Playing Chick-fil-a with the Sabbath

https://wng.org/opinions/playing-chicken-with-the-lords-day-1707873572

I read this article in frustration and then laughed when I reached the bottom and realized it was written by Timon Cline, another name that keeps popping up in connection with The American Reformer. This website which has not (to my knowledge) produced anything sound or of lasting value has (it would seem) taken the Dominionist world by storm - just today I listened to a rather disappointing interview with his compatriot Aaron Renn. This article on Chick-fil-a (in keeping with everything else I've read from this lot) completely misses the point and obfuscates the issues at hand.

A Theonomic Critique of Lee Irons: A Primer in Flawed Theological Method (III)

The New Testament teaches that the Mosaic order has been disannulled – hence the harsh words in the epistles of Galatians and Hebrews, the errors of these groups being close cousin to what contemporary Theonomy advocates. Exodus 20 cannot be appealed to in the way DiGiacomo would use it. There is no Theocratic order in the New Testament apart from the Church, the earthly manifestation of Christ's Kingdom which is not located on Earth in terms of a political, cultural, or geographic order, but in Heaven itself. Exodus 20 is Scripture, but fulfilled Scripture and must be read through the Christocentric lens of the New Testament. To do otherwise is to invert the Scriptures and read them unfaithfully in a Judaized manner.

A Theonomic Critique of Lee Irons: A Primer in Flawed Theological Method (II)

The various Babylons of the world will to greater or lesser degrees build law codes and ethical systems and they will all be flawed and tainted by idolatry. They will contain grains of truth – some more and some less. This all brings judgment on them. Evil laws condone sin and thus condemn them. Good laws which reflect something of the will and character of God condemn them too in the fashion of Romans 1. They are without excuse. This does not make their society better or help the believer and if anything such legislation can sow seeds of confusion and represent a danger as believers might be tempted to think such a state to be godly, when in fact it cannot be. This is a point Paul emphasizes when he contrasts Christian conduct and imperatives with the Providentially ordered and temporal nature of the state and the sword it bears (Romans 12-13). In terms of Providence, the state rewards 'good' in a highly generalized sense, just as it is a minister or servant in the same way Babylon, Assyria, and other Beastly powers were servants or ministers under the old epoch. This does not mean the state has a positive role in terms of enforcing God's law and the dichotomy established by Paul suggests that Christians should have no part in this. The good of the state is clearly something very different from the kind of 'good' a Christian would define by means of the eschatological ethics of Romans 12.

A Theonomic Critique of Lee Irons: A Primer in Flawed Theological Method (I)

https://philosophical-theology.com/2022/04/02/lee-irons-view-of-unbelievers-and-the-christian-sabbath/

The Theonomist in question argues that Irons holds to an esoteric position on the Sabbath that has no confessional status or Biblical precedent. This begs the question as to whether or not confessional status has any bearing or authority for those concerned with following the teaching of the New Testament. And in terms of Biblical precedent, he's simply mistaken.

The Moral Law: Ezekiel 20, the Sabbath, and the Decalogue

Moreover I also gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between them and Me, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.(Ezekiel 20.12)

The Sabbath was a covenantal sign that was to 'mark out' the people of God as distinct from the Gentile nations. The Sabbath therefore was not universal, it was not a law that was to be applied in all places and at all times. This is actually fairly clear when one reads the Old Testament and it is even explicit in places like Ezekiel 20.12. It was a covenantal sign and as such was only binding upon those in union with Jehovah.

But this presents a real dilemma for some Christian groups today.

Sabbath and Dominion: New Calvinism and the Question of the Mundane

I've mentioned this in passing before but I think it's a point worth revisiting. When I hear Confessionalists discussing New Calvinism they are often uneasy with regard to several points and rightly so.

I'm not a Confessionalist either (though I certainly used to be) and I don't share all their views or concerns but there is a marked difference between Reformed Confessionalism and the New Calvinism.

Christmas: Obfuscation and The Lord's Day Gambit

I have to confess this was an argument for Christmas I had not encountered before.