"Protestant Social Teaching" 1.0

You can read my introduction to the recently published volume "Protestant Social Teaching" here. E. (Eric) J. Hutchinson contributed the first chapter, Law and the Christian. The first half of Hutchinson's essay works to create a theologically-informed definition of law. He starts by observing how the word "law" in the biblical record can have any ne of six meanings (basic driving force, God's revealed teaching as a whole, as a shorthand for all or part of the Hebrew scriptures, the peculiar politico-religious form of life of ancient Israel, an antonym of the gospel, or the opposite of grace).  Hutchinson then draws on the definition of law found among the ancient thinkers: Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. Third, he expands his range of resources to include Lutheran theologians Philip Melanchthon and Martin Chemnitz. None of Hutchinson's historical is superficial. Although brief, it is clear that Hutchinson has read deeply to distill what these thinkers have contributed to a succinct definition of law: a directive rule telling us what we ought to pursue and what we ought to avoid.

But from what he has distilled, Hutchinson further narrows his focus to a single aspect: divine law. And within that narrowed focus he chooses to explicate divine moral law.

Cutting to the chase, "a proper theological definition of the moral law ought to include" the following:

1. It is divine. The moral law is a teaching given to us by God.
2. It is comprehensive. The moral law addresses our entire nature (in its state of corruption).
3. Its demands are total. The moral law requires perfect, perpetual, and pure obedience.
4. Its demands are impossible. Man, in a state of corruption, cannot fulfill the moral law.
5. It is therefore paradoxical. The moral law offers life in se, and yet we should not seek life and blessing in it.
6. For us, then, it is deadly. In the first instance, the law teaches the knowledge of sin, and the wages of sin is death.
7. It is, therefor, a John the Baptist. The moral law points away from itself and to Christ the Forgiver and Christ the Mediator.

For the lawyer and law teacher in me, I had hoped for an additional step, that is, to take the moral law to the level of human law. But that would have led Hutchinson beyond the scope of his essay. Instead, we will need to read the subsequent chapters to see how other contributors take the next step.