The Law and Concupiscence (Part 1)

‘Concupiscence’ is probably not a word you hear much in ordinary conversation, but it has recently been the subject of some controversy in British evangelicalism (see GRUKology ep. 62). In very simple terms, concupiscence means the desire to sin. The current debate about concupiscence is not just whether it is sinful to deliberately set your heart on sin (everyone agrees that it is), but whether we are morally responsible for our unchosen inclinations and desires towards sin.

The correct answer is that we are morally responsible, and that concupiscence is therefore truly and properly called sin.

But not all modern evangelicals accept this. Recent discussions have revealed that many evangelicals, including some prominent British leaders, have an unfortunately shallow view of sin, and teach that concupiscence is not really sinful.

As you might know, this first became a major area of controversy during the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, when the Roman Catholic Church condemned the unanimous Protestant belief that concupiscence is sinful. In this context, I have shown that the Reformed doctrine of concupiscence flowed out of the Reformed understanding of the law of God, especially the Ten Commandments, and especially the tenth commandment (‘Thou shalt not covet’) and the way it was used by Paul in Romans 7.

So here is a question worth asking:

If British evangelicals have too small a view of sin (as I believe many do), then might one reason be that we have an impoverished view of the law?

1.     The law and sin

The connection between sin and the law of God was clear to the apostle Paul: ‘I had not known sin, but by the law’ (Rom 7.7).

It was also clear to our forefathers in the Protestant tradition, as in the Shorter Catechism:

Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.

Your doctrine of sin, then, can only be as big as your doctrine of the law. And modern evangelical ethics has a habit of asking narrow questions: Where does it say that in the New Testament? What are we explicitly commanded to do? Anything beyond this gets filed as a matter of Christian liberty. For example, Jonathan Stephen (former President of FIEC and Director of Affinity) suggests that ‘we do not have to obey literally any commandment in the Old Testament that was not clearly endorsed in the New’.

But the Reformed tradition works differently, giving us a much more developed and sophisticated account of the uses, categories and scope of the Old Testament law. In Reformed ethics, the Ten Commandments are a summary of the whole moral law and thus give us an expansive guide to the Christian life.

This difference explains lots of the ways that we today tend to be out of step with our Reformed forebears on controversial matters such as the Sabbath, contraception and images of Jesus. And it explains, I think, why people come to different views on the issue of concupiscence.

The depth and breadth of the Reformed doctrine of sin depends on the depth and breadth of Reformed readings of the law.

2.     The depth and breadth of the law

Richard Greenham, a village pastor in Cambridgeshire, wrote four rules for his congregation to help them understand the Ten Commandments:

1. In every commandment where evil is forbidden, there the contrary good is commanded.

2. Many more evils are forbidden and many more good things are commanded in every commandment, than in word are expressed.

3. Because God is a spirit, therefore his commandments are spiritual, and require spiritual obedience.

4. In every commandment where evil is forbidden, there the occasions of the evil are forbidden; and where good is commanded, there also the occasions of good are commanded.

These rules are a good representation of the Reformed approach to the Ten Commandments. There is a similar list of eight rules in the Larger Catechism (Q. 99) As Calvin writes, the commandments ‘always contain more than is expressed in words’. Each commandment has not only negative implications (e.g. don’t murder), but also positive implications (e.g. preserve the life of your neighbour). Moreover, Reformed commentaries stress that God’s law reaches deeper than outward acts and binds our hearts, with all our dispositions, motivations and desires.

When Jesus quotes the commandments against murder and adultery to condemn anger and lust, he isn’t presenting a ‘radical reinterpretation’ of the law, as many people think. Jesus is not ‘a new legislator’ but ‘a faithful expounder’ (Calvin). He doesn’t change the commandments but gives us ‘the true interpretation’ of them (Perkins). This means that the moral law has always been concerned with the whole person—body and soul— and therefore we should always be conscious of what kinds of desire God commands and forbids.

So let’s get specific. Have you broken the sixth commandment? Most of us haven’t committed murder. But the breadth of the law means that you also break the sixth commandment by putting someone (or yourself) in the way of physical harm unnecessarily. And the depth of the law means that the ‘malice lurking in our heart and flesh’—‘anger, envy, hatred’—is likewise condemned (Musculus). Similarly, the seventh commandment condemns even those of us who have not committed extramarital sex. It includes other sexual sins such as fornication and rape. But still more, every inward movement of lust is condemned, even if you don’t act on it. God’s law doesn’t just address sexual acts, but sexual desires. God judges the heart.

The influential Reformer Wolfgang Musculus says it best:

A human judge cannot penetrate to the affections of the heart ... But before the tribunal of the supreme Judge, man is judged not only according to the things he does, but rather according to what he is. Now, a man truly is what he is in the heart, more than what he shows by his deeds. The quality of the heart is the quality of a man before God.

This deep and broad understanding lays the groundwork for the Reformed view that our inner inclination to sin is itself condemned by God’s law. But it is the tenth commandment, above anything else, that undergirds the Reformed doctrine of concupiscence. And that will be the subject of part two.