Lee Carter:  

ciety. Now, our increasingly humanistic laws, courts, and legislators are giving us a new morality. They tell us, as they strike down laws resting upon Biblical foundations, that morality cannot be legislated, but what they offer is not only legislated morality but salvation by law, and no Christian can accept this. Wherever we look now, whether with respect to poverty, education, civil rights, human rights, peace, and all things else, we see laws passed designed to save man. Supposedly, these laws are going to give us a society free of prejudice, ignorance, disease, poverty, crime, war, and all other things considered to be evil. These legislative programs add up to one thing: salvation by law. This brings us to the crucial difference between Biblical law and humanistic law. Laws grounded on the Bible do not attempt to save man or to usher in a brave new world, a great society, world peace, and poverty-free world, or any other such ideal. The purpose of Biblical law, and all laws grounded on a Biblical faith, is to punish and restrain evil, and to protect life and property, to provide justice for all people. It is not the purpose of the state and its law to change or reform men: this is a spiritual matter and a task for religion. Man can be changed only by the grace of God through the ministry of His word. Man cannot be changed by statist legislation; he cannot be legislated into a new character. The evil will or heart of a man can be restrained by law, in that a man can be afraid of the consequences of disobedience. We all slow down a bit on the freeway when we see a patrol car, and we are always mindful of speed regulations. The fact of law and the strict enforcement of law are restraints upon man's sinful inclinations. But, while a man can be restrained by strict law and order, he cannot be changed by law; he cannot be saved by law. Man can only be saved by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Now humanistic law has a different purpose. Humanistic law aims at saving man and remaking society. For humanism, salvation is an act of state. It is civil government which regenerates man and society and brings man into a paradise on earth. As a result, for the humanist social action is everything. Man must work to pass the right set of laws, because his salvation depends upon it. Any who oppose the humanist in his plan of salvation by law, salvation by acts of civil government, is by definition an evil man conspiring against the good of society. The majority of men in office today are intensely moral and religious men, deeply concerned with saving men by law. From the Biblical perspective, from the Christian perspective, their program is immoral and ungodly, but these men are, from their humanistic perspective, not only men of great dedication but men of earnestly humanistic faith and morality. As a result, our basic problem today is that we have two religions in conflict, humanism and Christianity, each with its own morality and the laws of that morality. When the humanist tells us therefore that 'You can't legislate Biblical morality,' what he actually means is that we must not legislate Biblical morality, because he means to have humanistic morality legislated. The Bible is religiously barred from the schools, because the schools have another established religion, humanism. The courts will not recognize Christianity as the common law foundation of American life and civil government, because the courts have already established humanism as the religious foundations of American life. For humanism is a religion, even though it does not believe in God. It is not necessary for a religion to believe in God to be a religion; as a matter of fact, most of the world's religions are essentially humanistic and anti-theistic. The new America taking shape around us is a very religious America, but its religion is humanism, not Christianity. It is a very morally minded America, but its ethics is the new morality, which for Christianity is simply old sin. This new revolutionary, humanistic America is also very mission-minded. Humanism believes in salvation by works of law, and, as a result, we are trying, as a nation, to save the world by law. By vast appropriations of money and dedicated labor, we are trying to save all nations and races, all men from all problems, in the hopes of creating a paradise on earth. We are trying to bring peace on earth and good will among men by acts of state and works of law, not by Jesus Christ. But St. Paul wrote, in Galatians 2:16, "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might by justified by the faith of Christ, and not by works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified." Law is good, proper, and essential in its place, but law can save no man, nor can law remake man and society. The basic function of law is to restrain (Romans 13: 1-4), not to regenerate, and when the function of law is changed from the restraint of evil to the regeneration and reformation of man and society, then law itself begins to break down, because an impossible burden is being placed upon it. Today, because too much is expected from law, we get less and less results from law, because law is put to improper uses. Only as we return to a Biblical foundation of law shall we again have a return to justice and order under law. 'Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it.' (Ps. 127:1)."".