Gary responds to an individual that claims Torah law no longer applies to Christians.
Christian Reconstructionist writers revived the older expression of world-and-life-view Calvinism and added the particulars of the Genevan and Puritan models. The revival of this particular expression of world-and-life-view Calvinism has not set well with the critics. As long as Reformed churches were preaching the general tenets of Calvinism, all was well. The historian R. H. Tawney noted in 1925: “No church has ever experienced any great difficulty in preaching righteousness in general”; it is “righteousness in particular” that disturbs the churches.
A good number of Reconstructionist critics are uncomfortable with this approach because “righteousness in particular” affects areas beyond heart, hearth, and sanctuary. Even when the Bible clearly sets forth a specific command, they seem to be more comfortable with scientific inquiry, forgetting that Van Til wrote that “Christianity claims to furnish the presuppositions without which a true scientific procedure is unintelligible.” They are like children who have to touch the pretty blue flame to determine if it will really burn flesh. Their father’s word isn’t good enough. Is God’s Word good enough? Or should the Christian find validation for the truths of Scripture in terms of a “common ground” approach? The common ground approach assumes the neutrality of facts and the interpreter of the facts.
Theonomy: An Informed Response
Christendom is a civilization—the kingdom of God in history—that is governed in every area, every nook and cranny, by God: a society whose lawfully anointed rulers govern in terms of God’s revealed law. In this view, God is not in retirement or on vacation; He is a King who has delegated to His officers the authority to exercise command. There are three covenantal institutions: family, church, and state. To deny that God’s covenant law applies to civil government in New Testament times is necessarily to abandon the ideal of Christendom.
Buy NowGary responds to an individual that claims Torah law no longer applies to Christians. Are we to believe that these moral standards disappeared with the coming of the New Covenant, and they no longer have any application to the nations? “Walking by the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16) necessitates walking by an objective standard.
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