Why Christian Government Is Good
Why should be murder be illegal?
Don’t brush off the question. Seriously consider it for a moment. Why should murder be illegal?
Is it merely because enough people within our society agree that it should be? If that’s the case, if enough of our society ever agreed that a single day of murder should be legal, or murder of a certain kind of person should be legal, or all murder should be legal, then we would simply have to acquiesce. The majority consensus would end the moral argument. If Vox Populi really is Vox Dei, then we have no objective grounds to ever tell the majority they are wrong.
Clearly, majority vote can’t be the ultimate arbiter of our legal code. There must be some standard above the majority.
It also won’t do to simply say, “Because murder being legal would be ridiculous. People just shouldn’t be allowed to murder. Period.” “Shouldn’t” according to what standard? And why is that standard binding on people whether they agree with it not?
Neither will it do to say, “Because society wouldn’t work if murder would legal.” Who says society should work? Why should human society be preserved? Why should human life be preserved? By what standard are you asserting human society and human lives are good?
Our so-called secular age has duped us into believing religion is unnecessary for a legal code. What we’ve been blind to is that our laws are still religious in nature; religion is inevitable. Secularism is simply pagan religiosity that used Christendom as its host body.
The Inescapable Reality: Religion Is Inevitable
The reality is that all governments, cultures, and nations, by their very nature, assume transcendent moral values. They may not call them transcendent moral values, and they may stubbornly refuse to admit that what they have therefore assumed is a religion. But whether we dub our operating moral assumptions a religion or not, whether it is coherent or not, the supreme moral values that a government or culture assume, the ones past which there is no appeal, are indeed its religion. This is why the Bible so clearly speaks of nations and peoples having gods and personifies the behaviors of those peoples and gods in clear moral terms (Exodus 34:14-16, Joshua 23:6-8, Judges 10:6, 2 Kings 37:18-20).
When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods?—that I also may do the same.’ You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way, for every abominable thing that the Lord hates they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods.
Deuteronomy 12:29-31
That nations will have gods and have religion is inescapable. Our nation, like all nations, will always be religious, and so will our government. All that is in question is (1) whether we will collectively identify the religion our government assumes, and (2) whether that religion is true.
What “Christian Government” Means
To clear the ground first: Christian government does not mean that a Christian church or any group of Christian churches has governmental authority. God has clearly identified the government or “the state” (and not the church) as the real, identifiable human agent of His wrath against civil wrongdoers (those who break a society’s lawful ordinances and civil codes).
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. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 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, 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. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 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.
Romans 13:1-7
This governing authority, which in Paul’s day and place was an emperor (and the attending subordinate Roman Imperial governing authorities) and in ours consists of the constitutionally elected representatives of the citizens of our democratic republic, is a truly separate, distinct authority which must not, when it is doing as God called it to, be interfered with by any church. Pastors and church members should never, as pastors and church members, attempt to usurp the lawful authority of government.
But this does not mean that that government is then independent of God, of His moral law, or of how He made the world. Notice again what Romans 13 makes explicit: The governing authority is God’s servant. His calling is to, as the servant of the one true God, approve what is good (13:3) and carry out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer (13:4).
President Biden exists within God’s world. He walks on God’s soil, his seat on Air Force One flies through God’s air, and he will give an account to that God for what he did as President of the United States. That God has told us what is good and what is evil, what our governing authorities should approve and what they should punish, what God loves and what He hates. We each, no less President Biden than you or I, live and make choices and do our work in obedience to Him for His blessing or in disregard of Him for His curse. It is wicked for President Biden to support legal protection for the murder of babies because God made the world, made those babies, and He says so. The fact that the Southern Baptist Convention or Redeemer Presbyterian Church are not in charge of President Biden does not alter that reality one bit.
Our federal Constitution, our state constitutions, and our elected representatives have been given authority to be God’s servants for the approval of what is good and the punishment of the wrongdoer. When they disregard His standard, they are in error. When they uphold it, they are obeying His calling for them.
Christian government is also not a government that seeks conversion of individuals through coercion. It does not make Christians by the sword, in no small part because Christians cannot be made by the sword. Christian government punishes what God calls evil and praises what God calls good and does it with honest reference to the fact that the Christian God is the one true God. But it cannot and must not compel individual repentance and faith in Christ. God grants those gifts to His elect by His Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel, not through the power of the state.
Christian government is not civil government administered by the church, nor is it compelled conversion to the Christian faith. Rather, Christian government is government administered by lawful authorities who govern in explicit acknowledgement of and professed obedience to the God who actually exists. They are also held accountable according to His objective standard (His Word). Rather than an unspoken, unidentified set of religious assumptions (which is what we largely have in practice today), a Christian government governs from the moral assumptions of God’s Word. It outlaws murder because God said, “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.” A Christian government does not outlaw murder merely because 51% of the population agreed murder should be illegal, nor because of a vague, unspoken and unidentified moral assumption its citizens hope lasts long enough for society to continue. It is thoroughly comfortable saying out loud, “Murder is illegal here because God makes people and He said we don’t get to murder them.”
An Important Distinction: Sins and Crimes
A Christian government does not legislate against all sins, because not all sins are crimes.
The church must judge sins amongst its members, as must families. But while all sins are relevant to the shepherding, correcting, and discipline of church and of family, not all sins are criminal in nature.
But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Purge the evil person from among you.’
1 Corinthians 5:11-12
God has given churches and parents commands and parameters in Scripture for dealing with sins within churches and households. Governments, however, are called by God to use the sword to punish that evil which is criminal, to be God’s servant of vengeance against sinful behavior which, to one degree or another, wantonly interferes with the wellbeing of another.
What is identified as criminal will invariably reflect, to some degree, the circumstances of place and time (we do not need to put parapets around our roofs, as the ancient Israelites did, since we do not walk around on our roofs). But both Scripture and sound reason reflect that murder, rape, kidnapping, theft, and assault are and should be criminal offenses punishable by the governing authorities. A Christian government has a basis for saying why this is so, and for implementing and enforcing just legal codes that reflect that reality.
The Apostle Paul acknowledged before the Roman civil authorities that there existed criminal offenses which would merit the Roman government executing him; he asserted, however, that he had not committed such a criminal offense.
But Paul said, ‘I am standing before Caesar's tribunal, where I ought to be tried. To the Jews I have done no wrong, as you yourself know very well. If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death. But if there is nothing to their charges against me, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar.’
Acts 26:10-11
Paul acknowledged that the Roman authorities had a right to execute murderers and violent offenders (both in Acts 26 and in Romans 13). God Himself identified such crimes as worthy of death. However, the Roman government did not have the right, even if it pretended to, of executing Paul for preaching the Gospel of the God who actually exists. No government does. Nor would it have the right to punish greed or jealousy, which in and of themselves are sins but not crimes. God will judge all sins; He has not, however, given the government the authority to judge and punish them all.
A Christian government must, as its Bible does, distinguish between sins and crimes. And it will have an acknowledged, objective standard by which to do this. Beliefs and the private observation of those beliefs are not crimes (though they may be sins), which is why religious liberty arose and flourished in Western Christian nations, not in Islamic, Hindu, or atheistically Communist ones. Freedom is the fruit of Christendom. The Word of God as an identifiable basis for what should be criminal in a society leads to ordered liberty; the Quran as a foundation leads to misery. This shouldn’t surprise us; God really did make the world, and His Son really is Jesus Christ.
How Could Christian Government Be Restored?
A Christian government has an objective standard against which it can be reformed and held accountable, and that standard has the added benefit of being true. Our current secular moment is attempting to, from the institutions Christianity made possible, govern from an unidentified and slippery set of hidden moral priorities that cannot stand still long enough to be brought out in the light of day and examined. Children matter and should be protected, unless they are in the womb. We should believe all women, unless they tell us it’s wrong for a man in a dress to go into their bathroom. There is a constantly shifting set of moral suppositions that float under our society at present. A Christian government’s express suppositions are those of the one true God and His Word, not those of mere human conjecture and desire. This is the government we should strive for.
While no government in the West has ever been perfect, imperfect Christian governance is better than perfectly pagan governance. An openly defiant government which refuses to acknowledge the God by whom it has any authority is a curse to a people.
The United States as an association of states and as the individual states themselves were constituted in outward assumption of the truth of God’s Word. They were governed that way for generations after. The hostility and antipathy towards Christ and the Bible as authoritative over the affairs of government is not centuries old, and so recovery is not inconceivable.
It likely begins the way most large-scale changes do: With individuals in a position to do something doing it. Fathers and mothers raising up children who conduct themselves, work, pray, repent, vote, and even run for office with Christ and His Word as their constant lodestar. Sheriffs, township trustees, police officers, school board officers, governors, state legislators, and agency officials who do their jobs as Christians knowing Christ has jurisdiction over everything they do in and out of the office. Churches, Christian schools, Christian homeschool co-ops, and Christian teachers and authors who help disciples of the Lord Jesus walk in obedience to Him in all of life, not merely in the privacy of their own inner hearts and thoughts.
It will require God’s blessing in granting repentance and faith to millions who do not yet bow the knee to Christ. Government is a human project, not an inanimate feature of creation like the law of gravity. Government as a human institution requires heartfelt compliance from its citizenry to be sustainable. To that end, we must preach and pray as faithful men and women of God that He might be gracious to us in saving many across the United States as we seek governance that is self-consciously obedient to Him.
Recovering Christian government is likely to be a reformational project, one that requires multiple successive generation of full-life Christian obedience. Christ is faithful, He really did make the world, He really does have all authority over it, and therefore faithful patience is an appropriate posture as we strive.
In Closing
The choice is not between Christian government and nonreligious government. The choice is between Christian government and government administered in obedience to other religious assumptions. Currently in America, the choice is between Christian government and pagan government.
There is no truly irreligious governmental realm. There are indeed governments which pretend to be irreligious, and some which may believe their own pretense, but they inescapably legislate and reward and scorn and punish based on transcendent moral assumptions that they hold. Every society has blasphemy laws, whether they identify them as such or not. Every society has sacred spaces, whatever it calls them. Moral codes, anathemas, and hallowed halls are present in every nation and every culture. Our choice is between a Christian government and a non-Christian one; it has never been between a Christian one and a religiously neutral one.
And since Christ authored and governs our world, we should seek human government that honors Him in word and deed.