Theonomy - Second Verse, Same As The First
If God’s Old Testament case law ought to be exchanged for God’s natural law, then the necessary implication is that God’s natural law somewhere along the line became at odds with – contradicted - God’s Old Testament case law. More specifically, since we know that the Old Testament case law has not been altered, we must conclude that if any law has changed then it must be natural law. But isn’t natural law, being law, universal and invariant? If so, then why should we believe that it now contradicts Old Testament case law if it didn’t 3,000 years ago? Now someone might wish to argue that the ceremonial law now contradicts the finished work of Christ; so why can’t God’s case law now be at odds with natural law? The simple answer is that the ceremonial law and the finished work of Christ were not operative at the same time; so the latter may supplant the former without contradiction. In the case of natural law, it was from creation and was operative during the time of Moses, unlike the work of the cross. Accordingly, there is no reason to believe that natural law is superior and contrary to the case law today if it was not under Moses. The simple reality is that natural law does not contradict Old Testament case law; nor were these laws ever functionally equivalent.
Natural law affirms to all men, at all times and in all places that each sin against God’s moral law deserves God’s wrath, but God’s ministers of justice are not always to punish evil doers to the fullest extent humanly possible. Natural law is known by all men everywhere, but it cannot be justified in any philosophically sound way apart from special revelation. What revelatory authority would one appeal to after all? Accordingly, if the state were to strive to follow natural law with a pure heart with respect to penal sanction – as if that were even possible, all men would be put to death, even for the least of all transgresssions, by unjustified tyrants who are left to employ autonomous and, therefore, arbitrary reasoning. Apart from a theonomic appeal to a law that is self-attesting, the state is left to grasp from its shelf a volume of natural law that does not exist.
At the very least, how might a Dispensationalist, or Klinean for that matter – same thing really with respect to this subject, argue that the general equity of the civil case law is not still relevant and binding today? The non-theonomic thesis, which promotes a religion of pluralism that denies that all kings are to offer homage to the Son, really reduces to a secular philosophy that implies that any law may be legislated as long as it is not God’s law, justified by his word! The anti-theonomist may of course support capital punishment for some sins he deems criminal but only when it satisfies his personal sense of justice, apart from God's written law informing him.
Natural law affirms to all men, at all times and in all places that each sin against God’s moral law deserves God’s wrath, but God’s ministers of justice are not always to punish evil doers to the fullest extent humanly possible. Natural law is known by all men everywhere, but it cannot be justified in any philosophically sound way apart from special revelation. What revelatory authority would one appeal to after all? Accordingly, if the state were to strive to follow natural law with a pure heart with respect to penal sanction – as if that were even possible, all men would be put to death, even for the least of all transgresssions, by unjustified tyrants who are left to employ autonomous and, therefore, arbitrary reasoning. Apart from a theonomic appeal to a law that is self-attesting, the state is left to grasp from its shelf a volume of natural law that does not exist.
At the very least, how might a Dispensationalist, or Klinean for that matter – same thing really with respect to this subject, argue that the general equity of the civil case law is not still relevant and binding today? The non-theonomic thesis, which promotes a religion of pluralism that denies that all kings are to offer homage to the Son, really reduces to a secular philosophy that implies that any law may be legislated as long as it is not God’s law, justified by his word! The anti-theonomist may of course support capital punishment for some sins he deems criminal but only when it satisfies his personal sense of justice, apart from God's written law informing him.
The relevance of God’s law as it pertains to the nations is that we are to be governed according to God’s revelation to Moses as the promise to Abraham is fulfilled. The two-kingdom social theory is simply an unworkable principle and, frankly, a gross affront on the kingship of Christ and the fullness of the great commission.