20 Affirmations & Exhortations for Christian Citizens
By Brad Isbell
There is unspeakable evil in the world.
There is unspeakable evil in our hearts.
Christians know the source and pervasiveness of that evil, that this stain is passed on to all men from our fallen first parents and affects all our faculties.
Christians know that God in holiness must and will punish all sin, any transgressions of God’s holy Law.
Christians claim the righteousness of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, by the faith-gift of God, who alone makes men to differ.
Those saved by grace through faith are placed in the church, the house and family of God, to which believers’ first and highest allegiance must be among all other institutions and earthly ties.
The church is “not confined to one nation, as before under the (Old Testament) law.”
Christians are already citizens of heaven; otherwise, the Scriptures would not describe us as pilgrims and strangers in (and not of) the world.
Christians are also citizens of earthly kingdoms, polities, or nations.
The earthly, magisterial powers that be are ordained by God for keeping order, executing justice, punishing and restraining evil in the world, and commending the good.
Christians are commanded to pray for these magistrates and submit to them unless they command us to do evil.
Corrupted by sin, as are all men and institutions, these earthly, God-ordained powers fail.
According to Reformed doctrine, lesser magistrates may resist evil, tyrannical, or unjust magistrates for the good of the people and the glory of God.
Christians ought to serve as magistrates and support those magistrates who do good.
When magistrates seem to support or encourage evil, or fail to punish it, Christians ought to work to replace those magistrates when possible.
Christians are right to abhor murder, rape, theft, lawlessness, and all immorality, calling their neighbors and themselves to repentance and working to protect their neighbors and themselves. Christians ought to support swift justice, restitution, capital punishment, self defense (which includes our families), and national defense, including immigration laws. To support a law is to support its enforcement.
Just as Christians are not to “grieve as others do who have no hope,” neither are we to rage as those who do not know the one true God.
We ought to seek to have God’s view of sin, hating it and opposing it, yet we must remember that “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God,” and that vengeance belongs to the Lord (and his appointed magistrates).
The grievous and undeniable fact of unspeakable evil in the world ought not drive Christians to become respecters of persons who hate people because of race, ethnicity, or origin. Neither should we take the law into our own hands or incite riot, violence, or rebellion.
Christians must remember, as the Scriptures teach, that there is unspeakable evil
even in our hearts.
Brad, when point 11 says "Christians are commanded to... submit to [these magistrates] unless they command us to do evil," is this intending to say that Christians are commanded to *always* submit to magistrates with the *sole* exception of when they command us to sin? If so, that would contradict the WCF.
23.4 specifies "It is the duty of people... to obey their *lawful* commands, and to be subject to their authority, for *conscience* sake."
19.4 specifies "they who... oppose any *lawful* power, or the *lawful* exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God."
Wouldn't you agree that these necessarily imply that it is *not* the duty of the people to obey a magistrate's unlawful commands, and that any one *may* oppose unlawful civil powers, and unlawful exercise of civil power? (And that, as C. Hodge and many others understood, such unlawfulness is not merely identical to commanding us to sin, but may include their commanding such things as are outside their God-given jurisdiction/authority?)
Maybe it's more of a "reaffirnation" since all read Christians should be able to agree with what you wrote. Mr. Peacock doth err greatly in his comment btw, and Mr. Sims...well, you just don't pay him no mind.