Proposed Early Draft of Affirmations & Denials for: God’s Law for All Societies; Document #23

by the Theological Committee of the International Church Council Project

  1. WE AFFIRM that the Moral Law of God is a reflection of God’s holy, righteous and good nature and that these laws were written upon the hearts of mankind from the Garden and therefore apply to all of Adam’s descendants. These laws were later codified in the Ten Commandments and the case laws which are applications and extensions of the Ten Commandments.

    WE DENY that the Moral Law was not in effect prior to the giving of the Ten Commandments through Moses. We further deny that the Ten Commandments apply to only a portion of the human race.

  2. WE AFFIRM that God gave His Laws for all mankind in the Bible by means of inerrant, verbal inspiration and that those written Laws are absolute and universal and therefore are to be obeyed by all mankind. They apply to Christians, to unbelievers and to all social orders in all places at all times. Man is required always and everywhere to reverence God and obey His Law Word.

    WE DENY that God intends His Laws in the Bible to apply only to Jews or Christians or to those who chose to obey those biblical laws. We further deny that there is any “neutral ground” in this universe where mankind may stand without being always and absolutely accountable to his Creator and under obligation to humble himself before God in the obedience of faith and worship.

  3. WE AFFIRM that God’s Law applies to Christians, not as a basis for justification, but as the standard within which the justified-by-faith Christian lives when he lives in love, for “love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10). We further affirm that the Law of God applies to the unbeliever as the continuing and eternal standard for all morality and justice because God’s Law reflects God’s own, unchanging moral character, and all of Adam’s descendents have that Law of God written upon their hearts (Rom. 2:14).

    WE DENY that God’s Law is not God’s required standard for the societies of all cultures of every nation because that Law is the moral requirement for every individual everywhere at all times and there cannot be a different moral requirement for the social order in which all those individuals live.

  4. WE AFFIRM that the points of morality, justice and social order, which any society institutes into its civil codes of law, flow directly out of the religion and worldview of the leaders who are in power, and out of their designated influencers of that society.

    WE DENY that civil laws do or can flow out of neutral, objective, non-religious sources or are uninfluenced by the worldview of the leaders of said society.

  5. WE AFFIRM that the basic foundations of God’s Law in the Bible are set forth in His Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), and those Ten Commandments are explained, expanded and applied in what is called the biblical “case laws” and in passages such as Chapters 21, 22 and 23 in Exodus.1 We further affirm that Western Civilization with its attending social, financial, scientific, and juridical benefits owes its formation and development to the Christian’s Bible and to Christian society’s commitment over the centuries to basing their societies laws upon the Ten Commandments which was the case in the development of the English “Common Law.”

    WE DENY that an individual or society can remain strong, just, prosperous, creative or rational when that society ignores or hates the God of the Bible or disobeys His biblical commandments. History testifies profusely to the truth of this statement.

  6. WE AFFIRM that there is a distinctive and identifiable Christian worldview. This Christian worldview includes a distinctive and identifiable Christian view of law, and that at the heart of these Christian views stands the Almighty Sovereign God of the Universe, who reveals Himself most clearly and completely in the Bible.

    WE DENY that there is no distinctive, identifiable Christian worldview or view of law, and that any views are authentically Christian if they center on anything other than the Almighty Sovereign God of the Universe revealed in the Bible.2

  7. WE AFFIRM that a society inevitably must choose between conflicting legal foundations and views of law and should choose Christian views and a Christian foundation because the Christian system is vastly superior to all alternatives: it is empirically defensible, internally logical, [and] comprehensive in scope.

    WE DENY that a society may avoid choosing between conflicting legal foundations and views of law, and that any non-Christian system is superior or equal to the Christian system.3

  8. WE AFFIRM that it is the vital and unavoidable responsibility of the true Christian community in every society to seek, in every Biblically consistent way, to hold its society’s views of law true to Biblical principles, and that when societies choose non-Christian views of law they can expect little long-term blessing from God and many severely adverse consequences.

    WE DENY that the Christian community properly fulfills its calling to make disciples of every nation and to be salt and light to the world when it fails to do all in its power to hold society’s views of law true to Biblical principles.4

  9. WE AFFIRM that the rejection or reduction of God’s Laws in the Bible is probably the most debilitating defect in the Body of Christ today and is the primary issue that has tragically reduced a majority of the Church to her present condition of being materialistic, self-serving, theologically confused, irrelevant, culturally impotent and antinomian.

    WE DENY that any individual Christian, mission organization or church is pleasing to God or is biblically fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission if they are not insisting in their gospel presentation that God requires Christians to live in obedience to the commands in the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments (including but not limited to the Ten Commandments), and insisting that one’s true love for Christ, His Church and the advancement of His Kingdom on earth is measured by that Christian’s daily walk of obedience to the Bible more than mere “Christian talk” or the attainment of great theological learning.

  10. WE AFFIRM that antinomianism (the disregard or dismissal of God’s Law as being applicable to people today) is a modern day curse and sickness within many professed, Bible-believing churches. Antinomianism must be corrected before such churches can accomplish their God-appointed destinies in fulfilling the Great Commission, and thus bringing forth God’s Kingdom on earth in all areas of society to whatever degree this may be accomplish before Christ’s return.

    WE DENY that the following antinomian statements are biblical or are beneficial to the Church or to any society but rather that these false beliefs are demonic, destructive and damnable:

    1. Old Testament laws and principles do not carry over into the New Testament period.
    2. Some of the Old Testament moral laws and principles stand in opposition to the moral laws and principles of the New Testament or participate in some kind of “inferior” type of spirituality and morality.
    3. The ‘Law of Christ’ is substantially different than the Old Testament moral law.
    4. It is not God’s intention that either the Old Testament’s or the New Testament’s moral laws and principles should be institutionalized into civil law for any and all societies on earth today.
    5. My personal understanding and sense of right and wrong (enlightened by my understanding of how the Holy Spirit is guiding my life) is a superior guide regarding morality and law (what is right and wrong) than any written text in the Bible.

  11. WE AFFIRM that all commands in the Old Testament are to be “Maintained unless Modified” by the New Testament (such as the sacrificial and dietary laws which have been so changed).
    WE DENY that laws in the Old Testament are “Rescinded unless Repeated” in the New Testament.
  12. WE AFFIRM that the sovereign God providentially directs the course of human history, including civil law, which is a vital part of that history and requires that civil law conform to His standards; that with the consummation of history, including legal history, will come the final, eternal triumph of God’s Law, when eternal, universal, and perfect justice will prevail; and that this assurance gives Christians today ultimate hope even in the midst of the rampant violations of God’s Law in today’s world and imparts real meaning and eternal significance to man’s response to God’s Law in this present life.

    WE DENY that history, including legal history, is a merely purposeless sequence of events; that the pattern and purposes of history deviate from what the Sovereign God has ordained; that there will be no final, eternal triumph of God’s Law; and that eternal, universal, and perfect justice will never prevail.5

    Copyright © 2010. Used with permission of the International Church Council Project.

    1. An example of the Ten Commandments being further defined is Deut. 19:4-13 wherein the case law there defines “You shall not murder” as being neither an accidental killing nor capital punishment.
    2. Christian Worldview of Law, Coalition on Revival, 1989. Article 2 Affirmation & Denial word for word.
    3. Christian Worldview of Law, Coalition on Revival, 1989. Article 3 Affirmation & Denial word for word.
    4. Christian Worldview of Law, Coalition on Revival, 1989. Article 5 Affirmation & Denial word for word.
    5. Christian Worldview of Law, Coalition on Revival, 1989. Article 6 Affirmation & Denial word for word.
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