R2K fanboy writes,
My understanding is, there is the Church, which is a Holy nation, a royal priesthood, and there are the lost of the world. I also understand enacting the laws of God into the civil laws of the land has no power in the least to save the lost. Rather, it is only the Gospel which has the power to save. In other words, folks must, and have to be regenerated. Even Rushdoony agreed with this. Therefore, attempting to enact the Mosaic law upon the unregenerate has no effect.
Moreover, allow us to recall when there were those in Jerusalem who were insisting the Gentiles adhere to the laws of Moses that Peter stood up and said,
“Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?”
It seems pretty clear here Peter is proclaiming that the law is a yoke of burden that even the Jews were not able to bear, and we are to place this yoke upon the unregenerate?
Bret responds
Well, this eliminates the idea that you might be a Seminary Professor because not even a Seminary Professor would make the category mistake that you have blundered into here.
1.) I do not believe that enacting the Mosaic laws and penalty for laws will redeem the lost. No one who is orthodox believes that. (And I am nothing if not orthodox.)
2.) Instead the argument for enacting the Mosaics (Sodomy is a crimes, Stealing is a crime, Murder is a crime, etc.) is to introduce lawful order. Enacting the 2nd use of the law is to the end of what is called the political use of the law (2nd use of the law.) This political or civil use of the law has as its purpose the restraining of evil. All admit that the law cannot change hearts so that the wicked become good but the law can limit lawlessness by its threats and promise of judgment for violators of the law. When used in this way the 2nd use of the law secures and protects the civil law order and serves to guard the judicially innocent from the wicked. (See Dt. 13:6-11:19;16-21; Rm. 13:3-4)
3.) Peter was saying that in terms of salvation the Gentiles could not bear the yoke of the law as a means by which the unregenerate could secure righteousness. Peter was not talking about the 2nd use of the law.
R2K fanboy writes,
Now, couple this with the fact that Paul asks the question, “what do I have to do with judging those outside”, and we have to wonder where in the world one would get the idea that the Church is to attempt to enact the Mosaic law upon those outside the Church? So then, it seems as a Christian I am free to associate with the immoral folks outside the Church, but am forbidden from associating with the immoral who claims to be a Christian.
Therefore, no matter what you would like to call it, there is definitely two different spheres. The regenerate, and the unregenerate, and enacting the Mosaic law upon the laws of the land will not change this fact.
Bret responds,
I never denied that the antithesis between the righteous and the unrighteous did not exist.
There definitely are two spheres. There is the sphere that is animated by those who belong to their father the Devil and the sphere that is animated by those who have the deposit of the Holy Spirit. However, as those two dwell cheek by jowl in the civil order some civil law has to prevail and the civil law that should prevail is God’s law enacted into the law code of the land.
Secondly, you are not free to have concourse with immoral folks outside the church. Elsewhere God writes, “Do you not know that bad company corrupts good character.” James 4:4 teaches,
know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.
God says in Romans 13, “Hate that which is evil.”
Finally, when Paul talks about not judging those outside the Church he is speaking in the context of judging those inside the Church with judging including the idea of bringing Church discipline. Since those outside the Church cannot have church discipline brought upon them therefore in that sense and in that sense only we are not to judge those outside the church.
