CHAPTER 10 THE LAW OF CHRIST IS THE TEACHING OF CHRISTS APOSTLES

Christ and His Apostles The relation of Christ and His apostles is a tight one; much tighter than many would like. Jesus appointed apostles to continue his prophetic ministry. 1 He set apart twelve men for this task (Matt 10:1, Mark 3:13-19) and commissioned them as representatives and ambassadors (Acts 10:41). 2 The Lord gave them their authority. This was similar to the shaliach in Judaism. In the Jewish legal system, the shaliach was given legal power to represent another person, and so unique was his relationship to the one he represented that the shaliach was regarded as that person himself. 3 So Jesus can say to them, The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me (Luke 10:16) (cf. Matt 10:40, Mark 9:37, John 13:20, 17:8). John 14-16 are crucial chapters in this regard. Jesus tells his disciples:
These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you (14:25-26)But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning (15:26-27)When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come (16:13).

Jesus is clear here, that he would ascend and then send the Spirit to guide the apostles. 4 Robert Letham writes, Through this appointment the apostles received the
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Robert Letham notes three prominent characteristics of the apostles: a) They received a definite appointment from Christ himself. b) They were associated with the ministry of Jesus from the beginning (Paul being a major exception but he was aware of this). c) They functioned as witnesses of Christs resurrection, in Work of Christ, 97. Ibid., 95. Herman Ridderbos writes, For the communication and transmission of what was seen and heard in the fullness of time, Christ established a formal authority structure to be the source and standard for all future preaching of the gospel, in Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1963), 13. Ridderbos, Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures, 14; cf. Wenham, Christ and the Bible, 119; Letham, Work of Christ, 95. D.A Carson notes, Johns purpose in including this theme and this verse [John 14:25-26] is not to explain how readers at the end of the first century may be taught by the Spirit, but to explain to readers at the end of the first century how the first witnesses, the first disciples, came to an accurate

authority of Christ and became his ambassadors, representing him in the church and in the world. Hence forth, their teaching was to be Christs own teaching, no less. 5 Therefore, the authority of the apostles, now found in the New Testament, is bound up with the authority of the risen Christ himself. Their teaching is his teaching. The prophets and apostles are the foundation of the church (Eph 2:20). The Apostle Paul can say, Assuming that you have heard of the stewardship of Gods grace that was given to me for you, how the mystery was made known to me by revelationthe mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit (Eph 3:2-5). 6 Paul did not receive his gospel from people, but received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ (Gal 1:11-12). The Thessalonians received the word of God from the apostles not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God (1 Thess 2:13b, cf. 1 Cor 2:12-13). In his high priestly prayer, Jesus prays, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word (John 17:20). Jesus and the apostolic word are inextricably bound together. This is why the early church was devoted to the apostles teaching (Acts 2:42). Also, Paul can tell the Ephesians, whom Jesus never visited, that Jesus came and preached peace to you (Eph 2:17). First John 4:6b says, Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. The consequence of this teaching is that those who want to be faithful to Christ must be faithful to the New Testament Scriptures (which presuppose the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures). As Letham says, There can be no dichotomy between Jesus and the apostles. We are offered Christ clothed with the apostolic gospel. That is the way God intended and executed it. No other option is given us. 7 So the law of Christ necessarily includes the teachings of Jesus and the teaching of the Apostles, which for us is the New Testament. 8 Although James uses different terminology, he agrees with the rest of the New Testament witness. The perfect law, the law of liberty, and the royal law (Ja 1:25, 2:8,
and full understanding of the truth of Jesus Christ. The Spirits ministry in this respect was not to bring qualitatively new revelation, but to complete, to fill out, the revelation brought by Jesus himself, in The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 505.
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Letham, Work of Christ, 96-97. On the supposed contradiction between Paul and Jesus, see David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995); idem, Paul and Jesus: The True Story (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002); J. Gresham Machen, The Origin of Pauls Religion (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1925); Herman Ridderbos, Paul and Jesus (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1958); N.T. Wright, What Saint Paul Really Said. Letham, Work of Christ, 99; see also Reisinger, But I Say Unto You, 25. Tom Wells, The Priority of Jesus Christ (Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2005), 132; Wells and Zaspel, New Covenant Theology, 40.

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2:12) are referring to the same concept as the law of Christ. 9 James probably uses the perfect to refer to the law in its eschatological fullness. According to Douglas Moo, James uses royal to connote the law pertaining to the kingdom of God. As with the phrase the perfect law that gives freedom in 1:25, then, royal law might be Jamess way of referring to the sum total of demands that God, through Jesus, imposes on believers. 10 It is unlikely that these phrases refer to the Mosaic law. 11 If it did, surely mention would be made of circumcision, the Sabbath, and food laws. 12 This law of liberty in verse twenty-five must be interpreted in light of the word of verses twenty-two and twenty-three, which itself is closely related to the word of truth that brought us forth (i.e. regenerated us Ja 1:18). In 1:21, we are commanded to receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 13 This phrase implanted word points back to the new covenant promises of Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 (hence law of liberty). 14 The royal law is the law of King Jesus, who through the power of the promised Spirit gives freedom. Believers are bound to every imperative in the New Testament. As Jonathan Edwards puts it, the New Testament is the charter and municipal law of the christian church. 15 The New Testament is the churchs foundation documents. 16

Long, Biblical Law and Ethics, 91; Wayne G. Strickland, The Inauguration of the Law of Christ with the Gospel of Christ, in Five Views on Law and Gospel, 277; Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 663-65. Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James. The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 112. Moo suggests that Jamess law does not refer to the law of Moses as such, but to the law of Moses as interpreted and supplemented by Christ, Ibid., 94. Schreiner, 40 Questions, 236. Moo, The Letter of James, 94. Ibid; Schreiner, New Testament Theology, 663; idem, 40 Questions, 237. Here is the full quotation: There is perhaps no part of divinity attended with so much intricacy, and wherein orthodox divines do so much differ, as the stating of the precise agreement and difference between the two dispensations of Moses and of Christ. And probably the reason why God has left it so intricate, is because our understanding the ancient dispensation, and Gods design in it, is not of so great importance, nor does it so nearly concern us. Since God uses great plainness of speech in the New Testament, which is as it were the charter and municipal law of the christian church, what need we run back to the ceremonial and typical institutions of an antiquated dispensation, wherein Gods declared design was, to deliver divine things in comparative obscurity, hid under a veil, and involved in clouds? An Humble Inquiry, 465. Reisinger, Tablets of Stone, 111.

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