Nehemiah 9 Chapel Preach

I preached in Oak Hill chapel (for presumably the last time) on Nehemiah 9:22-31 last friday. This is a brief outline of what I said.

Two points to aid our life of repentance

1. Grace is the context for extraordinary sin.

Israel’s chief sin across history, from the perspective of this prayer at least, was to take take take grace from God and yet return that with disobedience and rejection of his laws.

E.g. see use of ‘gave’ in 22, 24, 27, 29 & 30.

The contrast is seen most clearly there in the transition from 25 to 26. They gorged themselves on grace. Yet threw the law behind their backs. Hence v25. great goodness of YHWH, and v26. great blasphemies of Israel.

God’s grace highlights the heinousness and unwarranted nature of the sin.
To sin against a gracious God is a terrible thing.
To gulp down his grace and cast away his covenant instructions is a terrible crime.

If for them, how much more for us living AD not BC?

Interesting that it’s this sin of license that they chose to focus on. As they looked at Israel’s history this was the way they chose to epitomise the nation’s sins that had gotten them into the mess they were now in. This was the nature of their covenant-breaking.

That should lead us to consider whether it might not be the same amongst us, God's covenant people today. E.g. Liberalism. E.g. various forms of Evangelical antinomianism.

We would do well to consider whether we need to repent of the same sins as Israel. We must not think we can take grace with one hand and cast aside our Father’s commands with the other. It’s a non-starter. It’s a road that leads straight to judgment.

2. Sin is the context for extraordinary grace.

E.g. God’s patience: ‘Testified/ warned’in 26, 29, 30. Also 'many mercies/ times' in 27, 31, 28, 30.

Three cycles, (26-27, 28, 29-30/31). Sin – handed over – cry out – saved. First two cycles follow the pattern, but third only has no cry, and no salvation. Because this prayer is the cry (32-37). This prayer is expecting salvation. They were expecting God to complete the cycle, to act as he’s acted before.

As they looked back on their history Israel saw the need to repent, for taking grace for granted.
But they also saw the basis for that repentance. v31.

You could say that where sin abounded grace superabounded.

If for them, how much more for us living AD not BC? What extraordinary grace to send His Son to be all that Israel failed to be, to restore, resurrect Israel even and give to his people, Jew and Gentile, the gift of the Spirit.

Repentance is based on grace. We repent because we know God to be a gracious and merciful God. We repent in the expectation of forgiveness and salvation and blessing.

Law and Gospel

Stumbled across this helpful, sensible, simple introduction to the law-gospel issue:

Law and Gospel by John Frame

A particularly good paragraph says

So gospel includes law in an important sense: God’s kingdom authority, his demand to repent. Even on the view of those most committed to the law/gospel distinction, the gospel includes a command to believe. We tend to think of that command as in a different class from the commands of the decalogue. But that too is a command, after all. Generically it is law. And, like the decalogue, that law can be terrifying to someone who wants to trust only on his own resources, rather than resting on the mercy of another. And the demand of faith includes other requirements: the conduct becoming the gospel that I mentioned earlier. Faith itself works through love (Gal. 5:6) and is dead without good works (James 2:17).

I also particularly liked his statement that 'law itself in Scripture comes to us wrapped in grace.' [emphasis mine]

It's amazing where you find the law-gospel antithesis crop up, even among those who should really know better . Frame is writing in disagreement with some US Reformed theologians who think unless you buy their sharp distinction between the law and the gospel you've lost the gospel.

I blogged on the law a while ago here.

10 on the Law

One of THE single most important theological and pastoral issues is the relationship between Christian living and the law.

Here's ten words giving some of my reasons why I reject an absolute antithesis between law and gospel and some sort of summary of how I think we should relate to the OT law.

1. The law was never intended as a system of meriting salvation. In fact, the sacrificial system and priesthood at the centre of the law were about grace, forgiveness, propitiation.

2. One way of summarising the gospel is 'Jesus Christ is Lord.' This means immediately that the concept of 'law' (i.e. commands you really must obey) is included within the gospel itself. I can't say I believe that Jesus is Lord and then totally willfully persistently ignore everything the Lord wants me to do. It just doesn't make sense.

3. Then, add to 2. the fact that obedience to Jesus Christ is often described using commands from the Old Testament law (yes, modified and transformed by the salvation-history context)...

4. ...then add to 2. and 3. the fact that the Christian's love-response to Jesus Christ is described as fulfilling the law...

5. ....then add to 2., 3. and 4. the fact that Christ himself thought he was fulfilling the law in his life and in his teaching....

6. ...and what do you get? I think you get the idea that the Christian is, although not under the law (i.e. we don't live under the Mosaic administration of the covenant, we are not living between Sinai and the cross, but between the cross and eternity), under Christ, but, that being under Christ means being under someone whose commands are the fulfillment of the law.

7. In other words Christians should relate to the Mosaic law in the same basic way that we relate to all of the Old Testament - through Christ. The law comes to us, not in exactly the same way it did to the Israelites as they stood at the foot of Mount Sinai, but transformed, renewed, changed, by the fact that the law has found its climax in the life and work and revelation of Jesus Christ the Lord. The law is for us because it speaks of Christ, by showing us our need of him by exposing sin, by helping us fill out the content of what obedience to Christ looks like, etc. The law is there to instruct and train us in righteous living.

8. Point 7. will look quite different depending (in part) on the law in question. The way I approach the food laws of Leviticus will look quite different to the way I approach 'do not murder' but in neither case can I write off the law as irrelevant to Christian living, nor can I simply lift the law straight out of the Old Testament without reflection on the fact that Christ has brought things to a climax.

9. 'Spirit vs. law' is ultimately a non-starter too, since the Spirit writes the law on our hearts.

10. Were the writers of psalm 19 and psalm 119 simply off their heads, or were they the worst sort of pharisaical legalists? Or could it be that for the living-by-grace Christian the law is a great friend since it communicates the wise requirements of our loving and holy King?