Dr Greg Bahnsen - Normative Ethics: Critics and Criticisms of Theonomy Pt 3 (Part 17)

Some non theonomists have gone so far as to refuse those who believe in the continuing validity of the case laws outside of the decalogue of the serious error of legalism. This is a charge that has been made against the theonomic position by Walter Chantry of the Banner of Truth Trust. He has claimed in that magazine that my book is seriously adrift in the waters of legalism since it binds on the conscience of believers details of the Old Testament theocratic law which Scripture regarded as set aside in the New Covenant. And a large number of people have been quick to reiterate that critical label used by Chantry. Donald Dunkerley has used it and Paul Fowler has used it, and a number of people like to quote Chantry's remarks despite the fact that the word legalism commonly connotes the view that we are saved by works of the law. As Baker's Dictionary Christian Ethics points out, Chantry's opposition to the theonomic position has been characterized by a virtual flood of epithets against it, both in personal correspondence that I have had with him as well as in his most recent book, God's Righteous Kingdom. He takes up in that book a reputation of the antinomianism being fostered by certain Calvinistic Baptists like Gary Long or John Zen, and he also wants to attack what he calls the legalism being fostered by social reconstructionists who hold or uphold the full validity of the Mosaic Law. Chantry decides not to name names, by the way, as he is criticizing these people and refuses to identify sources since he does not think his readers need to study the works of those whom he opposes. Well, I think that is a low down technique in all honesty as a scholar, because it doesn't give his readers the opportunity to check the accuracy of his remarks and to hear the opponent's arguments. The judge their strength on their own merit. And I think also, as John Zen himself pointed out, contrary to New Testament practice, not to give your readers or your hearers the opportunity to identify the people you're calling a heretic. In the book Enchanter's Book he accuses theonomists of speaking perverse things, of having deformed and distorted views, of propounded a twist, of propounding a twisted theology which is a threat to the church and of utilizing biblical doctrine. In the last chapter he falsely portrays them as extra church wonder workers, masterminds who spend long hours cranking out theological poems with very clever logic and reasoning, but who belittle, disparage and disdain godly things such as Prayer, evangelism and the church. I think that Kevin Craig did the right thing in reviewing this book in pointing out that whoever Chantry might be talking about theonomist stand with him in condemning these terrible attitudes. Craig knew that Chantry was trying to pin that on Theonymous, but he was pointing out that that was vitriolic name calling. That was quite unjustified. As a matter of fact, theonomists would stand with Chantry against the very things that he is portraying that theonomist is holding now. In his book, Chantry tries to straddle two options. He does not want to say with Zens and others that everything in the Old Testament law has been set aside unless repeated in the New Testament because he wants to hold to the Sabbath commandment, for instance. Indeed, he has some fine lines of biblical and theological thought which show how untenable that position would be. But on the other hand, he does not want to hold to the opposite position, which says that everything previously revealed remains binding until new revelation alters it. He says that some people ignore the diversity of the Old and New Covenants, while others would jettison the Old Testament Scriptures completely. And thus Chantry portrays to his reader that a balance or golden mean can be struck, even though to give that impression, he's had to seriously overstate the positions of both Zens and the theonomists. On the neonomian side, for instance, Zen does not assert that the Old Covenant Scriptures must be completely set aside, although Chantry claims that that's one position. On the theonomic side, Chantry has misrepresented the position through similar extremes, claiming that it sets forth all Old Testament regulations as moral absolutes for all time and campaigns for the imposition of divinely revealed law and society. But both of those are false. We don't hold that all of the Old Testament laws are permanently binding, and we don't hold that we should impose this on society. Chantry is unfair to his opponents in an unscholarly way, refuses to identify his opponent, and turns out to be trying to straddle the fence between his opponents. That comment about straddling, I think, can be explicated a bit further by pointing out that if you look at the arguments used by Chantry to argue against the Neo Nomians, the people who, like Zams, want to follow only the New Covenant Law, the lines of argument used by Chantry against that point of view will actually force him right into the arms of the theonomist. On the other hand, the arguments used against the Theonomist in his book will drive him right into the arms of the Neonomians. He has not in any way delineated a specific position, middle ground where he can stand without moving necessarily to one pole or the other. It seems to me that there are two basic ways that Chantry makes the effort to delineate this position. The first has to do with the Old Testament revelation of the Law of God, where after God is given the 10 words to the Moses, the book of Deuteronomy says, and God added nothing more. God delivered to Moses the 10 words and added nothing more. So Chantry uses that as the foundation for saying we should follow the Ten Commandments and add nothing more today. Well, the problem is that in the Old Testament, if you interpret that literally, simply a false statement, God gave to Moses the ten words, and he did add something more. He added chapter after chapter after chapter more. And so we obviously have to interpret that statement in some way that won't lead to making historically false remarks. And my own personal opinion is Moses used the 10 words and added nothing more. Chantry uses that as the foundation for saying we should follow the Ten Commandments and add nothing more more today. Well, the problem is that in the Old Testament, if you interpret that literally, it's simply a false statement. God gave to Moses the ten words, and he did add something more. He added chapter after chapter after chapter more. And so we obviously have to interpret that statement in some way that won't lead to making historically false remarks. My own personal opinion is that when God gave the ten words to Moses, he added nothing more, because what he added was only defining what he had already given. When God added nothing more. In that particular instance, the Ten Commandments were an adequate summary of everything else, and therefore there was no new content, only explication of the previous time. And I think the support for that statement is readily found in the New Testament, where Paul tells us that love is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus says, if you love me, keep my commandments. It's clear that the Commandments summarize our moral duty, and the Ten Commandments are a summary of what all of the Commandments say. For instance, God requires sexual purity. Thou shalt not commit adultery. But God explains to us that sexual purity includes not having sexual relations with animals or engaging in homosexual affairs, so that not committing adultery is a broad expression for not having a sexual relation with somebody else's wife, with somebody of the same sex, with an animal, and on and on and on. Each of the Ten Commandments summarize what God's getting at thou shalt not steal. Well, that means you don't oppress your employees. It means that you honor your contract, means that the worker is worthy to tire, that you don't muzzle the ox when he treads. All these other things you see are but explications, illustrations by which the Ten Commandments are defined and we understand them. Now, if that's true, as I believe it is, then Chantry's position, which says that we are to keep the Ten Commandments today, but only the Ten Commandments, turns out to be a logically impossible position to hold. Let's use the example of bestiality. If the Ten Commandments say thou shalt not commit adultery, and the rest of the case laws defy that and explicate that, then that would mean in the Old Testament, part of the definition of not committing adultery would have been not committing bestiality. Now, if in the New Testament, thou shalt not commit adultery means that you can commit bestiality, then you have the same words but new content. Quite clearly, the law has a different application, a different meaning. Now, what would you, how would we respond if I say that so and so is a bachelor who drinks orange juice, and in that sentence I tell you, I mean by bachelor, an unmarried male, and then I say of somebody else that he is a bachelor who drinks orange juice, but you know that I've applied that to somebody who is married and has a wife and children. And so then you say, well, now, wait a minute, that's just wrong. You can't say that so and so is a bachelor who drinks orange juice because this person isn't an unmarried male. And I say, oh, well, it's still true that he's a bachelor who drinks orange juice, but here in this particular case, in this new instance, I mean by bachelor, somebody who is married and has children. Okay, and then I say what I said about case number one. Mr. So and so is true. Also in case number two. Mr. What and what? They both are bachelors who drink orange juice. You would very obviously reject that sort of thing. You say, now wait a minute. You're not saying the same thing of them both. You're just using the same words of them both, but the definitions have changed. Now, if Mr. Chancery says in the Old Testament, you shall not commit adultery as binding, and in the New Testament, you shall not commit adultery as binding, and therefore those laws are the same, his pulling the same maneuver, if he redefines what adultery means, as a matter of fact, by telling us that Old Testament case laws are not binding today. He is changing the definition of the summary laws or the decalogue of the Old Testament and therefore what he is keeping today to the degree that he sees it and people to keep it, what is being kept. There's nothing more but the formal words thou shalt not commit adultery. The substance of the law has changed because the definition of the law has changed. Now if that's true, then it follows that one cannot keep only the Ten Commandments today because what you will call the Ten Commandments today is not the same as the Ten Commandments. Ten Commandments as they were understood in the Old Testament. So to hold that the continuity of the covenant pertains only to the Ten Commandments is in fact to redefine the Ten Commandments and thereby not to keep the original Ten Commandments. If you want to keep only the Ten Commandments, you cannot keep the Ten Commandments. That's what I would consider a transcendental type of criticism of the banner of truth position on the Law of God. You cannot keep only the Ten Commandments because what you're then keeping is not the Ten Commandments he's originally understood. So there's a self contradiction in Chancery's position which there's nothing he can do to alleviate. There's a logical defect there. The only thing he could do is deny that the case laws define the Ten Commandments. But if he denies that, then he's back to the problem of how do we understand that God gave the ten words to Moses and added nothing more. Chancery will then have to give up the inerrancy of Scripture, it seems to me, or else come up with another interpretation which then we would pursue as to whether it's credible or not. Now that's the first line of argument Chantry uses. God gave the Ten Commandments, added nothing more. My response has been that very line of thought shows us how impossible to Chantry's position is because you can't keep only the Ten Commandments today. In chapter nine of his book, Chantry asks, are all Mosaic statutes valid for the kingdom? That's the title of this chapter. In order to answer the question, he expounds Galatians 3 and 4, which is the subject of the end of last lecture. And he does so in a way which is formally without objection. He he recognizes that Paul deals with Old Testament law as being set aside today only in some aspect, to some extent, rather than completely. For Scripture elsewhere teaches the continuing authority of the law in some extent as well. So Chancery says, only the features unique to Moses, administration of the grace principle were temporary and done away at the coming of Christ. Now, with that quote, I agree. But when Chantry goes on to tell us which features of the Mosaic law were unique in this way, According to Galatians 3 and 4, he arbitrarily includes the sociopolitical element of that law without any justification from the text or context of his passage in Galatians whatsoever. And thus Chantry has simply read his preconceived notion into the Scripture. The best that Chantry offers by way of argumentation is the personal observation that the judicial law of the Old Testament involves severe and rigorous treatment of the Jews. Now, since the schoolmaster or Tutor of Galatians3.24 is presented as severe and rigorous reasons Chantry, we should conclude that this judicial law of the Old Testament has been laid aside when we were removed from under the tutelage of that schoolmaster. The argument is the schoolmaster is severe, and we're not under the schoolmaster today. The judicial law is severe. Therefore the judicial law is the schoolmaster that we're not under today. Obviously, we've got to question this line of thought. In the first place, I would question Chantry's personal perception that the judicial law was severe and harsh. That's just historically false. The judicial law was for our good. Moses said, indeed it was so just that all the nations round about would envy it. David would say, oh, how love I thy law. The judicial law, the case laws of the Old Testament, are not to be seen as severe. Moreover, logically, even if they were severe, that would not make them the schoolmaster that Paul is referring to in Galatians 3. 24. You see, Paul says the schoolmaster is severe. Chantry says the judicial law is severe, therefore the schoolmaster is worth judicial law. That isn't true. It just means that in a broad sense, both the schoolmaster and the judicial law participate in the category of severeness. It doesn't mean that they are identical with one another. Chantry's argument can be reduced to absurdity with a counter illustration that goes like red is a color, green is a color. Therefore, since they're both colors, red is green, nobody would accept that argument at all. And you can't accept logically, the argument the schoolmaster is severe, the judicial law severe. Therefore the schoolmaster is the judicial law. It just means that both are severe. It doesn't prove that they're the same, that they're one and the same. They're identical. Of course, I don't believe the school master that the judicial law was severe in the first place. I believe the severity had to do with the ritual ordinances and ceremonial rudiments of the Old Testament law that pointed to the way of justification by faith. And so it turns out that Chantry's attempt to hold a middle ground between Zens and the theonomists is unsuccessful. He has no good argument for holding to the Ten Commandments, but only the Ten Commandments. In fact, as I pointed out, there's the logical fallacy involved in the attempt itself. Any questions you want to ask about the treatment that Walter Chancery gives to theonomic thesis? Okay, now I can move on to the question of categories within the Old Testament law of Godness. Categories within the Old Testament law of God what we have looked at so far are pitfalls. We're laying down the ground rules, pitfalls that have to be avoided. Then we looked at exegetical critiques of the theonomic position from Long and Fowler. Then we started to look at passages of the New Testament that are appealed to to argue against theonomy. And specifically we got to Galatians 3. And that's when we took up Walter Chantry. And now I'm turning to the idea of categories within the law. People attacking the idea of categories within the law or attacking one of the categories within the law. And this will lead me then to more extended remarks about John Zen. There are those who argue that a ceremonial distinction within the law is illegitimate, that the whole Old Country Covenant law is a unity, and that therefore the passing away of the sacrifices, dietary restrictions, and other matters from the Old Testament proves that the entire Old Testament law has passed away. This is one contention brought for instance by John Zend in the Baptist reformation review for 1978. Others have argued that if a distinction is drawn between moral and ceremonial laws, it will be difficult to distinguish to which category certain specific laws will belong. That's a point made by Laird Harris in Presbyterian for 1979. Still others would add that if we say that there is a sense in which these ceremonial laws are binding today and a sense in which they are not binding, then we are guilty of logical equivocation, which is a charge made by Dr. Fowler in his pamphlet God's Law Free from Legalism. These criticisms of the Theanonic position are not telling. I don't believe in the first place, there is no logical equivocation involved in saying that the ceremonial laws are and are not binding today, provided one distinguishes between different senses in which they are or are not binding, which is exactly what theonomy does. In fact, it does it so clearly that some reviewers have suggested separate terminology for these different senses of binding, as you find in Michael Hill's review of my book. Secondly, the difficulty of distinguishing two things does not cast doubt upon the legitimacy of the distinction itself. Some instances in the Old Testament are difficult to categorize because they incorporated elements of of both ceremonial and moral laws, and even non theonomists have recognized that fact that ceremonial and moral elements are brought together in some laws. I think here of Wayne Gruden in particular, who has made that observation. Finally, the necessity of drawing a distinction between ceremonial and moral laws from the Old Testament is a New Testament necessity, since the New Testament both confirms the law of the Old Testament and sets aside some of its provisions, for instance those dealing with redemption and the separation of God's people. If the distinction is not recognized by us, therefore, then we will render the New Testament scriptures contradictory or else suppress one aspect of the New Testament teaching about the Old Testament law. On the other hand, I'm pursuing further categorical lines of criticism. On the other hand, there is a form of theonomic criticism which maintains that we must recognize another classification of Old Testament laws which are categorically laid aside in the New Testament. If you recognize the ceremonial category of laid aside laws, you must recognize a civil category of laid aside laws. A large number of discussions which aim to come to such a conclusion attempt to draw that conclusion by recognizing various ways in which the decalogue is distinctive in presentation or function in the Old Testament. People who do this, for instance, would be Paul Fowler, Committee Report and Evangel Presbytery About Theonomy, Lewis Nielsen's book God's Law and Christian Ethics. The problem with all such discussions discussions, though, is that theonomic ethics can readily grant that the decalogue has many distinctive features. For instance, the decalogue was engraved on stone as the epitome of the covenant. What is not granted is that those distinctive features rendered the decalogue uniquely binding for all ages. The Judicial Laws of the Old Testament the case laws explained and applied the decalogue to the ancient culture of Israel. The principles of those illustrative case laws, if they truly expound the content of the decalogue, must be as binding as the Ten Commandments themselves. To say that a principle which follows from or defines a law in one circumstance is no longer valid in a further similar circumstance is in fact to change the character of the law in question and thereby to deny the universality of the moral standards themselves and Thus, there is a conceptual error, as I've already noted in Walter Chantry and others, who attempt to throw out the judicial laws while holding to the Ten Commandments. Doctor Fowler is further confused, as one critic confused, when he argues that because the Old Testament judicial laws were mixed together with ceremonial laws, he says, quote, as marbles thrown together, he says, because they were mixed together with ceremonial laws, that the judicial laws did not apply universally and perpetually any more than the ceremonial laws with which they are mixed. But you see, the close textual relation of two kinds of things does not compromise their individual characters or natures, or else we'd have to say that many kinds of theological distinctions would become blurred. For instance, the distinction between God and the world, the distinction between justification and sanctification. You find these theological concepts thrown together like marbles, too, in the Bible. That doesn't mean that you can't distinguish them. It may take some diligence in doing our exegetical homework to unravel the ceremonial and judicial strands of the Old Testament law. But that difficulty would not prove the error of the distinction itself, much less make judicial laws partake of the shadow and limited character of ceremonial laws. Fowler's claims the judicial laws of the Old Testament cannot be considered apart from the covenant people to whom they were primarily directed runs afoul of the biblical evidence that I adduce in my book that the whole Mosaic moral law was a binding standard of obligation for all men and nations and not simply Israel. The judicial laws can indeed be considered in themselves, for they are not tied absolutely to Old Testament Israel. Now Fowler attempts to offer two examples from the New Testament to show that that the judicial laws of the Old Testament are not binding today, but they are only instructed in some vague, perhaps historical sense. He claims that when Paul cited the Old Testament prohibition of muzzling an ox when it treads and then declared that God is not concerned with oxen but with our sake, that Paul thereby eliminated the law's application to society. Follow that argument. Paul cites the Old Testament judicial law about oxen. Then Paul says, God's not concerned with oxen, he's concerned with our sake. And from that, Fowler concludes that the Old Testament judicial law no longer applies to society. Fowler goes on to suggest, rather oddly, that this passage shows that my own hermeneutic is challenged by Paul's applying a civil law to the realm of the church. That is to say that Paul doesn't recognize this distinction between church and state. As I say, the Old Testament law recognizes. However, the passage cited turns out to be One of the best proofs of the theonomic position in the New Testament, rather than a counter illustration, when Paul cited the Old Testament prohibition and then pointed out out that God's concern was not with oxen, he surely must be interpreted as saying that God's concern expressed in this law was not merely for oxen. There's something more to the law than just that Paul is saying, because for him to say God forbade the muzzling of the ox but God was not concerned with oxen is a patent contradiction. The fact that he made that provision for the ox shall that he was at least to that extent concerned for the oxen. The very law itself shows that God had some concern for oxen, not none at all. Well, in what way did God's concern exceed an interest in the well being of an oxen? The answer, I think, is obvious from Paul's teaching. God gave that illustrative law for our sake to show how we should treat each other as well, not simply how we should treat our farm animals. Thus Paul's statement about God not being concerned about oxen is not as foul or treat but a repudiation of extra ecclesiastical applications of the judicial law. Nor is Paul's application of that law to the Church an embarrassment to the theonomic view of the separation of church and state or its view of the separation of judicial and ceremonial laws. The fact is that the Church is not so utterly otherworldly as to be devoid of certain concerns for business and temporal matters such as a pastor's paycheck. The Old Testament law about muzzling oxen teaches a general principle of honest business dealings and not simply, if at all, a law concerning civil polity. It is just as applicable to business relations in the Church then as it is in the home, farmer shop. Paul's use of that law in a church context does not imply a denial of its general validity outside of the Church as well. Unless of course Dr. Fowler means the argument fallaciously from silence. And since it is not simply ceremonial laws from the Old Testament which are applicable to the Church today, according to my position, where would anybody get the idea that I held only ceremonial laws apply to the Church? Since that isn't my position, Paul the Apostle's application of a judicial law to the New Testament church does not thereby show that it was ceremonial in character after all? And So I think Dr. Fowler's line of thought is in fact fouled up by this line of reasoning. Somebody else is suggested a former Old Testament professor at Reformed Seminary, that since Paul did not require his due pay from the church. He said, you shouldn't muzzle the ox, but you don't have to pay me after all that. Therefore, Paul was denying the necessity of following the Old Testament law. However, Paul's personal generosity would not have been gracious and generous if the church did not in the first place strictly owe him. I mean, for Paul to say, you don't have to pay me, when in fact they didn't owe him payment, it wouldn't have been generous. It would have been ridiculous. Employees today are just as free as Paul was to graciously relieve their employers from the obligation to pay them if there's good reason they feel to do so. And thus I don't think Dr. Fowler or any of the others we've mentioned have shown any counterexample to the theonomic position from this passage. Before I go on now to deal with John Zen, whose basic approach is new covenant, therefore new law, do you have any questions on the previous critics that I've been talking about? Otherworldly is to be devoid of certain concerns for business and temporal matters, such as a pastor's paycheck. The Old Testament law about muzzling oxen teaches a general principle of honest business dealings and not simply, if at all, a law concerning civil polity. It is just as applicable to business relations in the church then as it is in the home, farm or shop. Paul's use of that law in a church context does not imply a denial of its general validity outside side of the church as well. Unless, of course, Dr. Fowler means to be arguing fallaciously from silence. And since it is not simply ceremonial laws from the Old Testament which are applicable to the Church today. According to my position, where would anybody get the idea that I held only ceremonial laws apply to the church, since that isn't my position? Paul the Apostle's application of a judicial law to the new Testamen Church does not thereby show that it's there, that it was ceremonial in character after all. And So I think Dr. Fowler's line of thought is in fact fouled up by this line of reasoning. Somebody else has suggested, a former Old Testament professor at Reformed Seminary, that since Paul did not require his due pay from the church, he said, you shouldn't muzzle the ox, but you don't have to pay me after all that. Therefore, Paul was denying the necessity of following the Old Testament law. However, Paul's personal generosity would not have been gracious and generous if the church did not in the first place strictly owe him the money. I mean, for Paul to say you don't have to pay me when in fact they didn't owe him pay me. It wouldn't have been generous. It would have been ridiculous. Employees today are just as free as Paul was to graciously relieve their employers from the obligation to pay them if there's good reason they feel to do so. And thus I don't think Dr. Fowler or any of the others we've mentioned have shown any counterexample to the theonomic position from this passage. Before I go on now to deal with John Zen, whose basic approach is new covenant, therefore new law, do you have any questions on the previous critics that I've been talking about? Yes. Have to add a second argument that what comes into play is wholly different. Paul. So Paul says when faith is coming that way void, no, rather than establishment. So the tone of the New Testament, even if you use that terminology, is thinking the Old Covenant. Yeah, I think the observation is, was very good that this premise would not be sufficient to reach the conclusion. I mean, even if there was a. Even if there was this unity in the Old Testament law that cannot in any sense be broken down even by mental distinction. Therefore, you don't get the therefore we don't have to keep any of that law because you have to also show what the New Testament presents in its place is presented as categorically different or actually contrary to the Old Testament law. And anybody who holds that we should not steal today, and I think just about any evangelical is going to say that is going to have to grant this continuity with the Old Testament. So that one package deal argument doesn't prove very much at all. Now, in various articles which have appeared in the Baptist Reformation Review Since 1977, John Zenz has argued that the New Testament teaches us to begin our ethical reasoning with the words and example of Christ himself. His article Crucial Thoughts on Law and the New Covenant follows up on a previous article in which Zens denied the biblical character of the concept of a covenant of grace. In the follow up article, Zenz argued that law in these last days is solely in the hands of Christ, not Moses. Now, since a law code must always be related to an act of redemption, says Zen, by the way, where is that act being taught that God can't give a law until an act of redemption has taken place? Well, anyway, since his end holds that, and since everything going on in Israel was of a typical nature, everything, even the sins committed in Israel was typifying the coming Savior, even the mundane elements of life common to all cultures, like eating food, was typical of the Coming. I mean, he makes what appear to be really overstatements or outlandish remarks. But anyway, since then thinks that a law code must always be related to an act of redemption, and everything going on in Israel was typical in nature. But therefore, the law which now binds us must be identified with the covenant in force, rather than the former covenant, which is no longer operative unless, of course, elements have been incorporated from it into the new covenant. In short, a new covenant means presents a new law. Even the decalogue, he says, is abolished along with the former covenant unless its elements are repeated in the New Testament. To push Moses law as a totality into the new covenant is legalism. For we are bound now, says Zen, only to the law of Christ. Of course, the fundamental mistake in all of this discussion is the underlying premise which denies the covenant of grace. Zen nowhere shows that Scripture teaches a presumed discontinuity between old and new covenants. That is, he doesn't point to any passage which teaches a general repeal of Old Testament principles and precepts unless they are repeated by the New Testament. In fact, the very opposite presumption is the one clearly set forth in the Bible both Old and New Testaments. Deuteronomy said, you shall not add to or subtract from my law, Jesus says in Matthew 5, don't you teach the breaking of even the least commandment? Indeed, the very terms of the new Covenant in Jeremiah 31, repeated in Hebrews 8 and 10, the very terms of the new covenant indicate that God's law, not a new law, but the already well known law, will be written upon the hearts of God's people. Thus the law is confirmed in the new covenant as an essential feature of that covenant. In light of Jeremiah 31:33, any attempt to abrogate the Mosaic law on appeal to the establishment of the new covenant is plainly futile. Paul speaks of Gentiles as strangers from the covenants of the promise, thereby explaining why they were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel Ephesians 2:12 and they were so alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, Paul says, until the blood of Christ brought them near. Now we know from the Old Testament the covenants which separated the Jews from the Gentiles were the covenants with Abraham, Moses, and David. These covenants are grouped together by Paul as the covenant covenant of the promise made with Abraham. The Mosaic covenant was occasioned by God's remembrance of his covenant with Abraham. And Paul emphatically denies in Galatians 3 that the law covenant was against the promised covenant as Mediator of the new covenant, Jesus pronounced a curse on anyone who would dare break even the least of the commandments in the Law or the prophets. And thus continuity between the various covenants from Abraham through Moses to Christ is more than apparent in New Testament language. When Gentiles become Christians, they are made sons of Abraham by faith and heirs of the promise, the promise around which all the Jewish covenants were unified. Remember, the New covenant, moreover, brings these former covenants of the promise to full force and realization, thereby demonstrating the continuity which characterizes the relationship between God's covenants to each other and warranting. Thus the concept of a covenant of gracens has worked long and hard diligently to destroy it. But the concept of the unity of of the covenant within the old covenant and then the unity of the old with the new is so patent, I mean, it's so plain on the face of New Testament discussions that Zen is really spinning his wheels. When Zen does get around to criticizing the covenant of grace, he ends up criticizing elements which are not crucial to the theological notion at all. For instance, a pre temporal predator pact between the Father and the Son. Well, maybe scripture doesn't speak of a pre temporal pact or covenant between the Father and the Son, although I think it does allude to it when Jesus talks about what the Father had promised him as being fulfilled and doing the will of the Father that was given him to do. Nevertheless, whether that implies it or not, no covenant theologian feels that that is the sine qua non of covenant theology. The key point of covenant theology is the unity in the progressive character of the covenant. Now other problems afflict Zen's discussion of law in the New Covenant. For instance, it may sound significant to say that today all law must be in the hands of Christ rather than of Moses. That sounds very Christian and very honoring to our Savior. But what does it mean? After all, what does it mean to say all law must be in the hands of Christ rather than Moses? Also, if Zenz is concerned with the thought of pushing the totality of Moses law into the new covenant, we must wonder whose position it is that's giving him concern. No writer that I know of, certainly no theonomist, believes that the totality of Moses law is still observed today as it was formerly. Theonomists believe that Christ Christians are under obligation to observe the Mosaic law as it was expounded, qualified and applied by Christ. The law of Christ includes abiding by his instruction to obey the Old Testament moral precepts, even those revealed by Moses. Now, in an article entitled this is my Beloved Son, Hear Him. Zen argued that the Old Testament law was a unity which is passed away with the covenant which embodied it. This has been rebutted already, I think, for the law of God has not altogether passed away in the New Covenant. The fact that the New Covenant both confirms the validity of the Old Covenant law and modifies or nullifies aspects of the Old Covenant indicates that one must draw some such distinctions as moral law and ceremonial law. But throughout the article, Zen keeps stressing that we must be Christ centered rather than law centered, all of which the theonomists can agree with and insist upon. For after all, it does not imply that we should be law denying if we are Christ centered, does it? To say that we are Christ centered doesn't imply that we are law denying. He argues that because Luke 24, 24 and 44 show how the whole Old Testament anticipated Christ in a prophetic way that it would be wrong to apply the Old Testament case laws to society today, an argument that is so fallacious that it needs little comment. Luke 24 does not teach the Old Testament offers us today nothing but prophetic or typical witness to Christ. For after all, Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 3 that the old Testament also offers us instruction in righteousness. Zen's claims that I personally am entirely mistaken to simplistically assert that what was sinful in the Old Testament is likewise sinful in the New. For the New Covenant reveals that many Old Testament precepts are not part of the New Covenant obligation or law. What Zen overlooks are course is that the theonomic position permits such revealed modifications in the law of God. For today, merely insisting that our presumption should be one of continuity of moral standards with the Old Testament, our presumption should be continuity. That the whole Mosaic arrangement has not been abrogated as Zen contends, is clear from Matthew 5. Zen's treatment of that passage is reflected in the paper by Gary Long that I've alluded to already, which has already been criticized and dismissed over and over again. In his article, Zen propounds a false antithesis between the commands of Christ and the law of Moses, insisting that the focus and starting point for our Christian norms of behavior must be the words of Christ and not the Old Testament law. But but what he does not see is that theonomists hold that we should honor the law of Moses just because the words of Christ require us to do so. Theonomy is not a matter of hearing Moses instead of Christ, but rather hearing Moses because of Christ by Not taking account of that fact, Zentz has wasted many words in indirect criticism of the theanotic position. Equally unprofitable are Zinn's many expressions to the effect that we must come to the law through the Gospel and not vice versa. The relevant fact is that God requires us even today to come to his law for guidance of our lives. Now, at the end of his article, Zemms comes to the heart of the difference between himself and Theonymous. He says this brings us back to a more basic hermeneutical. Are we going to base doctrines on the silence of the New Testament, or will we allow the New Covenant revelation to be our guide in all things? Now, this approach to the relationship of the Old and New Testaments is precisely the opposite of that advocated by theonomists. According to theonomists, those who expect any binding Old Testament precept to be repeated in the New Testament if it is to remain binding, are guilty of basing a repeal of the Old Testament precepts on silence. So the question reduces to what should be our presumption or expectation regarding the Old Testament? Should we presume that silence means a law continues to be binding, or does silence abrogate the law? Well, the argument for the presumption of continuity is found throughout 600 pages in theonomy, and so obviously I'm going to leave it just at that. And it's clear that we must presume continuity. The presumption of discontinuity with the Old Testament has many insurmountable problems which have been discussed in my books as well. But let me quickly mention three this morning. First, the Scripture nowhere teaches a presumed this discontinuity. You can't go to any verse in the New Testament that says don't you dare teach the keeping of even the least commandment. Nothing of the sort can be found. Second, presume discontinuity can be reduced to absurdity or embarrassment when we think of Old Testament precepts which are not repeated in the New Testament and thus ought to be nullified according to Zen's theory. For instance, the Old Testament forbade marrying your own father. That's not repeated in the New Testament. The Old Testament forbade tripping blind people. It forbade sexual relations with animals. None of those things were repeated in the New Testament. Zen's if he were true to his logic, I'm glad to say that he's more true to his heart, which, if a converted heart, must really honor the law of God. Zen knows you can't have sexual relations with animals when marry your father or blind people today. But his theory would say, yes, you can, because that's not repeated. Finally, when the New Testament does repeat or mention an Old Testament precept, one would never take it from the context or the manner of presentation that the New Testament writer was aiming to delineate which Old Testament laws were still binding. That is, appeal is made to the Old Testament commandments not in order to pick them out as valid, but just because they are in general taken as authoritative. Well, this then brings me to the heart of Zen's critique of the theonomic position. In his paper for the 1980 Council on Baptist Theology, entitled An Examination of the Presuppositions of Covenantal excuse me, of covenant and Dispensational Theology, Zen deals with much wider concern and simply the hermeneutical question of how to treat New Testament silence about particular Old Testament precepts. On that basic question he stands with the dispensationalists, even though in the paper he criticizes dispensationalism for its view of the kingdom of God, well, all well and good. But he's still a dispensational antinomian because he criticizes the law of the previous dispensation, then criticizes eth elements of covenant theology as set forth historically, which do not bear directly on the ethical and hermeneutical questions that specifically separate us regarding God's law today. However, I would like to offer some response to the particular points where he does touch. Finally, on the theonomy debate, Zen discusses in his paper what he takes to be some tension point points in covenant theology. After suggesting in a somewhat confused and peripheral discussion that covenant theology dehistoricizes the covenant, Zen comes to an accusation which clearly betrays his lack of understanding for or sympathy for a covenant theology. Namely, he says that it leads to a union of church and state. And here he cites my name and the theonomic position as endorsing the Westminster assembly's notion of a holy commonwealth. Now there is a great difference indeed between the holy commonwealth and the union of church and state. A holy family would not thereby become identical with the church, would it? So why would a holy state, one which conformed to God's laws, become identifiable with the church? The logic of that just passes me Zen's unstated inference is ungrounded and thereby contrary to fact. Now he mentions past abuses among Reformed theologians and Puritans who were willing as theonomists are not willing today to use the sword to maintain true religion, understood as favoring advocates of one theological school over another, for instance, favoring Caedo Baptist over believers only Baptist, rather than using the sword simply to protect society from public idolatry and blasphemy. The theonomic insistence on a proper separation of church and state is clear from my book, I think, where it is also said at the very outset of my book the reader is cautioned not to mistake what is taught herein with whatever distortions or abuses of the theonomic principle that might be unearthed in the history of the church. I am defending what I take to be the biblical position regarding ethics, not any particular past theological school or social group. Abuses and misuses of the thesis propounded in this thesis must be recognized as just that, abuses. Whenever Zenz has specifically criticized my position in print, however, he has not dealt with my book at all. At best he has dealt with misconceptions, misfired criticisms, and at one point he dealt with just one issue of my Biblical Ethics newsletter. And that issue, by the way, was the continuation was only part of a group dealing with one issue, so he didn't even deal with the whole idea there. Theonomy not only defends the separation of church and state as to their function and personnel, it also points out that such a separation does not imply a separation of religious concerns and ethics from the state because the magistrate is to be a minister of God. Now, if the magistrate is a minister of God, that approximates one notion of a holy commonwealth without jeopardizing in the least the separation of church and state. Let me move on. After discussing the question of baptism and conditions of grace in terms of covenant theology, Zen returns to an issue which is relevant to our concerns, namely the covenant of grace in law. Here he repeats the accusations formally found in his articles in the Baptist Reformation Review that the ethics of covenant theology fails to do justice to the centrality of Christ being rather oriented around Moses, not Christ. Such claims as these are not only untrue to the character of covenantal writings about Christian behavior, showing, I think, how sensitive Zen's personally may be about the elements of law exposition in them and overshadowing in his mind to the point of forgetting the emphasis we put on Christ and the Holy Spirit, but they are paradigmatic of what gives theology a bad name in scholarly circles. For all of the intensity of these accusations, just what are they mean? Without explaining the centrality, metaphor, or the implied antithesis between Moses and Christ, Zens can wield his slogan like a sharp weapon. Never pausing to consider the question of whether covenant theologians might be acquitted of those charges were their meaning made specific and clear. Zen's next criticizes covenant theology for putting believers in tension as to whether they are under the law or not. But for all I can see, his point is trivial. When a covenant theologian distinguishes senses in which a believer is and is not under law, he is simply recognizing the diverse ways in which that linguistic expression under law can be and has been used in the Bible. This does not place the believer himself in any existential tension, suggesting that in one and the same sense he is and is not under the law. He simply recognizes that the believer's position can be variously described as under the law in one sense but not under law in another. If such linguistic distinctions are bothersome to Zinn's, then he will be uncomfortable, it seems to me, at any point in theological discussion become, as all theological discussion recognizes such distinctions. Well, I think that I can't finish my remarks about Zen and our remaining time in this lecture, so let's stop at this point and we'll come back to it and finish in our next hour.