Exposing The Nakedness Of R2K On The Noahic Covenant

“The pluralism of the Noahic covenant requires members of the human community, Christians included, to cultivate the virtue of tolerance. Tolerance is a proper feature of justice in our fallen but pressured world.”

David VanDrunen
Politics After Christendom

In R2K “theology” The Noahic covenant was a covenant that applied to all mankind and not merely the redemptive line. It was a common grace covenant. This means therefore that in the public square we must realize that God rules by Natural Law and because the public square is the space of common grace where all men interact, therefore the public square must be characterized by tolerance (principled pluralism). This means that no one God can be uniquely God of the public square since God, via the Noahaic covenant has ordained that the public square is a realm of common grace and not saving grace.

Therefore tolerance is the virtue of all virtues as it relates to the public square. The Noahic covenant including all mankind is the basis of a required tolerance in and for the public square.

However, if the Noahic covenant was NOT an expression of the one redemptive covenant of grace as per Van Drunen and the R2K boys then we should not have found in the Noahic covenant;

1.) Noah as a High Priest
2.) Making sacrifice
3.) On an altar
4.) Wherein God takes pleasure
5.) And provides a covenantal sign
6.) to not destroy mankind
7.) so that He can continue to Redeem his people from the world

The Noahic covenant IS an expression of the one redemptive covenant of Grace. David Van Drunen and the R2K lads are full of Shedd’s Nutty Peanut Butter.

The Noahic covenant is made with Noah — God’s representative covenant head — and Noah’s household. This clues us in immediately that this covenant is indeed a redemptive covenant since it is a covenant made with those who have experienced God’s redemption. (Note also that the language, in speaking to Noah and His household, is the same kind of language used when God makes covenant with Abraham.)

We thus finding continuity with the sacrificial, typological, and gracious character continued with the Abrahamic covenant, which in turn teaches us that the Noahic covenant is continuous with God’s unfolding of the one covenant of grace. Now, one of the bits of additional revelational information about the one covenant of grace that we get with the Noahic covenant is that the covenant of grace includes provision that will sustain all creatures so that all creatures can experience providential benefits that are the residual effects of God’s redeeming of his particular people.

From this we learn that the Noahic covenant is not directly made with all people, though the Noahic covenant has an indirect and consequential effect on all people. This means that Van Drunen is clearly in error when he teaches that the Noahic covenant is a common grace covenant that is non-Redemptive and if the R2K project is in error at this point it fails completely. Do not misunderstand this point. If the Van Drunen (R2K) interpretation of the Noahic covenant fails then the whole idea of a common rule fails and the whole idea of Natural Law ruling the common realm fails. So also falls the R2K allegiance to principled pluralism as a Christian virtue fails. It all comes tumbling down.

Whether one views the Noahic covenant as a administration of the one covenant of grace or views it as a kind of gracious interruptus that teaches a common grace covenant what we must say is that the difference here ends up being a continental divide in one’s theology, personality and character. If it is true that as a man thinketh in his heart so he is, the thinking on this point ends up making HUGE difference all the way down the line. The implications are MONUMENTAL.

Because of the vast implications we would offer that the theologoumenon  (a theological statement which is of individual opinion and not doctrine) of the non-redemptive Noahic covenant is a mischievous heresy, and ought to be prosecuted in Church courts as such. Such an opinion is anti-Christological to the core. See Col 1 and Eph 1.  The fact that such an opinion should be prosecuted in Church courts is all the more necessary because this trash doctrine is being used to lock people out of ordination.

Every administration of the one covenant of grace brings a further expansion of revelational insight into the meaning of that one covenant of grace. As such, to insist that the Noahic covenant was NOT an expression of the one covenant of grace, but was instead merely a “common covenant” as R2K does is a ham-fisted handling of the covenant of Grace. Only someone trained at a Jesuit College could figure out how to so convincingly bollix up the history of redemption found in covenant theology.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.

2 thoughts on “Exposing The Nakedness Of R2K On The Noahic Covenant”

  1. “The fact that such an opinion should be prosecuted in Church courts is all the more necessary because this trash doctrine is being used to lock people out of ordination.” Which organizations are doing this? Also, why not place a share link so we can post these on the social networks? I would like to see this topic discussed further on the internet.

    Reply

    1. I don’t know how to post a “share” link. I’m pretty sure people are savvy enough to figure out how to share this material w/o me providing some kind of “share” link

      Theonomists typically oppose R2K. How many full on theonomists do you know who are being ordained?

      Reply

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