I've several times fantasized about how I would present my views on theonomy to my brother's church. My brother attends a very devoted, charismatic congregation. His church is of particular interest to me because its members are passionate, and they are continually experiencing and evidencing the blessings of God in their lives and in their relationships to one another (from my perspective anyway). I think this is attributable to the grace God has given them to passionately desire closeness with God. The people there  really want to do right by God, and they're prepared to pursue closeness with God in innovative ways, (hence the charismatic leaning). Furthermore , my experiences with them indicate that they're very concerned about the political environment around them, and are genuinely seeking answers from God about how best to approach the culture. (Indeed, I believe the culture in America is very nearly ripe for a theonomic establishment to put its feet in the door, and some, taking the restorationist approach, which I dislike and disagree with, have already begun to do so, and I praise God for their efforts). I would like nothing more than to spend an extended period of time with my brother's church, discussing the theonomic approach to ethics and civil government, to determine with them whether it seems to be supported by scripture, and whether it pleases the spirit, and whether they would be willing to pursue it. Something tells me that several members in their congregation would be open to it, and I am absolutely confident that all Christians who study the law in full will, as I have, find it to be refreshing and wonderful. 

Today the thought of a presentation weighed so heavily on my mind that I could not help but sit to write it out. I had some thought experiments in mind, which I would love to see them respond to. Here's what I was thinking:

Is Christ king? Everyone will agree, yes he is. "No king but Christ?" Yes. I'm confident that everyone in my brother's church would agree with that. They're the kind of full-blooded Americans who like nothing more than to emphasize their loyalty to God over government; freedom over tyranny. Everyone will definitely agree, there is no king but Christ. But is Christ really king? Of course. Really though? Yeah, we all just agreed, he is. Can there be two kings? No. We all just agreed, no king but Christ.

What's a king? A king is someone with supreme authority; the ruler of a nation; the head of a government.

So what if someone else says, "I'm king"? Clearly, they're not. No king but Christ. 

So what if they change the title, and say "I'm emperor?" or "I'm lord" (after all, there are many lords; landlords etc. A lord is just an owner over a place or people). Still, they are not. Just like the Christians said to Caesar, "there is no lord but Christ", we also say, "there is no king but Christ", and "there is no emperor but Christ". Christ is the only and final head of government. The problem isn't the name being used; it's the arrogation of authority. Only Christ has the authority which Caesar is attempting to claim.

In Rome, when Caesar commanded the early Christian church to say "Caesar is lord" and they refused, saying "only Christ is lord," were they right to do so? Yes. Changing the title from "king" to "lord" doesn't change the problem; only Christ has that authority and that position. Nobody owns them and their land except Christ. There is no king but Christ.

Well, what if there was a council of ten Caesars? Should the Christians say, "the council is lord?" No, only Jesus is lord. What if the council consisted of a thousand people, or ten thousand, or a million. Could we then say, "the council is lord?" No, we couldn't. 

So what if they change the title again. Rather than saying "the council is lord", since the council consists of so many people, they simply say "the people are lord". Is that ok? Clearly not. But suppose they change the title again. Now they say, "the people are a democracy", and they elect a council which they call a republic. Has our situation changed?

No. The problem still exists. Moving the kingship to more people, rearranging the ownership of that authority, is still a problem, as long as the authority still resides in man instead of in Christ.

But men do have some authority, right? The Bible says there is no authority except that which is instituted by God (That's Romans 13). So what are the boundaries of this authority? Well, Romans 13 explains a little about what an authority instituted by God is. Let's read it:

1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Paul writes here: "Rulers are not a terror to good, but to bad. ... do what is good and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. ... he is the servant of God, and avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer." (emphasis mine). The terms Paul uses here are not "should be" or "may do". They're "is", and "does". Paul is explaining what an authority instituted by God is. An authority instituted by God is a terror to bad conduct, and an approver of good conduct.

So then, there are authorities instituted by God. How do we know who they are? Well, first of all, they approve of good conduct and terrorize evil conduct. But, as we established above, they also cannot claim to be the final authorities. There is no king but Christ, so Christ is the head of government. The democracy isn't the head of government. The republic isn't the head of government. Only the king is the head. So, whatever authority we have or institute must be subject to the final authority: Jesus.

So, how do we identify people who have authority given to them by God, and are subject to Jesus? Who is Paul telling us to submit to, here?

Suppose someone claims to have authority. This person is a terror to good conduct, and not to bad. He has not submitted himself to Jesus. He has only 1 follower who acknowledges his authority. Do you have to subject yourself to him? Suppose he has 2 followers? Suppose he has 10? Suppose he annexes the land in your neighborhood tomorrow. Should you resist? Suppose he has 100, 1000, or 1 million followers? At what point does his authority over you come from God, such that Paul's command in Romans 13 applies to him, and you should obey whatever he tells you to do (or not do), as long as it isn't directly a command for you to sin? 

Well, not at any point, no matter how many followers he has, or what claims to ownership and authority he makes. He is a terror to good conduct and not evil, so he does not match the description of a ruler in Romans 13, so he is not a ruler. He has no authority given to him by God. Whatever we do for him is only to keep the peace, out of love for our neighbors.

Suppose some people get together and they set up a democratic republic. They say, "this is a government under God." But then, their government terrorizes good and promotes evil. Have they really subjected themselves to their final authority? No, they haven't. They're "under God" in name only. Just like before, they have no authority.

OK, so suppose there is a government which terrorizes evil and promotes good, but the way they terrorize evil is, itself, evil. I'll give an extreme example to drive home my point. Suppose, for theft, the government instituted the "rape penalty". A person steals something, and so the government sexually assaults them in response. That's crazy, right? It's unjust. The government has terrorized the evil of theft by commanding its enforcers to do another kind of evil. This government does not terrorize all evil; it promotes evils, so it is not exercising authority given to it by Jesus. Inasmuch as it promotes evil, it acts without authority.

But wait, doesn't every penalty consist of a negative action which normal citizens should otherwise not do to one another? If I say the government can force a man to repay seven times what he stole, then isn't the government taking stuff from him without his consent? It's the "theft penalty". Is the government doing something evil here?

What's the difference between the latter action and the former? Is the former penalty wrong because sexuality is sacred? Suppose we institute the death penalty instead for theft. No, that's disproportionately harsh. Ok, so then what is a proportionate penalty? Should the thief simply have to return the money, plus that amount again? This will make the thief feel as though he has lost something, but if that's all we're aiming for then we don't need to make him pay so much. And if we aim to compensate the victim for the emotional harm done to them, then maybe we are paying too little. Every dollar off-the-mark we are is an injustice, an evil, that our government has promoted. 

We can't circumvent the matter by proposing another type of penalty. Suppose we lock the thief in a room and have the victim pay for his living expenses for the next few years by tax money. Is it just or unjust? Is this a proportionate penalty? Who is up to the task of evaluating that man's freedom and time? Every ounce of freedom lost to that man, which is lost disproportionately to his crime, is evil, and the government which does so acts without authority.

Someone will say that I have set my aim too high. There's no perfect government. How can we know what is right? 

We can't say that the Bible hasn't given us adequate information to handle this scenario, because the Bible says about itself that the scriptures are "sufficient to thoroughly equip the man of God for every good work", and the Bible makes very clear that justice is good, and doing justice is a good work. If running a government in a bad way is an evil work (and we all agree the rape penalty is evil), then the government is not morally-neutral. So executing just penalties at the right time, doing justice, is a good work. The Bible must contain words which instruct and equip us for this task. And if it does, and if we can know it (if it is sufficient to equip us then its contents must be learnable), then it is our obligation, our solemn duty before God, to strive for that justice which God has revealed to us. 

Someone will say, "but we're saved by faith, not works." That's true, but just because we're saved, can we ignore God's commands? Should we go on in sin, saying "we're saved by our faith"? The notion is so ridiculous that I won't devote my time to it.

OK. Now, let's examine what we have. Where does the Bible say what a just government should do with a thief? Where is it written?

It is written in the Old Testament Law. It's laid out for us in Exodus 22. Why should we compromise on this? Is there some group of people out there claiming to have authority, telling us we can't do justice? By what authority do they say that we cannot do justice? 

Are they a government which has authority if they forbid justice? And do they have authority if they don't submit themselves to God? No and no. Who is our government? Does the Bible have anything to say about how a government is established, and how it should be structured? Yeah! It says a lot about it! Where does it say that? Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1. 

If we say that these laws have no relevance to us today, then where does the Bible give us "relevant" instruction on these good works? Nowhere else! If we can't use what the Bible has said here, then it is insufficient to instruct the man of God who has a job as a police man or judge, when he should make a determination on how to penalize the thief or the murderer.

Does the Bible say anything about how to properly run a legislative system? Yes! Deuteronomy 4:2 and Deuteronomy 12:32 explain the proper legislature in exhaustive detail.

That's what I want people to see. Wherever our Government is not directly informed by scripture, wherever it has not submitted itself to God, it is no government; it has no authority.

Now, all that said, this is an incomplete presentation. A theonomic government is established peacefully, and the Bible also contains instructions on how to properly establish a Biblical government in the context of a secular state, and I've written some lengthy discourse on that in another place (not on my blog). I'll repost the whole thing here if that other place works out in the way I hope; if not, I'll rewrite a summary for my blog.

"Chains have round our country pressed,

And cowards have betrayed her"