The Creator God works by covenant. He even makes a covenant with creation. "And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth." Gen.9:9-10, KJV. He makes covenants with persons. Gen. 15:18.
The covenant permeates all of life because the Creator has impressed upon all creation His glory and something of His character. He does not thereby become identified with His Creation in any way other than as Creator. In other words, He is still separate from His creation even when His fingerprints are all over it, as is His presence - immanence. Our God is not a pantheist being, identified with the creation.
Here's a basic outline of a covenant as developed by Ray Sutton and Gary North, based on some of the scholarship of Meredith G. Kline:
1. Transcendence/immanence
2. Authority/hierarchy
3. Ethics/dominion
4. Judgment/sanctions
5. Inheritance/continuity
Gary North, "The Dominion Covenant: An Economic Commentary on the Bible, Vol. 1," (Institute for Christian Economics: Tyler, Texas, 1987) p. ix.
The first two elements of a covenant are prominent in the concept of a judge sitting to decide disputes between persons and entities. The judge has authority to command people to comply with a judgment. In other words, the judge not only uses the law, 3rd element, in deciding controversies but also commands the losing party to part with something that party owned. But for the fact that the judge has that authority - inherently - as a judge, the judge would be violating that party's rights of ownership. Such a hierarchical position of command surely meets the criteria for the 2nd element - the authority to which men must answer.
However, the 1st comes into play also. The parties are humans, created in the image of God; therefore, how can another human order one party to part with property, freedom, or even life itself? If we were living in a worldview of multiple gods, like the ancient Greeks and Romans, then we might posit a form of dispute resolution by combat. Why? Because the Roman and Greek entities on Mount Olympus were all gods, technically equal in substance to each other but unable to agree with each other, and that's what these gods did - proved who was entitled to something by warring against each other, with the more powerful taking the spoils, particularly the authority from then on.
Thus, the cultural influence of the Greeks' and Romans' religions of plural gods does not logically lead to the concept of impartial justice for all based on the law. And it raises the question as to how they could have developed a legal system based on equal justice. It also raises the question whether the prevailing view of the source of the American judicial system could have been those systems, as is popularly promoted and taught to children in the state schools.
That conceptual problem, dispute resolution by warfare, would explain Pilate's decision to ceremonially wash his hands of the deed of ordering the execution of Christ. Clearly, the washing of hands by judicial authorities, which is the position in which Pilate was acting when he sentenced Jesus Christ, was already established within the Roman Empire's legal system. What was he washing away? His violation of the concept of equal justice before the law. He ordered an innocent man executed, contrary to law, based not on guilt or innocence but on the popular demand of the crowd and fear that word would get to the Roman Emperor, who might have Pilate's power withdrawn for not suppressing a potential rival - the King of Israel. John 19:12-16.
To sum up what I'm positing: The act of Pilate in condemning Jesus to death was not an individual aberration by a rogue, cowardly authority; the concept of protecting those in power, at the expense of equal justice, was built into the Roman legal and judicial system, as evidenced by the option of washing his hands of the matter. Matthew 27:24. And just as the gods could fight it out with no law, other than that of power (and trickery), governing their actions, so did Rome see its political and judicial power to trump law, if that power was threatened.
The survival of its power was Rome's highest principle, not equal justice before the law. This conclusion is logical seeing their gods held to the same principle. Jesus Christ, the Son of David, and Christ's ancestor King David, held to a different view - that God "putteth down one, and setteth up another." Psalm 75:7, KJV. King David was willing to lose the kingship when Absalom raised a rebellion against the King, but he knew he'd be restored as king "if I shall find favour in the eyes of the LORD." II Samuel 15:25, KJV. Jesus Christ, the Son of God Himself, also respected that authority of God, to the point that He allowed Himself to be executed, knowing that the just God would not leave Him under that unjust sentence but would raise Him up, even from the dead. They were not passive, they were active in their faith that God Almighty held the keys to power.
In this contrast between the ancient Roman system and the attitude of the Israelite authorities, we see the 1st element displayed. Rome was its own source of power, obtained by warfare and wielded for practical purposes to keep "the peace" and to ensure the survival of the Romans' power. If there was any transcendence to their judicial system, it was a negative one, influenced by the lawless, power-hungry beings they had posited as their gods. Whether they believed in these gods or not is irrelevant; they reflected Rome's view of itself and provided a backdrop of justification for Rome's use of power.
The biblical view of the Israelites was that God, being the Creator and transcendent above all men, deserved the sovereign right to determine who has authority or not and how that authority should be exercised. Thus, the God of the bible told Moses that even strangers, foreigners who were not necessarily believers in Israel's God and not part of the covenant with Abraham, were to receive the same justice as Israelites under the law of Moses. Exodus 12:49.
Therefore, transcendence is determined by the core principles of your society, and the biblical society acknowledges the God of the bible as the source of all law, all authority. Any other concept of the source of authority and justice leads to a diminishing of the principle of equal justice, and it typically promotes power - for preservation of the state - at the expense of justice. The transcendence of the God of the bible justifies the authority of a judge to take away what belongs to another human being and subjects the judge to accountability before God. A humanistic system, even if it upholds equal justice, cannot keep human judges accountable because the only source of appeal or impeachment is another human authority.
In the drawing up of the U.S. Constitution, the concept of power for power's sake was used by the Federalists and pro-Constitutionalists to justify violating their charter at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. Anti-Federalists, like Patrick Henry, "smelt a rat in Philadelphia." The Convention delegates were authorized only to revise the Article of Confederation, not create a whole new governing document. However, they justified their action by appealing to the principle of the self-preservation of the state. See Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England, which also posits such a view of power at the expense of lawful authority. So the Federalists used the threat that the Articles of Confederation would not allow for the young country's survival. The Federalists used this possibility to justify going beyond their charter, which was to only amend the Articles.
This transcendence of the God of the bible also leads logically to the 2nd and 3rd elements of a judicial system - the authority of a judge to sit in judgment over other human beings and the proper law to use in such judging, which would logically be the law of that same God who placed the judge in his position over other men.
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