Written by T.M. Suffield |
Wednesday, February 15, 2023
We can judge from creation, that the division that comes by saying the truth leads in time to order, which leads in time to unity. How do we know? Because Genesis 1 is eventually leading to the reconciliation of all things in God (Colossians 1). Division leads to order leads to unity.

God creates by dividing, that’s the pattern begun in Genesis 1. He continues to create that way today. I’ve written before on how the Lord makes order from chaos in the first Creation narrative, and how that work which is begun but not completed becomes our work. Adam was meant to create order in the garden by slaying or expelling the serpent, doing God’s works after himself: ruling over the dragons of chaos.
Let me show you what I mean. On the first three days of creation, God forms things: Light or Day, the Sky and the Sea, and the Land. On the next three days of creation, God fills those things:

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Light. Day and Night
Sky and Sea
Land and Trees

Day 4
Day 5
Day 6

Day is “filled” with the Sun, and Night with the Moon, powers to rule over them so that we can tell the right time for the festivals.
Sky and Sea are filled with animal life and dragons.
Land and Trees are filled with animal life and humans.

On the seventh day God rested.
So, where’s the division? Well, let’s look at how God creates on each day. On the first day he creates light by separating it from the Darkness, making two defined ‘times’ that did not exist before: Day and Night.
On the second day he creates the heavens and the sea by separating the waters above from the waters below. Where before there was one water, there is now water below (the sea, where chaos and evil dwell) and the water above (the sky or heavens, where order and angels dwell).
On the third day he creates the land by separating it from the water below, and then all the trees by separating them into their kinds. The phrase “according to its kind” begins to occur frequently.
On the filling days we find categories multiplying: heavenly bodies, birds, fish, dragons (have I ever mentioned that there are dragons here and we just skip over it? I have?).
Creation is an act of breaking things down into kinds. When we meet humans we then immediately find them divided into male and female. God creates by dividing.
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For Perkins, the “substance” of these judicial laws that were given to the Jews binds not just “Jews but also Gentiles…” Contrary to the R2K consensus, these judicial laws are universally binding not because their foundational equity is to be equated with, and reduced to, natural law without remainder, but because these judicial laws expand and complete what is contained in natural law!

Recently, I received the following message through my blog from professor R. Scott Clark in response to an article of mine that recently appeared on The Aquila Report. After discussing the matter on the phone with this brother, I’ve decided to address a few things.
Your account of “R2K” seems like a caricature. Who defends the “R2K” view you describe?
Anyone who knows the 16th & 17th centuries knows that general equity = natural law (e.g., Wollebius & Perkins) and that is intended to be applied to civil issues such as kidnapping.
Ecclesiastically it applies to the church but that doesn’t exhaust it’s use.
My response will be limited to the professor’s use of William Perkins along with a corroborating footnote pertaining to Johannes Wollebius.
Here we can find a relevant quote from William Perkins, with an excerpt of that quote immediately below. (Bold and italicized emphases mine throughout article.)
Judicials of common equity are such as are made according to the law or instinct of nature common to all men and these in respect of their substance bind the consciences not only of the Jews but also of the Gentiles for they were not given to the Jews as they were Jews, that is, a people received into the covenant above all other nations, brought from Egypt to the Land of Canaan, of whom the Messiah according to the flesh was to come; but they were given to them as they were mortal men subject to the order and laws of nature as other nations are. Again, judicial laws so far as they have in them the general or common equity of the law of nature are moral and therefore binding in conscience as the moral law.
It’s to misread Perkins to infer that in the civil realm it is just the law of nature that is binding upon all men. Instead, we should take Perkins to mean that it is the law of nature that makes the judicial laws of Israel suitably binding upon all men. To miss that point is to miss Perkins’ point. The law of nature establishes the foundation upon which civil laws can be applied to all nations.
Perkins distinguishes elsewhere particular judicial laws that were peculiar to Israel’s commonwealth that don’t have this same quality of nature, which further punctuates his point. Example: the brother should raise up seed to his brother. (Johannes Wollebius holds a similar view that distinguishes judicial laws that are grounded in natural law from those that are not.*)
The judicial laws in view were not themselves natural laws, for the judicial laws were both made and given to men under Moses “according to” what was already instinctive to them. Moreover, these judicial laws were given to the Jews not by virtue of their unique covenant standing before God but in their common created capacity of being “mortal men subject to the order and laws of nature as other nations.” So, the judicial laws are neither to be seen as fundamentally moral nor particular to a covenant nation but rather as having expansive moral import based upon something even more fundamentally primitive in nature, which makes way for their trans-nation application.
R2K wrongly takes the fundamental moral basis upon which judicial laws can be found universally applicable and turns that natural law foundation into the only feature that carries through to the nations. In doing so, R2K denies Perkins’ position, which couldn’t be clearer. It is the judicial laws themselves that have universal judicial application and not merely the instinctive properties of natural law contained within them: “Again, judicial laws… are moral and therefore binding.” Perkins also informs us of the reason why the judicial laws can be universally and morally binding, which is because “they have in them the general or common equity of the law of nature.”
WCF 19.4:
Apropos, for civil magistrates to govern according to the general equity of Israel’s judicial laws (WCF 19.4) is to govern strictly according to those civil laws that were rooted in the common equity of the moral law and not according to the judicial laws that pertained to the land promise or other non-moral aspects of Israel’s society. Yet R2Kers (like the referenced professor) offer an alternative paradigm of governance, which would limit civil magistrates to govern strictly according to natural law yet not according to Israel’s judicial laws that are rooted in natural law. Aside from departing from the nuance of Perkins and Wollebius on the binding moral relevance of Israel’s civil code, one need only consider the historically global results and degeneracy of such governance in order to appreciate the ineffectiveness of natural law in the civil realm. But that shouldn’t be surprising since natural law was never intended to be a model for wielding the sword! The civil laws were given for a reason, and in the minds of men like Perkins et alia the intrinsically moral civil laws are forever binding upon conscience because of their divinely inspired relation to natural law:
“Judicial laws so far as they have in them the general or common equity of the law of nature are moral and therefore binding in conscience as the moral law.” William Perkins
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A well-grounded Christian hope perseveres through all the confusion going on in our culture. Live each day to the glory of God by displaying this hope to those around you. Love God, enjoy him each day, care for your family, care for your neighbor, and rest in Christ. It’s possible to be so caught up in changing the world that you don’t even influence those in your circle. Serve faithfully where God has you and never lose hope. 

It was the strangest of times, it was the most frustrating of times. How else could one revise Dickens’ famous opening line to describe our current cultural era?
Foundational ideas and understandings are changing at lightening pace. The majority opinion from twenty years ago regarding marriage is now viewed as oppressive and unwelcome in public discourse. Definitions established for much of human history that differentiates a man and a woman are now viewed as abhorrent. Basic biology and common sense are thrown out the window to create a new normal. Like a square cat or smelling seven, much of the language of today is illogical and unscientific, yet the culture demands full acceptance without discussion or debate.
Watching the culture go down such a dark path brings about a great deal of discouragement for believers. Some Christians have given over to despair, while others have embraced a blind optimism that doesn’t take seriously what’s at stake with the current issues.
Christian Hope
In his book Strange New World, Carl Trueman warns believers against both despair and blind optimism: “To fall into the former would be to fail to take seriously the promise that the church will win in the end because the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. To engage in the latter is simply to prepare the stage for deeper despair later. And both will feed inaction, one out of a sense of impotence, the other out of naïveté.”
Instead, as believers traverse these dark roads, we do so with hope. Not a false hope that pretends problems don’t exist, but a hope that sees the issues and yet perseveres; a hope rooted in the ultimate reality of who God is, the good news of the death and resurrection of Christ, and the imminent return of Christ. As Trueman explains, “Christian Hope is realistic. It understands that this world is a vale of tears, that things here are not as they should be, and that…all life death does end. This world is not the Christian’s home, and so we should not expect it to provide us with home comforts.”
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