The world assumes Christians are supposed to espouse non-violence. For the most part, we do. Christ calls us to absorb acts of violent persecution without responding in kind. However, simplistic rules can fail to offer a truly Christlike response in some rare cases.
Paul warns us in Romans 13 to obey civil authorities. Naturally, the one caveat is to obey God first, for there will surely come a time when secular government will demand we place it before God in one way or another. Thus, we are told in verse 10 agape is considered by God sufficient obedience to secular government. Sacrificial love accepts unjust penalties for telling a sinner with a sword we refuse to sin.
By no means is there one simple standard for living in agape applied to every Believer in every situation. No other Christian has the authority to demand you obey as he obeys, and most certainly no sinner can define obedience to God. In a given situation, each of us must examine our own conscience and convictions to find the proper application of agape. Yes, loving someone can certainly include telling them, "No."
We then recognize God holds His children to a different standard than He does the unredeemed. Is there room under the Covenant of Noah for civil disobedience? It would appear there is, because we celebrate today actions by men who told their government, "No." Are there times and places they can do so today? Mainstream Christians refuse to discuss this, for the most part. It's a question they won't allow anyone to ask in their presence: What do you do when those secular civil authorities provide every incentive for reasonable men to be combative? Consider these two outcomes from obeying:
1. Unnecessary destruction of private property, and violation of your constitutional rights. You saw it in New Orleans: confistcation of private protective firearms. Did you know FEMA did it again after the tornado in Greensburg, KS? That's because the Senate has been dragging their feet on "The Disaster Recovery Personal Protection Act." In both cases, there is evidence FEMA demanded this confiscation from behind the scenes. So, if the authorities require you to evacuate because of real or imagined disasters, they will not let you take your personal protection weapons. Instead, once you are gone, they'll confiscate them and try to keep them. By the way, as far as I can tell, New Orleans is still defying the judge's orders and refusing to return confiscated property.
It happened twice. Next disaster, reasonable men will wonder if it's best to engage in armed resistance once the evacuation order is given.
2. Going to prison is worse than merely losing liberty. Consider the vast number of complaints judges are less and less reasonable about challenges to government over constitutional rights. If you know there is a warrant for your arrest, and suspect you won't get a fair trial, there is every reason to believe every man will be threatened with rape in the prison system, especially if he happens to be Caucasian. While it is recognized this is hardly ubiquitous, it figures largely in taunts policemen use to coerce those they arrest, as I've heard with my own ears in real life.
Those subject to arrest will have to weigh their chances of ending up in the system, even for a short time, and having to face this extra-judicial punishment. Reasonable men will wonder if it's best to flee or resist from the start, because unless they escape, there's little difference in the outcome. Do you wonder why escapees insist, "They'll never take me alive"? They are condemned to another period of "rape or be raped."
Surely we could find other examples. It is becoming easier and easier to find oneself identified as a criminal for the most insignificant things. Making it worse, it seems nothing ever happens to the government agents who violate the law. Daily the price of obeying authorities rises exponentially, and people are beginning to notice. Church, we are going to see a sudden rise in civil unrest; don't assume it's all unjustified.
In another place, I described how there is a thread throughout Scripture noting a basic principle regarding human lusts. All sins reflect one or more of the triad: lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and human pride. If we were to boil it down further, we might find a unifying element: idolatry. As my good brother Eduardo notes for example, the real sin of porn is idolatry. With all the other damage such sin might do, the root element is displacing God from His rightful place on the throne of your soul. Another brother once noted in a sermon all discussion of sin and righteousness could be summed up in the root meaning of "confess" -- to stand with -- what God says. Sin is saying anything other than what God says. God says, "thus;" to say anything else is sin. What God says is truth, a revelation under which we are held accountable. The path to all sin -- arguing with God -- is to accept some other being as god.
Fallen humans do possess a measure of moral freedom even in their fallen state. It is what distinguishes humanity from the rest of Creation. That freedom is limited, but is directly related to God's declaration we are morally liable under His various covenants with His Creation. Under the Covenant of Noah, humans can choose to be civilized or brutal. However, while being righteous means being moral, being moral is not inherently righteous. True spiritual freedom comes only in Christ. When the Holy Spirit invades your soul, awakens your dead spirit, and brings you into communion with God Almighty, you are bound to Him by the covenant in Christ's Blood. At this point, we finally have an option to argue with God in a substantive way. As long as our spirits are dead, we cannot avoid sin. Indeed, we are sin; it is the very defining characterstic of our existence in God's eyes. We might do a lot of things called "good" in a moral sense, things which promote civility, but we cannot ever bring a single particle of our existence over the line into holiness without God's power. Those without redemption, not born again, do not have access to God. No one can enter His presence without the Blood of His Son. Thus, while He may still use the unredeemed for His purposes, that use is contrary to a consent they cannot give; it is contrary to their allegiance to some other god.
Once under the Blood, we are granted a measure of freedom impossible any other way. That is, we have the power to adopt a holy desire, while the power to actually perform remains with the Father. At every step of our spiritual growth, there is an element of choice for us to accept that growing desire for holiness, or to defer. Defer too often, and He may choose to bring us out of this world. Still, the emphasis while we live here is a growing intimacy with Him. He judges harshly those who interfere with the process. While we remain weak and immature in our communion with Him, he lays upon His called servants the responsibility to follow His hand in making these weaker ones stronger. There are grave penalties for those who fail in leading, all the more grave if there is some intent to do wrong. Yet, the freedom to choose that wrong remains a part of the complicated matrix of human servants interacting in His Spirit.
Should those whom He hands authority under the Covenant of Noah interfere with the growth of His Children, no one is surprised. Secular government is focused on altogether lesser concerns, and is hardly able to comprehend such matters. That does not remove from those fallen rulers God's condemnation for their sins. It is the nature of fallen man to make some aspect of his lusts a god, though often highly masked under some grand vision of fallen purpose. When granted political power, he typically seeks to subject all under his power to his particular god. Living as a Christian under such a regime places us under the tension of discerning how far we can go before it's too far in our communion with the Father.
The greatest challenge I face personally is the huge number of fellow believers who reject my understanding of where the line should be placed. The depth and breadth of my dispute with many in the Body of Christ is the major cause for my blog appearing as a quiet conversation mostly with myself. I tend to believe most of my brethren render to Caesar far too much which is rightly God's, because they are confused about the distinction between Caesar and God. I doubt we would argue about fending off an attack from the State against our families. Threaten my wife and I'll not hesitate to take your life, if necessary. They would agree to that. The difficulty seems to be over what constitutes a threat.
The thug from "that bad neighborhood" they rightly fear. Should he menace them, they'll try to take defensive action, if only to call the police. They hardly argue with the idea I arm myself, stay fit and practice martial arts so as not to rely on police except after the fact. They get apoplectic when I suggest the police are, in some cases, a bigger threat than the thug. In their eagerness to censure the thug, they have advocated increasingly harsh measures against crime. Their very words show they hold the thug as less than human. It's one thing to note sinners will treat others with dehumanizing contempt; that's what emboldens the thug in the first place. But they forget secular government is sinners ruling sinners, and fallen agents of the government will hardly be any closer to God than thugs. The only real difference is their particular collection of sins are politically approved.
We end up promoting violations of the Noahic Code, which violates our commitment to Christ. Need it be restated here, Christians were commanded to stay out of civil government? We are sheep, not goats. The nature of government without fail includes dehumanizing anyone who partakes of behavior not politically approved. As we press secular government to gather more power to fight our fears of the nasty thugs in the world, we cannot avoid granting that government more power over us. Satan will most certainly rub his hands with glee as we create a system perfectly suited to his machinations, and will fool us into advancing to high power his chosen servants. Thus, the police who take away that evil thug will treat him in ways we would not, by seeking to break him, to take away his humanity. While such brutality was always present in law enforcement to some degree, it is now the doctrine. Further, it is the doctrine for all police dealings with other humans. This violates the very nature of the Covenant of Noah, for it is a direct threat to civil stability.
When we grant government the freedom to torture, to create prisons without internal order, to shield it's agents from all accountability, we are putting our hands to sin. I am utterly convinced we cannot turn back this beast now without bloodshed. Indeed, a great many of us believers will bleed and die at the hands of our government. Those who are truly unfortunate will suffer some of the most unconscionable abuse well before death. Yes, the US federal government will soon be coming for anyone who displays a conscience, a resistance to making it god. You will be classed with the common thugs, treated the same as them, if not worse. While God alone knows for sure, I believe that day is within a couple of years from now.
What will you do?
Child of God, keeping guns and protecting your property has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. It is a grant directly from God, regardless which human government does or does not recognize it.
The US Constitution doesn't matter. That is, it's a dead letter by now, as the US government only pretends to abide by it. All the conspiracy theories about hidden executive orders, secret congressional legislation, and any number of other legal maneuvers are all pointless, even if true. Most likely our country and government will be absorbed and subsumed under some other government, making the Constitution officially obsolete.
For now, there is an ongoing pretense the Constitution matters. Even from the start, it was fake. It was pure propaganda, sounding quite moral, but carefully crafted to remove God from the picture and place the will of fallen men at the apex of legitimacy.
Thus, the U.S. Constitution represents an attempt by autonomous man to enjoy the blessings of God, apart from God himself. There is no higher court of appeal beyond the Constitution itself, or its official interpreters in the Supreme Court. This in spite of the fact that many of the founders were to one degree or another "Christian" in outlook, if not in fact.
By strict legal reasoning, the crafting of the Constitution was completely outside the scope of the commission those men had when they gathered. They usurped an authority to act not at all delegated to them. The whole thing was carefully maneuvered past the popular objections, objections often not mentioned in histories of the period. The document was deeply flawed, based on purely secular concerns. Yet, this is as it should be, in a certain sense. Those earlier organizing documents were short-lived largely because Christian faith cannot possibly be enforced righteously at the point of a sword. The sword of man and Sword of the Spirit operate in totally separate realms, assigned their proper roles by the Creator. The sword of man is for sinners to enforce civil law on other sinners. For His Elect, all human legislation is merely advisory. It is by no means ultimately binding on those who live under God's Law of Agape. Even Christians who have sworn some oath, such as military enlistment, are bound first to Christ, and only secondly to their oath.
For me to suggest we will soon face conflict with the State can stand only on the foundation of The Covenants. To reference the Constitution as grounds for resistance plays directly into the State's hands. We agree to keep the issue on purely secular grounds, and can make no appeal to God. It all becomes a matter of mere human will whether to obey or fight -- "the consent of the governed." The current ruling regime in America fully intends to keep up the pretense until it is too late. At that point, you will be told your consent is no longer necessary, so shut up and obey, slave. By appealing to a far higher Law of the Kingdom, we stand on holy ground. Any resistance we offer will be based on our best understanding of His command, but the outcome must be left in His hands.
His hands are where everything belongs, of course.
In the Fall, mankind lost the open path of communion with the Creator. We have sins which must be covered, symbolized by God's command we cover our naked flesh. That's because in losing communion with Him, we have no path to communion with others. In fallen humanity, there is an inherent distance, a barrier which must be overcome by degrees via trust building. In Christ, by the presence of the Holy Spirit, we regain some of the lost communion, but retain the command to cover ourselves because the flesh remains fallen. As the Elect, redeemed from the penalty of the Fall, we are half-way between two worlds. We are bound to this damned race of humanity because we have not yet shed the flesh, but our spirits are made alive in Christ. We long to be home in Heaven, and even more for the final redemption of all things at His Return. Until then, we have a foot in both worlds, and must act accordingly. That means we do not live as the unregenerate, but must make our holy way among them.
Christians are bound to human laws via the Covenants. That is, the laws of human government are a direct result of a covenant God made with the whole human race.
[T]he Covenant of Noah [is] something widely recognized among Jewish scholars. It applies to all humanity, and particularly aimed at sinners. Taken from the Genesis 8-9, it cites God's promise to maintain a natural order, with predictable seasons. This is tied directly to the requirement to hold men accountable for murder. That symbolizes a much larger requirement to maintain a civil order. Civilization is defined as the set of habits required for large numbers of people to live in close proximity without killing each other. Allowing humans to become predators is unacceptable. No civil order, no natural order.
As already noted, Romans 13 describes the relationship between human law and God's Law:
After describing that system, starting in verse 8 Paul reminds his Roman brothers and sisters they don't belong to it. They are stuck in it, and must respond to it, but it doesn't own their souls. It can take their stuff, and even their lives, but those aren't that important to Christians compared to the treasures of the Kingdom. Indeed, by our focus on following and obeying Jesus, we are relieved of our responsibilities under the Covenant of Noah, as far as God is concerned. Indeed, even under the Law of Moses, it was a matter of dealing with the things of this world. However, we are under the Lord of all Creation (Matthew 28:18). His power is love, and "Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law." That "law" is a reference to both the Law of Moses and the Covenant of Noah.
With an eye on the Noahic Covenant, we note a subset of God's Law is civility, as a precursor to civilization. Civility can be defined in this setting: the habits of individuals which reduce the natural frictions of human social interaction. The natural frictions come from the Fall, which alienates all from God and from each other. Each of us brings our own needs and demands into every encounter. If we thrust them out nakedly, it constitutes an assault. It signals the other is beneath equal treatment, demands they accept a demeaning role. In civility, we hold things in reserve. We don't bring up all our needs, demands and thoughts. On the one hand, it is because the other person has yet to earn the privilege. On the other hand, we don't assume the privilege over them. There is yet no agreement for shared exposure, no compact of interdependence, no assignment of roles. Without roles, we hardly know what to expect from another, and high tension and distrust leads to a greater likelihood of combat. God commanded us in the Noahic Covenant to value human life.
Civility is the compact of peaceful coexistence, a preliminary agreement to treat each other as human and equal, by assigning a default role which evokes a minimum of courtesy. It assumes something minimal about a person being decent and tolerable, and waits for them to prove otherwise. That "otherwise" might well be a bit more, even honorable. All too often it will be far less. Even then, civility requires we still withhold harsh dealings until it remains the only option left us. We seek a quick and peaceful exit from the encounter. Thus, we maintain God's command under the Covenant of Noah, because we maintain a social order which minimizes human suffering, not to mention bloodshed.
For so long as some critical mass of a society remains civil, we have civilization. The particular rituals of social lubrication vary with time and place, but a pattern is clear. Historically, at some point the civility breaks down in every civilization. It can resemble a breakdown when conflicting rituals are advocated. Radical social change is a threat to fallen man. This constitutes a war of cultures, but is not any less an act of aggression. Either way, civilization dissolves into various expressions of warfare, an invasion. From this angle, patriotism is an instinct to protect and preserve the established and functional system of civility, which is the only peace and stability most will understand. While individuals may well adapt to multiple systems, history proves whole societies cannot and should not attempt it. Under the Noahic Code, it is a failure to not fight off such an invasion. Any stable social order is acceptable; demanding a wholesale change for any reason violates the stability and the Covenant -- it is a sin before God.
While we rightly expect the fallen moved by patriotism to reject, and even to fight major changes in civility codes, the Redeemed must hesitate. We understand the combative resistance, and in a sense applaud it, as we would any move to uphold the Noahic Covenant. The current rise of police state behavior in the US is an attack on an established civility code, an attempt to destroy a civilization. As the agents and enforcers of government policies become more alienated by their uncivil abuse of the populace, they make themselves a foreign invader, and surrender legitimacy. No one can predict the breaking points, nor the location of the flashpoints, but we should hardly be surprised by violent uprisings.
As the Redeemed, we are largely called to remain aloof from such things. Most certainly we will be touched by the turmoil. How we respond to that is what we now consider.
From our position standing on the Word, we recognize every cultural milieu contains sinful elements. Even when we recognize the authority of fallen humanity under the Covenant of Noah, we note civil law and social rituals generally fail to recognize the sovereignty of Jehovah. All human organizing runs quickly to stasis, for this allows the predictability essential for a human-based stability. In Christ, many of the details of interaction are far more fluid, subject to God's refinement as a living thing. We find true spirituality requires a flexibility not possible to those spiritually dead. Remembering we were once dead in our own sins, we develop a spiritual cynicism regarding our fallen world. The Lord cautions us never to forget what we were before His grace pulled us from the fire. We hold forth that same grace in responding to the spite of a world which cannot understand what we see with the eyes of the Holy Spirit.
In general, we prepare our hearts to absorb a certain amount of human cussedness. Love for the fallen, however, can sometimes hold them accountable. The difficulty is in realizing we cannot possibly hold them to the standards God applies to us. We can indeed legislate morality, because all law is morality applied to specific situations. We cannot legislate holiness, for that is purely a matter of the spirit. Because of our consuming orientation on operating from the Spirit, we are ill-equipped to judge things from a carnal level. Indeed, we hope to leave that far behind, nailed to the Cross. We are sheep, not goats. Jesus warned us to leave civil affairs in their hands, while we focus on building up His Kingdom. We live agape, which satisfies God's Law.
In living above mere human law, our commitment to Christ will unavoidably draw the ire of human governments. "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before you" (John 15:18). The conflict is altogether natural and expected. As with the early disciples, we can rejoice in sharing His glory if we are abused for our faith. Losing our property to persecution is of no great significance, since this world's material goods are no more than tools in Kingdom service. Their loss simply signals He didn't need them any more, so prepare to serve without them. Indeed, we view death itself as a mere circumstance, one to be welcomed in His service.
When we become responsible for the lives of others, this is not so clear cut. Dying for His name means leaving them in His care. Should He grant an extension of this life, I remain concerned for their welfare, just as Jesus would do in my place. I find it hard to imagine a circumstance in which passively watching them be abused or hauled away to death for my faith -- or theirs -- would be consistent with my calling. All the more so when I have entered a marriage covenant, for that carries tremendous responsibilities. Children of such a covenant are covered the same, but a fraction below the level of care I expend for my wife. Should I be rendered powerless, I am free of guilt, if not sorrow. As long as any means remain to resist my family's harm, be it for the cause of faith, or simply an expression of general human malice, I am bound to oppose it.
That opposition to harm covers much lesser territory, too. Today I bear a load of regret for turning my children over to the government for purposes of education. Both of them bear some noticeable loss from that choice, and I am guilty. Today, I loudly proclaim: "Render not your children unto Caesar!" It's spiritually no different from tossing them in the arms of Molech. While failure to make a fortune, so as to pamper them, brings me not a sliver of discontent, I shudder at the thought of raising spiritual barriers in their lives (Matthew 18:6).
In the days to come, Church, one of the greatest dangers I anticipate for us in dealing with the State would be child custody issues. In this one thing, even persecution of our faith cannot justify simply letting Child Welfare kidnap our progeny. Already, in many jurisdictions, valid expressions of faith find children taken away from the home in which God placed them. I cannot declare to you a command from God to fight with violence, but I can tell you God requires you to fight. The secular State taking custody of Christian children simply is not acceptable. After praying and pursuing Scripture and godly counsel to insure your fears are justified, should you in any degree believe this sort of confrontation is near, at the very least you should plan immediately how you will flee. All you possess in this world means nothing by comparison, so plan accordingly. Should you feel led, let no one condemn your preparations for violent resistance.
Further, I would contend we who are called to leadership hold a similar, if somewhat lesser, burden of care for all those we lead. Should the Lord draw to my care a number of people under a pastoral covenant, my responsibilities would parallel the care I owe God for my children. Depending on the nature of the situation, I would not hesitate to resist violently their abuse at the hands of sinners. It remains for each believer to search this question before the Father afresh these days. Night is coming.
We return to where this article started: What is the biblical response to the police state? I would be the first to seek a peaceful response (1 Peter 4:11-16). Still, there are limits. In the previous section I indicated the one issue where compromise is not possible. God will hold you accountable for passively letting the State harm your children. This one is so obvious I felt it unnecessary to cite Scripture passages. Indeed, it's the same territory as abortion. To close this exploration, I wanted to address two final issues already introduced where resistance may be the Christian answer.
The first is torture. I've already laid the ground for holding all the world, including governments, accountable under the Noahic Code for dehumanizing people. The issue with the State is not mere rudeness, but driving someone across the line of sanity. It's one thing when soldiers suffer such emotional trauma on the battlefield they can no longer function normally. Training someone to break things and kill people usually results in their experiencing things for which normal humans have some means to assimilate. Brave tales notwithstanding, I doubt war was ever noble and clean, but for centuries most men have found ways to continue living after the sheer terror. Theoretically, there remains at least a semblance of choice, a sense one can still seize the situation and take some meaningful action. In torture, the whole point is to remove all sense of hope. Christ on the Cross was unbroken to the last, yielding up His Spirit when He knew it was time. The rest of us are somewhere short of that.
A few rare individuals have the personal integrity to face anything man can devise, without Christ. Even many with Him would fail in torture. The substance of the Noahic Code calls for valuing human life, not destroying it. The State is fully authorized to bear the sword and take the life of those who threaten civilization. After that, it's likely they'll be turned over the Satan for their eternal punishment. Satan has no authority to raise Hell on earth, and all who aid him in creating that unspeakable dread and horror before the end of life have crossed the line. It is they, the torturers, who have become less than human, and are not fit for even this fallen world. No part of Scripture authorizes the State to torture for any cause; the same applies to brainwashing. Harsh labor, mundane misery, starvation, are all acceptable; even beatings, when attached to a specific violation, are acceptable in the Bible. These are all matters of flesh. Violating the integrity of the soul is forbidden, for it belongs to God alone.
There is one matter of the flesh which bears an ancient prohibition: homosexual rape. Indeed, mere homosexuality is uniformly condemned, as is rape of any kind. However, homosexual rape is particularly odious, going all the way back at least to the time of Noah. Consider the meaning of the event in Genesis 9:18-23. This was no mere naughty peeking in Father Noah's tent; the Hebrew phrase "uncover nakedness" is a euphemism for sexual relations. Start with Leviticus 18:6 to see the context. Ham was not cursed simply because of something which happens in locker rooms and gym showers all over the world. He raped his father, taking advantage of Noah's incapacity. It is safe to assume that curse remains a part of the context of God's covenant with Noah.
As with modern law, enabling others to commit these two crimes carries the same liability before Jehovah. Regardless whether the State takes appropriate action, believers cannot tolerate them. Our choices may remain limited in differing circumstances. God alone can declare to you what your response will be. However, it is safe to say you are not required to submit to either of these. That is, even in persecution for your faith in Christ, if you suspect either of these await you, I am convinced resistance is an option. Property loss, pain and death, these are things we have been told to expect, to embrace as the legitimate suffering of this fallen world. However, these three things are special cases:
Please note I do not diminish the trauma women suffer when they are raped. However, very few women are equipped to put up the resistance men can offer. Violent and deadly force is hardly a sin in preventing any kind of rape. Indeed, for women and children, primary coverage on this comes from the the nearest male who is their spiritual covering, not to mention any responsible human capable of providing aid in an emergency. However, women of faith have a historical record of surviving this far better than men. So while they are not equipped to resist, it appears they do possess an ability to recover which men do not. Further, it seems Scripture treats it differently, and not merely for cultural reasons.
If a thug tried any of these, we would not hesitate to shoot. Should you face these from a fallen State government, no one can condemn your decision to resist with violence. The State must not seek to commit these against you by action, or force you into them by any measure of neglect. I don't see how any true believer can remain passive. As with all issues in the Kingdom, it helps to seek the Lord's face before you have to choose.
By Ed Hurst
04 July 2007
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