Dr Greg Bahnsen - Loving the Law: Comprehensive Applicability of the Law (Part 3)

On basic training in the Christian life, we have learned that God would have us to love his law. So that as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ with singular devotion, seeking a distinctive and comprehensive lifestyle that is glorifying to him, we should be willing to look at his commandments and with all of our heart wish to obey them and follow them. And we found, secondly, that these commandments are located throughout the Bible, not just in the New Testament, that we are whole Bible Christians, and so that the Christian life is directed by what the Scriptures teach us. We ought to be studying the Bible, all of the Bible, and looking for those exhortations and injunctions and commandments that God has given to direct our lives. And we should seek to obey them all. This is what is basic for Christian ethics. This is the fundamental insight that is necessary to get you up and running if you're going to study more about Christian living and Christian ethics. We are not, as biblical Christians, we are not contrary to external rules. We are not contrary to the Old Testament. Indeed, we don't believe that the Old Testament teaches one way of salvation and the New Testament another. We don't even believe that the Old and New Testaments are in tension with each other. And as we read the Bible correctly, the only thing that we would want to say is that the Old Testament law should not be used unlawfully, should not be used contrary to its own character. And so we gladly affirm the law of God. Oh, how love I thy law. It is my meditation all the day. David said and Paul said, I delight in the law of God after the inward man. There's one more problem, though. And if we can take care of this and we can be done with our brief conference and will have established that the love of the law is the Christian's ethic. But this is a very tough thing to do because in our day and age people will not only tell you we don't need laws, they'll not only tell you we don't need Old Testament laws. But you'll find that people generally have an attitude that there are things in the law of God that they personally find harsh and unacceptable in our American culture or according to our traditions. And. And that therefore it can't be right to say we love the law of God and make that the standard of our ethic. And what is it we find in the law that is so harsh and unacceptable? A number of years ago, someone wrote in criticism of the point of view that I have published and which I have summarized in popular form for you in this conference, about loving the law of God. Someone wrote in criticism of it. And the general manner of attempted refutation of this point of view went something like this. Well, if we're supposed to follow the law of God, do you mean we're supposed to do things like execute adulterers just to see the Old Testament makes the death penalty applicable to those who violate the marriage covenant and commit adultery? Do you mean to say we're supposed to do something so ridiculous as. And then you fill in the blank. Here are all these things in the Old Testament that are so hard, so harsh, particularly looking at what were the penal sanctions for the violation of the criminal code in the Old Testament. People will say, there's no way Christians are supposed to do that today. So, Dr. Bonson, now what becomes of your thesis that every jot and tittle of the law is binding and until heaven and earth passes away? By the way, that's not my thesis. I didn't make that up. That's what Jesus said. And so whenever people tell me that, what do you now what do you do about your view that even the least commandment. And I say, you mean Jesus view. I guess it's Jesus who has the problem here. What would Jesus say about that? Because he's the one who seems to have overstated the case. What did we read in Matthew 5 at the end of our last session? Even the least commandment. If you teach men that they don't have to follow the least commandment of the law, you will be demoted in the kingdom of God. Now, assuming that those civil statutes of the Old Testament, those penal sanctions of the Old Testament are among the peripheral least commandments, it still would be the case that if you teach people they don't have to follow that you're going to be demoted in the kingdom of God. Now, this is what Jesus said. And if there's a problem with that point of view, it's a problem that Jesus has. This is not Dr. Bonson's problem. How do we deal with that? How should we respond to those who say, look at what the Old Testament law required to be done? Isn't that totally unacceptable? What should we say to those who ridicule the provisions of the civil statutes and the penal code of the Old Testament? I'm going to give you two answers, a short one and a long one. The short one goes like, who are you to talk that way about God? Who are you to talk that way about God? Because you see what underlies the criticism of the Old Testament when people do this sort of Thing is this. This is absurd. This is just ridiculous. This is overbearing. This is unjust. This is unkind. This is unloving. Nobody should act this way. This is preposterous. Now, people may not come right out and use those adjectives, but isn't that the underlying attitude? It's like, well, if you say we should follow all the commandments of God unless God says otherwise, and God hasn't taken away these commandments that deal with civil issues and how to punish crime, then you'd have to follow these absurd laws. And so your view must be wrong. Well, that assumes that those laws are absurd. That assumes that there's something inherently deficient. That assumes that there's something unjust, inherently unrighteous about those laws. Do you see that? And even if you were to have good biblical reason for saying that those laws are not binding today, I don't think that exists. I've spent a good portion of my scholarly career waiting for somebody to demonstrate that, and it's just not there. But let's just, for argument's sake, say that it is. Let's just say that you had New Testament reason to set those laws aside so that God has said, I meant those only for Israel. Even if I don't think this is true, but even if God had said these laws are only for Israel, where would any of us, where would any of us get the right or the wisdom to make fun of them? Because even if they only applied to Old Testament Israel, they were God's holy statutes. And who dares to talk back to God saying, oh, how absurd. Oh, how harsh, how preposterous. The short answer to those who want to reject the Old Testament civil code is to say, how could you possibly ridicule anything in God's word? For we know that the law is holy, just, and good. If God intended that justice only for Israel, it is still justice. If God intended the for Israel to do that, it still was good and it reflected his character. And therefore, when we make fun of what the Old Testament Jews were supposed to do, don't you see we're really making fun of the Lawgiver himself? And who are we to talk back to God? I begin with this answer because I'd like you to see from the very start that there's a heart attitude involved in doing Christian ethics. Christ. Christian ethics is not a matter of academic parlor games. You know, where we have all the jigsaw puzzles out there on the table and we at some kind of arm's distance are trying to assemble them. And it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference in terms of the way we live our lives and what our attitudes are. The way in which we approach the Bible, the way in which we handle the Bible, the way in which we open it up and interpret it and use it in our lives, is a reflection of the kind of heart we have. People can make mistakes even when they have good intentions. I'm not denying that my good intentions this morning do not mean that you have to agree with everything that I say. Only Scripture is the standard of right and wrong when it comes to theology. But when you see people handling the Scripture that evidences a hard attitude of ridicule toward the Almighty, you'd better step back and say, whoa, that's dangerous stuff. That's really unworthy of any follower of the Lord Jesus Christ to dismiss the idea of the Old Testament law, because that looks ridiculous to me. You know what my guess is? If the Old Testament law looks ridiculous to you, you look ridiculous to God. You know, Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher, became famous for declaring that God is dead. What do you think God thinks about that? God thinks Nietzsche is dead. And if you think that God's law is foolish and unrighteous, I dare say you'd better realize it's probably God who thinks that you are foolish and unrighteous. That's why Jesus could say, any man who teaches the breaking of even the least commandment will be demoted in the sight of God, in the kingdom of God. If you think any of those laws can be dismissed with, oh, no, of course not. We couldn't possibly do that. That'd be so ridiculous. There's something wrong with you. Okay? And so my first response is one about hard attitude. Don't approach the Old Testament civil code thinking, well, we have the right to sneer at it. Oh, how horrible that would be to do that. If God has told us we are not to do it, then so be it. But don't say, we're not to do it and it was horrible. Say we're not to do it, but God is a good God and these laws are just. But now that leads into my second answer, which will be the longer one. If these laws were just for Israel, how can they not be just for all the nations? Let's stop and reflect about this for a minute. If we're going to concede that within Old Testament Israel, the execution of murderers, the execution of rapists, the execution of adulterers or homosexuals or what have you was a just thing to do, and we Oughtn't to ridicule it, to make fun of it as preposterous and harsh. If it was correct in Old Testament Israel to do do that, then on what basis would we say it's not correct to do it outside of Old Testament Israel? What would we be assuming about God? If we said that a moment ago, I said what you're assuming about God. If you just dismiss it with a wave of a hand and a ridicule and a sneer, what you're saying is God can say stupid things. What you're saying is you are smarter than God, you are wiser than God, and we all know better than to do that. So I've warned you against that. But on the other hand, if you say God had one standard for Israel and another standard for the Gentiles, what are you saying about God? That he's a racist? That God is a double standard? That justice is really relative to the culture in which you live? Well, in fact, I think many Christians make that mistake, and it's an ironic one, because the very Christians who will make that mistake, not all of them, but a good number of the people who would make that mistake, by no means. If you approach them without this issue in mind, by no means would they say they believe in cultural relativism. You know, they'll tell you this doctrine that is so popular in our day and age, that it's different strokes for different folks, that if you decide that, you know, premarital sex is wrong, that's fine for you. But if I decide it's all right for me, that makes it all right. This idea that what is right or wrong depends on the culture in which you live. This is the prevailing dominant view in our culture today. That's something that most Christians stand against with all their heart and soul. They say, no, God is the creator of heaven and earth. God is unchanging. God doesn't have a double standard, and God rules over all men accordingly. All men are bound by that stand. So if God says that homosexuality is wrong, homosexuality is wrong no matter where you are. It's not just an Old Testament Israel, and it's not just in the New Testament church, but it's universal, it's worldwide. God condemns homosexuality. We don't accept this notion that is often thrown back to us. Let's live and let live. So if you as a Christian, decide not to be a homosexual, that's fine for you, but don't try to impose your view on anybody else, right? Don't try to tell other people they can't make other decisions. Everybody has the right to make up their own mind. That relativism is resisted by conservative Christians, by Bible believing Christians. Back in the 1950s, when Margaret Mead, the sociologist published her study of the premarital sexual habits of Samoan young women, people ballyhooed this study as verification of this notion that what you believe is right and wrong depends upon the culture in which you're brought up, according to the view of the traditions that are the atmosphere of your upbringing. That's what you decide is right and wrong. And Christians have resisted and resisted and resisted that. No, different cultures may have different way of looking at ethics, but what is right or wrong is objective and unchanging. So you get my point. We as Christians want to oppose cultural relativism. And now someone comes along and says yes. And when it comes to how we should in society treat crime, God has given us a good law. In fact, we all have to say, unless we have a bad attitude, it was certainly good for Israel. It's how God defined justice for Israel. This was righteousness for Israel. And then those very same Christians who at have just got done saying we oppose cultural relativism, we'll say God had one standard of justice for Israel and another standard for the Gentiles. We know you may change the vocabulary, but the concept's the same. That's what we call cultural relativism. It's amazing. We have right in the Christian church moles for cultural relativism. We have people who are promoting the view of our opposition in the name of Christianity. We have people who have not so systematically thought through their ethic that they don't see that there's a huge clash in their own thinking. On the one hand, they say ethics is not relative to culture, but when it comes to these Old Testament statutes, it's relative to culture. Well, I'm here to tell you you can't have it both ways. Paul tells us in Second Corinthians, it's one of the virtues of apostolic preaching that our word to you is not yes and no. God doesn't come and say yes and then turn around and say no. God is unchanging, he cannot lie. His word is consistent with itself. And our thinking should reflect that virtue of consistency. You cannot be a cultural relativist except when it's convenient. You can't reject cultural relativism and then say, oh, but I'll be a cultural relativist when it comes to the Old Testament civil code. My first point was you dare not ridicule God about the character of what he required of Old Testament Israel. You mustn't say that's just preposterous. To execute adulterers you have to say, at least in Old Testament Israel it was just. But if you say that in Old Testament Israel it was just, I'm going to push you further. How can you say it was just in Israel, but not just outside of Israel? Let's think about homosexuality for a moment. Are we to imagine that homosexuality was an abomination in the eyes of God? Something that called for the death penalty when it was proven by due process? But that was only true within a certain geographical defined area of Palestine. And that if you stepped over the county line of Israel, that you now it was perfectly alright to engage in sexual perversion. Or to put it another way, it's no longer perverse to act in that way over the line. Now you have that problem right here in Texas. Did you know that I was not familiar with this problem until I was traveling through Texas once on the way to another state and I found out that you have what are called dry counties and wet counties. Know what I'm referring to? In some counties you go in to buy a pizza, you can't get a beer. However, you'll be told that if you go down the street over the county line, you can. Does that seem humorous to you? Seems hilarious to me. Now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me get this right. Now, if you happen to be on a street that is the county line, so that one side of the street is a dry county and one side of the street is a wet county, what you are telling me is that if I have a beer with my pizza on this side of the street, it's criminal. But if I have a beer with my pizza on the other side of the street, it's not. Now the reason you have that situation, of course, is because different counties have come to different conclusions about that. So I mean, I know how it happens. But if we were to say, well, that's the way it really is, morality is just like that. On one side of the street, it's this one side of the street, it's that. That would be asinine. That would be philosophical nonsense to say that morality is defined by the geographical location. What is right is right is right, what is wrong is wrong is wrong. It makes no difference who does it, where they do it, when they do it. Is that familiar to you? It should be. And so it would be nonsense to say that in Israel homosexuality was an abomination calling for death. But if you go across the county, county line, it's no longer perversion calling for death. What kind of God would it be who has that kind of checkerboard morality? There are black spots and white spots in the world as to what's right and wrong. Don't make the mistake of thinking that you can call things right or wrong in terms of their morality, but then what is relative is how you punish it. That is to say that morality is absolute, but when the state gets involved, they can do what they wish. A lot of Christians have that kind of conceptual break, you know, that kind of notion that. Well, I don't want to say that homosexuality is all right some places, but I do want to say it should be punished in different ways at different times and places. Well, let's stop and reflect on this for a minute. When the civil magistrate punishes people, is the civil magistrate doing things which any of us are allowed to do to one another? Dr. Bonson breaks the speed limit, let's say. Hopefully, he never does. But if he does and he gets caught, the magistrate comes and finds him, say, in my fine, $75. Now, is that a voluntary contribution, you think? Not even in laid back California is that voluntary. When the magistrate says, you've been fined $75, they don't mean if you know in the goodness of your heart you'd like to give us $75, go ahead. They mean you'll give us $75. Or guess what, we'll take $75. We'll either take it, you know, violently against your will, or we'll extract it by imprisoning you. Or one way or another, it's not voluntary. But now, what if I wanted 75 of your dollars? What if I were to come up to you and say, by the way, I'd like you to give me $75. And you said, well, I can think about it, but I'm not inclined to. I'm not interested in giving you $75. Could I then imprison you? Could I then just take it from you forcefully? No. If I were to compel you to give me $75, we would call that. It's a very technical word, theft. But when these agents of the state compel me to give them $75, we don't call that theft. We call that a fine. Okay, so what is the difference between the sin of stealing $75 from somebody and fining them $75? The difference is that God has authorized the state to punish people Follow me. If the state finds you guilty of a capital crime and executes you, we don't consider the state guilty of murder. But if I were to decide that you don't deserve to live on the face of the earth and to take your life, you would call it murder. What's the difference then between capital punishment and murder? By the way, there are some people, some humanists, who think that's a real cute question, you know, and like, it can't be answered. It's like, well, when you execute, when you execute a murderer, all you're doing is murdering yourself. I mean, as you yourself are engaging in murder. And so there you have it. Capital punishment's wrong. Well, the difference, as any Christian knows, is God forbids murder and God commands the. The death penalty for the murderer. And so the reason why the state's doing something to punish somebody either by fine or by murder, excuse me, by execution or by imprisonment. The reason why, when the state does that, we don't call it theft, murder, or kidnapping, is because God has authorized it. Now, what if God hasn't authorized it? What if the state were to punish us in a way or for something that God has not authorized? Wouldn't we likewise call that theft, murder, kidnapping? If the state should decide that you have no right to raise your children and they come and take your children away from your home violently, I don't think anybody would say, as many who oppose my point of view have said, well, the state can punish in any way it wants. I think we call that kidnapping. What if the state should decide that if you're found guilty of speeding, you can be executed? Do you know many Christians who are going to stand back and say, well, the state can punish the way it wants? God doesn't talk about that anymore. That's Old Testament religion. No, you see, we cannot escape, even in our own day and age, recognizing the moral foundation of the state, the moral foundations of what the state does when it punishes people. And the state doesn't do anything where it doesn't punish people. In the nature of the case, the state is an agency of coercion. Paul puts it this way in Romans 13. The powers that be bear not the sword in vain, for he is a terror to evildoers, an avenger of wrath. And so the state is not in the business of giving recommendations. The state lays down a law and it follows that law with some kind of sanction. And I think there's a variety of ridiculous sanctions that are followed today. But I just want to make the most General point that the state is not the state if it doesn't punish. There is no political view that isn't tied to a view of peace sanctions. And so now what should our view as Christians be of the state's penal sanctions? Do we want to say, oh, the state doesn't have to have any direction from God? Do we want to say that the state can do anything it wants? Is there not justice that defines what is right and wrong for politicians? What kind of world would we live in if politicians didn't have some restraint put on them as to what is right and what is wrong? Farmers are supposed to be governed by moral standards. Merchants are supposed to be governed by moral standards. Fathers and mothers are supposed to be governed by moral standards, but politicians are not. If you're a plumber, God holds you accountable for the way in which you do your plumbing and has moral standards for you. But if you're a politician, it becomes a cosmic king. King's X. Now you're in a safety zone where God says, well, I guess you can do whatever you want? Of course not. The Lord Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. There's nobody who bears authority in this world who will not give an answer to God for the way in which he or she has exercised that authority. Nobody. Kings don't have king's X. Kings don't have a neutral zone of politics. God will one day hold them accountable for the way they exercise their office. And now the question is, where then is the standard of that accountability? Where do we find God's standards of justice for politicians? By definition, that means what are the standards for punishing people for politicians? Do you find them in the New Testament? Well, let's just for argument's sake say you can find a little. I don't find you much at all, really. You do find Paul saying that states may punish, but he doesn't tell us how and where. So if God is going to hold magistrates accountable for the exercise of their office, and the exercise of their office is in essence the application of penal sanctions, then where do we learn God's standard for the exercise of political office? People will say, not the Old Testament. Okay, where if not the Old Testament, where? And if not the Old Testament, why not? Did God change his mind? Are we back now to this ridiculous view of God? Well, he had this standard for a while and one day he got up and he said, oh no, I've been waiting too harsh. Let me lighten up a bit. Did God decide, oh, I've Made a big mistake. Justice really doesn't call for this, that and the other. I've got a new view of justice. Well, if he can change his mind once, what did I tell you? He can change his mind twice and he can change his mind a third time. And if that's the kind of God you follow, I pity you, because you have no assurance of anything, much less your own salvation. Praise God. The God of the Bible is sovereign and unchanging. He is immutable. He does not alter what goes forth from his lips when God utters it. It is the truth. God doesn't have a double standard of justice. And so when people say not the Old Testament, they must mean God has changed his mind, that God doesn't change his mind. You see the problem? You can't escape the moral validity. The penal code, the civil statutes of the Old Testament. Now there are people, I realize, Christians, who will say, well, God tells magistrates that they are to punish certain crimes, but he doesn't hold them accountable to punish in the way that he said to Old Testament Israel. Really. In other words, the degree of punishment is variable. It really doesn't have to be an eye for an eye and two tooth for a tooth and a burn for a burn. You know what that means? Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, burn for burn, etc. That's a poetic way of saying the punishment must match the crime. You must punish only to the degree that is warranted by the severity of the crime. Because you see in the cultures around Israel, this is a humanist are so humorous, you know, so ignorant. Sometimes they don't even bother to think about this. They'll look at eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and we'll use that as a ridiculing phrase for harsh penalties. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. But you see, when Moses said that, what he was saying is, we don't want the harsh penalties of the Hittites and the others, because for them it was a life for an eye. Break a man's finger, your head gets cut off. There was no sense of proportionality in the penalties. Moses said, God is good, God is righteous, God is fair. Only an eye for an eye, a burn for a burn. But at least, see, it's got to match, it's got to be exact. Justice is not too much, it's not too lenient. Well, people will tell us today we have to have penalties for crimes, to be sure. But God doesn't tell us what the penalty should be. And yet magistrates are going to be held accountable by the Lord. Jesus Christ for the justice of their decisions. How would you like to be put in that position? I don't think that's very gracious. I don't think that's very loving. I don't think that'd be very blessed by God to say to people, I'm going to judge you for what you do, but I'm not going to tell you what I want. Anybody who knows anything about child psychology knows rearing of children will tell you that's one of the gravest mistakes parents make when they raise children. They can let their children know that they'll be disciplinarians, but not clearly communicate to their children what they expect and what the results will be if they don't get it. And so children live in perpetual fear. Am I doing the right thing? And is this important or is it not important because the parents haven't communicated? Because the parents haven't communicated. Is God that kind of heavenly Father? I ask you very simply, will God hold magistrates accountable for the way in which they punish and say, but make a good guess as to what I'm going to hold you accountable for. It's preposterous, utterly preposterous. And yet if you listen today, you'll find that the point of view that I'm going to present now positively in this lecture is preposterous. People will tell you straight out, nobody could believe that kind of stuff today. Dr. Bonson, you've got to be kidding. You think the Old Testament is binding even the civil statutes of the Old Testament? I'm here to tell you, yes, I do. And I do so because it seems to me the Bible teaches that God is the final standard of all justice, and justice is not culturally relative, and that God has revealed his holy and just standards in his law, and that none of us have the right to change even the least of his laws unless he tells us so, and that therefore the standard by which kings will be judged by the king of kings is found in the law of God, even in the Old Testament. Here's an interesting item. I took this out of the October 28 issue, 1994 of USA Today. The title of the article is Population of prisoners tops 1 million. For the first time, there are more than 1 million inmates in state and federal prisons. About the population of Phoenix, the eighth largest city. But that takes a few minutes to kind of think about that. The population of Phoenix is imprisoned in America, not all in Phoenix, but you get my point. A Justice Department report Thursday showed 1,012,851 prisoners at the end of June. The number which has doubled since 1985 is up 71,000 in one year, the second largest annual surge ever. In 10 years, we doubled the inmate population. At the end of the article, one of the people responding said, quote, people are just flat tired of crime, and so they want politicians to do something about it. That's what a Texas prison spokesman said about this situation. I think he's right. People are just flat tired of crime and they want something done about it. I want to ask you, is having a million people in prison doing something about it? Is that God's way of dealing with crime? In the last 10 years, since we have doubled the inmate population, have we doubled our respect for law and order in this country? Well, forget double. Maybe it doesn't have to be exactly proportionate. Have we increased our respect for law and order in this country? Has the number of crimes against property or life or the sanctity of sex increased or decreased in the last 10 years? These are rhetorical questions, my brothers and sisters, and they're very pointed and very cutting for a reason. If you don't punish justly and properly, you shouldn't expect that people are going to live in a safer society. They aren't going to say, well, crime is being ameliorated and it's a lot better world in which we live. In 1992, the Josephson Institute had a survey of 9,000 young people. They published it and it reported that 33% of high school students admit to shoplifting in just the past year. One in every three. Well, you better be horrified by such a statistic. Nearly 2/3 of high school students had cheated on an exam in the past year and admitted so 20% of college students say they would falsify a report it would help them keep a job. Also in 1992, Patterson and Kim published the Day American Told the Truth. And in it they say 74% of Americans say they would steal from those who would not really miss what was taken. 94% said they would lie if it suited them and it didn't cause what they thought was real harm. 53% said they would cheat on their spouse because they fully expect their spouse would do likewise. 50% admitted it was standard operating procedure to procrastinate on the job so that they would do nothing for about one full day out of five, but gladly take a paycheck for having wasted time. There's disrespect for truth. There's disrespect for honesty. There's disrespect disrespect for property in our country. And there's disrespect for life. You all know the Holocaust of abortion. You all know that euthanasia is being practiced in this country. Some hospitals, people get away with it because it's called different things. And no one's willing to admit what's going on. You know, there's widespread violence in this country. The hatred and bigotry that are promoted in rap music and heavy metal music, the open advocating of the killing of police, beating your bitch, getting niggers out of the way. This kind of talk is tolerated in popular music. Secular culture gladly stands back in the face of promiscuity and profanity. Piety, Christian virtues are all openly sneered at. There's a disrespect for sexual purity. Homosexuality is becoming anyway an accepted alternative lifestyle. It's thought to be a horrible thing to condemn homosexuality as perversions. Queer nation openly endorses the values of sexual perversion, says we're here to stay. We see widespread divorce in our day, a lifestyle of adultery and fornication and pornography and casual sex. Have you ever noticed how it's just taken for granted on TV that people who are unmarried when they go out are going to go to bed? Together, we face an epidemic of rape in this country. A UCLA psychologist interviewed 288 freshman males asking if they would commit. Commit a rape if they knew for sure they'd get away with it. One in four said yes. Well, what do we do when people break the law? We imprison them. Boy, we're getting tough. And we've doubled the size of our prisons, the inmate population anyway, of our prisons over the last 10 years. So what do you think? Is our society getting more righteous, more loving, more just and fair, more peaceful, more respectful of the sanctity of sex and of property and truth and of life. You know that it isn't. The police don't usually get their man. And when they do get their man, we pay for it by putting them in prison. And we pay and pay and pay. Violent crime continues to rise. Sexual crime continues to rise. Nothing is getting better. Now, I want to suggest to you that in a situation like this, it's not all of that preposterous, is it? It isn't all of that absurd to suggest. Maybe we ought to go back to the instructions. And where does God teach us how our society should be governed? Which is to say, when all is said and done, how magistrates should punish and what they should punish, where Does God teach us that what's in the Old Testament and what God gave in the Old Testament, he said to Israel was just and good and would be for their health and benefit. It would be a blessing if they would live this way. Take just a minor illustration. We have a huge divorce rate in this country. It may be that unless you've gone through a divorce, you have no idea the trauma that it causes, usually for the parties themselves. But just think of the children in a family when they go through a divorce and think of the consequences of their anger and bitterness and confusion, not just for themselves internally, but what happens later. Did you know that the dropout level among children of divorced parents is much higher that children who get in trouble with drugs and with the law much higher the percentages? I mean, let's not think that there's no effect here. I'm not saying that every child comes from a divorce home is going to become a drug addict or a police problem. But the statistics will support that. Divorce is not good for our society. It's not good for us emotionally, it's not good for the children, it's not good for the society in general. And then you have ripples upon ripples upon ripples. I don't have time to detail it all for you. And so it turns out to have a lax attitude toward divorce is not, in fact, loving and gracious and kind on the part of the state. It would be much better for the state to say we have a high, high standard of marital sanctity so that if you're not getting along husband and wife, you better learn to. Because if you don't learn to get along and you commit adultery, there are going to be severe penalties for it because we think enough of the home and of the children and all those ripple effects that we're going to guard the sanctity of marriage. Now, which do you think would produce a society that's happier? A high view of marriage that calls for even death for adulterers? Or the low view that says if you go file and wait six months? I don't know what it's like here, but in California you can have a divorce for anything you want. In the name of leniency, we are harsh on people, I dare say in the name of having a harsh standard, we would be lenient on our society. Didn't the Proverbs teach us this, that the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel? And so we show mercy, we show tenderness, we think in our civil code, and in fact it brings cruel results you know, I come from Southern California, and I put up with a lot. People talk about the riots and the earthquakes and make fun and that sort of thing. But I want you to stop and think about that. Do you think those riots took place because people had a high view of the sanctity of property in life? So who do you hold accountable for the riots? Well, I mean, you can give a lot of answers to that. But is not the state to some degree to blame? Because for generations we've taught people property is not to be protected, that ethics is relative, that life is expendable. If you don't have a high view of these things, which is reflected only in the way you punish violations of it. If you do not have a high view, what you teach, your culture are values that are going to lead to the sorts of things we saw in the riots in Los Angeles. People laughed about stealing television sets. They thought it was a game. I mean, it's not like we're in the same ballpark of even discussing right and wrong when people just say, you know, it's like water off a duck's back, if I can use that expression. Norman Geisler once wrote, anyone who wants to make their religious book the basis of law is a threat to liberty. Just as we need to speak out against those who want to make the Humanist Manifesto the basis of law, so we need to speak out against those who want to make the Bible the basis of law. Law. Both are extremes, and I think that we're in dreadful trouble when known Christian teachers can say something as preposterous as that. You know, it's just as extreme to make the Bible the basis for social policy and civil codes as it is to make the Humanist Manifesto the basis. It's extreme to make the Bible the basis that it's a threat to liberty to make the Bible the basis for our Civil Code. An alternative point of view, Herman Hoeksema in 1943, wrote a book entitled the Amazing Cross. One of the chapters, Chapter four is on the judgment of the people. And here's what Huxema he says, there are certain unchangeable, inalienable principles to which the higher powers, the government, even in a republic, is subject, which it may not violate, and that cannot even be submitted to the vote of the people or the will of the majority. Principles which any government can only disregard and violate to its own destruction. Higher than the highest principle powers in this world is the eternal and unchangeable objective law of God. And beyond the reach of the power of the state as the word of God is contained in the Holy Scriptures. I protest that no government can have the authority to make laws contrary to the law of God and insist that by doing so, nevertheless it destroys. Destroys the very foundations of society and of the state. And so you have two points of view this morning. One says if you make the Bible the basis of your civil code, that's extreme, that's a threat to liberty. The other says that no one has the right to have any other basis for their civil code than the Bible because that's the very word of God who ordains the civil state in the first place. And I would like to argue in the time that remains in this lecture for the second point of view. I believe the point of view of Norman Geisler, and he's not the only one. I just used this for a convenient quote. The point of view that is so prevalent in the Christian church today, that Christianity in the Bible should not be applied to society, should not be applied to the civil state, is not only heretical in the sense that it's contrary to clear principles taught in the body and the nature of the civil state. The Bible clearly teaches that civil magistrates are to follow the law of God. The first thing we're going to look at in proving this point is the universality of the law of God found in the Old Testament. You need to understand that when God gave a law to Israel, He. He did not give Israel a law that only bound Israel, that the law he gave Israel in fact was binding on all mankind. We see this first of all in Romans 2, verses 14 and 15. So if you have your Bibles, get them out and put on your track shoes because we're going to be doing some running here. Romans 2, 14 and 15. For when Gentiles that have not the law do by nature the things of the law, these not having the law are a law unto themselves, in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else excusing them. Paul doesn't say that the law was only for Israel. He says the Gentiles have the law now, they don't have a written version of it. They didn't have the gracious blessing of God in revealing that in the oracles that he gave to Israel. But the Gentiles have the law. They know it in their very heart of hearts. And you know what that law involves? I mean, what it includes verse 32 of Romans 1, who, knowing the ordinance of God that they that practice such things are worthy of death. Death not only do the same, but consent with them that practice them. Paul says, the Gentiles know what is worthy of death, and they know it from the law itself that God has revealed to all men internally in their very hearts, they know this. So the law given to Israel was not simply for Israel. Turn to Romans 3, verse 19. Paul says, now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law. Okay, so the law says what it does to those who are under obligation to it. And then Paul goes on to say that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be brought under the judgment of of God. How is it that all the world will be brought under the judgment of God? It's because the law speaks to all the world. See, if Paul were a dispensationalist, he would have said that the law speaks to those who are under it, that all of Israel may be judged. But he says all the world is judged by the law because everyone in the world knows this law one way or the other. So the Bible tells us that what the law of God reveals was never simply for Israel. It was always for the entire world. Turn to Deuteronomy 4, 5, 8. Deuteronomy 4, beginning at the fifth verse. Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances, even as Jehovah my God commanded me, that you should do so in the midst of the land, whether you go in to possess it. Moses starts by saying, I've given you these laws to do in the land. Now many people say, and only Israel in the land should follow these laws. Read on. Keep therefore and do them. For this is is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples that shall hear all these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. Look at verse eight. And what great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? Yes, God gave Israel a law to be practiced in the land. And he said, and you're to be a model for everybody else. This law is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all the peoples, so that all the nations round about should do what you are doing. They should say, nobody has justice as pure and as righteous as Israel. That's what we need to do. And now the next question is, how much of the law did God expect the nations around Israel to emulate? I have people tell me all the time, well, not the civil Law Only those things that pertain to personal morality or family life or interpersonal relations. Is that what it says here? Is that what your Bible says? My Bible says all these statutes, all of them, are the model of justice for the nations. Roundabout. That's why the Old Testament prophets, when they went to the nations outside of Israel, they preached the law of Moses against those nations and brought lawsuits against them and said, the judgment of God will fall on you because you have not lived up to what God expects of all nations. The book of Proverbs tells us that the law of God that gives wisdom to God's people is for all nations, because sin is a disgrace to any people. Isaiah 2, 2, 4 tells us the day is coming when the nations will flow into Mount Zion. And when they do so, what will they learn there? They'll learn that the law was given just for Israel. No, the nations will learn the law. The law will go forth, forth from Zion. And what effect will it have? Well, that's only on personal matters, right? And they will beat their swords into plowshares. The law, even as it bears on civil and political affairs, will be heard by the nations as it goes forth from Israel. Now I dare say that if you understand the Bible properly, that in the Old and the New Testament alike, we see that the Mosaic law given to other each Israel was given to Israel, but was a model and standard universally for all the nations. And the second point I want to say is that the law of God was given and is good for the governing of civil affairs. Even the New Testament shows us that it's the law of God that should be used to restrain public evil. First Timothy 1, verses 8 to 10. First Timothy 1:8. But we know that the law is good if a man uses it lawfully. I taught you that in our last session. But I didn't tell you what Paul goes on to give as an illustration of a lawful use of the law. We know the law is good if a man uses it lawfully, as knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless, unruly, ungodly, for sinners, unholy, profane, murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, manslayers, fornicators, homosexuals, men, stealers, liars, false swearers, etc. Etc. That is to say, the law is good for restraint, restraining public wickedness. What the law says to do about murderers and homosexuals and perjurers is a good thing. Paul says that's a good use of the law, to apply it politically. In Revelation, the 13th chapter, which we don't have time to read in full, but I'm sure you're familiar with it. Revelation 13 tells us about the most wicked political ruler to ever be expected on the face of the earth. He's called the Beast. What do you know about the Beast? The Beast wants his name. Actually, the number of his name, 666, written on everybody's forehead and everybody's hand. Well, last night I talked to you about this, that imagery of writing on the forehead and on the hand, didn't I? Do you think that when John wrote those words that he was unfamiliar with the Old Testament? He knew exactly what he was saying. You see, God wants his people to see everything in terms of his law written on their forehead and to do everything in terms of his law written on their hand. The Beast comes along and says, no, I will not govern by the law of God. I'll govern by. By my own law. My own name and character will be the guide that is on your forehead and on your hand. And that's why in Second Thessalonians 2, 3, this beast is known as the man of lawlessness. The New Testament teaches us that political rulers that will not follow the law of God are wicked, monstrous rulers. Well, what about the penal sanctions, Dr. Bonson? You're going to say, does that mean that they should be followed today as well? In Hebrews the second chapter, verse two, we have the New Testament answer to that question. Of course, Jesus already answered it when he said, not a jot or two tittle passes away, not even the least commandment. So unless, pardon me, unless you could go to a passage in the New Testament to show otherwise, we'd have to say, well, of course, those penal sanctions are binding, too. But here's a New Testament verse that tells you this as well. Hebrews 2, verse 2. For if the word spoken through angels, which is a reference in Jewish idiom to the law of Moses, if the word spoke, spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? The author of Hebrews says that every punishment laid down in the Old Testament is exactly what justice demanded. Every punishment. God never was too lenient. God never was too harsh. And so the question is, do we want justice done today in our political order, or do we want leniency or harshness? Well, obviously we should want justice. And the New Testament says justice is defined by every penalty laid down in the Old Testament. And so in our seminar, what I have tried to promote is a positive attitude toward the law of God in your life, that if you're going to live a Christian life, you need more than the law. That's for sure. We could have another seminar on the fruit of the Spirit and wisdom and so forth, but you need to love the law of God. If you follow the Lord Jesus Christ, you must submit to him in everything that you do and everything that you think. And he gives his direction for life in his law. We need to submit to his commandments. And we resist the tendency in the church today to get rid of rules and regulations, to say we don't live by external rules, we live by inner promptings, or we live by what nature teaches us. We live by what the word of God teaches. And we went on to say, we live by what the word of God teaches from COVID to cover. All Scripture is inspired of God and profitable for instruction in righteousness. That is not legalism in the Bible. The New Testament is not pitted against the Old Testament. But what we learn in the New Testament about salvation is the very establishing of what the law itself has taught. And then finally, we see that this principle of Christian living, loving the law of God, applies even outside the church in civil affairs, that the continuity between Old and New Testament that we have learned applies as much to politics as it does to our personal lives. As Christians. God doesn't have a double standard of morality, one for the Jews, one for the Gentiles. God is no cultural relativist. And therefore, if we'd like to see things improved in our nation or any culture, if we'd like to see crime dealt with effectively, if we'd like to see the state restricted so it doesn't become a monster, then we can do nothing better than to promote the only standard of justice that's available to men. And that's the law of God that's been revealed in the Scriptures. Oh, how love I Thy law. It is my meditation all the day. Let's pray.