Without further adieu, here 'tis in all its glory, my review of the relatively new work by Gary D. Long on "New Covenant Theology" (hereafter NCT) that Richard Barcellos called the best yet. Barcellos does good work (for a Baptist, sorry, had to) on the subject, addressing it over at 1689 Fed as well as in his work on NCT and the Decalogue, and so I figured after getting the bare-bones basics of what is the new kid on the block (even relative to Dispensationalism, zing!) in the world of hermeneutics under my belt, I thought I'd start here. If my thoughts aren't very organized....well, welcome to my mind. Don't get lost. Of note before I get started: I am currently coming from what I would call the "Strawbridge/Wilson" perspective on the covenants, which some might call "moderate Federal Vision-ism" but I would prefer to call "consistent Westminsterianism". In other words, I'm as distant from Gary Long's perspective as I could get while still being willing to call that perspective a form of covenantalism. I'm open to having my mind changed, though. Unfortunately(?), as will be seen below, this book will not be the one to do it, for the reasons enumerated below. While this post was originally intended to be a sparse few paragraphs highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the book, as my reading developed alongside this posts creation, it evolved into a full-fledged response to the book, and to the NCT position generally. In other words, there's a lot to get to, so I'll start.
1) Child-kidnap, sprinkling, and other baptismal horrors.
I have been told, without seeing the scene(s) in question, that a sequence on the television show "Lost" features a Roman Catholic denizen of the island in question, kidnapping an infant to guarantee its baptism. Given the language on the question of paedobaptism in the book, which at times borders on the monotonous in its repetitiveness (a quirk I find bad editing on top of bad theology), one would almost expect this to be Long's belief on the tactical goals of covenant-baptists as a whole. Indeed, were Long's assertions about traditional Covenant Theology to be taken at face value, and were I a Baptist, I'd half expect Presbyterians to be hiding behind every rock and tree, lying in wait to merrily sprinkle every child within reach. Consistently, Long continues to make the bare assertion that Westministerian Covenant Theology (hereafter WCT) leads inexorably to infant baptism, without providing additional commentary in the immediate context. (See for example, 7441, where Long "...affirms that infant baptism of covenant children is the Achilles' heel, a fatal weakness in the whole system of WCT..."). Why is covenant baptism an Achilles' heel, precisely? Predominantly because Long presupposes (and in this text, the claim very much IS presuppositional) that "...the Bible was silent regarding infant baptism" (303). Now is not the time or place for me to go into an exegetical defense of the Westminsterian position, but suffice it to say that works such as that by Gregg Strawbridge, Doug Wilson and John Frame, as well as commentaries on the Standards themselves have sufficed to establish me in it, insofar as the Bible can speak to the nature of baptism outside of explicit reference to it's mode or subjects. However, given Long's repeated insistence on the unbiblical, indeed dangerous nature of covenant baptism, it is evident to me that the first major challenge to WCT mounted by the book, that of the notion of the classical Calvinist understanding of the Covenant of Grace, is rooted in a presupposition, namely credobaptism as the only consistent Biblical position. This weighs the book down in three ways: in terms of audience, in terms of historical perspective, and in terms of self-consistency.
The book is not a beginners' guide to the credobaptist position, and in fairness is not intended to be, but I cannot recommend it to a covenant baptist as a starting place on differences in the positions (for that I would refer you to any of the marvelous work by Drs. Barcellos and Renihan, or a solid exposition of the LBCF). Neither can I recommend it in historical commitment to Reformed tradition, should that be something one is looking for. Again, this is not something NCT typically claims for itself (the very name of the movement describes that which is fundamentally "new"), but a thorough, if not exhaustive historical exposition of the Reformed confessions (that is, the paedobaptist ones) raises each documents' stance on baptism and the covenant, and criticizes all of them and their authors as flatly wrong. On this, Long and the movement can be commended for pulling no punches and not being afraid to hunt big game. However, at risk of signaling some lingering papistry in my present position, the simultaneous claims of pure biblicism in the book, coupled with rejection of so much of Reformed history, sails close to the ill wind of failure to acknowledge that we stand on the shoulders of giants. The greatest raise of the eyebrows in the historical arena came from Long's seeming affinity with the Anabaptists of the Swiss Reformation, specifically advancing the theory that Zwingli developed the confessional position on the Covenant of Grace (see below) unilaterally and out of whole cloth in order to pacify the sacralists of 16th century Switzerland (370). Leaving aside the historical validity of Zwingli's theorized capitulation to such men (which is hardly set in stone), Long himself admits not only that the Anabaptists, including the Swiss Brethren, "had some major doctrinal deviations" (391) but also that Zwingli himself used preexisting analogies between the covenant signs (that is, circumcision and baptism) and an already present hermeneutic of "a unity of the testaments" in advancing his case (370). If these elements pre-dated Zwingli's debate with the Swiss Brethren, one can hardly say that Zwingli is spinning theological gold from situational straw. And I am certainly not alone in questioning the wisdom of aligning Calvinistic baptists with the 16th century Anabaptist tradition, as JD Hall and other 1689 adherents have pointed out.
Returning to the historical-confessional issue, the criticism of the documents in question (that is, the WCF, the SCF, the Heidelberg, the Belgic, the First and Second Helvetic and the Directory of Public Worship) centers on the notion contained within each that God has made one Covenant of Grace with man, purposed from eternity past, which has existed under various "administrations" but bears the same substance. Perhaps the most famous and perspicuous enunciation of this position is WCF VII's language: "There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations". Long states not only that paedopatism is "the doorway to the heart" of WCT, but that in reverse (citing theologians such as Bavinck) that the covenant of grace in the Westminsterian understanding is the foundation of Reformed infant baptism. In other words, in studying confessional history, Long has (correctly) come to the conclusion that "the one covenant of grace and infant baptism teaching of [WCT] are interdependent (416). This concept of interdependency will be important later in discussing Long's view of the Decalogue, but insofar as he exposits the confessions, Long's factual analysis is correct. However, his analysis of the Covenant of Grace as a theological/Scriptural concept leaves much to be desired, and may even ride on standards he does not apply to other concepts from the confessional/historical position, as we will see.
2) Long's rejection of the Covenant of Grace
Fundamentally, NCT, insofar as it can be said to be a common body of belief, is a Reformed Baptist perspective. Therefore there will be a number of areas both of agreement and disagreement on the issue of the covenant of grace, and both will be fairly predictable (although NCT does, as Long affirms repeatedly, differ in certain ways from the typical LCBF position). The predominant areas of disagreement relevant to the average covenant baptist are A) NCT's assertion (in common with the vast majority of Reformed Baptists) of the unmixed nature and substance of the New Covenant, that is, the identification of members of the New Covenant with the elect. Particularly vital for this viewpoint (as for the Reformed Baptist stance at large) is the use of Hebrews 8:11 and following as a "chair passage" on the nature of the New Covenant, a use made very popular in Reformed apologetics by Dr. James White. B) The "birth of the Church" at Pentecost and it's limitation to the post-Resurrection era. C) The notion that water baptism is not a sign and seal of the New Covenant, in contradiction to the Westminster Standards and similar confessions.
I remarked some time ago on social media that the use of Hebrews 8:11 etc to confirm the New Covenant as unmixed is deeply flawed because of passages elsewhere in Hebrews noting that apostasy from the New Covenant is possible, that one can experience it as an objective reality, and in fact that that very covenant has judgement stipulations directly paralled with those of the Mosaic administration. Chief among these texts is Hebrews 10:26-30, although other passages, particularly in Hebrews and the gospels join that texts' witness. There are a variety of possible interpretations of Paul's citation of OT prophecy in 8:11 then, but the use of it as a supreme text on an unmixed NC administration is not one of them. To present two possibilities in brief, both of which could hypothetically be true together or separately, either 8:11 is addressing the specific effects of the New Covenant on its regenerate members, or there is an eschatological component to the promises of 8:11 that remains unfulfilled in totality to this day. Leaving aside the fact that the universality of language in 8:11 dovetails nicely with a postmillenial eschatology (but I digress), this idea, despite being heavily criticized by Dr. White and others, fits in with the mixture of present reality and eschatological promise in the book of Hebrews, which is a very "already/not yet" book. (See for example the contrast of our present possession of a kingdom which cannot be shaken [12:28] and the "coming short of entering the rest of the people of God" at 4:1 and following). Unfortunately, for Long 8:11 overrides contexts like these and seemingly settles the debate, but I for one, would demur from that view.
I don't wish to spend too much time on the NCT doctrine of Pentecost and "spirit baptism", as I agree with Long's cessationism, his identification of the various "Spirit baptisms" of the book of Acts with in-grafting and confirmation of the gospel message with diverse groups of then-yet unreached people groups, and the greater measure of residence of the Spirit with believers in the post-resurrection age (931) (else, what did the Savior mean when he spoke of the Comforter "coming" to the apostles at Pentecost [John 16:7] when he allowed them to receive it for gospel binding and loosing prior to that event? [John 20:22]) I will comment, however, on the fact that Long does not make a strong positive presentation on the nature of the salvation and relationship to the Spirit of the saints of the Old Testament. To what measure did David possess the Spirit? What does it mean that John the Baptist was "filled with the Spirit from the womb"? We are not told. Perhaps other NCT adherents have relayed a more detailed position, but when the author has already allowed that Israel was "an ekklesia in the wilderness", it would behoove him to elaborate on the distinctions in the outworking of the spirit between Covenant dispensations, if in fact he intends to prove covenant discontinuity.
In quoting John Murray on the union with Christ effected by baptism, Long accuses him of inserting confusion into the issue by calling water baptism a "sign and seal", when the Holy Spirit Himself is said to be the "guarantee of our inheritance" (Eph. 1:14), and Jesus explicitly calls the Eucharistic cup "the sign of the covenant in his blood." These things are precious truths, but the actual passages on baptismal covenant efficacy were left untouched by Long. One would like to think this was for the purposes of satisfying editors, but to be honest, I remain uncertain to this day what any Baptist does with the notion that Baptism clothes us with Christ (Gal. 3:27). The fact that baptism is not called "THE sign or seal" of the New Covenant does not strip it of the New Testament terminology surrounding it.
To conclude on NCT and the CoG, Long notes that OT saints were "in Christ by covenantal promise" awaiting their ultimate salvation by the promised New Covenant in the blood of Christ. (955) This is consistent with the rest of Long's viewpoint, given that NCT teaches that OT saints were unified with God in heaven in the fullest sense at the event of Pentecost, but does prompt me to ask if it really benefits Long to affirm that men can be in Christ in more than one sense. To do so would seem to leave the door open to my primary opposition to the NCT rejection of the overarching CoG hermeneutic, that is, the concept of the NC as unmixed. Before moving on, however, there is much to appreciate both about Long's willingness to site WCT sources, and to affirm the essential position of the covenant hermeneutic in a Reformed reading of Scripture.
3) Long's new take on the Covenant of Works concept, and the rejection of the Covenant of Redemption.
Less ink need be spilled on the Covenants of Works and Redemption, as the disagreement with the WCT position is more moderated in Long's work. A few points of interest do exist, however. Richard Barcellos has noted that Long's acceptance of a pre-fall covenant with Adam so as to preserve the federal union of fallen man with Adam (and thereby the justice of the grounds of redemption in federal union with Christ) is a relatively new development within NCT, and a welcome one. (1096) However, Long's primary issue with the CoW as traditionally understood (and his ground for calling his conception of the pre-fall covenant something other than "the Covenant of Works" is that reference to a hypothetical promise of eternal life for Adam is inconsistent with the infallible foreknowledge and plan of God and the notion that the free gift is not like the trespass (Rom. 5:15) (1050). This, it must be said, is odd coming from a self-described Calvinist, as the notion of hypothetical promises of life upholds the typical Calvinist understanding of the universal offer of the gospel. Additionally, the idea of eternal life for Adam contingent upon obedience to the pre-fall covenant stipulations (mirrored in the "do this and live" statements of the Mosaic administration) does not contradict the sovereign plan for better things in Christ, as God's infallible knowledge does guarantee that the Fall will come to pass in God's decretal will, but it would seem unjust to me to presume that eternal life was not offered to Adam in his already deathless pre-fall state, as death comes by the violation of the law of God.
Meanwhile, it is not my intention here to defend the existence of a Covenant of Redemption as understood by Michael Horton as vital to the system of WCT. It has long struck me that while the language of a covenant among the persons of the Godhead remains consistent with the overall hermeneutic of Covenant as the Reformed position, that many elements of the principle beyond that extend into the realm of needless extra-Scriptural speculation. This is particularly notable because the idea of a Covenant of Redemption is left untouched in the WCF itself. However, it must be said that both of Long's specific arguments against the CoR are faulty. A) The idea that the CoR constitutes a "sovereign administration" of persons of the Godhead over each other, and therefore an introduction of disunity into the Trinity, (1306) is a misreading of a specific definition Long assigns here to the term "covenant". In fact, I would prefer the definition Long identifies as older which includes the concept of an agreement between two parties. This preserves not only the equality of the persons in the Godhead in a CoR, were we to assume one exists, but also the concept I laid out early of stipulations of judgment in the New Testament administration of the CoG. B) The citation of the CoR as a violation of Biblicism (1306, end of section) smacks of inconsistency. The standards identify both the explicit text of Scripture, and that which may be derived by "good and necessary consequence" therefrom, as the foundation of valid Christian doctrine, and it is the very principle of good and necessary consequence that Long has, at this point in the text, just finished using to demonstrate the validity of the CoW in light of Romans 5! What is good therefore, for one, should have at least some bearing on the validity of the other.
4) NCT and the law of God.
It seems fitting to continue the response to Long on the nature of God's law given the prior posts have dealt with the position of Theonomy as known by Bahnsen et. all, but where Theonomy stumbles over the stumbling stone in one direction, NCT (which I will not repeat Theonomy's error by calling "antinomian") decidedly lapses in the other. Specifically, NCTs position on the law of God diverges from WCT in the categories which follow. A) A denial of the three-fold division of the law. B) The introduction of covenant disunity not present in the confessional standards vis a vis the abrogation of the Old Testament law to be replaced with "the law of Christ". C) The rejection of the Decalogue as a summary reflection of the eternal and unchanging moral standards of God, referred to by Calvin and the Divines as "the moral law". Long's section here, despite being both the most radical departure from confessional Reformed theology as a whole and a wholesale acceptance of certain assumptions of traditional Dispensationalism, is hardly exhaustive, and in fact to my mind appears brief, given the complexity of the subject material. I would like to presume this brevity of coverage is not a result of the topic having nothing to do with the spine-tingling error of infant baptism, but that may be too much benefit of the doubt for me to extend.
Following a historical examination of the exposition of the threefold distinction concept in the WCF, Long lays forth the exegetical case that Romans 2 (reflecting the idea that Gentiles "as a law unto themselves" acknowledge the righteousness, at least in part, of the unchanging Divine moral standard) and Genesis 1 demonstrate that Jesus' "two greatest commandments" (love God and love neighbor) are themselves that unchanging standard. (1416) He then cites various statements by Calvin and the standards regarding the Decalogue's dependence on love of God and neighbor, and the summary containment of the moral law (not it's exhaustive exposition) in the Decalogue, concluding with the literary throwing up of the hands marked by the phrase "what confusion!". (1460) Regrettably, it must be said that here I feel that Long is straining at gnats. The idea that this is an either/or proposition (Decalogue=moral law or "two greatest"=moral law) is deeply flawed for the simple reason that both can be true. Long's confident assertion that Christ's statement that "the Law and the Prophets hang on" the "two greatest" make a direct equivalence between the eternal moral standard and the "two greatest" is seeking to bear a burden of proof it cannot support. As cited later in the chapter, Calvin would have agreed that the summary content of the moral law is reflected in love of God and love of neighbor, (1588) but this does not mean that the same is not done in the Decalogue, nor does it invalidate the fact that Jesus, who said he came not to abolish but to fulfill, affirmed repeatedly the great and abiding realization of those two loves in the Decalogue, or for that matter, Israel's civil code. Here might be a good place to pause in order for prospective Theonomic readers to heave a sigh of relief that I don't disagree with them on everything.
Long goes on to discuss the concepts of "absolute" and "covenantal" law, with the established NCT claim being that all law-codes in the OT, including the decalogue, were administered for a time but no longer abide, while God's "absolute law" as reflected in "the two greatest" continues in perpetuity. The primary defense of this hermeneutic is then mounted by a fascinating exegesis of another "chair passage": 1 Corinthians 9:20-21, which Long calls "NCT's central passage on the law of God". (1522) Long asserts that the word "Mosaic" could be reasonably inserted as a controlling adjective for each occurrence of the word "law" in the passage up until Paul's reference to "the law of Christ", which Long annotates as "the NC law of Christ". Several claims are made here. Perhaps the most odd to me is that while Long is demonstrably aware of the typical threefold division reading of this passage, up to and include the contextual clue that the surrounding verses of 1 Corinthians have to do with eating and drinking (e.g., the ceremonial dietary laws previously confirmed as no long binding consciences in the book of Acts), he argues that verse twenty makes sense if "Mosaic" is inserted, but not "ceremonial". I have followed his admonition to insert ceremonial into the verse several times since initially reading the book, and for the life of me, I cannot say I come to the same conclusion.
Long also notes that being "under the law" (hupo nomon) is descriptive of unsaved Jews that Paul is seeking to win, while "under the law of Christ" is not not speaking of unsaved Christians, and that therefore "the law of Christ" in context cannot be synonymous with "the law of God" taken as a general category. This is very true, and I don't know any adherent to WCT that would take a position otherwise. Rather, the "law of Christ" in my understanding is synonymous with that very eternal and unchanging moral standard reflected both in the Decalogue and in "the two greatest". Long concludes his exegesis with the statement (in bold, no less) "the law of God and the law of Christ in this verse: intimately related, yes!totally equated, no!" (1568) But this is straw-manning. Westminster did not "totally equate" the "law of Christ" with the entirety of Mosaic law in the sense of perpetuity, but rather equates the law of Christ, the Decalogue, the "two greatest" and the pre-Abrahamic moral will of God, e.g., his eternal moral purpose written on the heart of the regenerate. Therefore, I would have 1 Cor. 9:20-21 read "to those under the ceremonial law, I became as one under the [ceremonial] law (though not myself being under the [ceremonial] law, that I might win those under the [ceremonial] law. To those outside the [ceremonial] law, I became as one outside the [ceremonial] law, not being outside (anomos, lawless) the law of God [that is, without the broader category of God's moral standards generally], but under the [moral] law of Christ [which he came to fulfill and not abolish] that I might win those outside the [ceremonial] law." Do you see the flow in the context of the threefold division? Paul abides by the standards of the ceremonial law so as not be a stumbling block for unsaved Jews he seeks to bring to faith and repentance, but by virtue of the new and better, glorious covenant administration in Christ's blood, he is not himself under those strictures of diet etc. as a rule of life. Meanwhile, he does not demonstrate rigorous adherence to ceremonial law which is no longer necessary in order to win Gentiles, but this does not make him lawless! On the contrary, he is in-lawed to Christ, who fulfilled all the law on Paul's behalf and wrote God's moral law (here the law of Christ, that is the law still proper and binding to the New Covenant) on Paul's heart. Long's exegesis fails, because it is dependent on the presupposition outlined above: that the "two greatest" are a distinct entity from, and abrogate, the principles of the Decalogue.
Long concludes his section on law by asking a variety of leading questions designed to allow people to question and wrestle with the notion of the threefold division. In reply, I have a few questions of my own for NCT. A) Does the law of Christ include specifics on how one loves God and loves neighbor? More importantly, does it necessitate specifics? B) Given that Long appears to believe that specifics are included, up to and including a republication of nine of the ten commandments and "fulfillment of the fourth in Sabbath rest for the people of God", why is it that it is so vital to abrogate the Decalogue and how does this support the idea that the law of Christ is not the same entity as the Mosaic law? C) What about commands in the Mosaic code that are not reissued in the NT? D) As a narrowing of the range of c), can NCT with confidence say that the term "sexual immorality" in the New Testament allows God to forbid the full range of sexual sin forbidden in the Old? Why or why not?
A final note on the law issue, I feel, would edify before wrapping up with Long. Long quite purposefully seems to omit the issue of the Sabbath from his discussion of the Decalogue, minus a fleeting reference, (1605) and I find this odd. In fact, the Sabbath issue would seem to be the major area where NCT could "score points" on the issue of the law, at least with other Reformed Baptists, which appear to be the primary audience of the book. (Presbyterians on the other hand, have far more rigorous Sabbatarian language to wrestle with confessionally, which brings its own difficulties but at least consistently preserves the single covenant, multiple administrations conception of the 16th and 17th century confessions.) For those Calvinists without a specific doctrine of the Sabbath, it would behoove you to look at the issues and questions raised by NCT and ask if your position is sufficiently consistent to allow you to say why you disagree.
5) Wrapping up.
Despite the rather rough treatment it might appear to have gotten from me, Long's book raises valid and timely questions and challenges adherents to traditional understandings of the covenants, credobaptist and paedobaptist, to reexamine some notions they may have held uncritically. As theology, it remains unconvincing to me, as exegesis it suffers from unwarranted assumption in places, but as comparative systematics it is fascinating and as writing it is approachable and refreshingly easy to grasp in the sense of avoiding unnecessary technicality. It's rating for me was greatly enhanced for a rather ironic reason: the book mounts the best short and simple Biblical defense of the Covenant of Works I have seen so far (minus the terminological quibbling around ("hypothetical" and "works".) Despite the efforts of the Barcellos bunch, I predict NCT to be a rising force as the new generations of Calvinists feel their oats, not least because it offers a view of the law that will appeal greatly to many American Christians from Baptist and nondenominational backgrounds, and this will make it an important book as well as an entertaining read.
3.5/5.
In Christ,
~JS
Monday, June 29, 2015
Monday, June 22, 2015
Theonomy follow-up, or "Spoiler alert: I am not a Theonomist"
Prefacing this whole post, which will be a follow-up to my review of Hall/McDurmon debate, I want to say that I have read as much of American Vision and Pulpit and Pen's blog posts in the aftermath as I could get my hands on (which, by the by, introduced me to two great men and two great blogs), and I have listened to all the episodes of the Pulpit and Pen Program addressing the Theonomy issue both pre-and post debate. Aside from this material, the booklet-length post-mortem/victory declaration made by JD Hall can be found here. I wanted to make some brief summary points regarding corrections to my prior post, expansions of my knowledge base, changes of mind (I do have them) and the summary hullabaloo (did you know Firefox spell-check has a correct spelling for that word?) that is the Theonomy debate in the modern Reformed community.
1) This is an important issue. But it is not a thing of first importance.
What was of first importance in the Apostolic witness was the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ in perfect substitution for the sins of His people.1 Insofar as I believe the men at American Vision and those at P and P (and those in their respective camps) to be Christ-followers in saving belief in His good news, the sowing of division among brothers on this issue is not good. Some of the tactics and language in the Hall/McDurmon interchange specifically and much more so this debate more generally have smacked of the same sort of hyperbole and grandstanding, particularly in the realm of eschatology, that has marked traditional dispensationalisms' criticisms of "replacement theology". I urge my Reformed brothers and sisters to be bigger than that.
2) I reiterate my prior statement that I agree with neither position.
Rather, it would be better said that I agree with neither *personality in the "great debate" (more on that in a minute). Hall's premillenialism, his commitment to the Reformed Baptist position on the newness of the New Covenant, and his somewhat cavalier dismissal of things he does agree on with Theonomists makes his approach not only unnecessarily acerbic in places, but also radically different from the angle I would arrive from. All of that being said:
3) I am not a Theonomist.
One may notice I have insisted on ubiquitous use of the capital T throughout this post, and the reason is that the most unpleasant thing, to me, coming out of American Vision in the last few months has not been intrinsic to, or even directly based in their position, but is instead tactical. As JD has highlighted repeatedly on the PP blog and show, the folks at AV, dat Postmil podcast and others have been seemingly willing to settle for "theonomic-ish" when some of those sharing their links, retweeting their posts and mouthing their jargon do not share the true distinctives of their position, beginning with the call for precise reapplication of the Sinaitic penology and inclusion of some or all of the civil code as part of the moral law. More alarmingly, I would say egregiously, Joel and co. seem ready and willing to take the dead captive in this maneuver, as will be illustrated by the recent back and forth on the aforementioned blogs regarding the legacy of AW Pink on the civil dimension of the law. I think it can be readily demonstrated to a non-dogmatized reader that Pink did not hold to the two above Theonomic positions, which makes him not a Theonomist, regardless of whether Joel is "totally willing to call him one", which I find an interesting (ironc?) phrasing.
It is on these two positions that I must side with JD and Pink, after relatively intense (but by no means completed or exhaustive) study of the issue since late March. Particularly illustrative was the series of debate essays in the "Counterpoints" series entitled "Five Views on Law and Gospel", which included an essay on the Theonomic position by the late, great Dr. Bahnsen himself, an essay which, relative to that on the "Traditional Reformed" position (which seemed admittedly scattered in places), honestly seemed to be focused more on open-ended questions than on answers. The typical understanding of the summation of the moral law in the Decalogue, and its recapitulation in (not replacement by) Jesus' "two great commandments" is greatly undermined by Bahnsen's position on the exact nature of the civil code, which he appears to have at least partially blended into the eternal and unchanging standard by such quotations (some of which can be found in JD's "Embers" booklet) as pg. 304 of Theonomy in Christian Ethics, wherein Dr. Bahnsen called the "subdivision" of the law into "moral and civil categories" (?) "latent antinomianism"(!).
This brings me to a larger point, and a partial retraction of comments made in March about the debate. I have said multiple times that this is a debate that may have been better never to have happened, or rather, to have (continuted to) happen in writing, not only because of the passions (some ungodly) inflamed by the event itself, but also because consistency and solid reasoning for a preexisting position were much more on evidence in the written material, particularly post-debate. Nowhere is this more evident than in JD's actual dragging out of page numbers and other specific references for the now-infamous "boogeyman quotes". I said previously that North and Rushdoony's work has to my mind frequently generated more heat than light and that on issues related to, but distinct from, their position on the law (ranging from racism to soteriology), I have had cause for alarm, or even grave concern. Nothing in recent further study has alleviated these concerns, but rather exacerbated them. Meanwhile, I awarded debate points, perhaps decisive ones, in what I still believe to have been a close contest (grandstanding by the participants aside), to Joel due to the "Bahnsen is a liar" portion of CX in which the notion of Bahnsen holding to the (highly Westminsterian) threefold division came into question. Regrettably, further study has informed me that Dr. Bahnsen presented as at least confusing on the issue, if not outright dangerously wrong.
The heart of the matter lies in the threefold division for me, not just because it is a matter of confessional importance (which I said in March it is), but because it is of Scriptural importance. How one derives a consistent, systematic position in which Paul and the other apostles teach that the civil magistrate is to exercise the civil code as written, at risk of incurring the divine wrath, from the New Testament, is beyond me. Certainly 1 Timothy, a book resoundingly about church discipline (we do in fact derive the Biblical qualifications for eldership therefrom) does not offer a governmental system, anymore than Romans 13 (which must be applicable to the authorities as the first century church experienced them) makes all governing authorities executors of the divine wrath only contingent on their application of the civil code with it's system of precise sanctioned activities and commensurate penalties. And here we come to another issue that I addressed more fully than the above in my prior post, but which bears repeating because it has grown as I have read: Theonomic inconsistency on penology. The puritan colonies, and other societies which Theonomists have held up as examples of law-keeping, have universally not held precisely to the punishments for various crimes in Bahnsen's "exhaustive detail", which brings us back to the concept of "theonomic-ish". It would not be enough merely to practice the death penalty for certain things, for example: unless stoning is carried out in every case that it is in the Levitcal code, the society in question is, at the least, swerving from the perfect justice of that code. After all, there is more at stake in penology than appearances. Community participation, number of witnesses, time and suffering involved in the punishment of the offender are all encapsulated in the prescribed penalties of the code. It would not be enough to merely say that "well the death penalty happened so justice was done". The Theonomist has painted himself into a small corner of his own making on the issue, whereas I believe the Massachusetts colonists in question were not adhering to Bahnsen or Rushdoony's exhaustive detail, but rather the Westminster Standards "general equity", which brings me back to the confessional issues previously addressed.
It is known to many students of Calvin's sermons on the law (some of which have in fact been republished in works by Gary North) and the Institutes that Calvin's insistence was on the bare fact that that which is prohibited in the Law and not explicitly abrogated by Christ be punished, not that the punishments be universal and specific, or, in my reading, even carried out by persons specifically motivated by Scriptural standards. Whether North would agree with this, I do not know, but obviously Calvin's position was repudiated by Joel in the debate. The Westminster Divines, consummate Calvinists if ever there were some, were certainly aware that penology was, to the mind of Calvin, a matter of differing covenant administration2, and this, to my mind, makes a compelling case for the non-theonomic reading of the Standards regarding the "general equity" of the civil code: punishment for crime but not rigorous application of Sinatic covenant administration courts and penalties.
In summation, I believe that the Theonomic (large T) position fails. It fails Scripturally. Importantly for Presbyterians, it fails confessionally. It failed in the mind of Calvin. This does not, as I said before, make JD Hall the keeper of the secret fire on covenant theology (as if you were worried I'd say that), but it is my position nonetheless. Feel free to comment here or PM on Facebook should you disagree.
4) The Law is good, if one uses it lawfully.
Far from affirming Joel's position on that text, the reason I have spilled lethargy-inducing volumes of digital ink on this topic is that I think this debate is not merely academic for three reasons. A) Theonomists confuse laypersons into believing they are in a camp they are not in through misrepresentation. As seen recently in the case of Pink and others, and in the skirting of the general equity clause by Bahnsen, there is a subtle undercurrent in Theonomy that divides Christians into Theonomists and antinomians. This is simply not the case, and it threatens to imply that adherents to the very position of Calvin are heretics (and antinomianism in its full-fledged sense is heresy). The term "civil judaizing" is a regrettable one. It brought as much lightless heat as any of the screeds of North, as it seemed to equate Reformed, solas-affirming men like Bahnsen and Joel with the accursed ones of Galatians. But the idea behind the term stands insofar as the more inflammatory remarks by Theonomists to their kin imply that deniers of the continuance of the civil code are soteriologically deficient, or at least involved in a matter of sin, much as the Judaizers implied the same of Apostolic Christians who invited Gentiles to the free grace of Christ without the encumbrances of the ceremonial law. To use the law lawfully in the New Covenant should mean to avoid even the appearance of asking believers to "submit again to a yoke of slavery".3 B) On a related note, the most well-known advocates of the position (North, Rushdoony, Marinov) have sown dissension among brothers over what, as I said at the beginning, should not be a matter of primary gospel importance. C) Theonomy is a very real issue for confessional Presbyterianism. I hold Dr. Bahnsen, God rest his soul, in high regard, but there is a reason Theonomists have lost positions and prestige over this issue. Laypersons need to know that not only does the one covenant, multiple administrations hermaneutic not require the Theonomic position, but that the position is contrary to the historic faith of the Standards. For men and women who care about such things, and go to churches that do, this is a matter of historical consistency and potentially church membership.
As I said before, dialogue on the issue is welcome, and I am not done learning. Someday I will make it through By This Standard, and maybe even take a crack at Theonomy in Christian Ethics. Unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate right now, especially with Shaw's exposition of the Standards and Schaff's History of the Church in the on-deck circle. This is not, nor will it ever be, my pet issue. I hope this can be illustrative to at least one person, and if not, it's been good to get back in the swing of things. Stay tuned for my forthcoming book review of Gary D. Long's book on NCT, which will at least be in the same ballpark as this issue. Thanks for reading.
In Christ,
~JS.
1. 1 Cor. 15:3 and following.
2. For this specific language on the part of Calvin, see Institutes II.11. Credit to JD in Embers for the reference.
3. Gal. 5:1
1) This is an important issue. But it is not a thing of first importance.
What was of first importance in the Apostolic witness was the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ in perfect substitution for the sins of His people.1 Insofar as I believe the men at American Vision and those at P and P (and those in their respective camps) to be Christ-followers in saving belief in His good news, the sowing of division among brothers on this issue is not good. Some of the tactics and language in the Hall/McDurmon interchange specifically and much more so this debate more generally have smacked of the same sort of hyperbole and grandstanding, particularly in the realm of eschatology, that has marked traditional dispensationalisms' criticisms of "replacement theology". I urge my Reformed brothers and sisters to be bigger than that.
2) I reiterate my prior statement that I agree with neither position.
Rather, it would be better said that I agree with neither *personality in the "great debate" (more on that in a minute). Hall's premillenialism, his commitment to the Reformed Baptist position on the newness of the New Covenant, and his somewhat cavalier dismissal of things he does agree on with Theonomists makes his approach not only unnecessarily acerbic in places, but also radically different from the angle I would arrive from. All of that being said:
3) I am not a Theonomist.
One may notice I have insisted on ubiquitous use of the capital T throughout this post, and the reason is that the most unpleasant thing, to me, coming out of American Vision in the last few months has not been intrinsic to, or even directly based in their position, but is instead tactical. As JD has highlighted repeatedly on the PP blog and show, the folks at AV, dat Postmil podcast and others have been seemingly willing to settle for "theonomic-ish" when some of those sharing their links, retweeting their posts and mouthing their jargon do not share the true distinctives of their position, beginning with the call for precise reapplication of the Sinaitic penology and inclusion of some or all of the civil code as part of the moral law. More alarmingly, I would say egregiously, Joel and co. seem ready and willing to take the dead captive in this maneuver, as will be illustrated by the recent back and forth on the aforementioned blogs regarding the legacy of AW Pink on the civil dimension of the law. I think it can be readily demonstrated to a non-dogmatized reader that Pink did not hold to the two above Theonomic positions, which makes him not a Theonomist, regardless of whether Joel is "totally willing to call him one", which I find an interesting (ironc?) phrasing.
It is on these two positions that I must side with JD and Pink, after relatively intense (but by no means completed or exhaustive) study of the issue since late March. Particularly illustrative was the series of debate essays in the "Counterpoints" series entitled "Five Views on Law and Gospel", which included an essay on the Theonomic position by the late, great Dr. Bahnsen himself, an essay which, relative to that on the "Traditional Reformed" position (which seemed admittedly scattered in places), honestly seemed to be focused more on open-ended questions than on answers. The typical understanding of the summation of the moral law in the Decalogue, and its recapitulation in (not replacement by) Jesus' "two great commandments" is greatly undermined by Bahnsen's position on the exact nature of the civil code, which he appears to have at least partially blended into the eternal and unchanging standard by such quotations (some of which can be found in JD's "Embers" booklet) as pg. 304 of Theonomy in Christian Ethics, wherein Dr. Bahnsen called the "subdivision" of the law into "moral and civil categories" (?) "latent antinomianism"(!).
This brings me to a larger point, and a partial retraction of comments made in March about the debate. I have said multiple times that this is a debate that may have been better never to have happened, or rather, to have (continuted to) happen in writing, not only because of the passions (some ungodly) inflamed by the event itself, but also because consistency and solid reasoning for a preexisting position were much more on evidence in the written material, particularly post-debate. Nowhere is this more evident than in JD's actual dragging out of page numbers and other specific references for the now-infamous "boogeyman quotes". I said previously that North and Rushdoony's work has to my mind frequently generated more heat than light and that on issues related to, but distinct from, their position on the law (ranging from racism to soteriology), I have had cause for alarm, or even grave concern. Nothing in recent further study has alleviated these concerns, but rather exacerbated them. Meanwhile, I awarded debate points, perhaps decisive ones, in what I still believe to have been a close contest (grandstanding by the participants aside), to Joel due to the "Bahnsen is a liar" portion of CX in which the notion of Bahnsen holding to the (highly Westminsterian) threefold division came into question. Regrettably, further study has informed me that Dr. Bahnsen presented as at least confusing on the issue, if not outright dangerously wrong.
The heart of the matter lies in the threefold division for me, not just because it is a matter of confessional importance (which I said in March it is), but because it is of Scriptural importance. How one derives a consistent, systematic position in which Paul and the other apostles teach that the civil magistrate is to exercise the civil code as written, at risk of incurring the divine wrath, from the New Testament, is beyond me. Certainly 1 Timothy, a book resoundingly about church discipline (we do in fact derive the Biblical qualifications for eldership therefrom) does not offer a governmental system, anymore than Romans 13 (which must be applicable to the authorities as the first century church experienced them) makes all governing authorities executors of the divine wrath only contingent on their application of the civil code with it's system of precise sanctioned activities and commensurate penalties. And here we come to another issue that I addressed more fully than the above in my prior post, but which bears repeating because it has grown as I have read: Theonomic inconsistency on penology. The puritan colonies, and other societies which Theonomists have held up as examples of law-keeping, have universally not held precisely to the punishments for various crimes in Bahnsen's "exhaustive detail", which brings us back to the concept of "theonomic-ish". It would not be enough merely to practice the death penalty for certain things, for example: unless stoning is carried out in every case that it is in the Levitcal code, the society in question is, at the least, swerving from the perfect justice of that code. After all, there is more at stake in penology than appearances. Community participation, number of witnesses, time and suffering involved in the punishment of the offender are all encapsulated in the prescribed penalties of the code. It would not be enough to merely say that "well the death penalty happened so justice was done". The Theonomist has painted himself into a small corner of his own making on the issue, whereas I believe the Massachusetts colonists in question were not adhering to Bahnsen or Rushdoony's exhaustive detail, but rather the Westminster Standards "general equity", which brings me back to the confessional issues previously addressed.
It is known to many students of Calvin's sermons on the law (some of which have in fact been republished in works by Gary North) and the Institutes that Calvin's insistence was on the bare fact that that which is prohibited in the Law and not explicitly abrogated by Christ be punished, not that the punishments be universal and specific, or, in my reading, even carried out by persons specifically motivated by Scriptural standards. Whether North would agree with this, I do not know, but obviously Calvin's position was repudiated by Joel in the debate. The Westminster Divines, consummate Calvinists if ever there were some, were certainly aware that penology was, to the mind of Calvin, a matter of differing covenant administration2, and this, to my mind, makes a compelling case for the non-theonomic reading of the Standards regarding the "general equity" of the civil code: punishment for crime but not rigorous application of Sinatic covenant administration courts and penalties.
In summation, I believe that the Theonomic (large T) position fails. It fails Scripturally. Importantly for Presbyterians, it fails confessionally. It failed in the mind of Calvin. This does not, as I said before, make JD Hall the keeper of the secret fire on covenant theology (as if you were worried I'd say that), but it is my position nonetheless. Feel free to comment here or PM on Facebook should you disagree.
4) The Law is good, if one uses it lawfully.
Far from affirming Joel's position on that text, the reason I have spilled lethargy-inducing volumes of digital ink on this topic is that I think this debate is not merely academic for three reasons. A) Theonomists confuse laypersons into believing they are in a camp they are not in through misrepresentation. As seen recently in the case of Pink and others, and in the skirting of the general equity clause by Bahnsen, there is a subtle undercurrent in Theonomy that divides Christians into Theonomists and antinomians. This is simply not the case, and it threatens to imply that adherents to the very position of Calvin are heretics (and antinomianism in its full-fledged sense is heresy). The term "civil judaizing" is a regrettable one. It brought as much lightless heat as any of the screeds of North, as it seemed to equate Reformed, solas-affirming men like Bahnsen and Joel with the accursed ones of Galatians. But the idea behind the term stands insofar as the more inflammatory remarks by Theonomists to their kin imply that deniers of the continuance of the civil code are soteriologically deficient, or at least involved in a matter of sin, much as the Judaizers implied the same of Apostolic Christians who invited Gentiles to the free grace of Christ without the encumbrances of the ceremonial law. To use the law lawfully in the New Covenant should mean to avoid even the appearance of asking believers to "submit again to a yoke of slavery".3 B) On a related note, the most well-known advocates of the position (North, Rushdoony, Marinov) have sown dissension among brothers over what, as I said at the beginning, should not be a matter of primary gospel importance. C) Theonomy is a very real issue for confessional Presbyterianism. I hold Dr. Bahnsen, God rest his soul, in high regard, but there is a reason Theonomists have lost positions and prestige over this issue. Laypersons need to know that not only does the one covenant, multiple administrations hermaneutic not require the Theonomic position, but that the position is contrary to the historic faith of the Standards. For men and women who care about such things, and go to churches that do, this is a matter of historical consistency and potentially church membership.
As I said before, dialogue on the issue is welcome, and I am not done learning. Someday I will make it through By This Standard, and maybe even take a crack at Theonomy in Christian Ethics. Unfortunately, I have a lot on my plate right now, especially with Shaw's exposition of the Standards and Schaff's History of the Church in the on-deck circle. This is not, nor will it ever be, my pet issue. I hope this can be illustrative to at least one person, and if not, it's been good to get back in the swing of things. Stay tuned for my forthcoming book review of Gary D. Long's book on NCT, which will at least be in the same ballpark as this issue. Thanks for reading.
In Christ,
~JS.
1. 1 Cor. 15:3 and following.
2. For this specific language on the part of Calvin, see Institutes II.11. Credit to JD in Embers for the reference.
3. Gal. 5:1
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