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I have just been likened to one after making it known that I do not support stem cell research.
The good that men do is interred with their bones, but the evil they do lives on and on...
Our noble forefathers did, in fact, burn a few witches - I think it was a great sin - and this evil is often pointed to as evidence that Christians are at odds with the love displayed by Christ.
This is a lesson for us: we must always walk circumspectly before the watching world and be harmless as doves because if we err, the world WILL take notice and use it against us for years to come.
[bracing myself for nasty replies now...]
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Mat 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.
New verse just found:
Mat 28:21 if they will not believe, burn them.
We don't need a new verse brother, verse 20 is clear enough.
How about a new interpretation of Mark 16:
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be burnt!
Careful now brother...
You start talking about baptism and salvation and we will break out the AA/FV pitchfork & torch kit and run you out of town .
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Mat 28:20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, [even] unto the end of the world. Amen.
New verse just found:
Mat 28:21 if they will not believe, burn them.
I think I might have woke up this morning a little sensitive. If I'm over-reacting, please forgive me and let me know. With that being said...Ultimately the question of what we are to do with witches, if anything, should be answered by Scripture or by good and necessary consequence from Scripture. What I attempted was to show a clear command from Scripture for us to begin working through. I also put up a relevant confessional document regarding judicial laws to help us as a guide...
I have no problem getting hit right between the eyes with an argument or even feirce rhetoric. Ad homs generally slide off my back (getting better at taking them anyway...) - but what I'm sensitive about this morning is the method you used by inventing new Scriptures or manipulating them to make your argument. You could just have easily made the argument without doing that. I assume you doing it for rhetorical force and I understand the thrust of the argument. Out of reverence for the Word it just struck me a little off. Again, I may just being overly sensitive - and if so, please correct me and forgive me.
______________
OK...now for dealing with the actual argument. I believe you are begging the question on the category that you are putting witchcraft in. You are assigning it in the category of unbelief. You are exactly right - if it was indeed that. We are not to punish unbelief. We are to evangelise and disciple it. We send missionaries, not executioners.
However - God placed it in the context of judicially punishable offences. We are to punish/kill murderers. Not because of their unbelief but for their crime. We should still share the gospel with them of course! I would argue that the command to punish/kill witches would fall in the category of all the other capital punishment crimes rather than unbelief.
To show that witches shouldn't be punished today one would:
1. Have to show that we should not punish OT crimes today - but then one would have to differentiate hermeneutically between murder, rape, etc. - by showing scripture repealing the necessity.
2. Provide redemptive-historical changes that do away with it.
3. Provide a general equity of the verse above out of Exodus 22 that means to not punish at all.
I meant it in humor brother! Please forgive my "rough" edges. Yes, in the O.T. witches were to be burned. In fact. a whole assortment of people were to be killed for idolatry, fornication, adultery, working on the sabbath ect.
However, I can find nothing in the N.T. that gives a chrstian church the right to kill anybody. Jesus did not have the woman stoned for her adultery and Paul told us to separate from idolaters, not kill them.
Again, please forgive me for my offence this morning.
We all have rough edges brother! I didn't take the offence as against me, just want the Word of God to be treated as it should (Lord forgive me for mishandling Your Word on a regular basis.)
We are looking at the Scriptures the same. I too can find nothing in the NT that gives a Christian church the right to kill anybody. In fact, I can't find anything in the OT either. We should separate ourselves and use church discipline appropriately and evangelise.
I can however find where the O.T. civil magistrate should punish crimes and I can find no portion in the N.T. telling them to stop. In fact the Magistrate is a minister of God and shouldn't bear the sword in vain.
I'm all for a separation of church and state as were the puritans who punished them. It wasn't the church that did so however.
Love ya, brother.
The problem is brother, governments, though they are ordained of God, always lead into apostacy. One needs only to read the history of Israel under the kings to see that. The government that Paul wrote about in Romans 13 was Nero, hardly an example of Biblical government. The ideal would be for all people to bow and "kiss the Son" but they won't, and neither will any government in my opinion untill Christ comes in flaming fire taking vengeance.
Love you in Christ dear brother!
II. A law which makes witchcraft a capital crime, v. 18. Witchcraft not only gives that honour to the devil which is due to God alone, but bids defiance to the divine Providence, wages war with God's government, and puts his work into the devil's hand, expecting him to do good and evil, and so making him indeed the god of this world; justly therefore was it punished with death, especially among a people that were blessed with a divine revelation, and cared for by divine Providence above any people under the sun. By our law, consulting, covenanting with, invocating, or employing, any evil spirit, to any intent whatsoever, and exercising any enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby hurt shall be done to any person whatsoever, is made felony, without benefit of clergy; also pretending to tell where goods lost or stolen may be found, or the like, is an iniquity punishable by the judge, and the second offence with death. The justice of our law herein is supported by the law of God recorded here.
And just because we are sinful idiots and blow it at every chance we get both individually and collectively in society - it doesn't invalidate the normativity of the law. Just because I can't keep the sabbath perfectly doesn't mean that the sabbath is no longer binding. We should seek just laws and just punishments in society. People are careless sexually today. This leads to millions of unwanted pregnancies. People rectify this by killing millions of babies in the womb. Should we accept this state of affairs or should we seek to reform the laws to protect the unborn and punish the murderers?
Here is Matthew Henry on Exodus 22:18:
We are in basic agreement brother. However, I can find no nation on earth who has ever followed the law of God very long before going into complete apostacy. Therefore, in my opinion, because of the total depravity of man governments should be restrained by law themselves. One has only to look at the history of government to see it is not long before they begin killing christians themselves.
Here's the problem with your argument as I see it. The OT magistrate WERE part of the church. They were covenantally ordained offices set up in the Mosaic legislation as types of Christ governing His people. They did not apply to the rest of the world (unless you believe Moses was a Mediator for the world and not just God's people?). There was a clear covenantal restriction. The antitype has come. Therefore by necessity the type must go away. Christ is the king. The authority of execution among God's people now rests in His hands.We all have rough edges brother! I didn't take the offence as against me, just want the Word of God to be treated as it should (Lord forgive me for mishandling Your Word on a regular basis.)
We are looking at the Scriptures the same. I too can find nothing in the NT that gives a Christian church the right to kill anybody. In fact, I can't find anything in the OT either. We should separate ourselves and use church discipline appropriately and evangelise.
I can however find where the O.T. civil magistrate should punish crimes and I can find no portion in the N.T. telling them to stop. In fact the Magistrate is a minister of God and shouldn't bear the sword in vain.
Just noticed I missed something. Yes I deserve death by the law. We all do. If we are talking about the moral law of God and God's judgment for breaking it. For the wages of sin is death. However temporally speaking - God has decided to forebear with society and has set up only a few things that are death deserving as far as criminal behavior goes. This requires us to differentiate between sins and crimes. The civil and ecclesiastical spheres. Eschatological fulfillment and temporal requirements. The now and the not yet.
The problem is brother, governments, though they are ordained of God, always lead into apostacy. One needs only to read the history of Israel under the kings to see that. The government that Paul wrote about in Romans 13 was Nero, hardly an example of Biblical government. The ideal would be for all people to bow and "kiss the Son" but they won't, and neither will any government in my opinion untill Christ comes in flaming fire taking vengeance.
Love you in Christ dear brother!
If governments always lead into apostacy, then how is this an argument against a T/theonomic society? It seems that all you are saying is that a government that is attempting to live Biblically leads to error as well as those that don't care.
Here's the problem with your argument as I see it. The OT magistrate WERE part of the church. They were covenantally ordained offices set up in the Mosaic legislation as types of Christ governing His people. They did not apply to the rest of the world (unless you believe Moses was a Mediator for the world and not just God's people?). There was a clear covenantal restriction. The antitype has come. Therefore by necessity the type must go away. Christ is the king. The authority of execution among God's people now rests in His hands.
And in OT Israel there was no seperation of church and state. Kings, prophets, and priests interfered with each others duties all the time and with divine approval (with few exceptions like Uzziah). It was David who instructed the priests how to work in the temple and wrote the liturgy. Solomon consecrated the temple with sacrifice. It was Elijah who slaughtered the prophets of Baal (which the king should have done). Samuel performed all three roles as a judge. In Duet. 17 both judges and preists are given civil authority which must be obeyed upon pain of death. If you are going to use this as a template for modern society, then you will not have a seperation of church and state. Deut. 17 states that to disobey a preist requires death. What should we do today if a parishioner disobeys a pastor? David intervened and designed the temple and it's worship. Should we then be Erastian in our church government? That is the logical conclusion isn't it?
This is an important distinction you conclude with. You can't have types existing with the antitype. Once fulfilled it is done away. Christ is the prophet preist and king of God's people. So if you wish to find the biblical authority for a civil magistrate you must look outside the Mosaic covenant. The only other place to go is back to Noah. The covenant of works and the covenant of preservation are the only covenants made with all men. Every other covenant since is made only with God's people. If you confuse the covenants you will end up with unjust witch burning. You will respond with the sword when you should respond with the gospel. And ultimately you will fall into the trap of the Westminster Divines of defaulting to Erastianism whenever you couldn't settle ecclesiological matters peacefully.