Thank you for joining me for today's episode of God, Law and Liberty. And today we're going to begin taking a closer look at legislation proposed by those who want to end abortion now. And the topic, which may seem strange, is what does it mean to be spiritually minded about the law of Moses? And I'll explain what that is in a moment. But the larger issue is whether there's an overarching spiritually minded perspective for considering Israel's judicial or juridical legislation as it pertains to abortive mothers today. So I began this way with saying Christians are the regenerate who, according to Romans chapters 7 and 8, are to be spiritually minded, Romans 8.6. And that applies to how they should assess the legislation offered by those who want to end abortion now. It seems that proponents of the legislation believe the way to do this is by authorizing a prosecutor to indict an abortive mother with a crime that would call for punishment anywhere from multiple years in prison up to seeking the death penalty. That was the legislation offered in Tennessee. So to tell you, I want to begin to take a look at what I would offer as a spiritually minded beginning point for an assessment of this proposal. Now to narrow our assessment of this legislation, we must discern the basis for the proposed sanction. I don't think anyone in the pro-life community would deny that the unborn person is a person a human being. Instantly at common law, the penalty imposed on a woman was reduced over time from a felony to a misdemeanor. William Blackstone's commentaries on the law of England, a link to which is in my sub-stack page, page 79. More on the possible reasons for that reduction at a later time. But we should note that the death penalty has not brought an end to premeditated murders, even in states that have carried it out. So something else must be at play to think a long prison sentence or even the death penalty must be the punishment for an abortive mother. I will assume the rationale is found in what A.W. a pink called the Law of Moses, a comprehensive term for the juridical and ceremonial law ordering Israel's society and worship. I take it from A.W. a pink's the law on the same page 11. I suspect the applicable rationale in the Law of Moses is the precept of life for life, which we'll also examine in a future episode. I began though with the judgments of God given through Moses for Society and Exorcist 21, beginning verse 1, being particular applications of the Law of God, the creational laws summarized in the Dane Commandments. And this law brings us back to the Apostle Paul's first letter to Timothy in the very critical statements he made about those who do not agree that the purpose of the commandment is love from up your heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith. He says these persons have strayed and have turned aside to idle talk, IDLE. First yet, they thought of themselves as teachers of the law. But Paul says they didn't really understand the things they say or the things which they affirm. Perhaps it was because they were not spiritually minded, but employed only the natural reasoning of the unregenerate who rendered the dominion of sin. Well, perhaps my testimony on that point will be helpful. Most of my life, I was one of the persons Paul described, particularly during most of my 30 years as a state senator and leader of a Christian pro-family public policy organization in Tennessee. The reasons for many, but this is for me the bottom line. The God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness had not yet shined in my heart to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. With this God revealed knowledge, I operated politically out of what all unregenerate persons have and operate out of. Natural wisdom only. I didn't know the difference between natural wisdom and being filled with the spirit of Christ, with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding. Colossians 1.9 In other words, I was carnal in the sense in which Paul used that word in Romans 8.6. It's another way of saying, I believe I was unregenerate. But even the regenerate can live according to the flesh and in that way, in particular issues and particular times, they live and think like the unregenerate. Now, that being said, I don't know if Paul's rebuke was directed to the carnal, unregenerate living and teaching among the regenerate who thought they understood the law, but didn't. As was true of the Pharisees, or to the regenerate who just didn't yet understand all of what they said and affirmed. But neither should be teachers in the church. But I've come to believe that natural wisdom is all that's possible. And a biblical metaphysic and cosmology are missing in a person's thinking. These subjects by their very nature are spiritual. And it explains why Herman Bovings said, this belief in the metaphysical would mean our religion is done for. His book, God in Creation. Today, I will offer an introduction into what I think being spiritually minded looks like in relation to the law of Moses, and I'll apply it, but then more thoroughly in the coming weeks. I begin with looking at God's assessment of his work creating Israel, spoken through Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 2 18-21, we are told the story of God's planting of Israel. Verses 18-20 explained the present fallen situation in Judah that alone remains among the tribes of Israel. They had formed political alliances to protect themselves. Verses 18 records God saying, and now what has to do in the way of Egypt to drink the waters of Sihar? Or what has to do in the way of Assyria to drink the waters of the river? God is wondering why the nation's leaders thought that employing the political wisdom of their age and all ages, having allies even if ungodly, would turn aside the evil of those that would come against them. But in verse 19, God says, turning to that wisdom would bring a different result. Quote, Thine own wickedness shall correctly, and thy backsliding shall reproof thee. No therefore, and see that it is an evil thing, and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, sayeth the Lord God of host. To God, this political solution of natural reasoning is wickedness, backsliding, will prove to be bitter, and they'll have to be corrected. Moreover, God finds this alliance inexplicable. In light of the redemption, he wrought by breaking the bondage of Egypt and the people's subsequent promise of covenant fidelity to him. Verse 20, For of old time, I have broken thy yoke and burst thy bands, and thou sayeth, I will not transgress. When upon every high hill and under every green tree thou wanderest, playing the harlot. And then God says to his people, verse 21, Yet I planted the a noble vine. I won't stop here for just a moment. The word planted in Hebrew, and I'm sure I'll butcher it, is natah. Remember that word, because we're going to come back to it, and I'll introduce a few other Hebrew words that will also be important. Now let me pick it back up again. Yet I had planted natah, the a noble vine. Holy a right seed. The word there is w-h-o-l-l-y. All then are thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me. Now let's consider God's assessment of this same work but spoken through Isaiah. Similarly, through Isaiah, Israel is called the vineyard of the Lord, Isaiah 5, verse 1. Notably, God planted the vine for his vineyard in a garden that he had worked hard to prepare. Verse 2, chapter 5, quote, And he fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted natah, it with the choices of vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a wine press therein, and he looked that it should bring forth grapes. And it brought forth wild grapes. So despite all God did to ensure the fruitfulness of his vine, it was overrun by wild grapes. Vines that might grow naturally outside of the garden in the adjoining wilderness. And like this, God has a question for what's left of Israel about his vine and vineyard. Quote, And now, oh inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge, I pray you. Betoix to me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done in it? Therefore that when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes, as a 5, 3, and 4. Now what does God complain about his garden vineyard mean? Well, to this question, I can only offer what the Holy Spirit is impressed on me the last few years. And it relates only to the sphere of law and public policy that God has called me to, though I'm sure there are other applications. But in general, I see in the creation of Israel the story of Adam writ large. In other words, I believe there is a spiritual truth being revealed in this story beyond the facts, meaning something metaphysical. And it reveals a fundamental truth being worked out in time and space, meaning something cosmological. Here's my reasons. Let's compare the stories of the creation and formation of Adam and Israel. I'm reading now from Genesis 1, 27 and Genesis 2, 7, and 8. So God created, here's the other Hebrew word, barah. God created man in his own image, and the image of God created, barah. He, him, male and female, created, barah, he, them. And the Lord God formed another Hebrew word, yes, sir. The Lord God formed Yassar, man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted, not high. Remember, as I have five to, a garden, eastward and Eden. And there he put the man whom he had formed, yes, are. Now the story of the creation of God's people found in Isaiah 43-1. Now the Seth the Lord that created, barah, thee, O Jacob, and he that formed Yassar, thee, O Israel. Fear not for I have redeemed thee. I have called thee by that name, thou art mine. There's my understanding of the two creation stories. God says he created, barah, and formed Yassar, both Adam and his people. He put Adam in a garden, he had planted, not high. Even as he placed his people as a vine in a garden, he planted, not high. In other words, God created him, Adam upright, Ecclesiastes 729, and metaphorically, he created Israel as a holy right seed, Jeremiah 221. As I believe God is giving us a picture in Israel's creation, formation, and planting of what would have happened had the first Adam multiplied, filled the earth, and exercised dominion over it. Adam and Eve's descendants would have become a holy nation and a people for God's own possession. There's scripture verses using those words in both the Old and the New Testament. You can find them on my sub-stay page. In other words, I believe this is the cosmology of God's ultimate purpose for creation being worked out behind and beyond the recitation to the facts in these stories. This cosmology is a product of the Christian's metaphysics concerning the nature and attributes of the trome God. And I believe the Apostle Paul corroborates this interpretation. Here what he wrote about the last Adam, and the ultimate conclusion to the covenant promises the regenerate have in him. It's found in 1 Corinthians 1519-28, but I'm only going to quote verses 23-25 and verse 28, but every man in his own order Christ the first fruits, afterward they that are Christ at his coming. When he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father, when he shall have put down all rule and authority and power, for he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him, that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. These verses seem to me to be a more detailed description of Romans 1136, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever. I'm in. So here's my initial application of these stories. In 1 Corinthians 1519-28 I believe the regenerate find a God ordained cosmologically ordered purpose for which they have a covenant promise they can by faith, order their loves toward. See the podcast released on Monday about that subject. The substance of that purpose is revealed only by a supernatural bestowed faith that a loan can provide evidence of it. Hebrews 111. And what is that purpose? So that I cite 1 Peter 2 9. To show forth the praises of him who had called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. But I don't see in scripture any covenant promises about the future of the geopolitical state presently known as the United States or its constitutive states, their more immediate futures, or what their respected enacted laws regarding abortion will accomplish, particularly on a timetable that seems suitable to us. Now. To think we have promises on these matters would seem to me to be the sin of presumption. See Psalm 1913. Its root is usually pride. Believing God for what he has not promised. God hates pride. And those political times like Nebuchadnezzar who walk in pride he is able to abase Daniel 437. I know that because I was such a person. And here's my application of the foregoing to me. For several years I presented to legal and public policy organizations, even denominational leaders and Christian influencers, a constitutionally viable way for states to recognize as lawful a marital relation once again defined exclusively and exhaustively in terms of male and female. It would have overcome the Obergefell decision on marital relations. I just knew they would rejoice and embrace it. None did nor have they now. I was humbled. God's timetable was not mine. Next week I'll provide another application of these two creation stories to the legislation being offered on the supposition to the land abortion now. And I hope you'll join me.