Everything Except... an Anti-theomonic Hermeneutic

So, our discussion on theonomy continues. Ryan has made an attempt to shore up the anti-theonomic position… (an anti-theonomic position, since there are several)… by papering over a gap in his hermeneutic. He says,

In summary, New Covenant Theology advocates like myself do not need a proof-text. The redemptive-historical shift from old covenant to new is the proof that the New Covenant Scriptures are our standard. We know that because of the statements they make on the obsolescence of the Old Covenant, and in making these statements, they are already functioning as the standard determining what applies to us and what doesn’t. Therefore, those things that are reaffirmed, either explicitly or implicitly, in the New Covenant Scriptures remain binding on the believer. Silence in the New Testament is not permission to bind Old Covenant laws on believers—it’s the obsolescence of them.

Now, he makes at least two fatal errors here. Indeed by the time I get writing I might find four or more :) Let’s take them one by one:

Silence in the New Testament

His first error is in thinking that the New Testament is silent. It is far from silent, it just doesn’t say what he wants it to say. The New Testament makes it very clear that the Law of God… which stretches from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation… is the standard by which human behaviour is judged. It is the yard stick by which sin is determined. For example:

I John 3:4

Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law:

for sin is the transgression of the law.

I don’t know you could find a clearer non-silence than this passage. It goes very clearly in both directions: If you sin, you break the law, because sin is the breaking of the law. If only the first part was there, one might think that John was saying that all sin was breaking the law… and leaving open the idea that some breaking the law wasn’t sin. But the second part rules that out. It is an equivalence statement. Sin = breaking the law. The two are identical. All breaking the law (properly understood) is sin.

James 2:9

But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin,

and are convinced of the law as transgressors.

Here is a very specific sin: ‘having respect to persons’. And John does not fish around in the teachings of Jesus to try to condemn this sin, he says that the law convicts you. But if the law is doing convicting¹ that must mean that it is still the standard. Can an obsolete law convict you?

A Question of Interpretation

Ryan’s basic hermeneutic regarding the relationship of the law to sin is this: that all of the Old Testament law is wiped out, but some of it is resurrected by the New Testament. The article I am specifically responding to here tries to defend the ‘resurrected in the New Testament’ part of this hermeneutic: trying to deal with the fact that neither the words nor the concept that ‘some is resurrected’ is found anywhere in the New Testament (and contradicted everywhere in the New Testament). But the problem is that this second part of his hermeneutic is only necessary because of his (false) interpretation involved in the first part of his hermeneutic!

Instead of saying, “I interpret the word ‘obsolete’ to mean ‘done away with and no longer valid, and then I add in the idea of being ‘repeated in the NT as a way of rescuing those things which I still believe are sins,” he merely says, “Obsolete obviously means done away with and no longer valid so I don’t need to prove my ‘everything except the parts repeated in the New Testament’ hermeneutic!’

In other words, he has two problems, and fails to see that his problematic false assumptions in the first problem lead to his enormous lack of evidence for his second problem.

Hebrews 8:10-13

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord;

I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts:

and I will be to them a God,

and they shall be to me a people:

And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord:

for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins

and their iniquities will I remember no more.

In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old.

Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.

So let us take this passage from Hebrews, which he uses to try to say that the law is obsolete. Even the quickest glance at the context will reveal two things:

1. It affirms the law and

2. It is speaking about modalities.

A longer look will see:

3. In Hebrews 8:1, we see that the passage is talking about the Old Testament priesthood and in chapter 9, we see it talking about the various temple sacrifices.

Let’s take these one at a time:

Jeremiah 31:33-34

But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD,

I will put my law in their inward parts,

and write it in their hearts;

and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD:

for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

1. Hebrews 8:10, in a book written to the Hebrew Christians at a time long before the New Testament cannon had been recognized, and in a quote from the Old Testament, which was thus written before any New Testament had even be written, says that in this new covenant God will… “put my laws into their mind.” God does not say “I will make new laws and put then in their mind’” still less does He say, “I will have New Testament writers write books and if something from the Law is repeated there, then I will put that into their minds.” He says, of the Law, of the Torah,² “I will write in in their hearts’. That is the New Covenant: The Torah written in our hearts. It would be hard to find a clearer affirmation of the OT Law than that.

2. Hebrews 8:11-12 speaks of modalities: of the law not needing to be taught, for He would put it in our hearts. Of mercy given to unrighteousness, and a forgetting of sin and iniquity. This is a blessed picture of the gospel, and of how the gospel moved from a temple and priest oriented religion to a priesthood of all believers… but the Torah is in the center of it.

3. And then when we look at the rest of the chapter, and the rest of the book, we see prophets → Christ, human priests → Christ, etc etc. We don’t see lists of new laws, new ways of dealing with murder and adultery.

So the first problem in this anti-theonomic position is that it starts with a completely false interpretation of what Hebrews 8:13 means… indeed in the context of the rest of the text it is literally contradictory to what it says!

No Resurrection Needed

So the problem with his lack of proof text for his ‘except for those parts of the Torah that are repeated in the New Testament’ is that he is seeking to resurrect something for which no resurrection is needed. The entire Law of God (the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation) reflect the Will of God, and are a perfect expression of how we should be living.

Romans 10:1-4

Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.

For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but

not according to knowledge.

For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and

going about to establish their own righteousness,

have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness

to every one that believeth.

Now there’s a fun passage to teach the perfection of the Law. Most modern believers go about under this illusion that the Jews, in particular the Pharisees, went about in perfect obedience to the law. How they get that past Jesus’s condemnation of them I don’t know, but they do.

But here in Romans 10 we see Paul condemning the Jews… for being ignorant. He says that have a zeal for God… but were ignorant of how to go about being righteous. That they were caught up in ‘establishing their own righteousness’ but did not submit themselves to the ‘righteousness of God’.

Now, left alone, that statement might leave us in limbo. What is the righteousness of God? But the next verse states clearly: the purpose of the law of God³ was to point to Christ… so that all believers would be righteous.

And how perfectly that fits with what the rest of the New Testament says about the Law of God! Time and time again the New Testament, including Christ, brings forward the Old Testament law as the standard by which human behaviour is to be judged.

Remain

A quick note, but an important one. In the original quote we see Ryan using the word ‘remain’:

those things that are reaffirmed, either explicitly or implicitly, in the New Covenant Scriptures remain binding on the believer.

But his use of the word ‘remain’ contradicts this thesis. Listen, hopefully my audience is familiar with the words ‘Beam me up, Scotty’. Star Trek? The transporter? The device breaks the human body (or whatever it is transporting) into a gazillion pieces, remembers the pieces, then… follow me here… reforms those pieces up on the ship. Now, when the original body is being broken up, what ‘remains’?

The thesis here is that the Law of God is obliterated, done away with, obsolete. So when the NT writers repeat that law they are not saying something ‘remains’. (According to the NCT view). They are saying that the Old Law is gone, kaput, vamoosed. And then parts of it are ressurected, recreated by the NT writers. Nothing ‘remains’.

God Forbid

Romans 3:31

Do we then make void the law through faith?

God forbid: yea,

we establish the law.

And the critical thing is that Scripture actually specifically condemns the hermeneutic used here. At the end of a long passage speaking of the Jews, and how they have not attained faith and thus not attained righteousness… a passage which might cause some to think that (despite what Paul very explicitly says in the beginning) the law is useless, Paul addresses this question head on: Do we then make void the law through faith?

In other words, should the average Christian, when listening to Paul and the other apostles, understand them to mean that the Gospel of Christ, the Doctrines of the New Testament church, involve ‘making void’ the law? Does the idea of faith negate the idea of law?

To which he answers, “God forbid!”

So the two parts of the anti-theonomic thesis here are both false. It is false that the New Testament (and Jeremiah 31) teach the obliteration of the law of God and its replacement by a New Testament law code… and it is false that that code is established in silence by a thesis of ‘repeated in the New Testament’.

Other Attacks on Silence

II Timothy 3:16-17

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.

VI. The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men….

-Westminster Confession of Faith I,6a

It is rather odd that any reformed Christian should hold such a high view of ‘silence’… that he should reject bringing up the silence of Scripture on an issue as an argument against a doctrine. The historic reformed statements of faith make no such claim. They argue that we should believe no doctrine that is not either expressly set down in Scripture (Reformed Baptists) or expressly set down in Scripture or by good and necessary consequence be deduced from Scripture (Presbyterians).

What they do not say, what they specifically reject, is that silence is good enough.

And, indeed, one of the biggest arguments that protestants, particularly reformed protestants, bring forward when debating Catholics, is an attack on mere silence. Whether discussing the doctrine of purgatory, Mary as co-redemtrix, or Mary’s perpetual virginity… the Reformed believer is quick to seize upon the silence of Scripture on these issues… to point out that Scripture never mentions purgatory, doesn’t speak of Mary is co-redemtrix, never claims that Mary was a perpetual virgin …and then the reformed believer moves the argument on to those places where the Scripture specifically repudiates those doctrines.

Where is the new Deuteronomy?

Romans 1:28-32

And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge,

God gave them over to a reprobate mind,

to do those things which are not convenient;

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things,

disobedient to parents,

Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that

they which commit such things

are worthy of death,

not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

And then there is the lack of a new Deuteronomy. A new list of laws. Let us remember that the original attack on theonomy came over the issue of how a Christian is to view the role and rule of the civil magistrate. What should the laws of a nation look like, and how should they be enforced? Theonomy talks about a lot more than that, but that is the focal point of the disagreement. The question, “By what standard?”

But when one reads the works of anti-theonomists, they are remarkably reticent… one might even call them silent… on their proposals in this area. Let us take a primary case: the punishment for murder. Let us ask the anti-theonomists for their nomos, their law. Should murder be illegal in the eyes of the civil magistrate? How should it be defined? How should it be punished? Who should execute (pun intended) the punishment? What should be the rules of evidence?

Where is this list? What anti-theonomist has published it? What New Testament passages do they use? Is it enough that the New Testament condemn murder for all of the Old Testament law regarding murder to be incorporated in the New Testament Law Code?

Conclusion

I Timothy 1:8 -11

But we know that the law is good,

if a man use it lawfully;

Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man,

but for the lawless and disobedient,

for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be

any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine;

According to the glorious gospel of the blessed God,

which was committed to my trust.

There exists a particular anti-theonomic position which states both:

1. That the Law is void under the New Covenant and

2. That the OT law is reincorporated in the New Covenant when the New Testament mentions it.

The second point rests on air, on silence, and is contradicted by the New Testament. The first point is flatly contradicted. There is no reason to look for which laws were repeated in the New Testament, because God’s perfect law continues unchanged.

Psalm 2

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

Let us break their bands asunder,

and cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.

Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.

I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.

Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.

Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.

And the deadly danger in this theology is that the world is desperate for truth. The law is intended to teach men their sin, and lead them to Christ. To present a vacuous hermeneutic of law, one which seems to have no foundation and no guardrails, is to fail to confront the world with their sin.

God mocks those nations of the Earth which attempt to break off His bands from them. How much more condemnation is there, then, for followers of Christ which do so? The perfect Law of God represents a clear and eternal standard against which the behaviour of the nations and their people should be judged. That judgement is designed to turn them toward repentance. Denying that standard is preventing that repentance.

Links

Ryan’s original anti-theonomic article.

A Biblical Refutation of Theonomy

Ryan’s immediate article. Note the title. There seems to be an article missing.

Not Under Law: Defending New Covenant Theology Against A Theonomic Objection

God’s Law is perfect. A fact which makes New Covenant Theology a doctrine resting on sand.

The book of Romans is filled with exegesis about how we are to relate to God’s Law: what it is good for, what it wasn’t designed for. And the entire book contradicts New Covenant Theology.

The word ‘unrighteousness’ comes from a word meaning ‘without law’.

1. The word used her is used else where to ‘reprove’ or ‘tell a fault’.

2. The word used in the Old Testament passage this quote comes from is ‘Torah’

3. The word translated ‘end’ here is the Greek word ‘telos’, which means ‘goal’. It is translated ‘end’ naturally, as ‘the finishing point’… but it is not the idea of finishing ‘a’ in order to do ‘b’… but of the events leading up to ‘a’. So, here, the purpose of the law was to lead to Christ.