A Rule of Life Among the Gentiles
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Christians in the United States have experienced a unique blessing of living in a nation where Christianity has significantly impacted the culture. While our nation was not constituted purely as a “Christian nation,” it is undeniable that Christianity has shaped the moral fabric and structure of our nation. This has resulted in an enjoyment of a common grace culture with a Christian veneer. Many of the moral norms and laws in our country, reflect/reflected the moral law of God. But over the past few decades, those moral norms and common convictions have eroded at a rapid pace, which has resulted in a cultural shock for Christians. Christians should be grieved by this cultural decay. Christians should lament the profanity of God’s name and the destruction of God’s image in our nation. Grief and lament should be Christians’ spiritual response out of love for God and neighbor.
But there has been great confusion over what the antidote should be for cultural collapse. There are renewed calls for “Christian nationalism,” theonomy, and various forms of dominion eschatology. These views, while distinct from one another, all err in the same place. They misunderstand the law of God in the Old Covenant and the nature of the church’s mission in the New Covenant.[1] They suffer from a weak biblical theology that emphasizes a degree of continuity that is foreign to the Bible.[2]
On the opposite end of this is evangelicalism’s complete dismissal of the law of God. This is the result of emphasizing love over law. They assume law and love are contrary to one another. They assume that life in the Spirit is a life free of law. Embedded in this view is the emphasis that true heartfelt obedience to God must come spontaneously and be emotionally driven. Any “code of conduct” to them is contrary to the spirit of the gospel and instep with the spirit of the Pharisees.[3] Evangelicalism’s allergy to the law of God is emotionalism divorced from truth and excitement about Jesus but disdain for the law of God as a rule of life.[4] Scripture is both a rule of faith and a rule of life- what we are to believe concerning God and what duty God requires of us.[5] Love for God and love for one another do not operate abstractly apart from the law. On the contrary, the law shows Christians how they are to love God and love others.
A high view of the law of God is at the heart of the Reformed tradition, and all Christians should desire for their nation to uphold laws that are consistent with God’s law. The church must be clear on the law of God for the sake of the gospel, the Christian life, and the love of neighbor. In this article, I would like to lay out a biblical theology of the moral law and apply it to Christians living amongst the Gentile nations today.[6]
The Covenant Context of the Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments must first be considered in their covenantal context. The LORD remembered the covenant He made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 2:24; 6:1-9), and redeemed Israel out of bondage in Egypt (Ex. 19:1-4). Israel’s unique relationship as a nation with the LORD flowed from the covenant promises made to Abraham and is grounded in God’s gracious electing love (Deut. 7:6-8; 10:5). Isaac not Ishmael is the son of promise. Jacob I have loved and Esau I have hated (Rom. 9:9-12; Mal. 1:2). The LORD chose Israel according to his purposes and for his glory not because of any inherent glory or worth in Israel.
The LORD brought Israel from Egypt, through the wilderness, and to Mt. Sinai to constitute them through covenant as a holy nation unto the LORD (Ex. 19:5-6; Lev. 20:26). The nation of Israel was a true theocracy without qualification. The LORD of HOSTS was their King and He codified the terms of His unique kingship over Israel in the Mosaic Covenant. Israel received direct divine revelation from the LORD and divine sanctions to conduct holy war on the inhabitants of Canaan. The family, civil, and religious spheres of life were all sacred and regulated by divine law. Every square inch of the kingdom of Israel–nation, land, and animals–was to be holy before the Great King according to His rules and statutes.
However, if Israel was going to be the LORD’s holy nation, then they must be holy and keep the laws of the covenant. The language of Exodus 19:4-6 is conditional. Israel takes the oath of the covenant in Exodus 24 in contrast to the LORD taking the oath of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 15. Israel vowed personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience to the King as was required of Adam in the garden. Individual covenant breakers were cut off from the people, but if the nation persisted in disobedience, then the LORD will cut the nation off from Himself, pouring out the covenant curses upon her (Lev. 26; Deut. 27-28).
But it would be mistaken to allow this to obscure the grace and kindness of God to Israel in this covenant. In this covenant, we see the LORD’s steadfast love for Israel throughout the Old Testament despite their unfaithfulness. Over and over, the LORD renews the covenant with them and calls them back to repentance. Even amid the strongest language of judgment, the LORD holds out hope of renewal and promises grace to those who return to him (Lev. 26:40-45). There is an emphasis on obedience, “do this and live,” in the Mosaic Covenant. While Israel may break the covenant with the LORD (Jer. 31:31-32), the LORD will not break His oath to Abraham. God will bless the nations through Abraham in Christ (Gal. 3:16; Heb. 6:13-18).
The law of the Mosaic covenant is subservient to God’s Covenant of Grace which is established by Christ in the New Covenant. Also, Israel, as the LORD’s treasured possession, was called to be a light to the nations. The LORD gave Israel specific statutes and commands to obey in the land, and in these commands, the nations would see the wisdom and righteousness of God (Deut. 4:4-8; Ps. 147:19-20). Israel was to be distinct and holy from the nations but also an agent of blessing and light to the nations. They were to proclaim to the nations the excellencies of the LORD that brought them out of darkness into the light.
“Brief Observations and Applications”
This highlights the unique situation that Israel was in as a theocratic nation in covenant with the Great King. Any attempt to replicate or repeat a theocracy or “Christian nation” based on Israel’s status in the Old Testament is greatly mistaken. The kingdom of Israel in redemptive history was a temporary, non-repeatable, unique, and subservient kingdom used by God to bring about the fullness of time in the coming of the kingdom of God and true Israel in the person of Jesus Christ. A failure to recognize this will result in misappropriating the judicial laws of Israel and reading into the Church the nation of Israel’s unique mission as a theocracy. Or it will result in the Zionist theology of dispensationalism that obscures the hope of the gospel with the false hope of a renewed national kingdom of Israel. Both views miss the biblical theology of the Old Testament and the movement of Scripture from the gospel promised to the gospel established.
The theonomist errs in the same place as the dispensationalist by divorcing Israel from her covenant context in relation to Christ and by ignoring the New Testament’s authoritative interpretation of the Old. Peter gives to the church the titles that were given to Israel (1 Peter 2:4-10). Paul calls the church the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16) and identifies those who are “of faith” as the true children of Abraham not those by birth (Gal. 3:7, 14, 28; Rom 2:28-29; 9:6-8). There is a degree of continuity between the nation of Israel and the church. But the New Testament’s use of the Old Testament instructs us that this continuity is mixed with a level of discontinuity.
The New Testament church is a pilgrim people throughout the last days between the two comings of Christ (1 Pt. 1:1; 1:17; 2:11; Heb. 11:13). The church’s situation in the last days parallels the Patriarchs’ wanderings and Israel’s time in exile. The church’s situation does not parallel Israel as a theocracy in the Promised Land. The church has a heavenly pilgrim ethic with a heavenly destination in mind as it travels in this foreign land. The church is to be in the world but not of it. The church is to be a faithful witness to the truth of God’s Word in the world. But the church’s mission is not sanctifying culture, Christianizing nations, or winning political power. The church’s mission is to make disciples of the nations. Indeed, if true revival breaks out, a transformation of society may happen. However, a lack of “transformation” cannot be the metric by which the church’s faithfulness is measured. A pilgrim ethic is confident in the growth of the kingdom of God through the building of the church, but that confidence is coupled with a biblical realism about the culture and this world. The parable of our LORD tells us that both the wheat and the weeds will grow simultaneously. They will not be separated from the world until Christ’s coming (Matt. 15:24-30, 36-43). Theonomy changes the Christian life from a pilgrimage to the heavenly city to a crusade for an earthly city.
Furthermore, the spirit of renewing “Christendom” based on Old Testament Israel commits the same error of the Pentecostals who try to repeat the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Pivotal redemptive events are not repeatable. A sound biblical theology that recognizes the promise/fulfillment and organic unfolding structure of redemptive history will safeguard us from attempting to repeat, recreate, or replicate unrepeatable and unique events in redemptive history.
The Unique Status of the Ten Commandments
This brings us to the Ten Commandments and their unique place in the Old Covenant. We have over ten thousand texts that have survived ancient Egypt, but we do not have a single codified Egyptian law code. We know of laws and guidelines in Egypt, but these were temporary or suggestive. John Currid argues that this is because the Pharaohs “were the definers and executors of justice and law,” and they were capricious and inconsistent both in their enactment of laws and enforcement of justice.[7]
But at Mt. Sinai, in contrast to Egypt’s pharaohs, the LORD graciously revealed to his people his law. This law is preceded by God’s gracious redemption.[8] This law was a guide for them as a nation This law given at Sinai revealed to Israel how they were to love God and love neighbor. God’s laws, unlike the pharaohs’ laws, are not capricious; They are not arbitrary. God’s law is holy, just, and good when it is used lawfully (Rom. 7:12; 1 Tim. 1:8). Only when the law of God is divorced from God’s good and loving character is it seen as burdensome (Mal. 1:2, 13).
The Ten Commandments are the essence of the Old Covenant (Deut. 4:13). The Ten Commandments are broken up into two parts. Commands one through four (Ex. 20:3-11) deal with Israel’s duty to God, and commands five through ten deal with Israel’s duty to man (Ex. 20:12-17). Jesus himself summarized the law with these two headings (Matt. 22:37-40).
The Ten Commandments are distinct and unique from the other laws of the covenant because they contain in summary the moral law of God,[9] which stands over creatures in all generations, throughout various covenants until human history ceases. The distinct qualities of the Ten Commandments are seen in the context of Exodus and the Old Testament.[10]
First, only the Ten Commandments were revealed directly from God to Israel. The LORD spoke from Mt. Sinai the Ten Commandments to the nation of Israel from the midst of the glory cloud which Exodus describes in cosmic, apocalyptic fashion- fire, smoke, darkness, trembling, the sound of a trumpet, thunder, and lightning (Ex. 19:16-20; 20:1). Israel was so terrified by the event, that they pleaded with Moses to mediate God’s law of the covenant to them because they feared they would die (Ex. 20:18-21). From here on, Moses, the covenant mediator, sets before the people all the statutes and rules that the LORD God commanded Israel (Deut. 4:14; 6:1).
Second, only the ten commandments are written by the finger of God (Ex. 31:18; 32:15-16). While all the laws of the Mosaic Covenant are God’s laws, only these commands are described as the work of God written on tablets of stone. Third, the Ten Commandments are aligned with Hebrew culture’s view that the number ten signifies completion or perfection. The text tells us that both sides of the tablets were written on. There was no room for additions (32:15). The Ten Commandments were complete and whole.
Fourth, only the Ten Commandments were written on tablets of stone. All the other laws were written in the Book of the Covenant (Ex. 24:7).
Fifth, the Ten Commandments are distinct from “the rules” given to Israel. Exodus 21-23 is the application and explanation of the Ten Commandments as it touches Israel’s social, moral, and religious life as a nation. Moses wrote these rules down in the Book of the Covenant (21:1, 24:4, 7). John Currid writes, “In the opening verse of the Book of the Covenant (21:1), the laws are specifically called ‘rules’…, a term referring to case decisions that rest upon prior precedent. In other words, the laws of the Decalogue are principial, foundational, permanent, and eternal, whereas the laws of the Book of the Covenant deal with the specific social and economic contexts of the people of Israel.”[11]
Last, the Gentile nations in the days of the Mosaic Covenant were condemned for breaking the moral law of God contained in the Ten Commandments but never were they condemned for breaking the judicial laws of the Mosaic Covenant (Jer 46-51; Ezek 25-32; Amos 1-2; Obadiah; Jonah; Nahum; Hab 2). This highlights both the universal nature of the Ten Commandments as a rule for the nations because they contain the moral law of God and the covenantal boundary of Israel’s judicial laws applying to the theocracy of Israel alone.
“Brief Observations and Applications”
These unique aspects of the Ten Commandments in the text of Exodus and the larger context of the Old Testament disarm the claims of both new covenant theology and theonomy/& company. New covenant theology attempts to argue that the commands given in the Ten Commandments began at Sinai and are abolished without exception in the New Covenant. Theonomy attempts to argue that the judicial laws given to Israel are morally binding on nations today. They argue that a just nation that honors God upholds the theocratic laws of Israel. New Covenant Theology suffers from a deformed zoom lens of an a-theological reading of the Scriptures, and theonomy/& company suffers from a myopic lens that disregards the contours and distinctions of the Old Covenant laws.
The question of general equity comes into play at this point. Is there not a “general equity” in the judicial laws of Israel?[12] The Second London Confession in chapter nineteen paragraph four does speak of general equity, “To them also he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the state of that people, not obliging any now by virtue of that institution; their general equity only being of moral use.”[13] But notice, general equity is spoken of in the confession within the context of explicit expiration language. The judicial laws have expired with the theocratic nation-state of Israel. Israel’s expiration as a theocratic nation means that those judicial laws have expired with her. They no longer have an obligatory force. Therefore, whatever is meant by general equity, it cannot mean that the judicial laws themselves are to be enforced today.
General equity refers to the moral law of God summarized in the Ten Commandments and is found in natural law and is embedded in those judicial laws.[14] Tom Hicks after showing the Reformed tradition’s interpretation of general equity writes,
Therefore, we should not approach old covenant judicial laws to discover distinctive or new principles of law, which are not already revealed in creation, conscience, or the decalogue. Old covenant judicial laws do not establish timeless principles of law; rather, to the extent that there is any general equity in them, it is based on the larger trans-covenantal moral law of nature, which is found outside of those laws.[15]
The general equity of the judicial laws points us back to the timeless moral law of God revealed in the Ten Commandments, which originated in the light of nature. We can determine the general equity of the judicial laws by sifting those laws through the moral law of God and through the jurisdiction that God has given the Gentile nations. Jurisdiction outlines the realm and limits of authority that God has given the magistrates of Gentile nations. What God authorized the magistrate of Israel to do, he has not authorized the magistrates of Gentile nations to do. The Noahic covenant gives us the foundation for what God has authorized the state to do not the Mosaic covenant. In Israel, there was no realm of the common because everything was holy. In the Gentile nations, underneath the Noahic covenant, the state falls under the common kingdom, and therefore, its jurisdiction is limited to the enforcement of the second table of the Ten Commandments.[16]
Some may try to make the argument, “Since the judicial laws given to Israel were morally upright, then would it not be just if a nation today wanted to enforce those same laws?” First, all laws in a sense given by God are moral because God cannot give any other kind of law. However, just because all laws given by God are morally upright does not mean all laws given by God apply beyond their covenant context. There are two types of laws in Scripture, natural and positive. Natural laws transcend covenant contexts. Positive laws are bound to their covenant contexts.[17] The prohibition given by God to Adam in the covenant of works (Gen. 2:15-17) is an example of a positive law that is bound to its covenant context. The confession places the judicial laws and ceremonial laws of Israel in the second category.
Second, to argue for the application of Israel’s judicial laws to modern nations is to ignore the contours of redemptive history. Israel was not merely a theocracy because they decided to be. Israel’s leaders didn’t legislate themselves into being a Holy Christian kingdom, to put it anachronistically. Israel was made a theocracy by special revelation and through the confirmation of a divinely initiated covenant. No nation has or ever will meet those parameters again. No nation ever will be a theocracy or a holy nation like Israel. Therefore, it is a redemptive-historical misstep to argue from the general truth that because in a sense the judicial law given to Israel was moral, it should be enforced today. Nations today are not under the Mosaic Covenant.
The Abiding Quality of the Ten Commandments
When we read the Ten Words in their covenant and textual context, we are prepared to see how those Ten Words are transposed into the New Covenant and how the typological shape of Israel comes into the beautiful fulfillment of the church through Christ. In addition to the case made from the Old Testament, several theological arguments can be made from the New Testament for the abiding validity of the Ten Commandments. First, the New Testament says that all sinners, Jews and Gentiles, are held accountable to a law older than Sinai. This is the moral law of God written on their hearts (Rom. 2:12-15). Second, the New Testament says that all sinners, Jews and Gentiles (under OT and NT), are condemned under the same law broken in Adam (Rom. 3:9, 19-20; 5:12-14). On judgment day, Jews and Gentiles are not condemned by different standards of justice. There is one moral and universally binding law that will condemn all sinners.
The question is, how can Paul refer to the law that was given only to Israel in the Mosaic Covenant, and apply it to Gentiles, “the whole world” (Rom. 3:19-20)? Paul can make that argument because the natural law written on man’s heart at creation is the same law republished in the Ten Commandments. Though all image bearers have the law written on their hearts, the LORD provided men with a written law on tablets of stone because of the darkness of sin. Sin darkens and distorts natural law not because God’s law in nature is unclear but because men’s hearts are depraved. Therefore, there is a need for a revelation of God’s law through supernatural revelation to make clear what is in creation.[18]
Third, the New Testament says that all sinners must be justified by another’s obedience to this same law. Jesus Christ is born under the law to redeem those from the curse of the law (Gal. 4:4).[19] Jesus was obedient to the law that Adam broke and by his obedience, many sinners are declared righteous through faith in Him (Rom. 4:23-25; 5:18-19; Php. 3:9). If there is no universal moral law by which all men are under and condemned by, then how can Christ satisfy God’s justice and impute His righteousness to sinners?
To deny the moral law of God is to put the foundations of the gospel at risk. Christ took upon himself in our place the curses of our law-breaking and placed upon us the blessings of his law-keeping. The Mosaic covenant provides Christ the covenantal context in which he enters to keep the moral law of God for His people fulfilling the Covenant of Redemption given to him in eternity past and mediating to us the blessings of that kept covenant in the New Covenant.[20] What the law demands of sinners, the gospel provides for sinners.
The Christian’s Relationship to the Ten Commandments: Life in the Spirit
This moral law of God continues to be a rule of life for the Christian. Christ came to fulfill the law for us (Matt. 5:17-19), but his perfect law keeping does not destroy the law as a rule of life. We are no longer under law (Rom. 6:14), as a legal covenant. No longer does the law condemn us. We are dead to the law and dead to sin (Rom. 7:4). But faith and the gospel does not overthrow the law (Rom. 3:31). No, the gospel and faith change our relationship to the law. We are still required to obey that moral law because it is binding on all men, but from a different starting point. The Second London Confession is helpful here,
Although true believers are not under the law as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified or condemned, yet it is of great use to them as well as to others, in that as a rule of life, informing them of the will of God and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their natures, hearts, and lives, so as examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against, sin;14 together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ and the perfection of his obedience…[21]
We are now alive in Christ and slaves no longer to unrighteousness. We are slaves to righteousness which leads to sanctification (6:19). We receive the law not from the hands of Moses but from the hands of Christ. John Owen writes concisely states how the Christian’s relationship to obedience and law has changed in Christ,
But though we are freed from the penalty of sin, we are still bound to obey the law. Yet that obedience is not to gain acceptance with God, but rather it is an expression of gratitude to God for our deliverance from death… Are we freed from obedience? Yes. We are freed from obeying the law in our own strength, and we are freed from obeying it in order to obtain everlasting life… We are not freed from obedience as a way of walking with God, but we are freed from obedience as a means of making ourselves good enough to come to God.[22]
The law now is the law of liberty and the law of Christ to the believer. The Spirit of Christ has given us life and love to freely obey the law. We can now delight in the law because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us and the Spirit of Christ in us. The Christian delights in the law because in it is revealed God’s perfect will (Ps. 19:7-10).
Not only is Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, but we have his Spirit that subdues and enables us to do “freely and cheerfully” God’s will revealed in the law.[23] The Spirit of God in our sanctification is working within us, conforming us to the righteous requirements of the law (Rom. 8:3-4). Life in the Spirt is a life of freedom from the condemnation of the law and freedom to love one another by fulfilling the law (Gal. 5:13-15, 18). Our freedom in Christ is not a license to live according to the flesh. Beeke and Smalley write, “But true Christian freedom is both defined and protected by the law… True freedom is a free servitude and a serving freedom. True freedom is obedience. Only those who serve God are free.”[24] It is our calling to live in service to Christ in walking in the Spirit from an obedience of the heart. This is why Paul can say that against the fruit of the Spirit there is no law (Gal. 5:23). True obedience to the law is not merely external conformity but rather internal Spirit wrought conformity from a regenerated heart which is made evident in the fruits of the Spirit.
Conclusion
Christians, out of love for God and neighbor, should desire for their government to uphold just laws. A just government will uphold laws that accord with the moral law of God within their God-given jurisdiction established in the Noahic covenant.[25] Christians should hold the government liable and speak clearly against it, when it violates God’s moral law and trespasses its God-given job description (Rom. 13:1-7). But Christians’ disposition to the government should be that of submission, prayer, and a peaceable life when possible (1 Pt. 2:13-17 1 Tim. 2:1-4).
The Christian should seek to live out the Christian worldview in the public square, but our engagement in culture must be regulated and evaluated by the Word of God with a gospel optimism for the church and a realistic expectation of evil in the world. Our expectations, our aims, and “hopes” for our nation must not obscure the mission of the church as a spiritual holy nation amongst the Gentile nations. Our identity as sojourners and exiles must shape our ethics in the culture and our priorities as Christians (1 Pt. 2:9-10). We are distinct from the world as pilgrims, but we are in the world amongst the Gentiles as a light (1 Pt. 2:11-12). We ought to seek the welfare of the city God has placed us, but cultural transformation is not our mission. Our mission is to make disciples of the nations until our King brings us into the eternal kingdom of glory with him. May the LORD strengthen us to walk in the Spirit in obedience to God’s law so that we might proclaim the excellencies of our God by life and lip to the Gentiles we are amongst.
[1] Dispensationalism could be argued to err in a similar way.
[2] Classic Theonomy (R.J. Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen) denies the category of common grace and fails to see the redemptive-historical uniqueness of Israel’s holiness. For an incisive critique of theonomy Tom Hicks’ article, “Why is Theonomy Unbiblical?,” https://pastortomhicks.com/2020/11/17/why-is-theonomy-unbiblical/. For a direct refutation of theonomy and new covenant theology’s exegesis of Matthew 5:17, see Sam Waldon’s article, “Jesus Came to Fulfill the Law- What Does that Mean?,” https://cbtseminary.org/matthew-5-1/. Meredith Kline critiques dominion theology both in its premillennial and postmillennial forms from a redemptive-historical position. Meredith Kline, Kingdom Prologue (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2006),155-160. See also Michael Beck, Covenant Lord and Cultic Boundary A Dialectic Inquiry Concerning Meredith Kline And The Reformed Two-Kingdom Project (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2023).
[3] It is quite true that true obedience to God must come from the heart by the work of the Spirit. Right conduct must flow from a right heart through the regenerating and sanctifying work of the Spirit. John Murray, “Without the inward condition of purity and the inward impulsion of love, obedience is impossible.” [3] John Murray, Collected Writings, (Carlisle, PA; Banner of Truth Trust, 1976), 1:199. The Pharisees erred both in mere external conformity to God’s law and in adding to God’s law the traditions of men.
[4] New Covenant Theology is one theological system that has contributed to this thinking. New Covenant theology suffers from a weak biblical theology that emphasizes a degree of discontinuity that is foreign to the Bible and a rejection of the abiding validity of the moral law of God for all of life. New Covenant theology and theonomy are quite like dispensationalism at key points. While both movements speak of covenant theology, their departure from the law gospel distinction in the covenant of works and grace and their mistaken treatment of Israel has more overlap with dispensationalism than Reformed covenant theology.
[5] See question six in the 1695 Baptist Catechism, https://baptistcatechism.org.
[6] The modern state of Israel would be included as a Gentile nation.
[7] John Currid, “Exodus” in A Biblical-Theological Introduction to the Old Testament: The Gospel Promised, ed. Miles Van Pelt (Wheaton, ILL.: Crossway 2016), 83.
[8] See question 49 in the 1695 Baptist Catechism, https://baptistcatechism.org.
[9] See questions 46 in the 1695 Baptist Catechism, https://baptistcatechism.org. The Second London Confession in chapter nineteen paragraph two, says, “The same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables, the four first containing our duty towards God, and the other six, our duty to man.” The Second London Baptist Confession 19:2, https://www.the1689confession.com/1689/chapter-19.
[10] Some of these distinct qualities of the Ten Words are adapted and used from John Currid, “Exodus,” 83.
[11] Ibid., 83.
[12] Some theonomists, attempting to distance themselves from the historic theonomy of Rushdoony, Bahnsen, and North, call themselves “general equity theonomists.” Historically speaking that is an anachronistic parring of words. Tom Hicks, “General Equity Theonomy a Confessional and Biblical Doctrine?,” https://pastortomhicks.com/2021/03/16/is-general-equity-theonomy-a-confessional-and-biblical-doctrine/.
[13]The Second London Baptist Confession 19:4, https://www.the1689confession.com/1689/chapter-19.
[14] John Calvin identifies the term “equity” with moral law. “It is a fact that the law of God which we call the moral law is nothing else than a testimony of natural law and of that conscience which God has engraved upon the minds of men. Consequently, the entire scheme of this equity of which we are now speaking has been prescribed in it. Hence, this equity alone must be the goal and rule and limit of all laws” John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 1504.
[15] Tom Hicks also presents a helpful test case of finding and applying general equity in his article, “Is General Equity Theonomy a Confessional and Biblical Doctrine?,” https://pastortomhicks.com/2021/03/16/is-general-equity-theonomy-a-confessional-and-biblical-doctrine/
[16] Jonathan Leeman, “What Authority has God Given to Governments? https://www.9marks.org/article/what-authority-has-god-given-to-governments/. Kline, Kingdom Prologue, 174-179.
[17] Micah and Samuel Renihan, “ Reformed Baptist Covenant Theology and Biblical Theology,” in Recovering a Covenantal Heritage, ed. Richard Barcellos, (Palmdale, CA: Reformed Baptist Academic Press, 2014), 493.
[18] John Murray, 1:197. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 368.
[19] John Owen, “Christ obeyed, not for himself, but for us and in our place, as Paul tells us (Gal. 4:4,5). From the text of Scripture we learn that Christ was both made of a woman and made under the law; that is, he obeyed the law for us.” John Owen, Communion with God (Banner of Truth Trust, 2022), 139.
[20] There is a theology of God writing his divine law in Scripture- In creation, he wrote the law of God on man’s soul, at Sinai he wrote the law of God on tablets of stone, at calvary he wrote the law of God on our Savior’s hands as he kept the law of God for us, and in the New Covenant he writes the law of God on the hearts of his people (Jer. 31:31-34).
[21] The Second London Baptist Confession 19:6, https://www.the1689confession.com/1689/chapter-19.
[22] Owen, Communion with God, 139-140.
[23] The Second London Baptist Confession 19:7, https://www.the1689confession.com/1689/chapter-19.
[24] Joel R. Beeke and Paul M. Smalley in John Colquhoun’s The Law and the Gospel (Grand Rapids, Reformation Heritage Books, 2023), xxv.
[25] Murray, “It is only to the extent in which the revelation of Scripture bears upon the functions discharged by the state and upon the performance of the office of civil magistrate, that he, in the discharge of these functions, is bound to fulfill the demands of Scripture.” Murray, Collected Writings, 1:254.