>> Chad writes:
>> Actually, it's not my language.  It's Christ's, it's John's, it's 
>> Paul's, 
>> etc.  It's exegesis of John and Paul who are both telling us that 
>> Christ is 
> the New Torah.
>> 
> Mike writes: A proof text of this exact point would be nice.  "Christ is the New
> Torah"  Inform me.  

I think I have already provided the texts.  But here's the rehash:

1. Logos in John 1 presumes "Torah".  John develops this in John 1:14 & 18 where
"grace and truth" (personified by Christ, this phrases has double meaning and just
as easily could be rendered "Grace and Truth") is set over against the Torah. 
John's understanding of Christ as Torah isn't as obvious in 1 John, but it's there
in "God is Light" (see John 8:12; 1 John is a commentary on John's gospel), a
forensic "standard" that is set over against the darkness of the antiChrists...
Christ as the forensic advocate (1 John 2:1) is both judge and standard by which all
holiness is measured.

2. The picture Paul "paints" of the presentation of Christ at his second coming is
the same picture Moses describes in the presentation of the law at Sinai.

And the one "text" I have not provided are the Transfiguration narratives which are
the presentation of Christ as the New Torah (Moses and Elijah represent the Law and
the Prophets).  Again, Sinai is in view with the mountain, the cloud, the voice, the
light, etc. and Jewish readers of the gospel narratives would have immediately
understood that the Transfiguration was Sinai II.  In fact, Peter's reference to
booths comes straight from the Torah... he understands the Sinatic significance of
the Transfiguration.

> define Torah

Torah generally is the pentateuch, specifically the Law.  Connotatively, it
represents "law".

> show where the Bible teaches that Christ the Second Person of the Trinity is
>somehow ontologically the thing that can only merely represent Him, or reflect
>Him.  

This represents a vast hermeneutical gulf that I don't have the time to bridge.  The
two biggest issues I see here is understanding 1. the Incarnation in relation to
redemptive history, revelation, and the second person of the Godhead, AND 2. the
function of biblical theological typology in redemptive history.

>Undoubtedly you will want to change the definition of "is".  

Actually the Incarnation forces us to rethink our literalist perception of "is".

>It is hard to argue against because it doesn't abide by the definitions of
>words and their correspondence to the "things" they signify.  

Words throughout the entirety of the canon come loaded with double meaning because
revelation is always pointing beyond the narrative to something bigger and better in
the person of Christ.  Christ is the center of revelation.  Redemption is the reason
revelation exists.

>You say the
>Law foreshadowed Christ, and then Christ is that Law.  Is He that which
>merely foreshadows Him?  

So... Christ isn't himself The Truth?  Christ isn't himself The Life?  Christ isn't
himself The Light?  Christ isn't himself The Wisdom of God?  These aren't merely
metaphors.  These aren't merely literary conventions employed by the canonical
authors or even Christ himself.  Biblical authors see the Incarnation as an
embodiment and "personhood" of the ontological and philosophical (over against
Greeks who think in terms of transcendent ideals).
The endpoint of the Law was/is Christ himself.  The law was never an end in itself. 
The law was never meant to merely be merely an ontological "idea" or reality.  It,
like everything else in the Old Covenant, points forward to a "person".  The Law,
just like The Truth, just like Wisdom, is first and foremost a person.

> It will not due to say "both" 

But this is precisely our hermeneutical gulf.  It is "greek" to suggest either/or. 
It is jewish to say both/and.  The canon is Jewish and almost exclusively written to
Jewish by Jewish authors with a Jewish mindset.  The moment we begin incorporating
"either/or" in our hermeneutic is the moment we begin imposing our Greek
subconsciousness (we are greeks by culture; we live and think like greeks) onto the
text.

> Mike writes:  I think you raise some excellent points here.  However in
>our attempt to combine the presence of the Torah in the New Testament
>with clear and numerous passages which declare our death to that Torah,
>or more properly, nomos, I do not think that we should resort to saying,
>"OK therefore Christ is that Torah or a New Torah".  

If we don't, then we must be CT.

>That equation does
>not fly and it does not acknowledge the level of discontinuity called for
>in the light of Paul's statements like the one in Romans 6:14.  "Sin
>shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under
>grace".  

You've just proven my earlier point.  This declaration of discontinuity completely
ignores the presence of Torah in the NT by simply dismissing it.  I agree with CT's
that such "exegesis" isn't dealing with the entire text of the NT canon.  The CT's
have a right to complain that we're shoving large portions of text under the rug
just to prove a point.  It is picking and choosing which texts it arbitrarily
highlights as important.

>also in my opinion in
>regards to its content.  

And this kind of discontinuity cannot be sustained in the NT text.  Christ himself
brings the Torah into the New Covenant when he places the two summary statements of
the Torah front and center in the New Covenant ethic in Matthew 22:38, 39.  What I
see happening with the Romans 6 view being presented is forcing Matthew 22 into the
Romans 6 "grid", when in fact that is the faulty kind of exegesis that CT's protest.
 Romans 6 is rewriting not only Matthew 22 but the other numerous passages in which
the Torah is brought into the Old Covenant.  Both Romans 6 and Matthew 22 s must be
allowed to stand on their own merits... and the answer must lie in a third
alternative... Christ as Torah.  

CT's dismiss the death of the Old Covenant.  Dispensationalism dismisses the Torah
in the New Covenant.  Both fail to see it's not either/or.  Both miss Christ as
Torah.  The Old Covenant is dead.  The Torah is incorporated into the New Covenant. 
What has changed is the Christ event.  There's a new reality that has broken into
time and space, changing everything in its wake.  The Torah changes its form because
in fact the Torah all along had Christ as its object.

> Mike writes: I agree commands are not antithetical to grace.

I'm not sure, then, about *why* the protest.  The very word "commands" invokes many
of the same realities as the Torah.  Both have the same lawgiver...which is another
hermeneutical gulf.  We cannot treat revelation as if the revelation itself is the
reality.  "God said it, that settles it", while pragmatically true, is an invalid
hermeneutic IMHO.  The mere scribbling on a tablet come from God is not in and of
itself the reality.  The scribbling is merely a visible manifestation of what is
already true (we tend to forget that *writing* is concept/truth in symbols.. words
represent something else).

Christ's commands in the NT are as much Torah as the Torah itself because both
"flow" from the same source and lawgiver.  So when Christ repeats his own words that
he gave on Sinai centuries before, it's logical and theological nonsense to suggest
the commands themselves are different.  The same person is saying the same thing. 
The Christ event has changed our relationship to those commands to be sure... we owe
our obedience to a Person rather than a tablet.  But the reality of the commands and
their "force" are just as real.  Which means, once again, that Romans 6 must be
interpreted in light of the whole, rather than reinterpreting the whole in light of
Romans 6.

I wholeheartedly agree if we treat the commands of Christ "just like" Torah (because
of our innate depraved habit of emphasizing the legal) that we encroach on the
problem of Romans 7.  But any kind of legalist treatment of the commands of Christ
fails the same test as the legalist treatment of the Torah in Romans 7: the
Incarnation is not about "burden", but about "rest" (since Christ is also the
endpoint of the Seventh day of Creation/Sabbath).  When we treat Christ's commands
in a legalist manner, we fail to understand how the Incarnation has done away not
only with the Old Covenant but the ministry of death that is/was its legacy.  We
fail to understand that our righteousness, even if grounded on NT "law" will never
gain favor with God... and we eschew that which is only and ever our grounds for
favor with God: Christ's righteousness.

Chad Bresson
Xenia, OH