If there was a time when the church needed to stop its business, to rest, to worship, and to set aside time for the care of the poor in their midst, that time is now. At no time in its history has . . . Continue reading →
Moreover, the law of Moses is an example of the natural law, most suitably expressing the common notions of nature endowed by natural law. For the principles and conclusions of the natural law, that is, those common notions of nature, are perfectly . . . Continue reading →
Introduction We seem to live in a Malthusian age, i.e., an age of increasing scarcity or perhaps fear of scarcity, where concern over how to divide an economic (and environmental) pie of limited size (called a “zero sum game”) has replaced the . . . Continue reading →
But touching other nations and specially Christian Commonwealths in these days, the case is otherwise. Some are of the opinion that the whole judicial law is wholly abolished and some again run to the other extreme, holding that the judicial laws bind . . . Continue reading →
In Colossians 2:8 Paul warned the Colossians Christians not to be taken captive by unbelieving ways of thinking (philosophies) nor by “the stoicheia (στοιχεῖα) of the world.” The noun stoicheia is usually translated with something like “elemental principles” or the like. That . . . Continue reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
The [New Testament] does not introduce any new laws about the civil estate, but commands us to obey the existing laws, whether they were formulated by heathen or by others, and in this obedience to practice love. It was mad of Carlstadt . . . Continue reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
That this Author saith, God commanded those that transgressed his holy Law with an high hand, and presumptuously to be killed, lest they should live and profane his holy things; I defend not: But sure Erastus erreth, who will have all such . . . Continue reading →
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 →
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 →