Wayne Grudem has done it again! It’s another tome, and this time he gives us a lifetime of teaching on Christian ethics. I’m Fred Zaspel, executive editor here at Books At a Glance, and we have Dr. Grudem with us today to talk about his new book, Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Christian Moral Reasoning.
Wayne, great to have you with us again, and congratulations on your new book!
Grudem:
Thank you, Fred. Good to be with you.
Zaspel:
I am right, aren’t I, that you’ve been teaching courses in Christian Ethics for quite some time?
Grudem:
Well, I think 41 years ago I taught my first ethics class after I finished my doctoral work and I’ve been teaching survey courses in ethics and elective courses in specialized ethical topics for the 41 years.
Zaspel:
And you somehow have some proclivity for writing tomes. There’s this one, there’s of course your Systematic Theology which is so popular, Politics According to the Gospel, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, and, oh yes, Theistic Evolution.
Grudem:
Which you were an important part of, Fred.
Zaspel:
I loved doing it.
Okay, let’s talk about ethics. Describe for us the discipline of Christian Ethics, what it’s all about, its objectives, and why it deserves our attention. Put it in perspective for us.
Grudem:
The study of Christian ethics is the study of how to live the Christian life. Let me read the first sentence in the book: “I have written this book for Christians who want to understand what the Bible teaches about how to obey God faithfully in their daily lives.” I’m aware, Fred, that many Christians, after they have trusted in Jesus as their Savior and know that their sins are forgiven by faith alone in Christ alone, many of them will then say, well, now what? How do I live? And that’s what Christian ethics is designed to address.
Zaspel:
And that’s very important. I was thinking about that when I was just preparing here for the interview, that theology of course is foundationally important. It’s hard to exaggerate the importance of it, but Christianity is heavily ethical, as well, isn’t it?
Grudem:
It really is. I mean Jesus said let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. So our lives are a testimony and the conduct of our lives should be such that people come to glorify God as a result. That doesn’t mean that we are justified by works, we are not; but after we have been justified by faith in Christ it is important how we live. Paul tells the Colossians, when he is writing the book of Colossians, he said he wants them to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And the result of that will be that he hopes they will live in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him. I’ve written this book to help Christians understand what it is to live in a way that is fully pleasing to God. And then Paul says bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. That’s in Colossians 1: 9 and 10.
Zaspel:
How is Christian Ethics related to the proclamation of the gospel?
Grudem:
I’ve noticed that some Christians speakers today tend to downplay or omit any call for unbelievers to repent of their sins; but that’s not the New Testament pattern. Evangelism in the New Testament clearly included a call to repentance. Just before Jesus returned to heaven, he told his disciples that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. That’s in the end of Luke, in Luke 24:47. And when Paul visited Athens for the first time he was speaking to these Greek philosophers, pagan Greek philosophers in Athens, and he said this amazing statement: the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day in which he would judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. That’s Acts 17:30 to 31. So Paul is challenging these non-Christians, these nonbelievers, to repent because there’s a judgment coming. And in that judgment, God’s going to hold everyone accountable, and Jesus Christ will be the one who carries out that final judgment. So, there is a need for a proclamation of God’s moral standards because how can unbelievers repent of their sins if they don’t even know what God’s moral standards are? So, I don’t think widespread revival is going to come to the United States or any other nation apart from widespread, heartfelt, repentance for sin. And so gospel proclamation today must include an element of teaching about God’s moral standards and that means teaching about Christian ethics.
Zaspel:
This in a sense should be obvious, but talk to us about the source and ground of Christian ethics and how we determine how to live and what is right and wrong.
Grudem:
There’s a lot of confusion secular society today about whether there are any ethical standards that can be known. The reason there’s confusion is that people, by and large, apart from the knowledge of God and the Bible, don’t have an absolute source of moral standards. But for a Christian our perspective is very different. I’ve written this book as a way of asking, “what does the whole Bible say about how to live in a way that is pleasing to God?” The Bible is the source of finding out what God’s moral standards are; but, behind that, where do those moral standards come from? They come from the moral character of God. God delights in his own moral character which is supremely good and unchanging and eternal. And his moral standards for us flow from his moral character. That means they apply to all people in all cultures for all of history.
Zaspel:
I think that’s involved in passages like in Proverbs where it says a false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. He delights in it, not just because we are obedient people, but because it reflects his own character.
Grudem:
Yes, he is a God who is just, and he wants us to be just in our business dealings.
Zaspel:
Exactly.
Grudem:
The great example.
Zaspel:
How does this question become more complicated when we consider Old Testament and New Testament commands?
Grudem:
That’s what I deal with in chapter 8, which was one of the most challenging chapters to write in this book on Christian ethics, Fred. How should Christians use the Old Testament for ethical guidance? On the one hand, we know that all Scripture is God-breathed, 2 Timothy 3:16, and Paul goes on to say it’s profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and training in righteousness. So that we know in some sense the whole Old Testament, which is part of all of Scripture, is profitable for training in righteousness – that’s ethics. But there’s another strand of New Testament teaching that is very important and that is the teaching in Hebrews 8 and elsewhere that the old covenant has been terminated. We are now members of the New Covenant since Jesus died and rose again. And that Old Covenant, that isn’t the whole Old Testament, but it’s the Old Covenant which began under Moses in Exodus 20 with the 10 Commandments, and then the detailed laws that God gave to the people of Israel in the chapters following Exodus 20. That Old Covenant has been terminated and we’re no longer directly subject to it. So that gives us an understanding of why we don’t have to follow the food laws in the Old Testament, the laws about sacrifices, the laws about keeping Jewish holidays, or things like that.
Well, we start out by saying the Old Covenant has been terminated; but then we see, in the New Testament, that the New Testament authors quote nine of the ten Commandments as directly applicable to Christians today. So they are seeing it, not only as the source of understanding God’s law for the people of Israel at the time of the Old Testament, but they are also seeing that in those laws that God gave to his people at that time, there were embedded many laws that applied to all people for all time. And the ten Commandments contain the overall summaries of the general principles that relate to various major aspects of our lives, today.
I give this procedure for understanding the Old Testament: the Mosaic covenant is terminated, but we can find much wisdom in it by following the pattern of how the New Testament authors treat the Old Testament.
Zaspel:
So, it would be wrong to ignore the Old Testament, but at the same time, it would be wrong to read the Old Testament without looking at it through the lens of fuller revelation in Christ.
Grudem:
Yes, exactly. And I mentioned, for instance, that the extensive application of the death penalty for cursing father and mother or for advocating the worship of other gods or things like that, those were for Israel at that time, and they are not intended to be applied to civil government, today.
Zaspel:
Good example.
You alluded to this earlier, but let’s put a sharper point on it. How is your book on Ethics like your book on Systematic Theology?
Grudem:
Well, in both of them, Fred, I am taking the same approach. In one sense I think that I am only doing one thing in my entire life and that is asking, how does the whole Bible apply to this or that particular question. In the systematic theology, it was applied to doctrinal questions about what we should believe, such as the Deity of Christ, or the Atonement, or the Trinity or Justification, or Sanctification, or the Resurrection. Those are doctrinal issues. But in this ethics book I’m asking what does the whole Bible say about things like lying and telling the truth, war, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, racial discrimination, divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, stewardship of money, wise use of the environment, and many other topics like that. Those are questions about how we should live; and I believe that God intends us, as his people. to be able to understand his Word. He gave it to us, not to confuse us, but to teach us and guide us. It’s a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. So, what I’m trying to do in this book is to explain, here is how I understand the Bible speaking. When we take all of it into account and understand how all of it should apply to us in the new covenant today, what is the Bible saying to us about these various questions of human behavior.
Zaspel:
You mention that ethics is about more than just what we do, and you explain that in terms of “the four dimensions” of any action. What are these dimensions, and why are they important?
Grudem:
Well, first we have the action itself – honor your father and your mother, for instance. And then the person’s attitudes about the action – that means not just outwardly honor your father and your mother, but have an attitude of heart that honors them. Then, the person’s motives for doing the action – not just to get selfish gain because we want our parents to buy is something, or something like that, but to honor our parents because God tells us to honor them, because God is pleased with that. And then we look at the results of the action. So I’ve got four different categories, and when Christians are seeking wisdom for how to act in a specific, let’s say, a business decision. They can ask about the action, but, too often, people stop there, and they should go on and ask, now what attitudes of heart would be appropriate to this business decision? What are my real heart motives for making that decision and taking that action, and what are the results likely to be if I act in this direction or that direction? We need to consider all four of those. And, you know, people can have the action be correct, but the attitude be all wrong. A mother who tells Julie to do her homework, and Julie marches off and slams the door and does her homework with a rebellious attitude toward her mother, is not really… She may be doing the action that her mother told her to do, but she’s not pleasing God entirely because her heart attitude is not what God wants.
Zaspel:
And the Bible speaks to all of that, as well. What constitutes a good work, what makes a good, includes all of that – the motives of the heart, the attitudes toward God, and all of that.
Grudem:
Right, and whatever is not of faith is sin, says Paul, in Romans 14. So, we have to do all that we do in obedience to God out of faith in him to give us power through the power of the Holy Spirit to live in a way that is pleasing to him.
Zaspel:
After your lengthy introductory section you have six more major sections treating ethics as it relates to various categories of Christian living. If you would give us a broad overview of these and maybe some representative samples of topics you address in each.
Grudem:
Yes, well, Fred, following John Calvin and following the Westminster Larger Catechism, and following a number of other Christian authors I organized this treatment of Christian ethics around the 10 Commandments.
The first four Commandments have to do with protecting God’s honor: you shall have no other gods before me, you shall not make carved image, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, and remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. In that section, on protecting God’s honor, I also include a chapter on lying and telling the truth. And the reason I do that, even though that really is the ninth commandment, you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, but I moved it out of that sequence in order to treat the lying and telling the truth question early in a course on Christian ethics because with 41 years of classroom teaching I found that that issue of lying and telling the truth comes up again, and again, and again, and has implications for many other ethical questions. So, that’s the first section – protecting God’s honor.
The second section is protecting the family; and that has to do with the fifth commandment, honor your father and your mother. In that, we talk about the authority of parents. And then, I think John Calvin is right in saying that these commandments are representative samples of larger areas of life that are similar in many ways. And so, in that section on honoring human authority, I talk, not only about honoring parents, but also leadership and partnership and equality in marriage. I believe husbands have a leadership role and responsibility in marriage. I talk about obedience to civil government and when it’s right to disobey. So those of the areas we talk about in terms of honoring or protecting human authority.
The next area is the question of protecting life, protecting human life. That’s the commandment, you shall not murder. Under that commandment I treat the question of capital punishment, war, self-defense, and is it ever right for a Christian to have a weapon for self-defense. Life-and-death issues include abortion, euthanasia, suicide. And then I include some other topics that relate not just to life-and-death, but quality of life, such as aging and racial discrimination and physical health and caring for our own health and alcohol and drugs. Those are all under the larger category of protecting life, which is the sixth commandment, you shall not murder.
The seventh commandment, you shall not commit adultery, has to do with issues of marriage and sexual morality, so I have chapters dealing with marriage and birth control and reproductive technology such as in vitro fertilization. Pornography, divorce, homosexuality, transgenderism, all of those issues have to do with sexual ethics and that’s under the general category of protecting marriage.
Then the next category, the eighth commandment, protecting property. I think in the command, you shall not steal, God establishes the basis for the ownership of private property. I shouldn’t steal your laptop computer or your bicycle because it belongs to you, it doesn’t belong to me. There is a concept of human property that is embedded in the 10 Commandments. Then I talk, also, about related issues – how much should we work, how much should we rest, what about vacations? Is prosperity in our nation a good thing or evil? How do we understand issues of wealth and poverty and solutions to poverty, both individual and national poverty? What is the right approach to personal stewardship of spending and saving and giving? I talk about borrowing and lending and business ethics and caring for the environment. That all is in the general category of protecting property.
And finally, I go to the tenth commandment, you shall not covet, and that has to do with protecting purity of heart. God, in that last commandment, gives us the signal that he’s not concerned merely with our actions, but he’s also concerned with the attitude of our hearts. And he wants us to delight in his moral character and therefore to, by implication, delight in him and in who he is. So that’s an overview of the book.
Zaspel:
Excellent! And it is finally, just now, released, right?
Grudem:
Yes, the official release date was July 31st and it’s now in stock at Amazon.com, and I saw it at Westminster Seminary bookstore and CBD, so I think it’s available.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Wayne Grudem, author of the new book, Christian Ethics: An Introduction to Christian Moral Reasoning. It’s a new classic on the subject, and it’s as relevant as any book you can imagine. You’ll want to have a copy for use and reference, and you’ll want a copy for your church library also. An excellent new resource that we’re happy to commend.
Wayne, thanks so much for your time with us and for your faithful ministry – great to have you with us always.
Grudem:
Fred, it’s been a joy to talk with you. Thanks so much for taking the time.
