Therefore, in seeking a Christian reconstruction of the institution of civil government, it is imperative that we make our standard the only inspired, infallible model on godly civil government that we have: the Hebrew Republic established by God through Moses.
Note that we use the term “model.” This is because the Hebrew Republic had elements unique to its own time and place in redemptive history. Hence, it is an error to seek to reduplicate today, in all of its particulars, that Republic (e.g., hereditary kingship, a central tribunal presided over by Levitical priests, cities of refuge, some of the laws of inheritance and warfare, a division of the nation into 11 tribal units, or the exact jurisdictional unit of the city and its gates, etc.).
The Hebrew Republic does not provide us with a detailed blueprint for all the specifics of civil government or civil law, but it does give us a sufficiently clear model for framing a government and laws that are according to the will of God. We must remember that every detail of the Hebrew Republic was based on the unchanging righteous standard of God’s moral law. Our interest is in discovering, through proper historical-grammatical exegesis, the moral law that informs each particular, and then applying that law to the nations of the New Testament dispensation.
The Biblical Model For Civil Government, William Einwechter
No comments:
Post a Comment