The PuritanBoard - View Single Post

timmopussycat · #16 (**permalink**) 03-26-2008, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Presbyterian Deacon

Quote:

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...

Quote:

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)

...doesn't really address the place of the law in society or state but rather in the heart of the individual believer, IMO.

One of the things I admire about Bahnsen was his capacity to think through the implications of his thesis. Although the quote doesn't directly address the place of the law in society, Bahnsen correctly saw that if his Theonomy was correct and an individual disagreed with it, certain eternal consequences would follow. As he wrote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bahnsen

God's law is weighty with relevance for sanctification. The breaking of the very least stipulation of the law generates God's displeasure ... taking an erroneous teaching position with respect to the details of the law (e.g. that the exhaustive details of God's law no longer bind Christians or this period of history) does the same....The antecedent referent of 'these' in verse 19 is clearly the 'jot and tittle' mentioned in verse 18. Verse 19 teaches… that the smallest part of the law of God is a canon for determining personal standing in the kingdom of heaven.

(Theonomy in Christian Ethics, pp. 87,88).

If Theonomy is Scriptural, non-Theonomic Christians who do not follow, teach and promote the civil laws hinder their sanctification and add to humanity’s rebellion against God. If they do not repent, on the last day they will be found among the least in the kingdom of heaven.