The Reformation and Modern Era
From the Reformation era, we can observe that without apology, the Rhineland, Huguenot, Dutch, Scottish, Swiss, and Puritan commonwealths clearly founded their regional polities and constitutions on the book of Deuteronomy. Martin Bucer, John Calvin, and Pierre Viret had led the way in holding high the law of God for all of life. Viret expounded the law at great length, and wrote in the preface to his commentary on the law:
[This original translation from the French is taken from Berthoud, In Defense of God’s Law, 143–44.
I have proposed to declare the law of God, which must be held as the rule of all others by which men must be directed and governed.
…. God wanted Himself to give a law which would be used as a rule to all men of the earth to regulate mind, understanding, will, and affections, as much of those who must govern the other as of those who must be governed by them. And He has done this in order that, all together, they would recognize one God for their sovereign Prince and Lord and that they would recognize themselves as His servants and ministers…. [He] comprehended in that law all moral teaching necessary for men to live well. He has done this much better, incomparably so, than all the philosophers and all their books, those of ethics as well as of politics and economics, and than all the legislators who have ever been and those who are and will be, in all their laws and ordinances…. [T]his law could function for us as true Christian ethics, economics and politics, if well attended to.
A similar perspective was adopted by the Reformers’ heirs in England, the Puritans, who regarded and applied the equity of God’s law very seriously to family, church, and state. Perhaps more surprising, national covenants based on the Pentateuch were originally used in the founding of many colonies in British North America, again following the Puritans in England. Scholarly review of the relevant literature reveals that by the time of the American Revolution, the polemical political argumentation between 1765 and 1805 contained more citations from Deuteronomy than all the European political philosophers combined!
For a detailed study of the Christian impact on law in the Reformation and post-Reformation period, see Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution, vol. 1, The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (London: Harvard University Press, 1983).
It is therefore very clear that from the time of the first codification of English law with Alfred the Great in the ninth century (which began with the Ten Commandments), to our present era with its steady repeal of biblical laws, the legal jurisprudence and constitutional life of the Anglosphere has for centuries developed in perpetual interaction with the revealed law of God. In fact, biblical faith, not natural law, in several striking examples, is the sole reason for the abolition of man-theft and enslavement, polygamy, and infanticide in the West, which were all ubiquitous in the classical world. Conversely, dechristianization in legal jurisprudence is the central reason for the scourge of abortion, no-fault divorce, pornography, prostitution, euthanasia, the advent of the legal fiction of “homosexual marriage,” the legalisation and promotion of various forms of sexual perversion, the denial of human sexual identity as male and female, and the general decline of freedom. For a detailed study of the Christian impact on law in the Reformation and post-Reformation period, see Harold J. Berman, Law and Revolution, vol. 1, The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (London: Harvard University Press, 1983).
Daniel J. Elazar and Stuart A. Cohen, The Jewish Polity (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1985), 121–34, 137–45.
Law and Constitution
Sadly, the historical significance and formative influence of God’s revealed law in the West tends to be missed or swiftly passed over by both unbelieving and Christian critics of a theonomic vision for the social order. It is regrettable that in contemporary culture, the past is often seen, even by many professing Christians, as something to be transcended rather than gratefully inherited and built upon—imagining that what is latest is best, whilst what has antiquity must be outdated and irrelevant. As a result, many become angry or upset when those concerned with a recovery of biblical law move beyond theoretical theological discussion or historical review, and challenge the socio-political status quo by speaking of the transformative power and importance of the law of God for today in the context of secular liberal democracies.
Berman, Law and Revolution, 65.
Whilst it must be granted as obvious that biblical Israel was constituted somewhat differently from the modern nation-states of Europe or America, that does not mean biblical law has nothing to say to these nation-states today. In fact, unknown to many, the law of God contains material that defines the legal status of persons and regulations for the exercise of governmental power. The Bible is in many respects a covenantal, and therefore public legal document, that enables certain kinds of communities, polities, and constitutions to emerge under its guidance. As a result, covenant is a seminal political idea.
The constitution of the Hebrews is grounded in God’s covenant Word which constitutionalizes His relationship to Israel. Through this special treaty, a people, individually and collectively, are “called out” to live in freedom under God with specific obligations. Jonathan Burnside explains that Deuteronomy 16:18–18:22 sets out a division and balance of power between judges or elders from among the people, the king, priests, and prophets, ensuring that power could not be concentrated in the hands of any single human authority, in marked contrast to the Israelite experience in Egypt under Pharoah and what developed later among the Babylonian kings and the Roman Caesars. In short, there was to be no divine-human configuration, no “imperial man.”
See Vishal Mangalwadi, The Book That Made Your World: How the Bible Created the Soul of Western Civilisation (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2011).
In the self-understanding of Scripture, which is self-attesting, the Torah as a whole forms the model constitution to be emulated by all the nations (Deut. 4:5–8). As Van Til appropriately reminds us:
All men have disobeyed the law, yet all men must obey the law. The fact that the command comes directly to “God’s people” only is due to the economy of redemption rather than to any difference of obligation between one nation and another. God deals with man generally and federally…. The several stages in the economy of redemption do not in the least affect the requirements of God’s law.
Jonathan Burnside, “Old Testament: Torah and Constitutionalism,” in Christianity and Constitutionalism, ed. Nicholas Aroney and Ian Leigh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 33–57, 39.
Indeed, a structure which sets all authority under the sovereignty of the King of all kings has proven itself compatible with various constitutional arrangements. Interestingly, rabbinic commentary claims that the Torah was given in the wilderness (and not later in Jerusalem, during a period of monarchy) precisely so that all nations could accept it as their own! Much of it consists largely of practical case studies regarding implementing justice in various circumstances, demanding that judges, who are chosen by ordinary people and are not political appointees (Deut. 16:18–19) “judge the people with righteous judgment” (Deut. 16:18). The goal of the covenantal arrangement is that righteousness and justice are done according to God’s standards. This necessitates wisely applying (i.e., positivizing) God’s instruction, whilst demanding real limits, not just on judges, but also on the king, to prevent the monarch from becoming like a pagan sovereign and turning the state into a totalitarian power center. These restrictions included limiting the stockpiling of weapons of war (Deut. 17:16), the contracting of multiple marriages with foreigners in order to consolidate power, and the control of economic life in terms of taxes, confiscation, and plunder (Deut. 17:17). The central positive duty required of the king is very telling indeed:
Van Til, The Ten Commandments, 7
When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes. Then his heart will not be exalted above his countrymen, he will not turn from this command to the right or the left (Deut. 17:18–20).
Clearly, there was to be no absolute monarch, for the ruler is required to be a vassal king under God—to serve the law and the people in his sphere of authority. In particular, the king was not permitted to usurp the roles of the priests and Levites (1 Sam. 13:8–14; 1 Kings 21), a limitation that radically relativized his role and authority under God, separating the jurisdictional spheres of priesthood (church) and kingship (state).
Burnside, “Torah and Constitutionalism,” 47–48.
The older testament “church,” with its priesthood and prophets, was likewise radically limited—in the case of priests, through laws regarding land ownership (Deut. 18:1–2), and because the Torah was a public document that was read and taught throughout Israelite society—against which the teaching of priests and Levites could be measured. A covenantally educated society produced accountability at all levels of government. In the case of prophets, who were frequently a constitutional check on wayward monarchs and independent of the priesthood, false prophets were weeded out by public tests of their integrity and veracity (Deut. 18:14–22). As the Scriptures say, “To the Law and to the Testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them” (Is. 8:20, NKJV). If we were to hold political and church leaders to this standard today, what kind of a church and society might we enjoy?
Burnside, “Torah and Constitutionalism,” 48.
Burnside helpfully summarizes the constitutional arrangements in biblical Israel:
These include (1) a kind of separation of powers; (2) a “covenant” between ethnic or other groups as the basis for the constitution rather than the rights of the individual; (3) a focus on citizen obligations rather than rights; (4) a head of state that is under, and not above the law; (5) restraints on capital and land markets to protect family and community relationships; and (6) the importance of collocated extended families for the provision of welfare.[9]
Burnside’s conclusion is poignant in arguing that theonomically oriented constitutional life, compatible with various political regimes, would take serious note of what biblical law teaches regarding “finance, avoidance of national debt, criminal justice, administration of welfare and health care, and a host of other areas….” Since idolatry always leads to injustice (which is why the standards of pagan thinking can never be the measure of justice), so true worship and obedience will lead to justice and blessing upon the peoples (Amos 5:8–15, 24). We may rightly conclude that without a constitution faithfully administered under the living God and His law, decay, decadence, and a loss of freedom will inevitably steadily follow (Prov. 1: 20–33; 14:34; Amos 6:8).
Burnside, “Torah and Constitutionalism,” 49.
In sum, God’s law is an inescapable aspect of His sovereignty and total authority over men and nations. Scripture gives no room for antinomianism and destroys the myth of human autonomy (cf. Ps. 2; Ps. 110). All legitimate human authority is only a delegated and limited authority, an office held at the pleasure of the ruler of the kings of the earth (John 19:11; Rev. 1:5). It does not originate with the individual, but comes from God so that people and nations might serve Him. The prophetic and paradigmatic deliverance of Israel from servitude under the totalitarian power of Pharaoh shows the eschatological direction of all history. The Exodus and the giving of the law constituting Israel as a nation signifies the liberation of all nations and political orders to become humble servants of Jesus Christ and His law-Word. (Rom. 13:1–10).
The law continues to address us as prophets, priests, and kings in Christ, directing us as Christians in our cultural calling. Whatever specific constitutional arrangements we live under, we are sent out to prophesy in His name, speaking the truth to power, holding all authority accountable to the absolute monarch and His covenant law. Because the gospel of the Kingdom is true, Caesar is not Lord, the modern state is not the ultimate sovereign authority—Jesus Christ is! This emphatically relativizes political life and the role of the state, and requires that we live, in each area of our lives, by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (Deut. 8:3; Matt. 4:4). In the area of constitutional life, this surely means the pursuit of a covenantal politics where law and gospel are a seamless garment bringing life and hope to the nations .
