Seeds of the Kingdom.
Now, my little nieces, here is something very important. In the religious teaching of obedience to human laws lies buried the seed of the Kingdom! Very few churches mandate complete obedience to the state. They do not teach that Christ has completely abdicated His throne to another superhuman person. They all leave a tiny area of life under the sovereignty of God's law and His Messiah. Many do not require their members to murder other humans in obedience to laws of the state, while some do not require pledging allegiance to the flag. And many preachers would go to prison rather than obey a law which bans preaching their statist version of the gospel; although it's difficult to imagine why such a law would be passed. God's law is already regarded as binding on believers and of a higher moral power than human law if only in certain extreme cases. It is the principle that is so tremendously important: There is a law higher than human law! This is the seed of God's Kingdom.
There are two ways this seed of the Kingdom can grow to maturity. First, instead of focusing on individual laws, think in terms of law systems. We become very confused if we try to live part of our life under one law system and part under another. God's law and man's law are mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed. Neutrality is not possible, nor can both be chosen. They are complete and independent systems of law. Many grown-ups have been tricked into believing that the laws of the United States are founded on the laws of God and consistent with them. That was true for the majority two hundred years ago in America, but those men are long dead and it is definitely not true now.
The laws of the United States are founded on the will of the majority, not the will of God. If the majority happens to reverence the law of God, then the laws of the state could be the same as the laws of God. But they don't have to be the same. For someone who embraces no other religion than statism, the state is the source of all law (sovereign). His world looks like this:
Most churches teach that the world looks like this:
Human law is of primary importance in this scheme. It is the for real system, the one people believe in enough to enforce even if it means inflicting bodily harm. In this scheme God's law is in an entirely different category. Some churches teach that God's law must be obeyed rather than man's. These churches ignore the First Commandment which requires us to confess God alone as our Lord and His Anointed as our King. The Bible teaches that God is sovereign. The Biblical world view is like this:
Men are free to make ordinances, but to be valid they can be no more than restatements of God's law as applied to changing circumstances.
Wizards flatly reject any thought of God or His law as being for real when they play Wizards of America. Nor will the majority vote for men who believe God's law is above man's law, because God's law is at times contrary to the law the majority would like to live under. A friend of mine has been threatened with five years in prison for giving jurors literature about the law of God on the courthouse steps. Wizards are very hostile toward God's law. If there is a God and He has already declared what the law is, then human law which goes beyond God's law is rebellion.
The necessity to choose is presented clearly in A Preface To Morals by Walter Lippmann. The word modernity means the same as secular humanism, the abandonment of the supreme ideal of service to God; man becomes central in all areas of life, the measure of all things. I have taken the liberty to insert a few comments.
The upshot of the discussion to this point is that modernity ( humanism ) destroys the disposition to believe that behind the visible world of physical objects and human institutions ( fantasy ) there is a supernatural kingdom from which ultimately all laws, all judgments, all rewards, all punishments, and all compensations are derived. To those who believe that this kingdom exists ( Christians ) the modern spirit is nothing less than treason to God.
The popular religion ( Christianity ) rests on the belief that the Kingdom is an objective fact, as certain, as definite, and as real, in spite of its invisibility, as the British Empire ( itself invisible; in fact, its gone now ); it holds that this faith is justified by over-whelming evidence supplied by revelation, unimpeachable testimony, and incontrovertible signs. To the modern spirit ( atheistic, man-centered ), on the other hand, the belief in this kingdom must necessarily seem a grandiose fiction projected by human needs and desires. The humanistic view is that the popular faith does not prove the existence of its objects, but only the presence of a desire that such objects should exist ( equally true for nation-states ). The popular religion, in short, rests on a theory which, if true, is an extension of physics and of history; the humanistic view rests on human psychology and an interpretation of human experience.
It follows, then, that in exploring the modern problem it is necessary consciously and clearly to make a choice between these diametrically opposite points of view. The choice is fundamental and exclusive, and it determines all the conclusions which follow. For obviously to one who believes that the world is a theocracy, the problem is how to bring the strayed and rebellious masses of mankind back to their obedience, how to restore the lost provinces of God the invisible King (lost to the invisible god, the state) . But to one who takes the humanistic view the problem is how mankind, deprived (by professional indoctrination of children) of the great fictions (no, great truths) , is to come to terms with the needs which created those fictions. pgs. 143-144
Walter Lippman was a well known man during his life-time. He understood just what is going on in the world today much better than most Christians do. We are living in an era of dramatic change in what is called Western Civilization. Christianity is being set aside for a belief system which makes man the measure of all things. There is no place in this new scheme for men and women who have chosen Jesus as their King.
Lippmann, having the same right to choose that you and I do, rejected theocracy in favor of statism. The choice is between belief in God and belief in the state. Which makes better sense, a God who created us and now rules his creation, or a state which rules its creators? Which is better: Mutually assured destruction or mutually assured affection? Which is better: pursuit of sadness or pursuit of happiness? Find Lippman's position on the spectrum of government:
|
Man's Rule
(Humanism) |
God's Rule
(Christianity) |
The Christianity described by Lippman is mostly known to the people of today. Christianity has become a pale shadow of the world-changing faith that once turned the Roman Empire upside down. Christianity has joined hands with statism, the American civil religion, and has no ability or desire to change anything. The Bible has become a book of personal devotions used in support of the existing world order and to bar the doors of the Kingdom. Christians and statists have formed an unholy alliance.
The second way in which the seed of the Kingdom can grow to maturity is similar to the first. Simply recognize that the entire world system of nation-states is a matter of belief and stop believing. Because of years of indoctrination and generations of tradition the state seems very real. The Creator has endowed us with absolute freedom of mind and spirit. When you stop believing the state seems like a dream, while the Kingdom of God assumes a solidity never thought possible. It occupies in our hearts and minds the position formally filled by humanly contrived government. It is no longer regarded as pie in the sky by and by. All the love of country and submission to authority, all the intellectual and emotional attachment lavished on the flag and the state, are now available to be invested in God and His government.
It is universally taught in Christianity that believers must submit to all government by command of God. This is a fundamental doctrine of statism, not of Christianity. Only with the advent of humanism during the past hundred years has this divine right to rule doctrine regained ascendance. The colonists called that doctrine absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind and meant to end it forever with their revolution. That's what they meant by all men are created equal. This self-evident truth is what makes absurd the belief that King George's birth gave him the right to rule his fellow men. It is equally absurd and slavish to believe that the majority rules by divine right.
American government was founded on the consent of the governed, not the will of God. The obvious truth is that God did not appoint legislators, governors and all the rest, men elected them. Not every group of men that calls itself a government is worthy of our obedience. Not even all the so-called government set up by the ancient Israelites were recognized by God. We read in Hosea 8:4 that they make kings, but not by my will; they set up officers, but without my knowledge... When humbugs rule over their equals it is because ignorance and superstition are as prevalent today as at any time in history, not because God wills it. Democracy requires submission to the majority; theocracy requires submission to God. Both require considerable belief. One leads to destruction, the other to affection. A choice must be made between the two; domain of darkness or the kingdom of light, take your pick.
Here is the third way that the doctrine of obedience to human law contains the seed of God's Kingdom. The Constitution is one of the organic documents of the United States. But the first and foremost organic documents of the United States is the Declaration of Independence. If you accept and conform your life to the fundamental presuppositions and self-evident truth found in the Declaration you can not avoid ending up in the Kingdom of God.
In the very first paragraph of the Declaration the law of nature and of nature's God is cited as the legal justification for America's independence from Britain. A little further down it says we can be governed only with our consent. Then is says we have the right and the duty to throw off despotic government. If we accept the Declaration and the United States as legitimate, then we must accept the law of God as being higher than human law and man's law as non-binding. We must reject the idea that God has appointed men like King George to rule us. Otherwise, in God's eyes Americans are still rightfully subjects of the British Empire, which is odd because it's no longer in existence. If God's law is higher than human law, then we are really under God's law. If we are under God's law then we are living under God's rule. In another words, God is America's King; the Kingdom of God is here now!
It was a Christian society that penned the Constitution, including the words establish justice found in the Preamble. They were referring to the justice mandated in the Bible, the justice that comes from administering the law of God. All lawyers and judges in America today reject the Biblical legal philosophy which is based upon the pursuit of justice and justice alone. Instead, they have been trained in the legal philosophy called legal positivism which is utterly indifferent to the establishment of justice. Their commitment is to support the sovereignty of the state. Even so every official takes a solemn oath to support the Constitution and thus to establish justice, which they have not the slightest intention of doing. If officials were honorable and honest men who devoted themselves to the establishment of justice rather than liars who only say they will, we would be living under God's law, the perfect law of liberty. That is the closest sinful men can come to the Kingdom of God in this life.
Here is an interesting final thought. Assume the British monarchy and all the British laws were approved by God as most Christians would contend. Assume, also, that the American democracy and its law were, too. Without a revolution the United States would have been impossible. By the doctrine of divine right, God must have approved the American Revolution. But revolutions are always in disobedience of human law. It would seem that disobeying human law is approved of by God. Therefore, the doctrine of divine right governments as currently taught has a fatal flaw. It has an internal inconsistency which leads to illogical conclusions. In other words, it's nonsense.
God does not ordain just any group of thugs that presumes to call itself a government. God ordains the rule of only those men who constitute a truly Biblical government as defined in Romans 13; only those who administer right and justice according to the law of God, tempered by mercy. All the rest are unauthorized.
Most important of all to realize: a human government administering God's law is only a stop-gap, a half measure, no more than second best. God's first choice is to be our King, Himself. The suffix - dom at the end of a word indicates a general condition. Free dom means the condition of being free. The king dom of God means both His domain and His condition of being King. No matter how right and just a human government may be, it is still a rejection of God as King. The most distinguishing characteristic of true Christians is that they do not reject God as King. The Kingdom of God is the only divine right government, there is no other.
