Title: Joseph Prince, the Lone Ranger Antinomian, whose law doctrine, is refuted by 27 top leaders of the Church:
John Stott, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Arthur Pink, Charles Spurgeon, DL Moody, Andrew Murray, Charles Finney, AW Tozer, JI Packer, Billy Graham, John Piper, David Pawson, DA Carson, John MacArthur, George Whitefield, Reinhard Bonnke, James Montgomery Boice, JC Ryle, RA Torrey, Paris Reidhead, Robert Bolton, Walter Chantry,
Robbie Flockhart & RC Sproul.
Co-title: Joseph Prince falsely accuses 27 top Bible teachers and leaders for leading people into sin.
– By Rev George Ong (Dated 13 Sep 2023)
1. Next Article: My reply to Joseph Prince
This is getting interesting.
Joseph Prince paid me another compliment by replying to me again
in his latest sermon, 3 days ago, on 10 Sep 2023.
I must thank him for the free publicity that he bestows on me,
and I would be pleased to give him my reply.
Please watch out for the next article in my reply to him.
This would be slated for release
either by the end of this week or the beginning of next week.
2. Points about this Article
This lengthy article cannot be read in one but a few sittings.
You don’t have to read everything
but for those who are passionate about this topic,
especially Pastors and Leaders, it will be a great treat.
Let me be frank that for you
to assemble such massive resources
about what these 27 Christian Bible teachers and leaders
have commented on the said issue,
would be a near impossible task.
Thank God for helping me to pull off this feat.
My main purpose of assembling such massive resources
is to give a knockout blow to Joseph Prince
– that if all 27 Christian Bible teachers and leaders,
from different theological backgrounds and doctrinal persuasions,
have refuted his Antinomian teachings,
Prince has zero chance to be right on this issue.
3. An Excerpt taken from the Article
Joseph Prince had shamelessly lied more than once
that he is not an Antinomian.
But RC Sproul, an experienced theologian,
has described, in a video, what constitutes
an Antinomian and Antinomianism.
RC Sproul said:
“Antinomianism is the idea that the law of God,
particularly the moral law of God in the Old Testament
has no relevance whatsoever
for the New Testament Christian.”
This is exactly what Joseph Prince teaches.
Never believe the lies of Joseph Prince.
He is, undoubtedly, an Antinomian.
Antinomianism is a heresy that Martin Luther himself
coined and fought against during the Reformation.
(This article was also sent to Rev Dr Ngoei Foong Nghian, General Secretary, National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS) office, and for the attention of the Executive Committee Members.)
Please click here
In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube
on 10 Sep 2023, 3 days ago, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 5-second video:
“But today
we are not under the law…” (Rom 6:14)
George Ong’s comments:
Joseph Prince’s statement,
‘we are not under the law’ in Romans 6:14,
would be answered and elaborated
by the many Christian Bible teachers and leaders
in the article.
In another sermon, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 10-second video:
“So, those who advocate,
Yes, we must try our best to keep the law
is actually bringing people right into sin.”
George Ong’s comments:
Joseph Prince made a blasphemous statement
when he said that those who advocate
the keeping of the law,
is actually bringing people right into sin.
On the contrary,
those who advocate the keeping of the law
are those who honour God and His attributes
as the moral law is a reflection of His character.
So, how could someone who is brought closer to the law
which is a reflection of God’s character be sinning?
In yet another sermon, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 25-second video:
“Have you noticed the Holy Spirit
never helps people to memorise the Ten Commandments?
Have you noticed that?
Those who fight for the Ten Commandments,
you ask them, what’s the third commandment, bro?
Ammm, Ummm.
What’s the fifth?
Ummm.
What’s the sixth?
Ummm.
So much for fighting for the Ten Commandments.
They don’t even memorise it.”
George Ong’s comments:
Joseph Prince
made a sweeping and blasphemous statement
that the Holy Spirit will never help believers
to memorise the Ten Commandments?
How does he know?
Has he met these people?
Assuming that there are people
whom Joseph Prince have met
who advocate the law but don’t memorise it,
how does he know that the Holy Spirit is the one
who does not want to help them to memorise it?
Is he again going to tell us the sickening rubbish
that God spoke to Him and that he has a hotline to God?
It is so obvious that Joseph Prince
is making up his own story about the issue.
And even if he had met 10 of such people, so what?
Is that enough for him
to make the sweeping and blasphemous statement
that the Holy Spirit will never help believers
to memorise the Ten Commandments?
And by the way, Reinhard Bonkke
who is featured in this article,
proved Joseph Prince wrong
when he said:
“I had memorized the Ten Commandments.
I knew them by heart.”
In ‘Destined To Reign,’ Joseph Prince wrote:
“In other words,
with the advent of the new covenant of grace,
the Ten Commandments have been made obsolete.”
In a sermon, DA Carson said;
Please click here to view the 1-and-a-half-minute video:
“But that actually raises the question
what is the relationship
between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant?
And clearly, there are lines of continuity
between the two.
For example, you do not find that Paul says anywhere,
‘Well, the Old Covenant specified you shall not commit adultery,
but I say to you, you’ll free from the law, oh happy condition,
and now you can sleep with anybody you like.’
He (Paul) has many restrictions regarding sexual immorality.
And thus, there are commonalities of restraint, of warning, of threat.
In fact, probing deeper analysis of the nature of sin
under the New Covenant that align with the Old.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says,
‘Do not think I have come to destroy the Law or the prophets.
I have not come to destroy, but to… and that’s the rub, but to fulfil.’
Not simply to maintain, or to keep, or to preserve, but to fulfil.
So, insofar as Christians are obligated to obey the New Covenant,
and the New Covenant is the fulfilment of the Ten Commandments,
amongst other things,
then insofar as we are obeying their proper fulfilment
under the terms of the New Covenant,
in one sense, we are obeying the Ten Commandments.
Now, if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty,
then, of course, you’re supposed to honour your father and your mother,
and of course, you’re supposed to avoid covetousness and so on and so on.
In one fashion or another,
you could show kinds of continuity
from the Old Covenant, Ten Commandments,
to what is morally mandated by Christ Jesus.”
In a sermon, RC Sproul said;
Please click here to view the 2-and-a-half-minute video:
“The distinction in view here is there are laws
that God gives in the Old Testament and in the New
that are an expression
of His own character that is immutable.
So, that if we set them aside or He set them aside,
that would be doing violence to His own character.
For example, if God would say,
‘Now, in the New Covenant, it’s okay to worship idols.’
God would be denying His own deity and supremacy at that point.
Now, this is a question that I don’t think would be a mistake
for us to talk about the rest of the time here
because we’re living in a time
– since the Reformation
– unprecedented Antinomianism,
the idea that the law of God,
particularly the moral law of God in the Old Testament
has no relevance whatsoever
for the New Testament Christian.
And I remembered making a statement years ago
of those who say that the moral law of the Old Testament
has no relevance to the New Testament Christian
is Antinomianism.
I got a letter from a professor at a seminary;
he had his PhD in biblical studies and he said to me,
‘Why are you calling us Antinomians?
We’re not Antinomians
because we believe in the commandments of Christ.
We don’t believe that the Old Testament laws
relevant to us but the New Testament law is.’
I said what you now are articulating to me
is the classic example and definition of Antinomianism
because what Antinomianism refers to
is the Old Testament Law and its relevance to us today.
And the Christian ought to be able to say with the Psalmist,
‘Oh, how I love your law.’
Because, you know, we make a distinction
between the word of God and the law of God,
but God’s word is His law and His law is His word.
And that moral law (Ten Commandments)
is something that the church
needs to hold with great precision and care.
It’s what Luther – I mean what Calvin
called the third use of the law.
God’s revelation of what is pleasing to Him from His people.
We recite the Ten Commandments or part of the Ten Commandments
every Sunday at St Andrews.
We preach the law
so that people can be pushed to the gospel.”
George Ong’s comments:
Joseph Prince had shamelessly lied more than once
that he is not an Antinomian.
But RC Sproul, an experienced theologian,
has described what constitutes
an Antinomian and Antinomianism.
RC Sproul said:
“Antinomianism is the idea that the law of God,
particularly the moral law of God in the Old Testament
has no relevance whatsoever
for the New Testament Christian.”
This is exactly what Joseph Prince teaches.
Never believe the lies of Joseph Prince.
He is, undoubtedly, an Antinomian.
Antinomianism is a heresy that Martin Luther himself
coined and fought against during the Reformation.
1. Joseph Prince’s Strawman argument to misrepresent us.
Joseph Prince’s strategy has always been to falsely accuse us
of obeying God’s law in order to be saved or justified.
So, his oft-sung tune is
“Hey, I thought Paul had already said in Romans 6:14
‘… for you are not under law but under grace,
then why are you teaching your people
to obey the law to be saved.
Joseph Prince keeps misrepresenting
our doctrinal stand time and time again
by repeating the lie.
The lie is, we are preaching salvation by the law,
which is heresy,
and hence we have rejected God’s way of being saved by grace.
We did say we must obey God’s laws,
but we have never said that we are doing it
to be saved or be justified by the law.
We obey God’s laws not to be justified
but because we are justified.
We obey God’s laws,
not as part of justification
but as part of sanctification.
We believe that every true believer after they get saved,
must obey God’s laws as part of sanctification,
or, his faith is suspect.
So, you have to be aware that Joseph Prince’s strategy
has always been to falsely accuse us
of obeying the law under justification
when he perfectly knows
we are legitimately doing it under sanctification.
That’s the lethalness of his crafty strategy
– to twist our obedience of the law
from the basis of sanctification
to that of justification.
Hence, I hope you are now being made aware
of Joseph Prince’s deadly strategy
that he constantly employs against us,
so, you will not be deceived the next time
when you stumble upon such arguments of Joseph Prince
in his books or his sermons.
This is basically the strawman argument
that he uses against us.
Let me ask Joseph Prince
which evangelical church or Pastor in Singapore
has ever taught that keeping the laws
is the way to earn our salvation.
Chances are he cannot even name one.
If he could, that church or Pastor would be a heretic.
Next, while we teach that obeying the moral law
has a place in sanctification but not justification,
Joseph Prince teaches that there is no more place
for the moral law or the Ten Commandments
for New Covenant believers
as they have been made obsolete
with the coming of New Covenant grace.
2. The ‘Majority may not always be right’ argument.
In many of my previous articles over the last few months,
I have used the teachings of many well-regarded Bible teachers
and Church leaders (the majority) to counter Joseph Prince’s teachings.
In his defence, Joseph Prince wrote the following in a recent sermon:
“People complain. People slander very easily. They insult.
The post, alright, their comments,
these are also words.
And many a times, they take majority as truth.
Majority is not always true.”
So, Joseph Prince’s indirect message to me
is that my ‘majority argument’
– those many Bible teachers I quoted against him
may not be right.
But Joseph Prince is not consistent
as he himself had also used ‘the majority’ argument.
Andrew Tan, an Ex New Creation Church member for 20 years, wrote:
“The church strived on building up its membership
believing that having more numbers
is a testimony that they are on the right path.
Pastor Prince once said in the pulpit
that 32,000 (now it is 34,000) members
cannot be wrong.
He used this argument to counter-attack those
who criticised the falsity of his grace theology,
saying that 32,000 people can’t be fooled.
This pride comes from confidence
in the rule of large numbers.”
Did you see my point?
Joseph Prince is basically saying
how can 32,000 people – such a huge majority be wrong?
He is using ‘the majority’ argument himself!
But why is Joseph Prince
using ‘the majority is not always right or true’ argument recently?
He knows that since I have surfaced the views of many well-known Bible teachers
that counter his Grace doctrine in many of my previous articles,
I would also be doing the same thing in the future.
So, Prince is utterly concerned about this
as it would be very difficult for him to defend his doctrine
if I could point out time after time that his doctrines
are refuted by well-known people like
John Stott, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Martin Luther,
John Calvin, John Wesley, etc.
So, Prince has to use
‘the majority is not always right’ argument as a defence,
in anticipation of my future articles.
But finally, the issue is not whether the majority or minority is right;
the issue is, we got to get down to the details of analysing
which parts of the arguments are biblically sound, and which parts, aren’t,
regardless of whether they are put forward by the majority or minority.
In this article, I am surfacing
a big number of well-regarded Bible teachers and leaders,
whose views are in total contrast
with that of Joseph Prince
regarding the moral law or the Ten Commandments.
Friends, these are not just ‘ordinary’ Christian leaders,
but exceptional and top leaders who have made their mark
in what God has called them to do.
All 27 of them have upheld
the place of the moral law or Ten Commandments
for New Covenant believers,
except Joseph Prince, who spoke against them,
specifically, that they are no longer relevant
or have gone obsolete in the New Covenant.
What you would be reading from hereon
are the views of 27 Top leaders of the Christian Church:
In a weekly Sunday sermon aired on YouTube
on 10 Sep 2023, 3 days ago, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 5-second video:
“But today
we are not under the law…” (Rom 6:14)
First, I’ll let John Stott handle Joseph Prince’s argument that
we are not under the law…” (Rom 6:14)
In ‘Christ in Conflict: Lessons from Jesus and His Controversies,’
John Stott wrote:
“Why, then, does Paul say
that Christians are “not under law”? (Rom 6:14)
It is true that he uses this expression several times,
but never on its own.
He always supplies (or at least implies) a contrast.
The fact is that we can never understand the meaning of a negative
unless we know with what it is being contrasted.
For example, if I simply wrote of someone
that “he does not behave like a man,”
you would not know if I was being extremely complimentary
and implying that he was more like an angel,
or if I was being rude
and implying that he was more like a child.
I remember once, on my return from a trip to America and Australia,
that I shocked my friends by saying,
“I haven’t had a bath for seven weeks.”
Before they had time to take me to task
for my unhygienic habits,
however, I was able to add,
“But I’ve had a shower every day!”
Negatives are misleading
unless they are read in the light of the positives
with which they are being contrasted.
Now Paul never expressed his negatives in isolation.
When he says that Christians are “not under law,”
he never meant that the category of law
has been altogether abolished,
(George Ong’s interjection:
This is what Joseph Prince is trying to deceive the people.)
but rather that we do not look to the law
for either our justification or our sanctification.
It would in any case be useless for us to do so,
because of the law’s “weakness.”
Paul writes: “[God did] what the law was powerless to do
because it was weakened by the flesh” (Romans Morality 143 8:3).
It is clear from this that the problem
is not with the law
but with us.
Because of our fallen nature, we cannot by ourselves keep the law.
And because we cannot keep the law,
it can neither justify nor sanctify us.
Instead, God has done for us and in us
what the law is powerless to do.
And he has done it by the sending
of both his Son and his Spirit.
He justifies us through the death of his Son
and sanctifies us through the indwelling of his Spirit.
That is to say, God accepts us,
not because we strive to obey the law,
but because of the finished work of Christ.
And our route to holiness
is not through our efforts to obey the law
but through the inward work of the Spirit.
It is in this double sense, then,
that Paul declares we have been “freed” from the law
and urges us to stand firm
in the freedom with which Christ has set us free.
It is in this sense too that he tells us
we are “not under the law.”
We are now able to understand his negative from its positive counterparts.
As for our justification:
“You are not under the law, but under grace” (Romans 6:14).
As for our sanctification:
“if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18).
What he is saying is that our justification
depends not on law but on grace,
and our sanctification
not on law but on the Spirit.
Christian believers don’t rely on the law
for their justification and their sanctification;
instead, they rely on God’s grace for both.
For “law” is all about our own efforts at obedience,
whereas “grace” means God’s plan to save us through his Son and his Spirit.
But the fact that the law
is unable to provide us with the ground of our justification
or the means of our sanctification
does not mean that we can dispense with it altogether.
(George Ong’s interjection:
This is where Joseph Prince’s deceptive teaching is exposed.)
We still need it as a guide to how we should behave.
Even though we are justified by grace rather than law,
God justifies us
“in order that the righteous requirement of the law
might be fully met in us” (Romans 8:4).
Again, even though we are sanctified by the Spirit rather than law,
what the Spirit does in sanctifying us
is precisely to write the law in our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33; 2 Corinthians 3:3)!
Keeping God’s law is not the basis
on which we are put right with God
– but it is the result of it.
Again, keeping God’s law is not the means of our sanctification
– but it is the essence of it.
The Puritan Samuel Bolton summed up Paul’s teaching
about the law and the gospel like this:
“The law sends us to the Gospel,
that we may be justified,
and the Gospel sends us to the law again
to enquire what is our duty being justified.”
So, when in one place Paul writes
that “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything;
what counts is the new creation” (Galatians 6:15)
and in another place
“circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing.
Keeping God’s commands is what counts” (1 Corinthians 7:19),
he is not contradicting himself.
For a new enthusiasm to keep God’s commandments
is exactly what the new creation (or new birth) leads to.
Indeed, John insists that “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4),
while one of the important evidences of the new birth
is that we do not persist in such sin
but obey God’s commandments instead (1 John 2:3-5; 3:4-10, 22-24; 5:1-5, 18).
When the Holy Spirit writes God’s law in our hearts,
he gives us both an inward understanding of its meaning
and a fervent desire to obey it.
The language of the regenerate believer,
with which the stance of the new morality (or Antinomiansim)
cannot easily be reconciled, is
“Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long” (Psalm 119:97),
“in my inner being I delight in God’s law” (Romans 7:22),
and “the precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart” (Psalm 19:8).
All of which brings us back to the heart again,
to the difference between Pharisaic righteousness and Christian righteousness,
and to Christ’s insistence that we keep God’s law,
not with a reluctant, external conformity,
but with a willing, inward conformity of mind and will and heart.”
In ‘The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“The Pharisees had ‘obscured’ the law;
Jesus ‘restored it to its integrity’.
And in this matter Christian disciples
must follow Christ, not the Pharisees.
We have no liberty
to try to lower the law’s standards
and make it easier to obey.
That is the casuistry of Pharisees,
not Christians.
Christian righteousness
must exceed pharisaic righteousness.
Yet the advocates of the ‘new morality’ or ‘situational ethic’ (or Antinomianism)
are in principle trying to do exactly
what the Pharisees were doing.
True, they claim to take Christ’s part
against the Pharisees,
but they resemble the Pharisees
in their dislike of the law.
They regard the law
as rigid and authoritarian,
and (just like the Pharisees)
they attempt to ‘relax’ its authority,
to loosen its hold.
So they declare the category of law abolished
(which Jesus said he had not come to abolish)
and they set law and love at variance
with each other
(in a way in which Jesus never did).
No.
(George Ong’s interjection:
Can you now see that Joseph Prince,
who is an Antinomian, is the real Pharisee?)
Jesus disagreed with the Pharisees’ interpretation of the law;
he never disagreed with their acceptance of its authority.
Rather the reverse.
In the strongest possible terms
he asserted its authority as God’s Word written,
and called his disciples
to accept its true and deeply exacting interpretation.”
In ‘The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“More simply, as both the Reformers and the Puritans
used to summarize it,
the law sends us to Christ to be justified,
and Christ sends us back to the law to be sanctified.
George Ong’s comments:
Since the Reformers, the Puritans and John Stott himself
had stated that the law and sanctification are related,
how could Joseph Prince who said he believes in sanctification
and then dumped the law into the dustbin of history
at the same time?
Because Joseph Prince has gotten rid of the law,
how could his people be sanctified?
In ‘Sermons of Martin Luther Vol. 1, Sermons on Gospel Texts, for Advent, Christmas & Epiphany, by Martin Luther,’
Martin Luther said:
“Whosoever now believes the Gospel
will receive grace and the Holy Spirit.
This will cause the heart to rejoice
and find delight in God,
and will enable the believer
to keep the law cheerfully,
without expecting reward,
without fear of punishment,
without seeking compensation,
as the heart is perfectly satisfied with God’s grace,
by which the law has been fulfilled.”
In ‘Sermons of Martin Luther Vol. 1, Sermons on Gospel Texts, for Advent, Christmas & Epiphany, by Martin Luther,’
Martin Luther said:
“Romans 8:24: “In hope were ye saved,” for ye are Jesuses or Saviors.
Behold, there is therefore no measure
to the dignity and honor of a Christian!
These are the super abundant riches of his goodness,
which he pours out upon us,
so that our heart may be free,
joyous, peaceable, and unterrified;
and willingly and cheerfully
keep the law.”
In ‘The John Calvin Collection, 12 Classic Works,’
John Calvin wrote:
“That Christians are under the law of grace,
means not that they are to wander
unrestrained without law,
but that they are engrafted into Christ,
by whose grace they are freed from the curse of the Law,
and by whose Spirit
they have the Law written in their hearts.”
In ‘The John Calvin Collection, 12 Classic Works,’
John Calvin wrote:
“The law contributes
not only to the beginning of repentance,
but also to our continuing perseverance [in the Christian life].
In ‘Commentary on the Harmony of the Gospels, Vol. 1, p. 277,’
John Calvin wrote:
“We must not imagine that the coming of Christ
has freed us from the authority of the law,
for it is the eternal rule
of a devout and holy life,
and must, therefore, be as unchangeable
as the justice of God, which it embraced,
is consistent and uniform.”
In ‘the Sermon on the Mount, Discourse 6, Sermons on Several Occasions (1810), pp. 75-76,’
John Wesley wrote:
“‘Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil’” [Matthew 5:17] …
The ritual or ceremonial law, delivered by Moses to the children of Israel,
containing all the injunctions and ordinances
which related to the old sacrifices and service of the temple,
our Lord indeed did come to destroy, to dissolve, and utterly abolish…
But the moral law, contained in the Ten Commandments,
and enforced by the prophets,
He did not take away.
It was not the design of His coming
to revoke any part of this.
This is a law which never can be broken,
which stands fast as the faithful witness in heaven.
The moral law stands on an entirely different foundation
from the ceremonial or ritual law,
which was only designed for a temporary restraint
upon a disobedient and stiff-necked people;
whereas this was from the beginning of the world,
being ‘written not on tables of stone,’
but on the hearts of all the children of men,
when they came out of the hands of the Creator.
… Every part of this law must remain in force,
upon all mankind, and in all ages;
as not depending either on time or place,
or any other circumstances liable to change,
but on the nature of God and the nature of man,
and their unchangeable relation to each other.”
In ‘Living a Life of Fire An Autobiography,’
Reinhard Bonnke wrote:
‘Thou shalt not steal.
It is one of the Ten Commandments.’
(His mother said to him)
… I nodded again.
I had memorized the Ten Commandments.
I knew them by heart.
‘… When we break God’s law, it is sin, Reinhard.
You are a sinner, and I am worried about you
because sinners go to hell for all eternity.’
(His mother said to him)
The pain of my transgression grew heavy indeed.”
George Ong’s comments:
Reinhard Bonnke broke one of the Ten Commandments
but the glorious ending was that
after being convicted about the sin of stealing
through the law,
he came to the saving knowledge of Jesus.
In ‘An Exposition of Ephesians 4:17 – 5:17, Darkness and Light,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“But a very subtle danger arises at this point,
and I have no doubt the Apostle had it in mind
when he wrote the very words we are considering.
There are people who will argue,
‘But wait a minute; are you not preaching the law to us?
You are to be a minister of grace,
and yet you seem to be preaching pure law.
You are reminding us of the Being and the character of God,
as expressed in the Ten Commandments and in His moral law;
are you not just putting us back under the law?
Are you not excluding every one of us from the kingdom of God?
Surely you are forgetting the gospel!
You have been referring to the original kingdom,
and the original law that God held before mankind;
but now the Lord Jesus Christ has come,
and we are confronted by something quite new;
we are no longer confronting the law;
all we are asked to do as Christians
is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
We could not be saved under the law,
for the law made it impossible, saying,
“There is none righteous, no, not one.”
But now God has brought in another way
which makes it easier for us;
we are no longer confronted by the demands of the law
and the tremendous holiness of God.
It is just a matter of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and we shall be saved.’
Now that is their argument,
but I am bound to say that
it is one of the most subtle, dangerous heresies
that can ever be offered to men and women.
… The answer to all this is perfectly clear in the New Testament itself.
Christ is God, and He did not come into this world to change God’s law;
He Himself says specifically in the Sermon on the Mount
that not one jot or tittle of the law shall pass away
until all be fulfilled.
He did not come to destroy the law or the prophets,
but to fulfil them.
… and the argument that the law has got nothing to do with us
is a case of the devil appearing as an angel of light.”
George Ong’s comments:
Let me quote what Martyn Lloyd Jones said:
“it is one of the most subtle, dangerous heresies
that can ever be offered to men and women.”
“… and the argument that the law has got nothing to do with us
is a case of the devil appearing as an angel of light.”
What Martyn Lloyd-Jones described
is what Joseph Prince has been teaching all along
– that New Covenant people have nothing to do with the law.
Hence, Joseph Prince is indeed preaching heresy
and is representing the devil who appears as an angel of light.
In ‘An Exposition of Ephesians 5:18-6:9, Life in the Spirit,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“Christianity does not do away with the Law as a portrayal of life.
What it does is to add grace to it,
enabling us to carry out the Law.
‘Children, honour thy father and mother’.
The Law gave that command,
Christianity does the same;
but it gives us this greater reason for obeying it,
it gives us an insight and an understanding into it.
We who are Christians realize that we are doing it ‘as unto the Lord’,
the Lord who came from heaven.
He came from heaven to honour His Father’s Law.
He kept the Law, He lived according to the Law.
And He has redeemed us
that we might be ‘a peculiar people, zealous of good works’,
that we might ‘fulfil’ the Law.
He gave Himself for us,
‘that the righteousness of the Law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit’ (Romans 8:4).
Grace raises the commandment to the highest level,
and we are to obey our parents, and to honour them, and to respect them
in order to please our Lord and Saviour who is looking down upon us.”
In ‘An Exposition of Ephesians 5:18-6:9, Life in the Spirit,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“Or let me put the matter in another way.
Any position which says ‘law only’ or which says ‘grace only’
is of necessity wrong,
because in the Bible you have ‘law’ and ‘grace’.
It is not ‘law or grace’,
it is ‘law and grace’.
There was grace in the Old Testament Law.
All the burnt offerings and sacrifices are indicative of that.
It was God who ordered them.
Let no one ever say that there was no grace in the Law of God
as given to Moses and the children of Israel.
It is ultimately based on grace, it is Law with grace in it.
And on the other hand,
we must never say that grace means lawlessness;
that is Antinomianism,
which is everywhere condemned in the New Testament.
There were some early Christians who said,
‘Ah, we are no longer under Law, we are under grace; that means that what we do does not matter. Because we are no longer under Law but are under grace, let us sin that grace may abound! Let us do what we like, it does not matter. God is love, we are forgiven, we are in Christ, we are born again, so let us do anything we like’.
These false deductions are dealt with
in the Epistles to the Romans and to the Corinthians
and to the Thessalonians,
and also in the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation.
It is a tragic fallacy to think that when you have grace
there is no element of law at all, but that it is a kind of licence.
That is a contradiction of the biblical teaching
concerning both law and grace.
There is grace in law, there is law in grace.
We are not ‘without law’ as Christians, says Paul,
‘but we are under law to Christ’ (1 Corinthians 9:21).
Of course, there is discipline!
In fact, the Christian ought to be much more disciplined
than the man who is under the Law,
because he sees its meaning more clearly,
and he has greater power.
He has a truer understanding,
and should therefore live a better and a more disciplined life.
There is not less discipline in the New Testament than in the Old;
there is more, and at a deeper level.
… I assert, therefore, that this modern idea
completely misunderstands both law and grace.
It is a complete muddle, it is utter confusion;
indeed it is not biblical at all.
It is nothing but human philosophy, human psychology.
It uses Christian terms
but it really evacuates such terms of their real meaning.”
In ‘An exposition of Ephesians 6:10-13, The Christian Warfare,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“One extreme in this particular realm
is that which is commonly known as antinomianism,
which, according to the word’s literal meaning,
signifies opposition to the whole notion of law.
It virtually claims that our conduct and practice
are not related to the law of God.
It argues thus:
‘The Old Testament was concerned about morality, ethics, conduct, behaviour.
That was the law.
But under the Gospel the situation is quite different.
The Gospel delivers us from law and sets us free.
The Christian is no longer under the law, he is a free man.’
The devil comes to a man who has seen this ‘truth’,
and presses him to such an extreme
that he becomes an antinomian…”
(George Ong’s interjection:
Because Joseph Prince refuses to see the truth,
he is now in the devil’s camp,
preaching heresies about God’s law.)
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“It has been said that every unregenerate sinner
has the heart of a Pharisee.
This is true;
and it is equally true that every unregenerate sinner
has the heart of an Antinomian.
This is the character which is expressly given to the carnal mind:
it is “enmity against God”;
and the proof of this is, that
“it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Rom. 8:7).”
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“I am not come to destroy the Law.”
Nothing could be more explicit.
The word “destroy” here means “to dissolve or overthrow”.
When, then, our Lord said that He had not come to destroy the Law,
He gave us to understand
that it was not the purpose of His mission
to repeal or annul the Ten Commandments:
that he had not come to free men
from their obligations to them.
And if He did not “destroy” the Law,
then no one had destroyed it;
and if no one has destroyed it,
then the Law still stands with all its Divine authority;
and if the Law still abides
as the unchanging expression of God’s character and will,
then every human creature
is under lasting obligation to obey it;
and if every human creature,
then the Christian!
… So, far from Christ having repealed the Law,
He expressly affirmed,
“Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled.”
In these words, He announces the perpetuity of the Law.
So long as heaven and earth shall last,
the Law will endure,
and by necessary implication,
the lasting obligations of all men to fulfill it.
… “Do we then make void the Law through faith? God forbid:
yea, we establish the Law” (Rom. 3:31).
… If we are saved “through faith”
is the Law useless?
Are we to understand you to mean (Paul)
that the Law has been annulled?
Not at all, is the apostle’s answer:
“We establish the Law.” (Rom 3:31)
What did the apostle mean when he said “we establish the Law”?
He meant that, as saved men,
Christians are under additional obligations to obey the Law,
for they are now furnished with new and more powerful motives to serve God.”
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“Here again, the apostle (Paul),
so far from lending the slightest encouragement
to the strange delusion
that the Ten Commandments
have become obsolete to Christians,
actually, quotes five of them,
and then declares,
“Love is the fulfilling of the Law”. (Rom 13:8-10)
Love is not a substitution for Law-obedience,
but it is that which prompts the believer
to render obedience to it.
Note carefully,
it is not “love is the abrogating of the Law”,
but “love is the fulfilling of the Law”.
“The whole Law is grounded on love to God and love to man.
This cannot be violated without the breach of Law;
and if there is love,
it will influence us
to the observance of all God’s commandments” (Haldane).”
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“Ye are not under the Law but under grace”. (Rom 6:14)
… rather is it a contrast between Law and grace
as the principles of two methods of justification,
the one false, the other true;
… Rom. 6:14 was just as true of the Old Testament saints
as of New Testament believers.
Caleb, Joshua, David, Elijah, Daniel
were no more “under Law”
in the sense that these words bear in Rom. 6:14,
than Christians are today.
Instead, they were “under grace”
in the matter of their justification,
just as truly as we are.
“Not under the Law”
does not mean,
not under obligation
to obey the precepts of the moral Law;
but signifies, Not keeping the Law in order to be saved.”
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“For in Rom. 13:9 and Eph. 6:2 (New Testament)
several of the Ten Commandments
are quoted and enforced.
This is quite sufficient to prove
that the moral Law is not “done away”.
And such scriptures as Isa. 2:2,3; Jer. 31:33, etc.,
make it plain that the Law is not abolished”.
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“The Law is fulfilled:
the Law was given to be fulfilled,
not only for us, but in us,
who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. (Rom 8:4)
There is danger here of a mistake on either side
– for if we do not preach faith alone for salvation,
no one is saved;
but if we preach a faith that does not obey,
we preach that which nullifies the faith which saves us.”
In ‘The Sermons of Charles Spurgeon in Four Volumes,’
Charles Spurgeon said:
“I do not know a greater gift than this that even God can bestow
– save the gift of his only-begotten Son:
“I will put my laws into their mind,
and write them in their hearts.”
O you poor sinners,
I may exhort you to keep the law;
but, without the Spirit of God working within you,
nothing will come of it!
But if God puts his law into your hearts,
then you will keep it.
… We become Christians with our own full assent and consent;
and we keep the law of God
not by any compulsion except the sweet compulsion of love.
We do not keep it because we cannot do otherwise,
but we keep it because we would not do otherwise,
because we have come to delight therein,
and this seems to me the greatest wonder of divine grace.”
In ‘The Sermons of Charles Spurgeon in Four Volumes,’
Charles Spurgeon said:
“The Scriptures are everything to the Christian – his meat and his drink.
The saint can say, “O how I love thy law!”
If we cannot say so, something is wrong with us.
If we have lost our relish for Holy Scripture,
we are out of condition,
and need to pray for spiritual health…
If God’s commands are grievous to you,
then you are a rebel at heart.
Loyal subjects delight in the royal law.
“His commandments are not grievous.”
… We delight in the law of God
after the inward man.
Oh, that we could perfectly obey
in thought, and word, and deed!
This is our view of heaven.
Thus, we sing of it…”
In ‘The Collected Works of D. L. Moody,’
DL Moody wrote:
“Some people seem to think
we have got beyond the commandments.
What did Christ say?
“Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till Heaven and Earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:17-18)
The commandments of God
given to Moses in the Mount at Horeb
are as binding today
as ever they have been
since the time they were proclaimed
in the hearing of the people.
… Jesus never condemned the law and the prophets,
but He did condemn those who did not obey them.
Because He gave new commandments,
it does not follow that He abolished the old.
Christ’s explanation of them
made them all the more searching.
In His Sermon on the Mount,
He carried the principles of the commandments
beyond the mere letter.
He unfolded them and showed that
they embraced more,
that they are positive as well as prohibitive.
The Old Testament closes with these words:
“Remember ye the Law of Moses My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the Statutes and Judgments. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the Earth with a curse.” (Malachi 4:4-6)
Does that look as if the law of Moses was becoming obsolete?
The conviction deepens in me with the years
that the old truths of the Bible must be stated and restated
in the plainest possible language.
… The people must be made to understand
that the Ten Commandments are still binding,
and that there is a penalty attached to their violation.
… The Sermon on the Mount
did not blot out the Ten Commandments.
When Christ came, He condensed the statement of the law into this form:
“Thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength… [and] thy neighbour as thyself.” (Mark 12:30,31)
Paul said:
“Love is the fulfilling of the Law.” (Romans 13:10)
But does this mean that
the detailed precepts of the Decalogue
are superseded
and have become back numbers?
Does a father cease to give children rules to obey
because they love him?
Does a nation burn its statute books
because the people have become patriotic?
Not at all.
And yet people speak as if the commandments
do not hold for Christians
because they have come to love God.
Paul said:
“Do we then make void the Law through faith?
God forbid: yea, we establish the Law.” (Romans 3:31)
It still holds good.
The Commandments are necessary.
So long as we obey,
they do not rest heavy upon us;
but as soon as we try to break away,
we find they are like fences
to keep us within bounds.
Horses need bridles
even after they have been properly broken in.
“We know that the Law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the Law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.” (1 Timothy 1:8-10)
Now, my friend,
are you ready to be weighed by this law of God?
A great many people say that
if they keep the commandments
they do not need to be forgiven
and saved through Christ.
But have you kept them?
I will admit that
if you perfectly keep the commandments,
you do not need to be saved by Christ;
but is there a man in the wide world
who can truly say that he has done this?
Young lady, can you say:
“I am ready to be weighed by the law.”? Can you, young man?
Will you step into the scales and be weighed one by one by the Ten Commandments?
Now face these Ten Commandments
honestly and prayerfully.
See if your life is right,
and if you are treating God fairly.
God’s statutes are just, are they not?
If they are right, let us see if we are right.
Let us get alone with God and read His law
– read it carefully and prayerfully,
and ask Him to forgive us our sin
and what He would have us to do.
In ‘Hebrews, the Holiest of All, A Commentary on the Book of Hebrews,’
Andrew Murray wrote:
“8:10. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after these days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws Into their mind, And on their hearts also will I write them.
This is the covenant I will make after these days:
I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts.
In chap. 7 (ver. 16)
we saw what the difference is between an external law and an inner life.
The one is impotent, the other mighty.
And we saw how even God’s law failed
of securing obedience,
because the heart was not right.
The promise of the new covenant
is to convert the external law into an inner life,
to put it so in the heart that it shall be its inmost life,
so that, as naturally as the heart wills and lives and acts on earth,
it shall will and live and do what God demands…
And so, God promises
that He will put His law in our minds and write it in our hearts,
in such a way that it shall be our inner nature, our very life,
and we shall act according to it
as naturally as we think or live.
Yes, He will do it.
So that we can say, even as His Son did,
Thy law is within My heart;
I delight to do thy will, O God.
… With this He would, by His Holy Spirit,
so put His laws into their heart
that they should delight in doing them.”
Charles Finney wrote
(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8804383-evermore-the-law-must-prepare-the-way-for-the-gospel):
“Evermore the law
must prepare the way for the gospel.
To overlook this in instructing souls
is almost certain to result in false hope,
the introduction of a false standard of Christian experience,
and to fill the Church with false converts.”
“Because we live in a period known as the age of God’s grace,
it has become a popular thing
to declare that the Ten Commandments
are no longer valid, no longer relevant in our society.
With that context,
it has become apparent that Christian churches
are not paying attention to the Ten Commandments.
But Dwight L. Moody preached often in the commandments.
John Wesley said he preached the commands of the Law to prepare the way for the gospel.
R. A. Torrey told ministers if they did not preach the Law, they would have no response to the preaching of the gospel.
It is the Law that shows us our need
for the gospel of salvation and forgiveness!
It is accurate to say that our binding obligation
is not to the Old Testament Law.
As sincere Christians we are under Christ’s higher law
– that which is represented in His love and grace.
But everything that is morally commanded in the Ten Commandments
still comprises the moral principles
that are the will of God for His people.
God’s basic moral will for His people has not changed!”
In ‘Knowing God by JI Packer,’
JI Packer wrote:
“We are free from the law, they say;
our salvation does not depend on law-keeping;
we are justified through the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ.
How, then, can it matter, or make any difference to anything,
whether we keep the law henceforth or not?
… Why should we think God is concerned?
Does it not show an imperfect grasp of justification
when a Christian makes an issue of his daily sins,
and spends time mourning over them
and seeking forgiveness for them?
Is not a refusal to look to the law for instruction,
or to be concerned about one’s daily shortcomings,
part of the true boldness of justifying faith?
The Puritans had to face these “antinomian” ideas,
and sometimes made heavy weather of answering them.
If one allows it to be assumed that justification
is the be-all and end-all of the gift of salvation,
one will always make heavy weather of answering such arguments.
The truth is that these ideas must be answered in terms not of justification but of adoption
– a reality which the Puritans never highlighted quite enough.
Once the distinction is drawn between these two elements in the gift of salvation,
the correct reply becomes plain.
What is that reply?
It is this: that, while it is certainly true that justification frees one forever
from the need to keep the law, or try to, as the means of earning life,
it is equally true that adoption
lays on one the abiding obligation to keep the law,
as the means of pleasing one’s newfound Father.
Law-keeping is the family likeness of God’s children;
Jesus fulfilled all righteousness,
and God calls us to do likewise.
Adoption puts law-keeping on a new footing:
as children of God, we acknowledge the law’s authority as a rule for our lives,
because we know that this is what our Father wants.
If we sin, we confess our fault and ask our Father’s forgiveness
on the basis of the family relationship, as Jesus taught us to do
– “Father … forgive us our sins” (Lk 11:2, 4).
The sins of God’s children do not destroy their justification or nullify their adoption,
but they mar the children’s fellowship with their Father.
“Be holy, for I am holy” is our Father’s word to us,
and it is no part of justifying faith
to lose sight of the fact that God, the King,
wants his royal children to live lives worthy
of their paternity and position.”
In ‘JI Packer Library,’
JI Packer wrote:
“Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he [Christ] is righteous—1 John 3:7
Antinomianism, which means being “anti-law,”
is a name for several views
that have denied that God’s law in Scripture
should directly control the Christian’s life.
… Christ-centered antinomianism
argues that God sees no sin in believers,
because they are in Christ,
who kept the law for them,
and therefore, what they actually do
makes no difference,
provided that they keep believing.
(George Ong’s interjection:
This is precisely what Joseph Prince has been teaching
that God sees no sins in us as we are in Christ.
And as long as you keep believing,
there’s nothing to worry about.
Prince is a true-blooded Antinomian.)
But 1 John 1:8-2:1 (expounding 1:7) and 3:4-10
point in a different direction,
showing that it is not possible to be in Christ
and at the same time to embrace sin as a way of life.
Dispensational antinomianism
holds that keeping the moral law
is at no stage necessary for Christians,
since we live under a dispensation of grace,
not of law.
(George Ong’s interjection:
As Joseph Prince holds to the doctrine of Dispensationalism,
he is also preaching such false doctrines about the law.)
Romans 3:31 and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11
clearly show, however,
that law-keeping is a continuing obligation for Christians.
“I am not free from God’s law
but am under Christ’s law,” says Paul (1 Corinthians 9:21).
… It must be stressed that the moral law,
as crystallized in the Decalogue
and opened up in the ethical teaching of both Testaments,
is one coherent law,
given to be a code of practice
for God’s people in every age.
In addition, repentance means
resolving henceforth to seek God’s help
in keeping that law.
The Spirit is given to empower law-keeping
and make us more and more like Christ,
the archetypal law-keeper (Matthew 5:17).
This law-keeping is in fact
the fulfilling of our human nature,
and Scripture holds out no hope of salvation
for any who, whatever their profession of faith,
do not seek to turn from sin to righteousness
(1 Corinthians 6:9-11; Revelation 21:8).
In ‘JI Packer Library,’
JI Packer wrote:
“Now the blueprint for this life
was set out for all time in the Ten Commandments
which God gave the Jews through Moses on Sinai
about thirteen centuries before Christ.
Yesterday’s Christians saw them as
(to quote the title of William Barclay’s exposition of them)
The Plain Man’s Guide to Ethics.
They were right.
Today’s world, even today’s church,
has largely forgotten them (could you recite them?).
That is our folly and loss.
For here, in nugget form,
is the wisdom we need.
Because Scripture calls God’s Ten Commandments “law”
we assume they are like the law of the land,
a formal code of dos and don’ts,
restricting personal freedom
for the sake of public order.
But the comparison is wrong.
Torah (Hebrew for “law”)
means the sort of instruction
a good parent gives his child.
Proverbs 1:8 and 6:20 actually use “torah”
for parental teaching.
Think of all the wise man’s words
to his son in Proverbs 1:8-8:36
as addressed to us by our heavenly Father himself
(as indeed they are,
as in Augustine’s true phrase
“what thy Scripture says, thou dost say”).
That will give you a right idea
of the nature and purpose of God’s law.
It is there, not to thwart self-expression
(though, it may sometimes feel like that
– for children hate discipline!),
but to lead us into those ways
that are best for us.
God’s parental law
expresses God’s parental love.”
In ‘JI Packer Library,’
JI Packer wrote:
“Though we are not under the law
as a system of salvation,
we are divinely directed to keep it,
according to Christ’s exposition of it,
as the rule for our lives (1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2).”
In ‘JI Packer Library,’
JI Packer wrote:
“The moral law for Christians,
the law of God’s present kingdom,
is the law found in the Ten Commandments
and the prophets,
now applied to the new situation.
Jesus has not abolished that law
but has merely filled out its meaning (Matthew 5:17-48).”
In ‘Answers to Life’s Problems, by Billy Graham,’
Billy Graham wrote:
“The Ten Commandments are just as valid today
as they were when God gave them to Moses.
They reflect the moral character of God,
and they also provide
the foundation of right living with others.
God’s character does not change,
and neither does His moral will for us.
You will find that the New Testament
has much to say about these commandments.”
In ‘What Jesus Demands from the World,’
John Piper wrote:
“Dying was not his only mission.
But it was central.
In shedding his blood, he purchased the new-covenant promises.
The new covenant was God’s promise
that all who enter the coming kingdom
will have their sins forgiven,
will have the law written on their hearts,
and will know God personally (Jer. 31:31-34).
The blessings of this covenant are crucial
in enabling us to obey Jesus’ commandments.
Which makes Jesus’ death of supreme importance
is bringing about the impossible obedience that he demands.”
In ‘two of David Pawson’s sermons regarding Hebrews 8:8-12,’
David Pawson said:
“And I’ll write my laws in your heart, and you will want to do them.
It won’t be a different law.
It will still be the Ten Commandments.
It will still be the old law,
but I will write it in your heart and you will want to keep it.
… The cross hasn’t wiped out the commandments.
It has written them into peoples’ hearts.
The cross in a certain sense
has not rendered commandments obsolete,
it has fulfilled them.”
In ‘Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount And His Confrontation with the World,’
DA Carson wrote:
“Of course, Paul is referring primarily to the function of law
within the history of the Jewish race.
However, this account of things also holds up at the personal level.
It is usually true that a man won’t cry to be found
until he knows or suspects he’s lost.
He won’t beg for pardon until he thinks he’s condemned.
He will not ask for forgiveness until he is conscious of his guilt.
I am aware, of course, that some people become Christians
without passing through deep traumas in these areas;
but I suspect some of the same features apply anyway.
For example, some are converted
because they are drawn by the humbling magnificence of Jesus’s love,
as expressed in his self-sacrifice.
But that means they recognize some need in their own lives,
or some claim he has on them, or an essential superiority in him
which they admit they do not possess
and would like to establish as their goal.
And these people, I suspect,
do not make up the majority of genuine conversions.
To go farther, I would argue that the reason we are currently seeing
such an embarrassingly high percentage of spurious conversions to Christ
is precisely because we have not first taught people their need of Christ.
In one of his letters to a young man who wanted to know how to preach the gospel,
John Wesley offers a quite different approach.
He says that whenever he arrived at any new place to preach the gospel,
he began with a general declaration of the love of God.
Then he preached “the law” (by which he meant all of God’s righteous standards
and the penalty of disobedience) as searchingly as he could.
This he kept up until a large proportion of his hearers found themselves under deep conviction of sin,
beginning even to despair of the possibility of forgiveness from this holy God.
Then, and only then, did he introduce the good news of Jesus Christ.”
In one of John MacArthur’s sermons, and commenting on Hebrews 8:13,
John MacArthur said:
“The old covenant has passed away.
The old covenant is obsolete.
The old covenant was a shadow.
The old covenant contained the law of God
but was not equal to the law of God.
The old covenant was the Mosaic law.
It had the moral law of God,
which is a reflection of God’s holy nature,
which never changes because God never changes.
But it also contained social stipulations, ceremonial observances,
which passed away,
because they were only temporary for purposes fulfilled in the past.
The old covenant, that stage of the law,
that form of the law, that embodiment of the law,
that sort of container of the moral law of God,
is obsolete.
The moral law of God will never be obsolete…
because the moral law of God
is simply a reflection of His nature.
And He is immutable and unchanging
and His nature’s always the same.
It is important to understand
that the law of God never passes away.
It is critical for us to know the law of God and to obey it.
What is obsolete is not the moral law of God,
but the embodiment of that law in the Mosaic economy.
The holy law of God never changes,
because God never changes,
and God’s laws are merely a manifestation of His holy nature.”
In conclusion, going through
what these 27 top Christian leaders
(hopefully, you would also go through the rest in the Appendix)
have stated their position
regarding the moral law or the Ten Commandments
would convince you that they are a clear refute of
of Joseph Prince’s position
that they have become obsolete
and irrelevant to New Covenant believers.
This means if these 27 leaders are right,
then Joseph Prince is wrong.
If Joseph Prince is right,
then all 27 top Christian leaders are wrong.
Friends, how can all 27 of them:
John Stott, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Arthur Pink, Charles Spurgeon, DL Moody, Andrew Murray, Charles Finney, AW Tozer, JI Packer, Billy Graham, John Piper, David Pawson, DA Carson, John MacArthur, George Whitefield, Reinhard Bonnke, James Montgomery Boice, JC Ryle, RA Torrey, Paris Reidhead, Robert Bolton, Walter Chantry,
Robbie Flockhart & RC Sproul.
be wrong?
That is why I said Joseph Prince is a Lone Ranger
in most of his grace doctrines.
But what is worse is that Joseph Prince
is falsely accusing all these 27 top leaders
for bringing people right into sin.
In a sermon, Joseph Prince said;
Please click here to view the 10-second video:
“So, those who advocate,
Yes, we must try our best to keep the law
is actually bringing people right into sin.”
On the contrary,
those who advocate the keeping of the law
are those who honour God and His attributes
as the moral law is a reflection of His character.
So, how could someone who is brought closer to the law
which is a reflection of God’s character be sinning?
Joseph Prince,
by being a false accuser of the brethren,
is following in the footsteps of Satan,
the one who empowers him to deceive the multitudes.
Rev George Ong
APPENDIX
In ‘JI Packer Library,’
JI Packer wrote:
“Some read the Old Testament
as so much primitive groping and guesswork,
which the New Testament sweeps away.
But “God…spoke through the prophets” (Hebrews 1:1),
of whom Moses was the greatest
(see Deuteronomy 34:10-12);
and his Commandments,
given through Moses,
set a moral and spiritual standard for living
which is not superseded,
but carries God’s authority forever.
Note that Jesus’ twofold law of love,
summarizing the Commandments,
comes from Moses’ own God-taught elaboration of them
(for that is what the Pentateuchal law-codes are).
“Love your God” is from Deuteronomy 6:5,
“love your neighbor” from Leviticus 19:18.
It cannot be too much stressed
that Old Testament moral teaching
(as distinct from the Old Testament revelation of grace)
is not inferior to that of the New Testament,
let alone the conventional standards of our time.
… First, Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17)
that he came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it;
that is, to be, and help others to be,
all that God in the Commandments had required.
What Jesus destroyed
was inadequate expositions of the law,
not the law itself (Matthew 5:21-48; 15:1-9; etc.).
By giving truer expositions,
he actually republished the law.
The Sermon on the Mount itself
consists of themes from the Decalogue
developed in a Christian context.
Second, the negative form of the Commandments
has positive implications.
“Where a sin is forbidden,
the contrary duty is commanded” (Westminster Larger Catechism, question 99).
The negative form was needed at Sinai (as in the West today)
to curb current lawlessness
which threatened both godliness and national life.
But the positive content pointed up by Christ
– loving God with all one’s powers,
and one’s neighbor as oneself
– is very clearly there, as we shall see.”
In ‘JI Packer Library,
JI Packer wrote:
“The Ten Commandments’ stock is low today.
Why?
Partly because they are law,
naming particular things that should
and should not be done.
People dislike law (that is one sign of our sinfulness),
and the idea is widespread
that Christians should not be led by law,
only by love.
… False Antithesis
But the love-or-law antithesis is false,
just as the down-grading of law is perverse.
Love and law are not opponents but allies,
forming together the axis of true morality.
… First, God’s law expresses his character.
It reflects his own behavior;
it alerts us to what he will love and hate to see in us.
It is a recipe for holiness,
consecrated conformity to God,
which is his true image in man.
And as such (this is the second truth)
God’s law fits human nature.
As cars, being made as they are,
only work well with gas in the tank,
so we, being made as we are,
only find fulfillment in a life of law-keeping.
This is what we were both made and redeemed for.
… If anyone was qualified
to detect shortcomings in the Ten Commandments
and lead us beyond them to something better,
it was he (Jesus).
But what did he do?
He (Jesus) affirmed them as having authority forever (Matthew 5:18-20)
and as central to true religion (Matthew 19:17-19).
… When John says,
“This is the love of God,
that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:3),
his words describe Jesus’ own religion,
as well as reminding us
that Jesus defined love and discipleship to himself
in terms of keeping his own commands (John 14:15, 21-24; cf. Matthew 28:19, 20).
Commandment-keeping
is the only true way to love the Father and the Son.
And it is the only true way to love one’s neighbor, too.
When Paul says that
“he who loves his neighbor
has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8; cf. 10),
he explains himself
by showing that love to neighbor
embraces the specific prohibitions
of adultery, murder, stealing, and envy.
He does not say that love to neighbor
cancels them (the laws)!
… The Christian’s most loving service to his neighbor
in our modern world,
which so readily swallows this ancient lie,
is to uphold the authority of God’s law
as man’s one true guide to true life.”
In ‘JI Packer Library,’
JI Packer wrote:
“Spelling out this approach,
Reformed theologians said that God’s law
has three uses, or functions:
first, to maintain order in society;
second, to convince us of sin and drive us to Christ for life;
third, to spur us on in obedience,
by means of its standards and its sanctions,
all of which express God’s own nature.
It is the third use that is in view here.”
… People ask whether God’s law
binds all men or only believers.
The answer is that it binds all
– first, because God made us all;
and second, because we are so made
that without learning to obey the law
we can never find the happiness and fulfillment
we were made for.”
In ‘Enduring Classics of Billy Graham,’
Billy Graham wrote:
“It was the love of God
which put the Ten Commandments
in the hands of His servant, Moses.
It was His love which engraved those laws,
not only in stone,
but also upon the hearts of all people.
Those commandments
became the foundation of all civil, statutory,
and moral law and the basis of conscience.”
Billy Graham wrote:
“The Ten Commandments are just as valid today
as when God gave them to Moses over 3,000 years ago.
Jesus said,
“I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law” (Matthew 5:18).
Yes, it’s true we live in a much different world.
But if anything, this means we need the Ten Commandments even more,
for we live in a time of great moral and spiritual confusion.
How can we know what is right or wrong?
There are only two ways:
either we make it up on our own
– or we depend on God to show us.
But God knows what is best for us,
and when we reject His will for us,
we end up in moral and spiritual chaos.”
John Wesley wrote:
“The ordinary method of God
is to convict sinners by the Law, and that only.
The gospel is not the means which God hath ordained,
or which our Lord Himself used, for this end.
Think of God’s Law as an extension cord
that is plugged into the power of Heaven.
The gospel is a light bulb.
Without the Law,
the gospel is powerless;
it leaves the lost in the dark about their sin
and its deadly consequences.”
In ‘Luther’s Works (trans., Weimer ed.), Vol. 50, pp. 470-471; originally printed in his Spiritual Antichrist, pp. 71, 72,’
Martin Luther wrote:
“I wonder exceedingly how it came to be imputed to me
that I should reject the law of Ten Commandments…
Can anyone think that sin exists
where there is no law?
… Whosoever abrogates the law
must of necessity, abrogate sin also.”
In ‘Sermons of Martin Luther Vol. 1, Sermons on Gospel Texts, for Advent, Christmas & Epiphany, by Martin Luther,’
Martin Luther said:
“Thus, he is a truly Christian preacher
who preaches nothing
but that which John proclaimed,
and firmly insists upon it.
First, he must preach the Law
so that the people may learn
what great things God demands of us;
of these we cannot perform any
because of the impotence of our nature
which has been corrupted by Adam’s fall.”
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah… this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people” (Heb. 8:8,10).
Let it be carefully noted that this passage unmistakably demonstrates two things:
first, it proves conclusively that the Law has not been “abolished”!
Second, it proves that the Law does have a use and value for those that are saved,
for it is saved Israel that is here in view!
Nor is there any possible room for doubt
as to whether or not this applies to Gentile Christians now.
The passage just quoted refers to “the new covenant”.
Is the new covenant restricted to Israel?
Emphatically no.
Did not our Saviour say at the Holy Supper,
“This is My blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many for the remission of sins” (Matt. 26:28, R.V.)?
Was Christ’s blood of the new covenant limited to Israel?
Certainly not.
Note how the apostle quotes our Lord’s words
when writing to the Corinthians, see 1 Cor. 11:25. So, too, in 2 Cor. 3:6
the apostle Paul declares that God has made us (not is going to make us) “ministers of the new covenant”.
This is proof positive that Christians are under the new covenant.
The new covenant is made with all that Christ died for,
and therefore Heb. 8:8-10 assures us
that God puts His laws into the minds and writes them upon the hearts
of every one of His redeemed.
… “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts” (Heb 8:10),
so that they understand, love
and obey them…
When God writes His laws upon our hearts,
our affections and wills answer to every tittle in them,
with a genuine desire and determination to perform the same.”
In ‘The Law and the Saint, by Arthur W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“But to what do we refer when we speak of “The Law”?
This is a term which needs to be carefully defined.
In the New Testament there are three expressions used,
concerning which there has been not a little confusion.
First, there is “the Law of God” (Rom. 7:22,25, etc.).
Second, there is “the Law of Moses” (John 7:23; Acts 13:39, 15:5, etc.).
Third, there is “the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2).
Now these three expressions
are by no means synonymous,
and it is not until we learn to distinguish between them,
that we can hope to arrive
at any clear understanding of our subject.
The “Law of God” expresses the mind of the Creator,
and is binding upon all rational creatures.
It is God’s unchanging moral standard
for regulating the conduct of all men.
In some places “the Law of God”
may refer to the whole revealed will of God,
but in the majority
it has reference to the Ten Commandments;
and it is in this restricted sense we use the term.
This Law was impressed on man’s moral nature
from the beginning, and though now fallen,
he still shows the work of it written in his heart.
This law has never been repealed,
and in the very nature of things, cannot be.
For God to abrogate the moral Law
would be to plunge the whole universe into anarchy.
Obedience to the Law of God is man’s first duty.
That is why the first complaint
that Jehovah made against Israel after they left Egypt was,
“How long refuse ye to keep My commandments and My laws” (Ex. 16:27).
That is why the first statutes
God gave to Israel were the Ten Commandments,
i.e. the moral Law.
That is why in the first discourse of Christ
recorded in the New Testament
He declared,
“Think not that I am come to destroy the Law, or the Prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matt 5:17),
and then proceeded to expound and enforce the moral Law.
And that is why in the first of the Epistles,
the Holy Spirit has taught us at length
the relation of the Law to sinners and saints,
in connection with salvation
and the subsequent walk of the saved:
the word “law” occurs in Romans
no less than seventy-five times,
though, of course,
not every reference is to the Law of God.
And that is why sinners (Rom. 3:19) and saints (Jas. 2:12)
shall be judged by this Law.
The “Law of Moses”
is the entire system of legislation, judicial and ceremonial,
which Jehovah gave to Israel
during the time they were in the wilderness.
The Law of Moses, as such,
is binding upon none but Israelites.
This Law has not been repealed.
That the Law of Moses is not binding on Gentiles
is clear from Acts 15.
The “Law of Christ” is God’s moral Law,
but in the hands of the Mediator.
It is the Law which Christ Himself was “made under” (Gal. 4:4).
It is the Law which was “in His heart” (Psa. 40:8).
It is the Law which He came to “fulfil” (Matt. 5:17).
The “Law of God”
is now termed “the Law of Christ”
as it relates to Christians.
As creatures we are under bonds
to “serve the Law of God” (Rom. 7:25).
As redeemed sinners
we are “the bondslaves of Christ” (Eph. 6:6),
and as such we are under bonds
to “serve the Lord Christ” (Col. 3:24).
The relation between these two appellations,
“the law of God” and “the Law of Christ”
is clearly intimated in 1 Cor. 9:21,
where the apostle states,
that he was not without Law to God,”
for he was “under the Law of Christ”.
The meaning of this is very simple.
As a human creature,
the apostle was still under obligation
to obey the moral Law of God his Creator;
but as a saved man he now belonged to Christ,
the Mediator, by redemption.
Christ had purchased him:
he was His, therefore, he was “under the Law of Christ”.
The “Law of Christ”,
then, is just the moral Law of God now
in the hands of the Mediator and Redeemer
– cf Ex. 34:1 and what follows!”
In ‘An Exposition of Hebrews, Faithful Classic, by A. W. Pink,’
Arthur Pink wrote:
“1 Corinthians 9:21, Matthew 5:18, etc.
are quite sufficient to prove
that the moral law has not been
(and never will be) repealed.”
Charles Spurgeon wrote
(https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8804377-i-do-not-believe-that-any-man-can-preach-the):
“I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel
who does not preach the Law.
… They will never accept grace
till they tremble before a just and holy Law.
Therefore, the Law serves a most necessary purpose,
and it must not be removed from its place.
They must be slain by the Law
Before they can be made alive by the gospel.”
Charles Spurgeon also wrote,
“He who preaches the gospel
without preaching the law
may hold all the results of it in his hand,
and there will be little for him to hold.”
George Whitefield said:
“First, then, before you can speak peace to your hearts,
you must be made to see, made to feel,
made to weep over, made to bewail,
your actual transgressions
against the law of God.”
George Whitefield said:
“That is the reason we have so many ‘mushroom’ converts,
because their stony ground is not plowed up;
they have not got a conviction of the law;
they are stony-ground hearers.”
JC Ryle wrote:
“People will never set their faces decidedly towards heaven, and live like pilgrims,
until they really feel that they are in danger of hell…
Let us expound and beat out the Ten Commandments,
and show the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of their requirements.
This is the way of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount.
We cannot do better than follow His (Jesus) plan.”
“Then I would call on everyone…
to preach… the law of God,
until sinners would cry out,
“What must we do to be saved?”
Then I would take them off in a corner
and whisper the gospel to them…
Such drastic action is needed
because we have a gospel-hardened generation of sinners
by telling them how to be saved
before they have any understanding
why they need to be saved.”
DL Moody wrote:
“It is a great mistake to give a man
who has not been convicted of sin
certain passages that were never meant for him.
The law is what he needs…
Do not offer the consolation of the gospel
until he sees and knows he is guilty before God.
We must give enough of the law
to take away all self-righteousness.
I pity the man who preaches only one side of the truth
– always the gospel,
and never the law.”
Robert Bolton wrote,
“First wounding by the law,
and then healing by the gospel.”
Walter Chantry wrote
(https://comingintheclouds.org/christian-resources/evangelism/preaching-the-law-of-god/):
“The absence of God’s holy law from modern preaching
is perhaps as responsible as any other factor
for the evangelistic impotence of our churches and missions.
… Only by the light of the law
can the vermin of sin in the heart be exposed.
… Satan has effectively used a very clever device to silence the law,
which is needed as an instrument to bring perishing men to Christ.
… It is imperative that preachers of today
learn how to declare the spiritual law of God;
for, until we learn how to wound consciences,
we shall have no wounds to bind
with gospel bandages.”
Robbie Flockhart said,
“You must preach the law,
for the gospel is a silken thread,
and you cannot get it into the hearts of men
unless you have made a way for it with a sharp needle;
the sharp needle of the law
will pull the silken thread of the gospel after it.
There must be plowing before there is sowing
if there is to be reaping after the sowing.”
John MacArthur wrote:
“God’s grace cannot be faithfully preached to unbelievers
until the law is preached
and man’s corrupt nature is exposed.
It is impossible for a person to fully realize his need for God’s grace
until he sees how terribly he has failed the standards of God’s law.”
In ‘The Gospel of Matthew, Volume 1, The King and His Kingdom (Matthew 1-17)’
James Montgomery Boice wrote:
“Not only do Christians need to believe the Bible
and stand on it as a matter of principle,
they need to obey it and act on it too,
which is the ultimate test
of whether any of us actually believe God’s Word or not.
This is what Jesus addresses in the next verse when he says,
‘Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven’ (v. 19).”
In ‘a Book, ‘Studies in the Sermon on the Mount’ Volume One by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote:
“The whole purpose of grace, in a sense,
is just to enable us to keep the law.”
“There is nothing more fatal than to regard holiness and sanctification
as experiences to be received.
No; holiness means being righteous,
and being righteous means keeping the law.”
“What is grace?
It is that marvellous gift of God which,
having delivered a man from the curse of the law,
enables him to keep it
and to be righteous as Christ was righteous
for He kept the law perfectly.”
“Grace is that which brings me to love God;
and if I love God, I long to keep His commandments
…He enables us to fulfil the law.”
… “Therefore, if your so-called grace (which you say you have received)
does not make you keep the law,
you have not received grace.
You may have received a psychological experience,
but you have never received the grace of God.”
In a sermon, ‘Not Under Law but under Grace’, based on John 1:17,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“Christ through the Spirit
enables us to keep and to fulfill the law.
That is the business of grace
to enable me to fulfil the law.”
“Never interpret grace
as that which gets rid of the law.”
“If grace doesn’t enable me to keep and to live the law of God,
then it just means that the devil has triumphed over God.”
In a sermon, ‘The Law and Grace’ based on John 1:17,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“That is where this putting of law and grace as complete antithesis
is always wrong.”
In a sermon, ‘He Condemns and Convicts’ based on John 1:17,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“So there is nothing that is more foolish
than to dismiss the law
and say we got nothing to do with law
– we are under grace
– we have finished with the law.”
In a sermon, ‘The Gift of Grace’ based on John 1:17,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“The Ten Commandments
are a reflection of God’s holy character….”
“… If you resent the commandments of God,
don’t talk to me about heaven.
Don’t talk about spending your eternity
looking into the face of God.”
In a sermon, ‘Christ; The End of The Law’ based on Romans 10:4,
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“Any teaching concerning salvation
which does not express itself
in terms of the demands of the law
is false teaching.”
In ‘Studies in the Sermon on the Mount, Volume 1,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said,
“We must have this new mind and disposition
which leads us to love the law and to desire to keep it;
and by His power He enables us to fulfil the law.
That is why our Lord goes on to say in verse 19,
‘Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matt 5:19)
That (Matt 5:19-20) was not spoken
only to the disciples for the three short years
they were to be with Christ until He died.
It is permanent and everlasting;
He enforces it again in Matthew 7:21, where He says,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
What is the will of the Father?
The Ten Commandments and the moral law.
They have never been abrogated.”
In ‘Exposition of Romans chapter 5, Assurance,’
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said:
“That is why I emphasized that
if there is not an adequate preaching of the Law
there will never be a true conception of grace and of salvation.
… We have neglected the law-work,
we have been too anxious to hurry people
into some kind of ‘decision’.”
Martyn Lloyd-Jones said
(https://www.monergism.com/blog/no-true-evangelism-without-it),
“The essence of evangelism
is to start by preaching the Law;
and it is because the Law has not been preached
that we have had so much superficial evangelism.
… True evangelism
… must always start by preaching the Law.”
In ‘The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“Having stated that his purpose in coming
was to fulfil the law,
Jesus went on to give the cause and the consequence of this.
The cause is the permanence of the law
until it is fulfilled (18),
and the consequence is the obedience to the law
which the citizens of God’s kingdom
must give (19, 20).
This is what Jesus has to say about the law he has come to fulfil:
Truly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away,
not an iota (which is Greek for yod, the smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, almost as small as a comma),
not a dot (keraia, a horn, referring probably to one of the tiny hooks or projections which distinguish some Hebrew letters from others),
will pass from the law until all is accomplished…
None of it will pass away or be discarded, he says,
not a single letter or part of a letter,
until it has all been fulfilled.
And this fulfilment will not be complete
until the heaven and the earth themselves pass away.
For one day they will pass away
in a mighty rebirth of the universe.
Then time as we know it will cease,
and the written words of God’s law
will be needed no longer,
for all things in them will have been fulfilled.
Thus, the law is as enduring as the universe.”
In ‘The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“The Christian and the law (Matt 5:19, 20)
The word ‘therefore’ introduces the deduction
which Jesus now draws for his disciples
from the enduring validity of the law
and his own attitude with respect to it.
It reveals a vital connection
between the law of God and the kingdom of God.
Because he has come not to abolish but to fulfil,
and because not an iota or dot will pass from the law
until all has been fulfilled,
therefore greatness in the kingdom of God
will be measured by conformity to it.
Nor is personal obedience enough;
Christian disciples must also teach to others
the permanently binding nature
of the law’s commandments.
True, not all the commandments are equally ‘weighty’.
Yet even one of the least of these commandments,
precisely because it is a commandment of God the King,
is important.
To relax it
— i.e. to loosen its hold on our conscience
and its authority in our life
—is an offence to God whose law it is.
To disregard a ‘least’ commandment in the law
(in either obedience or instruction)
is to demote oneself into a ‘least’ subject in the kingdom;
greatness in the kingdom
belongs to those who are faithful
in doing and teaching the whole moral law.
‘The peerage of Christ’s kingdom’, wrote Spurgeon,
‘is ordered according to obedience.’ 21
Jesus now goes further still.
Not only is greatness in the kingdom
assessed by a righteousness
which conforms to the law,
but entry into the kingdom is impossible
without a conformity better
(much better: the Greek expression is very emphatic)
than that of the scribes and Pharisees,
for God’s kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness.”
In ‘The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“It was a new heart-righteousness
which the prophets foresaw
as one of the blessings of the Messianic age.
‘I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts,’ God promised through Jeremiah (31:33).
How would he do it?
He told Ezekiel: ‘I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes’ (36:27).
Thus God’s two promises to put his law within us
and to put his Spirit within us coincide.
We must not imagine (as some do today)
that when we have the Spirit
we can dispense with the law,
for what the Spirit does in our hearts
is, precisely, to write God’s law there.
So ‘Spirit’, ‘law’,
‘righteousness’ and ‘heart’
all belong together.”
In ‘The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“Jesus affirmed in a quite unequivocal way
what his own attitude to the law was
and what his disciples’ ought to be.
This was ‘fulfilment’ in his case
and ‘obedience’ in theirs.
Not a dot or iota would pass away;
all must be fulfilled.
Not one of the least commandments
might be disregarded;
all must be obeyed.”
In ‘Christ in Conflict: Lessons from Jesus and His Controversies,’
John Stott wrote:
“Only one point needs to be made at this stage,
namely that the life and teaching of Jesus
do not demonstrate such a neat distinction between law and love.
The contrast they pose is a false one.
We are being forced to make a choice
which the Bible neither makes itself
nor asks us to make.
It’s certainly the case that Jesus made love the top priority.
This is common ground.
But in doing so he did not reject law.
What he rejected were misinterpretations of the law,
not the law itself.
On the contrary, he obeyed it in his own life.
He stated clearly that
he had come not to abolish the law,
but to fulfill it.
He also boldly echoed God’s word in Exodus 20:6 (“those who love me and keep my commandments”)
by insisting that his disciples
must love him
and keep his commandments.”
In ‘Christ in Conflict: Lessons from Jesus and His Controversies,’
John Stott wrote:
“One mistake we need to guard against
is the failure to distinguish between “law” and “legalism.”
Legalism is a wrong use of law, by which it is distorted
– either into a way of salvation or a mere code of outward behavior.
What Jesus rejected was the legalism of the Pharisees,
not the law of Moses revealed by God.
His opposition to the morality of the Pharisees
was not that their view of the law was authoritarian (imposed from above),
nor that it was absolute (and therefore inflexible),
but that it was external.
In practice, they were reducing the law’s absolute and authoritative demands.
They were attempting to make the law less daunting and more manageable
by putting it into a neat set of man-made rules.
As a result, their obedience was only skin deep
and not from the heart,
which is what primarily concerns God.”
In ‘The Message of the Sermon on the Mount by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“What is to be a Christian’s attitude to the moral law of God?
Is the very category of law
abolished in the Christian life,
as the advocates of the ‘new morality’
and of the ‘not under law’ school strangely assert?
No.
Jesus had not come to abolish the law and the prophets,
he said, but to fulfil them.
He went on to state both that
greatness in God’s kingdom
was determined by conformity to their moral teaching,
and even that entry into the kingdom
was impossible without a righteousness
greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:17–20).
Of this greater Christian righteousness
he then gave six illustrations (5:21–48),
relating to murder, adultery, divorce,
swearing, revenge and love.
In each antithesis
(‘You have heard that it was said
… but I say to you …’)
he rejected the easy-going tradition of the scribes,
reaffirmed the authority of Old Testament Scripture
and drew out the full and exacting implications
of God’s moral law.”
In ‘Understanding the Bible by John R. W. Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“The moral laws of Moses,
however, have not been abrogated.
On the contrary, they are still in force.
Christ died that the righteous requirement of the law
might be fulfilled in us,
and the Holy Spirit writes God’s law in our hearts (Rom. 8:3–4; Jer. 31:33; cf. 2 Cor. 3:6–8).
Article VII of the Church of England’s Thirty-nine Articles sums up these distinctions well:
Although the laws given from God by Moses,
as touching ceremonies and rites,
do not bind Christian men, nor the civil precepts thereof
ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth;
yet notwithstanding,
no Christian man whatsoever
is free from the obedience of the commandments
which are called moral.
In ‘The Message of Galatians’ (BST),’
John Stott wrote:
“We must never bypass the law
and come straight to the gospel.
To do so is to contradict the plan of God in biblical history.
Is this not why the gospel is unappreciated today?
Some ignore it, others ridicule it.
So, in our modern evangelism,
we cast our pearls (costliest pearl being the gospel) before swine.
People cannot see the beauty of the pearl,
because they have no conception of the filth of the pigsty.
No man has ever appreciated the gospel
until the law has first revealed him to himself.
It is only against the inky blackness of the night sky
that the stars begin to appear,
and it is only against the dark background of sin and judgment
that the gospel shines forth.
… Not until the law has driven us to despair of ourselves
will we ever believe in Jesus.
Not until the law has humbled us even to hell
will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven.”
In ‘The Bible Speaks Today (BST) on The Message of Romans, by John Stott,’
John Stott wrote:
“Secondly, holiness consists in fulfilling
the just requirement of the law (Rom 8:4).
This is the final answer to antinomians…
The moral law has not been abolished for us;
it is to be fulfilled in us.”