I want to write about theonomy today, with the border wall in-mind because it's a hot topic, and because I keep hearing the notion that Christians should side with Republicans (i.e. Trump) on border security, or that border security is somehow a Biblical mandate.

Here's the TLDR: The Bible outlines a complete government system in its first half (and was, as such, used as the law book for an actual nation for a few thousand years). It does not have any direct civil instructions either to establish a secure national border, or to let everyone through. However, it does have very clear moral commands about being kind to sojourners, and helping needy people in general.

Having read through the Bible a couple of times, my understanding is that God's expectation on Israel was that they would accept sojourners into their land liberally, be hospitable, apply the same laws for the native born and for the foreigner, and trust God (rather than walls, explicitly if my memory serves) for their own defense. I'm going to do some Googling, and see if the internet can change my mind.

[Googling]

OK, I did some Googling to try to find and understand Biblical arguments in favor of strong border control. I put links to all the sites I've just read near the bottom. I'm going to do my best to resist the urge to rant about how dismissive they are about the relevance of the entire OT to us today (even though that was the main point of at least one of the posts I put below). Instead, I'll just share the verses I found, and try to give face-value interpretations of their actual relevance to border security, with the assumption that you know my arguments for the continuity of OT rules, and the precise limitations on their relevance to us today.

Acts 17:26, paralleled in Deut 32:8, says that God divided up mankind into nations, and appointed times and boundaries for their land. This verse is used by almost every site in favor of strong border security. It doesn't actually say anything about border control, it only mentions borders themselves. Some websites suggest that, since God designated the borders, we should respect them by "defending" them [by restricting travel across them?]; but the same verse says that God also designated times for the inhabitants to change, so who's to say that God isn't changing the inhabitants of the land, and that our "defense" of the border isn't disrespectful to God's plan for change? Anyway, the verses are not really usable in an argument in favor of closed borders over open borders, or vice versa; because the verses only advocate the existence of borders without mentioning anything about restriction of travel across them.

Some sites also mentioned verses where the Bible details the specific locations of borders in the OT, (such as Joshua 15:3-4); again I don't see anything in these verses which advocates any kind of border control. It's only making geographic delineations between places and people groups.

Numbers 20:14-21 talks about how Israel didn't push through Edom when Edom said "you can't pass through here". One of the sites I read, (Renew America -- I name them here only because I'm going to take significant space on this point), claims that, since Israel turned away when it was rejected, Israel was demonstrating Edom's "moral right" to decide who is given permission to enter. I agree that every land owner has the right to choose who will enter their land, but the Biblical government isn't, in itself, a land owner.

Let's be clear: Edom was not a Biblical government, operating under the Law of God (given through Moses). Land in the Bible is divided into tribes, and owned by individual families in those tribes. So, there are only two ways for traffic across the national border to be limited in a Biblical government.

The first way is that the government could muster troops to militarily block the border from an invading army -- but the Biblical government has no command from God to establish a standing army. In fact, one time when David tried to take a census of the fighting men between wars, (afaict during a time of peace), the Bible says it was an evil thing (1 Chron 21). A Biblical government musters troops by gathering men from among the people on-the-spot, without promise of pay. It's an activity which requires the immediate, willing participation of every soldier involved. In Deut 20, it says that after gathering up the troops, they should all be given the option to go back home freely in case they just planted a vineyard, or they're afraid, or they just had kids, or they just don't want to participate, and anyone who wants to leave should be allowed. And if the battle must be fought, then it is fought by willing persons and with the help of God. All that said, we know that sojourners and invading armies are categorically different things.

The second way that border traffic can be regulated in the context of a Biblical government is by the authority which individual land owners near the border have over their own personal property. Individual land owners in the context of a Biblical government have the civil right to refuse to allow people on their land. Now, that said, remember that Renew America called it a land owner's "moral right" to refuse access to their land. The wording here is important. it's not actually a land owner's "moral right" to refuse access to their land; it's their "civil right". The difference is important. God gave us civil laws to judge in matters where we have authority, and he gave us moral laws without prescribing any civil penalty for them. We are to obey the moral law or else be judged by God. So, if a consensus can be reached among border land-owners to close down the border, they may do it. The question is not simply whether the decision to reject immigrants is our God-given civil prerogative, because if we were actually trying to adhere to God's civil laws then there would be no legislative process in America (the Bible would be the law). The question is about whether it is the moral duty of our government to allow or reject immigrants.

Let me give an example to demonstrate the principle at work here: If I own food, but my neighbor does not, my neighbor may not steal food from me. It is my food. (Proverbs 6:30-31). If my neighbor asks for my food, there is no civil (human-government) penalty prescribed anywhere in the Bible for my refusal to give it to him. However, there are explicit commands in the Bible to share the food willingly (Deut 15:11), and it is thus a moral obligation for me to do so. If I don't do so, I face no human penalty, but I face the wrath of God (Matt 25:31-46). And, on the other hand, if I willingly give, I receive the blessings of God (Prov 19:17, 22:9, Isa 58:10) Furthermore, (and I'm getting ahead of myself a little here) the Bible even goes so far as to offer rules about people who enter other people's vineyards unannounced to glean food, with the implicit (but plainly evident) note that it is permissible for them to do so (Deut 23:24-25).

The point I'm making with that is, just because I have the legal right to do something (and every human must allow for my decision as long as it is permitted by the law), that does not mean that I have the moral right to do something. And, in fact, the only potentially applicable moral indictment in the Bible is that we should be hospitable to all strangers and foreigners (Deut 10:19, Heb 13:2 and others).

OK, let's move on to the next passage used in favor of strict border control. Romans 13:1-4 is cited to say, rightly, that governments are God's servants with the responsibility to protect their citizens from wrongdoers. However, again, the parameters around how that protection is to be carried out are very clearly described in the OT, and they are not clearly described in any different way in the NT, so we do not say, "if it isn't clearly repeated in the NT then it's void", or we lose a lot of really important moral commands which are issued only in the OT and not repeated in the NT, and not to mention, the Bible explicitly tells us not to interpret it that way (Mat 5:17-20) [resisting the urge to talk more on this].

Next one, Romans 13 is cited by one website with the words, "the chapter where the Apostle Paul tells us how individuals should obey the laws set forth by God's duly selected government leaders -- meaning, of course, even illegals". Well fine, but Romans 13 also defines "duly selected government leaders" in that passage as leaders who "promote good and terrorize evil", so we need to define good and evil before we can use that passage to support closed borders. The passage does not advocate blind obedience to all laws. (That Washington post author has obviously never read Samuel Rutherford).

The last one I saw that might be worth mentioning was "give to Caesar what is Caesar's". First of all, just because something belongs to Caesar, doesn't mean that Caesar is a good government, and this debate exists because we have the power to change our laws for the better. Second, that passage was actually talking about paying taxes to Rome, which is something that Israel would not have had to do if they would have been obedient to God in the first place, because then they would have had God's protection from Rome. So, if you're going to depend on Caesar's protection, and if you're going to use Caesar's coins, then you're under Caesar's thumb. The coins never really belonged to Israel anyway -- they only denoted value inasmuch as they were Caesar's coins.

And, unless I missed something, those are the only real passages I saw advocating strict borders. I think that the source below, "biola", gives a fair evangelical discussion about the importance of immigration in scripture. I won't dive into it, because I don't have much else to add to what they said. The Bible seems to have no explicit command either to control the borders or not to control them, but it has several commands about being hospitable to foreigners. (see the link from Open Bible).

And, in general, I think we should be relying on God to protect us, rather than the apparent strength of our physical armies. (1 Sam 17, 2 Chron 16:7). If you read through Kings and Chronicles, (I'm using the whole books as reference now) and look at all the times when the Bible says that the land had peace and prosperity, it generally gives the reason why they were successful. It doesn't say that they had peace because of their strong military defense, or prosperity because of their careful border control. It says they had peace and prosperity because their King loved God and executed God's Laws in the land, so God protected them. This might seem naive or unrealistic if you don't think that God is real, or if you don't think that He is actively involved in our lives today... but I really believe that it's not the military strength of a people which enables it to defend its borders. If a nation submits itself to God, then God promises that He will defend it (Jeremiah 18:7-10). And He demonstrated that over and over in history. I really believe that a nation can be completely surrounded by hostile enemies with large armies, having for itself no physical defense at all, and yet remain in perfect, tranquil security, because that nation is submissive to God.

Sources:
For Closed Borders:
Renew America: The Bible and Borders
Religion News: What would Jesus do? Help the Dreamers and secure the border
Bible Mesh: The Bible and National Borders
The Aquila Report: Open Borders and the Bible
The Washington Times:The Biblical Case for Closed Borders

For Open Borders:
biola: Borders & The Bible
Open Bible: Immigration

I want to conclude with a practical note. If we were to open the border in America, today, I think it would be a disaster. The Bible is a complete system -- you have to commit to all of it or it won't work. If America conformed all the rest of its laws to the Bible, (establishing stronger local governments, quicker justice, better judicial processes, more philosophically well-grounded conditions for citizenship, fairer and more ideologically consistent benefits for citizenship, very different tax laws, very different processes for government aid, clearer and better parameters for extradition, more actualized individual ownership of property -- all of which might be topics for later blogs), then I propose, even from a practical perspective, ignoring God's supernatural protection, that we wouldn't need national border regulation at all. The other laws account for sojourners in good ways. We shoot ourselves in the foot by having laws which just don't work when applied to everyone in our borders at once.

"There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king's laws; it is not in the king's best interest to tolerate them."