Old Covenant Sacrifices and Civil Forgiveness

When Christians discuss the relationship between the old covenant sacrifices of Israel and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, it is typical to focus on how the old covenant illustrates Jesus’s greater sacrifice, and argue that the mosaic sacrifices didn’t actually do anything to resolve sin. They are seen as merely pictures of Christ — important in that regard, but without actually impacting a person’s relationship with God. This is supported especially in the book of Hebrews, which argues that the repetitive nature of the old sacrifices proved that they were insufficient to perfect the worshiper, and that Jesus’ one-time sacrifice was therefore superior (Heb 10:1-18).

However, when we carefully study the texts involved, we see that the old covenant describes its sacrifices as offering real forgiveness of some kind. For example, Moses writes,

If anyone of the common people sins unintentionally in doing any one of the things that by the LORD’s commandments ought not to be done, and realizes his guilt, or the sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat…and the priest shall make atonement for him for the sin which he has committed, and he shall be forgiven. (Lev 4:27-28, 35)

The claim of this article is that in Moses we have a form of civil forgiveness by earthly human government for criminal behavior, which is distinct from the eternal forgiveness we receive in Christ’s heavenly government. Because Moses is a shadow (picture) of Christ, we can expect that there will be a shadow forgiveness that expresses itself in parallel ways between the two covenants. And by studying Moses’ system of civil forgiveness, Gentile governments can learn how to implement mercy for criminals without compromising justice.

Death, Exile, and Prison

One of the interesting features of Moses is that his law code didn’t contain a prison system. Instead, there were two essential responses to criminal behavior — cutting off of the criminal from society (through death or exile), or repentance expressing itself through restitution while continuing to live in society. Prison as a concept aligns with the exile of a criminal, separating him from society to prevent further harm through the use of an enclosed jurisdiction. But it’s interesting to observe that Moses was able to function without a prison system by the threat of death for being discovered within the community of Israel. Death and exile were seen as essentially two sides of the same coin, a “cutting off” of a person from society through the threat of death for remaining within it (e.g. Lev 20:2-3).

Exile of Adam and Eve

The first example of this dynamic in scripture is the cutting off of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden after they sinned. They were warned that in the day that they broke the law, they would surely die (Gen 2:17, 3:3), and they did die spiritually, through the loss of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gen 2:7, Jhn 3:5-6). But concerning their physical lives, God in his mercy allowed Adam and Eve to be exiled from the tree of life, separating them from the source of eternal physical life (Gen 3:22), rather than their being directly killed. Capital punishment would be issued if they ever returned to the garden (Gen 3:24), but they could live in exile, cut off from the garden that represented their home and social order.

Yet God would come to seek them out in their exile (Gen 4:9), and they could approach God through the sacrifice of an animal, as seen in the offerings of their children, Cain and Abel (Gen 4:3-4). This was an early form of civil forgiveness, which allowed criminal members of society to present themselves before the governing authority, and yet escape the just penalty for their crimes. While the eternal judgement of God still rested upon humanity apart from the heavenly sacrifice of Christ (Heb 9:24), our physical execution was forestalled through the shadow sacrifice of an innocent animal substitute.

Cain would be treated in a similar fashion to his parents when he murdered his brother Abel, in that he was exiled rather than directly killed. However, a distinction was made between the two cases, such that civil forgiveness was left unavailable to him. He would no longer be able to approach the governing authority, or the society centered around him (Gen 4:13-15). Rather, he would have to live in a society that did not submit to God or his law, leading to the first human city to rebel against theonomy (Gen 4:16-17).

Separation of Church and State

Does the separation of Church and State mean that civil government is unaccountable to God?

Religion and philosophy are essentially two names for the same field of thought — the study of first principles. One might argue that religion covers a broader spectrum of knowledge, but the point remains that every human discipline rests on first principles, and therefore every human discipline is inescapably religious.

Civil law in particular rests on an understanding of morality, which can differ substantially from one religion to the next. Law as a concept defines right and wrong ways of behaving, with positive and negative consequences for compliance or rebellion. But when humans issue law, this raises a question of what grants a human the right to demand obedience from other humans. Is law justified merely by the power of a ruler to enforce it? Or is law justified by authority vested in a ruler from an outside source?

The law of the fittest (rex lex) versus the law of the accountable (lex rex) reflects a long-standing conflict between two religious worldviews in western civilization. The law of the fittest views morality as a mere product of meaningless evolution, grounded in the will of the powerful man (or powerful collective man, i.e. society) who can define morality without accountability to a higher power. Because morality is a product of the powerful man rather than a ruler who presides over him, acts like rape and murder may be considered moral so long as the powerful man approves of them. Such a problem is often dealt with in the modern day by spreading the legal power of society across its members, such as in a democracy. But this merely pushes the ethical problem onto the collective rather than the individual sovereign. As long as societal consensus approves of an atrocity, such as what happened with chattel slavery, the gladiatorial games, abortion, or wife burning, the atrocious act becomes moral by definition, since morality is a mere opinion of the fittest man, which in the case of democracy is the collective man.

In contrast to rex lex, authority delegated to man from an unchanging and personal source that lives outside of the natural world (theism) provides the philosophical justification for viewing both the individual human and his civilization as accountable to higher moral categories. For lex rex, because rulers receive authority from God, and are accountable to his higher moral law, they have the right to issue laws and commands only within the boundaries of morality. When such leaders rule immorally, those underneath of their authority have a philosophical foundation other than revolutionary power to justify a limited and measured exercise of civil disobedience.

Other religions may perhaps yield other expressions of civil law beyond what the west has experienced in its conflict between naturalism and theism. But the point remains that one’s view of religion necessarily drives one’s view of politics, because every human discipline rests upon a religious foundation to establish the prerequisite first principles of knowledge.

foo

bar

bar

SHADE Theory

SHADE Theory offers a biblical foundation for Christian involvement in politics.

All authority in heaven and on earth comes from God, and has been vested in his vice-regent, Jesus the Christ. Because heaven reigns over earth, and Jesus ascended to the throne of heaven after his death and resurrection, the kings of the earth owe obedience to Jesus, and will be judged by him for their submission or rebellion to his rule.

Human beings are given the prerogative to define law codes for their derivative authority structures, such as in civil law*, parental rules, company policy, or church tradition, etc. Because all authority comes from God, these law codes are accountable to the higher moral law of Christ. Laws which conform to ultimate morality are considered legitimate and binding, and laws which are immoral may be lawfully opposed.

The law of Moses is a unique form of civil law which was given by God for the people of Israel. Unlike other laws, Moses is created in the image and likeness of the law of Christ as a shadow covenant that reveals the nature of ultimate morality and the kingdom of heaven. While Gentile (non-Jewish) nations are not under the authority of Moses in the present age, Jewish law is still instructive as a source of applied principles. It provides us with an inerrant, God-given example of how the law of Christ is reflected in a particular people and their civil law code, revealing principles which may be adapted to other peoples and contexts.

* In the context of SHADE Theory and Biblical Polity, civil law is meant in the older sense of describing the total body of legislation produced by a civil government, such as a nation, province, or county, etc. Thus it includes criminal law, as opposed to some modern definitions which distinguish between the two.

Because the covenant of Moses is a shadow of the covenant of Christ, the Bible describes two parallel culminations to redemptive history. The millennium-long reign of Jesus on the earth brings Israel’s history to its climactic golden age, and it serves as a shadow of the greater hope shared by all of redeemed humanity — the eternal state without sin, sorrow, or death.

Christians who believe in a dual-climax of redemptive history are often criticized for being pessimistic in their outlook for the future before Christ’s return, and the reputation is well-earned. Because on this view Christ’s millennium is preceded by severe global judgement, it is often preached that civilization-building efforts like political improvement are ultimately pointless, and that only the salvation of individual souls is important to God. Reconstructionist ideologies are therefore left to optimistic postmillennialism, which operates under the belief that we are presently living in the millennial reign of Christ, and that civilization will improve over time until Jesus returns.

SHADE Theory recognizes a form of hopeful realism which acknowledges both the futility and the deep value of life under the sun. Learning from Solomon’s insights in ecclesiastes, and Paul’s reflections on life without resurrection, we can see that civilization truly is made futile by the judgement of death issued against Adam’s race, if we do not factor resurrection into our political theory. Yet God is still deeply interested in the way in which man’s temporary civilization is carried out, if for no other reason than that the preservation of life by civil government allows the gospel to be preached and accepted by mankind. Other reasons for godly law and civilization may of course be supplied, such as the convicting of consciences in preparation for the gospel, and the training of Christians to be faithful and skilled in government matters, for when we are made rulers with Christ over the heavens and the earth.

The nature or timing of the millennium should have little impact on the hope of the Christian, or her obedience to the dominion mandate that God gave to build and rebuild civilization on earth. We face the same philosophical problem as Noah before the flood, or Jeremiah before God’s judgement of Judah through Babylon. All of humanity has always faced the inevitability of personal and collective judgement, yet civilization-building has always been an important part of man’s purpose here on the earth. If a penultimate judgement and reconstruction of the earth is yet in our future, then like every other generation that has faced judgement in the past, we are still called to be obedient and faithful stewards of the present.

One of the recurring effects of the Christian worldview on civil government is the criminalization of grave social evils, such as abortion, infanticide, witchcraft, wife-burning, and the gladiatorial games, to name a few. Observing this, the abolitionists of slavery in Britain and America developed a theology of national sanctification to compete with secular alternatives of their day, and grounded their movement on “the truths of divine revelation as upon the Everlasting Rock.”

Abolitionism holds that the only answer to sin — whether personal or national — is the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that only the people of God are equipped to bring that gospel into conflict with sinful and oppressive people and institutions. Ideologies of social change which unite Christians with non-Christians in an effort to curtail sinful law or behavior are fundamentally compromised and self-defeating, because non-Christians are by nature devoted to a false gospel that does not submit to God or his Messiah.

Furthermore, Christians are often tricked into supporting legislative change which compromises with sin, or which delays the introduction of uncompromising legislation, through the claim that it will be a more practical stepping stone toward justice. Abolitionism holds that every law that is written must be uncompromisingly moral — without sin, partiality, or injustice of any kind — and that any attempt to delay national repentance for any pragmatic reason is also a sinful use of legislation or other power.

The drive to pragmatically set aside God’s word in the legislative process is rooted in a false gospel which relies on man alone to redeem himself without the help of God. Abolitionism holds that God is our greatest ally in the work to bring about national repentance and redemption — that he is a real person and force acting behind the course of man’s civilization, and that we cannot set aside his word or his gospel without dooming our efforts to futility.

The counterpart to abolition is reconstruction. Where abolition involves turning from sin, reconstruction involves turning to a new way of life — God’s way rather than Satan’s.

SHADE Theory espouses a methodology of dual-mandate reconstruction which sees two dominion mandates in scripture — one given to Adam and Eve to take physical dominion over the earth, and another given to Christ and the Church to take spiritual dominion over the heavens and the earth. On this view, all humans in good standing within a given earthly jurisdiction participate together in earthly civilization-building under the authority and judgement of God, on account of the image of God that we bear through Adam. This includes efforts like business, family, civil government, and science, etc. All Christians in good standing with heavenly government then participate together in building the kingdom of Heaven under the authority and judgement of God, on account of the image of God that we bear in the new man through Christ. This includes efforts such as charity, evangelism, church, and theology, etc.

These two mandates do not describe the comprehensive scope of earthly or heavenly duty; both civil and moral law are broader than commandments pursuant of earthly and heavenly civilization-building. Some Christians make the mistake of believing that the great commission (the heavenly dominion mandate) is the sum total of the Church’s responsibility, and that all legitimate church activity must come under it, to the exclusion of e.g. social change. This is an unbiblical and destructive tradition that supplants the great commandment as the first and foundational law to guide human and Christian behavior. We are commanded to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love those who are created in his image and likeness — our neighbors as ourselves. On these two commandments hang all of earthly and heavenly law and civilization. The dominion mandates, while important, are merely one of the ways in which we carry out the command to love God and neighbor in earthly and heavenly government.

Because all authority comes from God, all authority is delegated authority. This means that no human being, human institution, or other creation possesses authority in its own right. Rather, one is accountable to use his authority in compliance with all higher directives and law codes, up to and including God’s higher moral law.

When a person or institution commands something in contradiction to one of its own superiors (including God), a lesser authority has both the right and the duty to disregard that command, and honor the higher authority. This is known as interposition, where the lesser authority stands between a tyrant and those underneath of him, to prevent their lawless oppression. While such a lesser authority may be accused of disregarding the rule of law, he is actually honoring the rule of law, by checking a lawless tyrant who is himself issuing commands in opposition to higher law.

Related Articles

  • All Authority Belongs to Jesus

  • Shadow Covenant Theonomy offers Christians a way to understand how Jesus' kingship and the law of Moses applies to modern governments.

    Shadow Covenant Theonomy