1But isn’t this exactly what Scripture says? Paul said that he had “received grace… for obedience” (Rom. 1:5). Hebrews 12:28 says, “let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably…” The whole purpose of Christ’s atonement was “that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”↩

2But John (by inspiration of the Spirit) defines sin, saying, “sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). Keep in mind that the Spirit wrote the Scriptures (2 Pet. 1:21), convicts men of breaking the law (John 16:8), and motivates believers to walk in His laws (Ezek. 36:27). Trying to keep the law without the power of the Spirit is legalism (Gal. 3:1-5), but obviously that implies that the Spirit wants us to keep the law through His power rather than through our own.↩

3But keep in mind that the very Scripture that is used to define this as legalism (1 Sam. 16:7) makes it clear that we are not allowed to judge the heart. All men can evaluate is the outward behavior and words. God is a better judge because He can see the heart. Since we cannot see the heart, judges are not permitted to judge motives; only actions. Believers are called to judge fruits (Matt. 7:16,20).↩

4Norman Geisler, Christian Ethics: Options and Issues (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), 95. But keep in mind that God wants us to keep both the letter and the spirit. Paul insists that “the law is good” (1 Tim. 1:8; Rom. 7:12,16). It is we who are sinners. To approach the law apart from grace is to make it “a law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). But it is not a lawless Spirit who sanctifies us, but a Holy Spirit. Thus, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2). Christ was clearly interested in the tiniest letters of the law (Matt. 5:17-20; Matt. 22:23) and He died to save us from our sins. Being saved from sin is the opposite of legalism.↩

5For this hierarchical approach to law keeping, see Geisler, Ibid., chapter 7. On page 288 Geisler says, “There are greater virtues, like love and mercy (John 15:13; 1 Cor. 13:13). When these come in conflict, we are obligated to the higher moral law and not held responsible for not keeping the lower one.” However, the Scriptural examples given by Geisler do not prove graded absolutism. To obey God rather than the state only shows a conflict between God’s law and man’s law. To call the love commandment the great and first commandment is to say that it is more comprehensive commandment. Love is a summary commandment, with the commandments it summarizes being a subset of love. For example, Romans 13:8 says, “Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’ ‘You shall not covet,’ and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” If the commandment, “thou shalt not bear false witness” is a subset of love, how can love (the ‘higher’ commandment) ever come into conflict with what it summarizes? Love is said to always fulfill, not to come into conflict with a lower law. To distinguish the love command from any other command is to fall into Joseph Fletcher’s fatal mistake of making love contentless. Love is greater because it includes the lower, not because it replaces it.

Likewise Christ’s statement about “the least of these commandments” in Matthew 5 should not be taken out of context. In context Christ explicitly says that no commandment should be violated: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of these least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

The references to greater sin and greater guilt come from several principles. The first is that the one who both thinks and acts out a sin has sinned more greatly than the person who merely thinks the sin. The one who sins against knowledge has sinned more greatly than the one who has sinned in ignorance, “For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more” (Luke 12:48). Even if there are commandments that are more important than others, there is no indication in any of the passages that God ever releases a believer from obligation to the “lesser” commandment.↩

6But Paul himself said, “they profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient…” (Tit. 2:16). And this makes sense since Jesus did not come only to rescue us from hell. He came to “save His people from their sins” (Matt 1:21) and “to redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works” (Tit. 2:14). Though no one is perfect (1 John 1:10), the book of 1 John makes clear that we cannot claim to be Christians if we are lawless and persevere in disobedience.↩

7Garet Pahl, comment, May 11 2006, http://teampyro.blogspot.com/2006/05/sister-show-mercy.html?showComment=1147391580000#c114739161401862923.↩

8Austin Ellsworth, Aug. 4, 2006.↩

9A comment made by a guy named Clint. Another person made a similar statement recently: “Does God really have a dress code for church? Or is He only concerned about the heart?”↩

10For a free copy of the “Non-Verbal Communication Exercises” that I use with our children, make a request to info@biblicalblueprints.com. The Bible speaks a great deal about what is communicated through eye contact, facial expressions, muscle movements, posture, mouth and tongue, kinds of touch, kinds of laughter and kinds of weeping. There is a huge difference in meaning conveyed by the following kinds of eye-contact: observe, stare, leer, glance, peek, wink, gape, ogle, piercing look, “his eyes beamed”, scrutinize, watchful, recognize, look in the eyes, look at one’s feet, avert the gaze, glower, look daggers, wink, sad eyes, tears, “she refused to look,” sympathetic look, undress with one’s eyes, fear in one’s eyes, longing eyes, stared into space, lifeless eyes, haunted eyes, alluring eyes, “she fluttered her eyelashes,” an evil eye.↩

11See New English Translation marginal note on Psalm 29:2.↩

12John Calvin comments on verse 1, saying that Isaiah “addresses the Church,” and speaks of “the removal of corruptions, and the restoration of the worship of God…” (Commentary on Isaiah, chapter LII, verse 1).↩

13

1. F. Kirkpatrick, The Book of Psalms (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957), 148.

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14The translation “holy attire” can be found in the NASB (Ps. 96:9), NAB (1 Chr. 16:29) and NET (all). Similar translations are “holy robes” (BBE) and “holy array” (NASB in 1 Chr. 16:29; Ps 29:2, and WEB (all)).↩

15Compare this to the comment by Austin Ellis, “I don’t usually wear anything different to church than I do any other day.” How boring to have a life of no distinctions. After many years of mandated “sameness” in clothing in China, there has been a rebellion and a desire to buy special clothing for special occasions. People want to celebrate not just with special food, special music, and special circumstances, but also with special clothing.↩

16That this was an outer garment, see John B. Lightfoot, Commentary on the Gospels from the Talmud and Hebraica, on John 19:23.↩

17For a book that demonstrates that 1 Corinthians 11:1-16 is indeed talking about clothing when it talks about head coverings, see my book, Glory and Coverings. This gives an exegesis of the passage and then answers objections to the practice of women wearing head coverings in public worship.↩

18John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. VIII, Commentary on Isaiah, 94.↩

19Doug Wilson, The Case for Classical Christian Education (Crossway Books, 2002), 188.↩

20William Hendriksen, I-II Timothy and Titus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1957), 107.↩

21James B. Hurley, Man and Woman in Biblical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981), 199.↩

22Kent Brandenburg, comment, https://teampyro.blogspot.com/2006/05/sister-show-mercy.html.↩

23See my paper on modesty. Though there is much relating to this issue in the Bible, the essence of the argument can be summarized as follows: 1) God commands us to dress modestly (1 Tim. 2:9; etc.). 2) Paul was bucking his culture in doing this, therefore modesty is not culturally defined. 3) God defines modesty in four places of the Bible as being covering from the neck to at least the knees (if not further). For further details, request the paper.↩

24“Dress Anyway To Church Today,” https://web.archive.org/web/20070303113457/http://christianblogs.christianet.com:80/1127473635.htm.↩

25Note that Paul begins this verse with his characteristic question of astonishment: “How is it then, brethren?” We might say, “What in the world is going on?” He then says, “Whenever you come together, each of you has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation.” Paul then proceeds to systematically tear apart each of those things that they had been doing. In the next two verses he says that each of them should not have a tongue. Instead, “let there be two or at the most three” (v. 27). Then in verses 29-30 Paul tells them that each of them should not be giving a revelation to the body. Instead he insists, “let two or three prophets speak” (v. 29). Then in verses 34-35 Paul rebukes the idea that each of them can speak by saying that women cannot speak in church. In verse 33 he amplifies on why “all things be done for edification” (v. 26). It is because “God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (v. 33). All cannot interpret because all do not have the gift of interpretation (12:30). It is clear that verse 26 is a rebuke, not a command. Yet it is the only reference charismatics can muster for their participational worship pattern where everyone is given an opportunity to talk and to minister. Such informal worship flies in the face of the formal nature of all public worship in the Old and New Testaments and turns worship into a touchy-feely kind of informal meeting. No wonder everything has been informalized, including clothing.↩

26Chad Hall, “A Passageway for the Spirit: Using Secular Music in Christian Worship”, https://web.archive.org/web/20080509125053/http://www.coolchurches.com/articles/passageway4thespirit.html.↩

27Jerry Wragg, comment, https://teampyro.blogspot.com/2006/05/sister-show-mercy.html.↩

28“Vestments,” in Jones, Wainwright, and Yarnold, ed., The Study of Liturgy (New York: Oxford, 1978), 489.↩

29James B. Jordan, The Sociology of the Church, 266.↩

30Gregory Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (Seabury Press, New York, 1982), 399.↩

31Ibid., 404.↩

32https://www.scribd.com/document/54803158/Pre-Release-Handbook-Final-Draft-2010-01↩