URC Learning: Sinners & Saints

The second “table” of the Ten Commandments is an objective standard for civil order and righteousness. Its principles are reflected among every people group, even among those who deny that the Ten Commandments are from God. Any society in gross violation of the second table is inevitably a cesspool of immorality.

Last time we talked about the law thrashing unbelievers and driving them to see their need for Jesus Christ. This time we talk about how the law ought to do the same thing for Christians.

The first way to apply the Ten Commandments to your life is to let them show you, one by one, how you have failed to keep them. This uncomfortable exercise is necessary for you to see your need for Jesus Christ and appreciate the magnitude of what He has done.

New Covenant Christians must understand the Ten Commandments and apply them to their lives. Concerning both internal and external purity, the Ten Commandments encompass all areas of life, and command the opposite of what they forbid.

Knowing which commands God wants you to follow is not as easy as just flipping open the Bible and doing the first thing you read. God always gives His commands (laws) to people in the context of different covenants. If you get this, you’ll be ready to apply any of His laws in the Bible to your life in the right way, and not in some freakish, base way.

The Ten Commandments are big news. Someone is always complaining they are being ignored or abused. Churches fight over whether they even matter today. But you can’t begin to understand and apply the Ten Commandments unless you know and believe the law/gospel contrast.

Well, folks, this is the swan song to this series and our review of this book. Frankly, we’re tired of reading it. In this final show, we discuss how offensive it is that Arminians are dissatisfied with God’s loving disposition, even to the reprobate.

Everyone is in trouble. Everyone is guilty. Everyone needs to hear what can be done about the mess we are in. We are trying to convince you that you need to hear us out about the basic questions of life.

http://www.start.urclearning.org/audio/SS-Bad_Reasons_Why_You_Are_Not_A_Calvinist_7.mp3(26:54)

Part two of our response to the philosophical analysis section seeks to apply the famous Genesis 50 text to Walls’ range of options for understanding the nature of human freedom and God’s control. Our conclusion, again, is that the biblical data cannot support anything but the idea that God ordains and directs the free actions of His creatures.

http://www.start.urclearning.org/audio/SS-Bad_Reasons_Why_You_Are_Not_A_Calvinist_6.mp3(33:20)

Otherwise helpful, descriptive philosophical categories regarding the nature of human freedom must not become the ultimate boundaries of how we may systematize and confess the Bible’s teaching about the extent of God’s control and its relationship to human responsibility.