CONCLUSION Moses commanded us a law, even the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob (Deut. 33:4).
The Book of Deuteronomy is the Pentateuch's book of inheritance. The fifth and final section of Deuteronomy has to do with inheritance in the broadest sense. The primary inheritance of Israel was the revealed law of God. This was Israel's tool of dominion.(1) Obedience to the law was Israel's basis of maintaining the inheritance and extending it in history. But it was not sufficient for Israel to maintain the inheritance; Israel had to extend it. There is a war in history between God's kingdom and Satan's. There is no permanent peace treaty between these two kingdoms. There is no neutrality. There can be no stalemate. Israel forgot this, which is why the kingdom was removed from her (Matt. 21:43). Modern Christians also tend to forget this.(2)
Moses consummated his writing of the book of the inheritance with a series of blessings, tribe by tribe (Deut. 33:6-25), just as Jacob had, almost two and a half centuries earlier (Gen. 49).(3) As for the nation, Moses said, "Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places" (Deut. 33:29). Then he went off to Mt. Nebo to die. But before he did, he laid hands on Joshua. "And Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him, and did as the LORD commanded Moses" (Deut. 34:9). This completed the transfer of authority from Moses to Joshua. This was Joshua's long-awaited inheritance.
Deuteronomy presents a recapitulation of the Mosaic law. The inheriting generation was required to affirm their commitment to this law. In this sense, Deuteronomy is a book of covenant renewal. This would seem to place the book under point four of the covenant: oath. But the book also involves the transfer of the judicial inheritance to the generation of the conquest. In this sense, Deuteronomy is an aspect of point five: succession. This is another reason why I believe that points four and five of the biblical covenant model are so intimately related. In fact, the full consummation of Deuteronomy did not take place until the Israelites had crossed over Canaan's boundary (point three) and were circumcised (point four) at Gilgal (Josh. 5:3). Israel had to be circumcised before the historical transfer of title to Canaan could take place. The covenant oath that was implied by circumcision was mandatory prior to Israel's receiving the inheritance of Canaan. We can say that the inheritance of the law and the reaffirmation of the promise came with the Book of Deuteronomy. The historical inheritance of Canaan by Israel is described in the Book of Joshua. Circumcision confirmed confession. More than this: circumcision constituted confession.
Deuteronomy sets forth the legal basis of Israel's inheritance of Canaan. It presents God's law and refers to the sanctions attached to this law-order. Israel's acceptance of this covenant document was to serve as the judicial basis of the oath-sign to be imposed across the Jordan. The transfer of the law was the covenantal basis of the transfer of the inheritance. In this sense, the law was Israel's primary inheritance: received first. The Promised Land was the secondary inheritance: received second.
Promise and Conditions There could be no legitimate doubt that this generation would inherit. It was the fourth generation after Jacob's descent into Egypt. "But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full" (Gen. 15:16). Nevertheless, the fulfillment of this promise was conditional. First, Israel formally had to subordinate the nation to God (point two) by affirming God's law (point three) and its historical sanctions (point four). The proof of their acceptance of the law's historical sanctions was their willingness to submit to the oath-sign of circumcision. Without such ritual submission, they could not become true sons of Abraham and therefore heirs of the promise to Abraham. There can be no doubt here: the Abrahamic promise was conditional. Had they rejected God by rejecting His law, as manifested by their refusal to be circumcised, they would not have inherited. They could inherit the law without circumcision, and they did (Deuteronomy), but they could not inherit the land without circumcision (Joshua).
This conditionality of the Abrahamic covenant creates a minor theological problem that is easy to solve. Unfortunately, it has long been dealt with by theologians as if it were a major problem that is very difficult to solve. Here is the problem: How can a promise made by God and then sealed by His oath be conditional? If the fulfillment of an oath-bound covenantal promise is conditional, then its fulfillment in history seems to depend on man rather than God. Sovereignty is thereby transferred to man. How can this be?
The correct and relatively simple answer is theological: the fulfillment of God's promises is secured by God's sovereign decree. God does not predestinate in a vacuum. He does not predestinate single events within a contingent historical framework. When He announces a promise or a prophecy, His sovereign decree secures the historical conditions necessary for its fulfillment. Sovereignty over history at no point is transferred to man. God retains it absolutely. The complete fulfillment of the conditions is as secure as the complete fulfillment of the promise.
It is one of those oddities of ecclesiastical history that Calvinist theologians who call themselves covenant theologians have debated the fine points of conditional versus unconditional promises. I do not understand why. Of all theologians who should not bother to debate this topic in an either/or framework, Calvinists ought to be first in line. It is only in Calvinism's twin doctrines of predestination and the absolute sovereignty of God that we find a solution to this theological problem. It is time to say it loud and clear: there is no such thing as an unconditional promise. To imagine that there is such a thing is to imagine that the covenants of God were not secured by the perfect life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. Everything in history after God's cross-examination of Adam and Eve has been conditional on the work of Jesus Christ in history. Was there any possibility that Jesus would not fulfill these conditions? Not a chance: "And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!" (Luke 22:22). This means, ultimately, that there is no such thing as chance. God promised Adam and Eve the following: "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel" (Gen. 3:15). Was this promise conditional on Christ's advent and perfect work in history? Of course. Was there any chance that the covenant's conditions would not be fulfilled by Christ? None. This promise was conditional, yet there was no possibility that these conditions would not be met.
Obviously, some promises are more openly ethical and conditional than others, in the sense that the outcome of the promise can be different from what was predicted. This is the case with some covenant lawsuits. The best representative example is Jonah's warning to Nineveh: "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown" (Jonah 3:4b). Nineveh believed this and repented (turned around). "And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not" (v. 9). They repented; God also repented. But other covenant lawsuits have been predestined to come out just as God had promised: badly for the accused. "Then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land, even the kings that sit upon David's throne, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, with drunkenness. And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together, saith the LORD: I will not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them" (Jer. 13:13-14). And so He did. Jeremiah was not to pray otherwise. God had predestined His wrath upon Israel. "And now, because ye have done all these works, saith the LORD, and I spake unto you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not; Therefore will I do unto this house, which is called by my name, wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Ephraim. Therefore pray not thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make intercession to me: for I will not hear thee" (Jer. 7:13-16).
Because the office of prophet ceased after A.D. 70,(4) all covenant lawsuits today are of the Jonah variety: repentance must always be assumed to be an option for the hearers. No one lawfully brings a New Covenant lawsuit that does not offer the option of repentance. God no longer reveals in advance the specific outcome of a particular covenant lawsuit: blessing or cursing. In this sense, all New Covenant lawsuits are specially conditional, i.e., their outcome is unknown to man because the response of the accused is unknown to man. We must also affirm that, judicially speaking, all covenant lawsuits, promises, and prophecies are generally conditional: there is no escape from God's sanctions in history. What the future response of men would be was not always clear to those who heard these lawsuits, promises, and prophecies in the Old Covenant. But sometimes it was clear. For example, God did not offer Nineveh's option of repentance to the Amorites of Canaan. The Amorites' iniquity would surely be filled, not emptied by means of their repentance. Yet even in this case, the Gibeonites cleverly subordinated themselves to God through subordination to Israel, and they escaped the promised destruction (Josh. 9).
Compound Growth and National Covenant Renewal Deuteronomy presents a covenant theology that allows for compound growth, both of population and economics. More than this: growth is presented as morally mandatory. Put another way, the absence of growth is seen as a sign of God's curse. This growth-oriented outlook distinguished biblical religion from all other ancient religions. The key elements of Deuteronomy's covenant theology are found in Deuteronomy 8.
First, there was a promise of population growth. This promise was conditional on Israel's obedience. "All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the LORD thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no" (Deut. 8:1-2).
Second, there was a warning attached to the promised blessing of economic growth. This is because economic growth leads to a temptation: the temptation of autonomy. "And when thy herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied; Then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the LORD thy God, which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end; And thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth" (Deut. 8:13-17).
Third, there was a declaration of the inescapability of blessings. These blessings were built into the Mosaic law. Here, in one verse, is the most important single statement in ancient literature regarding the possibility of long-term economic growth. "But thou shalt remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day" (v. 18). The unique blessing of the power to get wealth serves as a means of confirming God's covenant in history. I say serves, not served. This covenant is still in force. He who denies this also implicitly denies the possibility of Christian economic theory.(5)
Consider the implications of cause-and-effect relationships among external covenant-keeping, visible wealth, and covenantal confirmation. The visible blessings that result from covenant-keeping are designed to increase men's faith. Faith in what? In God and His covenant. The covenant's confirmation by corporate economic growth becomes a motivation for corporate covenant renewal. Greater corporate faith is supposed to produce greater spiritual maturity, which in turn is to produce greater corporate blessings. Economists call such a process positive feedback. Here we have a vision of that most wonderful of all social wonders: compound economic growth. It is possible to sustain corporate economic growth through corporate covenantal obedience. This means that the corporate limits to growth can be overcome progressively. More than this: they must be overcome. Compound economic growth is an ethical imperative because obedience to God is an ethical imperative.
The compounding process results in the exponential curve: a number approaching infinity as a limit. But in a finite world, nothing grows forever. In a finite world, an exponential curve reaches environmental limits very fast. Population growth is the most obvious example. Yet we are told in Deuteronomy 8 that wealth can compound indefinitely. By this, God means finitely. The ultimate environmental limit to growth is time. If growth continues over time in a world of economic scarcity, including living space, time must run out. It will run out before covenant-keeping men reach society's physical limits to growth. This covenantal fact points clearly to the near-term consummation of history if men remain faithful to God by obeying His law. Time runs out when God's people obey Him and reap their appropriate reward: approaching the objective limits to growth.
Prior to the end of history, that which will call economic growth to a halt is not any environmental limit to growth, but rather corporate sin. "And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations which the LORD destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the LORD your God" (vv. 19-20). Or, as John describes it in the Book of Revelation, "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Rev. 20:7-10). In short, bad guys finish last.
Eschatology Deuteronomy's covenantal world view is rejected by humanists and most Christians. Covenant theology is impossible without eschatology. Because humanists and Christians reject Deuteronomy's eschatology, they reject the Pentateuch's doctrine of covenantal inheritance: "Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. That which is altogether just shalt thou follow, that thou mayest live, and inherit the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee" (Deut. 16:19-20). They offer other eschatologies and therefore other covenants.
Humanists reject biblical covenantalism because they reject the doctrine of final judgment. There will be no final judgment by God, they insist. There will be either the heat death of the universe(6) or a cyclical recapitulation of the Big Bang of creation: contraction, bang, expansion, ad infinitum.(7) Both of these cosmic possibilities are impersonal. The humanists' universe is a universe devoid of cosmic personalism, for their universe was not created by God.
The humanists' rejection of final judgment has implications for economic theory. There are two rival views: pro-growth and anti-growth. First, the typical economist insists that the limits to growth are always marginal. At the margin, there are no fixed limits to growth. There are only marginal limits to resources. Any ultimate objective limit to growth may be ignored for now -- in fact, must be ignored, now and forevermore. At some price, there is always room for one more, no matter what it is we are talking about: such is the confession of the economist. The marginalism of modern subjective economic theory lends itself to a concept of growth that has no objective limits. Growth cannot go on forever, the economist may admit if pressured for an answer, but it can surely go on for another year. Maybe two. The mainstream economist trains himself not to think about ultimate objective limits; he thinks only about marginal limits. Eschatology -- the doctrine of the last things -- is anathema to him. There are no last things, only marginal decisions.
Second, the anti-growth humanist asserts that mankind has become a destroyer, that nature's limits must be honored by rapacious man, and therefore the State must impose restrictions on the use of private property because of capitalism's insatiable quest for more. This outlook insists that there are objective limits to growth in nature, and therefore the State must restrict private individuals from pressing against these limits. Anti-growth legislation is necessary in order to avoid an inevitable collective catastrophe -- there are numerous humanistic doomsday scenarios -- that must occur when mankind reaches the environmental limits to growth. This eschatology is an eschatology of historical disaster. Anti-growth humanists are not concerned with the cosmic end of the world, i.e., the heat death of the universe. They do not predict the end of the world. Rather, they predict either the end of autonomous man's attempts to subdue nature or else the end of autonomous nature. They prefer the former.(8)
Contemporary Christians, in contrast to humanists, are more deeply concerned about eschatology than history. They assume that eschatology is discontinuous with culture, i.e., a breaking into time that will overthrow man's works rather than heal and extend them. In effect, they deny to the creation what Christ's resurrected body was for history: continuous with history (recognizable) yet transcendent beyond history, as the ascension subsequently revealed to the disciples. They do not see the end of time as the death and resurrection of cursed history. Christians oppose biblical covenantalism because it places the end of history within the context of Christendom's extension of the limits to growth. They reject any suggestion that mankind will reach objective limits to growth as a result of the spread of the gospel, the conversion of billions of people, and men's widespread obedience to biblical law, for this scenario suggests a postmillennial eschatology that modern pessimillennialism rejects. This is why modern Christians have no explicitly biblical economic theory. Without the Bible's doctrine of the covenant, they cannot reason both biblically and economically.
Postmillennialism and Covenantalism
Once a person accepts the continuing validity and authority of the covenantal message of Deuteronomy, it is only by arguing that the triumph of covenant-breaking society is inevitable in history that he can escape the postmillennial implications of Deuteronomy. Theologians do this, of course, but in doing so, they must appeal to the failure of Old Covenant Israel as a binding model for all history. This leads them to dismiss or at least ignore the doctrine of Christ's bodily ascension in history, an event that confirmed the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). Only by denying the possibility of progressively fulfilling the Great Commission in history can anyone who accepts the covenantal authority of Deuteronomy legitimately deny postmillennialism. Such a denial inescapably rests on this presupposition: Christ's bodily ascension plays no significant role in empowering the church to fulfill the Great Commission through the post-ascension advent of the Holy Spirit. Such a view also denies any significance for the doctrine of the ascension in the development of either eschatology or Christian social theory. Ultimately, such a view substitutes the experience of Old Covenant Israel for the doctrine of empowerment by the Holy Spirit.
If the biblical doctrine of the covenant includes corporate compound economic growth as a confirmation of the covenant (Deut. 8:17), then biblical covenantalism has eschatological implications. Here is the big one: the meek shall inherit the earth. Covenant-keepers who are meek before God, as evidenced by their confession of faith and their way of life -- obedience to God's Bible-revealed law -- are empowered by the Holy Spirit in history to extend the kingdom of God in history. That is, they are empowered in history by the Holy Spirit to fulfill progressively, though never perfectly, the terms of the dominion covenant.
The Structure of Theonomy(9) Theonomy is covenantal. The covenant is marked by five points: God's transcendence/presence; man's representative, hierarchical authority over creation and under God; God's revealed law; God's historical sanctions, positive and negative; and covenant-keepers' inheritance or succession, in time and eternity. In Chapter 19, I wrote that theonomy is not simply a matter of God's law; rather, it is a matter of the covenant: God's absolute sovereignty, man's subordinate authority, Bible-revealed law's continuity, historical sanctions' predictability, and postmillennialism. Put as a slogan, theonomy is a package deal.
On this point, I break with Greg Bahnsen, who argues in By This Standard: "What these studies present is a position in Christian (normative) ethics. They do not logically commit those who agree with them to any particular school of eschatological interpretation."(10) Logically, perhaps not; I defer here to Bahnsen's abilities as a logician. Theologically, God's biblically revealed law cannot be separated covenantally from sanctions and eschatology.
I can appreciate Dr. Bahnsen's dilemma. First, he believes that the Westminster Confession of Faith teaches theonomy.(11) Second, the ordination standards of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which ordained him, are explicitly committed to what is known as "eschatological liberty," or better put, "eschatological opinions as Confessional adiaphora," i.e., things indifferent to the Confession's statement of faith. Presbyterianism formally asserts the proposition that an ordained officer can lawfully affirm, or refuse to affirm, any one of at least three totally incompatible theories of eschatology, at least two of which have to be biblically incorrect and therefore heretical. In order to escape the burden of endless heresy trials and shattered churches, Reformed churches relegate eschatology to the realm of adiaphora.(12)
Bahnsen does not want to fight a three-front war: law vs. antinomianism; postmillennialism vs. amillennialism; postmillennialism vs. premillennialism. He formally separates his discussion of theonomy, which he believes is both the biblically mandated position and also consistent with the Westminster Confession and its two catechisms, from postmillennialism, which he believes is the biblically mandated position and therefore inconsistent, if postmillennialism really is biblically mandated, with the formal Presbyterian ideal of eschatology as a moot point theologically. The five-point covenant model, if true, pulls eschatology into ethics and vice versa by way of historical sanctions. This may be another reason for Bahnsen's lack of enthusiasm for Ray Sutton's and Meredith Kline's five-point covenant model, especially Sutton's, who does not relegate the covenant and its five points to the legal status of the Mosaic "intrusion," to use Kline's terminology.(13) I, on the other hand, am committed not only to the five-point structure of the covenant, but also to the five-point structure of the Pentateuch, as well as Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, and the Book of Revelation.(14)
Conclusion I have come to the conclusion of the Conclusion to the book that concludes the Pentateuch. This project has taken me a few weeks more than 24 years, not counting this book's index. (Now, only 61 books of the Bible to go!)
The Pentateuch is structured in terms of the Bible's five-point covenant model. So is Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is a future-oriented book. It deals with inheritance. It looks forward to the events chronicled in Joshua. It lays down the law a second time. The law was Israel's tool of dominion. Now that the nation was about to inherit the long-promised land of Canaan, the law was vital. By obeying the Mosaic law, Israel could maintain the kingdom grant. If Israel rebelled, God would remove the grant and transfer it to another nation. Jesus prophesied: "Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matt. 21:43). This finally took place in A.D. 70.
Deuteronomy, in Kline's words, is the treaty of the Great King.(15) The question is: Was this treaty abrogated forever by Jesus, or were its stipulations merely modified? The answer to this question divides theonomists from their critics, whose name is legion.(16) Theonomists insist that this treaty is still in force. God still brings a covenant lawsuit against His enemies in terms of the covenant's laws. Theonomy's critics deny this. But the critics have a problem with Deuteronomy 5: the recapitulation of the Ten Commandments. The section ends with this warning: "Ye shall observe to do therefore as the LORD your God hath commanded you: ye shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess" (Deut. 5:32-33). If this promise of blessing ended with Jesus' ministry, why did Paul cite the fifth commandment and reaffirm its life-extending promise? "Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth" (Eph. 6:1-3). He extended the scope of the positive sanction's applicability from the geographical confines of Canaan to the whole earth. This is not what I would call judicial annulment.
When covenant-breakers abandon the treaty of the Great King, we should not be surprised. The very concept of the Great King of the covenant offends them. But we also find that covenant-keepers insist, generation after generation, that they agree with covenant-breakers about the non-binding character of Deuteronomy's laws and sanctions. They are allied with covenant-breakers against those who argue that the treaty is still in force, and that God's corporate judgments in history are imposed in terms of its stipulations. Covenant-keepers and covenant-breakers seek a different treaty, with different laws and different sanctions. While they rarely agree on what this treaty might be, the terms of discourse are today set by covenant-breakers. They demand to be included in the debate, and they insist that the presuppositions regarding what constitutes justice and how we can both ascertain it and impose its laws must be a neutral, common-ground endeavor. Lo and behold, the conclusions reached by the two groups are presented to the public in terms of autonomous man and his moral and intellectual standards.(17)
There is no neutrality. Protestant American Christians today are willing to say this in public far more often than they were when I began writing my economic commentary on Genesis in April of 1973. This confessional reversal constitutes the beginning of a revolution in religious thought. When Christians at long last decide to follow this statement regarding neutrality to its logical conclusion -- the denial of political pluralism(18) -- they will have begun a major journey toward theonomy. To speed up this process of self-awareness, I ask, one more time: If not God's law, then whose? If not God's law, then what? I suggest three choices. God's law or chaos. God's law or tyranny. God's law or chaos followed by tyranny.
"And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word" (I Ki. 18:21). Then came the negative sanction: "Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces: and they said, The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God" (vv. 38-39). God's people learn slowly, but they do eventually learn. The trouble is, this learning process generally requires them to suffer extensive negative sanctions.
Footnotes:
1. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1990).
2. Gary North, Backward, Christian Soldiers? An Action Manual for Christian Reconstruction (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, [1984] 1988), ch. 11: "The Stalemate Mentality."
3. Israel's sojourn inside the boundaries of Egypt was 215 years. Gary North, Moses and Pharaoh: Dominion Religion vs. Power Religion (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1985), pp. 14-17.
4. See Chapter 32, above.
5. Sometimes this rejection of biblical economic theory is explicit. See the comments of William Diehl, cited in my Preface, under "The Hatred of God's Law." He displayed near contempt for my heavy reliance on Deuteronomy in my biblical defense of the free market. Then he went on to deny the legitimacy of biblical economic theory: "The fact that our Scriptures can be used to support or condemn any economic philosophy suggests that the Bible is not intended to lay out an economic plan which will apply for all times and places. If we are to examine economic structures in the light of Christian teachings, we will have to do it in another way." William E. Diehl, "A Guided-Market Response," in Robert Clouse (ed.), Wealth and Poverty: Four Christian Views of Economics (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1984), p. 87.
6. Gary North, Is the World Running Down? Crisis in the Christian Worldview (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1988), ch. 2.
7. The Big Bang that follows each cosmic contraction somehow will overcome the second law of thermodynamics: entropy. The heat death of the universe will be avoided.
8. Bill McKibben, The End of Nature (New York: Random House, 1989).
9. Written prior to the death of Greg Bahnsen.
10. Greg L. Bahnsen, By This Standard: The Authority of God's Law Today (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1985), p. 8.
11. Greg L. Bahnsen, "M. G. Kline on Theonomic Politics: An Evaluation of His Reply," Journal of Christian Reconstruction, VI (Winter, 1979-80), pp. 200-202.
12. In this sense, Lutherans are correct when they insist that they are not Reformed. They are creedally committed to amillennialism.
13. Ray R. Sutton, That You May Prosper: Dominion By Covenant (2nd ed.; Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1992), Appendix 7: "Meredith G. Kline: Yes and No."
14. David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation (Ft. Worth, Texas: Dominion Press, 1987).
15. Meredith G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King: The Covenant Structure of Deuteronomy: Studies and Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1963).
16. In May, 1997, a committee of the tiny Free Kirk of Scotland declared theonomy heretical. In doing so, the committee broke with the Westminster Confession. See Martin A. Foulner (ed.), Theonomy and the Westminster Confession: an annotated sourcebook (Edinburgh: Marpet Press, 1997). What remains of this once-great ecclesiastical body is an operational alliance between theological liberals, who hate the law of God, and pietists who fear institutional squabbling and who are unfamiliar with historical scholarship, especially the history of seventeenth-century Scottish theology. We have seen all this before, in the American Presbyterian Church. Gary North, Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996).
17. When the Free Kirk's committee declared theonomy as heretical, Scottish secular television announced this fact. The committee's declaration was considered media-worthy. The secularists know who their real enemies are in this seemingly rarified theological debate. Secularists are not worried about theological liberals and their pietistic allies.
18. Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989).
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