Blog
Enter comments here:
The Sovereign’s Courts (1 Cor. 6:1-8)
1. Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
2. Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
3. Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
4. If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
5. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
6. But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
7. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?
8. Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.
It is a common-place statement among historians that Judea was an insignificant corner of the Roman Empire; therefore, not of very great importance. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a matter of fact, when in the first century B. C. Rome took over Judea and Galilee it did so very happily. It was an event and an opportunity they welcomed because of the strategic importance of that area not only as a major trade route, but in terms of the eastern frontiers of the empire.
So Rome went out of its way to favor Judea. Hence, its vengeance when they felt betrayed in the Jewish Roman war of 66–70 A. D., a fearful war of vengeance, unparalleled in history. They had poured money into Jerusalem and elsewhere, turned it into a palatial city of marvelously paved streets, marble palaces, important and strategic centers of the empire.
Now here we have Paul writing to the Corinthians calling them a church, an ekklesia. Up until now the church was known as the Christian synagogue. In James 2, where the English translates “assembly” it is literally the Greek word, in the original synagogue.
There was a reason why the very early church and, in fact, into the second century used the term synagogue—which is what they were—they were governed by Old Testament law. They were patterned after the synagogue. They had the same officers, the same format. But by so calling themselves they also gained immunity from Roman prosecution as an unlicensed religion because the synagogue required no license. It had a special exemption as a part of the Roman strategy to placate Judea.
But Paul chose another word, a revolutionary word, one that the church has forgotten to its own peril. That word was ekklesia, or, usually in English, spelled with two Cs instead of Ks. We have that word in English as “church.” But the word “church” does not convey the meaning of the original.
As we have pointed out before, we must again and again, so you see the epistle and all of Paul’s writings, in fact, in context. Ekklesia was a political term. It was the name for the city council, the governing body of the area. Here in our county we would say the board of supervisors because virtually all of the county is unincorporated.
What was Paul doing in using a technical, political term to describe the Christian assembly? He was saying that in terms of the Kingdom of God, you are to be His governing body upon earth. First, to govern yourself, then to extend your scope into the community so that little by little the kingdoms of this world are made the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.
It is no wonder that very quickly the church began to be viewed with suspicion. It was, to use the old term, an imperium in imperio, an empire within the Roman Empire, claiming to have its own apostles, emissaries of the King of Kings, its own ekklesia, governing bodies. And, in fact, in the original we find the word paroikia, our English word “parish” used which originally meant an embassy. And Paul speaks of himself, in the English text, as an ambassador of Jesus Christ.
Now an ambassador has extraterritorial rights and powers as does the embassy. And this is why the ekklesia, from the beginning, refused to submit to Roman licensure or taxation or regulation.
Our text, in particular, sets this forth very powerfully and clearly. It is a text of central importance in the Bible. At issue is the question of law. Which law should rule over Christians, the laws of men or the laws of God? While submission to the ungodly powers of this world is required up to a point because the pivotal aspect of the Kingdom of God is regeneration, not revolution, the church is the advanced army of God’s Kingdom, called to convert, not to coerce the nations of the world to Christ (Matt. 28:18–20). If the church, the ekklesia of Christ, turns from God’s law, it turns from His Kingdom to the kingdom of man. This is a form of apostasy and can only be treated as such. The one whose law we obey as our social bond is our lord and savior. Is it the state or is it God? The church, as God’s governing council for an area, must be governed by God’s law; its members must obey and apply God’s law. To seek justice in man’s law is to deny that God is the only source of law and justice. For the Corinthians, the choice should have been obvious: it was God’s law or Greco-Roman law. At one time, cases in America were decided by juries out of the Bible, and relics of Biblical law are still around us to a degree. But the basic direction of statist law is now anti-Christian.
Paul thus states the issue bluntly: “Dare any of you” (v. 1). Notice that word “dare.” This is an affront to God, to Christ the King. “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?”(v. 1). Paul regards such a step as daring insolence in the face of God. This did not mean that the Roman court could not be used in certain ways. Sometimes we find ourselves entangled with such systems. Paul himself appealed to Caesar (Acts 25:8–11), but he was already forcibly before a Roman court, and he used it as best he could. His requirement is not suicide but the avoidance of pagan courts wherever possible.
Paul calls the pagan courts “unjust.” This does not mean that some decisions could not be good ones, but that the basic premise of such courts is the rule of man, not God. The existence of Christ’s ekklesia means the existence of another law sphere, the true one, and an institution to promote and further it. You can see what it means for the church to abandon God’s law, to abandon theonomy. It means—and one group has followed the logic to its conclusion—you reject the Lordship of Jesus Christ. You cannot have it because if Christ is Lord then the Word of God is a law book for His people.
Paul asks, “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?” (v. 2). He takes it for granted. This is a fundamental fact. “Do ye not know, are you so ignorant of the faith that you do not know this?” The word judge is krinousin; now judgment is a central and basic aspect of rule. So one could render it, “Do ye not know that the saints shall rule the world?” But he uses a broader term in the Greek translated as judge. No man or power rules who does not provide the law and the judgment. To surrender either is to acknowledge a greater power. It is the calling of a Christian in Christ to rule the world by the law of God. To give supremacy to another law than God’s is to deny God’s sovereignty and lordship. If the world is in time to be judged and ruled by Christians, how can they now act as though incompetent to judge the smallest matters?
Law is the will of the sovereign power for the lives of those within his jurisdiction or rule, his saved ones, in effect, the redeemed of his rule. These come under the protection of their lord or sovereign.
At one time cities were walled. Why? Because it meant that those inside the wall were the protected ones because they were the people of the law, the law-abiding. The outlaws lived outside of the law as did foreigners who were not under the city’s jurisdiction.
We reveal our faith by the law we live under as our way of life, our sanctification. Law is essentially related to salvation as its outworking, its application in our daily life. We witness thereby to who saved us, and He to whom we give our allegiance.
The world is made up, however, of God-haters. The Christian who knows God’s law is more worthy to judge in matters great and small. In due time, Christians, at the Last Judgment, shall gain their reward, and they shall be, in part, with Christ, judges over the fallen angels, for judgment is on transgressors.
Do we, in a case within the church’s jurisdiction, appoint as judges those in the church who are “least esteemed” to sit as judges? There is a bit of sarcasm on Paul’s part. “Do you have so little regard for God’s law that you, the rulers of the church, do not use it? You go to the pagans outside. Well, your lowliest members are better than they. Why go to pagans for judgment?” Our choice of elders is a choice of those wisest in Scripture and holiest in the practice of their faith. Why then go to pagans for judgment (v. 4)? Paul tries to make the church ashamed that it goes to pagan law and judges rather than to God’s law and Christian judges (v. 5). It is shameful that Christians go to court against one another before unbelievers (v. 6). Paul’s counsel is against going to pagan courts against fellow Christians when Christian men can adjudicate the case in terms of Scripture. It is better to be defrauded than to allow pagan courts to be viewed as courts of justice (v. 7). To go to pagan courts is to seek justice in a form of fraud because it gives valida-tion to ungodly courts. Paul sees it as ungodly to treat pagan courts as sources of justice. Having denied the triune God, the pagan court has abandoned true justice. The pagan court can at times give what seems to be justice, but, because its verdict is on alien premises, it undermines true justice.
We live in a time when the relics of Christian law are around us, but are increasingly being eroded which makes it all the more important for us to recognize the situation and to begin to create a Christian system. In fact, one man sought to do so, someone whom I knew well, Lawrence Eck, a brilliant young man, one of the most brilliant younger lawyers in the country who sought to set up counsels of arbitration to adjudicate all cases between Christians and Christians. They were remarkably successful until the pietistic influence prevailed and those courts of settlement were taken over by people whose attitude was, “Yes, you were wronged. You were robbed of 20,000 or 200,000 (I am talking about specific instances) by a fellow believer. But why can’t you forgive and forget? Isn’t it better to be at peace with your brother than to have your money back?” And so they destroyed the courts. And Lawrence Eck, a lawyer, because he called attention very graciously to a judicial error by a judge was thrown into jail for contempt of court and beaten to death. So you can see what is happening.
In v. 8, Paul calls any resort to pagan courts defrauding one another. The Greek word is apostereite. Paul says, “Better to be robbed than to rob. But you are actually robbing each other by unjust lawsuits against each other.”1
In v. 2, when Paul asks, “Do ye not know,” he is in effect saying, have ye forgotten what I taught you? Here is an elementary aspect of the faith, the saints are the God-destined world rulers, and you seem to pay no attention to this fact. The Corinthians saw as reality Roman rule and law, but Paul insists that the reality is God’s rule and laws. To neglect this is a surrender of the faith. As a result, he sees the recourse to a pagan power as a lawless act, a criminal act, on the part of Christians. It is their duty to obey God and to have recourse to God and His law, rather than to man’s courts.
Clearly, for Paul the Christian is not called to validate the world’s ways and institutions, nor to wage war against them by civil disobedience, or any like strategy. The Paul who wrote 1 Corinthians did not deny the jurisdiction of Caesar’s court when taken before it. Rather, he worked to bring into life another law system, its courts, and its Sovereign.
The church in our time has largely forsaken Paul’s requirements. Is it then a valid ekklesia, a local ruling counsel? The word ekklesia or church means more than preaching, although preaching is clearly required. It is a proclamation of the law-word of the Great King. The church must again be the church to be blessed of God.
Because we are called to be obedient to the powers that be, we do not, in civil society, practice civil disobedience but obedience. Within our Kingdom realm, we apply God’s law and seek to bring all men into its orbit. Our King’s law must govern us, but we are the people of the Prince of Peace, and what we do must work ultimately to the peace of all society.
1. Ralph Earle, Word Meanings in the New Testament: Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, vol. 4 (Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1979), 49.
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916-2001) was the founder of Chalcedon and a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical Law to society.
This article originally published by Chalcedon Foundation in the “Faith For All of Life” magazine. http://chalcedon.edu/faith-for-all-of-life/the-sovereigns-courts-2/the-sovereigns-courts-1-cor-6-1-8/
The Ecclesia
Christians are called to separate themselves from the world; “come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). They are: “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Pet. 2:9). What exactly though does this mean? What sort of separation is this?
The word translated church in the New Testament is “ecclesia.” This is actually a mistranslation as the correct Greek word for church is “kiriakon” which is literally “Lord’s place or property.” Ecclesia means “summoned,” literally “out-called.” Historically it referred to the governing bodies of the Greek city-states, which was essentially all the adult men of the city. They were the ecclesia, summoned to assemble together as a final ruling body, to make significant governmental decisions.
The Holy Spirit used this word to describe the local Christian assemblies. These assemblies were called to separate themselves from the local populations and to live under God’s law instead of Roman law and customs. The separation was not merely religious; it was a total change in lifestyle and allegiance. It was dangerous; a refusal to acknowledge Caesar as Lord could result in being fed to hungry lions. These early Christians took that risk and maintained that Christ and not Caesar was Lord. This was not merely a religious offense; it denied Caesar his claim of absolute ruler and was a violation of Roman law.
These ecclesias were much more than churches; they were outposts of the kingdom of God within the Roman Empire. They constituted a nation within a nation, in Rome but not a part of Rome. They obeyed Roman law only to the extent that it conformed to God’s law. Actual obedience then was only to God and Christ was the only Lord and lawgiver. They were the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy:
And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever. (Dan. 2:34).
This is the kingdom of God that Jesus said we should seek (Matt. 6:33). It crushed Rome, the last of the great pre-Christian empires; it will consume all the nations of the world and will stand forever.
Today though, because the body of Christ has not done the work that the Lord assigned it (Matt. 5:13-16; 28:18-20), God’s kingdom has gone astray and is in a much weakened state. It started well, having, in a few short centuries, conquered Rome but subsequently lost sight of its mission, allowed itself to be reduced to a merely religious body, and gave the world over to the very nations it was to conquer and consume.
All this will be corrected; the kingdom of God will prevail and Daniel’s prophecy will be fulfilled in its entirety. The only question is when; when will a generation of true Christians wake up to their responsibilities and get back to the work that the Lord assigned them? It could begin now. You could be a part of it. This needs more discussion. I can be contacted through the Contact page.
Seeking The Kingdom
Jesus said: “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt. 6:33). This is an amazing verse; it says so much in so few words. It tells us how we should live as Christians, as God’s chosen and regenerated people. It says that there are two things we should “seek first,” two things we should make the highest priority in our lives, the kingdom of God and His righteousness. How do we know that He really means the highest priority? It is because the “all these things” that He places at a much lower priority are food, clothing, etc. (see Matt. 6: 25-32). Jesus tells us here that the Kingdom of God and His righteousness should be more important to us than the basic necessities of life.
To “seek” this kingdom could mean to search for it but it can also mean to work to establish it where we are. Now Jesus wasn’t telling His listeners to leave their homes and migrate to some unspecified foreign land; He was telling them and He tells us that we should work to establish God’s kingdom right here at home. It’s easy to make a donation to a foreign missionary service and be done with it; it’s not so easy to change our priorities and adjust our way of life but it is what our Lord requires of us.
But what is this kingdom of God on which Jesus places so much importance? Well a kingdom is a domain in which the king reigns and the law of the king is obeyed. The kingdom of God then is the kingdom in which the law of God is the law of the land. What though is that law? Well Jesus had just told His listeners (the Jewish people of His day) that it was the law that was given to them through Moses. He also said then that every detail of this law will not pass away and that it applies to Christians today (see Matt. 5: 17-20). (The only difference for Christians today is that Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself on the cross was the final sacrifice and there is now no further need for animal sacrifices or its associated priesthood. In fact, continuing such sacrifices today would constitute a denial of the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice.)
How then do we seek this kingdom today? First of all we study to learn its law; second, we obey its law in all we do; third, we work to establish its law as the law of the land in which we live. This last point is necessary because we cannot be islands; we cannot avoid the erosion of our faith in a law environment that is fundamentally antagonistic to it. Families cannot maintain God’s law for their children when many of their neighbors ignore or disdain it. We must either change the environment or adapt to it and that always involves some form of submission to it.
We are beginning to feel the pain of God’s judgment for our neglect of Jesus’ words. We have not made seeking His kingdom a priority at all in our lives. We have not been the salt and the light He commissioned us to be (Matt. 5:13-16; 28:18-20). We have failed put our trust in God and fight against the ever-increasing evil that surrounds us. We have neglected our duty toward the world around us; we have tolerated lawlessness in our nation and are beginning, really just beginning, to reap the consequences of past disobedience. When will we wake up and see that much of the godlessness of the society we’re living in is due to our failure to obey our Lord?
Salt and Light
Being a Christian is not just a free ticket to heaven; there are real responsibilities that come with the privilege. Jesus left the future of the world in the hands of His chosen people. He said:
13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. 14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matt. 5:13-16)
Christians are to be both salt and light. As salt, they are told to preserve what is good and prevent moral decay. When left to itself, the world does not get better, nor does it stay the same; it putrefies, as does meat without salt or refrigeration. When Christians lose their saltiness, the world grows more and more wicked as time passes. Eventually it turns on them and seeks to eradicate the faith altogether. We are seeing this taking place before our eyes today.
As light, Christians are to display the truth so that the world can see what is real and discern between good and evil. Salt preserves while light gives direction. Salt corrects while light instructs. Salt is negative while light is positive (mostly). This twofold action of salt and light to retard evil and promote godliness works to bring this world from the chaos it was in Christ’s day and is today to what it must become before He returns (see John 3:17 with Acts 2:34-35).
Christians being salt and light is not just about making this world a little bit better place to live; nor can it be limited to evangelism; it’s about fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission and restoring this world to what it was before sin entered and made it the corrupted mess it is today. As Christians work to bring the environment closer to God’s standards, the Gospel message becomes more effective and the process accelerates. The long-term goal is a Christian world (Matt. 28:18-20). This cannot be realized in a single generation but Jesus asks each believer in each generation to contribute to its eventual realization.
What is a Church?
The word church appears over a hundred times in the Bible. The Greek word translated church is ecclesia, which meant a called-out assembly or body of people. In the cities of Ancient Greece, the ecclesia was all the men between the ages 18 and 60; they were the final ruling body of the city. The word ecclesia is a reference to bodies of self-governed Christians. It never refers to an institution or association of which Christians are members. Christians are not members of churches, they are the churches! Even this though misses the point. The word church is derived from kuriakon, meaning Lord’s or Lord’s property. Now there is a sense in which we belong to the Lord but that’s not what these hundred or so verses are telling us. These groups of believers were not churches; they were ecclesias, the called-out ones, called to come out from under the governments of this world, not just to worship, but to live as self-governed assemblies that recognize Christ as their only King and lawgiver. They were called to form the Kingdom of God on earth.
This kingdom is the great stone that Daniel wrote about: that “shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan 2:44-45). The Christians we find in the book of The Acts were not merely groups of believers that exchanged one religion for another. It was their whole way of life, including their allegiance to the civil order that changed. An entirely new dynamic, a powerful world-changing force was unleashed; they were the stone that would break up and consume the nations of the existing pagan world. Consider the complaint raised against Paul’s teaching at Thessalonica:
These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; 7 Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus. (Acts 17:6-7)
The complaint wasn’t religious; it was civil, Christ was being presented as “another king” with another law, a law that was “contrary to the decrees of Caesar.” Paul and Silas weren’t just founding new churches; they were building the Kingdom of God by forming, self-governing Christian enclaves within the Roman Empire. We see one aspect of this in Corinth, where Paul encourages the believers to establish their own law courts:
1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? 2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? (1 Cor. 6:1-8)
The early Christians responded to this message; they instituted their own orphanages, hospitals and welfare agencies as well as courts that judged by God’s law; these courts eventually displaced the Roman courts. They were a nation within a nation. Where Caesar’s law agreed with God’s law, they appeared to obey Caesar but that was not the case; they obeyed the Lord Christ and none other. This was what provoked the wrath of Rome and led to persecution, but ultimately to victory over that Pagan world.
How the ecclesias were reduced to merely religious assemblies and sadly came to be called churches is a long and drawn out history but it is clearly a major corruption of Scripture. The apostles gave birth to what Christ came to initiate, not just the religion of God but the “Kingdom of God.” Christianity began as a total, world-changing and world-encompassing order but was later reduced to a religion, one among many. We have disobeyed God and surrendered the world to the Devil. Is it any wonder we have come to the present deplorable condition we find ourselves in? We need to repent of our sinful deeds, ask God’s forgiveness for our disobedience, and convert our wayward churches into the ecclesias that constitute the Kingdom of God. How to go about doing this will be the subject of future articles, written hopefully by many of God’s faithful servants.
Believer Kings
Today’s Christians are not very serious about the kingdom of God. To a great extent this is because they see it as spiritual work, the work of a few full-time pastors and missionaries. The kingdom of God, though, is both spiritual and physical. It deals with every aspect of life in this world, the physical realities of the present life as well as the religious. It embodies the Christian faith in its fullest sense; encompassing the functions now relegated to church and state. The latter institutions are secondary, the family, instituted by God prior to the Fall is primary. Man was created to live and be governed in families and not by the man-made institutions of church and state. When the Israelites requested a king to rule over them, God gave them their wish; but He also said that they had rejected Him (1 Sam. 8:7). He was their true King as Christ is our true King today. The people of God should not repeat the sin of Ancient Israel and live under any king but Jesus, whatever form that king might take, be it democracy or dictatorship. Jesus as King is king over both the spiritual and the civil government. He said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). “All power” is all power. Heaven and earth includes both the civil and the spiritual realms.
How though, does Jesus reign in this world? He reigns through His body on earth. Christians are intended to reign as His kings and priests in this world (Rev. 1:6). Scripture tells us that: “the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God” (1 Cor.11:3). The Christian family head then is under Christ and Christ alone. He has no master on earth and Christ, his Lord holds him responsible for both the spiritual and physical well-being of the world around him. This is truly an awesome responsibility.
It is not so today but in God’s order of things, the state governs the civil realm only as public servants, the representatives of the people, the families. Likewise, local church congregations are to be ruled by the families through their elected elders (1 Tim. 3:1-15). The word translated church in Scripture is either a reference to the entire body of Christ or to a subset of the body (e.g. the church at Corinth or Ephesus); it never refers to a centralized institution. Its highest office is the local body of elected elders. The apostles were a unique body that was not perpetuated in the early years but even they did not rule over the local churches. The local churches were self-governed.
So it is the institution of the family that governs both church and state. Therefore, it is the family and not the institutions of church and state, that is the proper location of both spiritual and civil government. When the true believer grasps this concept and clearly sees that there is no one, no pastor, no magistrate, between him and his Lord and that his role is to represent the King of kings in both the civil and the spiritual orders, he will arouse himself from his former lethargy and respond with vigor. He will realize how important it is for him to prepare himself for the task he’s been given. He will spend time in serious study of God’s word, engage in discussions with his peers and begin to teach others of their responsibilities as well.
Being a Christian will begin to mean something it never did before, when He saw himself as merely a passive recipient of God’s grace. He is thankful that grace but now sees that God has also given him work and responsibility in this world. He doesn’t study just because he’s been told he should; he does it to prepare himself as God’s ordained man in this world. He realizes that he is only one voice among many but that doesn’t discourage him as it did before. He knows that he is God’s chosen instrument and that the effort he expends is not fruitless or wasted; it has a purpose and is a part of God’s overall plan to restore and perfect His creation.
Each family enlightened to these truths, man, wife and children will be endowed with purpose, God-given purpose that will override all else and become the dominant purpose in their lives, one that will grow with time as generation follows generation until one day, we will rejoice and declare that the “kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).
Christ’s Authority
Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). Please notice! Christ’s power is over both heaven and EARTH. Where did we get this notion that Christ’s authority is only in heaven? Why has He been stripped of His power over the earth? Christians have believed this and have abandoned their God-given responsibility to be the salt and light of the world (Matt. 5:13-16).
Why is America less and less Christian every year? This once Christian nation that valued life and held high moral standards has recently legalized homosexual marriage. It long ago legalized the killing of unborn children. It prohibits any mention of God or His commandments in its public schools. In a nation that is supposedly 70% Christian (once 99.8%), the Christian faith has already been marginalized, excluded from the schools, barred from the laws of the land and from public life. How long before it is driven underground with penalties for mere profession of faith? How did this happen? The answer, very simply is that Christians are not doing their job.
The early church saw Christ as Lord of all, king over both heaven and earth. At that time Christians saw Christ, holding all authority over heaven and earth, as their king and lawgiver. As free individuals they worked to extend His law over all of life, the civil as well as the spiritual. Their cry was Christ and not Caesar is Lord. They accomplished much; Rome eventually declared for Christianity and later incorporated much of God’s law into their laws.
Later, the church began to take on the form of an institution; it grew in power and effectively interposed itself between Christ and His people. Christians came to see themselves as directly responsible to the church and only indirectly to Christ. The clergy, a new higher class, now stood between them and the Lord and became their spiritual overseers. The previous world-changing energy they had as free men under Christ, directed to making Him Lord of all things, was first compromised and eventually lost.
The church, though it attempted to limit the power of the state, could not do what the early Christians did as dedicated individuals and families. The struggle between church and state for earthly authority went on for centuries with the state finally the victor. Today, the state claims total sovereignty and rules unchallenged as the supreme earthly power. Christ’s authority, intended to govern both church and state, has been reduced to the church only and restricted to spiritual matters. Everything else is under the secular state. This is where things stand today; Christ’s authority no longer presides over heaven and earth but has been reduced to heaven only. The moral mess that America has become will not be remedied until this historical travesty is corrected.
What we are seeing today is only the beginning, the tip of the iceberg, of what is in store for America’s future if we continue on this path. Christians must once again see themselves as the free servants of Christ, and see Christ as Lord of both heaven and earth, before they will be motivated to take action. When they begin to do so in significant numbers, we can begin to see some real progress toward the God-intended development of His kingdom on earth.
The Kingdom of God
What is it? How does it differ from the Christian faith we know and love? Well, it is basically the same but with a different outlook. The kingdom of God is the rule of God in the lives of the people of God. They have been regenerated (re-born) and now have a totally new and fresh view of the world around them and of what life is all about. Their re-birth is something God does; it puts them into contact with the spiritual reality that both surrounds and permeates the entire physical universe. It takes place when the Spirit of God takes up residence within the individual (John 14:17). They are made alive spiritually as well as physically and are released from the bondage to Satan that everyone is born into. Well so far this is just the Christian faith we know and love. The difference appears in the execution.
The early Christians saw the kingdom of God in its proper perspective, as a family governed activity. They were taught by the apostles and their successors but their meetings and activities were governed by local elders. In the face of much persecution, they maintained that Christ and not Caesar was Lord and acted accordingly. They refused to obey Caesar whenever doing so would mean disobeying Christ. Christ was Lord in deed and not just in word. This was total and not just religious obedience; it affected all of life. In this way, they prospered and grew to the extent that by the third century Christianity was recognized as the dominant religion in the Roman Empire. Christ had conquered Rome!
Later, as the institutional church grew in power and took over, this impetus waned. Church and State moved toward compromise and the kingdom of God was split in two. Government of the physical world went to the state while the church retained only the spiritual. This was the inevitable consequence of the transfer of control of Christian activity from the family to the church. The church, exceeding God’s authority, tried but was not able to take control of the state. Thus, the compromise prevailed and the original all-of-life purpose of the kingdom of God was seriously compromised. The church has its place in God’s kingdom; it is the teaching agency that protects and proclaims God’s word (1 Tim. 3:15). When it makes itself the totality of the Christian life, it of necessity reduces the scope of Christian activity and negatively impacts kingdom growth.
The kingdom of God is Christians obeying God. This obedience is in its simplest form first, loving God and second, loving one’s neighbor as one’s self (Matt. 22: 36-40). To love God is to recognize and respect Him as the Creator of the universe and to obey Him in every detail of the law He has laid down for man. Loving neighbor as self means obeying God’s law with respect to one’s neighbor. The neighbor is seen as someone to be helped and not a competitor or a person to be exploited. Within the kingdom, society is organic, consisting of brothers and sisters in Christ, all members of a larger family, the family of God. Those outside the kingdom are seen as fellow creatures of God that need help. They need to be shown by example and by word what the kingdom is all about and why they need to repent, ask God to forgive them, and beg Him to accept them into His kingdom.
The kingdom of God is independent of national boundaries. Its citizens respect national laws and obey them where they are in keeping with God’s law. Where they disagree, God’s law is obeyed regardless of what the consequences might be. Christians that recognize themselves as members of God’s kingdom cannot take an unconditional oath of allegiance to any nation. They are citizens of a greater domain, one that has its own laws and that they believe will eventually be world encompassing (Num. 14:21; Ps. 72:8-11; Isa. 11:1-10; Acts 2: 34, 35; etc.). Building the kingdom of God is their overriding lifelong purpose and their highest priority (see Matt. 6:33). This is pursued through learning and teaching the precepts of the kingdom to all that will hear and working to bring the laws and cultures of the nations into conformity with the law of God. When enough Christians realize that this is what God expects and requires of them, we will see God’s kingdom taking shape, displacing the existing world-order, and realizing God’s purposes for His creation.
Christians Wake Up!
Do you know that Christ came to save the world (John 3:16 and 17) and, because He always completes everything He sets out to do, the world will, in time, be saved? That said, we must also appreciate that Christ has delegated this work of saving the world to His followers, the members of His Body, all true Christians. They, the salt of the earth and the light of the world, have been charged with the task of teaching the nations to obey all His commandments (Matt. 28:18-20). This, for good reason, is known as the “Great Commission;” it calls for nothing less than the salvation of the entire world and you, dear brother in Christ, are the one commissioned! It is your assignment to do whatever you can toward this end. Jesus said that this is to be your highest priority, even above your concern for the basic necessities of life (see Matt. 6:33).
When the nations of the world obey all Christ’s commandments we will have accomplished the task set for us. He, as the second Person of the Holy Trinity, knows full well that one day an obedient generation will arise and the task will be accomplished. What He will not do though is take the task away from those to whom He has assigned it. He will not do for us what He has commanded us to do!
The early church made good progress toward this goal. In three hundred years they so influenced Rome that the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity to be its official religion. This did not accomplish all, but considering its tiny beginning, it went a long way toward fulfilling that goal. Christianity continued to grow as nation after nation declared for Christ. Europe came to be known as Christendom and America was solidly Christian well into the 19th century.
The Christian faith saw 18-19 centuries of progress toward our Lord’s commission. It is still growing around the world but now, in the once solidly Christian West, it is in decline. Today, in America, once the strongest of all the Christian nations, the goal of realizing a Christian world has been virtually abandoned. Pastors don’t preach it and Christians don’t speak of it. For the great majority of evangelical Christians, the goal now is to tell as many people as possible about Jesus and His salvation message. “Let’s get as many saved as we can before the end comes,” is the cry. “The world around us is lost and cannot be reclaimed,” they say. This, of course, is an abdication of the task Christ set for His followers. The nations of the world, instead of being taught to obey Christ, have been left to grow more and more corrupt. America’s churches are full but the nation itself (its laws and its culture) can hardly be called Christian. How did this great reversal come about? It happened slowly, so slowly that hardly anybody noticed:
The 19th century, while still Christian in character, was also a time of spiritual decline, one that saw the birth of several new theologies. The earlier Postmillennialism, which presented an optimistic view of the end times was replaced by theologies that were pessimistic regarding the likelihood of Christian victory prior to Christ’s return. These doctrines, which have to do with the future, may at first seem to be unrelated to the present but this could not be further from the truth. Future goals determine the priorities of the present and under-gird the objectives we strive for today. The pessimistic outlook of these new theologies has brought the effort now being expended on the Great Commission to a virtual halt.
This goal of an ever growing, ever more godly world may seem strange and far-fetched to our ears today. If so, it is because almost all today’s evangelical church leaders have bought into the pessimistic theologies of the 19th century. They, having been brainwashed in their seminaries and Bible schools, have been teaching this ungodly hogwash for decades; they have led America’s Christians down a primrose path to a place they never wanted to go, into open disobedience to their Lord and Savior. They try to justify this action by twisting Scripture to make it say that there is no hope for this age. I’m sure that many of these false teachers are sincere and believe that they are preaching God’s truth. They need to be made aware of their grave error and repent for all the damage they have done. We, as their foolish dupes, must also repent for having permitted such men (and some women as well) to remain in their positions of authority as long as they have.
We need to act now, while we can still act freely. The enemy grew much stronger as we grew weaker and may soon have, indeed already has, the ability to penalize pro-Christian action. The tide must be turned while it is still possible to do so without great pain and sacrifice. God will reward our efforts.
Love and Law
How are love and law related? Are they mutually exclusive? If we treat someone well only because the law says we must, does that mean we don’t love him? What does God say?
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Gal. 5:14).
… love is the fulfilling of the law (Rom. 13:10).
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments (1 John 5:2).
And this is love, that we walk after his commandments (2 John 1:6).
These verses tell us what, in God’s eyes, love is; it is simply the keeping of His commandments. At first, we might wish to rebel against this idea but indeed, where else can we go to tell us what anything means? There is no standard apart from or above God from which we can draw definitions or meaning. We are only creatures and must depend on our Creator to tell us who we are, what our feelings mean and the real significance of what goes on in our minds. Indeed, all knowledge and even all possibility of knowledge comes from God.
Love then, is an action word; it is not just a feeling, an emotional state, as is commonly believed. It can, and usually does, involve emotions; but love itself is not so much what one feels as it is what one does in obedience to God’s commandments. God does not tell us to develop a feeling in our hearts; He tells us to take action and gives us very precise directions as to what actions to take.
God’s definition of love lets us love the unlovable, those that may display no good qualities whatever, and even our enemies. There are times, though, when loving someone can be difficult and unpleasant. Expressing love as God defines it can mean criticizing or rebuking someone you don’t want to hurt. It’s something you may hesitate to do because you believe it may not be accepted with equanimity. You may feel you might lose a friend or lose contact with someone to whom you believe you could be a good influence. You might feel it would be better to say nothing and just let it go and this may be true at times; but to do so repeatedly and so avoid ever speaking is to disobey God and is unloving.
The individual you might wish to protect might be one of God’s elect but needs to be driven away at this time so that he can go through whatever experiences God has for him, and much later, believe and repent. But we don’t know this; he may not be one of God’s elect and your words may be intended to harden him just as God used Moses to harden Pharaoh (Rom. 9:17-18). We do not know God’s purposes for our words and actions; all we can do is keep on obeying Him. We are not gods and cannot act as though we are our own masters. There is no sane alternative to simple obedience.
We must obey God even when the consequences may appear dire or just wrong from our point of view. But God is God and we are His fallen creatures; it is for us to obey and not to second-guess God. In some instances, it may appear that obedience produced a negative result. That, though, is only our own poor opinion. We don’t know how God will use our words. The rebuke may be just what is needed at that point in time, even though the effect might not be visible until much later. It is truly foolish to ever disobey God’s clear directives.
God has given us in His law, words of life, words that, when obeyed, result in peace and prosperity. Virtually every problem we see in ourselves, our society, and in the world at large stem from failure to obey this law. So let us love one another as God commands (Mark 12: 30,31; John 13:34); but let us do so as God tells us to and let’s not let ourselves get carried away by the foolish wisdom of this world.