by Stephen Forister
Authors: Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel
After evaluating each of the six antitheses in Matthew 5:21-48, and maintaining that among them there seems to be a mixture of extensions, abrogations, and modifications of Mosaic laws, and indeed elements of both continuity and discontinuity, Zaspel initiates exegesis of the principal text itself in Chapter Seven. Here, he unfolds the genuine Messianic mission of Matthew 5:17-20 – namely, that Jesus is “the new Moses… yet greater and with superior authority.” 11 After seeing the conclusions drawn in the previous chapter, it takes little imagination to guess that Zaspel will differ markedly from the traditional views held by Dispensationalists and Covenant theologians.
The author delivers adequate treatment of Matthew 5:17 in the original Greek, assigning the proper emphasis to both the contextualized meaning and broader Matthean usage of the two principle verbs – the aorist infinitives “destroy” (katalusai) and “fulfill” (plerosai), which, being telic in meaning, complete the idea of why Jesus “came” (elthon), what His Messianic mission entailed. Some may take issue with Zaspel’s statement, concerning his understanding of “destroy,” that Christ “has not come to jettison the law or make it fail its intended design” 12 – for this supposed “intended design” must be eisegeted into the text with theological presuppositions.
But these are miniscule matters. Of manifestly greater importance is the meaning of “fulfill,” for it is with this word that the Lord affirmatively describes His relationship with the Old Testament scriptures. Understanding the impact of that single word upon this text and the theology that follows can almost not be overestimated. Apart from its mundane definition of “to fill” or “fill up,” Zaspel demonstrates that the overwhelming usage of this verb by Matthew is embedded within an Old Testament prediction or anticipation, New Testament verification or realization in Christ. The Lord Jesus is to the Mosaic Law what He is to all the prophetic predictions made of Him in the Old Covenant: not merely their realization but “the outworking, the full measure, the goal, and the accomplishment of the Divine purpose.” 13 His fulfillment of the Law and its specifications is as eschatological as His fulfillment of the Prophets and their predictions. This simple, but brilliant insight is too often overlooked. For Christ has “fulfilled” the Law not merely in His active obedience (though indeed that is an important aspect of His law fulfillment – something Zaspel unfortunately glosses and disparages), 14 but also in His teaching, His new law, replete with what Zaspel repeatedly calls “eschatological transcendence.” 15 Jesus and His Law did not replace what came before, nor did it merely confirm or even extend it. The Old Testament anxiously expected and longed for the New; it found its utter fulfillment in the Person, work, and teachings of Christ.
Zaspel’s treatment of this text is, for the most part, intellectually satisfying and theologically compelling. One does not sense that he is grasping at the wind, performing hermeneutical acrobatics to defend an untenable position. Rather, his argument is consistent throughout and rarely, if ever, strained. This is especially evidenced in his remarks in the “Conclusion” of Chapter Seven. Here he is not merely concluding, but also augmenting his earlier arguments with brand new assertions, some of them downright devastating to skeptics of NCT. Zaspel or others would do well to expand on some of these ideas in a future volume or later edition of this book. 16
The eighth chapter affords Zaspel the opportunity to engage his exegesis of Matthew 5:17 with the three verses that follow and then with other, related biblical passages. While Zaspel may deal perhaps too quickly with verse 18 and the implication that no part of the Law will “pass away until all is accomplished,” and while his association of the “Law” with all of “Scripture” 17 may not be palatable to some, he does place proper emphasis on the controversial phrase “one of the least of these commands” of verse 19. Of which commands is Jesus speaking – Moses’ or His own? Its proximity to “the Law” in verse 18 lead most to believe that this phrase refers to the Mosaic code. But this has serious problems of its own, as Zaspel argues. If “not one jot or tittle” of the Mosaic Law passes away, and if any of “these least commands” in the Mosaic code is undermined by anyone, the consequences are severe. But is that not what Reformed theologians do when they affirm the moral laws (and, in the case of theonomists, the civil laws), but abrogate the ceremonial and dietary laws? Are not these the artificial distinctions that endanger them of violating the very admonition Jesus delivers here? Or is it possible that Banks and others like him, who maintain that “these least commands” refer not to Mosaic laws but the new laws given here by Christ, are right?
Zaspel rejects both these theories and, in fact, changes the question from “Which commands does Jesus have in mind?” to “In what sense can every detail of Moses be followed?” 18 Zaspel answers the question by affirming that “every detail of Moses must be followed as it is ‘fulfilled’ in Jesus.”19 This is an interesting idea that is seminally developed and, in the mind of this reviewer, inadequately supported here. While he admits that Banks’ interpretation is “not far off the mark,” 20 it is too readily dismissed, for to Zaspel it “all seems exegetically strained.” 21 Banks’ take on this passage seems no more exegetically strained than is Zaspel’s, and is perhaps more cogently defended. It is surely worthy of lengthier analysis than is afforded here, as it is not at all incompatible with NCT and, more importantly, plagued with few real contextual difficulties.
To the charge of antinomianism – perhaps anticipating what NCT’s Reformed brothers would level against NCT, and referring to what Richard Barcellos already had critiqued 22– Zaspel has a ready answer. Those who advocate a NCT hermeneutic are not only not antinomian, they see themselves as under an elevated benchmark unto “the very highest righteousness, one that surpasses even that of ‘the scribes and the Pharisees;’” 23 indeed, they see Christians as mandated to live in divine perfection (cf. Matthew 5:48). The fervent objections of Reformed writers notwithstanding, the Lord Jesus Christ here is undeniably “inculcating a superior spirituality” than Moses. 24
Speaking to the other biblical passages related to the Law of Christ, Zaspel admits that “an exhaustive treatment of these passages is beyond the scope of this work.” 25 To that admission, this reviewer asks “Why?” Were there pressing editorial deadlines? Other constraints? Exhaustive treatment of the nova lex of Christ is precisely what NCT in general and this book in particular lacks; it is the great vacuum that, alas, must be filled by other volumes, perhaps other writers. At least in this edition, Zaspel’s treatment of these other, non-Matthean passages is so cursory as to be somewhat frustrating. Yet it is to be construed as a necessity, for these other passages cannot be ignored. The serious Bible student can profit immensely from the seminal work Zaspel has begun, if only such careful and textually honest exegesis as was applied to Matthew 5:17ff can also be applied to the texts he mentions here – passages penned by Moses, Isaiah, Mark, and especially Paul, and the author of Hebrews. There is rich, glorious, eminently Christo-centric material in these verses, waiting to continue being unpacked.
11 Wells, Tom, and Zaspel, Fred G. New Covenant Theology: Description, Definition, Defense. Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002, p. 109.
12 Ibid, p. 111. Emphasis mine.
13 Ibid, pp. 114-115.
14 Zaspel writes, “…the older Reformed view that the ‘fulfillment’ in view is Jesus’ active obedience to the Mosaic stipulations has rightly fallen out of vogue.” Ibid, pp. 116-117.
15 Ibid, p. 117.
16 Admittedly, Zaspel does do this with his point number six in the list of advantages on pp. 118-120, in that he addresses in the final section of this chapter (entitled “Objection”) the awkward dilemma Reformed theologians find themselves in when trying to explain how their trichotimized aspects of the Mosaic Law (ceremonial, civil, and moral) alternatively do or do not convey to believers today. Ibid, pp. 120-122.
17 Ibid, p. 124.
18 Ibid, p. 126. Emphasis in the original.
19 Ibid, p. 126. Emphasis in the original.
20 Ibid, p. 126.
21 Ibid, p. 125.
22 Ibid, p. 128.
23 See Tom Wells’ refutation of Barcellos’ critique in Chapters 11 and 12, ibid, pp. 169-210.
24 A.W. Pink, as cited in ibid, p. 129.
25 Ibid, p. 132.
26 cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:1, 10.