Dr Greg Bahnsen - Normative Ethics: Modern App. of Old Testament Social & Political Ethics (Part 12)

To this point maintain that the Old Testament commandments are indeed a norm for Christian living. Somebody is bound to ask, however, well, can you really take this seriously? The idea that we have to keep the Old Testament commandments of God in light of the socio political aspects of the law of God from the Old Testament. We do not have time in this course to spend a lot on, to give a lot of space or lecture time to this question about the Old Testament law and its sociopolitical application. We do this in our political ethics course that is discussed and the matter is taken up at some length in my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics. However, I would like to take at least one lecture in our overall course to summarize that material so that we'll understand that when we speak of the Old Testament laws binding today, we are talking about the entire Old Testament law. We are not excluding the socio political morality of the Old Testament. If you take a look at the field of evangelical and reformed publications over the last couple of generations, something will become rather obvious to you. That's that political, excuse me, conservative Christians are coming out of political hiding. Conservative Christians now want to be heard on socioeconomic or political matters. It used to be the case of course, that when a Bible believing Christian, an author had something to say or write about social morality or political policy, it was necessary for him to give a long defense or apologetic for entering into a discussion of such matters. Given the background of liberal and modernistic involvement in politics and given the threat of the social gospel, evangelicals were prone to withdraw from the world and encouraged to endorse a church centered pietism so that they could avoid the excesses of the social gospel and liberalism and therefore reticence characterized evangelical and in many ways reform publications in the area of politics and social morality. But today things have changed, quite obviously changed if you pay attention to the avalanche of books that have begun to be published over the past few years in the area of politics and social ethics from a Christian standpoint, in fact, it may be that the pendulum is now swung so far to the other direction that anybody who doesn't believe in a Christian approach to politics might be worthy of suspicion. In the evangelical church, trusted writers in the conservative tradition are penning opinions about political morality. Men with visible political connections have now written about their conversions. Christians are becoming involved in society's leadership. Pressing problems around us and the governing of the state, all the way from tolerance toward homosexuality to legalized abortion, have forced an end to the policy of Christian silence on social issues. Today, increased interest in the notion that Christianity pertains to the whole man, not just as inward spiritual destiny and interest in the principles of Christianity is touching on all areas of life and not just an hour of worship on the Lord's day. A recognition that the coming of Christ's kingdom has implications for the renewal of the entire creation. These sorts of things naturally work themselves out in an increased interest in Christian science, art, economics, politics and everything else. So it does seem necessary in our day to develop a Christian political stance. But where is a Christian political stance to be found? Where is a distinctive Christian morality with respect to politics to be found? I'm going to suggest that right in the pages of Scripture itself we understand the salient points of Christian confession of faith Will see that to be a Christian involves just such a political stance. For after all, to be a Christian is to confess that Jesus is Savior, that he is soter. In the Greek, he is Savior. Now, in the early days of the Church, when Christians professed that Jesus was the Savior, the Soter, they were actually speaking against social point of view. It was proclaimed on virtually every Roman coin that would call the Emperor the soter, and in some cases the only soter among men. When Christians had Jesus as the Savior, they were pitting him against the emperor. Indeed, in the book of Revelation we see that Jesus, the Lamb of God is pitted against the beast who is the Roman Emperor in that book. And Christians declared that Jesus is Lord and that he was king. They were declaring that he was king of kings and therefore king over every king on the earth. In Acts 17:7, the charge made against the teaching of Paul and his followers was that these all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, one Jesus. Christians are supposed to pray that the kingdom of God come and that his will be done on earth. Obviously, God's will is the standard for Christian politics. If we are Christians, we must allow the law of God, the word of God, to direct our political morality even as it directs our individual, private and ecclesiastical morality. However, there are those today who have questions as to whether we can hold to a uniformity of socio political outlook between the Old and the New Testaments. Many Christians want to take a distinctive stand with respect to issues of sociopolitical morality. However, it has become very difficult for them to do so when the political use of God's law has been forgotten or when it's been rejected. Even writers in the general reform tradition of theology have today repudiated the political use of God's law of late. In response, we need to Ask whether the Bible teaches that civil magistrates ought to obey and enforce the relevant portions of the Old Testament law. Indeed, what we said thus far in this course offers a prima facie answer to that. If the law of God must be presumed to be binding today, unless the New Testament says otherwise, then we must presume that the law of God is binding in the area of sociopolitical morality until the New Testament says otherwise as well. And we have supported that presumption by a prima facie argument from the New Testament, a study of Old Testament theology regarding the law, a look at an explicit New Testament declaration about that, and then five theological confirmations of this line of thought. And needless to say, we could have gone on and on and on the defense for the covenantal idea that we presume continuity to the Old Testament until the New Testament says otherwise. The defense of the law of God in the New Testament could be elaborated and expounded for many more hours. There is plenty to be said on that subject. So in one sense, we already have given, on the surface anyway, an initial answer to our question about sociopolitical morality. If every scripture, every point, every word, and indeed every letter of the Old Testament is upheld in the New Testament, as we read in so many passages, and obviously that would include every scripture word and letter with respect to politics also, just as parents, farmers, merchants and others have moral duties laid upon them today from the Old Testament law of God, so also civil rulers could have duties enjoined for their official business, duties enjoined from the law of God. And yet not everyone is willing to endorse the applicability of the Old Testament law in the domain of civil politics. The whole law may be endorsed in the New Testament, it's thought, but there is in the New Testament a new attitude towards civil magistrates. So that the view taken seems to be that the doctrine of the civil magistrate is somehow unique in the New Testament, that what is taught there shows discontinuity in morally relevant ways with the Old Testament. However, I'm going to maintain here in this short presentation, even as I maintain in my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics, that the Bible appears to teach one doctrine with respect to civil magistrates in all ages alike, whether they are Jewish, whether they are Gentile, whether they are Old Testament, whether they are New Testament. There are certain basic propositions which are uniform in the Bible with respect to all of these different kinds of magistrates. And if that's true, the laws which God stipulated for Old Testament Jewish magistrates to follow would be just as applicable to Gentile Magistrates, whether they live in the Old or the New Testament, it seems that in our own day and age, just as much as in the society of the ancient world, we need to know how to cope with attacks upon human dignity, upon freedom, upon safety, and upon man's honor. Magistrates in all ages need guidance from God for dealing with murder, for kidnapping, rape, perjury and the like. And in this respect, the magistrate in the Old Testament Israel would be disliked any other magistrate subject to unchanging justice. The demands of unchanging justice and the continuing validity of God's revealed law for sociopolitical affairs. Well, what are some of these principles that show us the continuity between magistrates, Jewish, Gentile, Old and New Testaments? Well, in the first place, the Bible tells us that God's appointed rulers are not to be resistant, they are not to be resisted. God's sovereign power of appointment was made clear in Old Testament Israel in Hosea 13:11, when God said, I have given you a king in my anger and have taken him away in my wrath. For Old Testament Israel, it was clear that the powers that be are ordained of God, and honor was supposed to be given to them. And that's why in Exodus 22, the law of God prohibited any reviling of the rulers. Because Saul was the Lord's anointed, David dared not lift his hand against him. The king's exalted position was such that According to Ecclesiastes 8, one should obey the king's command, not oppose his rebuke, not defy his power, and not renounce allegiance to him. Accordingly, Old Testament citizens were taught that they were to subject themselves to the higher authorities, not resisting the ordinance of God, the powers ordained by God. Moreover, in Old Testament Israel, these ordained authorities bore religious titles, so that they were to be avengers of divine wrath. I point out in my book, for instance, that some of the officers in the court of the king were called priests. And it's rather clear that those who were called priests were not Levitical priests, Aaronic priests that functioned at the temple. So it was possible in the Old Testament for a political dignitary to receive a religious title. Magistrates in Israel were to be ministers of God. So we see that Old Testament civil rulers in Israel were were ordained by God, were not to be resisted. They bore religious titles. They were representatives of God in society. Moreover, over and over again in the Old Testament, the sword of judgment is associated both with God and with the magistrate. The magistrate's sword was to be directed by God himself. The magistrate in Israel had no right to slay men independent of God's guidance and God's word. Wrath and vengeance are constantly attributed to God in terms of his purity and his justice. In the Old Testament, wrath and vengeance are seen as retribution expressed against those who profane the covenant of the Lord in Psalm 54 against those who violate his laws in Deuteronomy Chapter 11 those who sin according to numbers. Chapter 11 when the civil magistrate is said to express wrath and vengeance in the Old Testament, then it is only natural to expect that the ruler is expressing the wrath and the vengeance of God upon evildoers. The Old Testament had declared Deuteronomy 32 that vengeance belongs to to God, that he would be the one who repays and nevertheless the Old Testament taught that civil magistrates were under orders to carry out vengeance against the transgressors of God's law. Vengeance, you see, must be based upon the holiness of God. Psalm 98. 8 Vengeance must be occasioned by sinning against the law of God. Now an agent of God's routine, an appointee of God, the civil magistrate, would necessarily then in the Old Testament have to be seen as the deputy of God in the state. The God of the Bible is a God of law and a God of justice, one who does not act in capricious and arbitrary ways. Psalm 96 he always judges with righteousness. In Leviticus 19 we see that God expects others to do likewise, to always judge and righteousness to do righteousness and justice, one must keep the way of Jehovah and to follow his ordinances According to Deuteronomy 33:21 Thus Moses could confidently declare, what great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this law which I set before you this day? Deuteronomy 4:8 above everything else, God requires magistrates that when they make their decisions, you shall do no unrighteousness and judgment, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor. Leviticus 19:15 and thus Amos the prophet could cry out that God's people should establish justice in the gate and thereby let judgment run down his waters, and righteousness is a mighty stream. Clearly, if the God of justice requires earthly rulers to govern with justice, then those rulers are obligated to observe the law of God in all of their judgments. Even as God does not justify the wicked, they must not justify the wicked they must judge as God judges of God. It was said in the Old Testament, righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Psalm 89:14 and the earthly king's throne was likewise said to be established on justice and unrighteousness Psalm 72:1 2 so the Lord we see here sets kings upon their thrones according to 2nd Chronicles 9. Eight to be king for Jehovah thy God to do justice and righteousness. Deuteronomy 1 tells us that in their decisions the judgment was God's, and for that reason they themselves could be called gods. In Psalm 82, when they punished evildoers according to the penal sanctions of the law of God, judges made manifest that they were imaging God. In Genesis 9, where we read that a man who slays another man is to be slain himself, the reason offered is that man is made in the image of God. Many people read that as saying that the reason murderers are is because man is made in the image of God. That's a true theological premise. However, I'm not convinced that in Genesis 9 that's the teaching in Genesis 9. The point is, man has the right to slay another man because he's made in the image of God. He images the attitude of God toward other men as God's deputies, as representatives of his vengeance in society. Civil magistrates thus wield the sword according to God's own own direction and God's own law. That brings us then to the conclusion that in Old Testament Israel rather trite in one sense, anybody who can read will have to admit that at least in Old Testament Israel, kings were to rule according to the law of God. Kings were not to rest their decisions on their own wisdom and moral discernment. If so, they would have judged with part partiality, with leniency, with harshness, with the respect of persons, rather than with the purity of God's justice. The Old Testament taught that justice was perverted when the law of God was slackened. Habakkuk 1:4 since judges were required to execute justice and righteousness, God said, and in a controversy they shall stand to judge according to mine ordinances shall they judge it and they shall keep my laws and my statutes Ezekiel 44:24 and so kings were forbidden to frame mischief by law, Psalm 94 receiving the charge that they were to keep God's statutes and his commandments, and his ordinances and his testimonies, according to that which is written in the law of Moses, 1st Kings 2:3 the Old Testament, of course, abounds with illustrations of God's judgment upon kings and rulers and judges in Israel who departed from the just standards of God's law and governing their societies. And we'll just use one illustration here today. Note especially King Ahab, who for his own selfish ends engaged in false witness, theft, and even murder according to 1st Kings 21, matters which the historian records for posterity in the Old Testament instead of recording, as in secular history, the feats in battle for which Ahab was then known. It was of crucial importance in Israel to understand kings according to their conformity or lack of conformity to the law of God, and not according to their own human feats. Thus men like Jeroboam and Yahuwah, who departed from God's commandments, made the people sin. These men had evil brought against them and against their houses. And they were swept away in the wrath of God because they wouldn't keep God's law. It's rather clear then that in the Old Testament, in Israel at least, magistrates were ordained of God. They were to be respected, they could bear religious titles like priests, they were to avenge God's wrath against evildoers, and they were subject to criticism if they would not judge according to the law of God. Law and politics in Old Testament Israel obviously revolved around God's law. For the civil magistrate, somebody will immediately say, well, of course they were a theocracy, and that's why it is that way. You just expect that. And the theocracy of the Old Testament, God obviously gave laws for his people to obey in every sector of life. Nevertheless, it's often thought that once people say that, they finally dismissed with their obligation to keep the law of God. The thought being that those theocratic laws given to Israel for her political life are of little help to Christian political theory today. Why aren't they of help to Christian political theory today? Were Old Testament laws about crime and punishment less inspired than the prophecies about the country Messiah? Well, no. Were Old Testament laws about crime and punishment less of a reflection of God's unchanging holy character than commandments about one's attitude of heart? Well, no. Were Old Testament laws about crime and punishment ceremonial, Are restorative, redemptive in character, like the sacrificial system or the foreshadows of redemption? Well, no. Again, we'll be told why then? Are the theocratic laws for society of less binding character or of no binding character today? Well, the answer that is offered over and over again is that political laws given by God to Israel as a theocracy were given to Israel alone to obey. Only Israel was given a written revelation of these laws. That much we can agree with. Only Israel received a redemptive revelation of the law of God. Almas grant that much, but it doesn't seem to me that that Fact alone implies that only Israel was bound to obey the moral standards expressed in that written revelation. After all, if you stop and think about it, Paul wrote to the Ephesians and the Colossian churches that children should obey their parents. And I don't think anybody seriously takes that fact to somehow imply that only Ephesian or Colossian children are to obey their parents, or even that only children of Christian parents are to obey their parents. The fact that something is written to one particular group doesn't mean that it's not applicable to other groups of men. Therefore, the fact that only Israel was given a special revelation of certain political laws would not in itself show that only Israel was bound to keep those laws. What God revealed in writing to his chosen and redeemed people about their moral duties was also revealed by God, but through a different medium, through nature and conscience, to all other people on the earth as well. Paul tells us in Romans 2 that the Gentiles by nature do the things written in the law of God, for the works of the law are written on their heart, and that would include God's laws with respect to socio political morality. For at the very end of Romans 1, verse 32, Paul tells us that homosexuals know the ordinance of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death. Nevertheless, there are Christians today who maintain that with respect to a special subclass of laws revealed to the Jews in the Old Testament, that those laws were meant only for theocratic Israel to keep. These are the political laws in particular. The kings and the judges of Israel were bound to obey them, we're told, but not the rulers of the other nations. It may be that all children, Jewish and Gentile, must obey their parents, but only Jewish rulers must obey the law of God with respect to how to punish crimes. We have to ask ourselves whether this delineation between universal and localized laws is made in the text of the inspired Old Testament, or whether it's a delineation that is brought to bear by theological prejudice in our own day. The Roman Epistle states quite clearly, doesn't it? Those who commit abominable misdeeds such as homosexuality, know the ordinance of God, who practice such things, that they're worthy of death. And consequently, it's not surprising that people who are not theonomic in their outlook will often take Romans 1:31 as talking only of spiritual death, worthy of death, meaning eternal death. However, that doesn't seem to be the way the phrase is used elsewhere in the Bible. Worthy of death often is, if not universally used for worthy of civil death or the first death rather than the second death. Theologically, in fact, there doesn't seem to be any obvious biblical support for the opinion that the political laws of the Old Testament were intended only for Israel to be obeyed. Search high and low in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and I think by this time we can say with a great deal of confidence that if there was any support for the idea that these political laws are in a special category not to be kept by anybody outside of Israel, that that sort of support would have been adduced by this time by the many critics of the theonomic position. Moses was inspired to say In Deuteronomy, chapter 4, 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. There seems to be an indication these laws are meant to be kept in the land. These are laws for the land. The difficulty is that in that very passage Moses goes right on to say, keep therefore, and do them for this is your wisdom, this is your understanding in the sight of the peoples that shall hear all these statutes can say, if Moses just would have said that, would hear these interpersonal statutes or these statutes for personal piety. But he doesn't. He says, they shall hear all of these statutes and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. What great nation is there that has statutes and ordinances so righteous as all this long, and which I set before you today? Israel's law was a model for all the nations roundabout. It was a model with respect to all the statutes delivered by God through Moses, which would then include the statutes touching on political matters like crime and punishment. So then it seems that prima facie there is no good reason to say that the law was to be kept. The sociopolitical law was to be kept in Israel, but not to be kept in the nation surrounding Israel. The fact that God was dealing with Israel in a redemptive and a covenantal fashion, not setting his electing love upon any other nation, as Amos 3:2 says, did not introduce a disparity or a difference in moral standards between Israel and the nations. Psalm 119 teaches that all those who wander from God's standards, indeed all the wicked of the earth, are condemned by God. There is no recognition of differing laws for differing kinds of people, as though God's law were but a racial standard of justice. Leviticus 24. There shall be one standard for the stranger as well as the native For I am the Lord your God. In the Old Testament alone, we see that the same principles with respect to civil magistrates that were true in Israel are true for the Gentiles as well. God tells us that the rulers in the Gentile nations were appointed by God, and as such were not to be resisted. Pharaoh had to learn the lesson that God is unsurpassed in all the earth. King Darius and Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar had to learn that God ordains the kings of this world, that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he will, as we read in Daniel 4:25. Therefore God appointed rulers even in the Gentile nations, and these rulers were to be given submission and respect. God prohibited resistance to their proper authority. Those who respect God should accordingly give honor also to the king. Psalm34 instructed the old Testament Jews that they were to seek political peace. And that attitude of seeking political peace in Jeremiah 29 is applied. When the people are going to go away into captivity into Babylon, Jeremiah says, seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto Jehovah for it, for in the peace thereof you shall have peace. Even as Paul tells us in 1 Timothy 2 to pray that we can have a peaceful life and that God will bless the magistrate, so the Old Testament Jews were to pray for those magistrates, even Gentile magistrates, who are set over them. Daniel says, it shall come to pass that the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the name Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and it will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, will I punish says Jehovah, not Daniel. That's Jeremiah chapter 27. Moreover, not only were the rulers in the Gentile nations appointed by God and not to be resisted, they too could bear divine titles. We have examples of Gentile rulers in the Old Testament being called my servant and my shepherd, and indeed my anointed, my Christ. Cyrus is called my anointed one in Isaiah 45:1. So religious titles could be applied to Gentile magistrates as well, and these Gentile magistrates were to be seen as deputies of the Most high God. Psalm 47, 9. The shields of all the earth belong unto God, that is to say, the rulers, the shields of all the earth belong unto God. Civil rule in all the nations, accordingly, is secondary and subordinate to God's rule. God reigns among the nations in righteousness according to the Old Testament. And yet God is the one who sets up rulers under him, Pharaoh had to learn the lesson that God is unsurpassed in all the earth. King Darius and Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar had to learn that God ordains the kings of this world, that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever he will, as we read in Daniel 4:25. Therefore God appointed rulers even in the Gentile nations, and these rulers were to be given submission and respect. God prohibited resistance to their proper authority. Those who respect God should accordingly give honor also to the King. Proverbs 24:21. Psalm34 instructed the old Testament Jews that they were to seek political peace. And that attitude of seeking political peace in Jeremiah 29 is applied. When the people are going to go away into captivity into Babylon, Jeremiah says, seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto Jehovah for it, for in the peace thereof you shall have peace. Even as Paul tells us in First Timothy 2 to pray that we can have a peaceful life and that God will bless the magistrate. So the Old Testament Jews were to pray for those magistrates, even Gentile magistrates, who are set over them. Daniel says, it shall come to pass the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the name Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon will I punish, says Jehovah, not Daniel. That's Jeremiah chapter 27. Moreover, not only were the rulers in the Gentile nations appointed by God and not to be resisted, they too could bear divine titles. We have examples of Gentile rulers in the Old Testament being called my servant and my shepherd, and indeed my anointed. My Christ. Cyrus is called my anointed one in Isaiah 45:1. So religious titles could be applied to Gentile magistrates as well. And these Gentile magistrates were to be seen as deputies of the Most High God. Psalm 47:9. The shields of all the earth belong unto God, that is to say, the rulers. The shields of all the earth belong unto God. Civil rule in all the nations, accordingly, is secondary and subordinate to God's rule. God reigns among the nations in righteousness, according to the Old Testament, and yet God is the one who sets up rulers under him. The Proverbs indicated the throne is established by righteousness, and the king establishes the land by justice. That's true. Axiomatically, it's true of all magistrates, Jew or Gentile. And accordingly we would conclude that even the Gentiles in the Old Testament period were expected to obey the law of God when it comes to sociopolitical affairs. The proverb says, the execution of justice is joy to the righteous, but is terror to the workers of iniquity. Of course, that would not be true at all, would it, if God's law were not honored among the Gentiles, for then the execution of justice would not bring joy to the righteous. It would not necessarily be a terror to the workers of iniquity if in fact the standards of permanent and eternal justice were not being kept. That God did not exempt the nations around Israel from his claims of righteousness, I think is given definitive proof in two illustrations. First of all, the illustration of Sodom, and secondly the illustration of Nineveh. In the Old Testament, we read that Sodom was destroyed for its homosexuality, quite clearly being destroyed for a violation of a Mosaic law. On the other hand, we read that Nineveh repented of its sin or repented of sin, defined by what, accordingly, the law of God. There was one standard for all societies in the period of the Old testament. In Leviticus 18, God required His people to avoid the abominations against his law that were being practiced by the Canaanites of the land. And he threatened that he would punish Israel in the very same way as he would punish the Gentiles for these offenses. He said, even as they will be vomited out of the land. You will be vomited out of the land if you break my law as well. The proverb puts it very well. In summary, righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people. The axiomatic truth of the Old Testament was that it is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness. That's why Ezra could pray for Artaxerxes and praise God that Artaxerxes had put within his heart to have the law of God enforced in all the region beyond the river, even to the point of capital punishment. This is why David in Psalm 119 could declare that he would have God's law declared before other kings. That's why David in Psalm 2 warned the kings and Judges of the earth that they had better fear Jehovah and serve him if they did not want to perish in the way. The Old Testament you see, is replete with indications that God had one law, not just one law with respect to how you relate to your neighbor, but he had one law, one unified, one permanent law for sociopolitical affairs, whether it be for the Jews or for the Gentiles. Well, now when we come into the New Testament, the question we have to ask is, does the coming of the Messiah, does the change from old to New covenant, does the transition from an era of anticipation to an era of realization change the principles of justice for society? It's one thing to say Old Testament Jews and Gentiles alike had to keep the law of God. Can we say also that New Testament Jews and Gentiles have to keep the law of God when it comes to socio political affairs? Well, we're asking these questions in light of the larger question with which we began. The question of whether there is a standard for a distinctive political perspective among Bible believing Christians today. Is there any norm by which Bible believing Christians can set forth a distinctive Christian political stance in our own day? Well, if you'll survey the New Testament, this much will become obvious that it doesn't spend a lot of time laying down laws for society. There isn't a whole lot in any New Testament book having to do with how civil magistrates should rule. Now there are some people who look at that and they say, okay, if the New Testament doesn't lay down rules for the magistrate to keep. And since we are to be New Testament Christians, it would appear that Christians are to be silent on this subject. The difficulty with that is that there is, while there is not a great deal of specific legislation in the New Testament for civil magistrates, there is a great deal that says there must be a Christian political stance. Christians are to glorify God whether they eat or drink or whatsoever they do. They are to resist the beast. They are to resist the man of lawlessness. They are to obey God rather than men when it comes to certain political requirements. They are arrested or the attempt is made to arrest them for preaching contrary to the decrees of Caesar. And on and on and on and on the evidence goes that shows that the New Testament Christians did stand over against the state with some competing world and life view. They were to be holy in all manner of life. They were to be holy even in their political affairs because they worshiped the King of kings, the king who is over all kings. And so on the one hand, the New Testament tells us there is to be a Christian outlook on politics. And yet the New Testament doesn't give us any details on what that outlook would be, or very few details. At best that makes it very difficult to hold. When you see both of those points, it's very difficult to hold that the New Testament Christian has to be silent today and taking a political stance because God's not given direction. I think the implication is just the opposite. God has given direction and the reason the New Testament doesn't pursue it is because it's already been given. God doesn't need to, if I can put it reverently, he doesn't need to waste a lot of time repeating what has already been given as the perfect standard of socio political morality. The Bible does not show the Old Testament law of God to be a racist or tribal standard of right and wrong. It was God's universal and according to Jesus teaching, eternal standard of righteousness for human affairs. We don't see anything in the New Testament that even remotely suggests that the law of God was good for interpersonal affairs, but is not good today for political affairs. God has spoken to issues of social justice and public policy toward crime and his law. There is a divine point of view on politics and that point of view has been expressed in the law. Just so happens that most of that is found in the Old Testament. Now we've said two things about the law already. We've said that it continues to be a general standard of ethical conduct today according to the Scripture. And secondly, the Old Testament law does not have a moral validity restricted to the Jewish race. It's intended as a standard of conduct outside of the redeemed community as well as within the redeemed community. Consequently, if we're going to allow good and necessary consequences to govern our theology, as the Westminster Confession says we should, we should be led to the view that the Old Testament law is binding in politics today, whether you're a Jewish ruler or not. But I think that the decisive confirmation of this deductive conclusion or deduction from God's word and the principles that we've already learned, the decisive confirmation is found in Romans the 13th chapter. What we've learned just by studying the Old Testament is that both Jewish and Gentile magistrates are ordained of God. They are not to be resisted. They bear religious titles, they are to be avengers of wrath, and they are to rule for God and therefore criticized for not keeping his law. When we turn to Romans 13, it turns out that this those very same generalizations are the ones that Paul applies to the pagan magistrates of his own day. He says they are appointed by God and as such they are not to be resisted because we would be resisting the ordinance of God. He says that they are called the ministers of God, obviously using religious titles there. They are the deacons of God for society, and that they are to be avengers of wrath. Rulers are the avengers of divine wrath, and therefore rulers must deter evil by ruling according to the law of God. One of the ways in which we can see that Paul is telling us of the magistrate's duty to keep the law of God. One of the ways which is not pursued in the literature that I'm having you read for this course and that I want to bring out has to do with one of the motive clauses in Romans 13. And since this is supplemental to our reading, I'll take more time than it really warrants in the outline to emphasize this. Romans 13 Paul says, Let every soul be subject to the higher powers. Verse 2. Those who resist the power withstand the ordinance of God. Verse 3. Rulers are not a terror to good work, but to evil. Verse 4. For he is a minister of God to thee for good for if thou do that which is evil, be afraid for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the minister of God, an avenger of wrath to him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be in subjection, not only because of the wrath that's what I have stressed in my book, because of wrath. But also Paul says, for conscience sake for this cause you also pay tribute for they are ministers of God's service, attending continually upon this very thing. Therefore render to all their dues tribute to whom tribute custom to whom custom fear to whom fear and honor to whom honor. Paul says, we must be subject not only for the sake of fear, but also for the sake of conscience. Now, what's of interest to me here is that if you study Paul's use of the word conscience and his appeal to conscience in the Scripture, you'll see that for the most part, Paul means conscience toward God. Conscience toward God Paul frequently uses the word in this way. Acts 23:1, 2 Corinthians 4:2 and 2 Timothy 1:3. As John Murray puts it, God alone is lord of the conscience, and therefore to do anything out of conscience, conscience or for conscience sake, is to do it from a sense of obligation to God. Moreover, Paul always qualified the obedience that must be rendered to men as obedience given for godly ends. Obedience given in the context of submitting first and foremost to the moral demands of God himself. Charles Hodge puts it this way in his Commentary on Romans. In like manner, Paul enforces all relative and social duties on religious grounds. Children are to obey their parents because it is right in the sight of God, and servants are to be obedient to their masters, as unto Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Ephesians 6:1 5:6. This is made quite clear in 1 Peter 2:13 where we read that we ought to be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. Thus, believers submit to the civil magistrate for the sake of conscience, which is to say, for the Lord's sake. Just because the magistrate is to be submissive to the Lord, seeking the glory of God and obeying his commandments, Christians must obey, out of contrast, conscience toward God. Conscience cannot permit a rebellious spirit against the Lord's appointed ruler, even as it cannot permit compliance with dictates of the ruler which defy the law of the Lord. You see, it's just in this motive clause, appealing to conscience that we can understand how Romans 13 does not teach submission to a Hitler or to an IDI Amin, and on the other hand, does teach, in general, submission to civil magistrates. The assumption is that you obey the civil magistrate as a servant of God. And if the magistrate is serving God, then out of good conscience, you're going to obey the magistrate because you want to obey God. But when the civil magistrate violates the law of God and would require you to violate the law of God for conscience sake, you cannot. We must obey God rather than men. See, Romans 13 and Revelation 13 are not in conflict. I don't know how many times, innumerable times, that I have read literature on New Testament political theory. It says that you have two approaches to the state. One, an honoring approach, Romans 13, one, a dishonoring approach or individualistic approach, an anarchist approach in Revelation 13. But nothing could be further from the truth. The approach in Romans 13 and Revelation 13 is the same approach. The application is to different situations. The approach in both cases says that the magistrate must obey the law of God, and when he violates the law of God, Christians may not comply with such violations. Notice I said comply with such violations. We're not here teaching that when the magistrate breaks the law of God once or twice or even a dozen times, that Christians don't have to obey the magistrate. Christians don't have to obey the magistrate when the magistrate requires them to transgress the law of God. Well, in Revelation 13, it's of interest to me that the beast who is opposed by Christians, the beast is requiring specifically that his name, the number of his name, and thereby his character, be written upon the forehead and upon the hand of all men, the very place where the law of God was to be written, according to Deuteronomy, chapter 6. And so in the case of Revelation 13, the beast is making an effort to substitute man's law for God's law. And that accounts for why Christians are Resisting the beast. Christians are called in Revelation 12 and 14 those who resist the beginning, those who keep the commandments of God and the testimony or the faith of Jesus. So the New Testament shows that Christians take a definite political stance over against the beast and a stance with respect to the emperor in Romans 13. But in both cases that stance is one of honoring the law of God over all civil magistrates. So we've come into this discussion trying to answer the criticism that says the doctrine of the civil magistrate in the Old Testament is in morally relevant respects different than what is presented in the New Testament. What we have found is just the opposite. The same basic generalizations or premises which were true of Old Testament Jewish and Gentile rulers are the same premises presented by Paul in summary fashion in Romans 13. Those premises do not conflict with Revelation 13 and that for conscience sake, for the sake of conscience, we see that Christians obey the ruler because the ruler is supposed to be obeying God. The direction for that rule is found in the law of God, and there's been no change of that in the New Testament itself. Well, we have to push one step further. If we're saying that the law of God is binding in general, unless the New Testament says otherwise, and we're saying that that applies to socio political affairs as much as to anything else, that the doctrine of the civil magistrate is basically uniform throughout the Bible. And that would push us thirdly right down to the end here to say that we have to punish crimes today or criminals today in the same way that the Old Testament Jewish magistrate was to do that we would have to keep the penal sanctions of the Old Testament. And of course that is the place where the vast majority of people balk that don't like the theonomic thesis in our day. It's just at that point they say we can't accept this. There must be some way out of this theological grid. There must be some way to escape the deductive conclusion that we have to execute homosexuals, or that we have to execute witches or kidnappers or rapists or what have you. Scripture teaches us that there is a distinctly and distinctively Christian approach to political morality. And that requires the magistrate's recognition of the law of God. We also know from Scripture that the key function of the civil magistrate is that of punishing evildoers. He is to bear the sword as an avenger of Ra against evildoers. Now, if the magistrate is first and foremost under obligation to the law of God, and his first and foremost function is to punish criminals, to bear the sword, not in vain, but rather as an avenger of God's wrath, then it would seem to follow, wouldn't it, quite clearly, that the way that he's going to punish criminals is according to the law of God. Thieves should be made to offer restitution. Rapists should be executed punishment, perjurers should suffer the penalty that would have been inflicted on the accused. That all seems very just. After all, since in Genesis 18 we read that the judge of all the earth will not fail to do what is right. If the divine perspective on criminals in the Old Testament was, as I have said, execution for rapists, restitution for thieves, and all the rest, why would that not be the just standard of God today? In Hebrews the second chapter, verse two, that's precisely what we have presented to us, the perspective that justice must be done when it comes to crime and punishment, and that justice is defined by the law of God, Hebrews 2:2. For if the word spoken through angels prove steadfast and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect some greatest salvation? How can you be sure that God is just when it comes to condemning apostates, those who once professing Christianity fall back into Judaism? How can we be sure the author of the Book of Hebrews says that we will not escape if we spurn the great salvation presented by God? Well, you can be sure, because every transgression and offense received the just recompense and reward in the Old Testament. If in the lesser case, in civil matters, God could be counted upon to prescribe absolute justice, how much more can you count on this in the greater case, the case of our eternal relationship to God? Hebrews points out, therefore, that the justice of God in eternal retribution can be counted on just because the justice of God in civil retribution can be counted upon. In 1 Timothy 1, 8, 10, Paul tells us that the law of God is good if it is used lawfully. If the law is used in its proper way, the law of God is good. And now Paul offers one illustration of a lawful use of the law. And interestingly, he doesn't use the illustration of the law convicting men of sin and driving them to the Savior. That's what just about any evangelical would want to admit today. If he sees any lawful use for the Old Testament law. He doesn't use the illustration of the law guiding the sanctification of the believer, the third use of the law, as it's called in traditional reform terminology. He doesn't talk about the law in terms of its positive demonstration of the life of righteousness for the man who lives according to God Covenant. Paul rather seizes upon the very use of God's law that is up for grabs today. That's in dispute the political use of the law. Paul says the law was enacted, the word used of a law laid down in society. The law was enacted for. And then he gives examples of all of the public, all of the social abuses of the decalogue, in fact the most violent form of them, slayers of mothers and fathers, not just sexual perversion, but homosexuality, unnatural perversion. He goes on and on and on to talk about public violations of God's law. And he says God's law was given to restrain this kind of activity in society. Yes. Are we to keep the law of God today? Is that the norm for Christian morality? We've already seen that it must be the norm for Christian morality in terms of the fact that the Old Testament is inspired and profitable for instruction in righteousness. We've seen that the Old Testament itself taught the permanent validity of the Old Testament law, that Jesus came and explicitly addressed that question and taught it that the theological premises of the Trinity and the Covenant teach the permanent validity of God's law. Today we've seen that there's no basis for denying the validity of God's law and socio political affairs given the Bible's uniform teaching about civil magistrates. And now we've come all the way down to the end of the line of saying that even the penal sanctions delivered to the magistrate are binding as the permanent standards of justice, that they are to be used as a lawful use of the law of God. God's law specifies restraint on sin, on crime, excuse me, in society, and shows the proper way of punishing it. So that if we don't follow the law of God with respect to punishment, crime and punishment, then I want you to consider the alternative. Today there can be no distinctive Christian answer to how we should treat murderers or rapists or homosexuals or witches or anything else. Because there is no answer presented in the New Testament at all unless it's the answer of the Old Testament itself. And so we can either give up the Christian world and life view saying that we as Christians don't have a sociopolitical outlook, one that can answer this particular very pointed, important question question, or we do. And if we do, we're going to be driven again to the Old Testament law. Thank you.