“Unable to rhyme Matt. 5:17-18 with Rom. 10:4, the dogmatic tradition has experienced nothing but trouble over the law…. Paul and Matthew are at irreconcilable odds. [The tradition tried to arrive at a compromise.] The result was the idea that in Christ the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament were abrogated….while the ‘moral’ law was not….But that is patent nonsense…. Neither Testament makes that kind of distinction between ceremonial and moral law.
“… The outcome of such confusion was, in general, that natural law [understood as an eternal order of law] became the arbiter. Natural law decides what is moral and what is not. But therewith the fate of the church’s understanding of law was sealed, as well as of its eschatological outlook. Natural law became the structural backbone of the theological system, displacing eschatology.”
“Once the eschatological outlook has been displaced by an eternal order of law, antinomianism is the attempt to remedy the situation with a false and realized eschatology.
“Once justification had again been reasserted in radical fashion, it was natural that heavy pressure would be brought to bear on the received understanding of law. John Agricola rightly sensed that justification by faith could not simply be combined with the older idea of law as an eternal order, still evident in some of Philip Melanchthon’s theological constructions.” [1]
“We do not believe there is a single heavenly code which religious people know better than others. ‘Natural law,’ through which God ordains order, is embodied in human codes – some better, some worse.
“In the realm of the law, reason and not revelation is primary. God has not revealed any specified code for life. Yet God wills order for our well-being, and we are given the gift of reason and common sense to derive laws to that end. The question to ask is if there are good reasons to make rules limiting the right to sexual expression. If so, given the public character of pastoral ministry and the exemplary nature of that office, we would be obliged to insist that pastors abide by such rules and that the church do nothing to undermine them for the rest of society.”[2]
[1]Forde, “Justification and This World,” Christian Dogmatics Vol. 2 [1984] 447.
[2] Don Juel, “Homosexuality and Church Tradition,” Word & World 10:2 (Spring 1990) 167.