10-The Law: Reformed Escape Routes

We all meet awkward biblical statements, texts which are hard to fit into our theological system. We all do, I say. The temptation is to trim the text, pare off awkward corners, insert words, or by some other scheme find a way round the text to leave our system pristine. This is wrong. We must always take full account of the context, and do all we can to avoid imposing our template on Scripture. We must trim our system, not Scripture. ‘Let God be true but every man a liar’ (Rom. 3:4). When it comes to the law, the Reformed are particularly prone to the glossing, escape-route, waste-paper basket approach. Indeed, they fail badly in this area.