated by the author: in his Introduction (p. 4), in summing up portions of his exposition (pp. 22, 35), in stating his main objection to Theonomy (p. 43), and in his Conclusion (p. 46). And all of this is part of a paper given over specifically to a study of Matthew 5:17-19. So the pointed fault with Theonomy's exegesis of Matthew 5:17-19 is portrayed as its missing therein the absolute/"covenantal" distinction in Old Testament law (cf. pp. 22, 28). Indeed, Long's concluding blow against Theonomy reads: "Theonomy's interpretation of the locus classicus of the Sermon on the Mount" - that is, of Matthew 5:17-20 (as Long identifies it on p. 6, and I identify it in Theonomy on p. 39) - "fails to distinguish properly between God's law as absolute or canon law and as God's law convenantally administered to different covenant communities under two related but different covenants" (pp. 43-44). In short, my book is scolded for not recognizing the truth of an absolute/"covenantal" distinction in the law as taught in Matthew 5:17-19.
And yet, after belaboring that charge in a 46-page paper which is devoted to the text in question, the author must openly admit that the truth which I allegedly missed in exegeting Matthew 5:17-19 is not explicitly taught there after all! The distinction which Long finds so crucial to the passage is not in the passage itself, at least not expressly taught or presented there. At a couple of points he must candidly admit: "This distinction is implied but not expressly stated in Matthew 5:17,19" (p. 22), and "The covenantal distinctions of God's law administered under the Old and New Covenants are not being specifically dealt with in the Sermon on the Mount" (p. 37). This being the case by Long's own confession, can he be justified in so adamantly criticizing others for missing his alleged insight when expositing the passage? Hardly. Indeed, in light of his candid admission that the distinction is not presented in Matthew 5:17-19, Theonomy's exegesis is exonerated of the "failure" or omission with which Long has charged it. No exegetical error at that point has been shown. The distinction is not there in the first place to be read out of the text. (And I would add: nor is it even "implied"; at this point in His teaching, Jesus conspicuously omits any such distinction or qualification in order, hyperbolically, to make His point unavoidable.)
The point and stress of Long's paper is the claim that the Old Testament law has both absolute and "covenantal" (non-absolute) parts within it. The substance of his paper is a study of Matthew 5:17-20. Yet he acknowledges that the text being studied does not make the point which he strives to drive home by means of his paper. What is quite odd about this situation is not that Long wishes to observe continuity and discontinuity with the Old Testament law; formally that is the correct aim to have. Nor is the oddity that he observes no explicit teaching of this distinction within Matthew 5:17-20; exegetically that is the correct thing to say. What is odd here is that, if Long's burden was to demonstrate that the New Testament teaches an absolute/non-absolute distinction within the Old Testament law, he chose to study a passage where that distinction is admittedly not brought out. Long's study of Matthew 5:17-20, then, appears to be somewhat peripheral - amounting to an exposition of the text (much of it helpful at isolated points) under the controlling influence of a conviction gained elsewhere: that is, we have been given not strict exegesis of the passage itself, but resultant personal interpretation when one's theological commitments from other places interact with the text in question so as to protect and preserve those previous commitments. My criticism here is certainly not directed at the function of presuppositions, nor at the "hermeneutical circle" whereby one's theology and one's exegetical work mutually affect each other. My point is this: if Long wanted to demonstrate to his readers the distinction which he so often mentions, then he should have turned his attention directly to a passage (or passages) where the distinction is taught by God's word - not to one where it is absent and must be read in (or brought to bear upon the passage extraneously). If exegesis of Scripture is the final standard and only foundation for Christian doctrine, as Long professes (Preface, pp. 1, 6, 44), then we would have expected him to do a lengthy study of a passage which actually and expressly demonstrates his concluding point, rather than a study of one which does not. (Significantly, when Long concludes his paper, he states his theological answer to the law question in terms of I Corinthians 9:20-21, rather than the text exegeted in the paper: p. 43; perhaps his paper should have exegeted that passage.)
We have said that Long's main direct criticism of Theonomy - that it does not distinguish absolute and non-absolute aspects of the Old Testament law - is (1) a conspicuous misrepresentation of the true character of the position, and (2) a judgment which at Long's own admission could not be substantiated from the text in question anyway. We can add, thirdly, that Long's manner of distinguishing absolute and non-absolute aspects of the Old Testament law is not very perspicuous or Biblically accurate. To see this, let us examine his repeated statement(s) of that distinction. His manner of categorization and labeling is itself revealing.
According to Long, the "absolute nature or aspect" of Old Testament law pertains to its continuity (p. 35). It is eternally applicable, abiding and ethically binding forever, of necessity continuing forever, obliging mankind in all ages (pp 4, 22, 28, 35, 38). Likewise it is universally binding on all mankind (pp. 4, 38, 44). As such, the absolute aspect of Old Testament law is indestructible and unchanging, never being annulled or canceled (pp. 22, 35, 38). It is, in a word, permanent (p. 46). On the other hand, according to Long, the "covenantal" aspect of Old Testament law pertains to its discontinuity (p. 35). It does not necessarily bind forever, but only as long as the specific covenant in view is in force; it is temporary and becomes inapplicable (pp. 22, 37, 46). It is not universally, but uniquely, binding (p. 4). It may change, then, and of necessity as "covenantal law" it passes away (pp. 22, 28).
Some inept characterization of these two categories can be quickly mentioned. At one point Long expresses the absolute/covenantal distinction as a contrast between the "divine" and "temporary" (p. 46). The absolute law distinctly flows from God's character or is given through special revelation (p. 38). But surely Long does not mean to assert what his categorization implies: viz., that the "covenantal" aspects of the Old Testament law were not divine, not an expression of God's nature, and not given by special revelation! Elsewhere he calls the absolute aspect of the Old Testament law moral, of abiding moral value, morally essential, and truly moral law (pp. 4, 27, 28, 33); it is perfect (p. 46). By contrast, the "covenantal" aspect was once essential and once useful, but no longer (p. 28). But such labeling of the two categories calls for some extensive explanation! The various phrases utilizing the adjective 'moral' show that Long means something more than the traditional, theological title of "moral law" (as eternally binding law); he is dealing with true moral value. But does he really mean to suggest that convenantal law was amoral, immoral, or without true value? And when David called God's law, with its every precept, "perfect" (Psalms 19, 119), did he really exclude any and all covenantal laws from his praise? Despite Paul's insistence that every Old Testament scripture is morally useful (2 Tim. 3:16-17), does Long want to assert that convenantal laws are now useless? I doubt it. So his characterizations are at best misleading and poorly stated; at worst, they are positively unbiblical. Unfortunately, just these kinds of contrasts or distinctions - with their fallacious, antithetical characterizations - often make poorly reasoned theology seem persuasive to an unwary reader.
We need to ask now about the intended denotation, referent, or scope of those laws which Long calls "covenantal" in character (rather than "absolute"). How are these laws to be identified or recognized? According the Long, they are those laws (or those aspects of laws) which are related to, and existing within, the different administrations of covenant law (p. 4). They are the laws of a particular covenant (cf. "the Mosaic Covenant as covenant law," pp. 22, 38). They are differentiated by "dispensational changes" (p. 37). Such laws fall into the category of the temporary, unique, and passing away. But this is clearly unacceptable thinking. For instance, an example of a law existing within a particular covenant - given as part of that covenant's stipulations - would be the commandment, "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15). Indeed, that law is part of the epitome of the Mosaic covenant, "the ten words" (e.g., Exodus 34:28). According to Long's category-scheme, then, the prohibition of stealing must be abrogated today, for "of necessity, the law of Moses as covenant law must pass away" (p. 28). Not even Long can find this acceptable. His previous categorization must therefore undergo corrective alteration.
Furthermore, I would suggest that his chosen vocabulary for the category of temporary laws is question-begging in its thrust, a way of concealing a large-scale theological system of thought under a mere label. To identify the temporary and annulled with "the convenantal" is to say more than that Biblical covenants may contain some temporary features; it is to say that the various covenants are atomistically related as successive dispensations, in and of themselves "temporary" in their authority or validity - rather than progressively, "organically" united as administrations of one developing covenant of grace. Long may or may not be correct in his doctrinal rejection of covenant theology, but he can hardly be allowed to write that unargued rejection right into his terminological practice!
The temporary, unique, and abrogated ought not to be categorically called "the covenantal" aspect of Old Testament law. Such a movement of thought is contrary to New Testament suggestion. According to it, the Gentiles were once and for the most part excluded (initially or directly) from the covenants God made distinctly with His people Israel: covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David. They were "the uncircumcision," "alienated from the commonwealth of Israel" - until in the New Covenant they were brought nigh to Christ. They were once, but no longer, strangers from "the covenants of the promise" (Ephesians 2:12); belonging now to Christ, they have become Abraham's seed, "heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29; cf. v. 18; 4:28). Paul's statements certainly suggest that all of the Jewish covenants of the Old Testament are united and continuous (not temporary and unique), being distinct administrations of the one promise; and those who enjoy the New Covenant promise do so as participants in the fruition of those "covenants of the promise." This is not intended as a grand demonstration of covenant theology, but it does prima facie show a misdirection in Long's terminological identification of "the covenantal" with the temporary, unique, and abrogated. From hereon I will treat his category-scheme as the "absolute" and the "temporary" (dropping the portrayal of the latter as "covenantal").
If we have found Long's presentation of the distinction between absolute and temporary aspects of the Old Testament law to be inept at points, incorrect at points, and overstated or question-begging in its identification of the temporary aspects of the law, we must remember that nevertheless he has given us very little to go on. Our reconstruction of his category distinction and its character does not benefit from any concentrated or systematic discussion of the distinction in his paper. We are forced to discuss it on the basis of snatches of remarks and a variety of different descriptions given to it by Long. Still, the manner in which he draws the distinction throughout his paper does show that his categorization has either not been thought through completely or is fundamentally flawed. The fact that Long devotes so little effort to explicating the distinction clearly and convincingly makes his criticism of theonomists for missing his distinction rather uncompelling. Is it that we have missed it, or that Long's version of it is not explained, consistent, or scriptural as far as we see?
The most informative descriptions which Long offers of the absolute and temporary categories of the Old Testament law (or aspects of laws) seem to be the following. First, the temporary is aligned with sanctions and motives (and perhaps also matters of "administration"). Second, the temporary appears to pertain to laws binding the community rather than individuals. It is not clear from his exposition just how sanctions (or motives) relate to the validity of various laws. Sometimes he suggests that the sanctions themselves are the changing element ("its covenantal administration and its binding sanctions change," p. 22), whereas at other points he suggests that the temporary element would be the laws covered by those sanctions ("administered under the covenantal sanctions in force at a given period of time," p. 4). In the first case he would be referring, for example, to the penal sanction against public homosexuality; in the second case, he would be including the prohibition against homosexuality itself also. It is further unclear what he has in mind in speaking of matters of "covenantal administration" or "covenantal configuration" (pp. 37, 38). If he is referring, for instance, to the form of government (e.g., patriarch, judge, king, counsel), then there would be little objection since that law did not prescribe one and only one governmental administration for all time. But this would also seem trivial since such matters are not part of standing law, and nobody is contending for them anyway. Elsewhere the matters of administration seem identified with administering the penal sanctions (cf. the two quotations above). Along with administration of penal sanctions Long sometimes mentions motives for obedience. For instance, he describes the absolute aspect of the law as "unaffected by changing covenantal sanctions" (p. 4), but also "reinforced by higher spiritual motives (p. 28); these ideas appear combined when he says the absolute aspect of the law is given in the New Testament "a new and higher sanction" (p. 35). This equivocation between 'sanction' and 'motive' seems to be matched by a further equivocation in the use of the word 'motive' since Long applies it to both the enabling power of obedience (the Spirit of life) and an impelling personal virtue (love) on page 28.
What evaluation can be made of this attempt to characterize the temporary aspect of Old Testament law? Is it true that sanction and motive are the marks of legal aspects which are temporary, localized, and finally changed? It would not seem so. The "motives" of the Holy Spirit and love were not absent from the Old Testament (e.g., Psalms 51:10-11; 119:132). And it can scarcely be thought that these personal "motives" have replaced the public sanctions of the law with the coming of the New Testament. If the law's penal sanctions, which Paul refused to obviate (Acts 25:11), are spurned, then magistrates will not give a just recompense (Heb. 2:2) to evildoers but rather use the sword in vain (Rom. 13:14). As it stands, Long's characterization would have us think that the "higher" motive of love was introduced in the New Testament, where not even the Mosaic penal sanction against murderers is any longer valid! But I am confident that he would not want to endorse this implication of his category-scheme.
More important, though, than the specific counter-examples which can be urged against Long's characterization is the observation that his description is arbitrary and inadequate. It is not very clear what Long means to attribute to the category of temporary laws (sanctions, everything under sanctions, motives?), but even if it were, he has not offered any reason to suppose that his attribution has a Biblical rationale. Why should motive-sanction be a key to changing dispensations or to abrogated laws? The only answer which is even suggested by Long's paper is that penal sanctions in the law (and motives too?) were typological (p. 44). I point out both in Theonomy and elsewhere in this book that such a consideration does not imply the abrogation of the penal sanctions. If being typological or symbolic were the mark of a temporary law, then we would be driven to the absurd conclusion that laws protecting monogamous marriage - symbolic of the Lord's relation to His redeemed people - have been abrogated, thus legitimating adultery! Moreover, where does the Bible draw any demarcation between absolute and temporary aspects of the law in terms of penal sanctions? In addition to being arbitrary, this suggestion lacks theological adequacy as well. If only the sanctions or sanction-related aspects of the law are temporary, as Long's scheme suggests, then are we not left with an obligation to the ceremonial laws, the cultural details of the case laws, and the provisions of the promised land of Canaan?
Equally unsatisfactory is Long's characterization of the temporary laws (or aspects of laws) as pertaining to community affairs, instead of individual matters (p. 44): he says that the absolute aspect of the law binds all mankind as individuals, but that the singularly national, community-aspect of the Old Covenant law is temporary, giving way to the new international community of the church. I believe that the suggestion that Christianity is basically a matter of private or individual religion and life, along with corporate church matters, is erroneous. Christian faith involves as well a world-and-life-view which leads to concern for social needs, public justice, economic fairness, family affairs, etc. But more importantly, I cannot see how Long thinks that he can clearly separate or distinguish community and individual morality in the Old Testament law. Is the commandment, "You shall not murder," an individual or community affair? Is the prohibition of bestiality a concern of the community or only of the individual? Were the Old Testament laws revealed and delivered sometimes to individuals and sometimes to the community? Would not all of the Mosaic law be jeopardized on this scheme? Would this approach to the distinction between absolute and temporary aspects of the law show that animal sacrifices have been made inoperative in the New Covenant as an individual duty, or that they should be offered within the church today, or just what? Then again, where is the necessary Biblical substantiation for the individual/community distinction as morally relevant to invalidating God's laws? Our questions could go on and on, but by now the point should have been sufficiently made. The distinction between absolute and temporary aspects of the Old Testament law which Long wants to insist upon has not been characterized in anything like a clear, helpful, and Scriptural way. There is no reason to doubt that a distinction between permanent and temporary aspects of the law is to be made, but there is a great deal of doubt which must be directed toward Long's characterization(s) of that distinction.
Perhaps the best way for us to express this final reply to Long's criticism of theonomic ethics in terms of his distinction between "absolute" and "covenantal" aspects of the law is to quote a fine remark from George B. Stevens which Long himself recorded in a footnote on page 28 of his paper:
The Christian world has never very clearly perceived what was its relation to the Old Testament religion. How discordant and inconsistent have been the prevailing views on this subject. Commonly some rough distinction has been made between those parts of the system which were supposed to be binding and those from which the Christian was believed to be free, but this distinction rested on no well-defined principle. The discrimination has ordinarily been perfectly arbitrary. . . (Theology of the New Testament, 2nd rev. ed. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1918, p. 24, emphasis added).
Long's own characterization of the distinction seems to fall under this structure. Therefore, we have not found sufficient warrant for Long's strong statement that Scripture "forbids making the covenant law of Moses binding upon the New Covenant believer" (p. 43). That unfounded or unexplicated judgment is the basis for Long's direct criticism that theonomic ethics fails to distinguish properly between God's law as absolute and God's law as convenantally administered. We have found this accusation to be invalidated by its misrepresentation of Theonomy, by the fact that Long himself admits Matthew 5:17-20 does not expressly teach that distinction, and finally by the numerous defects or errors which beset Long's characterization of that distinction. In conclusion, none of the direct challenges to Theonomy found in Long's paper have been sustained. We are left, finally, with his indirect case against theonomic ethics and its exegesis of Matthew 5:17-19 - a case made by proposing (at certain important junctures) an alternative view of the passage. We turn then to a detailed examination of Long's own exegetical discussion, paying attention only to relevant differences.
Long's Treatment of Matthew 5:17
Theonomy observed that Matthew 5:17 pertained directly to Christ's doctrine - His teaching about the law's validity in light of His Messianic advent - rather than speaking of His own personal life - His lawful behavior as the Messiah. Long claims, however, that "failure to see in this text both aspects of the Messianic mission [Christ's doctrine and life], in the writer's judgment, leads to misinterpreting the abiding validity of God's one unchanging standard of righteousness as it relates to the New Covenant believer" (p. 12). Although we might little expect it, this slight difference of opinion gravely causes one to obscure almost totally covenantal distinctions, and in itself it leads to a distorted interpretation and application of the passage, alleges Long (p. 12). Since the double thrust of the Messianic mission is so critically important according to Long, what reason does he offer to support it? After all, there is nothing in the local context of this verse which broaches the subject of Christ's own personal life or achievements, so why should Long think that this subject pops up just here? He himself admits that the verse does not stress or directly deal with Christ's own personal transgression or obedience to the law (p. 13), and he elsewhere observes that the verses preceding (Matthew 5:3-16) and following (5:21-6:18) give ethical instruction about the conduct of Christ's followers and about true righteousness in relation to the law (p. 9), admitting that the teaching aspect of Christ's mission is there in the foreground (pp. 13, 25).
Long's reason for importing into Matthew 5:17 a direct reference to Christ's life (His obedient behavior, His priestly work to culminate redemptive promise, His establishment of the kingdom in history: pp. 11-13) - as well as the obvious reference to Christ's teaching about righteousness and the law - would be expected to be a constraining one, for he affirms: "That Jesus was not only fully conscious of the teaching aspect of His mission but also in doing the will of His Father in the assertion of Matthew 5:17 is impossible to biblically deny" (p. 13). Why, then, is it "impossible to biblically deny" that Matthew 5:17 speaks of Christ's life in addition to His Messianic teaching? Long's answer amounts to this: because His life was relevant to what the verse said. The salient fact that relevance does not prove mention will greatly reduce the alleged impossibility of denying a reference to Christ's life in this verse, however! Long claims that Christ's life must be referred to in Matthew 5:17 because Jesus said "I came," demonstrating thereby a Messianic consciousness (pp. 11, 14, 22), and from other New Testament verses we know, even as He always knew, that His messianic mission actually including both His teaching and his life (pp. 12, 13). In this verse Christ was preparing His followers for the kingdom of heaven, and throughout the gospel we see that the redemptive establishment of the kingdom involved Christ's life and His teaching. (pp. 12-13).
This reasoning is faulty. Nobody should deny as a truth of New Testament theology taken as a whole that Christ's life (not simply His teaching) was crucial to His Messianic work of establishing a redemptive kingdom, and undoubtedly every element of the whole Messianic picture in the New Testament is theologically related to every other element. But that does not mean that every element of the picture or every related truth of the Bible is present in every verse! Long has yet to give us any reason to think that Christ's life is a specific topic of discussion in Matthew 5:17. If every related truth is believed to be taken up in a Bible verse or passage, preachers would have to give up preaching on selected texts, because then the teaching of every text must be dealt with in each separate text! Matthew 13:33 speaks of the "kingdom," and so does Romans 14:17. They are both teaching important things about the same subject (the kingdom), but that does not imply that they are teaching the same thing. "I came" in Matthew 5:17 indeed broaches the subject of the Messianic mission, but that in itself does not tell us anything about the scope of the teaching there - whether it discusses every facet of the Messianic mission or a particular facet. (If the words "I came" always intended a reference to the Messiah's life and teaching, as Long suggests by his argument, then we would be forced to the strained conclusion that Jesus was speaking somewhat of His teaching ministry when He declared that He "came" to give His life as a ransom, Mark 10:45; the fact that elsewhere Jesus delivered teaching about redemption does not tempt us to think that such teaching activity is envisioned in the declaration of Mark 10:45!) Teaching and life were both necessarily inherent and indeed inseparable within the Messianic coming (as Long says, p. 12), but this does not mean they are indistinguishable or incapable of separate mention. So Long has yet to offer exegetical grounds for finding a specific mention of Christ's life in Matthew 5:17. His argument is a non sequiter, and context should thus remain determinative.
Long's treatment of "the law or the prophets" in Matthew 5:17 is likewise strained. In order to advance his chosen theological interpretation of the passage, he is forced to equivocate on the obvious referent of the phrase. The phrase clearly refers to the whole Old Testament canon by the common device of mentioning two prominent parts of it; in using the phrase, Jesus was denoting the literary body of the Old Testament. "The Law" and "the Prophets" were both well-known designations for sections of the Old Testament collection of books. The combination of the two terms is never used in any other way in the gospels or Acts; they point to the Old Testament as Scripture. This sense for the phrase, taking its referent as a literary body, is reinforced by the mention of written characteristics in Matthew 5:18, "jot and tittle." Jesus was speaking of the inspired literary composition as a whole which had preceded His coming. He spoke of "the law or the prophets," not of "the laws and the prophecies," as though emphasizing the two-fold content of the Old Testament as demands and promises. Nevertheless, Long wants to insist upon an equivocation on the Matthean phrase. He begins by acknowledging that the phrase denotes "the two distinctive parts of the whole Old Testament canon" (pp. 17-18), but then goes on to try and make it also mean the demand and promise features of Old Testament teaching (pp. 18-19). If this were not questionable enough - making the phrase mean two entirely different things (a literary body, different sorts of divine teaching) - Long also wants to criss-cross the connotations of the two terms in the phrase. That is, "the law" is not only set forth as the Pentateuch and divine demand, it also encompasses the prophetic promises in the Pentateuch; "the prophets" is not only set forth as a section of the canon and prophetic promises, it also encompasses the demands (laws) found in that section of the canon (pp. 18-19). Long thus says, "the law and the prophets and commandments and promise go together in a unity that have their Messianic fulfillment in the New Covenant mediator" (p. 19).
This is fine exhortation, but deplorable exegesis. We may gladly preach that Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scripture, and we may gladly preach that He kept all of Scripture's demands while bringing about all of its promises: we may also correctly observe that "the Law" prophesied and "the Prophets" made demands. But we cannot credibly make one phrase in one verse mean all of these things - specially when the phrase is a customary phrase which never denotes anything else but the whole Scripture as a literary body. If we want to find out what aspect(s) of the Old Testament Scripture Christ had in mind in Matthew 5:17, we cannot tell simply by looking at the phrase "the law or the prophets" (= "the Old Testament"). We have to look at the context, and when we do, it is quite evident that Jesus was not in any way speaking of fulfilling prophecies from the Old Testament. The emphasis throughout is upon ethical requirement. From the phrase "the law or the prophets" we can correctly infer that Jesus has in mind the ethical demand of the entire Old Testament canon, even as Long himself has to observe: "The law of which Christ speaks in verse 17 is, in summary, the revealed will of God set forth in the Old Testament canon, especially as the law of commandment taught in the five books of Moses, but not exclusively, for the Prophets also proclaim God's will as commandment" (p. 20). But from the phrase "the law and the prophets" we cannot conclude anything about a reference to demands or promises themselves.
Long is insistent upon finding in the phrase "the law or the prophets" a reference to Old Testament prophetic promise. He constantly repeats the opinion that this passage deals with demands and prophecies (promises), and that opinion significantly influences his treatment of other words (e.g., 'disannul') as well as his theological interpretation of the passage (e.g., pp. 13, 25, 34, 42). What grounds does he have for advancing the opinion that prophetic promise is mentioned in Matthew 5:17? Well, he points out that both sections of the Old Covenant Scripture, Pentateuch and Prophets, interpenetrate each other with both kinds of teaching, demand and promise (pp. 18-19). This offers no ground for asserting, though, that both demand and promise are mentioned in Matthew 5:17 - no more than the fact that questions, songs, narrative, etc. are present in the Old Testament proves that questions, songs, narrative, etc. are specifically being dealt with in Matthew 5:17, just because it mentions the Old Testament! It will be clear that Long finds his remarks about interpenetration of demand and promise in the Old Testament relevant as supportive argumentation only because he equivocates on the phrase "the law or the prophets" - sometimes making it mean the body of Scripture, but other times making it mean prescriptive and prophetic sorts of teaching.
Long also argues that the fact that "the law or the prophets" refers to the Old Testament canon does not preclude having the phrase also discriminatingly emphasize the demands and prophecies (promises) of the Old Testament (pp. 18, 34). Well, even if that possibility is not precluded, it would still be only a possibility until Long could offer some substantial reason for asserting the presence of reference here to demands and prophecies. The burden of positive proof has not been borne by this kind of weak defense. But more importantly, we can say that indeed the possibility that "the law or the prophets" refers to Old Testament demands and promises is precluded, until Long can offer some evidence that the combination of these terms ever takes such a sense or connotation elsewhere in the New Testament. The "golden rule" is the thrust of the whole Scripture, "the law and the prophets" (Matthew 7:12). Can anyone think that this means that the golden rule is the demand and the prophecy of the Old Testament? "All the prophets and the law prophesied until John," said Jesus (Matthew 11:13) - meaning that Old Testament Scripture declared God's word until John, or that the prophecies and the commandments prophesied until John? Do all the demands and prophecies of the Old Testament hang on the love commandments (Matthew 22:40)? Do Acts 13:15 and 28:23 refer to reading and persuading from both the Mosaic demands and the prophetic promises or more simply from the Old Testament Scripture? Long's interpretation of "the law or the prophets" is simply overdone. Not only is it in itself overloaded with diverse senses (i.e., equivocating), there is no evidence that such a combined phrase ever refers distinctly to different elements in the divine teaching (viz., demands and prophecies). Modern Christian mentality may simplistically affiliate the Pentateuch with demands and the Prophets with foretold events, but such was not a common New Testament alignment. Yet without such a correlation - one which Long himself knows better than to make, given his observation about interpenetration of demand and promise in the law and Prophets (pp. 18-19) - his claim that the phrase "the law or the prophets" does not preclude denoting demands and prophetic promises is gratuitous.
Long's only other reason for supposing that demands and prophecies are mentioned in Matthew 5:17 is the use of 'or' in the phrase "the law or the prophets." This lends disjunctive emphasis to both, he observes, so that (following A. B. Bruce) "the prophets are not to be conceived of as coming under the category of law. . . but as retaining their distinctive character" (p. 18). Long may be correct about the disjunctive emphasis: Jesus did not come to abrogate either the Law or the Prophets. But it is incorrect to think that the referent of the linguistic terms "the law" and "the prophets" is somehow transformed thereby from sections of the Old Testament canonical whole to distinct literary genres (prescriptive and prophetic types of teaching). The remark by Bruce assumes that Jesus was talking about different literary "characters," rather than different sections of the canon. But where is the evidence of this? The disjunctive emphasis in Jesus' remark is satisfied by saying He simply stressed that neither part of the Old Testament Scripture was to be abrogated by Him.
From A. B. Bruce's remark Long seems to infer that, since the prophets are not to be conceived as coming under the category of law (note: not "under the division of the Law") - by which he means that the prophetic teaching of the Old Testament should not be reduced simply to a further presentation of law or demand - the disjunctive brings along with itself a distinct reference to prophetic promise. The premise of this argument (viz., the disjunctive emphasis does not pertain to sections of the canon but literary genres) has already been noted as unfounded. The inference may likewise be rebutted. It is telling observation that A. B. Bruce had in honesty to go on from his remark to concede: "though the Sermon contains no illustrations under that [prophetic] head." If it is thought that Old Testament prophetic promise is part of the scope of Christ's remark in Matthew 5:17-18, it is more than strange that nothing in the context of the Sermon itself supports that opinion. There is not the slightest mention or allusion to prophecy. Long himself recognizes this fact. He sees that the verses preceding Matthew 5:17 deal with the "bands of morality" (p. 9), that verse 18 gives "the law" the narrower sense of commandments (p. 29), that verses 18-19 are dealing with Old Testament commandments (p. 37), and that verses 20 and following likewise deal with the righteousness revealed in the Old Testament commandments (pp. 37, 39). There exists no contextual corroboration for Long's importation of prophetic promise into Matthew 5:17 at all: at best it hangs on the small word 'or' (the significance of which is misperceived).
At worst, this opinion is contradicted by verse 19 following. Verse 17 speaks of "the law or the prophets," and continuing the thought verse 18 speaks of the jots and tittles of "the law." Scripture is clearly in view. And just as clearly, when we observe the context as well as specific content of these verses, Jesus was dwelling on the ethical instruction of the Old Testament Scripture. This observation is verified by Jesus' mention in verse 19 of "one of these least commandments." We know from the demonstrative pronoun that Jesus was referring back to what He had just been talking about: the Scriptures of the Old Testament ("the law or the prophets," "the law"). "These" were His concern in this passage. And since He elaborates, calling them "these least commandments," we can be sure that He was thinking of the Scriptures in view, not as prophetic promises, but as legal commandments - which is perfectly harmonious with the overall context. (It should be noted that "these" in Matthew 5:19 is not treated as a substantive, as though Jesus spoke of "the commandments of these (Scriptures)." In the Greek construction, "these" is placed between "the commandments" and "the least," forming a unified phrase: "one of these least commandments." Mian ton entolon touton ton elachiston follows the customary syntactical rule that a demonstrative pronoun which modifies a noun is placed in the predicate position, here the postposition probably following the Hebrew mode of speech.) There would thus be a contradiction between Long's opinion that Matthew 5:17-18 refers to prophetic promises (as well as moral demands) and the covering expression in verse 19 where Jesus indicates that He has been referring to commandments.
Therefore, we have seen that two critical, foundational premises of Long's exegetical work in Matthew 5:17 cannot be accepted as well grounded or correct. If Biblical interpretation is to be governed by strict linguistic and contextual exegesis of the text before us, Long has given us no grounds for believing that Matthew 5:17 speaks of Christ's personal life (as well as His doctrine) or that the verse refers to Old Testament prophetic promises (as well as legal demands). These opinions are essential to Long's interpretation, but they have no genuine support in the text. They have been imported from outside, we must conclude.
According to Theonomy, in Matthew 5:17-19 Christ's doctrine concerning the validity of the Old Testament commandments in light of His Messianic coming was delivered. Long's discussion has not altered that judgment. Proceeding further in the verse, we observe that Christ twice denied something about the effect of His advent on the law's validity. He denied categorically that He had come to abrogate the law. Long points out the "effective" nuance of the aorist in katalusai (p. 13), even though on the other hand we cannot suppress the telic thrust of the infinitive. Christ did not come in order to abrogate the law or the prophets, and His advent did not have that result. As Long says, "the purpose of Jesus' coming was not to result in an absolute disannulling or abrogation of the law or the prophets" (p. 13). This is not so much a statement of the actual purpose of the Messianic coming in negative form (as Long says, pp. 13-14), but rather a negating of a supposed purpose of His advent (i.e., the position of the negative particle in the Greek should be rendered "I did not come to. . .," instead of "I came to not. . ."). Theonomists thus hold that any interpretation of this passage which has the consequence of annulling the law must be discarded as contrary to Christ's own two-fold denial (indeed, teaching such a thing is condemned in v. 19 following). Long acknowledges that the sense of katalusai, which Christ rejects as His intent, is that of disannulling or abrogating the law of the Old Testament (p. 13). How then can he escape theonomic convictions?
Briefly put, Long now turns away from strictly exegetical considerations about Matthew 5:17 itself, and he looks into theological qualifications which might need to be taken into consideration in gaining an overall picture of New Testament teaching on the subject of law and gospel. That is, instead of looking further at what this text says about the law's validity, he asks what the whole New Testament has to say about that subject (pp. 14-15). This is a perfectly legitimate, indeed necessary, task for a Christian teacher. We must let Scripture interpret Scripture, taking into account all of the light which it sheds on a question. However, this is theological interpretation, not textual exegesis. And the issue before us right now is this: when we get around to bringing together all the strands of Biblical teaching about the law's validity today, what specific contribution is made by Matthew 5:17? At this fundamental, exegetical level of study, if we cater to other New Testament revelation (as important as it is to consider overall), we run the risk of not allowing the individual, particular, isolated text before us to speak for itself. It too easily becomes only an echo of our theological opinions gleaned elsewhere. To be sure, all Scriptural teaching coheres with itself, and we cannot suppose that one part of the Bible contradicts another. But on the other hand we must not allow our previously gained beliefs to ride roughshod over the study of particular texts; otherwise we forfeit the refining, reforming, and sometimes correcting benefit of a true "hermeneutical circle" (between theological presuppositions and study of particular texts).
If nothing else, if what Long simply and exegetically finds stated in Matthew 5:17 must in the end be qualified (as I am convinced it must) by the teaching of other New Testament passages, he must at least ask himself if the truth from God would have been stated in just this strong, direct, and unqualified fashion at Matthew 5:17-19 in the first place. Might there have been some reason for putting the declaration in categorical form here? I would suggest there is. Despite the obvious need to qualify or understand the denial of Matthew 5:17 in the light of further Scriptural teaching, Jesus has indicated to us that our fundamental assumption, our general expectation, our theological presumption must be that all Old Testament commandments remain binding in the New Testament. His advent, He proclaimed by no means had the effect of abrogating the law. Now then, having settled that in our system of doctrine, having firmly established that principle in our thinking, adjustments or refinements can be made according to further New Testament revelation. That is, strict exegesis of the language of Matthew 5:17-19 must portray the text as unqualifiedly stating the law's continuing validity, but theologically we see that it does so because it lays the basic groundwork and general doctrinal principle regarding law and gospel by which we are to proceed - allowing then other Biblical texts to qualify the generalization. After all, we have no New Testament verse that so categorically and unqualifiedly revokes every Old Testament jot and tittle - threatening curse for keeping any least commandment - as does Matthew 5:17-19 categorically endorse every detail of the Old Testament law. Lacking such a matching declaration of detailed abrogation, the overwhelming assertion of full validity ought to be our operating assumption theologically.
By contrast, Long seems to want to make exegetical adjustments in what the language of Matthew 5:17 actually expresses - adjustments which are not determined by semantic, syntactic, or contextual considerations in the text before us, but determined by his interpretation of verses somewhere else completely. In short, theological considerations will replace textual exegesis in determining the meaning of Christ's declaration at this particular place. We have observed above, and Long has conceded, that Christ here denies that He came to disannul the law, which would prima facie substantiate theonomic convictions. To escape this consequence Long poses this question of how Christ could deny coming to disannul the law when other verses seem to say something to the opposite effect. Noting 2 Corinthians 3:7 and Romans 7:6, he asks "How can that which is 'done away,' be done away without being 'disannulled'? Can Matthew 5:17 mean both?" (p. 14). It must be immediately replied just here that these other verses ought not to be taken as determining the meaning of Matthew 5:17 in the first place. The question (theological in nature) is this: given the meaning of Matthew 5:17 and given the meaning of these other verses, how can both statements be the case? The other verses do not affect the meaning of the words in Matthew 5:17, but are rather factors in our overall theological interpretation of the law's validity in the New Testament.
By the way, Long's own overall interpretation (which has been scrutinized already above) is that "the whole Mosaic law. . . viewed as covenant law, has been done away or rendered inoperative by Christ" (p. 15, emphasis added; cf. p. 14). In addition to problems in understanding and Biblically supporting the qualification "as covenant law," Long's position exceeds the textual evidence provided by the verses which he cites on page 15. They do not nullify the whole Mosaic law, but rather do away with the law as a way of legalistic justification (Galatians 2:21); cf. Theonomy, pp. 132, 135, 195, 221, 223), do away with the inferior glory of the law as a ministration of death (2 Corinthians 3:7, 11, 13-14; cf. Theonomy, pp. 136, 172, 224), discharge us from the dead letter's impotence and condemnation (Romans 7:2, 6; cf. Theonomy, pp. 135, 171, 222-223, 258), and set aside the ceremonial system of regulations (Ephesians 2:15; cf. Theonomy, pp. 209-210, 215; and Hebrews 7:18; cf. Theonomy, pp. 208-209, 213, 226). To do away with an abuse, the weakness, and the shadows of the law is quite another thing than doing away with the whole law (even "as covenant law").
Well, aside from the different overall theological interpretation advanced, based on differing views of the qualifications on the teaching of Matthew 5:17 which these other verses set forth, Long is correct to recognize the truth about our theological method that, "what Christ says in this verse [Matthew 5:17] cannot be abstracted from later New Covenant revelation such as those passages mentioned above" (p. 15). Overall theological interpretation of the New Testament revelation about the law's validity under the gospel must recognize a sense in which Christ did not disannul the law and a sense in which His work does set it aside. True enough. The critical defect in Long's treatment, it seems to me though, is that he wants to read both of these thoughts out of the same verse (Matthew 5:17), a verse wherein Christ categorically denies that He came to abrogate the law. As I have been explaining above, the problem with Long's treatment is that he attempts to make exegetical adjustments in the verse stimulated by theological convictions gained elsewhere. He is not qualifying the verse's theological teaching; he actually alters its apparent linguistic sense under the constraint of other passages in the New Testament. Even though Christ denied abrogating the law in Matthew 5:17, Long wants to show that abrogation was still inherent in our Lord's words! Long claims that "disannul" could in a sense be applied to what Christ was doing, even as the Pharisees (misleadingly) were saying (p. 11). Indeed, "New Covenant abrogation of the entire Mosaic covenant. . . [is] inherent in the contextual meaning of 'disannul'" (p. 19, emphasis added). It is this kind of maneuver which strikes me as quite illegitimate exegetical methodology - altering the linguistic sense of a clause (to its very opposite) by pumping into it theological convictions gained elsewhere (and mistakenly gained elsewhere at that).
How does Long attempt to circumvent the contradiction he has created within the verse? He suggests that there are two basic ways of handling the tension between Christ's denial of disannulling the law in Matthew 5:17 and the sense (however interpreted) in which other passages say the law has been laid aside (pp 15-16). These two ways of handling the tension may in effect end at the same conclusion (as Long suggests, p. 15,; cf. p. 17), but they are certainly different in the way that they set out to that conclusion - one amounting to candid theological qualification, the other (viz., Long's) to exegesis controlled by extraneous opinion. One teaches that Christ's words forthrightly denied the abrogation of the law, and then goes to other verses to add to this thought the qualification that the use of the ceremonial laws has been made inoperative while their meaning is confirmed (or their typology brought to realization). Long sees this as the approach of John Calvin, John Murray, and theonomists (p. 15), all of whom say that the outward observance of these laws has been discontinued because Christ became their permanent and final embodiment (as seen in further New Testament revelation). Having quoted such a remark from Theonomy, Long grants, "To this no Reformed theologian should disagree...."
The second approach - the way taken by Long - is to posit "the influence of Hebrew idiom upon Christ's thought pattern" (p. 15) in His denial of coming to abrogate the law. That is, Christ was speaking (or at least Matthew was writing) in Greek, but thinking in Hebrew modes. Why should Long make this unusual suggestion? Because an accepted Hebrew manner of speaking allows for a negative assertion to be taken comparatively rather than absolutely (p. 16). That is, in Hebrew one might express a negation when he was simply negating something in comparison with another alternative, rather than renouncing it altogether. If this Hebrew mode of expression is posited as the background to Christ's Greek denial of coming to abrogate the law in Matthew 5:17, we would end up taking Him to mean - contrary to first appearances - that "His primary purpose in coming. . . was to fulfill not to disannul the Old Testament canon" (p. 17, emphasis added: cf. p. 14). This approach, then, does not add theological qualifications to the statement of Matthew 5:17; it rather contends that the very meaning of the statement has inherent in it an assertion of disannulling the law. Jesus said, "I did not come to disannul," meaning according to Long that He did come to disannul, but not as His primary goal or intent. Somewhat like a common Arminian explanation of Romans 9:13 (viz., "I hated" means "loved less"), Long says the disannulling of the law was comparatively not as important as the fulfilling of the law, and so Jesus stated in Matthew 5:17 that He had not come to disannul it. (As discussed previously, Long also has another way of dealing with Christ's denial of annulling the law, in addition to the one rehearsed here. I am judging that the approach here, though, is the one by which he would finally stand. As the more creative hypothesis, transcending certain threadbare approaches to the verse, this interpretation of Jesus' denial will be more engaging for us.)
Before we would accept an unusual interpretation of a verse - one which at least seems to run counter to a plain reading of it - we would expect its proponent to show that this kind of interpretation is exegetically possible (using hermeneutical principles and appealing to literary forms acceptable elsewhere) and that this possibility actually should be found in the verse under discussion (based on sound evidence in literary exegesis). The strange thing about Long's defense of his interpretation of the negation in Matthew 5:17 is that his case for its exegetical possibility is needlessly weak, and for the equally important issue of its actuality he gives no relevant evidence at all. Long's hypothesis is that the clause, "I did not come to disannul," should be taken as an instance of relative negation, where the point is not to entirely negate something but only to tone it down - thus reading, "not so much to disannul as to fulfill." Now there is nothing a priori unacceptable about this suggestion. Relative negation is clearly enough recognized by Greek grammarians when it comes to the set formula "not X, but Y" (ou...alla: see, for instance, Blass and Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament. Chicago: University Press, 1961, p. 233). Long could have mentioned that, given a couple of obvious examples (e.g., Acts 5:4), and thereby substantiated the possibility of relative negation in Matthew 5:17.
Instead he offers an elaborate and strained defense, one which appeals to irrelevant and mistaken evidence. He begins by appealing to lack of comparison - and thus the interpreter's need to supply it at times - in Hebrew literature, even though the verse he wants to exegete is in Greek (which more often than not, obviously, follows different conventions)! Moreover, Long's appeal to lack of comparison in adjectives and adverbs in Hebrew is beside the point when talking about relative negation; further, as Long himself recognizes (p.16), the Hebrew preposition min can be used in forming comparative expressions. So the point about Hebrew is neither well argued nor relevant to Greek exegesis. (Interestingly, the one Hebrew example offered by Long, Hosea 6:6, is translated into the Septuagint with a particle denoting comparison, omitting the negative altogether - unlike the Greek quotations in Matthew 9:13 and 12:7). Secondly, although Long is dealing with the common formula, "ou...alla" ("not...but"), his attempt to show the possibility of relative negation in the formula includes key examples where either the negation itself or the formula under discussion does not appear at all (Matthew 22:36; Luke 14:26). Thirdly, in his defense, Long does appeal to an instance where "ou...alla" is found, but not with the thrust of relative negation (John 9:3). Here context certainly shows that Jesus was not saying "it is not so much this man or his parents who sinned, but somebody else is to blame"; rather, Jesus simply denied that anybody sinned-as-the-cause-of blindness (the notion of sinning about which he had been asked, John 9:2). Long's (accurate enough) note about the blind man having sinned in the purely moral sense is not pertinent to the passage at all, and if Jesus is made to have referred to this (indirectly through relative negation), it is at the price of equivocation.
Fourthly, in his defense of the possibility of relative negation, Long does not distinguish that phenomenon from separate literary devices like hyperbole. For example, he appeals to the overstatements in Matthew 5:21-48 (e.g., plucking out of the eye) as statements not to be interpreted literally. This is true, but irrelevant to a case for relative negation (indeed, no negation appears at all). Literary exegesis must recognize that Jesus did refer to plucking and to eyes - not to restraint and temptations - even though interpretation (guided by revelation elsewhere) takes the remark as hyperbolic and in need of qualification. Jesus made overstatements as a preaching device, but this does not show that the Greek either did or did not utilize relative negation. These are two altogether different linguistic phenomena. Finally, uncontextual understanding of a concept as well as confusion of hyperbole (unqualified overstatement) with relative negation (the use of "not" as a toning down device) appears in Long's appeal to Matthew 10:34 (where at least the "ou...alla" formula appears). There Jesus declared that He did not come to cast peace on the earth, but rather a dividing sword. (The Lukan parallel to this passage, by the way, is not as Long claims - Luke 14:26 - but rather 12:51-53.) This aphorism was not meant to be universally true for any and all senses of "peace," as commentators note. The Jews expected and supposed that the coming Messiah would suddenly in a single action (note the use of the aorist in Matthew 10:34) impose peace for them as the immediate and sole effect of His coming. Jesus utterly denied such an understanding. The sense in which He does bring peace must be supplied from somewhere else, not here. Clearly He was not using comparative negation: i.e., not saying, "I did not come so much for peace as for the sword" or "I did not come only for peace (as you understand it) but also for the sword." Peace, even in the correct sense, is not at all part of this pericope in Matthew's gospel, not even comparatively. Jesus was affirming persecution and division, giving realistic exhortation for His disciples before their Galilean excursion. Extracted from its context, of course, the denial of peace-giving in Matthew 10:34 would be an overstatement, to be tempered by revealed instruction elsewhere about the Prince of Peace.
The preceding critique of Long's case for the possibility of relative negation is somewhat peripheral, we must remember, for I do not doubt that linguistic possibility in the first place. Sometimes the formula "ou...alla" tones down a first element in order to bring into picture an added element, thus having an ascensive thrust (viz., "not only...but even more"; cf. Matthew 4:4; 21:21, where the full sense is spelled out with the help of monos). For instance, "the one believing on me does not believe (so much) on me, but (even more) on the one who sent me" (John 12:44). So the acceptability of relative negation in the Greek is beyond question, despite Long's unnecessarily weak case for it. Even more important, then, is the question of whether relative negation was actually being utilized by Jesus in His denial of Matthew 5:17. What evidence does Long offer the reader for this opinion? Having asked whether exegesis and biblical theology support the use of relative negation in Matthew 5:17, Long offers six considerations on pages 16-17 of his paper. The first three aim merely to show the possibility of relative negation by illustrations of non-absolute remarks made in absolute form elsewhere in the gospels; as such they do not function to give specific evidence for Matthew 5:17 itself, and they have been critiqued above already. The fifth consideration appeals to illustrations of non-literal interpretation in the context of Matthew 5, confusing hyperbole with relative negation. Such illustrations do properly show that declarations must be interpreted according to the analogy of faith (which would apply to Matthew 5:17 as well), but support nothing one way or another as to the use of relative negation in the particular verse before us. The sixth consideration offered by Long is an appeal to his own theological pre-commitments, claiming that relative negation must be recognized or else we are still under the unchanged Old Covenant (pp. 17, 18). There is no reason why changes could not be revealed in later revelation, or course, and letting Scripture interpret Scripture is a well enough accepted practice that I can see no justification for Long's worry here. But more importantly, as I have pointed out earlier in my critique of his paper, this consideration is simply fallacious question-begging, for it seems to me that Matthew 5:17 is precisely evidence that there is a legitimate sense in which we are still under the Old Covenant (as part and parcel of the one covenant of grace throughout Scripture).
We are left, then, with one last consideration offered by Long as evidence that relative negation appears in Matthew 5:17. This consideration, his fourth, is that "later New Testament revelation clearly teaches that the law of God - as set forth in the Mosaic covenant - was done away. . . by the bringing in and establishment of the second or New Covenant" (pp. 16-17). Long's particular interpretation of these later New Testament passages has been challenged already above, and his claim that it is clear from the New Testament that the New Covenant abolishes the Mosaic law is once again question-begging pontification, not anything like proof. But far more important than these observations is the need for us to take note of how Long's argumentation has proceeded. The question before us is whether the linguistic possibility of relative negation has actually come to expression in Jesus' denial at Matthew 5:17 that He came to disannul the law. Long wants to affirm that this denial is actually a case of relative negation. However, his supportive evidence has reduced to appealing to (alleged) setting aside of the Mosaic covenant law in other New Testament verses. Thus we can say that: (1) his evidence is not of a strictly exegetical nature; (2) nor is it taken from the particular literary text in question; and (3) Long's interpretation is imposed on the verse under the compulsion of theological opinions formed elsewhere. As indicated previously, this kind of method is extremely dangerous, precluding a hermeneutical circle whereby one's theological opinions can be refined or corrected by specific textual teaching. The constant threat is that one's theology is read into a verse rather than read out of the verse. Long has already granted that there is nothing unacceptable about the way Calvin, Murray, and theonomists treat verses outside of Matthew 5:17 which indicate a setting aside of the ceremonial practices of the Old Testament. Yet he wants to appeal to similar verses in order to urge on his reader the exegetical opinion that relative negation is found in Matthew 5:17.
So at best Long has not given compelling evidence that favors his approach over that of the theonomists (having countenanced two adequate approaches) and at worst he has failed to offer any exegetical support for his own hypothesis, arguing for it in a manner which shields him from the necessity of reconsidering his non-covenantal theology in the light of Matthew 5:17's denial that Christ came to disannul the law or the prophets. Matthew 5:17-19 shows that anybody who wishes to lay aside the obligation to obey any Old Testament commandment bears the burden of proof from Scripture to justify that revocation. That is why unqualified declarations are made, recognizing and looking to further revelation for any necessary modifications or explanations. Thus Matthew 5:17-19 is a challenge to Long's non-covenantal, baptistic theology and theological method. By trying to read other verses into Matthew 5:17 (via the justifying device of relative negation) Long attempts to get around that challenge. What we have seen here, though, is a failure on his part to present an exegetical case in defense of such an effort at obviating the prima facie thrust of Matthew 5:17.
If there is no evidence in favor of relative negation in Matthew 5:17, is there any evidence against it? From an exegetical standpoint, there is very strong grounds for rejecting relative negation in that verse. In "ou...alla" clauses, relative negation is definitely the exception to the rule. Ordinarily "not X, but Y" statements communicate sharp contrast, and this contrasting (non-comparative) usage of the formula is predominant in Matthew's writing. Note the following examples, where the sense for the formula is "not X, but rather Y."
not under the bushel, but on the lampstand (Matthew 5:15)
not everyone who says, but (everyone) who does (7:21)
not to come, but to speak (8:8)
not those who are strong, but those who are ill (9:12)
not the righteous, but sinners (9:13)
is not dead, but sleeps (9:24)
cast not peace, but the sword (10:34)
is not rooted, but short-lived (13:21)
not what goes into the mouth, but what comes out of the mouth (15:11)
not the bread's leaven [the illustration], but the teaching [the thing illustrated] (16:12)
not flesh and blood, but my Father (16:17)
not the things of God, but the things of men (16:23)
did not recognize him [as honorable], but did whatever [dishonorable things] they desired (17:12)
would not [defer anger], but threw into prison (18:30)
not all men understand, but those to whom it has been given (19:11)
not mine to give, but prepared by the Father (20:23)
it shall not be [that great ones rule], but those who become servants (20:26)
not to be served, but to serve (20:28)
not the God of the dead, but of the living (22:32)
With two exceptions (Matthew 10:20 and 18:22) these comprise all of the instances of the "ou...alla" formula in Matthew's gospel outside of 5:17. In none of them would it be accurate to read "not so much X, but even more Y." All of these cases illustrate, as well, the strong kind of contrast that is communicated by the adversative, alla. Thus if relative negation is found in Matthew 5:17, it is certainly the exception to the general rule. So we are not inclined to jump to that hypothetical interpretation; we will need some persuasion.
When we look further at the use of relative negation, however, we are persuaded of the very opposite. The accepted instances of this linguistic phenomenon show a discernible pattern of stated (or obviously inferred) paradox in their introductory clauses. Instead of the pattern of sharp contrast (not X, but Y), we have this kind of dialectical pattern of presentation: affirm X, deny X, but (even more) assert Y. The paradoxical denying of what is affirmed (or of the obvious) at the beginning of this formula is, it seems, an identifying feature of relative negation. Note these examples.
Whoever receives me does not receive me, but (even more)
the One who sent me (Mark 9:37)
My teaching is not mine, but (even more) His who sent me (John 7:16)
The one who believes on me does not believe on me, but (even more) on the One who sent me (John 12:44)
This is precisely what we find in one undisputed instance of relative negation in Matthew's gospel. In Matthew 10:19-20 we have: "it will be given what you may say; for you are not the ones speaking, but (even more) the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you." Again, we see what is obvious (indeed stated) being denied: you are not speaking. This is paradoxical, until the contradiction is relieved by the ascensive thrust of "but" - but even more (as you speak) the Holy Spirit speaks through you. The same introductory paradoxical feature is expressed without an explicit statement sometimes. When Peter said, "You have not lied to men," he denied an obvious truth - that Ananias had lied to him, Peter, a man. So we are cued in to understand Acts 5:4 as a relative negation: viz., "You have not so much lied to men, but even more to God." Likewise, we find this in the other case of relative negation in Matthew's gospel. If you forgive someone 490 times, you obviously forgive him 7 times; yet Jesus says, "I do not tell you [to forgive] seven times, but (even more) seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:22). In the preceding instances of relative negation using "ou...alla," there is a paradoxical denial of the obvious in order to push beyond the obvious to something else - an added or greater dimension to the elementary truth.
If we supposed that Matthew 5:17 was utilizing relative negation, then we would be looking for something expressive of paradoxical denial in the introductory part of the formula: e.g., "When I came to disannul the law, I did not come to disannul, but (even more) to fulfill it." Such a paradoxical opening, however, is just the opposite of what we actually find. Far from a paradoxical foil off of which Jesus can play in order to drive to His added or greater point, however, we find a double direct denial. Jesus did not affirm the aim of disannulling the law, and then deny it. Instead, He first denied it, and then He denied it again for emphasis. In fact, the verse's opening prohibition has ingressive force. So Jesus commands that we not even begin to think that He came to disannul the law; He did not, He repeats, come to disannul. This does not appear anything like relative negation. Matthew 5:17 sets forth a standard, contrasting negation: "not to disannul, but rather to fulfill." It does not contain the slightest hint of rhetorical paradox and dialectical resolution. The straightforward denial, emphatically stated, should not be toned down.
Three crucial pillars in Long's interpretation of Matthew 5:17 have now been eroded. (1) The verse does not make any obvious reference to the life or behavior of the Messiah. (2) Nor does the verse make any mention of prophetic promises. (3) Finally, the denial that Christ came to disannul the law is not anything like a case of relative negation. Long's approach to these three matters has been found to lack textual and contextual substantiation; they are exegetically unfounded. Keeping that in mind we can complete our reply to his treatment of Matthew 5:17 by briefly commenting on his handling of Christ's affirmation of fulfilling the law. According to Long, Christ disannulled the law (abrogated the Mosaic covenant) by "fulfilling" it (pp. 17, 19). Jesus declared: "I came not to disannul, but to fulfill." The effect of Long's interpretation is to make this declaration over into: "I came to disannul by fulfilling." This certainly appears to turn the verse completely around in what it states. Jesus ends up affirming what He twice denied, and what He treated as directly contrary to each other turns out to be harmoniously related to each other as means to end. Such reconstruction of the verse by the interpreter can hardly be deemed exegetically sound or polemically persuasive. The verse simply does not read as Long interprets it. Plarosai is the antithesis, not the agency, of katalusai.
Long takes "fulfill" in Matthew 5:17 to mean "bring to full realization" (pp. 20, 22). The difficulty in ascertaining what this precisely means has been discussed previously. Like the fanciful "wonder drug" which some think can cure any and all ills, the phrase "bring to full realization" is something of a wonder word for Long, meaning anything and everything found in his set of theological convictions. That Jesus brought the entire Old Testament to realization means at one and the same time that: the temporary fell away, the permanent was preserved, the Old Testament was fulfilled, the whole Mosaic covenant was disannulled, the one standard of righteousness was validated, Jesus obeyed the law in His personal life, Jesus taught the universal principle of righteousness, Jesus accomplished prophetic predictions, Jesus was the antitype of the ceremonies, Jesus wrote the law on the heart, Jesus gave grace to obey the law, Jesus took away the law's curse, Jesus culminated the revealed truth, Jesus fulfilled Jewish history, He satisfied aspirations and hopes, and He replaced the Old Covenant with the New (pp. 24-28). It should be needless to say that one word cannot meaningfully intend all these things simultaneously. At some points Long thinks something is brought to full realization "when what the Word records occurs" (p. 24), showing that he treats the subject of this realization as prophecy or typology - matters which are not even in view in Matthew 5:17 or its context. Elsewhere Long thinks of bringing something to full realization not as its occurrence, but as the setting down of its legal status (e.g., pp. 25, 27) - thereby making 'bring to full realization' an arbitrary umbrella for covering disparate items. Sometimes Long says that the particular legal status communicated by 'bring to full realization' is that of abrogation (p. 27) - directly contradicting Jesus' own words in Matthew 5:17. Sometimes Long says that the particular legal status communicated by 'bring to full realization' is that of preserving full validity (p. 25) - directly contradicting his own words elsewhere. This kind of interpretive zig-zag is hard to follow, being less the result of controlled textual exegesis as the result of wanting to say everything at once. If plaroo in Matthew 5:17 is given completely diverse and indeed contradictory senses, then it has been rendered senseless.
The precising definition of plarosai in Matthew 5:17 which is advanced by Theonomy is that of confirming and restoring the law to its full measure (e.g., pp. 64, 72). According to Long's claim, such an understanding of the word is thoroughly unacceptable. Why does he think so? When we examine his reasons, it will once again appear that his accuracy seriously falters. In the first place, he claims that my exegetical treatment of the word "exactly equates" its meaning with that of "establish" in Romans 3:31 (p. 21). This not only contradicts his own observation, made on the same page, that according to Theonomy plaroo means more than istami (thus discrediting any exact equation), it is furthermore plainly false. Indeed, Romans 3:31 does not even enter the exegetical discussion of plarosai at all in my book! Theonomy insists that the word connotes more than the mere meaning of istami (pp. 71-72). From the false premise of the equation, however, Long goes on to say that my treatment of plarosai says too much, for it renders the civil laws of the Old Testament valid today (pp. 21-22) - a consideration which is nothing more than begging the question that separates us! Long also says that my treatment says too little, reducing to no fulfillment by Jesus at all (p. 22). However, I cannot make any sense out of the claim here, unless again he is reasoning in a circle (i.e., because my notion of fulfillment is not the same as his, it does not say enough). So far we have yet to see any semantic, syntactic, or exegetical reason urged against Theonomy's treatment of plarosai. We still do not find one when Long outlandishly claims that my treatment of the word is mistaken because it would lead to Judaizing and to a church-state (p. 23) - both of which I repudiate and Biblically refute in Theonomy in Christian Ethics! After all of this fallacious and misrepresenting kind of discussion, where is Long's exegetical reason for not accepting Theonomy's treatment of plarosai in Matthew 5:17?
It seems to reduce to these two claims: (1) nobody can say with finality what the precise antithesis of katalusai would be (p. 21), thereby counteracting Theonomy's approach to the precise sense of the word with skepticism; and (2) the position advanced by Theonomy "goes counter to all the recognized lexicographers" (pp. 21, 23). Our reply can be brief. Long's first claim is somewhat confused. We can indeed say what the Greek antithesis of katalusai would be, for it is offered to us right in the text of Matthew 5:17. And we need not be skeptical about the precise antithesis in English translation, for there are many expert works on synonyms and antonyms in the English language available to us. We need only ascertain the specific sense for katalusai, in the context and according to the semantics of the passage, and then (in light of the strong contrast indicated by alla) check the antonyms for that English word. There is room for discussion and disagreement, to be sure, but no more than in any other exegetical difference of opinion. Long's skepticism is overdone.
As for Long's second claim, that Theonomy's translation of plarosai runs counter to all the works of recognized lexicographers, we can say three things. First, Long most likely confuses going counter to a lexicon with not having your suggested sense for a word mentioned in a lexicon; these are quite separate matters, and as far as I know, no "recognized" lexicon teaches that plaroo cannot mean "confirm" or must mean the diametrically opposite. Second, Long is simply mistaken. Arndt and Gingrich are "recognized" for the superiority of their lexicon, and in discussing plaroo (specifically at Matthew 5:17) they say that in the broadest sense and in contrast to kataluo, depending on how one interprets the context, the word can mean a number of things, among which is "confirm" (p. 677). The very possibility is countenanced by New Testament scholars as well respected as Dalman, Hatch, Branscomb, and Ladd. The word is used by numerous scholars (cited in Theonomy or in my treatment of Fowler above) in their expression of the meaning of Matthew 5:17. Third, in his own treatment of Matthew 5:17 Long concedes, "Certainly, there is a sense in which Jesus established or confirmed the Old Testament, and that is inherently included in the idea of 'fulfillment'" (p. 23, emphasis added). So Long can hardly preclude the position taken in Theonomy regarding plarosai! When Long asserts that my case for translating this word as "to confirm" reduces to my own "solitary work of lexicology [sic]" (p. 23), he overlooks more New Testament scholarship than he should; after all, I did not dream up this understanding of the word but had it suggested to me by other writers. But even if this was a brand new hypothesis first advanced by me, Long would not have said anything about its merits or demerits simply by claiming that (at present) I am alone in advancing the case. The case would still need to be refuted. The only refutation offered by Long, it turns out, is one of despair.
He begins by saying that the warrant for taking plaroo in the sense of "to confirm" is quantitatively meager as to textual incidence (p. 23). However, that consideration would be relevant in refuting my position only if I claimed - and I do not - that "confirm" is commonly the sense for plaroo. Instead I simply set out to demonstrate that the word took the meaning of "to confirm" "in certain instances" (Theonomy, p. 67). Since Long must begrudgingly admit that it did in fact take that sense, he has not undermined my argumentation at all. Even if the word is used in this way only one other time, that would be sufficient to show the possibility of translating it in that way at Matthew 5:17. Long's only other attempt at refuting my treatment of the word is the remark that my New Testament instances of the word used in the sense of confirming something are "ingenious," being just as easily classified as the fulfillment of prophecies (p. 23). This "ingenious" remark is anything but an argument, however, and the attempt to classify my New Testament specimens as instances of fulfilling prophecy is unconvincing. For instance, Genesis 15:6 declares that Abraham "believed in Jehovah, and He reckoned it to him for righteousness," and the statement is clearly not a predictive prophecy. Nevertheless, James 2:23 (cited on p. 69 of Theonomy) says that this scripture was "fulfilled" (confirmed) when Abraham later displayed a willingness to offer up his son as a sacrifice at the command of God (cf. v. 21). Long's attempt to reduce such examples to prophetic fulfillment has little credibility. His already weak defense has come to making desperate gestures. He has offered, then, no reason to think that plarosai is incorrectly translated if rendered "to confirm."
By way of summary, our reply to Long's treatment of Matthew 5:17 has made these points. Long has frequently stated what he must in fact prove, at times falling into question-begging. Exegetical support from the text itself is often lacking for his suggestions, being read in from his interpretation of other verses altogether. There seems to be a failure to come to grips with an accurate understanding of the theonomic treatment of this verse. Contrary to Long, the verse does not refer to the Messiah's life, does not mention prophetic promise, and does not utilize relative negation. The verse portrays fulfillment as directly contrary to disannulment, even though Long claims that Jesus disannulled the law after all - by means of fulfillment. Finally, Long's treatment of plarosai as meaning a multitude of things under the rubric of "bringing to full realization" renders the verse contradictory at best and without precise linguistic meaning at worst. Because Long's treatment of Matthew 5:17 is the mainstay of his position regarding verses 17-20, the defects rehearsed here - especially when placed together with the introductory critique of his paper - deprive the remainder of his paper of argumentative force. Verses 18 and 19 are, if anything, even more difficult to deal with from a non-theonomic perspective, and for that reason Long finds it crucial to let his handling of verse 17 significantly influence the interpretation of these other two verses. Repeatedly that influence comes to expression on pages 29-38, where Long's exposition of verses 18-19 refers to, rests upon, and elaborates the position he has advanced regarding Matthew 5:17. So until his approach to verse 17 is rehabilitated, his position on verses 18-19 will be likewise weak.
Long's Treatment of Matthew 5:18
Although it is difficult for the reader to make out clearly what Long wishes to interpret Matthew 5:18 as saying, it is evident from his manner of treatment that (in his own mind) the acceptability of his approach to the verse rests critically on his handling of the two "until" (heos) clauses in the verse. In Theonomy I took them as parallel to each other: Jesus declared that the law would remain valid until heaven and earth passed away, that is, until all things come to pass (thus until the end of history). Long presents no refutation of this view, and the strength of it is evident from the semantic and syntactic parallels between the two clauses in the original Greek. Long's own suggestion calls for disregarding the parallelism and treating the second "until" clause as subordinate - rather than coordinate - to the first "until" clause (pp. 30-31). Consequently, in order to avoid creating a contradiction within the verse (a crucial defect we noted above in Fowler's departure from a coordinate reading of the clauses), Long takes the first "until" clause in a temporal sense, but the second in a modal sense (p. 31). (Subordination between two temporal clauses - without intervening and explanatory disjunction - would produce two conflicting termini for the law's validity.) Giving the two heos clauses these different senses, when their syntactical forms and relations are obviously the same, is at best awkward. Some will see it as a strained attempt to make room in Matthew 5:18 for Long's previously formulated theological convictions. He does not argue that his interpretation must be accepted as true, but simply sets it forth as an alternative to the other interpretation - one for which he offered no critical detraction (unless it simply be that such an interpretation supports the theonomic perspective!, cf. p. 31). And to make room for his alternative interpretation he renders the second heos clause as having a modal force (meaning "so that," p. 31), which seems a somewhat embarrassing maneuver for someone who elsewhere attempted to criticize theonomic exegesis for going "counter to all the recognized lexicographers"! This modal rendering of heos is nothing, if not novel.
Well, apart from the awkward, strained, and novel character of Long's treatment of the "until" clauses in Matthew 5:18, the relevant question is whether his interpretation is true. Jesus said, "For truly I say unto you, until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass away from the law, until all things come to pass." Not a single element of the law, He said, would pass away until the end of the spatio-temporal world. This theonomic-sounding perspective would appear evident from the beginning portion of the verse. If non-theonomists are to obviate this appearance, they will need to utilize the last part of the verse to bring in some kind of relevant qualification or modification. Accordingly, Long proposes a special reading of "until all things come to pass."
In his opinion, the word "all" in this clause denotes all that the Old Testament canon teaches, including its precepts, promises, prefigurations, prophecies, etc. (pp. 31, 33, 34). The question arises whether this interpretation is not completely arbitrary. What textual reason is there to suppose that Jesus used panta ("all") in this particular way here? Long gives us no reason. The supposition that Jesus was intending to speak particularly of all that "the Old Testament teaches" is baseless. According to the text, He spoke more simply and generally of "all things" (without particularization or specification of a more limited scope). My best guess is that Long's defense of his proposal would be something like this: "all" refers back to the "jot or tittle" of "the law," which according to Long (pp. 29, 33-34) denotes the Old Testament canon with all of its various contents, laws and promises, etc. If this is his case for taking "all" to denote the full contents of the Old Testament, then it is doubly flawed. In the first place, the supposed referent for "all" would not be "jot or tittle" since in the Greek text there is a disagreement between gender and number (as was argued against Fowler above). In the second place, the content of "the law" which Jesus had in mind in this passage was its moral precepts, not its history, typology, promises and prophecies (as is evident from the context and was demonstrated in the treatment given to Long's interpretation of v. 17 above).
So then, there is no good reason evident for agreeing with Long that "all" refers to everything set forth in the Old Testament canon. But this is not the only problem with Long's interpretation of Matthew 5:18. To continue with his proposal, he says that "until all things come to pass" speaks of the extension of "Christ's work of fulfillment" (p. 31) so that every commandment "should be fulfilled" (p. 33) or "realized" (p. 34). That is, his interpretation of the second heos clause makes it speak of "fulfilling" all that the Old Testament taught. The glaring problem here, though, is that the Greek text says nothing of the sort. It uses the verb ginomai, a colorless and common word for things simply happening - not the theologically loaded and rich verb, plaroo, which appears in verse 17. Long has assimilated "happen" ("come to pass, become") to the different word "fulfill" without justification or explanation of that shift. If we are to believe that the two words can be practically equated in meaning here, we will need some argumentation for that prima facie questionable move in semantics.
The clause from Matthew 5:18 which is in question right now is comprised of three elements: heos an, panta, and genatai. Long has offered a novel and unargued modal sense for the first, a mistaken or arbitrary denotation for the second, and an unjustified transfer of meaning for the third. These strikes are sufficient grounds for rejecting his treatment of the relevant clause in Matthew 5:18. Much more is being read into the crucial clause than is being legitimately and accurately exegeted out of it. However, before moving on in our discussion, one final error must be mentioned, which will call for considering the overall thrust of Long's interpretation of the clause in context, and not simply the separate parts of the clause itself.
Long's interpretation of the two "until" clauses in Matthew 5:18 is that the first is temporal in nature, giving the time within which something will occur, while the second specifies what will take place during that period of time. Thus the verse teaches, according to him, that Christ's work of fulfillment will continue until the end of time, when all that the Old Testament states will have occurred (p. 31). (For the sake of streamlining our critique, we will here overlook the problem of explaining how the poetry and past history of the Old Testament could be said to occur during or after the time of Christ.) Each part of the Old Testament, says Long, receives its own kind and its own time of "fulfillment" (p. 34): some things were fulfilled during Christ's ministry, some at Pentecost, some during this age, some at the second advent, etc. (pp. 34-35). What Matthew 5:18 assures us is that before the earth passes away not the least aspect of the Old Testament will be unaccomplished (p. 33). Not a stroke of the law will pass away as long as the world stands, until all of the law's prescriptions have been realized (p. 34). At any particular time, according to Long, what is set forth in the Old Testament is either in a realized or a yet-to-be-realized state (p. 35). The various parts of the Old Testament will all individually be accomplished and eventually become dated and pass away, but the complete Old Testament ("all" that it contains) will not be thus dated until the end of time. "The teachings of the Old Testament become dated (first "until" clause) but only by means of their coming to pass, that is, being accomplished (second "until" clause)" (p. 35). So then, Long contends that elements or aspects of the Old Testament individually pass away over a period of time as they each come to pass or are realized, and that this process of "dating" the Old Testament will continue until the end of history when the full contents of the Old Testament will have finally become dated completely.
Overlooking the salient point that this interpretation of Matthew 5:18 reduces the many kinds of literature in the Old Testament to the genre of prophecy (which is especially inappropriate in a verse which deals with the Old Testament as law, not prophecy at all), we can detect a major flaw in this approach to the verse, given its precise wording. As we have just seen, Long views individual aspects of the Old Testament teaching passing away as they are successively "realized" through history (from the incarnation to the second advent). His interpretation of Matthew 5:18 would contend that this process of the Old Testament's gradual passing away (realization) will not be finished until the end of history. In the mean while, some portions of the Old Testament are in a realized state, while others are in a yet-to-be-realized state. The whole Old Testament will not be realized until the passing away of heaven and earth, even though individual parts of it are accomplished already and are thus "dated" even now. Given this interpretation by Long, what Jesus says will not pass away from the law until heaven and earth pass away is the whole (or complete contents) of the Old Testament - "all" that it teaches. Individual details will gradually pass away, but until the passing away of heaven and earth the entire Old Testament will not become dated.
The textual problem here is plainly and simply that Jesus said not even the slightest detail - much less the entire Old Testament as a whole - will pass away from the law until heaven and earth pass away. It is not merely the complete contents of the Old Testament that will not finally pass away before the end of history, according to Matthew 5:18, but not even "one jot or one tittle." In this verse Jesus dealt with the Old Testament, not simply as a collective whole (that might gradually become dated detail by detail), but in terms of its individual minute parts. Not one of these smallest aspects of the Old Testament will "pass away" from the law prior to the passing away of heaven and earth - contrary to Long's suggestion that many are dated already. Long's interpretation has made the mistake of forgetting the way in which the totality of the Old Testament is referred to and handled in Matthew 5:18 - viz., as discrete parts, rather than as a collection or set of parts. Thus even though the phrase "until all things come to pass" does not refer to the Old Testament, when Long interprets it as doing so, he makes the further mistake of interpreting "all" as the total collection, rather than as each and every detail of the Old Testament revelation. Consequently his interpretation of "all things" unwittingly contradicts the emphasis Jesus gave to the enduring quality of every "jot and tittle" of the law. Long has simply misinterpreted the quantifier "all," if that word is (wrongly) taken as referring to all of the jots and tittles of the law mentioned in the verse. Where Long says that the last detail(s) of the Old Testament (and thus "all" of it) will not be accomplished and pass away prior to the passing away of heaven and earth, Jesus said not even the first details ("not one jot or one tittle") will pass away prior to that time. In this contrast we see the fundamental misdirection of Long's interpretation.
Any treatment of Matthew 5:18 which renders the last clause as invalidating the law prior to the end of history must make the verse self-contradictory, for this much is clear: not one stroke of the law will pass away "until heaven and earth pass away." Long's attempted interpretation, especially with its exegetical novelties and inaccuracies, will be far from convincing to anybody who is not already committed in advance to a non-theonomic point of view.
Long's Treatment of Matthew 5:19 and His Conclusion
If Long's argumentation and exegesis have been found unsound at crucial junctures up to this point, his treatment of Matthew 5:19 will appear even less satisfactory. In verse 17 Jesus denied that His coming had the effect of abrogating the law of God; in verse 18 Jesus declared that the law would not pass away until the end of history. Verse 19 applies these two premises, beginning as it does with the word "therefore." Because the law is not abrogated and will remain valid as long as the heaven and earth stand, whoever teaches men the breaking of even the least Old Testament commandment will be least in the kingdom of heaven. At first reading this certainly seems to teach the fundamental principle of theonomic ethics: we are to presume that any Old Testament commandment is binding today (as properly interpreted) unless Scripture itself teaches us otherwise. Jesus threatened God's displeasure for anyone who would even dare to teach that an Old Testament commandment may be violated; in the face of that warning, only a word from God Himself should be accepted as turning us away from obedience to an Old Testament commandment. Consequently, Matthew 5:19 would appear to lay down a firm basis for asserting the applicability of all Mosaic law, until and unless God's word says otherwise elsewhere. God might qualify His decree of full validity, but no man should dare to do so without direction from the Lord! And such direction would have to come in the objective revelation of Scripture in order to be authoritative for the church.
Nevertheless Long does not acknowledge what appears so obvious here. He baldly asserts: "the saying of our Lord in Matthew 5:19 is surely no basis for asserting either the applicability today of all the Mosaic law as covenant law, or the applicability of any particular part or parts of it in its covenant configuration" (p. 38). What makes Long so "surely" deny this? What evidence does he have for his opinion? Why doesn't he see any solid foundation in this verse for saying that all of the Mosaic law is applicable today unless qualified elsewhere in Scripture? Because "the covenantal distinctions of God's law. . . are not being specifically dealt with in the Sermon on the Mount. Therefore, 'no deduction can be drawn from these words binding the Jewish law, or any part of it, as such, upon Christians. . .'" (pp. 37-38, emphasis added). That is, unless necessary qualifications are specifically drawn right here in the local context (rather than elsewhere in further revelation), then no basis whatsoever can be found for an answer about the law's validity today. This logic needs to be untwisted. It would rather seem that just because no qualifications are made here - that is, just because any necessary qualifications must be warranted by a further word from God - the verse provides a clear presumption of validity for any and all Old Testament commandments. In its unqualified form, then, the verse surely does provide a basis for asserting an answer about the applicability of the Mosaic law today.
Long's defense of his non-theonomic view in the light of Matthew 5:19 is desperate. It is certainly mistaken to say, as he does, that unless necessary distinctions are set down right along with a general declaration, then that declaration does not offer any definite judgment whatsoever about its subject matter. Such arbitrariness cannot go unchallenged, for Scripture is replete with illustrations of general truths whose precise qualifications are found only elsewhere (indeed, the Sermon on the Mount is full of them). We deduce from "Turn the other cheek" that we should presume it our duty to avoid practicing violence toward others, unless Scripture qualifies further - as it does - concerning circumstances such as necessary self-defense or the just defense of others. We do not conclude from the unqualified form of the maxim, "Turn the other cheek," that there is no basis here whatsoever for asserting a prohibition on personal violence or vengeance! We are perfectly willing to presume its prohibition and to allow qualifications to enter the picture from further revelation. Likewise, the fact that all relevant qualifications are not drawn by Jesus in Matthew 5:19 should not lead us to the conclusion that no basis whatsoever is provided in the verse for asserting the validity of the Mosaic law today; it provides, in actual fact, a solid presumption of continuing validity until Scripture says otherwise. For Long to reason contrary to that presumption is to lapse into fallacious reasoning motivated by preconceived conclusions.
The desperation of his maneuver is evident from the fact that, in denying that Matthew 5:19 teaches the applicability of all the commandments in the Old Testament, Long is reduced to saying that the verse teaches merely the applicability "of all applicable commandments" (p. 38, where "inviolability" is used in a sentence dealing with applicability, as the preceding sentence explicitly does, only thereby masking the tautology temporarily)! To steer around the theonomic teaching of the verse apparently one must empty the verse of any substantial answer at all about the law's validity in the New Testament. But surely Christ did not utter the stern warning of Matthew 5:19 simply to assure us of something which is true by definition - that all applicable commandments are applicable! The warning was rather against teaching that even "the least of these (Old Testament) commandments" can be taken as inapplicable and thus be broken. To interpret the verse in any way such that we can presume a freedom to neglect any Old Testament requirement - without definite justification from God's word - we would perversely reverse the very meaning of the declaration, and thereby come under its censure.
Having interacted with Matthew 5:17-19, Long's paper expresses a number of judgments or conclusions which seem to conflict clearly and diametrically with the very words upon which his position is allegedly based!
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Long's Suggestions In a sense Christ came to disannul the Mosaic Covenant's law (pp. 11, 17, 19, 24, 25, 27, 29, 33) - even though elsewhere Long says Christ "in no way" disannulled God's Old Testament will (pp. 7, 10). Some Old Testament commandments have been realized or accomplished and are now dated (pp. 34-35) - even though elsewhere Long says that "not one" of the least Old Testament commandments can be violated without penalty (p. 36). The whole Mosaic law, as covenant law, has been abolished and passed away; it is not applicable or binding (pp. 14, 15, 16, 22, 28, 32, 38, 43) - even though elsewhere Long says Christ came to apply the unchanging standard of righteousness found in the Old Testament commandments, that aspect of them which is eternally binding (pp. 4, 7, 10, 22, 25-26, 35, 39, 46). |
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Christ's Statements "Do not begin to think that I came in order to disannul the Law or the Prophets; I came not to disannul" (Matt. 5:17). "Truly I say unto you, until heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no way pass away from the Law" (Matt. 5:18). "Whoever shall teach men to break one of these least commandments shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:19). |
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It would appear that before Long's perspective could become acceptable, he would need to resolve contradictions within his own position and contradictions between his position and the statements of Christ. Long claims that we are "not under law. . . as a rule" (p. 32), and that the covenant law of Moses "is not applicable today" (p. 38). Yet Christ taught that even the least commandment in the whole Old Testament law was an applicable rule for our lives (Matt. 5:18-19). Long asserts that we are under obligation to the Old Testament only to the degree that it has been repeated ("only so much of it as has been taken up and incorporated into Christianity," p. 45), whereas Matthew 5:19 teaches the contrary presumption of the full validity of the Old Testament - in which case we are under obligation to the Old Testament unless it is revoked elsewhere in the New Testament.
Long wants to hold that the case laws and the civil sanctions of the Mosaic revelation have now passed away (p. 44). That premise directly contradicts the inductive evidence of the New Testament in general, which appeals to and presses home the requirements of the Mosaic case laws and penal sanctions (e.g., I Tim. 5:18; Acts 25:11; Rom 1:26-32). And in particular that premise conflicts with the declarations of Matthew 5:17-19, which teach the enduring validity of every stroke of every least commandment found throughout the Law and the Prophets. At best, Long can only say about the moral and authoritative continuity between Old and New Testaments as taught in this passage that "the inspired documents continue to stand, primarily as a witness" (p. 33) - that the Old Testament continues as an inspired revelation (p. 8). But Christ certainly meant much more than that. Indeed, what Matthew 5:17-19 teaches about the doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration and about the endurance of the Old Testament Scripture, it teaches by way of implication. I have no doubt but that those implications are true and doctrinally important, but they cannot exegetically and legitimately be used to push out of sight the direct and specific teaching in Matthew 5:17-19 about the continuing validity of the Old Testament law - that is, to suppress the issue which was specifically and directly relevant to the context of Jesus' sermon at just this point. It is the moral authority and legal validity of the Old Testament, and not simply the continuance of its witnessing character as a document (which is only too obvious and beyond question, seeing that even a 1908 Sears Catalogue retains its witnessing function), to which Jesus addressed Himself in the text before us.
Therefore, we can with fairness judge that
Rev. Long's paper fails to blunt the theonomic thrust of Christ's words in
Matthew 5:17-19. Its reasoning fallacies, ambiguous distinctions and
proposals, and semantic or syntactic errors render it ineffective as a critique
of the theonomic position in Christian ethics.