Monthly Archives: February 2015

Concerning Theonomy

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LondonBaptistCFThe 1689 London Baptist Confession sets forth a three-fold division of the Law

Moral

19.2. The same Law that was first written in the heart of man, (Rom. 2:14-15) continued to be a perfect rule of Righteousness after the fall; & was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in (Deut. 10.4) Ten Commandments and written in two Tables; the four first containing our duty towards God, and the other six our duty to man.

19.5. The moral Law doth for ever bind all, (Rom. 13:8-10; James 2:8, 10-12) as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof, and that not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the (James 2:10-11) authority of God the Creator; who gave it: Neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, (Matt. 5:17-19; Rom. 3:31) but much strengthen this obligation.

Ceremonial

19.3. Besides this Law commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel Ceremonial Laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, (Heb. 10.1; Col. 2:17) prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly holding forth divers instructions (1 Cor. 5:7) of moral duties, all which Ceremonial Laws being appointed only to the time of reformation, are by Jesus Christ the true Messiah and only Law-giver who was furnished with power from the Father, for that end, (Col. 2:14, 16-17; Eph. 2:14, 16) abrogated and taken away.

Judicial

19.4. To them also he gave sundry judicial Laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by vertue of that institution; their general (1 Cor. 9:8-10) equity onely, being of moral use.

Theonomists acknowledge only a two-fold division of the Law. See Sam Waldron’s “Theonomy: A Reformed Baptist Assessment“ [3 hour 12 minute readout] . Here is a snippet:

Is the Theonomic view of the Mosaic “Judicial Law” consistent with the Reformed tradition?

This is a pressing question for Theonomists. On the one hand, in asserting “the abiding validity of the law in exhaustive detail” they appear to teach the binding obligation of the “judicial law” of Moses on society today. On the other hand, the divines of the Westminster Assembly and Calvin, their mentor, clearly teach the “expiration” of the judicial law of Moses and deny that it is as such binding on nations today. The critical statement in the Westminster Confession of Faith is found in 19:4. Having clearly distinguished the moral, ceremonial, and judicial law, the Confession states, “To them also, as a body politic, He gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.” Calvin elaborates on this very point in his Institutes. His statements are so similar to that of the Confession that it is probable that here as in so many other places he had a formative impact on the Confession.

“I will briefly remark, however, by the way, what laws it may piously use before God, and be rightly governed by among men. And even this I would have preferred passing over in silence, if I did not know that it is a point on which many persons run into dangerous errors. For some deny that a state is well constituted, which neglects the polity of Moses, and is governed by the common laws of the nations. the dangerous and seditious nature of this opinion I leave to the examination of others; it will be sufficient for me to have evinced it to be false and foolish. Now, it is necessary to observe that common distinction, which distributes all the laws of God promulgated by Moses into moral, ceremonial, and judicial; and these different kinds of laws are to be distinctly examined, that we may ascertain what belongs to us, and what does not. . . .

What I have said will be more clearly understood, if in all laws we properly consider these two things-the constitution of the law and its equity, on the reason of which the constitution itself is founded and rests. Equity, being natural, is the same to all mankind; and consequently all laws, on every subject ought to have the same equity for their end. Particular enactments and regulations being connected with circumstances, and partly dependent upon them, may be different in different cases without any impropriety, provided they are all equally directed to the same object of equity. . . . Whatever laws shall be framed according to that rule, directed to that object, and limited to that end, there is no reason why we should censure them, however, they may differ from the Jewish law or from each other. The law of god forbids theft. What punishment was enacted for thieves, among the Jews, may be seen in the book of Exodus. The most ancient laws of other nations punished by theft by requiring a compensation of double the value. Subsequent laws made a distinction between open and secret theft. Some proceeded to banishment, some to flagellation, and some to the punishment of death. False witness was punished, among the Jews, with the same punishment as such testimony would have caused to be inflicted on the person against whom it was given; in some countries it was punished with infamy, in others with hanging, in others with crucifixion. All laws agree in punishing murder with death, though in several different forms. The punishment of adulterers in different countries have been attended with different degrees of severity. Yet we see how, amidst this diversity, they are all directed to the same end. For they all agree in denouncing punishment against those crimes which are condemned by the eternal law of God; such as murderers, thefts, adulteries, false testimonies, though there is not a uniformity in the mode of punishment; and, indeed, this is neither necessary, nor even expedient. . . . For the objection made by some, that it is an insult to the law of God given by Moses, when it is abrogated, and other laws preferred to it, is without any foundation; for neither are other laws preferred to it, when they are more approved, not on a simple comparison, but on account of the circumstances of time, place, and nation; nor do we abrogate that which was never given to us. For the Lord gave not that law by the hand of Moses to be promulgated among all nations, and to be universally binding; but after having taken the Jewish nation into his special charge, patronage, and protection, he was pleased to become, in peculiar manner, their legislator, and, as became a wise legislator, in all the laws which he gave them, he had a special regard to their peculiar circumstances.”

Also see Dr. Waldron’s three-part lecture series “Theonomy: A Reformed Baptist Assessment”

I. Introductory Considerations

II. A Critique of Theonomic Eschatology

III. A Critique of Theonomic Ethics

Dr. Sam Waldron has also put together a lengthy discourse on the subject “Theonomy, A Reformed Baptist Perspective.” He writes:

Section 1: Introductory Considerations

I. A General Description of “Theonomy”

A. Major Sources

1. Rousas J. Rushdoony

Theonomy, or as it is also called, Christian Reconstruction, has for its father R. J. Rushdoony and his prolific pen. Among his many books the ones which are most important here are first and foremost, The Institutes of Biblical Law, and his brief treatment entitled, The Meaning of Postmillennialism: God’s Plan for Victory. Rushdoony ascribes to Cornelius Van Til the greatest influence by far upon his thinking.(1) Rushdoony is the master influence in three Theonomic organs: The Chalcedon Foundation, “The Journal of Reconstruction,” and a newsletter entitled “The Chalcedon Report.”

2. Greg Bahnsen

It is probably due to Mr. Bahnsen that Christian Reconstructionism owes the name, Theonomy. His Theonomy in Christian Ethics with a foreword by Rushdoony is perhaps the single most influential and controversial of the Theonomic literature. He is also well-known for his book, Homosexuality: A Biblical View. This book illustrates what is best in the Theonomic perspective. Mr. Bahnsen is now an Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister in California. He is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary and formerly the Professor of Apologetics at Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Jackson, Mississippi. Though a fine apologete in the presuppositional school of thought, he was dismissed from RTS in a dispute over Theonomy. The Covenant Tape Ministry distributes tapes of his teaching.

3. Gary North

Gary North was formerly editor of the “Journal of Christian Reconstruction.” He is the editor of numerous works including, The Theology of Christian Resistance, The Tactics of Christian Resistance. He is the author of a popularization of Christian Reconstruction entitled, Unconditional Surrender: God’s Program for Victory, as well as Backward Christian Soldiersand volume 1 of an economic commentary on the Bible entitled The Dominion Covenant: Genesis. He also contributed to The Failure of the American Baptist Culture edited by James B. Jordan.

Section 1: Introductory Considerations

I. A General Description of “Theonomy”

A. Major Sources

1. Rousas J. Rushdoony

Theonomy, or as it is also called, Christian Reconstruction, has for its father R. J. Rushdoony and his prolific pen. Among his many books the ones which are most important here are first and foremost, The Institutes of Biblical Law, and his brief treatment entitled, The Meaning of Postmillennialism: God’s Plan for Victory. Rushdoony ascribes to Cornelius Van Til the greatest influence by far upon his thinking.(1) Rushdoony is the master influence in three Theonomic organs: The Chalcedon Foundation, “The Journal of Reconstruction,” and a newsletter entitled “The Chalcedon Report.”

2. Greg Bahnsen

It is probably due to Mr. Bahnsen that Christian Reconstructionism owes the name, Theonomy. His Theonomy in Christian Ethics with a foreword by Rushdoony is perhaps the single most influential and controversial of the Theonomic literature. He is also well-known for his book, Homosexuality: A Biblical View. This book illustrates what is best in the Theonomic perspective. Mr. Bahnsen is now an Orthodox Presbyterian Church minister in California. He is a graduate of Westminster Theological Seminary and formerly the Professor of Apologetics at Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS) in Jackson, Mississippi. Though a fine apologete in the presuppositional school of thought, he was dismissed from RTS in a dispute over Theonomy. The Covenant Tape Ministry distributes tapes of his teaching.

3. Gary North

Gary North was formerly editor of the “Journal of Christian Reconstruction.” He is the editor of numerous works including, The Theology of Christian Resistance, The Tactics of Christian Resistance. He is the author of a popularization of Christian Reconstruction entitled, Unconditional Surrender: God’s Program for Victory, as well as Backward Christian Soldiersand volume 1 of an economic commentary on the Bible entitled The Dominion Covenant: Genesis. He also contributed to The Failure of the American Baptist Culture edited by James B. Jordan

B. Major Tenets

The Christian Reconstructionists have themselves defined the major tenets of their system. They are presuppositional apologetics, predestination, their view of the abiding validity of the law in exhaustive detail, and postmillennialism. North writes,

Mr. Clapp lists three key doctrines of the Reconstructionists: presuppositional apologetics, biblical law, and postmillennialism. He left out one crucial doctrine: predestination. These were the four that David Chilton and I listed in our essay. “Apologetics and Strategy” in Christianity and Civilization 3 (1983).(2)

As we come to a preliminary assessment of Theonomy, we will comment further on these self-confessed distinctives of Christian Reconstruction. Continue reading →

Exposing the Text

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Bible377Derek Thomas, in an article entitled “The Necessity of Expository Preaching” writes:

According to the legendary golfer Jack Nicklaus, the best thing he ever did was to discover the “fundamentalist” teacher Jack Grout, who taught him the basics that he has followed ever since. Great preachers, like great golfers, follow basic rules. The more they practice these rules, the better they become.

One such rule, put succinctly in English prose that now sounds dated, but which is as needful now as when it was first penned, comes from the Directory for the Publick Worship of God, written in 1645 by the Westminster Assembly of Divines. When raising a point from the text, the directory says, preachers are to ensure that “it be a truth contained in or grounded on that text, that the hearers may discern how God teacheth it from thence.” In other words, preaching must enable those who hear it to understand their Bibles.

In laying down this principle, the divines were following the first book on homiletics to be produced by the English Reformation, William Perkins’ The Arte of Prophecying (1617), which included this instruction: “The Word of God alone is to be preached, in its perfection and inner consistency. Scripture is the exclusive subject of preaching, the only field in which the preacher is to labour.

As incredible as it seems, Perkins found it necessary to underline the fact that preachers are to preach the Bible and the Bible alone. As Paul urged Timothy, the preacher’s task is to “preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:2).

Earlier, Paul had assured the Corinthians that he and his companions were not “like so many, peddlers of God’s Word” (2 Cor. 2:17). The word Paul employs here, kapeleuô, is rendered variously as “peddle,” “corrupt,” or “deal deceitfully”; the New Living Translation renders the verse, “we are not like those hucksters—and there are many of them—who preach just to make money.” This word comes from the world of ancient tavern-keeping. It suggests the practice of “blending, adulterating, and giving bad measure.” Paul was concerned for purity and honesty in handling the Scriptures.

He charged young Timothy again to present himself to God “as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). The word that is translated in many versions as “to handle” or “to divide” actually means “to cut” (orthotomeo). Timothy was to drive a straight path through the Word of God and not deviate to the left or to the right. He was to “preach the word,” meaning not only that he was to preach from the Bible, but that he was to expound the particular passage he was preaching on because Scripture, as Paul reminds Timothy, is “breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16).

Expository preaching is a necessary corollary of the doctrine of the God-breathed nature of Scripture. The idea is not so much that God breathed into the Scriptures, but that the Scriptures are the product of His breathing out. Independent of what we may feel about the Bible as we read it, Scripture maintains a “breath of God” quality. Thus, the preacher is to make God’s Word known and make it understandable. He is to limit himself to it without adding or subtracting. As Alec Motyer has written: “An expository ministry is the proper response to a God-breathed Scripture. Central to it all is that concern which the word ‘exposition’ itself enshrines: a display of what is there.”

Such word-focused ministry, based on divinely given Scripture (as Paul makes plain to the church at Ephesus), fulfills four goals all at once: it builds up the church in faith and knowledge; it brings believers to maturity marked by spiritual stability; it produces a people whose lives are full of integrity; and it equips the church for service so that each member is engaged in ministry to others (Eph. 4:12-16).

An excerpt from Derek Thomas’ contribution in Feed My Sheep.

The Ten Commandments Today

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rick_phillipsIn an article entitled “The Ten Commandments as God’s Moral Law” Rick Phillips in contrast, are the Ten Commandments just part of the diverse “Mosaic corpus” intended only to govern the lives of a particular ancient Near Eastern people and thus “more or less inapplicable outside that world” (so David Dorsey).

I confess that the dismissing of the Ten Commandments as a guide to Christian living alarms me greatly, especially when this position is taken up by purportedly Reformed Christians. Moreover, the premises for this maneuver seem remarkably weak to me. In short, the Ten Commandments are first declared indistinguishable from the over various rules and precepts of the Mosaic corpus, such as the one regulating what to do when an axe head flies off, and then, second, the Ten Commandments are relegated to the governance of merely a single ancient cultural and religious setting with little or not significance for Christians today. It would be hard to find a shift with more profound implications not only for Christian doctrine but also for our approach to daily living as followers of Christ. In a time when the church is continually feeling pressure to conform to the world, it is hard to imagine a posture that would be more damaging to the faith and witness of believers today.

In addressing this concern, I would like to offer four arguments for why the Ten Commandments should be seen as separate and distinct from the other rules and regulations of the Mosaic economy, and why the Ten Commandments do set forth the universally binding moral law of God that is intended to serve as a guide for the lives of believers of all times, including today.

1. The way that Ten Commandments were given informs us of their special and eternal significance.
Unlike the various rules and regulations that fill the pages of Exodus through Deuteronomy, the Ten Commandments were given to Moses directly by God, having been written by the finger of God on tablets of stone (Ex. 24:12; 32:16). It is hard to imagine how God could have made a more suggestive statement regarding the timeless character of these ten priorities. The setting in which the Ten Commandments were given – atop Mount Sinai amidst clouds of storm and fire (Ex. 20:18) – also indicates the sacred status attached to this code of laws. To dismiss this significance of way God gave the Ten Commandments thus seems not only strange but also irreverent.

2. The way that the Ten Commandments were recorded in the Pentateuch shows their primary role in expressing God’s moral will.
In addition to how the Ten Commandments were given, we should consider how they were recorded within the Pentateuch. The book of Exodus sees Israel departing from Egypt, passing through the parted waters of the Red Sea, and then finally arriving at their destination at Mount Sinai. Exodus 20 then presents the Ten Commandments as a literary apex in the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt. They go up to God’s mountain, they receive God’s law, and then Israel departs from the mountain of God. It is true that many other rules and laws are given, but none occupy the literary high ground given to the Ten Commandments. The same can be said about the priority of placement given to the Ten Commandments in the book of Deuteronomy, where it is given as the chief covenant demand set before Israel by the Lord.

3. The way that the tablets of the Ten Commandments were stored in the ark of the covenant associates their moral demands with the very character of God.
No one can deny that the Mosaic covenant including scores of different rules and commands, some dealing with the cultic life of the tabernacle and others regulating life within the nation. As the New Testament shows, these various rules (respectively, the ceremonial law and the civil law) are tied to the religious-cultural setting of Old Testament Israel. In contrast, the unique place given to the Ten Commandments was shown by the way its tablets were physically stored. Moses’ attitude toward this eternal moral law was seen in that he placed its tablets within the ark of the covenant (Dt. 10:5; Heb. 9:4). The ark of the covenant was the footstool of God and the special place of the glorious divine presence on earth. It is difficult to see how Moses could have given more special prominence to this particular legal code, assigning it not merely to the cultural setting of ancient Israel but also to the very person and character of God.

4. The way that the Ten Commandments were confirmed in the New Testament proves their abiding relevance and authority over the lives of Christians in the new covenant age.
While the above arguments are sufficient, I believe, to prove the eternally binding character of the Ten Commandments as the moral law of God, the question as to their applicability in the new covenant age is shown by the New Testament itself. Consider the following:

a. When Jesus was asked to summarize the law of God, he did so in terms of the two tablets of the Ten Commandments (Lk. 10:26-27). Clearly, our Lord distinguished the Ten Commandments as an abiding expression of God’s will, set on a higher pedestal than the miscellaneous rules of the Mosaic corpus.

b. The new covenant is set forth not as a repudiation but as the fulfillment of the old (Mosaic) covenant. Thus Hebrews 8:10 repeats Jeremiah 31:33 where God promises to “put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts.” The point of this statement is not that Christians are freed from the binding rule of the Ten Commandments but that the eternal moral law given through Moses would be placed within us by the inscribing work of the Holy Spirit. In short, the law that Christians are to internalize is the same law that was externalized on the tablets of the Ten Commandments given to Moses.

c. All Ten Commandments are explicitly confirmed in the New Testament, showing that unlike the other Mosaic rules this moral law transcends the ancient cultural-religious context of Israel. This is disputed by those who would marginalize the Ten Commandments, but consider the following brief list, to which many more instances could be added:

1C: Mt. 4:10; Lk. 4:8; Mt. 6:24
2C: Acts 15:20; Acts 17:29-30
3C: Mt. 6:9; Mt. 15:8-9
4C: Mt. 24:20; Acts 16:13; Heb. 4:9
5C: Mt. 15:3-4; Eph. 6:1-3
6C: Mk. 10:19; Rom. 13:9
7C: Mk. 10:11-12; 1 Cor. 6:9
8C: Mk. 10:19; Eph. 4:28
9C: Mt. 15:19-20; Eph. 4:25
10C: Rom. 7:7; Eph. 5:3

I understand and appreciate the concerns of fellow Christians against the perils of legalism in stifling the spirituality of Christians. But this legitimate concern not only should not marginalize the Ten Commandments but it must not. When we consider the way the Ten Commandments were given, recorded, stored, and confirmed in the New Testament, we ought to extol the beauty and value of God’s moral law together with both David and Paul, those spiritual giants of the old and new covenants. We should affirm David when he sang, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Ps. 19:7). And we should agree with Paul when far from setting aside the Ten Commandments, he placed them at the very height of Christian spirituality, declaring, “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Rom. 13:10).