The 10 Commandments & Government

The Applicability of God’s Law

There is a tendency among some evangelical Christians to assume that God’s moral law is only applicable and relevant to those who acknowledge Jesus as their Lord.  As though one can claim, “It’s okay, I don’t believe in Jesus,” and use it as a legitimate exemption or get-out-of-jail-free card. But this is like arguing that the laws of gravity only apply to those of us who have opted in to them—it doesn’t work that way.

Combatting this misconception, the Westminster Confession of Faith reminds us that: 

“The moral law binds all people at all times to obedience, both those who are justified and those who are not. The obligation to obey the moral law is not only because of its content, but also because of the authority of God the Creator, who gave it. In the gospel, Christ in no way dissolves this obligation, but greatly strengthens it.

– WCF 19.5 (emphasis mine)

Notice that the confession says the moral law is binding on all people due to its origin. Because all people are created, they must obey their Creator. Should make sense, right? (1)

The confession also affirms that in the gospel, Christ does not abrogate or dissolve the authority of the moral law. Instead, he presses it beyond mere, external conformity and down into heartfelt, internal obedience (cf. Matt. 4:4; 5:17-23; 5:27-30). 

Though we don’t look to the law to save us, it remains authoritative and demands our obedience. And though we desire that obedience be inward and heartfelt, we do not want it to be restricted there—the moral law ought to find expression both internally and externally (see 1 Timothy 1:8-11).

The Three Uses of God’s Law

The moral law of God has historically been known to have three uses: First, it has a pedagogical use (i.e., it works as a tutor) when it functions like a mirror to reveal our sin and point us to Christ. Second, it has a civil use in that it teaches us to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. And finally, it has a normative use in the way that it shows us how to please God and live righteously (see John 14:15). 

In this post, we will home in on the second use of the law—its civil use. John Calvin says of this use that the moral law restrains evil and that “this forced and extorted righteousness is necessary for the good of society” (Institutes 2.7.10). 

And as soon as we talk about the good of society, we find ourselves considering the art of politics. (2) So here we are. 

The Moral Law and Government

In Romans 13, the Apostle Paul teaches that the civil magistrate is responsible for the civic duty of restraining evil. He says: 

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer.

– Romans 13:3-4 (emphasis mine). 

Baked into this commonly cited passage on the role of government is the assumption that categories of good and evil will be applied in the pursuit of public justice. (3)

For many, this has become a point of heated contention: can we appeal to the Scriptures for a universally authoritative moral standard, or must we rely on something outside of Scripture to provide some form of consensus with those who might be non-Christians? 

There are some Christians who say that Christ rules the church by the power and authority of his word, but that the civil realm is ruled by “common grace” and by natural law. In this view, the civic realm functions in a religiously “neutral” way and should not enforce the obligations of Scripture on all human activity (this view is commonly called the Radical Two Kingdoms view). (4) 

I would like to demonstrate that this view is faulty and that we cannot sidestep the authority of Christ and his word in the civil realm by a simple appeal to “natural law.” Morality is more integrated than that. 

The Natural Law and the Decalogue

From Aristotle to Aquinas and from Locke to Lewis (think The Tao), appeals to natural law have come in many different shapes and sizes. However, not all understandings of natural law are created equal. And it is important to note that natural law itself isn’t exactly neutral. 

In the Post-Enlightenment world, a significant push was made to ground objectivity and natural law in something other than the divine. (5) For many, this was an attempt to jettison old-world religion for new-world secular dogma. I’m not insinuating that Radical Two Kingdoms proponents are necessarily guilty of this mistake, but I do think their appeals to natural law and “common grace” often do not go far enough (and might be slightly naive). 

As the prescient 16th Century Reformer, Girolamo Zanchi (who we will rely on as our guide in this post), points out:  

Natural law, however, being a principle of reason, is a good, divine, and spiritual thing. Thus it must come from somewhere besides nature, that is, it must, as I have demonstrated, come from God.

When people appeal to “natural law” without reference to God, it is like they are stealing a car that they do not own and driving it on a road that they did not pave. Furthermore, they often ignore the noetic effects of sin that cloud a person’s reason and judgment and assume that all people have equal access to knowing the natural law. (6) But it’s not that easy. 

As Zanchi argues again: 

With regard to the conclusions often derived from natural law, Scripture shows that they are sometimes blotted from human hearts when they are handed over to their sins, as Romans 1 proves.

While the natural law is an appropriate grounding for morality in principle, we must not be so naive as to neglect our human fallibility nor to ignore its deeply religious underpinnings. 

So where are humans to turn to in their search for a universally binding moral standard that can be applied in the realm of politics? 

It is my contention to show that God reinforces the morality of the natural law by giving us a more sure—and specific and perspicuous—standard in the Decalogue. A law that neither contradicts nor can be fully separated from natural revelation. While we can know many things about God’s morality through our reasoning faculties as we observe the world, God helps us in our frailty by giving us the Ten Commandments. 

As our guide Girolamo says, 

Because the Decalogue defines and describes the same things that are called natural law, the Ten Commandment themselves are often called ‘natural law.’ (7)

So can the civil realm rely on these Ten Commandments in its search and pursuit of justice? I believe the answer must be yes. And further, it must not be afraid to consider this endeavor “Christian.” (8)

The Decalogue and Political Laws

As politics has often been considered an art, I do not mean to infer that there is a simple copy-and-paste formula that easily or formulaically produces healthy societies. This takes prudence and competence and craft. 

In the Christian West, many societies have been more comfortable with enforcing the Second Table of the Decalogue (the commandments concerning love of neighbor) than with enforcing the First Table of the Decalogue (the commandments concerning love of God). Dating back to the Reformation, societies have also distinguished between what have been considered sins and what have been considered crimes—only punishing actions and not thoughts. (9) 

However, we should acknowledge that just like we cannot fully separate the natural law from the Decalogue, so also we cannot fully separate the First Table from the Second Table—our love of neighbor is predicated on our love of God (cf. 1 John 4:19-21). 

Listen to the Reformer and political theologian, Johannes Althusius, explain this dynamic. He says: 

The precepts of the Decalogue are included to the extent that they infuse a vital spirit into the association and symbiotic life that we teach, that they carry a torch before the social life that we seek, and that they prescribe and constitute a way, rule, guiding star, and boundary for human society. If anyone would take them out of politics, he would destroy it; indeed, he would destroy all symbiosis and social life among men. For what would human life be without the piety of the first table of the Decalogue, and without the justice of the second?

– Johannes Althusius, Politica

While societies can appeal to nature and reason in the formulation of their political laws, they would be foolish to ignore the “way, rule, guiding star, and boundary for human society.” As Althusius says, they would destroy the art of politics. And isn’t that exactly what we are seeing in the Post-Christian world today? Promethean societies completely untethered from transcendent standards of justice and righteousness, devouring themselves in their folly? 

And would it be wrong to wish that our laws be explicitly Christian (i.e., that they would align with the moral law of God that is binding on all people)? 

As one thoughtful theologian, James R. Wood, recently said: 

An unjust law is no law at all. Just human laws reflect the natural law, which is encapsulated in the Decalogue and reinforced by Jesus. 

So, yea: we want ‘Christian laws’ because we want *laws.* (10)

May it be so.

Footnotes:

1 – The first few chapters of the book of Amos also show God bringing charges against the nations surrounding Israel, even though they were not God’s people. This further highlights that there is a binding normative morality that extends to all people.

2 – Reformer Johannes Althusius describes politics as “the art of associating men for the purpose of establishing, cultivating, and conserving social life among men.”

3 – Girolamo Zanchi: “Law separates those things that are truly good, right, and just from those that are evil, shameful, and unjust, and teaches that we should do the one but avoid the other.”

4 – John Frame offers a critique of this view here: https://frame-poythress.org/in-defense-of-christian-activism-vs-michael-horton-and-meredith-kline/

5 – Along with John Frame, I prefer the term “natural revelation” to “natural law” because it acknowledges a Revelator.

6 – Girolamo Zanchi demonstrates this reality when he says: “Thus it is clear that natural law has not been written in every person’s heart equally, but more in some and less in others… [Therefore,] natural law has not been inscribed equally on the hearts of all people nor is it today, though in the hearts of the elect, of course, it is always more fully and more effectively written as the Lord promised in Jeremiah 31.”

7 - See also John Calvin, Institutes 2.8.1: “[T]he Lord has provided for us with a written law [the Ten Commandments] to give us a clearer witness of what was too obscure in the natural law.”

8 – https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/my-kingdom-is-not-of-this-world

9 – Girolamo Zanchi: “Political laws, however, prohibit only external crimes and command only external duties. Consequently, they do not punish the desire of sin but the sinful external action itself. Why? These laws specifically look only to the common good, and, by themselves; they look at the private good only accidentally.”

10 – https://twitter.com/jamesrwoodtheo1/status/1649883897751126018?s=46&t=vgwIydt3gX1HtOLK5ua44Q