Theonomy in Christian Ethics

The attitude towards the Law expressed by Jesus in Matt. v. 15-20 is one of unqualified acceptance and approval. The Law is to he observed in every detail and there is no suggestion that there is any limit in time to its observance. The Law is eternal, and its most minute prescription retains its validity . . . so long as the created world endures,

Philo says that the Mosaic laws are “firm, unshakable, immovable . . . remain secure from the day when they were first enacted to now, and we may hope that they will remain for all future ages as though immortal, so long as the sun and moon and the whole heaven and universe exist . . . not even the smallest parts of the ordinances has been disturbe

Christ came to enforce the law, to work it into the actual living of His disciples, to give the power of New Covenant obedience. These things are most certainly true about the work of Christ, and they correspond nicely to the promise of Jeremiah 31:33 and the words of Romans 8:4 (where the Spirit “fulfills” the righteousness of the law within

With respect to doctrine, we must not imagine that the coming of Christ has freed us from the authority of the law: for it is the eternal rule of a devout and holy life, and must, therefore, be as unchangeable, as the justice of God, which it embraced, is constant and uniform.

It may rightly be said, therefore, that kingdom and righteousness are synonymous concepts in Jesus’ preaching. The one is unthinkable without the other. . . . In all these places, righteousness means the sum total of God’s demand imposed upon all who would enter the kingdom.15

the unity of the Divine covenant with man is presupposed; thus the Sermon expresses the only righteousness acceptable to God in this or in any age.

Joachim Jeremias outlines the three basic interpretive approaches to the Sermon on the Mount,1 labeling them “the perfectionist conception,” “the theory of the impossible ideal,” and “the interim-ethic.” In the first case Jesus is seen as laying down an obedience ethic as rigid as that of the Older Testament. The second view holds that Jesus knows

In the pages that follow, my concern will be to show from God’s word that the Christian is obligated to keep the whole law of God as a pattern of sanctification and that this law is to be enforced by the civil magistrate where and how the stipulations of God so designate. That is to say, “theonomy” has a central and irradicable place in any genuine

The State dominates the nation because it alone represents it (Hitler).