Imperishable Inheritance

The sub­ject of Chris­t­ian involve­ment in gov­ern­ment is a very con­tro­ver­sial topic. I can­not pos­si­bly hope to exhaust the issue, but I do want to express what I feel to be the Bible’s teach­ing on the role the Chris­t­ian should play. I’m not going to say any­thing like: “Jesus was Republican/Democrat.” My goal is not to prove what Jesus’ polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion would have been, because I don’t think it’s pos­si­ble to do so (and I don’t think He would be happy with either of those choices). My only goal is to talk about how the Chris­t­ian is expected to relate to government.

The King­dom of God and God’s Government

I can’t pos­si­bly due this sub­ject jus­tice if I didn’t talk about the King­dom of God. It was Jesus’ main mode of talk­ing about Him­self and His reign: “The time is ful­filled, and the king­dom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel” (Mar 1:15). The King­dom Jesus speaks about is not of this earth ruled by earthly pow­ers; this King­dom is ruled and dic­tated by God alone. The King­dom is also not a New Tes­ta­ment invention.

The King­dom man­i­fests itself first in the gar­den where God sov­er­eignly reigned over Adam and Eve. After trans­gres­sion, God restored an earthly King­dom in the land of Pales­tine. He set up, at that time, a theoc­racy ruled and gov­erned by God’s laws. Unfor­tu­nately, like Adam, Israel pro­faned and largely rejected God’s King­dom. By the time of Jesus the Jews were expect­ing the Mes­siah to be a con­quer­ing, polit­i­cal Mes­siah that would restore Israel and sit on David’s throne again, but we learn in the New Tes­ta­ment that those old man­i­fes­ta­tions of the King­dom would give way to the fullest essence of God’s Kingdom.

All the way until right before Jesus’ ascen­sion into heaven the apos­tles ask: “So when they had come together, they were ask­ing Him, say­ing, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restor­ing the king­dom to Israel?’” (Acts 1:6). This came after Jesus teach­ing about the King­dom for forty days (Acts 1:3). Jesus gives a sur­pris­ing answer:

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own author­ity; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My wit­nesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” (Acts 1:7–8)

Jesus was telling the apos­tles that the King­dom would be com­plete when all of God’s elect are gath­ered from every tribe, tongue, and nation (Mat 24:14; Rev 5:9). The Great Com­mis­sion is the great­est law of the Kingdom’s cur­rent man­i­fes­ta­tion. The next time God will set up a theoc­racy will be in the escha­ton. Jesus even told Pilate, when asked if He was a King:

Jesus answered, “My king­dom is not of this world. If My king­dom were of this world, then My ser­vants would be fight­ing so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My king­dom is not of this realm.” There­fore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say cor­rectly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to tes­tify to the truth. Every­one who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:36–37)

Jesus saw a clear delin­eation between His King­dom and the king­dom that Pilate ruled over (earthly, polit­i­cal), but it is impor­tant to notice that Jesus did sub­mit to Pilate’s rule and took on the death sen­tence he pro­nounced upon him. He did say that the author­ity He had was greater than Pilate’s: “You would have no author­ity over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this rea­son he who deliv­ered Me to you has the greater sin” (John 19:11). Jesus says that any author­ity over Him must come from above. Jesus sub­mit­ted to the government’s deci­sion, but He did not seek to change the polit­i­cal struc­ture of the day through polit­i­cal means. Jesus knew, and we as Chris­tians should as well, that the only thing that changes anyone&#152or any­thing whether polit­i­cal or spiritual&#152is the Gospel.

Augus­tine and Two Cities

Augus­tine enun­ci­ated the idea of two cities of cit­i­zen­ship for the Chris­t­ian in his work The City of God. The two cities are the City of Man and City of God, or it is also called the King­dom of the Sec­u­lar and King­dom of the Sacred. Paul tells us of our heav­enly cit­i­zen­ship: “For our cit­i­zen­ship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Sav­ior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phi 3:20). Our cit­i­zen­ship is ulti­mately in heaven, but we are not in heaven yet. This ten­sion, the now/not yet, fills the New Tes­ta­ment. Augus­tine had a delin­eation between the two cities, but they did over­lap. When you are a cit­i­zen you have respon­si­bil­i­ties, and if you have a dual cit­i­zen­ship have dual respon­si­bil­i­ties. But there is a dif­fer­ence in pri­or­ity: Our pri­or­ity is our cit­i­zen­ship in heaven.

All to often, there is a con­fu­sion in the mind of most Chris­tians between which cit­i­zen­ship is more impor­tant. Even though it might not exist at the con­scious level, it comes out in their actions. There is con­fu­sion on the part of most Chris­tians in Amer­ica on where our trea­sure and true respon­si­bil­ity exists.

Apos­tolic Teach­ing on the City of Man

Peter and Paul both have the most pro­nounced teach­ing on our respon­si­bil­ity on gov­ern­ment involve­ment. Peter says: “Sub­mit your­selves for the Lord’s sake to every human insti­tu­tion, whether to a king as the one in author­ity” (1 Pet 2:13). It is for the Lord that we sub­mit to our human insti­tu­tions. It is so the world will look at Chris­tians and (hope­fully) see our good behav­ior in Christ and be put to shame and pro­voked to repen­tance (1 Pet 2:15, 3:16).

Paul also says very clearly: “Every per­son is to be in sub­jec­tion to the gov­ern­ing author­i­ties” (Rom 13:1a), but he does not end with that thought. Paul is quick to strike the bal­ance between which cit­i­zen­ship should guide all of our deci­sion mak­ing: “For there is no author­ity except from God, and those which exist are estab­lished by God” (Rom 13:1). In the mind of Paul, who­ever resists the author­ity of gov­ern­ing author­i­ties are reject­ing God, because God put them in place and will receive con­dem­na­tion (Rom 13:2).

Keep in mind that Peter escape from prison (Acts 12:1–18), and Paul escape from King Are­tas in Dam­as­cus (2 Cor 11:32–33). How does this behav­ior fit with their com­mands above? Both Paul and Peter had a higher call­ing in both of those sit­u­a­tions; Peter was led out by an angel, and Paul still had work left to do. John Gill com­ments on Paul’s escape by say­ing that Paul’s escape was “an instance of divine Prov­i­dence in the preser­va­tion of him, for much use­ful­ness to the church of Christ.” When threat­ened with the chal­lenge of both cit­i­zen­ships they both chose their heav­enly citizenship.

Things To Cae­sar and Things To God

The Phar­isees attempted to trap Jesus by ask­ing Him if it was law­ful to pay the tax to Cae­sar (Mat 22:16). Jesus has a sur­pris­ing answer:

But Jesus per­ceived their mal­ice, and said, “Why are you test­ing Me, you hyp­ocrites? “Show Me the coin used for the poll-tax.” And they brought Him a denar­ius. And He said to them, “Whose like­ness and inscrip­tion is this?” They *said to Him, “Caesar’s.” Then He *said to them, “Then ren­der to Cae­sar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.” (Mat 22:18–21)

The point Jesus was mak­ing was that be respon­si­ble to sub­mit to the gov­ern­ing author­i­ties, but remem­ber to give God what is His. This is same teach­ing espoused by Peter and Paul. In fact, Paul also says some­thing sim­i­lar: “Ren­der to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; cus­tom to whom cus­tom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor” (Rom 13:7). The mes­sage is to sub­mit to your gov­ern­ing author­i­ties for such is the will of God, but remem­ber the pri­or­ity of our cit­i­zen­ship in heaven.

Beware of Con­fus­ing Citizenship

I believe that Chris­tians should stand up against abor­tion, social injus­tice, and other moral issues; but the prob­lem comes when we con­fuse those issues for the the Gospel and God’s cause to make His name great amongst the nations (Gen 12:1–3; Psa 46:10; Mal 1:11; Mat 24:14, 28:19). The Great Com­mis­sion is at the top of God’s agenda, and I believe quite strongly that it should be the main con­cern of every human who pro­fesses Jesus as Lord. I do believe that many peo­ple who devote their lives to fight­ing abor­tion in the name of Jesus will be told: “I never knew you; depart from me, you who prac­tice law­less­ness” (Mat 7:23).

Our Chris­tian­ity doesn’t get check out­side the polling booth, and we shouldn’t seek to insert such a dras­tic sep­a­ra­tion. If we truly our Chris­tians then it should trans­form every aspect of our lives, but I think there is a real dan­ger of plac­ing pri­or­ity on our cit­i­zen­ship in the City of Man and not the City of God. The City of God, His King­dom man­i­fest in full glory, is what we eagerly wait­ing with antic­i­pa­tion, and this is the atti­tude of all the Bib­li­cal writers.

For the grace of God has appeared, bring­ing sal­va­tion to all men, instruct­ing us to deny ungod­li­ness and worldly desires and to live sen­si­bly, right­eously and godly in the present age, look­ing for the blessed hope and the appear­ing of the glory of our great God and Sav­ior, Christ Jesus, who gave Him­self for us to redeem us from every law­less deed, and to purify for Him­self a peo­ple for His own pos­ses­sion, zeal­ous for good deeds. These things speak and exhort and reprove with all author­ity. Let no one dis­re­gard you. (Tit 2:11–15)

Con­clu­sion

Let us be filled with jeal­ousy for God’s name. Let us, as Chris­tians, to take up our crosses and look for­ward to the New Jerusalem and not get side­tracked with Wash­ing­ton D.C. Sub­mit, take part, glo­rify God in your polit­i­cal deci­sions and choices; but always remem­ber that you are not of this world any­more, and be sure your desires reflect this glo­ri­ous truth.