Christian Ethics

Moral Theology — A Position Paper

Bruce Mitchell

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A Brief Statement

I hold that Christian moral norms are grounded in the unchanging character of God, revealed perfectly in Christ, expressed authoritatively in the law of Christ, applied by the Spirit, and echoed in the created order through conscience. The believer is not under the Mosaic covenant as a rule of life, but is being formed into the likeness of Christ by the Spirit, who enables obedience to Christ’s commands and shapes moral discernment in every sphere of life.

Christian ethics, so understood, is not a code bolted onto theology but its living outworking — the place where doctrine becomes discipleship. It steers between two ditches: legalism, which makes rule-keeping the ground of standing or returns the believer to a covenant Christ has fulfilled; and antinomianism, which mistakes freedom for formlessness. What lies between them is the obedience of love — empowered by grace, directed by the law of Christ, worked in us by the Spirit, and aimed at the glory of God and our conformity to His Son.

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A Detailed Exposition

The Ground of the Good: The Character of God

Where does morality come from, and why is it binding? Not, I answer, from human convention, which shifts with the culture; nor from a standard of good standing above God, to which even He must answer; nor from the bare will of God, as though He might as easily have commanded cruelty as kindness. The good is grounded in the character of God — in who He is. He is holy, just, faithful, and loving, and His commands flow from His nature, so that what He requires is good because He is good.¹ This is the answer to the old dilemma: is a thing good because God commands it, or does God command it because it is good? Neither horn will do. God commands what is good because He Himself is the good — the eternal standard is not above Him nor arbitrary within Him, but is His own perfect being. This is why morality is objective, universal, and unchanging: it is as fixed as the character of God, and as personal.

The Pattern: Christ, the Image of God

That character, invisible in itself, has been made visible in Jesus Christ. He is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15; see my paper on Christology), and in Him the moral perfection of God walked among us in a human life. Christian ethics is, therefore, at its heart, Christ-shaped: we are called not merely to keep rules but to become like a Person. “Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked” (1 John 2:6); “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps” (1 Peter 2:21); “have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). To behold Him is to be changed into His likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18). The goal of the moral life is not first a record of right acts but a resemblance — the formation of Christ in us.²

The Rule: The Law of Christ

If Christ is the pattern, the law of Christ is the rule. I have argued in my paper on the Law of Christ that the believer is not under the Mosaic covenant as his rule of life — that covenant having been fulfilled and set aside in Christ (see also my paper on Covenants) — but is under “the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21).³ This is no lawless freedom. The law of Christ is the whole body of His commands and those of His apostles, summed up and energized by love: “You shall love the Lord your God … and your neighbor as yourself” — on these “depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37–40) — for “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10). Nor does this leave the moral substance of the Ten Commandments behind: nine of the ten are repeated and deepened in the New Testament, not as the binding terms of the Sinai covenant, but as the abiding will of the unchanging God, now given to us by Christ. What changes is not the morality but the covenant under which we hold it.⁴

Virtue: The Formation of Christlike Character

Because the goal is Christlike character, Christian ethics must speak not only of acts but of being — of the virtues, the settled dispositions of a good heart. The classical world prized prudence, justice, courage, and temperance; Scripture takes up these virtues and crowns them with the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13), the greatest being love. But the master list is the Spirit’s fruit: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22–23). These are not produced by gritted teeth; they are grown — the fruit of the Spirit’s indwelling, cultivated over time through the Word, through prayer, through the fellowship of the church, and often through suffering. Character is formed slowly, by repeated obedience becoming habit, until the right act flows from a transformed nature. Being precedes doing; what we are determines, in the end, what we do.⁵

Conscience: The Inner Witness

God has set within every person a moral witness — the conscience — which approves the right and accuses the wrong (Romans 2:14–15). It is a precious gift, but not an infallible one. Conscience must be informed, for it judges by the light it has, and a conscience poorly taught will judge poorly; it can be “weak” and overscrupulous, or, hardened by repeated sin, “seared” past feeling (1 Corinthians 8:7; 1 Timothy 4:2).⁶ Two rules follow. First, we must labor to educate the conscience by the Word, so that it speaks with God’s voice and not merely our upbringing’s. Second, we must never act against it: “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23). To violate even a mistaken conscience is to train oneself in disregard for God. Hence Paul’s patient handling of the weaker brother in disputable matters — not despising him, not destroying him, but bearing with him until his conscience is better instructed (Romans 14; 1 Corinthians 8–10).⁷

Sanctification: The Process of Moral Transformation

All of this — the growth of virtue, the schooling of conscience, the keeping of Christ’s law — happens within the great process the New Testament calls sanctification, the making-holy of the believer. In one sense, it is already accomplished: in Christ we have been “sanctified,” set apart, declared holy (1 Corinthians 6:11). In another it is ongoing: we are “being transformed” from one degree of glory to the next (2 Corinthians 3:18). And it is no passive thing. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” Paul says, “for it is God who works in you” (Philippians 2:12–13) — the believer’s effort and the Spirit’s power not set against each other but joined, our striving being the very form His working takes. The means are ordinary and appointed: the Word, prayer, the ordinances, the gathered church, and the sanctifying providences of God, our trials among them. I treat this more fully in my paper on Soteriology; here I note only that ethics without sanctification is mere moralism, and that sanctification is the engine which makes the moral life possible.⁸

The Spirit: Power and Guide of the Moral Life

At the center of it all stands the Holy Spirit, who is the power and the guide of the Christian moral life (see my paper on Pneumatology). The command is not first “try harder” but “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16); “if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25). It is the Spirit who forms the virtues as His fruit, who illumines the Scriptures to the understanding, who shapes and quickens the conscience, who empowers obedience that would otherwise be impossible, and who applies the law of Christ to the thousand concrete situations no rulebook could foresee.⁹ This guards us on two sides at once. Against legalism, it reminds us that holiness is the Spirit’s work and not the flesh’s achievement. Against mysticism, it reminds us that the Spirit never leads contrary to the Word He inspired; Spirit and Scripture move together, and any “leading” that contradicts the written Word is not from Him.

Moral Decision-Making: Discernment and the Hard Cases

How, then, does a Christian decide what to do? Where Scripture speaks plainly, the matter is settled: we obey. But much of life lies in areas Scripture does not address by direct command, and there we must reason wisely. We bring the clear principles of the Word to bear; we ask what love requires and what would most glorify God (“whatever you do, do all to the glory of God,” 1 Corinthians 10:31); we weigh the counsel of the wise, the verdict of an informed conscience, and the leading of the Spirit; and in matters truly indifferent — what the older writers called adiaphora — we grant one another liberty (Romans 14).¹⁰ Harder are the cases where duties seem to collide — where, famously, the only way to preserve a life appears to require a lie, as with the Hebrew midwives or Rahab. Christians have answered in three ways: that God’s commands never truly conflict and a sinless path always exists; that in a fallen world they sometimes do conflict, so that one must choose the lesser evil and seek forgiveness; and that they only appear to conflict but are graded, the higher obligation suspending the lower without guilt. I lean to the conviction that God’s commands do not finally contradict one another, and that where they seem to, we are bound to the weightier duty — mercy above a mere convention of speech — trusting the wisdom and grace of God; but I hold this tenderly, for honest and godly men have divided here.¹¹

Creation and Conscience: The Moral Order Echoed in the World

Finally, the moral order is not locked away in Scripture alone; it is echoed, faintly but really, in the creation and in the human conscience. Paul says the Gentiles who never had the Law nonetheless show “the work of the law written on their hearts” (Romans 2:14–15; see my papers on Creation and Bibliology). This natural knowledge of right and wrong is genuine — it is why a measure of moral agreement is possible even with those who reject the Bible, and why we may rightly appeal to it in the public square. But it is also limited and, since the Fall, distorted; the conscience can be dulled and the creation order suppressed (Romans 1:18–21). So I value natural law as a true witness and a point of contact, while holding that Scripture and the Spirit remain primary and corrective. Conscience and creation echo the moral law; they do not replace the Lawgiver or His Word.¹²

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Practical Implications

Ministry Emphasis: Discipleship — the Formation of Christ in the Believer

First, this is where doctrine becomes discipleship. Everything I have written in these papers — about God, Christ, sin, salvation, and the Spirit — is meant to land here, in a transformed life. The aim of theology is not a well-furnished mind but “Christ formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). I want my teaching never to stop at the lecture; discipleship is not the transfer of information but the formation of character, and it is the Spirit’s patient work through ordinary means over a lifetime.

Second, the framework keeps me out of the two oldest ditches. To the legalist, weighed down by rule-keeping and unsure of his standing, it says: your acceptance rests on Christ, not on your performance, and your obedience flows from grace, not toward it (see my papers on Soteriology and Eternal Security). To the one who would turn grace into license, it says: you were freed not from holiness but for it. The gospel does not lower the moral aim; it supplies the power to reach it.

Third — and this is near to my heart — a true moral theology is good news for the broken. Ministering to men wrecked by sin, their own or others’, I have learned not to begin by piling on commands. A wounded conscience must first be healed by the gospel before it can be rightly instructed by the law of Christ. Sanctification is gradual, and grace is patient with the process; there is mercy for failure and real hope for change. I would lead such men not to mere behavior modification but to the Spirit who alone can make a new heart bear new fruit.

Finally, this teaches me to make disciples who can think, not merely comply. I want to hand people not only rules but the wisdom to reason — to weigh, to discern, to walk by the Spirit in the gray places where no verse gives a direct answer. And in the disputable matters, I want to model conviction without contempt: honoring the weaker brother, granting liberty where God has granted it, and keeping the great end always in view — love, and the glory of God, in every corner of an ordinary life.

Ethics is theology on its feet — the truth we confess becoming the Christ we resemble, worked in us by the Spirit who dwells within.

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Biblical, Exegetical, Theological, and Historical Notes

1. The grounding of the good in God’s character answers the dilemma posed in Plato’s Euthyphro: is an act good because God commands it (making the good arbitrary), or does God command it because it is good (making the good a standard above God)? The classical Christian answer takes neither horn: God commands what is good because He Himself is good — the moral standard is neither above Him nor arbitrary within Him, but is His own eternal and unchanging nature (Psalm 119:68; Mark 10:18; 1 Peter 1:15–16). Divine command and the divine character are thus not rivals; the command expresses the character.
2. Christ, “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), is the embodiment of the moral character of God in a human life, and so the believer’s pattern. The New Testament repeatedly grounds ethics in His imitation (mimētēs, μιμητής): “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1); “walk in the same way in which He walked” (1 John 2:6); the mind of Christ in His self-humbling (Philippians 2:5–8). Sanctification is conformity to His image (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18). See my paper on Christology.
3. The believer’s rule is “the law of Christ” (nomos Christou, νόμος Χριστοῦ, Galatians 6:2); Paul describes himself as “not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ” (1 Corinthians 9:21). This is the New Covenant ethic for those no longer under the Mosaic covenant as a rule of life (Romans 6:14; 7:4–6). See my papers on the Law of Christ and Covenants.
4. The law of Christ is summed up in love for God and neighbor (Matthew 22:37–40; Romans 13:8–10; Galatians 5:14), which is “the fulfilling of the law.” The moral substance of the Decalogue is not discarded but reaffirmed and intensified in the New Testament — nine of the ten commandments are explicitly repeated (the Sabbath command being the exception, Romans 14:5; Colossians 2:16–17) — now binding not as the terms of the Sinai covenant but as the will of the unchanging God expressed through Christ. The morality abides; the covenant under which it is held has changed.
5. Christian ethics attends to virtue (aretē, ἀρετή; Philippians 4:8; 2 Peter 1:5) — the formed dispositions of character — and not only to discrete acts. The classical cardinal virtues (prudence, justice, courage, temperance) are taken up and surpassed by the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Supremely, the virtues are “the fruit” (karpos, καρπός) of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), grown rather than manufactured, formed through obedient habit, the means of grace, the community of the church, and the discipline of suffering (Romans 5:3–4).
6. Conscience (syneidēsis, συνείδησις) is the inner faculty that judges one’s own conduct (Romans 2:14–15; 9:1). It is not infallible: it judges by the light it possesses and so must be informed by Scripture; it may be “weak” and overscrupulous (1 Corinthians 8:7–12) or, through persistent sin, “seared” as with a hot iron (1 Timothy 4:2). A well-formed conscience is a great safeguard; a neglected one, a peril.
7. Two principles govern the conscience. (1) It must be educated by the Word, lest it bind where God has not bound or excuse what God condemns. (2) It must not be violated, even when mistaken, for “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Romans 14:23); to act against conscience is to school oneself in defiance of God. Hence, the apostolic care for the weaker brother in disputable matters (Romans 14:1–15:7; 1 Corinthians 8–10): the strong are to bear with, not despise or destroy, the weak.
8. Sanctification is both positional — believers are once-for-all “sanctified,” set apart as holy in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2; 6:11; Hebrews 10:10) — and progressive — they are being transformed into Christ’s likeness across the Christian life (2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 Thessalonians 4:3). It joins the Spirit’s power and the believer’s effort: “work out your own salvation … for it is God who works in you” (Philippians 2:12–13). The ordinary means are the Word, prayer, the ordinances, the fellowship of the church, and God’s providential dealings. See my paper on Soteriology.
9. The Christian moral life is lived “by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, 18, 25 — “keep in step,” stoicheō, στοιχέω). The Spirit produces the virtues as His fruit, illumines the Scripture (1 Corinthians 2:12–14), informs and quickens the conscience, empowers obedience, and applies Christ’s law to particular circumstances. Crucially, the Spirit never leads against the Word He inspired (John 16:13–14; 2 Timothy 3:16); Word and Spirit are inseparable, which guards alike against fleshly legalism and untethered mysticism. See my paper on Pneumatology.
10. For moral discernment: where Scripture commands or forbids plainly, obey; where it does not speak directly, apply its principles, asking what love requires and what glorifies God (1 Corinthians 10:31; Romans 14:7–8), seeking wise counsel (Proverbs 11:14), an informed conscience, and the Spirit’s leading. In matters genuinely indifferent (adiaphora, ἀδιάφορα), believers must extend liberty and charity (Romans 14:5–6). John Frame’s analysis of every ethical question in terms of the norm (Scripture), the situation, and the agent’s motive is, I find, a useful guide.
11. On genuine moral dilemmas — e.g., the Hebrew midwives (Exodus 1:15–21) or Rahab (Joshua 2; James 2:25), where saving life seemed to require deception — three positions are held: non-conflicting absolutism (God’s commands never truly conflict; a sinless path always exists); conflicting absolutism (in a fallen world they may conflict, requiring the choice of the lesser evil, for which one seeks forgiveness); and graded absolutism or hierarchicalism (the commands are real but ranked, the higher duty exempting one from the lower without guilt — so Norman Geisler). I incline to the view that God’s commands do not finally contradict, and that where duties seem to clash, we are bound to the weightier — mercy above a convention of speech — trusting the grace of God. I hold this with humility, as godly men have differed.
12. Scripture affirms a real but limited natural moral knowledge: the Gentiles “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts” (Romans 2:14–15), and the created order testifies to God’s nature (Romans 1:19–20; see my papers on Creation and Bibliology). This natural law grounds a measure of common moral ground with unbelievers and a basis for public moral appeal. Yet it is dulled and suppressed by sin (Romans 1:18, 21), so that it cannot stand alone; Scripture and the Spirit remain primary and corrective. Conscience and creation echo the moral law without replacing the Lawgiver or His written Word.

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Select Bibliography

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Geisler, Norman L. Christian Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Options. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Hauerwas, Stanley. The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press.

Jones, David Clyde. Biblical Christian Ethics. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Murray, John. Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

O’Donovan, Oliver. Resurrection and Moral Order: An Outline for Evangelical Ethics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.

Packer, J. I. Keep in Step with the Spirit. Grand Rapids: Baker.

Rae, Scott B. Moral Choices: An Introduction to Ethics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan.

Thomas à Kempis. The Imitation of Christ.

VanDrunen, David. A Biblical Case for Natural Law. Grand Rapids: Acton Institute.