Bill's Notes

In this letter to an Episcopal bishop in Hawaii, the letter writer gives a terrific explanation of the New Testament's understanding of the Old Testament law.

One thing same-sex rite proponents in the Episcopal Church have argued is something along the lines of, "If you listen to the laws on homosexuality in Leviticus, you better not be wearing a shirt out of two different kinds of fabrics." This refers to some of the more legalistic prohibitions in the Old Testament.

That "Leviticus doesn't matter anymore" argument of course is rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what Jesus did to the law through His incarnation, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection.

[T]he important distinction, worked out in blood and travail through the many European and English religious struggles, [is] between the RITES and CIVIL PRECEPTS of the Old Testament, and the MORAL Commandments. Our church agreed at its founding, in 1801, that the former two are not, but that the latter are, BINDING ON THE CHRISTIAN. That is to say, it is not the ancient social or political order, nor the particular forms of punishment, nor the food rituals, nor the master-slave relationships, nor any "ritual purity" precepts of the Hebrew Bible that we are to follow. But our church's founders agreed, in the Articles of Religion, that in our voluntary actions in our relation to others, we Christians are to follow the MORAL Commandments of the Hebrew Bible (Articles of Religion, VII, BCP p. 869, and in attachment to this e-mail). These articles, I believe, have never been officially rescinded.

Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. His men, liked David's, plucked grain, and He Himself healed, on the Sabbath. This was His open disregard of certain CIVIL PRECEPTS, namely, what to do or not to do, on a certain day of the week. Christ saved an adulteress from a stoning: but he told her to "go and sin no more." He shamed the judges into withholding an awful, though scriptural, punishment. But He did not tell her that her MORAL sin was no more a sin! Yes, he disregarded the CIVIL PRECEPT that an adulteress should be stoned, yes he disregarded many of the cleanliness RITES, and associated with the unrighteous, but he drove the MORAL understanding of life to a deeper level: lusting in our heart is already adultery!