JUDICIAL WARFARE
Christian Reconstruction and Its Blueprints For Dominion
by Greg Loren Durand

Chapter Three:
An Overview of the Theonomic System

       Although it has roots in some Puritan formulations of Covenant theology, Theonomy is a distortion thereof and may perhaps be classified as "hyper-Puritanism." As already discussed, the traditional Reformed position sees a continuous unfolding of redemptive history in various administrations of the Covenant of Grace, beginning with the promise of the Redeemer in Genesis 3:15, continuing with the establishment of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 15 and 17, and finding its clearest pre-Christian expression in God's promise of the "New Covenant" in Ezekiel 37:36 and Jeremiah 31:31-34. The Mosaic covenant, or "Old Covenant," is seen as a temporary addition to the Covenant of Grace, existing from its establishment at Mount Sinai 430 years after Abraham until its judicial termination on Calvary and its actual termination with the expiration of the nation of Israel in A.D. 70. As a republication, or type, of the original Edenic Covenant of Works, it was "added because of transgression" (Galatians 3:19) — the "stiff-necked" rebellion of the Israelites (Exodus 32:9-10; Acts 7:51) — and served to "shut [them] up unto the faith" (Galatians 3:23) which was foreshadowed in the various sacrifices and ceremonies and would later be fully revealed in Christ Himself. It was the Mosaic covenant itself that separated the Jews from the Gentile nations of the world and made them a distinct theocratic people (Numbers 23:9), and it is therefore this covenant which has now passed away.
       As we shall see, this is clearly the doctrine of the New Testament, particularly the Pauline epistles. However, Theonomists deny the provisional character of the Mosaic economy and instead view it as one of the two administrations of the Covenant of Grace, which they extend back into the prelapsarian state. The terms "Older Covenant" and "Newer Covenant" were coined by Bahnsen in Theonomy in Christian Ethics in order to distinguish between the previous administration of Moses and the new administration of Christ without implying substantial covenantal discontinuity. For Bahnsen and Rushdoony in particular, there never was an original Covenant of Works which held forth eternal life as the reward for its fulfillment, and for this reason, neither the Mosaic law nor the Israelites' tenure in the land of promise should be viewed as typical restatements of the legal Edenic arrangement, but as normative expressions of the believer's covenantal relationship with God.⁽¹⁾ Such a denial of the Covenant of Works, either in its original form or in its republished form, undermines the doctrine that Christ came to fulfill the demands of the law in the elect's stead, thus vicariously earning justification and securing the original promise of eternal life in their behalf, and substitutes in its place the teaching that Christ confirmed and established the covenantal authority of the Mosaic law "in exhaustive detail" for all time.
       Adherents to Theonomy often will claim that they hold to the classic three-fold division of the Mosaic law into ceremonial, judicial, and moral categories, but they actually collapse the judicial into the moral and therefore think in terms of only a two-fold division. In fact, according to Greg Bahnsen, it is "latent antinomianism" to "draw a line between 'moral' and 'civil' laws."⁽²⁾ This presupposition may be seen in their frequent reference to the "moral case laws" found in the Old Testament, which they insist were binding on the nations outside of Israel and remain perpetually binding. However, this division is much different than in conventional Reformed thought, amounting to a sharp distinction between "the ceremonial law" and "the moral-judicial law" so that the former may be abolished while the latter remains intact. Consequently, Theonomists have two different things in mind when they speak of "the law," depending on the context. When Scripture refers to the law as having been "established," as in Romans 3:31, or "fulfilled," as in Matthew 5:17, they interpret this to mean "the moral-judicial law." However, whenever Scripture speaks of the law as having been "done away" (2 Corinthians 3:7-11) or "abolished" (Ephesians 2:15), Theonomists invariably interpret this to refer to "the ceremonial law."⁽³⁾ They identify only "the ceremonial law" as the covenantal barrier between Jew and Gentile which was "added" at Mount Sinai and later "nailed to the cross" (Colossians 2:14), thus ending forever the covenantal separation of Jew and Gentile (Ephesians 2:14-15).⁽⁴⁾ Consequently, they cannot see Paul's cogent argument in his epistle to the Galatians that any attempt to carry the Mosaic economy over into the New Covenant era is an implicit denial of the very Gospel itself, and instead read this epistle merely as a diatribe against the use of "the ceremonial law," and circumcision in particular, as a means of justification.⁽⁵⁾
       These underlying errors lead to others still more serious. Chief among these is their concept of "taking dominion" using "God's law-word" (the "moral-judicial law") — a novel version of Postmillennialism which arises from R.J. Rushdoony's theory of "restitution." Briefly stated, Theonomists view themselves as having been restored to the covenantal relationship which Israel forfeited by disobedience, thus inheriting the responsibility to make restitution to God for Adam’s rebellion by subduing the world, or reconstructing the nations of the earth in God’s image.⁽⁶⁾ They believe that this covenantal restoration, or "justification," is through faith alone, but that the dominion mandate, or "sanctification," is fulfilled individually through the application of the "moral-judicial law" to "every area of life" (Theonomy), and nationally through the application of that same law to society by the civil magistrate (Reconstruction). When a five-fold restitution has been paid to God by the Christian Church, according to the principle of Exodus 22:1, her mission will be complete and Christ will return to consummate history. To reject this "restitution gospel" in favor of the mainstream eschatologies such as either historic Postmillennialism or Amillennialism, or even Dispensationalism, is to be "antinomian" and thus an enemy of the true covenant people of God. This will be discussed in greater detail in a later chapter.

Endnotes

1. Greg L. Bahnsen, No Other Standard: Theonomy and Its Critics (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1991), page 83.

2. Greg L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (Phillipsburg, New Jersey: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1984), page 310.

3. This theory of "two laws" is strikingly similar to that of the Seventh Day Adventist sect (D.M. Canright, Seventh Day Adventism Renounced [New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1905], pages 308ff).

4. According to Bahnsen, “The only ‘law’ that distinguished Jews from Gentiles, yet without involving inherent moral principle, was what we call today the ceremonial law” (“The Theonomic Approach to Law and Gospel,” in Stanley N. Gundry, editor, Five Views on Law and Gospel [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1996], page 108). Elsewhere, he identified the “pedagogue” of Galatians 3:19-25 as the ceremonial law (No Other Standard, page 88), contrary to the overwhelming majority of Reformed and Puritan exegetes for the last five hundred years who have interpreted what was “added” as the legal aspect, or absolute moral demands, of the Mosaic covenant itself (Leviticus 18:5; Deuteronomy 27:26).
       This same basic assumption also appeared in the writings of E.P. Sanders and other proponents of the so-called "New Perspective on Paul," and was later adopted by the Federal Vision movement, the ranks of which are filled mainly by Theonomists and former Reconstructionists such as Steve Wilkins, James Jordan, and Steve Schlissel. The contention of the New Perspective/Federal Vision writers is that the Protestant Reformation was mistaken in identifying the Galatian error as legalism, but that Paul's anger was instead directed against the Judaizers for attempting to maintain the "covenantal boundary markers" beyond Calvary. Thus, the "gospel" to a Federal Vision advocate is not the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to the believer through faith, but the inclusion of the Gentiles within the covenant community of God. There have been only a handful of Reconstructionists who have remained apart from the Federal Vision movement — the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States being the most vocal in opposition to its teachings. It is the contention of this writer, however, that Federal Vision is closely related to Theonomy and that the two movements share a common origin in the teachings of R.J. Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen.

5. It is true that Paul’s response to the Judaizers focused specifically on circumcision, but it should be remembered that circumcision, being the entry point into the national covenant, was often used as a metaphor for the covenant itself (John 7:22; Acts 7:8; Galatians 5:11; Titus 1:10). In much the same way, faith, being the entry point into the New Covenant, was also frequently used as a metaphor for the Gospel itself (1 Corinthians 16:13; Galatians 1:23; Ephesians 4:13; Jude 3). Thus, Paul’s argument was as follows: for a Gentile to submit himself to circumcision was to obligate himself to the whole law, and thereby acknowledge that redemptive history had not yet found its fulfillment in the promised Messiah, that sin had not yet been atoned for, and that “everlasting righteousness” (Daniel 9:24) had not yet been established. Such an acknowledgment was simply apostasy from Christianity.

6. Not all Theonomists would agree with Rushdoony in using the restitution paradigm to describe this dominion mandate.