What Is Christian Ethics? How Scripture Shapes Our Moral Lives

Christian ethics is the discipline that aids the church in pursuing the example of Christ in wisdom, holiness, and justice as empowered by the Holy Spirit and directed by Scripture.

What is Christian ethics? We will answer that by introducing basic paradigms in Christian ethics, considering the use of the Bible in ethics, and connecting the theology of Christ and his church to a Christian ethical framework. I will conclude with two brief illustrations in applied ethics demonstrating the methods discussed here.

Basic paradigms in Christian ethics

Christians have used different frameworks to consider the basic method of Christian ethics. The three most popular are:

1. Divine command
2. Natural law
3. Virtue ethics

Divine command ethics

Divine command ethics focuses on the direct commands that God gives. Norman Geisler summarizes divine command ethics: “A thing is right if God wills it right, and wrong if God wills it wrong. … God wills it to be good because it is good in accordance with his own unchangeably good nature.”¹

This perspective begins with the fact that only God is perfectly good (Mark 10:18), and so God’s commands must be trusted. Often, God’s will is most clearly expressed in his commands, especially in the law but also in New Testament teachings. This approach makes sense of events like God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22:2), for we ought not question the commands of a good God.

Yet, most Christian ethicists do not stop here, for several reasons:

1. Scripture includes genres other than direct commands, and all Scripture is important for ethics.
2. Many peoples do not have the Bible, yet they are still held responsible for their sinful actions. This suggests that the good can be at least partly known apart from direct commands.
3. Divine command ethics does not consider how the Christian becomes enabled to do the good that God commands.

Natural law ethics

Natural law discerns the good by considering the God-given purpose of created things. Though creation is marred by sin, natural law theory suggests that the good can still be known and discovered to some extent. Thomas Aquinas famously argues that natural law involves all intelligent creatures sharing in eternal law, by which they tend toward their proper ends (ST I–II Q. 91 A. 2).

Natural law can often emphasize the doctrines of creation and natural revelation. The conclusion from natural law ethics is that humans have some natural ability to discern the good. Natural law theory often focuses on how reason or conscience discerns the good.

Yet, natural law ethics faces the risk of absolutizing one’s cultural perspective as that which is natural and obviously rational. For this reason, Christians do well to consider ethics from various cultural perspectives.²

In the twentieth century, many Protestants viewed natural law ethics with suspicion because it purportedly de-centered Christ and downplayed the extent to which sin weakens human reasoning. However, in recent decades Protestants have begun to argue that using natural law ethics is a return to the traditions of earlier Protestantism, particularly those of Martin Luther and John Calvin.³ On the other hand, it could be the case that only the redeemed Christian is so enlightened by the Spirit as to be able to fully grasp God’s plan and design for creation.

Virtue ethics

Virtue ethics focuses on the formation of character. In Scripture, a person’s nature brings about good or bad actions (e.g., Matt 12:35), and yet recurring actions can also shape character. This moral formation happens in community (e.g., 1 Cor 15:33), and virtue is closely linked to the doctrine of grace since it is God who makes us good. Virtue, then, refers to an acquired tendency toward good acts and ends. Virtue enables us to do the good when we lack the time for complete moral deliberation.

Traditionally, Christians have affirmed the four cardinal virtues of temperance/self-control, fortitude/courage, prudence/wisdom, and justice, plus the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (1 Cor 13:13). Vices refer to dispositions toward evil. Christians have traditionally spoken of seven deadly vices: pride, lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, anger, and envy (though specific lists vary).⁴

Each of these frameworks are important, but they must be based in Scripture to be valid, so we must turn to biblical ethics.

Ethics according to the Bible: key principles

The Bible is foundational in Christian ethics because it alone is inspired revelation that infallibly points us to the good will of God so that we may be trained in righteousness (2 Tim 3:16).

Scripture directly teaches ethics in several genres, including Old Testament law. Law is not given by God only for the purpose of ethics. Protestants have traditionally assigned three uses to the law:

1. It guides the ethical conduct of governments. For example, no government ought to allow murder.
2. When we recognize our inability to fulfill the law (Rom 7), it drives us to the grace of God as we seek a Savior to fulfill the law for us.
3. The law also serves as an important moral guide for Christians after they convert.⁵

The law is not the only important genre in Christian ethics. Other genres like prophetic or wisdom literature (i.e., Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes) are also important. Even biblical narrative can shape our understanding of what it means to live a good life.⁶ In the New Testament, Jesus’s teachings in the sermon on the mount and the parables include ethical teaching, and the epistles are filled with moral exhortation.

A detailed treatment of biblical ethics could cover the entire canon, but this section will focus on three key dimensions of biblical ethics:

1. Wisdom
2. Holiness
3. Justice

Wisdom

Using the Bible in ethics requires wisdom. Unsurprisingly, this is most evident in the genre of wisdom literature.

Consider the book of Proverbs. The book opens with a summary statement that orients the entire chapter (Prov 1:1–7). Within this introduction, Proverbs 1:6 calls for us to understand “proverbs,” “figures,” and “riddles.” Timothy Sandoval explains, “All the terms of Proverbs 1:6—individually and especially when considered together—thus connote some sort of figurative language of discourse in need of interpretation.”⁷ In other words, wisdom is required to know how to apply the proverbs.

This is especially evident in Proverbs 26:4–5, which reads:

Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you yourself will be just like him.
Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes. (NIV)

These seemingly opposing statements are not a biblical contradiction but rather indicate the need for the reader to wisely discern when to apply which proverb. Perhaps we ought not reply to the fool on social media, but rebuking a fellow congregation member in person would follow other scriptural guidance (e.g., Matt 18:15–20).

The need for wisdom is evident across the canon. In the law itself, we see the juxtaposition of apodictic law, which expresses direct divine commands, and casuistic law, which contextualizes those commands in specific cases with specific circumstances. We are taught “do not kill” (Exod 20:13) in the ten commandments. Then Exodus 21 includes various examples of what to do if a killing is accidental (Exod 21:13), only attempted (Exod 21:18–19), or committed by someone’s ox (Exod 21:28–32), listing just three examples.

We should also focus on what Richard Hays has called “tensions” in New Testament ethical teachings. Hays warns, “However acute the tension between two different witnesses may appear, it must not be resolved through exegetical distortion of the texts.”⁸ He proposes three “focal images” that summarize New Testament ethical themes: community, cross, and new creation.⁹

Hays’s basic point about maintaining tensions seems a necessary conclusion from the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. We must affirm all biblical teaching, which will require us to balance tensions. Wisdom, for example, will recognize that though we are taught that “lying lips are an abomination to the Lord” (Prov 12:22), someone lying about hiding Jews during the holocaust was doing a morally good thing by recognizing the moral priority of protecting humans made in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27). Christian ethics would thus differ from some more rigid ethical systems because it requires the cultivation of wisdom.

Holiness

Holiness does not get the amount of attention that something like the new creation does across the entire New Testament corpus. We might wrongly conclude that it is less relevant than other biblical themes. Yet, biblical ethicists generally agree on the need to offer “countercultural witness” that requires emphasizing certain themes to resist the world in its current forms of sin.¹⁰ Given this, it is prudent to focus on holiness and ethics in Christianity.

Christians are described as “saints,” or more literally as “holy ones,” throughout Paul’s corpus (e.g., Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:2; 6:2; 2 Cor 13:13; Phil 1:1; 1 Thess 3:13). We are holy because of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit (1 Thess 4:8).

Theologians describe sanctification as both progressive and positional. Positional holiness refers to our identity in Christ. Like Israel, the New Testament people of God are called to an identity of holiness, growing in character and actions according to this identity.¹¹ We are called to be holy because God is holy (Lev 19:2; 20:26).

Sanctification is a spiritual process that actualizes our identity in Christ through our conformity to the cruciform pattern of Christ.

Michael Gorman argues that Paul’s emphasis on holiness in 1 Corinthians especially targets sexual purity, prohibition against idolatry, and “practicing Christlike, cruciform love.”¹² Sanctification is a spiritual process that actualizes our identity in Christ through our conformity to the cruciform pattern of Christ. Gorman summarizes, “Cruciform holiness means … becoming like Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son, and thus becoming like God—for God is Christlike.”¹³

Justice

Justice is an important third aspect of biblical ethics. Christopher Wright explains, “For Israel, the exodus was the paradigmatic demonstration of the Lord’s justice in action, in both senses—judgment and salvation.”¹⁴ In the New Testament, however, God’s justice or righteousness is most clearly manifest in the forgiveness evident on the cross (Rom 3:21–26). A Christian emphasis on justice is always balanced by a recognition of the grace manifest in Christ and the corresponding call to forgiveness and reconciliation.

Eschatologically, justice involves God bringing judgment against evil and rewarding good (Acts 17:31), as promised in the law (Deut 30:11–20). Where there is no justice in a fallen world, God works to bring about that justice himself (Isa 59:14–16):

So justice is driven back,
and righteousness stands at a distance;
truth has stumbled in the streets,
honesty cannot enter.
Truth is nowhere to be found,
and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey.

The Lord looked and was displeased
that there was no justice.
He saw that there was no one,
he was appalled that there was no one to intervene;
so his own arm achieved salvation for him,
and his own righteousness sustained him.

Certain strands of theology have made the exodus central in social ethics, perhaps most famously and controversially liberationist ethics, a movement from Latin America which considers God liberating the Israelites from oppression to be paradigmatic for how Christians ought to pursue justice today. Some Latin American theologians have affirmed the centrality of liberation in the kingdom of God, while insisting that the kingdom is also centrally focused on evangelism. C. René Padilla writes:

Both evangelism and social responsibility can be understood only in light of the fact that in Jesus Christ the kingdom of God has invaded history and is now both a present reality and a future hope, and ‘already’ and a ‘not yet.’¹⁵

The demands of justice must point us to Christ, who we must proclaim as the fulfillment of the justice of God and the manifestation of his kingdom.

Christ & Christian ethics

Given the importance of wisdom, justice, and holiness in Scripture, it is unsurprising that Paul writes that Jesus “has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). Recall the second use of the law: law points us to Christ who alone fulfills the law. Grasping this is prerequisite for a healthy pursuit of the third use of the law: seeking to live righteously according to the Bible’s teachings.

Christ the moral teacher

Jesus was a prophet (Matt 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24; John 4:44) who offers the definitive interpretation of the law in the sermon on the mount (Matt 5–7). His teachings often provide direct moral guidance with unique authority because he is also the eternal Second Person of the Trinity who gives all divine commands.

Jesus is a moral teacher by example, something often included as an aspect of his saving work, though certainly one peripheral to his central substitutionary work on the cross. Jesus’s role as the definitive interpreter of the law only prepares us for Christian ethical action once we know Jesus as the redeemer whose life embodies justice in a way that we have not.

Christ who fulfills creation

Jesus is the perfect human who fulfills the natural purpose of humanity and all of creation. As the second Adam (Rom 5:12–21), he lives the sinless life that the first Adam did not (Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:22). He also was the awaited Son of David who reigned in the way that no other king had in Israel, fulfilling Israel’s call to be a holy nation.

God’s plan from all eternity was to bring all of creation together in Christ (Eph 1:10). Jesus therefore has an important role in natural law ethics as the one in whom creation finds its fulfillment.

Christ & moral formation

Christ is also important from the standpoint of virtue ethics. Jesus was the virtuous one who both embodied the Christian life and whose vision of the kingdom provides a horizon within which our moral formation can occur.¹⁶

As Lúcás Chan explains, virtue involves four dimensions: “(1) dispositions and character formation; (2) practices and habits; (3) exemplar; and (4) community.”¹⁷ Jesus provides all four of these dimensions. Christ forms our character through direct teaching, but also as we grow in holiness through union with him (1 Cor 1:2). Jesus gave us specific character-building practices to repeat, such as baptism (Matt 28:18–20), offering forgiveness, (Matt 18:20–21), and caring for the sick, poor, and imprisoned (Matt 25:31–46). Jesus himself is our exemplar, who we ought to emulate by taking up our cross to follow him (Matt 16:24). Further, Jesus founded the community of the church, that holy community within which the Holy Spirit transforms us from sin to conformity with Christ (Matt 16:18).

Jesus was the virtuous one whose vision of the kingdom provides a horizon within which our moral formation can occur.

The church & Christian ethics

Christian moral formation occurs especially in the church, so we must consider Christian ethics and ecclesiology from several standpoints.

The mission of the church

The church has a great commission centered on evangelism, yet it is often forgotten that this commission also requires Christians to teach disciples to obey everything Jesus has commanded us (Matt 28:20), which would include moral teachings. The mission of the church partly concerns ethics.

The church’s emphasis on ethics can emphasize or resist the state. Enrique Dussell, a liberationist ethicist, argues that the church is a prophetic institution, an institution that gives the prophetic message content while also being kept from totalizing sin through its prophetic message of justice.¹⁸

Stanley Hauerwas is far more skeptical of the state, but he too sees witness as an important role for the church: “The church is where people faithfully carry out the task of being a witness to the reality of God’s kingdom.”¹⁹ For Hauerwas, this witness does not require efforts to lead the state. Rather, the church’s primary task is to be the church, and in so doing to be an alternative body politic.

Though the church’s engagement with the state is heavily debated, there is consensus that the church’s mission must include works toward the common good.²⁰

Preaching the gospel

Some ethicists have emphasized the importance of the Christian worldview in ethics. Dennis Hollinger explains that worldview is conveyed “through a narrative component, a rational component, and a ritual component.”²¹ The worldview within which ethical action occurs can be conveyed through narrating the story of God’s salvation, combined with teaching the story’s ethical implications, all within the context of corporate worship.

It is not surprising to find theologians from the early church both preached complex doctrinal sermons and moral sermons on such issues as justice. For example, the volume On Social Justice by Basil the Great collects relevant ethical sermons by a theologian often more associated with the intricacies of Trinitarian theology.²²

The church ought to engage in witness to the world, partly through preaching, proclaiming how the God of justice has redeemed us from our unrighteousness, calling us to live into his justice in the church and the world. Preaching the full counsel of God also requires preaching ethics.

Liturgical formation

God also enables us to develop the virtue necessary to be good in this way through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:1–9). Sometimes, the Spirit uses means of grace to aid our transformation. Therefore, many ethicists have considered the role of worship in the moral formation of Christians. Since liturgy involves repeated actions, which develop habits, ethicists have connected liturgy to the development of virtue.²³

The Lord’s Supper illustrates liturgy and moral formation. Imagine what might happen if the church took seriously the commands to examine ourselves before taking the supper (1 Cor 11:28). In context, this examination clearly refers to considering whether we believe in the Messiah who is celebrated in the supper. Canonically there is reason to affirm a moral component of this self-examination, as well. Jesus himself teaches that we ought to reconcile with our neighbor before making an offering at the temple (Matt 5:24), and the Lord’s Supper is the liturgical replacement of the sacrifice—both point to the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ. If Christians were to take such self-examination seriously on a weekly basis, it is not difficult to imagine them growing in humility and becoming people of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

Applied Christian ethics

So far, this article has focused on the theoretical underpinnings of Christian ethics, but Christians are meant to apply ethics to real-life situations. Therefore, the concluding sections will consider two ethical issues as examples of how to apply the framework outlined in this article.

Abstinence, temperance & sexual ethics

When teaching sexual ethics, Christians sometimes restrict themselves to divine command ethics combined with harmful consequences for sex outside of marriage. God prohibits adultery (Exod 20:14), and if we break this law, we could be harmed by STDs, teen pregnancies, or emotional damage. While everything in the prior sentence is true, studies have found that Christians pledging abstinence in light of this perspective only avoid sex before marriage at a negligibly higher rate than the general population.²⁴

In response to this, we might consider strengthening our moral analysis. Natural law ethics would recognize that we are not commanded to preserve sex within marriage merely because of the consequences we face from extra-marital sex. Christian ethicists tend to emphasize the doctrine of creation, exploring how sex is generally oriented toward procreation and/or the union of two persons into one flesh (Gen 2:24).²⁵ This position can still neglect the question of how we become sexually holy.

Natural law should be supplemented with virtue ethics, especially on temperance: the disposition to resist or restrain problematic desire, including lust. Teaching sexual ethics must involve more than warning about harmful consequences of adultery. We should teach virtue. This requires fostering a vision of the good life that virtue pursues and establishing practices that will build the needed dispositions. Such practices might include acts of service that foster a sense of justice and human dignity or practices such as fasting and restraining other bodily desires. Christian community will also be important, especially efforts to foster community for single and unmarried congregation. Such community can resist the false sense of personal connection and belonging that can be found in sexual encounters.²⁶

This brief treatment does not resolve all issues in sexual ethics, but it does show how the combination of several moral frameworks can strengthen Christian ethics.

Wisdom, immigration & political engagement

Debates around immigration provide a helpful illustration of the need for wisdom and justice in social ethics.

One difficulty in immigration ethics is the complexity of the political situation. Though categories like “immigrant” or “undocumented immigrant” are broad, they contain within them a variety of groups such as refugees fleeing persecution, trafficking victims, individuals who overstayed their visas, children brought by parents who are unaware of their status, individuals seeking work illegally, and drug smugglers and criminals.

Wisdom speaks truth, not deception (Prov 8:6–7), and justice requires judgments that are fair and appropriate to the case heard (Exod 23:16; Lev 19:15; Deut 27:19). We would do well to recognize that different ethical analysis is needed for a trafficking victim than for a criminal. We would also do well to recognize that both of these categories are only a small fraction of the undocumented immigrant population. Weighing all undocumented immigrants as if they were criminals would be unwise and unjust.²⁷ Best practice is to consider individual immigrant categories in our Christian ethics.²⁸

Wisdom also requires that we consider the full breadth of relevant ethical principles. Wisdom must consider tensions between the command to submit to governing authorities (Rom 13:1–7; 1 Pet 2:13–17) and the command to love our neighbor, including immigrants (Lev 19:18, 33–34).²⁹ Unbalanced approaches can overemphasize one of these principles in isolation from the other.

For example, singular emphasis on rule of law neglects the long biblical tradition of civil disobedience, including for purposes of saving lives (Exod 1:15–21; Esth 4:11–16). It would be unjust to deport individuals to situations that severely risk their lives; a similar principle guides international law in prohibiting the return of refugees to countries that sought to persecute them. Singular emphasis on hospitality (e.g., Heb 13:2) is also inadequate, for hospitality does not guide us in setting public policy, and it can leave immigrants in a situation of dependency rather than agency.³⁰

Finally, since Christian ethics focuses on the church, we must wonder whether care for immigrants should be church-based or state-based, just as we must ask to what extent modern pluralist governments should follow the first use of the law (for guiding governments).

I have done little to resolve these important political questions, but hopefully I have shown how Christian social ethics could engage such questions well, pursuing justice while informed by wisdom.³¹

Butner’s recommended resources for further study

Mission between the Times

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Glittering Vices: A New Look at the Seven Deadly Sins and Their Remedies

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The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics

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Old Testament Ethics for the People of God

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Jesus and Virtue Ethics: Building Bridges between New Testament Studies and Moral Theology

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The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics, 2nd Edition

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The Meaning of Sex: Christian Ethics and the Moral Life

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Jesus the Refugee: Ancient Injustice and Modern Solidarity

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