From the evidence presented, Owen must be understood to view abrogation as both including and not including the Decalogue, depending on how it is viewed. If this is the case, his understanding of abrogation, though with its own nuances and emphases, has clear and ample precedent in Calvin, Ursinus, Turretin, and Protestant Scholasticism.
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Biblical Theology
Hermeneutical Implications of Canonical Structure
Subsequent revelation often makes explicit what was only implicit in antecedent revelation.
Review of Rooker’s The Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments: Ethics for the Twenty-First Century Mark F. Rooker (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2010,...
Canonical structure of the New Testament
Canonical structure of the English Bible Canonical Structure of the OT – 2 (the Hebrew Bible) Canonical structure of...
The Law in the thought of those worth hearing: Part III
Owen’s view of the multi-functional utility of the Decalogue comports with his view of abrogation (see below), Jeremiah 31:33, 2 Co. 3:3, and Matthew 5:17, and also with many of his theological contemporaries. There is a way to understand Owen on abrogation which both eliminates the Decalogue from the New Covenant and preserves it (see below). Relatively speaking, as the Decalogue functioned under the Old Covenant, it has been abrogated. Absolutely speaking, as the Decalogue represents and summarily comprehends the Moral Law as to its substance, it has not and cannot be abrogated. It has more than one function.
Canonical Structure of the OT – 2 (the Hebrew Bible)
The end of the Bible is the end or goal of the beginning to which Adam failed to attain.
Tom Wells’ book on the Sabbath: Chapter Two (III)
Wells interacts with Exod. 20:8 in less than one page. He offers what in my mind gives the appearance of a cavalier dismissal of this text with these words: “This text, of course, contains the command to keep a Sabbath. It clearly addresses only Israelites and others who live within their land, so it does not seem to be relevant under the New Covenant” (29). He then adds, “Despite that fact many find an argument in the word “remember”” (29; emphasis mine). He assumes that an assertion is a fact. Something seems wrong-headed about that.
The Law in the thought of those worth hearing: Part II
In part I of this series of posts, I said: Too often while reading contemporary authors on the law in the life of...
Tom Wells’ book on the Sabbath: Chapter Two (II)
In my last post, I said, “In my next post I will interact with Wells, where he says, “[w]hen we look at...
Tom Wells’ book on the Sabbath: Chapter Two
Chapter two is entitled “The OT Witness.” Wells first discusses the argument from creation (i.e., Gen....