Written Debate: Perfection of Salvation and Passing of Torah– Simmon's Final Negative– Part 3

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Don K. Preston

 

 

This is part 3 of Kurt’s Final Negative

Two Concurrent, Conflicting Covenants?

 

One of the more obvious problems of Covenant Eschatology is its insistence that the ceremonial and other ordinances of the Old Testament were valid and imposed until AD 70 even though the New Testament was in place.  King and Don must postpone justification and grace until AD 70 in order for their idea of a spiritualized resurrection to occur at that time, and therefore must keep the dead ordinances of the law alive, even though the gospel of Jesus Christ was already in force and effect.  Thus, if we are to believe them, there were two, conflicting, mutually exclusive covenants in force at the same time! If there was ever a system of belief rife with self- contradiction, this would have to be it!  On the one hand we have the shadow system of ceremonial law that can never forgive sins and therefore styled by a “ministration of death”, and on the other hand we have the gospel of life and grace ordained to replace the Old system, both theoretically valid and binding at the same time! Imagine, if you will, a State legislature amending its penal code, replacing the corpus of criminal statutes with new, conflicting ones, then having both valid at the same time!  Which laws are men charged to obey?  They cannot obey both, for one contradicts the duties and obligations of the other. Both cannot be valid for one set of statutes makes illegal what the other expressly commands!  The very notion of two covenants in force at one time is so totally at odds with scripture and all human experience that it is hardly necessary to refute it.  Let us look at few scriptures that show the Old Testament was annulled at the cross. We looked at some of these before, but Don ignored them. 

 

Heb. 9:17 states “a testament is of force after men are dead.”  Thus, the New Testament and gospel of Jesus Christ came into force and effect AT HIS DEATH UPON THE CROSS.  No one can have two valid wills; one must always amend or replace the other!  Ask any lawyer, or anyone who has ever made a will.  When a man changes his will, he always recites that the amended will revokes all previous wills.  The only exception would be a codicil, in which case one merely amends his existing will, rather than replacing it. It is abundantly clear that the New Testament did not merely amend the Old; it is not a codicil of the Old Testament, it altogether replaces it.  “When he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first that he may establish the second” (Heb. 10:8, 9).  TAKETH AWAY THE FIRST THAT HE MAY ESTABLISH THE SECOND. When was the second, the New Testament established?  At Jesus’ death!  A testament is of force after men are dead!  Don  must deny the legal efficacy of the New Testament in order to keep the dead ordinances of the Old Testament alive, or admit that the latter gave way to the former at the cross.

 

Rom. 7:1-4 teaches us that the law of the first husband (Old Testament) was nullified by the death of Christ, so that we could enter a new marital covenant with a new husband (the risen Savior) under a new law (the gospel). These four verses show not only that the saints were “dead to the la
w” by the body of Christ and therefore loosed from the debt of sin, but also that the old law was nullified in toto.  The law of marriage terminates upon the death of the husband. “The woman which hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband” (Rom. 7:2).  The law of the first husband was the Old Testament.  “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ” (v. 4).  DEAD TO THE LAW BY THE BODY OF CHRIST.  This is Christianity 101, folks! To buy into Covenant Eschatology you have to forget the ABC’s of salvation.   The Old law died with the body of Christ at the cross.  Don, what part of “dead to the law” would you deny?

 

Gal. 5:1 – “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again in the yoke of bondage.” This verse, indeed, the whole book of Galatians, stands for the proposition that the saints were not under the law but under liberty and grace, and were  not to submit to Judaizing teachers who insisted the law was “valid, binding, and obligatory” (like Don). The ceremonies of the law could not bring remission of sins.  To obtain salvation, one had to stand fast in Christ.  To revert to the system of law was to deny Christ and to fall from grace (v. 2, 4).  “For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God” (Gal. 2:19).  “Through the law” (through Christ’s fulfillment of the law by his substitutionary death and atoning sacrifice) “I am dead to the law” (I am loosed from the sentence of sin and death by the sacrifice of Christ) “that I might live unto God” (turn from sin and reliance upon my own merits, trusting instead upon the merits of Christ’s blood).  Given that this whole book is devoted to the topic of showing that Christians were not under the law, and, indeed, specifically charged not to submit to it, how can Don honestly ask us to believe that both systems were equally valid, or that there was any validity in the continuing ritual of the law? 

 

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