Dr. Guy Waters dives into the concept of theonomy and explores whether the civil laws of the Old Testament are still relevant to us today. The following is a transcript of the video above.
Is Theonomy biblical?
When addressing theonomy, the first thing we have to do is define what we mean by theonomy. To understand what we mean by theonomy, we have to understand something about how biblical law is defined and understood within reformed theology.
The Civil Law
Following the Scripture, reformed theologians understand biblical law in the Old Testament to fall into three categories. There are the moral laws. We think of the Ten Commandments. There are the ceremonial laws. Those addressed the worship of Israel, sacrifices, priests, and so on. And then there are the civil laws. And these are the judicial laws that God gave to Israel, addressing their economy, addressing theft, addressing a whole host of areas relating to day to day relations, neighbor to neighbor. Theonomy says that the civil laws of the Old Testament did not expire when the old covenant came to an end. But they have continuing force in the life of the world today.
Post-millennialism
Very often, the theonomists argue that there will come a time in the future of the church when the world will become Christianized and when nations will adopt biblical law, including the civil laws, as the laws of their own land. And this is part of an understanding of the Scripture that the gospel will so progress, that the world will be Christianized before the coming of Jesus Christ. It’s often termed post-millennialism.
Civil Laws in light of the New Testament
What are we to make of the theonomy? Well, the Westminster standards in company with other reformed confessions says that the civil laws expired at the conclusion of the Old Covenant. They’re not without relevance. They have much to teach us about justice under the Old Covenant. [The Civil Laws] have importance in our study of the scripture, but they don’t have ongoing application. But they don’t bind Christians today, either in the church or in the world at large. And we have an example of this from the New Testament in First Corinthians, as Paul is writing the Corinthians about principles of giving in the church. He cites a law from Deuteronomy in First Corinthians, not you shall not muzzle the ox while it’s treading up the grain. Now, he pauses and says at that point, it was not for oxen that God wrote this; it was for us. Paul’s point is that there is in that law, a principle of justice. The worker is worthy of his hire. That that law illustrates. And it’s that principle that applies to the church, a principle that is enshrined in the eighth Commandment. And so that’s the way the apostles teach us to read and to understand the civil laws of the Old Testament. So they do have importance in our study of the scripture, but they don’t have ongoing application.
