When I was growing up my family would often debate various aspects of theology. In order to do this, someone had to take the opposing side of the argument at hand. This meant that sometimes I would defend and argue points I didn’t actually believe in order to hear my father masterfully demolish my counterarguments. The result is that no matter what theology I am speaking about, it sounds like I am willing to fight to the death for that specific belief. The truth, however, is that the Hegg family is always willing to listen to and consider an opposing point of view as long as it is upheld by Scripture.
In the recent past some folks who have not understood my way of discussing theology have posed the question, “have you ever changed your point of view on any theology?” I believe such a question is meant as a debate move in an attempt to show me I am set in my ways and not willing to listen to an opposing argument. But this is simply not the case.
Fifteen years ago I dabbled with binitarianism (i.e. the belief that the Godhead is made of Father and Son but the Spirit is not a distinct person). I finally rejected that after the overwhelming evidence of the Trinity was presented to me. Ten years ago I made the shift from a free-will model to a belief in the doctrines of grace moving into the “Calvinist” camp my father fought to bring me into for nearly 20 years. And about five years ago, I made a significant shift in my understanding of rabbinic Judaism and the various rabbinic texts.
And now, alas, another theological shift has taken place. It is my view of theonomy and the topic that will occupy my next few posts. In this article, I will simply show my previous understanding and how/why I have shifted my belief.
There are various degrees of theonomy but at the very foundation is the belief that God’s law should and will govern all peoples and governments in the world. So, for instance, although Iraq might be a Muslim country, those who hold to theonomy believe that God will hold the Iraqi people to a standard which is the Law of God. Likewise, believers should be attempting to move their government towards biblical truths in the hopes that God’s law will become the law of the land. This may seem obvious to some, but there are “good” arguments against such beliefs, arguments I used to use and believe.
I used to argue that God did not make His covenant with the nations but made it with Israel. This ultimately is upheld by the fact that the land of Israel has laws attached to it that seem to be specific to that place and do not expand beyond its borders. Along these same lines, within the Torah itself, it does not seem like God holds the nations to the same standard as He does Israel (more on this below). The argument goes that God is not worried about what Egypt, the Hittites, or the Persians did. Rather, He is worried about His covenant people and His covenant land.
I started to see things a bit differently during my studies of the Eucharist. In 1Cor. 5:8, Paul instructs the Corinthians:
Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:8 ESV)
How exactly are the predominately Gentile Corinthians supposed to celebrate Passover outside of Israel? Someone suggested to me that Paul expected them to make the journey to Jerusalem, but this would be an approximately 460 nautical mile journey. What is more, the Torah itself seems to back up Paul’s assertion that people should celebrate the festivals outside of the land:
And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.
(Deuteronomy 30:1–3 ESV)
Once again, how are the Israelites supposed to celebrate “all” that Moses has commanded in the book of Deuteronomy if they are not in the land of Israel? With no temple and no sacrificial system available, it seems impossible that anyone would be able to “do all” that Moses commanded.
Another aspect of this entire debate is that of covenant membership. According to the Scriptures, a Gentile that comes to faith in the God of Israel becomes a covenant member.
There shall be one law for the native and for the stranger who sojourns among you. (Exodus 12:49 ESV)
One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you. (Numbers 15:16 ESV)
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the LORD: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.”
(Isaiah 56:3–5 ESV)
And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Galatians 3:29 ESV)
That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations… (Romans 4:16–17 ESV)
So if a Gentile comes to faith in Christ and is therefore a covenant member, how is it that they are supposed to keep the covenant if they don’t live in the land?
As I began to wrestle with the idea that covenant members, whether Jew or Gentile, should be keeping the covenant no matter their geographical location, I was asked another question. My friend Jeff Young asked me, “If the nations are not held to the standard of God’s laws, what standard are they held to?” This of course led me to purchase Greg Bahnsen’s book By This Standard. At this point, I think I would have already considered myself a theonomist, but Bahnsen’s book pushed me fully into that realm.
Before I move on, I should simply say that throughout Scripture, God is holding the nations to the standard of His law. For instance, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed because they are falling into sexual sin. But if God’s law does not apply to them, then why would God care?
In Leviticus we are told that the inhabitants of the land of Israel took part in sexual sins and this is why God was driving them out:
Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. (Leviticus 18:24–25 ESV)
But if the law didn’t apply to them why would God punish them for it? The basic point here is that God has a standard of morality and that standard is found in the law of God.
A final argument for theonomy is what the Bible says about the end times. I am personally not convinced that the nations will begin to turn to God until the Messiah returns, but nonetheless, the nations will eventually be held to God’s law, and not just moral issues like sexual conduct, but issues like kosher laws and the festivals:
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.; (Micah 4:1–3 ESV)
Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. (Zechariah 14:16 ESV)
He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.” (Isaiah 42:4 ESV)
This makes sense since Israel was not chosen to be the only covenant members, but rather, they were chosen to take the Torah and the news of God’s salvation to the nations (Ex. 9:16, Is. 42:6, 49:6, John 8:12). But this in turn begs the question, once the nations received the Torah from Israel, what were they supposed to do with it?
Ultimately, those who are without faith in the risen Lord are condemned for their sin. What is sin? Sin is any want of conformity to, or transgression of the law of God:
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (1 John 3:4 ESV)
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