Center for Biblical Theology and Eschatology

Challenge To Theonomists

by William J. Baldwin

10-31-96

 

Some say Theonomy will die the death of a thousand exceptions. But this is no death at all. The very word "exception" presupposes that Theonomy's most basic tenet is correct: we presume continuity between the government established on Sinai and secular civil government in the modern age. We do this unless we can prove discontinuity. If we agree on that, we're all Theonomists, and we're just arguing about the size of the discontinuity. Without a rule, "exception" means nothing. The "exceptions" prove the rule.

One of Bahnsen's slipperiest concepts is the presumption of continuity when we read the civil law. But continuity with what? Is it a presumption of continuity between the civil law of Israel and Christ's administration of the New Jerusalem? We could scarcely argue then. That's the same continuity that exists between the ceremonial law and the ministrations of our great High Priest. But this isn't the continuity Bahnsen presumes; he barely mentions that this sort of continuity (surely the most basic) exists with respect to the civil law. Rather, with accomplished leger de plume Bahnsen presumes a continuity between the civil law of Israel and the governments of Nero, Louis XVI and Bill Clinton.

This is nonsense. Bahnsen's presumption of continuity rests on a solid impulse. The civil law can't just disappear. But to presume there must be continuity between Old Testament civil law and something in New Testament reality is worlds away from presuming continuity between that law and secular, modern government. That's as wrongheaded and far-fetched as presuming continuity between leprosy laws and modern medicine, between mildew laws and Hints from Heloise.

We are a spiritual kingdom. Christ came declaring that the Kingdom of God was at hand and yet eschewed an earthly, political kingship. Clearly, the first and most important use and meaning of the civil law in the New Testament has reference to Christ's administration of the Kingdom. What shall we say of a man who writes so much on the civil law and never develops its most basic use for the New Testament believer?

Let us presume for a moment that Bahnsen's presumption of continuity between the civil law and modern, secular government is valid. The continuity between Israel and the Kingdom of God is surely more basic and fundamental. Yet almost nothing has been written to explain the typological significance of the civil law and its antitypical fulfillment in Christ. This need is more pressing than further defense of a secondary continuity, never mentioned in Scripture, but presumed. As Theonomists discover the glories of the primary continuity, they will have less and less interest in any secondary continuity. Eventually they will realize they have no need for a secondary continuity. Their theological lives are happy and fulfilled without it. Then they will be in the right frame of mind to reconsider the doctrine of secondary continuity. And having lost their need, they will realize their belief had been based on an insatiable desire rather than on the compulsion of Scripture. But that desire will find itself satisfied to abundance in Christ the King.

Let the Theonomist who dares take up this challenge. He will not remain a Theonomist for long.

William J. Baldwin was an ordained minister in the Reformed denomination of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in southern California. He has a commitment to the centrality of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a desire to nourish by that Gospel, strengthened to good works. Bill Baldwin studied under Meredith G. Kline, a professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in California.