John Murray on Lev 18:5

January 16, 2024 at 12:00 pm (Faith, Justification, Mosaic Law, OT-Deuteronomy, OT-Leviticus, Romans, Sanctification, Westminster Larger Catechism, Westminster Standards)

posted by R. Fowler White

In his understandably celebrated commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Professor John Murray wrote pointedly about Paul’s reference to Lev 18:5 in Rom 10:5 and then elaborated on the theology of that OT text in Appendix B of the commentary. Regarding Paul’s allusion to Lev 18:5, Murray wrote:

[Lev. 18:5] does not appear in a context that deals with legal righteousness as opposed to that of faith. Lev. 18:5 is in a context in which the claims of God upon his redeemed and covenant people are being asserted and urged upon Israel …. [It] refers not to the life accruing from doing in a legalistic framework but to the blessing attendant upon obedience in a redemptive and covenant relationship to God.

Apart from his commentary on Romans, it is also helpful to know that when Murray chaired the Orthodox Presbyterian Church Committee on Texts and Proof Texts (whose report was adopted by the denomination’s 1955 and 1956 general assemblies), the committee inserted Lev 18:5 as a proof text for WCF 19.6. Since the insertion supports the sentence in 19.6 pertaining to the promises of the law to “the regenerate,” it is clear that Murray and his committee took Lev 18:5 to be addressed to that group, otherwise identified in 19:6 as “true believers.” The committee’s insertion, then, sheds light on Murray’s statements about Lev 18:5 in his Romans commentary and in its Appendix B.

Understanding Murray’s reasoning. Reflecting on the details above, we notice first that Murray characterizes Israel’s relationship to God in Lev 18:5 in its redemptive-historical context: they are God’s redeemed and covenant people (emphasis added), and Lev 18:5 speaks of “the blessing attendant upon obedience in a redemptive and covenant relationship to God” (emphasis added). Clearly, Murray is focused on the grace of Israel’s redemption from Egypt and their consequent reconstitution as God’s covenant community. Furthermore, Murray takes the law-keeping mentioned in Lev 18:5 to be the fruit of saving and sanctifying grace, a point confirmed in his exposition of that text in Appendix B of his commentary (see further below). When therefore Murray asserts that Lev 18:5 “does not appear in a context that deals with legal righteousness as opposed to that of faith,” we understand him to mean that Lev 18:5 appears in a context where God deals with His people according to His grace, not in a context where God deals with them according to their works (two contexts otherwise known as “the covenant of grace” and “the covenant of works”).

We must go further, however, to understand Murray’s position. If the law-keeping required in Lev 18:5 is that of a people redeemed by God and bound to Him by covenant, Murray recognizes that a question arises: how could Paul properly appeal to that text as an illustration of works-righteousness when its original context is not about works-righteousness? Does Paul, in fact, misuse Lev 18:5? Murray’s answer is forthright: in the original context, the terms of Lev 18:5 properly expresses law-keeping, in his words, as “the way of sanctification” for believers, but those same terms in themselves also express law-keeping as “the way of justification” for the ungodly. To clarify his point, he reminds us that in justification law-keeping is done by Christ and is imputed to the believer’s account; in sanctification law-keeping is produced in the believer’s life. Murray sums up his view of Lev 18:5 in Appendix B to his commentary:

We must bear in mind that righteousness and life are never separable. Within the realm of justification by grace through faith there is not only acceptance with God as righteous in the righteousness of Christ but there is also the new life which the believer lives. The new life is one of righteousness in obedience to the commandments of God. … In the renovated realm of saving and sanctifying grace, we come back to the combination righteousness–approbation–life. The witness of Scripture to the necessity and actuality of this in the redeemed, covenant life of believers is pervasive. It is this principle that appears in Lev 18:5 ….

Assessing Murray’s reasoning. Murray’s view initially commends itself when he points out that law-keeping (i.e., righteousness, obedience) has a bearing on both justification and sanctification. But is he right about Lev 18:5 and its use in Rom 10:5? If, for our purposes, we set aside Murray’s curious inattention to the typological nature of Israel’s redemption and reconstitution and focus on God’s grace toward Israel, we can understand why he says that “Lev 18:5 is in a context in which the claims of God upon his redeemed and covenant people are being asserted and urged upon Israel.” We also appreciate his point that in the realm of grace, righteousness and life are inseparable. As far as it goes, Murray’s analysis of Lev 18:5 in its context is a plausible working hypothesis. Plausible as his proposal appears, there are holes discernible in it.

One hole in Murray’s analysis is that he does not reckon with the two types of congregants to whom Moses knew that he was speaking. Moses knew that his hearers included those with circumcised hearts of faith and also those with uncircumcised hearts of unbelief, those who heard him with humility and also those who heard him with pride (Deut 1:32; 9:6-7, 12-13, 16, 23-24, 27; 10:16; 29:4; 30:6; cf. Jer 4:4; Ps 106:24; Acts 7:51; Jude 5). In the same vein, Murray does not take into account the two types of hearers mentioned in WCF 16.6-7 and 19.5-6: those who heard the law were not only believers (i.e., regenerate), but also others (i.e., unbelievers, unregenerate). Overall, then, Murray does not consider the reality that Moses himself faced: the redemption and covenant that he mediated was able only to expose but not to change their make-up as a spiritually mixed multitude. There is no doubt that this reality determined how Israel would examine themselves in the light of Lev 18:5.

Over and over again, Moses urged Israel to be careful to hear God’s claims on them with the humility of faith and not with their historically demonstrated pride of unbelief (see especially Deut 1-11). He reminded them as those who would be heirs with Abraham that they, like their father, must trust in God’s oath of suretyship, since it was His suretyship that was the gracious basis of all that they would inherit (Gen 15:6-18; Deut 1:35; 4:20, 32-40; 7:6-11; 9:1-6; 10:14-16; 11:9). To those, then, who heard Lev 18:5 with faith in the Lord as their surety, the words of WCF 19.6 would apply: “the promises of [the law] … [showed] them God’s approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof; although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works.” Presumably, this is what Murray and his committee had in mind when they inserted Lev 18:5 as a proof text for WCF 19.6. Yet we observe this: the blessing promised in Lev 18:5 was not due to the regenerate by the law. On what basis was it due to them? We would all agree that the basis of blessing would be the righteousness of their surety, and we have no doubt whatsoever that Murray confesses that truth. Our concern here, however, is that that truth does not figure into his exegesis of Lev 18:5. To appreciate better how it should figure into the exegesis of Lev 18:5, it seems fitting and necessary to reflect on how believers and others examined themselves in its light.

What might we justifiably infer about those of faith when they examined themselves in light of Lev 18:5? Would they see themselves as law-keepers to whom justification and life were due by the law? We know better. No, they would humbly see themselves as law-breakers to whom condemnation and death were due by the law. They would also see how much they owed to the Divine Surety for fulfilling the law’s righteousness and for bearing its curse in their place and for their good (cf. WLC Q97a). And, yes, further, they would be spurred to more gratitude, expressing that gratitude in greater care to conform themselves to the law as the rule of their obedience (cf. WLC Q97b).

Now let us ask about the others who heard Moses, particularly those others among the covenant people. What might we justifiably infer about them when they examined themselves in light of Lev 18:5? Should it not have caused them to see their standing as law-breakers and awakened them to flee God’s wrath (cf. WLC Q96a)? Should it not have caused them to see their need of the Divine Surety and the perfection of His righteousness and driven them to Him (cf. WLC Q95-96)? To be sure. Nonetheless, we know, as Moses knew, that those without faith would seek to establish their own righteousness as law-keepers to whom justification and life would be due by the law (cf. Rom 9:31-32; 10:3). Indeed, we know, as Moses knew, that many in Israel’s mixed multitude persisted in the pride of unbelief and self-righteousness, and that the law left them without excuse and under its curse (cf. WLC Q96). Thus, Lev 18:5 in its context does refer to the truth that justification and life were due only to the law-keeper and that any law-breaker who would seek to establish his own righteousness as a law-keeper was condemned. The law-breaker’s only hope was to repent and heed the witness that the law itself bore to the Divine Surety and the perfection of His righteousness.

The preceding considerations lead us to a second hole in Murray’s exegesis of Lev 18:5 (cf. Deut 27:26). Despite Paul’s two citations of Moses in Rom 10:5-8, Murray does not appear to give enough attention to how Paul’s appeal to Moses in Rom 10:5 correlates with his appeal to Moses in Rom 10:6-8. In Rom 10:5 Paul shows that in Lev 18:5 (as in Deut 27:26) Moses taught the righteousness of the law according to which justification and life would belong only to the seed who fulfilled it. By contrast, in Rom 10:6-8 Paul shows that in Deut 30:11-14 Moses also taught the righteousness of faith according to which the justification and life promised by the law were available to every law-breaker who believes in the Surety, to whom alone justification and life belonged according to the perfection of His own righteousness (Rom 10:4-13; 1 Tim 3:16 [KJV, ASV, NKJV]; Rom 3:21-22; cf. Gen 15:6-18; 12:3; 22:17b-18). In keeping with his heart’s desire and prayer for Israel (Rom 10:1), Paul’s overall message, especially to his Jewish readers, was that they should do as he did: follow Moses, who taught not only the righteousness of the law but the righteousness of faith also. So, yes, Moses taught both contrasting principles in the one Sinai covenant, and he could do so because those two principles were made compatible by the Surety who fulfilled God’s word (Rom 10:4, 6-9; 9:32b-33). Evidently, as Paul understood it, it was with a view to faith in that Surety that Moses discipled Israel in the contrasting but compatible principles of the righteousness of (i.e., required by) the law and the righteousness of (i.e., received by) faith.

With Murray we ought to affirm that Paul did not misuse Lev 18:5 in Rom 10:5. We ought also to agree with him that Lev 18:5 appears in a context in which the claims of God upon His covenant people, redeemed from Egypt, are being asserted and urged upon Israel. Still, there is reason to conclude that Murray’s exegesis of Lev 18:5 has holes in it. Addressing Israel as a mixed multitude, in Lev 18:5 Moses taught that justification and life were due only to the law-keeper and, conversely, that condemnation and death were due to all law-breakers. Yet Moses also taught in Deut 30:11-14 that the law-breaker’s only hope of blessing lay in the Surety whom Abraham trusted and to whom the law of Moses itself bore witness. All who refused to submit to God’s righteousness through faith and sought instead to establish their own righteousness would be without excuse and under the law’s curse. Having severed themselves from the Divine Surety in the pride of their unbelief and self-righteousness, they turned the Sinai covenant into just another covenant without a surety and consigned themselves as law-breakers to condemnation and death (Gal 5:4; 2 Cor 3:7, 9).

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Corporate and Individual Responsibility: An Introduction

September 25, 2015 at 12:25 pm (Difficult Scripture, Ethics, Law, OT-Daniel, OT-Deuteronomy, OT-Exodus, OT-Ezekiel)

I want to write some posts about corporate and individual responsibility in the Bible. This is an extremely thorny issue. At the moment, I am only beginning my investigation of the biblical texts. Thus, this post will raise more questions than answers. In the future, I will be focusing major attention on Ezekiel 18, and what it does and does not say. Other related passages are Joshua 7 (the account of the failed attack on Ai), 2 Samuel 21, Deuteronomy 24:16, 2 Kings 14:5-6, Daniel 9, and Exodus 20:5-6. Assessing how these texts relate to each other to form a coherent picture is a very thorny task. The reason I am addressing this issue is that the PCA has addressed and will be addressing corporate responsibility regarding the race issue.

What are some categories that the Bible uses to address the question of corporate and individual responsibility? The first category is a distinction between guilt and consequence. Obviously, guilt is one consequence of sin. However, there are other consequences that can be incurred by someone who has no direct guilt. This might be a helpful way of understanding why it is that 36 men get killed in the attack on Ai for something that they themselves did not do. One might say that Achan murdered those 36 men by transgressing the ban.

A second category distinction is between human retribution and divine retribution. Who assesses the punishment, in other words? Does human retribution apply to corporate guilt, or that only the purview of God? Bear in mind that this particular distinction is not the same question as repentance, and whether repentance needs to be corporate or individual.

A third category distinction is between sins of omission and sins of commission. This one should be familiar to most of my readers. A sin of omission is something that we (or I) should have done but failed to do, whereas a sin of commission is something that we (or I) should not have done, but did anyway. This has a bearing on possibly composite sins. On the racism issue, for instance, if a church committed racist acts, and the presbytery of which it was a part failed to discipline that church for said actions, then the presbytery incurs the guilt of omission. While the presbytery may not, as a whole, have committed the action itself, it is still responsible for its required and biblical response. The same is true on a denominational level.

The fourth, and perhaps stickiest question of all, is the question of covenantal continuity. There is a tension between the continuity (on the one hand) that the true church has with itself in all generations, regardless of denominational boundaries; and the discontinuity of governing bodies that are directly responsible for the discipline of members within its scope. In the case of the PCA churches that Sean Lucas has in mind, for instance, the question will revolve around some of these questions: have these churches ever repented? Did the southern presbyterian denomination repent before the founding of the PCA? Is there continuing sin on the matters of racial equality? If so, what is the responsibility of current bodies within the PCA, and is the whole denomination at fault, or only some presbyteries?

A fifth question to ponder is a very important question: what constitutes racism? I have addressed this question briefly before. Having read a bit more, and done a bit more thinking, there are some things I might say differently. For instance, the question of how the biblical passages relate is a far more difficult question than the previous post would seem to indicate. I still hold to my position on affirmative action being inherently racist. I also hold that evolution and a theory of polygenesis (that we do not all come from Adam and Eve) open the door to racism.

Why talk this way about all these careful distinctions? One reason is that we want to tell the truth. It is not truth to confess to sins for which we have no guilt any more than it is truth not to confess for sins of which we are guilty. We need to assess carefully and biblically what guilt we have in the question of racism. Whatever truth of guilt we have can then lead us to repentance and restoration.

I attended recently a memorial service for the Charleston Nine at a black church in Winnsboro. It was a wonderful experience. I was afraid at first that the talk would all be about social justice. Instead, it was focused on Jesus Christ and the gospel, while mentioning racial issues in the context of the gospel. Yes, there was much talk about the unity that the church has in Christ, as was appropriate. But it did not sideline the gospel, for which I was very thankful. As was mentioned by my black brothers at GA this year, any repentance that we do needs to have feet, so that actual change can happen in our churches. Some churches are further ahead in this process than others. Some degree of compassion and understanding will need to be present.

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Feasts For All Times?

June 4, 2013 at 9:58 am (Bible, Biblical Theology, Ethics, Interpretation, Law, Mosaic Law, OT-Deuteronomy)

One argument from the Hebrew Roots Movement (HRM) that I have heard goes something like this: God does not change, therefore none of His laws will change, and therefore none of the feasts are abrogated. The problem with this kind of argument is two-fold. In one sense, none of the OT laws are abrogated: they still exist to teach us principles of godliness, and to point us to Jesus Christ (this I say in opposition to those who claim we are abrogating the OT law if we say that we do not follow the OT laws in the same way today). They are still written down in the Old Testament. Not one of those words will pass away, not a jot, nor a tittle. However, that does not mean, in and of itself, that the observation and application of those commandments can never change. They can if God says they do. But can God do that? If God doesn’t change, then can His laws change? Well, let’s look at some examples of God giving a commandment for a certain time and place that would not have universal applicability. God told Isaiah to walk around naked. That is a direct commandment from God that had an equally direct (and merciful!) expiration date of three years. This, of course, does not prove (in itself) that any of the Torah had an expiration date. But it does prove that God can give a command that does not last forever. God also told Hosea to take an adulterous wife. Now, scholars debate whether she was unfaithful before or only after marrying Hosea, but it doesn’t really matter. Hosea still knew that her character was an unfaithful character when he married her. This was a very specific commandment given in a particular time and place. Surely, we would not want to say that all prophets of God should marry wives of unfaithful character! There was a specific purpose in what God was doing with that commandment. Again, this does not prove that any particular law in the Torah is expired, but it does prove that God can give a commandment that has an expiration date on it. God has given commands in the past that have limited applicability.

Now the question is this: are there any limitations on the commandments given in the Torah? The Ten Commandments are universally binding moral law. This is the same law that is written on the human heart by God. I will not, at this point, argue the change of day of the Sabbath commandment. That is a subject for another post. But the Ten Commandments are universally binding for all people everywhere (not just for Israel). As that particular point is not really in dispute between the HRM and Reformed theology, I will move on to other areas of laws.

There do appear to be limitations set on other areas of commandments. Deuteronomy 4 is vitally important here. The redemptive-historical situation is that Moses is giving his last will and testament, if you will, to the Israelites before they enter the promised land. In the course of this, he makes a distinction between the Ten Commandments, on the one hand (4:13), and the “statues and ordinances” in 4:14, which are tied to the land: “At that time the Lord commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to follow in the land you are about to cross into and possess” (emphasis added). The order of Ten Commandments first, followed by statutes and ordinances is then immediately followed in chapter 5 (the second giving of the Ten Commandments and its summary in chapter 6) and the statutes and ordinances that follow. It is revealing that only after the Ten Commandments are given does Moses give specific instructions concerning the holy warfare that is to come (chapter 7). This separation of the statutes and ordinances from the Ten Commandments by the commands concerning holy warfare underscore again the connection of the ordinances that follow with the ownership of the land, as well as the distinction within OT law between the moral, civil and ceremonial aspects of the law. Now, it is not quite as simple as this, since there are reiterations of the moral law scattered throughout Deuteronomy. This does not negate the point of the literary separation between the Ten Commandments and the civil and ceremonial law as a whole.

Now to the feasts in particular. Three feasts are limited to the place that God shall choose: the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths. Deuteronomy 16:16 is quite clear on this point: “All your males are to appear three times a year before the Lord your God in the place He chooses: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks, and the Festival of Booths” (emphasis added). That place that God would choose is, of course, Jerusalem. In other words, these feasts cannot be celebrated outside of Jerusalem. They must be celebrated in the place that God chose. There is no commandment later on telling the people that they can celebrate it anywhere else. There is no biblical example of the people of God celebrating those feasts anywhere other than Jerusalem. In fact, we have the exact opposite example in the case of the Exile. During the Exile, the people of God celebrated no feasts of God at all. Why? Because they were exiled from their land. There is no reproach laid on them for not celebrating the feasts while they were in exile. Those feasts are tied to the land of Israel, and in particular, Jerusalem. It is arbitrary to claim that we can celebrate them anywhere else, as long as we follow the specific instructions. Let us not forget either that these three Feasts required gifts to be given to God (Deuteronomy 16:17). We can conclude from this that these feasts had limitations of space set on them, at the very least.

From Isaiah, we learn that God gave a commandment bounded by time limitations. From our exegesis of Deuteronomy 16, we find that God can give a command that has a limitation of space put on it. Therefore, we can conclude from this that a law that is not of the moral law can have a built-in expiration date attached to it. This is not abrogation, as the HRM argue. Even the most die-hard dispensationalist could still agree that there is a relevance of even the most dated commands for God’s people. It is in that sense that not a jot or tittle shall pass away from the law until all is fulfilled. This should make it equally clear, by the way, that if our exegesis of Deuteronomy 16 (not to mention the example of Isaiah!) is correct, then Iesous’ (to use the Greek spelling of Jesus’ name used in the NT where the name Yeshua is NEVER used) words cannot mean what the HRM thinks it means. The HRM says that Iesous’ words mean that the application of the law can never change. It is the argument of the Reformed position that only God can change the application of His own law. No human tradition can do that. But it is also the Reformed position that Iesous Himself changed the application by His words in the NT. That is a subject for another post, however.

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Inerrancy – Is God a False Prophet?

July 7, 2011 at 10:07 am (Inerrancy, OT-Deuteronomy)
Tags: , ,

by Reed DePace

I recently finished reading the most recent issue of the Westminster Theological Journal. In it Gregory K. Beale has an excellent article in which he offers an exegetical defense of the necessity of inerrancy. I won’t offer a review of that article here, but rather encourage y’all to get a hold of it. It is pretty good.

In the article Beale uses God’s standards for prophets speaking His word to make the case that inerrancy is indeed an essential and necessary characteristic of the Bible. Centered mostly in an excursive in Revelation, Beale offers a pretty convincing argument. (But, of course, I’m already a kool-aide drinker, so what do I know?)

As I read the argument I was reminded of a passage pressed upon me in my early days of discipleship, Deut. 18:20-22:

20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’ 21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the LORD has not spoken?’ – 22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him.

So, is not God’s word written by men called under the standards of prophetic ministry? Yes, of course. And do these standards not require that their words be true? Yes, of course. Specifically, is not the characteristic of truth in the above passage specifically historical truthfulness, that is accuracy in terms of what actually does happen in time? The passage certainly does say that.

So, if it be maintained that God’s word does indeed contain historical inaccuracies (e.g., no real Adam), does this not mean, at the very least, that Moses (and any inspired editor of the Pentateuch), fails the Deuteronomical test for a prophet speaking for God?

At the very least, we should not “be afraid” of Moses. Let’s throw out any book he had a hand in writing, and of course any book dependent upon his writings. (Uhh, wait a minute, that includes the whole Bible.)

Wait, here is a worse thought! Suppose you want to maintain inspiration, but deny inerrancy. That would mean that Moses really was speaking for God. So, if there are errors in the Bible, that would mean God Himself is guilty of being a false prophet. Now we’re facing a real dilemma. If false prophets should die, God should die for authoring error in His own name.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sure not going to start throwing stones at God. Instead, I’m going to stick with my conviction about inerrancy. It is much simpler to believe the Bible is what is says it is, God’s own inspired, infallible, AND inerrant word, than to spend the time trying to figure a way out of the mental knots one ties himself in when he denies inerrancy.

God’s word is inerrant. Stay away from the stones.

Reed DePace

9 Comments

The Shema

November 27, 2006 at 10:49 am (Apologetics, OT-Deuteronomy, Trinity)

Deuteronomy 6:4 reads like this in the ESV: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Both occurrences of “Lord” here are “Yahweh.” This translation, however, is not the only one possible. The reason for this is that the inter-relationships between the words is not explicit (McConville, pg. 140). Here it is in Hebrew:

 שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָד׃

Now, the four interpretations that McConville lists are as follows: “The Lord is our God, the Lord alone;” “The Lord our God, the Lord is one;” The Lord is our God, the Lord is one;” and “The Lord our God is one Lord.” The first emphasizes the polemical edge against other religions. The second emphasizes the oneness of the Lord. The third emphasizes the possessiveness of one Lord on the part of Israel, and the fourth is very little different from the third. At any rate, one can say with certainty that oneness and Lordship go together, and that this one Lord is “our” Lord.

The question arises: does this formulation preclude the Trinity? The answer must be “no.” Moses, in this chapter, is very careful to contrast the polytheistic religions of the nations in Canaan with the monotheism of Israel. This is clear in verses 14-15. However, that there might be a plurality within the one God is not ruled out. Moses’ focus is polemics, not so much on saying everything about the number of God that could be said. After all, Deuteronomy occurs in the same section of the canonas Genesis 1, which plainly indicates that within God there is plurality.

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