Liberating Planet Earth

138 Liberating Planet Earth
external blessings. These churches will spread the gospel more
effectively as a result. This is the positive feedback aspect of Biblical
law.
If we accept the possibility of a defense of God’s law that rejects
the historic inevitability of the long-term expansion of Christian
dominion through the covenant’s positive feedback, then we
face a major problem: how to explain the dz#immce between the New Testament
church and Old Testament Israel. If the Christian church fails to
build the visible kingdom by means of Biblical law and the power
of the gospel, despite the resurrection of Christ and the presence
of the Holy Spirit, then what kind of religion are we preaching?
Why is the church a significant improvement culturally and socially
over Old Testament Israel?
What does such a theology say about the gospel? What kind of
power does the gospel offer men for the overcoming of the effects
of sin in history? Is Satan’s one-time success in tempting Adarn
never going to be overcome in history? Will Satan attempt to
comfort himself throughout eternity with the thought that by defeating
Adam, he made it impossible for mankind to work out the
dominion covenant in history, even in the face of the death and
resurrection of Christ? If we argue this way — the failure of a
Spirit-empowered Biblical law-order to produce the visible kingdom–
then we must find an answer to this question: Why is sin
-triumphant in history, in the face of the gospel?
Then there is the impolite but inevitable question: Why fi@s
a loser in htitory?
Pessimists, by preaching eschatological impotence culturally,
thereby immerse themselves in quicksand – the quicksand of antinomianism.
Some sands are quicker than others. Eventually, they
swallow up anyone so foolish as to try to walk through them. Antinomianism
leads into the pits of impotence and retreat. No one
wants to risk everything he owns, including his life, in a battle his
commander says will not be won. Only a few diehard souls will attempt
it. You can build a ghetto with such a theology; you cannot
build a civilization.
Biblical law must also be preached. It must be seen as the tool