"General Equity," etc

[MW]

Adam, I am pressed for time at the moment and won't be able to engage in an in-depth discussion. Please do read the 111 Propositions and Aaron's Rod, and also remember the anonymity of Wholesome Severity. No, I cannot agree that crimes punishable by death under the Mosaic law are punishable by death now. The WCF clearly states that the judicial law has expired with the State of Israel and that only the general equity applies. This provides a hermeneutic of fundamental discontinuity, and nothing stated by a single pamphlet like Wholesome Severity can change that fact. Blessings!

 

[Christusregnat]

Adam, I am pressed for time at the moment and won't be able to engage in an in-depth discussion. Please do read the 111 Propositions and Aaron's Rod, and also remember the anonymity of Wholesome Severity. No, I cannot agree that crimes punishable by death under the Mosaic law are punishable by death now. The WCF clearly states that the judicial law has expired with the State of Israel and that only the general equity applies. This provides a hermeneutic of fundamental discontinuity, and nothing stated by a single pamphlet like Wholesome Severity can change that fact. Blessings!

Rev. Winzer,

The fundamental discontinuity is exactly the issue to be proven. The point of discussing WS is that it helps to illuminate what exactly was intended by the "expiration" and "general equity". You have assumed what needs to be proven (fundamental discontinuity), and my effort was to demonstrate that at least one of the more influential delegates to the Assembly had a certain opinion of expiration and equity which you do not agree with. Nothing more than that was my intention. From your candid response, I believe that I can safely say that your idea of discontinuity is not in accord with that of the author of WS, nor with Piscator et. al. I hope to pick up the Propositions and Aaron's Rod soon.

Cheers,

 

[MW]

The fundamental discontinuity is in the Confession itself, which states that the judicial law has expired -- that is it's starting point. Let individuals say what they please, this fact cannot be overturned. General equity cannot bring the judicial law to life again.

 

[timmopussycat]

The fundamental discontinuity is exactly the issue to be proven. The point of discussing WS is that it helps to illuminate what exactly was intended by the "expiration" and "general equity". You have assumed what needs to be proven (fundamental discontinuity), and my effort was to demonstrate that at least one of the more influential delegates to the Assembly had a certain opinion of expiration and equity which you do not agree with. Nothing more than that was my intention. From your candid response, I believe that I can safely say that your idea of discontinuity is not in accord with that of the author of WS, nor with Piscator et. al. I hope to pick up the Propositions and Aaron's Rod soon.

Two even more influential delegates to the Assembly than Gillespie, at least on this particular question were William Gouge and Anthony Burgess, both of whom, unlike Gillespie sat on the subcommittee that drafted 19:4. Unless it can be shown that a majority of the subcommittee, or the WA as a whole disagreed with them on the question, their understandings of 19:4 must be accepted as determinative. At about the time the WA was considering the question, Gouge preaching to his weekly lecture in his London church about the time of the Assembly, taught his congregation:

Besides the ceremonial law, the Jews had a judicial law, proper and peculiar to that polity. This law concerned especially their civil estate. Many branches of that law appertained to the Jewish priesthood; as, the particular laws about the cities of refuge, whither such as slew any unawares fled, and there abode till the death of the high priest, Num. xxxv.25. And laws about lepers, which the priest was to judge, Lev. xiv.3. And sundry other cases which the priest was to judge of, Deut. xvii.9. So also the laws of distinguishing tribes, Num. xxxvi.7; of reserving inheritances to special tribes and families, of selling them to the next of kin, Ruth iv.4; of raising seed to a brother that died without issue, Gen. xxxviii.8, 9; of all manner of freedoms at the year of jubilee, Lev. xxv.13, etc.
There were other branches of the judicial law which rested upon common equity, and were means of keeping the moral law: as putting to death idolaters and such as enticed others thereunto; and witches, and willful murderers, and other notorious malefactors. So likewise laws against incest and incestuous marriages; laws of reverencing and obeying superiors and governors, and of dealing justly in borrowing, restoring, buying, selling, and all manner of contracts, Exude. xxii.20; Deut. xiii.9; Exod. xx.18; Num. xxxv.30; Lev. xx.11, etc., 32, 35.
The former sort were abolished together with the priesthood.
The latter sort remain as good directions to order even Christian politics accordingly.
1. By these kinds of laws the wisdom of God was manifested in observing what was fit for the particular kind and condition of people; and in giving them answerable laws, and yet not tying all nations and states thereunto.
2. That liberty which God affordeth to others to have laws most agreeable to their own country, so as they be not contrary to equity and piety, bindeth them more obediently to submit themselves to their own wholesome laws, and to keep peace, unity, and amity among themselves.

(William Gouge, A Learned Commentary on the Whole Epistle to the Hebrews (London: A. M., T. W. and S. G. for Joshua Kirton, 1655), 2nd part, p. 171.)

Gouge recognizes that some Jewish judicial laws expired with the Jewish state, yet other kinds of the judicial laws do not expire because they rest on common equity. While these latter laws remain "good directions to order even Christian politics," they do not tie “all nations and states thereunto” for "God affordeth [liberty] to others to have laws most agreeable to their own country, so as they be not contrary to equity and piety". With these words, Gouge also denies Bahnsen’s Theonomic axiom that all Mosaic civil stipulations remain valid unless changed by the Lawgiver in the NT.

Anthony Burgess agrees. Preaching about eighteen months before the Assembly adopted WCF 19:4, affirms that

the manner of the punishment belonging to God’s judicial law may be altered.

(Anthony Burgess, The Magistrate’s Commission from Heaven (London, 1644), p. 8, cited in Ferguson, Assembly, p. 337.)

Burgess also wrote:

Abrogation is then properly, when a Law is totally taken away. And this Abrogation arises sometimes from the express constitution at first, which did limit and prescribe the time of the laws continuance: sometimes by an express revoking and repealing of it by that authority which made it: sometimes by adding to that repeal an express law commanding the contrary. Now it may be easily proved, that the Ceremonial, and Judicial laws they are abrogated by express repeal. The Judicial Law 1 Pet. 2. 13. where they are commanded to be subject to every ordination of man: and this was long foretold Gen. 49. 10. The Law-giver shall be taken from Judah.

(Burgess, Vindiciae, pp. 211,212.)

Notice that the Scriptures Burgess gives to support his argument are the very ones the Divines used to support their view that the judicial laws had expired in WCF19:4.

And Burgess also noticed

…the Judicial laws, because they were given to Israel as a politic body, that polity ceasing, which was the principal, the accessory falls with it,…

(Burgess, Vindiciae, pp. 211,212.).

 

[Christusregnat]

The fundamental discontinuity is in the Confession itself, which states that the judicial law has expired -- that is it's starting point. Let individuals say what they please, this fact cannot be overturned. General equity cannot bring the judicial law to life again.

The fundamental continuity is in the Confession itself, which states that the equity of the judicial law is obligatory for all civil bodies politic -- that is its basic point. Let individuals say what they please, this fact cannot be overturned. Expiration cannot put the marrow of the judicial law to death.


Two can play at this game.

-----Added 12/4/2008 at 02:30:02 EST-----

Timothy,

Gouge and Burgess both contradict the Confession. Thank you for pointing that out.

Gogue contradicts as follows; he states:

and in giving them answerable laws, and yet not tying all nations and states thereunto.

Note that our Confession states that civil bodies politic are under obligation to enforce the judicial laws' equity.

Burgess contradicts the Confession as follows; he states:

Now it may be easily proved, that the Ceremonial, and Judicial laws they are abrogated by express repeal. The Judicial Law 1 Pet. 2. 13. where they are commanded to be subject to every ordination of man: and this was long foretold Gen. 49. 10. The Law-giver shall be taken from Judah.

Our Confession only states that the Ceremonial laws have been abrogated, and that the Judicials have an ongoing obligation for civil magistrates; this is not abrogation.

You should also note that Burgess's exegesis of 1 Peter is shoddy: the "ordinances of man" are the magistrates themselves, and not their laws. Every ordinance of man doesn't include "wear your seatbelt", it includes "kings, governors, etc.". Also, in the Confession, the 1 Peter passage is followed by the general declaration of the ongoing validity of the Law and the Prophets, and an example of the ongoing validity of the rule of civil justice: eye for an eye, etc. Christ's correction of the false gloss of the pharisees is not an abrogation of the judicial law; it is an enforcement of it. Again, demonstrating, as Piscator and Gillespie argue, that Matthew 5:17ff prove the ongoing validity and binding nature of the judicials.

Unless it can be shown that a majority of the subcommittee, or the WA as a whole disagreed with them on the question, their understandings of 19:4 must be accepted as determinative.

Since both have been shown to have held unconfessional ideas on some points, I will not take them as normative, since the WA clearly overrode Burgess's erroneous idea of the Judicials' abrogation, and Gogue's mistaken view that not all nations are bound to the marrow of the judicials.

Cheers,

Adam

 

[timmopussycat]

The fundamental discontinuity is in the Confession itself, which states that the judicial law has expired -- that is it's starting point. Let individuals say what they please, this fact cannot be overturned. General equity cannot bring the judicial law to life again.

The fundamental continuity is in the Confession itself, which states that the equity of the judicial law is obligatory for all civil bodies politic -- that is its basic point. Let individuals say what they please, this fact cannot be overturned. Expiration cannot put the marrow of the judicial law to death.

Wrong. You are ignoring the fact that the Confession establishes a discontinuity as well as a qualified continuity. The discontinuity is that the Mosaic judicials no longer continue as a system of laws regulating an extant state and it is only those judicials where the general equity "may require" despite the Church Age's differing covenantal circumstances that must be instituted today.

The misunderstanding or deliberate ignorance of this point (and I have seen both presented by Bahnsen's followers) is one of the two major reasons why Bahnsen's type of theonomy has been so widely rejected and not gained a more significant following than it has.

Timothy,

Gouge and Burgess both contradict the Confession. Thank you for pointing that out.

Gogue contradicts as follows; he states:

and in giving them answerable laws, and yet not tying all nations and states thereunto.

Note that our Confession states that civil bodies politic are under obligation to enforce the judicial laws' equity.

You have misunderstood Gouge who specifically says that the laws of the second type "rest upon common equity" and are "not contrary to equity and piety" Gouge's point is that a state's laws may vary from the Mosaic judicials only if such variance does not violate equity, thus he is in full accord with the idea that "civil bodies politic are under obligation to enforce the judicial laws' equity." But that is not the same thing as Bahnsen's hermeneutical axiom which is that no change to the judicials can be made unless such change is directly or indirectly authorized by the lawgiver.

Burgess contradicts the Confession as follows; he states:

Now it may be easily proved, that the Ceremonial, and Judicial laws they are abrogated by express repeal. The Judicial Law 1 Pet. 2. 13. where they are commanded to be subject to every ordination of man: and this was long foretold Gen. 49. 10. The Law-giver shall be taken from Judah.

Our Confession only states that the Ceremonial laws have been abrogated, and that the Judicials have an ongoing obligation for civil magistrates; this is not abrogation.

The Confession states that the Judicials expired as a system, which is the only point Burgess is here making. Where Burgess used "abrogate" the Confession uses "expired", but the same idea is being expressed by both. The WCF distinguishes between the two words because it needed to deal with differing types of change in two different subcategories of the Mosaic law something Burgess does not address here as his subject was narrower with only the political laws in view.

You should also note that Burgess's exegesis of 1 Peter is shoddy: the "ordinances of man" are the magistrates themselves, and not their laws. Every ordinance of man doesn't include "wear your seatbelt", it includes "kings, governors, etc.".

Burgess' does not write "ordinaces of man" he writes "ordinations of man," referring to the rules the emperor of governor lays out for his people to walk in. Such legislation is the means by which subjection to human institutions are instituted and enforced as they are what determines what the state will punish as evil and contrawise what it recognizes as good. Burgess' points are that Scripture had foretold both the expiration of the Jewish legal system in Gen 49:10 and that 1 Pt. 2: 13, 14 places NT believers under the government of civic authorities, specifically the Roman emperor and his governors rather than the Mosaic law; which is a reasonable conclusion to draw from those Scriptures.
Burgess is stating nothing else than the Confession's points that the "sundry judicial laws [have] expired together with the state of that people" and that Christians are now judicially bound to the laws of their states. Burgess here says nothing about how Christians are to assess the justice of such laws nor how they are to work for any needed reformation. This passage rather than being contrary to the Confession, fully anticipates it.

Also, in the Confession, the 1 Peter passage is followed by the general declaration of the ongoing validity of the Law and the Prophets, and an example of the ongoing validity of the rule of civil justice: eye for an eye, etc.

Contrary to what some think, Christ is not teaching the a general declaration of the abiding validity of the law in Matt. 5:17 and 18. Instead, he is teaching the Law's total continuity in every single detail "until everything is accomplished". This last phrase is crucial. In context, Christ is responding to the Pharisees spoken or unspoken charge that he will "destroy the law". In Matt. 5:17, 18. Christ gives the Pharisees a choice; unless they recognize that Christ fulfils the law and the prophets and and accomplishes everything at his crucifixion, the Pharisees must live by the original Mosaic law, and not their emendations, of it until the end of the age or they will be outside the kingdom of heaven.
Do not jump to the false conclusion that this understanding of Matt. 5:17, and 18 means that I am either unConfessional or antinomian. With the Confession I recognize the moral law/Decalogue "doth forever bind all" as the NT elsewhere uses the every command of the Decalogue/moral law as applicable moral axioms for Christians in the present age.

(BTW, Bahnsen's translation "confirm" for "fulfill" is untenable. For demonstration PM me giving a non PB email for a copy of my book "How Firm a Foundation" which shows that Bahnsen made so many menthodogical errors in his exegesis that his case collapses. In fact, at one point, he unwittingly refuted his own argument!)

The Divines did not cite Matt. 5:17, 18 in isolation; instead they cited it "together with" Matt.38,9. As Sinclair Ferguson pointed out, this pairing must have meant something to the Divines. We must

explain why the Divines cited Matthew 5:38, 9 as the proof for their proposition that the Mosaic judicial laws have ‘expired’ and do not bind ‘further than the general equity therof may require.’ Although it is not always possible to be dogmatic about why the Divines combine proof texts as they do, it seems that in this instance they viewed turning the other cheek as the telos [goal or end] of the lex talionis. For them, therefore ‘pleroosai’ done not seem to have meant ‘to confirm’ but ‘to show the ultimate purpose of.,’ and, in this instance, also implies ’to abrogate’ In the thinking of the Divines, this combination of proof texts indicates that the lex talionis is abrogated by the law of forgiveness…[It] is interesting to notice that Anthony Burgess adopted the view that the law was given to the people at the time of Moses because of the corrupt state in which they had left Egypt: the law was intended to restrain the kind of impiety that broke loose in the golden calf incident. Recognizing that some of his contemporaries held that in the Sermon on the Mount Christ had abolished capital punishment, Burgess argues that the lex talionis was given to restrain private vengeance in the first place (and thus is fulfilled by turning the other cheek. In rejecting the abolitionist view of Matt. 5:38-39, Burgess holds that capital punishment may still be inflicted. But in doing so he appeals back, beyond the Mosaic law to the Noahic provisions in Genesis 9:6 as providing the perpetual reason for capital punishment for murder….Here Burgess’s approach (which may well form the basis for the Confession’s logic) differs from that of theonomy.

(Ferguson, “An Assembly of Theonomists?,” in Theonomy: A Reformed Critque pp. 336, 337, citing Burgess, Vindiciae, pp. 188, 189.)

Christ's correction of the false gloss of the pharisees is not an abrogation of the judicial law; it is an enforcement of it. Again, demonstrating, as Piscator and Gillespie argue, that Matthew 5:17ff prove the ongoing validity and binding nature of the judicials.

See my comments above for refutation.

Unless it can be shown that a majority of the subcommittee, or the WA as a whole disagreed with them on the question, their understandings of 19:4 must be accepted as determinative.

Since both have been shown to have held unconfessional ideas on some points, I will not take them as normative, since the WA clearly overrode Burgess's erroneous idea of the Judicials' abrogation, and Gogue's mistaken view that not all nations are bound to the marrow of the judicials.

You have demonstratably misunderstood both Gouge and Burgess, believing that they contradict the Confession when in fact they do not. You also misunderstand what the Confession is teaching. It is teaching that although the Mosaic Judicials are no longer extant as the legal system of an extant state, those laws where the general equity remains valid despite the change in covenants remain valid today and should be instituted. What this stance achieves is that it requires any who would argue today for a particular Mosaic law's institution to demonstrate that general equity still requires the institution of that law. The Divines citations of Mosaic case laws prove no more than that they believed the case laws they cited remained valid today.

 

[TimV]

Although I am not a preacher by calling, I could easily preach against any non heterosexually monogamous form of sexual expression from the Edenic command, Christ's teaching and Paul's point that in this matter one's body belongs to the heterosexual spouse not oneself. Working from these principles I easily justify the continuing validity of the OT prohibitions of sexual misconduct as remaining valid today by general equity as per WCF 19:4.

You did just the opposite recently on the half sibling marriage thread. You specifically stated that even though half sibling marriage was sexual misconduct according to Moses, it could be allowed today by providing a pre-Sinai example of it not being condemned.

 

[timmopussycat]

Although I am not a preacher by calling, I could easily preach against any non heterosexually monogamous form of sexual expression from the Edenic command, Christ's teaching and Paul's point that in this matter one's body belongs to the heterosexual spouse not oneself. Working from these principles I easily justify the continuing validity of the OT prohibitions of sexual misconduct as remaining valid today by general equity as per WCF 19:4.

You did just the opposite recently on the half sibling marriage thread. You specifically stated that even though half sibling marriage was sexual misconduct according to Moses, it could be allowed today by providing a pre-Sinai example of it not being condemned.

Indeed so. But note that the half sibling thread dealt with marriages that are heterosexually monogamous and my comment only addressed my ability to preach against non-heterosexually monogamous sexual activities. A Scriptural example that is not condemned elswhere in Scripture (within the same covenantal context) will always trump a deduction from Scripture that cannot be so supported unless the general equity of the Mosaic law can be shown to apply. NB: not all activities that Moses prohibited to the Israelites were immoral in themselves. This is proven by Deut. 23:30's prohibition of lending at interest to Israelites while allowing an Israelite to lend at interest to Gentiles. We must establish that marrying one's half-sister is a violation of the moral law not the Mosiac law.

Notice too that I said it could be allowed today, not that it should be allowed. I have not done an investigation of why this Mosaic stipulation violates the command against adultery, so I won't give an apoditic answer but I don't know at the moment whether or not the general equity of that law necessarily mandates its application today. But I think governments could validly prohibit such marriages on genetic and health cost grounds as it is not in the state's interest to allow such an increased risk of handicapped children.

 

[Christusregnat]

The fundamental continuity is in the Confession itself, which states that the equity of the judicial law is obligatory for all civil bodies politic -- that is its basic point. Let individuals say what they please, this fact cannot be overturned. Expiration cannot put the marrow of the judicial law to death.

Wrong. You are ignoring the fact that the Confession establishes a discontinuity as well as a qualified continuity. The discontinuity is that the Mosaic judicials no longer continue as a system of laws regulating an extant state and it is only those judicials where the general equity "may require" despite the Church Age's differing covenantal circumstances that must be instituted today.

If I’m not mistaken, you are a Baptist? If this is so, your desire to drive a wedge where scripture does not is understandable. If you are not, you may want to take into account that Reformed theology is based on continuity in the one covenant of grace. The OT is normative, unless specific information is given by God to the contrary (such as with the ceremonies, and ceremonial aspects of the judicials). This is one of the pillars of covenant theology. Perhaps we ought to be discussing this, as it is the more fundamental issue.

That said, the type of discontinuity in the Judicials may be seen by contrast with the erroneous opinion that you read into Burgess that the Judicials were abrogated. I don’t want to quibble over words, but if we take abrogated to mean totally done away with, then Burgess’s opinion didn’t prevail in the Assembly. The Ceremonials are totally done away with; why? Because we are explicitly told by God that such was the case. The Judicials expired when the nation of Israel did; why? Because the covenant was including all nations rather than just one. The laws peculiar to Israel expired, but the marrow of such laws is obligatory on all civil bodies.

The Reformed understanding of continuity in the one covenant of grace prevailed in the WA, and to claim that the WA assumed a fundamental discontinuity is to turn the WCF into the 1689; it is not.

The misunderstanding or deliberate ignorance of this point (and I have seen both presented by Bahnsen's followers) is one of the two major reasons why Bahnsen's type of theonomy has been so widely rejected and not gained a more significant following than it has.

This is a poor tactic. Bahnsen is not theonomy, and theonomy is not Bahnsen. The basic point is that the Judicial law marks out what punishments the magistrate ought to use for certain types of moral violations. In other words, the 10 commandments applied to the civil sphere. This would generally include the appropriate forms of restitution described in Scripture: repayment of theft, making something good which was broken, or execution for certain types of crimes: adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, murder, smiting of parents, etc, or anything else contrary to sound doctrine. Some theonomists take the penalties to be the outer limits of punishment (such as Gary North); some take them to be the exact penalty to be meted out neither more nor less (such as Piscator and Gillespie). The particular methods by which these conclusions are arrived at are immaterial; they are practical conclusions for a very practical use: reigning in the wickedness of fallen man, in accordance with God’s design. Bahnsen was merely attempting to make the arguments of Piscator, Gillespie, and other more coherent and consistent. Since you come from a totally different worldview than Gillespie etc. (assuming basic discontinuity), you find his arguments strange; they are not.

You have misunderstood Gouge who specifically says that the laws of the second type "rest upon common equity" and are "not contrary to equity and piety" Gouge's point is that a state's laws may vary from the Mosaic judicials only if such variance does not violate equity, thus he is in full accord with the idea that "civil bodies politic are under obligation to enforce the judicial laws' equity."

Timothy, you are not a very careful (charitable?) reader. I said nothing against Gouge’s second point; it is thoroughly theonomic. I took umbrage with his first point. Caveat Lector.

But that is not the same thing as Bahnsen's hermeneutical axiom which is that no change to the judicials can be made unless such change is directly or indirectly authorized by the lawgiver.

Again, if someone wants to quibble over Bahnsen’s method, it may be a fault in the reader. Bahnsen’s conclusion is the same as, for example, Piscator’s in which both argue that whatever is mutable in the Judicials is peculiar to the Jewish State, whereas whatever is immutable is common to all nations. Bahnsen argues from the continuity of the covenant, Piscator argues from the nature of the Judicials as civil applications of the 10 Commandments; both arrive at the same conclusion: execution of those worthy under the judicials, when there were unchangeable reasons attached. If you want to quibble, have fun.

The Confession states that the Judicials expired as a system, which is the only point Burgess is here making. Where Burgess used "abrogate" the Confession uses "expired", but the same idea is being expressed by both. The WCF distinguishes between the two words because it needed to deal with differing types of change in two different subcategories of the Mosaic law something Burgess does not address here as his subject was narrower with only the political laws in view.

Nice try. If there is a parallel, why don’t the divines mention the general equity of the Ceremonials as applying to all civil bodies politic? Why doesn’t the same word occur in both places (abrogate)? Because, these are not parallel situations, as Burgess says. Burgess, therefore, is not confessional, at least as you have represented his meaning.

Burgess' does not write "ordinaces of man" he writes "ordinations of man," referring to the rules the emperor of governor lays out for his people to walk in. Such legislation is the means by which subjection to human institutions are instituted and enforced as they are what determines what the state will punish as evil and contrawise what it recognizes as good.

Your trust in the power of fallen man to discern good and evil is naïve, at best (reminds me of a certain serpent in a garden). Do you really think that Peter is giving free reign to kings to determine good and evil for themselves?

Contrary to what some think, Christ is not teaching the a general declaration of the abiding validity of the law in Matt. 5:17 and 18. Instead, he is teaching the Law's total continuity in every single detail "until everything is accomplished". This last phrase is crucial. In context, Christ is responding to the Pharisees spoken or unspoken charge that he will "destroy the law". In Matt. 5:17, 18. Christ gives the Pharisees a choice; unless they recognize that Christ fulfils the law and the prophets and and accomplishes everything at his crucifixion,

You are grasping at straws here Timothy. Please give me one part of the sermon on the mount where Christ talks about His coming crucifixion as the fulfillment of the laws. You really can’t be serious. Sadly, your unbiblical assumptions force you to say something totally out of the context. Look what Christ means by fulfilling the law: obeying the sixth commandment, the seventh commandment, the third commandment, etc. Christ shows His disciples how to obey; not about His crucifixion. Also, in context, Jesus is NOT speaking to the Pharisees, but to His disciples. You are twisting the scriptures my friend, in order to justify an opinion that is unconfessional. Here is Gillespie’s explanation:

(2.) Christ's words (Matt. 5:17), Think not that I am come to destroy the Law or the Prophets, I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill, are comprehensive of the judicial law, it being a part of the law of Moses. Now he could not fulfill the judicial law, except either by his practice, or by teaching others still to observe it; not by his own practice, for he would not condemn the adulteress (Jn. 8:11), nor divide the inheritance (Luke 12:13-14). Therefore it must be by his doctrine for our observing it.
(3.) If Christ in his sermon (Matt. 5), would teach that the moral law belongs to us Christians, in so much as he vindicates it from the false glosses of the scribes and Pharisees; then he meant to hold forth the judicial law concerning moral trespasses as belonging unto us also; for he vindicates and interprets the judicial law, as well as the moral (Matt. 5:38), An eye for an eye, etc.

Wholesome Severity Reconciled with Christian Liberty, by George Gillespie

Note, Jesus is teaching us how to obey this law, not how to look to the cross. Also, as you will note, Gillespie cites the lex taliones in order to prove the ongoing validity of the judicials

The Divines did not cite Matt. 5:17, 18 in isolation; instead they cited it "together with" Matt.38,9. As Sinclair Ferguson pointed out, this pairing must have meant something to the Divines.

See above as to why they cited these verses with the general confirmation of continuity; they were showing the ongoing validity of such a law.

You have demonstratably misunderstood both Gouge and Burgess, believing that they contradict the Confession when in fact they do not.

You’re probably right. They’re probably much more theonomic than I understood them to be.

Cheers,

Adam

 

[TimV]

Indeed so. But note that the half sibling thread dealt with marriages that are heterosexually monogamous and my comment only addressed my ability to preach against non-heterosexually monogamous sexual activities. A Scriptural example that is not condemned elswhere in Scripture (within the same covenantal context) will always trump a deduction from Scripture that cannot be so supported unless the general equity of the Mosaic law can be shown to apply.

So you are clearly less theonomistic than the authors of the WLC

Question 139: What are the sins forbidden in the seventh commandment?

Answer: The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts;

because by your thinking the Mosaic prohibition against incest is trumped by the examples of Adam and Eve's children and Abraham and Sarah. It could rightfully be banned by a government for health reasons, but not for moral reasons, and that applies to the church as well.

 

[timmopussycat]

The fundamental continuity is in the Confession itself, which states that the equity of the judicial law is obligatory for all civil bodies politic -- that is its basic point. Let individuals say what they please, this fact cannot be overturned. Expiration cannot put the marrow of the judicial law to death.

Wrong. You are ignoring the fact that the Confession establishes a discontinuity as well as a qualified continuity. The discontinuity is that the Mosaic judicials no longer continue as a system of laws regulating an extant state and it is only those judicials where the general equity "may require" despite the Church Age's differing covenantal circumstances that must be instituted today, for it is only in such a situation that the "marrow of the judicial laws" will be justly applied.

If I’m not mistaken, you are a Baptist? If this is so, your desire to drive a wedge where scripture does not is understandable. If you are not, you may want to take into account that Reformed theology is based on continuity in the one covenant of grace. The OT is normative, unless specific information is given by God to the contrary (such as with the ceremonies, and ceremonial aspects of the judicials). This is one of the pillars of covenant theology. Perhaps we ought to be discussing this, as it is the more fundamental issue.

I am a 1689 Baptist. You may not be aware that that confession's chapter on the Law of God is essentially identical to the WCF except for omitting a couple of the Scriptural references, an ommission that in no wise changes the teaching of the chapter.
I agree that Reformed theology is based on continuity in the covenant of grace and that the OT is normative unless specific information is given by God to the contrary. However major covenant theologians do not normally consider the judicials as systematically continiuing. Witsius claims:

…several kinds of laws given [Israel] of which there are three principally mentioned by divines. The moral or the decalogue, the ceremonial, and the political or forensic .… The law of the decalogue was given [Israel]; which as to its substance is one and the same with the law of nature, and binds men as such …. As a peculiar people who had a polity or government suitable to their genius and disposition in the land of Canaan. A republic not so much according to those forms which philosophers have delineated, but which was, in a peculiar manner, a theocracy…God himself holding the reins of government therein, Judges 8:23. Under that view God prescribed them political laws.

(Herman Witsius, The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man, vol. 2. (Escondido, CA: Den Dalk Christian Foundation, 1990), p. 162.)

And Brown of Haddington is even more explicit:

The judicial law directed the civil managements of the Israelites under God, as their principal governor, with respect to their encampments, marches, wars, inheritances, marriages, punishments, rulers etc. … and is reducible to the correspondent precepts of the moral [law] and never bound any but the Jews, in their national establishment, further than moral equity requires.

(John Brown, A Compendious View of Natural and Revealed Religion, Edinburgh, 1796, p. 431. )

I mentioned these comments before in post 50 of this thread. How came you to forget them?

That said, the type of discontinuity in the Judicials may be seen by contrast with the erroneous opinion that you read into Burgess that the Judicials were abrogated. I don’t want to quibble over words, but if we take abrogated to mean totally done away with, then Burgess’s opinion didn’t prevail in the Assembly.The Ceremonials are totally done away with; why? Because we are explicitly told by God that such was the case. The Judicials expired when the nation of Israel did; why? Because the covenant was including all nations rather than just one. The laws peculiar to Israel expired, but the marrow of such laws is obligatory on all civil bodies.

I have never said that Burgess held that the Mosaic judicials were irrelevant today. All I have said is that he held that as a system they no longer apply. This is what the Confessions mean when they say the laws "expired" as I have shown. Burgess' opinion did prevail in the assembly as demonstrated when the assembly used the same Scriptures as Burgess did to make the same point he made.

The Reformed understanding of continuity in the one covenant of grace prevailed in the WA, and to claim that the WA assumed a fundamental discontinuity is to turn the WCF into the 1689; it is not.

Which comment only argues that you have not read the 1689. On the law of God, the 1689 reprints WCF 19 except for a couple of the Scripture references, omissions that do not invalidate the concurrence of the Confessions' teachings. The two Confessions are almost universally held to be identical on this point. Moreover the idea that there is one covenant of grace does not change the fact that major covenant theologians, following the WCF consider the Judicals, considered as a class of laws, are one of the discontinuites mandated by Scripture. Instead of holding that the judicials directly applicable today, they hold that, in your phrase, only "the marrow of such laws" remains equitable today and hence applicable in cases where the "general equity may require".

This is a poor tactic. Bahnsen is not theonomy, and theonomy is not Bahnsen.

Bahnsen is universally cited by Theonomists as providing the most thorough Scriptural and Historical basis for the particular view within the category of theonomy (i.e., all views that anchor their ethical foundations in God) that is more properly called the "ethical perspective of Christian Reconstructionism." His Theonomy in Christian Ethics makes it clear that he uses a different hermeneutical axiom to govern his application of the concept of general equity than that employed by Calvin, the WA, and subsequent Reformed leaders. To the extent that any Theonomist rests on Bahnsen's hermeneutic, he will be in discontinuity with Scripture, the WCF and Covenant Theology on key points.

The basic point is that the Judicial law marks out what punishments the magistrate ought to use for certain types of moral violations. In other words, the 10 commandments applied to the civil sphere. This would generally include the appropriate forms of restitution described in Scripture: repayment of theft, making something good which was broken, or execution for certain types of crimes: adultery, idolatry, blasphemy, murder, smiting of parents, etc, or anything else contrary to sound doctrine.

Once again you errroneously presume a discontinuity between your views and my own. I am not arguing that either I, or the historic Reformed tradition think that all biblical punishments are invalid today. I am saying that the historic reformed traditon took a different means of justifying the contemporaray institution of such penalties than Bahnsen employed.

Some theonomists take the penalties to be the outer limits of punishment (such as Gary North); some take them to be the exact penalty to be meted out neither more nor less (such as Piscator and Gillespie).

Actually Gillespie doesn't always assign the biblically exact level of punishment. I have already pointed out to you that in Wholesome Severity he allows a moderation of a biblical punishment without Scriptural authorization to do so. (see post 50 of this thread)

The particular methods by which these conclusions are arrived at are immaterial;

You have not thought this matter through. While it is true that in many cases the Theonomist and the Westminster Reformed will reach identical conclusions concerning the applicability of particular laws, the two approaches sometimes do lead to different results. For example, the Christian magistrate who must decide how to punish a heretic must choose whether he will side with Gillespie in the situation described in post 50 and allow a forbearance or whether he must follow Bahnsen's axiom and institute the biblically mandated punishment of death for the offense (Gillespie's word "extirpate" makes it clear that a death penalty offense is in view). Nobody facing such a decision will call thedifference in hermeneutic "immaterial" or "quibbling."

...they are practical conclusions for a very practical use: reigning in the wickedness of fallen man, in accordance with God’s design.
Bahnsen was merely attempting to make the arguments of Piscator, Gillespie, and other more coherent and consistent.

I agree that you have fairly described Bahnsen's intended objective. What he failed to realize was that the Calvin Westminster approach to the judicials applies them to the present age through their applicable general eqiuty only without presuming that all judicials will apply today unless amended or abolished by the lawgiver.

Since you come from a totally different worldview than Gillespie etc. (assuming basic discontinuity), you find his arguments strange; they are not.

The worldview I come from is identical to Gillespie on both the continuity of the judicials by general equity where applicable and the discontinuity of the judicials as a system within covenant theology.

Timothy, you are not a very careful (charitable?) reader. I said nothing against Gouge’s second point; it is thoroughly theonomic. I took umbrage with his first point. Caveat Lector.

Caveat Lector yourself. You have presumed a discontinuity between the WCF and 1689 on a point where they are identical, ignored evidence presented to you that Gillespie does not always arrive at Bahnsenian conclusions and that major covenanatal theologians do not include the Mosaic judicials among the continuities of the system. And here you misread Gouge. When Gouge says that the laws of the second type "rest upon common equity" and are "not contrary to equity and piety" he is qualifying his first point "yet not tying all nations and states thereto". Gouge is simply saying that any acceptable variance from the Mosaic law "not tying all nations and states thereto" must still rest "upon common equity". How is this different from your idea that "the marrow of such laws" must remain equitable?

Again, if someone wants to quibble over Bahnsen’s method, it may be a fault in the reader. Bahnsen’s conclusion is the same as, for example, Piscator’s in which both argue that whatever is mutable in the Judicials is peculiar to the Jewish State, whereas whatever is immutable is common to all nations. Bahnsen argues from the continuity of the covenant,Piscator argues from the nature of the Judicials as civil applications of the 10 Commandments; both arrive at the same conclusion: execution of those worthy under the judicials, when there were unchangeable reasons attached. If you want to quibble, have fun.

Please see the test case above where Gillespie and Bahnsen's differeing heremeneutics create a dilemma for the Christian magistrate. The problem is real. Since in our systems, voters are the final magistrate, our lawmakers presently in office are not the only ones facing this problem: the Christian voter needs a biblical hermeneutic to judge whether a given law is biblical. Since Bahnsen's and Gillespies hermeneutics sometimes lead to different outcomes, Christian political disunity will result.

Nice try. If there is a parallel, why don’t the divines mention the general equity of the Ceremonials as applying to all civil bodies politic? Why doesn’t the same word occur in both places (abrogate)? Because, these are not parallel situations, as Burgess says. Burgess, therefore, is not confessional, at least as you have represented his meaning.

Since you have not included the passage to which you are responding. I am not sure of the parallel you think I draw. The ceremonials and the judicials are not parallel in the Confessions for the very simple reason that since Christ is the one sacrifice for sins for ever, the ceremonials are completely done away with while the general equity of the judicials remains applicable even though the judicials are no longer the legal system of an extant state.

Your trust in the power of fallen man to discern good and evil is naïve, at best (reminds me of a certain serpent in a garden). Do you really think that Peter is giving free reign to kings to determine good and evil for themselves?

Of course not, and how you thought I was giving authorities to determine good and evil autonomously is beyond me. Even though Scripture is explicit that all men know what is good and evil (Rom.1:32), fallen man attempts to supress that knowledge (Rom. 1:18) and succeeds to a greater or lesser extent.
Peter is commanding submission to the authorities which means, in practice, obedience to their laws. He is not addressing the issue of how Christians ought to legislate were they magistrates, which was Bahnsen's entire point in his MTh thesis that later became TICE. That Christians must consult the Mosaic judicials to inform legislation I loudly affirm. My difference from Bahnsen (and less so from Rushdoony who also recognized the problem) is that I recognize that the Westminster approach to applying general equity takes the differences of covenantal era into account in a way Bahnsen's approach does not.

You are grasping at straws here Timothy. Please give me one part of the sermon on the mount where Christ talks about His coming crucifixion as the fulfillment of the laws. You really can’t be serious. Sadly, your unbiblical assumptions force you to say something totally out of the context. Look what Christ means by fulfilling the law: obeying the sixth commandment, the seventh commandment, the third commandment, etc. Christ shows His disciples how to obey; not about His crucifixion. Also, in context, Jesus is NOT speaking to the Pharisees, but to His disciples. You are twisting the scriptures my friend, in order to justify an opinion that is unconfessional.

While Christ does not explicitly mention his crucifixion in the Sermon, he does say that until all is accomplished not even the least detail will disappear from the law. There is no indication of hyperbole in the context so we must regard his statement as literal truth. That Christ's crucifixion must be what is referred to is made certain by Heb 7.12. When Christ acted as a priest by offering his blood, he made the terminus ad quem of the old covenant that he mentioned when he said he had come to "fulfill" i.e.,complete "the Law or the Prophets" i.e., the Old Covenant in v. 17. (I provide an extensive analysis of the context and the justification for this view in my book "How Firm A Foundation" which is too lengthly to excerpt here.)
When Bahnsen in "Theonomy in Christian Ethics" analyzed the word usually translated "fulfill" in Matt. 5:17, he made a major error in procedure - he did not tell his readers that one of the meanings of this word found in the Greek bible was that of "complete a time limited condition" such as a pregnancy (Gen. 25:24, 29:21LXX). Since the old covenant had been known to be a time limited condition ever since Jeremiah 31, the only thing new Christ is here saying is that he is the one who will complete it.
I don't really disagree with Gillespie on vv. 21ff. Christ's explications of some of the 10 commandments in these verses show the differences between the right understandings of those commandments and the Pharisaic misunderstandings thereof. Since we know from elsewhere that the decalogue continues valid in the present age, with these examples Christ is not only teaching that the Pharisees are outside the kingdom, he is also informing his disciples how they are to apply the decalogue correctly.

Gouge and Burgess are] probably much more theonomic than I understood them to be.

While they are theonomists in that they anchor their ethics in God, they are not advocates of the "ethical perspective of Christian Reconstructionism" i.e., Theonomists in Bahnsen's sense.

-----Added 12/5/2008 at 01:05:50 EST-----

Indeed so. But note that the half sibling thread dealt with marriages that are heterosexually monogamous and my comment only addressed my ability to preach against non-heterosexually monogamous sexual activities. A Scriptural example that is not condemned elswhere in Scripture (within the same covenantal context) will always trump a deduction from Scripture that cannot be so supported unless the general equity of the Mosaic law can be shown to apply.

So you are clearly less theonomistic than the authors of the WLC

Question 139: What are the sins forbidden in the seventh commandment?

Answer: The sins forbidden in the seventh commandment, besides the neglect of the duties required, are, adultery, fornication, rape, incest, sodomy, and all unnatural lusts;

because by your thinking the Mosaic prohibition against incest is trumped by the examples of Adam and Eve's children and Abraham and Sarah. It could rightfully be banned by a government for health reasons, but not for moral reasons, and that applies to the church as well.

While the answer to Q139 prohibits incest the question is whether or not half-sibling intercourse is in fact incest and to that question A139 is silent. I said "unless the general equity of that Mosaic law can be shown to apply." Although I haven't done the work involved needed to come to a firm concluson, (remember even Bahnsen says somewhere that some questions of particular laws' applicability cannot be answered without careful thinking), my inclination is that general equity can likely be shown to apply for the same health reasons I mentioned.

 

[TimV]

While the answer to Q139 prohibits incest the question is whether or not half-sibling intercourse is in fact incest and to that question A139 is silent.

It's only silent if you assume the Divines did NOT think the laws of consanguinity fell under the moral category. I've been reading commentaries on the subject, and they point out several things about the laws of consanguinity that lead all of them that I've read to put those laws in the moral category. Things like punishing the Canaanites for breaking them; it would be ex post facto to punish them for a law not in existence. In other words they must have known it was wrong. Those laws have entirely different punishments than laws like sowing different kinds of seeds in a field, and that's just one reason commentators have given that these laws are moral rather than ceremonial or temporary/optional/occasional legal laws.

I'd be interested in any commentaries that you've read that would put the laws of consanguinity in any other then the moral category. Surely looking at the then current legal environment of Britain and the continent, as well as church rules give no hint to any lack of clarity on the part of the Westminster divines as to what they meant by A139. Have Kline or any of those people written about the subject?

 

[timmopussycat]

While the answer to Q139 prohibits incest the question is whether or not half-sibling intercourse is in fact incest and to that question A139 is silent.

It's only silent if you assume the Divines did NOT think the laws of consanguinity fell under the moral category.

There can be no reasonable doubt that the Divines did think that the laws of consanguinity fell into the category of laws where "the general equity may apply". The point I raised was whether the specific case of half sibling marriage is required to be included within the laws of consanguinity outside the Sinai covenant.

I've been reading commentaries on the subject, and they point out several things about the laws of consanguinity that lead all of them that I've read to put those laws in the moral category. Things like punishing the Canaanites for breaking them; it would be ex post facto to punish them for a law not in existence. In other words they must have known it was wrong. Those laws have entirely different punishments than laws like sowing different kinds of seeds in a field, and that's just one reason commentators have given that these laws are moral rather than ceremonial or temporary/optional/occasional legal laws.

Do we have a Scriptural instance of Canaanite half-sibling marriage judged anywhere in Scripture?

I'd be interested in any commentaries that you've read that would put the laws of consanguinity in any other then the moral category. Surely looking at the then current legal environment of Britain and the continent, as well as church rules give no hint to any lack of clarity on the part of the Westminster divines as to what they meant by A139. Have Kline or any of those people written about the subject?

It is because I haven't done the research on this question that I am ambivalent. I think that one could possibly if not probably justify the prohobition of the practice by general equity reasoning. And while I do think that the WD would likely have included HSM as within the prohibited degrees had they been asked, the fact that they did not put their answer into the Confession renders the issue one of non-Confessional level rather than Confessional.