Westminster Confusion: The Free Church vs Theonomy by Martin Foulner (Part Eight)
Samuel Rutherford and Theonomy (Part Five)
Let us leave the superficial treatment of God’s word which Alex MacDonald offers in his Report and listen once more to the clarity of genuine Reformed scholarship. Rutherford, just like Greg Bahnsen and other Theonomists, recognized the value and necessity of the Old Testament case laws. He saw clearly that not only did God’s law punish evildoers with a perfect justice, but that it protected the innocent who often suffer at the hand of Man�s Law. In other words, the Law protected the innocent from injustice and restrained the hand of the unjust magistrate.
“. . . the word of God is as perfect in teaching for what sins the Ruler should not punish, as for what he should punish, the son for the fathers transgression, should not be punished by the Magistrate, for that is injustice in men, and he should not punish, except the crime be conferred or proved by the mouth of two witnesses. The Maid that was forced in the field, and had none to help her, is free of punishment also; and so is the man that kills his brother and hated him not before.”
It is essential for the State to be held accountable to God’s Law. Theonomists are in complete agreement with our Reformed forefathers on this point. To free the State from the obligation to this Law was to invite tyrrany upon us. As Augustine said “What are governments without law but great bands of robbers?”
The very function of the civil magistrate is to uphold the Law of God. Rutherford makes this clear
“. . . the intrinsical work and end of the Magistrate is to avenge evil doing, and so to remove the fierce anger of the Lord from a land, that the people may fear and not do any such wickedness, as is clear, Deut.13:10,11. Exod.32:29,30. Deut.19:20. Rom.13:3,4,5. 1 Pet.2:14. Now the false Prophet is such as brings on all these evils, and therefore if Magistrates stand under the New Testament, and if there be such a sin now as thrusting away people from the Lord who hath, in Christ, delivered us from a greater bondage than that of Egypt, this must be a perpetual Law.”
Did Rutherford not recognize that there were discontinuities between the application of the Law in the Old and New Testaments? The answer is yes, however, his belief in progressive revelation between the Covenants did not mean that God reveals Himself by a different Moral standard today. God has indeed given a clearer revelation of his Law in the New Testament. But it is still the same Law. There is no place for the view that God’s Law has somehow evolved, nor has it become less “harsh” and certainly Rutherford held that the duty of magistrates to honour and uphold the Law of God has not diminished. “. . . So if the Magistrate keep both Tables [of God's Law], he must not punish according to his own will, but according to the rule and prescript of God.”
June 6, 2007 at 8:58 pm
“What are governments without law but great bands of robbers?”
Lately, even with laws, they seem to be little more than robbers.