A friend of mine gave me a CD the other day with a critique of NCT by a TMS professor. The lecturer mentioned my book In Defense of the Decalogue, brief though it was - both the book and the mention. 
New Covenant Theology: Description, Definition, Defense,
Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel
(Frederick, MD: New Covenant Media, 2002),
reviewed by Richard C. Barcellos
Tom Wells and Fred Zaspel are to be commended for their work entitled New Covenant Theology: Description, Definition, Defense (NCT). It is a very irenic presentation of New Covenant Theology and well documented. I am thankful to the authors for providing us with a book that advances the important discussion among Calvinistic Baptists regarding the law and the covenants.
While reading NCT, I learned some new things and was reminded of other noteworthy facts about New Covenant Theology. All New Covenant Theology adherents do not equate the Decalogue with the Old Covenant. John Reisinger held this view for many years. It formed the main thesis of his influential Tablets of Stone. Reisinger has made it known recently on his website that he no longer holds this view. As well, I learned that I misrepresented Fred Zaspel in my book In Defense of the Decalogue (NCT, 188, n. 263). I stand corrected and regret this careless, though not intentional misrepresentation. I was reminded that New Covenant Theology relies heavily on a certain understanding of Matt. 5:17-48, especially v. 17. Finally, I learned some new things about New Covenant Theology and its perspective on the nature of moral law. I will limit my critique to the following issues: NCT and Matt. 5:17-48; NCT and moral law; and NCT and In Defense of the Decalogue (IDOTD).
Fred Zaspel discusses what appears to be the exegetical lynchpin of NCT in chapters five through eight. His discussion surrounds what Douglas J. Moo (on the back cover) calls “the pivotal Matthew 5:17-20.” Zaspel himself acknowledges this:
Indeed, the whole NT theology of law grows out of this pivotal statement of Jesus. It is of “primary importance in trying to understand Jesus’ attitude to the law” [quoting D. A. Carson] and, consequently, in developing a consistent theology of law and its relation to the Christian. (NCT, 78)
NCT bases its subsequent exegetical and theological discussion on Zaspel’s interpretation of Matt. 5:17-20, which is dependent upon D. A. Carson. Greg Welty has written a critical analysis of their view entitled: Eschatological Fulfillment and the Confirmation of Mosaic Law (A Response to D. A. Carson and Fred Zaspel on Matthew 5:17-48). It is available on the Internet at: www.ccir.ed.ac.uk/~jad/welty/carson.htm. Welty demonstrates that their interpretation of fulfill (Matt. 5:17) is implausible and that the subsequent application of this concept to the antitheses of Matt. 5:21-48 is contradictory. Welty argues, and I think persuasively, that Carson’s interpretation of fulfill is a novelty in Matthean usage. Carson claims that Jesus’ ethical teaching fulfills what is foreshadowed in Moses’ law. Welty acknowledges that several times fulfill refers to Christ’s person or actions fulfilling OT prophecy. But he also demonstrates that fulfill never refers to OT laws being fulfilled by Jesus’ teaching or, as Welty states it, “laws fulfilling laws.”
Z
aspel’s thesis revolves around the meaning of one word, fulfill. He claims that it is “the key word to the entire discussion” (NCT, 111). The ‘entire discussion,’ in the context of Zaspel’s statement, refers to Matt. 5:21-48 as well. Putting such stock in the meaning of one word is hermeneutically dangerous and may be theologically disastrous. If Zaspel’s interpretation of fulfill is found wanting, then suspicion must be cast upon the validity of NCT’s main arguments, since so much of its subsequent discussion relies on the meaning of this word.
Zaspel says, “With all the press Matthew gives to this word (pleroo), the question of definition becomes greatly simplified” (NCT, 111). What follows in the book are eight pages dedicated to defining this one word. He concludes that fulfill means that “Jesus came to bring about what Moses’ law anticipated” (NCT, 118). “Just as Moses’ law advanced the law which God had ‘written on the heart’ of man at creation, so also in Jesus’ teaching that advance is brought to full completion” (NCT, 118). It is of interest to note that no exegesis is provided for this claim. Zaspel does footnote one of his pamphlets at this point. This understanding of the advancement of law throughout redemptive history, however, is such a crucial and pivotal element of NCT’s view of the law that making a passing reference to this leaves the critical reader wondering. Where does the Bible teach that Moses’ law advanced the law that God had written on the heart of man at creation, in the sense intended by Zaspel? Could this have come from the authors’ view of fulfill infused back into the OT?
For the record, Reformed theology teaches that the law written on the heart at creation was ‘advanced’ by the law written on stones at Sinai in clarity and perspicuity, though not in essence and spirituality. It is the same law revealed in a different manner. The advance is not one of quality but of clarity due to the presence of sin in man’s heart. Is this not what Jesus is doing in Matt. 5:17-48? He is making clear what had become obscure through the sinful teachings of the Pharisees.
NCT’s understanding of fulfill may be labeled the eschatological advance view. “It is not that Moses is set aside so much as he is ‘fulfilled’ by the advance Jesus gave him” (NCT, 87). This concept of eschatological advance is then applied to the antitheses of Matt. 5:21-48. As Zaspel examines the antitheses, he finds several nuances of eschatological advance: Matt. 5:21-22, “some sort of advance …extension or addition” (NCT, 105); Matt. 5:27-28, “advance of some sort” (NCT, 105); Matt. 5:31-32, “another advance …a tightening …an abrogation” (NCT, 106); Matt. 5:33-34, “obsolete” (NCT, 106); Matt. 5:38-39, while Jesus may not formally repeal the lex [law], he very severely restricts its use” (NCT, 107); Matt. 5:43-44, “Jesus extends the law’s requirement. Simply put, Jesus demands more than Moses” (NCT, 107). Zaspel claims that the view, which understands Jesus as correcting Pharisaic casuistry, does not fit the evidence (NCT, 108). According to Zaspel, the antitheses are not contrasting Pharisaic teaching with the Law of Moses but the Law of Moses, on the main, with the Law of Christ, thus illustrating his understanding of fulfill. Zaspel closes his discussion of the antitheses with these words:
…it seems that Jesus, 1) claims an authority that is superior to that of Moses; and 2) exercises that authority by taking the law of Moses in whatever direction he sees fit. In some cases, he leaves the particular command intact (#l and 2). In other cases he extends the teaching of the command as originally given or advances it in some other way (#l, 2, 3?, 6). In still other cases he seems to rescind the original legislation (#3, 4) or at least restrict it (#5). (NCT, 108)
In ethical contexts, fulfill refers to obeying and upholding the law as stated (cf. Rom. 8:3; 13:8-10). Nowhere in the rest of the NT do we see the phenomenon of eschatological advance as necessitated by Zaspel’s interpretation. If the law of Christ is all the commands of the NT plus those things in the OT “that are moral laws in light of the NT” (NCT, 75), as Wells claims, and if the law of Christ was anticipated by and advanced beyond the law of Moses, then why don’t we see this phenomenon in the rest of the NT? Indeed, what we see is direct quotations of the very law that is supposedly advanced, and that without qualification (cf. Eph. 6:2-3; Jam. 2:8-11). It appears that NCT confuses moral law with positive law (see below).
Zaspel’s understanding of fulfill in Matt. 5:17 is a novelty in Matthean usage, complicates the antitheses unnecessarily, and does not find support in other NT ethical contexts where the word is used to refer to the law and its New Covenant fulfillment.
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