Dominion & Power
What is at issue in this passage is the claim of the law against a man. All of Adams sons are sentenced to death by the law; this is the laws claim on everyone, the death penalty. “All we have sinned and gone astray, there is none righteous, no not one. No man stands justified before the law.” But with Christ’s atonement we are now dead as sons of Adam, as members of the old humanity of Adam; we are alive as members of the new race, the new humanity of Christ, and as members of Christ we are legally alive in Christ to the law as the way of life.
- R. J. Rushdoony
What is at issue in this passage is the claim of the law against a man. All of Adams sons are sentenced to death by the law; this is the laws claim on everyone, the death penalty. “All we have sinned and gone astray, there is none righteous, no not one. No man stands justified before the law.” But with Christ’s atonement we are now dead as sons of Adam, as members of the old humanity of Adam; we are alive as members of the new race, the new humanity of Christ, and as members of Christ we are legally alive in Christ to the law as the way of life.
- R. J. Rushdoony
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.