The Place of the Covenant of Law in the History of Redemption

Three aspects of the Mosaic covenant may be stressed in an effort to place this distinctive covenant in its proper biblical-theological setting: the covenant of law is related organically to the totality of God’s redemptive purposes; the covenant of law is related progressively to the totality of God’s redemptive purposes; the covenant of law finds its consummation in Jesus Christ.

First, the covenant of law is related organically to the totality of God’s redemptive purposes.  To speak of an organic relationship is to suggest a living,vital inter-connection as over against an isolationistic compartmentalization.  The clear enunciation of the will of God at the time of Moses did not appear as something novel in the history of redemption.  At the same time, law did not disappear after Moses.  Law functioned significantly in the period preceding Moses, and law functions significantly in the period succeeding Moses.  While the summation of law in an externalized form may remain as the distinctive property of the Mosaic era, the presence of law throughout the history of redemption must be recognized.

1. Law is significant in all administrations prior to Moses.

References to the will of God and to the necessity of obedience to that will may be noted in each of the biblical covenants.  Adam, while receiving gratuitously the promise of a saving seed, must work in the sweat of his face to sustain life until the seed should come (Gen 3:19).  Noah receives an integral part of his mercy-filled covenant the decree of God’s will concerning the disposition of man-slayers: “Who so sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed” (Gen 9:6)

Even more comprehensively, the Abrahamic covenant of promise builds on the responsibility fo God’s people with reference to the revealed will of God.  The total allegiance to his Lord demanded of Abraham involves the whole of his life (cf. Gen 12:1; 17:1).  The patriarch must leave his father’s house and walk before the Lord in whole-hearted obedience.

Subsequent happenings under the administration of the Abrahamic covenant further indicate the presence of covenantal law, especially with regard to the sealing ordinance of circumcision.  According to Genesis 17:14, “the uncircumcised male… who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.” Quite a hair-raising incident in this very connection is recording subsequently in connection with the life of Moses.  After having received his commission to deliver Israel in fulfillment of the promise of the Abrahamic covenant, Moses begins the return trip to Egypt with his family:

Now it came about at the lodging-place on the way that the Lord met him and sought to put him to death.

Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and threw it at Moses’ feet, and she said, ‘You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me.

So He let him alone.  At that time she said, ‘You are a bridegroom of blood’– because of the circumcision (Exod 4:24-26).

Under the provision of the Abrahamic covenant of promise, God almost slays Moses for failing to observe its stipulations.  Obviously law plays a vital role in this covenantal relationship.

The presence of stipulations in the covenants prior to Moses does not detract from the uniqueness of the legal codification under Moses.  No other covenant could be characterized convincingly as “the covenant of law.” No more fitting designation could be applied to the Mosaic covenant.  Yet the continuing presence of covenantal stipulations in every earlier administration relates the covenant of Moses organically with that which precedes.  Law simply becomes predominant under Moses.

2. Law is significant in all administrations subsequent to Moses.

Both the Davidic covenant and the new covenant continue to recognize the significance of divine law in redemptive history.  At the conclusion of the Mosaic epoch, Israel’s history immediately begins the movement “toward a kingship.” The establishment of a permanent monarchy in Israel ultimately finds realization by the institution of the Davidic covenant.  The provisional dimension of God’s covenant with David is expressed rather pointedly at the time of covenant inauguration.  Concerning the line of a descendency from David, God says: “When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men….” The framework in which this potential punishment of iniquity is to be understood is spelled out quite pointedly in David’s subsequent death-bed charge to Solomon his son and successor:

As David’s time to die drew near, he charged Solomon his son, saying, “I am going the way of all the earth.  Be strong, therefore, and show yourself a man.  And keep the charge of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, His commandments, His ordinances, and His testimonies, according to what is writen in the law of Moses, that you may succeed in all that you do and wherever you turn, so that the Lord may carry out His promise when he spoke concerning me, saying, ‘If your sons are careful of their way, to walk before Me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, you shall not lack a man on the throne of Israel’” (I Kings 2:1-4).

The law of Moses is thus seen to have an integral role in the Davidic covenant.  The entire historical narrative concerning the kings of Israel may be regarded as one magnificent verification of the promise to David, together with its accompanying threat of punishment based on the provisions of the Mosaic covenant of law.

Both the psalm-singers and the prophets of Israel sing and prophesy of the law of God. “Oh how love I they law; it is my meditation all the day,” sings the Psalmist (Ps. 119:97). “I wrote for him the ten thousand things of my law; but they are accounted as a strange thing,” complains the prophet (Hos 8:12). Quite obviously, the law functions significantly in the period of Israel’s history embraced by the Davidic covenant.  The Davidic covenant cannot be regarded as functioning as an entity to itself, isolated from the decrees of Sinai.  The “ten words” continue to posses a primary significance for God’s people.

It is with respect to the new covenant that the greatest problems arise concerning the continuing role of law.  Is the covenant of law still significant for participants in the new covenant?  Do legal prescriptions apply to Christians today?  This difficult question shall be treated first by noting some general considerations that need to be kept in mind.  Then positive evidence form the New Testament confirming the role of law in the life of the Christian will be noted.

Confusion and debate on this particular issue arise in part from the efforts to understand the seemingly contradictory statements of the New Testament itself. On the one hand, a variety of new covenant Scriptures plainly assert:

Sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace (Rom 6:14)

But now we have been released from the law, having died so that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter (Rom 7:6)

But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.

Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith.

But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (Gal 3:23-25)

On the other hand, Scripture equally asserts:

Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.

Fur truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, no the smallest letter or stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all is accomplished.

Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and so teaches others, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:17-19) .

Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET.”

…So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good (Rom. 7:7, 12).

What then is the Christian’s status? Does he have obligations relating to the Mosaic covenant of law? Or is he freed altogether from law-covenant?

One complicating factor in this whole matter relates to the varied ways in which the term greek:LAW is used in the New Testament. In the course of a few verses, the apostle Paul may use the same term in three or four different ways.  According to Romans 3:21, the righteousness of faith has been witnessed by “the law and the prophets.” The term “law” in this phrase refers to the Pentateuch as a literary unit.  But the first half of this same verse declares that the righteousness of God has appeared “apart from law.” The precise meaning of the term “law” in this phrase is difficult to determine.  Most likely it represents a “shorthand abbreviation” for the “works of the law” in terms of man’s capacity to please God by his own deeds of righteousness (cf. v. 20, which immediately precedes). But in any case, the meaning of “law” in the first half of Romans 3:21 is quite distinct from the meaning of the same term in the second half of the same verse.

Reading a little further in the apostle’s argument, a third use of the term greek:LAW appears.  In Romans 3:27, Paul poses a question.  By what “law” is boasting excluded from the justified?

Now Paul uses the term “law” to refer to a general principle.  It is by the “principle” of faith-justification that boasting over righteousness is excluded.

Earlier Paul appears to use the term in still a fourth sense (cf. Rom. 2:21-23).  First he cites three commandments of the Decalogue.  Then he accosts his readers: “You who boast in the law, through your breaking the law, do you dishonor God?” Paul now appears to use “law” to refer more narrowly to the Ten Commandments.  It is the “ten words” that his contemporaries have broken.

At other points, context seems to demand that the term “law” be understood as referring specifically to law-keeping a a means of justification.  In these cases, the term “law” becomes the equivalent of the Judaizer’s misapprehension of the proper role of the law in the history of redemption.

In Galations 4:21, Paul addresses himself to htose who want to be “under law.” He speaks to those who would attempt to achieve righteousness before God by personal law-keeping.  The apostle spells out a “formula of equivalencies” spanning the history of redemption.

Two antihetical alternatives for realizing acceptance by God face the Galations.  The first alternative traces its lineage back to Abraham’s slave-son Ishmael, who was born out of the patriarch’s efforts to assure the fulfillment of God’s promises on the basis of his own resources.  This alternative for “justification” manifests itself again in the law-covenant of Sinai, which corresponds to the “present Jerusalem.”

it is essential to understand Paul’s reference to the Sinai in the context of the equivalencies which he had developed.  The covenant of “law” corresponds to the “present Jerusalem,” the Jerusalem of the Judaizers.  It is the legalistic misapprehension of the Sinaitic law-covenant that is in the mind of the apostle.  Slavery inevitably wil result from resorting to natural human resources as a means of pleasing God.  Ishmael, the current Judaizers, and unbelieving Israel conjointly find themselves to be slaves.

As this “formula of equivalencies” is considered, it must be stressed that the understanding of Mosaic law with which Paul is contending cannot be viewed as the divinely intended purpose of the giving of the law at Sinai.  Even though the middle member of this first triad (Hagar-Sinai-Present Jerusalem) is identified as “Mount Sinai” (v.25), it does not represnt the true purpose of the Sinaitic law-giving.

This assertion rests on the clear purpose of law-giving as explicated by Paul in Galations 3:24.  The purpose of the law was to lead to Christ, not to lead away from Christ.  The effect of the law on the current Judaizers was not in accord with God’s purpose in the giving of the law.  By reading the law in terms of an alternative way of salvation, current Judaism blinded itself to the true intention of God in the giving of the law.

The true purpose of God’s law-giving at Sinai did not find its proper manifestation in the Judaizers of the first century. Their pride compelled them to pervert God’s purpose in law-giving.  Instead of serving to convict them of the absolute impossibility of pleasing God by law-keeping, the law fostered in them a deeply entrenched determination to depend on personal resources in order to please God.  Thus the law did not serve the purposes of grace in leading the Judaizers to Christ.  Instead, it closed them off from Christ. “Law” and “Sinai” in this context must refer to legalistic misapprehension of God’s purpose in law-giving rather than the proper apprehension of God’s revelation of law.

The contrary “formula of equivalencies” runs from the free-woman  Sarah through the covenant of promise to the “above Jerusalem.” God’s sovereign and gracious intervention in the life of sinful man invariably produces children that are free.

It may be acknowledged that something in the form of law-administration lent itself to an easy misapprehension of its proper purpose in man’s redemption.  The externalized, codified form of law readily came to be understood as offering a way of life other than the faith-principle crystallized under Abraham.  It was possible to understand law properly as a schoolmaster that would lead to Christ by increasing awareness of sin.  Or it was possible to misunderstand law as a taskmaster that led away from Christ by diverting concentration from faith-righteousness to works-righteousness.  It is this latter perspective that the apostle has in mind when he addresses himself to those who wish to be “under law.” “Law” in this context points to the misapprehension of the law’s purpose as reflected in Abraham’s misdirected efforts to provide a son for himself and in the Judaizer’s efforts to provide righteousnes for themselves.

To this point, several different uses of “law” in Paul have been noted.  Other more refined significances may be involved.  Clearly it is necessary to exercise extreme care in evaluating biblical statements about the role of the “law” in the life of the Christian.  When the New Testament affirms bluntly “you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:14), clearly does not mean “you are not under Pentateuch.” It does not mean “you are not under the Ten Commandments.” Most probably in the context of Romans 6, it means “you are not under the Mosaic covenant as a principle which would make righteousness depend on the individual’s personal resources as law-keeper.”

One positive step towards solving the difficult question of the Christian’s relation to the law may be taken by noting once more the distincitiveness of law-administration emphasized under Moses. Under the Mosaic covenant, law appeared as an externalized summation of the will of God.  The Christian does not live under an externalized ministration of law engraved in stone tablets.  Instead, he lives with the law written in his heart.  While the Christian always stands obligated to reflect the holiness and righteousness required in God’s law, he no longer relates to that law as an impersonal code standing outside himself.  Instead, the Spirit of God constantly ministers the law within the heart of the believer.

This understanding of the question gives recognition to the fading form of law-administration under the Mosaic covenant, while also treating seriously the continuing significance of the essence of the same law.  While this explanation may not satisfy all the problems arising from the Christian’s relation to the law, it does provide one fruitful area for reflection.

In addition to these general considerations, it is important to present positive evidence from the New Testament which affirms the continuing significance of the Mosaic covenant of law:

First of all,  presumptive evidence favors the continuing significance of the essence if not the form of the Mosaic law-covenant into the present day.  It is obvious from Scripture that men today continue under the provisions of other administrations of the covenant of redemption.  Romans 16:20 refers to the ultimate bruising of the head of the serpent under the Christian’s feet. The language clearly indicates the continuing significance of God’s covenant with Adam.  II Peter 3:5-7 notes the significance of God’s judgment on the wicked in Noah’s day, and appeals to the covenanting word spoken to Noah which current preserves the earth.

The designation of Abraham as “the father of us all” (Rom. 4:16, 17) indicates the significance today of the covenantal promise concerning an innumerable seed.  Even today, the “root of Jesse” rules as the hope of the Gentiles, in accord with the covenant with David (Rom 15:22).  These references to the continuing significance of the covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and David into the present could be expanded greatly.

Are we to conlcude that all the various covenantal administrations of the Old Testament find continuing significance for believers today with the single exception of the Mosaic covenant? Are we to presume that the covenant of law alone among the divinely-initiated covenants has lost its binding significance?

to be continued in Part III…

I wish I could type the entirety of this chapter out but it would take hours and would likely infringe on the fair use copyright law.  If you want more, buy the book!  The Christ of the Covenants by O. Palmer Robertson.  This chapter has been particularly helpful in shifting my understanding of the Mosaic covenant from a dispensational outlook to the covenantal. I will hopefully be able to type more later.

O. Palmer Robertson writes:

The Mosaic dispensation rests squarely on a covenantal rather than a legal relationship.  While law plays an extremely significant role both in the international treaty forms and in the Mosaic era, covenant always supersedes law.

Essential to the Hittite treaty form was the recognition of the historical context in which legal stipulations functioned.  The historical prologue of the documents set the current relation of conquering lord and conquered vassal in the light of past interchanges.

Nothing could be more basic to a proper understanding of the Mosaic era.  It is not law that is preeminent, but covenant.  Whatever concept of law may be advanced, it must remain at all times subservient to the broader concept of the covenant.

This point is made most obvious by a recognition of the historical context in which the covenant of law was revealed.  Historically, the nation of Israel already was in a covenantal relationship with the Lord through Abraham.  The Exodus narrative begins when God hears the groaning of Israel, and “remembers his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob” (Exod. 2:24).  After God has established himself as Israel’s Lord through the historical fact of the deliverance from Egypt, the law-covenant of Sinai is administered.  The Decalogue’s “I am the Lord your God which brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” provides the essential historical framework in which the Sinaitic law-covenant may be understood.  As has been stated:

The laws have their place in the doctrine of the covenant.  Yahweh has chosen Israel as His people, and Israel has acknowledged Yahweh as its God. This fundamental O.T. principle is the direct basis of these laws. (W. Gutbrod, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1967), 4: 1036)

Covenant, therefore, is the larger concept, always taking precedence over law.  Covenant binds persons; externalized legal stipulations represent one mode of administration of the covenantal bond.

God renews an ancient commitment to his people by the covenant of Moses.  The law serves only as a single mode of administering the covenant of redemption.  Originally established under Adam, confirmed under Noah and Abraham, the covenantal relationship renewed under Moses cannot disturb God’s on going commitment by its emphasis to the legal dimension of the covenant relationship.

The Distinctiveness of the Mosaic Covenant

If the Mosaic covenant stands in a basic relation of unity with God’s earlier covenantal administration, what then is its distinctiveness?  What particularly characterizes this covenantal administration?  How does it stand apart from God’s other ways of dealing with his people?

The Mosaic covenant manifests its distinctiveness as an externalized summation of the will of God.  The patriarchs certainly were aware o God’s will in general terms.  On occasion, they received direct revelation concerning specific aspects of the will of God.  Under Moses, however, a full summary of God’s will was made explicit through the physical inscripturation of the law. This external-to-man, formally ordered summation of God’s will constitutes the distinctiveness of the Mosaic covenant.

The emphasis in the pentateuch on the “ten words” and the explicit identification of these words with the covenant itself clearly indicate that the distinctiveness of the Mosaic covenant resides in this externalized summation of God’s law.  Note in particular the language of the following verses:

… And he [Moses] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten words (Exod. 34:28).
So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the ten words; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone (Deut. 4:13).

When I went upto the mountain to receive the tablet of stone, the tablets of the covenant which the Lord had made with you….

And…at the end of the forty days and nights … the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant (Deut. 9:9, 11).

These verses indicate the closeness of identification between the Mosaic covenant and the “ten words.” These words summarize the essence of the Mosaic covenant.

The same verses emphasize also the externalized character of the Mosaic law-administration.  The stone-engraven character of the Mosaic covenant does not reflect simply the manner by which covenantal documents were preserved in the days of Moses.  This stark, cold, externalized form in which the covenant stipulations appeared manifests eloquently a most distinctive characteristic of the Mosaic covenant.  A law has been written, a will has been decreed; but his law stands outside man, demanding conformity.  “Law” as it is used in relation to the Mosaic covenant should not be defined simply as a revelation of the will of God.  More specifically, law denotes an externalized summation of God’s will.

In the case of the Mosaic covenant, the prominence of this external form of God’s will provides ample justification for the characterization of the Mosaic covenant as the covenant of law.  This characterization has the full support of the New Testament Scriptures.  “The law was given through Moses,” says the apostle John (John 1:17).  In his letter to the Galations, Paul clearly characterizes the Mosaic period as the epoch of “law” (Gal. 3:17)

This phrase “covenant of law” must not be confused with the traditional terminology which speaks of a “covenant of works.” The phrase “covenant of works” customarily refers to the situation at creation in which man was required to obey God perfectly in order to enter into a state of eternal blessedness.  Contrary to this relation established with man in innocence, the Mosaic covenant of law clearly addresses itself to man in sin.  this latter covenant never intended to suggest that man by perfect moral obedience could enter into a state of guaranteed covenantal blessedness.  The integral role of a substitutionary sacrificial system within the legal provisions of the Mosaic covenant clearly indicates a sober awareness of the distinction between God’s dealings with man in innocence and with man in sin.

As already has been indicated, God’s covenantal commitment to redeem from the state of sin a people to himself was in effect prior to the giving of the law at Sinai.  Israel assembled at Sinai only because God had redeemed them from Egypt.  For the covenant of law to function as a principle of salvation by works, the covenant of promise first would have to be suspended.

The concrete externalization of covenantal stipulations written on tables of stone never was intended to detract from the gracious promise of the Abrahamic covenant, as Paul argues so aptly.  The covenant of law, coming 400 years after promise, could not possibly disannul the previous covenant (Gal. 3:17).

Not only did the covenant of law not disannul the covenant of promise; more specifically, it did not offer a temporary alternative to the covenant of promise.  This particular perspective is often overlooked.  It is sometimes assumed that the covenant of law temporarily replaced the covenant of promise, or somehow ran alongside it as an alternative method of man’s salvation.   The covenant of law often has been considered as a self-contained unit which served as another basis for determining the relation of Israel to God in the period between Abrahamic covenant and the coming of Christ.  In this scheme, the covenant of promise is treated as though it has been set aside or made secondary for a period, although not “disannulled.”

However, the covenant of promise made with Abraham always has been in effect from the day of its inauguration until the present.  The coming of law did not suspend the Abrahamic covenant.  The principle enunciated in Genesis 15:6 concerning the justification of Abraham by faith never has experienced interruption.  Throughout the Mosaic period of law-covenant, God considered as righteous everyone who believed in him.

For this reason, the covenant of law as revealed at Sinai would best be divorced from “covenant of works” terminology.  The “covenant of works” refers to legal requirements laid on man at the time of his innocency in creation.  The “covenant of law” refers to a new stage in the process of God’s unfolding the richness of the covenant of redemption.  As such, the law which came through Moses did not in any way disannul or suspend the covenant of promise.

It’s true… and I admit it.  Reformed Christians, at least those of us who have come from a modern evangelical background are burdened to convince our brethren of the grace, mercy and power of God that our previous congregations have so vocally denied.  But can you blame us?  The bible says in Christ comes GRACE UPON GRACE.  The depths of grace are inexhaustible and yet modern evangelicalism has exhausted it.  Our God is a powerful God who DID accomplish the salvation of His people on the cross.  He does not merely make possible, He does powerfully save.  Best of all, He uses men in evangelism and prayer as a means of pouring out this grace.

I too was once like you.  I use to read the scriptures that clearly taught man’s depravity through the lens of humanism.  After all- we are fed disgusting lies and contradictions that, “if you believe what the bible says you won’t evangelize or pray.”  As if faulty logic or pragmatism were the discerner of true doctrine!

Quite the contrary!  I believe that God is sovereign and that THE ENTIRE WORK OF SALVATION belongs to Him.  It is because my God is powerful, and it is because He can and DOES impart grace to those who are DEAD that I pray.  It is precisely for this reason that He has chosen to use MEN in this work of evangelism.

Modern evangelicals, don’t take this the wrong way.  But your religion is a return to Rome.  It is a counter-reformation that denies the power of God.  It is a movement that exalts men and feelings over truth.  It claims that there must be a balance of spirit and truth when in reality there must be ALL SPIRIT and ALL TRUTH.  Your scales are man made and your balances are broken…  RETURN!

I pray the mighty, powerful God that He continue to awaken the hearts of men.  That men will return to biblical theology and rather than crowning micro-popes they would return and join the historic church in preaching the gospel of our very powerful savior Jesus Christ!

Until then I will love you anyway.

I sent this letter to the Staff at TBC:

I just wanted to thank Dave Hunt and the staff at TBC.  I have come to an understanding of reformed theology and as I have begun to share it with friend and family many times Dave Hunt’s works and writing is mentioned.

Your writing has made it so much easier to share reformed theology with friend and family.  Since the arguments you make are so clearly biased, without substance or biblical & historical accuracy it is easy to point out the true facts and discredit your stance.  Even a five year old can read the scriptures and plainly give God the glory and honor He deserves for working salvation in men.  As I share the doctrines of grace with friends often I will use your books and writings to show the folly of the arguments they will face against God’s sovereignty.  I love it!

Your mis-representation of reformed theology, God’s sovereignty and grace is unfortunate but easily refuted and obviously apparent.  I would say keep up the good work… but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate.  I am praying the sovereign God for you and your ministry.

I am always excited when a new and valuable Christian resource is made available, but more than ever concerning this one :)  I would like to tell you about a Christ-Centered DVD Lending Library called Puritan Picks.  It is much like the well known Netflix but contains topics such as Christian movies, children’s dvds, tv series, conferences, documentaries, Christian living, seminary grade curriculum in apologetics, theology, history, creationism, bible studies and more…  Some DVD packages worth well in the hundreds of dollars made available for as low as $4.99/month.

The website is: http://www.puritanpicks.com

I don’t know what your end-time views are.  Neither do I really know mine; but I do think as Christians we have dropped the ball in terms of our involvement in science, culture, education, business and the arts.  This is partly due to dispensational eschatology .  Having learned my Christianity in a dispensational, post-modern “fundamentalist” church I saw a strict secular vs. spiritual dichotomy.  I dropped all my entrepreneurial pursuits (having successfully started and sold businesses in my ‘B.C.’ days) and really only reached out in very surface level ways such as in street evangelism, church life, etc.. (all good things).  In a sense I was taught that it was being more eternally minded to be doing “spiritual work” whether it be prayer, bible study, evangelism, missions, preaching, etc… (again, all very good things and things every Christian should be involved in).

My view has changed considerably.  Today I’d really like to see more Christians running businesses, writing books, involved in research, establishing institutions and influencing culture to the glory of Christ all without loosing that boldness to proclaim the true Gospel.

I have been seriously enjoying our recent (May, 2009) studies through the book of Micah.  OPCLI, Sermon Audio