Rushdoony, in The Institutes of Biblical Law, says

There is no warrant whatsoever in Scripture for antinomianism. the expression, “dead to the law,” is indeed in Scripture (Gal. 2:9; Rom. 7:4), but it has reference to the believer in relationship to the atoning work of Christ as the believer’s representative and substitute; the believer is dead to the law as an indictment, a legal sentence of death against him, Christ having died for him, but the believer is alive to the law as the righteousness of God. The purpose of Christ’s atoning work was to restore man to a  position of covenant-keeping instead of covenant-breaking, to enable man to keep the law by freeing man “from the law of sin and death” (Rom. 8:2), “that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us” (Rom. 8:4). Man is restored to a position of law-keeping. The law thus has a position of centrality in man’s indictment (as a sentence of death against man the sinner), in man’s redemption (in that Christ died, Who although the perfect law-keeper as the new Adam, died as man’s substitute), and in man’s sanctification (in that man grows in grace as he grows in law-keeping, for the law is the way of sanctification. (p3)

Antinomianism is so popular in the church that it’s difficult to even talk about the importance of the law without setting off the legalism hunters. Think of it this way. Jesus kept the law perfectly on our behalf, the just and, by his atoning the death, the justifier of all who trust in him. Those who have been set free from sin and death are set free to do what? Break the law because Jesus kept it for them instead? No, they’re free to imitate him in keeping the commandments, which is love: “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).

I’ve been reading with great profit James Barr’s The Semantics of Biblical Language. He uncovers so much bad exegesis that it’s safe to say that the landscape of preaching would look very different if his work was read in all seminaries.

He also takes on the contrast between Hebrew and Greek thought, at least the origin of the differences as they are commonly explained.

Or, to put it another way, the fact that Hebrew words are derived from different origins, have a different past history behind them, from the Greek words, demonstrates a different mental approach to reality. That this argument is in general a dubious one is clear when we take seriously the historical nature of etymological study. But in particular it is not the case that the past semantic changes which can be traced for Hebrew words are in any overwhelming number without analogy in the Indo-European or other groups, and a fairly large number of cases can be shown where  Hebrew semantic development has been fairly closely parallel to cases in Greek and Latin or other Indo-European languages. (p. 118)

This is not to say there aren’t differences between Greek and Hebrew cultures and ideas. Afterall, Zeus is not Yahweh, and it’s true that Plato describes the body as prison while the Song of Solomon pictures it as a marital fun-house. But this can’t be determined by circuitous etymologies that the original writers would not and could not have known about.

The book of Ecclesiastes is an enormous freight train driving toward a glad station: “Go, eat your bread in joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved your works” (9:7). How contrary this is to the beret-clad, cigarette-flared brooder who takes it all for meaninglessness!

Young men, in their insecurity, are prone to doubt and question, and thus waste their years of strength. So Solomon drives it home for them in particular: “Rejoice, O Young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheers you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment” (11:9).

What am I supposed to be doing? Rejoicing. Having fun. Doing what your heart desires. How? Remembering that God is everywhere and will judge. If your heart is clean and your eyes are filled with light, your desires are trustworthy to bring true delight without destruction. What gets in the way of this? Over-thinking: “The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings; they are given by one Shepherd. My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh” (12:11-12). (more…)

Martin Luther cites Isaiah in the explanation of his shorter catechism, addressing the necessity of praying only to God.

Look down from heaven and see, from your holy and beautiful habitation. Where are your zeal and your might? The stirring of your inner parts and your compassion are held back from me. For you are our Father, though Abraham does not know us, and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from of old is your name.  –Isaiah 63:15-16

No where does Scripture commend the idea of praying to the dead or anyone else other than God. The witch of Endor is as surprised as anyone that Samuel actually shows up, and she is hardly an example to follow (1 Sam. 28). But efforts to communicate with lost loved ones are as common as they are tragic. Many of those seeking to contact the dead are searching for consolation and peace, for things to be said and heard, to make up for things done and left undone in the wake of the loss of someone. Instead of healing the wound, such attempts at communication are futile and misleading if not worse. Abraham is the father of the faithful, and from Jesus’ parable about the rich man and Lazarus (Lk. 16:19-31), we know that Abraham’s bosom was the destination of the faithful departed. Who else could hear us if not Abraham? But Isaiah is clear. Neither he nor Israel know what is going on. This is okay because God our Father does know us and our issues. This means that though the pain of loss and separation are real, so is his knowledge and comfort; his grace is sufficient for this trial. It also means that whatever conflicts, issues or sins remain unaddressed between people who are separated by death, they will be resolved if they need to be in the future, and until then there is peace to be had in the here and now.

Laurence Stookey quotes Joseph Weber: “Most contemporary Christians think the resurrection and ascension are a kind of two-stage rocket: The resurrection gets the body of Jesus up from the ground and then the ascension launches it into outer space.”

Laurence Hull Stookey says that we ought to think of time as existing on a continuum. Picture it as a line that we are still connected with the past behind, the future ahead, and the crossbar of the present moving forward. “The present is but the moving edge between the past and the future. In some sense the present barely exists. This should not suggest that the present is unreal or unimportant, but only that it is always a moving edge of the thinnest sort. In a moment you will read a word set in all capital letters; your reading of that word is now a future event. BUT now your reading of that word is a past event. In this understanding of things, the past is far more than prologue and the future far more than a distant dream. The present cannot be conceived in isolation, as if it had a life of its own. Always the past, present and future are of a piece” (Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church, p20).

Christ is the great arche, the thing in which all things consist and cohere, including the past and the future. We know that every person’s identity is bound up in the past and the future, and this means that in order to be made whole in Christ, our time has to be reconciled to him. If someone is troubled or haunted by their past, this means their present (and likely future) is negatively dominated by it. If someone takes sinful pride in their past, for example by way of an accomplishment or heritage, this will distort their identity in the present. There is no escaping our intimate connection to where we come from, what we have done, and what has been done to us. But there is relief and grace only if we submit it to Christ, the great forgiver and healer. Paul called himself the chief of the sinners because he was a persecutor and murderer of Christians, among other things. Yet when he looked back on his past, he found even before his birth the plan of God: “But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. . . .” (Gal. 1:15-16). Jesus didn’t knock Paul down until the Damascus road, but providence was always at work in Paul’s life preparing him–even through and in spite of his sins–for obedience to the Gospel and work in the kingdom. His past informed his Christian life.

For the Christian, a sinful past need not pose any trouble to the present. It might pose consequences, but those consequences are still part of God’s plan for good to the person now.