The NXR Podcast - THEOLOGY APPLIED - Theonomy： Why Many Fiercely Oppose It with Dr. Joe Boot

00:00:00 Hey guys, real quick, before we get started, I have a small request.

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00:00:18 Hi, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I am your host,

00:00:21 Pastor Joel Webben with Right Response Ministries, and I am very privileged to

00:00:24 welcome back as a returning guest to our show, Dr. Joseph Boot of the Ezra Institute. He is the

00:00:31 founder and president. They are located near Toronto in Canada, but they are opening other

00:00:37 branches and chapters, if you will, in the UK and also in the United States and Tennessee.

00:00:43 And so we're excited to have him come back on the show. We have talked in the past when he came on

00:00:47 our show about post-millennial eschatology, but here we are focusing our attention exclusively

00:00:53 on theonomy. We're talking about what is theonomy, define theonomy, all these different,

00:00:59 there's just a lot. There's a spectrum, a wide spectrum of opinion and people who differ.

00:01:04 Greg Bonson doesn't agree with everything with Gary North and these guys, and then some of the

00:01:08 more modern day theonomist or general equity theonomist. What does that mean? And the big

00:01:13 thing that we come to in this conversation that I think is so relevant for us to hear today is

00:01:18 why do people have such an aversion Christians especially such an aversion with the law of God

00:01:26 why do we not see the law of God as an extension of his kindness and his love toward us and toward

00:01:33 human beings not just Christian people but all people made in the image of God that the law of

00:01:39 God is the law of liberty and that it leads towards life why do we not see that anymore why

00:01:45 are we ashamed and turned off by the law of God? If you're looking for an episode on that topic,

00:01:52 this is the place to be. Tune in now. Big news. Really big news. Our next Right Response Conference

00:01:59 is in the works. We've got a number of things already lined up and organized. This is what

00:02:04 we've got so far. The whole conference, three days long on post-millennialism and theonomy.

00:02:10 And the speakers, Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Gary DeMar, and of course, yours truly, Pastor Joel Webin.

00:02:19 We've got a great lineup.

00:02:21 We've got great topics.

00:02:23 If you want to find out dates and location and registration and anything else, go and visit our website, rightresponseconference.com.

00:02:33 Rightresponseconference.com.

00:02:35 Applying God's word to every aspect of life.

00:02:39 This is Theology Applied.

00:02:46 All right, welcome back to another episode of Theology Applied.

00:02:49 I am your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries, and I am very privileged

00:02:53 to welcome back to our show a returning guest, Dr. Joe Boot with the Ezra Institute.

00:02:58 Joe Boot, would you just introduce yourself for any of our new listeners who may not be

00:03:02 aware of you and your ministry?

00:03:04 Sure, Joel.

00:03:04 Thanks ever so much for having me back on the show.

00:03:06 It's great to be with you again.

00:03:08 And I apologize that I'm slightly dark in the background here.

00:03:12 We've got a very complicated bunch of things going on right now, so I'm not in my usual spot.

00:03:19 But yes, the Ezra Institute, we are a Christian World and Lifeview ministry, cultural apologetics.

00:03:27 We're essentially a think tank that was launched in Canada back in 2008.

00:03:35 And since I planted that ministry, the team has grown.

00:03:39 Our focus is teaching, writing, speaking, publishing on a Christian philosophy, Christian world and life view,

00:03:48 and an effective cultural apologetic to address the challenges of our time in terms of a comprehensive gospel

00:03:55 and in terms of the reality of the kingdom of God.

00:03:58 And we have an office in Canada, in the Niagara region of Ontario, and this year we are in

00:04:11 the process of launching an office in the United States, in Tennessee, and the United

00:04:17 Kingdom, just north of London in the UK.

00:04:21 Great.

00:04:21 Praise God.

00:04:22 Well, what I wanted to discuss with you is all things theonomy.

00:04:26 We've talked about post-millennialism the last time that you came on the show, and I'm sure that

00:04:31 that may come up, but I really want us to focus our attention on theonomy. And I wanted to begin

00:04:36 by kind of just addressing the elephant in the room. Not everybody tends to be a fan, Dr. Boot.

00:04:41 It seems like some people have a strong aversion towards theonomy, or at least the term. It brings

00:04:47 up certain connotations for people that are probably misinformed, but nonetheless, people

00:04:52 kind of recoil. They immediately think when you say theonomy that you're going to start rounding

00:04:58 up Muslims and publicly hanging them or whatever it might be. And so I wanted to just first start 0.98

00:05:06 with definitions. If we could just, I think there's a spectrum of theonomic thought, just like

00:05:12 there is with any theology, not everybody who holds to covenant theology. There are multiple

00:05:17 different expressions of covenant theology and so i wanted to talk about the different um variations

00:05:23 of of theonomic thought but first could we just get at kind of the 30 000 foot view a general

00:05:29 definition what is theonomy well part of the problem uh has become with with the the term

00:05:36 is that it's a bit like if for somebody to be called a theonomist is a bit like being called

00:05:42 a charismatic or an evangelical these days both of those terms need qualifying

00:05:50 because of exactly as you've described it that the diversity of opinion that exists around these

00:05:59 these terms and also that the term has become pejorative really so that it's almost used as an

00:06:09 insult these days. And so, I think that sort of atmosphere around the word, the sort of

00:06:16 connotation of the word, has come about because it's almost become a pejorative expression,

00:06:23 and it does need qualification. But very simply, theonomy, theos, theonomos, means

00:06:33 god's law so the word itself simply means god's law and uh i think in many respects that's the

00:06:43 that's how we should define it theonomy just means god's law and uh what what are we going

00:06:52 to do with god's law becomes the question now what has uh tended to happen is that the that

00:07:01 term has become associated with a movement, and it's generally tied to other terms like

00:07:09 dominionism, which is often linked to post-millennialism, and then words like

00:07:16 reconstruction and so on. And this all helps to generate this kind of boogeyman image for

00:07:23 theonomy, but it really simply means God's law. And when at the beginning of creation,

00:07:32 the place I start is at the beginning of creation, God speaks in Genesis 1, the 10 words,

00:07:42 let there be. And this is 10 times that God speaks the creative word. And then in the

00:07:53 book of Exodus in Exodus 20, and of course republished there in Deuteronomy 5, the scripture

00:08:01 actually says that God spoke the 10 words. We talk about the 10 commandments, but he spoke the 10

00:08:09 words. And God spoke from the glory cloud. It wasn't Moses speaking. The people drew near close

00:08:20 to the mountain and and and they heard the the voice of god and god spoke and he and he wrote

00:08:26 with his own finger uh the the 10 words what we call the 10 commandments and i think the reason

00:08:33 that that's interesting is that the 10 words of creation and the 10 words from the glory cloud

00:08:39 uh are both directly uh the word of god um creation is the instantiation of the word of god

00:08:51 every word of god is a law word so god's word god's law word holds all of creation together

00:08:59 in him all things consist all things hold together and so the let there be is both a command

00:09:07 it's god's law and it's a promise that that the what god has spoken into being is going to be

00:09:15 maintained let there be so there's a guarantee there's the creative command and then there's

00:09:20 a promise inherent in that that what god has created he's going to maintain and sustain

00:09:25 and god speaks 10 words again when he speaks his commandments his law um to the covenant people

00:09:33 and the fact that the creation word and the commandments are both 10 words spoken by God

00:09:43 himself is very, very important biblically. And I think fundamentally, that's what theonomy is

00:09:48 about. It's about a recognition that God governs his world, his creation by law. And there are,

00:09:57 of course, a variety of spheres of law. God distinguishes and separates in the book of

00:10:02 uh genesis he differentiates and separates different spheres of life and creation and

00:10:07 there so there are different spheres of law but god governs the totality of his creation by law

00:10:14 and we're reminded of that with the 10 words in the book of exodus that this is uh this is

00:10:20 the we might call it the standing law uh the decalogue this is the law of god that binds

00:10:29 every person just as the creation law binds all of uh the creation word binds all of creation so

00:10:35 god's covenant word his covenant law that he spoke from the glory cloud those 10 words bind

00:10:43 all human beings to me that's what uh theonomy is but you're wanting i'm sure in part to tease out

00:10:51 uh the some of the accretions around this uh i like the way john frame actually describes it

00:10:59 he says that you know theonomy this this emphasis uh on the law of god in the history of the church

00:11:06 and there's nothing new about it um to differing degrees different thinkers different uh church

00:11:13 fathers, different reformers, different Puritans, focused attention on the law of God. And so John

00:11:22 Frame describes theonomy, if you want to think of it as, in terms of a movement, as a tendency

00:11:30 within the reformed tradition, as an emphasis within the reformed tradition, when we think

00:11:38 about social life and the political life of man to emphasize the relevance, the centrality,

00:11:46 the importance of the law of God. And I think that very specifically, we can say that theonomy

00:11:55 in this sense within the reformed tradition is a theory within Christian ethics. So I like to talk

00:12:01 about theonomy from a cosmological point of view, that God's word is law, his every word is law,

00:12:08 there's his creation law, there's his moral law, and they're bound together. And that is the way

00:12:15 we are required to live within God's creation, and we violate God's law at our peril. In the

00:12:22 more narrow sense, we can say that theonomy is a view within Christian ethics that says we must

00:12:28 pay particular and peculiar attention to the law of God when we not only wrestle with the meaning

00:12:36 of sanctification as Christians, as a measure of our sanctification, but when we think about

00:12:41 cultural, social, and political life. Amen. Yeah, I mean, it just seems to be illogical

00:12:50 and impotent to think that God would sanctify individuals who believe the gospel and are

00:12:57 seeking to obey his law, and yet that would have little to no effect on the societies in which

00:13:03 they live. To me, it just seems like the logical next step in this equation that if people believe

00:13:12 the gospel and if they're seeking to live lives that glorify God, right? Jesus says, John 14,

00:13:18 if you love me, you'll obey me. So our response of obedience, we love because he first loved us,

00:13:25 1 John 4, 19. So God loves us in the beloved, gives us spiritual eyes to see that love for us,

00:13:32 that salvific love. We're born again by the work of the Spirit, regenerate, endowed with the gifts

00:13:39 of faith and repentance, really just two sides of a singular coin, turning from sin and turning

00:13:44 to Christ with knowledge, assent, and implicit trust. And then in that, we love God. And the

00:13:52 very next question is, God, how do I manifest my love for you? How do you, if I'm seeking to love

00:14:00 you in response to your great love for me, it would seem to beckon the question, well, I want

00:14:09 to love you, therefore I want to do that which you would actually deem as loving. What do you see as

00:14:14 loving? Obey my commands. Does Christ have any commands? Well, in fact, he has at least two.

00:14:21 Okay, well, loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and loving our neighbor

00:14:25 as ourself. So can I then take it into my own liberty that, okay, I must love God and love

00:14:32 people, but now the onus is on me, a blank canvas for my own creative freedom and license to

00:14:39 determine what is loving God and how I love neighbor, or does God flesh that out further?

00:14:45 Does he exposit this summary law that's later fleshed out further? And we would say, well,

00:14:52 It is the two tables of a law that we find in God's moral law in the Decalogue.

00:14:56 And then, well, what about all these civil laws?

00:14:58 Well, the civil law seems to be a further expression of the moral law of God to the

00:15:03 nation state of Israel.

00:15:05 And although we are not a nation state in the same sense that Israel was, I mean, it's

00:15:12 just Reformed Confessional 101, both the Westminster and the 1689 that I would prescribe

00:15:17 to both speak of the civil law and its general equity being applied.

00:15:20 And for me, it's very personal.

00:15:23 I want to defend this because I'm a pastor and I feed my family.

00:15:26 And that's precisely what the Apostle Paul does is he takes the general equity of not

00:15:30 muzzling the ox while he treads the grain and says, God is concerned for more than oxen

00:15:34 that in the same way, the general equity of this is the worker deserves the wages.

00:15:39 And let's apply this to pastors.

00:15:41 And I don't think the Apostle Paul is saying it only applies to pastors and it would have

00:15:45 no application unless I, with apostolic authority, explicitly wrote it down and scripturated

00:15:50 it. But no, I think he's saying, he's showing us a method of this is how to use the law of God.

00:15:55 And I think, you know, he's making an argument from the lesser to the greater in a sense that

00:16:01 he's saying it applies even to pastors. And certainly I think he would say especially

00:16:06 pastors, but it seems to imply that he's saying this principle applies to all vocation. Outside

00:16:11 of vocational ministry, workers deserve wages and he's using the civil law of God to do it.

00:16:17 and with children obeying their parents, belonging to the moral law, the fifth commandment.

00:16:21 The crazy thing to me is that under the new covenant, the apostle Paul, this is after

00:16:25 the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and even the outpoint of the spirit, the new covenant is

00:16:31 here and in effect inaugurated by Christ. And the apostle doesn't blush for a moment saying that

00:16:37 the law is still imposed. And he also, without equivocation, says that the promise, and this is

00:16:45 the first commandment with a promise that it may go well the promise is still good and and and we

00:16:50 start to blush i think in our gospel centered everything reformed quasi camp that that we're

00:16:55 like well but but is that the prosperity gospel and i want to say no that's the the bible that's

00:17:01 the bible what what is is that part of what you're getting at yeah what you've um i mean what you've

00:17:07 done there is is taken taken the discussion a step further um beyond the generalities of the

00:17:15 abiding authority of god's law which of course let's remember that jesus fully assumed um in

00:17:21 fact uh there in matthew 5 17 following jesus is absolutely explicit that he came not to abolish

00:17:28 the law but to fulfill it certainly one of the implications of that word fulfill play root

00:17:34 is to put into force um and that's clear from the fact that he says heaven and earth isn't going to

00:17:41 pass away not not one punctuation mark i should say of the law is going to pass till everything

00:17:46 has been accomplished till everything is fulfilled and um and he says those who teach

00:17:52 and do these things will be called great not in the older covenant but in the kingdom of heaven

00:17:58 and those who teach people to disobey them and do likewise will be the least so there is you're

00:18:05 actually talking about people now who claim to be inside the covenant who actually are believers

00:18:09 but who actually teach people to disobey God's commands now you the issue of love there is that

00:18:17 you've raised is absolutely central because of course the central the core meaning of the

00:18:23 the moral aspect of our lives is love love to God and love to neighbor and Jesus summarizes the law

00:18:30 in those terms and he says if you love me you will obey my commandments and Paul basically

00:18:36 says the same thing in Romans 13 when he says love does no wrong to its neighbor therefore love is

00:18:43 the fulfillment of the law and he lifts he lists a number of the commandments from the Decalogue

00:18:47 he says love is doing this so oftentimes when we speak of loving our neighbor or especially when

00:18:54 we think about loving our enemy we tend to have in mind as evangelicals you know working up feelings

00:18:59 of emotional affection for people that's not what love to our neighbor means love of neighbor love

00:19:05 even of enemy means to obey God's law with respect to them. And that's what the scripture

00:19:11 is driving at. And so the reality of the abiding validity of the law that you've touched on is

00:19:19 actually given to us in very much in the language of the gospel in Jeremiah chapter 31, which is

00:19:26 quoted again in Hebrews chapter 8, where we're told that the meaning of the new covenant is that

00:19:31 the law of God is going to, that was written on tablets of stone, is now in the new covenant

00:19:37 written on the tables of our hearts. It's written into the core of our being. So the law is not

00:19:44 abolished. The location of the law has changed. The location of the law is no longer the ark of

00:19:50 the covenant. It's in the new temple, the people of God inscribed into our hearts. That is the

00:19:57 new covenant. And so you're right in thinking and saying that it would seem like an almost bizarre

00:20:04 contradiction to think that now that we are in Christ, the very law that Jesus used to defeat

00:20:11 the temptation of Satan, very law which he has said is not going to pass away, should somehow

00:20:19 now be utterly abandoned so that my arbitrary ideas and my arbitrary thoughts about what love

00:20:24 really looks like right um can be applied by me right well i mean that that's basically what

00:20:30 we're saying and people wouldn't put it into those terms but that is precisely i think the

00:20:34 heart of the matter is that people are saying god used to tell people what love is god used to be

00:20:41 the standard and now we are the standard right that the that the law of god has been replaced

00:20:46 by autonomy and and the god of yahweh has been replaced by demos that you know might makes right

00:20:53 And the, you know, the 50% plus one can impose their will on the minority.

00:20:59 And I like what you said. 0.58

00:21:01 I think it's really helpful that it's not that the law was abrogated, it was fulfilled

00:21:05 by Christ, but it's not that the law was abrogated by Christ and done away with.

00:21:10 He says precisely the opposite, but the law was just relocated.

00:21:15 I like that, the way that you, it went from the Ark of the Covenant, it went from something

00:21:19 outside of us to something inside of us.

00:21:21 And that's precisely what makes the New Covenant.

00:21:22 the new covenant is not merely bigger or wider in its scope, but it's deeper and better in the

00:21:29 depth of its promises. And precisely one of those is that I will cause you to walk in my statutes.

00:21:34 I will put the fear of myself within you. I will write my law on your hearts. No longer will one

00:21:40 say to the other, know the Lord, for you shall all know me from the least to the greatest. And

00:21:44 that seems to be the major transitioning component from the old to the new is not the doing away of

00:21:51 god's law but the the relocation of the law of god to where we would it would be even more

00:21:57 intimately known by god's people that we couldn't miss it precisely precisely but we're missing it

00:22:04 dr boot we are missing it it seems uh what what's going on with that well we we we we're not seeing

00:22:12 the the law as a gift of grace um and uh you know when god covenants with man uh it's it's a it's a

00:22:22 it it's a form of of treaty uh of an ancient kind um that is a greater with a lesser and therefore

00:22:31 his covenanting with us is an act of grace and when jesus sits at the the table the the passover

00:22:39 a feast, and he cuts covenant with the disciples. He is, of course, introducing a new priesthood.

00:22:50 We do know that the book of Hebrews is clear that the Aaronic priesthood is lesser than the 0.95

00:22:57 priesthood and the order of Melchizedek. Of course, we're reminded in scripture that 0.98

00:23:02 Abraham paid a tithe to the priest king of Salem. And Levi in his loins.

00:23:09 Exactly. We're the Levi and his loins.

00:23:12 And so there is a greater priesthood that has come now in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:23:18 And that's, of course, a priesthood to which we belong.

00:23:21 We are priests in the prophets, priests and kings in the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:23:25 We're a royal priesthood, a holy nation.

00:23:28 So there's been a change in the priesthood and the blood that now cleanses us from sin in a way that the blood of bulls and goats couldn't.

00:23:37 is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the cup of the new covenant. But you'll notice

00:23:41 that Jesus doesn't introduce a new 10 commandments when he cuts covenant with his disciples. What he

00:23:48 adds is, there's a new commandment I'm giving to you, love one another as I have loved you.

00:23:55 So there is something about the way in which Christians love and serve and treat one another,

00:24:01 this internalizing this radical internalizing of the reality of the gospel but in in this great in

00:24:08 the in jesus is the greater moses remember that the life of jesus recapitulates the journey of

00:24:14 israel so cry out of egypt i have called my son the lord jesus of course after his birth in

00:24:22 bethlehem because of the persecution of herod they they're down in egypt they come out of egypt

00:24:29 Christ goes through the waters, just like Israel at his baptism.

00:24:33 Then he goes out into the wilderness, just like Israel, to be tempted, to be tested.

00:24:38 Unlike Israel, he defeats temptation. 0.80

00:24:43 He overcomes in the wilderness. 0.92

00:24:45 Then he goes up onto the mountain as the greater Moses.

00:24:48 He doesn't contradict Moses.

00:24:50 He doesn't say you've heard Moses said, but I need to correct that and tell you this.

00:24:54 he says you have heard that it was said but i say to you and what jesus does is the greater moses

00:25:00 is interpret that's right the law over against the distorted interpretations of the scribes and

00:25:07 pharisees and he every time he raises the bar he's yeah exactly he is it's expositional preaching

00:25:12 jesus sermon on the mount is he's taking old testament text the word of god and not doing

00:25:17 away with and saying well the word of god is no longer relevant and so i'm going to give you a

00:25:20 topical sermon of my own fancy. No, it's an expositional sermon. Here is the Old Testament

00:25:24 text, and this is its meaning because Jesus was coming into a context where it had been stripped

00:25:31 of its meaning, and it had been reinterpreted by the scribes and the leaders in Israel,

00:25:41 the men of the law, reinterpreted in such a way that it could be kept by them but could not be

00:25:47 kept by the common people and jesus comes and shows how um how the pharisees and the sadducees

00:25:54 and the scribes were actually not keeping the law and in some sense they were keeping the letter but

00:25:59 denying the very spirit in the heart of the law the equity of the law and um and also convicting

00:26:05 what jesus accuses them of right he accuses them of neither knowing the scriptures nor the power

00:26:12 of god so often christians tend to think that oh you see jesus rebuked the pharisees because they

00:26:16 were such law they were all focused on law no jesus actually accused them of breaking the law

00:26:22 uh in fact in uh in i think it's um uh i think it's mark 7 maybe um matthew or or the other

00:26:31 way around matthew 15 somewhere there um where jesus is dealing with parents caring for parents

00:26:38 and uh he actually rebukes the pharisees for setting aside god's commandments and he says

00:26:45 many other such things you do um so that was jesus rabbi jesus's issue with the pharisees

00:26:53 was their faulty uh interpretation of the law right not that they were legalistic but they

00:26:58 were actually a antinomian they were against law they were lawless real quick would you agree that

00:27:04 second thessalonians so as i've been you know evolving in my doctrine of post-millennial

00:27:09 eschatology and these kinds of things i've come to where i would i would now stand that the man

00:27:15 of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 is probably, although I may not be able to pinpoint

00:27:20 the precise individual, but I would see this as a partial preterist, as something that's already

00:27:24 been fulfilled, and that it's not some Roman emperor, not some Gentile pagan, but the man

00:27:31 of lawlessness who sits in the temple, that this is before the temple fell in AD 70 in the destruction

00:27:38 of the temple, and that it was a Jew, that it was perhaps even the high priest, that the apostle 0.66

00:27:42 is saying that guy who represents all the law of israel is actually he himself the lawless

00:27:48 one what do you think about that interpretation yeah i by myself impartial preterist so i i would

00:27:56 i would broadly go along with that i think what's what's significant is that uh when the bible

00:28:03 speaks when the bible speaks about sin it defines sin is defined in the bible as lawlessness and

00:28:10 Satan is the lawless one, and Antichrist is the man of lawlessness. So those things should

00:28:19 immediately alert us to the issue that there is a problem with lawlessness. Lawlessness is the

00:28:25 essence of what it means to be Antichrist. And of course, the Apostle Paul, you took us to

00:28:32 Thessalonians there, you've mentioned the Apostle Paul's use of the case law. His application,

00:28:39 of course um about you mentioned um parents and um honoring our honoring our parents

00:28:46 that it may go well with us and he interestingly he changes the he he adapts the promise at the

00:28:52 end he says instead of saying that it may go well with you live long in the land he says that you

00:28:57 may live long in the earth so you see the expansion of the implication of the law there

00:29:04 from a local promise in Canaan to this cosmic promise, and Paul, as you said, was totally

00:29:11 comfortable with taking a case law about the ox treading out the grain and applying that to

00:29:19 Christian ministry, and he was equally unashamed of taking the law and applying it to the civil

00:29:25 context. In 1 Timothy chapter 1, I think this is one of the most important texts for a proper

00:29:31 understanding a truly theonomic reading of scripture in 1st Timothy 1 7 and 8 well starting

00:29:38 at verse 8 he says we know that the law is good provided one uses it law legitimately we know that

00:29:46 the law is not meant for a righteous person but for the lawless and rebellious for the ungodly

00:29:50 and sinful for the unholy and irreverent for those who kill their fathers and mothers for murderers 0.99

00:29:56 for the sexually immoral and homosexuals for kidnappers liars perjurers and for whatever else 0.99

00:30:03 is contrary to the sound teaching and listen to this based on the glorious gospel of the blessed 0.99

00:30:09 god which was entrusted to me paul actually says there not only is he citing multiple commands out

00:30:17 of the decalogue and applying it in a civil sense who is the law made for he actually says that this

00:30:22 is based on the gospel this isn't some law gospel radical dualism this is this is rooted in the

00:30:30 reality of the gospel of the kingdom and the gospel of the kingdom is about the rule and

00:30:34 reign of the lord jesus christ if you've ever heard of a king who has no kingdom and a kingdom

00:30:39 with no law christ is the king he has a kingdom and his kingdom is governed by law it's the rule

00:30:47 of law and it's the same law for the stranger and the alien as well as for the for the covenant

00:30:52 member for the true Israelite. And so Paul is totally unashamed of making direct applications

00:31:04 of the law to the civil sphere. And he's saying that this is in accordance with the gospel of the

00:31:09 Lord Jesus Christ. And then he takes the case laws and he applies the general equity of those laws

00:31:14 into a variety of circumstances. So in some respects, we could look at it in saying that

00:31:19 god who is the giver of of his law of course god is above law god is god is the law giver he's not

00:31:27 subject to law but he binds himself to his covenant with us and in history all law is

00:31:35 temporal law and of course this is where the tomists and the natural law theorists and the

00:31:40 natural theologians go wrong they want they want an eternal abstract principle of law that

00:31:46 everybody's reason somehow participates in and they think that they can they don't really need

00:31:51 God's revealed law because the men of right reason will participate it somehow in eternal law through

00:31:59 natural law but God's law is actually God positivizes makes concrete applies the law of

00:32:09 of in giving the Decalogue. And then it's the responsibility of magistrates and the, of course,

00:32:18 Moses and those who are going to govern the people to then take minimal cases

00:32:25 where the law of God is actually applied. And so, of course, that is where we get to the

00:32:33 nitty gritty of all of this. And this is often where great offense is caused by God's law,

00:32:38 because it's not left in the abstract as sort of eternal rational principles in in the greek sense

00:32:45 but it's concretized and it's positivized and the first positivization of the law of love is god

00:32:54 himself in the decalogue and then human beings have the responsibility responsibility and

00:33:00 obligation to take god's revealed law to sit to look at all of the the the cases where

00:33:06 uh faithful people especially what we see revealed in scripture not just what maybe

00:33:12 alfred the great did with it that's the first codification of of um common law which of course

00:33:17 is all of our tradition in in the uh england america canada um you have the the uh it's it's

00:33:25 alfred the great who who embarks on the first codification of uh common law uh and uh and and

00:33:34 it builds up case by case over year after year after year. And of course, that's the beauty of

00:33:41 the inheritance of the common law and of the tradition that we have in the West that's given

00:33:47 to us directly from Israel. It comes to us from Israel, this duty to positivize and apply the

00:33:54 reality of God's law. We've come to a point in our history, probably mainly because of the

00:34:00 cultural pressure all around us where it is a tragedy to see so many christians who either

00:34:06 who either um we can have sympathy we should say with those who who have not been exposed to the

00:34:13 reality of god's law anymore the the law of god used to be hanging on the the crown the walls of

00:34:20 crown courts in england and canada it used to be part of our sunday liturgies the ten commandments

00:34:26 would have been displayed in most of our churches many of those things have have slowly disappeared

00:34:32 we can have sympathy with the christian who's not really been taught god's law what is more

00:34:38 difficult to understand is where evangelicals who should know better have an antipathy towards this

00:34:45 law of liberty as james calls it the law of love uh this this law that um is the god's gift to us

00:34:54 as not the source of life that's the lord jesus christ through the regenerating power of the holy

00:34:59 spirit but the way of life that's why god says this is the way walk in it that's really really

00:35:06 helpful real quick addressing i know that we need to come to a close here in a moment but addressing

00:35:11 the the concept of natural law and guys like john locke and those kinds of things i so if if i were

00:35:18 to borrow that term for a moment i would i would apply that term and i'm sure it'd be more helpful

00:35:23 to use another term, but I would say that natural law, if I find it anywhere in the scripture,

00:35:27 it would be Romans chapter, not one being natural revelation, but Romans chapter two,

00:35:32 that the Gentiles, even those who have received no measure of special revelation, God's revealed

00:35:38 law in his law word, they've still received a measure of God's moral law simply by virtue of 0.99

00:35:47 being fallen creatures. Yes, but a vestige of the image of God still remaining creatures made in

00:35:52 the image of God, living in God's world. By virtue of living in God's world with God's order and God's

00:35:57 rules for his world, working as they do, and the law of God being written on their hearts and the

00:36:03 conscience of man, even though he lies and attempts to suppress the truth and deeds of unrighteousness, 0.57

00:36:08 there's still a sense in which the Gentile who's never received a missionary, never received an

00:36:13 apostolic message or a scroll or anything else, he is a law unto himself so that he is rightly

00:36:20 judged. He's without an apologia, and I'm going back and forth between Romans 2 and 1 here, but

00:36:24 he has no excuse because, this is what I always say to people, when they get upset about God's

00:36:30 law, really they're upset about the fact that there's a God in heaven that he has a standard.

00:36:34 They don't think that the God who created the entire world and created them has the right

00:36:39 to have a standard. And what I always say is, well, do you have a standard? And you impose

00:36:46 your standard not oh this is the rule that i live by no you no nobody does that that's that's

00:36:50 hypocritical that's not honest you have a standard and you oppose impose it on others that's why you

00:36:55 get offended right when others do to you what you would would um say that i would never do to 0.97

00:37:02 anybody else that's why you're horribly offended because they did not uphold your standard you

00:37:07 didn't make them you didn't create them from the dust of the ground you didn't knit them together

00:37:11 in their mother's womb or anything and yet you think that you have the right to impose a standard

00:37:15 to them without even being able to objectively determine whether or not your standard is

00:37:20 actually moral, whether or not it's actually good.

00:37:23 Your standard is very likely flawed.

00:37:26 And my point is that the Apostle Paul seems to say that the Gentiles, they themselves 0.98

00:37:30 have a standard and they can't even keep their own standard. 0.98

00:37:34 How in the world do they think that they could stand before a thrice holy God?

00:37:37 And so therefore they are guilty whether they've ever received a single page of scripture or

00:37:42 not, simply by natural revelation and the law of God. It's two components. It's God revealing his

00:37:48 eternal power and divine nature by what he has made, that which is physical, the cosmos outside

00:37:53 of them, but then also within them and the way that God has created them in his very image,

00:37:59 that image tarnished by the fall, but a vestige of the image of God remaining nonetheless. And so

00:38:04 my point is, I would want to say that if natural law is anything, it's that. It's Romans 2,

00:38:10 what Paul's getting at. But then what I would say is that the natural law that Paul's getting at in

00:38:15 Romans 2, there seems to be no distinction between that and moral law, the 10 commandments found in

00:38:20 the Decalogue. It seems that there's not one commandment, and I would include even the Sabbath,

00:38:24 again, by virtue of natural revelation. There are people who rejected God, they were deist,

00:38:29 or they were agnostic, who still recognize that just with agriculture, farming the land for six

00:38:36 years and then giving it a break on the seventh was good for producing more crops, right?

00:38:41 That just the fabric of the world and the way that God designed it spoke to a Sabbath

00:38:46 rest and a one in seven principle.

00:38:49 And so my point is, I really think that if there is natural law that comes apart from

00:38:53 special revelation, it would be the 10 commandments, that there is a God and therefore we should

00:39:00 love him and worship him and have no other gods before him.

00:39:03 And that this God, no one has seen him.

00:39:05 that seems apparently obvious natural that we could conclude no one's seen him therefore we

00:39:09 shouldn't try to construct visible images but rather worship through faith faith does not come

00:39:14 by seeing but but rather by hearing and hearing the word of christ and and that we should worship

00:39:18 this god not in a trivial or trite manner but with sincerity not taking his name in vain the

00:39:22 sabbath principle i've already addressed and and and then paul explicitly cites many of the laws

00:39:27 regarding neighbors such as murder uh in romans chapter two with the gent so my point is if there

00:39:32 is natural law, I would see it as synonymous with moral law revealed by two parts, natural revelation

00:39:40 and the Imago Dei. And then that's simply, in my assessment, simply confirmed through revealed

00:39:48 special revelation in the Decalogue and the law, the moral law given to Moses on the mountain.

00:39:54 So I guess my point is to say that the guy who tries to get away from moral law and adopt

00:40:01 natural law he seems to be doing it as a deist or agnostic to somehow lower the bar but i don't see

00:40:08 how it would what how would you respond to that yeah no i think that um the the part of the

00:40:14 challenge with the the expressions natural law um um natural theology is of course they do tend

00:40:21 to mean different things to different people um and uh because of the western tradition

00:40:26 and the influence of the very powerful influence of Greek thought

00:40:31 in the Western tradition, even in the Western theological tradition.

00:40:35 Sometimes the word nature comes with a certain freight

00:40:37 that the Bible doesn't actually bring with it,

00:40:40 that you and I wouldn't carry.

00:40:41 So I prefer to use terms like creation law,

00:40:46 creational law, or creational norms,

00:40:52 because, as I expressed at the beginning,

00:40:54 every word of God is law.

00:40:56 And every aspect of creation is governed by his law. Yes, Paul says the work of God's law is known in man.

00:41:05 It's part of the fact that we're creatures of God. There is that abiding testimony, not just within the creation.

00:41:13 Psalm 19, of course, speaks about and talks about the way in which even though there's no verbal speech, there is knowledge that goes forth from the reality of creation.

00:41:29 The prophet Isaiah points out that God teaches the farmer.

00:41:33 So there is an encounter with God's normative structure.

00:41:36 Right. The problem, of course, is that in a fallen and a broken world where man is a sinner, God never left man simply to look at nature in a neutral, autonomous way and interpret it for himself.

00:41:49 There was always from the very beginning verbal revelation. And I don't think we can underestimate either the way in which the spread of the I mean, don't forget, we're all descended from one human family.

00:42:02 so the man's knowledge of what god requires is also going to be orally passed on that's right

00:42:10 and spread in those terms so there's both a cultural transmission and but god has to of

00:42:16 course call out a special people for himself where he's going to republish the reality of uh of that

00:42:23 law and that's what the i think ten commandments um represents i think the danger and i think

00:42:29 sometimes this is what's happened with uh some of the some christians some evangelicals some even

00:42:35 reformed people today who are uncomfortable with or hostile towards uh discussion around god's law

00:42:41 and its abiding validity and its applicability is they almost sort of see natural law as a place

00:42:48 that they could retreat to that's that's going to be more neutral it's going to be more acceptable

00:42:52 to non-christian people because it's just nature and it's man's reason that engages with it

00:42:57 whereas this this um how can a specific concrete positivized law like the decalogue and the case

00:43:05 law that comes with it be in any way universal and of course what you find though with the

00:43:10 rationalistic philosophers and the natural law theorists is they actually can't agree on what

00:43:14 natural law really is what what what is it actually teaching what is the body of laws

00:43:20 that natural law is actually delivered to man and in a in a darwinist framework you look at you look

00:43:27 at a hindu framework or pantheistic framework you look at the law structures that have been 0.98

00:43:32 present in indigenous cultures and so on i wouldn't want to live in one right the the the 0.99

00:43:39 you know idolatrous idol worshiping child sacrificing um uh sexually promiscuous uh cultures 0.98

00:43:48 that it took the evangelization of the world to bring to bear the reality of god's law and that's 0.97

00:43:55 an inheritance we can't squander left only to our own reason because of our fallen state

00:44:00 as paul says in romans 8 man is at enmity with god he cannot submit himself to the law of god

00:44:05 he won't do so that's why we need the regenerating work of the of the holy spirit amen well this has

00:44:12 been wonderfully helpful dr boot i there's so much more that we could talk about um but i think

00:44:18 the best solution is to call it quits for today and just have you back every single week from here

00:44:22 on can i get your commitment no but we'd love to come back on again and uh and and take some of

00:44:29 these that because there's so much more we could say we've just kind of scratched the surface and

00:44:33 we could talk about many scriptures and and i think a helpful discussion would be to talk more

00:44:37 about okay why is there what's what's behind some of the hostility and so on i think that would be a

00:44:42 very interesting discussion to have because when you consider psalm 1 psalm 19 psalm 119 the longest

00:44:52 chapter in the bible which is a song a celebration of the beauty the wonder the gift the privileged

00:44:59 gift of god's law when you think that the the role of the prophets was to call people back to god's

00:45:05 law to remind them of the covenant law when you think about proverbs and the wisdom literature

00:45:09 And you see that that's a father teaching his son God's law.

00:45:13 And then when you think about the Lord Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration and who appears with him on the mountain to speak about the exodus that he was about to accomplish.

00:45:23 That's the word there. The exodus. It is Moses and Elijah.

00:45:28 It's the unity of the law and the prophets with the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:45:32 And I think when we start to see the beauty and the glory of this and the gift of the gracious gift of God's law to us as his people, we don't take the when we when we wash, when we go to do our ablutions, we don't take that the law functions in many respects for us like a mirror.

00:45:51 And we don't pull the mirror off the wall as Christians and wash our face in the mirror.

00:45:55 No, we when you go to the washroom, you wash with water, but the mirror shows you your condition.

00:46:02 And the law of God is not that which washes us.

00:46:06 The blood of Christ washes and cleanses us.

00:46:09 But the mirror, the law functions as that mirror for us, even as believers, to guide our sanctification.

00:46:15 And we're obligated to teach it and instruct not just our children, not just our churches, but the culture, all the nations in the gift of God's law.

00:46:25 And look what's happened, Joel, in a culture now in the West where we have neglected that, as goes the church, so goes the world.

00:46:33 Amen.

00:46:34 And I think just landing the plane with what you said earlier, the law being synonymous with love.

00:46:41 You know, we say, well, don't impose the law on unbelievers.

00:46:45 It's not universal.

00:46:46 This is just the law for Christians.

00:46:48 But if we see the law as loving, then it simply raises the question, what am I called to do with my unbelieving neighbor?

00:46:54 Am I called to love him? 0.90

00:46:55 right? That there would be no qualms, no pushback if we said, but we're called to love our

00:47:01 brothers. The scripture talks about that. First John talks about if anyone hates his brother,

00:47:05 fellow Christians must love fellow Christians. That's one of the signs that we've truly been

00:47:09 born again and that the love of Christ abides in us. But are we called to love unbelievers? 0.99

00:47:14 And every gospel-centered Tim Keller loving guy would come out of the woodworks and say,

00:47:19 yes we're called to love not just christians but love the culture um is pointing the culture

00:47:26 and society and even unbelievers back to the law of god loving but we don't see that and i think

00:47:33 that reveals that shows our hand we don't see the law of god as something that is loving that brings

00:47:37 about flourishing and life and prosperity but rather binding and oppressive and that's why we 0.78

00:47:43 don't want to share it with the unbeliever because we do we want to love the unbeliever and not hurt

00:47:47 him. And we see the law of God is harmful. That's really what I think it comes down to. And it's

00:47:53 destroyed churches and it's destroyed society and culture. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on the

00:47:58 show. Dr. Boot, God bless you. Please continue with your ministry. We're praying for you.

00:48:03 My privilege. Thanks for having me. God bless.

00:48:05 Thanks so much for listening. But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor,

00:48:09 take a moment and leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly

00:48:14 the best way that you can help us get this biblically faithful content

00:48:19 to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.

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The NXR Podcast - August 23, 2022

THEOLOGY APPLIED - Theonomy： Why Many Fiercely Oppose It with Dr. Joe Boot

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