Refuting An Embarrassing Critique of God's Law

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I would say if the authorities didn't want us involved in the public square, they ought not to have crucified

00:10

Jesus in the public square. You shouldn't be a minister, Principal. It's the same idea. It's the same answer.

00:15

I would say what's the problem with Stardust bumping into Stardust? In the cosmic picture? No, there's no problem.

00:22

In the cosmic picture, it won't matter. No, Mr.

00:28

President, you are not protecting reproductive freedom. You are authorizing the destruction of freedom for one million little human beings every year.

00:47

I'm sorry, my friend, but I am tired of seeing Jesus presented as a weak beggar.

00:56

He is a powerful Savior, and the gospel is not a suggestion, it is a command.

01:09

Well, Ramola, don't you sympathize with that? I sympathize with every single human heart wishing to know the one true and living

01:16

God, but I believe there's only one way that that can happen through Jesus Christ, and the gospel is about repenting of sin, not celebrating it.

01:23

An amazing adventure.

01:30

We will explore the spiritual abyss. You have not experienced this before.

01:38

You're going to love it. But you are near,

01:52

O Lord, and all your commandments are true. Long have I known from your testimonies that you have founded them forever.

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Look on my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. Plead my cause and redeem me.

02:08

Give me life according to your promise. Salvation is far from the wicked, for they do not seek your statutes.

02:15

Great is your mercy, O Lord. Give me life according to your rules. Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, but I do not swerve from your testimonies.

02:24

I look at the faithless with disgust because they do not keep your commands. Consider how I love your precepts.

02:30

Give me life according to your steadfast love. Here it is. The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

02:43

Did you hear that? Forever. I did. Did you hear that? Forever. Every one. Every one. It says every one of your righteous rules endures forever.

02:54

Every one? Every one. Welcome, everybody, to Apologia Radio. This is the gospel heard around the world.

03:01

ApologiaStudios .com is where you guys can go to get more. You can get hundreds, literally hundreds, of radio shows, podcast episodes, everything from Apologia Radio to Sheologians with this one over here and Summer Yeager.

03:14

And you've got Provoked, and you've got Cultish with Jeremiah and Andrew. Jeremiah's getting married this weekend.

03:20

What? He's getting married. Now that is a Christmas miracle. That's what we've been praying about for a long time.

03:25

We even tried to hook you up with Jerry back in the day. We were trying to make it happen. It's been a long time coming. Yeah. It's been a long time coming.

03:31

We've got stories. Sorry. I don't want to make it feel awkward. I'm waiting to see how Joy's going to respond to that.

03:37

Not awkward. It was probably, what, like, 12, 11 years ago or something?

03:43

About 11 teen ago. Yeah. 11 and some change. Yeah, 11 and some change. We were trying.

03:49

We were just trying. We've been praying. And I do want to say that Pastor Luke and I can take credit for a number of marriages that have taken place.

03:57

And this is one where I get to say. You did. I mean, certainly. Certainly the ones you officiate, you can take credit for.

04:05

I mean, but this is one. I'm not only officiating, but I'm actually the matchmaker. Yeah.

04:10

Did you know that? I was the matchmaker. Yeah. Yeah. I sat down with him. We actually do this quite often.

04:16

It happens a lot. Because, well, you know, a bunch of sad sap single Christians will be like, we can't find anybody. Jeremiah's in the thing.

04:23

Is he here? He's in the chat. Oh, what's up, Jeremiah? Yeah. You know, we'll just be like, hey, why don't you take a look to your right?

04:30

Yeah. Have you noticed that cute, quiet girl over there? Hey, she loves

04:35

Jesus. And she's cute. And that's what you're looking for. And she's right over there.

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Yeah. And then they go, oh, that's actually a good idea. And next thing you know, on Monday, they're going on their first date.

04:46

It's like, what? Well, now at our church, if you just sit on the opposite side. You get pregnant. That's not what

04:53

I was going to say. We've got a lot of babies coming. Someone's going to take that one out of context. We've got lots of babies.

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What I'm saying is, like, add apology. There's babies everywhere. And babies being. It's true.

05:03

Babies on the way. Babies here. Lots of babies. Yeah. I think this 2023 will have a wave.

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We're due for a wave. We are. Especially after that sermon. After my Proverbs sermon. We're expecting a big wave in August.

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Right. I have nine months from two weeks ago. Welcome, everybody.

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So, Apology of Studios. You should tell everyone what that sermon was about. Yeah. Or maybe just wet Proverbs. Yeah. Well, it was

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Proverbs. Just look it up in Apology of Studios thread here on YouTube. Not right now. But I'll go back to that later. The title is

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The Whore in Death. I know. This is going. You really covered a lot in the sermon.

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Well, the reason why I called it The Whore in Death is because that's literally a summary of what the whole section.

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Agreed. Sections say. So, that wasn't necessarily trying to be provocative. It was just like, that's a summary title of what we're talking about today.

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And one of the ways. Well, if you're expecting a wave of children next August, obviously, you were being provocative in some way.

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Yeah. Well, one of the points that God makes, and I love this. He makes the point about the harlot, the whore, and, you know, people going to her go down to death in the chamber of death and all these things.

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And then he says, God says in his wisdom, one of the ways to preserve your marriage from infidelity is to enjoy one another sexually.

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That's what he says. And so, I did a whole section on let's deal with the text is the word of God. And go check it out.

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And watch it as a couple. Watch it as a married couple. I hope it'll bless you guys. Because honestly, I mean, that's

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God's wisdom. That's what you do. So, go to BonsonYu at ApologyofStudios .com

06:43

if you haven't done it yet. You should definitely get on that. You are missing out day by day by not doing it.

06:49

BonsonYu, ApologyofStudios .com. It is totally free to sign up and to start learning from one of the top -tier seminary courses available.

06:57

About 2 ,000 audio lectures and video lectures are going to be there when they're all finished and done. And there's a ton up there already.

07:04

So, if you haven't started, start it. Start it by yourself. Young men in ministry training for vocational ministry as ministers, you should definitely be doing that.

07:12

Bible studies. Do it with your church. It'll bless your life. Dr. Greg Bonson, one of the greatest blessings to the

07:18

Christian church, I believe. And we've got all of his stuff thanks to the Bonson family. So, BonsonYu at ApologyofStudios .com.

07:24

And don't forget also, it is today, December 1st. And so, we last year, thanks to actually

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Jessica Banegas. She was the first one to suggest it. She's actually in the chat right now. Is she?

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Hi, Jessica. We have a lot of friends in the chat right now. I know. It's unusual. Jessica suggested it first. Isaac got that to me.

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I love how Isaac said it. I'll just do this quickly. Isaac was just more like, hey, let's just do this quick devotional thing. 25 little devotionals, whatever.

07:47

It was not quick, which I'm totally happy to have made an investment in because it's blessing so many families.

07:54

But it was more like, yeah, just a quick meal, a couple friends. No, that's not what this is. It's going to take a bit. I don't know why he would think that doing anything with you would be quick.

08:04

It's just how he got me to do it. Oh, he was trying to lie to you. He was being deceptive. I think it's quick compared to the industry standard.

08:15

Sometimes when you come in the studio, people are like, just real quick, real simple. And it's like, so you mean compared to what other studios do?

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And he's chomping at the bit right now. He's just trying not to say something. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I can hear you.

08:29

Yeah, I can hear you. Yeah, cut your mic.

08:38

Cut your mic. I'm just joking. So anyway, go right now.

08:44

It's the first day of the Advent series. It's an apology of studios. There's actually a playlist for it. So you can sit down by yourself.

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You can sit down with your family, your church, your friends, and go through a daily Advent devotional.

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We are so honored to have been able to do it and grateful that it's there as a resource.

09:04

Reinforce your Christian faith. Yes, that's what I meant to say. Resource for you and your family.

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And the great thing about it, too, is that not only is it something you can do with your family and easy to click and do this devotional every day all the way to Christmas.

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But you can also share this because within the whole series is just the gospel, the story of the gospel.

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Sometimes I look at Luke and I wait for him to see the comment that I just saw. I don't even know.

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Is that Carmen? Is that Carmen in there? What? Someone needs to just ask for repentance.

09:38

Oh, OK. Ask for repentance. At the bottom. Repent. Say my name?

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Yeah. No. Yeah. Oh, that's OK. Yeah. Oh, I see. OK. It's got to be

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Carmen. So, hey, listen, we're back. Thanksgiving was wonderful. I hope yours was wonderful as well.

09:56

It is the Advent season. So we are thrilled here at Apologia because we love to celebrate the incarnation and the coming of Christ to save his people from their sins.

10:04

And so, again, check out the Advent series. We're back and we've got an important episode today.

10:09

We're talking about theonomy, God's law. And I open up today with Psalm 119.

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And so we're going to be engaging a bit with actually a friend of ours. She's been on Cultish, I believe,

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Doreen Virtue. And I was on her program once telling Augustine's story. So we love

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Doreen. She's super sweet. She loves the Lord. We love her. But she did a show with somebody that clearly was out of his element in terms of understanding

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God's law, the issue of theonomy. And we're going to engage with it, not just – there's so much stuff that comes across.

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We're like, hey, engage with this. Do this. Do this. We're like, it's just not going to be really valuable for the church. Like, what's the point?

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And we try our best to avoid any kind of conflict and controversy between Christians that can be avoided.

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But when it comes to some doctrinal issues that actually have a dramatic effect on the church, our mission in the world, and just on rightly handling the word of God on some issues, you do have to engage.

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And we think that this particular engagement is going to be a blessing to you. And this is an important element because –

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I'm going to turn this over to Luke here in a second. But this is an important thing to talk about today as you guys are sort of gearing up to listen to this.

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It's important because the witness of the church is not doing so well.

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I think we can agree with that in the West today. And there's a number of reasons for that. There's a number of reasons in terms of unfaithfulness, not solid preaching, the problems in the pulpit at the beginning, bad eschatologies, bad perspectives of the future, the role of the church, the role of government.

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But specifically one of the core issues is the law of God. We have such a terrible, terrible perspective, an unbiblical and disconnected perspective of the law of God today in the church in the

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West that we are failing dramatically. And there are some very, very bad perspectives of the law of God in the minds and mouths of many professing believers.

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And so this is an important discussion to have because the inconsistencies on this issue abound, abound.

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And now just to be humble enough at the front for everyone to understand this, all of us are fallible creatures.

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None of us are omniscient. We aren't all -knowing. All of us have some failures in our theology or our ecclesiology or somewhere where nobody's got perfect doctrine, only

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Jesus. And of course, you know, the inspired apostles. But when it comes to an issue like this, the scriptures are really clear on this.

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And so we're going to critique it. So before we do, I'm going to kick it over to Luke real fast. Guys, get your Bibles ready because we're going to do this and try to get through as much as we can today.

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So bear with me because I promise I'm going to tie this all together like a fine rug. Did you see what's happening in China right now?

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No. They're like— What? Oh, I heard there's like—is there protests or something? Oh, like major—

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I haven't seen them, but I've heard— I've heard some people saying this could be the end of— The CCP?

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Yeah. No. Yeah, people have had enough. They literally locked people in an apartment building.

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People are starving. I heard that. Yeah, they welded the door shut. Shut up. And burned them alive. Wait, what?

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Yeah. I have not seen this. It's crazy. I've been on a loop. People are like—they've had enough. No kidding.

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Yeah. So the reason I brought that up, one, this is going to lead into why theonomy is important.

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But two, I bet you the people there wish that they had tools of liberty.

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Ah, yes. See, I got a nice little segue there. Tools of liberty. Nice little segue. Very good. People that sell tools of liberty would be our friends in the

13:48

Armed Republic. And just read this real quick. The famous first battles of the American War for Independence, which could be happening in China.

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China. The battles of Lexington and Concord— China. —have an important piece of history behind them. They were fought to resist the

14:03

British taking away guns and ammunition from Americans living in those areas. People of China don't have those things.

14:09

Tools of liberty. Firearms are the first and primary tool of liberty. But a growing number of freemen are realizing that firearms are only the beginning.

14:18

The next most important tool of liberty is body armor, a defensive tool of liberty to match the offensive capabilities of guns.

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This is where our Armored Republic of America—America! This is where Armored Republic comes in. This is where America comes in.

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Armored Republic equips the freemen of America with the tools of liberty that are necessary to defend their God -given rights to honor—or to the honor of Christ the

14:39

King. But we need your help. The Armored Republic is hiring for more good stewards in this time of massive growth.

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To join this mission, check out careers page at ar500armor .com.

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Need a job? Backslash careers. Contact Armored Republic. They're awesome. We love them. They've been great. And I also want to thank our sponsors at New St.

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Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho. They're the best. Love those guys. Send your kids there. That's right. NSA .edu.

15:07

Sorry. Yes, that one. .edu is important. I didn't do this intentionally today, but the shirt

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I'm wearing— Moses Nutmarks. —is perfect. It's perfect for today. But you can find this shirt—I don't know what we're doing.

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Which camera? You can find this shirt at shop .apologyastudios .com.

15:26

Leftover from ReformCon, and it's awesome. Moses Nutmarks. That was from a side comment I made on one of our shows, and you said that's our new shirt.

15:32

Yep. Moses Nutmarks. And I love it. I love it. And that's a key issue. I think it goes to very much a lot of what we're talking about today.

15:41

You're always going to have an ultimate in society. There's just no avoiding that. There's no avoiding an ultimate.

15:47

There's no avoiding ultimate authority. And so you have today radical leftists, and you've got communists—literally communists and Marxists—who are trying to impose their system upon the world.

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And you see it in all the woke propaganda and the intersectionality and all the other stuff you see, and the tactics and tools that they have for their dominion.

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And you see that going on all around us, because they're imposing their ultimate. For Christians, the ultimate is

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Jesus. He's the King of kings and Lord of lords, the one with all authority in heaven and on earth today.

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Not coming to get it someday. He already has it. And so when we say Moses Nutmarks, what we're saying is if you've got questions about morality, if you've got questions about justice in society, then you need to look at Moses Nutmarks.

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And why? Because Moses gives us the first five books of the Bible. Moses gives us the revelation of God.

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We have the Torah. We have the law of God. If you want to know what is just, righteous, holy, and true, you go to the

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Word of God. And so that brings us to this discussion. By the way, I didn't even say hi to Joy yet today.

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That's the bear. I'm the ninja. And that's the girl. How are you? Doing good. Did you get new glasses?

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I did not. They look different for some reason. Something happened to them, because I also looked in the mirror this week and was like, these look different.

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So I don't know what that's about. It's kind of weird that you just confirmed it. I'm just excited that it's

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December. Yeah. I'm just having a great time.

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All right. Real fast. Say it quickly, because we got everyone watching. We're chomping on the bit, ready for the thing. Christmas tradition you have that's very special to you and your family.

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Anything you think is yours. Oh, man. Oh, wait.

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Can I have a second? Luke goes first. Okay, Luke, go. Favorite tradition? Yeah. One thing that we do is

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I make, on Christmas Eve, a longtime family recipe of German potato pancakes with my kids.

17:49

Nice. And I love doing that. I've seen the photos. They're awesome. And that was something, as a kid, that we always did with my grandma and my grandparents.

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And so we've been able to kind of continue that with my kids. So it's fun. Nice. Well, I like the,

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I guess, the typical ones of like jammies, like the presentation of the

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Christmas jammies. And then Georgia gets an ornament every year.

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That's sweet. So, and it just kind of has, you know, you get to like think about what's representative of my kid this year.

18:29

That's nice. So how about you? You guys are like full of, I feel like some traditions take a second to establish.

18:36

They take time to build. Yeah, no question. And sometimes you try something and you're like, nobody really liked this.

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Right. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's pretty much how ours have developed, was we would just try something new and we're like, well, this is really cool.

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This is something fun. Our kids, this will build a memory. And so for us, we want that day of celebrating the

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Incarnation to be something that kids look forward to and they remember. And that's on our lips. Like, why are we doing this?

19:00

Like we explain everything. Like the reason we're exchanging the gifts is because Christ is God's gift to us. It's a free gift.

19:05

You didn't do anything for it. You know, all that. And God lavishes this upon you. For us, Christmas Eve, obviously we do all our special foods and we watch all the

19:14

Christmas movies and all that stuff. But when the kids go to bed, we read, of course, the account of Jesus' birth in Scripture.

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And then we pray. We thank God. Kids go to bed. They usually sleep in exactly the same rooms that night because we have so much to do.

19:27

And so they sort of pile up a sleepover in one room. And even when they're older, they're still doing that kind of a thing. And we just basically change the entire house.

19:36

Like we just have like, I mean, hundreds of lights. We like install stuff. Like we go to bed at like two, three in the morning because we're just like up all night, like making this into a spectacle.

19:44

You know the portion of the animated Grinch when they have all the crazy decoration?

19:51

Like that whole little montage of them. They just have like things laying on the ground and whatever. That's you.

19:57

Yeah. That's what we do. We create light trails from the doors to the tree.

20:02

And we create a candy trail where we literally put candy out all the way to the tree from their door. And then we put lights everywhere.

20:09

We put special stuff up. So when they walk out, they went to bed with it looking one way. They can walk out in the morning and it's completely different.

20:15

We're playing Elvis Presley's If Every Day Were Like Christmas when they walk out. And, you know, it's just this very special moment.

20:21

And that's what we do just to make that day something memorable. You know, we're really thinking about the coming of Christ.

20:27

And we're doing all these special traditions and symbols to point the family to that amazing truth of God becoming a man.

20:35

I don't have a super large family yet. But there is a tradition I am hopeful to implement, which is basically where you turn on the

20:45

Electric Light Parade song. And then you make a train and the whole family goes and picks everyone up at their room.

20:51

Oh, that's so awesome. And then they add on to the back of the train. That's actually really cool. That's really fun. But, you know, we live in a small apartment.

20:57

There's just three of us. How's that going to work out? It's a little train, but. Hey, the train will get longer and longer.

21:04

All right. So here we go, guys. So this question of – I'll just jump right into it because we're going to have to do so much response to this.

21:11

Let's just get right to it. This might be a long show. Yeah. But hopefully a blessing. Like I said, we try to be very careful what we choose to interact with, especially when we're interacting with other believers.

21:21

And, you know, let me just make one comment as I hit play here. The title of the show today is

21:27

Refuting an Embarrassing Critique of God's Law. Before we did that, I asked Luke, do you think this is a good title?

21:33

And we agreed. And Refuting an Embarrassing Critique of God's Law, of theonomy, that's what this was.

21:41

I mean that with all due respect to my brother and sister here who did this. But this was an embarrassing critique.

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And I wanted to say at the front because we're going to get to a lot of response here. It's embarrassing because now this has been put down as a public record.

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So when I say embarrassing, what I mean is if you make an error in private, that's one thing.

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Right? Right. It's an embarrassment, but it's still a private error. Said something wrong.

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Said something false about something. You know, that's a private error. But when you do this publicly and you pontificate and you pretend to have authority to be able to teach on something or explain something and you clearly are out of your element because you literally are saying things about a system and people who believe it that is not true, it becomes an embarrassing critique because now this is public.

22:37

In other words, you've now left a public record of ignorance. Now, I'm going to say ignorance and not lying, even though this brother says that he's studied this and he's read books on it and everything else.

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But I'm still going to say ignorant because it's either ignorance or lying because you know and you're contradicting what people have said.

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So you're lying about it or you're just truly ignorant. You don't understand and you never have really read any books on theonomy.

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Here's what I would say at the front. I get the feeling and my understanding is that the brother who tries to give a critique here has never actually read a book on theonomy by a theonomist.

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And the reason why and I say that by the way, there's lots of people trying to make critiques of theonomy. You hear me saying that a lot like I don't think this guy's read a book on it.

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And the reason I say that is because the literature is like very, very, very clear and consistent on some of these things.

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And so for someone to just completely mischaracterize it, it just brings me to a place where I have to say,

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I don't think you've read anything on this because people actually take pains to be clear about what you're saying and you're not telling the truth.

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And so that's why I'd say like I don't think you've read anything on this. So at the start, I'll just point everyone, Theonomy and Christian Ethics by Dr.

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Greg Bonson, By the Standard by Greg Bonson. Good books to start with. There's a whole bunch of you can go back and read the

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Puritans and many of the reformers on this. You can go back into church history and read lots of the giants on this issue.

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But I would say if you want a good one stop shop, just get By the Standard by Bonson and Theonomy and Christian Ethics by Bonson.

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If you read those two books, you wouldn't make the mistakes this brother does. That's all I would say.

24:22

Even By the Standard would clarify a lot. Very much so. Yeah. So here we go. This is our sister

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Doreen Virtue. And let's see here. The title of this episode was

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Three False Teachings to Avoid Federal Vision, Theonomy and Dominionism.

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And so here we go. So should we segue next into Dominionism or Theonomy?

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Yeah, I mean, they're kind of connected, but we could. Yeah, let's definitely do Theonomy and then we'll connect it over to Dominionism.

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Okay. So next, if you could please tell us what is wrong with Theonomy? What is it and what's wrong with it?

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Because we're hearing a lot about Theonomy and we want to be able to recognize it so we can avoid it.

25:11

Yeah, for sure. What's interesting about it, it's kind of gone through some waves. Quickly, the way that he describes

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Theonomy, the errors that he makes, and the errors that, Doreen, that you make as well, the way that you describe

25:27

Theonomy, I would also want to avoid that. Yeah. But what you guys describe here is actually fundamentally denied and rigorously denied by Theonomists, always has been.

25:40

I've never met, read, or heard from somebody who says they're a Theonomist that believes some of the things that they say here.

25:48

So tell us what it is so we can avoid it. Well, the picture you're painting here, I would also want to avoid.

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But it's not the Theonomy that I teach or that I believe or anybody I've read teaches or believes.

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So that's, I'll just say at the start. 40, 45, 50 years ago is when it started to really kind of take precedent.

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And then it died, and now it's kind of coming back. So quickly, if you're trying to put this into—I don't know that he's doing this here, so I want to be fair and just to him here.

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When he says 40 or 50 years ago, he's referring back to the days of like Bonson and R .J. Rushdooney and Gary North and Gary DeMar and Kenneth Gentry and those guys, where there was a resurgence of pointing back to the law word of God.

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So yes, you can put a pin there. However, I would want to make sure that it's abundantly clear that Rushdooney, Bonson, and all those guys were not coming up with a theological novum.

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Nothing that they were saying was new. They were actually calling everybody back for a revolution back to the foundations.

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In other words, let's get back to what our Christian historic predecessors and ancestors have given to us as a deposit on these issues.

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Let's get back to Christendom and what Christendom has said about these issues throughout church history in many times and many places.

27:09

Let's just get back to what the Puritans were saying. And I just want to say, too, one of the things that boggles my mind here is that Doreen and this pastor are having this conversation, and they're doing it under the blessings of the theonomists.

27:24

Yeah. Like you're in a Western Christian culture. Under the blessings and experiencing the blessings, not like China or North Korea.

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Able to start a channel and have the conversations about Jesus and Christ is Lord and King of Kings and all these things.

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And you're doing it under the blessings of what the theonomists gave you. And so you only are doing what you're doing right now because of the blessings of the

27:49

Christian worldview, the gospel itself. But also, let's just be honest, those standards of justice that come from Moses, the freedom of speech, all those blessings that you have that we're all holding on to, and some of them,

28:01

I admit, are hanging on by a thread, no question about that. But those come from the law word of God. Our court system today, though it is failing massively, like underneath it, if you look at what they're supposed to be doing, they're supposed to be doing things like cross -examination and witnesses and warrants and all the rest, and that comes from the law word of God.

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That comes from God's judicial standards in Moses. So you can thank the Huguenots, the Covenanters, the

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Puritans, all of that for the blessings that you're experiencing now to do this show. And those came from Moses.

28:29

So my point there is just to quickly say, as quickly as I can, this is not a theological novum.

28:35

And I am grateful to God that what R .J. Rushtuni and Bonson laid down in the 60s and 70s, and that deposit they gave to this generation, many people are finally coming and going, oh wait, they were right.

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Oh, their exegesis was very solid. Oh, their critical analysis of the culture was so solid.

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And I am very glad that there is a massive, important moment for us in the

29:00

Church where people are saying, by what standard? Wait a minute. The unbelievers and the secularists and the humanists are imposing their ultimate and their standards.

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The Christian Church seems silent and impotent now, but we actually have a word from God about these issues.

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And so by what standard? Christians are asking that question. And so I'm grateful that we're having this conversation.

29:21

Of course, it's disheartening to see people completely mischaracterize a position and show, and I don't mean this to harm you, but just show such an epic level of ignorance on this issue and to talk about it publicly with that kind of ignorance is disheartening for sure.

29:39

I mean, honestly, it seems like he, I'm not accusing him of this, but it sounds like he got his information from gotquestions .org

29:47

or whatever that site is. It's really bad. Because I've seen some of these, I've literally, his response is,

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I've seen this and right on that website, you know, when you look up this stuff. So, you know, anyways.

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Well, something just to say, and by the way, I'm not the standard here. Joy's not the standard. Luke's not the standard.

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But I just want to say one of the things that has blessed us is being able to admit our own ignorance.

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What I mean by that is that people will message us all the time. Joy sees more messages to us than anybody ever has.

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Thank you, Joy. Pray for her. You made someone really mad at the

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Bonson conference. I'm just going to go ahead and let you know. I did? Really? I think you said something, you were telling a story about when you realized that Greg Bonson was a

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Presbyterian and you said, dang it. Dang it. And you said that in a Presbyterian church. Dang it. Dang it.

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He didn't appreciate your joke. It's called an exclamation. He didn't appreciate it.

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Exclamatory remark. Sorry to derail. No, it's okay. But one of the things that's been a blessing to us is to be able to, and this is important for this conversation right here, brothers and sisters, because when

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I say this was embarrassing, when I say this was ignorance, one of the things that has blessed us is when people message us and they say, hey,

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Jeff, can you do something on this here? Or if I'm having a conversation publicly with someone and says, hey, can you tell me about this?

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If I don't know and if I can't faithfully represent that side and really express to you what they believe and be able to interact with it,

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I'm not going to try to teach you. Teachers incur the stricter judgment according to God. And so I'm not going to attempt to teach people on something when

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I don't understand myself. And so one of the things that can preserve us from these major, epic, embarrassing failures, public failures here, is to be able to simply say when someone says, hey, can you come on and talk about this?

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Is to simply say, you know, I have questions about that. I've seen some concerning stuff, but I don't know enough about that to be in an authoritative position of instruction.

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I can't instruct God's people on that because I just don't know. And one of the things

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I respect greatly about pastors is they'll be in a section of Scripture teaching through the Bible, and they get to a section and they simply say,

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I'm not ready to preach on this yet. I don't understand this well enough yet to teach.

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And so I'm not going to do it. And so in a situation like this, it would have helped to have simply said, given what he said here in the ignorance, to have simply said,

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I don't know enough about this position to talk about it publicly. Because what we do when we mischaracterize somebody and their position and we say something about them or what they believe that's not true, what we actually do there is we engage in the nature of lying.

32:37

Right? I mean, ignorance is one thing, yes. But when you say they believe this, this is what their system is, you're actually engaging in a nature of lying.

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Here's the question you ask yourself. Would God do that? Would God misrepresent others?

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Would God say things about people that is not actually true? And if your answer is, well, no, of course he wouldn't, then we shouldn't do it either.

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And that's why you have to be very cautious when someone says, can you speak on this? If you don't know, you don't know. Just simply say, I don't know.

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I'm looking into it. I don't know. I'm working my way through that. People ask me all the time. They'll say, hey, what do you think about this revelation?

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Now, I actually have an opinion, but I'm not fully confident to teach on it yet. So I will simply say,

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I'm not going to talk about that. I'm not going to give you my answer on that yet because I'm not settled yet on that.

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So I'm not going to try to teach you on it. And so I'm just waiting until I feel confident. So theonomy in its simplest form, just to kind of help you understand when you hear the word, it's not a bad word.

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Literally, theonomy just means God's law. So namas la, theonomy theo, God. It just means

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God's law. So someone says to you, would you believe in the law of God and do you believe that it's good? Well, what are you going to say to that?

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No, I don't believe in the law. I don't think it's good. So it's kind of a trick question, right? Not a trick question.

33:51

It's an important question. It's a valid question. And yes, theonomy comes from those two words, theos namas,

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God's law. And yeah, that's what it means, God's law. And so the question is, how much of God's law do you believe is abiding and relevant today?

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And it's not a trick question. That's important here. It's not a trick question. It's a valid question, because God's law is an expression of his own character and the revelation of himself to us.

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And God's law says things, like I read to you at the beginning of the show today from Psalm 119, it says things like the sum of your word is truth and all of your righteous statutes endure forever, abide forever.

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And so every one of them do. And so you have to be able to answer that question. Well, wait a second. If this is a revelation of God's own character and his own standards and justice, you're saying that it no longer applies.

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Like, it's not relevant. It's not abiding and relevant. Get that. It's not abiding and relevant today.

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And so the question is, do you believe that God's law is abiding and relevant today?

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And what you'll get from the modern evangelical in the West often is you get the answer, well, yeah, some.

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And you say, well, okay, which ones? And people will say things like, well, the Ten Commandments for sure. It's like, where did you ever come up with that idea?

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Because you have the apostles quoting from Mosaic law that's not Ten Commandments and just assuming it's abiding relevance and validity today.

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They just assume it. Look, everything from judicial law with how you're supposed to handle things in the courts and receiving accusations to animal husbandry laws to the death penalty, and they just assume it.

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It's not just the Ten Commandments. And you don't ever have the apostles just saying, well, it's just Ten Commandments. You have to answer this question.

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It's not a trick question. Because Jesus says in Matthew 5 in the Sermon on the Mount, he says, do not even begin to think,

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Matthew 5, 17 through 19. Do not even begin to think. Me namasete is not stop thinking.

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It is me namasete. It is don't even let it start in your mind. Don't even begin the thought.

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No seed of thought. Nothing. He says, don't even start thinking that I have come to destroy the law and the prophets.

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I have not come to destroy them, but to fulfill them. And then he says, Sermon on the Mount, these are the Lord's words.

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Whoever, he says to people, whoever teaches people to disobey even the least of these commandments will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

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But whoever does them and teaches them will be great. That's from the Lord Jesus. That's what he said about the law of God.

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That's his perspective of the law of God. Don't even begin to think of coming to destroy it. And I think most Christians today in the

36:26

West read that and say, don't think that I've come to destroy the law and the prophets. I've come to destroy the law and the prophets.

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Don't think I've come to destroy them, but I've come to destroy them. The law and the prophets. So it's an important conversation, not a trick question.

36:40

Well, before you go real quick, like this is a great point that Monson makes, and by the standard is it's either

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God's law or some subjective man's law. So he brings up, defines theonomy.

36:55

It's either theonomy or autonomy. Those are your options. God's law or self -law. And he's saying self -law.

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God's law or self -law. You're always going to have a God. You're always going to have an ultimate. It's a question of which

37:08

God and what ultimate. And it is ultimately theonomy or autonomy.

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God's law or self -law. And so they'll say, well, you're a theonomist. Well, no, I'm not a theonomist because the word actually has more meaning than just the law of God.

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It's a system, really. And what theonomy is arguing for is that they believe that God's purpose and institution for the world is to be governed.

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Like every nation, every leader, every country needs to be governed by the law of God, all of the law of God.

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And so they can use some phrasing like, well, someone say, well, are we going back under the – because there's certain sections of the law of God in Moses, right?

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So you have, like, your ceremonial laws, and then you have the legal laws that kind of govern the nation.

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And so they're not talking about the ceremonial laws where we're having to wear, like, curve our beards and wear certain clothes.

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They're talking about what we call the moral general equity of the law. And, you know, an illustration of that would be things like –

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So just quickly, to respond to those two things, we talked about theonomists wanting the government's nations to be ruled by God's law.

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It's important to look at what Scripture says about that. In Psalm 2, Old Testament, long before Jesus comes,

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God has this amazing psalm about the nations raging, people plodding in vain.

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The kings of the earth have set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed.

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That's the Messiah, Jesus, saying, Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens laughs, and the

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Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill.

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I will tell of the decree the Lord said to me, You are my son, today I have begotten you. This is obviously all about Jesus.

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And he says, Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, and the ends of the earth your possession.

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The question that we often ask here is, Do you think Jesus forgot to ask the Father? No, he didn't.

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Because when Jesus ascended, Jesus says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. And he says,

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Go therefore. Because I have it all on earth today, over the kings of the earth today, over the entire world.

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He says, Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations. And he says, Baptize them and teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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So teach them to obey Jesus. But the Father says he's going to give the entire earth to Jesus as his inheritance.

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And he says this, You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. And here's what

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God says to the kings of the earth. Now therefore, O kings, be wise. Be warned, O rulers of the earth.

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Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, or obey the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way.

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For his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. That is the word from God to the rulers of the world that they are to obey

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Jesus. Why would we ever think this is a strange concept, right? Like these theonomists, they believe like all the rulers and all the nations need to obey

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God's law. It's like, well, we believe that they have to come under the rule and authority of Jesus. I mean, he's going to say it later.

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He's going to say it. He's going to say we believe Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. And you're denying theonomy?

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Jesus is the... See, this is where it becomes just a pithy slogan. This is what I'm always harping on, and I'm going to challenge us with this.

40:26

When I say that King of kings and Lord of lords is just a pithy slogan for Christians, say this is the kind of thing

40:31

I'm talking about. Like we're shocked at the idea that God demands the rulers of the world to obey

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Jesus. He says that he does in Psalm chapter 2, right? Christ gets all the nations and they must obey.

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He says that. So we're so shocked by the idea that like the goal of the gospel is the whole world comes under the rule of Jesus.

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The knowledge of God covers the earth like the waters cover the sea. He shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth.

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He's putting all of his enemies under his feet, Psalm 110 .1. Like we're going there. Jesus says to go get the nations, to disciple them and baptize them and teach them to obey.

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And we're shocked at the idea that we actually want the nations to obey God's law? Yeah. But that's just what the text says.

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Why is that shocking to us? It's almost like we believe the

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Great Commission is not actually going to happen. Right?

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Like we believe the Great Commission, Jesus says, go get the nations. I have all authority on earth today. Like, you know, we say as a pithy slogan, yeah, he's

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King of Kings today and Lord of Lords today. But it becomes this meaningless, suspended in midair, nothing.

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Like what's the consequence of all the nations trusting in Christ and coming under his lordship?

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What's the consequence? Well, it certainly couldn't be like justice and righteousness on the earth.

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It couldn't be people obeying God's law. Like it couldn't be what Isaiah promises in Isaiah 42.

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Where in Isaiah 42, one of the prophecies of the Messiah, it says, Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen and whom my soul delights.

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I have put my spirit upon him. Listen, he will bring forth justice to the nations.

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There's that word justice. Has God told us what justice is anywhere in the Bible? I think so. Yes, he has.

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He will not cry aloud. No, he will bring forth justice in the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the streets.

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A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. That, by the way, goes to the nature of his rule.

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It's not like Kim Jong -un. It's not like the CCP. It's not a top -down power thing where it's, right, like thrown down.

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He is this humble savior. And it says this, he will not grow.

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He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth.

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And, oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. It says, and the coastlands wait for his

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Torah, his law. Where did we ever get the idea that the nations are going to come under Jesus' rule and that the law of God was going to be a constituent element of that salvific kingdom?

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People get saved. Their hearts are transformed. They then love God's law. Ezekiel 36, heart of stone to a heart of flesh,

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Jeremiah 31, 31. Now the law of God is put within the hearts of his people.

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It's written there now. They long to do God's law. They long to obey his statutes. The text says that one of the blessings of the kingdom of God is salvation and justice in God's law.

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Read Isaiah 2, same prophet. Isaiah 2 says the nations are going to come up to God's mountain. He's going to draw them up.

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And it says the Torah, the law of God, is going to go forth from the people of God. So the

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Bible has a perspective of the kingdom and rule of Jesus that's not just saving people for heaven, but it's also establishing justice and righteousness on the earth.

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And if you ask the question, by what standard is that justice? Well, God's already answered that.

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He's already given us his revelation. God's told us what his law is. And it says in Psalm 119 that every one of his righteous statutes is forever.

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So the question is, really, is God's law abiding and relevant today in the new covenants?

44:16

That's what we have to answer. Yeah, and I was just going to say, it's going to be hard to respond to this succinctly because he's kind of all over the place.

44:25

And as he goes, there's more layers. It gets worse, yeah. But I think the question you're asking, the question why, like, well, this is why eschatology matters.

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Because what we find out towards the end is that he's to kingdom. He doesn't believe that Christ is ruling right now.

44:42

He doesn't believe we're in Christ's kingdom so that he can say Christ is Lord of Lords or King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

44:49

But now and not yet is what he would probably say. And he means now and not really. Yeah, exactly. So he's still waiting for Christ to come and establish his kingdom.

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So he's looking at this completely differently. All the stuff we're saying, which we can clearly demonstrate from scripture, we're in that time.

45:08

He's looking at it as if we're not there yet. It's in the future. It's in the future, yeah. And yeah, so it's,

45:15

I'll stop there because I don't want to, there's so much more. I will just say that he actually has a pretty good understanding of the threefold law.

45:24

Yeah, civil, ceremonial, and judicial. He understands that correctly. Sorry, moral. Moral, yeah.

45:31

And so, although they conflate moral and civil. Well, there's an issue here, and I'll just say this, very important, because this becomes one of the central issues when you talk about the threefold division of the law, civil, ceremonial, and moral.

45:47

It's very important that we understand that there are still moral components and demands in the judicial.

45:56

That's very important. Yeah, yeah. Because people love to cast off God's judicial law, and they'll say, well, that was just for Israel, theocratic kingdom in Israel.

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And it's like, well, wait a second. God actually specifies that the reason for those standards of justice is because that's what justice is.

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God's concerned with property rights. God's concerned with victims' rights. And so when God gives judicial law, it's because that's the righteous and just standard.

46:22

That's moral. So just quickly, so we all catch this. When you divide the law generally into civil, ceremonial, and moral, it's very important when you look at the civil and say, well, that's passed away.

46:33

It's like, whoa, wait a second. We still live in a fallen world, and people still steal. We still live in a fallen world, and people are still raping.

46:43

We still live in a fallen world where people are abusing people's property rights.

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And so the question is, is by what standard today do you respond to that? Do you just say, oh, we're saved now, and so we have no concern for our neighbor and victims?

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We won't concern ourselves with victims' rights. Like if somebody's raped as a Christian church, we won't have an answer, right?

47:04

We won't really have an answer of what's just. Well, God had an answer. He actually said what to do.

47:10

Like here's how you preserve the victim. Here's how you establish justice. Like here's, I think, the most obvious way we can see that there are moral components to God's judicial law.

47:18

Very, very important here. Today, there are some places, and we all know this, we've heard this, where if you steal something like a loaf of bread, they'll cut your entire hand off.

47:28

Now I have a question. Is that immoral? Is it immoral, like if somebody steals a loaf of bread, is it immoral to disfigure and maim a human being because of a loaf of bread?

47:40

Is it immoral? My response to that is yes. That's the height of immorality. You're going to maim somebody so they can't work for the rest of their lives?

47:48

They're never going to be able to function like a regular human being again because you've cut their hand off? That's a moral issue.

47:53

So when we talk about the judicial law and God's response to stealing from neighbor when he upholds victim rights, he says this is how you're supposed to repay after theft.

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He does it in a way that brings reconciliation. He does it in a way that preserves the victim's rights, and he does it in a way where that person who stole can now come back to society whole again because they've now made it right.

48:14

And so that's a moral issue. It's very moral. How about how you receive accusations? That's part of God's judicial law.

48:21

Don't receive an accusation against somebody unless there's what? Two or three witnesses. What's that from? God's Mosaic Law.

48:27

What's that quoted? Who quotes that? Jesus quotes it in Matthew 18, and guess who else quotes it? The Apostle Paul quotes it after the

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Resurrection and after the Ascension of Christ when the New Covenant is in effect. He says don't receive any accusation against an elder unless it's on the basis of two to three witnesses.

48:43

Where is he getting that from? He's getting that from the Mosaic legislation. He gets that from Moses. And where is that from?

48:50

That's judicial. That's the courts. That's how you handle accusations in the courts. That's a moral issue.

48:56

It's a moral issue. So it's very important that when we divide the law up for general clarity into civil, ceremonial, and moral, we don't actually divide them so sharply that we lose sight of the fact that God's the one who gave these standards.

49:11

And he says this is just, civilly. One more quick thing. Sorry. That's okay.

49:16

We're not going to get very far. This is just important. This is kind of an overarching theme that's important to point out here at the beginning.

49:24

But Colossians 1 says that Christ came to reconcile all things to himself.

49:31

All things. So from our position, we're like, yeah, that means governments. Governments are included in all things.

49:39

And I think as you know, I know growing up in a dispensational, premarital church, we become, as Christians, we become only concerned with salvation for the individual.

49:56

But then in 1 John it says that Christ came to destroy the works of Satan. That was his purpose was to destroy the works of Satan.

50:06

You know what's the work of Satan? Marxism. You know what's the work of Satan? Injustice in the courts.

50:13

Those are all works of Satan. Like when a guy gets on death row, falsely accused without biblical standards of evidence, and he gets executed as an innocent man because they did not follow

50:24

God's standards, that's evil. That's of the devil. That is injustice.

50:29

And so Christians have to be concerned because it's a love for neighbor issue. Like if you want to say that we can just do this willy -nilly and just do it as autonomy, and say we just make up these standards along the way, well then you're abandoning

50:44

God's own revelation of what is just to do in that situation. And so people get hurt. If you love your neighbor, you'll love the law of God.

50:52

And I'm going to get to that in a second because something is said here in a moment. I want to make sure we correct it. In Israel it was against the law, against scripture, to not have a fence on your rooftop.

51:04

And the reason was is that it's really hot in Israel, and so they'd go up on the rooftops to get cooled off, and your neighbor could fall off your roof, and that was irresponsible of you.

51:16

And so there was a law that you had to have. And so the general equity of that would be we have building codes here.

51:22

There wasn't a law that you had to have, but if you didn't have one and someone died, you were responsible. That's right. Yeah, it didn't work the way we do it today.

51:34

The law is love your neighbor and preserve human life. Like that's the—this was amazing to me.

51:40

When someone says, like, I don't want theonomy today, it's like, so you don't want the love for neighbor principle and preservation of human life principle because that's what the law of God—that's what it's wrapped around.

51:51

But yeah, what Luke is saying is exactly right. The command was to put the parapet around the roof of your house to protect people from falling off and hurting themselves.

52:00

And so if you did not have the parapet there, if you ignored God's standard there and his principle there of preservation of human life, if somebody fell off, you'd be held accountable, right?

52:10

And so question, do we want that today? Yeah. Yeah, people that have pools in their backyard.

52:18

The first thing I did when I bought my house. Or deep wells. You know, you don't want kids falling in. What's the goal? You preserve human life.

52:23

You do what you can to protect and preserve human life. And so, yeah, I agree. Pastor Luke gets a house. He's got a pool. The first thing he does is he wants to say,

52:31

I know God has spoken to this, preserve human life. Luke builds a fence around his pool to protect innocent human life.

52:38

And so he's following the general equity of God's law. The general equity of God's law. That principle will go across the board.

52:44

And you're right. You could put it in building codes and all the rest. But that principle is still abiding and relevant today.

52:50

That law endures forever. See? In the United States to kind of keep us safe, right?

52:55

And protected. But they would say that the Bible should be governing everything in the

53:03

United States or any country. And that would include sexual conducts, right? So the way in which if someone cheated on their wife, then that is not just an unfortunate mishap within our culture.

53:14

That should be dealt with by the law of God. Yeah, of course we want the law of God to be honored and upheld in society.

53:24

I'm honestly surprised that I have to say that. That it's necessary to say.

53:30

Maybe I'll just wait for him to finish his sentence before I go on. But I do think that men that cheat on their wives should be punished for that.

53:42

Amen. I do really actually think that. Let's you and I engage this conversation because this is very important.

53:47

So let's go ahead and do it now. So when this pastor says, you know, they believe that the law of God should govern society and the standard should be there for even things like sexual conduct.

54:01

Brother, that's happening today with the secularists. Like, for example, today in most states in the

54:07

Union in America, if you have sex with an animal, you'll be punished for it. Actually, it wasn't very long ago.

54:14

I think I've mentioned an episode before. There was a firefighter here in Mesa who was caught in like a barn having sex with an animal.

54:24

And it was all over the news and everything else because it's still against the law in Mesa to have sex with animals. And by the way, where does that come from?

54:31

It comes from the law of God. Right, right. If that wasn't ever an arbitrary standard that someone was just like, oh, that's wrong.

54:36

Let's just say this. It's not illegal everywhere. But we still have sexual crimes in this nation.

54:45

So, for example, in other words, this is an unavoidable thing. There's still, because we're all in the image of God, things that are sexual no -nos.

54:52

Now, as the secularists continue to rule and continue to impose their ultimate, those sexual no -nos will get less and less.

55:00

But consider this for a second. Well, they're based off of their own standard or some sort of idea of what's best for society.

55:07

So, for right now in America, pedophilia is still a crime. You'll go to jail for it, right?

55:14

I don't know how much longer. Rape is still a crime in America. You'll go to jail for it. Not for very long. Right. But having sex with animals in many places is still a crime and you'll go to jail for it.

55:25

So, in other words, this problem of will we address sexual crimes is something, it's a conversation that's happening today.

55:34

And the question that has to be asked here is by what standard do you define something as a sexual crime?

55:40

Because, this is very important, it wasn't very long ago in this very nation where you had public service announcements about homosexuality and the sin and crime of homosexuality.

55:52

Homosexuality on the books today, in some states, homosexuality is still considered a crime.

55:57

It all, of course, comes from a Christian worldview and the biblical standards and all those things. But the point is that you have things that are considered sexual crimes.

56:06

So, in a nation that turns to Jesus, the question is by what standard will they define something as a sexual crime?

56:14

That's the question. And so you can't say willy -nilly, well, I like over here these standards, like having sex with animals, like that should clearly still be a crime.

56:24

Obviously, gross. God says that it is, so I definitely want that there. Or how about rape? Yeah, God says rape is a sexual crime, we want that.

56:31

But then this is where the real test comes. What about the rest? What about adultery? What about adultery, heterosexual adultery?

56:39

What about homosexuality? And the question is, is by what standard will you address that? How will you address it?

56:45

So we can't do this as like the boogeyman. And by the way, we should be offended, and I'm not saying you're doing this, but we should be offended by the boogeyman, where we...

56:53

August, come here. Come here. You can come in. My son just, he walked in here, he came wandering around with his sweet little eyes.

57:02

Come here. I'm doing my show.

57:08

He thinks what I do for work is make juice, because we have a juicer here, so he's like, oh, now he's going to work, is he making juice? Come here. He thinks you work at Whole Foods at the juice bar.

57:17

Christine's actually the one that makes all the juice. Yeah, yeah, Christine makes the juice. Hi, August. Hi. How's it going?

57:23

What's up, dude? Hi. Oh, this morning we were watching the Advent, we were watching the

57:28

Advent series as a family, and he's sitting there with us, and he's acting like he's not paying attention, but I'm talking on the

57:34

Advent thing, and I said, God created Adam and then Eve, and Eve's my granddaughter's name.

57:40

Oh, yeah. Eve's my granddaughter's name, and so he says, he goes, Mom, why is that man my dad saying

57:48

Eve? He goes, that man, my dad. There's a lot to figure out for him in a moment like that.

57:55

Very confusing. So, like, you're here with me, but also there. All right.

58:01

All right, onward, and let's go. How the law of God deals with it, which, you know, adultery in Israel, that would be death.

58:09

So, same thing for things. That was the farthest end, yes, was death, but you can see instances.

58:15

We can have this conversation later, not to get too far afield, but David, king of Israel, eating at the death penalty.

58:22

Homosexuality. So, to defend theonomists, because I would want someone to defend me, because, like, for instance, you know,

58:28

I'm a Baptist pastor, but not all Baptists say the same things, right? Sure, absolutely. So, it's like if someone says, all

58:34

Baptists believe this, I'm like, I don't. So, not all theonomists are going to agree on my definition.

58:41

All theonomists are going to agree that the law of God should govern, sorry, should govern all nations.

58:47

The application. That's true. Yeah, I guess I'm just still, maybe this just, maybe all this speaks to is how much of a theonomist

58:56

I am, but I'm just like, why wouldn't you want someone who cheated on their wife to be punished?

59:03

No, question. Should it be a crime for a man or a woman to commit adultery?

59:10

Should that be considered a sexual crime? And if you ask, if you answer by what standard

59:15

God said, yeah, God not only says that that's a crime, but he also says that rape's a crime.

59:21

He also says that, of course, he says, of course, you would put in there molestation and all the rest of that kind of sexual abuse.

59:29

And sex with animals is a crime. But yeah, why are we saying, God, I know you said this is a crime, but we don't think it should be a crime.

59:36

Well, there's, I think that what it dissolves into is a lot of pragmatism, which is like, especially now, we don't live in a, maybe it was easier to do the whole theonomy thing when our culture was more

59:49

Christian or accepting. But now people don't, people don't think it's wrong to cheat on your wife.

59:58

Or they think it's wrong, but like, it's not really hurting anyone except for it does violence to a marriage covenant, but we don't have, we don't have any concept of what,

01:00:06

Just destroys families, destroys society. How do you say it, like a mishap or something like that? Well, yeah, that's the thing.

01:00:12

I mean, obviously it speaks a lot to our culture, but really what you're getting to is you can't, you can't say that that is the standard for everyone because not everyone believes that that is the standard.

01:00:24

If I don't believe that cheating is wrong, then cheating shouldn't be wrong. And, and then that means we have to change the law in this pragmatic way to work for our society.

01:00:33

Whereas I, I just would say what we need to do is make that our culture's standard.

01:00:41

Well, God says is just. Right. He says is righteous. He says is holy. Right. And true.

01:00:47

Right. And, and, and he created it. He's the one that says.

01:00:53

Yeah. That it's righteous and true. I mean, even in terms of marriage, like he, and I, aside from everything else that was created by him, marriage.

01:01:03

So he would be the one that would say, this is what a marriage is. This is how you can defile a marriage.

01:01:09

These are the consequences for defiling marriage. And I don't, I don't accept the definition of unbelieving people when it comes to what constitutes violence against a marriage covenant.

01:01:20

What constitutes a marriage? If he's king of Kings, then he has authority and he has authority to define.

01:01:26

And I, I think a lot of it, and you see this a lot with conversations around the whole justice for sexual assault victims, but really it comes down to like, well,

01:01:35

I feel like we tried that and it's still happening. So obviously it doesn't work. It doesn't work in our culture.

01:01:42

Because people are still homosexual. People are still cheating on their wives. And so it doesn't work.

01:01:48

So we have to find, we have to like bridge the gap and do something that's kind of half

01:01:54

Bible, half realistic. Like it's not, it's not realistic that people would follow the

01:02:00

Bible, but that's not what the Bible actually says. There's a verse, very important. It goes to what you're saying here.

01:02:06

Hebrews two, two. Okay. So this is new Testament, post cross, post resurrection, post ascension, inspired word from God.

01:02:13

Hebrews two, two. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, that's

01:02:19

God's word in the past, God's law and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward.

01:02:28

Every transgression and disobedience received a just reward. What's that saying?

01:02:33

New Testament inspired revelation from God says that what God gave as the standards of justice was a just reward.

01:02:43

So the question is, are those things still happening today? All the things that God addresses in his law, the theft, the rape, manslaughter, the murder, all that stuff.

01:02:54

God, that's still happening today. Well, the writer of Hebrews says that what they received was a just reward.

01:03:02

So God's law there in the new Testament is being called just, it is justice.

01:03:07

That is a just reward. And if God has a civil magistrate that's supposed to obey him and be his servant and wield the sword of justice, which sort of justice do you want them to wield?

01:03:19

This standard of justice or some other autonomous standard of justice, some other inconsistent standard of justice.

01:03:25

And so when you bring up like, yeah, I would want that kind of infidelity to be considered a crime in our society because God says it is, the text says that that crime, that seeing as a crime was a just recompense.

01:03:39

It was a just reward for that kind of behavior and it's still happening today. So what do we want done today?

01:03:45

Injustice or justice? Well, and I think that this is the weird sort of half answer to that question is just like, well,

01:03:52

I guess it's a risk. It's responding to a question with another question, but it's like, so you really think that everyone who cheats,

01:03:59

I think that's really what it is is it's like there is, there's an ignorance, there's an inability to comprehend because this is not what's being taught in most churches.

01:04:07

And so it's like, you really think that everyone who's cheated should have to go have a trial and like potentially maybe even be put to death.

01:04:17

Like, do you really, really think that? Yeah. It's what

01:04:23

God really said. It's what he said. It's what he said. That's the farthest, that's the farthest extreme of that penalty.

01:04:28

Yes. But that just, that shows how far we've gotten. we, it's like what it, it wouldn't, but it just wouldn't make sense to kill all those people for just whatever.

01:04:41

And it's like, well, it's not just whatever though. That's actually, I mean, and you could, I think that it speaks to the importance, like him, him,

01:04:52

God, God declaring a just reward speaks to that. There's a variety of different just rewards that are given in the law.

01:05:01

Yeah. And that speaks to the importance and the violation. The consequence speaks to the severity of the violation.

01:05:11

Well, what you're describing here is spoken about in Ecclesiastes 8, 11, Ecclesiastes 8, 11.

01:05:17

The text says this, because the sentence of evil against an evil deed is not executed speedily.

01:05:23

The heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil. Right. In other words, God's word says, because you don't actually punish things rightly, people's hearts are actually emboldened to do more evil.

01:05:38

And so you, hence our current, does that perfectly describe where we're at? Yeah. We look at a situation today, you're like, this is madness.

01:05:46

Like the stuff, of course, the riots and everything that broke out during COVID, all that stuff. You're like, these people are mad. They got madness in their hearts.

01:05:51

And it's like, yeah, because we have abandoned God's standards of what is evil and punishing evil and loving neighbor, because we've abandoned it.

01:06:00

Now you look at the chaos and it's like, well, it's Christ or chaos. It's Christ or chaos. If you abandon

01:06:06

God's standards and what he says is just and punishment, then you're going to have chaos ensue.

01:06:12

And so when someone says to me, like, you really think that that should be the standard? I'm going to say, yeah, because I love my neighbor. I'm commanded to love my neighbor and the law and the prophets, and we're going to get to this in a moment.

01:06:22

There's more set here. It's going to get, it's going to get different. The law and the prophets are built upon love for God and love for neighbor.

01:06:29

Doreen, it's not just the 10 commandments. It's the law and the prophets are built upon love for God, love for neighbor.

01:06:36

In other words, all the law of God, all the prophets are love God, love neighbor, not just the 10 commandments.

01:06:43

That means that God's judicial standard about adultery, about rape, about slavery, all those things is about loving

01:06:52

God and loving neighbor, all of them. So if you believe that we should love God and love neighbor, you just give me the entire law of God because the

01:06:59

Lord of glory said that all the law and the prophets are built upon love for God and love for neighbor. So remove

01:07:05

God's judicial standards and you're removing the standard for loving God and loving neighbor. Very important.

01:07:11

I was just going to say, hey, where there's no prophetic vision that people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.

01:07:18

Very important. Reference? That'd be Proverbs 29, 18. There you go. So that's true of all theonomists.

01:07:25

So that part is true. Like, we could say all Baptists believe in the Bible. Sure, we agree with that. So all theonomists believe that the law of God should be governing.

01:07:33

Now, at what level and what laws they disagree on, and what punishment.

01:07:39

So some would say, absolutely, it needs to be held down all the way down to stoning. So if you're caught in adultery, you need to be stoned.

01:07:44

If you're homosexual, you need to be stoned. Some would say that there needs to be punishment and that it is of death because it's a death punishment kind of a situation.

01:07:56

So that's, and it's very complicated and there's a lot more to it. But the general idea of it is, is that like the argument is when it says in Matthew 28, go into all the world and make disciples.

01:08:09

Right. And then they say, teaching the nations, all things, and not all things would include all things.

01:08:15

I've taught you that would mean the law. So they would say the gospel, right. Jesus saves you.

01:08:20

And then you're now going to be governed by the law, which, you know, both of us who are Christians and anyone who's a

01:08:26

Christian, the law doesn't go away. Once you're a believer, it just changes the way in which you interact with it.

01:08:32

Right. So the law before was you, if you want to earn God's favor, then perfectly obey the law.

01:08:39

James, right. James says, if you fail in one area of the law, you failed in all areas of the law. So no one's ever tried to do that because if you do, you're going to fail.

01:08:48

I'm sorry. That was really bad. The law was never given so that people could earn God's favor. There was never a time in redemptive history where God gave the law as a means of salvation or earning his favor.

01:09:03

That was, that was never true. No one has ever saved through the law or attempting to be saved by the law.

01:09:11

Romans chapters one through five, make it very clear from the inspired apostle, especially chapters three and four, that the law can justify nobody never could, but the law will be used in Romans three.

01:09:24

It says to shut the whole world up to the whole world of how their mouth closed before God, which law that's after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus.

01:09:32

He's saying the law that cannot justify you will be the same law that God uses to condemn and silence the nations.

01:09:39

That's after the ascension of Jesus, the same law that cannot justify us before God and never will and never could.

01:09:47

That same law will be used to silence, to silence the entire world. Can't justify you, but God will use it to condemn the world, to show them their sin.

01:09:55

Right? And it's the same law in Romans three 31 that Paul says, do we then make void the law through faith?

01:10:01

And the answer is absolutely not. We actually, because of this faith, because of justification by faith, we establish the law, which

01:10:09

Paul, which law is Paul talking about there? The same law that can't, could never justify you is the same law that Christians now uphold and establish.

01:10:19

It can't justify you. God will use it to condemn the world. And now Christians uphold the law, which law?

01:10:26

The same law that cannot justify you is the law that Christians do not void. But now we actually establish.

01:10:32

That's what the text says. And then it goes further to say that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him for righteousness.

01:10:37

And he says the whole point of Paul's argument of justification through faith is father Abraham. When was he justified?

01:10:44

Genesis 15, six, he believed God and it was credited him for righteousness. When? Before circumcision, before Isaac was in the altar 20 years before, at least, and hundreds of years before the hundreds of years before the law was given.

01:10:58

Abraham believed God and was credited him for righteousness. And so all of Abraham's descendants have been justified through faith.

01:11:04

The same faith as father Abraham before circumcision, before any works of law, before Isaac on the altar, before the law of God was given on Sinai.

01:11:13

Abraham, by faith, that's it. And so the law was never given as a means of, of earning favor with God.

01:11:20

Actually, this needs to be said, very important in terms of this being a blessing to the church.

01:11:29

Deuteronomy chapter four. This is so critical in this discussion. Deuteronomy chapter four.

01:11:35

This is what God says about his law. He says, when he gives us law, he says something very different about it than most evangelicals in the

01:11:44

West will believe today. Deuteronomy four verse one. And now, oh Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I'm teaching you and do them that you may live and go in and take possession of the land that the

01:11:55

Lord, that the Lord, the God of your fathers is giving you. You should not add to the word that I command you nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the

01:12:03

Lord, your God, that I commanded you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baalpore, Peor, for the

01:12:09

Lord, your God destroyed from among you all the men who followed the Baal of Peor, but you who held fast to the

01:12:14

Lord, your God are all alive today. See, I have taught you statutes and rules as the Lord, my God commanded me that you should do them in the land that you are entering it to take possession of it.

01:12:24

Here's what he says. Keep them and do them for that will be your wisdom and your understanding and the sight of the peoples who, when they hear all these statutes will say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people for what great nation is there that has a

01:12:40

God so near to it as the Lord, our God is to us whenever we call upon him. And here it is. And what great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today, you see what's often said about the law of God by evangelicals in the

01:12:57

West today is to say like, that law stuff, like we're not under that anymore. Like that's just harsh, really awful law.

01:13:04

That's all done. Like we're just in this place of grace now. Here's what the Bible teaches. It was always grace.

01:13:09

It was always faith. And the law of God, yes, exposes your sin. It silences you.

01:13:15

But also guess what? God says, this is your wisdom and understanding the side of the peoples. And they're going to say, man, that is righteous.

01:13:22

That is just like the nations are supposed to pour into Israel going. This is a place that has statutes and rules.

01:13:28

So righteous. We don't talk about the law of God like that. We talk about it as this awful thing in the past.

01:13:33

And thank God we're out from under that. And that thing was just only condemning and only harsh, all those things. That's not what

01:13:39

God says. He says, this was righteous. He says, this is going to be their wisdom and understanding. And the people are going to be saying, wow, look at that righteousness.

01:13:47

Look at that. Look at those just standards. I want to live in a nation with that kind of Liberty. I want to live in a nation with that kind of justice.

01:13:54

It seems to me that we actually have a different way of talking about the law of God than God does in his law.

01:14:02

And just real quickly, you have that conversation. Will I? Yeah. So I'm, I was, I'm glad that he mentioned all of the great commission, although he didn't quite get it exactly right.

01:14:14

But later on, he's going to leave off the last part. So it's go make, teach, go make disciples, baptize them, teach them all that I have commanded.

01:14:26

Not as he says, I think he says all that I taught or something like that. It's all the, it's his commands, all that he has commanded.

01:14:34

That's what we're supposed to do is teach. And that's an important aspect, which I don't even know if today, if we're going to have time to get in all that, but cause it's going to come up again later in this, in this conversation.

01:14:45

But I'm glad he brought it up. But the other thing I was going to say too, is he says, well, this is what the anonymous would say that is, but doesn't really tell us what he thinks it means.

01:14:55

Then he gets into the, to the law here. So my question is what, what does he think that those commands ever get?

01:15:03

He doesn't ever, does he ever get, no, he doesn't. Does he get into like his standard or what? I don't think so.

01:15:09

No, he believes. So my question would be, what is, what does he think that means? It's important.

01:15:14

Cause again, it's going to come, it's going to come up several times, actually later. But that was my point

01:15:20

I was going to make. And he's still, I was going to, do you, do you think that people just legitimately believe that this wouldn't work?

01:15:36

Like there's that they're just like limited in their discipleship regarding the law that they just don't think

01:15:44

I, I don't know. I don't, I don't have a ton of interactions about theonomy specifically.

01:15:51

But I, I do feel like I think that there's lots of just misunderstandings about how the, like even trials, like there being a trial or there being a difference between a sin that has legal consequences versus a sin that doesn't.

01:16:10

Difference between sins and crimes. Well, that's important because that's going to come up later. Even just the standard for how to say someone is guilty and the amount of evidence required.

01:16:22

I feel like there's just, it's, I guess maybe what I'm saying is I think we, there is so much of God's law in our current system, though.

01:16:31

It's very, very flawed now. And I think that's because we've sort of given up, given it up. But I think people think that we came to these conclusions on our own instead of getting them from,

01:16:44

I do think that's a huge part of the issue. English, not understand where it came from. English common law built upon the law of God.

01:16:52

I'll get into that later. The Christians, the Christians that fought to get these, these standards and these statutes into the law.

01:16:59

Like you're right. I mean, you're exactly right. The people think that like they assume like we just came up with this and it's great. It's wrong to murder.

01:17:05

We figured that out at some point that it's, it's wrong and hurtful and, and violates something, a person and their family.

01:17:13

So we should make that, there should be a punishment for doing that. And then, but if,

01:17:18

I don't know if you follow that, that, that logic, that's how we get to where we are now. Well, where we just,

01:17:25

I mean, we just Terry and Hem and Haw over what the just punishment for someone who has murdered someone is.

01:17:32

And, and if they're good, they can get out in three years. And if they were young, they can get out in no time.

01:17:38

And yeah, my, my, my high school girlfriend was raped on her bathroom floor at her birthday party. And the guy was out in six months.

01:17:46

Yeah, it was actually, it was interesting because you can actually, the, the sentence for threatening, not even actually committing a crime against an official, a government official is more than most rapists.

01:18:03

Yeah. Yeah. It can be serious. And, you know, I want to say this, like in terms of like theonomic principles and the law of God applied to society, you should thank

01:18:10

God for theonomy because it's what the Christian abolitionists used to actually put slavery under the feet of Jesus.

01:18:19

They fought against. Well, that's a great example. I feel like we just, a lot of people think, well, and then we just realized that slavery was actually bad.

01:18:28

Right. And then we were like, some people were like, we got to stop this guys. Right. Yeah. And then there was a war.

01:18:34

And then William, in England, William Wilberforce was directly appealing to God's law.

01:18:39

Right. And the Christian abolitionists who were fighting against slavery in the South and North for a long time were preaching the gospel.

01:18:47

And they were calling to repentance on the basis of mosaic legislation. They were saying God's law says if you kidnap and enslave somebody, you deserve the death penalty.

01:18:56

That's what they were using. And so that's, that's how, that's what changed the minds of the culture to finally get there was they were arguing, hey, we're supposedly a

01:19:03

Christian nation and we are violating God's law here massively. And let me tell you what they were appealing to.

01:19:09

They were appealing to mosaic legislation. And they weren't saying, well, there's a bunch of people who own slaves, so it would never work for us to say that that's unjust.

01:19:18

they were saying, they were saying the plantation owners, if they're going to keep engaging in a desert capital punishment, that's what they're saying. Right. Yeah. So the law is meant to show us our sin.

01:19:26

You know, God, I am condemned before you. We like that. We don't like that part of the law at all. Now I am cleansed and I have

01:19:33

Jesus righteousness. Now the law, as Paul says, becomes our tutor. It becomes our guide. It directs us.

01:19:38

It can't condemn us. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but now it can guide us, can direct us.

01:19:44

That's what we call the third use of the law. Okay. Can it? Can it guide us in questions of justice and righteousness in society?

01:19:51

Can it guide us in that way? Because Ezekiel 36, one of the promises of the new covenant is God says, he's going to sprinkle clean water on us.

01:19:58

So we'll be clean. He'll cleanses of all of our idols who remove a heart of stone and give a heart of flesh. And he says that I will put my spirit within you.

01:20:04

And he says, I will cause you to observe my statutes. That's Ezekiel 36. What statutes do you think

01:20:11

God was referring to in Ezekiel 36 with an Old Testament monotheistic

01:20:16

Jew? He says, I'll put my spirit within you and I will cause you to observe my statutes. It actually sounds like Jeremiah 31 31.

01:20:23

It actually sounds like Isaiah chapter two. It actually sounds like Isaiah 42, where God promises that the law is a constituent element of the new covenant itself.

01:20:32

It's just in a new way where we have the spirit of God and dwelling us. It's on our hearts. We desire, we long for this, but yeah, but which, which

01:20:39

Torah, which law is going to go forth from the people of God? Do you think in the new covenant, God seems pretty clear in his word.

01:20:45

Well, this is where I think they started to conflate the two a little bit. This is where they started to get, when I said embarrassing. Yeah. This is where, when they start to give more definitions, this is where it gets embarrassing.

01:20:53

Because he has the moral law. That's the purpose of the moral law is what he just described. But then how do you apply the moral law?

01:21:00

You know, what are the consequences? Across the board. Because you're right. The judicial law actually is telling you how to love your neighbor.

01:21:08

This is the proper way to love your neighbor when there's a crime. So there is moral law inside of the judicial law, like how you're to love your neighbor.

01:21:18

Yeah. So we have the 10 commandments that are still for today. Jesus was very clear that love

01:21:24

God and love your neighbor. All of the 10 commandments hang on those two. This is a big one.

01:21:31

Yeah. This is a big one. Doreen, I love you, sister. I really do. I have a lot of affection for Doreen.

01:21:38

Doreen, this is, you were wrong here. Jesus didn't say that all the 10 commandments were based upon love for God, love for neighbor.

01:21:46

Just read the text. All of the law and the prophets, the whole law and prophets were built upon love for God and love for neighbor, not just the 10 commandments.

01:22:00

Yes. When you look at the 10 commandments, you see love God and you see love neighbor. And then the rest of the law that explains what to do if somebody violates those laws is also how you love

01:22:12

God and love neighbor. If you believe that love God and love neighbor is still relevant in the new covenant, then you should understand that that command to love

01:22:22

God and love neighbor comes from Mosaic legislation, first and foremost. In other words, love

01:22:28

God, love neighbor. Jesus was quoting from, ready? Leviticus. He was quoting from Leviticus.

01:22:36

You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. That is in Leviticus. And so love God, love neighbor is the

01:22:42

Mosaic legislation. And Jesus says, all of the law and the prophets are built upon love for God and love for neighbor.

01:22:47

In other words, how you punish the rapist is in large measure going to be based upon your love for God and love for neighbor, because God defines how.

01:22:59

How you punish the thief is going to be based upon love for God and love for neighbor. And so all the law and the prophets,

01:23:06

Doreen, not just the 10 commandments, you misquoted it there. It's all the law and the prophets are built upon love for God and love for neighbor.

01:23:13

Right. So we've got that. And then the ceremonial laws we were talking about, the not mixing fabrics, the shellfish, that was fulfilled by Jesus on the cross.

01:23:23

Right. And those had a specific purpose for the nation of Israel that was fulfilled. Right. And then you have...

01:23:29

Can we talk about that first, just briefly? Ephesians chapter two, we typically refer to that as the holiness code.

01:23:35

Okay. The holiness code. And they were laws that were given to Israel that were essentially training wheels to teach them to be separate and not to engage in syncretism and be like this around the surrounding nations.

01:23:45

So what did God do? He gave them specific ways for them to essentially live and act out their separateness from the paganism and the unrighteous societies around them.

01:23:55

So God literally put it into their clothing and their food. You were to be so separate from the pagan nations, so separate and not engage in any syncretism, that it's supposed to be in your clothes.

01:24:05

You don't mix fibers. What did that teach them? Don't blend with the surrounding nations. Don't do what they do.

01:24:10

Don't adopt their practices. Don't uphold their unrighteous statutes. You do not blend.

01:24:16

And so the fabrics were supposed to teach them as training wheels, not to blend with the practices of the pagan nations around them.

01:24:23

They were supposed to eat differently, look differently, because why? They were a separate nation. So here's what's important.

01:24:29

The Apostle Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, says that that holiness code now doesn't apply in the same way in the new covenant administration.

01:24:37

Why? Because now we've got Jews and Gentiles coming together in one body, and so the food and dietary restrictions, those don't apply in the same way anymore.

01:24:46

Neither does the clothing stuff. But guess what? That law about the clothing, about the food, is still abiding and relevant today.

01:24:55

Not in the same way, but we are still to be separate as God's people. We are still not to be blending with the pagan nations around us.

01:25:02

We're still not to be adopting their practices. So guess what? Even the equity and principle behind those holiness code legislative commands, that still abides for the new covenant believer, not in the same way.

01:25:16

I ate bacon this morning, I think. I ate so much bacon I forget when I eat it. It's not the same in the new covenant administration, but guess what?

01:25:27

It still applies. And the Apostle Paul says the same thing about the ceremonial laws and the other things that they were doing in terms of how they would actually do a practice of sweeping the yeast or the stuff out of their house.

01:25:39

You're not to celebrate it in the same way, but it's still abiding and relevant because we're to purge ourselves of all that sin and all that malice and all that stuff out of our lives.

01:25:50

It's still an abiding law. It's not done in the same way in the new covenant administration, but the law still abides. And guess what else still abides?

01:25:57

We don't have a temple anymore. We don't have a priest anymore. We don't have yearly day of atonements anymore.

01:26:02

We don't have any of those things anymore, but guess what? We still have a temple. We still have a high priest. We still have a sacrifice.

01:26:08

Guess what? We're not practicing blood atonement anymore today. We're not rehearsing it every year, but guess what? Blood atonement is still abiding and relevant in the new covenant.

01:26:16

It's just a once for all sacrifice. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins, and that's true for the new covenant, but it's a once for all sacrifice.

01:26:24

So when someone's like, yeah, we just don't do this stuff anymore. It's like, yeah, it's not the same way anymore, but every bit of that is still abiding and relevant in a new covenant.

01:26:32

It's just not in the same in this administration. We still have a temple. We still have a high priest. We still have a sacrifice.

01:26:38

We still have blood atonement. We still have to be separate from the surrounding nations. All of God's law and his righteous statutes endure forever.

01:26:46

It doesn't mean that all of them are done in the same way, but God hasn't tossed his law aside. Like, yeah,

01:26:51

I revealed that to you. Yeah, that mattered to me, and yeah, that was just, but in the new covenant, it's olly olly oxen free.

01:26:58

It's just every man for himself. You can just do whatever you please. Whatever you feel like. Well, those all pointed to Christ, right?

01:27:05

And so when Christ says in Matthew, I didn't come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. There you go. He fulfilled those laws, but he clearly says

01:27:12

I didn't come to be done with the law, to abolish it, to end it. I fulfilled it, and that's what he's talking about.

01:27:18

He brought it to its proper place. Quick note. I think that Holiness Code sounds like the name of a circa 90s hip hop,

01:27:25

Christian hip hop group. Yeah, that's Holiness Code, y 'all. Side note. Just want to say that's a great name.

01:27:32

You're welcome. If you're looking, some of you are out there looking for, there you go. Might be some denim involved in that.

01:27:38

You're trying to start a group? Holiness Code. You're welcome. You heard it from the girl. Mosaic laws that you're talking about were how to live with each other, basically.

01:27:50

Yeah, those are kind of like judicial laws. Pastor, do you believe the judicial laws of Moses are still for today, in addition to the

01:27:58

Ten Commandments? No. So the judicial laws had a specific purpose and reason to govern the nation of Israel, right?

01:28:05

So if we just want to step back and look at it from a scriptural standpoint, what's the promise that God makes to Abraham?

01:28:11

Like, from you will come a great nation, and from this nation, I will bless the whole world. And what he means is I'm bringing you the person, which is

01:28:19

Jesus. And so when this nation is formulated and then God fulfills all of these promises and the

01:28:26

Messiah comes and the Messiah dies and he rises again, the purpose behind the nation and the temple, remember when the temple veil rips in two?

01:28:34

And the writer of Hebrews says we no longer need the temple. We no longer need this division because the true

01:28:41

Israel, Jesus, has come. So Jesus fulfilled the very purpose of Israel as a nation.

01:28:48

So it's no longer Jew and Gentile. We are all one nation that is coming together into God's kingdom.

01:28:57

Did you hear that? You heard that contradiction? There's several things there. I'll let you go first. Okay. So first of all,

01:29:04

Pastor, you're making claims that you're not backing up with scripture. You're saying, well, this is for the theocratic king of Israel.

01:29:12

That's why the law was given. It's just for that. But he's just done with Israel now. So that's all gone away.

01:29:17

I would say back it up with scripture. And he says basically, because there's no longer a nation of Israel, these laws don't matter anymore to God.

01:29:26

They're not relevant anymore in the New Covenant. He says because now he's brought Jews and Gentiles together into one nation.

01:29:33

What nation? Okay, so if we are this Israel of God, as Paul refers to the church as the

01:29:39

Israel of God. He just does. Read Galatians. He refers to the church as the Israel of God. That's Jews and Gentiles into one body.

01:29:45

They're the Israel of God. If the Israel of God still exists, if we've all been grafted into Israel, we can do this for days too.

01:29:52

Let's go to Romans. The Gentiles have been grafted into Israel. If we still have an Israel in the

01:29:57

New Covenant, does the law of God apply to that nation? Because you admit that he had it for his nation and for his people, and now we've got

01:30:06

Jews and Gentiles into one body. So if the Jews and Gentiles now are in one body, and as you said, we're like one nation together now, are we no longer to uphold

01:30:15

God's righteous statutes and what he revealed about his law now that we've been grafted into Israel?

01:30:22

And also, this whole idea, and I said it, you're making claims that you're not backing up with Scripture.

01:30:27

This whole idea that in the New Covenant, the law of God is no longer going to be abiding and relevant violates what

01:30:33

God says he's going to do in Isaiah chapter 2, where it says the Torah, the law of God, is going to go forth in the people of God.

01:30:38

It violates what God says he's going to do in Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 through 8, where he's going to establish justice and righteousness forevermore.

01:30:46

It violates what God says he's going to do in Isaiah chapter 42, where the servant of the Lord is going to establish justice on the earth and the coastlands are waiting for his

01:30:53

Torah. So this whole idea that in the New Covenant, the law of God is no longer abiding and relevant, it violates

01:30:59

Jeremiah 31, 31, Ezekiel 36. We can keep going. We can keep going.

01:31:05

But I think you get the point. And also, when the question is asked, and I'll kick it over to you, Luke, here, Doreen, when you asked the pastor, are the judicial standards abiding today?

01:31:17

Are those carried over today? And if the answer was no, then

01:31:23

I'll just give you one thing to shoot at. When the Apostle Paul quotes to Timothy, Deuteronomy 19 .15

01:31:31

and Numbers 35 .30, and says, do not receive an accusation against an elder unless it's in the base of two to three witnesses.

01:31:42

That's post cross, post resurrection, post ascension. The Apostle Paul quotes from the judicial standards, and he says no accusation unless there's two or three witnesses.

01:31:51

What's he quoting from? God's judicial law. That was law for the courts and receiving accusations.

01:31:57

So apparently the Apostle Paul didn't agree with the division that Doreen, you and the pastor are making here, where you're like, the judicial standards are all gone now, those are all irrelevant.

01:32:05

Well, then why is the Apostle Paul quoting from them to Timothy, and he doesn't do it like, now, now, now, we all know that the law of God and his judicial standards are all gone away now, but I'm gonna go ahead and pull this over today.

01:32:15

He just assumes it's abiding validity. He says to Timothy, receive no accusation against an elder unless it's in the base of two to three witnesses.

01:32:23

What did he just do there? He pulled over from the judicial laws of Moses and assumed it's abiding relevance.

01:32:29

He didn't say, we know it's all gone away, but we're gonna uphold it. Yeah, so, a couple things.

01:32:35

One, God's law was not just for Israel in the

01:32:40

Old Testament. There's plenty of examples of God holding other nations accountable to his law. One reference for people,

01:32:47

I'm glad you said that, was when God condemns the practice of homosexuality, man with man, women with women, what's he say?

01:32:53

He says it's for these very practices that are driving the nations out from you. So, he's judging those nations for violations of his law related to sexuality.

01:33:03

Yep, exactly. So, that was the first thing. And then,

01:33:09

I totally forgot what I was gonna say. I just lost it. I have a question while you get back on track.

01:33:19

Ultimately, we don't really find out what he believes. Does he believe that the

01:33:25

Ten Commandments are still abiding? I believe so. He does. And Doreen does. I guess

01:33:31

I just, for some reason it's just clicking now, but it's interesting. I don't know what he was trying to say when he mentioned infidelity earlier because adultery is definitely part of the

01:33:45

Ten Commandments. So, is it a crime? But, because the Ten Commandments doesn't actually cite the case law with it, we just...

01:33:57

So, the law is literally just a list of ten things that you shouldn't do.

01:34:04

And we have to acknowledge the fact that the New Testament pulls more over than the Ten Commandments.

01:34:10

Right, right. I guess I'm just trying, and I'm not trying to be patronizing. No, you're not. He would agree that you should not commit adultery as abiding in the

01:34:20

New Testament. But, they essentially sort of, they'll ignore the fact that God tells you what you're supposed to do to uphold the victim's rights of the person who's been sinned against in that way.

01:34:32

They'll say, no adultery in a New Covenant, but there should be no punishment for adultery in a

01:34:38

New Covenant. Okay. And you're going to hear that in a moment. But that's not the case for other commandments, though.

01:34:44

I'm assuming they would... They actually answer some of that here coming up. Yeah, so I was just going to say, this is tricky because I, after what he just said,

01:34:55

I don't think he would say he's a dispensationalist. But, he's acting like one, you know, because he says that Jews or Gentiles are brought into one nation, but it's like, well, what's that nation?

01:35:08

Israel? Is that Israel? Right, so God gave Old Testament Israel those standards, but Israel in the

01:35:15

New Testament doesn't have those standards? That's the question I have from... Because haven't we been grafted in?

01:35:22

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because I would say we are the true Israel, so shouldn't those still apply? And we're going to...

01:35:28

You mentioned one example of Old Testament law being brought into the New Testament. He literally says he can't find any.

01:35:35

But I think we're going to get to that in a second. And it's evident in his churches, right? So, the judicial laws that were given, there's no longer a theocracy.

01:35:45

There's no longer a nation governed by God. What? So, in the

01:35:55

New Covenant, we have not been grafted into Israel? We are not the people of God governed by the rule of Christ?

01:36:06

Are we not, as God's people, under His rule? This idea of, like, we don't have that anymore, it's like, well, wait a second.

01:36:13

I don't mean this in any way to be offensive, but what do you mean by that? This is not

01:36:18

New Testament biblical faith, the idea that, like, we just have this nebulous group of people here that are not under God's rule and God's standards and His righteous statutes.

01:36:26

This doesn't make any sense to me. I'm concerned when I hear things like that.

01:36:32

Very concerned. But it is indicative of how we view the law of God today, generally, in the

01:36:38

West, as evangelicals, and how seminaries have taught the law of God, or simply not taught the law of God.

01:36:44

So therefore, the judicial laws are no longer needed. They have lost their purpose because there's no longer a theocracy.

01:36:51

Judicial laws are no longer needed. Okay? So when God says in Deuteronomy 4 that He's giving these laws to them to be their wisdom and understanding on the side of the peoples, and the people were supposed to say righteous statutes, so righteous is this, that's no longer needed today.

01:37:10

And we no longer need God's standards of justice today. So people aren't stealing today, people aren't raping today, people aren't murdering today, people aren't violating their neighbors today, people aren't committing adultery today, people aren't lying today and perjuring themselves today, people aren't doing that anymore today.

01:37:27

We don't need those standards anymore. We don't need them in the Church. You know, again, we talked about this, the command in Deuteronomy, the judicial command about witnesses is something the

01:37:38

Apostle Paul and Jesus apply in the New Testament itself. So this whole idea that we don't need those things anymore is very concerning to me.

01:37:47

Yeah, if someone stole his car he wouldn't be like, well, we don't need those judicial laws. He'd want recompense.

01:37:55

And then comes this question, by what standard? By what standard would he do it? Yeah. So yeah, we do need judicial laws still.

01:38:04

But the moral law, so the Ten Commandments, Jesus did re -institute those, and those are to still be adhered to by believers.

01:38:17

Jesus did re -institute those. Where? There's the challenge.

01:38:22

Jesus did re -institute those. Chapter and verse, Pastor. Chapter and verse where we see

01:38:29

Jesus saying, all the rest have gone away, as you're saying, but I'm going to re -institute these.

01:38:35

That's nowhere in the New Testament. What you do see in the New Testament is Jesus expressly saying,

01:38:54

What you do see in the New Testament is that Jesus and the Apostles just simply assume the abiding validity of the law of God from judicial standards to animal husbandry laws.

01:39:07

I mean, to the death penalty in the New Testament, and we'll keep going so you can see that. They do reflect the nature of God, right?

01:39:14

To steal, not to steal, not to covet another person's things, not to murder, to bear false witness, to serve the

01:39:21

Lord, all of those are still valuable to us. Those didn't go away. Those are part of the nature of who

01:39:27

God is and the way in which we reflect Him. And God put all those And one thing

01:39:32

I want to say is one other thing that God's law does that reflects His nature,

01:39:38

His character is found in the judicial law itself that shows concern for neighbor and love for neighbor and justice for victims' rights.

01:39:47

And so we have to consider that. When you talk about anything from the parapet on the roof of your house to not receiving accusations to adultery to whatever you're talking about, we're talking about the revelation of God's own character.

01:40:01

God has revealed Himself. He's given us a word from on high as to what is just in this situation where a crime has been committed.

01:40:12

This is the just response. And so when we talk about God's character and His revelation, those judicial standards are a reflection and expression of His own character and His standards.

01:40:26

It's not just the Ten Commandments. I mean, not to be too nitpicky, but he said that they were valuable for us.

01:40:35

But I think that there I think there's some confusion about um you were just you were just touching on it.

01:40:43

But just like it's that whole sort of pragmatism thing. Like we can he preserved this moral law because that's what will be good for the world to continue.

01:40:54

The world won't keep going if everyone kills each other, you know. And it's this, but really the moral law reveals the holiness of God.

01:41:04

And that's a component. I'm not saying that he's just doesn't believe that. But I'm just saying there seems to be an emphasis on one over the other in the statement where it would be both.

01:41:17

It's not just about I just, whenever I see people engaging on this

01:41:23

I feel like the pragmatism comes through and the like, well it just it doesn't work for humanity.

01:41:29

But there are some things that don't work for humanity especially unbelieving humanity and God still commands it.

01:41:37

It's not about, it's not just for for our good.

01:41:43

God isn't, he's not a pragmatist. He is, he's God. Right, right. That's right.

01:41:50

For everybody's hearts, believer and unbeliever. Right, and that's what's called, and this is where a little bit of the debate between theonomy happens between those who are not theonomist, that we believe

01:42:02

Romans 1 that tells us that there's a thing called the natural law, right? So because people will say, well how can we condemn someone in a country that's never, you know the

01:42:11

Aborigines, those poor people always get the illustration right? Why do, why can God judge the Aborigines who's never heard the gospel and yet God's going to condemn them?

01:42:20

And Paul answers that question. He says, well actually every human being has what's called the natural law.

01:42:26

They can see in nature, in themselves and in nature the evidences of God and because of that they will be held accountable for that reality that's in them.

01:42:35

It's called natural theology and it's important for us, or natural law it's important for us to understand that because Paul uses that.

01:42:42

It's also what governs nations, which we're going to get into here a little bit with dominionism but also in theonomy.

01:42:48

So the reason why theonomists are going to read... Okay, really important. So scripture is clear on there's general revelation and there's special revelation.

01:42:58

General revelation is what comes generally through nature. We talk about natural theology and natural law coming through and then there's special revelation that is literally word from God on high, special revelation that is his scripture, words from his prophets and so these two books that God gives, general revelation and special revelation, these two books can't contradict one another.

01:43:22

And he's going to say soon here that theonomists deny natural revelation or natural law.

01:43:29

I don't know any theonomist who's ever denied natural theology or natural revelation or natural law.

01:43:36

What we say is is that natural law, general revelation is inefficient when you're dealing with human sin because the rebel will always rebel against God and the revelation that he gives.

01:43:49

That's also in Romans 1. It says they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. So even the general revelation that gets through with clarity, so as Paul says, they are left unapologetus without a reasoned defense.

01:44:01

When that gets through, what does Paul say under inspiration in that same section of scripture? He says that that general revelation gets through and that sinful mankind suppresses that revelation.

01:44:12

Here's the key issue, everyone. This is probably one of the most important things you'll hear here. There is general revelation and natural law, and then there is special revelation.

01:44:21

These are two books from God. Here's what's important here. Ready? These books don't contradict each other.

01:44:29

Pause and think about that for a moment because it's one of the most important elements. General revelation and natural law and special revelation cannot contradict one another because they're both from the same

01:44:39

God. So if you say that the nations are just ruled by natural law, and they know

01:44:45

God's standards because God says He gives it to them. Yeah, it also says that they suppress it in unrighteousness.

01:44:51

And how do I know, ready? How do we all know that the unbelievers ruling our nation today are not listening to the natural law within them?

01:45:01

Because they are exchanging the truth of God for a lie, and they are saying that men with men, women with women, is totally fine.

01:45:08

How do you and I know that that is sinful and wrong? It says they've got that general revelation.

01:45:14

It says they defy it. And the way that I know that they are defying general revelation and natural theology, natural law, is because of special revelation.

01:45:23

General revelation gets through but is suppressed. So yeah, natural law is within the image bearer, but they suppress that law, and they do according to their own devices.

01:45:35

And how do I know they're sinning against natural law that's been given to them? Because I have special revelation.

01:45:42

Those two books from God can't contradict one another, and you can't say, well, nations are just going to be ruled by natural law and general revelation.

01:45:49

Yeah, they sin against that, and how do I know they're sinning against it? Because the general revelation they say is getting through clearly is being suppressed because special revelation says this is sin, and this is what is just.

01:46:02

So. Very important. Did we have to just bounce somebody? Oh, no.

01:46:08

The tattoos came up again. We're not listening to anything we're saying. Go ahead.

01:46:16

There's just so much I can say. No, there's more coming now. Something like natural law is they don't believe that that is sufficient to govern humanity and to govern nations, and that the law, the actual written law, the

01:46:29

Spirit -inspired law needs to be what's used. And so I'll give you an example of why this breaks down and there's a problem.

01:46:38

Because, again, this is so critical, because those two books delivered to humankind, general revelation and special revelation are from the same

01:46:49

God. He gives humanity both general and special.

01:46:56

And so you know that sinful, rebellious mankind suppresses the truth and unrighteousness, and so they will not be guided or listen to general revelation or natural law, ultimately because they're suppressing the truth and unrighteousness.

01:47:09

That's what Romans 1 also says. So the way that I know that they're not obeying that natural theology or natural law is because I have special revelation from God where God tells me explicitly what

01:47:21

His Word is about justice and righteousness and all of His statutes. And so when you say, well, there's general revelation, people will be governed by that.

01:47:28

Clearly they're not. Clearly they're not. Tell us about the, what's it called? The Profanation of Marriage Act?

01:47:35

What's the Defense of Marriage Act? How's that general revelation working out for y 'all? How's it working out?

01:47:40

That's my question. How's it working out with all the transgender stuff? How's it working out? How's the general revelation coming through with a sinful, rebellious human?

01:47:48

And the way that you know that they're violating that natural law or general revelation is because you have special revelation.

01:47:55

And do you know what else is in that special revelation? God's standards and His justice and His righteous statutes. It's all there.

01:48:02

Okay, so we're in a church. You and I are in a church, and we go to First Church or whatever. And our dear brother

01:48:08

Jim decides to cheat on his wife, heartbroken. And the Bible has this deal with that.

01:48:15

I mean, 1 Corinthians is a good example of this, the man who's sleeping with his mother -in -law. And so we call him to repent if he doesn't repent.

01:48:22

And then we call him to repent again. We take him to the congregation. We put him out of the church with the hopes of what?

01:48:28

As Paul says, that he comes back, that we restore him, right? We want to restore him. And he even says in 1

01:48:33

Corinthians, the second letter, he's like, okay, you put him out, now let him come back in. Here's the problem with theonomy.

01:48:39

If the United States is governed by this rule of law, then there is no repentance.

01:48:47

When we put him out, there's no calling back. The man needs to be judged by the law, and he will be put to death. Okay, ready?

01:48:54

This is where legs come off, ready? Now try theft. Now try rape.

01:49:00

Now try molestation. You see, you don't really believe this, do you, Pastor? Doreen, you don't believe this either.

01:49:06

Because I'd be willing to bet that you both would be on our side. If there was a man who was caught in the

01:49:12

Sunday school molesting the children in Sunday school, you would say, we want him to have the gospel, we want him to know

01:49:19

Jesus, but guess what? He's still got to face justice. He's still got to face the state. Why?

01:49:25

Because he committed a crime. Or if you caught someone stealing from the church, like one woman at Cornerstone years ago that was working for Cornerstone, and she had stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from the church.

01:49:37

She was just buying gift cards, and she was using them herself, and they were supposedly giveaways as benevolence. As far as I know, that's what the situation was.

01:49:44

A situation like that, yeah, you want the person to know the gospel, you want them to know Jesus, you want them to be forgiven, but guess what? You recognize they still have to face the state.

01:49:52

So this whole—what this really shows here is really what you said, is that we have actually dumbed down and diminished the crime of adultery.

01:50:00

We don't really think about adultery like God does, right? We don't think about adultery like God does in terms of there's a victim here, and this is actually a crime, not just a sin.

01:50:09

Because not every sin in the Old Testament is actually a crime. It's not, but some are sins and crimes, and adultery is listed as a sin and a crime.

01:50:20

And so what they're saying here is, if this guy commits adultery, according to these theonomists, like, you know, they would—he'd have to face justice, and like, you know, we couldn't believe in that.

01:50:29

It's like, well, that's what God said, and you don't believe that about rape, child molestation, or theft. Or murder.

01:50:35

If a guy murdered someone in this pastor's church, he would be saying, I want this man to repent and know the gospel, but he has to face the state.

01:50:44

Well, and execution is not done by the church, or individual people.

01:50:54

It's done by— it's done civilly. It's judicial.

01:50:59

By the government. Which means that if you catch someone cheating on their wife, you can't just stab them to death right there.

01:51:09

There's sort of a— like, it sounds good, but a trial takes a period of time.

01:51:18

Currently, trials take way, way, way too long. But the point is that you wouldn't just be running in.

01:51:26

This is not what—theonomists do not believe, that you just run in, witness a crime, or hear of a crime, and go, oh, oh,

01:51:35

God said, I can personally kill you. That's just not—I feel like that—the statement is, like, here's why it doesn't work, and then it doesn't actually comport with what theonomy actually believes, which would include everything that a legal judicial trial would include.

01:51:56

Witnesses? Because that's from the—it's actually from the Bible. Witnesses? Right. Cross -examination?

01:52:02

If you like witnesses and cross -examination, thank Moses for that. And that's what I think it has—I don't know.

01:52:08

I have suspicions about why we're so willing to believe that none of this very smart stuff came from the

01:52:16

Bible. But yeah, I just feel like it's— I don't know. Like, I don't want to be mean, but it just seems like it's assuming some things that are just not true.

01:52:31

Like, at face value, what he said, that does appear to be a problem for the theonomist, but it's pretty easy to take that down.

01:52:40

It's not immediate. You're not just dispensing justice immediately.

01:52:47

That would actually be injustice for you to kill someone without any sort of legal proceedings.

01:52:55

It gets to another important element here, too. They're going to bring this up here I think right after this, but theonomy is not just about punishment.

01:53:04

That's what's really important here. It's not just about capital punishment. It's not just about punishment. Theonomy, God's law, also is about protecting and preserving human life, like with the parapet on the roof of your house.

01:53:15

It's also about respecting one another's property. Like, don't move the property boundary marker of your neighbor's land, their house.

01:53:21

Don't steal from them in that way. Theonomy is also about paying your employees who work for you.

01:53:27

Like, don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain, was to teach them that if something's working for you, you pay them and you pay them.

01:53:34

That's also theonomy. Theonomy is not just about punishment. It's about how you treat your neighbor.

01:53:40

Really, even all these even all the legal consequences that we're talking about here are not in our current justice system works to rehabilitate the offender, whereas God's law is about reestablishing wholeness in the victim.

01:54:00

It's more about the victim than the offender, and we don't totally understand that.

01:54:07

I'm so glad you brought that up. The issue with those laws in terms of penalties is about victim's rights.

01:54:14

It's about making the victim whole. It's not about making the offender feel really, really bad about what they did. No, only

01:54:19

God can do that. It's about restoring something that was broken. Exactly, and that's why the easiest ways to do it, and I'm so glad you brought this up, is with theft, there's different laws about how you repay.

01:54:33

If it's just a general issue of theft, it's typically double. You're making them whole and then you're making them whole again.

01:54:42

In that way, you're restored because you were stolen from and the person can come back to society now because they've made you whole.

01:54:48

They're not treated like an animal for a weird arbitrary period of time. Not caged up like an animal, becoming a burden to the rest of society, punishing the rest of society who has to pay for his jail cell and his sex change and his food and his doctor's bills and all the rest.

01:55:01

But if it's for a business, now that you've lost business as well if you've been stolen from, so it's a different repayment for business.

01:55:09

You're paying back the thing plus five because you lost business and it affects the business.

01:55:15

But in the situation where you have an instance where it's murder, well because you've done something that's so heinous and so devastating and it's so disruptive to the world, there really is no way to make that victim whole again because you've taken their life.

01:55:30

So that's why it's eye for eye, tooth for tooth. It's equal justice where if you've taken their life, then your life has to be paid because the only way on this side of heaven you can make that right is that you've taken a life, you've forfeited yours.

01:55:45

Because there's no way I can make this victim whole. So the only way to make the situation just is that you forfeit your life.

01:55:54

It's equal justice. That's the key issue with God's law is that it's equal justice. Anything beyond equal justice would be sinful because if you go too heavy, now you're abusing the criminal.

01:56:08

If you go too light, then you're abusing the victim. And that's why it has to be equal justice.

01:56:14

That's the key issue in God's law is equal justice. One quick thing is this is where they're really conflating things.

01:56:22

He literally said they would just want to put him to death with no chance of repentance.

01:56:28

What? We'll give him plenty of opportunities to repent. It's called jail ministries. He can repent.

01:56:35

We'll give him the gospel. He can repent. But that's where they conflate the two sin and crime. He committed a sin and a crime.

01:56:41

There's a punishment for the crime. He can still repent of his sin. But that's where I'm like, I heard that and I go, oh my goodness, this is major category.

01:56:49

It also demonstrates that our understanding of the law of God today is severely lacking.

01:56:57

It's severely lacking because we don't understand those distinctions and we also don't understand the sphere of authority of the church and the sphere of authority of the state.

01:57:05

The state's job, according to Romans 13, he's going to quote it here in a second, the state's job, according to Romans 13, is to wield the sword of justice and to punish evildoers.

01:57:13

That's the job of the state. They're supposed to do it as a servant of the true God, not some other god of the true

01:57:20

God. By what standard? The church has the responsibility of preaching the gospel. It's that community.

01:57:26

We understand what we do there. We preach the gospel. We heal. We're sanctified there. But the state has a prescribed duty to punish evil.

01:57:34

So the question, once again, Pastor Luke, you know I'm going to say it, is this, if the state, who is God's deacon in Romans 13, is to punish evil, by what standard will they do it?

01:57:44

Exactly. And early in the episode he mentions he has a 14 -year -old daughter. If some jerk was to rape his daughter, he wouldn't be saying, well, we can't punish him because we need to give him a chance to repentance.

01:57:57

No, he'd be saying, give him the gospel and he needs to die. The state needs to do their duty.

01:58:02

Yeah. So it doesn't work. You don't hear Paul... People ask, do you think

01:58:09

Paul is a theonomist? No, because Paul is not teaching that this man should be put to death. He's telling this man should be called to repentance.

01:58:16

And that's why theonomy doesn't work, because you just read the New Testament, the whole thing, it doesn't function that way.

01:58:22

The whole church at Corinth should be... Now the argument between that is that, well, the church in Corinth wasn't underneath the law of Moses, and so their governing powers, they didn't have the right in the church.

01:58:35

They didn't have the right to put him to death, because the governing authorities have to do that. This is like a good example with the

01:58:41

Jews going to Rome, asking Rome to kill Jesus, because they didn't have the right to do that. That's kind of that illustration.

01:58:47

But you just don't see Paul saying, well, we should kill him, but we can't. He wouldn't have said we should kill him, because that's not the role of the church.

01:58:57

The church's role is to preach the gospel, to heal souls, and we practice church discipline. We practice church discipline.

01:59:04

But it is the state's responsibility, and I will point out to you, Pastor, that in Romans 13, the

01:59:09

Apostle Paul says that God has given us the government, civil magistrates, the state, to punish evil.

01:59:17

And he says there, and it's prescriptive, not descriptive, he's not describing what Rome is doing in his day, he's prescribing the role of the state, is that the deacon of God, the state, is to wield the sword of justice and punish evil.

01:59:31

That's their duty. So you can't say that Paul didn't agree with this. Like, that's what you're alleging here, is that Paul didn't agree with this, that these crimes should be dealt with by the state.

01:59:41

Paul said in Romans 13 that the state's role is to punish evil. So the question is, if you were to ask

01:59:47

Paul, by what standard, Paul, do you think the state should punish evil, what do you think he would have said? What do you think he would have said?

01:59:53

Some pagan law? Or the law of God? If the state, according to Romans 13, is God's deacon,

01:59:59

God's servant, then by what standard should the state wield the sword of justice? And so, the reason you see the

02:00:05

Apostle Paul dealing with Church discipline in that way is because that's exactly how the Church is supposed to operate. We don't execute justice.

02:00:12

We don't punish crimes in the Church. The state, according to Paul, is the one that punishes crimes.

02:00:18

That's what Paul said. The state punishes evil, not the

02:00:23

Church. We don't do that. And you quote it, brother. I was going to say,

02:00:28

I think you have an appointment. Soon, yeah. I'm going to get to this last part. I have to leave very quickly to go to my daughter's dance recital.

02:00:35

Oh, do you? Okay. We're at two hours already. Are we really? Okay, I'll try to go quickly here. Just real fast. It's just nowhere there.

02:00:41

Is there any examples of theonomy in the epistles? I can't seem to find one.

02:00:47

As a matter of fact, the exact opposite is true of that. You gave a lot. Let's just go through and read.

02:00:53

I want you to have them. Don't bring an accusation against an elder unless there's two or three witnesses. That's judicial code.

02:01:00

Don't muzzle the ox while it treads the grain. That is animal husbandry law. How abiding and relevant is the law of God?

02:01:05

It's down to animal husbandry. That's one for all you vegans and vegetarians out there. And by the way,

02:01:11

I've got to point this out. In Acts chapter 25, the Apostle Paul says while he's going through this trial situation, he says in Acts 25, after the cross, resurrection, and ascension, he says if I've done anything worthy of death,

02:01:24

I don't object to dying. So the Apostle Paul clearly believes in Acts 25 in the new covenant era that there are things that are worthy of death.

02:01:34

And he says if I've done anything worthy of death, I don't object to dying. Why don't I object? Because it would be moral and right for you to put me to death if I've done something worthy of death.

02:01:43

So he believed in the new covenant after the ascension of Jesus that there were things that were worthy of death.

02:01:49

What do you think he would have defined as things worthy of death? Something that Nero said?

02:01:55

Or something that Moses said? And so we can do this for days. You've got Paul quoting from the

02:02:00

Ten Commandments. Children, obey your parents and the Lord. Honor your father and your mother. You've got all the commandments quoted.

02:02:06

You have just assumed in terms of abiding validity. It's literally down to animal husbandry laws.

02:02:12

So when someone says can you find theonomy in the New Testament? And they say I can't find it, I want to say you're not looking.

02:02:19

You're not looking. Something like Romans 13. What does

02:02:24

Paul tell us? That we are to submit to our governing authorities, the power that is over us. Titus does the same thing, that we are to submit and live peaceably with them.

02:02:33

You don't hear language from Paul and Peter in the letter to Titus.

02:02:40

You don't hear them saying here's how to get the law into the government. As a matter of fact, he says

02:02:46

God is the one governing them. God is the God of the government, which we'll get to this in a minute with dominionism as well, but God is the

02:02:52

God of the government, and God's authority handles these, and this is what your responsibility is, is to your responsibility is to submit to God's authority in the way in which

02:03:04

He's handled it. So quickly, Romans 13, I'll just do that one. Go read it. Brothers and sisters, read it.

02:03:10

It is not expressed the way this brother expresses it. It actually says it defines the role, it prescribes the role of the civil magistrate, the state, and the government, and it says they are to punish evil.

02:03:21

They are to punish evil and execute justice. That's their role, and the question is, by what standard? As Christians, we're commanded to submit to our governing authorities.

02:03:29

When you say it like this, the question is, well, what about the apostle Peter and the other apostles when they were actually commanded by their government to stop preaching in Jesus' name?

02:03:38

They said we must obey God rather than men. In other words, they understood that God's the ultimate, His standards are the ultimate, I'm going to obey

02:03:43

Him before I obey you, rulers and authorities. So your rule and authority only goes so far.

02:03:50

How do I know that rulers and authorities have gone too far? Ready? By the standard of God's revelation.

02:03:56

This is how I know. This is, you know, I think probably the greatest example of this would be

02:04:02

Romans 13. But even, let's see, if you, yeah,

02:04:08

Titus 3. He says, Titus 3 .1, remind them, the church, to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, and to speak evil of no one, and to avoid quarreling, and to be gentle and show perfect courtesy to all people.

02:04:25

Paul, can I remind us, please, just quickly? I know we're going long here. I want to remind us that the early

02:04:32

Christians, including the apostles, were killed by Rome. They were killed by Rome because they wouldn't submit to Rome when

02:04:38

Rome demanded, they say, Caesar Curios, that Caesar is Lord, Caesar is ultimate. They said, Jesus is Lord.

02:04:44

So they apparently didn't agree with this pastor's understanding of these texts because they were killed by the state because they said to the state,

02:04:52

Christ is Lord, He's the ultimate, He's over you, you must obey Jesus. And because of that, they were killed.

02:04:58

So this whole idea that they didn't have anything to say to the government, they really had no involvement, they weren't saying anything to the government in terms of what the government's responsibilities and obligations were, is patently false because the early

02:05:07

Christians were slaughtered and martyred by Rome for saying, Jesus is Lord. That statement is too easy for us to say today because of Christendom, because of the

02:05:17

Gospel, because we're here now, we say, Jesus is Lord, we're like, no big deal. When they were saying it, they were directly defying the

02:05:24

Roman government of their day. They were tied to stakes, they were flayed, they were burned, they were crucified, they had their heads cut off, they were beaten to death, they were fed to lions because they specifically defied the authority of the

02:05:36

Roman government and they said, Jesus is Lord, you must obey Him. That's why the Christians died.

02:05:41

This discussion, honestly, is in some ways startling to me. It's like, do we not know our history? Do we not understand how

02:05:48

Christianity was treated in the first century and why the Christians were killed by Rome? They weren't killed by Rome because Rome's like, we don't like Jesus and you can't worship

02:05:55

Him. You can worship anything you want in Rome. The Christians were saying, you, Rome, Caesar, you're under Jesus, you must obey

02:06:02

Him. He's the King of kings and the Lord of lords. For that, they were killed. Yeah, and again, this nation would not exist if our founding fathers had his interpretation of that passage.

02:06:15

Right. Well, it would be one thing, we could be confused if he just kind of said it in one area of the

02:06:20

Bible, but he says it in multiple areas of the Bible. Even in Ephesians, he talks about praying for our leaders, right?

02:06:27

So if we are supposed to be taking the law and overturning governments with the law, that doesn't work for a while.

02:06:34

There you go. By the way, he says this several times and I'll go ahead and just end this here because he says it several times.

02:06:41

This is where I said it was embarrassing. This idea of we're supposed to be overturning governments with the law of God, I want to say this.

02:06:48

Show me the theonomist that says that. Show me the book on theonomy where that's expressed. We believe, theonomists believe, whether you talk about the

02:06:56

Puritans, whether you're talking about modern -day theonomists like ourselves, we believe that the transformation of the world happens because of the gospel and the call of repentance.

02:07:04

And we believe that the law of God is abiding and relevant whether they like it or not. That's why when we go to city councils and we go stand before legislatures and we put bills of abolition in, we do it as the

02:07:15

Church. And we call people to repentance and we point them to Jesus, we call them to forgiveness and eternal life by trusting in Christ, and we tell them they must obey

02:07:23

God and establish justice for these pre -born. We do not believe that you overturn governments with the law of God.

02:07:29

That is a fiction. It's said a number of times here, and I want to just say, when

02:07:34

I say this is embarrassing, that's the embarrassing critique I want to talk about because there is no theonomist that I have ever read or talked to or heard preached that believes that.

02:07:46

That you, the goal of theonomy is to overturn governments with the law of God. No, it's through the call of the

02:07:53

Gospel and the call to repentance and faith. And again, the law word of God is abiding and relevant whether they accept it or not.

02:07:59

And so when, just as an example, we're theonomists. And when we go to legislatures and we're putting bills of abolition into states to protect and preserve human life and bring equal protection, we're doing it as the

02:08:10

Church, calling them to repentance and faith in Jesus, and we're saying this is the law of God, you must uphold this and do your duty before God as his servant, as his deacon, to protect the righteous and punish evil.

02:08:20

That's your duty before God. But we're not going to overturn any government through the law of God. It's only through the

02:08:25

Gospel. It's bottom up, not top down. Now, I was going to say, I hope we can actually get to the rest of this in another show because it needs to be...

02:08:33

Maybe we will. We're at 4521. We'll remember that. Next week, Ben Merkle will be here in studio, which maybe we can even get to with him.

02:08:43

He'd probably like to do that. But anyways, I really want to get to the rest because there's some really good stuff in there still.

02:08:48

Yeah, I know. Very, very important stuff. So I hope this has been a blessing to everybody, guys. Go to apologiastudios .com. Get your all access.

02:08:54

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