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Originally Posted by Pergamum  Someone please deal with I Cor 5.
To say, "well Paul was talking to the church, not the civil gov't" does not cut it. The NT does not give any demands to civil gov't in the NT.
Israel was both gov't and church and had rules regulating both, but the NT only says to obey civil gov't.
Inside the church, like in I Cor 5, the civil laws of Israel was applied and death was changed to excommunication.
THis is a Biblical example of how Paul deals with the law in NT context. THis too should be our example by which we define general equity. |
Actually, Paul tells us that civil goverment is God's servant that is to adminster God's wrath on the evil-doer. Where do we go in order to find out how the servant of God (civil government) is to adminster God's wrath on criminals in a manner which is just and equittable? The answer is to the penal sanctions of the judicial law of Moses which deal with issues pertaining to civil justice. It is true that the NT has little to say on the role, functions and limitations of civil government; but this should not surprise us as the matter has been extensively dealt with in the Old Testament. To argue that we cannot appeal to the Old Testament is to adopt a Dispensational hermenuetic.
This is a sphere sovereignty issue; the church is required to excommunicate scandalous sinners, the state is to punish criminals. Paul's argument in 1 Cor. 5 is that since this individual had committed a crime worthy of death, then at the very least he should be excommunicated from the church. However, to argue that this means the state should no longer apply the appropriate civil penalty is to build an argument from conjecture. Should the state no longer execute murderers, but just leave it to the church to excommunicat them?
While it is true that Israel was church and state, the two institutions were distinct (though not entirely separate). The argument that excommunication has replaced the death penalty is one that is contrary to how most Puritans understood it (this was the argument of the tolerationists like Roger Williams in New England). Moreover, it was the Erastians who argued that the death penalty was OT excommunication. So the argument that this is what the Westminster Divines meant by general equity is historical revisionism.
Furthermore how are we to deal with incestous persons outside the church. We cannot excommunicate them, can we?