S5E10: Is There a Forgotten Relation Between God's Law and Proposed Legislation?

0:00Thank you for joining me for today's episode of God Law and Liberty, and I'm your host, David Fowler. Today, we're going to consider the possibility there's a forgotten relation between God's law and proposed legislation, specifically criminal legislation. But before I launch into today's topic, I would note that for the sake of brevity, I may not quote all the scripture verses that rely on, and I'll also be quoting a number of other authors, and in my sub-stack page where you can find a transcription of the podcast, our links and quotations for the scripture references. So if you would like to study the matter further, consider some of the books that I've been reading or that I'm referring to, go to senatorfowler94.substack.com.

1:05Well moving on into today's episode, as you know, we've considered the existence of two real and objective dominions of sin and of grace the last couple of weeks. And today we'll begin to consider what scripture calls the law of God. In order that, we might understand our duty in relation to criminal and civil laws to glorify the God who is revealed in the face of Christ, 2 Corinthians 4-6, specifically we'll consider what the law of God is and its purpose. I believe it informs what Christians can expect it's used to do or accomplish relative to specific legislative proposals, especially criminal ones. I also believe this consideration should factor into Christian's use of the law of God in public policy. In the coming weeks we will apply these considerations to two legislative proposals, the first and most important of which is one in many states that would, again, impose criminal sanctions

2:10on an abortive mother, and another that would define the marital relationship as one man and one woman. Now a most fundamental consideration in all legislating has been set forth since at least the 6th century AD by Justinian. In his venerable, corpusurus Sevelis in his digest, he makes the following statement, quote, this all law is made for the sake of human beings. We should speak first of the status of persons, and in his institutes he writes, quote, knowledge of law amounts to little, if it overlooks the persons for whose sake law is made. The need to understand what persons are carries over now to the due process clauses in the 5th and 14th amendments. They both prohibit a person from being deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. So all legislation must take into consideration the kind of beings persons are.

3:16Now with this in mind, and in light of the two dominions at war in the world, I believe Christians should consider thinking of persons as falling into one of two categories, described by Puritan Theologian John Owen and later by Abraham Kuiper. Owen writes, in his book The Holy Spirit, there is a twofold state of men with respect unto God, which is comprehensive of all individuals in the world. For all men are either unregenerate or regenerate. There being an affirmation and a negation concerning the state of regeneration in the scripture, one of them may be used concerning every capable subject, every man living is so, or he is not so. Similarly Abraham Kuiper wrote in his lectures on Calvinism, given to the Princeton seminary in 1898, quote, with respect to the present condition of things, we have to acknowledge two kinds of human consciousnesses, that of the regenerate and the unregenerate, and

4:21these two cannot be identical. And the one is found, what is lacking in the other. Of course civil and criminal legislation does not denominate persons as regenerate and unregenerate, but for the purposes of understanding the law of God, in relation to persons, and to civil and criminal laws that we would align to the law of God, I believe those categories will be helpful. An observation by A.W. will be a pink in his book, The Law in the St. clears out what is meant by the law of God. Quote, what do we refer, when we speak of the law? Well in the New Testament there are three expressions used concerning which there's been not a little confusion. First, there is the law of God. Second, there is the law of Moses. And third, there is the law of Christ. Now, these three expressions are by no means synonymous, and it will, and it is not until we learn to distinguish between them, that we can hope to arrive at any clear understanding

5:27of our subject about law. He continues, The Law of God expresses the mind of the Creator and is binding upon all rational creatures. It is God's unchanging moral standard for regulating the conduct of all men. In some places, the law of God may refer to the whole reveal will of God. But in the majority it has reference to the Ten Commandments. And it is in this restricted sense we use the term. And that's the sense in which I will use the term today. This is the law, Quote, written by the finger of God on Two Tablets of Stone, X.S. 3118 But notice that no sanctions or punishments are attached to the law of God as such was written by the finger of God. Now the absence of sanctions being directly attached by the finger of God to each of the specific commands comprising the Ten Commandments led Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century to conclude,

6:37and the most recent Oxford encyclopedia of biblical law to declare that the Ten Commandments are not really law as we think of it today. To unregenerate persons, to be law, the sovereign lawmaker in the promulgation of the law must prescribe a sanction to whatever is required or prohibited. Of course, in the absence of metaphysics in the unregenerates thinking, such as with Bentham, and a failure by Christians to remember that God's law is metaphysical for a previous episode in Romans 714. All of us can lose sight of the fact that sin, any violation of the law of God, carries within itself a punishment that is leading to death unless its dominion is broken. Now when Christians lose sight of the metaphysics of sin and its objectively real dominion,

7:40it is easy to think or believe that wrongs against another person need to be made a crime and carry a criminal sanction or the wrongdoer or will escape justice. Among the regenerate though, such a belief is categorically false. It implies that God is unjust or, at best, is allowing injustice on the earth to flourish if we don't do something about it. But in the 17th century it was Matthew Hales' belief in the justice of God that led him to expound the presumption of innocence we now value so highly. He knew that esteeming the liberty of innocent persons over the possibility that a murderer might be wrongfully acquitted, did not mean the murderer would escape justice. And it's noted above, God's final justice begins to take place in this life. So what does the law of God do? We'll simply put, and with respect to the dominant majority in our society who are unregenerate, the law of God, along with civil and criminal laws that align with it, provoke

8:46or inflame sin, not restraint, and it does so in about every direction one can imagine. Robert Haldrain addresses the law's provocation among the unregenerate, and the Apostle Paul addresses the scope of its proliferation, excuse me, I need to cough. Haldrain writes the following about Romans 520 in his exposition on the Apostle to Romans, and Romans 520 says, moreover, the law entered that the offense might abound, but we're sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And he writes, the law then entered, not that centers might be justified by it, for no law could give life to fallen man, Galatians 321, centers in order to be saved must be redeemed from the curse of the law, and created again in Christ Jesus.

9:50But it entered that the offense of Adam's transgression might abound, and that every mouth might be stopped in all the world, may become guilty before God, Romans 319. That we might learn that the righteous God loveeth righteousness, that his law is exceedingly broad, that it is spiritual, extending to all the imaginations of the thoughts, that he will not abate one jot or tittle of this perfect standard, which is the transcript of his character. Now some translate this clause, that the offense might abound, to mean so as the offense eventually abounds. This is not the apostles' meaning. They say that the intention of the law was not to make sin abound, but to restrain sin and make fewer sins. If this was the intention of giving the law, the law-giver has been disappointed, presens have been multiplied a thousandfold by the entrance of the law. God cannot, though, be disappointed of his intentions.

10:55It is self-evidently clear, then, that the intention of the promulgation of the law of Moses could not be to lessen the number of sins, when almost the whole ceremonial part of it makes things to be sin which were not sinned before the giving of the law, and which were not sinful in their own nature, while the law of God is holy and just and good. It was evidently God's intention in the giving of it, that offenses might abound. In this way, the wickedness of the human heart was manifested. It showed that they were sinners. Had not the law been repeated in its extent and purity at Sinai. Such was the darkness in men's minds that they would not have thought themselves transgressors of its precepts, or obnoxious to its curse, and not seeing themselves sinners, they would not have seen the necessity of a surety.

11:58And I think there, Haldane's referring to Hebrews 7.22, that says Jesus was made a surety of a better testament. Now, the Apostle Paul adds the following in Romans 7, 7 through 8, about the fruitfulness or the scope of sin in relation to the law of God. Quote, not shall we say, then, is the law sin? Certainly not. On the contrary, I would not have known sin except to the law, for I would not have known covetousness unless the law had said, you shall not covet. But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire, for apart from the law, sin was dead. In other words, sin is provoked to defend its dominion when the Holy Spirit begins to press the law of God in on the unregenerate. Quoting from John Owen, quote, without his, referring to the Holy Spirit, a special and immediate

13:00actings on us to this end, we may hear the law preached all the days of our lives and not be once effected with it. In quote, so until then, the unregenerate considers themselves alive, Romans 7.9, and free in regard to righteousness, Romans 6.20. But when sin's residence in the unregenerate is provoked, when the law comes to his or her conscience, Romans 7.9, sin's unbroken dominion provides the thrust needed to oppose a particular righteous law. After all, the strength of sin is the law, first Corinthians 1556. But it can also provoke all manner of evil desire. In other words, if one avenue of coveting God's comprehensive jurisdiction is restricted, for example, by a proposed criminal law that makes a board of women subject to the death penalty or decades in prison, or by civil laws that define the marital relation only in regard

14:04to a man and a woman, the unregenerate will covet God's jurisdiction, Jesus's dominion present. In other ways, sin in the unregenerate, those who are currently minded vis-à-vis spiritually minded, Romans 8.67, is at enmity with God, just as God intended, Genesis 3.15. So does all this mean Christian legislators should never enact legislation civil or criminal that aligns with the law of God, or Christians to allow sin to flourish unchecked by legislative action? Of course not, and we'll begin to address that next time, and I hope you'll join me.