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Originally Posted by Tom Bombadil  Quote:
Originally Posted by Backwoods Presbyterian Man Bahnsen's doing a good job of turning me to Theonomic principles. |
FWIW,
It's a leap to say that God's laws for *personal* holiness should also be the laws for the *state's* holiness.
One reason is that you'd have to say that the *state* should enfource laws against (say) coveting.
So, you'll not get to "theonomy" from his specific claims here on personal sanctification.  |
Sanctification is personal and progressive. As Thomas Watson put it:
"Justification does not admitt of degrees; a believer cannot be more elected or justified than he is, but he may be more sanctified than he is. Sanctification is still increasing, like the morning sun, which grows brighter to the full meridian. Knowledge is said to increase. Col i 10; 2 Cor x 15. A Christian is continually adding a cubit to his spiritual stature."
(Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, page 242).
This statement by Bahnsen...
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To be sanctified is to be "set apart" by and unto God, so that the Christian is recreated after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness and empowered by the Holy Spirit to die progressively unto sin and live more and more in conformity with God's will. It is easy to see that sanctification, then, requires of the law of God as the standard for God's holiness and will; it defines that sinfulness unto which we are to die. Therefore, the necessity of sanctification and the validity of the law mutually imply each other.
To summarize what has been said to this point, we can say that salvation is not exhaustively circumscribed by God's pardon of, and the imputation of Christ's righteousness to, the sinner; salvation continues beyond the point of justification into the process of sanctification, a process which begins with a definitive break with the bondage of sinful depravity and matures by progressively preparing the Christian to enjoy eternal life with God by the internal purifying of his moral condition. (pg. 160-161)
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...doesn't really address the place of the law in society or state but rather in the heart of the individual believer, IMO.
__________________
Sterling Harmon
Coventry, CT
PCA
Deacon
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"Whatever is laudable in our works proceeds from the grace of God."
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John Calvin, Institutes III:xv.3.
"Our Lord God must be a good man, to be fond of worthless fellows. I cannot like them, and yet I, myself, am one."
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Martin Luther, Table Talk