Mega-pastor: Ten
Commandments no longer applicable
Andy Stanley asserts Jesus gave one new law 'as a
replacement for everything'
The Ten Commandments on display at the 13th annual Bible
Marathon in Stuart, Fla. (WND photo / Joe Kovacs)
WASHINGTON – A mega-pastor of one of the largest
“evangelical” churches in the U.S. is attacking the Old Testament again, this
time insisting Jesus rendered the Ten Commandments null and void, issuing one
new law “as a replacement for everything.”
Andy Stanley, pastor of the 34,000-member North Point
Community Church in suburban Atlanta, who famously advised his flock to
“unhitch” from the Old Testament in a sermon last spring, has now penned an
article promoting his new book saying laws such as “Thou shalt have no other
gods before me” and “Thou shalt not kill” are no longer relevant to Christians
living in the New Covenant era.
“You’ve heard the story before: A group of Christians
puts up a monument of the Ten Commandments in a public space or on government
property,” begins Stanley in his article titled, “Why do Christians want to post
the Ten Commandments and not the Sermon on the Mount?” “Someone says it
violates the separation of church and state. The Christians say taking it down
would violate their freedom of speech. There’s some back and forth in court and
both sides say some not-so-great things about the other. Rinse and repeat. But
how many times have you seen Christians trying to post the text of the sermon
on the mount in a public place? Or the all-encompassing commandment Jesus gave
us? ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you
must love one another — John 13:34 The one commandment! Doesn’t have the same
ring to it, does it? But if we’re going to create a monument to stand as a
testament to our faith, shouldn’t it at least be a monument of something that
actually applies to us?”
Stanley goes on to write that the Ten Commandments are
from the Old Covenant, which he says “played a significant role in God’s
creation of the nation of Israel. It gave them moral guidelines and helped
separate this new nation from their neighbors. This was part of the formal
agreement (or covenant) God created with his people, but Jesus’ death and
resurrection signaled the end of that covenant and all the rules and
regulations associated with it. Jesus didn’t issue his new command as an
additional commandment to the existing list of commands. He didn’t say, ‘Here’s
the 614th law.’ Jesus issued his new commandment as a replacement for
everything in the existing list. Including the big ten. Just as his new
covenant replaced the old covenant, Jesus’ new commandment replaced all the old
commandments.”
The implications of that unequivocal statement have been
staggering to other Christians who point out how the words of Jesus and the
apostles seem to contradict them flatly and reject such a conclusion.
In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus says: “Think not that I am come
to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle
shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore
shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall
be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach
them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
“Andy Stanley is not preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom
that Jesus and the apostles preached,” says Joseph Farah, author of “The Gospel in Every Book of
the Old Testament,” which documents what he characterizes as
“the miraculous, supernatural and perfect continuity of the Good News of
redemption throughout both the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures.” “Nor is Stanley
preaching the Gospel of personal salvation that Jesus and the apostles preached.
Instead, he is preaching replacement theology – completely discarding about
three-quarters of the Bible and misinterpreting what’s left.”
Farah calls Stanley’s reductionist gospel “Chick-fil-A
theology,” an exegesis based on modern American Christian cultural traditions
rather than the Bible.
“Participants in the new covenant (that’s Christians) are
not required to obey any of the commandments found in the first part of their
Bibles,” writes Stanley. “Participants in the new covenant are expected to obey
the single command Jesus issued as part of his new covenant: as I have loved
you, so you must love one another. The new covenant replaced the old one. The
covenant established by Jesus retired the covenant God established with the
nation of Israel. This is why most Christians don’t mind a little bacon with
their eggs. It’s why you can’t get either at Chick-fil-A on Sunday. (If we were
still taking our marching orders from the old covenant, they would be closed on
Saturday.)”
Writing a response to Stanley’s new assault on the Hebrew
Scriptures, Grayson Gilbert, a graduate student pursuing a masters of divinity
degree at Moody Bible Institute, disputes that Jesus only left His disciples
with one new law to follow. In fact, Jesus issued hundreds of
commandments in the gospel accounts, while affirming the Ten
Commandments and the law and the prophets in Matthew 22:37-40: “Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all
the law and the prophets.”
“Interestingly enough, Stanley bypasses these verses in
his discussions, though I have a feeling he would explain them away and
disregard that they are drawn from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18, which
are legal texts in and of themselves given to Israel,” writes Gilbert. “Furthermore,
it is plainly stated in the text itself, these are a summation of the law and
prophets.”
Stanley blames the Old Testament , not misguided
Christianity, for centuries of horrors and abuse of those of different beliefs:
“The justifications Christians have used since the fourth century to mistreat
people find their roots in old covenant practices and values. Imagine trying to
leverage the Sermon on the Mount to start an inquisition, launch a crusade, or
incite a pogrom against Jews. But reach back into the old covenant, and there’s
plenty to work with.”
“This not only fundamentally misunderstands the nature of
God, but essentially claims He has instituted a means of oppression and
ill-begotten values in the Old Testament,” writes Grayson. “In other words, the
Old Testament is only the foundation of violence, oppression, and so forth,
rather than revealing the character and standards of God. Let me be quite
frank, Andy is about as close as one can get to saying the God of the Old
Testament is different than the New Testament without explicitly stating, ‘The
God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament.’”
It’s not the first time Stanley has been accused of the heresy of Marcion, who
took just such a position.
Stanley concludes: “While Jesus was foreshadowed in the old covenant, he did not come to extend it. He came to fulfill it, put a bow on it, and establish something entirely new. The “new” Jesus unleashed made the faith of first-century believers formidable. Their apologetic was irrefutable. Their courage, unquestionable. And the results were remarkable. Dear Christian reader: Why? Why? Why would we even be tempted to reach back beyond the cross to borrow from a covenant that was temporary and inferior to the covenant established for us at Calvary?”
“Jesus is One and the Same as the God of the Old Testament,”
says Farah. “He is described in John 1 as the Creator, the maker of all things
that were made and in as the One and Only Mediator between God and man in 1
Timothy 2:5. It’s not just that Jesus was foreshadowed in the Old Testament, as
Stanley says. He was there at the beginning. He tells the Pharisees: ‘Before
Abraham was, I am.’ In other words, Jesus referred to Himself as the great ‘I
am,’ one in the same as the Father. There is no separation, no disagreement,
between the Father and the Son. They are One.”
Stanley’s new book is called, “Irresistible: Reclaiming
the New that Jesus Unleashed for the World.” It is currently ranked at Amazon
as one of the most popular books in the “church leadership” category. Farah’s new book, prior to
release, as one of the most popular in “Old Testament” category.”
“Maybe they are dueling books
for a time such as this,” says Farah. “This is a teaching that must
be countered by believers.”
Farah has challenged Stanley’s assertions on the
irrelevance and inapplicability of the Old Testament in a series of commentaries:
Media wishing to reach Joseph Farah can do so by
emailing media@wnd.com.
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