[As of 5/23/22 I have chosen from here on out not to refer to myself as a "general equity theonomist". I originally took the term to myself in an effort to give clarity to others regarding what my beliefs are, without actually liking the term myself. I agreed with many theonomist conclusions but could in no other way claim the title for myself and didn't want to. I now prefer the "Confessional Baptist" position, but I did not use the term since most associate this with Escondido and Tom Hicks' ahistorical view of general equity. I have decided that I should not give ground to historical revisionists in this way. My position IS the Confessional Baptist position. All other are fake. I will die on this hill. And as of at least 6-15-2022, I have adopted the view that the civil magistrate is in fact bound to punish 1st-table offenses. I believe there is some controversy over how this is to exactly work out among the Reformed, but I largely follow Turretin, Junius and Piscator with exception to the Sabbath, which I believe to have been purely ceremonial. Also apostasy in and of itself must not be punished and heresy must be carefully defined so that all Christian denominations are allowed (see here https://twitter.com/brandoncorley99/status/1531810854320017408?s=21&t=J9yrdwe_4s4-flp4zSZILw Blackwood's treaty as a whole, which Ive read through a few times is somehwhat confusing as to what exactly he is advocating for and I question whether it is consistent with itself; and Im not the only one who thinks this, see pg. 966 here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/3020858.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Af5f05711be66429487803e3bd6c673c3&ab_segments=&origin= but I think his main concern, being a Baptist, was to prevent orthodox Christians who disagree on certain matters from being charged with heresy and punished, which certainly I would absolutely and strongly agree with. I think a more well thought out and consistent system is already found in Reformers like Turretin and Junius, which it would seem Baptists like John Tombes agreed with, although himself being more of an antipaedobaptist) I think that punishment-wise, John Cotton's laws are near perfect (https://reformed.org/ethics/an-abstract-of-the-laws-of-new-england-as-they-are-now-established-by-john-cotton/), just with exception to punishing for the Sababth and I don't think forcing of a maid must absolutely not be punished with death, but perhaps it is safer that it is not.]
In this post, I attempt to explain my one deviation from the 1689 Confession of Faith and comment on the Law.
Note that for sake of conveincence, I will be referring to the Sababth command as the “4th commandment” following the traditional Reformed numbering system. I do not personally agree with the Reformed ordering, but instead agree with the Progressive Covenantalist view outlined here (a Roman Catholic-Lutheran view): https://jasonderouchie.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/2013-10-Counting-the-Ten-DeRouchie.pdf
As far as general-equity theonomy goes, I do not believe my position to be inconsistent with the Confession (indeed, I think the writers of the Confession would agree with me in my views of government/penalties), I just believe there is a lacking emphasis on political theory in those who continuously emphasize proper theonomy's inconsistency with the 1689. As far as Sabbatarianism and the Decalogue goes, I do indeed depart from the 1689 as I believe Scripture does as well. I won't go in depth about the Sabbath here, I have written on how I believe the Bible actually applies the typology of the Sabbath in my post on the Covenant of Works. I believe the best books on this are D.A. Carson's "From Sabbath to Lord's Day" and Tom Schreiner's chapter in "Progressive Covenantalism" responding to G.K. Beale. Against the (unfair) charge of antinomianism against this view, see the article by Stephen Wellum I'll link at the end of this post, as well as here.
Both 1689 Federalists and general equity theonomists would agree that any hermeneutic that "does not look for a moral law that transcends Old Testament judicial law but instead sees Old Testament judicial law as itself a subset of moral law that remains binding is not following the example of the New Testament. The greatest mistake of such a hermeneutic is that it does not begin with the universal transcendent norms of natural and moral law" (https://cbtseminary.org/is-general-equity-theonomy-a-confessional-and-biblical-doctrine/).
While Hicks probably thinks what he is writing is contrary to the arguments of many of those calling themselves general equity theonomists, the reality is that there isn't too much to disagree with in Hicks' article from our perspective. In fact, I actually think it's a good article and would agree with everything he wrote (except the equation of the moral law with the Decalogue, of course, as will be made clear), yet I would still refer to myself as a "general-equity theonomist". The 1689-general-equity-theonomic guys would agree that the Mosaic laws do not bind per the Mosaic laws themselves (as the entirety of the Mosaic Covenant has been done away with), but precisely because they are rooted in universal norms of moral law do they bind, and that's exactly why they affirm general equity theonomy.
I want to be clear here: I am by no means an actual Theonomist. I do not believe it is at all consistent with a proper understanding of the Bible's covenants. I would affirm Two-Kingdoms Theology (though much of what passes as "Two Kingdoms Theology" today is far from what has been meant historically. I may or may not have a certain seminary in California in mind here). The separation of church and state is crucial to baptist theology. Religious freedom is absolutely crucial and this means the freedom of heathens to believe their heathenism just as well as it means the freedom of Christians to preach the Gospel. It is not the job of the church to have authority over society at large or to punish civil offenders. The church and state must stay in their own spheres (not that theonomists would disagree with anything I've said). However, this does not mean the government is under no authority to God to create laws that prohibit evil-doing. The heathen may believe human life has no value, but the government is obligated to God to punish those who take lives. He may worship Molech, but human sacrifices to him must be outlawed. I would affirm that I am a "general-equity theonomist" in the sense that I believe that many of the applications that theonomists make from the principles found in judicial law from the Old Testament are the only forms of just punishment that governments today and for all time, must employ because they are demanded by the natural law. Whether "general-equity theonomy" is the best name for my position we can debate, but I'm more concerned with the position than the name.
I would agree with Hicks that general equity must be found in the moral law, not by virtue of the Mosaic laws themselves. However, I would not equate the moral law with the Decalogue. This is the core issue that prevents 1689 Federalists from supporting both general equity theonomy and non-Sabbatarianism. If we recognize the moral law is not equivalent to the Decalogue, but the Decalogue is merely part of the larger Old Covenant, which has passed away as a unit, then we realize that the only question that remains is, which laws contain general equity? This is really a debate over what exactly is part of the moral law. In other words, both classical one-covenant Westminster theonomy which affirms the “abiding validity of the law in exhaustive detail”, and 1689 Federalism, in which general equity is found in the 10 Commandments are too simplistic. Rather, the entirety of the Biblical Canon is to help us define what is and what isn't part of the moral law. So in this way, one can say that the 4th commandment has no general equity, because it is not part of the moral law, whereas the death penalty for adultery does have general equity because it is part of the moral law. I would argue that the Sabbath command is not written on all men's hearts as the 1689 says it is, yet I would argue that all men know adulterers and murderers deserve death at the hands of a civil government, if such a government exists, though they suppress this truth and their consciences might be so tainted by sin and society that they supress it. Put another way, there is something inherently moral about civil penalties; there is not something inherently moral about a certain day of the week that men are to rest on.
I do not intend here to marshall all my arguments against Sabbatarianism. The best critiques can be found in "From Sabbath to Lord's Day" and Tom Schreiner's chapter in "Progressive Covenantalism". While I think Schreiner especially shows why the "creation ordinance" argument is not at all convincing, I wish to add one more point: such an argument ignores eschatology. An appeal to the original created state is meaningless without considering redemptive history and how things change with the inbreaking of the end of the world (for example, imagine someone appealing to Adam and Eve in order to prove the eternality of marriage even into the eternal state and arguing marriage is part of the moral law!). This is especially true when it comes to the Sabbath, which I have argued before in another post is inherently grounded in eschatology. The problem with Sabbatarianism is that it divorces the 4th commandment from its inherently covenental context. The relevance of the Sabbath comes into existence when the Covenant of Works does, not as an eternal expression of God's character. Thus, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath command is based off God's rest on Day 7, yes, but it also pictured man's rest which he was to achieve through the completion of the Covenant of Works. The Sabbath command is not part of the moral law, but is grounded in the context of covenant and always has been. In the same way that the Sabbath became a law unto Israel by virtue of their covenant with Yahweh, the prototypical "Sabbath-command" to Adam (his goal to achieve rest by completing the Covenant of Works), became a law unto him by virtue of his covenant with Yahweh. Now that Christ has completed His own covenant of works, the New Covenant has been formally established and all who enter it, enter into the rest that Christ has accomplished for us. The goal of rest has never existed in an inherently moral context (as part of the moral law which all "creatures do owe obedience to God as their creator"), but rather is intrinsically tied to the context of covenant (of which man "could never have attained the reward of life [i.e. rest] but by some voluntary condescension on God's part). The writers of the 1689 LBCF failed to recognize this because of their absolute equation of the Decalogue with the moral law, which was the common view of their time. The problem with Sabbatarianism is ironically the same problem with infant baptism: an arbitrary hermeneutical priority of the Old Testament without giving consideration to the redemptive-historical covenantal contours developed in the New Covenant. It misconstrues the New Covenant typological fulfillment of the Sabbath day, which is not Sunday as a day of worship, but a perpetual state of covenantal rest in Christ, as the New Testament itself makes clear (see my "A Plea To Dispensationalists Regarding The Covenant of Works" for the same idea). Sabbatarians, like paedobaptists, are too earthly minded. They hold on to the earthly type without seeing that it was merely a shadow of the spiritual substance. Thus, the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath because the Sabbath (i.e. perpetual spiritual rest) was graciously created for Adam as his reward should he have completed the covenant of works. But Sabbatarianism takes the earthly type (physical rest once a week) and reverses the order because it makes it part of the moral law. Thus, man comes into the world already bound to the eternal physical Sabbath command (regardless of how beneficial physical rest is for man).
Most decisive, remains in my opinion, the argument that the Sabbath day was the sign of the Mosaic Covenant. There is no reason to think that a covenant sign also partially had moral general equity to it. That a covenant sign is only valid as long as that covenant remains in force, no one may doubt. The Noahic Covenant continues forever under the sign of the rainbow. The Abrahamic Covenant passed away and with it the sign of circumcision. The sign of the New Covenant remains the Lord’s supper which we drink in anticipation of drinking it again with Him on the Earth. Likewise, we argue the Mosaic Covenant designates the Sabbath day as the sign according to Exodus 31:12-18, and thus the command was written in the Decalogue, Israel’s Covenant Constitution, not because there was moral general equity behind it, but because of its central covenant place as the sign of the covenant, and this covenant has passed away, and with it, the sign.
And finally, I believe Colossians 2:16-17 is clear (and the logic of Romans 14:5 for that matter. Schreiner in his 40 questions book is correct, Paul implicitly sides with the non-sabbatarian as the stronger brother). I am not at all convinced by any of the attempts I have ever read by any sabbatarians to interpret this verse. Sadly, I believe even the guys I have massive respect for like Sam Renihan and Richard Barcellos completely fumble here and eisegete this passage. They simply do not follow the most natural reading of the text. In a controversy where the options are the declaring of the Decalogue to be equivalent to the moral law, so that the Sabbath takes on both moral and ceremonial elements, or the position that the Decalogue is not equivalent to the moral law so that not all commands necessarily forever bind all, we must interpret the unclear in light of the clear, and this verse is absolutely clear in relegating the Sabbath command to to a shadow and type, the substance of which (the eternal rest in Christ of the New Covenant) has come.
My position here accords with most of the early church fathers (Epistle to Diognetus, Pseudo-Barnabas, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus). Often, many of them also used the argument that the patriarchs prior to Moses did not celebrate the Sabbath in order to argue against the Jews.
In fact, one need not even deny that the Decalogue is equivalent to the moral law in order to deny Sabbatarianism. The argument for Sabbatarianism is that the 4th commandment consists of positive elements (the command to rest on Saturday) and eternal moral elements (which the confession defines as the "law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God's appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by his Word, in a positive moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages"). All the non-Sabbatarian has to do is to argue that the Sabbatarian has misidentified the moral aspect of the 4th commandment. He can argue that the general equity of the 4th commandment is not that one need to physically rest and worship God on a specific day designated by God each week, but rather to observe the principle of "rest" and worshipping God however God defines it depending on the Covenant. In fact, the non-Sabbatarian can affirm all of the formerly quoted part of the Confession, but argue that God's "appointed time" under the New Covenant is everyday, not just Sunday. In other words, the positive principle that applied under the Old Covenant, by God's designation, was that one must physically rest on Saturday; however, under the New Covenant, God now calls on all men to spiritually rest perpetually in Jesus Christ and worship Yahweh every day. All the non-Sabbatarian actually has to do is to argue that the Sabbatarian misapplies the 4th commandment. When one sees this they will realize that much more work needs to be done by Sabbatarianism to logically and exegetically prove their position (i.e. that the Lord’s Day is the new Sabbath). Why not Cocceius' view the of general equity?: https://www.reformation21.org/blog/book-review-johannes-cocceius-on-the-doctrine-of-the-covenant
For example, I would challenge any Sabbatarian to respond to G.K. Beale's view (summarized by Schreiner: "Beale’s application of the Sabbath command is remarkable, for the command, according to him, requires worship but permits work. What the fourth commandment actually instructs people to do (refrain from work) is no longer required according to Beale. How can the Sabbath apply today when the specifics of the commandment are stripped away? Beale says some of the elements of the Sabbath that pertain to Israel do not apply to believers, and thus the application for us is that we should worship on Sunday"). How can they prove that Beale has misconstrued the general equity of the Sabbath command?
Another possible view, reminiscent of early medieval thought, that would keep the Decalogue as the moral law is that the general equity of the 4th command is to trust/have faith in God and thus to "rest in Him" that way and to keep your conduct holy. Thus the patriarchs were bound to this even as we are and did not observe the weekly Sabbath because the weekly Sababth was an outward typological expression pointing to this deeper reality. To have trust in God entails believing in His Gospel, and thus since Genesis 3:15 has included resting from our works in Christ Jesus).
My point here is that in order to figure out what the general equity (if any) of the sabbath command is, we need to look at how later revelation views the sabbath command, and when we do so, we find that Hebrews views the sabbath as an OT ceremonial earthly type of the NT heavenly rest in Christ. The substance has come, so the shadow passes.
So we see that it is even possible to affirm the Decalogue is a 1-to-1 equivalent to the moral law and yet remain a non-sabbatarian (see my second example). However, I still do not find the argument compelling that the Decalogue=Moral Law and that the patriarchs thus observed the Sabbath. I could well be wrong about the Decalogue not being the Moral Law in the sense that the 4th commandment might still have general equity (though I don't think I am) however, I am absolutely confident in my anti-Sabbatarianism. I have read and continue to read every defense of Sabbatarianism I can find. I see this as one of the weakest positions that has ever been held among Christians right next to the pre-tribulation rapture. It boggles my mind that people can actually believe this, even people I have insane respect for, and thus, just like I do with pre-tribulationism, I try to read everything I can by said people, but I can honestly say I have not heard even an average argument made for sabbatarianism anymore than I have for a pre-trib rapture.
I, therefore, object to and depart from the following parts of the 1689 Confession of Faith:
(Part of) 19.2: The same law that was first written in the heart of man continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness after the fall, and was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, i̶n̶ ̶t̶e̶n̶ ̶c̶o̶m̶m̶a̶n̶d̶m̶e̶n̶t̶s̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶t̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶s̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶f̶i̶r̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶a̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶d̶u̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶w̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ ̶G̶o̶d̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ ̶s̶i̶x̶,̶ ̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶d̶u̶t̶y̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶. [It is the moral law that was republished at Sinai, so it is contained in the 10 Commandments, yes, but the moral law is not itself equivalent to the 10 Commandments, as the writers of the 1689 meant it. One of the commandments (4th) is not moral. I can technically affirm this entire statement if "in" is understood to mean that the moral law is contained in the Decalogue but not a 1-to-1 equivalent, but I know that isn't what the writers meant, so Ill include this as a departation].
22.7: As it is the law of nature, that in general a proportion of time, by God's appointment, be set apart for the worship of God, so by his Word, in a positive moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men, in all ages, he hath particularly appointed one day in seven for a sabbath to be kept holy unto him, which from the beginning of the world to the resurrection of Christ was the last day of the week, and from the resurrection of Christ was changed into the first day of the week, which is called the Lord's day: and is to be continued to the end of the world as the Christian Sabbath, the observation of the last day of the week being abolished.
22.8: The sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men, after a due preparing of their hearts, and ordering their common affairs aforehand, do not only observe an holy rest all day, from their own works, words and thoughts, about their worldly employment and recreations, but are also taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy.
(That is 98.34% subscription. I was interested, so I did the math).
I also question whether this position is even internally coherent. As you can see, the 1689 brings out the general equity of the command as being that there must be a portion of time (namely, a certain day) set aside for the worship of God, yet it then uses this general equity to argue for using this as a day of rest. As Schreiner rightly says, "Though certain cultic duties were performed, the OT does not clearly instruct Israelites to gather together and worship the Lord on the Sabbath. Obviously, such assemblies could take place on the Sabbath; they are not forbidden, but there are no positive commands or directives about worshipping on the Sabbath". The Sabbath was not a day of worship under the O.C., but the 1689 uses it as if it were. I wonder if given the fact that in glory our bodies will not need to rest (as they often base the command on our physical need for rest, something Scripture never does) sabbatarians would get around this by doing something sort of like Beale and argue that rest is accidental to the command? Yet by saying so, the general equity of the sabbath is reduced only to a special day of worship that we will have throughout all of eternity, which was expressly not what it was under the O.C.
Moving on, while the guys at CBTS have done a wonderful job in showing that full-blown theonomy proper is not consistent with the New Covenant, there has been a lack of articulation on their part as far as what good biblical political theory actually is. The theonomists have undeniably been running circles around everybody else as far as that goes. One need not be a theonomist to accept many of their conclusions, only a Christian. In fact, the earliest thing I have ever written as a Christian, I wrote back when I was 13 years old back in 2014 called "Biblical Principles of Justice and the Government", a giant tome in which I tried to articulate a Biblical system of government, laws, and penalties. I think many would assume, given my familiarity with Van Til, that I picked up theonomy from reading Bahnsen and other theonomists, however, this is far from true. I didn't start reading Bahnsen/Frame/Van Til until 2019. I have last edited my old tome on September 12, 2020, noting that it was that day I found out what theonomy was and that the theonomists had come to many of the same conclusions that I had come to back when I was 13, not even knowing who Bahnsen was and having never heard of "theonomy" or "theonomists" in my life, right down to even the specific conclusion that prisons should be illegal, having nothing but the Bible, a biblical worldview, and reasoning at my disposal.
The argument that general-equity theonomists are trying to make is really quite simple:
Civil penalty laws can be morally unjust
The Mosaic civil penalties were morally just
That which departs from that which is just is unjust
Therefore, the Mosaic civil penalties are the only morally just penalties
The basic argument that general-equity theonomists are trying to make here is that the Mosaic civil penalties (in certain cases) are actually part of the natural, moral law. In other words, just as it is part of the natural law that the just punishment by the government** on a murderer is of necessity the death penalty, so it is also with cases such as adultery and sodomy. The same reasoning would then apply to laws concerning restitution, giving us a moral standard by which we may know the portion that a thief must repay his debt. The theonomist believes that there is such a thing as just and unjust civil penalties that are morally universal and he seeks to call his government to conform to these just penalties which he gains knowledge of through the Mosaic penalties, which cannot be anything but universal moral justice when they apply to universal moral transgressions (murder, theft, adultery/other sexual sins, assault, manslaughter) as opposed to positive laws that were fitting for the Israelite covenant theocracy (penalties pertaining to blasphemy, ritual purity, Sabbath).
(This post is pretty old and I'd rewrite the above differently now, but a better form of the basic argument is found here: https://twitter.com/brandoncorley99/status/1519527570609700865?s=21&t=M8xyG0QVVfEfJgQdZ-eihQ)
Let us use an example to illustrate. Schreiner in his book on 40 Questions about the Law, argues, rightly, that we are not under the entirety of the Mosaic Covenant. Therefore, none of the prescribed penalties necessary apply to any given crime. However, he then argues based on 1 Corinthians 5:13, that the punishment for sexual immorality is excommunication, not the death penalty. This, however, fails to rightly apply the general moral equity of the laws against sexual morality to the government, as excommunication is only the prescribed penalty for the Church. In other words, it is fallacious to similarly argue that the correct penalty under the New Covenant for murder is simply excommunication since this is what the Church is to do in response to such an action. The question here does not regard the Church, the question regards the civil government. A civil government must punish evil doers in order to remain just. This is not the job of the Church. It is an absolute mistake to argue that the government should not execute murderers because the Church is only to excommunicate them just as much as it is a mistake to argue that the government should not execute the sexually immoral because the Church is only to excommunicate them. Such an argument is a simple category error. General equity does not mean the same thing when applied to the church as it does when applied to the civil government. A government must bring justice to evildoers; to punish all those who commit crimes against the natural law, the civil order, and the common good of society; thus this necessitates the death penalty for murderers as well as for the sexually immoral (be they sodomites, pedophiles, adulterers, committers of beastiality, rapists, etc). I need not even refer to myself as a "general-equity theonomist" to support the outlawing and punishment of such things (as I may start doing to avoid the whole "guilt by association" thing with actual theonomists). It might simply be safer to refer to oneself as a person-who-thinks-murderers-,the sexually immoral,-kidnappers-drug/magic users,etc.-should be executed-and-jails should be outlawed-and-so-on and simply avoid all connections to "theonomy", as the arguments I've seen over this from non-theonomists these days are horrible as they seem completely unable to make distinctions. One need not even be a Christian to affirm such things—all (except the outlawing of prisons which I agreed with later on upon thinking about) were perfectly evident as necessary punishments to me even as a child—We're simply making the argument from the natural law and logical biblical reasoning anyways, so using the "GE-Theonomy" label may only hurt. Peter Martyr Vermigli and Thomas Cartwright hold the exact same position I do here (except the whole killing blasphemers/idolators thing, of course).
If point 3 is denied and in its place it is said "that which departs from that which is just is not necessarily unjust", meaning the Mosaic penalties (for moral infractions) are only one form of just penalties we can use today, but don't necessarily have to; I would then ask this objector by what standard we, as sinful human beings who cannot agree on anything, should use to know what other penalties would be just and why the objector wouldn't just prefer to use the Mosaic penalties to begin with. In other words, if we are allowed be autonomous in our civil law, we might as well be theonomous…even if the Mosaic civil penalties are not required, why should they not be preferred? (cf. John Gill)
Put very simply, my position is this: we should embrace the punishments I have advocated for, not because the Mosaic Law says to, but because the entirety of Scripture testifies to the moral wrongness and heinousness of such things (including the Mosaic Law, which reflects a specific application of moral law) and we apply these unchanging moral principles that we derive from the entirety of Scripture to a non-theocratic society (so blasphemy, idolatry laws, etc. cannot be applied), but in each case we assign a specific penalty based upon how the Scriptures speak of each sin (so, for example, theft, the Scriptures often imply, is to be repaid by restitution, whereas much more serious sins like murder [which is death by virtue of the Noahic Covenant which all men are under anyways] or sexual sin are to be punished by death), and the exact Mosaic penalties can still provide light on how best to assign penalties to these things, though they are not necessarily exactly to be followed in all instances, given that the Mosaic Law was just one instance of a cultural expression of the moral law (though perfectly carried out for that time). While the general principles behind laws like the roof law that Tom Hicks mentioned in the article at the beginning will have different applications today, other laws focus on things that are universally applicable across all time (like theft punished by restitution...murder/sexual deviancy/man-stealing, etc. with death). Really, this isn't that complicated and is quite common sense.
I think it can hardly be maintained—actually, absurd to believe—that a theonomic society would not be far more just than the one we currently live in, and that in practice, the societies of the past closest to what modern-day theonomists are calling for such as we find with the Puritans, were not far more just and godly than any other governmental system we've seen in history. You may disagree with the necessity of the approach taken by guys like Bahnsen, Rushdoony, and Wilson but the inescapable reality is that if they had their way, it's simply undeniable that their U.S.A. would be far better than Biden's or Trump's.
Theonomists may often be caricatured as constantly doing nothing other than presenting to you the dichotomy of "theonomy or autonomy", but despite all those who would protest this as an oversimplification, when push comes to shove what Bahnsen said still holds true, "The civil magistrate cannot function without some ethical guidance, without some standard of good and evil. If that standard is not to be the revealed law of God… then what will it be? In some form or expression it will have to be the law of man". The theonomist believes that the civil government must conform its civil penalties to revealed standards of moral justice, which are universally and immutably binding. The State's law is accountable to God's Law.
And finally, to be completely frank, I support this position that I call "general-equity theonomy" because of my conscience. It is, after all, the light of nature written on my heart and all others', though suppressed by sin in some, and what I have always believed that drives me to this conclusion. The strongest argument for me is simply the light of nature which has testified to me since birth and continues to testify today that it is absolutely abhorrent and unjust for a civil government to suffer a murderer, a sodomite, a rapist, an adulterer, a man-stealer, a magician, and so on to live. Such evil-doers should be punished with no less than death. The moral law clearly testifies this to my conscience. I submit that any other position is simply not Christian morality and that no author of Scripture would ever dream to argue otherwise. No amount of argumentation will ever be able to change that which is so morally perspicuous to my mind. I could never in good conscience argue for anything else and I find any such position to the contrary to be utterly abhorrent and unjust. Here I stand, I can do no other.
Highly recommend (former-Baptist) Jared Longshore's article here: https://founders.org/2020/09/17/israels-old-testament-judicial-laws-can-help-america/ and Craig Carter: https://craigacarter.substack.com/p/what-is-christendom?r=ba6cf&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter&s=r
*I want to clarify that as far as the death penalty for rape goes, I am not necessarily arguing for this universally like I am for the others, as the O.T. Law prescribed marriage for good reasons in an ancient society so that the woman would be cared and provided for by the man, yet this could be rejected by the father of the woman which would lead to the rapist's death. In today's context at least in America, the immediate death penalty would seem more reasonably applicable, though the exact O.T. set-up also seems very reasonable for poorer areas.
**Notice my phrasing here, "it is part of the natural law that the just punishment by the government on a murderer is of necessity the death penalty". While I recognize that government (and thus the death penalty) was instituted by the Noahic Covenant [Edit: I would change this point. Civil government is natural to man. The Noahic Covenant reaffirms the natural principle of civil government inherent in the Adamic Covenant for the new world. At the most, the Noahic Covenant reinstututied civil government with augmented civil authority, but more likely only reinstituted it], I would argue that while [the current] government is contingent upon this covenant, the penalties by which a government must operate are rooted in natural, moral, unchanging law. In other words, while a government may not necessarily exist, if a government does exist, it is necessarily bound to punish murder with the death penalty by virtue of moral law which tells us that the universally just judicial penalty for the taking of a human life is for that human to have his life justly taken by the government; so in this way, I argue that the general-equity of the civil penalties are rooted in the natural, moral law. Put another way, while the Noahic Covenant instituted the death penalty for murder, it could not have done otherwise when it established human government, because the death penalty (which presupposes the prior establishment of human government) for murder is rooted in moral law. There is something intrinsic to human value and worth that morally requires the death penalty for murder when we speak in the context of an already established civil-government. Really, all that is being said here is that there exists penalties that are universally just since they are grounded in the moral law, and likewise penalties that are universally unjust as they do not agree with the moral law. Thus, I do not believe I can be accused of "divorcing the death penalty from its covenantal context" in the same way that I believe the Federalists do with the Sabbath. Once again, this is a question of which laws are eternally binding as unchanging moral principles, and any hermeneutic that doesn't consider the entirety of the Biblical canon to come to a conclusion is inadequate. There is no one-size-fits-all answer. The reality is that Biblical ethics are more complex than both classic/proper theonomists and 1689 Federalists make them out to be.
