Ed Walsh
Puritan Board Senior
Bahnsen’s ethic—his view generally—requires the cooperation of the state to implement it, whatever the “general equity” of God's Law is deemed to require by the church. It appears to me that the phenomena of establishmentarianism (or any cooperation of the state with us) is far behind us, and I know of no state willing to enact a church’s moral judgments. “Theonomists” may say “what ought be should not be trumped by what merely is”—meaning the eternal should not be displaced by the temporal—yet when this happens just execution of God’s will but awaits the day of His Judgment.
What did you mean by "the phenomena of establishmentarianism (or any cooperation of the state with us) is far behind us?" Do you mean "far behind us" in history? Or "behind us" as a pie-in-the-sky false hope?
In the meanwhile, here in Time (and in our 21st century), in His wise providence, the states—indeed, the coalition of the nations—“rage, and the people imagine a vain thing….The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us” (Psa 2:1-2,3).
Do you think this present world is compatible with "Satan," being "bound," that he should "deceive the nations no more?" (Revelation 20:2-3)
An observation - You may have stopped too soon in your citing of Psalm 2. Doesn't the beginning of the Psalm set the stage for its conclusion?
It would seem, in such extremity of lawlessness, the church, on its own in a revolting and mad conglomeration of satanically-infiltrated deteriorating cultures, would enact such “general equities” as spiritually mirror the actual penalties of God’s Law, such that the offenders know God’s judicial hand upon them—from the severity of excommunication (the spiritual death-penalty) to the lesser yet serious and weighty forms of church discipline.
To think in terms of the state working with the church in our time is to indulge in abstractions and wishful thinking. We are an intact kingdom and governmental entity as it is, kept so by the King of Heaven and earth.
I plan to go through the whole Bible to record all the verses that express this "wishful thinking" you speak of. My estimate (and that's what I do for a living) is that it will be numbered somewhere between 500 and 1,000 times. This desire is expressed ubiquitously in all of Scripture. And, like Psalm 2, they are not usually thinking of the final judgment. Most of the hopes, prayers and songs are for time rather than eternity. Jesus, after all, "is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world." (John 4:42) and many other places.
Psalm 33:8
Let all the earth fear the LORD: Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
Psalm 96:1
O Sing unto the LORD a new song: Sing unto the LORD, all the earth.
Psalm 96:9
O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: Fear before him, all the earth.
Afterthought: Following is the kind of thing I sometimes say unless my wife talked me out of it. But she's still asleep.
At the risk of totally discrediting myself, I will state the following regarding the binding of Satan such that he can "deceive the nations no more." And I know that the view that Satan is bound now is a sacred cow to modern amillennialists. But let me ask you, which of the approximately 200 nations of the World are undeceived?
Allow me to go on in my foolishness (for I am sure to get in hot water for what I say). If what we see today is the totality of the binding of Satan, then God has done a pretty shoddy job of it. I surely do not claim to grasp all that God will do, but I have stopped making excuses for God. He is full of surprises. And they are invariably "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." ( Ephesians 3:20)
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