Theonomy: Sanctified by Law reconstructionism; or the Tower of Babel
The same Christ will come again to judgment, when the Wickedness of the world shall have reached the highest point, and Antichrist corrupted the true religion.
We reject all who deny the real resurrection; who teach the ultimate salvation of all the godless, and even the devil. We also reject the Jewish dream of a millennium, or golden age on earth, before the last judgment.
We therefore confess and teach with a loud voice: Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world, the King and High-priest, the true Messiah, whom all the shadows and types of the Law and the Prophets did prefigure and promise. God did send him to us, and we need not look for another.
There remains nothing but that we should give all glory to him, believe in him, and rest in him alone.
Further to the right exists a group that goes by several names: Christian Reconstructionism, theonomy, dominion theology, and kingdom theology. By no means is it a cohesive movement but consists of several subgroups. While its roots are in Calvinist theology, it is an uneasy alliance of fundamentalists, charismatics, and miscellaneous evangelicals on the Christian Right. It consists of Christian splinter groups that are postmillennial and desire to take America and the world back to an Old Testament ethic.
As used by the Reconstructionists, the term theonomy refers to the abiding validity of God’s law throughout history.
While they (theonomists) may quarrel among themselves, they come together over the big picture, namely, the need to restore the nations of the world to Old Testament principles. Or from another perspective, many of these adherents regard Christian Reconstructionism as a resurrected Puritan movement.
According to Rushdoony, “Man’s justification is by the grace of God in Jesus Christ; man’s sanctification is by means of the law of God” (Institutes of Biblical Law, p. 4). Again, “The law is the way of sanctification” (p. 3). These statements set law as the antithesis of grace. They present a theory of sanctification that is not by grace but by works of law. (Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms (Belfast; Greenville, SC: Ambassador Emerald International, 2002), 367.)
For he who says: I shall be saved through my works, says nothing other than: I am Christ, since the works of Christ alone save as many as ever are saved.
Philip S. Watson, Let God Be God!: An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2000), 96.
Jesus did not command his followers to disciple the nations qua nations (the nations as such). The clause “disciple all the nations” implicitly contains a reference to individuals; it means “disciple individuals from all the nations.” Acts 8:40 is again illustrative. Philip did not preach to cities qua cities. The clause “he preached the gospel to all the cities” implicitly contains a reference to the individuals to whom Philip actually preached.
A nation qua nation cannot experience the personal discipleship in view any more than it can receive Trinitarian baptism.
Theonomy: A Critical Assessment with Lane G. Tipton
Theonomy in its contemporary form was just beginning to emerge as Van Til’s career was ending. Bahnsen’s Theonomy in Christian Ethics did not appear until five years after Van Til’s retirement in the Spring of 1972. Therefore Van Til has no public account which permits us to determine how he evaluated Theonomy.
This surely accounts in part for the fact that both Theonomy and its detractors claim to be influenced by Van Til. The matters which we have considered indicate that, in our judgment, Van Til would have distinguished himself from Theonomy. Indeed, in private communication, Van Til indicated reticence to be associated with Theonomic ethics, at least insofar as it was manifest in his day:
Then too I am frankly a little concerned about the political views of Mr. Rushdoony and Mr. North and particularly if I am correctly informed about some of the views Gary North has with respect to the application of Old Testament principles to our day.
My only point is that I would hope and expect that they would not claim that such views are inherent in principles which I hold. Letter to C. Gregg Singer, May 11, 1972, procured from the archives at Westminster Seminary.
T. David Gordon, “Van Til and Theonomic Ethics,” in Creator Redeemer Consummator: A Festschrift for Meredith G. Kline, ed. Howard Griffith and John R. Muether (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 277.
To begin with, since Christians were living in expectation of the end of the world, they had neither the inclination nor the ability to initiate an ethical renewal of a world which seemed to be doomed for destruction.
As the years passed, however, everyday problems required with ever increasing urgency a Christian answer from the churches. However, the ethical directives of Jesus—the only materials of their own with which the Christians could supply the need—by no means covered all the areas of life and culture for which decisions had to be made. (Martin Dibelius and Heinrich Greeven, James: A Commentary on the Epistle of James, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976), 3–4.)
For most early Christians from the NT era onward, the law of Moses was in some respects obsolete, and hence no longer binding, at least not in the same manner as it was before the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ (Melito).
To read the vast sweep of Torah regulations as if they were all still to be carried out literally was to commit a—or perhaps even the—capital hermeneutical error, inasmuch as to do so would be a failure to grasp the pivotal significance of the paschal event, and its aftershock, the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, for the divine economy of salvation.
Patristic authors were also inclined to underline both the limited aims and the limited efficacy of the law’s pedagogy. With respect to its aims, the morality promoted by the law was imperfect when compared to that required by the law of Christ (Ambrose).
For instance, Tertullian notes how the Mosaic law allowed for vengeance while the new law of Christ promotes peace. The law of Moses’ aims were also soteriological limited. God did not give the law in order to justify (Augustine) or to foster faith (Ambrosiaster, comm. in Gal. 3.12).
Cyril of Alexandria offers one of the most thorough patristic accounts of the manifold salvific goods that the law could not pretend to provide:
true knowledge and vision of God, intimate access to God’s presence, and sanctification.
B. Lee Blackburn Jr, “Law,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation, ed. Paul M. Blowers and Peter W. Martens, First Edition (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 563,564.
The faithlessness of Israel is due to its inability to understand and keep the law in terms of God’s promise.
And that inability is confirmed by their rejection of Christ (Rom. 10:3, 18–21). Thus the law condemns Israel and provides no “life.” Israel can be “Israel” only when it lives by God’s promise as confirmed by Christ. “Christ is the end of the law” (Rom.10:4) both in terms of its goal and its termination, for the law constitutes Israel’s self-aggrandizement and boasting in its rebellion against God.
Jewish Christianity owes its priority to God’s promise alone and not to any ethnic pride or boasting in the Torah.
It is common for scholars now to confine the boasting excluded by Romans 3:27 to the possession of the law; but the thesis there stated is expanded on and illustrated in Rom.4:ff, where it is allowed that, if one is justified by works, then one has reason to boast, though boasting is ruled out where there is dependence on grace. And Romans 2:23 suggests that boasting in one’s possession of the law is appropriate only if one complies with its commands. The boasting ruled out by the message of faith in Rom. 3:27 is thus likely both that of the possession of the law and that of one’s obedience to it.
Clearly Paul thinks that, where the “works of the law” play a role in salvation, boasting of one’s righteousness is at least a theoretic possibility (Phil 3:4–6 suggests that it was not only theoretic). Yet Paul’s opposition to boasting that deprives God of his glory is expressed in different contexts and appears to be basic to his thinking.
What, most profoundly, was wrong with the law for Paul may well have been that it provoked pride and trust in something other than God alone.
Stephen Westerholm, “The ‘New Perspective’ at Twenty-Five,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism: The Paradoxes of Paul, ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, 181st ed., vol. 2, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Tübingen: Baker Academic; Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 32–33.
A Jewish Christianity that does not live by grace alone has in fact returned to Judaism in its rebellion against God: “But of Israel he says, ‘All day long I have held out my hands to a disobedient and contrary people’ ” (Rom.10:21, Cited from Isa. 65:2).
J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 91.
Christian Reconstructionism, Theonomy, Dominion theology, are postmillennialists.
Stated in terms of the principal antagonists, the church age interim is a time of continuous Har Magedon conflict between Christ and Satan. Satan opposes the advance of the gospel by persecution from without (through the institutional agency of the bestial imperial powers) and by perversion of the truth within (institutionalized in the apostate Babylon-church). Christ, enthroned above with all authority in heaven and earth, restrains Satan and the antichrist development.
Clearly, the enormity of the surge of evil world powers at the close of the church age contradicts the postmillennial expectation that all the nations will have been theocratized under the kingship of Christ during the millennium. As we shall be further observing below, the kingdom of glory comes only after the complete and final removal of all evil from the earth.
Latent in the Apocalyptic symbolism is an even more direct contradiction of dominion theology’s postmillennial eschatology. The melding of church with the state and its coercive power,
the arrangement which theonomic reconstructionism regards as the kingdom ideal to be attained during the millennium, is precisely what is anathematized in the Apocalypse as the harlot-Babylon church, the monstrous perversion of the true church.
Meredith G. Kline, God, Heaven and Har Magedon: A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 186.
Despite the number of Judaeans who opposed the war, it appears only Judaean followers of Jesus stayed the course of pacifism and in essence were conscientious objectors to the war with Rome.
In Rev 16:12–16 the kings of the east team up with demonic spirits in preparing for a confrontation at [H]armagedon. In Rev.17:9–14 a coalition of ten kings falls in line with the Beast in anticipation of making war on the Lamb, who will conquer them. Rev 19:11–21 depicts the triumph of Christ and his heavenly armies against the kings of the earth with their armies. In this scene, Christ comes down from heaven riding on a horse in true warrior fashion to judge and make war. His weapon is “a sharp sword with which to strike the nations and rule them with a rod of iron” (19:15; cf. Ps 2:9; Isa 11:4). The Beast and the False Prophet are captured and thrown alive into the lake of fire.
Daniel C. Harlow, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament,” in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, ed. James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003), 1585.
More precisely the mistake made by both premillennialism and postmillennialism is to posit a coming of the promised kingdom of power and glory foretold by the prophets before the Consummation. Both these millennial views recognize that the ultimate coming of the kingdom in heavenly glory transpires at the Consummation but they also suppose there is a preliminary realization of the antitypal theocratic kingdom in the millennium and thus before the Consummation (which of course comes after the millennium on any view of the sequence of the millennium and the parousia).
Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 351.
Har Magedon—well named, this heavenly mount, the mountain of God. For it is the mount of gathering in multiple senses. Primarily and forever it is the temple-mount, the assembly place of the worshipping, celebrating entourage of the King of glory, a myriad congregation of angels and men (cf. Heb. 12:18–29; Psa. 47:9; 48; 102:21, 22 ). Here is the council chamber where God assembles the heavenly elders for deliberation (cf. Psa. 82:1). This celestial mount is the paradise to which God’s exiled people of every nation are regathered (cf. Deut. 30:3–5; Isa 27:12, 13; 43:5; Jer. 32:37–41; Ezek. 11:17–20; 36:24).
Har Magedon is the palace-fortress against which Satan’s antichrist, aspiring to the throne on this mountain, gathers his hordes in the final battle of Har Magedon (cf. Ezekiel 38–39; Rev. 16:14–16; 19:19; 20:8), an event which, from the perspective of God’s sovereignty, is a divine gathering of the nations to Zion for their final judgment (cf. Joel 3 [4]; Zech. 12:3; 14:2; Matt. 25:31, 32). This Mount of Assembly is the heavenly hearth to which the Lord gathers his elect, one by one in their passing from the earthly scene (cf. Isa. 26:20; Luke 16:22; Rev. 6:9–11) and as a resplendent multitude raised from the dust in resurrection glory at his final harvesting of the earth at his parousia (Dan. 12:2; Matt. 13:30; 24:31; Mark 13:26, 27; 2 Thess. 2:1; Rev 14:14–16).
Meredith G. Kline, God, Heaven and Har Magedon: A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 56–57.
The Greek language had no letter ‘h’ and so instead used this mark to convey that sound. As a result, the correct (Hebrew) term John uses to describe the climactic end-times battle is harmagedon. This spelling becomes significant when we try to discern what this Hebrew term means. The first part of the term (har) is easy. In Hebrew har means “mountain.”
Our term is therefore divisible into har-magedon, “Mount (of) magedon.” The question is, what is magedon?” Megiddo, of course, is not a mountain, and so the idea that the battle of Armageddon will be at Megiddo is deeply flawed. The Greek term har-magedon retroverts back into Hebrew as har moʿed, the “mount of assembly” at which Yahweh lives and where his divine council serves him. That mountain is Zion—Jerusalem. Armageddon is a battle for God’s dominion over Jerusalem at Jerusalem. Michael S. Heiser, Reversing Hermon: Enoch, The Watchers & The Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017).
Har môçed/magedon is then the place of God’s royal presence, whether heavenly archetype or earthly archetype, where he engages in judicial surveillance of the world (Lookout Mountain); where he gathers the gods (cf. Psa. 82:1) for deliberation (Council Mountain); where he musters his armies for battle (Marshal Mountain); where he assembles the company of his holy ones, spirits of just men made perfect with myriads of angels (Ecclesia Mountain). Echoing Psalm. 48, Heb. 12:18–29 displays these varied facets of Har Magedon, Mount of Gathering, and identifies it as Zion, heavenly Jerusalem, city of the living God, the Great King.
The story of the earthly Har Magedon goes back to the beginnings of human history when this mountain of God rose up as a cosmic axis in Eden. There the battle of Har Magedon was joined as Satan challenged the God of the mountain and overcame the first Adam, the appointed guardian of the garden-sanctuary. In redemptive history Zion was a typological renewal of Har Magedon, the setting at the dawning of the new covenant age for an other momentous encounter in the continuing warfare, this time resulting in a decisive victory of Jesus, the second Adam, over the evil one.
The typo logical Zion/Jerusalem provides the symbolic scenery for prophecies of the climactic conflict in the war of the ages. Through his antichrist beast and his allied kings gathered to Gathering Mountain, Satan will make his last attempt to usurp Har Magedon. But the Lamb, the Lord of the mountain, and his assembled armies will triumph in this final battle of Har Magedon, the battle of the great day of God Almighty (Rev. 16:14–16; 19:11–21; 20:7–10). MEREDITH G. KLINE, JETS 39/2 (June 1996) 207–222, n.d.
As other Old Testament texts and literature from the ancient Near East make clear, no absolute distinction should be made between Yahweh’s heavenly abode and his earthly dwelling in the temple on Zion. The relationship is dialectical, for Yahweh’s heavenly rule is reflected in his earthly sovereignty, centered in the temple which unites heaven and earth.
Ben C. Ollenburger, Zion, the City of the Great King: A Theological Symbol of the Jerusalem Cult, vol. 41, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), 34.
The slaying of Abel by Cain illustrates a rapid development of sin, issuing into murder in the second generation. Hence the careful manner in which Cain’s conduct before and after the act is described. Cain committed his sin with premeditation, having been warned beforehand. After the act he denies his sin, is defiant, repudiates every obligation to the law of love. Even after God has pronounced sentence upon him, he is exclusively concerned about the consequences of his sin, not about the sin itself.
When this is compared with the act committed in paradise, it becomes evident that a rapid progress in corruption of the human heart had taken place.
Sin proves powerful enough to prostitute the gifts of God’s common grace in the sphere of nature for purposes of evil. The first step in natural progress is taken by Enoch, the son of Cain, who built a city. Afterwards, in the eighth generation from Cain, the inventions of cattle-raising, of music, of metal-working appear. The inventors were sons of the Cainite Lamech, from whose song it appears that the increase in power and prosperity made possible by them only caused a further estrangement from God. The song [Gen. 4:23, 24] is a sword-song. Delitzsch well observes that it is an expression of Titanic arrogance.
It makes its power its god, and carries its god, i.e. its sword, in its hand. What God had ordained as a measure of protection for Cain is here scorned, and sole reliance placed upon human revenge through the sword. Even Cain still felt the need of help from God; the spirit of Lamech depends upon itself alone. Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2003), 46.
It was, therefore, plainly an act of grace and mercy when, after man in Adam had broken faith and covenant, God again appointed a city-structure for the benefit of the generality of mankind. This city would not be the same city that the Lord established at the beginning.
That is, it would not be a theocratic, covenant city with an institutional integration of culture and cult.
Such a holy temple-city would be provided through the redemptive program for God’s elect. The city that fallen man would build would be a common city, temporal, profane, and it would exist under the shadow of the common curse. Nevertheless, that mankind in general should in measure be fruitful and their work productive, that they should not be abandoned to chaotic lawlessness, that there should still be an urban structuring of man’s historical existence—this was, indeed, a good gift of the Creator’s common grace.
But the divine provision of the common grace city had been made known in the old world long before the Flood. Indeed, the disclosure concerning some of the necessary components of this common city took place immediately after the Fall. For as we have seen, implicit in the word of God’s curse addressed to the generality of mankind at the judgment in Eden (Gen. 3:16ff.) were intimations of the continuance of the marriage institution and of the task of subduing the earth.
And shortly thereafter the foundation of the judicial authority structure of the city was established in a remarkable divine communication to the one who was to become the founder of the city of man. Genesis 4:15 records God’s reply to a complaint-appeal of Cain and in this word of divine response we have the oracular origin of the city, or state.
In particular, under the contemplated judicial order an act of murder was to be met with full divine vengeance. In the language of Genesis 4:15a, formulated in terms suited to the immediate occasion: “If anyone kills Cain, he will be avenged sevenfold.” In verse 15b this asseveration of God is referred to as a solemn commitment, an oath that has been given to Cain (the text does not have in view any “mark” of Cain). Paraphrased the verse says:
Thus the Lord gave Cain an oath assuring him that it would not be the case that anyone who came upon him would be free to kill him with impunity. God declared that the anarchical situation Cain had described would not actually obtain. God’s face would not be hidden; it was rather his purpose to establish a judicial office to execute vengeance sevenfold, that is, complete divine retribution (cf. Lev. 26:24; Psa. 79:9–12).
The subsequent actualization of the sevenfold divine enforcement of justice in a human agency is reflected in the designation of the human agents of judgment as “gods” (cf., e.g., Psa. 82:6). Also, the Scripture identifies the state’s avenging function as an execution of God’s wrath (cf., e.g., Rom. 12:19; 13:4). Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 163–166.
Particularly significant in the altered identity of the common grace city is the corrective function now performed by it as a governmental structure. Positive regulation of societal order and direction of cultural endeavor must now be supplemented by an enforcing of justice through penal sanctions. As a major means used in his common grace to restrain the manifestation of man’s depravity, God assigns to city government the responsibility to act as his agent for the protection of the community by repressing and punishing evil-doing.
He appoints the city as the minister of the temporal sanctions of justice until the world comes to the hour of God’s final judgment with its eternal sanctions.
It has the authority to kill the body until the Judge comes who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Thus the city is invested with the sword, and so heavily preoccupied does it become with this enforcement of justice, with policing and punishing, that it is known in this present evil world as preeminently a judicial order. Its distinctive hallmark is that it bears the sword.
Bestial but Legitimate: Abuses of the city result in urban malformations, like the slum, the ghetto, the gulag. But beyond the city’s malaise of social-economic-political injustice is an evil more central to the concerns of biblical revelation.
There is in the city a spiritual malignancy, the fatal consequence of the usurpation of the world kingdom by Satan and the prostitution of the city to demonic service.
In the lurid exposé found in the apocalyptic mode of Scripture, the satanically perverted urban power structure is seen as a beast savagely turned against the citizens of the city who refuse its mark. The conflict thus depicted is not that of class struggle or racial strife. The victims are not those disadvantaged in things temporal. It is rather a matter of religious antithesis, an ancient diabolical enmity. It is against the redeemed of the Lamb that the controlling powers of the world kingdom direct their hellish hostility.
Yet, in the face of the bestial aspect assumed by the city and the ensuing religious warfare that rages within it, Scripture affirms the legitimacy of the city. One thinks of the historical context of Romans 13. The legitimacy of the city is affirmed not because the bestializing of the city is a relatively late historical development. As a matter of fact, the Beast-power is not just a phenomenon of the present church age. The founder of the city was himself the slayer of the first martyr-prophet.
In particular, he established the institution of the state as a nonholy structure under the principle of common grace.
The sphere of the state, though not exempt from God’s rule and not devoid of the divine presence (indeed, though it is the scene of God’s presence in a measure of common blessing) is, nevertheless, not to be identified as belonging to the kingdom of God or sharing in its holiness. We may not deny to the Creator his sovereign prerogative of creative structuring and restructuring and authoritative defining and redefining. And least of all should we venture to do so in the name of honoring the universality of his kingly rule. Meredith G. Kline, Kingdom Prologue: Genesis Foundations for a Covenantal Worldview (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 167,172.
Israel was unique among the nations because the Lord was its King, governing his covenant people by his gracious presence, righteous laws, and saving power. (Psa. 24:7–10; 68:24; Isa. 33:22; 43:15; 44:6.) Though some secularists mistakenly apply the label of “theocracy” to any attempt to apply biblical law and wisdom to civil government, theocracy requires the claim of direct involvement by God to constitute and rule a community through leaders to whom he gives special revelation and possibly also miraculous power.
Even a nation with a state-sponsored religion is not necessarily a theocracy. [Josephus knew that the Roman imperial government was very religious in its devotion to the Roman gods, cultic rites, and the adoration of the emperor, but he saw theocracy as unique to Israel]. The attempt by radical Anabaptists to turn Münster into a new Jerusalem (1534–1535) may be considered a tragic example of pretended theocracy.
Today, a leader claiming to be divine or a prophet might try to set up a theocratic community, but it would be considered a cult. The New Jerusalem is in heaven (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22). True theocracy will not come to earth until Christ returns to make all things new (Rev. 21:1–5). Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Church and Last Things, vol. 4, Reformed Systematic Theology (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 252–253.
Their Program
The Reconstructionists want nothing less than a complete transformation of the world, beginning first in America. Their program centers on six points. They are postmillennialists and see the Second Coming of Christ way into the future. Thus, they allow for a long gradual transformation of human society that will come largely by peaceful means. While theonomy focuses on many social and political issues, its structure has a great deal to do with eschatology.
Postmillennialism has been nearly totally eclipsed since the early twentieth century. Reconstructionism represents a return to postmillennialism and insists that the kingdom is now and comes in the form of the “Church Very Militant.”
They do not deny the doctrine of the Second Coming but represent a “realized eschatology.” Neither do they reject the concept of a future millennium, as do the amillennialists, but say the millennium is now. Humankind is not living in the end times, but in the middle times and it may take hundreds or even thousands of years for the righteous kingdom to be established. Christians thus are not to pray for Christ’s return but for the world to be ready for this event.
Two, every human institution of every nation must be reclaimed from the Satanists and humanists. In this they will not compromise, as they believe the Christian Right has done. Thus, in their mind, Christian Reconstructionism is not one option but the only choice.
“Our goal is world dominion under Christ’s lordship, a ‘world takeover’ if you will,” says David Chilton. “We are the shapers of world history.”
Richard Kyle, Apocalyptic Fever: End-Time Prophecies in Modern America (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012), 212.
For the promise to Abraham or to his seed that he would be heir of the world was not through the Law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the Law are heirs, faith has been made empty and the promise has been abolished; Romans 4:13–14
lit. ‘the uprightness of faith’, i.e. that uprightness which is precisely the act of believing with a living faith. The inheritance is conferred not to reward people for observing the clauses of a contract (a law), but to fulfil a promise. The promises, Gen. 12:1a, having been offered to faith, the fulfilment of them can be known and welcomed only by faith in the person and work of Jesus Christ, 9:4–8; 15:8; Jn 8:56; Ac 2:39; 13:23; Ga 3:14–19; Ep 1:13, 14; 2:12; 3:6; Heb 11:9–10, 13. Compare 3:27. Henry Wansbrough, ed., The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), 1873.
Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. Rom.4:13–14 NLT
As most of the proponents of this viewpoint do not hesitate to say, a theonomic social order is a theocratic social order, and a theocratic social order is a Christian social order. (Some theonomists prefer “Christocracy” to theocracy.)
Bible law requires a radical decentralization of government under the rule of the righteous.
Private property rights, especially for the sake of the family, must be rigorously protected, with very limited interference by the state and the institutional church. Restitution, including voluntary slavery, should be an important element of the criminal justice system. A strong national defense should be maintained until the whole world is “reconstructed” (which may be a very long time).
Capital punishment will be employed for almost all the capital crimes listed in the Old Testament, including adultery, homosexual acts, apostasy, incorrigibility of children (meaning late teenagers), and blasphemy, along with murder and kidnapping.
There will be a cash, gold-based economy with limited or no debt. These are among the specifics broadly shared by people who associate themselves with the theonomic viewpoint. A critically important feature of theonomy is that it represents a return to postmillennialism after almost a century of its near-total eclipse. Although their analysis of the shape of the world is typically bleak,
the theonomists insist that the kingdom is now, if only the true believers have the boldness to take dominion (hence “dominion theology”).
Never one to mince words, Finney allegedly asserted that “if the church will do her duty, the Millennium may come in this country in three years.” This led in the years before the Civil War to unprecedented evangelical social and religious reform: temperance, antislavery, peace, women’s rights, education, as well as dramatic expansion in home and foreign mission work.
Steven Pointer, “Seeing the Glory,” Christian History Magazine-Issue 61: A History of the Second Coming (Carol Stream, IL: Christianity Today, 1999).
Dominion theology points to Genesis 1:28 where Adam and Eve were to have dominion over every living creature. Christians thus are entitled to dominate the world’s institutions until Christ returns and rules the Earth.
Considered together, these two passages from Genesis and Isaiah are part of a larger biblical-theological framework. God commissions Adam to exercise universal dominion over creation (Gen. 1:26–31). Because of Adam’s failure, God promises a descendant of Eve who will defeat the serpent through his vicarious suffering and accomplish the universal reign Adam cannot (Gen. 3:15). Through his promise to Abraham (Gen. 12:1–3) God will bring a new Adam.
In 2 Sam. 7:12–16 God promises that this new Adam will be a descendant of David who will rule over an eternal kingdom. Psalm 8 reveals that David understands this promise as the means by which God will accomplish humanity’s universal dominion over creation (see also Psa. 110). The Isaianic servant further refines the picture. He will obey where Adam and Israel have failed (Isa. 42:18–25), suffer for the sins of his people (Isa.52:13–53:12), and redeem both Israel and the nations (Isa.49:5–6) in fulfillment of God’s promises to David (Isa.55:3).
This trajectory culminates in the individual Son of Man (an Adamic figure) described in Dan. 7:13–14, who shares his universal dominion with all God’s people because they are identified with him (Dan.7:27). In summary, “the pattern that emerges from this survey is that of a priest king who through his sacrificial death and subsequent exaltation defeats his enemies and receives an eternal kingdom that he shares with all who are identified with him”. Understood against this background,
Paul presents Christ as the fulfillment of a biblical-theological framework (which consists of both direct promises and indirect typological patterns) that runs throughout the OT.
Matthew S. Harmon, “Philippians, Letter to the,” in Dictionary of the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, ed. G. K. Beale et al. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2023), 601.
The Christ event also sheds a new light on demonic powers. The NT recognizes these (cf. Mt. 24:29). These are cosmic but also angelic powers. They have lost their force with the resurrection of Christ and will be publicly stripped of it at his return. Between these two events, there is tension. The powers are disarmed, for the new life of believers derives from God and is set under his rule (Eph. 1:20–21; Rom. 8:38–39). Yet they still fight (Rev. 13:2) and have to be brought to submission (1 Cor. 15:24).
The antichrist will come with power and spread deception; only Christ’s coming again will finally destroy him (2 Th. 2:9).
Gerhard Kittel, Gerhard Friedrich, and Geoffrey William Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 1985), 190.
Its Implementation
If the Christian Reconstructionists had their own way, nearly every aspect of American life would be dramatically transformed. Society will not be reformed. It will be razed to the ground and rebuilt. All government props will be gone:
social security, welfare, minimum wages, government regulation of business, public education, and all taxes except a ten percent income tax.
What will replace this government assistance? Private schools and home schooling will provide education. The elderly would be cared for by their children and a private retirement plan.
After the harvest has been completed, the poor would be allowed to glean from the fields.
America would return to a gold-and-silver monetary standard and, because the Bible prohibits usury, loans would be valid for only seven years. Labor unions would be abolished. The Reconstructionists desire to take America back to the world of radical libertarian economics, a decentralized political system, and social Darwinism. [Shupe, “Reconstructionist Movement,” 881; Martin, With God on Our Side, 352; Barron, Heaven on Earth?, 135–49; Shupe, “Prophets of a Biblical America,” sec. 1, p. 14; Rausch and Chismar, “The New Puritans and Their Theonomic Paradise,” 723.]
In respect to morals and religion, the transformation will be just as radical. The family will be run by strict patriarchal principles.
Women will be removed from the workforce to stay at home. In some cases they may lose their citizenship.
Indentured servitude will solve many problems: unemployment, prison overcrowding, and idle teenagers. Old Testament laws will be strictly enforced. Homosexuals, adulterers, blasphemers, Sabbath breakers, habitual criminals, and disobedient children will be harshly punished—perhaps by stoning. Religious pluralism and toleration will be a thing of the past.
There will be no place in America for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, humanists, feminists, secularists, and even non-Reconstructionist Christians.
The First Amendment guaranteeing such freedoms will be gone and the government will not be neutral toward religion. Rather, it will enforce a biblical faith based on the Old Testament. [Shupe,“Reconstructionist Movement,” 881; Martin, With God on Our Side, 352; Barron, Heaven on Earth?, 135–49; Shupe, “Prophets of a Biblical America,” sec. 1, p. 14; Rausch and Chismar, “The New Puritans and Their Theonomic Paradise,” 723.]
Richard Kyle, Apocalyptic Fever: End-Time Prophecies in Modern America (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012), 214–215.
The idea of “pressing for the King’s laws to be obeyed” makes many people, including Christians, uncomfortable. They object that it will lead to theocracy (God-rule) or theonomy (“God’s law”). So some careful distinctions need to be made. Theonomists believe that the Old Testament law as a whole, including penalties like stoning, is still in force today unless the New Testament has explicitly stated otherwise.
Theonomists want Gentile nations to use the Old Testament to establish their laws.
(Greg Bahnsen, By This Standard: The Authority of God’s Law Today (Nacogdoches, TX: Covenant Media Press, 2008), 3–6.) Leading theonomist Greg Bahnsen has written, “We must recognize the continuing obligation of civil magistrates to obey and enforce the relevant laws of the Old Testament, including the penal sanctions specified by the just Judge of all the earth.” (Ibid., 4.)
In urging the reconstruction of the righteous commonwealth, theonomists frequently proclaim their teaching as something breathtakingly new. Much of their literature is marked by a sense of novelty, as though they are addressing great questions for the first time, as though such issues had been inexplicably neglected in two thousand years of Christian history
Of course contemporary theonomists, who wish to think of themselves as conservative, resist the comparison with the liberal Social Gospel and with leftwing Evangelicals, not to mention liberation theology. But the analogies are inescapable. The policy specifics may be dramatically different, but the theological rationale is strikingly similar.
The different thing in theonomy is not its postmillennialism but its understanding of biblical law. Acts. 15 describes the convening of what might be described as the first ecumenical council in order to answer the “Judaizers” among the early Christians who insisted that non-Jewish believers must be circumcised and instructed to keep the law of Moses, or else they would not be saved. That position was rejected by the apostles, who decided,
“For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden that these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.” The Judaizers of that time claimed that the gentiles, in order to be saved, must enter Judaism under Mosaic law;
the theonomists of today claim that Mosaic law has departed Judaism in order to reconstruct, and thus save, the nations under the rule of “the saints.”
Richard John Neuhans, “Why Wait for the Kingdom? The Theonomist Temptation,” First Things, no. 3 (1990): 14–16.
For Paul the Mosaic law reached an end in Christ (Rom. 10:4). The word telos here can also be taken to mean that Christ is called the goal toward which the law was directed in the providence of God. This idea may be present, too, but it does not rule out that with Christ’s coming the age of the law has ended. This, at least, is where the main accent lies.
Why did the law come to an end with Christ’s coming? Because in Jesus Christ, namely, in his vicarious death for sin (Rom.3:25), God demonstrated his covenant righteousness, and we can respond only by faith, not by works of the law (Rom.3:22). Hence we are (now) righteous before God only by faith, not by works of the law (Rom.3:28; cf. Gal. 2:16).
Those who reject faith in God’s action in Jesus Christ cannot profit from any works of the law because they refuse obedience to the righteousness of God,
not responding to it, then, by what they themselves do (Rom. 10:3). (Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991–1998), 61–63.)
How should such Men be Mistaken? which is a poor Argument; and a great Reproach it is to such Persons:
For their Faith, it seems, stands in the Wisdom of Men, and not in the Power of God, or certain Testimony of his holy Word.
Benjamin Keach, The Ax Laid to the Root, Parts I & II (London: John Harris, 1693).
Moreover, theonomy is a “top-down” intellectual movement with the ideas being generated by a few individuals. Furthermore, the theonomists have little time for democracy and when their goals are implemented, there will be few freedoms—political, religious, or personal. Still, what modifies Reconstructionism’s dogmatism and its autocratic demeanor is its organizational structure. It is more of an alliance of like-minded individuals than a tight-knit movement. And they frequently quarrel with each other, sometimes in an acrimonious manner.
Richard Kyle, Apocalyptic Fever: End-Time Prophecies in Modern America (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2012), 213.
A reconstructed world ruled by future Rushdoonyites will not, needless to say, be democratic. Rushdoony is straightforward in condemning democracy as a “heresy.” He writes that he is in agreement with John Dewey on the proposition that
“supernatural Christianity and democracy are inevitably enemies.”
Nor is it sufficient to say that Rushdoony’s animus toward democracy is simply toward the absolute democracy or raw majoritarianism of the vox populi, vox dei variety. His opposition to democracy and any form of legally protected pluralism is unprincipled, as it should be in the argument of a reflective theocrat. The free exercise of religion, for example, must be only for the free exercise of true religion. As Rushdoony says,
“The right have rights,” thus echoing the Roman Catholic dictum of an earlier day that “error has no rights.”
Richard John Neuhans, “Why Wait for the Kingdom? The Theonomist Temptation,” First Things, no. 3 (1990): 18.
builders of the wall and the daubers of plaster
Christian Reconstructionism, Theonomy, Dominion theology, are builders of the wall and the daubers of plaster (cp. Matt 23:27–28; Ezek. 13:10–12, 22:28; Lam 2:14). False preachers—“windbags”— “Speak to us falsehoods”, a Demonic Torah, (Isaiah 30:10). Builders of The Tower of Babel.
But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed. Jn. 7:49
Increasingly, the term served to express the religious and theological pride of the sects, who tried to draw a strict line of demarcation between themselves and the people, and whose attitude is typically depicted in the NT in the dealings between Pharisees and publicans. In Gk. ὄχλος is used for “people” in this disparaging sense, Jn. 7:49.
Certainly ἔθνη-people conveys a negative judgment from the Jewish standpoint. Yet even in the OT this judgment has no final validity in face of the promise of revelation to all peoples, and this is particularly so in the NT in face of the direction of the everlasting Gospel ἐπὶ πᾶν ἔθνος (Rev. 14:6) and the missionary command: μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη (“make disciples of all nations,” Mt. 28:19).
The princes (“commander”) of Judah are become like them that remove the landmark: I will pour out my wrath upon them like water. Ephraim is oppressed, crushed in judgment, because in self-will he walked after the commandment of man. Ho 5:10–11. Darby Bible
The builders of the wall who followed (literally, “walked after”) the “commander.” The “commander” is the preacher about whom He (God or the prophet) said (Micah 2:6), “They shall surely preach.” ( Zadokite Fragments 4:19–20)
Who are the builders of the wall? Who is the commander or preacher? Clearly, they are the villains. Buried in the text are two biblical allusions that make these references clear. One is to Hosea 5:10–11: “The commanders of Judah have acted like shifters of field boundaries. On them I will pour out My wrath like water. Ephraim is defrauded, robbed of redress.” A different passage states, “ ‘Stop preaching!’ they preach. ‘That is no way to preach’ ” (Micah 2:6).
The commanders of Judah are equated here with Ephraim, a sectarian term for the Pharisees.
They are the builders of the wall who follow the teachings of the commander. This same commander is the one who preaches improperly, hence defrauding his listeners. The sect regarded the Pharisees as preaching falsely and misleading their followers.
Thereafter appears a series of laws with which the sectarians disagreed, constituting the views of the preacher who here again refers to the Pharisaic leader and the “builders of the wall.” The designation “builders of the wall” apparently derives from a concept found in the mishnaic tractate Avot, generally known as Ethics of the Fathers, which instructs, “Build a fence around the Torah” (M. Avot 1:1).
To “build a fence” refers to the Pharisaic-rabbinic concept of creating more stringent laws than those found in the Bible in order to safeguard biblical laws from violation.
We find another mention of the Pharisees’ lack of understanding, here again referring to them as “builders of the wall,” later in the Zadokite Fragments:
All these things the builders of the wall and the daubers of plaster (cp. Matt 23:27–28; Ezek. 13:10–12, 22:28; Lam 2:14) did not understand. For one who raises wind and preaches falsehood preached to them, because of which God became angry with His entire congregation. ( Zadokite Fragments 8:12–13; cf. 19:24–26)
As a result:
Since He hated the builders of the wall, He became angry. ( Zadokite Fragments 8:18; cf. 19:31)
When false preachers—“windbags”—stirred up the people with their false message, God’s anger blazed against them, causing the people of Israel to suffer.
Over and over again in the scrolls, the sect characterizes Pharisaic halakhah by its tendency to derive laws not directly from scriptural sources but through their own interpretations.
In this spirit the Pharisees are called dorshe ḥalaqot, literally “seekers after smooth things,” but correctly translated “interpreters of false laws.” This phrase is based upon the biblical expression “smooth things,” referring to lies or falsehood, as in “Speak to us falsehoods” (Isaiah 30:10).
Lawrence H. Schiffman and Chaim Potok, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1994), 249,250.
On the first page of the Admonition, the Zadokite Fragments clearly refers to the Pharisees when speaking of the followers of the Man of Scoffing, apparently some Pharisaic leader:
… they interpreted false laws (dareshu be-halaqot) and chose delusions, and sought out breaches (opportunities to violate the law), and chose luxury, and declared innocent the guilty and declared guilty the innocent; and they violated the covenant and annulled the law, and banded together against the soul of the righteous. ( Zadokite Fragments 1:18–20)
For our purposes here, one phrase in this text is extremely important. In the course of interpreting Nahum 3:4, “Because of the countless harlotries of the harlot … who ensnared nations with her harlotries,” cf. (Rev 17:1, 2; 18:3) Pesher Nahum states:
[Its] interpretation [con]cerns those who lead Ephraim astray, whose falseness is in their teaching (Talmud), and whose lying tongue and dishonest lip(s) lead many astray. (PESHER NAHUM 3–4 II, 8)
Elsewhere in this text we discover that Ephraim is a code word, symbolizing the Pharisees. (Menasseh represents the Sadducees.) There is no question that our author is referring to them in this passage.
At the beginning, the text refers to “those who lead Ephraim astray,” that is, the leaders and teachers of the Pharisees. The text likens them to the harlot mentioned in Nahum 3:4; their offense is teaching falsely.
The text refers to their teaching by the Hebrew term “talmud,” the same word later used to designate the “Talmud,” the rabbinic work also known as the Gemara, the commentary and discursive discussion on the Mishnah.
Lawrence H. Schiffman and Chaim Potok, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1994), 251.
For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than, after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment that was handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns back to its own vomit,” and, “The sow is washed only to wallow in the mud.” 2 Peter 2:21–22
Peter thus casts the false teachers in the role of Gentile nations who taunt Israel, in the place of the persecutors who taunt the faithful, and in the place of false prophets. Jewish false teachers, who claim to be Jews but are not, have become “Gentiles,” while the Christians are the true Jews.
Mockery is also a theme of wisdom literature, found in the Psalms and Proverbs, where the “mocker” or scoffer is one who despises all wisdom and instruction. Righteous men do not “sit in the seat of the scoffers” (Ps. 1:1), and wisdom calls to scoffers to turn from their scoffing (Prov. 1:22). Denying the promise of the Parousia brands Peter’s opponents as fools and scoffers, like dogs who return to their vomit (Prov. 26:11). Peter J. Leithart, The Promise of His Appearing: An Exposition of Second Peter (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2004), 85–86.
If Peter is indeed condemning Judaizers and Jewish opponents of Christianity, his descriptions of them are sharply ironic. Reversion to the “world” (2 Pet.2:20) is a reversion to the world of the Old Covenant order, to a world of corruption that is about to be destroyed, to the practices and life of the “fleshly” covenant of the Jews.
Far from being a clean and holy people, Peter is describing Judaism as a polluted and polluting world—whitewashed tombs that appear harmless but spread contagion of death. Phthora connotes physical corruption and again is an ironic description of Jews who believed that through keeping Torah they were avoiding contamination of decay. The references to dog’s vomit and pig’s mire reinforce this theme of the pollution of Judaism (2 Pet. 2:22; cf. Prov. 26:11), particularly since dogs and pigs were peculiarly unclean in the eyes of first-century Jews. Far from holding to the “holy commandment” by reverting to Judaism, they are turning from it (2 Pet.2:21).
Peter J. Leithart, The Promise of His Appearing: An Exposition of Second Peter (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 2004), 63–64.
“I will destroy,” it is said, “the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.” 1 Cor. 1:19. The true wisdom must destroy the false, and, although the foolishness of preaching 1 Cor. 1:21 is inseparable from the Cross, Paul speaks “wisdom among them that are perfect, yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world that come to naught,” but he speaks “the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world.” 1 Cor. 2:6,7. God’s wisdom is Christ, for Christ, we are told, is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 1 Cor. 1:24.
He is the wisdom which is hidden in a mystery, of which also we read in the heading of the ninth psalm “for the hidden things of the son.” In Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. He also who was hidden in a mystery is the same that was foreordained before the world. Now it was in the Law and in the Prophets that he was foreordained and prefigured.
For this reason too the prophets were called seers, 1 Sam. 9:9 because they saw Him whom others did not see. Abraham saw His day and was glad. Joh. 8:56. The heavens which were sealed to a rebellious people were opened to Ezekiel. “Open thou mine eyes,” saith David, “that I may behold wonderful things out of thy Law.” Ps. 119:18.
For “the law is spiritual” Rom. 7:14. and a revelation is needed to enable us to comprehend it and, when God uncovers His face, to behold His glory.
Jerome, “The Letters of St. Jerome,” in St. Jerome: Letters and Select Works, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. W. H. Fremantle, G. Lewis, and W. G. Martley, vol. 6, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1893), 98.
Even the pagans (ἔθνη) who stand in something of the same relation to Judaism as the “barbarians” did to Hellenistic culture, enjoy the benefits which the Law is supposed to offer. All of them have the knowledge of the divine will written in their hearts and sometimes do what the Law demands. Some of them truly obey God by the work of the Spirit apart from instruction in Torah.
In both cases, when he ascribes the capacity for Torah-obedience to pagans, Paul challenges in a startling and direct way the view that conformity to the divine will comes through knowledge of the Law.
Mark A. Seifrid, “Unrighteous by Faith: Apostolic Proclamation in Romans 1:18–3:20,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism: The Paradoxes of Paul, ed. D. A. Carson and Peter T. O’Brien, 181st ed., vol. 2, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Tübingen: Baker Academic; Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 107. 129,130
For anyone who refused to obey the law of Moses was put to death without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Just think how much worse the punishment will be for those who have trampled on the Son of God, and have treated the blood of the covenant, which made us holy, as if it were common and unholy, and have insulted and disdained the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to us. Heb. 10:28–29 NLT
Luther was even bolder with the law “after Christ.” The law did not disappear like smoke in thin air:
“the law in all eternity will never be abolished but will remain either to be fulfilled in the damned or already fulfilled in the blessed.”
Right there is the difference between being in heaven and being in hell—in hell the law remains forever ahead of you as something that needs yet to be done (like Sisyphus rolling his stone up and down without end); in heaven the law is past.
Steven Paulson, Luther for Armchair Theologians, Armchair Theologians Series (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 129.
Like Luther, Bultmann is of the opinion that the Torah was given to the Jewish people and reveals the will of God. But as the revelation of the will of God, it also applies to all of humanity, even though God’s will is not concretized in the specific form of the Torah for non-Jews, and the purpose of the law was originally to lead humanity to life. Had humanity been able to keep the entire law, this would have led to justification and thus to salvation.
The problem, of course, is that no one can fulfill what God demands, which is why the law cannot lead anyone to life—only to death.
As a consequence of the law being impossible to keep, Bultmann claims that no one should even attempt to achieve salvation by means of the law, which is the reason why Judaism embodies the most basic sin of all—the striving for self-justification. This, according to Bultmann, is Paul’s main criticism of the Judaism he abandoned.
Magnus Zetterholm, Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2009), 75.
If Israel was “under probation” in the Mosaic covenant that can only mean Israel’s obedience was required if they were to receive the covenant blessings and avoid the covenant curses. Their “probation” could not have led to eternal life because the Mosaic covenant did not promise eternal life. This is yet another aspect of the material/spiritual contrast that has been noted between the old and new covenants. Nonetheless, Jesus’ work as the lamb slain from the foundation of the world covers Old Testament saints (and not only old covenant saints) by God’s grace. Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Biblical Theology: The Special Grace Covenants (New Testament), vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 141–142.
Yahweh had ‘redeemed’ Israel by delivering her from the slavery of Egypt, to provide himself with a nation for his ‘inheritance’, Dt. 7:6. When the prophets spoke of the ‘redemption’ from Babylon, Isa. 41:14, they hinted at a deliverance more profound and less restricted, the forgiveness that is deliverance from sin, Isa. 44:22; cf. Psa. 130:8. This messianic redemption is fulfilled in Christ, (1 Cor. 1:30; cf. Lk. 1:68; 2:38).
God the Father through Christ—and indeed Christ himself—has ‘delivered’ the new Israel from the slavery of the Law, (Gal. 3:13; 4:5); and of sin, (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14; Heb. 9:15, by ‘acquiring’ her, Ac. 20:28, making her his own, Tt 2:14; purchasing her 1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23; cf. Gal. 3:13; 4:5; cf. 2 Pet. 2:1). The price was the blood of Christ, (Act. 20:28; Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:12; 1 Pet. 1:18 seq.; Rev. 1:5; 5:9). This redemption, begun on Calvary and guaranteed by the present gift of the Spirit, (Eph. 1:14; 4:30), will be complete only at the parousia, Lk. 21:28, when deliverance from death is secured by the resurrection of the body, Rom. 8:23. Henry Wansbrough, ed., The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), 1871.
The Hebrew Scriptures operate with the simple but profound assumption that “righteousness” in its various expressions is ultimately bound up with God and his working. [To take a single illustrative example, “I shall praise you with an upright heart when I learn the judgments of your righteousness” (Ps 119:7).]
As a state of affairs in the world, “righteousness” cannot be accomplished or even rightly conceived apart from its enactment by God.
That the world and its history have (and are yet to be given) a comprehensive moral order is everywhere presupposed, even (or, rather, especially) in the biblical laments. But precisely what that order is and when and how it is to come about, is left for God to enact, reveal and make known. The biblical writers expect, moreover, that this order shall be effected not in a mere educative sense, but in judgments upon human rebellion.
Mark A. Seifrid, “Paul’s Use of Righteousness Language against Its,” in Justification and Variegated Nomism: The Paradoxes of Paul, ed. D. A. Carson, Peter T. O’Brien, and Mark A. Seifrid, 181st ed., vol. 2, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Tübingen: Baker Academic; Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 44.
Whoever makes the Sinai covenantal law their way of life comes under a curse (if they deliberately abandon any of its precepts); for scripture itself pronounces a curse on anyone who claims to be under the law’s jurisdiction and yet abandons some of its requirements.
Hence it is clear that no one can belong to the people of God on the basis of the Sinai law/covenant while blatantly abandoning any of its requirements. Therefore, those who become members of the people of God by faith must continue to direct their lives by faith and not by the Mosaic covenant, which requires a person to live by all its stipulations (hence the hypocrisy of the Judaizers, who claim Sinai’s authority in support of their case for circumcision but do not themselves keep all the law’s requirements; see Gal.6:13). Norman H. Young, “Who’s Cursed—And Why? (Galatians 3:10–14),” Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998): 91.
Jesus already made it very clear in the Sermon on the Mount that Israel could not have been saved by obeying the law.
That is so because the only obedience they could have achieved would not have been enough to save them: it would not have addressed the sinful nature.
That is why, as Paul’s statements and Hebrews maintain, the old covenant was “against us” “and “lacked power” and “was weak” and had to be replaced. The Mosaic covenant was not and could not have been salvific in the way the new covenant was. One can be saved through the new covenant. No one can be or could have been saved through the old covenant. Once again: any “probation” Israel was under had to do with receiving the blessings or avoiding the curses of that limited and non-salvific (as regards eternal life) covenant.
“You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you” (Josh. 24:19–20,)—a prediction fulfilled when the Lord destroyed both the northern and southern kingdoms. Cf. Peter’s comments on the law: “Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?” (Acts 15:10).
Jeffrey J. Niehaus, Biblical Theology: The Special Grace Covenants (New Testament), vol. 3 (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017), 141–142.
As the paschal lamb was killed before Israel was delivered, so by the death of Christ, we have redemption through his blood, Eph. 1:7. It was killed before the tables of the law were delivered to Moses, or Aaron’s sacrifices were enjoined; thus deliverance comes to men, not by the works of the law, but by the only true passover, the Lamb of God, Jn 1:29. Ro 3:25. He 9:14. It was killed the first month of the year, which prefigured that Christ should suffer death in that month, Jn 18:28. 1 Cor. 15:4. It was killed in the evening, Ex. 12:6. Christ suffered at that time of day, Mt 27:46. Lk 23:44. He 1:2. At even the sun sets; at Christ’s passion, universal darkness was upon the whole earth.
Jerome H. Smith, The New Treasury of Scripture Knowledge: The Most Complete Listing of Cross References Available Anywhere- Every Verse, Every Theme, Every Important Word (Nashville TN: Thomas Nelson, 1992), 214.
As the Law contains the declaration of the divine will, and promises a reward to him who keeps it, and threatens punishment to him who violates it, so the Gospel, in distinction from the Law, contains the doctrine of the gracious pardon of sins, which we receive as a gratuity for Christ’s sake through faith.
Thus, in the preaching of the Gospel, the means are pointed out to men by which they may escape the condemnation which the Law suspends over them.
And when men are brought to a knowledge of sin through the Law, the Gospel enters, holds forth the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and all the benefits therewith associated; and aims at producing faith in them, by which they appropriate to themselves the salvation in Christ.
“The efficacy of the divine Word is not only objective or significative, like the statue of Mercury, for instance, which points out the path, but does not give power or strength to the traveler to walk in it, but it is effective, because it not only shows the way of salvation, but saves souls.”
Hence the Word of God does not confine itself merely to teaching man externally the way of salvation and showing him the means whereby to attain it.
Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Verified from the Original Sources, trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs, Second English Edition, Revised according to the Sixth German Edition (Philadelphia, PA: Lutheran Publication Society, 1889), 513–514, 505
Yet when positive law has no acknowledged source and standard in divine law, civil law is perceived only in terms of regulations that influential sectors of the community welcome for themselves and try to impose on others. Men and women are elected to office or are defeated, as the case may be, if they do or do not pledge to support programs advanced by labor, by multinational corporations, by Pro-Life or Pro-Choice movements, by the Black Caucus or by proponents of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Alas, the candidate who pledges to vote only an informed mind and a good conscience is increasingly vulnerable to elimination. This is not to say that informed minds and good consciences are incompatible with a specific stand on particular issues, or that lack of issue-commitment is desirable in the U.S. party system.
But to allow a single issue to determine political fortunes may be the first symptom of a malfunctioning democratic process on the road to fragmentation and chaos.
Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 6 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 452.
To be sure, the apostle Paul notes that despite the knowledge that even the Gentiles possess of God’s severe justice, and despite their awareness that transgressors “deserve to die,” humans filled with “all manner of wickedness” (he details a catalogue of vices from malignity to murder) “not only do them but approve those who practice them” (Rom. 1:32). The reminder that death is the penalty for a vast array of crimes and other sins anticipates the final consummation of all things when God will confront human injustice and unrighteousness with irreversible penalties.
But neither Paul’s teaching about Gentile conscience nor about civil authority provides a sound argument for reimposing theocratic jurisprudence in present-day society. The New Testament leaves to both rulers and the ruled the responsibility for formulating positive law and appropriate sanctions in the light of the revealed principles of social ethics. The task of civil government is to interpret God’s transcendent law, as expressed in universal principles, into political particularities.
Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 6 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 448–449.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Philippians 3:4–6
The word “faultless” does not at all reflect any illusion regarding sinlessness; rather, it must be viewed as a fairly standard way of expressing exemplary conformity to the way of life prescribed by the OT. One thinks particularly of Zacharias and Elizabeth, who are described as “walking in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord without fault [amemptoi]” (Luke 1:6).
We could use the word external to characterize the obedience in view, but unfortunately that term has come to suggest mere formality or even hypocrisy. Such a negative connotation is certainly not in view either in Luke 1:6 or in Phil. 3:6. Yet in both cases the obedience is external in the sense that it is the only kind that can be observed by human beings and thus verified.
“Paul, then, was in the judgment of men holy and free from all blame” (so Calvin, who distinguishes between literal and spiritual righteousness). Accordingly, “the righteousness which is in the law” describes an observable standard of conduct, that is, the righteous way of life prescribed by the OT.
This peculiar form of expression anticipates the deeper issue that the apostle is about to discuss:
Is such a way of life identical with the righteousness that God requires?
The answer will be given in verse Phil. 3:9.
More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them as dung, so that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith. Philippians 3:8–9
Moisés Silva, Philippians, 2nd ed., Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005), 151–152.
But theonomists have made a grave mistake: not even Christians, much less the unsaved, are bound by the Mosaic law today as their covenant. The Mosaic law has been replaced by the New Covenant (cf. Rom. 7:4–6; 1 Cor. 9:21; 2 Cor. 3:3). It is therefore wrong to seek to impose the Mosaic Covenant with its penalties on Gentile nations. Theonomists are also too optimistic about Christians’ ability to transform the world. The New Testament promises suffering and persecution for God’s people in the present age (cf. 2 Tim. 3:12).
In 1 Corinthians 9:20, Paul indicates that as a Christian he was not under the Mosaic law. Hebrews 8:13 teaches that the New Covenant made the old Mosaic Covenant “obsolete” and “ready to vanish away.”
But neither Paul nor the author of Hebrews (if he was someone other than Paul) is teaching that the Christian is free from all law. Paul hastens on to say that he wasn’t “outside the law of God, but under the law of Christ” (1 Cor. 9:21). And the New Covenant in Hebrews quotes God’s promise, “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts” (Heb. 8:10).
Mark Ward, Biblical Worldview: Creation, Fall, Redemption, ed. Mark L. Ward Jr. and Dennis Cone (Greenville, SC: BJU Press, 2016), 276,277.
The Law Prepares Sinners for the Gospel. No one can receive eternal salvation by works of the law (Gal. 2:16) because none perfectly keeps the law (Rom. 3:23), and violation of any part of it makes one guilty of the whole (James 2:10; cf. Rom. 2:25; Gal. 3:10). Instead, salvation is a gift obtained by faith, not works (Rom. 4:4–5; Eph. 2:8–10; Phil. 3:9). Nonetheless, the law was meant to lead us to Christ (Gal. 3:24). It makes the sinner conscious of sin (Rom. 3:20; 7:7; 1 John 3:4). It provokes and incites rebellion (Rom. 5:20; 7:13), thereby making one fully accountable before God for violation of God’s moral requirements (Rom. 3:19; 4:15; 5:13; 7:8–10).
By this means, the law shows sinners their need for a mediator to redeem them from the law’s condemnation (Gal. 3:13). Hence, the law is an essential prerequisite in preparing sinners for the gospel.
Joe M. Sprinkle, “Law,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology, electronic ed., Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1996), 470.
This is the largest string of OT quotations in the NT, and with it Paul shows the timeless truth that all people—without exception—are sinful before God.
Romans 4:3 (and Romans 4:9) / Genesis 15:6
In Romans 4, Paul presents an explicit case that salvation is through faith alone, not through works of the Mosaic Law. But this is not just a NT truth. Paul quoted Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4:3 to prove his point: “For what does the Scripture say? ‘ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.’ ” Genesis 15:6 reveals that Abraham was considered righteous through his faith. Paul presents Abraham as the paradigm of faith for everyone (see Rom. 4:11–12). Thus, Paul appeals to a timeless principle that salvation has always been through faith apart from Law. Paul will also quote Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4:9 to again emphasize that salvation is through faith alone for both Jews and Gentiles:
Is this blessing then on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say, “FAITH WAS CREDITED TO ABRAHAM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”
These two quotations of Genesis 15:6 in Romans 4 emphasize the point that salvation is through faith alone apart from works of the Law. On this matter, both the OT and NT agree.
Romans 4:6–8 / Psalm 32:1–2
Paul quoted Psalm 32:1–2 in Romans 4:6–8 to show that David also is an example that being right with God is based on faith alone:
Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHOSE LAWLESS DEEDS HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN, AND WHOSE SINS HAVE BEEN COVERED. BLESSED IS THE MAN WHOSE SIN THE LORD WILL NOT TAKE INTO ACCOUNT.”
Paul cited Psalm 32:1–2 to emphasize the timeless theological point that salvation has always been through faith alone.
Michael J. Vlach, The Old in the New: Understanding How the New Testament Authors Quoted the Old Testament (Woodlands, TX; Sun Valley, CA: Kress Biblical Resources; Master’s Seminary Press, 2021), 110–111.
Various scholars have insisted that a form of ‘works righteousness’ is to be found in the PE-Pastoral Epistles, and that faith no longer has the consistently central position which it occupies in Paul. This verdict flies in the face of the evidence. In 2 Tim 1:9 and Tit 3:4–7 we have pivotal statements which assert that the basis for God’s saving action lay not in works done by human beings but in his own gracious purpose. The language reflects tradition (cf. especially Eph 2:8–10), but the way in which it is put together is the work of the author himself. Here grace and works are placed in sharp contrast in an opposition which goes even deeper than the faith/works contrast which is characteristic of Paul’s Hauptbriefe-(German word meaning “chief letters.” to refer to Galatians, Romans, and 1 and 2 Corinthians as genuinely written by Paul.
I. Howard Marshall and Philip H. Towner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, International Critical Commentary (London; New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 216
The modern idea that natural evolution and the efforts of man in the field of education, of social reform, and of legislation, will gradually bring in the perfect reign of the Christian spirit, conflicts with everything that the Word of God teaches on this point. It is not the work of man, but the work of God to bring in the glorious Kingdom of God.
This Kingdom cannot be established by natural but only by supernatural means. It is the reign of God, established and acknowledged in the hearts of His people, and this reign can never be made effective by purely natural means.
Civilization without regeneration, without a supernatural change of the heart, will never bring in a millennium, an effective and glorious rule of Jesus Christ. It would seem that the experiences of the last quarter of a century should have forced this truth upon the modern man. The highly vaunted development of man has not yet brought us in sight of the millennium.-L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans publishing co., 1938), 718–719.
Kline’s exposition of covenant theology suggests that an appropriate place to begin a biblical-theological formulation of the doctrine of God is John 4:24, where we read of Jesus instructing the Samaritan woman in the true nature of God and in the worship of God.
“God is Spirit, and they who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth” (cf. Jn 6:63).
The eschatological contrast is between the provisional Aaronic institution of Israelite worship and true (“abiding”) worship in the Spirit (cf. Jn 15:4, 26 and 14:15–17): the contrast is between old and new economies of redemption, between types and shadows on the one hand and truth (in the Johannine sense) and reality on the other.
The restoration of man’s communion with God is explained in terms of the substance and reality of the new covenant, namely, Jesus the Christ (cf. Lk. 24:13–47). Jesus portrays this (“Spiritual”) blessing of redemption as the satisfying of man’s thirst with the water of life flowing from him who is life-giving Spirit (cf. Jn. 7:37–39; 1 Cor. 15:45; and 2 Cor. 3:18).
Mark W. Karlberg, “Reformed Theology as the Theology of the Covenants: The Contributions of Meredith G. Kline to Reformed Systematics,” in Creator Redeemer Consummator: A Festschrift for Meredith G. Kline, ed. Howard Griffith and John R. Muether (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007), 241.
What is that righteousness, which in the spiritual armor answers to the cuirass-coat of mail? Many say it is our own righteousness, integrity, or rectitude of mind. But this is no protection. It cannot resist the accusations of conscience, the whispers of despondency, the power of temptation, much less the severity of the law, or the assaults of Satan.
What Paul desired for himself was not to have on his own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of God by faith; Phil. 3:8, 9.
And this, doubtless, is the righteousness which he here urges believers to put on as a breast-plate. It is an infinitely perfect righteousness, consisting in the obedience and sufferings of the Son of God, which satisfies all the demands of the divine law and justice; and which is a sure defense against all assaults whether from within or from without.
Charles Hodge, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians (New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1858), 383–384.
How infinitely does the glorious Gospel of God transcend the impoverished thoughts and schemes of men! How immeasurably superior is that “everlasting righteousness” which Christ has brought in (Dan. 9:24) from that miserable thing which multitudes are seeking to produce by their own efforts.
called everlasting, or the righteousness of ages, of ages past; the righteousness by which the saints in all ages from the beginning of the world are justified; and which endures, and will endure, throughout all ages, to the justification of all that believe; it is a robe of righteousness that will never wear out; its virtue to justify will ever continue, being perfect; it will answer for the justified ones in a time to come, and has eternal life connected with it;
But Israel is saved by the LORD
with everlasting salvation;
you
shall not be put to shame or confounded
to all eternity. Is
45:17.
Trust in the LORD forever,
for in the LORD GOD
you have an
everlasting rock. Is 26:4.
John Gill, An Exposition of the Old Testament, vol. 6, The Baptist Commentary Series (London: Mathews and Leigh, 1810), 344.
Greater far is the difference between the shining light of the midday sun and the blackness of the darkest night, than between that “best robe” (Luke 15:22) which Christ has wrought out for each of His people and that wretched covering which zealous religionists are attempting to weave out of the filthy rags of their own righteousness
I will greatly rejoice in the LORD;
my whole being shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed
me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with
the robe of righteousness... Is 61:10
It is not that the justified soul is now left to himself, so that he is certain of getting to Heaven no matter how he conducts himself—the fatal error of Antinomians.
No Indeed. God also imparts to him the blessed Holy Spirit, who works within him the desire to serve, please, and glorify the One who has been so gracious to Him.
“The love of Christ constraints us … that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). They now “delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Rom. 7:22), and though the flesh, the world, and the Devil oppose every step of the way, occasioning many a sad fall—which is repented of, confessed, and forsaken—
nevertheless the Spirit renews them day by day (2 Cor. 4:16) and leads them in the paths of righteousness for Christ’s name’s sake. (Arthur Walkington Pink, The Doctrine of Justification (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2005).
His sacrifice has introduced the age of the Holy Spirit, when all acceptable worship must be spiritual, that is, Spirit-inspired (John 4:23–24; Phil. 3:3), and the ‘spiritual sacrifices’ of Christians (1 Pet. 2:5; cf. Rom. 15:16) include acts of worship, such as praise and prayer (Heb. 13:15; Rev. 5:8; 8:3),
but also acts of witness and service, such as evangelism, gifts to the ministry and gifts to the poor (Rom. 15:16–17; Phil. 4:18; Heb. 13:16), and comprehensive attitudes and expressions of devotion, such as faith (Phil. 2:17), the consecration of one’s life to the will of God (Rom. 12:1) and the laying down of one’s life for the sake of the gospel (Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6; Rev. 6:9).
The priests who present these sacrifices are those who give them, i.e. Christians (1 Pet. 2:5, 9; cf. also Is. 61:6; Rom. 15:17; Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 20:6), and the sanctuary where they present them is not the temple in Jerusalem, but heaven, to which after the rending of the veil, those who are in the Spirit already have access (John 4:21–24; Heb. 10:19–25).
R. T. Beckwith, “Sacrifice,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner, electronic ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 761.
Your opening statement is flawed: {Rushdoony} “The law is the way of sanctification” (p. 3). These statements set law as the antithesis of grace. They present a theory of sanctification that is not by grace but by works of law. (Alan Cairns)
ReplyDeleteWhat is sanctification? Answer: it is the work given ‘by the Holy Spirit by Christ’ to the spiritual cleansing IE; prayer, loving/lifting others up and our ‘Spiritual Gifts’ given to us ‘from Him (1 Corinthians 12:4-11!’ 🔥👑❤️
Just as there is no works performed (even our faith) in our Rebirth (John 3:3, 5&6) it is the same as the ‘Resurrection of the Believer.’ IT IS ALL BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, Even to the Obeying of God’s Law! (Theonomy)
Thank you for your comment: you replied Your opening statement is flawed: it's not my belief its there's (Theonomy). They present a theory of sanctification that is not by grace but by works of law. Not sure what you mean by "Even to the Obeying of God’s Law! " But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Gal. 5:18; I don’t turn my back on God’s undeserved kindness. If we can be acceptable to God by obeying the Law, it was useless for Christ to die. Gal. 2:21;
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