Lesson 12

The Doctrine of Abdication

The Doctrine of Abdication Girls, we live in a society which has been strongly influenced by the teaching of Jesus who lived two thousand years ago. Half the people in America attend church regularly. Even most of those who are not comfortable in churches still believe to one degree or another in the God of the Bible. Eventually someone will invite you to join their church. If you decide to join you'll be expected to accept the church's official doctrine. Nearly every church today teaches what can be called the doctrine of abdication. This means that Jesus is believed to have announced his Kingdom, been anointed Messiah, given all power in heaven and on earth, and then to have abdicated his throne so that men can continue to rule and though nothing had changed. A variation of this, is the belief that the devil, not Yahweh, is the god of this world. We will examine this doctrine to see if it is true. As always you are free to make up your mind. At least you'll have another point of view to help you.

Today Christians restrict God's rule to just the spiritual realm of their lives. It has not always been so. Even a hundred years ago it was commonly believed that God's rule encompassed everything, spiritual and temporal. Terrible and bloody conflicts like World War I, 1914-1918, caused people to question this belief in God's rule on earth. To explain such evil the doctrine of abdication was contrived. One thing this doctrine does, is void the Gospel. Instead of proclaiming the Kingdom of God, turning the world upside down, and overthrowing the existing order, Christians now proclaim the kingdom of Satan, or the kingdom of man, which leaves the world unchanged and supports the existing order.

How can World War I and other occasions of slaughter and destruction be explained if God rules the world? The answer lies not in God's rule, but in man's rebellion to that rule. One day the people of earth will be ruled with a rod of iron. (Rev. 2:27) Until then, men are free to choose by whom they will be ruled.

God's Kingdom is established in the hearts and minds of men when His law is written there. Men enter the New Covenant by free and willing agreement. Many feel called to make this agreement, but also do not want to be restricted by God's laws. To make it appear they have entered the New Covenant, men place their private lives under the rule of God and their public lives under rule of the state. As private persons they obey, for example God's command not to murder. As public persons they obey the state's command to murder or to aid the collective national effort to murder.

Both the state and God are invisible, immortal, sovereign beings. If men would stop believing in the state and place both their private and public lives under the rule of God, wars would end. World War I, like all wars, was a struggle between nation-states in the fantasy world created by the imagination of men. In that fantasy, the world is in a state of anarchy because the nation-states are bound by no law, including the law of God. Men who feel powerless in themselves to violate the will of their Creator, find the courage to flout His laws by projecting themselves whole-heartedly into the corporate body of the lawless nation-state. Then, theft, murder and all manner of wickedness and evil is done under the delusion that no one is individually responsible.

In past fantasy worlds, the Roman Emperor was believed to rule on earth. When the Empire fell apart the Pope was believed to rule. After the Reformation people stopped believing that the Pope was God's vice-regent and began to believe that each king ruled by divine right. After the American Revolution people stopped believing in the divine right of kings and began to believe they were ruled by the majority and the invisible, immortal state. Each time the current belief in man's rule on earth wore thin, another arose to take its place. Men seem ready to believe the most outrageous stories to avoid being ruled by God.

The doctrine of abdication is founded upon certain mis-interpretations of passages in the New Testament, most notably Romans 13: Everyone must submit to the supreme authorities, NEB; 1 Peter 2: Submit yourselves to every human institution.... and Matthew 22:21: Render unto Caesar... When modern Christians quote these verses, they mean to say that if we are obedient to God, we must be obedient to the state, unless the state's law directly contradicts God's law. This is exactly what I was taught as a child in Sunday School. For many years I believed this interpretation. But now I see that this interpretation can't possibly be true! It is full of contradictions. It runs counter to the main thrust of the Bible and leads to a violation of the first and second of the Ten Commandments.

Let's review the major events of history from the Biblical perspective. In the beginning God created heaven and earth. Then He created everything else, including men. Abraham left the city of Ur near the Persian Gulf bound for Canaan on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Abraham believed in one God who is the actual and lawful Lord of all heaven and earth. (Gen 24:3). Abraham entered a covenant, or agreement, with the Lord for himself and all his descendants. Yahweh is God's name.

Abraham was the father of Isaac and all the Hebrews. He taught them to believe in God and to enter His covenant. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob's name was changed to Israel (God Rules). Israel moved with all his family to Egypt during a famine. The descendants of Israel became slaves in Egypt. Moses lead them to freedom back to the land of Canaan. There the Israelites lived for about three hundred years with no other King but the Lord of Abraham. At one point they wanted Gideon to found a hereditary monarchy like all the surrounding countries, but he refused the crown because, he said, Yahweh was their King. (Judges 8:22-23).

The elders of Israel came to the prophet Samuel and demanded that the form of government be changed and that a visible king be set over them. Then, as now, without an abiding faith, the rule of Yahweh was impossible. They turned from a faith in the invisible God to put confidence in a visible king. In order to establish a monarchy the Israelites rejected God. Saul was chosen by lot and became king. The Israelites had a long series of kings, divided into a northern and southern kingdom, went into captivity in Assyria and Babylon, respectively, and finally were dispersed to all parts of the known world. They are called the lost sheep of the House of Israel. Two thousand years ago, Jesus was born in Canaan which was then called Palestine.

Jesus proclaimed the same God Abraham believed in, the actual and lawful Lord of all heaven and earth. He offered a new covenant to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. He summed up his message to fellow Israelites with the words; The time has come; the Kingdom of God is upon you; repent, and believe the Gospel. (Mark 1:14). Gospel means good news. Repent is the old English word used to translate the Greek word, metanoeo , which actually means to change one's mind. Only in one place is the idea of feeling regret conveyed. That was when Judas was seized with remorse for turning Jesus over to the chief priests. (Matt 27:3 NEB). As used in the Gospel it always means to change your mind, not to feel an emotion. Actually, Samuel prefigured the Gospel to the House of Israel when he advised the Israelites to change their minds about a human king and remain in the Kingdom of God (I Sam. 8:11-18). Jesus' message to the House of Israel was a command, while Samuel's, one thousand years before, was a request or good advice.

The Israelites of Jesus' day didn't want God for their King any more than the Israelites of Samuel's day or of our day. So the Gospel was extended to men of all races. Those who actually changed their minds about the lawful form of government on earth became true Israelites by naturalization (see Lesson 10) as much, or more, than natural born Israelites (Rom 9:6-8). Christians can just as correctly be called Israelites. In fact, consistent with the Gospel of God's state of being a King, the word Israel means let God rule or God rules . Salvation lies in the Kingdom through accepting God's Messiah as King to the exclusion of other forms of government (Luke 19:27). In Samuel's day the Israelites said no to God's rule and demanded a monarchy. Today Americans still say no to God's rule, but have changed the demand to a democracy or a republic.

There is what the New Testament, or New Covenant, is all about. There were many old covenants between God and the Israelites. Most of them had to do with men agreeing to be governed by God, either directly, or, at times when God was rejected as king, through a human king. Here are the covenants:

1. Covenant with Adam. A promise of continued life and favor to man on condition of obedience, coupled with a penalty for disobedience. (Gen. 2:16-17).

2. Covenant with Noah. A promise to Noah and his posterity which includes all humanity since the human race had a new beginning after the flood. God promised there would be no other great deluge. The rainbow is the token of this covenant. (Gen. 6:18; 9:12, 15-16).

3. Covenant with Abraham. God promised to be the God of Abraham and his posterity and to give them the land of Canaan. Circumcision was the sign of this covenant. (Gen. 13:17; 15:18; 17:2, 4, 7, 11, 13-14, 19).

4. Covenant with the Israelites. God promised to continue to be their God-King if they would keep the Ten Commandments. The sign of this covenant was the Sabbath (Ex. 31:16). It was agreed to at Horeb or Sinai and renewed on the plains of Moab with the next generation. (Deut. 5:2; 29:1).

5. Covenant with the Levites. God bestowed prosperity and life in return for the duty of reverence. (Mal. 2:4,8).

6. Covenant with Phinehas. God gave Phinehas and his descendants an everlasting priesthood. (Num. 25:12,13).

7. Covenant with David. David's posterity should forever occupy his throne, but with punishment for failure to follow God's laws, statutes and judgements. (Ps. 89:20-37).

8. The New Covenant. God promised to govern the House of Israel by writing His law on their hearts and minds. It is administered by the Spirit (II Cor 3:6-9); based on faith, just like the covenant with Abraham (Gal. 4:21-31); and intended for all people willing to change their minds and be ruled by God (become Israelites). (Matt. 28:19-20; Acts 10:44-47).

The covenant at Sinai as referred to as the Old Covenant. Jesus announced the beginning of the New Covenant. Both were an agreement between God and Israel that they should be governed by Him-under the Ten Commandments written on stone in the old; under the law written on hearts and minds in the new. All the promises to Israelites are contained, or fulfilled, in the New Covenant. Israelites did not abide in the terms of the Old Covenant, so God has made a New Covenant with the House of Israel (Heb 8:7-13). Jesus has been chosen to be Israel's King and High Priest (Heb 8:1).

There in brief is what the Bible is all about. It simply is not true that God wants us to be ruled by men. The purpose of the Old and the New Covenant was to institute God's rule, or Kingdom, on earth. The New Covenant is a revolutionary change in the usual relationship between men. Usually rulers lord it over their subjects and make them feel the weight of authority, but not so for those who enter the New Covenant. Among Israelites whoever wants to be first must be the willing servant of all (Matt. 20: 25-28). This is what prompted the Colonists to call officials of the new government public servants .The Pilgrims, the Puritans and most of the early Americans saw themselves as God's New Israel. Not so today; now every official is a master, not a servant.

Because of the sad state the world is in, most ministers and missionaries have stopped proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus. Instead of proclaiming with joy, the Kingdom of God, they proclaim the kingdom of Satan with sorrow. Because of wide-spread evil they teach their converts that Satan is the god of the world. This is utterly contrary to the Bible (Is. 45:5-), even though Satan may be the father of many men.

Now let's take a look at those verses that supposedly teach the doctrine of the Messiah's abdication. In the New English Bible, Matthew 22:15-22:

Then the Pharisees went away and agreed on a plan to trap him in his own words. Some of their followers were sent to him in a company with men of Herod's party. They said, 'Master, you are an honest man, we know; you teach in all honesty the way of life that God requires, truckling to no man, whoever he may be...

A couple of points. This is to be a trap. They expected Jesus' honest answer to allow official action to be taken against him for sedition. Truckling means to submit tamely. Jesus knew the truth that Caesar we created no more than equal to other men. What way of life did Jesus teach? The New Covenant way with God's law, not man's, in our hearts and minds. He taught God's rule, not man's, just like Samuel a thousand years before.

Give us your ruling on this: are we or are we not permitted to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor?" Jesus was aware of their malicious intention and said to them, 'You hypocrites! Why are you trying to catch me out?...

Permitted by what? By the law of God. The King James version brings this out more clearly. There is no provision in that law for giving tribute to a god-king like Caesar. In fact, whenever the Israelites did give tribute to other god-kings, such as Baal, they were punished for disobedience to the First and Second Commandments. The answer to this question can only have been no . If the answer was yes , then the trap makes no sense. Jesus knew they were trying to trap him in His words. And the Pharisees, being experts in the Law themselves, knew exactly what those words must be.

'Show me the money in which the tax is paid.' They handed him a silver piece, Jesus asked. 'Whose inscription?' 'Caesar's,' they replied. He said to them, 'Then pay Caesar what is due Caesar, and pay God what is due God.' This answer took them by surprise, and they went away and left him alone.

They had expected him to say no , but instead he set a trap for them that is still trapping people today! His answer was another way of proclaiming the Gospel. The meaning of this answer and of the Gospel depends upon one's faith in God. If you believe that God rules the earth and owns everything including that coin and Caesar, if you believe the First Commandment requires us to rend all that we are and all that we have to God, then there is nothing left to pay Caesar. Human rulers have no place in the new world order established by the New Covenant. The inscription on that coin refers to Caesar as divine. The Roman cult of emperor worship was only the latest form of Baalism just as statism is today. Taxation and legislation are prerogatives of sovereignty. Both God and human rulers claim to be sovereign, then and today. No one can serve two masters. Sovereigns insist that everything be rendered, including their subjects' very lives. Each of us chooses a sovereign and renders his all-some to God, some to man. Many have been trapped by Jesus when they publicly confess that they render unto Caesar. This embarrassing fact will no doubt be raised by the Accuser at the Last Judgement.

Contrary to their words, those who insist that Christians must render coins unto Caesar make a weekly practice of rendering these same coins unto God as they drop them into the collection plate on Sunday morning. Then ministers and missionaries use those coins to do God's work. Or do they? There are two possibilities. Either these men say one thing, but really believe and do another; or those coins dropped into the collection plate are, as they so strongly insist, actually being rendered unto Caesar and used not for God, but for Caesar. Since church leaders require their converts to recognize the various states as their lawful rulers of the world and since they no longer proclaim the Kingdom of God, the latter appears to be true.

In the two thousand years since the time of Jesus the general level of enlightenment has gradually increased. Today, the truth that all men are created equal is well known, at least in America. The Declaration, which is the lawful foundation of the United States, is centered around this truth. But in the Roman Empire it was largely unknown. Today, we know that God did not create some men to rule and some to submit. All men are equal when living under God's laws. Does that mean that God does not institute human rulers? No. He does, but only when men have rejected Him as their King (I Sam 10:18,19). But, there are also governments made by man's will and not God's,; and officers set up without God's knowledge. (Hosea 8:4) These are the governments which reject God's law system, for example, China, Russia and the United States as it is today. They have no claim to obedience.

Returning to God's law under human government would be far better, but still only a half measure. We are commanded to turn completely from darkness to light. If we change our minds about the form of government we want, turning back to God as King, then Godly human rulers are removed from authority. God is able to rule directly through our hearts and minds if we allow it. It is a personal decision, not a community decision. A community does not have a heart and mind upon which God's law can be written.

Roman: 13 is referring to the government God institutes for men who reject Him as King. Paul was writing to people who were called by God (Rom. 1:7), not to those who had been chosen for entry into the Kingdom at that time as true Israelites (Matt. 20:16; 22:14). After first hearing the Gospel it takes quite some time for that tiny seed to grow to maturity. In many cases it never does (Mark 4:3-20). In these Romans, the seed was planted, but still struggling to grow. Until maturity they had no where to turn and no choice but to submit to the established authorities. Paul was quite correct in telling them to do so. It is no different today. Many are called, but few are chosen. True Israelites are God's chosen people, not all natural descendants of Israel, but those born through God's promises. For them, just as for the ancient Israelites, no one but God rules.

Peter's first letter is directed to people similar to the Romans is that they are new-born infants so far as the Kingdom is concerned (I Peter 2:2). When, and if, they grew up they had God, not man, for their King. It takes years for one's world view to become completely re-ordered. We must forget everything and start over from the beginning, just like a child. For Paul that process look about three years as he lived Damascus meditating upon the great change that had come over his life and the truth as it had been revealed to him (Gal 1:18). Taking that final step to becoming a true Israelite by claiming the promises and recognizing God's Messiah as ruler on Earth is no easier today than when becoming an Israelite required circumcision as well as baptism.

The modern resurgence of the abdication doctrine is a major step backwards. Two hundred years ago men stood in the pulpit reviling the Colonists whose eyes had been opened to the truth that all men are created equal, including George III! Among the people of that day it was common to say, No bishop, No king! And they sang a rousing revolutionary song titled The World Turned Up-side Down, taken from Acts 17:6 in the King James version. It was George Washington who said, We have no king but God, which is true only of Israelites under the New Covenant. The Declaration, in the judgment of Samuel Adams, was a restoration of God to His throne as sovereign and a means to facilitate the coming of the Kingdom to all men. James Madison thought that all men should give their allegiance to the Sovereign of the Universe. He'd be surprised to see his posterity giving allegiance to the state today.

The Colonists' rejection of the abdication doctrine routinely appeared in their official documents. Nearly every ratification of the federal Constitution contained this thought:

...the doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.

There was no doubt in their minds that the Bible does not teach submission to men created no more than equal to them. For them the Bible clearly taught submission to God and His Messiah. But Tory ministers, that is, ministers of the Anglican Church, the official church of England, denounced the revolutionary theories of Jefferson and Madison. In support of the existing order, Jonathan Boucher, an Anglican, preached that:

Obedience to government is every man's duty, because it is every man's interest; but it is particularly incumbent of Christians, because it is enjoined by the positive commands of God.

In Boucher the seed of the Kingdom had not matured. He was unaware that the New Covenant Gospel turns everything up-side down. The first becomes last. King George was like a mountain that had been leveled, making way for the coming of the Lord (Luke 3:4-6). Boucher's congregation ran him out of town. This little known history can be found in William O. Douglas', An Almanac of Liberty.

In his recent book, Pastor Everett Sileven (Ramsey) says:

"Neither Romans 13, I Peter 2, nor Render unto Caesar can be used correctly or effectively against a well informed Christian to persuade him to disobey his God and obey ungodly, tyrannical government.

Another reason that the comment Render unto Caesar used by many pastors and Christians to beat other people over the head, to make them bow to the wishes of bureaucrats and ungodly law is not acceptable from the point of view that they are trying to imply that Caesar has certain jurisdiction, and God has certain jurisdiction.

This is a typical humanistic dichotomy response. God is sovereign over all, including Caesar. Therefore, to say that Caesar has a certain realm of obedience and God has another realm of obedience, is totally false.

"Caesar must come in line with God."

Everett Sileven (Ramsey) sees the Kingdom very well:

"But if you mean we must obey the law of men, then I whole-heartedly disagree. We can only live with the legislative acts of men when they agree with the Laws of God.... Only God can create Law."

An excellent refutation of the doctrine of abdication can be found in Tolstoy on Civil Disobedience and Non-violence, Signet, 1967, page 266-280. We'll have much to learn from Tolstoy in the next lesson.

It is men who have an interest in maintaining the present world order who embrace the doctrine of abdication. Men like Boucher who was a member of the established church of England. And men like Antonin Scalia, the newest appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a recent address to fellow Catholics he said in effect that believing God's law is higher than man's ignores the Biblical message found in Paul's letter to the Romans that government has a moral claim- that is, a divinely proscribed claim - to our obedience.

We might wonder how Antonin can feel comfortable being so high up in a government that exists only because the absurd, slavish idea was firmly rejected.

Today ministers all over the world rush about making converts to Christianity without insuring that other religions have been set aside. Nearly all modern Christians are practicing members of the world-wide civil religion called Statism. The god of Statism is the invisible, immortal, sovereign State. Statism is a sin in that it violates the First and Second Commandments (Ex. 20:3-5). The State is placed before God at least in the public area of life; and men serve the State as patriots and statesmen with their whole being even to the point of sacrificing their lives.

Can Moslems convert to Christianity while retaining their Moslem beliefs? No, they are not compatible systems. Can statists convert to Christianity while retaining statists beliefs? No, the two are diametrically opposed. Samuel did not tell the Israelites they could have a human King and God as ruler at the same time. They had to choose one and reject the other. Jesus commanded the House of Israel to change their minds, to repent of their sinful demand for a human king at the time of Samuel, and to return to God's rule, or Kingdom. The message for us living today is no different.

In Thayer's Greek Lexicon the Gospel is defined (#2097): The glad tidings of the coming Kingdom of God, and of salvation to be obtained in it through Christ. Ministers don't know what to do with the Kingdom part of this message, so they leave it out. They lead people to a false salvation which leaves them squarely in man's kingdoms and under Satan's power, not in the Kingdom of God and the power of His Messiah. These ministers make no distinction between salvation and the forgiveness of sins.

Many minister and missionaries teach that the Kingdom is within and that salvation does not mean rescue from human governments. By teaching that salvation and forgiveness are personal and private they entirely miss the point of the Gospel. From the beginning of this lesson keep in mind the Good News that Jesus Himself proclaimed. Let's see if Paul didn't proclaim the same message. From Acts 26:18 we learn that Jesus spoke to Paul:

...turn them from darkness to light, from the dominion of Satan to God, so that, by trust in me, they may obtain forgiveness of sins...

And from Colossians 1:13 Paul tells us:

He rescued us from the domain of darkness and brought us away into the Kingdom of His dear Son, in whom our release is secured and our sins forgiven.

Salvation is being rescued from the dominion of Satan and brought into the Kingdom of God. The release secured is release from the domain of darkness. Foremost among the sins forgiven is violation of the First Commandment-Israel's rejection of God as King. By being grafted onto the true vine, others become true Israelites and obtain forgiveness. This is the rescue mission Paul was given. The reason he was supposed to make this rescue was so that through belief in the Messiah, the anointed King, forgiveness of sins might be obtained. But forgiveness is not identical with salvation. First comes salvation, then forgiveness.

What exactly is this dominion of Satan? Thayer's Greek Lexicon, entry 1849, under #4, tells us dominion in this context means power of rule or government . To find out more about Satan's dominion, let's turn to Luke 4:5-7, NEB:

Next the devil led him up and showed him in a flash all the kingdoms of the world. 'All this dominion will I give to you, 'he said, 'and the glory that goes with it; for it has been put in my hands and I can give it to anyone I choose. You have only to do homage to me and it shall be yours.'

Satan's dominion includes all the kingdoms of the world. Salvation is rescuing someone from the governments of the world and bringing them into the Kingdom of God. For Paul that meant rescuing men and women from the Roman Empire. Today it means rescuing them from the nation-state world system: The United States, Canada, England, Russia, and so on. This suggests an objective test to determine true salvation. Do the kingdoms of the world still seem to have power and does Satan still seem to have dominion? This is a reliable test because for those who have not seen the Kingdom or believed on the Messiah, Satan appears as the god of this world, but for believers Yahweh is the God of this world. It is the rescue and transfer to the Kingdom of God (new birth) made possible by an abiding faith in God that results in a completely new way of seeing the world. Nothing else can be called salvation.

So girls, this lesson can be summed up in just a few words: Seek the Kingdom first (Matt. 6:33), and you will find it. When you find it you will have found mankind's greatest happiness, the government offered by God to all men. At the same time you will have found that salvation which many try in vain to find while still within the dominion of Satan. I must warn you and it won't be easy because most people can't see the Kingdom and the will try to prevent you from going in. Church people will use words to stop you. State officers will use terrorism. They are unable to see any alternative to man's kingdoms and Satan's dominion. It's all a matter of faith. We are winning; victory is the Lords! May God's Kingdom come to you!

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