The Israelite Theocracy
presented a multi-faceted picture of Adam (the Hebrews) in the Garden (the land
of milk and honey) as well as a picture of man's inability to find his own
righteousness (the law standing alone) and a picture of the gospel (the law's
condemnation and the picture of redemption). With Israel we have a picture of
both the 1st and 2nd Adam, the condemnation/despair and
the redemption/hope.
Or to put it another way, from
start to finish it was a picture of Jesus Christ the True Israel and
demonstrated the consequences of rejecting Him.
It is not applicable to today's
societies. This is not because it is irrelevant but because theologically a Rome,
Babylon, or America could never fulfill this imagery nor is it meant to. You
can't pick it apart and take portions of it. It all stands or falls
together....hence its rigidity and strictness! Otherwise the imagery would be
perverted...the picture of the gospel would be distorted.
This is what happens when
people try to take portions of it and apply it to a modern nation. In addition
they commit sacrilege by de-covenantalizing the law. The Mosaic Law was a
Covenant made with a specific people. Edom had no claim to it. Babylon had no
claim to it. In order for those people to participate in it...they had to
become Jews.
They didn't borrow portions of
the Law and build a new temple in Babylon. That would only produce a
blasphemous false gospel-picture. The temple marked the Presence of God, the
place where He dwelt, the place marked by His name. This could not be
replicated.[i]
I'm labouring this point to emphasize
the dangers of confusing man constructed governments with the Kingdom of
God...and the dangers of cherry-picking or singling out portions of God's Word
in order to justify political action. Remember politics is not the art of the
possible as one deceiver put it.[ii]
Politics is power....power backed up by violence. That's what government is.
If we're good (I'm using that
in a broad sense)...then most of the time we will be left alone so that we can
work with our hands, lead quiet lives, and witness to the Gospel.
Man will try and build his
Babel’s...we don't necessarily help or hinder. There are times when our
speaking, or our non-compliance will provoke the state and we will be
persecuted...there are other times we just go about our business...praying for
the king to keep order and peace and...leave us alone to do our work![iii]
So again....for the unbeliever
what purpose does marriage serve?
Genesis 9 calls upon all of
humanity is to be fruitful and multiply. That's not elaborated upon.[iv]
I think it's just a general command for man to reproduce...to take Dominion?
No, not anymore. It's not the same.
To be fruitful? Why? It's God's
longsuffering and mercy...he's providing the matrix, the setting for the Gospel
to work. The means for doing this....is to provide some kind of a
society....and that is accomplished on a real basic level by providing a
violent force (government) that contains fallen man's violence.
So to me unbelievers having
marriage and families is simply part of the setting....society, people......a
venue for the Kingdom of God to work. They are people we can reach with the
salt and light of the gospel. They are people who need to know forgiveness and
mercy.
We want to minimize human
suffering and the consequences of sin. So that when our neighbour (God willing)
becomes a Christian they don't have a trail of carnage behind them that they're
left dealing with post-conversion. We want morality and peace and yet we have
to understand that the unbeliever hates God and will not, in fact cannot...submit
to His laws.[v]
Because 'submission' itself is an act of worship and devotion....or is meant to
be. Only the Holy Spirit can work this within us. Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
We cannot employ political
force (violence) to make Christians. That's treating them like animals instead
of men....and does nothing to promote the gospel or the Kingdom. It’s like
taking animals and trying to domesticate them. We don’t get people, we get
trained animals.
After centuries of forced
Christendom is it any surprise they now act like animals in retaliation? Even a
dog with a gentle disposition will eventually bite his master if tormented
enough.
The venue of society....the
realm of Common Grace (Common meaning a restraining, non-redemptive grace that
all mankind partakes of) is not static. It's going to change all the time and
sometimes will be better and sometimes will be worse. Some people live in a
time of revolution, some people are born during a time when nothing seems to
happen.
Right now we're in a period of backlash
against the legacies of Christendom. With this comes a lot of anti-Christian
sentiment....which is of course a bad thing.
But there's also a casting down
of Christendom....which from my perspective is something positive and hopeful.
Their reasons for casting it
down are wrong[vi]...nevertheless
under Providence...it is being cast down. I think the book of Revelation gives
us cause to celebrate this fact.[vii]
So now homosexual
marriage....what to do with it?
It's clearly a sinful behaviour
that we have to condemn. Homosexuals cannot enter the Church (I'm not talking
about the building) unless they renounce their deeds. They will still struggle
with temptation, but the key issue is…do they acknowledge the behaviour as
sinful and do they renounce the practice in accord with the Word-Authority of
Scripture?
That’s within the Church, with people who have repented and profess
Christ.
But outside the Church, we look at them as...lost sinners in need of the
gospel. Do they need to cease and eschew this behaviour? Yes.
Will this be accomplished
through social forces? Only if you believe in a kind of social gospel. Theological
liberals believe in the power of government to display Christian virtue through
charity and education. Dominionists believe in the power of government to
enforce Christian virtue through legislation, regulating culture, and through
force.
There’s not much difference
between the two. In principle, they agree, they just have different ideas of
how it should come about and maybe what it should look like.
If the principle is correct,
then you must ask, do you call on the state to use the threat of law, the
threat of violence in order to save them?[viii]
Will this be accomplished by
legislatively restricting them? Only if you think Government has the power to
transform lives and generate Kingdom conduct/morality.
Is this not yet another gospel?
Do we want society to promote
homosexuality? No, of course not.
Do we want the state to
persecute homosexuals? No. I don't want the state involved in personal
conduct/beliefs. ‘Personal’ meaning....things that don't affect the larger
society.
I know the
argument....homosexuals are affecting all of society with their values, the
definition of marriage etc...
That kind of argument can be
employed endlessly and I think it's headed down a wrong road. The questions are
once again being generated by the impulse to forge a so-called Christian or
Model society.[ix]
There are difficulties that
come with our political structure. Equal rights and protections means those
have to be extended to everyone...or they're not equal. Without these
guarantees you will have a tiered society, a society of classes. Many
Christians are content with this, but they have a problem. They wish to be
patriotic and elevate the founding documents, but fail to understand their
views would in fact undermine them.
I'm actually quite happy to
live as a second-class citizen. In fact I would argue we Christians already
are, or should be, and should be feeling it if we've thought it through. To
maintain Christian convictions in our present society is not a road to success
or status.
But if you set a precedent of
power that allows society to be divided in that way...then watch out! The
tables might get turned on you and you can slip down a notch.
What's unique about Democracy
is that even though there's nothing Christian about it...it provides an
excellent political venue where Christians are protected....but so is everyone else.
What do we want from society? I
would argue we would want maximum freedom for everyone and for a government
that's not involved in the personal life.[x]
This is the exact opposite of
what most in the Christian Right propose. They sometimes indicate otherwise,
but if you listen closely they mean...the government will leave your personal
life alone if you're behaving the way they want you to behave. Otherwise
they will become very involved.[xi]
I don't even know why
unbelievers get married at all? There's no moral reason to do so. It’s social
convention and tradition, but why would people bind themselves like that?
Without God aren't we reduced
to being beasts? Why wouldn't we just go about like dogs and join with whoever
suited us for the moment?
The answer is Providence ruling
through Common Grace. At the moment, the Hand of restraint is really being
pulled back in our society and our morality is becoming like that of the Hellenistic
world, Phoenicia, Babylon. Eventually we will become Sodom. When those cities
and societies fell under Judgment and died...what did the believers do? They
left. They found another place to live and went back to the business at
hand....the gospel preached and lived.
[i] In Joshua 22, when Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh built a second altar this
was viewed as trying to set up a rival presence…a form of disobedient apostasy.
[ii] Otto
Von Bismarck
[iii] There
are moments of historical crisis, situations that have no easy solution. But
they are less common than some would suggest. One task of the political wing is
to try and stir up controversy, to create a false sense of crisis in order to
motivate people to support their cause. How often have we been told….this is
the most important election of our generation…of the past century…of all time.
Only to hear it once again
the next cycle. Someone is either misinterpreting history and/or current
events, or they’re being deliberately deceptive. Often it’s both.
[iv] There’s
no mandate for the unbeliever to endlessly produce children. We don’t have to
push for pagans to abandon birth control. I’m not sure why Christians are so
keen for them to have large families.
There are problems that
come with reduced families. It changes the economic system and I would argue
has hurt the Christian family.
But on the other hand,
contrary to what many on the Right suggest I do believe we have some serious
problems on the Earth with population.
It’s true, the earth has
plenty of room for people to live…that’s usually the way the Conservative
position is argued.
But they ignore the
issues surrounding resources, especially water and what our modern high-yield
agricultural methods are doing to the soil. It ignores pollution and many other
factors. I’m not a member of Greenpeace, but I think the Christian Right is
being deceptive, playing fast and loose with data and using a political agenda
and cultural narrative to ignore some serious problems that don’t have easy
solutions.
It’s another issue I
hope one day to find the time to address. I have many notes and resources set
aside when the time comes.
[v] Romans
8
[vi] It’s
like watching the old newsreels of Stalin blowing up Russian Orthodox Churches.
On the one hand Providence was decimating centuries of idolatry and error.
Stalin was the agent for this. On the other hand Stalin was a wicked monster
who thought he was destroying the Church. He was destroying the buildings of a
false Church, but he didn’t know that. In his heart, his deeds were evil.
[vii] Chapter
17, the Beast destroys the Whore and in Chapter 18 we are told the heavens
rejoice.
[viii] Some Theonomists will unabashedly affirm
this.
[ix] We
hear this all the time. If kids can get free school lunches, then x happens, leading to y, and the next thing you know…we’re
Communists. It’s an example of overextended induction, a rhetorical tool
resulting in a non-sequitir. It’s a form of argument that should be immediately
suspect.
It’s the same type of
argument general’s and imperial planners use. It’s the ‘Guns of August’, or the
Joint Chiefs during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They were wrong.
It’s the same type of
argument the British used in order to justify imperial expansion. If we don’t
conquer X, then Y could use them as a supply route. But if we conquer X, they
have enemy Z, and Z might call upon Q to sweep in and try and take control. And
we don’t like Q because their allied with France and now we’ll have to conquer
Q as well. But to get to Q, well also have to conquer Z.
It is a dishonest,
deceptive and dangerous form of calculus.
[x] I’m not advocating Libertarianism. That’s rooted in individualism and
plays out in several areas that I believe to be harmful to society. While I
would not formally subscribe to the label, I probably lean more toward what has
been called Christian Anarchism.
Unfortunately that word
has bad connotations and many people see Trotsky-ish bomb throwers with goatees
and John Lennon glasses. That’s not at all what I’m talking about.
If you’re interested
look up the topic and read about such figures as Petr Chelcicky (the closest
thing I have to a hero) and Tolstoy. But please don’t in any way assume that I
endorse even 1/8 of the names that will come up.
[xi] As Rick Santorum indicated during the 2012 Republican Primaries when he
suggested government should be involved in people’s bedrooms. God protect us
from people like Santorum. His understanding of religion, government and
militarism strangely parallels what happened in Spain for a large portion of
the 20th century…and yet, countless Evangelicals supported him.
PART 7