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"MODIFIED DISPENSATIONALISM" DENIED
A Response to Brian Schwertley
by Greg Loren Durand
Main Documentation:
A Response to the Misrepresentations of Brian Schwertley
Background of the Controversy
I was involved in the so-called Christian Reconstruction movement from 1993 until 2002, at which time, by the grace of God, I was delivered from what I have come to believe is a system of serious error. In the summer of 2002, I compiled my theological objections to the movement which would later be published in 2003 as Judicial Warfare: The Christian Reconstruction Movement and Its Blueprints For Dominion (NOTE: This book has since been republished in an enlarged and updated second edition). On 24 August 2002, I emailed the original manuscript to Brian Schwertley per his request and asked for his comments or criticisms (Exhibit A). I did not heard from him again until five years later when he began a lecture series entitled “A Reformed View of the Judicial Law,” the first installment of which was posted on Sermon Audio on 26 August 2007. In part one of this series, he said the following:
The Old Testament acknowledges a priority of the moral law over the sacrificial cultus, and we see that in the prophets. God rejects a number of times in the prophets where they would offer animals that were defective and so forth and they weren’t giving God their best. They were rebuked for that. But a lot of the rebuke in the prophets was really for disobeying moral law.... The statement by Hosea would make no sense whatsoever if Israel could not tell the difference between the laws demanding sacrifices, which are ceremonial, and the laws demanding faithful love, which are moral. This idea that you can’t make a distinction ignores the Old Testament itself. The Old Testament made a distinction between ceremonial and moral laws.... These distinctions in the Old Testament law are important, and will be brought up again when we consider the arguments set forth by those who say the whole Old Testament has no distinctions and the whole Old Testament law has been abrogated, including the Ten Commandments. That’s Dispensationalism, and its modern stepchildren say that. This is essentially the position of many modern Evangelicals — Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and others, and a few other rogue theologians. Greg Loren Durand has written a book against Theonomy. And the book is not just against Theonomy. I can understand people writing a book against the abuses of Theonomy, but he basically rejects the Reformed faith for a modified form of Dispensationalism. The book is totally unconfessional. The idea that the whole law of God has been done away [“Judicial Law,” Part One, 18:34].
It was evident from these words that Schwertley had misunderstood my position, so I posted the following comment on Schwertley's Sermon Audio page on 2 September 2007:
Pastor Schwertley has completely misrepresented what I wrote. What I actually said was the whole Mosaic covenant has been abrogated (which is what Paul himself taught), but I was very clear that the moral law has not been abrogated. It was given to Adam in the Garden and is an essential part of man’s nature — i.e. it preceded the Mosaic covenant and continues in force even though that system no longer operates. In fact, I went out of my way to state my belief that the moral law is synonymous with natural law.
Like all Van Tilian Reconstructionists, Schwertley doesn’t believe that man has access to the moral law apart from special revelation (i.e. the Old Testament case laws) — hence their insistence that the Mosiac Law cannot be abrogated. As far as I can tell, the term “Law of God” has historically been understood by Reformed writers to mean the moral law. Like all Reconstructionists, he reinterprets this term and applies it exclusively to the Mosaic Law. That is how he can accuse someone who says that the Mosaic Law in its entirety has been abolished of claiming that the “whole Law of God has been done away.”
Schwertley either blocked or immediately deleted this comment from the Sermon Audio site. However, he replied via email on the same day in which he quoted a few isolated passages from my book in an attempt to substantiate his claim that I believe “the whole Law of God has been done away” (Exhibit B). I again responded to him and informed him that his interpretation of what I had written was mistaken (Exhibit C). He did not respond. In the third and especially in the fourth part of his series, he proceeded to further misrepresent me to such a degree that I felt that he had moved beyond being merely mistaken to willfully bearing false witness against me in violation of the Ninth Commandment.
I approached him privately, according to Matthew 18:15-17, informing him of my grievance and requesting that he issue a public apology and thereafter cease and desist from mentioning my name in his lectures (Exhibit D). His response was curt and showed no sign of a willingness to reconsider his actions (Exhibit E). I again wrote to him and repeated my request (Exhibit F), to which he responded by feigning a desire for “possible reconcilation” while at the same time demanding that I answer a series of leading questions, false dilemmas, and more misrepresentations of my position (Exhibit G). It appeared that Schwertley was attempting to deflect attention away from himself by putting me on the defensive, so, following the advice of godly counsel, I did not respond to him at that time. He thereafter went on to post an additional four parts to his series in which he continued to publicly slander and misrepresent me.
On 20 October 2007, I sent Schwertley the below documentation and informed him that I was moving on to step two of the Matthew 18 process (Exhibit H). My two witnesses — Corey Graff of Wisconsin (Exhibit I) and Thomas Minsel of North Carolina (Exhibit J) — contacted him, urging him to repent. On 26 October 2007, Schwertley acknowledged receipt of this documentation and, completely ignoring its contents, he proceeded to respond to a side issue (Exhibit K). On that same day, I wrote back to him and reminded him that this documentation was the basis of my complaint and not the side issue to which he responded (Exhibit L). I received no further response from Schwertley and his lecture series remained on Sermon Audio. On 16 December 2007, he again returned to the subject, not only repeating his previous misrepresentations, but also adding the false claim that I had “refused to respond” to him (Exhibit M). On 26 December 2007, I wrote to the members of Schwertley's session and presbytery, asking them to intervene in the matter (Exhibit N). To date, they have not done so. I have no choice, therefore, but to consider Brian Schwertley to be unrepentant according to Matthew 18:17 and to take this matter before the Christian public via this website and any other medium available to me.
A Brief Outline of My Position
Time constraints do not permit me to transcribe and respond to everything that Schwertley has said regarding myself or my book, but I will endeavor to reduce his statements down to three points: (1) My views on the Mosaic law and its abrogation; (2) my position regarding the natural law and general equity; and (3) my views on the use of the Old Testament in the New Covenant era.
Schwertley has repeatedly claimed that I have rejected Covenant theology for a “modified Dispensationalism,” so I will state my position at the outset as briefly and succinctly as possible. God bound Adam, the representative head of all mankind, to a Covenant of Works in the Garden, promising eternal life for obedience and eternal death for disobedience. He received only one commandment, which contained the whole duty of man to his Creator and to his fellow man as dictated by the moral law. Adam’s disobedience and fall rendered mankind’s fulfillment of that covenant impossible, but could not abrogate its demands of absolute obedience. God thereafter made a second covenant — the Covenant of Grace — through which He purposed to bring Christ into the world as the “second Adam” in order to fulfill the terms of the first covenant and to redeem from its curse all those who would be joined to him by faith. The entirety of the Old Testament — particularly the post-lapsarian Adamic, Abrahamic, and Davidic covenants — is a record of the unfolding of this single purpose of redemption.
I believe that the Sinaitic covenant was a localized restatement of the original Adamic covenant specially designed for a specific nation (Israel) and tied to a specific location (the land of Canaan). Temporal blessings (positive sanctions), notably possession of the land, health, prosperity, and longevity, depended upon obedience to its terms, and temporal cursings (negative sanctions), notably expulsion from the land, disease, poverty, and even death, followed disobedience. The temporal sanctions of the covenant enumerated in Deuteronomy 28 were but types of the spiritual sanctions of the Adamic covenant, which were permanent residence in the Kingdom of God (the Garden) and eternal life, or glorification, as a reward for obedience, and expulsion from the Kingdom of God and eternal death, or damnation, as a punishment for disobedience.
Thus, the Sinaitic covenant was a temporal portrait of spiritual realities and its purpose was to “shut up” the Israelites “unto the faith” until the promised “seed of Abraham” — the true Israel, or the Messiah — should come (Galatians 3:23). As a Jew born under the Law, Christ fulfilled every “jot and tittle” of the temporal Sinaitic covenant (Matthew 5:17-19), and thereby also fulfilling the spiritual Adamic covenant which it typified, He merited the promised blessing of eternal life for obedience (active obedience) and then suffered the penalty of death for disobedience in behalf of those who place their trust in Him (passive obedience). Consequently, the Sinaitic covenant, in this capacity as a covenant of works, no longer has any function and thus has been abolished. This position has been articulated by numerous Reformed commentators over the last several centuries (see “Different Views of the Mosaic Covenant Within the Reformed Tradition”), and I am confident that this was also the view of the Apostle Paul when he wrote on the subject of the Siniatic covenant in his epistles. To teach, therefore, that the Siniatic covenant, in this capacity as a covenant of works, remains binding on any nation or individual beyond Calvary is a denial of the Gospel itself.
Whenever I use the terms “Mosaic law,” “Mosaic covenant,” “the law,” or any other such term, this is the context in which I am speaking. The Old Covenant still serves as a mirror of the absolute holiness of God, and therefore may be studied by God’s people for “instruction in righteousness” (sanctification) and its principles (general equity) may be extracted and applied to the Christian life. My book was written, not to deny this important use of the Old Testament, but to demonstrate that the so-called Christian Reconstruction movement teaches a continuation of the Mosaic law in its capacity as a covenant of works, and that the “christianization” of the nations is expected to be accomplished through its covenantal blessings and cursings. Schwertley has been repeatedly informed of this context, not only in my book itself, but in several emails as well, so he cannot honestly say that I have not been clear on this point.
An impartial reading of what follows will show that Schwertley has either not taken the time to read what I have written in order to understand my position, or he has chosen to deliberately misrepresent my position for his own personal reasons. Either option involves a violation of the Ninth Commandment and requires both repentance and retraction on his part.
My Views on the Mosaic Law and Its Abrogation
Schwertley said:
If you want to know if a law is right and good, you have to go to God’s Word. And what amazes me about these people that say, “Well, we’re going to ignore” — especially Greg Loren Durand, or whatever his name is, “we’re going to ignore the whole law — he teaches that the whole moral law of God — the whole law of God that was given to Moses has been done away, even the Ten Commandments. And I’ll make quotes to prove that. That’s exactly what he teaches. He wrote me and he acknowledges that that is truly what he believes [“Judicial Law,” Part Three, 15:58].
Claiming to quote directly from my book, he went on to say:
Page 29: “The moral law” — and he includes the Ten Commandments — “has not only been changed, it has been taken away and replaced by the New Covenant.” Page 30: “Christ has abrogated the whole Mosaic covenant, which agrees with the teaching of Hebrews that the law” — he means, including the Ten Commandments, and if there’s any doubt about this, I emailed him and asked him, and he does believe the Ten Commandments have been abrogated — “has not only been changed but has been taken away” [“Judicial Law,” Part Four, 03:34].
Nowhere have I ever written that the “moral law” has been taken away or abolished. This is what I wrote:
Greg Bahnsen claimed that we should consider all the laws of the Old Testament still valid unless they are specifically abrogated in the New Testament. Not only does this qualification demolish his “established in exhaustive detail” argument, but it is clearly contradicted by the writer of Hebrews, who declared that the Mosaic law has not only been changed, but has been taken away and replaced by the New Covenant [page 29].
A comparison of the underlined sentences above will clearly show how Schwertley has misquoted me in order to substantiate his misrepresentation. In context and in my actual wording, I was referring to the Mosaic covenant and not at all to the moral law. To this misquotation, Schwertley added the falsehood that he emailed me and asked me if I believe the “Ten Commandments have been abrogated.” I never would have given him an unqualified “yes” to such a question, but would have first inquired as to the context in which the question was being asked so as to make sure my response would not be misconstrued. Schwertley never asked me anything in this regard, but simply asserted his own interpretation of my position. Here is what was actually said in our email exchange of 2 September 2007:
[Schwertley] Pg 26 Durand quotes favorably an author who says: “Neither Christ nor the apostles ever distinguished between the moral, ceremonial and the civil law when they speak of its establishment or abolition.” (John Kitto) In other words the whole law of God revealed to Moses including the Ten Commandments and all moral case laws have been abolished.
[My response] Yes, that is true. Nowhere does the New Testament state that the ceremonial laws have been abolished but that the case laws remain in force. That is an arbitrary separation of the Mosaic law, which was a covenantal whole. I nowhere said that distinctions cannot be made between those laws that were ceremonial, moral, or judicial. Distinction is not the same as separation.
The “yes, that is true” statement was in reference to the Kitto quote and was not intended as an admission to teaching that “the whole moral law of God” has been abolished. Schwertley did not inform his audience that when I refer to the Mosaic law as having been abolished, that it is in the context of its capacity as a covenant of works. If he had done so, his whole case against me would have disintegrated. I wrote:
[T]he nation of Israel was unique in world history as God’s specially selected and covenanted people. For them, and for them alone, He legislated directly, adding specific laws and penalties to the already existing moral law (without supplanting it). His purpose for doing this was to keep the Israelites “shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed” (Galatians 3:23). It should be remembered that the children of Israel had just spent four hundred years as residents of a pagan civilization, most of which time they were in bondage there as slaves. With few exceptions, they were themselves pagans at heart, as their constant backsliding into Baal-worship demonstrated, and a severe law-code was necessary to preserve the godly line through which Christ would come into the world. Thus, we are told in Chapter XIX:4 of the Westminster Confession that the “sundry judicial laws” given to Israel as “a body politic” have “expired together with the State of that people; not obliging any other now, further than the general equity thereof may require.” Under the New Covenant there is no such “body politic,” since God’s spiritual Kingdom transcends all national, cultural, racial, and even linguistic boundaries [Judicial Warfare, page 73].
In a footnote to Chapter Four, I wrote, “2 Corinthians 3:7-11 teaches that the Decalogue itself as covenantal law has been ‘done away’ (although the eternal moral principles thereof remain)” [page 59]. Once again, Christians are not under the Mosaic law in its capacity as a “ministration of death” (a covenant of works). In my email of 3 September 2007, I wrote:
God codified the Covenant of Works specifically for the Israelites in the Mosaic law, and as an Israelite, Christ fulfilled that law to the letter. In a broader sense, He therefore also fulfilled the Covenant of Works in behalf of the Gentile elect. The specific Mosaic code for Israelites, and the general Covenant of Works for Gentiles, was therefore abrogated as far as the believer is concerned because Christ’s active obedience is imputed to their account. In order to escape His judgment, God commands faith in Christ, not obedience to the Mosaic code/Covenant of Works.
Amazingly, Schwertley himself asserted what appears to be the same position two weeks later: "The law has been removed — we’re talking about the moral law — the moral law has been removed from the believer as a covenant of works — as a requirement to enter heaven. Christ has fulfilled all that perfectly, and therefore, relating to our justification, the law doesn’t apply to us. We are justified in Christ. He paid the penalty; He obeyed the precepts perfectly" [“Judicial Law,” Part Three, 32:48]. Thus, Schwertley has condemned me for a position I do not hold, while acknowledging my actual position as orthodox Reformed doctrine and claiming it as his own position. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident, for he resorted to this tactic repeatedly in his lecture series. Another example is the following:
...Durand’s contention that the Ten Commandments have been done away is absolute absurdity. A moral law given by God cannot be obliterated. It just can’t.... What Durand does is he says, “Well, the moral law continues — that law given to Adam — that law written on the heart — but all the laws given to Moses have been eradicated. So, 'thou shalt not kill' has been obliterated. However, in the natural law, 'thou shalt not kill' stands." Well, that’s a contradiction. You can’t obliterate that moral law [“Judicial Law,” Part Three, 43:04].
Not only did I not write these words which Schwertley attributed to me, but they are not even an honest paraphrase of what I actually did write. When referring to the Mosaic law, I have always used the words “abrogate” and “abolish,” both of which apply to the revocation or annulment of a law or an institution. While being divested of its legal force, an abrogated or abolished law does not vanish, but maintains its place in the statute books and the legal principles thereof may still be studied, extracted, and applied by a future court to similar cases. In a subtle attempt to alter my meaning, Schwertley substituted the words “obliterate” and “eradicate” in the place of the words “abrogate” and “abolish” — neither of which I would have ever used to refer to the Mosaic law since they both mean “to do away with completely so as to leave no trace.” Thus, he wanted his audience to conclude that I believe the Mosaic law has been erased and is therefore to be treated as if it never existed. This is blatant deception.
Furthermore, Schwertley referred to the Ten Commandments in a completely different sense than I do in my book. When I wrote of the abolition of the Decalogue, I was referring to it as a unitary covenantal document to which were attached covenantal sanctions, and not to the individual moral commandments contained therein. This is why I specifically avoided the use of the plural term “ten commandments” in favor of the singular term “Decalogue.” I firmly believe that the individual commandments, standing on their own merit, have been removed from the covenantal context in which they were delivered on Sinai and that they are all found restated in a new covenantal context in the New Testament.
Schwertley claimed that this is a contradiction, and yet, he himself stated the same view regarding the Fourth Commandment: “Now keep in mind that the Fourth Commandment does have an aspect of it which is positivistic, in the sense that the day itself God can change, but the principle of worshipping the Lord is moral. The setting aside of a day of worshipping the Lord, that’s moral. The day that it’s on is positivistic” [“Judicial Law,” Part One, 06:26]. If one commandment is admitted by Schwertley to be “positivistic” (applicable in its outward form to Israel alone), then the others may be as well. I assert that the First Commandment is also “positivistic” in this sense: “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2-3). Obviously, no other nation in history save one was ever delivered from Egyptian slavery. Therefore, in its immediate covenantal context, this commandment directly applied to national Israel alone, and yet, the principle against idolatry may be extracted and generally applied outside of the original context. Another example is the Seventh Commandment. As given to Israel in the Decalogue, it allowed for the practice of polygamy, whereas, under the New Covenant, polygamy would be considered adulterous activity. The Reformers likewise saw a difference in how the Second Commandment was applied in the Old Covenant and how it is to be applied in the New Covenant when they extracted the “regulative principle” from it to prohibit the usage of musical instruments in the public worship of the Church. It should be obvious that the Israelites never understood this commandment in such a way since musical instruments were very much a part of Old Testament worship. Schwertley’s admission that there is a “positivistic” element to the Decalogue which does not carry over to the New Covenant, while the principles thereof remain, is a concession to the correctness of my position.
Schwertley again resorted to his favorite tactic in the following:
Since all moral laws are based on God’s nature and character, they are binding on all men, both Jews and Gentiles, for all time. They were binding before the giving of the Law of Moses, and they are binding after the New Covenant era. Homosexuality was condemned long before Moses gave the Ten Commandments, and those things are condemned long after the Ten Commandments were given. One cannot say logically or biblically that they only apply to the Jewish nation or that they only apply to the Old Covenant era. It is always wrong to worship a false god, break the Sabbath, dishonor one’s parents, lie, steal, commit adultery, or sexual immorality, and so forth. These things are always wrong; they’re always immoral; they’re always a violation of God’s law — His moral law. And on this point all real Reformed believers are in agreement.... [“Judicial Law,” Part One, 08:08]
Here Schwertley switched from his normal usage of the “God’s moral law” as the Mosaic law minus the ceremonies, to my usage of the term as the moral law that is natural to man, and then he presented essentially my own position on the perpetuity of the moral law as his own. Commenting on the abolition of the Mosaic covenant discussed in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11 and referencing Chapter XIX:1-2 of the Westminster Confession, I wrote in my book, “This is not to say, however, that the moral principles reflected in the law have been abolished; if the Mosaic law had never been given at Mount Sinai, these principles would still have bound mankind because they are co-existent with man’s nature as the image-bearer of God Himself (Genesis 1:26-27, 9:6) and were therefore not exclusive to the Jewish nation” [page 22].
The moral law was given to Adam encapsulated in only one commandment: “Thou shalt not eat.” This specific law bound no one but our first parents, and was therefore abrogated upon their expulsion from the Garden. Nevertheless, the moral principles of submission to God and duty to one’s fellow man still remained. According to the Westminster Confession, the moral law, after Adam’s fall, “continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments.” The Confession does not teach that the Ten Commandments (Decalogue) are the moral law; instead, the moral law was delivered in the Ten Commandments. In other words, the moral law was again encapsulated, or summarized, in the specific covenantal vehicle of the Decalogue, so that, though that covenantal form be abolished, as Paul taught in 2 Corinthians 3:7-11, the essential moral principles remain completely intact. In fact, it is my contention that the moral law was thereafter encapsulated, not in exterior tablets of stone, but in Christ Himself and in the “hearts of flesh” of His regenerate people. This was the promise of Ezekiel 36:26-27. In other words, the Ten Commandments have been transformed from being the “ministration of death” to being living words of instruction for the believer. If I did, in fact, hold to the position attributed to me by Schwertley — that the individual laws expressed in the Decalogue have been “obliterated” — then it would make no sense for me to study them several times a week with my children during family devotions or to repeatedly appeal to the Ninth Commandment in my communications with Schwertley.
An unbiased comparison of my position with the standard Reformed teaching on the Mosaic law will not reveal any substantial difference between the two. An entire book could be filled with quotations in this regard, but the following from John Calvin will suffice:
The Apostle says, that the law was but for a time, and required to be abolished, but that the gospel, on the other hand, remains for ever. There are various reasons why the ministry of Moses is pronounced transient, for it was necessary that the shadows should vanish at the coming of Christ, and that statement — The law and the Prophets were until John (Matt. xi. 13) — applies to more than the mere shadows. For it intimates, that Christ has put an end to the ministry of Moses, which was peculiar to him, and is distinguished from the gospel. Finally, the Lord declares by Jeremiah, that the weakness of the Old Testament arose from this — that it was not engraven on men’s hearts (Jer. xxxi. 32, 33). For my part, I understand that abolition of the law, of which mention is here made, as referring to the whole of the Old Testament, in so far as it is opposed to the gospel, so that it corresponds with the statement — The law and the Prophets were until John. For the context requires this. For Paul is not reasoning here as to mere ceremonies, but shows how much more powerfully the Spirit of God exercises his power in the gospel, than of old under the law [Calvin, Commentary on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1993), Volume II, pages 178-179].
In other words, it was not just the ceremonial laws that have been abrogated, but the entire Mosaic economy as it “is distinguished from the gospel” — i.e. as a covenant of works.
My Position Regarding the Natural Law and General Equity
Throughout his lecture series, Schwertley frequently refers to me as a “natural law antinomian” which he defined as follows:
And when we speak of general revelation or natural law, we must keep in mind that God’s nature stands behind the works of the law written on man’s heart every bit as much as it does the written requirements that are moral. What’s really terrible is when you see people arguing as if natural law is just some thing out there.... Natural law, or what’s written on man’s heart, was put there by God just as God wrote the Ten Commandments in stone. It’s not that there’s some independent thing called natural law existing apart from God and just is out there. That’s Greek thinking. God’s nature stands behind natural law and all written moral laws. Thus, they both teach the exact same law. And if one attempts to set natural law over against the moral law, or the moral case laws, then one has adopted a Greek pagan concept of natural law where natural law is independent of God and stands above both God and man. And that’s not the case [“Judicial Law,” Part One, 42:05].
I have never given any indication that I view the natural law in this manner. To the contrary, I have repeatedly stated my conviction that “The natural law (i.e. that which is part of man’s created nature and is therefore natural to him) and the moral law (i.e. that which reflects God’s eternal nature) are one and the same” [3 September 2007 email to Schwertley]. As such, my definition of the natural law is precisely the same as that given by the Westminster Standards, John Calvin, and every other known Reformed commentator. Anyone who actually reads my book, particularly Chapter Four, will readily see this.
Schwertley’s repeated attempt to label me a “natural law antinomian” is slanderous because I do not believe that the moral law has been abolished in the New Covenant and that Christians are free to disregard it, as the historic Antinomians taught. I addressed this issue in Chapter Eight of my book. The phrase “natural law antinomian” is self-contradictory and absurd given my identification of the natural law with the moral law. No such person as a “moral law antinomian” — someone who is both for and against the moral law at the same time — has ever existed, or ever will exist.
Schwertley went on:
...[T]he idea that the moral precepts in the judicial law — the general equity thereof — continue is right in the Westminster Standards. And if you don’t believe that, you’re not Reformed. You do not hold to the Reformed doctrine of the law. And the idea of Greg Loran [sic], that the whole law of Israel, including the Ten Commandments, has been done away, contradicts the Westminster Standards, the Larger Catechism, it contradicts the Confession of Faith, it contradicts the Heidelberg Catechism, and all Reformed creeds and confessions. It’s a modified form of Dispensationalism [“Judicial Law,” Part Three, 20:17].
Schwertley ignored the fact that I wrote an entire chapter (Chapter Four) explaining the Reformed doctrine of the general equity of the judicial laws, as taught in the Westminister Standards and in the writings of other Reformed commentators, and affirmed my acceptance of the same. He does not quote a single sentence from this chapter nor does he even inform his audience that it exists. Here is a quote from that chapter:
In stating that the judicial laws are no longer binding “further than the general equity thereof may require,” the Confession is clearly pointing to the universal principles of the moral or natural law, rather than the particular statutes of the Mosaic code, as the standard to which magistrates are bound. Indeed, the entire chapter of the Confession in which this phrase appears deals with the moral law which “doth for ever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that, not only in regard of the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it....” Thus, whatever is of general equity is that which agrees with the moral law and is equally applicable to all men without distinction [page 78].
Again, the Mosaic statutes in their immediate covenantal context have been abrogated, but the moral principles found therein may be extracted and applied today. This is the standard Reformed position on the general equity of the Mosaic law and I am confident that if Schwertley had quoted what I had actually written on this subject, his audience would have immediately seen through his misrepresentations.
My Views on the Use of the Old Testament in the New Covenant Era
Schwertley repeatedly claims that I teach Christians to ignore the Old Testament and that it is not to be used for personal sanctification:
Greg Durand’s book is just pitiful. ..[H]e believes you cannot use the law of Moses in any way — and we’re talking about the judicial or the Ten Commandments — you can’t use those in any way for sanctification.... He takes the book of Galatians, which was written to rebuke those who believe that you need to follow the law of Moses, including the ceremonial laws, to be justified before God. You need to keep the law. And he takes that and he says, “No, we’re not allowed to go to these laws for sanctification either” [“Judicial Law,” Part Three, 34:23, 47:24].
This assertion is a complete fabrication. The invented words which Schwertley attributed to me in the last sentence above are directly contradicted by the actual words of my book:
[It] is to the moral law delivered to Adam in the Garden of Eden that all mankind is bound, not to the laws of the Sinaitic covenant. In this way is reconciled the seeming contradiction between Paul’s declaration that the “ministration of death, written and engraven in stones” has passed away, and the clear prohibitions found throughout the New Testament against idolatry, adultery, theft, etc. To say that the Decalogue is an easily-accessed codification of the moral law to which a Christian may turn for “instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16), is a far different thing than saying that a Christian is under the Mosaic law with regard to covenantal blessings and cursings, which, as we shall see in subsequent chapters, is precisely what the Reconstructionists are teaching and what sets them apart from the Reformed doctrine of the law [page 52].
The obvious intent of this statement was that Christians are not under the Mosaic law as a covenant of works, but it may be referred to for purposes of instruction and sanctification — the very thing which Schwertley claims that I deny. My position is that under the Old Covenant, God’s people were bound to a written code of over 600 specific laws which governed even the most minute aspect of life. Under the New Covenant, however, the Christian has been raised to a much higher level and is expected to apply general moral principles, rather than specific written laws, to everyday living. These principles are to be extracted from the entire Bible — from Genesis through Revelation; from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant — but this does not mean that the entire Bible is covenantally binding on the Christian, which is what my point has always been. To illustrate this, I quoted John Bunyan in the conclusion of my book as follows:
Wherefore whenever thou who believest in Jesus, dost hear the law in its thundering and lightning fits, as if it would burn up heaven and earth; then say thou, I am free from the law, these thunderings have nothing to do with my soul; nay even this law, while it thus thunders and roareth, it doth both allow and approve of my righteousness. I know that Hagar would sometimes be domineering and high, even in Sarah’s house and against her; but this she is not to be suffered to do, nay though Sarah herself be barren; wherefore serve it also as Sarah served her, and expel her out of the house. My meaning is, when this law with its thunderings doth attempt to lay hold on thy conscience, shut it out with a promise of grace; cry, the inn is took up already, the Lord Jesus is here entertained, and here is no room for the law. Indeed if it will be content with being my informer, and so lovingly leave off to judge me; I will be content, it shall be in my sight, I will also delight therein; but otherwise, I being now made upright without it, and that too with that righteousness, which this law speaks well of and approveth; I may not, will not, cannot, dare not make it my saviour and judge, nor suffer it to set up its government in my conscience; for by so doing I fall from grace, and Christ Jesus doth profit me nothing [The Works of John Bunyan (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1977), Volume II, page 388].
Quoting my 3 September 2007 email, Schwertley said:
Here’s what Durand writes: “Brian does not distinguish the moral law from the Mosaic law. The moral law has everything to do with sanctification; the Mosaic covenantal law has nothing to do with it because it was given only to Israel and has been abolished.” That’s essentially a Dispensational interpretation.... In other words, we are to follow the moral law — and this is Durand; I’m telling you what he says — which presumably is the law written on the heart given to Adam, but we are not to follow the Ten Commandments or the moral case laws because they were given to Moses. That’s what he’s teaching [“Judicial Law,” Part Four, 11:17].
In context, I was referring to the use of the Mosaic law as a covenant of works — i.e. in order to receive the covenantal blessings of Deuteronomy 28 — as do many of the Reconstructionist writers, particularly Gary North and R.J. Rushdoony. In fact, as I discussed in Chapter Twelve of my book, Rushdoony’s concept of sanctification could better be described as “progressive justification,” in which the Christian is returned to the covenantal status of Adam in the Garden, and of Israel in Canaan, and must fulfill that covenant by “subduing all things and all nations to Christ and His law-word” as a condition for “inheriting the kingdom.” According to Rushdoony, “Sanctification depends on our law-keeping in mind, word, and deed.... [C]an the people of His kingdom pursue their calling to be perfect in any way other than by His law-word?” I argued in this chapter that Reconstructionism constitutes a placing of the Christian back under the Covenent of Works, and it is therefore a subtle variation of the ancient Judaizing heresy. Everything in my book was written to lead up to a direct confrontation of this error. At the time I wrote the above words to Schwertley, I was under the impression that he shared this view of “sanctification” with Rushdoony, and that is why I worded the sentence the way that I did. I certainly never meant to deny that biblical sanctification involves a diligent study of the entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments.
In his 2 September 2007 email, Schwertley wrote, "Apparently, the goal of Durand’s book is to get readers to not look to the moral laws in the Older Testament as a guide for laws for civil magistrates, but rather to look to natural law.... If natural law and the moral law are the same law, then why does Mr. Durand have a problem going to the moral laws in the Older Testament?" This assertion is repeated several times throughout his series. To the contrary, I have never written that the Old Testament may not be used “as a guide for laws for civil magistrates,” or that modern civil laws may not be based on either the Ten Commandments or a particular Mosaic case law. My argument has always been against the theonomic claim that the civil magistrate is covenantally bound to enforce these laws. In my book, I gave this illustration: “An American law textbook might also cite a particular law of England as an example of how a legal principle may be applied to a particular situation without binding it as an obligation upon the reader. William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England was a favorite reference work for American lawyers in the Eighteenth Century” [page 53]. I elaborated further in my 3 September 2007 email to Schwertley:
One may look to the Old Testament laws as a guide without viewing oneself as being bound to the covenant of which they were a part....
...[T]he Decalogue was a codification of the moral law. By definition, a codification necessarily follows that which it codifies. For example, the Code of Justinian was a codification of the Roman civil law that had already existed for centuries. Similarly, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England was a codification and exposition of the pre-existing English Common Law. One may therefore study the Justinian Code and Blackstone’s Commentaries to learn about the Roman civil law and the English Common Law without insisting that the codifications themselves are perpetually binding on their respective subject matter. American lawyers in the colonial period frequently studied Blackstone in order to apply common law principles to American institutions, but they did not therefore believe that they were still bound by the English law.
Since Schwertley frequently quoted from this email several times, his repeated claim that I deny the usefulness of the Old Testament — both for the individual and the civil magistrate — is shown to be a deliberate falsehood.
Elsewhere, he said:
I don’t want people to think that I’m misrepresenting Durand. He’s offering a modified Dispensationalism. And I’ll quote what he says again: “The Gentile admiration for the Israelites for their just laws simply does not equal an obligation to enact those same laws in their own countries.” Okay, so they’re just, yet we’re not obligated to follow them. That makes no sense whatsoever. So I wrote him, and I said, “If the Gentiles nations are not obligated to enact just laws, are they allowed to enact unjust laws?” [“Judicial Law,” Part Four, 08:25]
My point was that the nations of the world have never been obligated to enact the civil laws of Israel in their covenantal context in order to receive the covenantal blessings attached thereto. This is obvious in the very same paragraph which Schwertley only partially quoted: "...Deuteronomy 4:6-8, when carefully read, will not be found to support the lofty claims made for it by the Reconstructionists. The 'statutes and righteous judgments' were said to be the 'wisdom" and 'understanding' of the Hebrew people 'in the sight of the peoples,' but nothing is ever said about the obligation of the heathen to adopt the Mosaic code within their own respective nations" [Judicial Warfare, page 41].
Schwertley shifted from the subject of the specific case laws of the Old Testament, which I was discussing in the above quote from Chapter Three, to the justness or general equity to be found within them, which I discussed in Chapter Four, in order to claim that I believe civil magistrates are not bound to enact just laws. His audience was therefore given a completely false picture of what I actually meant. Furthermore, I made the following explicit statement in my book: “[A]ll magistrates are duty-bound by God to execute just laws which reflect His moral law for the good of the society over which they rule” [page 71].
Finally, Schwertley said:
The only alternatives to applying the principles of the moral case law to the nations today are (1) You can argue that all law is relative and conditioned by culture. That’s the view of modernism. (2) You can assert some sort of natural law theory, in which sinful man must ignore the clear inspired precepts of God and instead reason from nature. That’s what the natural law antinomians want to do. Now if they say, “Look, natural law, or the law written on the heart, the work of the law written on the heart that Paul speaks about in Romans 2:15, that teaches the same thing that God’s moral law does and we should look to our conscience, but we should also look to the Word of God and see what it says, because it’s more perspicuous” — if they said that, that’s fine because the Bible does teach such a thing as natural law, as long as you define it biblically. But when they say, “No, no, no, you can’t look at the law. These laws are only for Israel” — in fact, Greg Loren Durand says that the second giving of the law after the Ten Commandments were broken the first time, he actually teaches that it was a punishment. God punished Israel by giving them these laws, which is absolute nonsense. There’s nobody who agrees with that — but if you say, “No, we’re not going to follow the written revelation, we’re only going to try and follow the natural law,” that’s wrong [“Judicial Law,” Part Six, 21:54].
I never wrote that the Mosaic law was given to Israel as a punishment, but instead said very clearly that it was a blessing — i.e. that it was intended to fence them in and prevent them from being absorbed into the paganism of the surrounding nations. Furthermore, Schwertley acknowledged that it would be acceptable for one to say “we should look to our conscience [the voice of the natural law], but we should also look to the Word of God and see what it says,” which is exactly the intent of the following statement in my book:
We must keep in mind that it was this same “ministration of death, written and engraven in stones” which the Apostle Paul declared to be “done away” (2 Corinthians 3:7). If the covenant to which the sanctions are attached is no longer in operation, how can a nation expect to be blessed by obedience to it? It might be said in response that the sanctions of [Deuteronomy] chapter 28 affect a nation as it observes the moral principles behind the Decalogue. It certainly cannot be denied that a nation should enact, and its citizens should obey, laws which reflect the morality contained in these commandments and that a nation’s prosperity and even its very existence depends upon the moral condition of its people. However, this conformity to the moral law of God alone cannot bring the blessings of Deuteronomy 28.... [page 86]
In stating that the Mosaic law code was given only to Israel, and that while its specific statutes are not covenantally binding on any other nation, the moral precepts contained therein certainly are, I am not saying anything different than what John Calvin wrote on this subject:
And as that exercise in ceremonies properly pertained to the doctrine of piety, inasmuch as it kept the Jewish Church in the worship and religion of God, yet was still distinguishable from piety itself, so the judicial form, though it looked only to the best method of preserving that charity which is enjoined by the eternal law of God, was still something distinct from the precept of love itself. Therefore, as ceremonies might be abrogated without at all interfering with piety, so also, when these judicial arrangements are removed, the duties and precepts of charity can still remain perpetual....
The allegation, that insult is offered to the law of God enacted by Moses, where it is abrogated and other new laws are preferred to it, is most absurd. Others are not preferred when they are more approved, not absolutely, but from regard to time and place, and the condition of the people, or when those things are abrogated which were never enacted for us. The Lord did not deliver it by the hand of Moses to be promulgated in all countries, and to be everywhere enforced; but having taken the Jewish nation under his special care, patronage, and guardianship, he was pleased to be specially its legislator, and as became a wise legislator, he had special regard to it in enacting laws [Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book IV, Chapter XX: 15, 16].
Once again, the whole thesis of my book was meant to refute the Reconstructionist doctrine that the Mosaic law is to be used as a “tool of dominion” and that the nations of the world will be either blessed or cursed depending on their obedience or disobedience to its covenantal terms. Schwertley never mentioned this context when he discussed my statements regarding the abolition of the Mosaic law and he never quoted or interacted with any of my book’s contents beyond the third chapter.
Conclusion
The caricature of my position which Schwertley has put forth in his lecture series is so completely distorted that I would never have believed it to have been attributed to me if I hadn’t heard it straight from his mouth. There has not been a single statement of mine that he has not taken out of context, misrepresented or even misquoted. His entire case against me is one gigantic and outrageous straw man.
I believe that Brian Schwertley is guilty of the sin of “speaking untruth, lying, slandering... misconstructing intentions, [and] words... stopping [his] ears against just defence... [and] scornful contempt...” contrary to the Ninth Commandment and Question 145 of the Westminster Larger Catechism. I am hereby requesting that he restore my good name to me by reading this document and repenting in the hearing of his congregation, make restitution to me by posting a recording of said repentance on Sermon Audio for a period no less than four times the length that his series has been online, and delete his entire series entitled “The Reformed View of the Judicial Law” from Sermon Audio. May our Lord grant Brian Schwertley the grace to do what is right in this matter.
UPDATE: On 25 September 2008, Schwertley appeared on Covenant Radio to debate full preterist Don K. Preston on the nature of the resurrection. Within the first few minutes of his opening statement, Schwertley said, "Gentiles are not under the Mosaic law. They are under natural law or they're under the moral law which applied to the human race prior to the giving of the law" (6:20). As has been shown above, this is the thesis of my entire book and the very point on which Schwertley denounced me as a "natural law antinomian." While I am happy to hear him express my own view so succinctly, he has yet to retract his previous attacks on me or to explain how such a statement can be made to reconcile with his public propagation of Theonomy.
UPDATE: As of 7 February 2010, Schwertley has renewed his attacks against me on Sermon Audio and in print. The majority of what he is currently presenting is merely a repetition of what he has said in the past, so the above response still applies. However, one important factor has changed since I corresponded with Mr. Schwertley two years ago: he is no longer a member of a legitimate presbytery or denomination. The presbyters of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in the United States to whom I wrote in December of 2007 have all since severed their ties with Schwertley. Consequently, without a presbytery, not to mention a synod or general assembly, the WPCUS exists in name only. A "one man denomination" is a contradiction in terms and is, in fact, the very definition of schism. Furthermore, according to eyewitnesses, Schwertley's own congregation has dwindled to "just a couple of cars in the lot – the lot at Brian’s house, that is." And yet, Schwertley continues to perpetuate the fraud on the internet that he is a Presbyterian minister in an actual Reformed denomination.
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