Law and the Bible

Justice, Mercy and Legal Institutions

Robert F., Jr. Cochran, David VanDrunen, Robert F. Cochran, David VanDrunen

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780830895595
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion, Politics & State

The Bible is full of law.Yet too often, Christians either pick and choose verses out of context to bolster existing positions, or assume that any moral judgment the Bible expresses should become the law of the land. Law and the Bible asks: What inspired light does the Bible shed on Christians? participation in contemporary legal systems? It concludes that more often than not the Bible overturns our faulty assumptions and skewed commitments rather than bolsters them. In the process, God gives us greater insight into what all of life, including law, should be.Each chapter is cowritten by a legal professional and a theologian, and focuses on a key aspect of the biblical witness concerning civil or positive law--that is, law that human societies create to order their communities, implementing and enforcing it through civil government. A foundational text for legal professionals, law and prelaw students, and all who want to think in a faithfully Christian way about law and their relationship to it.

1

The Biblical Foundations of Law

Creation, Fall and the Patriarchs

Randy Beck and David VanDrunen

The book of Genesis describes God’s creation of the universe, the primeval history of humanity and the establishment of the Israelite families descended from Abraham. From one perspective, these accounts of ancient history might seem distant from the concerns of civil law in the twenty-first century. They tell of cultures and practices separated by millennia from our own. The stories unfold in the context of nomadic and agrarian communities, unacquainted with the technological advances that shape modern life. The narrative sometimes touches on topics like economics or the environment, but without reference to the bodies of technical knowledge that inform contemporary discussions of public policy.[10]

When one begins to explore the teaching of Genesis, however, and when one reflects on the goals of the civil law, the book proves to hold foundational implications for modern legal systems. Though set in an unfamiliar historical context, Genesis highlights enduring truths about the nature of God, the nature of humans and the challenges of human community. It chronicles events that are determinative for our present condition. The worldview reflected in Genesis speaks profoundly to the purpose, the promise and the perils of the civil legal enterprise.

From its very first pages, the book of Genesis reveals God as the one who governs the universe, ruling the created order by his words. He directs the components of the material world to accomplish his purposes. His words bring order and abundance to creation, earning a divine benediction: “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31).[11]

The human activities associated with the civil law seem analogous in some respects to these creative acts of God. Those who claim authority to govern the human community also use words creatively—to form statutes, cases, regulations and the like. The civil law employs these legal words for instrumental purposes, directing the participants in the social world. The words of the law seek to bring order and prosperity to the human community, pursuing ends deemed “good” by those who govern. One may view the civil law’s attempt to exercise dominion in the social world through the use of language as a dim likeness of God’s actions in creation. This weak imitation of divine government, we believe, reflects at least part of what Genesis means when it proclaims that humans are created “in the image of God.” But if we can trace similarities between divine and human government, important differences also exist that carry implications for the wise exercise of civil authority.

A few moments’ reflection highlights a number of issues fundamental to civil law that are addressed in the text of Genesis and discussed in this essay. Consider first the question of authority. Why may some humans govern others? Are some assertions of governing authority legitimate, or is all human government merely domination of the weak by those with superior force? Genesis presents God as the source of all legitimate authority and describes his delegation of some measure of that authority to his human creatures. Second, the civil law aspires to promote the good life or, at least, to create conditions in which citizens may pursue their own visions of the good life. Genesis takes up the questions of what is “good” and how the good may be known. Third, the civil law aims to influence the conduct of human beings, an enterprise that requires an understanding of anthropology. Who are these creatures the law seeks to regulate? Why do humans create problems for their neighbors, rather than live in peaceful cooperation? Genesis offers an understanding of human identity, one that highlights the need for civil government but that also suggests moral and prudential limits on the exercise of coercion by the civil authorities. Fourth, the civil law embraces the ideal of “justice,” an aspiration that has been understood in different ways. We will seek to show that Genesis embraces a talionic understanding of divine justice. In his role as judge, God takes the misconduct of a wrongdoer, including the harm it inflicts, as the measure of appropriate punishment. Finally, the Christian church has always faced questions about its relationship to the civil authorities. Citizens of the “kingdom” of God have long wondered about the implications for their interaction with human “kingdoms.” Genesis speaks to these questions as well, planting the seeds of Augustine’s “two cities” framework and the later “two kingdoms” theology of the Reformation.[12]

In the pages that follow, we touch upon many of these questions concerning the implications of Genesis for civil law.

God, the Ruler of Creation

The first chapter of Genesis describes God solely in terms of what he does. It never records God’s attributes but requires us to perceive the nature of God through an account of his actions, especially the words he speaks. His actions reveal that he is a great king who exercises sovereign legislative and judicial authority in the world he creates.

At the outset of the process of creation, Genesis identifies three problems afflicting the original earth—darkness, formlessness and emptiness (Gen 1:2). God systematically addresses all three problems by his decrees. He first creates the light to overcome the darkness. Since “darkness is as light” to God (Ps 139:12), the creation of light solves a problem not for God himself but for his creatures. The creation of light implies that God is acting for an audience, revealing himself to those he has made. Perhaps the fact that he only partially eliminates the darkness (day and night) implies that the creation involves only a partial self-revelation by God. We must await the new creation for night to be banished so we can see God as he is (Rev 22:4-5).

Having addressed the problem of darkness, God sets out systematically over the next five days to resolve the challenges of formlessness and emptiness. He does this in two corresponding sets of three days. On the first three days, God uses his words to create distinctions, separating what was previously muddled to bring form to the creation. On the first day he separates the day from the night, on the second day the sea from the sky and on the third day the sea from the dry land. The earth no longer remains formless. Boundaries now exist. Observers can distinguish one part of creation from another.

On the succeeding three days, God employs words to fill the emptiness of creation, following the same order by which he brought form. He separated day from night on the first day, so on the fourth day he fills the daytime sky with the greater light and the nighttime sky with the lesser lights. He separated the sea from the sky on the second day, so on the fifth day he fills the sea with fish and the sky with birds. He separated the sea from the dry land on the third day, so on the sixth day (since the sea has already been filled) he fills the land with animals and humans. Thus, just as God solved the problem of formlessness on the first three days, he follows the same sequence on the next three days in solving the problem of emptiness. (See table 1.1.)

Table 1.1. Creation

Overcoming Formlessness		Overcoming Emptiness
Day 1:	Day Night	Day 4:	Greater light (sun) Lesser lights (moon/stars)
Day 2:	Sea Sky	Day 5:	Fish Birds
Day 3:	Sea Dry Land	Day 6:	(Fish already created) Animals and humans

God’s work of creation has a legislative aspect in that it orders all things and establishes their proper functions. We see this legislative aspect on display first in the way he makes and locates each thing in its proper place. He distinguishes day and night, water above from water below, and water from dry land (Gen 1:4, 6, 9, 14). He makes plants, sea creatures, birds and land animals, each according to their kinds (Gen 1:11-12, 21, 24-25). He gives names to many created things (Gen 1:5, 8, 10). Most significantly, God decrees what created things are to do. The lights above, for example, he made to “rule over” day and night and to separate light from darkness (Gen 1:18). Climactically, God created human beings and commanded them to have “dominion” over other creatures, to be fruitful and multiply, and to subdue the earth (Gen 1:26, 28). The language of rule and dominion on days four and six suggests that the first three days established the realms of creation, while the second three days ordained the rulers of each realm. We see God acting legislatively as well when he prohibits Adam from eating the fruit of one of the trees of the Garden, using a Hebrew form of speech characteristic of legal commands later in the Old Testament (Gen 2:16-17).[13]

The opening of Genesis portrays God not just as a legislator but also as the great judge. God renders verdicts upon creation itself and thus, indirectly, upon his own work. Six times he pronounces “good” the things he has made (Gen 1:4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25). Surveying the whole of his handiwork, he proclaims it “very good” (Gen 1:31). But he deems it “not good” for Adam to be alone, an assessment that leads to the creation of Eve (Gen 2:18). When giving the probationary command of Genesis 2:16-17, he states that Adam’s disobedience will have consequences: if he eats of the forbidden tree, he will die. God’s judicial role becomes fully evident after Adam and Eve disobey. God comes in judgment, pronouncing a verdict upon each wrongdoer—the serpent, the woman and the man (Gen 3:14-19). The early chapters of Genesis manifest what becomes explicit when Abraham later describes God as “the Judge of all the earth” (Gen 18:25). In sum, Genesis shows God as the sovereign King of the universe, who creates by his words, who pronounces laws governing the created order and who enforces those laws by his judgments.

The Image of God

Though explicit references to human creatures being in the image and likeness of God appear only rarely in Scripture, the underlying idea leaves its mark on many pages and has shaped Christian anthropological reflection through the centuries. The first biblical reference to human beings as the image and likeness of God appears toward the end of the creation account in Genesis 1:26-27:

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,

in the image of God he created him;

male and female he created them.

We revisit the image-of-God theme when we consider the Noahic covenant, but it is important first to weigh what these words tell us about human nature and the human vocation in the original creation. We find that human beings, imaging their Creator, were called to abide by law, make law and judge.

Western theologians have often understood the image of God to exist in certain human attributes, such as rationality, spirituality or freedom. In recent years, however, a broad consensus has developed among biblical scholars that the image and likeness described in Genesis 1:26-27 should be understood in more functional terms.[14] In other words, the image of God does not refer to human rationality or volition (though it may presuppose such things) so much as to the office or task that God created human beings to perform. Specifically, God, the great king of creation, made human beings as his representatives, commissioned to exercise royal-judicial rule in this world on his behalf. Though we cannot defend this view in detail here, it rests upon a solid exegetical basis and carries significant theological implications.[15] One implication is that law making and judging were important parts of human identity even before the fall into sin.

Since human beings were created in the image and likeness of God, understanding the image requires us to investigate what Scripture says about God himself. As children tend to resemble their parents, whose likeness they bear, so we expect human beings to resemble the God in whose likeness they were originally created (see Gen 5:1-3). As noted above, the opening pages of Scripture describe God as the great legislator who orders his creation and the great judge who holds it accountable. Little surprise, then, that these same texts portray human beings, created in the divine image and likeness, as God’s representatives commissioned to rule the world justly under the supreme king.

We see this, first of all, in Genesis 1:26. English translations usually render this verse in a way that suggests God issued two indirect commands without any clear connection to each other: first, “let us make man in our image,” and second, “let them have dominion.” While one could interpret the Hebrew grammar this way, a more likely reading is that the second command constitutes a purpose clause following up on the first command.[16] Along these lines the verse might better read: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and thus let them have dominion.’” This implies that the very identity of the image of God is wrapped up in the commission to exercise royal rule in the world under God. The Hebrew words used in Genesis 1:26 and 28 usually translated “have dominion” and “subdue” are verbs indicating strong action.[17] Though we should guard against misuse of these verses to justify poor ecological stewardship, Christians should not overreact to this danger. God made human beings not to be weak middle managers, but strong rulers of creation. Yet their rule must always be benevolent and just, like God’s, and therefore beneficial for creation itself.

In addition to the explicit direction to exercise dominion, the task of naming the animals also highlights the human commission to rule the world justly as God’s representatives (Gen 2:19-20). As noted above, God named a number of things as he created them in Genesis 1. Yet he ceased doing so after the third day. Naming the creatures he made on the final three days was a job delegated to Adam. As God exercised his legislative authority in part throug...