Under theonomy…the implementation of all the old covenant death penalties was not supposed to occur until the culture had been spiritually conquered through spiritual means. That spiritual conquest was either temporally distant or strictly hypothetical, depending on the optimism of one’s eschatology.
A label can be confusing when its meaning changes over time. This may have happened with the term “theonomy” in Christian ethics. Many today think that theonomy teaches a flat application of all the penal codes found in Old Testament judicial laws. I learned a different definition over four decades ago when I studied under Greg Bahnsen. I was then taught that the Mosaic judicial laws are time bound, situation specific applications of the moral law to a particular culture at a particular point in redemptive history. We were to take from these particular applications general principles that we could then apply to our own time and place. The example repeatedly given was the Mosaic requirement to put a railing around the roof of a house (Deuteronomy 22:8). This judicial law applied directly to that time and place because houses then usually had a flat roof which was often used as a living space. It does not directly apply to today’s houses with sloped roofs that are never used as a living space. Yet we can deduce from the general principle behind this judicial law that the civil magistrate today has an obligation to require certain safety measures. Examples would be safety belts for cars, helmets for motorcyclists and railings for balconies and stairs. The risk of falling off a flat roof living space also serves as an approximate guide as to what degree of risk to life merits a legal regulation.
I was also then taught that the coercive power of the state is not the cutting edge of sanctified social change under the new covenant. Under the new covenant, the law of God is first written upon the hearts of people before it is written on the stone tablets of institutions and laws. To use more recent language, institutional reformation is downstream from spiritual revival. This implies that reforming civil laws is usually a long process that requires patient perseverance. Immediately and fully imposing godly civil laws on an ungodly society would require dictatorial powers. Because laws imposed in that way would not have a broad moral consensus within society, they would either be ignored or would have to be enforced with the oppressive power of a police state. Christian politicians should instead discern the extent to which God’s laws have been written on the heart of society as they seek every opportunity to make incremental improvements in law codes. The church’s role is to wage the spiritual warfare that conquers and transforms hearts; i.e., prayer, evangelism, discipleship, etc. In a spiral of social sanctification, progress in heart holiness both in depth and extent exerts a cultural influence that enables progress in civil statutory righteousness, which in turn confirms and encourages society’s growing ethical advances. Discipling a nation often has its ups and downs as it progresses through the stages of a fundamental paradigm shift.