Government: Christian Worldview with R.C. Sproul

in this session we're going to consider now the christian as he relates to the governments of this world and as you know that also is a very controversial area of concern for the christian as some feel that the christian belonging to another world to the kingdom of god into the kingdom of heaven should have nothing whatsoever to do with the powers and principalities of this world but i want to take the time today to look at chapter 13 of paul's epistle to the romans which in its initial section at least gives us one of the most important pieces of instruction that we get in the new testament with respect to our understanding of government chapter 13 begins with an exhortation and indeed an imperative from the apostle in which he writes let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities for there is no authority except from god let me just pause there for a second there is no authority except from god that is the ground basis and the foundation of all authority in the universe resides in the character of god it does not reside in the will of man or in the will of human institutions but ultimately authority derives from the author of all things namely god himself and we must remember too at this point the statement that jesus makes in the new testament in terms of his relationship to the father by which jesus said all authority on heaven in heaven and on earth has been given unto me uh again as part of the parenthesis let me make this statement which may sound extravagant but i ask you to chew on it and think about it and that is this that christianity as a life and worldview as a living faith is not merely a religion isolated from other dimensions of human life and that's why we're dealing with these different concerns here but that christianity in its essential message is pervasively political it is pervasively political as i say that may shock your ears off but what i have in mind here is that the theme of the new testament that we hear again and again and again is the announcement of the coming kingdom of god the rule of god the reign of god over this world and in that sense insofar as the new testament is concerned with focusing on the kingship of jesus christ the bible is making a political statement it is making a statement about authority and the regulation of life in this world not political in the human institutional sense that's not what i mean though it touches human political matters as we see here in chapter 13 there is no authority except from god and those which exist that is those authorities which exist are established by god therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordination or the ordinance of god and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves so the text here is concerned about civil obedience the christians responsibility to be subject to earthly spheres of authority seeing in those spheres of authority an authority that derives from god himself for again paul says there is no government there is no authority except that which is established instituted and ordained of god that is one of the most difficult messages from the new testament to hear because it's particularly problematic that paul makes these statements while he's addressing what particular group of people those who live where in jerusalem you know is he saying we all have to be subjected to the religious authorities of the sanhedrin or to the theocratic authority of the state of israel he's writing to the romans he's talking to people who are living under a secular government a corrupt government and indeed a government that is opposed to the very principles of christianity and in a very short period of time after paul wrote this letter a government that set forth probably the most vicious program of persecution against the christian church that has ever been unleashed in the history of the world a government incidentally that executed the man who wrote these words the apostle paul he's saying be subject to that government and again why not out of a view of political expediency but out of the viewpoint of bringing honor and glory to god who stands behind that government now how in the world could god be related to a godless government how can god ordain an ungodly political institution that's what has been so troublesome to people who who wrestle with the responsibility that the church has with respect to matters of civil obedience because this passage incidentally is not an isolated one in the new testament again and again we are told to honor the king to subject ourselves to the magistrates and saint peter tells us that we are to submit ourselves to the civil magistrates that christ might be honored that christ might be on it well there are two things that we need to understand here and that is in the first place the concept biblically of all earthly government is in a sense hierarchical that all human authority from the dog catcher up to the governor and to the senator and to the prince or the king or to the president whatever all comes under the authority of god and of his christ now does that mean that every one of these human authorities exercises godly rule of course not we know that and it is very possible for there to be as paul speaks of elsewhere spiritual wickedness in high places in governments oscar coulmon the swiss theologian even suggested that there's a sense in which governments in this world can become utterly demonic and stand in fierce opposition to the reign of jesus christ yet the operative principle in the new testament for the christian is obeying the civil magistrate not because we are trying to exalt the human authorities but we recognize that behind those authorities stands the authority of christ and the authority of god okay again peter's statement obey the civil magistrates that christ may be glorified how does my obedience of the political institutions and the civil magistrates bring honor to jesus there's a concept that i think it's important for us to understand and that is that that in the new testament in fact in the old testament as well that the idea of sin is not merely viewed in individualistic bite-sized pieces of particular sins or even of particular sinful people but there is a concept of corporate solidarity where there is there are the sins of the nations there is such a thing biblically as institutional sin and so in our broad understanding of sin biblically we see that that sin is not merely particular atomistic and individual but that there is what we call a complex of evil in the world a complex of evil and who stands behind the complex of evil theologically satan the prince of this world who pre and who is identified biblically with the anti-christ the one who exalts himself above christ and who moves and works contrary to over against the work of the christ hence the the the title anti the word greek there is anti we get that just comes right over into english and it can mean in place of or against both of which are activities that we associate with the figure of the antichrist biblically he is one who not only stands against christ but who seeks to supplant christ who seeks to take the place of christ and the basic activity of the antichrist or of the cosmic struggle with satan is the induction to a spirit of disobedience or what the bible calls lawlessness in fact the antichrist in terms of his historical manifestation is described by paul in the thessaloni thessalonican correspondence as the man of what the man of lawlessness in the sermon on the mount which we've reviewed in other settings jesus gives the warning at the end of the sermon you know many will come to me at the last day and say lord lord did we not do this in your name and did we not do that in your name and so on and he said i will say to them depart from me you workers of lawlessness you who are the sons of disobedience so there's a certain sense what i'm trying to do to abstract here for a second is that man's greatest problem in other words the thing that causes the whole creation in which we live to groan is a spirit of lawlessness that is of the essence of sin there would be no death in this world there'd be no murder there'd be no wars there'd be no problems of the violation of human personality if in fact every person was lawful and obedient with respect to authority namely the authority of god so what we're seeing here is kind of a a carryover a spilling over of the spirit of man by which we begin with our refusal to obey god and that spills over into our basic natural corrupt propensity to resist all other authority so there's a sense biblically in which the christian is called to bend over backwards to respect authority wherever he sees it and to be bearing witness to a spirit of obedience rather than lawlessness this came out very early in the christian church with the with the with the outbreak of persecutions we think for example of the work of the first great apologist of the early church justin martyr aptly named because he gave his life for the faith how many of you ever heard of justin martyr i mean never heard of justin martyr all right he he wrote the first what was called apologia or reply apologetic justin addressed his essay to the then roman emperor antoninus pius and he was answering the charges that were brought against the christians uh i mean you know even nero couldn't just uh send people to the lions or use christians for human torches without some kind of legal justification charges were brought against the christians and those charges included that they were atheists why because they did not believe in the gods of the roman pantheon no bowing to jupiter and so on they were accused of being cannibals why dispose that one because they gathered together to eat somebody's body and drink his blood and so they had that problem and then the third and biggest justification for the persecutions of the romans was that the christians were called to be seditious insurrectionists because they refused to recite publicly the loyalty oat oath of the empire which in effect deified the emperor and they were required to say simply kaiser curios caesar is lord and they refused they said we say jesus ho curios jesus is lord and in response therefore because their refusal to submit to the absolute allegiance to the emperor that the emperor demanded they were accused of being civilly disobedient and therefore thrown to the lions now what justin martyr did when he wrote to the emperor was he tried to explain to the emperor of the roman empire what the christian and biblical position was he said look at us we are model citizens our religion teaches us to pray for the emperor to honor the emperor to be submissive we're called to pay our taxes we are called to to to honor you we drive our chariots within the speed limit but there is a limit to that we cannot worship you but when it comes to the daily practical matters of civil obedience we are the model citizens of your empire and the early church understood that accent in the new testament they were not given to anarchists activities or revolutionary activities and jesus had earlier rebuked the zealots that were seeking to overthrow the wicked governments by the power of the sword now that has led some to the conviction into the conclusion that therefore christians must never disobey the civil authorities but can we come to that conclusion biblically of course not because the bible itself testifies when the authorities forbad peter and john from preaching you remember in the book of acts they said we must obey god rather than men so if the civil authority commands you if this lower level of authority commands you to do something that god has forbidden or forbid you from doing something god has commanded not only may you disobey but what you must disobey you must always obey god rather than men but you're not called to disobey simply because you don't like the policies or simply because they inconvenience you or even may cause you to suffer because god has not commanded you to live a life free of suffering but if the civil magistrate says you must do something like deny christ you have to disobey the civil magistrate but again do you see that the basic emphasis is the posture of bending over backwards to be submissive in that spirit of humility when and wherever possible without compromising your commitment to god now again the re another reason for this is not only that god stands behind it but that god ordains government in the first place god ordains government in the first place where does government begin earthly government or creaturely government where's the first illustration of it that we find in the bible notice that there's an authority structure built into creation but in that authority structure built into creation there are any governments why not what else was absent in the garden of eden evil sin all right it's only after the fall of man that human government is established and before that a creature i i was using the word creaturely rather than human because as soon as adam and eve are expelled from the garden of eden and they are forced to live east of eden don't you think they would have a certain degree of homesickness don't you think that they would have liked to have returned what would have happened if they wanted to return could they have gotten in why because there was an angel posted at the gateway to the garden of eden and what did the angel have a flaming sword and there we see why did he have a flaming sword what was the purpose of the sword to keep them up that is to use the sword as an instrument of restraint or as an instrument of power or if you will an instrument of force let me give you the simplest definition of government that we can come up with government whether it is uh socialistic communistic whether it's oligarchy pluto gargy you know what whatever it is democracy monarchy any kind of government that exists is force government is force and it exists under god as a force to restrain evil for what purpose bottom line for the survival of the race for the protection the sustaining and the maintenance of human life and property okay and god gives it authority and the power to back up that authority that's why governments not only have law but they also have law enforcement agencies i talked to a united states senator a few years ago and he made this statement to me over lunch he said i don't believe that any government ever has the right to coerce its citizens to do anything and i said that's a noble sentiment senator but what i've just heard you say is that no government ever has the right to govern if the governments don't have the right of coercion what can they do but suggest you have law without law enforcement and i reminded him that the power of the sword that is established in the old testament and reiterated here in chapter 13 where if i can read for you quickly verse 3 for rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior but for evil do you want to have no fear of authority do what is good and you will have praise from the same for it that is the government is a minister of god to you for good but if you do what is evil be afraid for it does not bear the sword for nothing it is a minister of god an avenger who brings wrath upon one who practices evil so what paul is saying is that that power of the force the power of the sword god gives the civil magistrate he does not give it to the church jesus takes the swords away from peter and his friends in the garden of gethsemane the church does not have the power of political coercion but the state does and its function and design and purpose of the sword is to protect the innocent and to restrain the evil doer now does it ever happen that the government uses the sword to exploit and oppress the innocent and protect the wicked yes and those governments are of course corrupt and demonic and should hear the prophetic criticism of the people of god the idea that that government therefore is evil casts a shadow upon the god who has established it and ordained it and instituted in the first place i go back to saint augustine for a a very short little statement that i think captures the essence of what our attitude should be augustine said this governments are a necessary evil not because every government is necessarily evil but by the fact that government itself is made necessary by the fact of evil and that even though governments may be oppressive and exploitive and corrupt the worst government is still better than what no government because the no government syndrome which guarantees absolute freedom also gives absolute freedom to the unrighteous people who can wield their power and corruption with no protection available to the innocent and the weak pure anarchy pure anarchy is the law of the jungle which god says is you know not to be desired so that god himself stand behind stands behind world governments using them for his ends and for his glory but principally as an instrument of the restraining power of evil no matter how evil that government is it can things can conceivably be worse if god removed all human restraints life would be intolerable upon us and therefore he has instituted government and given that government the sword to which we are called to give our righteous submission whenever possible one final point what what if the christian is called the servant government and that includes in the army or in the state house or whatever if the government is doing the task that god has called it to do i ask the question why should not a christian be expected to participate that is to say we cannot by the idea that the church relates to god and that the state doesn't crucial point historically in this country we hold the idea of separation of church and state but both church and state are under god church has its function state has its function to perform and so when the state is performing the function to which god has called it we as people who are subjects of god should not be resisting it but should be participating in it but what has happened in our day is that the concept of separation of church and state has come to mean for many people the separation of state and god as if the state ruled autonomously on the basis of its own intrinsic authority christians can't buy that we see the state as answerable to god ordained by god and is certainly a legitimate vehicle for the people of god to serve god so that if in our vocation we can serve the world by serving our fellow man in government we are not acting against christ at that level but our involvement in government is an arena in which the christian is called to bear witness to the righteousness and the style of government that christ himself exhibits that doesn't mean that we take the church into the states but we take christians because you see even though god is over church and state the christian lives in both church and state and he has one set of responsibilities to the church and another stat set other responsibility to the state one of which is subjection to the powers that be you

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

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Keywords: government, christian, christianity, christians and government, christianity and government, christians in government, earthly government, god, obedience to god, romans 13, dual citizenship, citizens of heaven, citizens of earth, god's authority, government authority, the role of government, two kingdoms, two kingdoms theology, two kingdoms doctrine, two kingdoms in the bible, reformed, reformed theology, rc sproul, ligonier ministries, civil disobedience, christian worldview

Id: hlamWoJCjFE

Length: 28min 7sec (1687 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 20 2021