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The
Theonomic Thesis in Confessional and Historical Perspective
By Dr. Greg
Bahnsen
Questions pertaining to ethical standards and Christian conduct are vital and relevant theological concerns in the modern church. We should thus welcome healthy interaction and criticism regarding our commitments in these areas.[1] Paul commended the Bereans because "they received the word with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). Likewise, as we reflect on the question of God's law in Christian living today, let us "prove all things, hold fast to that which is good" (I Thessalonians 5:21). When one thinks through his commitment to Jesus Christ, he begins to see that submission to God's law in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments is the natural outworking of Christian faith. This positive attitude toward the standards of God's law, moreover, pervades the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. Even those with strong reservations about the theonomic perspective in ethics have recognized its advocacy within the Westminster Standards.[2] A rehearsal of my personal confession of faith along with the view of the Westminster Confession of Faith can thus serve to introduce and summarize the position of theonomic ethics.
Jesus My Savior
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). 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 [repentance] a sinner, out of the sign and sense not only of the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, as contrary to the holy nature, and righteous law of God; and upon the apprehension of His mercy in Christ to such as are penitent, so 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" (Westminster Confession of Faith XV. 2). Such repentance gave meaning to my faith - "accepting, receiving, and resting upon Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life." In terms of this Confessional 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 (Westminster Confession of Faith XIV. 2).
Because I came to Christ in this fashion, with a sense of my guilt before the standard of God's law and with sorrow for my law-breaking, it was only natural that, upon reflection, I would take a theonomic approach to ethics - that is, recognizing 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 John 3:4). "I had not known sin except through the law" (Romans 7:7). John Murray taught,
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 consideration, binds and demands .... The law that sin violates is the law of God.[3]
Without God's law there would be no sin, and thus no need for the Savior; the gospel would become expendable. The very fact that Christ had to die to satisfy divine justice and 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. Paul said, "Clearly no one is justified by the law before God, for "The righteous shall live by faith"" (Galatians 3:11). Instead, "through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:19). The Pharisees had made a religious show of adhering to the law, but it was a mere façade - vain hypocrisy. "You hypocrites, Isaiah was right when he prophesied of you, saying "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men"" (Matthew 15:7-9). In actual fact, the Pharisees skirted the internal demand of the law, avoided its weightier matters, and perverted its teachings - as Jesus constantly brought to their attention (for instance, in Matthew 5:21-48 and 23:23-24). They were, like many teachers today, "blind guides" who trimmed down the requirements of God's law so as to make it conform to their own cultural traditions. "And He answered and said unto them, "Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God said....But you say....So you have made void the word of God for the sake of your tradition"" (Matthew 15:3-6, 14).
The Pharisaical form of obedience was a self-serving way of justification, as Jesus indicated in the story of the self-righteous Pharisee who went to pray at the temple at the same time as a penitent tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). "You are the ones," He said in another place, "who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts" (Luke 16:15). Despite appearances, their lifestyle left them full of iniquity. "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. Likewise, outwardly you seem righteous to men, while inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity" (Matthew 23:27-28). Accordingly, their trimmed-down, self-centered righteousness could never bring entrance into the kingdom of God. "For I say to you, that except your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). If the Pharisees had genuinely upheld the integrity and demand of God's law, they would not have been driven to legalism but to the Savior for His mercy. J. Gresham Machen put the truth 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."[4]
So then, as I have said, it was the law which convicted me under the Spirit's influence of my ungodliness and my need for His Son. That law was a reflection of God's own perfect, holy character. "The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul" (Psalm 19:4). "So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good" (Romans 7:12). Perfection and holiness are preeminently qualities of God (Matthew 5:48; Revelation 15:4). Those who despise and break His law, then, can have no fellowship with God. To put aside the law is to put God aside as well - to alienate Him by unrighteousness. To abrogate the law would be to abrogate the very moral character of the Creator.
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.[5]
John Duncan (Hebrew professor at New College, Edinburgh, where Bannerman, Cunningham, Buchanan and Smeaton likewise taught) preached that "the ground of the amiableness of God's law lies .... in the moral perfections of God Himself." Because these perfections are eternal, he said, "this law... of necessity must remain." Thus Duncan held that it was contrary to the work of the Holy Spirit applying the law that any man "should grumble at it, for he sees the law is holy, just, and good in precept and in sanction, and so he says "Amen, Amen."" Accordingly, "whatever tends, by taking down the sacred majesty of the law, to dishonor the character of God, can have no other effect on the created mind, but to debase and pollute it."[6]
If God never meant for us to comply with this law as the reflection of His holiness, then His wrath and curse against transgressors of the law would be arbitrary or play-acting to achieve some other end. However, the death of Christ demonstrates how serious God is about the law and its necessity. As Christians we have been saved from our law-breaking - and thus unto law-keeping. Robert Dabney maintained accordingly, "Everywhere, the law which we are still required to obey, is the same law which, by its perfectness, condemned us."[7] Those who know Jesus Christ as their Savior from sin cannot, therefore, deny the validity and place of God's law today.
Jesus My Lord
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" (Westminster Confession of Faith 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. And I was taught this regarding all areas of my life, never dreaming that, while God's word was necessary to reform and guide my internal and interpersonal affairs, my socio-political ethic was all right as it was and in need of no reforming guidance from Scripture.
Dabney insisted, rightly I believe, that "the preaching and expounding of the Law is to be kept up diligently, in every gospel Church."[8] 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.[9]
A. A. Hodge observed that this was the outlook of the Westminster Confession of Faith: "While Christ fulfilled the law for us, the Holy Spirit fulfils 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."[10] Samuel Bolton, a participant at the Westminster Assembly, published a book against antinomian opinion at the time of the Assembly, saying: "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."[11] Because Christ is not simply my Savior, but simultaneously my Lord, it is incumbent upon me to live in obedience to His commandments. "He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him" (Hebrews 5:9).
In sanctification I am to imitate the holiness of God, expressed in His law. "Sanctify yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. And you shall keep my statutes and do them?" (Leviticus 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. John Murray explained 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."[12]
In sanctification I strive to live according to the example of Christ, who kept the law perfectly. "I have obeyed my Father's commandments and remain in His love" (John 15:10). "If anyone obeys His word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him: whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did" (I John 2:5-6).
In sanctification I live by the power and leading of the Holy Spirit who conforms me to the law of God. Scripture teaches that 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" (Romans 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. I would not want to say that the law is the "basis" or motivating power of sanctification - as the editor portrays my view[13] - for as the Confession of Faith correctly teaches, this basis is found in the dynamic ministry of God's indwelling Spirit. "After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort?" (Galatians 3:3). The law supplies a pattern of behavior for which the Holy Spirit is the power of compliance.
What the above discussion indicates is that since Christians, living under the Lordship of Christ the Savior, are to avoid sinning, they must be concerned to obey the law of God. "My dear children, I write these things to you so that you will not sin" (I John 2:1), and "through the law we become conscious of sin" (Romans 3:20). Therefore, "he who says "I know Him," but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (I John 2:4). "Those who keep His commandments abide in Him, and He in them" (I John 3:24). The law is important to my sanctification.
A.A. Hodge wrote these words in his commentary on the Confession of Faith: "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."[14] In his 1841 explanation of 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"[15] - language reflecting the earlier, 1765, commentary edited by Erskine and Fisher.[16] Of course, such an attitude of admiration and delight in the law of the Lord is not characteristic merely of the past three centuries of Reformed thought. Early in this century Herman Bavinck wrote in a similar vein:
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.[17]
The editor adduces no evidence from my book, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, to warrant or explain his bald claim that I give a different content to the Psalmist's words, "O how love I Thy law," than the sense originally intended.[18] As far as I can see, the meaning of that exclamation is faithfully expounded above, in harmony with what I teach in my book. The implication of the Psalmist's attitude toward the law of God, as set forth in my book, is stated nicely in the words of John Murray:
Do we recoil from the notion of obedience, of law observance, of keeping commandments? Is it alien to our way of thinking? Is 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. 7:22,25).[19]
From this quotation we can also see how fallacious is the editor's remark that, based on the very fact that Theonomy was published and argues against contrary views of law in relation to grace, its author intended thereby to say something different and obviously thought he was proposing something new.[20] Otherwise, said the editor, the Westminster Confession would suffice and Theonomy would be superfluous.[21] Such remarks as these are neither materially true nor reasonably inferred. Books just sometimes defend older points of view! As Murray's quotation pointed out, a supremely grave issue in our day - one that threatens the heart of our Christian faith - is the current antagonism expressed toward obedience to God's law. Such 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 Confession's Reformed or Puritan position regarding the standard of Christian ethics. The editor's remarks notwithstanding, my intention was not to present something novel and creative, but to resurrect a golden heritage - to present a Biblical and consistent case for the Confessional viewpoint I had always known and loved. It was not any inadequacy in the position of the Confession but rather the current crisis of lawlessness and confusion in Christian ethics that solicited the publication of Theonomy in Christian Ethics.
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 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 perform (thus necessitating the work of the Savior), is still the proper rule for my life as one saved and indwelt by the Holy Spirit. In light of these observations I cannot understand what the editor means when he exposits Theonomy as teaching that once someone is saved the law takes on a different dimension - so that obedience becomes a must, and the law is now the pattern and the rule of life.[22] This distinction between "pattern" and "rule" is obscure to me and will require some explanation. But more importantly, let us notice that obedience to the law of God is a "must" for all men, saved or unsaved, before and after regeneration; it does not become a requirement simply after salvation.
Failure to obey the law, you see, defines that sin which calls for the alien and imputed righteousness of Christ - a righteousness, remember, in perfect obedience to the law - in order for one to be justified in God's sight. Subsequently, in the power of Christ's Spirit, the believer attains personal righteousness in some measure by obeying the very same required law of God. Moreover, since our justification and our sanctification are both according to the grace of God, it is hard to see that "different dimension" of the law to which the editor was referring. He would not seem to have been expounding my views in any case. From my perspective, the believer comes to see the law of God in a new light; what he once despised and spurned has now become (by the Spirit opening blinded eyes) beautiful and a delight. "The sinful mind is hostile to God; it does not submit to God's law....You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit" (Romans 8:7,9).
From the preceding discussion we can say that the Christian life is one disciplined by the law of God according to the working of God's Spirit. Yet to the contrary the editor has said that the disciplined life is a matter of proper motivation and direction - and not a matter of a written code or a catalogue of specifics for behavior.[23] Such a claim distorts the Biblical ethic, overlooking the necessity and place of God's written code in the sanctification of believers, as taught by both the Bible and our Confession of Faith. The editor's mistake is 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[24]
We should have God's glory and kingdom for the goal of our behavior in all aspects of life and all areas of conduct. "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness" (Matthew 6:33). "So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God" (I Corinthians 10:31). Moreover, in all of our thoughts, words, and deeds we should be motivated by faith and love. "Everything that does not come from faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). "If I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing" (I Corinthians 13:2). But just here we must note that such moral considerations as these about our goals and motives are delivered by the Author of the law - indeed, such considerations are themselves commands from God about our conduct (for example, love is the greatest commandment of all according to Matthew 22:36-40). The considerations do not stand over against the law of God, as though we are to choose between them and following the commandments. After all, God is consistent with Himself and has not revealed to us divergent paths of morality in the Bible.
As things actually work out in life, we cannot determine which of our actions and attitudes seek the glory of God and are consonant with love unless God's law guides us into the paths of righteousness. The falsity of the editor's antithesis between goal and motive on the one hand and commandments on the other hand is perfectly clear from the fact that, for instance, obedience to God's law is the specific form of Christian love: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15). "And this is love: that we walk according to His commandments" (2 John 6). Therefore, according to the New Testament testimony of Christ and the apostles, the disciplined life of the believer is one of obedience to the written law of God. In that case the editor has set before us a false antithesis and choice. We do not follow a proper goal and motive or a set of commands; we should follow both. Indeed, one's goal and motive are not in fact pleasing to God if they encourage violation of His standards, and His standards are not being fully kept if one has the wrong goal and motive. A disciplined life is characterized by the Biblical goal, motive, and standard - all three, in harmony. The Great Commission shows us how intimate is the connection between "disciplining" (making people who were indifferent disciples) and "teaching them to observe whatever I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:18-20).
The Law of the Lord
Jesus, as both Savior and Lord, does not dispense with the law of God, as we have seen above. According to the Westminster Confession of Faith, He does not dissolve it in any way in the Gospel but rather "much strengthens this obligation" (SIS.5). Reformed theologians have always held such a conviction. Herman Bavinck wrote:
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 concern, quite the same in the Old and New Testament.[25]
Likewise Robert 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, or whose character it is the impress and transcript. It cannot be abrogated or relaxed, because it is as immutable as He.[26]
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" (Deuteronomy 12:32). Ashbel Green commented:
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....The moral law is a perfect rule of life and manners - so perfect that it admits of neither addition, nor diminution.[27]
Accordingly the Psalmist declared, "Every one of your righteous ordinances is everlasting" (Psalm 119:160), and "all His precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness" (Psalm 111:7-8).
God is not wavering with respect to what is 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 an abomination and thus prohibited (Leviticus 18:22). As one would expect, the New Testament upholds this case law requirement, noting that homosexuality is contrary to "the ordinance of God" (Romans 1:26-27, 32). Similarly, the Old Testament law outlawed the marrying of your father's wife (Leviticus 18:8). As expected, the New Testament concurs with this moral perspective (I Corinthians 5:1). So then, those who feel that there is a fundamental discontinuity between the moral standards (law) of the Old and New Testaments - or who feel that the New Testament ethic endorses the Old Testament law only to the extent of the ten commandments - must be challenged as to their consistency and Biblical accuracy. Do they believe 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 which lie outside the ten commandments. How is it, also, that Jesus could find the greatest of the commandments outside the Decalogue in the case law requirements about loving God and your neighbor (Matthew 23:35-40, citing Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18)?
The Biblical answer is that every one of God's laws is righteous and unchanging. What was wrong yesterday cannot become right today. Homosexuality did not start being wicked at Mount Sinai, and it did not cease being wicked at the advent of Christ. It always was and always will be wicked because of the holy and unchanging character of God. Plenty of Bible-believing Christians want to say that about such a disgusting contemporary problem for them as homosexuality. We all need the courage and integrity to say it about the rest of God's holy law as well - not picking and choosing among His commandments like a moral smorgasbord to suit our tastes. The Reformed perspective in ethics is that there is continuity between the covenants (or Testaments): God's word for our behavior is valid and binding until the Lawgiver Himself says otherwise. It "cannot be broken" (John 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 an 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."[28]
We must conclude with Dabney, then, "that the Old Testament teaches precisely the same morality as the New."[29] 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, until all things have come to pass, not one jot or tittle shall in any way pass away from the law" (Matthew 5:17-18). This passage , as the editor notes, is the foundational authority for my book, Theonomy in Christian Ethics.[30] It should be said, however, that this passage 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 (for instance, that every Old Testament scripture is presently useful for instruction in righteousness, according to 2 Timothy 3:16-17). The editor points out that I take the word 'fulfill' in Matthew 5:17 in the sense of 'to confirm,' and he claims (with some exaggeration) that this is extensively argued for forty pages (in reality, it was half as much).[31] This precise definition of 'fulfill' is correct, I believe, and yet it is in no way crucial 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. Twice he states this denial in Matthew 5:17. One can only wonder how some scholars can hope to be clever enough somehow to present Jesus as nevertheless abrogating the demands of the Old Testament law. Whatever 'fulfill' might more precisely connotate or mean, it cannot imply the abrogation of the law without making the verse turn out self-contradictory. Perhaps Jesus means that He fulfills the law by supplementing it, or obeying it Himself, or enforcing it in His hearers (suggestions which I examine and put aside in my book), but in none of these cases would lie turn back or annul the standards which already held from the Old Testament commandments.
In Matthew 5:18 Jesus explains why His advent does not abrogate the law. Not the slightest stroke of the law, He says, will cease to have binding moral force until heaven and earth pass away. Now, if Jesus the divine Messiah does not remove our obligation to any law from God, what right would any mere man (even a theologian) have to do so? It unavoidably seems that those who oppose the continued use of any Old Testament precept - oppose the teaching of our Lord and Savior here. The usual attempts to explain away the clear and forceful declarations of Jesus, where He shows how the New Testament gospel accepts the Old Testament law as abidingly valid, have come to strike me as maneuvers which, apart from this context of discussion with its strong feelings, would be called exegesis-by-embarrassment. Whatever may be proposed, however, it just does not seem possible for them to overthrow Christ's own application of His teaching in Matthew 5:17-18. He says, "Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:19). Anyone who presumes to demote any single one of God's laws will himself be demoted by God within His kingdom, according to the word of the King Himself. To ignore or transgress the law which the King upholds is an insult to His authority. That is true no matter what area of life is addressed by the law.
Accordingly 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 creature's 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.[32]
The fact that we live under grace and not merely under law was understood by Paul to mean that sin (violation of the law) would no longer have dominion over us (Romans 6:12-18) - that grace would serve law-keeping. "Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!....You have become slaves to righteousness." God's grace in the New Covenant writes the law on our hearts and empowers us to keep its requirements. "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds" (Hebrews 10:16, citing Jeremiah 31:33). "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us to deny ungodliness...and to live godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness" (Titus 2:11-14).
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" (Psalm 89:34). The point is that God is a covenant-keeping God, not one who alters His feelings or standards from age to age. Can the law be deemed contrary to the promises of God? Paul answered, "Not at all!" (Galatians 3:21). When God promised and then instituted the New Covenant which we enjoy today, He did not establish a new law or new moral outlook for man. To the contrary, He declared that He would take the well known law which He had already revealed and now write it effectively upon the hearts of His people. The New Covenant enables obedience to the Old Covenant's law-code. Whereas the mere letter of the code brought spiritual death for disobedience, the Holy Spirit brings life and righteous behavior. "He made us competent as ministers of a new covenant - not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life...the ministry which brings righteousness" (2 Corinthians 3:6,9). God promised in the Old Testament: "I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances" (Ezekiel 36:27). And the covenant-keeping God has honored His promise: "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the sinful nature, God sending His own Son . . . in order that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the sinful nature but after the Spirit" (Romans 8:3-4).
"Do we then make void the law through faith? Not at all! Rather, we establish the law" (Romans 3:31). Given what has been seen in the previous discussion, I find it impossible to agree with the editor when he claims that life under God's grace is not conscious of the law of God.[33] Paul said, "I of myself with the mind, indeed, serve the law of God....I delight in the law of God after the inward man" (Romans 7:22,25). The New Testament ethic calls for us to look carefully at how we conduct ourselves and to understand what the will of the Lord is (Ephesians 5:15, 17), thus having God's word in mouths and in our hearts as the law calls us to do (Deuteronomy 30:14, cited by Paul in Romans 10:8). Indeed, the New Testament leaves no doubt about the law as a standard for making practical moral decisions today. We are never to judge contrary to the law (James 4:11). Instead, we should follow the example of Paul, who made ethical decisions on the basis of the law's requirements (as in I Corinthians 9:9 and 14:34). We must pay attention to the commandments, for they are a standard by which to evaluate our relationship to God as well as our love for the brethren. "We know that we have come to know Him if we obey His commandments . . . . This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commandments" (I John 2:3; 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 the editor claims,[34] simply feeling right and being comfortable with compliance. It calls for mental attention to the written word (see John 17:17; Colossians 3:16; I Thessalonians 4:1-2) and then subsequent action based on it (James 1:21-25).
Of course, the editor was correct when he began by saying that there is a qualitative difference between law obedience under law and law obedience under grace.[35] It is not the difference between conscious and unconscious observance of the law, but rather the difference between utter inability to obey the law and Spiritual enablement to do so (Romans 8:2-10; cf. 6:1-22). That is, because we are not under the law but under grace, sin no longer has dominion over us (Romans 6:14).
We can further see that we have a present obligation to keep the law of God from the plain and evident New Testament exhortation to love, for "love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 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."[36] Jesus said that on these two commandments - which were, remember, quotations from the Old Testament law at Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 - hang all the law and the prophets (Matthew 22:37-40). Yet these love commands did not, according to Christ's thinking, dispense with the laws of God. John Murray pointed 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 its exercise nor the ways of expression."[37] Love does not take the place of the law of God; it merely summarizes the law. Commenting on Paul's word that love fulfills the law, Murray says:
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, that the concrete precepts of the decalogue have relevance to the believer as the criteria of that behavior which love dictates.[38]
In turn, the Decalogue does not stand alone in God's word but is given to "summarily comprehend" the entire moral law of God (Westminster 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."[39] Otherwise a person might reason rationalize that his love for his neighbor's wife could permit an adulterous affair with her. However, Christ said: "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15). John taught, "This is love: that we walk according to His commandments" (2 John 6). Love to God and brother is known, recognized, and guided by nothing less than the commandments of God (I John 5:2-3). And these commandments are not the "spiritually defined generality" by which the editor bids us to walk.[40] They are detailed, clear, and to the point. In God's objective and written word, the define a specific pattern of behavior pleasing to God.
Lord Over All
To this point three basic Reformed commitments have been rehearsed. 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, or love. To these three points 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 yourselves also holy in all manner of living" (I Peter 1:15). Nothing in our lives can be withheld from Him. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment" (Matthew 22:37-38). The first commandment of the Decalogue, "You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3), requires us to glorify God by "yielding all obedience and submission to him with the whole man; being careful in all things to please him" (Westminster Larger Catechism 104).
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 my state - is immune from the Lord's direction. Christ has saved me from my socio-political sins as much as from my personal sins, and He exercises Lordship over my life in all of its facets and relations. In repentance I turned from all of my sins in every area of life, "endeavoring to walk with Him in all the ways of His commandments" (Westminster Confession of Faith XV.2; cf. Larger Catechism 76). I did not think that my transgression of His laws in some particular domain (say, employment or politics) could be overlooked in indifference, while I sorrowed for my infractions of the law in other domains (say, personal attitudes and relationships with others). In all the ways of His commandments I turned from sin to follow Him, wherever He chose to speak. Accordingly the aim is that my sanctification "Is throughout, in the whole man" (Westminster Confession of Faith XIII.2; cf. Larger Catechism 75). The law of the Lord guides not simply my private and religious life, but every facet of my walk as a servant of God - in recreations, 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" (Westminster Larger Catechism 24). Any failure regarding any law of God is wicked on my part, no matter on what subject the law happens to speak.
Paul instructs me that 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 (Romans 12:1-2). When I offered myself up to Christ, I gave myself over to one who is Lord over all. This, I believe, is a vital perspective for any believer to have, and it is certainly essential to a Reformed world-and-life-view. It naturally leads one to see that the law of the Lord is not a pattern of righteousness merely in certain areas to which it speaks. It is not a reflection of God's character only for some aspects of life. It is not simply a delight when it talks about a select few matters of behavior. God's law is not a guide to God's glory and love for Him in a special subsection of its requirements. God's law is His perfect and unchanging will for all matters to which it speaks, and in some fashion it speaks to all matters.
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.[41]
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 nature."[42] Sanctification according to the pattern of God's law must be throughout life, seven days a week, in every aspect of behavior. Christ is both Savior and 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 (Ezekiel 11:19; 36: 26-27; Jeremiah 31:33; Hebrews 10:16), and out of the heart flow all the issues of life (Proverbs 4:23). Accordingly it seems that everything I think and do should be governed by God's law, even as Deuteronomy 6:8 instructs us that the commandments should be placed upon the forehead and hand. If this be true, then we will have to 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."[43] We can withhold no area of our lives - home, church, or society - from the direction of our Lord, who guides us by His ever relevant law.
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, Judge, and King (divine and Messianic). All thins were created by Him and for His service (Colossians 1:16). As Redeemer He expects all nations to be discipled to Him and taught to observe whatever He has commanded (Matthew 28:18-20). The same Creator and Redeemer will one day judge all men according to their every deed (2 Corinthians 5:10; 2 Timothy 4:1). Christ is both the divine and Messianic King. In the former capacity He is the ruler over the nations (Psalm 22:28) who chastens them out of the law (Psalm 94:10, 12). In the latter capacity He is head over all things (Ephesians 1:20-22) who punishes everyone who acts lawlessly (Matthew 13:41).
Therefore as a Christian I cannot deny that God's law binds all men in all places, for to do so would be to detract from Christ my Creator, Redeemer, Judge, and King. In that light we can turn to our Westminster Confession and Catechisms, where we learn that "The duty which God requireth of man [without distinction or qualification] is obedience to his revealed will" (Westminister Larger Catechism 91). In the Scriptures, moreover, "the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith and life" can be found (Westminster Confession of Faith I.6). The moral duty of all men in all areas of life, then, is contained in God's inspired word.
Of God the Westminster Confession of Faith 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" (II.2). It is evident, then, that no creature is in a position to resist doing what God directs him to do in any area of life, for "reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto Him as their Creator" (Westminster Confession of Faith VII.1). The moral obligation of friends, parents, farmers, and even rulers to the law of God 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" (Westminster Confession of Faith XIX.1). So we read that "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" (Westminster Confession of Faith 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 (Westminster Larger Catechism 54). As such He corrects believers for their sins and brings vengeance upon unbelievers for their sins (Westminster Larger Catechism 45). No person is given permission to violate the law of God in any respect. The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches that all men will give an account to Christ, as Judge, for every aspect of their lives (XXXIII.1), and this fact should "deter all men from sin" (XXXIII.3).
A grand summary of the implications which follow from the fact that Christ is Lord over all - over all areas of life, and over all mankind - is provided by the Westminster Larger 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" (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" (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" (99).
Given such clear teaching about the all-pervasive authority of God's law, I cannot 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.[44] This is nothing more than an expression of that classic Reformed thought found in the Westminster Standards. Consistent application of these premises may be unusual and unpopular today, even as the Confession and Catechisms are vaguely known among Reformed clergy in this day, but the premises are nevertheless lifted straight from the historic Reformed position on ethics. They are the natural outworking of a few basic theological convictions: that Christ is Savior and Lord, that He directs us by revealed law, and that He is Lord over all departments of life and all nations. What is truly unique is the twentieth-century emergence of "Reformed" scholars who reject the all-pervasive relevance and authority of God's law.
In an age of increasing socio-political tolerance for immorality and declining commitment to the full distinctives of Biblical Christianity, an age ever willing to settle for the lowest common religious denomination among men in a society, an age demanding religious neutrality outside of personal piety and internal church matters (lest specific divine stipulations be intruded into the common affairs of men), the troublesome aspect of traditional Reformed ethics has become the socio-political realm. Even where Reformed writers call for a transforming influence by Christians in this sphere today, the direction for, or standards of, this transformation have over and over again been set aside as without authority in such matters, despite their speaking directly to them. The standards which have replaced the law of God in these matters have come more and more simply to reflect the same political theorizing that is characteristic of extra biblical reasoning, under the ambiguous sanction of "common grace" or the secular idea of "pluralism."
However, historic Reformed thought, consistent with the teaching of Scripture, has viewed the law of God as having a "political use" in man's government. That is, God's law binds the state, whether it is presided over by pagans or Christians (even as God's word binds the church, whether its minsters are believers or unbelievers). Carl F. H. Henry summarizes the outlook 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 will 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, buy its constraining influence in the unregenerate world.[45]
Because Christ is "the Ruler of the kings of the earth" (Revelation 1:5), all magistrates in the state owe Him obedience to His law. That law was specifically laid down, says Paul, for the restraint of those who are unruly in society (I Timothy 1:9-10). This is as much the perspective of the New Testament as it is of the Old Testament. God has not changed His standards for justice in society as a result of the coming of Christ! If anything, He would expect more of men today than less.
All men, Jewish and Gentile alike, are responsible before the law of God. This is Paul's doctrine in Romans 1-3. Indeed all men, including pagans, have God's specific laws testifying in their hearts (Romans 2:15) - so that God says that they know His ordinance, for instance, against homosexuality (Romans 1:32). It should be evident, then, that the law which all men know as creatures of God is not limited to the ten commandments but includes the entire law of God as it defines and punishes sin. For this reason Sodom could be destroyed for its homosexuality even before the special revelation of God's law to Israel on Mount Sinai. The New Testament identifies the cause of Sodom's judgment specifically 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, totally apart from the reception of redemptive, special revelation. God does not have a double standard of morality, either in personal or public morality. What was sinful within the borders of Israel was not condoned just over the state line, making a farce of God's holiness - even as the presence of a liquor store just over the county line of a "dry county" today only reinforces the sense of arbitrariness felt in public law. God is Lord over all men at all times, and thus His righteous standards are not just for one time and place. Homosexuality is just as forbidden today for the United States as it was in ancient Israel, for example.[46]
Up until the twentieth century, if you had asked just about any Reformed theologian, he would have told you as much, for it was recognized that God's law has international civic relevance. In the giving of the law God made it plain that He had only one standard of ethics for the native as well as the stranger in Israel, even as His absolute holy character would demand….You stranger in Israel, even as His absolute holy character would demand. "You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born. I am the Lord your God" (Leviticus 24:22). Accordingly God severely punished the Canaanite tribes - exactly the same way that He would punish Israel - for their violations of His law. "Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you" (Leviticus 18:24-28).
In revealing His law in written form to Israel, His redeemed people, God intended for it to be a model for surrounding cultures to follow. "Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Jehovah my God commanded....Therefore keep them and do them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who shall hear all these statutes and say, "Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people."...What other nation is so great and has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I have set before you today?" (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). Consequently, David declared, "I will speak of your statutes before kings" (Psalm 119:46) - obviously referring to other kings than himself and thus outside of Israel. David likewise said that he would constrain surrounding nations to obey his Theonomic rule (Psalm 18:43-50). "The kings of the earth belong to God" (Psalm 47:9). Thus "a throne is established through righteousness" (Proverbs 16:12) and "by justice" (Proverbs 29:4), even as "righteousness and justice are the foundation of His [the Lord's] throne" (Psalm 97:2). God's standards should be reflected in the rule of all earthly kings. Indeed, it is axiomatic that those who rule over men righteously, "should rule in the fear of God," will be like a cloudless and sunny morning (2 Samuel 23:3). In the second Psalm David calls upon earthly rulers, saying "Now therefore be wise, O kings; be instructed, judges of the earth. Serve Jehovah with fear" (vv. 10-12). He warns them of retribution from God if they do not: "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for His wrath can be kindled in a moment."
There can be no doubt, therefore, that all nations are bound to the standards of God's law, even in their social and political morality. "Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people" (Proverbs 14:34). Accordingly "it is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness, for the throne is established by righteousness" (Proverbs 16:12). The Old Testament prophets, such as Isaiah, saw God's law as a light of justice for all peoples (Isaiah 51:4) - even as Jesus spoke of the "light of the world" in the context of the moral standards of God's law (Matthew 5:14). It must be assumed that the Gentile nations were subject to God's law, for the Old Testament prophets condemned pagan states for their infractions of His holy law, sometimes bringing the same indictment against a pagan country as was brought against Israel herself (as in Habakkuk 2:12 and Micah 3:10). God's law was and is impartially and universally binding on mankind. Hence Ezra found it a matter of praise, rather than distress, that the Lord would bring a pagan emperor to enforce God's law - even its penal sanctions - in all of 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 were to be "ministers of God" who avenge His wrath against "evildoers" (Romans 13:4), which is to say against violators of His law (cf. v. 10). To this specific end "they bear not the sword in vain." When the civil ruler refuses to rule in terms of God's law and replaces it with his own law, writing his own name on the forehead and hand where God's law belongs (Revelation 13:16-17; cf. Deuteronomy 6:8), he is a "beast" or "man of lawlessness" (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:3,7). It should be perfectly clear, then, that kings owe allegiance to "the King of kings," and none are morally exempt from the stipulations of His holy and just law.
In accord with this line of thought the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms teach that magistrates, "for His [God's] own glory and the public good," have the right to punish evildoers (Westminster Confession of Faith XXIII.1). In this task the law of God should be their guide (Westminster Larger Catechism 129-130, with Scripture citations, all of which pertain to civil rulers). The Westminster Confession of Faith 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. . . proceeded against. . . by the power of the civil magistrate" (XX.4). The Scripture proofs given include God's law against the seduction to idolatry, and the command to have Ezra enforce God's law, even its penal sanctions. In chapter XXIII, section 3, the authors of the Westminster Confession of Faith cited Isaiah 49:23 to show that magistrates were to be nursing- fathers to the church, seeing to it that God's ordinances are observed. Biblical tests 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 the Westminster Larger Catechism 129-130, 145, with Scripture tests).
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). Samuel Bolton, another theologian who participated in the writing of the Westminster Confession of Faith, asserted:
A magistrate
may require those things at our hands which are clearly revealed to be the will
of God....The people were bound to obey the magistrates when they commanded
obedience to that which God had commanded....He is but a subordinate, and
Christ is the supreme Master. The magistrate tells us what is God's will, not what
is his will. He tells us it is his will, too, but only because it is God's will
first.[47]
The outlook of those who authored the Westminster Confession of Faith was clearly that the civil magistrate is morally bound to obey the law of God as it bears on civil morality.
A century earlier, in 1550, Martin Bucer wrote his treatise on social ethics for Deward VI, entitled De Regno Christi. There he stated:
Since no one can describe an approach more equitable and wholesome to the commonwealth than that which God describes in his law, it is certainly the duty of all kings and princes who recognize that God has put them over his people that they follow most studiously his own method of punishing evildoers....Insofar as the substance and proper end of these [Mosaic] commandments are concerned, and especially those which enjoin the discipline that is necessary for the whole commonwealth, whoever does not reckon that such commandments are to be conscientiously observed is certainly not attributing to God either supreme wisdom or a righteous care for our salvation.[48]
In 1573, the Anglican Bishop, Edwin Sandys, wrote to Heinrich Bullinger that it was the position of presbyterian reformers in England that: "The judicial laws of Moses are binding upon Christian princes, and they ought not in the slightest degree to depart from them....These good men are crying out that they have all the Reformed churches on their side."[49]
In the next century, in 1636, the well known American Puritan theologian, John Cotton prepared an explicit essay, entitled "How Far Moses' Judicials Bind Massachusetts,"[50]in which he addresses the question, "whether we as Christians or as a people of God are not bound to establish laws and penalties set down in the Scripture as they were given to the Jews," and then offers nine supporting reasons why the answer must be affirmative. That same year Cotton produced a model civil code for his colony entitled Moses His Judicials, which contained entire sections verbatim from the Mosaic law.[51] In his 1663 publication, A discourse about Civil Government, Cotton wrote that the best form of government for Christians to endorse was one where the laws by which men rule are the laws of God.[52] A decade earlier in England, John Owen preached a sermon before Parliament, in which he declared that the substance of the Mosaic judicial law (apart from its particular Jewish form or clothing) was "everlastingly binding" upon his nation.[53] The teaching of the Westminster Assembly was set forth in the same general time as the ministries of Cotton and Owen.
During the next century Thomas Ridgeley's commentary on the Westminster Larger Catechism, A Body of Divinity (1731-1733), indicated that the principles of the Old Testament judicial law were permanently and universally binding. That the state should submit to these laws was advocated by the English annotator of the Bible, Thomas Scott, and by the American president of Princeton University, John Witherspoon. Such a commitment to theonomic political ethics could not be extinguished by the new and secularizing social views of the Enlightenment. Even into the late nineteenth century respected Reformed theologians were contending that the state should conform its laws to those found in the law of God. The southern presbyterian, James H. Thornwell, stated in 1861: "We long to see, what the world has never yet beheld, a truly Christian Republic," and thus he proposed that these words be added to the constitution of the Confederate States of America:
Nevertheless we, the people of these Confederate States, directly acknowledge our responsibility to God, and the supremacy of His Son, Jesus Christ, as King of kings and Lord of lords; and hereby ordain that no law shall be passed by the Congress of these Confederate States inconsistent with the will of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures.[54]
The northern presbyterian theologian, A.A. Hodge, published a lecture on "The Kingly Office of Christ" in 1887. In it he dealt with people who argued that the separation of church and state meant the absolute divorce of the state from the mediatorial authority of Jesus Christ and the disregard of Biblical Law.
It is absurdly argued that if the State is absolutely free from any entangling alliances with the Church,...it must be free from the authority of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church, and of the Bible, which contains his code of laws....These inferences, however unwarrantable and preposterous, are exceedingly prevalent, and are admitted, if not proclaimed, by many true Christians who are unconscious of their absurdity and utter disloyalty to the Lord that bought them and whom they profess to serve as their King....It is simply absurd that a man can be thoroughly convinced that God exists and that he is a Moral Governor who will demand an account for all the deeds done in the body - that he can have heart full of loyal affection and devotion to God as an individual while engaged in private business, and then be perfectly oblivious of the existence and of the claims of God as soon as he begins to act politically as a citizen of the State. If a man knows that God has forbidden theft, or incest, or divorce except on certain conditions, or the pursuit of worldly business on the weekly Sabbath, he cannot as a citizen do otherwise than make and execute laws in conformity to the known will of God. If a State in its public law acts atheistically, it can only be because a majority of its citizens are in heart atheists, no matter what religious professions they may make....Every Christian must believe that the State ought to be obedient to the revealed law of Christ....All intelligent and honest Christians must seek to bring all the action of the political society to which they belong obedient to the revealed will of Christ the Supreme King, the Ruler among the nations. The Church and the State are mutually, entirely independent. The officers and the laws of the one have no jurisdiction within the sphere of the other. Nevertheless, Christ is the common King of each, and his Bible is the common statute-book of each....Christ and conscience and the Bible rule equally in each sphere.[55]
So then, in view of what we have observed in the Westminster Standards - as well as in notable Reformed writers in the century preceding the Standards, the century of the Standards and every century subsequent to them[56] - it is hard for me to comprehend why the editor, in the absence of any supporting premises or evidence, maintained that "there is a great leap" from the outlook of the Westminster Standards to the theonomic position that the entire Mosaic law is binding today, even on pagan states.[57] There is simply no gulf between the Westminster Standards and Theonomy which needs to be leaped! The outlook of the Westminster Assembly and that of Puritan New England is expounded in Appendices 2 and 3 of the book, yet without any attention to that fact given by the editor.
What is at odds with the historic Reformed approach to the state as found in the Westminster Standards and in the Puritans of England and America is the modern, neutralist or secular outlook of Christians who, in the name of "pluralism" or "common grace," emancipate God's minister (cf. Romans 13:4) from God's specific directives in His law. I can still recall the initial embarrassment I felt when college and university instructors would point a critical finger at the political ethic of my Calvinist forefathers, say in Geneva or Puritan New England. As an "enlightened, modern, tolerant" thinker, I tried to find ways to explain the error of my Reformed predecessors - until I took the time seriously to research and reflect upon the Biblical roots for their political ethic. I am now glad to endorse it as the natural outworking of my Biblical and Reformed foundations. If Jesus my Savior is Lord over all, then even the state owes obedience to the Lord's directives.
The Whole Law
How much of the Lord's directives are binding today however? If the state must obey God, what law has God given for present day obedience? We have already learned that our obligation to keep God's commandments is evident from the very fact that Jesus is Savior and Lord. We have learned that the law of the Lord is unchanging from Old to New Testaments. We have learned further that as universal Lord Christ binds all men and all areas of life by His word. These Biblical emphases would certainly imply - in the absence of any contrary or qualifying teaching of Scripture - that God directs political morality by His law today as much as He directs my personal morality by His law today. Every stroke of that law has relevance for my thoughts and actions throughout the spectrum of life's activities. The New Testament Christian must not expunge or ignore the details of the law if he or she is 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, rather than according to my own faulty wisdom and sinful imagination.
Toward the end of reforming all aspects of life, we pray, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth even as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10). 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"(Westminster Larger Catechism 191-192, emphasis added). No area of life in any area of the world is a safety zone from God's kingdom and directives. For that reason we must pay attention to the whole law of God as found in the inspired word of the Lord. Only in this way can we obey the apostolic injunction to "avoid every kind of evil" (I Thessalonians 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.[58]
That is, the believer ought not to settle for "a spiritually defined generality" which is indifferent to God's list of specific guidelines, as the editor recommends.[59] One of the best known verses to Christians who are theologically conservative is the declaration of Paul that "every scripture" of the Old Testament is "useful for instruction in righteousness...in order that the man of God may be perfectly equipped for every good work" (2 Timothy 3:16-17). To ignore some of those specific scriptures would be 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 breaking all of it" (James 2:10). So the details are just as binding as the whole, and they can be pushed aside only at the expense of disobedience to the Lord. For that reason I cannot agree with the editor when he claims that after Christ some details of the law "might never again matter at all."[60] Every point of the law as found in every Old Testament scripture, when properly and contextually interpreted according to its literary genre and intent, is profitable today for ethical living and is a measure of our obedience to the Lord. Such is the united teaching of Paul and James. In this they were but echoing the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself.
Having declared that His coming did not have the effect of abrogating the Old Testament law, our Lord expressly taught: "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, until all things come about, not one iota or one stroke will by any means pass away from the law. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least commandments and teaches men to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:18-19). Until the end of history not the slightest detail of God's law will become invalid, and thus teachers are warned by Christ Himself not to depreciate the details of the law. Consequently, for the editor to say that Christ's fulfilling of the law suggests nothing about a checklist of specifics [61] is to fly directly in the face of our Lord's teaching about fulfilling the law in Matthew 5:17-19. That He "fulfills" the law implies, according to His own authoritative 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 here 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 under-valuation, 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 details is judged to be the practical person who exemplifies the liberty of 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 our 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.[62]
Such is the perspective advanced by Theonomy in Christian Ethics, and I believe it to be in harmony with what the entire word of God teaches us about the authority and permanence of the whole law of God. That law is binding in every detail of its teaching (as those details are properly interpreted).
The specifics of God's law, contrary to the editor's discussion,[63] applied comprehensively to Christ, who was "tempted in all points without sin" (Hebrews 4:15), perfectly kept His Father's commandments (John 15:10; cf. 8:46), and was able "to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 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 should not be left undone (Luke 11:42). Every jot and tittle is our standard of Christian ethics. As Samuel Bolton, the Westminster divine, wrote:
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 forbade and condemned, then they did not abrogate it but strengthened and confirmed it. And this is what they did: see Matt. 5:19.[64]
I conclude that the detailed specifics of God's whole law are binding on all men today, as those specifics are interpreted according to their literary character, context, and purpose.
For convenience the law of God may be considered as falling into three categories, each one of which serves a particular theological or literary function, but all of which are in some sense "confirmed" by Christ today and "established" by saving faith (cf. Matthew 5:17; Romans 3:31). Among God's commandments in the Bible we find (1) general precepts, (2) illustrations for how those precepts are applied in particular cases, and (3) instructions which pertain to the covenant mercy of God and His way of redemption and restoration (which is made necessary by infractions of the first two kinds of laws). The applicatory illustrations (2) would be classified within the same general, theological category as the general precepts (1), for they are but an expansion and explanation of those precepts. Thus both general precepts and their explanatory applications define sin and its proper judgments (temporal and eternal), thereby reflecting the righteousness of God. The restorative or redemptive laws(3), reflecting God's mercy, typified the redemptive economy of Christ - pointing to the way of salvation - and symbolically taught the perfection or holiness required of the redeemed community.
Some examples can help us to understand these three kinds of laws and how they apply to us in the New Testament age between Christ's advents. As a summary precept the law of God declared, "You shall not steal" (Exodus 20:15). This general principle is permanently binding. "The commandments,...'Do not steal,'...are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Romans 13:9). The continuing obligation which all men have is to love (Romans 13:8). Thus it is never right to steal.
But how does the prohibition against stealing apply? God explained in His law that, among other things, this commandment means that it is wrong to defraud or oppress employees (Deuteronomy 24:14) and that even an ox is not to be deprived of its livelihood from the work which it does (Deuteronomy 25:4). Such were illustrations of the general precept that we ought not to steal. With changed circumstances or a different culture, the case law illustration or application might be expressed differently. Yet the underlying principle (embodied in the details of the case law) would always remain valid and binding. For that reason Christ Himself utilized the Old Testament case law in telling the rich young ruler that he ought not to defraud (Mark 10:19), and Paul spoke of the church's obligation to New Testament ministers in terms of the case law of the Old Testament oxen, quoting "You shall not muzzle the ox as it treads" (I Timothy 5:18).
Likewise, an application of the sixth commandment against murder (Exodus 20:13) is found in the case law which required that Israelites place a fencing around the roofs of their houses, lest they be guilty of bloodshed "if someone falls from it" (Deuteronomy 22:8). The underlying principle of this law still applies to us today, even though we may not apply it to rooftop entertaining of guests since we do not usually entertain on flat roofed houses in our culture. The fact that the illustration which teaches a moral principle is not itself applicable does not mean that what it teaches is likewise inapplicable! The passing of flat roofs does not mean the passing of our obligation of "avoiding all occasions...which tend to the unjust taking away of the life of any" (as the Westminster Larger Catechism 135 declares, citing the Biblical passage in view here). For instance, we might apply Deuteronomy 22:8 today by placing a fence around our backyard swimming pool - again, in order to protect human life and thus obey the general precept of God's law that we should not murder.
Without the case law explanations and illustrations of the general or summary precepts of God's law found in the ten commandments, the moral law of God would easily be twisted, rationalized, and applied to suit man's own sinful desires. For instance, liberal legislators might erroneously argue that "You shall not murder" means that capital punishment is immoral today. By preferring their own extremely narrow understanding of the commandment, "You shall not commit adultery," impure men might exonerate their premarital, incestuous, or homosexual affairs. However the case law specifications of the general precepts require capital punishment in some instances, and they prohibit sexual impurity in all of the mentioned cases. As one would expect, the New Testament reiterates all of these case law details (see Romans 13:4; Hebrews 13:4; I Corinthians 5:1-5; I Timothy 1:10). The details are just as binding today as the summary precepts.
It should now be clear that the ten commandments or general precepts of God's law cannot be read and understood apart from the explanatory context of all of God's revealed law. Bavinck made note of the fact 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 affairs. Indeed, the decalogue must be viewed and explained in the light 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.[65]
In Theonomy I put it this way: "The case law illustrates the application or qualification of the principle laid down in the general commandment."[66] 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 cases, intended at once to explain and confirm them.... It thus appears that the class 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.[67]
The case laws lying outside of the Decalogue (also called "judicial laws" in Reformed literature) are thus moral in character, revealing the righteousness of God for human affairs. Because their details are often communicated in terms of ancient Israel's culture, these laws are not binding as such (in terms of their illustrative wording) in today's culture. Rather, we are now required to keep the underlying principle (or "general equity") of these laws. What the illustrations teach is still our rule today.
This was clearly the outlook of the Westminster Assembly as it composed the Confession of Faith and Catechisms. It is the view of some people today that the New Covenant has enlarged the Christian's liberty, so that now he is released from the details of the law of God as found in the case or "judicial" commandments outside of the Decalogue. The Westminster Confession of Faith speaks directly to this question in a quite full and detailed chapter, "Of Christian Liberty." Having spoken of the liberty available to all believers, whether they were under the old covenant or not, the Confession continues: "But, under the new testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged" (XX.1). This would be the natural and appropriate expected place for the Confession to declare that believers have been released from obligation to the extradecalogical case or judicial laws, if this had been the conviction of its writers. We note that the Confession's statement at this point does continue on with a specification of the various ways in which the freedom of believers is greater with the institution of the new covenant, listing among them "freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law, to which the Jewish Church was subjected." Yet nothing of the sort is said about the judicial laws of the Israelite state; they are conspicuously absent from the list of ways in which freedom is now enlarged under the new covenant. To explain that absence as an oversight on the part of the meticulous authors of the Confession - and at just the point where an assertion of release from obligation is called for, if applicable - would call for a preconceived conviction approaching blinding proportions of intensity. The plain and simple fact is that the Westminster writers did not believe that New Testament Christians are free to disregard or break the case of judicial laws of the Old Testament.
What they did believe is that the passing away of the Jewish state meant that nobody could be bound to follow the judicial laws in virtue of any duty owed to that earthly political unit, and that the cultural form or historical expression of those laws was but the vehicle for revealing an underlying moral principle that binds all men, (apart from matters which were unique to the ancient nation of Israel). Historical research demonstrates that this was a prevalent point of view among Puritan and Reformed writers of that day.[68]
John Calvin had taught that the commandments outside of the Decalogue have a divestible form or outer constitution which can be altered with changing circumstances; nevertheless, these commandments, he held, possessed a general equity which expresses a perpetual duty that is the same for all men. He said, "This equity alone must be the goal and rule and limit of all laws," so that in relation to the judicial laws of Moses, the laws of a modern nation may "indeed vary in form but have the same purpose" (Institutes of the Christian Religion 4:20:15-16). Calvin would allow Christians to dismiss the Mosaic judicial laws only to the extent of their peripheral cultural trappings; their essential moral demand - what love requires of all men - is permanent. Speaking of the extradecalogical laws of lending, he said: "The judicial law, however, which God prescribed to His ancient people, is only so far abrogated as that which charity dictates should remain" (Commentary at Exodus 22:25). A complete rejection of these laws, so that their example and instruction might be ignored in moral decision-making, was not allowed by Calvin. Taking account of changed circumstances, the applicatory illustration in the judicial law was to be a model for current practice. Commenting on the extradecalogical stipulations about proper treatment of slaves, Calvin wrote: "Although the political laws of Moses are not now in operation, still the analogy is to be preserved, lest the condition of those who have been redeemed by Christ's blood should be worse amongst us, than that of His ancient people of old" (Commentary at Leviticus 25:42). Calvin's endorsement of the authority of the judicial laws (as to their principial demand, a model of love) is quite clear in his treatment of the laws on incest in the Mosaic code. That they were judicial in character is an opinion he stiffly rebuked:
Absurd is the cleverness which some persons but little versed in Scripture pretend to, who assert that the Law being abrogated, the obligations under which Moses laid his countrymen are now dissolved; for it is to be inferred from the preface above expounded, that the instruction here given is not, nor ought to be accounted, merely political.... In short, the prohibition of incests here set forth, is by no means of the number of those laws which are commonly abrogated according to the circumstances of time and place, since it flows from the fountain of nature itself, and is founded on the general principle of all laws, which is perpetual and inviolable.... I do not see, that, under the pretext of its being a political Law/French: that the Law of Moses has ceased, the purity of nature is to be abolished (Commentary at Leviticus 28:6).
Calvin immediately observes that the Old Testament enactment of this law was not according to the temporary utility of a single people or to some unique custom, and so it must be seen as perpetually binding. He countenances the anticipated objection that someone will raise, arguing that this judicial prohibition is not repeated in the New Testament. Showing the absurdity to which this line of thought reduces, Calvin then replies by asking the embarrassing question of whether "promiscuous connexions" are therefore now permitted. Obviously, the judicial laws (apart from passing circumstances) continued to be valid according to Calvin, whether they happened to be repeated in the New Testament or not. The assumption was that God's laws were perpetually binding in their basic moral requirement. Consequently Calvin, in his Commentary on the Four Last Books of Moses, exposited the ten commandments and made copious allusion to the laws outside of the Decalogue to elaborate and explain the meaning of the moral law. His attitude is captured in a remark made about two of the judicial laws of the Old Testament: "Who can deny that these two things apply as much to us as to the Jews?" (Institutes 2;8:32).
In the Second Helvetic Confession, Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575), wrote that God's entire will for every part of life was fully declared in the law, so that no departure from it was allowed (Xii). In the May 13, Decades he declared that, even though the outward or cultural form of the judicial laws may vary from nation to nation, "the substance of God's judicial laws is not taken away or abolished." Another Continental theologian of Reformed persuasion, Johannes Wollebius, (1586-1629) wrote that the judicial law is binding on us (harmonizing as it does with the moral law and ordinary justice), except "in those matters which were peculiar to that law and were prescribed for the promised land or the situation of the Jewish state" (Compendium of Christian Theology 14.6). Reformed thought on the Continent in the first generations of the Reformation, then, had begun to distinguish the substance or equity of the judicial laws from their outward cultural form and from matters unique to the ancient Jewish land or state. This approach to the permanent authority of the judicial laws was developed explicitly in the English speaking sector of the Reformed world.
An influential Reformed theologian in England was Martin Bucer (1491-1551), a first generation Reformer from Strassbourg and close friend of Calvin, who became a professor at Cambridge in 1549 and published his de Regno Christi in the next year for King Edward VI. In this work Bucer strictly defended the civil penalties of the Old Testament law, and of the civil commandments in general Bucer said that it would be insulting to God not to maintain obedience to them "insofar as the substance and proper of these commandments is concerned." The outstanding leader of the Scottish Reformation, John Knox (1513-1572), was for a time chaplain to Edward VI and later, while in exile, consulted with Calvin in Geneva. The Scottish Confession and the First Book of Discipline were produced by Knox. The latter established that rulers as well as preachers were subject to church discipline, and "discipline stands in the correction of those things that are contrary to God's law" (IX). Thomas M'Crie, biographer of Knox, indicated that he held the conviction "that the judicial laws given to the Jewish nation were binding upon Christian nations, as to all offences against the moral law."
English Puritans of the late sixteenth century provide a helpful background to the Westminster Confession of Faith's statement about the judicial law of the Old Testament. Previous Reformed opinion had championed the equity or substance of the judicial law as permanently binding, discounting its outward form and peculiar circumstances. The Puritans pervasively agreed. Thomas Cartwright said that since some of the judicial laws were "made in regard of the region where they were given, and of the people to whom they were given," those who keep "the substance and equity of them (as it were the marrow), may change the circumstances of them, as the times and places and manners of the people shall require." Likewise William Perkins, addressing a question of civil ethics, spoke of "the law of Moses, the equity whereof is perpetual" (to use the words of Pickering's summary). Henry Barrow spoke of God's Old Testament "statutes and judgments," saying that they "endure forever" as "the true exposition and faithful execution of his moral law: which laws were not made for the Jews' state only...but for all mankind, especially for all the Israel of God, from which laws it is not lawful in judgment to vary or decline either to the one hand or to the other." Referring to one of the penal sanctions of the Old Testament law, the puritan pamphleteer Philip Stubbs said, "which law judicial standeth in force to the world's end."
William Ames (1576-1633), who had been tutored by Perkins, is an example of particular interest because he brings us into the seventeenth century, because his influence was felt beyond England in Holland and America, and because he was a highly regarded Calvinist moral theologian. Because of anti-Puritan sentiment in England, Ames immigrated to Rotterdam in 1610, where he earned a reputation as one of the very best Calvinist theologians of the day in his polemics with Remonstrants and Romanists; he assisted at the Synod of Dordt and was appointed professor in Franeker in 1622. He had a great desire to go to New England, where his work was quite influential among Puritan settlers, but ill health and death prevented it (his widow donated his library to the colonists). Ames' incisive work on moral casuistry, De Conscientia (1630), went through many Latin and English editions and was widely regarded as authoritative in the Dutch Reformed Church. In it he taught that the judicial laws of the Old Testament are just as moral in basic character as the Decalogue, but they were revealed often in a particularly Jewish form or character.
The laws concerning the return of borrowed and owed goods, concerning just weights and measurements, concerning the wages of the laborer, and concerning many other similar things not expressed in the Ten Commandments, are not more judicial or less moral and natural than is the command thou shalt not steal, etc...The laws considered judicial but whose forms exhibit no particularly Jewish character, belong to the affairs of the other nations and all participate in that Moral and Natural Law common to all nations.
Accordingly, in expositing the law, Ames made thorough appeal to the judicial laws as explaining the decalogue (defending, for instance, "the fairness of the Mosaic laws which supplement the Fifth Commandment"), and Ames taught that obstinate public blasphemy should be punished with the death sentence and theft punished with restitution (the Mosaic penal sanctions). The judicial law was clearly authoritative in modern practice for Ames, once its ancient Jewish form of expression was taken into account.
In Puritan New England, where the Reformed were afforded opportunity to put their social ethic into practice, we see that the case laws of the Old Testament were esteemed and obeyed. We have already noted above that in 1636 John Cotton produced a treatise which gave the theological rationale for the civil use of the judicial laws of Moses ("How Far Moses' Judicials Bind Massachusetts"), asserting therein: "The more any Law smells of man the more unprofitable." That same year Cotton produced a civil code entitled Moses His Judicials, indicating by that very fact that the Puritans viewed themselves as obliged to keep the laws outside of the Decalogue, even in civil affairs. Within the same decade as the Westminster Assembly, the prominent Newtown pastor, Thomas Shepard, wrote:
The judicial laws, some of them being hedges and fences to safeguard both moral and ceremonial precepts, their binding power was therefore mixed and various, for those which did safeguard any moral law, (which is perpetual,) whether by just punishments or otherwise, do still morally bind all nations:...and hence God would have all nations preserve their fences forever, as he would have that law preserved forever which these safeguard.... The learned generally doubt not to affirm that Moses' judicials bind all nations, so far goeth as they contain any moral equity in them....
In utilizing the judicial laws, then, the new England Puritans recognized that the particular Jewish form or garb in which they were presented by Moses was not the point. They also recognized that some of these laws were peculiar to ancient Israel's land and circumstances; (for example, Cotton judged Old Testament stipulations about the Levirate institution, the inalienability of property in the promised land, some aspects of the Jubilee, etc. to be of temporary validity, as also were any appendages to the ceremonial law such as the prohibition on mixed cloth and on yoking unequal animals). Such Qualifications on their endorsement of the judicial - qualifications which they took to be obvious enough for any intelligent interpreter of the Scripture to discern - did not make them hesitate to affirm submission to the judicials. Thus in the New Haven Colony Records for 1641, we read:
And according to the fundamental agreement, made and published by full and general consent...that the judicial law of God given by Moses and expounded in other parts of Scripture, so far as it is a hedge and a fence to the moral law, and neither ceremonial nor typical nor had any reference to Canaan, hath an everlasting equity in it, and should be the rule of their proceedings.
In that s