Dr Greg Bahnsen - Political Ethics: Textual: Dispensationalism, Puritan, Theocratic Ideal (Part 16)

What we have been studying in terms of Christian approaches to the state, we've considered two thematic approaches to the state, what I generally call thematic orientations or thematic procedures for drawing Christian conclusions about matters of state. The first being that of Dooya Verde, who doesn't like the nature, grace, dichotomy and Thomism. Nominalism and Lutheranism are even humanism, but then proposes a rather elaborate Christian philosophy for the state that I think is internally flawed. Doibert wants us to be in the grip and the power of God's Word and then go about doing our Christian philosophy regarding the state. Secondly, we've looked at Richard Mao's book Politics and the Biblical Drama, somebody who is more teleologically oriented. Mao stands very firmly against Anabaptism, the perspective of Yoder, as much as he appreciates much in it. He says the Reformed alternative is a better alternative to that of Anabaptism. And Mao also stands over against the distinctives of dispensationalism. So we can appreciate a good deal in what he's saying, also that the dispensationalists and the Anabaptists don't provide a viable Christian philosophy of the state. However, Mao's own approach, although it too has worthwhile elements of application, is internally flawed by the inappropriateness of certain models. He uses the vagueness that comes from the use of these models and the conclusions that are drawn, which I think are mistaken conclusions, those which actually conflict with the teaching of God's Word elsewhere. So here are two thematic approaches, the doa, Verdian and, and then the approach of Mao to Christian politics. The textual approaches to Christian politics, therefore would seem to stand out as recommending themselves to us. If the thematic approaches have these difficulties, as I've mentioned and don't give us specific guidance or give us guidance that tends to conflict with what the Bible specifically says. Maybe we'd better get more textual, more precise, get down to what does the exact teaching of the Bible have for us regarding politics and the first form of textual Christian approaches to the state that I have you being exposed to is found in Robert Culver's book on civil government in the Bible. I forget the precise title. Let me see if I have it here now for you. Toward a Biblical View of Civil Government. Yes, and in this book Culver offers us a survey of biblical teaching from Genesis to Revelation, a fairly helpful survey in reminding us just how much the Bible does offer by way of raw data, if nothing else, that we can use in constructing a Christian view of the state. And Culver I think is easy enough reading that you don't need any great insights from me. However, I would make the following comments about his particular approach. First of all, I think it is flawed by his dispensational tendency toward dualisms. Culver's approach to the state in the survey he gives us of the state in biblical teaching is flawed by his dispensational tendency to to two forms of dualism. On the one hand, he tends to contrast spirit and matter, the realm of Spirit in the realm of matter. And in this he sounds a little more Zoroastrian than he does fully biblical in his world and life view. But there is drawn out for us continually this realm, internal realm, invisible realm of Spirit, over against the external material realm of matter. And then complementing this spirit matter dualism, you'll also find in Culver a pronounced dualism and contrast between Old Testament and New Testament, which of course fits in precisely with the dispensational theological scheme that says that God deals with men and has different standards for men in different dispensations, and that the Old Testament dispensation or dispensations must be set over against the New Testament dispensation of the Church, so that if the Old Testament law said one thing about politics, it's up for grabs. It's at least questionable whether that can be directly applied to the New Testament, which is a separate dispensation of the Church. So Culver has implicit in his approach these dualistic tendencies, spirit and matter, Old Testament and New Testament. And in both cases, I believe there's sufficient biblical evidence for us to be cautious about such dualisms or actually to reject the tension that they represent. Man is not spirit and matter in some ontologically double sense, as though God takes certain portion of matter and a certain portion of spirit and puts these together. And that man's physical life, his social life, his. His life in the state pertains to one aspect of his being, and then his spiritual and mental life pertain to another. Man is a unit. God created man as a unit, as a whole being with integration between the various functions that we consider internal and external. But that's just by way of contrast, it seems to me, not by way of absolute distinction. And then, of course, the Old Testament New Testament dualism intention presented in Culver is explicitly overthrown by Jesus when he says that every jot and tittle of the Old Testament must be maintained until heaven and earth pass away. He says this in Matthew 5. And we also learn that the new Covenant is The fruition of what God presented in the Old covenant to his people. So if we're enjoying the scriptures of the New Testament, the scriptures of the new Covenant today, they are nothing more but the blooming, if you will, the. The outcome, the result of what God was doing in ages of anticipation under the Old Covenant and forms of the Old covenant. And so there's not really a dichotomy between the two. It's really a progressive and organic development from one to the other. So my first problem with Culver is the tendency toward the dualisms of spirit and matter, Old Testament versus New Testament. And the second difficulty is that Culver explicitly presents politics and the nations today as under Satanic control in our current age. Politics and the nations are under the control of Satan in this age. And it seems to me that kind of premise rests. That's an overgeneralization, that rests on a misreading, a misunderstanding of the biblical view of this world, this age and the nations. When the Bible, when the New Testament speaks of Satan being the ruler of this age, we must remember that Christians do not belong to this age. The Christians and all that they do belong to the coming age. Christians are members of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the eternal kingdom of Jesus Christ, the eternal age. And that eschatological order of the kingdom, God's rule, the millennium, the age to come, the eternal age, the new heavens and the new earth. That eschatological order according to the New Testament has broken into the present age. That order has now been introduced so that this age and the age to come are contemporaneous. They exist side by side. Presently, you see the coming age. And this age therefore represent more the age of rebellion, the realm of rebellion. This age would be the realm of rebellion against God and against his purposes, under the control of Satan, quite naturally. But then side by side with that is the realm of God's kingdom, the kingdom of Jesus Christ, the age to come. And these both exist right now. Some people are members of this age and some are only members of the age to come. Now, Satan being under control, being in control of this age, and the nations that are in rebellion against God doesn't say anything about the supremacy of God and the prospects of victory for Christians in the present world. You see, it's our conviction that the new heavens and new earth are rooting out the old heavens and old earth. The old. That the new heavens and new earth are replacing things, that God is recreating all things, that Christ's kingdom is growing like a mustard seed, that's going to be very large and is having a leavening influence throughout all areas of life. And so there's a development. And as the church is on the march and as the kingdom of Jesus Christ is growing, the gates of hell will not prevail against the church. And so there's going to be a progressive spoiling of Satan's house. Now that Jesus has bound the strong men, now that Satan has been bound, he used the words of Revelation 20 so that the nations are no longer deceived, and therefore the rule of Jesus Christ, the gospel of Jesus Christ will come to be believed in all the nations. And there's going to be social and political consequences. There's going to be the working out of righteousness in all areas of life, so that God's will comes to be done on earth even as it's done in heaven. Therefore, there are two major problems that I think we should have with Culver's discussion, and these problems arise from this dispensational theology. First, the dualism, spirit matter, Old Testament, New Testament, and secondly, the idea that politics is a realm and the nations themselves are stage under Satanic control. Apart from those particular difficulties that I warned you about in your reading, I think Culver does present to you as good a survey from COVID to cover in the Bible of elements of biblical teaching about civil government that you'll want to take into account as you formulate on an inductive basis your own perspective on Christian politics. Okay, do you have any questions just on these brief remarks about Culver's dispensationalism? Culver comes in here. I give you him as an example of somebody who wants to take a textual approach to the issue. Okay, we've seen two thematic approaches. One, that's just the power being in the grip of the Bible approach. The other says, let's just take the themes, the models presented in the Bible. These thematic approaches leave us somewhat unsatisfied for gaining a specific Christian political stance. Then we turn to a textual approach. We turn to Culver's survey, the biblical data on civil government, and we find that it's flawed with the various dualisms or view of Satan that I've been talking about. So now we move on to another textual approach. We finally come to what I call the Puritan ideal in Christian politics. The Puritan ideal. The Puritans, just like the dispensationalists, want to let the Bible speak explicitly to the question of civil government. They want the Bible's own words to be normative. They want to gain concrete directive from Scripture itself. And so they're interested in looking at Scripture in verse. What do you would call a biblicistic outlook, letting the Bible speak directly to politics. When the Puritans came to this country in particular, they were faced with a unique opportunity to develop a society and a political order from scratch, to make a fresh beginning, not being hampered by the traditions and the regulations of previous society or an existing civilization. They could develop completely from within the context of their own Christian convictions, a social order and a political order that they thought would be according to the Bible. Now, in the Journal of Christian Reconstruction, you will find a symposium on the Puritans and Biblical law. And in that particular volume, Jim Jordan has a paper on Calvinism in the Judicial Law of Moses. And that particular paper discusses a long history for the Reformed conviction that in the Old Testament God gave social legislation political guidance which is normative for all ages. And in particular, the Westminster Confession of Philippines, where Chapter 19, Section 4, it deals with the judicial law of Moses, must be understood not as abrogating the civil law of the Old Testament. At the outlook of the Puritans and reformers at that time in the 1640s when the Westminster Confession was written, was that you cannot maintain that the judicial law is binding in its particular wording or binding in certain unique applications, for instance, to the society of Israel, to the Promised Land, to details of that circumstance. Nevertheless, there is a way in which the judicial social law, political guidance of the Mosaic law is continuing to be binding on all nations, and that in terms of the general principles that are illustrated in the Old Testament. Now, let's take an example here. If you look at the larger catechism, as the larger catechism explicates, what duties are laid upon us in the Ten Commandments, what the decalogue summary of the moral law means in concrete cases. The larger catechism says that we are under obligation to protect innocent human life, to take measures to preserve the safety of individuals. And now the citation made at the larger catechism is to the passage in the Old Testament that says it was required of Jewish people to put a railing around the roof of their house. And that's a particular illustration of a safety precaution by putting a railing around the roof of their house, when they went up to the roof of their house in the cool of the evening, or when they were on the roof of their house, the railing would help people not to fall over the edge and be hurt or perhaps killed. Now, are we under obligation to put railings around the roofs of our houses today. Is that a social obligation that we have? Well, the Westminster Confession of Faith says that we're only bound to the general equity of that law and not necessarily to the judicial law as it is stated. We're not bound to the judicial law in the same way that it bound the Jews, because we live in a different culture, a different kind of civilization, and we face different circumstances, a different environment. And so the confession is taking into account what we have called the situational perspective of ethics. There's a change of cultural detail and therefore a change of application of the law to our own day. But it's not a change of principle. The principle that is illustrated by the requirement of a railing around the roof of the house is the principle of human safety and our obligation to protect human life, innocent human life. Now, today, we're still under that obligation and a confession, words generally that we must take concern to protect innocent human life. And then it cites the illustration from the case law, from the judicial law of the old testament. And Mr. Jordan's paper discusses the Westminster Confession of faith and its wording, explaining that the statement that the judicial law has passed away with the nation Israel does not abrogate the civil law of the Old Testament because it goes right on to say in the confession that the equity of that law is required. The equity, or the underlying moral principle that is taught in the Old Testament illustration or case continues on with us today. Mr. Jordan offers internal evidence in the confession of faith, showing that that's the way the confession must be interpreted. He looks at the historical context and the vocabulary that is specifically chosen by the writers of the confession. He considers the proof texts that are offered, showing how the confession writers used the Bible to explicate their own position and to verify their position. And then, of course, he puts this in the historical context of the opinions of men like Cartwright and Gillespie and John Cotton and others, all of whom felt that the civil laws of the Old Testament provided explicit, explicit guidance in every age for God's people, even though the specific application may change because of changes of culture. And so the Puritan ideal, I think, is best explained in terms of the Westminster Confession of Faith. And the most thorough discussion of the Westminster Confession of Faith on the judicial law of Moses that I'm aware of, and one that puts it very properly in historical context, is Jim Jordan's paper. And I would recommend that you pick it up and read it now, if you would like. A biblical defense of the Puritan ideal of letting the Old Testament law of God direct our political decisions and our outlook today. Then I have assigned to you for reading my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics, the chapters dealing with the application of my thesis to the state. Particular, I think that my book gives specific scriptural support to the ideal that we know historically. The Puritans endorse the ideal of letting Mosaic stipulations be the stipulations in the law of our land. Today, the basic argument in Theonomy and Christian ethics centers around two passages of scripture, Matthew V chapter and Romans the 13th chapter. In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us what our attitude should be toward Old Testament laws. He tells us what our attitude should be toward the Scripture of the Old Testament and especially its moral teaching. He tells us that he came not to destroy the law or the prophets, but rather to fulfill them. For truly I say to you that until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass away from the law, and until all things are done. And therefore whoever breaks the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Now, in this statement, Jesus quite emphatically says that the law of the Old Testament must be presumed to be binding in every detail. In the first place, verse 17 of Matthew 5 indicates that the law is not a category that has been rejected from Christian out of the bounds of Christian concern today. That it is not wrong for Christians to be guided by the law of God. For Jesus said, I did not come to abrogate. In fact, in verse 17, he says, I did not come to abrogate. And he says it twice. There's emphasis to this. Jesus does not abrogate the law of God. Well, we might say that's true. But. But how much of the law of God Some people say only the Decalogue is binding today. Only the Ten Commandments are only laws pertaining to individual affairs, personal affairs, private morality, internal dispositions is binding today. And other people have different ways of dividing up the pie of the Old Testament. But Jesus says in verse 18 that not only is the law binding, but it's binding in every jot in tittle. That is, not even the slightest stroke of a pen can be altered in what God originally said. And that's because the law is going to be binding until heaven and earth pass away. It isn't as though only within his lifetime or only for a short period, or only in the ancient world, Jesus says, until he comes again, God's law continues to be the one uniform standard of justice. And then in verse 19, Jesus makes the Application. If we have any doubt about the meaning of these previous two verses, verse 19 leaves no doubt in our minds that Jesus maintains every jot until means that we cannot break even the least commandment. Now, if we can't break the least commandment au fortiori, we're not given permission to break greater commandments, and therefore we can't break any commandment. And Jesus then adds to this that even if you teach the breaking of the least commandments, you'll be least in the kingdom of heaven. So those today who are teaching that we are free to neglect certain Old Testament laws, that we are free today to set aside the law of God when it comes to social and political affairs, they are teaching that it's all right to break certain commandments. And Jesus says anybody who even teaches the breaking of even the least commandment will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. We know that our prayer is to be as Jesus taught his disciples, to pray. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth. And where is God's will found? It's found in the commandments. It's found in the moral exhortations and the directives of the Old Testament. And Jesus did not come to give a new moral code. Jesus didn't come to say the Old Testament law was inadequate, that there was something wrong with it, that it was flawed. He came rather to say that that moral code convicts us all of sin. And therefore we all need a sacrifice, we all need a Savior, we all need redemption. So Christ came not to change the law, but to atone for our violations of the law and to give us the strength by His Holy Spirit now to keep that law which once defined us as sinners because we had violated it. So Matthew 5 teaches us basically that God has one uniform moral code. And that there has not been any great principal change from Old to New Testament with respect to the law of God that continues to be the expression of God's will, God's standard and definition for justice. But after all, we don't believe that every jot and tittle is binding today in exactly the same way that it was in the Old Testament. Jesus in Matthew 5 must be seen as teaching us not in an absolute way, that every law must be kept in exactly the same way it was in the Old Testament, but teaching rather the presumption that every law would be binding in this way unless elsewhere in God's revelation. Elsewhere in New Testament revelation, we are given modifications and qualifications. And those modifications and qualifications can be found in the writings in the teachings of Jesus and the apostles. We have explained, for instance, there's been a change of priesthood that Jesus came not after the order of the Levitical priesthood. There's been a change in the sacrificial system. There's been a change with respect to the temple, there's been a change in the dietary laws. Certain of these things do undergo qualification and change just because the New Testament tells us so. And since other qualifications are given about our attitude toward the Old Testament law, we would view then Matthew 5 as teaching what our operating assumption must be, what our presumption must be as Christians. That presumption is that any Old Testament law is binding on us and defines God's standard, shows us God's will for all time unless God himself as the lawgiver, gives us a qualification. Now the question arises, since Matthew 5 is only a presumption of continuity, and since qualifications do have to be made according to the teaching of God's Word, does God's word qualify the binding authority of the Old Testament law with respect to the state? Have there been changes made in our political obligation because of the coming in of the New Covenant? Has the New Testament made some alteration of the Old Testament political and civil laws? We've already said that Matthew 5 teaches only a general presumption of continuity and some qualification is allowed if Scripture teaches elsewhere that those qualifications are to be made. Does Scripture teach elsewhere qualifications about political duty? And that brings us then to the second major passage of Scripture we have to study, and that's Romans 13:1 4. Romans 13:1 4. In Romans 13, Paul lays out something of a Christian view of the state by telling us of the place of the state and God's order ordained the state, telling us of our duty to the state, that we must not resist it, because in so doing we're resisting the order of God and telling us of the proper function of the state, that it wields not the sword in vain, and that the magistrate should be a terror not to good citizens, but to evil citizens, citizens, to criminals, those who violate the law of God. And so the magistrate is ordained as the minister of God to execute his vengeance, his wrath, against those who perform evil. So Romans 13amounts to the most explicit, concise definition and explanation of the Christian view of the state that's presented by Paul himself. Now, in my book, the Enemy and Christian Ethics, I attempt to go to the Old Testament and find out what the Old Testament says vis a vis Romans 13. What does the Old Testament teach us, first of all, about Jewish civil magistrates? How does the Old Testament look upon magistrates in Old Testament Israel. And what we see in the Old Testament is that Jewish magistrates were ordained of God. They were not to be resisted, that they bore religious titles in some cases because they were to be the vicegerents of God. The deputies of God who enforce God's will and come under criticism are found wanting in the eyes of God and will be punished if they fail to enforce the law of God. Now, the important thing for us to notice is that those premises about Jewish Old Testament magistrates are precisely the premises that Paul uses by way of summary in Romans 13. What Paul teaches in Romans 13 is the same perspective on civil rule for the most part that we find in the Old Testament pertaining to civil magistrates. However, somebody could say what we see in the Old Testament. We were talking about Jewish magistrates, the theocracy, the special people of God. And so then we have another chapter. Where will we study what the Old Testament says about the civil magistrates and the Gentile nations around Israel? What did the Old Testament teach about these magistrates? Well, an inductive study of Old Testament evidence shows that they too were ordained of God. The resistance of such magistrates would bring people under God's judgment. These magistrates could sometimes bear religious titles that they were seen as ruling under God as his deputies, and that they were under obligation to the law of God and therefore could be drawn under punishment, judged and criticized if they failed to follow the law of God to enforce the law of God. So not only was it true in the theocracy, but it was true outside the theocracy too, outside the special people of God, that God's law was the universal standard, the objective standard of sociopolitical justice. And so then when we turn to Romans 13 again, we see that what Paul says in Romans 13 with respect to the magistrate, the Roman emperors of his day, that they are ordained of God not to be resisted, they rule under God, bear religious titles, have to enforce the law of God, that these propositions are precisely the propositions that summarize the Old Testament attitude toward the the civil magistrate, whether it's in the Jewish setting or in the Gentile setting of the Old Testament. Since the same propositions, the same premises are used in Paul as can be verified through an inductive study of the Old Testament. My conclusion is there has been no fundamental change or alteration from the Old Testament to the New Testament view of the civil magistrate. And therefore we have taught the general presumption of continuity in Matthew 5, the general presumption of continuity on the law of God. God has not changed he doesn't have a double standard of morality. He hasn't changed his mind on what's right and wrong. And so what he taught is right and wrong in the Old Testament is what must for the most part, be presumed to be right and wrong in the New Testament, unless the law give us otherwise, and that there is no qualification, the lawgiver has not said otherwise in the case of the state, that the state specifically is seen in the same light as it's seen in the Old Testament, and that whether in the theocracy or outside the theocracy, God has one uniform standard of right and wrong and one uniform standard with respect to the state. And therefore we should presume that the law of God is binding on our state today, that the civil statutes of the Old Testament Testament give us a textual basis for making political decisions as Christians, unless revelation elsewhere tells us otherwise, unless God has qualified things in the New Testament in a specific way, we assume we can use the law of God, the Old Testament law of God for making political decisions today. In fact, Paul says in Romans 13 that the magistrate is under obligation to wield the sword in such a way that he avenges wrath on evildoers. Well, we can ask ourselves, so not only was it true in the theocracy, but it was true outside the theocracy too, outside the special people of God, that God's law was the universal standard, the objective standard of sociopolitical justice. And so then when we turn to Romans 13 again, we see that what Paul says in Romans 13 with respect to the magistrate, the Roman emperors of his day, that they are ordained of God, not to be resisted, they rule under God, bear religious titles, have to enforce the law of God, that these propositions are precisely the propositions that summarize the Old Testament attitude toward the civil magistrate, whether it's in the Jewish setting or in the Gentile setting of the Old Testament, since the same prophet propositions, the same premises are used in Paul as can be verified through an inductive study of the Old Testament. My conclusion is there has been no fundamental change or alteration from the Old Testament to the New Testament view of the civil magistrate. And therefore we have taught the general presumption of continuity in Matthew 5, the general presumption of continuity on the law of God. God has not changed. He doesn't have a double standard of morality. He hasn't changed his mind on what's right and wrong. And so what he taught is right and wrong in the Old Testament is what must for the most part, be presumed to be right and wrong in the New Testament unless the law giver says otherwise, and that there is no qualification, the lawgiver is not said otherwise in the case of the state, that the state specifically is seen in the same light as it's seen in the Old Testament, and that whether in the theocracy or outside the theocracy, God has one uniform standard of right and wrong and one uniform standard with respect to the state. And therefore we should presume that the law of God is binding on our state today, that the civil statutes of the Old Testament give us a textual basis for making political decisions as Christians, unless revelation elsewhere tells us otherwise, unless God has qualified things in the New Testament in a specific way way, we assume we can use the law of God, the Old Testament law of God, for making political decisions today. In fact, Paul says in Romans 13 that the magistrate is under obligation to wield the sword in such a way that he avenges wrath on evildoers. But we can ask ourselves, whose wrath is the magistrate supposed to avenge on evildoers? Just who is it that's supposed to be punished by evildoers, according to Paul? Well, the magistrate punishes evildoers, and evildoers are defined by the standard of good and evil. And that standard, we know for Paul, is the law of God. In fact, if you go down a few verses in Romans, you'll see that Paul says, love works no ill, no evil to the neighbor, for love is the fulfillment of the law. The law gives us a definition, a standard, a yardstick by which we can measure good and evil. And the magistrate is to be an avenger of wrath on those who commit evil, those who break God's law. Moreover, the wrath that the magistrate avenges is obviously the wrath of God himself. For the very end of chapter 12, Paul has exhorted Christians that they are not to avenge themselves, they are not to show wrath on those who do them wrong. Because vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay. God says, I have my ways of dealing with those who treat you unjustly. So don't avenge yourselves. Vengeance is mine, says God. And then you come down. Just a few verses of 13, and God tells us how he avenges wrath upon evildoers. God makes very clear that his wrath is expressed through the magistrate. So what Paul teaches us in Romans 13 in itself verifies the puritan approach to politics. The puritans taught that we could go to the Old Testament law and find in it, apart from cultural changes of application, the principles for ruling a society, the principles for Civil government. Paul tells us that the principles by which the magistrate in his own day, even the Caesars, the Roman rulers of his day, the principles by which they were to rule, were to be found in the law of God. Because these magistrates were to be ministers of God. You notice, they were not to be ministers of men. They did not rule by the consent of individuals. They did not have to execute the general populace's will. They were to rule according to God, because they are the ministers of God who avenge the wrath of God and do so according to the law of God. They are under orders, even as we are under orders. And that explains how it is that we as Christians can be obliged to obey civil magistrates and follow them even when we don't like what they're doing. The civil magistrate is a servant of God, and we owe allegiance to the civil magistrate because we too are servants of God. If God has set the magistrate over us, then we must submit to Him. But even as we must submit to the magistrate for conscience sake, Paul says, by which he means, if you want to check second Peter chapter two for conscience toward God, it's just because we have a conscience toward God that we submit to the civil magistrate. For that very reason, when the civil magistrate tells us to break the law of God, we cannot break the law of God. We must obey God rather than men, because we obey men only as they are the servants of God. And therefore, for a conscience toward God indicates that the supremacy in this whole passage belongs to God. He is supreme over the civil magistrate, and he has set the civil magistrate as supreme over us. So God is ruler over all, and we obey the magistrate as a way of obeying God. But when the magistrate does things which are heinous sins that cannot be corrected, that we are not under obligation to obey him when he tells us to break the law of God. And there might even be cases where we might justly revolt against the magistrate out of allegiance, superior allegiance to God himself. For the magistrate is to be the minister of God. So in theonomy, my argument can be summarized in two basic steps. Matthew 5 teaching the general command continuity of moral standards between Old and New Testament, and then Romans 13 teaching that there's a continuity in terms of the Old Testament and New Testament views of the civil magistrate. So these two continuities being presumed and taught in the Bible, then our conclusion is that as Christians today, we can go to the textual basis of the Old Testament law for specific guidance on political matters. Now, as you might guess, this point of view has not been Popular with everybody that there are Christian writers, even writers in the Reformed camp of theology, who have found this unacceptable. And in particular, I would draw your attention to two lines of criticism. Well, three lines of criticism that I think are worthy of mention. First of all, there's the line of criticism that's been presented by Meredith CL. Meredith Klein maintains that in this day and age, outside of the Church, we must have a common grace ethic. A common grace ethic where Christianity is not favored as one religion among others or above others, and where the Old Testament law and its severity is not carried out. Because in this day and age we just have a common approach to morality with believers and unbelievers. Our society is not a special redeemed society as was Israel of old. Now, Klein's argument has three different handles to it. There are three ways we can get into his argument. First of all, he argues that the Old Testament was a theocracy and we are not a theocracy and therefore we are not to follow the law of God in sociopolitical affairs today. Very simply, he says, the Old Testament was unique. You can't miss the fact that the Old Testament people of God were a foreshadow of the church to come and that they were given special privileges. God redeemed them among all the nations of the earth. God was dealing with them in a special way. Israel was a holy nation, a set apart nation, a unique nation. Israel was preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ. Israel was the model of the Church. Israel was a holy nation, redeemed as other nations were not. And therefore Israel was different. It was special, it was unique, since we are not Israel, since we are not a theocracy today. Therefore it would be wrong to take the laws of the theocracy and apply them to our situation. Very quickly I would respond to this that Klein makes two mistakes. First is a logical mistake, and the second is an exegetical mistake. The logical mistake is that of hasty generalization, arguing from some features of a relationship to saying that all features of that relationship have to be the same. Let me make this a little bit clearer. Klein says that in some respects we know the Old Testament people of God were unique. His conclusion is, therefore we can assume in all respects they were unique. And it would be an argument that follows this line of thought. We know they were unique with respect to their typological function, foreshadowing the coming of Jesus Christ in the Church. We know that they were unique because God had treated them in a special redemptive way, making them a holy nation. So we know that the Old Testament was unique in that respect. We can conclude, therefore, that the moral standards of the Old Testament were unique also meant only for Israel. Well, that's logically fallacious to say that if they're unique in some respects, they must be unique in these further respects also. That calls for further argumentation that's not been given. We know that certain races of people are unique from other races of people, for instance, in terms of skin color. Do we conclude, therefore, that they're unique in all respects, for instance, that different races of people don't have hearts and don't have kidneys? Do you argue from one difference that things must be completely different? No. And certainly there is a difference between our situation now and the situation in the Old Testament. But that doesn't prove that there's a moral difference, doesn't prove that there's some kind of double standard in God. The exegetical problem in this theocratic argument is that Klein doesn't take into account that the model, the laws of the theocracy were a model for all nations. Moses says in Deuteronomy 4, verses 6 to 8 that the laws, and all the laws, all the statutes that he is laying down are the wisdom of the Israelites, the wisdom of the Jews in the eyes of all the nations round about. Who will say what nation has such just laws as all these laws which Moses has revealed? The Old Testament says that the theocracy and the laws given to the theocracy were never intended only for the theocracy. God redeemed them. God loved them. God was treating the Jews in a special way, so he gave them a written revelation of his law. But all people knew the law of God and were to follow the law of God. And so Klein is exegetically mistaken to think that those laws were unique laws for the theocracy. Paul says in Romans 1 and 2 that God has made his law known. Indeed, the works of the law are written on the hearts, even of the Gentiles, so that they know the ordinance of God. As one illustration that those who commit abominable acts like homosexuality are worthy of death. Paul says pagans know the law of God. They know it through natural revelation. So Klein's theocratic argument falls to the ground because it's logically and exegetically flawed. His second line of argumentation is the argument from intrusion, where he says that the Old Testament standard of morality was really an intrusion, an intrusion of the standards of the final judgment, that God was really using consummation standards of judgment and bringing them backward into history, intruding them into the pre consummation period. Well, I have difficulty with that, not only because this whole notion of time warp is without explication and without theological justification. What does it mean that God, that the future is being intruded into the present? I mean, how is it that the standards of consummation are brought backward into history before the consummation? I think that's just literary metaphor and flourish. I don't think that can be taken too seriously. But moreover, it's just wrong to say that the standards of the final judgment were enshrined in the law of Moses in the Old Testament. For on the day of final judgment, all sins will be capital sins. On the final day of judgment, all sinners will be consigned to hell unless they're under the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ. All sins will receive the same punishment of having to undergo eternal separation from God and torment in hell. There will be no differentiation there. But in the Old Testament, not all sins were capital sins. Not all crimes were capital crimes in the first place. Not all sins were punished by the state to begin with. And even in that realm of sins that the state does punish the realm of crimes, the state did not punish all crimes with death. And therefore it's clear that the standards of the final judgment were not being used in the Old Testament law of Moses. The differentiations within that law between sin and crime, between capital crime and non capital crime, indicate that consummation standards were not the pattern. Klein's third line of argumentation holds that we live under common grace today, and therefore our ethic has to be different than the ethic given to the special people of God under the theocracy? The assumption of this common grace line of thought, however, is that the Jews did not enjoy the benefits of common grace, that if they live under common grace, they wouldn't have this harsh Mosaic Law for their socio political ethic. But is that true that the Jews did not live under common grace? Common grace is defined for us in Genesis, the eighth and ninth chapters as God sending regularity of season, sunshine and rain. We know that God shows this common grace to people. When even sinners receive sun and rain for their crops and receive common benefits that will sustain people to the day of judgment, their physical lives are going to be spared. Now is it true that the Jews of the Old Testament period did not enjoy sunshine and rain unless they were righteous? Did the sunshine and rain only come down upon the righteous in Israel and the unrighteous didn't have sun, sunshine, and rain. No, there was a common grace of God for the righteous and unrighteous in Jewish society. And consequently, Klein's whole line of thought is muddled in that he tries to associate this age as an age of common grace and the age of the Mosaic Law, or the culture that was ruled by the Mosaic Law as not being ruled by common grace. And I think that is a clear mistake. The Bible teaches otherwise. So we have found wanting Klein's argument from theocratic uniqueness, from the intrusion of consummation standards, and from the principle of common grace ethic. And therefore, I think Klein's argument against the theocratic ideal of the Puritans presented in my book the Enemy and Christian Ethics can be safely ignored. Theologically, even though he is respected and perhaps well have to answer his followers over and over again, Klein's position does not really pose a theological threat to us. Another argument that has been proposed against the theocratic ideal, against the theonomic perspective on sociopolitical affairs, is the argument advanced by Walter Chantry, where he tries to to show that the New Testament specifically repeals the laws of Moses outside of the Decalogue, that the New Testament tells us that we're no longer under the judicial laws of Moses. Now, how does Mr. Chantry attempt to prove this? Well, the argument is rather simple, and I think it's rather unconvincing. He tells us that In Galatians, the third and fourth chapters, at the end of Galatians 3, beginning of Galatians 4, Paul explains that the law was a schoolmaster, a tutor that brought us to Christ, a tutor unto Christ. However, now that we are mature sons in the kingdom of God, we are no longer under a tutor. We're no longer under the pedagogical standard of the law. Now, I agree that Paul teaches this, and I agree with a good deal of what Mr. Chantry says about that. He, for instance, says that cannot mean that the entire law has passed away, because we know elsewhere in the New Testament that Paul endorses the law as being something that is holy, just, and good. Paul says that faith establishes the law. So we know elsewhere that the law is maintained in the New Testament. And so whatever Paul means by saying we're no longer under the tutor of the law, in Galatians 3, he. He cannot mean the entire law. Well, then the question is, how much of the law is he speaking of? Chantry says Paul is certainly dealing with what we would call the ceremonial aspects of the law. Okay, And I would agree with that. In fact, I would say that is what Paul is talking about pure and simply are the ceremonial aspects of the law. And we know this because he calls the law the rudiments. The rudiments, a word that he uses in Colossians, the second chapter, for ceremonial prescriptions which were a shadow of the coming body of Jesus Christ. So that use of the word rutimens in Galatians 3, when you cross reference it to Colossians 2, makes it clear that Paul is talking about ceremonial law. We know that Paul is talking about ceremonial law also because he says at the very end of this discussion, the tutor that we're no longer under why then do you want to be sub days and seasons, these festival ceremonial requirements of the law? Paul makes specific application using the ceremonial law. Moreover, Paul tells us of this law that it was a tutor unto Christ. Now, although in traditional theological literature it's been common to take that as an indication that that the moral law condemns our sin and drives us to Christ for salvation, that is not what Paul means here. He is not talking about the law so convicting us of sin that it now carries us to Christ. He is saying that the law, very naturally, through an age of maturation, brought people to Jesus Christ. The law was unto Christ, it was a tutor unto Christ. And the law that was a tutor unto Christ in that sense to teach us justification by faith, was the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. It was through the sacrificial system of the Old Testament that we learned about this tutor unto Christ, that we learned that justification had to be by faith. It was that law which foreshadowed the person and work of Jesus Christ, not the moral law that defines sin that said you shall not steal or commit adultery or kill. It was not the moral precepts of God that were unto Christ, but it was the redemptive precepts, the shadow ordinances, the ceremonial law of the Old Testament. And then finally, you have to remember the historical context of the book of Galatians that Paul is dealing with. The Judaizers who taught justification in terms of works of the law, and in particular obedience to the ceremonial laws of Moses, circumcision and the festivals of the Old Testament. And so, given the historical context, given the semantical context, context, the rudiments of the world, given the theological declaration that the law is unto Christ, we must conclude that the law Paul is talking about here is the ceremonial law. And I think that's pure and simply what he's talking about is the redemptive provisions of the Old Testament law. But now Mr. Chantry wants to say, Paul is also doing away with the judicial law of the Old Testament. Paul is also doing away with those laws that surround the Ten Commandments. Commandments and applied the Ten Commandments. Well, in the first place, if Paul did away with those laws that define the Ten Commandments, Paul was also doing away with the Ten Commandments. Because if you do away with that which defines something, you're doing away with that which is defined also. I mean, if thou shalt not kill means you must have a railing around the roof of your house, if you shall not steal means you must pay workers, what is their hire, and so forth, if that is the way you understand the meaning, the application, the definition of those general platitudes. And then you say, well, those applications and meanings are abrogated. You have thereby abrogated the general platitudes, the general principles of morality that they were a summary of. I mean, that they applied. If you abrogate the application, you are also abrogating the summary. And therefore, if Chantry's writes that the judicial law has passed away, then the moral law, what he calls the Ten Commandments, has passed away altogether because the principles that were defined, if the definitions changes, if the definitions change, then the principles have been changed as well. But even more importantly, we need to see the fallacious argument Chantry uses to say that the judicial law is part of this tutorial that we're no longer under as Christians. His argument, very simply, is Paul presents the tutor of the law as a harsh taskmaster. The tutor is harsh. Chantry then says, if you look at the Old Testament civil laws, you'll see they were harsh because after all, it called for punishment for all these crimes, and there are all these hard requirements laid upon people. And so his argument is, the school master in Galatians 3 is harsh. We perceive that the Old Testament law is harsh. The judicial law, therefore, the Old Testament judicial law is the schoolmaster. That's a terrible argument. It's logically and theologically a terrible argument. Theologically, it's a terrible argument because we shouldn't say the Old Testament judicial law was harsh. In Hebrews the second chapter, we learned that every transgression and offense received a just recompense of reward. And consequently, we should rejoice in that Old Testament law. We should with David say, is the delight of my heart. I meditate in it day and night. We should say, oh, how love I thy law. We should say, with John, his commandments are not burdensome to us. Theologically, we should not view the Old Testament law of Moses, even in its socio political details, as a harsh standard. It is a just, loving, liberating, blessed standard for a society. So Chantry is just wrong in his premise that says the Old Testament law is harsh. But even if he's right that the schoolmaster is harsh and the Old Testament judicial law is harsh, that would not prove that the Old Testament judicial law is the schoolmaster any more than this argument is a valid one. Red is a color, green is a color, therefore red is green. You see, red and green have in common that they are colors, but that doesn't mean that they're identical. The fact that the Old Testament law is harsh, which I don't buy, but if it's a fact that the Old Testament law is harsh, and if the schoolmaster is harsh, that doesn't prove that the law is the schoolmaster any more than it proves that red is green. Have a better argument than that that's logically fallacious and it's theologically mistaken. And there's. Therefore I conclude that neither Klein nor Chantry have given any legitimate theological argument against the theocratic ideal as presented in my book Theonomy and Christian Ethics. The only other argument worthy of mention is the argument presented by John Zen and other Reformed Baptists to the effect that we now live under the New Covenant, not under the Old Covenant. And under the New Covenant we have the laws of that covenant to follow rather than the Old. The difficulty is it's the Old Covenant that predicted the coming of the New Covenant. And the terms of the New Covenant are My law shall be written upon their hearts. What law? The law of the Old Covenant. And if you do a study of the terms of Old and New Covenant, it's impossible to make the New Covenant a new moral order because the New Covenant writes the Old Testament law upon the heart of God's people, so that they will now keep it. So the arguments of Klein from intrusion, common grace and theocracy, the argument of Chantry from the harsh taskmaster of Galatians 3, the argument of Zens from the New Covenant. None of these arguments are sufficient or valid to show that the Old Testament law of God is no longer binding for us today.