“Pagan philosophy knows something of God as creator from the order of nature but, ultimately, because of sin, fails to move from that knowledge to true religion and idolatrously confuses creature and Creator. Scriptural revelation, therefore, is necessary for us to have . . . Continue reading →
Natural Law
The Law Of Christ Is The Moral Law
In his provocative March (2020) essay, Matt Smethurst asked “Why Don’t Christians Keep the Jewish Law?” He reminds us that the “Bible is a thoroughly Jewish document,” a note that has been regularly (and properly) sounded in modern biblical studies. From this premise, he asks the provocative question before us. He notes that “God’s people kept it for centuries in the Old Testament. What happened?” He answers by observing that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and the Son of God kept and completed “the law of God in his people’s place. Jesus embodied in himself everything the law demanded.” Smethurst recognizes two functions of the “Jewish law:” “God designed the law both to instruct and guide his people and also to expose their sin and need for a Savior.” In the magisterial Protestant traditions we have spoken of these as the normative (third use) and the pedagogical use. Historically there was also a “civil use,” the function of which, according to Louis Berkhof, is to restrain sin and to serve “the purposes of God’s common grace in the world at large.” According to Smethurst, the “Jewish law” is a signpost that is no longer needed now that the “new covenant and new age ushered in by a new king” has arrived. As he puts it, “The signage of the law, therefore, can be taken down. It served its purpose.” Continue reading →
New Resource Page: Natural Law
The Reformed theologians and churches have held, taught, and confessed the existence of natural law since the earliest days of the Reformed Reformation in the 1520s. If all one knows, however, of Reformed theology is 20th century (or 21st-century) Reformed theology, one . . . Continue reading →
Samuel Rutherford Contra Theonomy On General Equity
Judicial laws may be judicial and Mosaical, and so not obligatory to us, according to the degree and quality of punishment, such as in Deuteronomy 13, the destroying the city, and devoting all therein to a curse; we may not do the . . . Continue reading →
Heidelcast 137: How To Avoid The TheoRecon Tollbooth
Arguably Reformed theology has never been more popular among evangelicals than it is right now. There are multiple large parachurch movements that extol the virtues of Reformed theology in a way that was unknown thirty years ago. It has never been easier . . . Continue reading →
Dickson: Theonomy Is An Error
Quest. IV. Did the Lord by Moses give to the Jews, as a Body Politick, sundry Judicial Laws, which expired together with their state? Yes. Do they oblige any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require. No. Exod. 21. . . . Continue reading →
Gillespie And Piscator: The Natural Law Remains In Force
But how doth it appear that these or any other Judicial Laws of Moses do at all appertain to us, as rules to guide us in like cases? I shall with him who scrupleth this, to read Piscator his Appendix to his . . . Continue reading →
Rollock: The Judicial Laws Are Abolished But The Natural Law Remains
It is true, indeed, a prince should be loath to put out that life that God hath put in, and should beware, to judge rashly in capital crimes. It is no small matter to make a crime capital; but if the crime . . . Continue reading →
Polanus: We Are Released From the Judicial Laws Of Moses But Not From Natural Law
THUS MUCH CONCERNING INWARD FREEDOM: NOW CONCERNING OUTWARD FREEDOM. The outward freedom, is that which pertaineth to the outward life. And it is called Christian liberty, because it belongeth to Christians only. And that is two fold, freedom from the laws of . . . Continue reading →
Ussher Rejected Theonomy And Explained General Equity
What call you the Judicial Law? That wherein God appointed a Form of Politick and Civil Government of the Common-wealth of the Jews: Which therefore is ceased with the Dissolution of that State, for which it was ordained; saving only in the . . . Continue reading →
Witsius: Christians Have Been Liberated From the Mosaic Judicial Laws
XIX. That liberty, therefore, which is peculiar to the New Testament is, 1st. A discharge from the bondage of the elements of the world, or of the ancient ceremonies, from whose religious obligation, as of things necessary, the consciences of men were . . . Continue reading →
Turretin: Theonomy Wanders From The Truth
II. There are three opinions about its abrogation: the first in defect (of the Anabaptists and Antinomians, who think it is absolutely and simply abrogated as to all things). On this account, whatever reasons are drawn against them from the Old Testament . . . Continue reading →
Boston: The Judicial Laws Were Temporary. The Moral Law Is Permanent
Secondly, There are three sorts of laws we find in the word. 1. The ceremonial law, which was given by Moses. This bound only the Jews, and that to the coming of Christ, by whom it was abrogated, being a shadow of . . . Continue reading →
Ursinus Opposed Theonomy And Taught Natural Law
To what extent has Christ abrogated the Law, and to what extent is it still in force? The ordinary and correct answer to this question is, that the ceremonial and judicial law, as given by Moses, has been abrogated in as far . . . Continue reading →
Calvin Rejected Theonomy In Favor Of Natural Law
I would have preferred to pass over this matter in utter silence if I were not aware that here many dangerously go astray. For there are some who deny that a commonwealth is duly framed which neglects the political system of Moses, . . . Continue reading →
What Is At Stake In The “Gender” Debate?
Will Gnosticism Become The State Religion?
What is at stake here is much more than the right of an individual to free self-expression or an employer’s freedom of religion to hold and act on such “stereotypes.” Since everyone in the workplace of that individual employee will be asked . . . Continue reading →
Grammar Guerrilla: Pronoun Primer
In yet another indicator that the West is collapsing, Webster’s Dictionary has apparently named they, used to designate a particular, non-gendered person, the word of 2019. This seems to call for a quick refresher on basic grammar: There are two kinds of . . . Continue reading →
Canons Of Dort (27): The Reformed Distinguish Law And Gospel
When we think of the Synod of Dort and their rulings (canons) against the Remonstrants (Arminians) we tend to think about the doctrine of sin or the doctrines of unconditional grace, election, and the like but there were structural, subterranean issues at . . . Continue reading →
The World Was Made To Be Known And You Were Made To Know It
Is the world that we experience with our five senses (taste, touch, smell, hear, sight) real or an illusion? To some that might seem like a silly question with an obvious answer but, in fact, it is one that has troubled philosophers . . . Continue reading →
Zanchi: The Decalogue Binds Christians Insofar As It Agrees With Natural Law
Hieronymus Zanchius (Operum, Tom. iv. lib. i. c. 11), Maintains at large, and by several arguments, that we Christians have nothing to do with the moral precepts, as they were given to the Israelites by Moses; but only in so far as . . . Continue reading →