Posted by
ValiantForTruth on Monday, June 28, 2010 11:12:12 PM
The Confessions of the Reformed Churches use the term general equity to identify the element in the judicial laws which is of enduring obligation amidst all the changes in redemptive history. That equity is the righteousness of the moral law, which 1) was first given at creation, 2) was afterwards delivered in the Ten Commandments, 3) is distinguished from the ceremonial and judicial laws as such, 4) is always backed by the authority of the Creator, and 5) is strengthened by Christ in the Gospel:
“God gave to Adam a law…by which He bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience…This law, after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness…Beside this law, commonly called moral, there are the ceremonial and judicial laws.” [1689 London Baptist, chapter 19 Of the Law of God]
General Equity
Equity of the moral law is 1) embodied in a natural law binding upon all men as creatures under the authority of the Creator, and 2) common to moral teaching found in the Scriptures as a whole. Calvin and the Puritans did not allow the judicial laws to define equity; rather conformity to the moral law was the standard against which the Reformers reviewed the judicial laws and isolated the elements of perpetual equity in them.
The following are statements of this hermeneutical perspective given by Calvin in his Institutes, which was of great influence in the rise of Western thought and culture…
"It is a fact that the law of God which we call the moral law is nothing else than a testimony of natural law and of that conscience which God has engraved upon the minds of men. Consequently, the entire scheme of this equity of which we are now speaking has been prescribed in it. Hence, this equity alone must be the goal and rule and limit of all laws.”
"Whatever laws shall be framed to that rule, directed to that goal, bound by that limit, there is no reason why we should disapprove of them, howsoever they may differ from the Jewish law, or among themselves."
“The judicial law, given to [Israel] for civil government, imparted certain formulas of equity and justice, by which they might live together blamelessly and peaceably. . . . . The form of their judicial laws, although it had no other intent than how best to preserve that very love which is enjoined by God's eternal law, had something distinct from that precept of love. Therefore, as ceremonial laws could be abrogated while piety remained safe and unharmed, so too, when these judicial laws were taken away, the perpetual duties and precepts of love could still remain.”
“But if this is true, surely every nation is left free to make such laws as it foresees to be profitable for itself. Yet these must be in conformity to that perpetual rule of love, so that they indeed vary in form but have the same purpose…”
"What I have said will become plain if in all laws we examine, as we should, these two things: the constitution of the law, and the equity on which its constitution is itself founded and rests. Equity, because it is natural, cannot but be the same for all, and therefore, this same purpose ought to apply to all laws, whatever their object. Constitutions have certain circumstances upon which they in part depend. It therefore does not matter that they are different, provided all equally press toward the same goal of equity” [Institutes of the Christian Religion].
Constitutionalism: Reformed vs Progressive
The American Founders appealed to the authority of Natural Law in the Declaration of Independence. Our Constitution is rooted in the Reformed tradition of general equity. What does this say about the current views of Constitutional Law being espoused at the Kagan hearings? Our law schools have long ago abandoned the Reformed view of law as having its authority in the moral Law of the Creator of heaven and earth. The Progressive view has no such authority to rest on and therefore the arbitrary and the relative are replacing the absolute. In general the Progressive view is opposed to the Natural Law and therefore opposed to the moral Law of God.
Individual liberty is inherent in the Christian world view that sees men as image bearers and responsible moral agents before their Creator. A world view based on atheistic materialism and anti-theistic naturalism operates from a totally different presupposition.
The Word of God is not the truth that sanctifies as claimed by Jesus Christ, rather neo-science is truth and the immaterial must originate from the material. If men are not noble and fallen image bearers of the living God, but products of impersonal bio-chemicals, then the state will be thought of as preeminent and the elites will lord their authority over their serfs. Lost is the idea of authority derived from the consent of the governed and the concept of public service.
How does a free people throw away their heritage of liberty? What does it say of the world of men that the tendency is always toward tyranny? Liberty among men is the anomaly. The kingdom of God and the grace of God has come near to America, giving men a hope of freedom. This generation is far removed and mostly ignorant of the origins of liberty. On this side of the cross, we live in the New Covenant millennial kingdom. The glory of the kingdom graced our founding and gave us a rich heritage in liberty. But real and lasting liberty begins in the realm of the spiritual where the dominion of sin and death is broken and replaced with the reign of grace.