CHAPTER SEVEN
THE COVENANT PRINCIPLE, PART ONE

Two Social Theologies Contrasted

Historically, there have been two contrasting forms of Protestant social theology: (1) covenantal, Trinitarian social theology, and (2) non-covenantal or individualistic social theology. Since the Reformation, this has resulted in two broad streams of thought with much intermixture of the pure types. The first stream flows from the covenantal theology of the Swiss Reformers and their disciples and the second comes from the theology of the continental Radical Reformers and their disciples.

Although the Radicals historically consisted of many sects, there were two different wings to the whole movement: the Revolutionary wing and the Pacifist wing. Both Radical wings, however, shared many of the same foundational principles which sharply differed from those of the covenantal stream.

Soteriologically, this difference is ideally exemplified in the antithesis between consequent Pelagianism on the one hand and consistent Augustinian-Calvinism on the other. Pelagianism emphasized the absolute individual responsibility of each person. Adam’s fall is merely a bad example to his children. There is no covenantal solidarity between men, only a relationship of more or less voluntary mimicry and interaction. Thus ultimately, all humans are absolute individuals before the universe. There is no pre-destined, covenantal distinction between the elect-in-the-Second-Adam and non-elect-in-Adam categories.

Augustinian-Calvinism, however, emphasizes both the complete covenantal solidarity-of-mankind-in-Adam as well as individual responsibility. In other words, man-in-Adam, shares both his guilt and the resulting pollution of nature because they are a covenantal-social collective. Secondly, man-in-the-Second-Adam, share both his imputed merit in justification and his indwelling holiness in sanctification (Rom 5:12ff; 1Co 1:29-31).

A person and culture which accepts the five assertions of the Calvinist-Augustinian, Synod of Dort presuppose a biblical, covenantal solidarity position in every area of life. Those persons and cultures who claim man has some sort of "freewill" inevitably move individual, church, then culture in the direction of anti-covenantal thought. This includes even the viewpoint of semi-Pelagian, Remonstrants and evangelical Arminians. Persons and cultures which possess anti-covenantal presuppositions inevitably move over time towards a radical, equalitarian position.

Sociologically and ecclesiologically, this contrast between covenantal and anti-covenantal presuppositions is exemplified in a further antithesis. This is the antithesis between the sociocultural vision of the individual and church based Radical’s and that of the wholistic individual, family, church, and social order orientation of the covenantal Reformers.

Social Theologies and Inter-Trinitarian Relationships

Furthermore, Covenant or Federal Theology seeks to explain relationships within the Godhead, between the Creator and man, and man to man upon the basis of covenants of group solidarity. Non-covenantal theologians, though few are as consistent as Pelagius, rejects this. As a theological and cultural position becomes more consequently anti-covenantal, then the relationships between the Persons of the Godhead, God and man, man and Christ, man and man, are seen merely as that of moral influence and nothing more. The doctrine of the Trinity then tends to collapse into Unitarianism and Pantheism because the individualistic Tritheist position is rightly seen as abominable (see Rushdoony 1978b, c).

Scripture, however, teaches that the human race in Adam as Covenant Head is a true unity and real diversity. In other words individual, family, age, ability and gender distinction, as well as ethno-linguistic social divisions exist because they are designed and created by God. In Adam, however, these created social divisions are covenantally unified by a common ancestry and rebellion against God, his character, and hence his law (Ac 17:25-26).

In contrast to this, the "one new man in Christ" (Eph 2:15) is also a covenantal unity. God does not destroy the original creation’s distinctions: individual, gender, age, language, culture, and ability. Instead, he "renders inoperative" the hostility (i.e., the curse of the broken law: Co 2:14; Eph 2:15). He then subjugates the rebellion which twists and deforms the original creation design.

Rebelliously self-destructing mankind, is at war with himself as a collective and within himself as an individual (Jas 4:1ff). Furthermore, the same mankind-in-Adam, divided on non-created and non-biblical grounds, yet still unified in rejection of Yahweh (see Ps 2), is renewed only in covenantal unity with Christ. The old Mankind, the original but twisted creation design, is not replaced by a totally new humanity (nova creatio) (see the Recapitulative, Eschatology of Victory Principle).

To summarize, then, the created design for family, church, and civil communities are essentially a covenantal unity between truly distinct units or parts. This is modeled upon the divine, interacting community within the Godhead Himself. Thus just human community is not a holistic unity of undivided oneness nor an anarchistic, Pelagian diversity of individuals "accidentally" bound together by a social contract. "The Trinity forms the social paradigm since it is a mutually loving, interacting, sustaining society" (Thompson 1994, 106; see also Trinitarian Principle; Covenant Principle, part three; and Appendix Two). God is a permanently bonded relationship within Himself. In other words, the triune Godhead is in eternal covenant with Himself.

Covenantal, Culture Paradigms and Blueprints

The classic Reformed movement built upon a covenantal legacy. In so doing, they used all of God’s covenant wisdom as blueprints or paradigms to build the major spheres of culture. The modified mono-covenantal perspective of this dissertation does the same (see Appendix Two for exposition and application).

In Creation history, and then post-Fall, redemptive history, God progressively reveals more detailed specifics of his righteous, wisdom-norms (tôrâh) for every area of life. The result is that wise men are build culture with ever greater justice and righteousness. Foolish men also have progressively greater grounds of just condemnation (Mt 7:24-27; Rom 1-3).

Thus Noahic law is built upon creational, conscience based law. The patriarchal law was codified and specified in the Mosaic legislation (see Universal Equity Principle).

Yahweh called Israel to be a mediatorial, priestly nation to the nations (Ex 19:5-6). Just as a priest represented God to the people in both his life (Lev 21-22) and teaching of the law (Dt 33:10; Hos 4:6; Mal 2:5-7) so must Israel to the nations. As they lived out the "great chords of freedom, justice, love and compassion" of the Tôrâh, they would serve Yahweh as a priest to all the peoples of earth (Wright 1984, 17).

Davidic commands and those interpretations of the prophets built upon Moses. All saw Israel as a paradigm or blueprint for the peoples. This was especially true of the Servant songs of Isaiah (Isa 42:6; 49:6).

When they failed, this laid the foundation for Christ, the "perfect paradigm (cf. Isa 42:1, 4, 7, 19, 21, 24; 48:17-19; 49:8-10; 51:4f)" (Wright 1984, 17). Christ interpreted this paradigm in his own life, words, and ministry. He continued that interpretation through his apostles (see esp. Mt 5-7).

Therefore, nothing is extraneous or merely ad hoc to the building-plan of diverse yet unified, wisdom cultures of earth (2Ti 3:16-17; 1Co 10:1-11; Rom 15:4). Even the symbolic-pictoral rituals, institutions, and customs (e.g., dietary laws) are true prophetic metaphors or paradigms. They picture the holy righteousness of the multitude of future cultures existing within the unity God’s people, "on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come" (1Co 10:11).

In sum, God’s one "everlasting covenant," is begun with righteous Adam and his seed before the Fall. Continued with righteous Noah and his seed (Gen 9:16), it is renewed with righteous Abraham and his seed (Ps 105:10). It is continued in the Mosaic covenant with redeemed Israel (Ex 24:8: "Sabbath" stands in metonymy for the covenant). Yahweh again renews the covenant with righteous David and his Seed (2Sa 23:5). The final, complete renewal of the one "everlasting covenant" is the Messianic, New Covenant in David’s, perfect, Son and his seed (Isa 53:10 [Hebrew], Isa 55:3, 61:8; Acts 13:34).

That one covenant is the single ruling paradigm for all spheres of culture, in every ethno-covenantal solidarity in the world. NGK theologian, J. A. Loubser is hostile to any such idea of a covenant based, "blueprint" or "paradigm" for the comprehensive transformation of culture. However, he agrees that such an all encompassing social theological vision had "its roots in the [Calvinist] puritanism of the post-reformation era." This pejoratively named, "utopian" idealism, he also calls an "ideology." In other words, it is "a ‘blueprint’ for the total reconstruction of society with the purpose of establishing ‘a heaven upon earth’" (Loubser 1987, xiv; see also Barron 1992).

Loubser, incorrectly, tries to identify this classic Reformed vision with the totalitarian, holistic-Pelagian perfectionism of secular radicals, French Revolutionaries, and intellectual fathers of the Twentieth Century Marxian revolutions.

Albeit imperfectly, many of the Reformers, however, did possess a biblical faith in an Eschatology of Victory. This is found, for example, in the Lord’s Prayer and the mystery parables of Matthew. That this was a dream of a gradual, though never perfect, "heavenizing" of earth before the last rebellion, no one can deny (see Campbell 1954; De Jong 1970; Murray 1971).

However, Calvinism, always taught that there is no perfection in this life until the Resurrection. Therefore, although the Reformers believed in a confessionally Christian civil government enforcing all ten commandments, this cannot justly be called an "utopian ideology" as Loubser implies.

To understand the concept of covenant based, "blueprints" and "paradigms," note the following observations.

No Dualism between Religion and the Rest of Life

First of all, classic Reformed Christianity accepts the concept that there is no dualism of sacred and secular. Faith, whether Christian or not must rule every area of life. There is no neutrality. Defending this concept of biblically frameworked culture, Theonomist, Gary North, correctly states:

North concludes by stating that because there exists "God’s comprehensive judgment, and . . . His comprehensive salvation" there must exist, therefore, "His comprehensive blueprints" as universal standards of judgment and restoration over the long run of human history (North 1987, 259).

In other words, every administration of God’s "everlasting covenant" includes law, historical sanctions both positive and negative, and a multigenerational perspective (see discussion of the KALOS paradigm in chapter seven; North 1990). There is no such thing as randomness in the judgments of God.

Socio-Cultural Blueprints or Paradigms Inescapable

For followers of Kuyper and Dooyeweerd, this analysis of the covenant concept may be suspect. North, however, explains using the analogy of inescapable architectural blueprints in construction. They give the builder

Every person and culture must have such a plan in life. It is a inescapable necessity in cultural construction: "Without a prophetic vision, the people run riot." No person or culture can live with chaos. The question is then if God does not give us the paradigm or plan, who will? "The humanists’ answer is inescapable: man does — autonomous, design-it-yourself, do-it-yourself man" (North 1987, 260). The neo-Puritan alternative to humanist blueprints are biblical paradigms found in the whole Bible, for all Scripture is God-breathed and useful.

It is important to note, therefore, that the one overarching, everlasting covenant in Scripture includes the Suzerain’s authority over all spheres of life. This is clearly seen in the Book of the Covenant (Ex 22-23), the Holiness Code (Lev 18-20) and Deuteronomy. Within the one overarching covenant, the creation institutions of the civil-magisterial order, family, and church should model within their structures on a biblical covenantal form. The biblical-covenant structure, along with the everlasting covenant’s law, then, become the canon against which to judge whether a socio-culture structure (e.g., family, church, state, economy) is just or oppressive.

Presuppositions of the Calvinistic Reformers

The anti-covenantal Radical Reformers, were in clear contrast with the Reformed or covenantal creeds. These reformed creeds did not postulate a redemptive-historical development (1) from physical blessings to purely spiritual blessings, and (2) from people group and family group to the individual. Instead, they saw the movement of history (1) from shadow to reality, (2) imperfection to perfection, (2) anticipation to fulfillment; (3) flesh weakness to Spirit power; (4) temporary form to eternal essence, (5) old form to new form (Mt 9:17; Rom 7:1-6, 8:4; Col 2:16f; Heb 8-10). The Belgic Confession is especially clear on this theme (BC, art. 25).

The basic presupposition for the Reformed view is the fundamental distinction of non-dualistic, covenantal thought, that between the Creator and the creation. Thus, as has been seen in the Recapitulative, Eschatology of Victory Principle, the Reformation rejected in principle, though not always in practice, the nature-grace distinction of the Roman church, Neo-Orthodoxy, the pietist and Radical Reformation movements.

The Reformers thus did not tend to break down every "natural" or created "group" to the individual, equal, "person." They did not reject the family group as the basic building block of church or socio-political membership. By extension, then, they did not reject the concept of ethno-covenantal solidarity. In other words, covenantal thought, in principle, does not reject the concept of a covenanted group of intermarried families of similar faith, language, and historical background.

The consequence of this perspective was that the definition of church membership was "believing parents and their children." These are they to whom the promises and curses of the covenant belong. The Westminster and Belgic confessions are unequivocal concerning this (WCF 25.2; BC, art. 34).

It was this visible congregation of confessing believers and their children which was to be basis for the covenanted religious cultus upon the earth. However, this

The invisible church, made up of true believers who live out God’s covenant word on earth and in heaven, is not the same as the visible, institutional cultus. To deny this basic distinction is to accept a basic Radical Reformation presupposition of a purified, believers-only institute (see WCF, 25.1-2).

The Reformed or covenantal position thus assumes the unity of the whole community of the people of God throughout the ages (see 1Co 10:1ff; Eph 2:11ff; BC, art. 27; WCF 19, 25). This implies two concomitants: (1) God’s covenant of grace and the ethic flowing from that covenant are unified. (2) There are two administrations of that one covenant, the church in its immature, "shadowy" status, and the church in its full, maturity (BC, art. 25; WCF, 19.3).

Ethically, then, "everything that the NT has not changed in principle still remains in force for the Christian" (Kaiser 1987, 147). "Only Scripture can limit or modify the authority of Scripture" (Larkin 1992, 111). This the Radical’s rejected.

The Reformed Fathers completely rejected the Radical Reformation’s virtual, social antinomianism. The radical Reformers virtually rejected all covenantal, social ethics because of their sole emphasis upon the New Testament. That testament gives little social-ethical material. Calvin responded simply to the Radical’s refusal to inter-connect Israelite tôrâh-wisdom with the magistrates and church(es) of a people. There is one covenant, one people of God, and hence one common legal system in every sphere of life. Church, family, and magistrate, mirroring the tri-unity of the Godhead, were distinct, yet inter-connected by one Word-based constitution. There was thus no identity or union of church and state (see Balke 1981).

Sawyer summarizes Calvin’s view:

Because of the close coordination between church and state, and their common legal standard, the Reformed Fathers taught that the magistrate should punish some doctrinal errors as civil crimes. The confessions they produced taught that because the magistrate was under the Divine King, he and his people must submit to the whole Divine law including the first and second commandments. Unfortunately, though biblically correct in principle, this concept led to much illegitimate persecution and punishment of sectarians and heretics.

Tragically, this anti-biblical persecution was caused by the fact that magistrates were not informed by careful exegesis of the Mosaic judicials so as to discover their universally valid equity. Instead, they often followed "the common law of nations" and/or the coercive, ancient Roman Law updated by the Christian Emperor Justinian and others.

The assumption behind this attack on religious dissent was the centuries old European consensus that national and religious unity were inseparably linked together. Thus, all the reformers taught that the civil magistracy was obligated to "watch over the spiritual well-being of the citizenry." There was no neutral "indifference," or total religious equality (Bavinck 1888/1992, 241). For the reformers, biblical truth was absolute, demanding that all submit to its authority. This "ruled out all neutrality and indifference in every area of life" (Bavinck 1888/1992, 241).

Modern Reformers Reject Calvin and Accept Radical Principles

Modern Reformed churches in the main have rejected this logical conclusion of their covenant-continuity doctrine. Dutch Reformed scholar, Cornelius Plantinga admits this candidly:

Both the Reformed, covenantal and Radical Reformation movements believe in real consequences of the enlargement of the Kingdom. Both believe that massive growth of the true church and the consequent outworking of that inbreaking grace into the lives of multitudes of individuals, should have cultural consequences. Social structures (e.g., families and education, churches, economics, law and justice systems, and the political order) should be transformed.

Furthermore, both sides of this debate either tacitly or explicitly recognize that the principles of the Radical Reformation seem to have won the battle of ideas. The covenantal Genevan Reformation seems at present to have lost the West, especially the United States and now in South Africa.

Mennonite scholar Bender concurs:

Dutch, Reformed thinker, A. A. van Ruler agrees:

However, though both believe in great consequences of the "growth of the Kingdom," both see the end result of that growth in radically different ways. In other words, the socio-cultural vision of the covenantal and anti-covenantal Reformations are radically different.

To understand this difference and to understand why the anti-covenantal vision has won so much ground in formerly Reformed, covenantal churches and socio-political orders, the theology of Karl Barth must again be briefly mentioned (see also the Eschatology of Victory, and Sola Scriptura Principles).

WARC scholar, Jean-Marc Chappuis in Mennonites and Reformed in Dialogue articulates the emerging consensus between Barthians and the Radicals. In the following, he summarizes Barth’s doctrine of reconciliation in the church. In so doing, he shows the intimate link between rejecting the Covenant and the Recapitulative, Eschatology of Victory Principles and accepting Radical eschatology and ecclesiology. In reading the following, one should remember what Kinghorn and others wrote about the NGK adopting the Barthian, post-World War II ecclesiocentric consensus (see Review of Literature, Part Two).

First is the goal of the Christian community: Presence, mission in the very social shape of its structures.

Next, Chappuis shows the paradigm shift in ecclesiology and social thought, Barth underwent. His thought paralleled at several crucial places, that of the Radicals.

Secondly, Chappuis correctly states that Anabaptist, apocalyptic eschatology with its vision of a present and coming equalitarian New Age, was introduced by many followers of Barth and other modern theologians:

Only because of these two fundamental paradigm shifts in Reformed thinking, Chappuis rightly claims, is "dialogue in depth between ‘Reformed" and ‘Radicals’, . . . once again . . . possible" (Chappuis 1986, 37).

The central question in this whole shift, then, is as Chappuis states, should the Church be totally different in every respect from society? In other words, should the church is its word proclamation and its structural "message" express the total otherness of the Good News and the life Christ came to bring? The community of Christians should be totally "independent of the State and distinct from civil society" (Chappuis 1986, 37). This was the answer to this question the Radicals, the later Pietist movement, Zinzendorf, the Blumhardts, and the 19th century Awakenings. Chappuis notes that Barth and now the world Reformed movement (WARC) have adopted this perspective.

The reason for this neo-Radicalism is simple. Barth, greatly influential in the WARC, has adopted the holist presuppositions of ancient socialist movements. These reinterpret Jesus as a somewhat communalist-anarchist radical. He came not to fulfill and confirm the covenantal validity of the law (Mt 5:17; Rom 3:31) but to overturn, "irredeemable," Mosaic-creational social structures.

Hunsinger summarizes the connections of this theme with the Radical Reformation and then Karl Barth:

Presuppositions of the Non-Covenantal, Radical Reformers

As seen, the covenantal reformers tried to work out the radical presuppositions of their theology into all spheres of life. This work is now increasingly rejected by the heirs of the Genevan reformers. They have increasing syncretized their inheritance with the presuppositions of the Radical Reformation.

The following will discuss the foundational presuppositions of that Radical Reformation. It is concerned with that movement’s basic philosophical presuppositions which, in turn, effect its viewpoints on all other areas of life. Thus, though the former movement itself was arrested with much oppression, its basic concepts live on.

There is scholarly dissension as to whether these concepts were a consequent deduction from New Testament teaching as the Anabaptist teachers and their sympathizers claim (see e.g., Verduin 1980; Good 1986) or were derived from reading the Scriptures through the eyeglasses of extra-biblical philosophical presupposition(s) (see e.g., Berkouwer 1947; Packull 1974; Davis 1974). The following sub-points demonstrate that the second alternative is closest to the truth.

First, was the "espousal of the freedom of the will in the striving for sanctification" (Williams 1957, 21). This anticipated in many ways the semi-Pelagian proposals of the followers of Jacobus Arminius. As discussed, free will individualism is a logical concomitant of an anti-covenantal perspective. Though most Radicals were not consequent in working out all the ramifications of their theory, it began a movement away from covenant solidarity towards individual autonomy. Believers baptism, as Ruether and many other have seen, is a logical concomitant of "free will": Salvation is then the direct consequence of personal decision. Consequently baptism, the symbol of spiritual rebirth, should correspond to personal conversion." Individual faith is prior to covenant solidarity (Ruether 1970, 23; Williams and Mergal 1957 [articles by Denck and Hubmaier]).

Secondly, the radicals common disappointment with what Williams calls, the "magisterial Reformation" (Williams 1957, 21), was expressed in a "common resistance to the linking together of church and state" (Williams 1957, 21). Almost all believed in the total separation of church and state. The only exception to this was the separatistic joining of community and church by the Hutterites and some Mennonites such as the Amish, and the revolutionary synthesis of the Münsterite Anabaptists in which "regenerated church and godly state were effectually one" (Williams 1957, 22).

Thirdly, Ronald Knox’s excellent book, Enthusiasm, summarizes the common "central error" of what former generations entitled Enthusiasm or Schwärmarei, the error of the Radical Reformation and its many predecessors (see Verduin 1964; Cohn 1970; Shafarevich 1980 for documentation of these pre-reformation predecessors). This error is "the notion that grace destroys and replaces nature rather that perfecting and ennobling it" (Knox 1961, 4).

A. A. van Ruler also ascribes this fundamental error to the Anabaptist movement. However, he claims that Berkouwer and others have falsely accused the Radical Reformation, especially the Anabaptists of a metaphysical matter-spirit, "dualisme" (Berkouwer 1947, 78-79). Van Ruler and his follower, Willem Balke, demonstrate, on the other hand that the radicals’ dualism is not metaphysical but eschatological:

Balke summarizes this dualism in his discussion of Calvin’s reoccurring polemic against the Radicals’ confusio of socio-political (earthly) and spiritual government. Their basic confusion derived from their radical, eschatological discontinuity between the old and new creation. The eschaton brought by the Gospel of Jesus, institutes a totally new order of life now. The old order seen in the Old Testament Law, and the complementarian relationships it sustained, are rendered void in Christ.

Balke summarizes: "Ultimately this confusio stems from their [negative,] critical concept of creation. Van Ruler points that out when he speaks about the Anabaptist theory of nova creatio" (Balke 1981, 331). Balke then cites Van Ruler:

Balke concludes: In principle, "the Anabaptists either abolished the government, authority, power, and violence or they annexed it," as in the case of the Revolutionary Anabaptists (Balke 1981, 331).

Thus the Radical’s presuppositional dualism was much more sophisticated than a mere Platonic-Gnostic metaphysical dualism. The two dualisms, however, seem to be closely related in end result. Both dualisms, when taken to their logical consequences over the long run of history, have similar religious, political and social consequences. Both believe that history is moving toward the apocalyptic establishment of an individualistic, equalitarian social order. This will come either by the steel sword of Christ at his return (pacifist Anabaptism) or the steel sword of Christ’s present armies of liberation (e.g., postmillennarian radicalism of revolutionary Anabaptists; see Chilton 1985b "Socialism, the Anabaptist heresy")

Modern radical theologies draw on this tradition (e.g., prophetic theology, "new mission," "liberation," "feminist," "black," et al). All seem to operate with a similar, apocalyptic, eschatological dualism to that assumed by the Radicals of the reformation era.

Balke agrees: "we must place the radical Christianity of our time, too, in that vicinity. A new creation is demanded not a recreation" (Balke 1981, 289). This new creation rejects the "demonic," hierarchical social divisions of the old creation. Equalitarianism, then, is the shape of the new order under the assumption that justice means equality, an equality which virtually means identity (see Universal Equity Principle, part three).

A fourth commonality was the view that the world, as part of the fallen and socially divided old creation was "something from which we should be separated because it lay in wickedness" (Balke 1981, 276). In no way could "the world" be reformed. It must be radically turned-upside-down by the changing of social structures. Thus the radicals eschatological dualism manifested itself in espousing similar ideal social forms as those championed by the older medieval metaphysical dualism influenced by neo-Platonism and Stoicism.

Thus, according to the radicals, the coming age that has now come in Christ is making visible the ideal of just equality, leavening society by means of the new community of Christ. In this new community, no social division should ideally be allowed in the wholeness of a humanity of completely equal individuals.

Ideally, the Kingdom of God in Christ is to become progressively realized through small, separatist communities of like-minded brothers and sisters. Of course, not all of the radicals clearly saw all the social and cultural implications of this eschatological vision. This vision of a world-turned-upside-down and made wholly-new is crucial to understanding the radical’s future vision.

Because the present world is wholly evil and the future age which has come in Christ is wholly good, many but not all of the radicals withdrew from the old, divisive society and formed

Covenantal and Ethical Discontinuity between Testaments

All branches of the radical movement held a thorough dichotomy between the old and new covenants. Therefore, as Calvinistic Baptist, Kenneth Good states, no Baptist can be "Reformed" because the essence of being "Reformed" is to hold to the covenantal unity of the Testaments (Good 1986). The logical concomitant of such covenantal unity is unity of New Covenant people of God with the Old Covenant people of God, Israel.

The Radical Reformation’s whole worldview presupposes an explicit or implicit distinction between Israel and the Church. In other words, there exists two or more peoples of God throughout the ages. This denies the biblical covenantal unity.

Secondly, when the Radicals assumed a sharp discontinuity between the covenants, they concluded that the two covenant’s ethical positions were opposed to one another. As Mennonite scholar, John Horsch, writes, most of the radicals held that

Christian Reformed pastor-scholar, Leonard Verduin, claims that while the Radicals

The basic assumption then is that the total Mosaic law is abrogated except that which is repeated in New Testament. This position, taken consequently, finds little use for Mosaic judicials because few are repeated in the New Testament. The result was that the Radical’s had a strong tendency to make "a sect of the Church and either denied the office of the government or seized it with revolutionary tactics" (Balke 1981, 330). The foundational pre-understanding of their theology was "teaching that the Old Testament period was totally different from the New Testament era, especially regarding God’s association with his covenant people" (Balke 1981, 309).

In sum, there was radical discontinuity between both Testaments’ ethics and peoples.

According to the Radicals, the new Christocratic social order which the New Testament brings was ideally to be anarchistic, in the original etymological sense of the word. If all individuals were converted, many Radicals reasoned, then there would be no need for a state using the coercion of a steel sword and external laws. "Laws" and the "state" as an instrument of coersion were part of the fallenness of the world, not for the righteous (cf. a radical reading of 1Ti 1:8ff). Hence, because the New Testament has few if any legal standards for the State. Thus the Radicals taught a social, not a personal antinomian ethical position.

Thus the Anabaptist, Schleitheim Confession banned true believers from participating in the organs of the State, especially from the sword power of the State. In effect this turned over the rulership of this old fallen earth and all of its institutions to the Devil, his servants, and humanistic law.

The Radicals, especially the Anabaptists, longed to form such a godly and peaceful anarchistic community of believers in this world. As De Gruchy states, the radical reformers were dedicated to "clear away the old abuses root and branch and at the same time to dispense with earthly magistrates and prelates" (De Gruchy 1988, 177).

However, especially after the disaster of Münster, the Peasant wars, and the resulting persecutions, the pacifist radicals "acknowledg[ed] . . . that it was impossible to Christianize the entire social order" according to their equalitarian vision. They thus became "inclined . . . to pessimism" (Balke 1981, 266). Because of this eschatological pessimism, they concluded that they could only now be a visible and holy remnant, a communal sign pointing to the fullness of the future kingdom in which the equalitarian vision would triumph.

A consequence of such covenantal and ethical discontinuity is a view of redemptive history which departs from that of the historic orthodox consensus. According to Radical interpretation, redemptive history moves away from a social system concerned with family group and "peopleness." That is New Testament redemptive history is primarily concerned with individuals alone but not individuals-in-family, kinship and ethno-linguistic groups. The resulting ideal social system is one emphasizing the individual-in-the-Whole, that is all believing individuals without respect of group background in the one Body of the unifying Christ.

Revivified Platonic Dualism

The foundation of this assumption, however, is a revivified Platonism which postulated a historical movement away from the divisive and physical towards that which is unifying and spiritual. Thus the Kingdom is primarily "spiritual." The result of this progress in history was a movement from a covenant law-based social system. In other word, the Radicals rejected any socio-political system that used compulsion and coercive force to restrain evil. They taught instead that Christ brought a system emphasizing "freedom of choice", tolerance, and love.

"Baptism, redemptive history and eschatology: The parameters of debate," by P. Richard Flinn summarizes these:

South African Example of Radical’s, Redemptive-Historical View

An example of this viewpoint is a letter to the editor of the [Johannesburg] Sunday Star dated 10 June 1990 by Ray McCauley, Pastor of the baptist-charismatic, mega-church, Rhema Ministeries in Johannesburg:

As a consequence of all the above assumptions, the Radicals taught that the Church is made up of believing individuals alone. Louis Berkhof, states this clearly:

Anti-Covenantal Theologies Biased against Social Divisions

Anti-covenantal theologies seem philosophically biased against anything that socially divides. They prefer that which social unites. They tend to conclude that all groups smaller than the whole of humanity-in-Christ is imperfect or evil. Since Christ came to redeem evil, anti-covenantalism tends to believe he came to break down any group exclusiveness. Family, kin group, and ethno-covenantal solidarity must be relativized and eventually broken down to the individual. Then all individuals can be united into the inclusive oneness of the whole.

The most radical and consequent of the Radicals were thus compelled to revolt against the carnal, that is the divided and hence oppressive" political and economic structures. They were philosophically compelled to move in the direction of unitarian, socialist-communal economic and political structures, communal wives (i.e., free sex), and communal raising of children. Individualistic adult re-baptism thus was only one prominent outworking of the presuppositions.

Article 36 of the Belgic Confession was accurate in its assessment of this error, even though the more pacifistic, evangelical branch was not consequent in the outworking of their basic assumptions. Indeed, most such groups never worked out the logical ramifications of their faith (see Cohn 1970; Verduin 1980; Shafarevich 1980; Balke 1981; Williams 1994).

Anti-Covenantal Theologies Claim Only Two Social Alternatives

Neo-Radicals claim there are only two alternatives for New Testament Christians: (1) the union of Church and State, or (2) a neutral state with social pluralism (e.g., Verduin 1980; Good 1986). Verduin claims that all essential characteristics of the Radicals can be deduced from a consistent rejection of "sacral society," the alleged union of church and state found in the Reformers. He accepts the Radical position that the New Testament ideal is a "composite society:"

Clearly, Verduin accepts the ideal of a neutral state, a creature of common grace (see critique in Van Til 1972, 236ff). However, there is no neutrality. A magistrate, representating his people, must "kiss the Son" and "rejoice with trembling" before Yahweh. If not, he will rebel against Yahweh and his Messianic King with the goal of casting off their fetters and bonds (see Psa 2). Either we gather with Christ or we scatter.

Furthermore, it is not true that there is no Biblical middle way between sacralism and Radical pluralism. Balke (1981) shows how Calvin struggled, albeit imperfectly, to develop a middle way based on the covenantal based, Israelite society as a paradigm. Especially the Puritan Divine, George Gillespie discusses this comprehensively.

The Reformers, especially the majority group at the Westminster assembly, called the biblical balance, between State-church union (Erastianism) and Church-state union (Papism), the Establishment Principle. This was in contrast to the Voluntary Principle of the Radicals.

In sum, the Reformers did not teach that the ancient Jewish government was a "theocracy," that is "government of a state by immediate Divine guidance or by officials regarded as divinely guided" (DeMar 1991, 61, n. 10). Although the pre-monarchical Hebrew government was influenced by inspired prophets and the High Priest with the Urim and Thummin, that type of guidance was rare. However, when the Hebrews rejected Yahweh as King, they rejected the distinction of church and state, desiring instead a pagan union of church and state (1Sa 8-12).

To the divines the Israelite constitutional order was, not rule by priests (priestocracy or ecclesiocracy), rule by kings (monarchy), or rule by nobility (oligarchy, aristocracy). Rather, ideally, it was a government by Yahweh as King through chosen representatives bound to the morality of the covenant law of the Suzerain (see DeMar 1991, 61, n. 10). This is what many Presbyterian and Reformed thinkers of past years termed, a representative republic. In other words, the modern equivalent of the ancient Hebrew Yahwistic Republic would be a Christocratic Republic in each people that submits itself individually and collectively to the Rule of Christ the heavenly King.

Thus the divines were not proponents of a system abandoning the civil government the ideology of a "pluralistic society" (Chamblin 1988, 358) or of a "religiously impartial" state (Plantinga 1981, 124). That was what the Belgic Confession correctly calls, "the heresy of the Anabaptists" (BC, Art. 36).

Thus, they held that contemporary cultures which have been largely discipled by the missionary process should be modeled on Israel, the paradigm of a godly nation (see Wright 1983). The Reformers uniformly taught that a magistrate is to rule in covenant fear of God using "all the ordinances of God duly established" (WCF, 23.3), rooting out violations of both Tablets of the Law (see Hall 1992 [Of the civil magistrate]).

Summary

Mennonite, Harold Bender compares the Radical’s social theology with that of the three main Christian groups of the Reformation period, Catholic, Calvinist, and Lutheran. First he describes the optimistic, transformative vision of Rome and Geneva:

Luther and the Anabaptists, however, had an opposite vision, one shared by most evangelicals and Reformed churches today:

Lastly, Bender describes what he calls the realistic vision of social transformation that the Anabaptists possessed in the midst of their pessimism for the general society:

The most important comparison for our purposes, however, is that between the optimistic and covenantal views of the Calvinist Reformers, and that of the non-covenantal Reformation. The following chart illustrates this distinction. Though not found in any church in a pure state, still the contrast has validity:

Presuppositions of Covenantal vs. Anti-Covenantal Reformations