Forthycause's List: puritan view of the law of God

• If we do not understand this we shall never be like those men.

  • My thesis
• Johann Agricola studied   at Wittenberg under Luther, and served as his secretary. But he went on   to teach that the moral law had no place in Christian experience. Luther   gave Agricola and his followers the title of Antinomians, refuted their   arguments and elicited some form of recantation, but the friendship was   spoiled.

  • Joan Agricola, an antinomian
• Luther believed that the law was needed to bring the sinner to   repentance, to condemn and kill, but also it has a role for the Christian   as a guard and restraint to keep us in the will of God.

  • Luther's view of the law of God to believers.
• God's   law originated in the divine mind and represents the divine character,   and it is implanted in the mind of man.

  • Aquinas' view
• When man fell God republished   the law at Sinai and it was given in three dimensions, moral, ceremonial   and civil, and in two epochs, Moses to Christ, and then the Messiah's   new commandments, which are the law of Christ. That framework influenced   the whole of Reformed theology in how it looks at the law of God.
• There is a unity of substance but a difference of administration, at   Creation, at Sinai, and at the coming of Jesus Christ. In each of these   three epochs there is a unity of substance, but as the law is given progressively   it is administered in three different ways.
• Jesus Christ is   the end of the law. That is, the law in all its parts has reference to   Christ who is its focus and fulfilment.

  • Jesus Christ, the end of the law of God. 
• In the   sending of the Spirit he fulfils the purpose of the law

  • what does it mean? 
• The doctrine of the   law was at the epicentre of their gospel preaching and their pastoral   ministry.
• The Puritans worked with preaching grids, for example, that the Bible   was needed to unmask hypocrites, convert sinners, cheer the saints, and   edify the people of God. Every element of those duties is assisted by   the law of God.

  • the effect of the law of God in church. 
• The Puritans followed Aquinas and Calvin and went further. Goodwin said   that the law is part of what it means to be in the image of God. The moral   law is a happiness-producing revelation.
• Concerning the law given at Sinai there was division   amongst the Puritans,

  • Divisions over the law given at Mt. Sinai.
• What you have in the law of God is that law written in Adam's heart now   being republished in different epochs or dispensations.
• Theonomy in Relation to Dispensational and Covenant Theologies

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