To the Law and to the Testimony, Not the ‘Christian Western Legislative Tradition’

In current Reformed debates, appeals to the past are often deployed as the decisive defense against the claim that God’s judicial law is sufficient for the adjudication of every civil dispute. For example, my friend Travis Schmalhofer publicly expressed his opposition to Lancastrian theonomy when he wrote: “Societies inescapably produce written traditions that carry real authority, that is the authority to bring sanctions. That is not statism; it is responsible stewardship. I remain a happy defender of the Christian Western legislative tradition, as far as it is consistent with God’s Word.” The implication of this rhetoric is plain: to reject that Western tradition is to reject responsible Christian statesmanship itself.

Yet when the appeal is examined, the phrase supplies no concrete standard of public justice, gives no crime or sanction that must be enforced today, and functions only as a rhetorical shield protecting the legitimacy of positive, man-made legislation. Far from being a faithful outworking of Scripture, it is a tradition of men elevated to the place of God’s Law, nullifying the sufficiency of the only statute book the civil magistrate was ever authorized to wield (Mark 7:13).

Appeals to the “Christian Western Legislative Tradition” are offered as though the mere invocation of centuries of Romanist, medieval, and Enlightenment legal accretion somehow refutes the insistence that the magistrate’s sword is governed by the revealed Law-Word of God. This article demonstrates that such appeals are exegetically untenable and practically vacuous.

The Standard of Justice: God’s Law

Scripture presents the judicial law not as a provisional sketch awaiting human completion, but as the standard of public righteousness:

• Deuteronomy 4:5–8: “See, I have taught you statutes and rules…Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples…What great nation is there that has statutes and rules so righteous as all this law that I set before you today?”
• Deuteronomy 12:32: “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.”
• Joshua 1:7–8: “Be careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you…do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left.”
• Proverbs 30:5–6: “Every word of God proves true…Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.”

Even the introduction of monarchy does not relax this restriction. Deuteronomy 17:18–20 requires the king to write out a personal copy of “this law” and to read it daily so that “he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes…that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left.” The king is not elevated above the law as a new lawgiver; he is subjected to the existing one.

Far from granting the king a new legislative charter, Deuteronomy 17:18–20 places the king under the most severe limitation found in the ancient Near East: he must hand-copy the entire Torah and read it every day of his life. In other words, the very text used to prove monarchy is allowed is the same text that strips the monarch of the one thing every ancient (and modern) legislature claims: the right to create new law. The arrival of kings does not expand the statute book; it intensifies submission to the existing one.

No serious defender of Lancastrian theonomy denies that godly wisdom, sanctified reason, and Spirit-led discernment are required to apply God’s judicial law to new technologies, complex cases, or unforeseen circumstances. Determining the exact multiple of restitution for a stolen cryptocurrency wallet or deciding whether a particular act of sabotage falls under the law of the false witness or the law of the thief will always demand careful judicial reasoning. What we deny is that this necessary wisdom ever takes the form of positive legislation – new crimes, new sanctions, or new coercive prohibitions authored by men and backed by the sword. Wisdom serves the Law; it does not sit above the Law adding to it or subtracting from it (cf. Deuteronomy 4:2). The magistrate is called to be skillful in judgment according to the statutes already revealed (cf. 1 Kings 3:9–12; Proverbs 1:2–3), not a new lawgiver improving on the statutes the Lord Himself declared perfect.

The Distinction between Voluntary and Coercive Standards

Church confessions, business contracts, constitutions, and covenants of association can (at times) be prudent instruments of order within their proper spheres. The civil magistrate, however, does not derive his authority via a democratic concept of “consent.” His adjudications are instruments of public justice. The statute book that authorizes the use of the sword is already complete (Exodus 21–23; Deuteronomy 19–25). To invest human statutes with the coercive force of the sword is to arrogate a prerogative that belongs to God alone. The civil sphere is not a club one joins; it is the realm in which one already stands as an image-bearer under God. No man may legitimately demand, “Show me your man-made legal tradition before I decide whether I will be governed by you.” The only legitimate answer a magistrate may give to that question is: “Here is the Law of God; take it or leave it – because I have no authority to give you any other.”

Schmalhofer offers an example of the appeal to regulations rhetoric: “When my family looked to buy a house, we read the township ordinances before we made offers on houses. If a town told me, ‘We have no written rules; a judge will just decide everything case-by-case from the Old Testament,’ I would want to know what their subordinate (to the Bible) beliefs are…” And yet my friend, like so many other faithful Christians, undoubtedly routinely disregards the endless codes, laws, and ordinances. In fact, those who speak most warmly of the “Christian Western legislative tradition” are often the first to disregard its actual statutes – speed limits, zoning ordinances, building permits, licensing requirements, and countless other positive laws. They treat the tradition as binding in theory and optional in practice, exactly the opposite of how God’s Law is to be treated (Matthew 5:19; James 2:10–11). The system they defend is treated as a joke in practice while being hailed as indispensable in theory.

Why prefer a regime of zoning officers prowling for preemptive violations, code-enforcement officers measuring grass height, and bureaucrats demanding permission slips for dominion activities God never forbade? Under God’s Law, the magistrate is silent unless a neighbor brings a real accusation. No proactive inspections, no licensing of lawful labor, no fines for unapproved paint colors. Peaceful men are left alone.

Given the choice, who would not rather live where the civil sword hangs idle over the righteous and is unsheathed only when an actual injury has occurred or a violation of God’s Law has been committed?

The Emptiness of the Formula

A retreat to the “Christian Western legislative tradition” is a common tactic when responding to Lancastrian theonomy. Upon examination it collapses into three fatal weaknesses:

1. It supplies no concrete standard of public justice.
2. It offers no mechanism for adjudication.
3. It functions as a rhetorical escape hatch that permits the retention of positive-law systems while evading the concrete demands of biblical justice.

The phrase is the civil-polity equivalent of the modernist evasion, “I love the Bible, as far as it is correctly interpreted.” It sounds pious, feels conservative, and commits to nothing.

The Actual Content of the Western Legal Tradition

The Western legal tradition is not limited to, but includes a syncretistic mixture of:

• Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis (529–534) – imperial Roman absolutism
• Gratian’s Decretum (c. 1140) – canon-law positivism
• The glossators and Aquinas – Aristotelian natural-law speculation
• Blackstone’s Commentaries (1765–1769) – common-law positivism
• The American constitutional order – Enlightenment social-contract theory

Where it departs from Scripture – imprisonment instead of restitution, forced taxation, licensing of dominion activities, legislative supremacy, and more – it must be rejected, not reverently preserved.

The Period of the Judges as Instructive, Not Utopian

Israel was governed for roughly four centuries without a human legislature, without a standing army, and without a royal treasury. Justice was administered case-by-case according to the written law of God delivered through Moses. The famous refrain in Judges of “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6; 21:25) does not describe the entire era of the judges; it forms a deliberate literary bracket around the horrific epilogue (chs. 17–21) showing the covenantal chaos that results when God’s written law is ignored – not when additional human legislation is lacking. The solution proposed in Scripture is never a new legislative assembly but repentance and return to the law of God (Judges 2:1–5; 1 Samuel 7:3–4).

Schmalhofer insists that a renewed application of God’s Law is needed, yet he immediately frames the non-legislative position as a call to “tear it all down and start from the book of Judges in order to establish a non-legislative theonomic utopia.” This is a double mischaracterization. First, we do not advocate “tearing down” anything that is not already contrary to God’s Law; we advocate simple obedience — confining the magistrate to the sanctions and procedures God has already revealed. Second, the word “utopia” implies a speculative, perfectionist scheme of our own devising. What we propose is not utopia; it is justice. It is the magistrate doing exactly what Scripture repeatedly commands: executing wrath on the wrongdoer according to the Law-Word of God and refusing to add to or subtract from it (Romans 13:4; Deuteronomy 4:2). If returning to the standard of public righteousness given by God is utopian, then Moses, Samuel, and the prophets were utopians. We are content to stand in their company.

Jesus’ rebuke to the Pharisees remains the decisive paradigm:

• “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (Matthew 15:3)
• “Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition” (Matthew 15:6)
• “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men…You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition” (Mark 7:8–9, 13).

The Pharisees did not reject Scripture outright; they simply elevated oral tradition to a position that allowed them to circumvent the written law (e.g., Corban, Sabbath regulations). The parallel is exact: defenders of the Western legislative tradition do not reject Scripture outright; they simply elevate human statutes and historical precedent to a position that allows them to circumvent the written judicial law. The result is the same: the commandment of God is made of none effect by the tradition of men.

Clarifying My Position on “Statism”, Non-Legislative Theonomy, and the Save the CREC idea:

Today I became aware that some are framing “statism” as a crisis in the CREC. I have also been tagged in this post, so I want to be crystal clear where I actually stand.

Theonomists have…

— Travis Schmalhofer (@TravisSchmals) November 20, 2025

When Churches Baptize Man-Made Law

The most grievous consequence of the “Christian Western legislative tradition” is not theoretical. It is pastoral and moral: churches, pastors, and entire denominations teach God’s people to commit objective evil against their neighbors and fellow believers.

Amos 5 is the clearest indictment in all of Scripture of a religious community that maintains meticulous worship while simultaneously trampling justice in the gate: “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies…Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5:21–24). The specific sins that made Israel’s worship an abomination were:

• Exacting taxes (5:11)
• Turning justice into wormwood and casting righteousness to the ground (5:7)
• Afflicting the righteous, taking bribes, and pushing aside the needy in the gate (5:12)

When a church teaches that Romans 13 requires submission to every positive statute, it trains Christians to become accomplices in the very evils Amos condemned:

1. Forced taxation –Scripture nowhere grants the magistrate authority to seize a man’s land or goods for refusal to pay taxes. Under God’s Law, all taxation is strictly voluntary: the magistrate may request, exhort, or even plead, but he may never punish non-payment with fines, liens, or foreclosure. Modern property taxation, backed by the threat of confiscation and sale, is therefore unbiblical theft. Yet how many pastors preach, “Pay your property taxes cheerfully as unto the Lord”? They thereby train Christians to rob widows, homeschool families, and small farmers of the fruit of their dominion.
2. Licensing and regulatory oppression – The Bible authorizes no licensing of dominion activities (farming, building, selling milk, bearing arms, educating children). When a church teaches that such statutes are part of “God’s ordained authority,” it trains Christians to report, fine, or imprison their brothers for obeying the dominion mandate.
3. Imprisonment instead of restitution – The judicial law demands swift restitution or death (Exodus 21–22). Modern imprisonment is cruel, unbiblical, and astronomically expensive. Yet most churches defend the prison system as “God’s servant,” thereby teaching Christians to fund and operate cages rather than to demand that thieves repay their victims.
4. Usury, fiat currency, and inflation – The Bible forbids usury among brethren (Exodus 22:25; Deuteronomy 23:19–20) and demands honest weights and measures (Leviticus 19:35–36; Prov 11:1). Inflation is theft by devaluation. Yet few pulpits ever condemn the Federal Reserve or fractional-reserve banking as violations of the eighth and ninth commandments.

This is not hypothetical. It is happening now:

• The Christian who loses his land because he cannot pay property tax – while his church teaches that the tax is “ordained by God.”
• The Christian family raided for selling raw milk – while their elders cite Romans 13 as justification for the raid and even praise the parishioner who works for the agricultural department and trespassed on the property!
• The Christian businessman fined or jailed for hiring without state permission – while his pastor preaches that such regulations are part of the “Christian Western legislative tradition.”

These injustices are often carried out by Christians against their fellow Christians. Amos 5 stands as an everlasting warning: when the Church baptizes man-made law, it does not merely fail to restrain evil; it actively trains God’s people to commit it. The worship may be liturgically impeccable, the singing theologically rich, and the preaching gospel-centered –yet if justice is not rolling down like waters, the whole service is noise in the ears of a holy God.

The prophets never call for a bigger, better bureaucracy or a reformed tax code; they call for covenant faithfulness to the existing law.

Conclusion

Appeals to the “Christian Western legislative tradition” cannot answer the question of justice between a man and his neighbor. As ivory tower eggheads debate Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, our Christian brethren are being afflicted (Amos 5:12) by fellow Christians supporting the statist “tradition” those pontificators hold so dear. But when it comes to asking these proponents of said tradition how man’s law can establish justice, no answer is forthcoming. We are simply told to trust a tradition that has produced the modern regulatory state, fiat currency, the prison-industrial complex, and the administrative tyranny universally lamented across the political spectrum.

The Church must choose:

• The sufficiency of Scripture in the civil sphere (2 Tim 3:16–17), or
• The sufficiency of human tradition qualified by an ever-receding “as far as it is consistent with God’s Word.”

Only one is compatible with the crown rights of King Jesus over the nations (Psalm 2:10–12; Revelation 19:16).

The call to return to God’s Law is repeatedly labelled “revolutionary” and “utopian.” Yet the actual revolutionary act was the invention of legislative supremacy – the idea that fallible men in a capitol may continually create new crimes and new sanctions ex nihilo. Returning to the Law of God is not revolution; it is counter-revolution. It is the recovery of the original settlement God made with mankind at Sinai. The true radicals are those who believe human assemblies may improve on the statutes the Lord Himself declared more righteous than those of any other nation (cf. Deuteronomy 4:8).

Schmalhofer concludes his critique with a stirring call: “Count me in for reformation within our historic creedal and constitutional inheritance.” Yet what kind of reformation is it that refuses to reform the very thing that most needs reforming — the centuries-long replacement of God’s law with human tradition? A reformation that insists on maintaining the past for the sake of the past is not reformation at all. It is preservation disguised as progress. It is the cry, “We want Reformation…but only if we don’t have to change anything from our heritage that got us here!”

True reformation does not cling to human traditions. It returns to the Law and to the testimony.

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