Jewish Law and Government as viewed by a Protestant – Introduction

For a little while now I have wanted to do a post on the Law of Moses and look at a few ways it has influenced American law. In doing this I will also look at some of the issues often raised by unbelievers and how the Mosaic law is modified in the New Testament. When we look at the Law of Moses it should be remembered that it was given to a nation that had no law among itself, because it was a nation having just left generations of slavery under foreign law with no courts or law system of its own. Some things contained in it are positive commands, some are allowances and restraints placed upon already existing customs and social norms. The Nation of Israel was, like all nations of antiquity, a theocracy. Separation of Church and state was first put into practice in Rhode Island by Roger Williams. Until that time every nation had some form of religion that was the officially sanctioned one, and others were sometimes allowed with various degrees of toleration. The New Testament is NOT a Theocracy. It contains NO commands for secular government. Neither Jesus, Peter, the original other Apostles, nor Paul advocated a Christian government. It is possible for Christians to be in governmental positions, and obviously in those positions their morality should be influenced by the teachings of Christianity, but Christianity in the New Testament is not and was not intended to be a state religion. It was a self-governing group within the state, which could only inflict the punishment of removing a non-compliant member from the church. The Apostle Paul encouraged the Corinthians to exercise this punishment upon a man guilty of flagrant immorality. I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people -- not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler--not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. "Purge the evil person from among you." 1 Cor. 5:9-13 This was also the ultimate step which Christ allowed in case of one who committed a wrong against a fellow believer and refused to make reconciliation after having been told first by the injured party, then by the injured party with one or two witnesses involved, and lastly still remaining obstinate when the whole church body has heard the case (Matt. 18:15-17). It should be noted while mentioning this process, which is often called excommunication, how it differs widely from later excommunication. In both of these instances it is not the leadership of the Church, but the church as a body that excommunicates. Paul did not consider himself competent to excommunicate someone in his own authority, he therefore told the Corinthians what was morally required and urged them to do it with his full support (1 Cor. 5:3-5). Any later ideas of excommunication releasing the person to the civil body for punishment are much later, and belong to the time when the church had been joined to the Roman state. In fact the first execution for heresy was in 385 in Treves, though most of the bishops in Treves were in favor of the execution, those in the surrounding areas were not, specifically Martin of Tours, and Ambrose of Milan opposed the action and broke off any communion with those involved. Since the reign of Constantine, however, there had been varying degrees of oppression towards what was deemed heresy. In this series of posts I would like to look at some of the concepts of Jewish law that have greatly influenced western society and also look at various aspects of the Jewish Theocracy and what a Protestant Christian would and would not consider applicable and why.