Lee’s Corner
The Divine Right of Kings
As congress is getting ready to vote on nationalized health care, the key question that needs to be asked by every American is this: Will congress and the president be subject to the same health care plan they want to give to the rest of us? All reasonable people know the answer is no. We all know that congress and presidents in the past have never subjected themselves to the same programs they saddle us with. A big one that comes to mind is Social Security. They pay nothing into Social Security yet they get one of the best retirement plans in the world for themselves. The same will be true of health care.
This is the equivalent of “The Divine Right of Kings” that America fought against during the revolution and was determined to eradicate in the Constitution. Everyone will recognize there is only one Divine. The rest of all humanity is “equal” under and subject to the same law. For our government to subject themselves to a different law from the rest of us is a declaration of their divinity.
This fact brings up another question. Christians know that there is only one divine and he was the Christ. Why are American churches quite on our government in effect declaring themselves divine and above the law of the common people? Such actions by our government should be putrid in the nostrils of all Christians! Why is your church silent? The first chance you get, you need to ask your church leaders why they are silent on these actions by the government and why they are standing by acquiescing in the growth and establishment of Statism?
When one becomes a Christian, one becomes a servant. As Christ himself said, “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercise authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves. For who is greater, he who sits at the table, or he who serves? Is it not he who sits at the table? Yet I am among you as the One who serves.” Luke 22:26-27. But when people become statists, they make everyone else the servant or slave. This is the case with our government and churches should be outraged! All churches that call themselves “Christian” should walk lock-step in unison in opposition to nationalized health care. If they don’t, they are failing to be servants and they are failing to declare that there is only One lawgiver.
“Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God”
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” is a quote of Thomas Jefferson. It is often said by “historians” and even pastors that Thomas Jefferson was a Deist. Deism according to www.dictionary.com is 1) belief in the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation. 2) Belief in a God who created the world but has since remained indifferent to it. The problem with referring to Thomas Jefferson as a Deist, notwithstanding the quote already cited, is that many of the things he said are inconsistent with the Deist charge. For example, he also said “I fear for my country when I reflect that God is Just and His Justice cannot sleep forever.” It would be illogical for a Deist to say such a thing and as far as the first quote cited, it is perfectly consistent with God’s Word revealed in the Bible. Yes, even consistent with the words and actions of Jesus who perfectly upheld the Old Testament commands.
To illustrate all of this, that Jefferson’s statement that rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God and that Jesus upheld this concept, it will require detailed digging into the Bible. In Mark 12:13-17 some Pharisees and members of Herod’s party came to Jesus looking to trap Jesus so they could either discredit him for declaring that it is lawful to pay tribute to Caesar which goes against the law of God or turn him over to king Herod for teaching against paying the tribute tax. They figured that whatever way Jesus answered it they could rid themselves of Him. Jesus asked to see a Denarious, which had a picture of Ceasar and an inscription that referred to Caesar as divine. Then Jesus asked them whose picture and inscription was on the coin and they answered that it was Caesar’s and then Jesus said to them, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Most people who’ve read Mark 12: 13-17 think that Jesus was saying to pay the tribute to Caesar. This is entirely false because Jesus meant something entirely different. If Jesus had said to pay the tribute tax, the Pharisees could have discredited Him for going against God’s law for the Jews of not submitting to heathen rulers nor of being subjected to their laws. (see “walked in the statutes of the heathen” 2 Kings 17: 6-18) If anything you could say that Jesus spoke in coded language for the Pharisees to understand that he was saying not to pay the tribute tax while at the same time speaking so that the Herodians heard Him say to pay the tribute tax. Moreover, if Jesus had meant for the Jews to pay the tribute tax, he wouldn’t have added “…and to God the things that are God’s” because by saying this He meant for the Jews to keep their part of the covenant of obeying God’s law which the Herodians wouldn’t have understood. But the Pharisees understood Jesus perfectly thus the reason they were amazed at how He escaped their trap.
But not only were the Jews commanded by God not to subject themselves to heathen rulers, they were commanded to put heathen and idolatrous rulers to death. Both Jesus and the Pharisees knew these commands so not only was Jesus saying in subversive language not to subject themselves to paying the tribute tax, He was also saying to obey God’s commands and put Caesar to death. (See Numbers 25, 1 Kings 18, 2 Kings 9). Moreover, it goes even deeper. Jesus was also implying that they too should be put to death and they knew his implication having demonstrated his understanding of the Jewish law that they also knew. (See Deuteronomy 17).
The real founding fathers of America were not Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison however. The first three founding fathers of America were John Knox and John Calvin and Martin Bucer. These men seemed to think it was their duty to be involved in political matters as well as spiritual matters. They came to see in Biblical importance of it BECAUSE of the tyranny of queen Mary of Scotts and BECAUSE of the kings and queens of England and especially queen Mary of England, better known as Bloody Mary.
John Knox wrote a pamphlet called “A Faithful Admonition to England” and in it he wrote a prayer to God to stir up some Pheneous, Elijah, or Jehu to punish idolaters like queen Bloody Mary. A Christian, WOW! It gets better. He closed his pamphlet with this prayer: “Repress the pride of these bloodthirsty tyrants. Consume them in thine anger according to their reproach which they have laid against thy Holy name. Poor forth thy vengeance upon them and let our eyes behold the blood of thy saints required of their hands. Delay not thy vengeance oh Lord, but let death devour them in haste. Let the earth swallow them up. And let them go down alive to hell.” When Knox was preaching in Geneva, he preached that God hates idolaters and how God commanded heads of state not to be idolaters but to destroy all idols. He also taught that a Godly people are able to form their own government and that ungodly tyrannical governments should be Biblically resisted. Wow has Christianity changed!
Martin Bucer was a great influence on John Knox the Presbyterian Scottish reformer. John Knox had a vision of an ideal Christian culture where everything was governed by the word of God. He got his ideas from the Old Testament and from Martin Bucer’s book De Regno Christi (The Kingdom of Jesus Christ). The stated purpose of his book was to “Describe the ways and means by which we are taught by the eternal word of God all Christian rulers can and should firmly restore for their peoples the blessed kingdom of the son of God, our only redeemer, institute and establish the administration of religion and all parts of the common life according to the mind of Christ our supreme king.” De Regno Christi was not something limited to the heart or limited to the church but it was the rule of Christ manifested in every area of life, seeking to order every area of life according to the will of Christ revealed in the whole Bible. He made no hesitancy of saying that the true life is realized only in a Christocracy. A Christocracy is a nation where Christ the King and where His rule is law. Holy and happy life is only possible when you live in a society where Christ is recognized as king by church and state and where His word is law. Bucer’s favorite word for a Christocratic society where Christ is King and both church and state are governed by His law: Res Publica Christiana (A Christian Republic).
John Knox and Martin Bucer both recognized that the civil magistrates had a spiritual responsibility to assist in the reformation of the church and society by the word of God. Both men demanded that all civil magistrates had to be Christian.
Many Christians say that it is a waste of time to be involved in politics. They will say that we need to be involved I winning hearts for Christ. I completely agree that our first object is to win people to Christ but that is not our only goal. To separate both responsibilities is akin to separating the Old Testament from the New. In fact, they are being separated by church organizations so that the church can succeed in separating the church from politics. In such cases, the church ceases to be Christ’s church.
Now, fast forward to America. John Calvin and John Knox put together what became to be the Geneva Bible. The Geneva Bible is what the Pilgrims brought with them on the Mayflower. America was built on the Geneva Bible and the Calvinistic reformation. The Geneva Bible was unique in that it was a “Calvinistic” Bible thoroughly reformed. Americans were primarily Calvinists and when they were facing a tyrannical king by the name of King George III, they resisted him because he was a tyrant. Since Thomas Jefferson said, “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God” it seems the one Founding Father that so many Christians today like to ridicule as being a Deist and a non-Christian understood the reformed faith and perhaps Christ himself and applied it better than American Christians today do. It is these men, our Founding Fathers who learned from the reformers that gave us freedom and today, Christians sheepishly claim that Christians shouldn’t delve in politics. Or they will claim that Romans 13 says we should be subject to our governments (regardless of how tyrannical). Through all this history it is easy to see that American Christianity today is not the Christianity that leads to freedom but one that leads to tyranny and despotism. Sic Semper Tyrannis is Virginia’s motto and is on the seal of Virginia and on Virginia’s flag. On the flag it shows Virtue standing over a tyrannical king whom she has just slain. The Seal was planned by George Mason a Christian of Virginia and designed by George Wythe another Christian of Virginia who signed the United States Declaration if Independence and taught law to Thomas Jefferson. Slaying tyrants was not at all foreign to these Christian men.
When Jesus told them to “render unto Caesar” he meant for them to do as the law told. That is, do away with him, not to obey him. If you put away the Old Testament, you lose the New Testament. And this is another example of rebellion to tyrants which Bucer, Knox, and Calvin understood and is something that our Founding Fathers understood. Christians should not only want a theocracy, they should be working toward a specific type of theocracy called a Christocracy - in America, obviously from the bottom up. Christians are failing at this as our government is demonstrating and as our pastors are contributing to through their false teachings.
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