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The word "Theocracy" comes from two Greek words which mean "God Governs."
The word "Christocracy" means Jesus the Christ governs.
The word "anarchist" means no human being should govern.
A nation that is "governed" by God obeys God's commandments and acknowledges God's right to impose His will on the nation using force or threats of violence. As Jesus put it,
But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. (Matthew 22:7)
But bring here those enemies of Mine, who did not want Me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’” (Luke 19:27)
When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers? '....He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers, who will pay him the proceeds at the proper seasons.' ....Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it.' ....When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them. (Matthew 21:40-41,43,45)
Thomas Jefferson articulated this view of "Providence":
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever: that, considering numbers, nature, and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel of fortune, an exchange of situation, is among possible events: that it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in such a contest.
The god of "Deism" is not the God of the Bible. The deist does not believe in "supernatural interference!"
In a "Theocracy," we recognize the right of God to expect us to obey His commands, and to judge us when we do not.
America was originally a nation "Under God," which is just another way of saying "Theocracy."
But the God America was "under" was the God of the Bible.
America's Founders scandalized the world of the late 1700's by denying the doctrine of "the divine right of kings." America championed "self-government" "under God." James Madison, "the Father of the Constitution," is reported to have said this:
We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves ... according to the Ten Commandments of God.
America's Founders were agreed that a large government was not only undesirable, but completely ineffective in creating or maintaining order among a people who were devoid of self-government as judged by the standards of Christian morality, "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." John Adams put it this way:
[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
This is why education was important, and why the primary function of public schools, according to America's Founders, was to teach religion and morality.
Americans today turn to "the government" -- the State -- to create order and salvation because they will not submit to the Laws of God.
Read the words of America's Founders here.
Of course, America's Founders were not perfectly consistent with the idea of "Liberty Under God."
The word "theocracy" can mean "any ol' god can govern."
The word "Christocracy" means the Christ governs.
The God of the Bible became Man in Jesus the Christ (John 1:1,14).
The word "Christ" is the Greek form of the Hebrew word Messiah. The Messiah is the one anointed to govern.
Christocracy means Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the King, the Governor, governs.
Benjamin Rush signed the Declaration of Independence and served in the Presidential administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison -- each of whom came from a different political party. And of what party was Rush?
I have been alternately called an aristocrat and a democrat. I am now neither. I am a Christocrat. I believe all power . . . will always fail of producing order and happiness in the hands of man. He alone Who created and redeemed man is qualified to govern him. [An Eulogium Upon Benjamin Rush, M.D. - Google Books ]
Only our Redeemer should govern us, said Rush.
Jesus the Messiah is the Only Government the World NeedsOn March 6, 1799, President John Adams proclaimed a national day of prayer in which Americans would
R. J. Rushdoony wrote the following:
This is what John Adams, later second President of the U.S., wrote in his diary on February 22, 1756:
Like others of his day, Adams was a theonomist! |
In principle, Adams is advocating "Theocracy." Adams is saying we should be governed by God and His Law Book, the Bible.
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I believe the only law book we need is the Bible. The Bible is a textbook for every subject, not just religion. "Law books" are created by "governments." No governments, no law books. The army of bureaucrats in Washington D.C. would say any revolutionary "religious right" extremist like John Adams is advocating "anarchy."
Adams endorsed Anarcho-Christocracy, at least in theory.
Adams was less of a consistent Anarcho-Christocrat than Benjamin Rush. Adams believed mankind needed "civil government" under human archists. He got this idea from the Greeks, not the Bible. This point is massive. There is a comprehensive war between "Jerusalem and Athens." There is a civilization-wide conflict between what Augustine called "The City of God" and "the City of Man."
Gary North said there are two alternatives to the Christian religion:
"Government" represents "Power Religion."
"The Kardashians" represents "Escapist Religion."
True religion, according to James 1:27, is taking care of widows and the fatherless.
Too many Americans today do not want to be "oppressed" by God's Law. They prefer "autonomy" over "Theonomy." They want an escape from God's Law, beginning with the first command recorded in Scripture, to "exercise dominion over the earth." They want to escape from personal responsibility. As a result, they relegate themselves to be ruled by the priesthood of Power Religion. William Penn said those who will not be governed by God condemn themselves to be ruled by tyrants.
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The word "anarchist" comes from two Greek words meaning "not" an "archist." An "archist" is someone who claims the moral right to impose his own will on others using force or threats of violence.
What is an ARCHIST?Humans should not rule over other humans. Only Jesus should rule over us. Those who would be rulers denounce this idea as "anarchy!" They want you to believe that if we did away with corrupt human rulers and obeyed Jesus, that society would collapse into chaos and lawlessness. We are told that those who advocate against rulers -- against "archists" -- are bad people, and dangerous people who should not be trusted. You should pledge your allegiance to your human rulers, they say. Beware of "anarchists!"
This is the biggest lie in the history of human social philosophy. Human archists have caused more damage to property, and assassinated more people than those like Benjamin Rush, who do not trust archists.
The word "Gospel" means "Good News."
What is the "Good News?"
Galatians 3:8 says:
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, "In thee shall all nations be blessed."
What does it mean to be "blessed?"
In the Bible, there are hundreds of verses which describe "blessing" and "salvation" as living peacefully without threats from archists. This is a major theme in the Bible. There are entire books in the Bible which could easily be called "The Book of Archists." Think about "kings" and "judges" just for starters.
The Bible -- taken as a whole -- is an Anarchist Manifesto.
The Biblical/Anarchist Doctrine of Salvation.
But you have been trained to believe that "salvation" is something you only get after you die (assuming you said some magic words while you were still alive).
The Good News is Christocracy. The Gospel is Christocracy: the world-wide reign of Christian Theocracy.
Most people believe "the Gospel" is "I get to go to heaven when I die." For every verse in the Bible that talks about going to heaven when you die, there are at least 100 verses that talk about Theocracy. Most of the Bible is about Theocracy.
"Theocracy" means "God governs." A "Theocracy" exists when society's institutions acknowledge God and His Commandments and put them into practice: families, schools, businesses, charities, media, courts, legislators, executives, banks, etc. God promises that when we obey His Commandments, he blesses the institutions of our society (and eliminates those, like the Mafia, that shouldn't exist at all).
The Good News is that we can have a world free from archists.
But nobody in government today would ever say what Adams said: We should take the Bible for our only law book.
That's saying that only Jesus should rule us. That's saying "Get rid of all the law books in Washington D.C."
That's too "radical." It's ... it's ... "homophobic." Or something. Only a "domestic terrorist" would say something like this.
Americans have been trained to fear the word "theocracy." Like Pavlov's dogs, they start drooling "Intolerance!" "Osama bin Ladin!" and "Loss of Civil Liberties!" whenever they hear the word "theocracy."
Perhaps we should forgive them for mistaking "theocracy" (government under God) for "ecclesiocracy" (government under clergy). We join many of America's Founding Fathers in being quite critical of the clergy. In fact, we would just as soon see the entire concept of "clergy" and "church" eliminated entirely. America's Founding Fathers gave us "Liberty Under God" because they separated their theocracy from any church.
Today's government refuses to be "under God" because it thinks it is god. The two major political parties of our day preach a doctrine called "statism": the worship of The State.
In 1892 the U.S. Supreme Court declared that America was a Christian nation. We would call it a "Christocracy." So would Thomas Jefferson's closest friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush. The original "American Dream" was that of every American dwelling safely under his own "Vine & Fig Tree."
We can call a society without "government" a "Freed Market." An economy unshackled by the regulations of "archists."
In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus gave us simple steps to resolve the disputes that sometimes arise in a freed market, and promised that where we work in this way to resolve disputes, "I am there in the midst of them." For those who don't like the word "anarchy," we might call this
In Matthew 18:15ff, Jesus outlines a three-step process to resolve disputes.
If the offender will not repent of his sin after all this, then he must not be a genuine Christian. Christians are then commanded to treat him as someone who cannot possibly be a Christian:
"But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you."
Matthew 18:17
A "tax collector." Someone who cannot possibly be a follower of Jesus Christ. In other words, the offender should be treated as an archist.
The Greek word translated "church" is ekklesia. In ancient Greece, the ekklesia was the civic assembly, where political and civil business was conducted.
After the fall of the Greco-Roman world and the during the rise of Christian Civilization, Christians resolved their disputes in a Free Market of dispute resolution experts. This Market-generated (rather than government-generated) system of law is known as the Lex Mercatoria (Law Merchant, or Law of the Market)
The Church -- not the Roman Catholic Church or any other "ecclesiastical body," but the Body of Christ -- believers who resolve disputes non-violently -- should be built up to fill the world as a global civil government -- but not "government" as an institution of aggression and violence.
We should ignore the modern myth of "separation of church and state," and work for the abolition of "church" and "state."
Some writers say "The Church needs to be the Church!" In fact, the Church needs to be the "ekklesia." The church -- the Body of Christ -- needs to make "The State" unnecessary.
“The Church Needs to ‘Be the Church’”
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The following is from The Stateless Society by Stefan Molyneux.
Dispute Resolution
The fact that people still cling to the belief that the State is required to resolve disputes is amazing, since modern courts are out of the reach of all but the most wealthy and patient, and are primarily used to shield the powerful from competition or criticism. In this writer’s experience, to take a dispute with a stockbroker to the court system would have cost more than a quarter of a million dollars and taken from five to ten years — however, a private mediator settled the matter within a few months for very little money. In the realm of marital dissolution, private mediators are commonplace. Unions use grievance processes, and a plethora of other specialists in dispute resolution have sprung up to fill in the void left by a ridiculously lengthy, expensive and incompetent State court system.
Thus the belief that the State is required for dispute resolution is obviously false, since the court apparatus is unavailable to the vast majority of the population, who resolve their disputes either privately or through agreed-upon mediators.
How can the free market deal with the problem of dispute resolution? Outside the realm of organized crime, very few people are comfortable with armed confrontations, and so generally prefer to delegate that task to others. Let’s assume that people’s need for such representatives produces Dispute Resolution Organizations (DROs), which promise to resolve disputes on their behalf.
Thus, if Stan is hired by Bob, they both sign a document specifying which DRO they both accept as an authority in dispute resolution. If they disagree about something, and are unable to resolve it between themselves, they submit their case to the DRO, and agree to abide by that DRO’s decision.
So far so good. However, what if Stan decides he doesn’t want to abide by the DRO’s decision? Well, several options arise.
First of all, when Stan signed the DRO agreement, it is likely that he would have agreed to property confiscation if he did not abide by the DRO’s decision. Thus the DRO would be entirely within its right to go and remove property from Stan — by force if necessary — to pay for his side of the dispute.
It is at this point that people generally throw up their arms and dismiss the idea of DROs by claiming that society would descend into civil war within a few days.
Everyone, of course, realizes that civil war is a rather bad situation, and so it seems likely that the DROs would consider alternatives to armed combat.
What other options could be pursued? To take a current example, small debts which are not worth pursuing legally are still regularly paid off — and why? Because a group of companies produce credit ratings on individuals, and the inconvenience of a lowered credit rating is usually greater than the inconvenience of paying off a small debt. Thus, in the absence of any recourse to force, small debts are usually settled. This is one example of how desired behaviour can be elicited without pulling out a gun or kicking in a door.
Picture for a moment the infinite complexity of modern economic life. Most individuals bind themselves to dozens of contracts, from car loans and mortgages to cell phone contracts, gym membership, condo agreements and so on. To flourish in a free market, a man must honour his contracts. A reputation for honest dealing is the foundation of a successful economic life. Now, few DROs will want to represent a man who regularly breaks contracts, or associates with difficult and litigious people. (For instance, this writer once refrained from entering into a business partnership because the potential partner revealed that he had sued two previous partners.)
Thus if Stan refuses to abide by his DRO’s ruling, the DRO has to barely lift a finger to punish him. All the DRO has to do is report Stan’s non-compliance to the local contract-rating company, who will enter his name into a database of contract violators. Stan’s DRO will also probably drop him, or raise his rates considerably.
And so, from an economic standpoint, Stan has just shot himself in the foot. He is now universally known as a man who rejects legitimate DRO rulings that he agreed to accept in advance. What happens when he goes for his next job? What if he decides to eschew employment and start his own company, what happens when he applies for his first lease? Or tries to hire his first employee? Or rent a car, or buy an airline ticket? Or enter into a contract with his first customer? No, in almost every situation, Stan would be far better off to abide by the decision of the DRO. Whatever he has to pay, it is far cheaper than facing the barriers of existing without access to a DRO, or with a record of rejecting a legitimate ruling.
But let’s push the theory to the max, to see if it holds. To examine a worst-case scenario, imagine that Stan’s employer is an evil man who bribes the DRO to rule in his favour, and the DRO imposes an unconscionable fine — say, one million dollars — on Stan.
First of all, this is such an obvious problem that DROs, to get any business at all, would have to deal with this danger up front. An appeal process to a different DRO would have to be part of the contract. DROs would also rigorously vet their own employees for any unexplained income. And, of course, any DRO mediator who corrupted the process would receive perhaps the lowest contract rating on the planet, lose his job, and be liable for damages. He would lose everything, and be an economic pariah.
However, to go to the extreme, perhaps the worst has occurred and Stan has been unjustly fined a million dollars due to DRO corruption. Well, he has three alternatives. He can choose not to pay the fine, drop off the DRO map, and work for cash without contracts. Become part of the grey market, in other words. A perfectly respectable choice, if he has been treated unjustly.
However, if Stan is an intelligent and even vaguely entrepreneurial man, he will see the corruption of the DRO as a prime opportunity to start his own, competing DRO, and will write into its base contract clauses to ensure that what happened to him will never happen to anyone who signs on with his new DRO.
Stan’s third option is to appeal to the contract rating agency. Contract rating agencies need to be as accurate as possible, since they are attempting to assess real risk. If they believe that the DRO ruled unjustly against Stan, they will lower that DRO’s contract rating and restore Stan’s.
Thus it is inconceivable that violence would be required to enforce all but the most extreme contract violations, since all parties gain the most long-term value by acting honestly. This resolves the problem of instant descent into civil war.
Two other problems exist, however, which must be resolved before the DRO theory starts to becomes truly tenable.
The first is the challenge of reciprocity, or geography. If Bob has a contract with Jeff, and Jeff moves to a new location not covered by their mutual DRO, what happens? Again, this is such an obvious problem that it would be solved by any competent DRO. People who travel prefer cell phones with the greatest geographical coverage, and so cell phone companies have developed reciprocal agreements for charging competitors. Just as a person’s credit rating is available anywhere in the world, so their contract rating will also be available, and so there will be no place to hide from a broken contract save by going “off the grid” completely, which would be economically crippling.
The second problem is the fear that a particular DRO will grow in size and stature to the point where it takes on all the features and properties of a new State.
This is a superstitious fear, because there is no historical example of a private company replacing a political State. While it is true that companies regularly use State coercion to enforce trading restrictions, high tariffs, cartels and other mercantilist tricks, surely this reinforces the danger of the State, not the inevitability of companies growing into States. All States destroy societies. No company has ever destroyed a society without the aid of the State. Thus the fear that a private company can somehow grow into a State is utterly unfounded in fact, experience, logic and history.
If society becomes frightened of a particular DRO, then it can simply stop doing business with it, which will cause it to collapse. If that DRO, as it collapses, somehow transforms itself from a group of secretaries, statisticians, accountants and contract lawyers into a ruthless domestic militia and successfully takes over society — and how unlikely is that! — then such a State will then be imposed on the general population. However, there are two problems even with this most unlikely scare scenario. First of all, if any DRO can take over society and impose itself as a new State, why only a DRO? Why not the Rotary Club? Why not a union? Why not the Mafia? The YMCA? The SPCA? Is society to then ban all groups with more than a hundred members? Clearly that is not a feasible solution, and so society must live with the risk of a brutal coup by ninja accountants as much as from any other group.
And, in the final analysis, if society is so terrified of a single group seizing a monopoly of political power, what does that say about the existing States? They have a monopoly of political power. If a DRO should never achieve this kind of control, why should existing States continue to wield theirs?
October 24, 2005
Stefan Molyneux [send him mail] has been an actor, comedian, gold-panner, graduate student, and software entrepreneur. His first novel Revolutions was published in 2004, and he maintains a blog.
The Role of Subscription-Based Patrol and Restitution in the Future of Liberty | Mises Institute
Marketing Subscription-Based Patrol and Restitution | Mises Institute
Structure of Production of Free Market Adjudication | Mises Institute
Without Government, Warlords Would Take Over? at ClearSay.net
But Wouldn't Warlords Take Over? | Mises Institute
Some people don't like the word "Anarchy" because they equate it with "lawlessness."
Other people don't like the word "Theocracy" because they
equate it with "law."
There are two kinds of anarchists:
The Anarchist rooted in Autonomy says "You can't tell me what to do."
The Anarchist rooted in Theonomy says "God tells me I can't tell you what to do, and I do
what God tells me to do."
These are two radically different kinds of "anarchy."
Anarcho-Christocracy is Theonomic. Anarcho-Christocracy answers the question:
If we abolish all archist-government programs, won't that lead to "chaos?"
If there is no "government," won't criminals "take over?"
Without
the military-industrial complex, won't the Communists or the Muslims invade our shores and enslave us?
Doesn't "anarchy" mean widespread violence,
theft, and murder?
The "anarchy leads to chaos" argument is easily answered. The question is, "What led to anarchy?" That is, "How did today's small number of anarchists persuade our society to abolish all government programs?"
This depends on what kind of "anarchy" our society chooses.
Why would our society choose to abolish "the government?"
I see only two possible reasons:
There are only two worldviews: Autonomy or Theonomy.
Autonomy = self-invented law [auto, "self" + nomos, "law"]
Theonomy = God-invented law [theos, "God" + nomos, "law"]
It is Critical to Understand that There Are Two Kinds of Libertarians:
| There are libertarians who say, “You can't tell me what to do.”
Government schools and the mainstream media have brainwashed most Americans to believe that an "anarchist" is a bomb-throwing assassin who rejects private property and foments chaos and civil war in order to abolish government and let everyone be his own god, do what is right in his own eyes, and let criminals run rampant. People don't think of followers of Jesus Christ as "anarchists." |
There are those who say “I've been commanded not to initiate force against others.”
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The "anarchy" of widespread autonomy is the chaos created when everyone is his own god, and nobody considers himself obligated to care for others. The "zero-aggression principle" means nobody tolerates aggression against himself, but everyone feels the right to aggress against others. The heart of Autonomy is service of self -- even at the expense of others. |
The heart of Christian Theonomy is service of others in obedience to God.
In Mark 10:42-45 Jesus says that the kings of the gentiles love to be "archists"
(check the Greek, "archein"), but followers of Christ are not
to be archists. |
| "Anarchism" (abolition of archists) based on Theonomic service is completely different from "anarchism" based on autonomy and self-worship. | |
We are put on earth to serve others.
If we don't do so voluntarily, God will compel us.
I am a Christian Theocrat. I am a Christian Anarchist.
I admit I'm an extremist.
I want to abolish all civil governments. Those who advocate anarcho-capitalism must ask
themselves,
Our society generally agrees that murder, theft, and enslavement are bad. Our society would never vote to allow murder, theft, and enslavement to occur, and if "anarchy" is perceived to be the fountain of murder, theft, and enslavement, our society will never choose "anarchy."
The biggest problem in the world today is the myth that a small group of people calling themselves "the government" have the right (some would say a "God ordained" right) to steal, enslave, and kill other human beings.
During the 20th century,
Hundreds of millions of people were murdered.
Billions of people were enslaved.
Trillions
of dollars worth of private property was confiscated or destroyed.
By "Governments."
And yet a majority of people believe that without these same "governments," we would have "anarchy," by which they mean "chaos" -- theft, murder, and enslavement.
If it could be shown that the abolition of "civil governments" would result in less theft, less murder, less violence, less enslavement, people might be open to change.
But there would only be less violence if there were a general social consensus that violence was immoral.
The belief that violence is immoral is an expression of the belief in moral duty. An orderly anarcho-capitalist society can only exist when it is built on a foundation of moral duty. If it is built on a foundation of selfish autonomy, it will collapse.
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When a society is dominated by Christian Theonomy, the result is the widespread service of others, and the disappearance of archists ("an-archy"), who repent of archism.
When a society is dominated by autonomy, everyone is his own lawmaker. Everyone is his own archist. Nobody needs to obey all the other archists. When a society is dominated by autonomy, everybody is an archist. Everybody says "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!" When archists refuse to obey other archists, "the State" may vanish (because it is centralized archism), but the absence of "the State" is not true anarchy. The absence of "the State" under autonomy might be called "anarchy," but it is not. Under autonomy, where everyone is his own god, society exists in a condition of multi-archy, poly-archy, or omni-archy.
What most people think of as "anarchy" is not the absence of archists, but it is chaos. And when "the State" is abolished but poly-archy remains, those who made their living regulating and taxing others as part of "the government" will say, "See what happens when there is no State? CHAOS!" But the real problem is, everyone is his own State. Everyone is his own jack-booted thug. Everyone is his own god.
True anarcho-capitalism can only exist when the Crown Rights of King Jesus, the True Archist, are acknowledged, human beings become servants, and God's Law, the blueprint for prosperity and freedom, is obeyed.
Does "anarchy" (absence of "the State") mean "chaos?" Only if "the State" is eliminated in the quest for widespread autonomous aggression.
Revolution: If everyone in society wants to aggress against everyone else, but "the State" allows only aggression by the State and suppresses aggression against the State and the interests of the State, then the State will be abolished in an act of autonomous revolution. The masses overthrow the State in an act of aggression against the State in order to eliminate all restrictions on aggression. This would be "chaos," that is, widespread theft, murder, and enslavement.
The question is, would decentralized aggression be worse than centralized aggression committed out of patriotic "duty" and funded by taxes or government-printed "money?"
Repentance: On the other hand, if everyone in society is opposed to aggression, and the State is abolished because it is viewed as systematic, institutionalized aggression, then the State is abolished in an act of Theonomic Repentance. If society repents, the amount of theft, murder, and enslavement will go down, not up, when "the State" is abolished.
In an "anarchist" society, there are two classes of people: "archists" and non-archists; aggressors and non-aggressors.
In
an "archist" society, there are three classes of people: "archists" are divided into two classes: "public
servants" and "criminals"; those who commit aggression as agents of "the State," and non-state aggressors. The third class of people are "voters"
or "taxpayers."
Remember, the person described by the word "archist" is a person who believes he has the right to impose his will on others by force or aggression. "Anarchists" do not believe anyone has this right. If you took a carefully-worded poll right now, I believe you would find that the vast majority of people are anarchists when they view human beings as individuals. That is, they do not believe any individual has the right to impose his will on other people by force. Tragically, most people today believe that some people have the right to transcend individuality and form a collective ("the State") which does have the right to impose its collective will on others by force. In an anarchist society, people reject this violent fiction.
Therefore, if we move from an "archist" society (dominated or democratically subservient to an aggressive collective) to an "anarchist" society (where aggression is rejected by voters and by repentant politicians who no longer engage in aggression through "public service") there will be less theft, murder, enslavement, and chaos than we have now.
| If a society abolished "the State" by repenting of aggression -- |
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• voters no longer voted for politicians who promise to steal, "regulate," or kill |
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• and all soldiers, bureaucrats, and politicians resigned because they acknowledged that their acts of "taxation," "regulation" and "foreign policy" were immoral acts of aggression |
| -- "criminals" would not "take over." |
There will always be "archists" in every society: people who believe they have a right to impose their will on others by force or aggression. But if the vast majority of society believes this aggression is immoral, then archists will always be "outlaws." They will be the "fringe" and the "underground." They will eventually be excommunicated by society until they repent of their archist ways. An anarchist society -- where criminals are marginalized -- will have less crime than a society which "votes" for aggression, funds it with taxes and monetary printing presses, dons a uniform to carry out state-mandated aggression, and praises and exalts state aggression with patriotic huzzahs.
There is no way that marginalized social outcasts could develop weapons of mass destruction and top the record of "the State" for aggression. During the 20th century:
• Hundreds of millions of people were murdered.
• Billions of people were enslaved.
•
Trillions of dollars worth of private property was confiscated or destroyed.
By "Governments."
This would not be possible in an anarchist world. This would not be possible if the vast majority of people rejected aggression and abolished "the State" through Theonomic Repentance.
Advocating social Theonomy is met with the greatest boogeyman-word of our era: "Theocracy!" "You're trying to impose a Theocracy!"
All you have to do is try to get public school teachers to teach public school students that the Declaration of Independence is really true and you'll be accused of trying to "impose a theocracy on America!" (By today's atheistic standards, the Declaration of Independence is "theocratic.")
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The answer to this accusation is simple: the word "theocracy" does not mean "rule by priests," it means "rule by God." It is not a church-state. It can be a churchless, stateless society that acknowledges the right of God to govern all, and the duty of all to be governed by God.
To be honest, Christian anarchists want everyone to obey "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," which Blackstone said could be found "only in Holy Scripture." America's Founders correctly declared that this is the only source of our liberties or "rights." But we cannot "impose" faithfulness (obedience) to God by force or threats of violence.
Although we live in the world, we don’t fight our battles with human methods. Our weapons that we fight with aren’t human, but instead they are powered by God for the destruction of fortresses. They destroy arguments, and every defense that is raised up to oppose the knowledge of God. They capture every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (CEB)
"Theocracy" is an inescapable concept.
Some people say, "You can't legislate morality."
All legislation is legislated morality.
All
legislation is "Thou shalt ____" or "Thou shalt not ____."
All laws reflect someone's morality, and the source of morality in a society is the
"god" of that society. It can be the True God, or a false
god.
Every society is a theocracy. The question is, WHO is the "theos" in your "theocracy?" A statist muslim theocracy (where everyone obeys the muslim god) is very different from a Christian anarchist/servant Theocracy, just as a truly Christian Theocracy is different from a secular theocracy (where every man is his own god, but the State inevitably represents "the popular will" as "god walking on the earth" [Hegel]).
The question is not WHETHER we will have a theocracy or not, the question is, WHOSE theocracy?
Secular theocracies murdered half a billion human beings in the 20th century, through war and "democide." Some secular theocrats contend many more times as many people must be eradicated in the 21st century -- as many as half a million people per day.
Moving to a global Christian Theocracy will not lead to chaos and mass death. It is the only way to avoid it.
There are only two options in a universe created by the God of the Bible: Autonomy or Theonomy. The only valid option for a
Christian is that of becoming a better Theonomist.
If "libertarian" is defined as "not subject to God's Law," then obviously a Theonomist cannot be such
a "libertarian."
If "libertarian" is defined as "moving
to greater liberty and a smaller state," then Theonomists are more libertarian than secularists and other antinomians.
A
Theonomic society is more libertarian than a secular self-anointed "libertarian" society, and even more libertarian than secular "anarchy," because secularism
-- where every man in his own god -- inescapably leads to a more powerful State, and Theonomy is the most philosophically consistent opponent of Statism.
Sure,
you can have a handful of isolationist atheists who don't care about anyone else, avoid contact with all other people, and live as hermits. They are no threat to your liberty.
(Neither are they a guardian of your liberty.) But an entire population of secularists is a population of would-be gods, and for every secular hermit there are a dozen aggressive
secular jackbooted thugs: either "private sector criminals" or public sector tyrants. Secularism can never produce true anarchy. Secularism always mutates into many
possible (and deadly) forms of poly-archy.
Christian Theonomy acknowledges only one legitimate Archist, and denounces all creaturely pretenders. Theocracy is the only path
to libertarianism (or "anarcho-capitalism").
Most people will describe the "Vine & Fig Tree" vision as "impractical," "utopian" and "unrealistic." Probably everyone in 2015 would describe those on board the Mayflower, leaving the Netherlands in 1620 in a rickety old boat (by today's standards) headed across the angry Atlantic Ocean for "the New World" as nut-case religious "extremists." But their "City upon a Hill" eventually worked. Better than anything in human history.
In the last 50 years, however, the United States government has killed, crippled, or made homeless tens of millions of innocent non-combatant civilians in an attempt to impose "secular" (atheistic) "democracy" (corporate fascism) on the world. During the last 100 years, "secular" governments have killed an average of 10,000 born people each and every single day of the century. (The figure does not include "legal" killings of unborn people, which now take place 135,000 times a day around the world.)
But government-approved, university-trained, media-whitewashed mass death is "responsible," "respectable," "practical," and "realistic,"
On this page is described how the "Vine & Fig Tree" vision could actually be implemented in "the real world." [note] Here is an excerpt:
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A: Liberty Under God.
Liberty Under God
vs.
“Security”
Under Archists
A Christian worldview:
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The Archist:
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In a nutshell:
Liberty Under God
Liberty Under God is the philosophy that made America
the
most prosperous and most admired nation in history.
America is now bankrupt and despised
even by former admirers
because we have abandoned Liberty Under God
in favor of "Security Under
Man"
The modern idea of "Separation of Church and State" is an evil lie. While the modern Supreme Court declares that America is a "secular" nation, for the first 100 years after the Constitution was ratified, the Supreme Court frequently acknowledged that America was a Christian nation. And the more consistently America was Christian, the less archist America was.
On May 2, 1778, George Washington ordered the troops:
The Delaware Indian Chiefs came to Washington inquiring how they could leave their world of superstition and poverty, and become more like the Americans. On May 12, 1779, George Washington coached them:The commander-in-chief directs that divine service be performed every Sunday at eleven o'clock in those brigades [in] which there are chaplains; those which have none [are] to attend the places of worship nearest to them. It is expected that officers of all ranks will by their attendance set an example to their men. While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian. The signal instances of providential goodness which we have experienced, and which have now almost crowned our labors with complete success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of gratitude and piety to the Supreme Author of all good.
— George Washington, General Orders, May 2, 1778 The Writings of George Washington, JC Fitzpatrick, ed., Wash. DC: US Gov't Printing Office, 1932, Vol. XI:342-343.
You do well to wish to learn our arts and ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. These will make you a greater and happier people than you are. Congress will do every thing they can to assist you in this wise intention.
The Writings of George Washington, JC Fitzpatrick, ed., Wash. DC: US Gov't Printing Office, 1932, Vol 15, p.55.
George Washington to New Hampshire Founding Father Meshech Weare, June 8, 1783:
I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.
a Circular Letter of Farewell to the Continental Army, containing "my final blessing to that Country, in whose service I have spent the prime of my life."
Inscribed on a bronze tablet adjoining the Washington pew inSt. Paul's chapel in New York City.
Can we know for sure who is the Divine Author of our blessed Religion? Could it have been Muhammad? On July 9, 1812, President James Madison proclaimed a day of prayer,
to be set apart for the devout purposes of rendering the Sovereign of the Universe and the Benefactor of Mankind the public homage due to His holy attributes; of acknowledging the transgressions which might justly provoke the manifestations of His divine displeasure; of seeking His merciful forgiveness and His assistance in the great duties of repentance and amendment, that He would inspire all nations with a love of justice and of concord and with a reverence for the unerring precept of our holy religion to do to others as they would require that others should do to them.
"Our religion" is Christianity.
If elected I will follow James Madison's advice to vote against any bill which does not promote Christianity, the "true religion." In one of his most famous speeches, Madison, the "father of the Constitution," gave his reasons for opposing proposed legislation:
Because, the policy of the bill is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity. The first wish of those who enjoy this precious gift, ought to be that it may be imparted to the whole race of mankind. Compare the number of those who have as yet received it with the number still remaining under the dominion of false Religions; and how small is the former! Does the policy of the Bill tend to lessen the disproportion? No; it at once discourages those who are strangers to the light of (revelation) from coming into the Region of it; and countenances, by example the nations who continue in darkness, in shutting out those who might convey it to them. Instead of levelling as far as possible, every obstacle to the victorious progress of truth, the Bill with an ignoble and unchristian timidity would circumscribe it, with a wall of defence, against the encroachments of error.
The Disciples were given a "Great Commission":
| And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and make every nation a Christian nation, Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: Matthew 28:18-20 |
During the first 100 years after the Constitution was ratified, courts -- including the Supreme Court of the United States -- repeated on numerous occasions that America was a Christian nation, including the notable 1892 case of Church of the Holy Trinity vs. United States. Only someone ignorant of the facts or with a secularist agenda would ever say that America was not originally a Christian nation.
But Washington D.C. does not always act consistently with "the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion" -- to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and to not be like "the kings of the Gentiles." America has never been 100% consistent with "the religion of Jesus Christ." Of all the political parties, I think the precepts of the True Religion are best reflected by the Pledge required of all members of the Libertarian Party:
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Beyond the initiation of force, the religion of Jesus Christ prohibits the return of force:
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We have been trained to think of "anarchy" as a situation where every man is his own god. But if Jesus is Lord, then we ought to obey His command not to be "archists." A world without archists is a world of peace, cooperation, harmony, and Free Markets, with everyone dwelling safely under his own "Vine & Fig Tree."
- Crime and Punishment in a Free Society by Sheldon Richman | April, 2014
No.1: A burglar just broke into my home and stole my TV, but I live in a stateless society. If there's no "government," will the burglar just be free to steal forever?
Under today's government, the criminal who steals your TV is less likely to be incarcerated by the government for burglary than your next door neighbor is for possessing an illegal plant.
Part of the reason is that tracking down a violent offender costs the government more money and is more risky than tracking down peaceful people with illegal flora. The government is a monopoly of Keystone Cops without competition at best, and a menacing militarized threat to civilization at worst.
Further, government's mandatory sentencing against users of illegal plants crowds prisons with non-violent people resulting in release of violent offenders.
Why We Need Prison Reform: Victimless Crimes Are 86% of the Federal Prison Population
Regardless, if a criminal just stole your TV, why would you want a "government" stealing more from you to give the criminal "three hots and a cot" plus weightlifting equipment and color TV? Capitalist solutions to crime won't steal more from victims to incarcerate their offenders. Capitalist solutions will provide powerful incentives to criminals to make restitution to their victims.
In a stateless society, entrepreneurs and capitalists will see that there is market demand for the apprehension of criminals. Insurance companies will be interested in recovering stolen property rather than paying out claims. Evangelistic groups will be interested in turning criminals into productive members of society. There is profit to be made, and charitable works to be funded.
Yes, crimes will be committed in a stateless society. But the cost of private crime is much less than the cost of government crimes. And under capitalism, innovative and market-tested solutions to crime will replace ineffective and counter-productive government anti-crime measures.
Capitalism has shown that the vast majority of human beings cooperate in order to prosper. Only a small minority steal for a living. Honest folks who want to avoid being stolen from, or recover stolen property, will cooperate together using non-coercive market forces to create networks and infrastructure to deal with criminals, just as capitalism has dealt with all other human problems (food, clothing, shelter, etc.).
The Bible never says that a coercive non-voluntary monopoly called "the government" is the only Godly way to respond to the problem of crime, any more than the Bible says a coercive non-voluntary monopoly called "the government" is the only Godly way to respond to the problem of disease and sickness, or hunger and nakedness. Liberty allows entrepreneurs to solve human problems -- and make a profit.
If your church group went on a missions trip to Haiti, but your plane got off course and landed on an uncharted island, and you concluded that you would never be rescued, how would you deal with crime? Would you set up a "State?" No, you already have a "church," and that's all you need to deal with crime. See how Matthew 18 can be applied in an anarcho-capitalist society:
Here are three books which map out capitalist solutions to crime.
Prof. Bruce Benson has studied the history of cooperative responses to crime, as well as present alternatives:
Further studies on crime:
A government monopoly of violence is never the best solution to any human problem.
We've been trained to believe that if we don't give the government half of everything we earn, year after year, that criminals will steal from us. But they will only steal a
tiny fraction of the amount the government takes from us. And a society which has Godly schools, has less crime, and without "the government," there is no public model of
successful criminals -- people who get rich by resorting to force and violence ("the State").
Tort Reform and Avoiding Lawyers: Good and Bad Ways To Do It | BlueKennel
Exodus 21:29 says that if you know your ox has a tendency to gore people, you have a moral obligation to protect people from your ox. See vv. 33-34 regarding an open pit or other hazard on your property. If you know that a human being has a tendency to do violence to people, you have a moral obligation to protect people from that violent individual. If one cannot afford to do this, perhaps philanthropists should donate to charitable organizations that monitor violent people, and also work spiritualy with such people to help them overcome their rage.
Encyclopedia Britannica says it is "the political system by which a country or community is administered and regulated."
One can also obtain political power by military invasion and conquest. But "conquest" is never-ending, for as Wikipedia notes, "Government is a means by which organizational policies are enforced" -- continuously enforced. Little conquests every day, everywhere. Your boss can fire you; your church can excommunicate you, but your "government" conquers you with force or threats of violence. "Government" is the institution of systematic violence. And this institution maintains a monopoly on violence.
This is important. Every professor of political science in every university on planet earth will agree that the fundamental nature (or most basic definition) of "civil government" (or "the State") is
Government: A Monopoly of Violence
Proof:
Sociologist Max Weber says "the State" is "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory."
Mainstream scholarship is summed up in the Encyclopædia Britannica:
State monopoly on violence, in political science and sociology, the concept that the state alone has the right to use or authorize the use of physical force. It is widely regarded as a defining characteristic of the modern state.
In his lecture “Politics as a Vocation” (1918), the German sociologist Max Weber defines the state as a “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” The modern state, according to Weber, emerged by expropriating the means of political organization and domination, including violence, and by establishing the legitimacy of its rule.
But violence is a means to an end; a way to achieve the government's goals. We might distinguish between the government's real goals, and those goals which are propagated for public consumption (like campaign promises). Politicians might promise you "a better life," or "law and order," but their goal is power, prestige, and a nice paycheck.
Nothing wrong with a paycheck. Every farmer and every owner of a "Mom&Pop Store" wants to be able to feed, house, and clothe their family. But the farmer has to grow, and the store owner has to sell, what consumers want and will voluntarily pay for.
"Government" -- uniquely -- engages in "taxation," which is a form of extortion. When "Mom & Pop" try to raise money the way "government" does, society recognizes them as unethical, immoral, criminal, even psychopathic people.
When a business in the "free market" needs to raise money, it must use persuasion to entice the voluntary support of others. By contrast, when "the State" needs money, it takes it by force. This taking is called "taxation." (Other forms of taking, such as fractional reserve banking, asset forfeiture, and debasement of the currency, are also employed. These "revenue enhancement" devices are, like taxation, also immoral. They involve theft through fraud.)
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If we define "government" (as Wikipedia does) as a "group of people," then it becomes plain that "government" is an idol.
What the "government" promises voters is nothing less than the holistic Biblical concept of "salvation" -- which, in the Bible, is much, much broader than simply going to heaven when you die.
What the government promises politicians is "being as gods" (Genesis 3:5).
Government is therefore a false god, and belief in the necessity of having a "group of people" who claim to be god being the source of social salvation is idolatry.
It is the thesis of this webpage that Jesus is the only true God, and the only true Savior, and therefore the only legitimate "government."
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People say Christmas has become too "commercialized." They say we've lost "the real meaning of Christmas."
What is the real meaning of Christmas?
People who say Christmas has become commercialized will answer that question like this:
But what is the meaning of the birth of some guy named Jesus? What is the significance of the birth of that guy?
This website says something very controversial.
Nobody agrees with it.
The whole world disagrees with it.
Are you ready? (You already know what it is -- it's the name of the website:
Jesus is the Christ.
In 2021, almost nobody believes that statement to be true.When you first hear it, you might think that the juxtaposition of "Jesus" and "Christ" is obvious and not at all controversial. But when you dig deeper, it appears that this is the most controversial proposition on planet earth.
And -- most surprisingly -- the vast, overwhelming majority of professing, church-going (or non-churching) Christians do not believe that Jesus is the Christ today.
This website defends the proposition that Jesus is the Messiah right now, and has fulfilled or is fulfilling all the "messianic prophecies" -- even those prophecies most Christians reserve for "the millennium."
Jesus is the Christ.
The angels told the shepherds that the birth of the boy in Bethlehem meant "Peace on Earth."
A favorite Christmas carol mentions this announcement:
| It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth To touch their harps of gold: "Peace on the earth, good will to men, From heaven's all-gracious King." The world in solemn stillness lay To hear the angels sing. |
Another Christmas carol notes that Christian churches pay lip-service to this announcement::
| I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, and wild and sweet The words repeat Of peace on earth, good-will to men! |
But the poem, written during the Civil War, expresses some doubt:
| Then from each black, accursed mouth The cannon thundered in the South, And with the sound The carols drowned Of peace on earth, good-will to men! |
The poet today might write about "The War on Terrorism."
| And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said; "For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! |
But the poet had something many of today's Christians lack: Optimism:
| Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The Wrong shall fail, The Right prevail, With peace on earth, good-will to men." |
Probably a majority of self-described Christians today believe the future belongs not to "The Prince of Peace," but to "the antichrist," "great tribulation," "Armageddon," and global war and suffering.
Sure, things will be much better after The Second Coming of Christ. Then we will have "peace on earth." But not before.
Apparently, the angels were mistaken. They thought the first advent of Christ meant "peace on earth."
Apparently the only meaning of Christmas is
"You can go to heaven when you die, and leave all the war and suffering on earth."
This website challenges the prevailing pessimism.
Many people complain that the Bible is filled with war, slavery, and violence. "How can that be the Word of God?" they ask.
But the world before Christ really was filled with war, slavery, and violence. Many historians note that most human beings died violent deaths, or died prematurely from the violence of slavery, conquest, captivity, and all forms of human violence.
If they could travel through time from their day to ours, every prophet who spoke of the coming Messiah would fall on his knees in gratitude to God for the fact that most people on earth today die peacefully, not violently. They would be utterly speechless walking down the aisles of your local WalMart. The character of human life was changed dramatically by the babe born in Bethlehem. And further change is possible:
| For lo!, the days are hastening on, By prophet bards foretold, When with the ever-circling years Comes round the age of gold When peace shall over all the earth Its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world give back the song Which now the angels sing. |
Christ has already eliminated 99% of all the violence that existed in the world before the first Christmas.
With the poet who "heard the bells on Christmas day" we
should note that with the birth of Jesus,
This website claims that Christians could end 99% of the remaining violence in the world in 2021.
But we have to believe in the real meaning of Christmas:
But most people who call themselves "Christians" don't really believe this.
The two most controversial words in that statement are the words "IS" and "THE."
Most church-going Christians believe that Jesus will become the Messiah at a future Christmas, a future advent, a future "Second Coming." But the word
"IS" -- present tense -- is the wrong word to use about Jesus being the Messiah. To say that Jesus "is" the Messiah is to say that He already became the
Messiah and began ruling in the past. The word "preterit" is from the Latin word for "past," and the idea that Jesus began ruling as Messiah
in the past is called "the heresy of preterism."
The word "Christ" also has many meanings. The basic meaning is "anointed," as in "king" (Matthew 21:5 ), e.g., "King of Israel" (John 1:49). Jesus is also called a "Ruler" (Micah 5:2), a "Potentate" (1 Timothy 6:15 ), a "Governor" (Matthew 2:6 ), a "Captain" (Hebrews 2:10 ), a "Prince" (Isaiah 9:6 ), and many other words (some of which we aren't familiar with in our day, like "Horn" [Luke 1:69 ]) which are political in nature. Many political terms can be inferred:
Our point is that Jesus is the -- THE -- the ONLY -- legitimate king, prince, ruler, president, prime minister, governor, legislator, judge, and potentate. If we simply practice what we preach -- by obeying His commandments -- we will have a peaceful, orderly, and prosperous society. All other earthly kings, princes, rulers, presidents, prime ministers, governors, legislators, judges, and potentates are illegitimate usurpers and anti-Christ. I know what you're thinking. "What are you, some kind of ANARCHIST?" That suspicion is the kind of thing we were all taught in schools run by earthly kings, princes, rulers, presidents, prime ministers, governors, legislators, judges, and potentates. We are never taught what Jesus taught. Jesus said the kings of the gentiles love to impose their will on other people by political and military force, but Christ's followers are not to do these things (Mark 10:42-45). Mark uses the Greek word from which we get our English word "anarchist." He says the kings of the Gentiles love to be "archists." But Christians are NOT to be "archists." So some folks will say all this talk about Jesus being THE Ruler -- the only legitimate Ruler -- will lead to "anarchy." Obeying Jesus as the Christ will certainly lead to the elimination of bloodthirsty empires and their Caesars, Pharaohs, and Führers. But it will certainly not lead to chaos and lawlessness (which is what most people have been trained to think of when they hear the word "anarchism" or contemplate the absence of "archists" in the swordless Kingdom of Christ). Taken together, the two words "IS" and "THE" are branded as the heresy of "anarcho-preterism." This website maintains that "anarcho-preterism" is "the real meaning of Christmas." This website maintains that "anarcho-preterism" is "the Gospel." |
This website is sponsored by:
The name "Vine & Fig Tree" comes from the fourth chapter of the prophet Micah, and is set forth below. You've probably heard Micah's words before -- we beat our "swords into plowshares" and everyone dwells safely under their own "Vine & Fig Tree."
America's Founding Fathers were familiar with this vision: "Vine & Fig Tree" is the worldview that made America "the greatest nation on God's green earth."
George Washington's Diaries are available online at the Library of Congress. The LOC.GOV website introduces Washington's writings with these words:
No theme appears more frequently in the writings of Washington than his love for his land. The diaries are a monument to that concern. In his letters
he referred often, as an expression of this devotion and its resulting contentment, to an Old Testament passage. After the Revolution, when he had returned to Mount
Vernon, he wrote the Marquis de Lafayette on Feb. 1, 1784:
This phrase occurs at least 11 times in Washington's letters.
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has found more than 40 references to the “Vine and Fig Tree” vision in Washington's Papers.| The phrase occurs a number of times in Scripture. These references are visual reminders of the Hebrew word for salvation, which means |
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| When today's Americans hear the word "salvation," they usually think about going to heaven when they die. When the writers of the Bible used the word "salvation," they wanted you to be thinking about dwelling safely under your own Vine & Fig Tree during this life -- much more often than they wanted you to be thinking about what you'll be doing in the afterlife. |
The best place to see the Vine & Fig Tree ideal is in the book of Micah.
Surprisingly, you'll almost never hear this prophecy
mentioned at Christmas.
| And it will
come about in the last days That the mountain of the House of the LORD Will be established as the chief of the mountains And it will be raised above the hills |
Are we in the "last days?"
When did this establishment take place? |
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| And the peoples will stream
to it. And many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD And to the House of the God of Jacob, |
Is Christianity doomed to minority status throughout history? Hasn't Christianity been growing since the first century? | |
| That He may teach us about His
ways And that we may walk in His paths." For from Zion will go forth the Law Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem. |
What should be the Christian's attitude toward the Law? Isn't every Word of a "Lord" "Law?" | |
| And He will judge
between many peoples And render decisions for mighty, distant nations. Then they will hammer their swords into plowshares And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation will not lift up sword against nation And never again will they train for war. |
Are we commanded to beat our swords into plowshares today? Or do we wait for the Second Coming? Are Christians "pacifists?" |
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| And each of them will sit under his | What is a family? What about private property? |
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| Vine
and under his
fig tree, With no one to make them afraid. For the LORD of hosts has spoken. |
What about technology? What about the military? What is it that really brings "security?" | |
| Though all the
peoples walk Each in the name of his god, As for us, we will walk In the Name of the LORD our God forever and ever. |
What if all the politicians, university professors, TV commentators, bloggers, newspaper editors, rock stars, scientists, CEO's, celebrities, athletes, authors, and think-tanks repudiate the Vine & Fig Tree vision and tell you not to believe it? | |
| In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted; And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever. |
Should we strive to be on top, or to help those on the bottom? Is God on the side of those who have accomplished much by their own power and initiative, or is He on the side of those who are willing to be used by God to accomplish much to His Glory? |
Most people who call themselves "Christians" today believe that Micah's prophecy will not begin to see fulfillment until Jesus returns to earth a second time. But the Bible teaches that Jesus was born during "the last days" of the Old Covenant, and He put into effect a New Covenant, and as a result of this New Covenant, billions of human beings have been streaming to "the mountain of the Lord," and the world is more obedient to God's Commandments today than it was before Jesus was born. The world is more peaceful. The mainstream media and secular academia do not want you to understand this.
Nor do most clergymen. The more perceptive clergy will say that our belief that Micah's prophecy is already being fulfilled, and that we should continue beating swords into plowshares, is "dangerous." They will warn you that we are promoting the ancient heresy of "anarcho-preterism." They are correct (we are indeed promoting "anarcho-preterism") except for two things:
Distilled into a single proposition, Vine & Fig Tree stands for this:
Jesus is the Christ Today
To say that Jesus is the Messiah today is to say that Jesus became the Messiah in the past, rather than saying He must come again (in the future) before He can begin His Messianic Reign. The belief that a prophecy was fulfilled in the past is called "preterism."
If your pastor has heard of "preterism," and especially if he uses the term "hyper-preterism," he likely believes that it is a dangerous heresy, and that anyone who is a “preterist” has denied the Christian faith, and is not to be counted as a true Christian. Gary North says Pastors should not even debate a preterist. Just kick him out of your church.
It's easy enough to prove that Jesus was made the Christ in the past. Peter explains it in Acts chapter 2. After the Apostles spoke to a large audience of people "from every nation under heaven" (Acts 2:5) in all their various foreign languages, Peter explained that this was a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. He further explains how Jesus had already fulfilled the Davidic prophecies about the enthroning of the Messiah:
| Acts 2 14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised
his voice and said to them... “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 ‘And it shall come to pass in
the last days, says God,
And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. 21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the Lord Shall be saved.’ 22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— 23 Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; 24 whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. 25 For David says [Psalm 16:8–11] concerning Him: ‘I foresaw the Lord always before my
face, 29 “Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. 34 “For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says [Psalm 110:1] himself: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, 36 “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” 37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” 38 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” 40 And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” |
God made Jesus of Nazareth the Christ -- 2000 years ago -- fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies concerning the throne of David. Peter and other devout Jews came to believe this; Christians should believe this; today's Jews do not. What was happening in Peter's "present" happened in our "past." This is "preterism."
Let's examine the word "anarchism," which is even more offensive to most Christians than "preterism."
Even more offensive to modern Christians than the belief that Jesus is the Christ today (and we shouldn't be waiting around for a second advent of Jesus) is the claim that Jesus is THE Christ today; that in our day there is no other legitimate Christ, no other legitimate king.
Nobody believes in "kings" anymore. So let's update our language.
As we will see below, Isaiah 33:22 confirms this:
For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us
As we will see below, it was a mistake for Israel to want an earthly king to replace God (1 Samuel 8).
And as we will see below, Jesus prohibits His followers from aspiring to rule over others. Jesus said a Christian must not be an "archist."
An "archist" is a "ruler." We here at Vine & Fig Tree invented the word "archist," deriving it from a Greek word found in Mark 10:42-45, from which the English word "anarchist" is derived.
In the Gospel of Mark, chapter 10 (see more below), Jesus discovers His disciples arguing about who is going to be the "greatest" in the Kingdom of God. Their concept of the Messiah was someone who would use force and violence to vanquish the Roman occupation army that held Israel under tribute. They looked forward to the coming of a Messiah who would enlist them into a Messianic Israeli Army which would "stick it to" the Romans. But just as Micah said we should beat "swords into plowshares," Jesus said His disciples should "love your enemies," and if their soldiers conscript you to carry their provisions for one mile, you should go with the occupation forces two. (This form of pacifism completely refutes the legitimacy of "national defense.") The disciples didn't understand that Jesus' Messianic Kingdom was quite unlike the kingdoms of the world.
But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. {43} Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. {44} And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. {45} "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." |
The word translated "rulers" comes from the Greek word from which we derive our English word "anarchist" ("a + archist" -- the first "a" is the Greek letter "alpha," known as the "alpha privative," meaning "not" -- a[n]archist -- the letter "n" bridges the "alpha privative" and the word "archist").
"Lords," "rulers" and "great ones" are "archists."
An "archist" believes he has the right to impose his will on other people by force. He need not rely solely on persuasion. He need not give others anything of value in exchange for what he wants from others. He can threaten violence, and carry out those threats if he doesn't get what he wants. It would be sinful for others to engage in such violent extortion or vengeance, but the "archist" claims a "legal" and moral right to do what others must not do.
Jesus clearly says His followers are not to be "archists." They are to be "servants."
A Christian society is an archist-free society.
We have been brainwashed in "public" schools (run by archists) to believe that an "anarchist" is:
Anyone can be called an "anarchist" by someone who wants to vilify an opponent, but most of those who call themselves "anarchist" have reached their position by their opposition to violence. I am a pacifist, therefore I am opposed to any institution of systematic violence and coercion (e.g., "the Mafia," "the State," etc.).
By etymological definition, the opposite of an "anarchist" is an "archist." By being trained to believe that "anarchists" are bad, we've been subtly inculcated with the belief that those who protect us against "anarchists" (logically, "archists") are good.
But the Bible says archists are bad, and explicitly prohibits us from being archists.
Jesus says His followers are not to be archists. Connect the dots.
www.HowToBecomeAChristianAnarchist.com
Mark 10:42-45 (and other passages we're going to be considering in a moment) teaches that
This isn't just a "fringe" idea. In fact, "Anarcho-Preterists" go much further. They claim:
From cover to cover, the Bible is an "Anarchist Manifesto" and urges mankind to eradicate the institution of "civil government" or "the State." It will take approximately 90 minutes for me to lay out my arguments and for you to follow them Biblically in a loving (1 Corinthians 13:5-7) way.
I want to consider with you four subjects:
- The Bible
- Man and Society
- God and Government
- The Gospel
Within these four subjects are seven steps to prove my thesis:
- 1. The Bible
- • Daily Sharpening
- • Principles of Interpreting Prophecy
- • The Blessings of Obeying the Bible -- God's Standard (Blueprint)
- 2. Man and Society
- • Purpose of Man (Calling)
To build the Kingdom of God by working (obeying God, serving others)- • The Fall of Man -- the Desire to "be as gods"
To build the Kingdom of Man without working (playing God, oppressing others)- 3. The Kingdom of God and Salvation
- • God saves sinners (archists) from the consequences of their sins (archism)
- • God's Kingdom vs. Man's Government
- • Salvation = Freedom from archists.
- • The Vine & Fig Tree society.
- 4. The Vine & Fig Tree Gospel
In these seven themes there are 12 key Scripture texts I would like you to consider before we get to the verse which proves that Anarcho-Preterism is the Gospel.
Bible 1. Acts 17:11 2. Proverbs 27:17 Prophecy: Principles of Interpretation 3. Isaiah 9:6-7 4. Daniel 2 5. Isaiah 65:17-20 Man's Purpose 6. Genesis 1:26-28 God's Blueprint 7. Leviticus 26 Government: Man's vs. God's 8. Isaiah 33:22 9. 1 Samuel 8 10. Mark 10:42-45 Salvation as Freedom from Archists 11. Over 300 "Salvation" Verses 12. Habakkuk 2:14 - Salvation and Civilization Anarcho-Preterism is “the Gospel.”
We're ready to start the argument sequence.
I am a "Bible-believing" Christian. Feel free to accuse me of engaging in bibliolatry, fundamentalism, extremism, creationism, Calvinism, Theonomy, etc. Guilty as charged.
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The first text I want to impress upon you is Acts 17:10-12
Now these [The Bereans] were more noble than those in Thessalonica,
in that they received the Word with all readiness of the mind,
searching the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so.
The Bereans appeared to be like modern libertarians, with their bumper-sticker that says "QUESTION AUTHORITY." The Apostles gave them the Gospel of Jesus Christ but the Bereans didn't just take the Apostles' word for it, but checked what they were told against a higher authority, the Scripture. The Bereans are more dogmatic authoritarians than those who mindlessly accept the word of clergy or creeds.
Additionally, the Bereans studied the Bible "daily." The verses on that link show that daily engagement with the Bible is an imperative.
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This attitude makes one a better Christian, as seen in our second text.
Just as iron sharpens iron,
friends sharpen the minds of each other.
Proverbs 27:17
My goal in this article is to be your "friend." I hope you'll be my friend as well, and challenge my thinking in a loving way.
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I am not against "authorities" or "experts." I rely on them and quote them. An "expert" can be your friend and sharpen you, but you might have to pay the expert ("mentor," "professor" "seminary"). This article is free. May you be sharpened. May we be friends.
How do we correctly interpret Micah's “Vine & Fig Tree” prophecy, as well as others which speak of the Messiah? Sometimes the form of prophecy can confuse us. Often it is poetic, rather than "scientific" or "historical" or reminiscent of journalistic "neutrality." It is designed to encourage us today. That is, to encourage us to obey God's Commandments.
The Bible teaching ministry I founded is called “Vine & Fig Tree.” The name comes from the 4th chapter of Micah. It talks about a day we beat "swords into plowshares." I believe that's not just a prediction about Micah's future, but a command for us today. I believe the Bible -- from cover to cover -- commands pacifism. War -- "the sword" -- is an evil.
You are welcome to try to "sharpen" me on this issue. Others have certainly tried. I am willing to admit that ISIS-inspired psychos kill innocent people around the world, and sometimes it's hard to believe that the Babe born in Bethlehem and laid in a manger on that "Silent Night" was really the Messiah, the Prince of Peace. But despite ISIS, I believe Micah would agree that Jesus is now reigning as Messiah and Prince of Peace.
In Micah's day, seven hundred years before the coming of the Messiah, half of all human beings died as a
result of archist violence.
There was no such thing as "liberty" in Isaiah's day. Today
we enjoy liberty because the Messiah came two thousand years ago.
Today, the vast majority of human beings die of "natural causes" rather than violence. The exceptions
to that blanket statement are easily remedied by professing Christians in America. It's a matter of ethics, not fate or
eschatology. We are commanded to bring about the continued and expanded fulfillment of these prophecies. Jesus gave us enough to consider them "fulfilled," and everything
beyond that is just frosting on the cake.
Sanctified Imagination
If Micah could travel through time 2,700 years to our day, he would fall on his knees in praise and faithful gratitude to God for fulfilling his prophecies. We are not so grateful. We should be.
But we can start where we are and imagine even greater fulfillment of the "messianic" prophecies. We should take upon ourselves the exercise of faith and imagine how the earth will look 2,700 years into our future, and work and plan for that day.
Micah and Isaiah would say that their prophecies have been gloriously fulfilled. Those of us living today are the beneficiaries of centuries of theological sanctification from Isaiah's day, and can imagine even greater ways in which those prophecies can be further fulfilled.
But most Christians do not believe that Christ is fulfilling those prophecies and reigning as Messiah today.
The premillennialists are wrong for a number of reasons.
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A. The Messianic Kingdom is Everlasting.
Not just 10 centuries, as millennialists hold
Isaiah 9:6-7
6 For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace
There will be no end,
Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
From that time forward, even forever.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.
The Messianic Age Never Ends -- "world without end." Of the baby Jesus it was foretold:
Luke 1
32 He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:
33 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
This reign began 2,000 years ago. And it has only just begun.
The idea that tens of thousands of human beings can live in one apartment building is provocative. There are seven billion human beings on earth today. The entire population of the earth can be "squeezed" into one-third of the state of Texas, each one enjoying a home with the population density of the home in which I grew up, with one-third of the state given to business and industry meeting all human needs, and one-third of the state given to parks and recreation. That leaves the other 49 states empty. The entire African continent would be uninhabited by human beings. Asia and India, with their billions of people, could live much more comfortably in Dubai-style apartments in one-third of the state of Texas. And thousands of years from now, when mankind has fulfilled God's command to "be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it" (Genesis 1:26-28; 9:1) and there are 700 billion, or a 1,000 billion (trillion) human beings on earth, the vast majority will be Christians. David Chilton writes:
6while it is fashionable for modern Christian intellectuals to speak of our civilization as "post-Christian," we should turn that around and make it Biblically accurate: Our culture is not post-Christian - our culture is still largely pre-Christian!
and
The actual number of the saved, far from being limited to mere tens of thousands, is in reality a multitude that no one could count, so vast that it cannot be comprehended. For the fact is that Christ came to save the world. Traditionally -- although Calvinists have been technically correct in declaring that the full benefits of the atonement were intended only for the elect - both Calvinists and Arminians have tended to miss the point of John 3:16. That point has been beautifully summarized by Benjamin Warfield:
You must not fancy, then, that God sits helplessly by while the world, which He has created for Himself, hurtles hopelessly to destruction, and He is able only to snatch with difficulty here and there a brand from the universal burning. The world does not govern Him in a single one of its acts: He governs it and leads it steadily onward to the end which, from the beginning, or ever a beam of it had been laid, He had determined for it. ... Through all the years one increasing purpose runs, one increasing purpose: the kingdoms of the earth become ever more and more the Kingdom of our God and His Christ. The process may be slow; the progress may appear to our impatient eyes to lag. But it is God who is building: and under His hands the structure rises as steadily as it does slowly, and in due time the capstone shall be set into its place, and to our astonished eyes shall be revealed nothing less than a saved world."
Benjamin B. Warfield, from a sermon on John 3:16 entitled "God's Immeasurable Love," in Biblical and Theological Studies (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1968), pp. 518f.
[New York City contains not just residences, but businesses (e.g., "Wall Street") and parks (e.g., "Central Park"). The "Texas" link we provided above does not make this distinction.]
Then there are other planets.
People who want Jesus to return and set up a 1,000 year kingdom (when He's already/only been reigning for twice that long) and then end the whole "earth" business are quitters with no vision. That's probably most church-going Christians.
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Daniel 2
The transformation is not instantaneous.
The Messianic Kingdom is not handed to us fully-developed on a silver platter
after we passively wait for it.
The statue in Daniel 2 represents the archist paradigm of the pre-Christian world. In Luke 4, Jesus was tempted by Satan:
5 The devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. 7 Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”
Jesus destroyed the entire demonic imperial paradigm. The Last Adam restored the seed of the First Adam to our original purpose of building the City of God. But the weeds of the City of Man still need to be cut down as a part of tending The Garden. Replacing the City of Man with the City of God is a process called "sanctification." It applies socially as well as individually.
Isaiah 9:6-7 also shows us this idea of perpetual growth. The NRSV renders verse 7:
His authority shall grow continually
The Vine & Fig Tree prophecy of Micah (4:1-7) also shows numerous evidences of continual growth:
The Messianic Kingdom grows. Of its increase "there will be no end" (Isaiah 9:6-7). That means it will never be "perfect." Even in "the New Heavens and New Earth" there is sin and death. But it is so much better than life in Isaiah's day, that it could only be communicated using wild, poetic language that has led many to believe it would be sinlessly perfect.
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In the eyes of most Christians, God Himself -- the Second Person of the Trinity -- comes to earth twice, and is still unable to persuade or empower human beings to exercise dominion in a loving, honest, and faithful manner. The first Christmas was full of promise, but ends in failure. So Christ comes a second time, thousands of years later, bringing an army of resurrected saints with Him, takes a seat on a throne in Jerusalem, rules with a rod of iron in a believers-vs.-unbelievers police state, and still, it all ends in failure. Toward the end of the 10th century of Christ's Messianic reign, Satan reigns for "a little season" (Revelation 20:3), encouraging masses of people to rebel against the personal, visible reign of Jesus Christ Himself. Seeing that He is going to lose the game, Jesus takes His football and goes home.
The very popular Christian writer Dave Hunt has written:
In fact, dominion – taking dominion and setting up the kingdom of Christ – is an impossibility, even for God. The millennial reign of Christ, far from being the kingdom, is actually the final proof of the incorrigible nature of the human heart, because Christ Himself can’t do it.[1]
"Impossible even for God." The Creator's idea of creating man in His Own Image and telling man to exercise dominion over the earth, converting the earth to God's Temple, building the City of God, was a mistake. Progress is not possible. Only regress. Earth is a failure. Jesus' prayer ("Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven") is just tilting at Satanic windmills. As Hal Lindsey put it, "Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth." Poor God.
Didn't God know when He created human beings that it would all turn out in failure? Why did He bother?
Jesus is the Messiah today, forever; not to be waited for in the future, to reign for a few short years, and to then lose a war when Satan is released "for a little season."
Prophecy as Law
When God promises a blessing (or when He threatens a curse) we know what God thinks is good or bad. If we respect God, we feel a moral obligation to pursue the good and eschew the bad.
There is a standard by which we judge our efforts at constructing the Kingdom of God. It is the Bible.
Specifically, God's Law. (All of Scripture is Law, because all of Scripture is breathed-out by God, who is our Lord, and every utterance of a Sovereign is to be respected and obeyed by His vassals.)
The Bible makes up the blueprints for the building of the New Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God. These Blueprints were drafted by the Master Architect. We are to follow the blueprints as servants and laborers, but God gets the glory. As Calvin put it:
As soon as we acknowledge God to be the supreme Architect, who has erected the beauteous fabric of the universe, our minds must necessarily be ravished with wonder at his infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.
Rushdoony has written that God's Law is God's Plan for Victory and Dominion. God's Law commands us to build the Kingdom of God, and tells us exactly how to do this. God's Law both commands and promises success in building the Kingdom of God.
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Such Promises ("blessings") are found in our fourth text: Leviticus 26 (see also Deuteronomy 28).
Obedience to God's commandments brings blessings, specifically, the blessing of peace.
Peace
means freedom from the initiation of force or threats of violence by others. Since archists are those who employ violence as a means
to an end, "peace" means "freedom from archists." The Bible distinguishes "workmen" from the "horns" of
power (Zechariah 1:18-21), and if we work to build God's Kingdom and
do not become archists, God will keep those nasty archists away from us:
Proverbs 16:7
When a man’s ways please the LORD,
He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Our text here is "the Dominion Mandate," Genesis 1:26-28. Also, Genesis 2:15,19
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Here we read the purpose for which God created Man.
Human beings were created to "exercise dominion" over the earth
as stewards of God's property.
This means growing and building the Kingdom of God, for the glory of God.
This
means transforming a wilderness into a Garden, and the Garden into the City of God, the New Jerusalem, a city of unlimited
growth and wealth.
I have benefited from a book entitled, Images
of the Spirit
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Many people object to the idea that man builds the Kingdom of God. They say this is "humanistic," and that the Polis of God must be created wholly by God with no participation by man, and then handed to man on a silver platter. Correct thinking on this issue requires a "paradigm shift." Hal Lindsey represents the old paradigm:
There used to be a group called "postmillennialists." They believed that the Christians would root out all the evil in the world, abolish godless rulers, and convert the world through ever-increasing evangelism until they brought about the Kingdom of God through their own efforts. Then after 1000 years of the institutional church reigning on earth with peace, equality and righteousness, Christ would return and time would end. These people rejected much of the Scripture as being literal and believed in the inherent goodness of man. World War I greatly disheartened this group and World War II virtually wiped out this viewpoint. No self-respecting scholar who looks at the world conditions and the accelerating decline of Christian influence today is a "postmillennialist."
Hal Lindsey, The Late, Great Planet Earth, 1970, p. 176
The idea that Christians would bring about the Kingdom of God "through their own efforts" is a real red-flag for these kind of Christians. They say it reeks of "secular humanism."
Obviously, "anarcho-preterists" do not believe that The City of God is designed by a joint act of Congress. The New Jerusalem is not the vision of an ecclesiastical council or synod, or ecumenical one-world religion. But even as the leaders of church and state conspired together to kill Jesus, even today they are unwittingly orchestrated by the "Invisible Hand of Divine Providence" to enlarge the City of God.
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The New Jerusalem is the Bride of Christ, and she must adorn herself for her Husband with righteous acts (Revelation 21:2; 19:7-8; Psalm 45:9-14; Isaiah 54:5; 61:10; 62:4).
But God still gets all the credit.
Consider the "Division of Labor" (Romans 12; 1 Corinthians 12).
There
is not a single person on planet earth who can build a pencil from scratch. This is
because all the labor and skills required to extract the raw materials from God's Creation and assemble them into a pencil are divided among many human beings, no one of
them possessing all the skills and knowledge needed to plant and harvest trees, extract and refine chemicals, and build the equipment which fabricates a pencil. While Faber-Castell
might get credit for making pencils, many other companies had a hand in the task. Previous generations saw the global human economy as being overseen by an "Invisible
Hand." Also called "Providence," about which we'll see more below.
Ultimately, only God can get credit for building the New Jerusalem, but man is commanded to do the work.
Imagine the construction of a large apartment. I mean really large, like 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential building in New York. Or five of the ten tallest buildings in the world, found in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. One of these buildings can house 25,000 human beings. Who gets "credit" for building one of these buildings? Maybe the architect -- except it was a team of architects. Maybe the CEO of the Construction firm, but he personally does not know how to build a cement mixer. Suppose your vocation is being a plumber, and you were hired to install a unique sink in one of the residences on the 32nd floor during the construction of one of these buildings. Do you get credit for building the building? Of course not. You knew very little about what kind of building was being constructed. You were just fulfilling your individual calling as a plumber. Should you say, "This is not my building, so I'm not going to contribute to its edification?" That would be disobedient.
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Each human being has a calling to build part of the Kingdom of God. It is man's job to build the kingdom. God gets all the credit.
Man's divine purpose on earth is to create a flourishing anarchist society, overseen only by an Invisible Hand.
Click bait. To "click," just keep reading.
Man's basic sin against God is the desire to "be as gods."
Genesis 3
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
An aspect of this rebellion is the desire to get something for nothing, or something without working for it. (James Jordan has argued that Adam and Eve would eventually have been allowed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, but they were required to work for it first and earn it.)
This is a major motivation for forming "the State" and conquering other people. (The other one being vengeance.)
God is man's Governor. Man rejects God's Government by desiring to be his own governor.
God punishes man for his rebellion by granting him his wishes. When man lusts for political power, God gives it to him.
Then in His mercy, God saves the repentant sinner by delivering him from the political disease.
If we obey God's commandments, we will not have war; God will not send "the sword" against us.
I will argue below that peace is possible only in a state of "an-archy," that is, the absence of "archists." This too is a "paradigm shift."
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When we disobey God's Law, God sends archists as a judgment/curse against us.
We see this repeatedly in the Scripture. Israel lusts after gentile archists (like Moloch, which means "king"). God delivers Israel into the hand of these pagan archists, and Israel cries out for deliverance, and God delivers them by sending a deliverer, or "savior" or "judge" who "saves" Israel from the pagan archists.
Here's how Nehemiah sums up Israel's history of rebelling against God's Law and then being "saved" from the consequences of their disobedience:
- Nehemiah 9:23-31
- 23 Thou also multipliedst their children as the stars of heaven, and broughtest them into the land, concerning which thou hadst promised to their fathers, that they should go in to possess it.
- 24 So the children went in and possessed the land, and thou subduedst before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, and gavest them into their hands, with their kings, and the people of the land, that they might do with them as they would.
- 25 And they took strong cities, and a fat land, and possessed houses full of all goods, wells digged, vineyards, and oliveyards, and fruit trees in abundance: so they did eat, and were filled, and became fat, and delighted themselves in thy great goodness.
- 26 Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against thee, and cast thy law behind their backs, and slew thy prophets which testified against them to turn them to thee, and they wrought great provocations.
- 27 Therefore thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies, who vexed them: and in the time of their trouble, when they cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and according to thy manifold mercies thou gavest them saviours, who saved them out of the hand of their enemies.
- 28 But after they had rest, they did evil again before thee: therefore leftest thou them in the land of their enemies, so that they had the dominion over them: yet when they returned, and cried unto thee, thou heardest them from heaven; and many times didst thou deliver them according to thy mercies;
- 29 And testifiedst against them, that thou mightest bring them again unto thy law: yet they dealt proudly, and hearkened not unto thy commandments, but sinned against thy judgments, (which if a man do, he shall live in them;) and withdrew the shoulder, and hardened their neck, and would not hear.
- 30 Yet many years didst thou forbear them, and testifiedst against them by thy spirit in thy prophets: yet would they not give ear: therefore gavest thou them into the hand of the people of the lands.
- 31 Nevertheless for thy great mercies' sake thou didst not utterly consume them, nor forsake them; for thou art a gracious and merciful God.
God sent Israel many "saviors." When Bible-believers think of a "savior," they think of someone who will save Israel "out of the hand of their enemies." The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph, and said:
- Matthew 1:18-23
- Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.
A first-century Jew, steeped in the Scriptures, would hear this as a promise to save "His people" from the consequences of their sins, the curses imposed on them by God because of their rebellion against His Law. John the Baptist's father "Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying"
- Luke 1:67-80
- 68 “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel,
For He has visited and redeemed His people,
69 And has raised up a horn of salvation for us
In the house of His servant David,
71 That we should be saved from our enemies
And from the hand of all who hate us,
74 To grant us that we,
Being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
Might serve Him without fear,
75 In holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
79 To guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The Babe born in Bethlehem saved Christians in the first century from their enemies: the Jews who collaborated with Rome. Then the Rock destroyed Rome, and has filled the earth with Christian Civilization -- The City of God. The growing and filling continues.
Consider this classic Christmas text:
- Luke 2:8-20
- 8 Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. 10 Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. 11 For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”
- 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
- 14 “Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”
What would a first-century Israelite think if an angel of the LORD announced the coming of a "savior?" They would doubtless think back to all the saviors in the [Old Testament] Scriptures. Those saviors did not just promise a ticket to heaven when everyone died. They promised to save Israel from the consequences of her sins. Those consequences included "the Sword." Freedom from the sword is one aspect of the holistic Biblical concept of Salvation, and one of the benefits of a Biblical savior. The savior brought the benefits ("blessings") of obedience upon a people who had not been obedient, but who had repented of their disobedience.
Jesus was a Savior in this Biblical tradition. He came to bring Salvation. He came to save His people from their enemies, so they could get on with the work of building the New Jerusalem.
"Salvation" is holistic/cultural/economic, not just a ticket to heaven when you die. We'll see this below in more detail.
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A society that is Biblical is archist-free. Our next three texts show this.
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Our fifth text is Isaiah 33:22
For the Lord is our Judge,
The Lord is our Lawgiver,
The Lord is our King;
He will save us
Notice all three "branches" of government are seen here.
God governs from heaven through Providence, not visible physical enthronement in Jerusalem. This is the major error of the "pre-millennialists." See the discussion of the "invisible hand" above. Micah's Vine & Fig Tree prophecy (Micah 4:1-7) says
And He will judge between many peoples
And render decisions for mighty, distant nations.
While it's true that Jesus is the Word, the Word does not judge by sitting on a visible, physical throne in Jerusalem. "The Word" that judges nations is God's Law:
For from Zion will go forth the Law
Even the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
As we saw above, man's chief purpose on earth is to build the City of God. The New Jerusalem is not handed to man on a silver platter fully-built. It is built by the "invisible Hand" of "Divine Providence," but God uses obedient and responsible human agents. An "invisible" Hand requires visible human servants, who are hands, feet, eyes, and other "members" of the Body of Christ.
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Israel rejected this concept.
Israel wanted visible physical archists like the Gentiles had. Emperors, Pharaohs, Molochs,
and Caesars.
This brings us to our sixth key text: 1 Samuel 8
Read the passage. Read the commentary in that link. The Bible says Israel, in desiring a king like the Gentiles had, was rejecting God. This is an awe-ful and profound indictment. Israel, "the chosen people," rejected the God who chose them, preferring the central-planning archist gods of the pagans. The Israelites were idolators.
Of course, Israel's rejection of God didn't stop God from governing. We hear much from premillennialists that Jesus offered Himself to Israel as Messiah, but Israel rejected Him as King, so He could only be "savior." This is nuts. Jesus was King whether the Jewish establishment wanted Him or not, and He destroyed apostate Israel in a day of fiery vengeance.
Luke 21:20
“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is near. 22 For these are the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.”Luke 19:14,27
14 But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’
27 But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’”Matthew 22:1-14
But when the king heard about it, he was furious. And he sent out his armies, destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city. (cf. 2 Thessalonians 1:3-10)
We see the error of 1 Samuel 8 in Christ's apostles before they were filled with the Spirit. They not only wanted Jesus to be a visible physical archist to overthrow the Roman occupation army, they too wanted archist powers to take vengeance on their oppressors. None of this has a place in Christ's Kingdom. This is seen in our seventh text, Mark 10:42-45, where the Greek word underlying the English word "anarchist" is found. (We looked at this passage above.)
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In the ancient world, all empires and politicians were religious. The emperor/pharaoh/caesar was a deity. Politicians were gods and mediators/priests.
Today the politician --
and the Polis -- is said to be "secular," but this is only evidence of the religion of
Secular Humanism.
In the Old Testament, archists were called "gods" (Ps 82, etc.).
The desire for a physical, visible archist
= idolatry
Human archists = false gods = idols
There is no such thing as a "good" archist.
By definition,
"the government" is an institution which claims the right to steal, kidnap,
and murder. If it doesn't make that claim, and does not accomplish its goals through violence (which would otherwise be
universally acknowledged as sinful in "the private sector"), it's not a "government" and is not made up of archists.
It's just a Rotary Club or some other voluntary association. (Which would be a good thing. Voluntary non-violent non-coercive
associations provide all the governance any human society needs:
• homeschools educate,
•
businesses discipline, and
• competitive free market Dispute Resolution Organizations resolve
disputes.
This is "governance" without "the government.")
"The State" is a criminal enterprise. It is prohibited by God's Law, even if God Himself "ordains" it (brings it into existence), like God created Assyria (Isaiah 10) or Rome (Luke 21:20-22) to judge (rape, pillage, burn, destroy) Israel.
Anarchist optimillennialism is a new paradigm. A new way of looking at human social organization ("government").
And a new way of looking at "salvation."
Let's elaborate a bit on the "blessings" and "cursings" which are found in God's Law (e.g., Leviticus 26).
When Israel rejected the government of God and lusted after Gentile archists, God delivered Israel into the hands of her archist lover/idol. Then Israel cried out for deliverance from these archists. This deliverance is the doorway through which we can gain a larger understanding of the Biblical doctrine of "salvation."
Most Christians think "salvation" means "going to heaven when I die." They focus on a tiny fraction of the Bible, and ignore the vast majority.
"Salvation" -- in the vast majority of Biblical texts -- means "anarchism." "Salvation" means a "libertarian" society. Some would call it an "anarcho-capitalist" society.
The Libertarian Party requires party members to affirm but one proposition:
I do not believe in or advocate
the initiation of force
as a means of achieving political or social goals.
People who will not make this pledge are "archists." They believe they have a right to impose their will on other people by force, usually by "the sword" -- political or military power.
Being an "archist" is un-Christian (Mark 10:42-45). We are not to spread Christianity with the sword. We are not to vote for archists who promise to bring salvation.
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Not "What is 'salvation' in the minds of most professing Christians?"
What does the Bible say?
The Hebrew word most frequently translated "salvation" or "save" is yasha'. In various derivatives it can be translated "deliverance," "victory," "safety," "security," and "welfare." (The Greek equivalent also carries the idea of "health.")
What does the government promise? We have a Department of Health, a Welfare Department, a Department of Homeland Security -- all components of the Biblical concept of "salvation." "The Government" (a.k.a. "civil government") is always a substitute for God. God is our Governor (Isaiah 33:22), and He brings salvation.
The Hebrew word for "save" or "bring salvation" is "yasha." Here is how a very mainstream, non-anarcho-preterist scholar defines that Hebrew word:
Yasha and its derivatives are used 353 times. The root meaning . . . is “make wide” or make sufficient: this root is in contrast to sarar, “narrow,” which means “be restricted” or “cause distress.” To move from distress to safety requires deliverance. [T]he majority of references to salvation speak of Yahweh granting deliverance from real enemies and out of real catastrophes. That which is wide connotes freedom from distress and the ability to pursue one’s own objectives. Thus salvation is not merely a momentary victory on the battlefield; it is also the safety and security necessary to maintain life unafraid of numerous dangers.
Hartley, John E. (1999). 929 יָשַׁע ["yasha"], in R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, vol. 1, pp. 414-15.
I admit that I say many controversial things. That definition is not one of them. It is thoroughly Biblical. That's a very conservative, mainstream reference work. Let's look at it in more detail.
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Consider first the phrase "safety and security necessary to maintain life." This is also the "safety and security necessary to maintain a prosperous and humane society." In order to go to WalMart and buy a shopping cart full of food and household accessories, there has to be a global network of businesses who create and transport millions of products by making billions of economic calculations and transactions. Millions of human beings have to get to work on time, run the trucks on schedule, choose to work instead of stealing and robbing, and work the graveyard shift so that when you get to the store, all the items you want are neatly arranged on the shelf in an order which makes it possible for you to quickly find what you need and get on with life.
Who should we trust for "safety" and "security?" What does the Bible say?
The Bible repeatedly says that if we obey God the Lawgiver by loving our neighbor through productive service, God our Judge and King will "bless" us with peace and prosperity. "Peace" means "safety" and "security." These are all components of the Biblical picture of holistic "salvation."
But there are those who want to supplant God the King by promising to give us salvation if we will vote for them.
"Safety" and "security" are blessings from God, not government. We enjoy "safety" and "security" when our nation is Christian and observes "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," that is, the Bible. Nobody enjoys "safety" and "security" when the government becomes a tyranny which bans the Bible and people behave like pagans.
Here are other key descriptions of Biblical "salvation," according to our mainstream source above:
The Bible describes "salvation" as being placed onto a large piece of property that supplies everything you need:
In the Bible, Godly men are shown to be concerned about living in a “large” land. Of course, in a more agrarian society, “large” is better, as far as land goes. But when God promises to save us by putting us into a “large land,” it’s clear that more is included than going to heaven after living for decades in a narrow land before we up and die. What is the modern equivalent of a “large land?” It varies from person to person, but it includes some form of economic prosperity and political Liberty. “Liberty” and “large” are Biblical concepts we are not familiar enough with. Let’s review them and put them in our brains, so that as we read the Bible we will be more aware of them.
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One of the blessings promised to the obedient in the Bible is "liberty."
"Liberty" means "freedom." But "freedom from what?" In the pages of the Bible, the answer is almost always: "freedom from archists."
One of the blessings promised in Leviticus 26 is "peace," or freedom from those who bear the sword. Those who bear the sword are archists. They are also called in the Bible "enemies."
Of course, "freedom from" is always for the purpose of "freedom to" -- freedom to serve and obey the Lord.
The name "Jesus" comes from the Hebrew word Yhowshuwa', which is derived from yasha', which is the Hebrew word most frequently translated "salvation." "Jesus" means God will save. It was said of Jesus at His birth:
- Luke 1:71
- That we should be saved from our enemies
and from the hand of all that hate us;- 74 That He would grant unto us, that we
being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve Him [exercise dominion and build His Kingdom] without fear [living under our "vine and fig tree" "with no one to make them afraid" (Micah 4:1-7)]
This is what "salvation" means in the Bible.
The specific enemies Christians had in the first century were of the Jewish establishment, but I believe Jesus the Messiah will save us from our enemies today -- whoever they may be, whenever we live -- if we obey God's Law.
"But isn't the real meaning of salvation 'being forgiven of your sins and going to heaven when you die?'"
Most church-goers ask this.
Forgiveness of sins = restoration to fellowship with God,
Forgiveness of sins = restoration to our original Edenic Mandate to build
the Kingdom of God.
Forgiveness of sins is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
Jesus: Savior but not Messiah?The overwhelming majority of Christians today agree with Jews who say that Jesus is not the Messiah. The vast majority of Christians believe that Jesus will not reign as Messiah until there is a second Christmas -- a second Advent, or "second coming of Christ" -- which is really the first coming of the Christ, since at His first Advent Jesus came only as "savior," -- that is, someone who secures for us a ticket to heaven when we die -- and not as "Christ" -- that is, someone who delivers us out of the hand of our enemies, sets us in a wide open place, opens the bounties of heaven, and makes our land like Eden, so we can enjoy a “Vine & Fig Tree” society.
Many Christians in our day say that the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, therefore He could only offer to be their Savior. This is so confused it's hard to know where to begin.
- Nehemiah 9:27
- Therefore Thou deliveredst them into the hand of their enemies that vexed them: yet in the time of their affliction, when they cried unto Thee, Thou heardest them from the heaven, and through Thy great mercies Thou gavest them saviors, who saved them out of the hand of their adversaries (cp. Luke 1:71,74).
The idea that Jesus is only a "savior" but not the Messiah is is not a Biblically tenable position. There is almost no hint in the Bible that any "savior" would do nothing to "save" his people in this life, but only in the next.
A "savior" brings "salvation." Doesn't that make sense? But what is "salvation?" It is not, Biblically speaking, going to heaven after you die, having lived a life without being "saved" in the holistic Biblical sense of that word. In the Bible, saviors brought freedom from archists for God's People. See the discussion of the Hebrew word for "salvation" above.
These "saviors" were sometimes called "judges." The various "kings" of Israel could also serve as "saviors" because they would "save" Israel from her oppressors (1 Samuel 9:16; 2 Samuel 3:18, etc.).
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"Saviors" in the Old Testament served what we could call primarily "messianic" functions." Biblically speaking, "savior" is virtually a synonym for "messiah." And "Messiah" is a political term, that is, a term that does not have primary reference to us after death, but reference to our lives today, in their holistic cultural, social, political, civil, economic, recreational, and legal dimensions.
A "Messiah" brings political changes. A "savior" brings "salvation." But the Biblical definition of "salvation" is not just a short-term relief on the battlefield, but long-term liberty from archists. See the definition of the Hebrew word for "salvation," yasha, which we looked at above.
Jay Wile writes (An Interesting Observation from China | Proslogion):
Recently, I read an article by Dr. Paul Copan entitled, “Jesus-Shaped Cultures.”1 In that article, he makes the case for how faithful Christians have transformed the societies they have served. For example, he discusses the Ethiopian famine that took place in 1984 and 1985. Brian Stewart, a CBC journalist, noted that it was Christians who were on the front lines of the famine, giving aid to the suffering. Their service was such a powerful witness to him that it started him on his journey to becoming a Christian himself.
While Copan’s article is interesting, it led me to a book that I thought was even more interesting. It is entitled Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China And Changing the Global Balance of Power, and it is written by David Aikman, who served as a journalist for Time Magazine from 1971 to 1994. In his role as a Time correspondent, he visited China several times and even lived in China for two years as Time’s bureau chief. He returned to China in 2002 to gather the information he needed to complete his book.
He begins the book in a dramatic way. It is worth quoting at length:2
The eighteen American tourists visiting China weren’t expecting much from the evening’s lecture. They were already exhausted from a day of touring in Beijing. But what the speaker had to say astonished them.
The Victory of Reason Listen Now | Download
“One of the things we were asked to look into was what accounted for the success, in fact, the pre-eminence of the West all over the world,” he said. “We studied everything we could from the historical, political, economic, and cultural perspective. At first, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next, we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity. That is why the West has been so powerful. The Christian moral foundation of social and cultural life was what made possible the emergence of capitalism and then the successful transition to democratic politics. We don’t have any doubt about this.”
This was not coming from some ultra-conservative think tank in Orange County, California or from Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. This was a scholar from China’s premier academic research institute, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing in 2002. (emphasis mine)
In his book, Aikman suggests that Christianity will transform China to the point where it won’t even be communist anymore. He suggests that in the next thirty years, nearly one-third of China could be Christian, making it one of the largest Christian nations in the world and a strong ally of the U.S.
2. David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing: How Christianity Is Transforming China And Changing the Global Balance of Power, pp. 5-6
See also: The Iona Institute | Christianity the reason for West's success, say the Chinese
In asking whether Habakkuk's prophecy has been or is being fulfilled, and whether the knowledge of God covers the earth as the waters cover the sea, don't ask those who should admit that they know the Lord; ask the Scriptures whether they ought to admit it. Sometimes they won't, but many times they will. Truth is truth, whether we admit it or not.
Today, the Chinese are "streaming" to Zion (Micah 4:1-2). So are people in Latin America, Africa, and even India, according to Philip Jenkins. Humanity has been flowing to Zion for 2,000 years, but the rate may be accelerating. This phenomenon is not yet on the radar of archists. It will dramatically increase when Christians become widely recognized as a Dispute Resolution Forum. It will exsanguinate the State by doing so.
Freedom from archists is the Gospel (good news).
Galatians 3:8
And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the Gospel unto Abraham, saying, "In thee shall all nations be blessed."
The Scripture preached "the Gospel" to Abraham.
Q.: What was the good news?
A.: World-wide blessing.
Q.: What is "blessing?"
A.: Salvation: Being delivered from our enemies
and living securely in peace and prosperity, free from archists in a “Vine &
Fig Tree” world.
Q.: How do we obtain God's blessing?
A.: By faithfully obeying His commandments.
Q.:
Is that possible before the Second Coming?
A.: That is the promise of the New Covenant.
- Jeremiah 31
- 31 “Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD. 33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
- Ezekiel 11:19-20
- 19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh:
20 That they may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them: and they shall be my people, and I will be their God.- Ezekiel 36:27
- 27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Jeremiah 31:33 + Galatians 3:8
New Covenant =
obedience to God's Law
New Covenant = blessing throughout the world
New Covenant = salvation/peace/safety
New
Covenant = freedom from archists
Your church will not likely support you in pursuing New Covenant obedience to God's Law.
Especially if God's Law is understood as prohibiting archism.
You
may be interested in joining "The Perfect Club."
Your church may become your mission
field.
"Polis" is the Greek word behind the English world "political." It is most often translated "city-state." The City in ancient Greece was often an independent State. It was also wholly religious, not "secular" as states today purport to be.
For more on the polis see here. For Biblical grounds to equate "Kingdom" and "Polis" see here.
Because man is created in the Image of God (see Kline above), man is qualified/commanded to build God's Messianic Kingdom on earth.
It is a popular myth that
The Bible says the exact opposite:
For a thorough defense of this contrast, see Jesus and the Law of Moses (Torah). See also Why Jews Don't Believe In Jesus.
Can there be a "Good" Archist?
The British historian Lord Acton put it this way:
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.
The exercise of political power is problematic. We should assume that "great men" -- that is, powerful men -- men who wield "the sword," that is, the compulsory force of "the government" -- are morally corrupt. Bad men, not good men. This assumption should be considered confirmed if he increases his own power during his time of "public service."
Nebuchadnezzar's statue (Daniel 2) represents the world before Christ. Before the Prince of Peace was born, the world was dominated by Satan and his minions. Life was violent. The "Preterist" believes that the Messiah bound the Strong Man at the beginning of the Messianic Reign. The Biblical "anarchist" believes that "civil government" has a demonic origin. Our job as Christians is to continue the task of putting to death the old man
Most church-goers believe that empires are good; that they are God-approved, morally legitimate, and socially necessary. You might think that many in Daniel's day and in Christ's day were doubtless confused by the prophecy of the destruction of the greatest empires in the world: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. After all, didn't these great empires provide social order? Wouldn't their destruction lead to "anarchy?" On the other hand, maybe they were smarter than we are. Maybe they suffered under conquest, tribute, forced labor, confiscation of children, random conscription, and other horrors of depraved, child-sacrificing homosexual would-be gods that they rejoiced at the thought. If they read the Bible, they knew that empires were a punishment "ordained" by God against a people who rebelled against God's Commandments. God ordained evils like "the sword." The Bible says all empires are evil. Their history is demonic. Their demonic character was clearly seen at the time of Christ. The Empire represents a refusal to allow God to be Lawgiver, Judge and King.
The claim that the binding of the demonic Strong Man occurred in the past, and the call to abolish archism in the present, are not refuted by a common misunderstanding of Romans 13. That passage is about the demonic "powers." God sovereignly controls all things, but that does not mean that God gives all things His moral seal-of-approval. The State has God's Seal-of-DISapproval. Our website on Romans 13 covers these issues in more detail:
We have worked hard to create this website, and we're still working on it.
If you feel you have been helped by our work, remember that "the laborer is
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The New Testament was written in the last days of the Old Covenant. The "night" of the Old Age was passing (Hebrews 8:13). We are Now in the Daytime of the New Covenant, and we are now to live in the Day (Romans 13:11-13; Luke 1:78; Malachi 4:2; Revelation 22:5; 1 John 2:8). In fact, as James Jordan points out, the entire Old Covenant economy could be viewed biblically as being the “night” and the New Covenant as the “day.”
The moon, of course, governs the night (Psalm 136:9; Jeremiah 31:35), and in a sense the entire Old Covenant took place at night. With the rising of the Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2), the “day” of the Lord is at hand (Malachi 4:1), and in a sense the New Covenant takes place in the daytime. As Genesis 1 says over and over, first evening and then morning. In the New Covenant we are no longer under lunar regulation for festival times (Colossians 2:16–17). In that regard, Christ is our light.2
Following this same idea, Zacharias prophesies at the birth of John the Baptist that he would be “the Sunrise from on high” who shall “shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:78–79). The light of Christ creates the everlasting day, so that in the New Jerusalem,
the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it (Rev. 21:23–24; compare Is. 60:19–20).
Christians who live in the Day do not need to kill. God will hold us to the higher standard.
“And [Jesus] came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh. For through him we both [Jews and Gentiles] have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Ephesians 2:17-18).
This is the truly “good news” of the Star of Jacob, the Star of Bethlehem, and the King which it announces.
The American Vision: Why a Star?
- 1 John 2:22
- Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.
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