PE041
(distributed by the Session of St. Paul
Presbyterian Church, Jackson, MS, 1978), Covenant Media Foundation,
800/553-3938
Rev. Greg
L. Bahnsen, Th.M., Ph.D.
The editor
of the Presbyterian Journal is to be
thanked for introducing to his readers two vital theological questions relevant
to the modern church: the questions of ethics and eschatology. Such matters bear directly on the lifestyle
and hope of believers and, thus, are a concern to us all. In two lead articles and two main editorials
which spread over three issues in volume 20 of the Journal (9-6, 9-13, 9-20)
the editor has cordially and charitably given his own view of a particular
outlook in eschatology (postmillennialism) and in ethics (theonomy), both of
which I espouse. As a teacher of
theology I rejoice at such healthy interaction and criticism regarding our
doctrinal commitments. We must, in the
Berean spirit (Acts 17:11), “prove all things, hold fast that which is good” (I
Thes. 5:21).
I will
begin by discussing the theonomic outlook in ethics, responding to the editor’s
understanding and critique, and then later turn to the question of
postmillennial eschatology, again offering an answer to the editor’s remarks.
The most blessed
teaching of God’s word and the central joy of my life is that God sent His
only-begotten Son to save sinners such as myself. When I became a Christian, it was with a sense of my sin and
misery before God. Because of the
Spirit’s work in my heart I recognized that “every sin . . . being a
transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its
own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath
of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death” (Westminster
Confession of Faith VI.6; hereafter “WCF”).
Hereby I saw my need of the Savior freely offered to me in the gospel
and embraced Him in faith. Accompanying
this saving faith in Christ there was a repentance unto new life in Him. “By
it, a sinner, out of the sight and sense not only of the danger, but also of
the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature, such
as are penitent, so as grieves for, and hates his sins, as to turn from them
all unto God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with Him in all the ways of His
commandments” (WCF XV.2). Such
repentance gave meaning to my “accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ
alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life”; in terms of this
conception of saving faith I found myself “yielding obedience to the commands,
trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life
and that which is to come” as they were found in God’s inspired word (WCF
XIV.2).
Because I
came to Christ in this fashion it was only natural that, upon reflection, I
would take a theonomic approach to ethics – seeing the binding validity of
God’s commandments in my life today.
The conviction of my sin, which was prerequisite to coming to Jesus as
Savior, was possible only because of God’s holy law. “Sin is lawlessness” (I Jn. 3:4); “I had not known sin except
through the law” (Rom. 7:7). John
Murray said, “The word ‘ought’ can have no meaning apart from a rule or
standard of right, that is apart from law . . .. Sin then is moral evil because it is a contravention of that
which by its own right, apart from any extraneous considerations, binds and
demands . . .. The law that sin
violates is the law of God” (Collected
Writings II, pp. 77, 78). Without
God’s law there would be no sin, and thus no need for the Savior; the gospel
would be expendable. The fact that
Christ had to die to satisfy the law’s demand is dramatic proof that God’s
commandments cannot be laid aside, changed, or ignored.
My
salvation is not grounded in my own law-obedience, but rather in that of Christ
(Gal. 3:11; Rom. 5:19). The Pharisees
had made a religious show of adhering to the law, but it was a mere façade –
vain hypocrisy (Matt. 15:7-9). In
actual fact the Pharisees avoided the internal demand of the law, avoided its
weightier matters, and perverted its teaching (Matt. 5:21-48; 22:23-24). They were, like many teachers today, blind
guides who trimmed down the requirements of God’s la so as to make it fit into
their own cultural tradition (Matt. 15:3-6, 14). Their form of obedience was a self-serving way of justification
(Luke 16:15; 18:9-14) that left them full of iniquity, despite appearances
(Matt. 23:27-28). Accordingly their
trimmed down, self-centered righteousness could not ever bring entrance into
the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:20). If
they had genuinely upheld the integrity and demand of the law, they would not
have been driven to legalism but to the Savior. J. Gresham Machen put it well: “A low view of law always brings
legalism in religion; a high view of law makes a man a seeker after grace. Pray God that the high view may again
prevail” (What is Faith?, p. 142).
So then,
the law which convicted me of my ungodliness and my need of God’s Son was a
reflection of God’s own perfect, holy character (Ps. 19:7; Matt. 5:48; Rom.
7:12; Rev. 15:4). Those who despise and
break that law, then, can have no fellowship with God; the law can no more be
put aside than God himself can be. “The
law of God is simply the expression or transcript of his moral perfection for
the regulation of thought and life consonant with his perfection . . .. Herein appears the perverseness of the idea
that the moral law may be abrogated and is superseded by love” (Murray, II, p.
78). If God never meant for us to
comply with this law, His wrath and curse would have been an arbitrary and
instrumental play-acting. So Dabney
maintained, “Everywhere, the law which we are still required to obey, is the
same law which, by its perfectness, condemned us” (Systematic Theology, p. 633).
Those who know Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin cannot, therefore,
deny the validity and place of God’s law today.
After I
came to Christ in faith and repentance, experiencing thereby the pardon of God
for my transgressions of His holy law, the natural question became, how should
a Christian live? I praise God for my
reformed church training which taught me that those who have a new heart “are
further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death
and resurrection, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them . . . strengthened in
all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall
see the Lord” (WCF XIII.1). For this
reason I was taught to obey the commandments of God, looking to Scripture for
my guidance rather than to myself as a sinner who was attuned to a fallen
culture. Dabney insisted, rightly I
believe, that “the preaching and expounding of the Law is to be kept up diligently,
in every gospel Church” (S. T., p. 354).
Such an emphasis is far from incompatible with a religion of free grace
held Dabney: “the view I have given of the Law, as the necessary and unchanging
expression of God’s rectitude, shows that its authority over moral creatures is
unavoidable . . .. It is therefore
simply impossible that any dispensation, of whatever mercy or grace, could have
the effect of abrogating righteous obligation over God’s saints” (p. 353).
A.A. Hodge
agreed that this was the outlook of our Confession. While Christ fulfilled the law for us, the Holy spirit fulfills the law in us, by sanctifying us into complete conformity to it. And in obedience to this law the believer
brings forth those good works which are the fruits though not the ground of our
salvation” (The Confession of Faith,
p. 251). Samuel Bolton a participant at
the Westminster Assembly wrote: “We cry down the law in respect of
justification, but we set it up as a rule of sanctification. The law sends us to the Gospel that we may
be justified; and the Gospel sends us to the law again to inquire what is our
duty as those who are justified” (The
True Bounds of Christian Freedom, p. 71).
Because Christ is not simply my Savior, but simultaneously my Lord, it
is incumbent upon me to live in obedience to His commandments (Heb. 5:9).
In
sanctification I am to imitate the holiness of God, expressed in His law. “Sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be ye
holy, for I am the Lord your God. And
ye shall keep my statutes and do them” (Lev. 20:7-8; cf. 19:2 and I Peter
1:15-16). To attempt to be sanctified
apart from this standard is to challenge the Lordship of God my Savior. Murray explains that “every depreciation of
the law of God as the pattern in terms of which sanctification is fashioned
invariably leads to the adoption of patterns which impinge upon the unique
prerogatives of God” (II, p. 307). In
sanctification I strive to live according to the example of Christ, who kept
the law perfectly (I Jn. 2:5-6; Jn. 15:10).
In sanctification I live by the power and leading of the Holy spirit who
conforms me to the law. Christ
“condemned sin in the flesh in order that the ordinance of the law might be
fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8:4). Therefore, whether we consider the holiness
of God, the life of the Son, or the work of the Spirit, sanctification finds
its blueprint or pattern in God’s
law. The basis for sanctification, however, is not the law (as the editor
portrays my view, 9-13, p. 9b) but the dynamic ministry of God’s indwelling
Spirit (Gal. 3:3) – as indicated by the Confession of Faith cited above.
What the
above discussion indicates is that since Christians, living under the Lordship
of Christ the Savior, are to avoid sinning (I Jn. 2:1), they must be concerned
to obey the law of God (cf. Rom. 3:20).
“He that saith, I know Him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar,
and the truth is not in him” (I Jn. 2:4; cf. 3:24). A.A. Hodge wrote in his commentary on the Confession: “In respect
to regenerate men, the law continues to be indispensable as the instrument of
the Holy Ghost in the work of their sanctification. It remains to them an inflexible standard of righteousness, to
which their nature and their actions ought to correspond” (p. 258). In his 1841 Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, Ashbel Green declared that
believers are fully under the law of God “as a rule of duty; and they account
it their happiness and privilege to be so” (II, p. 16); such language merely
reflected the commentary edited by Erskine and Fisher in 1765. In a similar vein Herman Bavinck wrote that
“the moment we have learned to know that other righteousness and holiness which
God has given in Christ and which through faith He makes our own, our attitude
towards the law and our sense of its significance changes entirely . . .. We let the law stand in its exalted
sublimity, and make no effort to pull it down off its high pedestal. We
continue to honor it as holy and righteous and good . . .. We delight in it according to the inner man. And we thank God not for the gospel only but
also for his law, for His holy, righteous, perfect law. That law too becomes to us a revelation and
a gift of His grace. How love I Thy
law; it is my meditation all the day” (Our
Reasonable Faith, p. 490).
There is no
evidence adduced by the editor from my book, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, to warrant his bald claim that I give
a different content to the Psalmist’s words, “O how love I Thy law,” than
originally intended (9-13 p. 18b). The
meaning of that exclamation is expounded above, in harmony with my book. The implication of that teaching, again as
reflected in my book, can be stated in the words of John Murray, from his
article “The Christian Ethic”: “Do we recoil from the notion of obedience, of
law observance, of keeping commandments?
Is it alien to our way of thinking? If so, then our Lord’s way is not
our way. That is the issue and it is
surpassingly grave. It is the issue of
our day and it is aimed at the center of our holy faith. It is aimed at the Savior’s self-witness and
aimed at his supreme example. Anew,
therefore, may we appreciate the ethic that is derived from him who said: ‘I
delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart’ (Psalm
40:8), and that follows in the train of a psalmist who said: ‘O how love I thy
law! It is my meditation all the day’ (Psalm 119:97), and of an apostle: ‘I
delight in the law of God after the inward man . . . So then with the mind I
myself serve the law of God’ (Rom. 7:2, 25)” (Collected Writings I, p. 181).
From this
quote we can also see how fallacious is the editor’s remark that from the very
fact that Theonomy was published and
argues against other views of law in relation to grace, its author intends to
say something different and obviously
thinks he is proposing something new
(9-13, p. 10c); otherwise, says the editor, the Westminster Confession would
suffice and Theonomy would be
superfluous (9-13, p. 18b). These
remarks are neither materially true nor reasonably inferred. As Murray points out, a supremely grave
issue of our day that threatens the heart of our Christian faith is the current
antagonism expressed to obedience to God’s law. This antagonism calls us to appreciate anew the biblical ethic of
God’s law. That is why I penned Theonomy:
not to go beyond the Confession, but to uphold and defend the position of the
Confession regarding Christian ethics.
The editor’s remarks notwithstanding, I did not intend to present a viewpoint which was new and different, but
simply to argue biblically and consistently for the Confessional viewpoint I
have always known and loved. It is not
any inadequacy in the Confession’s position but rather the current crisis in
Christian ethics that solicited the publication of a book like Theonomy.
(The same could be said, obviously, for any number of books
published after the Confession of Faith in exposition and defense of a reformed
viewpoint in many areas of theology).
We have
observed in the previous discussion that because Jesus is my Savior, the
validity of God’s law must be upheld; and because Jesus is my Lord, it is
imperative to strive to obey the law of God as the pattern of my
sanctification. As saved, I have become
the disciple of Christ and aim to live a disciplined life under His direction. The law which I was formerly obligated to
obey, but failed as an unbeliever to do so (thus necessitating the work of the
Savior), is still the proper rule for my life as a believer indwelt by the Holy
Spirit. In light of this, I do not understand the editor’s exposition of Theonomy as teaching that once someone
is saved the law takes on a different
dimension wherein obedience becomes a must,
and wherein the law is now both the pattern and
the rule of life (9-13, p. 10a). The
distinction between pattern and rule needs explanation. But more importantly, obedience to the law
is a “must” for all men, saved or unsaved; it does not become a “must” after
salvation. Failure to obey the law
defines that sin which calls for the alien and imputed righteousness of Christ
– a righteousness in perfect obedience to the law – if one is to be justified
by faith; subsequently, in the power of Christ’s Spirit, the believer attains
personal righteousness in some measure by obeying the very same required law. Moreover, since our justification and our
sanctification are both according to God’s grace, I fail to see the “different
dimension” of the law referred to by the editor. Thus I doubt that he was there expounding accurately my own
views.
Well then, we
have said that the Christian life is one disciplined by the law of God. The editor has said, to the contrary, that
the disciplined life is a matter of proper motivation and direction – not a matter of a written code or a
catalogue of specifics for behavior (9-20, p. 10b). The necessity and place of God’s written code in the believer’s
sanctification has been explained and vindicated already in our discussion of
Scripture and the Confession, I believe.
Let me go on to observe, then, that the misdirection of the editor’s
remark is perhaps to be found in his pitting of the goal (direction) and motive
(motivation) of Christian ethics against the standard (written law) of
Christian ethics. In reality the three
perspectives require each other (cf. C. Van Til’s Christian-Theistic Ethics).
We are to have God’s glory and kingdom as the goal of our behavior (I
Cor. 10:31; Matt. 6:33). In all our
thoughts, words, and deeds we are to be motivated by faith and love (Rom.
14:23; Matt. 22:37-40). However, please
note that such moral considerations are delivered by the Author of the law;
indeed, they are given themselves as commandments by the Author of the law;
indeed, they are given themselves as commandments from God. They do not stand over against the law of God,
as though we are to choose between them and the commandments. After all, God is consistent with Himself
and has not revealed divergent paths of morality in the Bible. As things actually are in life, we cannot
determine which of our actions seeks
the glory of God and is consonant with love unless God’s law guides us into the
paths of righteousness. Obedience to
God’s righteous law is the way to glorify Him (Phil. 1:11), and it is the
specific form of Christian love (Jn. 14:15; I Jn. 5:3). Therefore, the disciplined life of the
believer is one of obedience to the written law of God (note how “disciplining”
is connected with “teaching to observe whatsoever I have commanded” in the
Great Commission, Matt. 28:18-20). In
that case the editor has set before us a false antithesis and choice.
Jesus, as
both Savior and Lord, does not dispense with the law of God, as we have seen
above. According to the Confession, He
does not dissolve it in any way in the Gospel but rather much strengthens its
obligation (XIX.5). Bavinck said, “the
gospel does not make the law of no effect, but restores and establishes it . .
.. The righteousness of the law, that
which the law asks in its commandments, is fulfilled precisely in those who do
not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4) . .
.. For Jesus and for the apostles the
will of God . . . continues to be known from the Old Testament . . .. The moral laws retain their force . .
.. Hence again and again that Old
Testament is quoted in order to cause the Christian church to know the will of
God . . .. In other words, the moral
law is, so far as its content is concerned, quite the same in the Old and the
New Testament” (Our Reasonable Faith,
pp. 484, 485). Likewise, Dabney wrote
with respect to Christ and the law; “we deny that He made any change or
substantial addition . . .. Christ
honored this law, declared it everlasting and unchangeable . . .. The moral law could not be completed,
because it is as perfect as God, of whose character it is the impress and
transcript. It cannot be abrogated or
relaxed, because it is as immutable as He” (S.T.,
p. 357).
When God
delivered His law in the Old Testament He indicated that it was not to become
outmoded or invalidated. “Whatever I
command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away
from it” (Deut. 12:32). Ashbel Green
comments “that all the requisitions of the moral law are immutably binding on man, unless he have an express dispensation in
regard to positive precepts, from the lawgiver, God himself . . .; in no
possible case, can they be altered, changed, or abrogated by man, without this
appointment.” He goes on to add, “the
moral law is a perfect rule of life
and manners – so perfect that it admits neither addition, nor diminution” Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, II,
pp. 14-15). Thus the Psalmist declared,
“Every one of Thy righteous ordinances is everlasting” (Ps. 119:160), and “all
His precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be
performed with faithfulness and uprightness” (Ps. 111:7-8).
God is not
wavering with respect to right and wrong; He does not operate on a
double-standard of morality. Whatever
was evil according to the Old Testament law is also evil in the perspective of
the New Testament. For example, God’s
law explains that, as an application of the seventh commandment, homosexuality
is abominable and prohibited (Lev. 18:22); as expected, the New Testament
upholds this case-law requirement (Rom. 1:26-27, 32), seeing homosexuality is
contrary to “the ordinance of God.”
Similarly, the Old Testament law outlawed marrying your father’s wife
(Lev. 18:8), and as expected the New Testament endorses this moral perspective
(I Cor. 5:1). Those who feel that there
is a discontinuity between the moral standards of the Old and New Testaments,
or who feel that the New Testament ethic is limited to only the Ten
Commandments, must be challenged as to whether they feel that it is permissible
today to commit homosexuality or incest; they must be challenged to give a
credible account of why, if only the Decalogue binds us today, the New
Testament inconsistently departs from that artificial restriction and supports
– without apology or explanation – details of the Old Testament law. The Biblical answer is that every one of
God’s laws is righteous and unchanging; what was wrong yesterday cannot become
right today. This is the Reformed
perspective in ethics (and accounts for our belief in infant baptism): God’s
word is valid and binding until He alone says otherwise. It cannot be broken (Jn. 10:35). And because God delivers only righteous
laws, He does not alter them. Dabney
put it this way: “the idea that God can substitute and imperfect law for one
perfect, is derogation to His perfection.
Either the former standard required more than was right, or the new one
requires less than is right; and in either case God would be unrighteous” (S.T., p. 633).
We must
conclude with Dabney, then, “that the Old Testament teaches precisely the same
morality with the New” (p. 402). This
perspective is well-grounded in the word of God, being explicitly promulgated
by Jesus Christ our Lord. “Do not think
that I came in order to abrogate the Law or the prophets; I came not to
abrogate, but to confirm. For truly I
say unto you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or tittle shall in
any way pass away from the law, until all things have come to pass” (Matt.
5:17-18). This passage, as the editor
notes, is the foundational authority for my book, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (9-13, p. 9c); it should be noted,
however, that it is not the sole foundation, nor a uniquely necessary one. The same premise is and can be verified from
other passages and teachings of God’s word.
Also, while I take the word ‘fulfill’ in the sense of ‘to conform’ (this
is argued, not for forty pages – as the editor claims, 9-13, p. 10a – but only
half as many), this is in no sense necessary to the thesis of my book. The salient point for Christian ethics is
that Jesus forthrightly denies that His coming has the effect of abrogating the
Old Testament law; He twice states this denial in v. 17, and thus whatever
‘fulfill’ might mean, it cannot imply abrogation of the law without making the
verse self-contradictory. In v. 18
Jesus explains that not the slightest stroke of the law will cease to have
binding moral force until heaven and earth pass away. If Jesus does not remove our obligation to any law from God, what
right has any man to do so? Those who
oppose the continued use of any Old Testament precept without warrant from
God’s own word oppose the teaching of our Lord and Savior. Usually they attempt to “explain away” the
clear and forceful declaration of Jesus, where He shows us how the New
Testament gospel age interprets the Old Testament law as abidingly valid,
through maneuvers that appear to be exegesis-by-embarrassment. Such tactics cannot overcome Christ’s own
application of His teaching: “Therefore, whatsoever shall break one of those
least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the
kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19). Anyone
who presumes to demote any of God’s law will be demoted in God’s kingdom, and
that according to the word of the King himself.
Dabney
wrote, “To what extent, then, does the consistent Reformed theologian hold the
old covenant to be abrogated? . . . God’s law being the immutable expression of
His own perfections, and the creatures’ obligation to obey being grounded in
his nature and relation to God, it is impossible that any change of the legal
status under any covenant imaginable, legal or gracious, should abrogate the
authority of the law as a rule of acting for us” (S.T., p. 636). Paul
understands by the fact that we live under grace and not under law that sin (law-violation)
shall not have dominion over us (Rom. 6:12-18); God’s grace in the New Covenant
empowers us to keep the law (Titus 1:11-14).
The law of the Old Covenant is still binding, therefore, in the New
Covenant – even as God declared, “My covenant I will not violate, nor will I
alter the utterance of My lips” (Ps. 89:34).
Can the law be deemed contrary to the promises of God? Paul answers, “May it never be!” (Gal. 3:21). When God promised and instituted the New Covenant of promise
which we enjoy today He did not institute a new law or moral outlook. To the contrary, He declared “This is the
covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days . . .: I
will put my laws into their minds and I will write them upon their hearts”
(Jer. 31;33; Heb. 8:10). The New
Covenant enables obedience to the Old Covenant’s law-code; whereas the letter
brought spiritual death for disobedience, the Holy spirit brings life and
obedience (2 Cor. 3:6). “I will put My
Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful
to observe My ordinances” (Ezek. 36:27; cf. Rom. 8:4).
“Do we then
make void the law through faith? God
forbid; nay, we establish the law” (Rom. 3:31). Given the preceding study, I cannot agree with the editor when he
says that life under God’s grace is not
conscious of the law (9-20, p. 10c).
“I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God” said Paul, and
“I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Rom. 7:22, 25). We are to look carefully at how we conduct
ourselves and to understand what the will of the Lord is (Eph. 5:15, 17),
having God’s word in our mouths and in our hearts – as the law called us to do
(Deut. 30:14) along with Paul (Rom. 10:8).
Indeed, our moral decisions must be weighed in terms of the law: (e.g.,
I Cor. 9:9; 14:34). We must pay
attention to the commandments as a standard by which to judge our relationship
to God (I Jn. 2:3) and our love for the brethren (I Jn. 5:2). Thus the law of the Lord surely has a
conscious place in the believer’s life.
Righteous living in obedience to God’s law is not, as claimed (9-20, p.
10c), simply feeling right and being comfortable with compliance; it calls for
mental attention to the written word (Jn. 17:17; Col. 3:16; I Thes. 4:1-2) and then
subsequent action (Jas. 1:21-25).
Nevertheless, it is still true, as the editor begins by saying, that
there is a qualitative difference between law obedience under law and law obedience under
grace (9-20, p. 10b). It is not the
difference between utter inability to
obey the law and Spiritual enablement
to do so (Rom. 8:2-10; cf. 6:1-22).
That is, because we are not under law but under grace, sin no longer has
dominion over us (Rom. 6:14).
Our present
obligation to keep the law of God is plain and evident from the New Testament’s
exhortation to love, for “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom.
13:10). According to the editor, under
grace the believer’s relationship to the law is not a relationship to a list of
specific stipulations but only to a generality summed up in two precepts, “Love
God and love neighbor” (9-20, p. 10c).
Jesus said that on these two commandments (which, by the way, were
quotations from the Old Testament law at Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18) hang all the
law and the prophets (Matt. 22:37-40).
Yet these love commands did not, according to Christ’s thinking,
dispense with the laws of God. John
Murray points out that “If the law hangs on love, it is not dispensed
with. That on which something hangs
serves no purpose and has no meaning apart from that which hangs on it . .
.. Love does not devise the norms of
exercise nor the ways of expression” (I, p. 179). Love does not take the place of the law of God, it merely
summarizes it. Commenting on Paul’s
word that love fulfills the law, Murray says elsewhere: “if they are summarized
in one word, the summary does not obliterate or abrogate the expansion of which
it is a summary. It is futile to try to
escape the underlying assumption of Paul’s thought, the criteria of that
behavior which love dictates” (Principles
of Conduct, p. 192). And in turn
the decalogue does not stand alone but “summarily comprehends” the entire moral
law of God (Larger Catechism 93,
98). Love summarizes our duty, but law
gives it specific definition. “Love is
not an autonomous, self-instructing and self-directing principle. Love does not excogitate the norms by which
it is regulated"”(Murray, II, p. 78).
Otherwise a person might reason that love permits adultery with his
neighbor'’ wife. But Christ said, “If
ye love me, ye will keep my commandments” (Jn. 14:15), and John taught that
“this is love, that we walk after His commandments” (2 Jn. 6). Love to God and brother is known,
recognized, and guided by nothing less than the commandments of God (I Jn.
5:2-3). And these commandments are not “a spiritually defined generality,”
to use the editor’s words (9-20, p. 10c).
Three basic
Reformed commitments have been rehearsed to this point. As my Savior, Christ shows me the necessity
of the law. As my Lord, Christ directs
me to live in obedience to the law. And
this law of the Lord is just as binding in the New Testament as in the Old, not
being invalidated by the institution of the New Covenant or by the principles
of faith, grace, and love. To these can
be added a fourth distinctive: Christ is Lord over all of life and over all
mankind.
No area of
a person’s life is a safety zone from God’s control and demands. The Lord will not tolerate a dichotomy of
life into sacred and secular. He
requires holiness throughout all the areas of life, “Like as he who called you
is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living” (I Peter 1:15). Nothing in our lives can be withheld from
Him. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment”
(Matt. 22:37-38). The first commandment
of the decalogue requires us to glorify God by “yielding all obedience and
submission to him with the whole man; being careful in all things to lease him”
(Larger Catechism 104; hereafter
“LC”). Thus nothing pertaining to my
attitudes and behavior – whether they pertain to myself, my family, my church,
my employment, my social relations, my society or state – is immune from the
Lord’s direction. In repentance I turn
from all of my sins in all relations, “endeavoring to walk with Him in all the
ways of his commandments” (WCF XV.2; cf. LC 76), and thus sanctification “is
throughout, in the whole man” (WCF XIII.2; cf. LC 75). Accordingly the law of the Lord guide, not
simply my private and religious life, but every facet of my walk as a servant
of God – in recreation, economics, friendships, culture, family, and all
things. Wishing to please my Lord, I
recognize that “sin is any want of
conformity unto, or transgression of, any
law of God” (LC 24). It is my
reasonable and spiritual service to offer my body as a living sacrifice to God
and my mind to be transformed completely by His perfect will (Rom.
12:1-2). Christ is Lord over all. This is essential to a Reformed
world-and-life-view.
John Murray
put it this way: “The law of God extends to all relations of life. This is so because we are never removed from
the obligation to love and serve God.
We are never amoral. We owe
devotion to God in every phase and department of life. It is this principle of all-inclusive obligation
to God, and of the all-pervasive relevance of the law of God, that gives
sanctity to all of our obligations and relations” (II, p. 78). As Bavinck said, “this law governs all the
relationships in which man finds himself, whether to God, whether to his fellow
man, to himself, or to the whole of nature” (p. 489). Sanctification according to the pattern of God’s law must be throughout life, seven days a week, in
every aspect of behavior. Christ is not
simply my Savior, He is likewise my Lord – in every department of life, from
private to public. He has given me a
new heart on which is engraved the law of God (Ezek. 11:19; 36:26-27; Jer.
31:33; Heb. 10:16), and out of that heart flow all the issues of life (Prov.
4:23). Everything I think and do should
be governed, then, by God’s law (Deut. 6:8).
I have thus come to agree with Murray that “No one factor has been more
prejudicial to the Christian ethic in the home, the church, and society, than
contempt for the negatives of God’s law” (I, p. 177).
Not only is
Christ Lord over all of life, but He is Lord over all men as well. He owns this universal Lordship in virtue of
being Creator, Redeemer, and Judge. All
things were created by Him and thus for His service (Col. 1:16). As Redeemer He expects all nations to be
discipled to Him and taught to observe whatsoever He has commanded (Matt.
28:18-20). This same Creator and
Redeemer will one day judge all men according to their every deed (2 Cor. 5:10;
2 Tim. 4:1). Christ is both the divine
and messianic King; in the former capacity He is ruler over the nations (Ps.
22:28) who chastens them out of the law (Ps. 94:10, 12), and in the latter
capacity He is head over all things (Eph. 1:20-22) who punishes all who act
lawlessly (Matt. 13:42).
Therefore
the Christian cannot deny that God’s law binds all men in all places, for to do
so would be to detract from Christ the Creator, Redeemer, Judge, and King. In this light we can turn to our confession
and Catechisms, where we learn that “The duty which God Requireth of man
(without distinction or qualification) is obedience to his revealed will” (LC
91). In the scriptures “the whole
counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man’s
salvation, faith and life” can be found (WCF I.6). The moral duty of all men in all areas of life is contained in
God’s inspired word. Of God the
Confession says, “He is most holy in all His counsels, in all His works, and in
all His commands. To Him is due from
angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service, or
obedience He is pleased to require of them” (WCF II.2). No creature is in a position to resist doing
what God directs him to do in any area of life, then, for “reasonable creatures
do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator” (WCF VII.1). Moral obligation,
that is, does not rest upon a saving relationship to God; as Creator He demands that His law be
observed by all men. By the law of God
the Lord bound Adam “and all his
posterity, to personal, entire,
exact, and perpetual obedience” (WCF
XIX.1); “the moral law doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as
others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter
contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who
gave it” (XIX.5). Whether we consider
the content of the law or its Author, we must conclude that all men are bound
to it. As the exalted King Christ has
all power over all things in heaven and earth (LC 54), and as such He corrects
believers for their sins and brings vengeance upon unbelievers for their sins
(LC 45). No person is given permission
to violate the law of God in any respect.
All men will give an account
to Christ, as judge, for every aspect
of their lives (WCF XXIII.1), and this fact should “deter all men from sin”
(XXXIII.3).
A good
summary of the implications following from the fact that Christ is Lord over
all – over all areas of life, and over all mankind – is provided by the
Catechism. “The moral law is the
declaration of the will of God to mankind, directing and binding every one to personal,
perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto, in the frame and
disposition of the whole man, soul and body, and in performance of all those
duties of holiness and righteousness which he oweth to God and man” (LC
93). “The moral law is of use to all
men, to inform them of the holy nature and will of God, and of their duty,
binding them to walk accordingly” (LC 95).
“The law is perfect, and bindeth every one to full conformity in the
whole man unto the righteousness thereof, and unto entire obedience for ever;
so as to require the utmost perfection of every duty, and to forbid the least
degree of every sin . . .. What God
forbids is at no time to be done . . ..
What is forbidden or commanded to ourselves, we are bound, according to
our places, to endeavor that it may be avoided or performed by others” (LC
99). Given such teaching, I do not see
why it should have struck the editor as somehow a “unique thesis” in Theonomy that every bit of God’s law is
equally binding upon believers and unbelievers (9-13, p. 10b-c). This is but an expression of that classic
Reformed thought found in the Westminster Standards. Consistent application of these premises may be unusual and
unpopular today, but the premises are lifted straight from the historic
Reformed position on ethics.
Reformed
thought, consistent with the teaching of Scripture, has seen the law of God as
having a “political use” in man’s government; that is, God’s law binds the
sate, whether pagan or “Christian.”
Carl F. H. Henry summarizes in this way: “Even where there is no saving
faith, the Law serves to restrain sin and to preserve the order of creation by
proclaiming the sill of God . . .. By
its judgments and its threats of condemnation and punishment, the written law
along with the law of conscience hinders sin among the unregenerate. It has the role of a magistrate who is a
terror to evildoers . . .. It fulfills
a political function, therefore, by its constraining influence in the unregenerate
world” (Christian Personal Ethics, p.
355). Because Christ is “the ruler of
the kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5), all magistrates in the state ___? Him
obedience to His law. That law was
specifically _______?, says Scripture for the restraint of those who are unruly
in society (I Tim. 1:9-10). This is the
New Testament perspective as much as the Old’s.
All men,
Jewish and Gentile alike, are responsible before the law of God; this is Paul’s
teaching in Romans 1-3. Indeed all men,
including pagans, have God’s specific laws testifying in their hearts (Rom.
2:15) so that God says they know His ordinance, for instance, against
homosexuality (Rom. 1:32). Evidently
all men know the entire law of God as it defines and punishes, sin, then, and
not simply the ten commandments. Thus
Sodom could be destroyed for its homosexuality even before the special
revelation of God’s law to Israel on Mount Sinai, and the New Testament
identifies _________? Sodom’s judgment as “lawless deeds” (2 Peter 2:6-8). So there can be no mistake: God’s law (even
outside the strictly summary statement of the decalogue) is binding on all
mankind (even apart from redemptive, special revelation). God does not have a double-standard of
morality; what was sinful within the borders of Israel was not condoned just over the state line. Homosexuality is just as forbidden today in
the United States as in ancient Israel (see my book, Homosexuality: A Biblical View, available from Covenant Media
Foundation). Up until the twentieth
century, if you had asked any Reformed theologian, he would have told you as
much, for God’s law has international civic relevance. In the giving of the law God made clear that
He had only one standard of ethics for the native as well as the stranger in
Israel (Lev. 24:22; cf. Eccl. 12:13).
Accordingly God severely punished the Canaanite tribes, in exactly the
same way that He would punish Israel, for their violations of His law (Lev.
18:24-27).
In
revealing His law God intended it to be a model for surrounding cultures to
follow (Deut. 4:5-8). Consequently
David would speak God’s law before kings (Ps. 119:46) – obviously referring to
other kings outside of God (Ps. 18:43-50).
The kings of the earth belong to God (Ps. 47:9); thus righteousness and
justice must characterize their thrones (Prov. 16:12; 29:4) even as it
characterizes God’s throne (Ps. 97:2).
It is axiomatic that those who rule over men must do so righteously, in
the fear of God (2 Sam. 23:3). In the
second Psalm David calls upon the kings and judges of the earth to serve the
Lord with fear (Ps. 2:10-12), and he warns them of retribution from God if they
do not. There can be no doubt,
therefore, that all nations – even in their social and political morality – are
bound to the standards of God’s law.
“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people”
(Prov. 14:34). Accordingly it is an
abomination for kings to commit wickedness, for their thrones are to be
established on righteousness (Prov. 16:12).
God’s law was taken by the Old Testament prophets as a light of justice
for all peoples (Isa. 51:4; cf. Matt. 5:14), and for that reason the prophets
condemned pagan states for their infractions of God’s holy law (e.g., Hab.
2:12, which is precisely the indictment brought against Israel herself in Micah
3:10). God’s law was impartially and
universally binding on mankind. Hence
Ezra praised the Lord for having a pagan emperor enforce God’s law (even the
penal sanctions) in all the area surrounding Israel (Ezra 7:11-28). Consistent with this Old Testament
perspective, Paul taught that civil magistrates in the era of the New Testament
perspective, Paul taught that civil magistrates in the era of the New Testament
were to be ministers of God who avenge His wrath against evildoers (Rom.
13:4) – which is to say, against violators
of God’s law (cf. v. 10); to that end “they bear not the sword in
vain.” When the magistrate does not
rule in terms of God’s law but replaces it with his own law (Rev. 13:16-17; cf.
Deut. 6:8), he is then considered a blasphemous “Beast” or “man of lawlessness”
(cf. 2 Thes. 2:3, 7). So it is clear
that all kings owe allegiance to “the King of Kings,” and none are immune from
the stipulations of His holy and just law.
In
accordance with this the Westminster Confession and Catechisms taught that
magistrates, for the glory of God and the public good, have the right to punish
evildoers (WCF XXIII.1); in this the law of God was to be their guide (LC
129-130, with Scripture citations, all of which pertain to civil rulers). The Confession teaches, consequently, that
those who maintain practices which are contrary to the light of nature (God’s
law revealed in creation and conscience), the principles of Christianity, or
the power of Godliness may be lawfully
punished by the civil magistrate (WCF XX.4); the Scripture proofs include God’s
law against seduction to idolatry and the command to have Ezra enforce God'’
law, even with its penal sanctions. The
authors of the Confession cited Isaiah 49:23 (at XXXIII.3) to show that
magistrates were to be nursing-fathers to the church, seeing to it that God’s
ordinances are observed; biblical texts were thus adduced which instruct the
magistrate to execute blasphemers and idolaters. Elsewhere the magistrate is held accountable to rule according to
the wisdom of God found in His law, which if slackened leads to unrighteous
civil judgments (see LC 129-130, 145 with Scripture texts). In this light we can understand the
assertion of Baillie and Gillespie, two prominent participants in the
Westminster Assembly, when – at the appointment of the Church of Scotland – they
subsequently wrote: “The orthodox churches believe, and do willingly
acknowledge, that every lawful magistrate, (is) by God Himself constituted the
keeper and defender of both tables of the law” (Proposition 41). So then, it is hard for me to comprehend why
the editor maintains – totally without supporting premises or evidence – that
“there is a great leap” from the outlook of the Westminster Standards to the
view of Theonomy that the entire
Mosaic law is binding today, even on pagan states (9-13, p. 18b). There is no
gulf between the Westminster outlook and Theonomy which needs to be “leaped”. It is the modern, neutralist or secular outlook on the state
(which emancipates it from the specific directives of God’s law in Scripture)
that is at odds with the Puritan approach to the state – as almost anyone must
acknowledge if he will but recall that embarrassment he initially felt when a
modern instructor critically described the political ethic of his Calvinist
forefathers (e.g., Puritan New England).
That political ethic is no embarrassment to me any longer, having
researched and carried out the biblical study that went into the writing of Theonomy in Christian Ethics. I fully endorse the Westminster Standards
now. (The outlook of the Westminster Assembly and that of Puritan New England
is expounded in Appendices 2 and 3 of my book).
My
obligation to observe the law of God is evident from the fact that Jesus is my
Savior and my Lord. The law of the Lord
is unchanging from Old Testament to New, and it is binding in every department
of life (including society and politics) for all men (even unbelieving nations)
because Christ is Lord over all. What
do these emphases, as rehearsed above, imply as to the extent to the law’s
validity today? They imply that God
directs political morality today by His law as much as He directs my private
morality by His law; every stroke of that law has relevance for my actions and
thoughts. The details of the law cannot
be expunged or ignored by the New Testament Christian who desires to live under
the pervasive Lordship of Jesus Christ.
If I am to sanctify and transform all areas of life to the glory of God,
then it must be according to the directions of His holy law and not my own
wisdom and imagination. To that end I
pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth even as it is
in heaven.” In such a petition we all
pray “that the kingdom of sin and Satan may be destroyed . . . , that (Christ)
would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world . . . , that God would by his Spirit take away
from ourselves and others all blindness, weakness, indisposedness, and
perverseness of heart; and by his grace make us able and willing to know, do,
and submit to his will in all things”
(LC 191-192). No area of life in any
area of the world is a safety zone from the Lord’s direction, and thus we must
pay attention to the whole law of God as found in the inspired word of the
Lord. In this way we can obey the
apostolic injunction to “abstain from every
form of evil” (I Thes. 5:22).
Ashbel
Green wrote that “it is the deep sense which the believer has of . . . his
infinite obligation for redeeming mercy, which makes him earnestly desirous to
obey all God’s commandments . . .. He
loves the whole law of God, and loves it because it is a perfect law. If he could have a mitigated law, which some
vainly talk of, it would only, on that very account, be the less amiable to
him” (Lectures on the Shorter Catechism,
pp. 10-11). That is, the believer ought
not to settle for a “spiritually defined generality” that is indifferent to
God’s list of specific guidelines (as suggested by the editor, 9-20, p.
10c). Paul taught that “every
scripture” of the Old Testament is “profitable for instruction in righteousness
. . . in order that the man of God may be perfectly furnished unto every good
work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). To ignore some
of those specific scriptures is to live by an incomplete and inadequate ethic,
for without them one cannot be thoroughly equipped for righteous living. James taught that if we stumble at even one point in the law we are guilty of
violating the entire law (Jas.
2:10). The details are just as binding
as the whole, and they can be pushed aside only at the expense of disobedience
to the Lord. So I cannot agree with the
editor that after Christ some details of the law “might never again matter at
all” (9-20, p. 11a). Every point of the
law as found in every Old Testament scripture is profitable for ethical living
today and is a measure of our obedience to the Lord; such is the united
testimony of Paul and James. In this
they were not echoing the teaching of Jesus Christ himself.
In Matthew
5:17 our Lord expressly taught that His coming did not abrogate the Old
Testament law. In vv. 18-19 following
He said, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away not one iota or one stroke shall in any
wise pass away from the law, until all things take place. Therefore whoever shall break one of these
least commandments and shall teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom
of heaven.” Until the end of history
not the slightest detail of God’s law will become invalid, and thus teachers
are warned by Christ himself from depreciating the details of the law. To say, as the editor does, that Christ’s
fulfilling of the law suggests nothing about a check list of specifics (9I-20),
p. 11a) is to fly directly in the face of the Lord’s teaching in Matthew
5:17-19. That He “fulfills” the law
implies – according to His own reasoning – that nobody has the right to ignore
the specifics of God’s holy law. In commenting upon Matthew 5:17-19, John Murray had this to say:
“Jesus refers to the function of validating and confirming the law and the
prophets . . .. Jesus is saying that he
came not to abrogate any part of the Mosaic law . . .. If there is anything that is distasteful to
the modern mind it is concern for detail, and particularly is this the case in
the field of ethics. By a lamentable
confusion of thought concern for detail is identified with legalism . . .. ‘One jot or one tittle.’ It is a clear assertion that the law in all
its details must come to fulfillment and be accomplished . . .. Our Lord recognized that the minutiae of the
law had significance. If we do not like
minutiae or insistence upon them, then we are not at home with the attitude of
Jesus. We are moving in an entirely
different world of thought . . .. We
are not to expect an undervaluation, far less disparagement, of the details of
law; and we may as well expect from the outset that, if our perspective is one
that looks for the wood but not the trees, then we shall not be at home in the
teaching of Jesus . . .. Too often the
person imbued with meticulous concern for the ordinances of God and
conscientious regard for the minutiae of God’s commandments is judged as a
legalist, while the person who is not bothered by the gospel. Here Jesus is reminding us of the same great
truth which he declares elsewhere: ‘He that is faithful in that which is least
is faithful also in much, and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in
much’ (Luke 16:10). The criterion of
our standing in the kingdom of God and of reward in the age to come is nothing
else than meticulous observance of the commandments of God in the minutial details
of their prescription and the earnest inculcation of such observance on the
part of others” (Principles of Conduct,
pp. 150-154).
That is the
perspective advanced by Theonomy, and
I believe it to be in harmony with the entire word of God, which consistently
teaches that the whole law is binding today in detail. The specifics of that law, contrary to the
editor (9-20, p. 11a), applied wholesale to Christ, who was tempted in all points
without sin (Heb. 4:15), who perfectly kept the Father’s commandments (Jn.
8:46; 15:10), and fulfilled all righteousness (Matt. 3:15). In this He is our example today, and we
should heed His instruction that, in the midst of keeping the weightier matters
of the law, the minor specifics ought not
to be left undone (Lk. 11:42).
Every jot and tittle is our standard of Christian ethics. As Bolton, the Westminster divine, said:
“Since Christ, who is the best expounder of the law, so largely strengthens and
confirms the law (witness the Sermon on the Mount, and also mark 10:19); since
faith does not supplant, but strengthens the law; since the apostle so often
presses and urges the duties commanded in the law; since Paul acknowledges that
he served the law of God in his mind, and that he was under the law to Christ
(I Cor. 9:21); I may rightly conclude that the law, for the substance of it,
still remains a rule of life to the people of God . . .. If Christ and His apostles commanded the
same things which the law required, and forbade and condemned the same things
which the law forbade and condemned, then they did not abrogate it but
strengthened and confirmed it. And this
is what they did: see Matt. 5:19” (The
True Bounds of Christian Freedom, p. 62).
The detailed specifics of God’s whole law are binding on all men today.
For
convenience the law of God may be considered in three categories, each of which
serves a particular theological or literary function, but all of which are
confirmed by Christ for today. In the
law God gives (1) general precepts, (2) illustrations of how those precepts are
applied in particular cases, and (3) instructions pertaining to God’s covenant
mercy or the way of restoration and redemption for infractions of laws in (1)
and (2). The applicatory illlustrations
are in the same general category with the general precepts, being but an
extension and explanation of them; thus (1) and (2) are thereby reflecting
God’s righteousness. The restorative
laws, reflecting God’s mercy, typify the redemptive economy of Christ (i.e.,
point to the way of salvation) and illustrate the perfection and holiness
required of the redeemed community.
Some
examples can help us to understand these three kinds of law and how they apply to
us in the New Testament age. In summary
statement the law declared, “Thou shalt not steal”; this general principle is
permanently binding (cf. Rom. 13:9).
How does it apply however? God
explained in His law that, among other things, this law meant that it was wrong
to defraud or oppress employees (Deut. 24:14, cf. LXX) and that even an ox is
not to be deprived of its livelihood from the work it does (Deut. 25:4). Such were illustrations of the general
precept; with changed circumstances (or a different culture) the case-law
illustrations or applications might be different, but the underlying principle
remains valid and binding. Thus Christ utilized the Old Testament case-law in
telling the rich young ruler that he ought not to defraud (Mk. 10:19), and Paul
spoke of the church’s obligation to New Testament ministers in terms of the
case of Old Testament oxen, quoting “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox as it treads”
(I Tim. 5:18). Likewise, as an
application of the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” the law of God
required Israelites to place a fencing around the roofs of their houses. The underlying principle of this law still
applies to us today, even though we may not apply it to entertaining on flat
roofs since this is not part of our cultural experience; instead we might apply
it today by placing a fence around our backyard swimming pools – again, in
order to protect human life and thus obey the general precept of God’s
law. Without these case-law illustrations
or explanations of the summary ethic in the decalogue the ten commandments
would certainly be twisted and applied to man’s own sinful desires. For instance, reading “Thou shalt not commit
adultery.” Men could prefer an
extremely narrow interpretation of sexual purity and exonerate their premarital,
incestuous or homosexual affairs.
However, the case-law specifications of the law prohibit such
activities, and the New Testament reiterates these prohibitions (Heb. 13:4; I
Cor. 5:1-5; I Tim. 1:10).
It should
be clear, then, that the ten commandments or general precepts cannot be read
and understood apart from the explanatory context of all of God’s revealed
law. Bavinck has noted that “the law of
the ten commandments does not stand loosely and independently by itself; it
finds itself, rather, in the middle of a rich environment . . .. In Israel that law . . . was taken up in a
body of rights and ordinances which had to govern the whole life of the
people. Besides, this law was
explained, developed, and applied throughout the history of Israel by the
psalmists, proverb writers, and prophets . . .. The law of the ten commandments may not be separated from this
rich context of the whole revelation of God in nature and in Scripture. Understood in this way, the Ten Commandments
are a brief summary of the Christian ethic and an unsurpassed rule for our
life. There are also many other laws to
which we are bound” (Our Reasonable Faith,
pp. 488, 489). I put it this way in Theonomy: “The case law illustrates the
application or qualification of the principle laid down in the general
commandment"”(p. 313). Or to use
the words of Patrick Fairbairn, A Considerable portion of the statutes and
judgments are . . . a simple application of the great principles of the
Decalogue to particular case of enactments referred to have an abiding value,
as they serve materially to throw light on the import and bearing of the
Decalogue, confirming the views already given of its spiritual and
comprehensive character” (The Revelation
of Law in Scripture, pp. 97, 99).
The case laws outside of the Decalogue (also called “judicial laws” in
Reformed literature) are thus moral in character. Because their details are often communicated in terms of ancient
Israel’s culture these laws are not binding as such on us in today’s culture;
rather, we are now required to keep the underlying principle (or “General
Equity”) of these laws.
Such was
the teaching of the Westminster Assembly as well. The language of this body can be readily understood in terms of
the context of its day. Heinrich
Bullinger, the primary author of the Second Helvetic Confession, had written
that “the substance of God’s judicial laws is not taken away or
abolished.” The English Puritan and
presbyterian, Thomas Cartwright, said a generation before the Assembly that
since some of the judicial laws were “made in regard of the region where they
were given,” those who keep “the substance and equity of them (as it were the
marrow), may change the circumstance of them, as the times and places and
manners of the people shall require.”
Likewise William Perkins spoke of “the law of Moses, the equity whereof
is perpetual.” Another English Puritan,
Philip Stubbs, said that the “law judicial standeth in force to the world’s
end.” So also, George Gillespie, an
important writer of the Westminster Standards, maintained in separate works
that the judicial law of Moses should be the rule of the civil laws of a
commonwealth – an opinion put into practice by John Cotton in New England
during the same decade as the Westminster Assembly. From these brief examples we can underand the Puritan view of
Moses was not binding, but rather the underlying principle, substance, marrow
or general equity was perpetually to
be observed by all. This is what we
read in the Westminster Confession of Faith: in addition to the summary code of
the ten commandments, God “gave sundry judicial laws . . . not obliging any
other now, further than the general equity thereof may require” (XIX.4). In support of that assertion the Confession
cites biblical passages which have also been used above to explain the
interpretation offered in Theonomy. The “equity of a statute,” according to the
Oxford English Dictionary, is “according to its reason and spirit so as to make
it apply to cases for which it does not expressly provide.” The Confession teaches that this equity of
the case laws (e.g., Ex. 21-22) is required as the extent of our present
obligation to God’s commandments. All sins and duties of the same kind are
forbidden and enjoined under the one
sin or duty mentioned in the decalogue (LC 99); the decalogue is but a summary of the moral law (LC 98). Thus the liberty of Christians under the New
Testament is further enlarged, says the Confession, but not by our being freed from the judicial laws of Moses (WCF
XX.1). Instead, the Westminster divines
appealed to God’s commandments outside of the decalogue as elaborating and
explaining the application of the ten commandments – as the proof-texting of
the Larger Catechism at the ten commandments evidences (LC 103-148). If someone does not believe that these
case-laws are currently binding, contrary to the Confession, then the
theonomist could, for example, challenge him to explain why we should
distinguish between manslaughter and first-degree murder today, prohibit
homosexuality and incest, and punish kidnappers who do no harm to their victims
– none of which is clear from the decalogue alone.
The final
category of God’s law which was mentioned above was the restorative law
(traditionally called the “ceremonial law”) which functioned to typify the way
of redemption in Christ and to illustrate the holiness (or “separation”) of the
redeemed community. For instance, Lev.
17:11 taught the necessity of blood atonement if sins were to be forgiven; for
this reason the New Testament says that “it was necessary” that Christ
sacrificially die and shed His blood for our salvation (Heb. 9:22-24). The law was but a shadow of things to come
(Heb. 10:1), for the shed blood of animals was never in itself sufficient to
atone for sins (Heb. 10:4). Those who
were redeemed by blood atonement were to celebrate the passover in the Old
Testament, just as believers saved by Christ’s blood are to celebrate the
Lord’s Supper today (I Cor. 5:7).
Because the redeemed community had been separated out of the nations by
God, it was to remind itself of its holiness by drawing a distinction between
clean and unclean meats (Lev. 20:22-26), by refusing to mingle different kinds
of seed and clothing, and by not plowing with unequal animals (Lev. 19:1-2, 19;
Deut. 22:9-11). These laws are not
observed in this same outward manner today because the Savior has fulfilled the
foreshadows of the Old Testament and established His holy, international,
covenant community in the church; every jot and tittle of God’s word, when
consulted, teaches us today that the system of commandments contained in such
ordinances as created a wall of separation between Gentile and Jew have been
abolished in Christ’s flesh as He reconciles the two into one body through the
cross (Eph. 2:14-19). Consequently the
laws typifying the separation or holiness of Israel are no longer observed in
the manner of the Old Testament today (e.g., laws pertaining to unclean meats,
Acts 10). Nevertheless these laws are
still binding upon the New Testament church insofar as they teach the necessity
of separation from the world and cleanliness before God – that is, the holiness
of the redeemed community. Hence the
New Testament requires that believers not be “unequally yoked” with unbelievers,
that they be separate and “touch no unclean thing” (2 Cor. 6:14-17). Likewise they are to purge out the old
leaven of sin (I Cor. 5:7; cf. Deut. 16:4) and hate even the garment spotted by
the flesh (Jude 23; cf. Lev. 13:47-52).
All such exhortations are patterned after the restorative law of the Old
Testament; the manner of observance is altered today after Christ, but the
point of the commandments is the same.
The Confession thus teaches that to Israel, as a church under age, God
gave ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, His graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits, and partly, holding forth divers
instructions of moral duties”(WCF
XIX.3; note the scriptural passages cited); under the New Testament Christians
are freed from the yoke of the ceremonial law to which the Jewish Church was
subjected (XX.1). Yet Christ confirms
even these laws, being “the permanent and final embodiment of all the truth portrayed
in the Levitical ordinances” (Murray, Principles
of conduct, p. 151).
Therefore,
in submission to the uniform teaching of God’s word as reflected in the
Westminster Standards, we should conclude that, because Jesus is Savior and
Lord, the law of God is binding today
as a moral standard. The law of the
Lord is unchanged from Old to New
Testaments, and because Christ is Lord over all, that law must be obeyed by all men in all areas of life.
Accordingly the Bible teaches us that the whole law of God is valid today, without subtraction of one jot or
tittle. Theonomic ethics does not add without subtraction of one jot
of tittle. Theonomic ethics does not add these jots and tittles to the
“moral law” (in the Westminster sense of that term) but argues that they
categorically are part of the moral
law of God. The ten commandments cover
the entire field – and in that sense are always “enough” to show us our duty –
but in a summary fashion – and thus
are in need of the explanatory application of the details of the whole law.
In the
context of the above discussion we can evaluate the editor’s remarks about and
against the theonomic position in Christian ethics. Misrepresentations of that position have been noted already in
the preceding discussion; a much better summary (and evaluation) of the book
can be found in the book review by the ethics instructor at Westminster
Seminary, published in the Journal on August 31, 1977. In fact, the “Sunday School Lesson” written
by Dr. Scott for the same issue in which the editor comments on Theonomy goes a great distance in
expressing my commitments in Christian ethics (9-13, pp. 14-15). Many of the editor’s remarks, however, will
tend to give an inaccurate conception of the theonomic viewpoint, and at many points
he is simply attacking a “straw man” position that I myself would criticize.
We have
also observed above that the theonomic position is not a recent novelty, as portrayed by the editor. The reader can go back and note how
thoroughly the Westminster Standards and classic Reformed theologians support
the premises, and in many cases the conclusions, of the theonomic
viewpoint. Where the premises are held
by theologians who refrain from the conclusions, I believe we must recognize an
inconsistency that does not characterize the biblical writers or the Puritans
who composed the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. But the relevant point is that the position
of theonomic ethics has healthy historical roots. It is not “the latest approach to the law,” but has strong
precedents in classic Reformed theology.
Theonomic ethics does not ask that something more or new be added to the
best tradition of law are now binding.
Lest we tend toward a pharisaical or Romanist commitment to tradition,
however, I must affirm as a theologian that our only supreme judge by which all
. . . doctrines of men . . . are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are
to rest, can be no other but the Holy spirit speaking in the Scripture” (WCF
I.10). I am glad that Reformed
tradition stands behind the theonomic position, but it is theologically
irrelevant.
The editor,
as seen previously, has also maintained that in an age of grace the details of
the law of God are not of central importance; the Christian, he says, does not
live by a written code of specifics – which, if true, would tend to dismiss the
theonomic outlook. However sufficient
reason has been given from God’s word to disagree with the editor’s remarks
here. The entire preceding discussion
undermines the sufficiency of mere generalities in Christian ethics as taught
in Scripture. God loves us so
thoroughly that He has given us detailed guidance for all areas of our lives;
in love for Him we must pay attention to His entire word and counsel.
The
editor’s criticism that Theonomy has
a “host of ‘missing links’ over which the argument leaps with no apparent
warrant” (9-13, p. 18b) would be, if supported, an important observation and
area for further discussion. However
the editor has not given any indication of what steps in the argument were omitted
by the book at all. The example he
offers is that of moving from Christ’s endorsement of the law for the rich
young ruler to the validity of the Mosaic penal code today. The problem though is that such an argument
is nowhere utilized or even suggested
by Theonomy! Thus the editor is far from proving his
point. At this time I believe that
adequate and complete steps or links in the theonomic argument are expounded in
my book. In reviewing the book
Professor Frame said that it “presents solid arguments which must be soberly
discussed . . .. For those who disagree
with Bahnsen’s position – well, the ball is in their court; they must come up
with an answer” (8-31-77, p. 18c).
A
particularly disappointing aspect of the editor’s own evaluation of theonomic
ethics is precisely its lack of counter-argumentation, biblical exegesis, and
serious analysis of the issues involved in the Christian approach to God’s law
in ethics today. The editor does not
rebut the positive arguments offered by Theonomy,
he does not specify efforts, and he presents no interpretation of his own for
the basic scriptural texts which are enlisted in support of the book’s
thesis. Consequently the reader has no
responsible way of telling whether theonomic ethics carries Reformed principles
too far (stretching the classic view to the point of absurdity) as the editor
says (9-13, p. 19a), or whether it simply and consistently applies those
principles throughout the range of ethical issues. A careful understanding of the theonomic viewpoint has not been
presented, and no reasoned argumentation against it (biblical or otherwise) is
set forth. Thus the discussion of the
book serves little constructive purpose in helping Christians think through their
ethical position in a way pleasing to the Lord; at worst, some readers will
have been misled as to the relevant questions involved and the viable answers
available.
Therefore,
although I appreciate the editor opening the door to discussion of Theonomy, in an overall and introductory
sense his approach could be strengthened in a number of places. His remarks misrepresent the book at
important points, overlook its Reformed and Confessional roots, mistakenly
suppress details in favor of ethical generality for New Testament ethics, give
no evidence of gaps in the reasoning set forth in Theonomy, and offer no counter-argumentation or biblical
interpretation of his own. Thus in that
light I would initially respond that the editor’s critique is somewhat crippled
in attaining its proper goals.
Beyond this
preliminary reply to the editor, however, we should consider his primary way of
evaluating and criticizing theonomic ethics.
When all is said and done, the editor directs his appraisal of Theonomy at what he takes to be its
application and consequences. Being
dissatisfied with those alleged implications, the editor casts a negative
shadow over the theonomic position itself.
The editor says that “to evaluate Theonomy
. . . it would be necessary to test it against a ‘jot’ or ‘tittle’” because the
book argues for the validity of every jot and tittle of the Old Testament law
today (9-13, p. 18c). In the opinion of
the editor theonomic ethics must be tested by the details of God’s law as
revealed in the Old Testament.
Accordingly he proposes nine or ten examples of what he thinks would be
applications of those details to life today, telling his readers that such are
“not facetious examples” (9-13, p. 19a).
Because these alleged applications of the theonomic thesis are
disturbing to the editor, he promptly dismisses the position as extreme. But in this he moves too hastily. If his examples are not facetious by
intention, they are nevertheless false in most every case. Readers have thus been seriously misled and
prejudiced against considering the biblical warrant for theonomic ethics.
Secondly,
we must ask by what standard one would carry out such a “test by details”
regarding the law of God. When someone
finds a particular Old Testament law and discerns its proper application to
life today, by what standard does he decide on the acceptability of that
law? If the standard is Scripture
itself, then one is reaffirming the theonomic approach to ethics; every jot and
tittle of God'’ word (including OT as interpreted by NT) determines our ethical
obligations today. Nothing is abrogated or subtracted from the OT law except at
the word of the lawgiver Himself. So
then, by what extrascriptural
standard does the editor propose to “test the details” of God’s law as applied
today (and thereby evaluate the theonomic thesis)? The uniqueness of biblical ethics and the unchallengable
authority of the biblical God make it difficult to see that there could be an
extrascriptural standard by which His law could be appraised. As Murray said: “The Christian faith is distinctive
and the Christian ethic is correspondingly distinctive . . .. There is a new pattern, a new kind of
conformity, eloquently expressed by way of antithesis when Paul says: ‘Be not
conformed to this world (be not fashioned to this age) but be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind’ (Rom. 2:2) . . ..
In view of the radical distinction (between likeness to God in the sense
of divine creation and recreation, and in the sense of the Satanic temptation),
revelation specifying the respects in which likeness to God constitutes the
pattern of human behavior is indispensable.
Otherwise confusion would be unavoidable . . .. The law of God guards the distinction so
germane to the basic obligation, namely, likeness to God. For the law of God is the will of God for us . . .. When the sanctity of God’s law is maintained and we reverence him
in the prerogative that is his as the one lawgiver, then the likeness to God
demanded by our creation in his image and by the new creation in Christ is
realized” (I, pp. 174-176).
So then,
the standard by which we would judge the acceptability of God’s laws in our
present culture cannot be the ways of this world (Rom. 12:1-2). Nor can it be the standard of revered tradition
(Matt. 15:6), majority opinion (Rom. 3:4), the lifestyle of unbelievers (Eph.
4:17), the desires of sinful men (I Peter 4:1-5), other high-sounding ethical
standards (Col. 2:16-23), the view of religious teachers (I Jn. 4:1), human
wisdom (I Cor. 1:17-31), worldly philosophy (Col. 2:8), human laws (Acts 5;29),
governmental decrees (Rev. 13:8, 16-17; 14:1, 12), public approval (2 Tim. 3:3,
12), personal convenience (Matt. 5:10), financial cost (Matt. 6:24),
advancement in the world (Matt. 19:17, 29), protection of special favors (Heb.
11:25-26), ease of application in the face of the status quo (Acts 17:6), or
simplicity of understanding and applying those laws (Heb. 5:11-14). If the editor wishes to judge Theonomy by a “test of details,” what
standard does he propose for us to use in such an evaluation? The fact is that there is no acceptable standard of evaluation
except the word of God itself – which
is to say that our obligation to the whole law of God can be determined only by
interpreting what the Bible itself says about such an obligation, and not by
asking how acceptable the details appear to us right now. I trust that nobody will think that sola Scriptura is taking Reformed
principles too far. Rather than
allowing our present opinions and attitudes to be the standard by which we
evaluate God’s law, we ought to take God’s law as the standard by which we
evaluate our present opinions and attitudes.
As a third prefatory remark let me express my uneasiness with the manner in which the editor treats the details of God’s law that he chooses to mention. These specifics from the law are set forth as though any reasonable person would see how ridiculous they are; they are presented as apparent embarrassments to a modern theologian or believer – almost in a belittling light. How else can we account for the fact that the editor merely alludes to them – without argument or commentary – and expects the mere allusion to dissuade readers from believing that “every jot and tittle” of God’s law is valid today? He seems to think that it will be self-evident to everybody that these strange, extreme, or horrible laws cannot be accepted by us in the twentieth century church. This approach to God’s holy law is unworthy of us as believers in the inspired and infallible word of God; it is unbecoming of us who have renounced personal self-sufficiency and trusted in Christ, who Himself delighted in every detail of God’s law. Every specific Old Testament law came directly from God, and as such every detail calls for our respect and honor – even if we believe that God has put certain details out of gear for the present age. Since these laws were to be taken by God’s people as good and proper in the Old Testament, it cannot be simply obvious that they are not good and proper for God’s people today. What was the delight of the Psalmist is not an obvi