{"id":62459,"date":"2023-04-19T23:19:07","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T04:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=62459"},"modified":"2023-06-29T09:08:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-29T14:08:57","slug":"a-progressive-covenantal-perspective-theonomy-and-mosess-law-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/?p=62459","title":{"rendered":"A Progressive Covenantal Perspective: Theonomy and Moses\u2019s Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This article considers theonomy as an alternative proposal to how Moses\u2019s law relates to Christians.<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> It first tackles the tripartite division of the law (moral, civil, and ceremonial) and then critiques three vital tenets for theonomy: its understanding of how Christ fulfilled the law, its understanding of the nature of Christ\u2019s kingdom, and its understanding of church-state relations.<\/p>\n<p><strong>ASSESSING THE THREEFOLD DIVISION OF THE LAW<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Historically, Protestants have often made distinctions between three kinds of laws when considering the contemporary importance of Moses\u2019s instruction:<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>  <em>Moral laws<\/em> are those fundamental ethical principles that are eternally applicable, regardless of the time or covenant. <em>Civil laws<\/em> relate to Israel\u2019s political and social structures and supply case-specific applications of the moral law in Israel\u2019s context. <em>Ceremonial laws<\/em> are those symbolic requirements related to Israel\u2019s religious rituals and cult worship that find their typological end in Christ.  <\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many covenant theologians believe the \u201cmoral laws\u201d alone (most clearly exemplified in the Ten Words) remain legally binding on Christians today, whereas the \u201ccivil\u201d and \u201cceremonial\u201d laws are time-bound and no longer applicable.<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> For example, Michael Horton writes,<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Civil laws . . . are obviously in force only so long as the theocracy itself exists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Theonomy fails to recognize that the New Testament applies Moses\u2019s law through Christ only to the church and never to the state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":791,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[793],"tags":[322],"class_list":["post-62459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9marks","tag-preaching-theology","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/791"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62459"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62461,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62459\/revisions\/62461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblicalcounselor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}