How do Christ's people exercise judicial authority in the era of the New Covenant? Like everything else - through faith. They have faith in His word to give them guidance on how to judge and rule. Deuteronomy 4:5-8. They have faith in his sovereign power, choice, and timing as to when, who, and where they rule. John 19:11. They have faith in His protection of them when they are attacked for exercising their faith in the civil sphere. II Samuel 7:8-9. They have faith in His Word - that it is good, that it will show them what a judiciary should look like, and that it shows us what law should look like. Deuteronomy 4:8; Psalm 19:7-11. It's worth quoting extensively from Gary North's comments in his economic Commentary on Luke, "Treasure and Dominion," on the question of what "Social Theory" was taught by Jesus.
"In a review of a book by Robert Royal, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century (Crossroad Publishing, 2000), libertarian and Catholic columnist Joseph Sobran wrote: “Unlike most spiritual leaders and moral leaders, Jesus of Nazareth offered no formula for worldly happiness and social order. Just the opposite: he told his disciples to take up their crosses (an image he used well before the Crucifixion) and to expect suffering. He warned them that the world would hate them as it hated Him; it was their destiny as Christians.” His view is shared by most Christians today.
"The problem for those who hold this view of Jesus’ ministry arises as soon as any society embraces Christianity. This happened under the emperor Constantine and his successors, as Sobran noted. Martyrdom for Christians ceased. It reappeared with a vengeance in the twentieth century—the most militantly anti-Christian century since the fall of Rome. In the intervening centuries, how were Christians supposed to discover God-given answers for the multitude of social and political issues that confront leaders in every era?
"If Jesus really offered no social theory, then how could He have expected His followers to have known how to rule society from 325 A.D. to, say, 1700, when the moral art of casuistry began to disappear in the West? Without casuistry—the application of Christian principles to specific cases—the church becomes dependent on promoters of one or another nonchristian social theory. The twentieth century revealed where this voluntary defection by Christians ends: either in the persecution of Christians, which is the left wing Enlightenment’s answer to Christianity, or in their political marginalization, which is the right wing Enlightenment’s answer.
"It is true that Jesus did not teach a comprehensive social theory. He did not have to. He taught from the Old Testament. He said that He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament (Luke 4:16–21). In His divine nature as the second person of the Trinity, He co-authored the Old Testament. Why would any Christian believe that Jesus annulled this judicial heritage? Why would He have done this? He did not say that He did this. Where is the evidence from Scripture that Jesus annulled the social theory that had been taught from Moses to Malachi?
"If Jesus did annul all of the Old Testament law, His followers have a major problem: He did not explicitly replace it with anything. He has therefore seemingly left His people culturally impotent. The old political slogan, “You can’t beat something with nothing,” haunts all Christians who maintain this view of the Old Testament. They must defer socially and politically to anti-Christians, and do so in the name of Christ.
"Ask these pro-annulment Christians if they believe in the Ten Commandments, and they say that they do. Then ask: On what basis? Ask them if they think that bestiality is immoral, and they assure you they do. Then ask them if they think that bestiality should be made illegal. They begin to get nervous. Finally, ask them if they think that bestiality should be made a capital crime, and they back off. Yet the passages in the Bible where bestiality is condemned as morally evil call
for the death penalty for those who practice it.
"'And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast (Lev. 20:15).'
"'And if a woman approach unto any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman, and the beast:
they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them (Lev. 20:16).'
"The New Testament is silent on the practice of bestiality. So, in order to make a biblical case against the practice, a Christian must appeal to Leviticus. But most Christians do not want to have anything to do with Leviticus. That book is just too . . . too theonomic! Theonomy in turn is too theocratic. Christians prefer legalized bestiality to theocracy. Step by step, this is what they are getting.
"This judicial schizophrenia of modern Christians has led to their political and cultural paralysis. Their paralysis has led either to their persecution or their marginalization politically. In the case of marginalization, most of them have praised the result. They have joined with humanists in an alliance called political pluralism. They cry out, “Equal time for Jesus!” But equal time for Jesus has steadily become no time for Jesus in the public arena. Millions of pietistic Protestants prefer it this way. They believe that their retreat from public issues in the name of Jesus reduces their level of personal responsibility. It doesn’t. It merely increases their vulnerability.
"Mammon and Jesus cannot make a permanent alliance. Jesus taught: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Luke 16:13). Mammon’s followers are increasingly consistent: they seek to remove Jesus from the public arena. Christians are not equally self-conscious. They still seek to achieve in politics what Jesus said is impossible anywhere in the universe. Then they wonder why they have so little influence. They invent eschatological systems to explain and even justify such a lack of influence."
North, Gary, "Treasure and Dominion: An Economic Commentary on Luke" (Point Five Press: Dallas, GA) 2012, pp. xiv-xvi.
Theonomy in its essence means the law of God. Christians teach - rightly - that salvation from sin and its consequences, the just judgment of God, is by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone to the glory of God alone. It cannot be by the works of the law. See King James Bible, Galatians 2 and Ephesians 2. But salvation involves turning from a lack of faith in God to faith in God. If we have faith in the God of the universe to save us, then shouldn't we also have faith in Him to guide us? If you believe you're saved by Jesus Christ, but you don't trust His words, then do you really have faith in Him. And if you do have faith in Him but don't have faith in the Father who gave the law to Moses, then don't we have a consistency problem. Is Jesus Christ the second person of the Trinity or not? Does He disagree with the law given to Moses? That would be mighty strange.
Yes, Christ's primary mission was not to give us law. In fact, the opposite. "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." John 1:17. The argument from silence - that Christ didn't address certain sins; therefore, He didn't think them important - ignores the context in which Christ came to earth. He could not stand for the law because He came to show the grace and mercy of the Father. And He need not bring the law again, for it had already been given. Those two reasons alone are adequate to explain why Christ did not present an argument against specific sins, like homosexual sodomy, something the law of Moses already addresses. It also explains why he didn't set forth a comprehensive legal or judicial system. That also would have implied that He came to bring us a new law or that His main purpose was that of a lawgiver. He was much more than that. "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." Matthew 5:17.
Christians live by faith in their personal lives. Why not in their civic lives also? I must go further and answer one of the first assertions of this post: "They have faith in His Word - that it is good, that it will show them what a judiciary should look like, and that it shows us what law should look like." So, if we walk by faith in our personal lives, shouldn't we also walk by faith in our political and judicial lives? And shouldn't we believe that the good God who sent Jesus Christ for our salvation also sent us the law for our guidance? In fact, it is the law, which shows us our faults, which leads us to see our need for Christ as our savior.
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