For the last
two years more travesties of eisegesis and doctrinal cowardice have been on
display, than I have ever seen in my life. It reminds me of the Robin Hood
movie, Prince of Thieves, where the wealthy Church bishop kowtows before
corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham. That Bishop cared more about his position than
what was right, and what was true and just. This has been true of the Church
too often in history, especially when it has had access to large amounts of temporal
wealth. Such is the natural cycle of civilisations, and organisations, times of
ease make people soft, and then when hard times come, we must relearn the skills
that previous generations used to build the structures which helped our society
flourish. This is a cycle that it appears humanity is not be able to escape. In
times like this, people often reduce what they are willing to speak out for,
because speaking out costs so much.
One of the
most ignorant things people say today is that the Church should not be
political, it should just preach the gospel. This statement shows a complete
ignorance of some of the many political applications and implications of the
gospel. So, what I want to do in this piece is highlight just some of those
implications. But first we need to define the gospel, the message of salvation.
Paul tells
us in 1 Corinthians 15:1-11,
“15 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I
preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are
being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed
in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also
received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the
Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he
appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still
alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all
the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9
For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I
persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and
his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any
of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11 Whether
then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.”
Paul breaks down the gospel for us into its most basic tenets
in this passage:
1) Christ died, to take the punishment
for our sins that we deserved,
2) Just as the Bible prophesied that he
would [ for e.g. Isaiah 52-53, Psalm 22, etc.),
3) That he was dead three days,
showing he truly was dead,
4) He rose from the grave, proving he
was God, defeating death and achieving the eternal salvation of all who trust
in him,
5) This gospel is powerful, changing
people through the grace of God, which is not without effect.
The gospel at its core is the message
of salvation that Jesus achieved for all those who would believe in him. We
could expand greatly on these gospel foundations, as Paul does in Romans 1-8,
but for now we have scripturally defined the core message of the gospel:
forgiveness for sins for those who trust in the Lord who died for their sins.
The
implications for personal salvation are immediately obvious. You must place your
trust in Jesus. He is the only one who has defeated sin. But this message also has
far reaching implications for every aspect of our lives, including politics, and
we shall examine them now.
Christ is
Lord
The Gospel
tells us that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, the Lord of lords. He is the King of
kings. This means that no other man, or woman, no other human ruler is the true
Lord. Whether Emperors, or Caesars, or Kings, Presidents, or Prime Ministers,
all human leaders must recognize that they will have to give an account to the
King of kings,
Isaiah 9:7 – “7 Of the increase of his government and of
peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to
establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this
time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.”
Psalm 2:10-12 – “10 Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be
warned, O rulers of the earth. 11 Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with
trembling. 12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for
his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”
God has
instituted human rulers and they have authority to rule and make decrees in
this life. But their decrees must be consistent with the will of the King of
kings, Isaiah 10:1 – “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the
writers who keep writing oppression…” The West is a rule of law civilisation,
that is the concept that there is a higher law that all human laws should
submit to and be consistent with, and all rulers should be judged by. The
source of our highest law is the King of kings, and this concept has embedded
itself in our rule of law society.
He is the
Creator
God has
authority over all, and rules over all, because he is the creator of all
things. Nothing exists except by his will. All things that were made, were made
by the Father, through the Son. This is why God has the power and authority to
defeat death and the devil, because he is the author of life. Jesus was able to
rise from the dead because he is the Lord of lords and the source of all that
exists, death cannot keep him down. His humanity is real and genuine, but it is
united with the divine in the mystery of Jesus’ incarnation as the God-man. The
eternal nature of the Son concealed in the flesh of a human being.
Because God
is the source of all life, this means he knows what is best for all of life,
and this includes how we should structure and maintain our societies. When
Jesus preached a powerful message that drove away many of his followers he
turned to the twelve disciples and asked them this:
“66 After this many of his disciples turned back and no
longer walked with him. 67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you want to go away
as well?” 68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the
words of eternal life, 69 and we have believed, and have come to know, that you
are the Holy One of God” (John 6:66-69).
The fact
that Jesus is the only one who has the accurate “words of eternal life” means
that we need to ensure that we listen to him in all that he said, and that
includes what he said about human dominion of this earth. Jesus does not give a
comprehensive guidebook on how to structure a government, unless of course you
want to follow the Old Testament model. However, he does teach us that leaders
should be servants, not overlords, which is why we call our politicians
‘ministers’, he does teach us that he will punish those who hurt children, and
he informs us that Caesar has a right to taxes, but not the things of God. He also
tells us many more practical things about how our societies should be structure
by believers.
It would be
foolish to ignore the advice of our creator, because he is the only one who
knows humanity correctly, and he is the only one who is completely for our
good. Politics should not ignore the advice of the one who created the
politicians and everyone else. “The rich and the poor meet together; the Lord
is the Maker of them all” (Proverbs 22:2).
He is
Just
With the
cross, God did not say our sins are ok, just don’t worry about it. He punished
the sins of mankind in his Son because they were deadly serious and grievous.
Jesus took on this role willingly, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down
of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take
it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:18). God was
not just passing over sins and just forgetting them. He passed over our sins
because a just and righteous punishment was meted out, and for those who
believe in him for salvation he moves them as far from his memory and the east
is from the west. He chooses not to remember them anymore, because they have
been dealt with.
This is key
for understanding our God, because the King of kings is a God of justice. This
means he expects all of his creation to execute justice. Not social justice,
not demographic justice, not gender justice, not environmental justice, to
qualify a term is to redefine it. Justice is determined in Scriptures by what
God says is right. Therefore, a society that is filled with gospel people, will
be a society that is concerned with enacting justice in line with God’s actions
and teachings. Murders, adulterers, liars and thieves should all be punished,
because God determines such sins are to be punished by just rulers (Romans
13:8-10).
He is
Merciful
Not only is
God just because he punishes sins - note all sins will be punished either on
the cross or on judgement day, it is for every person to determine where they
want their sins accounted – he is also merciful because he forgives sins. Offering
us an alternative to taking the punishment we deserve and placing that
punishment on the second member of the Godhead, is an act of eternal mercy,
beyond anything that we deserve or should be even allowed to have. But such is
the mercy of our heavenly father in making a way for us to receive mercy. But
he also expects this of those he has forgiven.
Zechariah 7:8 – “8 And the word of the Lord came to
Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show
kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless,
the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in
your heart.”
Matthew 6:12-15 – “…12 and forgive us our debts, as we also
have forgiven our debtors. 13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil. 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father
will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses,
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
The gospel
is at its heart a message of mercy, good news for the poor in spirit. We need
to know that there is a merciful God, who will in his mercy seek to overlook
the sins of the forgiven. This does not mean that people are not punished for
grievous acts, God disciplines those he loves, and so should magistrates punish
heinous crimes and crimes where people harm or wrong their neighbours, but this
should be extended from a place of mercy. Sometimes mercy includes the death
penalty though, the State does not carry the sword for no reason. But a society
influenced by the gospel should emphasize things like paying debts, but also
forgiving debts as equal and necessary pillars for true justice and equity in
society.
The gospel
calls those who believe in it to be people of justice and mercy and to carry
these twin pillars of love carefully and righteously. This has incredible
implications for how a nation should be structured, and it is because of our
legacy of gospel influence that the West is so much superior in many ways to
other cultures. Well, at least it was once.
Jesus is
the Only Perfect One
There is no
one else like him. No one else is like the Lord in perfection, and wisdom. No
one else has a perfect record, perfect knowledge, knowing the hearts of man in
their entirety, no one else knows perfect justice, perfect peace, perfect love.
No one else is like the Lord in his perfection. Because of this we need to
recognize that all of us, every human being, is fallen in ways that the Lord is
not, and therefore we need to have humility and make an honest account of our
abilities and inabilities.
Because only
the Lord of lords is perfect this means every human authority should be viewed
with the respect it is due, and no more. Human leaders make mistakes, get
things wrong, lie, and therefore people should recognize that their word needs
to weighed carefully and judged according to what is good, righteous and true. The
gospel says no one is perfect, and therefore in a gospel influenced society
there is need for regular revision and review of leadership decisions and
policies. Only Jesus never gets anything wrong, the rest of us are only fallen
human beings.
Matthew 23:1-7 – “Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his
disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and
observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but
do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on
people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their
finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their
phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor
at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the
marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.”
Human
leaders, and just people in general, a given to hypocrisy, overzealousness, and
many other frailties. They tend to place burdens on peoples back that can crush
them. A gospel worldview tells us that we should expect this, and have
processes in place to account for it, mitigate it and correct it.
The
Gospel Changes People
Lastly,
through the grace God gives us, and the message of the cross which is the power
of salvation to all who believe, people are changed. People make up families,
families make up societies, societies make up nations. The necessary flow on
effect of the gospel spreading through a society is that it will be transformed.
Not just by osmosis, that is not just because the gospel is being preached. But
because it is being believed and then applied to various aspects of our
society.
For example,
the gospel teaches that the bodies of those who believe, were bought for a
price, the blood of Jesus, therefore they are the temple of God and God owns
those bodies. This means that no leader, no matter how high, has authority over
the body. Just this teaching undermined branding other humans beings in ancient
Rome, and then eventually undermined the institution of slavery itself. This is
only one example. Many more implications of the way the gospel changes society
have been given above, and many more could be given.
Pauls tells
us himself the effect of the gospel on a nation,
“1 Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle,
set apart for the gospel of God, 2 which he promised beforehand through his
prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning his Son, who was descended from
David according to the flesh 4 and was declared to be the Son of God in power
according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus
Christ our Lord, 5 through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring
about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations, 6
including you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ…” (Romans 1:1-6).
Paul tells
us that the gospel he was given authority to preach and teach will “bring about
the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations.” Paul
had big ambitions for the gospel, he wanted to see the nations changed, and
many among those nations brought into line with the obedience to Jesus’
teachings. This has enormous implications for the nations. This had an enormous
effect on Rome, and then Europe, and then across the world. Where the gospel
becomes entrenched in a nation it changes people, who then change that nation.
Telling changed people they should not try to change things in a nation, is to
limit what effects of the gospel can and should have on a society.
More could
be said about this, in fact, more has been said by various teachers in
Christian history and contemporary teachers today. I do not think that every
Christian needs to be a political activist at all, indeed most don’t. But those
who do engage in seeking to apply the teachings of the gospel to change society
are not ignoring the gospel, they are applying its many ancillary teachings for
the good of their fellow man. Indeed, those who tell other Christians they
should not be concerned with the political implications of the gospel are
denigrating the great legacy of societal change that the gospel has achieved in
the West. A generation who refuses to apply the political implications of the gospel
to their society, will be a generation that quickly watches their nation return
to its pagan roots. It’s not a coincidence that we are seeing this happen in
our day, because many people have forgotten just how the gospel effected change
in the West.
We live in
the legacy of many others who applied the political implications of the gospel
to their society. Don’t scorn that. Live up their legacy. Praise God that our
Lord, the King of kings, is restoring his creation under his rule. Praise God
that we are on the Kings winning team. Let’s live like it.
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