Inside: Government at war with the Law of God has cut its source of jurisdiction, authority, and power and must be restored to be effective and legitimate government once again. 

I remember one day the bushes in front of my house were WAY out of control.  The situation had persisted long enough to make me think that none of my sons were going to trim them, so I decided to take on the job myself.  😊  I drug out the ladder, the electric hedge trimmer, and ran a 50 foot extension cord from the garage.  I plugged in the trimmer and I was off!  There is something satisfying about waving the magical trimmer against the bushes and watching the long, scraggly branches fall!  Soon I was lost in the job…  As I finished one bush and moved to the next one, I waved my magic wand again so the trimmer could continue to make its remarkable difference.  This time, instead of the branches falling effortlessly, I heard a “WHACK!”.  Then… all of a sudden, nothing was happening.  I looked down and realized I had just converted my 50 foot extension cord into a 47 foot extension cord!  At that point, the only thing that was clear is that I would be doing no more hedge trimming until I dealt with the fact that I had just separated my trimmer from the source of its power! 

If we back up to early human history – very early human history – as found in Genesis, Chapter 6, God was about to destroy the earth.  We see in Genesis 6:5 that the thoughts of man’s heart were only evil continually.  We’re given pretty clear clues about the nature of the sins in verses 6:11 and 6:13, where we learn the earth was “filled with violence”.  So, whatever the world looked like at that time, we know people were being violent to each other, enough that God said the world was “filled with violence” and that He further planned to destroy the whole earth!  Noah, however, found grace in the eyes of God (6:8).  So God chose not to follow His first instinct – He chose not to wipe out His entire creation – He preserved Noah and his family, along with the animals in the ark to repopulate the earth after the flood. 

The Purpose of Government

What God did do, however, as a significant change after the flood, was that He formed the first civil government entity.  In Genesis 9:6, after the flood, God said, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.”  In order to restrain the evil and violence that man inevitably moves toward, God created civil government.  He knew it would be necessary to restrain the evil, or mankind would simply go back to the same situation – probably in record time!  Even much later, in the New Testament, we continue to see God’s plan for this part of His creation.  The purpose of civil government is to punish those who do evil, and reward those who do good (Romans 13:3-4 and 1 Peter 2:14). 

So, in the Old and New Testaments, we see civil government is an entity God put on earth.  God empowered it and gave it authority to act on His behalf in order to restrain evil.  Its job is to carry out judgement as God’s “agent”, or “minister” on earth.  God is the source of legitimate authority for civil government. (See our post Where Does Legitimate Authority Come From? for a longer discussion on this.)  If you think about my electric hedge trimmer, the trimmer is the civil government – it carries out the actual cutting operation, or the wielding of the civil government “sword”, if you will.  The power to make the operation work – the source of its rightful authority – the legitimate jurisdiction that can come only from God Himself that empowers civil government – that is the flow of electricity coming through the extension cord.  The civil government is an extension of God’s authority, for the purpose of restraining evil on the earth. 

God Gives Power

Jonathan Mayhew, in his excellent 1750 sermon, entitled “Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers”, says, “For there is, properly speaking, no authority but what is derived from God, as it is only by His permission and providence that any possess it.”

Civil government is God’s creation for the purpose of restraining evil and encouraging good, and that is the only purpose for which it has been empowered by God, and that is the only purpose for which it may be legitimately used.  Many government entities these days are calling good evil, and evil good, and have turned God’s purpose for government completely upside down.  A government jurisdiction, empowered by God for His purpose, which then turns around and wages full-on warfare against the law of the very God who formed it and gave it power – is no longer a legitimate authority.  It has broken that flow of God’s power that energizes and gives legitimacy to its operation.  It is the hedge trimmer that has severed the flow of power that it requires for its proper operation. 

In the Old Testament Law, God made this principle abundantly clear.  Did you know that it was a sin under the Old Testament Law of God for a ruler to oppose the Law of God?  Check out Leviticus 4:22-24…

When a leader sins and unintentionally does any one of all the things which the LORD his God has commanded not to be done, and he becomes guilty, if his sin which he has committed is made known to him, he shall bring for his offering a goat, a male without defect. ‘He shall lay his hand on the head of the male goat and slay it in the place where they slay the burnt offering before the LORD; it is a sin offering.

Leviticus 4:22-24

It is sin

It is a sin before God for a ruler to break the law of God.  If a ruler goes against the source of his proper authority, he is no longer exercising God’s authority, but instead has committed sin.  In today’s world we see our government in full rebellion against the Law of God who empowers it.  A government who is God’s agent, God’s minister on earth, has no authority to hand out “rights” to things which flagrantly violate God’s Law.  Legitimate government has no jurisdiction to redefine institutions God put in place like the definitions of marriage or gender.  Government operating on power derived from God has no authority to encourage “pride” in activities that are capital offenses under the law of the God who empowers it. 

Government at war with the Law of God is like the hedge trimmer that has cut its source of jurisdiction, authority, and power.  It must be restored to be an effective and legitimate government once again.