Refuting the "Biblical Civil Law has caused all these Atrocities" Argument

Look at all the atrocities committed in history due to the rejection of
biblical civil law--atrocities on a much greater scale than those
supposedly due to biblical civil law! Once biblical civil law is rejected,
so is justice (since biblical civil law is the source of justice)--
and bloodthirsty tyrants like Mao and Stalin are the result.

by Steve C. Halbrook

“Oh no, we couldn’t implement biblical civil law! Look at all the atrocities committed in history due to this very thing!”

This is a common argument leveled against biblical civil law—since history is said to be replete with atrocities in the name of implementing biblical civil law, then biblical civil law should no longer be enforced.

But besides the fact that A) this argument is based on exaggerations and ignorance; B) atrocities, by the nature of the case, are deviations from biblical law; C) the worst atrocities have been committed by civil governments that most consistently reject biblical law (e.g., communist and Nazi governments, and pro-abortion Western governments), and D) the enforcement of biblical civil law is not optional (God commands it), let’s consider the matter this way: when doctors make mistakes, we don’t jettison the medical profession (and thus create more problems in the process). Rather, we work to make the medical profession safer in the future. Similarly, when rulers who claim to hold to biblical civil law make mistakes, we don't jettison biblical civil law. Rather, we work to make civil law safer (i.e., more consistently biblical) in the future.

When Adam and Eve fell in the Garden of Eden, God did not do away with woman as man’s helpmeet—despite Eve’s involvement with Adam’s sin. Thus the 7^th commandment remained intact, even though Adam blamed Eve for his sin (just as, as we’ve noted, some blame biblical civil law for sin). Marriage—and therefore God's laws concerning marriage—is still a good thing.

God’s response, then, was not to blame His law, but rather to blame Adam and Eve. The problem is man, not God’s law. God dealt with man’s law-breaking not by nullifying the law, but rather by providing ways for man to better keep the law. The most important means was of course the Gospel, through which those who come to saving faith are enabled to keep God's law much better by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

And another means that God provided was, interestingly enough, biblical civil law. Biblical civil law helps minimize outward sinful acts by being a terror to evildoers (Romans 13:1-5; Deut. 19:20). When properly applied, it does not cause atrocities, but prevents them. And so while humanists see eliminating biblical civil as a way to eliminate evil, God sees enforcing biblical civil law as a way to eliminate evil. By extension, God sees attempts to eliminate biblical civil law as evil—and evil is the very thing that fosters tyrannical civil government.

Naturally, then, when society rejects biblical civil law, the state becomes not a terror to evildoers, but to the innocent. That is how we get atrocities. The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), and since sin is violation of the law (1 John 3:4), the wages of rejecting biblical civil law is death—manifested in destruction, tyranny, genocide, and the proliferation of soul-damning religions and heresies. This is one of the reasons the West is self-destructing, as all nations that hate God's law eventually do.