This is part VIII in my response to one of the dumbest articles ever written by a Seminary prof. His name is Andrew Walker. The reason it is so dumb is that all of this has been answered in the past and yet he puts pen to paper to recycle all this again as if he is being original. This article is posted on “The Godless Coalition” Platform.
AW wrote,
As David VanDrunen’s work on the Noahic covenant has demonstrated, God promises to uphold the structures of creation “while the earth remains” (Gen. 8:22); and he will do so through natural law and common grace, even if obscured. If this provides us no assurance of cultural domination, so be it. We’re called to be the church of Christ, not the chaplain to Christendom.
BLMc responds
1.) It figures that someone advancing a heterodox position as Walker is would appeal to another purveyor of heterodoxy (Van Drunen) to sustain his weak sauce augmentation. Should the reader desire they can scan Iron Ink in order to see the many instances where I have dissected David VanDrunen and exposed his various errors. I will say here though that a Baptist like Walker appealing to DVD goes a long way towards suggesting that R2K is Anabaptist theology in its impulse.
2.) Walker is arguing that the Noahic covenant provides the model by which the Bible teaches that a common realm as ruled by Natural law exists whereby believers and unbelievers can co-exist together without reference to any religion shaping and influencing the common realm. We know that because if the Walker – Van Drunen’s (DVD) common realm was shaped and influenced by religion then it would not be a common realm.
DVD’s and now Walker’s reading of the Nohaic covenant is strained, at best, and twisted at worse. In terms of the Noahic Covenant keep in mind that,
a.) Noah was chosen as a new Adam, because “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Does Noah sound, in that phraseology, to be a representative of all mankind or a representative of God’s elect?
b.) In the context of the Noahic covenant, Noah offers sacrifice upon departing the Ark. Are we to understand that Noah is offering sacrifice to God as a representative, not of the Redeemed, but as a representative of all mankind?
c.) DVD and now Walker misreads the whole context of the Nohaic event. God floods the earth because of his dissatisfaction with mankind and raises up Noah to be another Adam. God saves this second Adam through judgment and establishes him in a cleansed garden Mountain sanctuary in order to be God’s representative. As God’s subsequent representative Adam placed in a new post-flood Eden, God repeats the same great commission given the first Adam before his own fall (Genesis 1:26-28). This great commission first given to Adam, and then to Noah is also given repeatedly to subsequent covenant heads throughout the book of Genesis thus connecting the story-line of God’s redemptive activity and thus showing that the Noahic covenant is not a covenant that creates a common realm ruled by natural law sans Walker and DVD. If the Noahic covenant is not a covenant that creates a common realm then everything that Walker is advancing is complete whale fecal matter.
A small Whitman’s sampler of Genesis texts wherein the Adamic cultural Mandate (Gen. 1:26-28) becomes part and parcel of the Redemptive History as given to subsequent covenant contexts. Notice the repeated themes in the following texts of,
(1) God Blessed them
(2) Be fruitful and multiply
(3) fill the earth
(4) subdue the earth
(5) rule over … the earth
And take especial note that the Nohaic covenant, contra DVD and now Walker, shares the language of the cultural Mandate that we find in subsequent Redemptive history unique unto God’s people, thus proving that the Noahic covenant was not a covenant that is unrelated to God’s Redemptive covenantal activity.
Genesis 1:26-28
English Standard Version (ESV)
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Genesis 9:1, 7
English Standard Version (ESV)
9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth… 7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
Genesis 12:2-3
English Standard Version (ESV)
2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis 17:2, 6, 8
English Standard Version (ESV)
2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly….6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you…. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”
Genesis 22:17-18
English Standard Version (ESV)
17 I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, 18 and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
Genesis 26:3-4
English Standard Version (ESV)
3 Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. 4 I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and will give to your offspring all these lands. And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed,
Genesis 26:24
English Standard Version (ESV)
24 And the Lord appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of Abraham your father. Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant Abraham’s sake.”
Genesis 28:3-4
English Standard Version (ESV)
3 God Almighty[a] bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples. 4 May he give the blessing of Abraham to you and to your offspring with you, that you may take possession of the land of your sojournings that God gave to Abraham!”
Genesis 28:13-14
English Standard Version (ESV)
13 And behold, the Lord stood above it[a] and said, “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. 14 Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Genesis 35:11-12
English Standard Version (ESV)
11 And God said to him, “I am God Almighty:[a] be fruitful and multiply. A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your own body.[b] 12 The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you.”
This cultural Mandate, first found in Gen. 1:26-28, and reiterated in Gen. 9:1, 7, to Noah, is a theme that winds its way throughout Redemptive history. For a Doctor of the Church to try to advance the idea that the Noahic covenant is firm ground to introduce the idea that God desires there to be a common realm ruled by Natural law is at best a contrived reading of the text and strains credulity to the breaking point. If, with the Noahic covenant, God established the common Kingdom, then that common Kingdom was established as well in the Abrahamic covenant as it too includes the themes of,
(1) God Blessed them
(2) Be fruitful and multiply
(3) fill the earth
(4) subdue the earth
(5) rule over … the earth
Now given this cursory analysis we see that Van Drunen’s work on the Noahic covenant has most certainly not demonstrated that there is a common realm ruled by Natural law wherein God’s Law-Word need not apply.
