Today, we will begin our investigation of our least recognized, utilized, and certainly the most vilified of our three
weapons—the Civil Government. The title of today’s posting is what I heard regularly in my church-growing-up experience to explain our complete disengagement from politics
We have already discussed two of the three major weapons God has given us to fulfill our commission to rule over the earth—the Family and the Church. We concluded last week’s posting on how the church equips us to rule by teaching us to always think as little children and simply do what our Heavenly Daddy tells us to do in our hearts, no questions asked! “And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” (Galatians 4:6). Vine’s Dictionary of New Testament Words (p. 9); says that calling one’s father ”Abba” in Greek signified the “love and intelligent confidence” of a little child for his father.
.I want to be clear. By looking at the biblical model for Civil Government today, in 2025, I am not advocating immediate change, or even expecting it anytime soon. I simply think it is a good thing for God’s people to know what the biblical vision for civil government is—where we are headed—and realize that one day, yes, we will arrive at the experience of it!
Of course politics today IS a “dirty business!”. Anything without Jesus is “dirty business.” However, as the church discovers its biblical role of equipping us for our journey in this life, and we believe our Daddy is faithful to do what He says He will do, we will begin to experience the biblical vision of His civil government (Hebrews 11:1)!
The biblical role of the Civil Government is very limited. It has but two tasks, and only two—to PUNISH LAW-BREAKERS (Romans 13:1-5) and to PROTECT LAW-KEEPERS (1 Timothy 2:1, 2). All other activities in which the Civil Government is involved are biblically to be performed by the private sector.
For example: education (responsibility of the family), road construction (private construction company), Post Office (private company, i.e., FedEx., UPS, etc.), and health-care (personal savings and charitable organizations) are completely free from government involvement and control in the biblical model.
These ideas sound like an “Alice-In-Wonderland” story to today’s typical Christian church-goer! How has America strayed so far from the solid, biblical, Reformation foundation laid by Colonial America?
That foundation was a democratic, constitutional republic, where final authority is vested in a written constitution, “the rule of law.” This Constitution is produced by the people, and practically applied by laws determined by representatives chosen by those people. This is the civil government given to us by our founding fathers.
This constitutional republic is beautifully illustrated for us in the Bible by the Hebrew Republic. It was initiated by Moses and continued in Israel until the Israelites deliberately rebelled against God’s rule over them through this republic. Wanting to imitate the pagan nations around them, they clamored to have a monarchy—a king— to rule them.
The very interesting story of this rebellion is told in 1 Samuel 8. This chapter relates the beginning of the end of the Hebrew Republic, which had begun at the Israelite’s exodus from Egypt. This portion of the Bible—Exodus to 1 Samuel 8, some 400 years—tells the story of the development of the principles that undergird a Biblical constitution, as related in the Bible.
In the classic book, The Roots of the American Republic, written by the 19th century Biblical scholar E.C. Wines in 1853, the principles of the Hebrew Republic in the Bible are studied and related in detail. The similarity with our constitution is striking. The book is available at https://plymrock.org/bookstore/.
With these “biblical roots,” how did we stray to where we are today? How did a vast portion of the church arrive at “Politics is a Dirty Business – Christians Don’t Get Involved!”?
I believe that the European Enlightenment was profoundly and subtly a major factor in that shift. This rebirth of the Renaissance, and called the :Age of Reason,” negated or minimized the Reformation. However, as much as it annoyed them, Enlightenment thinkers had no option but to believe in God (“How else do you explain creation?”). So, they retreated to Deism—belief in a Watchmaker God Who invented the Universe and then left us alone to live our own lives without His involvement! Deism was growing in popularity among colonial American intellectuals by the end of the 18th century.
However, the landscape had changed dramatically by the mid-19th century! The advent of atheistic Marxism and the publishing of Charles Darwin’s famous history-changing book on evolution changed everything. The full title of Darwin’s book was: “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life”
Suddenly, Deism died! No more need to explain a disinterested, but necessary, CREATOR God; we didn’t need Him at all anymore, as we had no creator! By the time of the famous Scopes trial in 1925 in Tennessee, even though the anti-evolutionists won the trial, the tide of public opinion had shifted to a predominantly pro-evolution, general population.
As the Scopes trial indicates, the Christian community initially went to bat fighting Darwin’s anti-biblical, anti-Christian suppositions, but found themselves to be woefully inept at doing that. So, the call went forth to disengage from the culture and “Retreat!”—to the ramparts of the stained-glass windows to “hold hands and share precious verses.”
John N. Darby, an English Episcopal priest and evangelist, gave these retreating Christians an excuse to do so. He came to America in the 1860’s and 70’s preaching today’s “Imminent Rapture Theory,” i.e., “Jesus is returning any day; don’t try to affect the world; it’s hopeless. Retreat from society, save as many souls as possible as you go, and WAIT FOR JESUS TO COME TO RESCUE YOU.”
So, these three factors—Marxism, Evolution, and the Imminent Rapture theory—made for a perfect storm to hit the church in the 20th century and now the 21st. However, we are called, not to “weather the storm,” but to attack the gates of Hell from whence it originated! Next week we will continue to see how.
