I will here defend the continued General Equity of God's Moral Law/Natural Law on all Nations for all times.
This is not an argument for Christian Reconstructionist/Theology/ideology as I am not in favor of what Bahnsen calls, "the starting presumption that the Old Covenant judicial laws given to Israel have not been abrogated therefore all civil governments are morally obligated to enforce them (including the specific penalties)."
The above statement was a major twisting of the term theonomic or theonomist to mean one that is for brining back OT Isreal and all its laws including their penalties from simply meaning God's Law. This was due to a serious error in and misunderstanding of what Cornelius Van Til meant when he said, "you are either autonomous or theonomist.” Van Til was simply asserting that God’s word is authoritative for every sphere of life. It did not mean recreating Christendom nor did theonomist mean making all Nations OT Isreal.
Bahnsen, North and Rushdoony took the term theonomist and replaced it with a new definition under the label Theonomy which also became known as Christian Reconstructionist. However, entymologically theonomy simply means God's Law. This is not the same thing as reinstating OT Isreal in the modern Nations or enforcing Christendom. Using a traditional pre-corruption meaning of theonomist vs Reconstruction Theonomy all Christians are theonomic and thus theonomists.
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/our-ethical-basis/ "Dr. R.C. Sproul notes that Christian ethics are theonomic, that is, governed by God’s law. This does not mean the church is called to institute a theocracy in the civil realm. It does mean that no correct ethical decision can be made apart from reflection on God’s law. Many Christians neglect the study of the law of the Lord, but if we do not seek to understand His commandments, we will lack the wisdom needed to discern between right and wrong in our decisions."
Or as explained in more detail below;
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/devotionals/basics-ethics/ "According to Scripture, ethics are theonomic — determined not by the self but by the Lord. God’s standard alone provides the absolutes for our conduct.
This standard exists outside of us and is binding upon all, regardless of whether or not one believes Scripture.
All men, because they are in Adam (Rom. 5:12), are bound by the covenant of works and will be judged according to their obedience. We may choose to disregard this relationship’s obligations, but we cannot destroy them.
Scripture reveals to us a transcendent law that remains binding upon all and is based on our Creator’s holy character. These stipulations do not exist outside of Himself; they are part of His eternal nature. This law, often known as the moral law in the Reformed tradition, is the “law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2) and can be found in the Ten Commandments and in the ethical imperatives of the apostles.
Finally, when we say all Christians are theonomic, we are not endorsing theonomy, a movement that says the old covenant’s civil penalties remain in force. Believers may legitimately debate this issue, but all must be “theonomists” in the sense of affirming the permanent validity of God’s moral standards (1 Cor. 6:9–10).“
Thus, I would be a "theonomist,” in the sense of affirming the permanent validity of God’s moral standards (1 Cor. 6:9–10). However, I am not a "theonomist," in the sense used by Bahnsen, Rushdoony or Gary North. "The starting presumption that the Old Covenant judicial laws given to Israel have not been abrogated therefore all civil governments are morally obligated to enforce them (including the specific penalties)."
My defense is of the abiding of God's Moral Law and that governments should be applying principles of Classic Reformed General Equity to the Laws of Nations. This does not entail going backwards to OT Isreal and its judicial laws. Instead it requires enforcing the general equity of God's abiding Moral Laws namely found in the Decologue of the Ten Commandments and within The New Testament. Something which comes right out of all Reformed Confessions.
I.As the ceremonial law was concerned with God, the political was concerned with the neighbor.
II. In those matters on which it is in harmony with the moral law and with ordinary justice, it is binding upon us.
III. In those matters which were peculiar to that law and were prescribed for the promised land or the situation of the Jewish state, it has not more force for us than the laws of foreign commonwealths.
In other words...
1. God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened death upon the breach of it, and endued him with power and ability to keep it.
2. This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness; and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables: the first four commandments containing our duty towards God; and the other six, our duty to man.
3. Beside this law, commonly called moral, God was pleased to give to the people of Israel, as a church under age, ceremonial laws, containing several typical ordinances, partly of worship, prefiguring Christ, his graces, actions, sufferings, and benefits; and partly, holding forth divers instructions of moral duties. All which ceremonial laws are now abrogated, under the new testament.
Contrary to the Post-Bahnsen Theonomy. .
To them also, as a body politic, he gave sundry judicial laws, which expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.
The civil and ceremonial categories were intentionally temporary. The moral law reflects the character of God in a way that the civil and ceremonial laws did not. It is necessary to love God with all one’s faculties and one’s neighbor as one’s self but washing one’s hands because of ceremonial uncleanness? That’s not a permanent law. Leaving the camp because of a discharge or the death penalty for picking up sticks on the Sabbath? Those are not abiding laws grounded in the nature of God. They did not exist until they did, i.e., they were not in force under Noah and Abraham and they expired with the death of Christ. Thus, evidently they belong to a different class than “love God and love neighbor.” After all, our Lord himself said, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matt 22:37–40).
It’s not that the civil laws have no application but they apply only insofar as they are expressions of the moral law. The moral law is the natural law. It is permanent. The civil and ceremonial laws were peculiar to the Mosaic (old) covenant.
"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 like in the like degree of punishment, to all that receive and defend idolaters and blasphemers in their city. And yet that some punishment by the sword be inflicted upon such a city, is of perpetual obligation; because the magistrate bears the sword to take vengeance on ill doers, and so on these that are partakers of his ill deeds, who brings another gospel, I John 5:10. . . . . Because the slaying of man, woman, infant, and suckling, ox and sheep, was temporary, and cannot have a perpetually obligatory ground in the law of nature or natural justice obliging us. . . . . No man but sees the punishment of theft is of common moral equity, and obligeth all nations, but the manner or degree of punishment is more positive: as to punish theft by restoring four oxen for the stealing of one ox, doth not so oblige all nations, but some other bodily punishment, as whipping, may be used against thieves."
The judicial laws of Israel were part of the old covenant that passed away with the establishment of the new covenant. Under the new covenant, the judicial laws no longer apply because now the universal promise has been realized, that Abraham will be a blessing and a father to all nations, and this does not require them to become Jews who must observe the judicial and ceremonial law of Israel. The moral law, which is written on the hearts of all people still applies and provides a curb against evil, but how punishments against evil are applied by the customs of the nations is no longer bound by the judicial and ceremonial laws that governed Israel.
Does the fact that I am for general equity and a Van Tllian theonomist mean I fall under the label General Equity theonomist? Absolutely not if you mean by Theonomy, "The starting presumption that the Old Covenant judicial laws given to Israel have not been abrogated therefore all civil governments are morally obligated to enforce them (including the specific penalties)." As defined by Bahnsen and others. However, yes, if by general equity theonomist you instead mean the following;
"General equity theonomy as in the legislation of civil laws based on God's transcendent and abiding Moral/Natural Law, not, imposing the particular OT laws or penalties."
Unlike the ceremonial and judicial precepts, moral commands continue to bind, and are summed up in the Ten Commandments. Only the moral laws of the Mosaic Law, which include the Ten Commandments and the commands repeated in the New Testament, directly apply to Christians today. Ceremonial laws, in this view, include the regulations pertaining to ceremonial cleanliness, festivals, diet, and the Levitical priesthood.
Advocates of this view hold that, while not always easy to do and overlap between categories does occur, the divisions they make are possible and supported based on information contained in the commands themselves; specifically to whom they are addressed, whom or what they speak about, and their content. For example, a ceremonial law might be addressed to the Levites, speak of purification or holiness and have content that could be considered as a foreshadowing of some aspect of Christ's life or ministry. In keeping with this, most advocates also hold that when the Law is spoken of as everlasting, it is in reference to certain divisions of the Law.
I would agree with Hicks that general equity must be found in the moral law.
"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” (Institutes 4.20.15-16)
Calvin’s successor in Geneva, Theodore Beza, wrote, “Although we do not hold to the forms of the Mosaic polity, yet when such judicial laws prescribe equity in judgments, which is part of the decalogue, we, not being under obligation to them insofar as they were prescribed by Moses to only one people, are nevertheless bound to observe them to the extent that they embrace that general equity which should everywhere be in force . . . . Because it follows natural equity, and expounds that perpetual precept of the decalogue, Thou shalt not steal, to this extent all are bound to fulfill them both” (De Haereticis a civili Magistratu puniendis Libellus, Geneva: Robert Stephanus, 1554, pp. 222-23, italics in the text are mine). Beza clearly linked general equity to the decalogue and natural law.
William Perkins wrote, “Judicial laws so far as they have in them the general or common equity of the law of nature are moral and therefore binding in conscience as the moral law” (A Discourse on Cases of Conscience in The Whole Works, London, 1631, 1.520).
Thus, the historic meaning of the term “general equity” refers exclusively to the moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, which is also revealed in the law of nature. The crucial thing to understand about the general equity of the old covenant judicial law is that the judicial law’s general equity is not first to be found in the judicial laws themselves. If there is general equity in any given old covenant judicial law, it is first found in nature, in creation and conscience, and it is also summarily taught in the Ten Commandments. 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.
If “general equity theonomy” means that the core principles of the judicial laws remain in force, but those principles do not necessarily entail God’s transcendent moral and natural law summarized in the Ten Commandments, then that definition of general equity is contrary to the Reformed confessional tradition and patently unbiblical. I would not want to be associated with such a movement or structure of political ideas.
Any version of “general equity theonomy,” which does not look for prior transcendent moral law within the judicial law, which is summarized in the decalogue and/or revealed in nature, uses a hermeneutic contrary to the New Testament. The issue at stake is the controls on our interpretation and application of judicial law.
Take Deuteronomy 22:8 as an example. It says, “When you build a new house, you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring the guilt of blood upon your house, if anyone should fall from it.” It’s crucial to understand that the general equity of the law of the parapet isn’t merely a matter of the essential principles of that particular judicial law. The general equity of the law of the parapet is nothing other than the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder” (Ex 20:13). Does the law’s general equity require a railing around a second story deck to protect the lives of people who go up there? Absolutely. But railings on second story decks are not required because of the law of the parapet itself. Rather, general equity requires a railing on a second story deck because of the transcendent moral law, summarized in the decalogue, which stands behind the law of the parapet: “You shall not murder.”
Understood properly, the general equity of the law of the parapet requires us to protect other people’s lives, and not merely do what is expedient, cheaper, or more convenient for ourselves. The general equity of the law of the parapet applies in a number of circumstances. People who use guns should practice gun safety principles. If you have a deadly illness, take precautions not to spread it to others as far as it depends on you. Salt your sidewalks after an ice storm. Drive safely so as not to endanger others. Don’t leave live electrical wires exposed in your home. The sixth commandment requires that you not be concerned merely for yourself, but must always live so as to protect the lives of other people. That is the general equity of the law of the parapet, the sixth commandment, “do not murder.”
Any understanding of the term general equity, which neglects the decalogue, or natural law revealed in creation or conscience, as the essence of general equity is not accurately defining the term according to its historic and confessional sense. Any version of general equity theonomy that does not look for a moral law that transcends Old Testament judicial law but instead sees Old Testament judicial law as itself a subset of moral law that remains binding is not following the example of the New Testament.
The greatest mistake of such a hermeneutic is that it does not begin with the universal transcendent norms of natural and moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments, seeking to find those moral principles within judicial law. Rather, it begins with the judicial laws themselves and tries to uncover the essential principles within those laws, wrongly assuming they are all moral, in order to apply them universally."
I am totally opposed to Bahnsen, Gary North or Rushdoony Theonomy. Which is why I would not associate myself with the corrupted term Theonomy. Instead I would just go with general equity proponent or advocate. Continuing in the great Reformed Confession tradition that God's Transcendent Moral Laws will not pass away. However, if general equity and theonomist are both properly understood historically as meaning the abiding moral law and God's Standard of Ethics I do not mind being considered one of a Paleo variety.
