April
2004
In This Issue:
Robert D. Decker
David
J. Engelsma
Steven
R. Key
Book Reviews
The Church:
Sacraments, Worship, Ministry, Mission, by Donald G. Bloesch. Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2002. 351 pp. $27 (cloth).
[Reviewed by David J. Engelsma.]
Institutes
of Elenctic Theology, by Francis Turretin.
Tr. George Musgrave Giger. Ed. James
T. Dennison, Jr. Phillipsburg, New Jersey: P&R, 1992-1997.
Vol. 1, pp. vii+685 (cloth, $39.95). Vol.
2, pp. vii+724 (cloth, $39.99). Vol. 3, pp.
vii+814 (cloth, $49.99). [Reviewed by David
J. Engelsma.]
Theologians of the
Baptist Tradition, by Timothy George & David S. Dockery, eds. (Nashville,
Tennessee: Broadman & Holman, 2001). Pp
xviii- 414. Paper. [Reviewed by Herman
Hanko.]
John Wesley, A Biography,
by Stephen Tomkins. Grand Rapids, MI,
William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003. Pp.
208. $20.00 (paperback). [Reviewed by Angus Stewart.]
Luther in Context.
David C. Steinmetz, Second Edition. Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2002. xiii + 195 pages. (paper). Price: $19.95.
[Reviewed by Russell Dykstra.]
Editor’s Notes
In his lengthy article, “The Messianic Kingdom and Civil Government,”
David J. Engelsma contends (and rightly so, in my opinion) that the Scriptures teach that
the only duty of the state and civil magistrates is “… the maintenance of
outward order and external peace in the nation.”
The Messianic kingdom is manifest in the church (typically in the Old Testament
kingdom of Israel) and in reality in the New Testament
under her only King, merciful High Priest, and chief Prophet, Jesus Christ. The civil authorities have no right to support or
defend the church and kingdom of Christ with their “steel sword.”
Steven Key demonstrates convincingly that one cannot find support for the error of
common grace in the Canons. Indeed Rev. Key
rightly argues that holding to the error of common grace amounts to an outright rejection
of the biblical teachings of the Canons of Dordrecht 1618-1619.
In addition there are several very helpful and important book reviews from which
lay readers and clergy can benefit.
RDD
An Exposition of Paul’s Epistle to Titus
(9)
Robert D. Decker
We remind
the reader that this exposition of the Epistle to Titus was originally given in the form
of “chapel talks” by the author during the weekly Wednesday morning chapel
services at the seminary. The author began
this exposition in the 1997-1998 school year and completed the series during the second
semester of the 1999-2000 school year. The
exposition is being published in the Journal with the hope that it will prove
helpful to a wider audience of God’s people in their study of this brief epistle in
the sacred Scriptures. So that both those
familiar with the Greek language and those who are unable to work with the Greek may
benefit from this study, all references to the Greek will be placed in footnotes. The translation of the Greek text is the
author’s. We present this exposition
pretty much as it was spoken in the chapel services, application and all. Perhaps this will help the reader gain some
insight into what goes on in the seminary.
Chapter Two
Verse 14
Who gave
himself for us, that he might redeem us from all lawlessness and cleanse to himself a
people for his own possession, zealous of good works.
The antecedent of “Who” is Jesus Christ our great God and Savior (v. 8). Here in verse nine the inspired apostle teaches us
what Jesus Christ our great God and Savior did for us and why He did that.
What Jesus Christ did for us is, He “gave himself for us.” This, in one word, refers to the cross of Christ. There Jesus Christ our great God and Savior in
perfect obedience of love to His Father gave Himself.
Jesus Christ took upon Himself the wrath of God and suffered the agonies of eternal
hell for us, for all whom the Father gave Him in His decree of eternal election of grace.
At this point human language fails. It
fails to describe the horror, the terror, the profound agony of the suffering Jesus
endured. Aside now from the blatant,
blasphemous transgression of the second commandment of God’s law, no motion picture
(no matter how graphic it may be) can convey the depths of the agonies of hell that Jesus
endured in the darkness of the cross. We will
never comprehend that suffering! Jesus our
great God and Savior assumed our flesh and blood and while remaining fully divine became
fully human (except without sin) and gave Himself to the death of the cross.
Jesus did that “for us."[1] The preposition “for” with the
genitive has at least six shades of meaning, which may be reduced to two basic senses or
meanings. One is “in the place of,”
and the other is “for the advantage or benefit of, for the sake of.” We are not forced to choose one of these meanings
to the exclusion of the other. They both
apply. Jesus Christ our great God and Savior
gave Himself “in the place of us.” This
is why He had to take on Himself the flesh and blood of the children, “…that
through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:1-18).
Jesus died as our substitute, in our place.
Precisely because Jesus died in our place He died for our benefit or advantage. Jesus our great God and Savior merited for us all
of the blessings of salvation. This is what
the rest of the text is all about! The
purpose of His giving Himself for us is that He might redeem or ransom[2] us from all iniquity or lawlessness. We were held in the slavery of lawlessness.[3] We were guilty, depraved sinners, “…so
corrupt that we were incapable of any good and inclined to all evil…,” to borrow
the language of the Heidelberg Catechism, L.D. 2, 3.
Jesus Christ our great God and Savior paid the price, He gave His own life, in
order to free us. Because of His merits, God
imputed His righteousness to us so that we are not guilty. This is the first aspect of the purpose of
Jesus giving Himself for us.
The second aspect of that purpose is “…that he might purify unto himself
a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” The
verb “purify"[4] means to cleanse, to free from the filth and defilement of sin,
to purify. Christ’s purpose in giving
Himself for us is both to justify us and to cleanse or sanctify us. We are cleansed by His blood.
And, therefore, we are His own “peculiar people."[5] “Peculiar”
means that which is one’s own possession. That
was God’s purpose in Christ’s giving Himself to the death of the cross. Christ gave Himself in order to purify us to
Himself as a people for His own possession. This
implies that God from all eternity ordained Christ to be our head. God gave us, all of His elect, to Christ. This is God’s gracious counsel of election in
Christ. And Christ gave Himself to the cross
to redeem (justify) us and to cleanse us from all the filth of our sin.
Thus we are Christ’s own possession, and Christ is God’s only begotten
Son! As God’s possession we are a people
zealous of good works. That is the fruit of
our justification and sanctification. We
eagerly desire to live in good works. We burn
with zeal to live our lives out of faith, in thankful obedience to God’s will
revealed in Scripture and summed in His law. And
we are zealous of good works in order to manifest the glory of Jesus Christ our great God
and Savior!
Did Jesus give Himself in your place and on your behalf? Did Jesus redeem you from all lawlessness? Did He and does He cleanse you from the filth of
your sins? Did Jesus purify you to Himself as
His own precious possession? If so, the fruit
will surely be evident in your lives. You
will be burning with zeal to do good works. What
is more, you will eagerly desire to preach that precious, wonderful gospel of the
sovereign grace of God in Christ Jesus. Eagerly
you will preach and teach, and with zeal you will learn and prepare to preach the Word
here in the seminary.
Verse 15
These matters
speak: both exhort and rebuke (reprove, severely admonish) with all authority (with every
possible form of authority), let no one despise you.
With this verse the apostle concludes the thought of chapter two. He really repeats, but with added emphasis, the exhortation given to Titus in the first verse
of this chapter, “But speak thou the things which become sound doctrine.” What follows in verses two through ten are the
various exhortations to the different classes of members in the church: aged men, aged
women, young women, young men, and servants. To
all of these saints Titus must be a good example. These
are the things he must speak.
The reason he must do this is that the grace of God that brings salvation has
appeared to all classes of men. That grace of
God teaches us that we should live soberly and godly in the way of denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts in this present world. And we
live godly, looking for the blessed hope even the glorious appearing of the great God our
Savior, even Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us for the purpose of redeeming and
purifying us.
These things Titus must speak. The
verb “to speak” is a more general term for speaking.[6] Usually in the New Testament it refers to
everyday conversation. In only a very few
instances does the verb refer to the official preaching of the Word. No doubt the Holy Spirit means that Titus must in
all his contacts with the saints, official and otherwise, public and private, speak these
things. But Titus must do this primarily and
especially in his official preaching and teaching.
That this is the meaning is evident from the general content of the entire Epistle. Paul left Titus in Crete to set in order the
things lacking, or wanting, and to ordain elders (1:5).
That Paul lays the stress on preaching is also evident from the immediate context
of chapter 2 and from verse 15 itself. The
two imperatives that follow “to speak” define what kind of speaking this must
be. Titus must exhort the people of God. That verb “exhort” means to address the
people with encouraging instruction.[7] In his preaching, Titus must instruct God’s
people, teach them the sound doctrine of the Word as that doctrine determines how they
ought to live. Further, Titus must rebuke
them. The verb “rebuke” means to
reprove, to admonish severely.[8] This too must characterize the preaching of Titus. Preaching must instruct, comfort, encourage the
people from the Word of God. But, when
necessary, preaching must also sharply admonish them.
When God’s saints wander into sinful living or manifest certain weaknesses,
when they are faced with severe temptations, they must be reproved sharply. Neither Titus nor any other preacher must hesitate
or be loathe to do this.
And Titus and all preachers must do this with all authority.[9] This authority must be viewed in two senses. First, there is the lawful call of Christ through
His church to the minister, with all that this implies.
By this lawful call of Christ the minister is authorized, given the right, to
preach the Word. Second, the authority lies
in the Word of God itself. God’s Word
is inspired by the Holy Spirit and, therefore, is the infallible and sole authority for
the faith and life of God’s people.
This means that when the minister, who is authorized by Christ to preach, expounds,
explains the meaning of the Word of God, adding nothing of his own to the Word and taking
nothing from the Word, the saints hear the very voice of God and His Christ (Eph. 4:20-21).
The minister speaks in the way of exhorting
and sharply admonishing, with the authority of God and His Christ.
When the minister does this, no one will be able to despise him or hold him in
contempt. One finds this same thought (though
a different word is used) in I Timothy
4:12, where Timothy is instructed to let no man despise his youth. The verb used in Titus really means, “let no
one out think you and thus despise you."[10] Titus and all of us who are called to the sacred
task of preaching the Word must not ever let that happen.
It cannot happen when the preacher carefully and faithfully expounds the text of
the Word of God.
No one, after all, can out think God!
This then is our task as preachers and as those who aspire to that sacred office! We must speak these things by both exhorting and
sharply admonishing with all the authority of Christ’s call and Word. In this way the church will be built and gathered
on the solid foundation of the truth of Holy Scripture.
No one will despise you. And
God’s name will be glorified.
It is our hope to complete the whole of chapter three in our next issue of this Journal.
by David J. Engelsma
Introduction
The relation between the kingdom of Jesus Christ and the civil state is a vexed,
controversial subject. Basically, the
issue is this: Are the state and its officers
mandated by God to promote the true church and the gospel by the physical, steel sword, or
is it the duty of the state simply to keep outward order in the nation?
Many Presbyterians have taken and still do take the position that the state is
called to promote the true church by establishing and supporting it as the official church
of the realm. This position is known as
the “Establishment Principle.” These
Presbyterians vehemently condemn the position
that denies that the state has any duty to establish a church, promote the gospel with
physical force, or punish heretics. For some
obscure reason these Presbyterians call this position “voluntaryism.” According to William Cunningham, voluntaryism, or
the voluntary principle, which he rejected, holds “entire separation” of state
and church. “Nations, as such, and civil
rulers in the official capacity, not only are not bound, but are not at liberty, to
interfere in any religious matters, or to seek to promote the welfare of the church of
Christ, as such.” The alternative, which
Cunningham espoused, is “the doctrine of national establishment of religion.”1
In recent years, the issue has come to the attention of Reformed Christians in
North America through the movement known as Christian Reconstruction. As an aspect of its postmillennial eschatology,
Christian Reconstruction teaches that in the future a majority of people will become
Christians. Civil government then will be
in the hands of Christians, indeed, Presbyterian Christians. It will be the duty of civil government to
establish the Presbyterian church as the one church of the realm, to throw the whole
weight of the government behind the true church, to decree the political laws of the Old
Testament (“theonomy”), and to punish idolaters, vocal heretics, and other
transgressors of the Old Testament statutes with physical punishments, including death.
In this article, I contend that Scripture teaches the duty of the state and its
magistrates to be only the maintenance of outward order and external peace in the nation. I deny that God calls civil government to promote
the gospel with its steel sword. Whether and
in how far the position set forth in this article may agree with traditional voluntaryism
is of no concern to me. I am not defending
voluntaryism. I intend to demonstrate the
calling of civil government from Scripture. In
light of the calling of civil government, I will indicate the right relation between the
kingdom of Jesus Christ and civil government.2
It must frankly be acknowledged at the outset that the position I hold was not that
of most of the Reformers. Calvin strongly
affirmed that the state is called to recognize, support, and promote the true church and
the gospel. He insisted that the office of
the magistrate “extends to both Tables of the Law.” He thought that theory of the duty of civil
government “folly” that would
neglect the concern for God and would give attention only to
rendering justice among men. As if God
appointed rulers in his name to decide earthly controversies but overlooked what was of
far greater importance—that he himself should be purely worshipped according to the
prescription of his law.3
In his commentary on John 18:36,
Jesus’ word to Pilate that His servants do not fight, John Calvin wrote: “They who draw this conclusion, that the
doctrine of the Gospel and the pure worship of God ought not to be defended by arms, are
unskillful and ignorant reasoners.”4
Calvin’s doctrine of the duty of the magistrate was that of most of the
Reformers. The important exception was Martin
Luther.
The nearly unanimous opinion of the Reformers regarding the calling of the state
found a place in the Reformed confessions. Chapter
24 of the Scots Confession (1560), on “The Civil Magistrate,” states:
The preservation and purification of religion is particularly the
duty of kings, princes, rulers, and magistrates. They
are not only appointed for civil government but also to maintain true religion and to
suppress all idolatry and superstition.
Significantly, showing how completely this view of the calling of the civil rulers
bases itself on the Old Testament, the Confession adds:
“This may be seen in David, Jehosaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and others highly
commended for their zeal in that cause.”5
The Belgic Confession (1561) treats the duty of the magistrates in Article 36. The “office” of the magistrates,
according to this article, is
not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the civil
state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and thus may remove and prevent all
idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus destroyed, and the
kingdom of Christ promoted.6
The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647) expands the duties of the state to
include calling and overseeing the church’s assemblies.
He [the civil magistrate] hath authority, and it is his duty to take
order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure
and entire, that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in
worship and discipline prevented or reformed, and all the ordinances of God duly settled,
administered, and observed. For the better
effecting whereof he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that
whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.7
This remarkable ascription of all kinds of duties to the magistrate in, over, and
on behalf of the church makes plain that the magistrate the Westminster divines had in
view was Old Testament David, or Hezekiah, not the Caesar of Romans 13. The form of political rule that governed their
thinking was that found in Israel, the Old Testament type of the kingdom of God. Israel united nation and church and made king and
elders cooperate on behalf of the people of God.
I note here that the Protestant Reformed Churches have relieved me of my obligation
to submit to the teaching of the particular section of the Belgic Confession quoted above. Otherwise the “Formula of
Subscription” requires me to regard this teaching, as all other teachings in the
“Three Forms of Unity,” as in harmony with the Word of God and forbids me
militate against this doctrine.
A footnote qualifies Article 36 of the Belgic Confession at the point of the
article’s assertion that the state has the duty to “protect the sacred ministry,
and thus ... remove and prevent all idolatry and false worship.” The footnote reads, in part:
This phrase, touching the office of the magistracy in its relation to
the Church, proceeds on the principle of the Established Church…. History, however, does not support the principle
of State domination over the Church, but rather the separation of Church and State. Moreover, it is contrary to the New Dispensation
that authority be vested in the State to arbitrarily reform the Church, and to deny the
Church the right of independently conducting its own affairs as a distinct territory
alongside the State…. The office of the
magistracy [is not to be conceived] in this sense, that it be in duty bound to also
exercise political authority in the sphere of religion, by establishing and maintaining a
State Church, advancing and supporting the same as the only true Church, and to oppose, to
persecute and to destroy by means of the sword all the other churches as being false
religions.8
A Spiritual Kingdom
Underlying much of the enthusiastic affirmation today of the state’s duty
to advance and defend the gospel is the notion that a Christian state aggressively
promoting the gospel and the true church is the Messianic kingdom of God, or a very
important form of the Messianic kingdom. Those
who hold this notion suppose that a future Christian state, governing all the life of the
nation according to the Word of God and supporting and promoting the true church with all
the great power of the sword, will be the real and full form of the kingdom
of Jesus Christ. They will acknowledge that
the church today is a preliminary form of the kingdom.
But the real Messianic kingdom will be the Christian nation in the future,
which will depend, of course, on a Christian civil government. That coming Christian nation may be one particular
nation, perhaps Scotland or the United States. It
may be all the nations on earth, united in their common allegiance to King Jesus.
Some who stress the duty of the state to uphold the true religion do not go this
far. They recognize that the church truly is
the kingdom of Christ. Nevertheless, they
regard a future Christian nation, whether Scotland or the nations of the world united in
Jesus Christ, as the Messianic kingdom in a specially important way. It will be the more glorious form of the kingdom
in history. It will be a far more glorious
form of the kingdom than is the church.
This notion, which inevitably sets any discussion of the relation of state and
church on a wrong footing, is mistaken. Whatever
the right relation of the state and the church may be, this relation has nothing to do
with the Messianic kingdom’s being political, or mainly political, or even
importantly political. For one thing, the
notion that the kingdom will take form as a Christian nation, or even as an entire world
of Christian nations, is erroneous eschatology. The
notion is the postmillennial dream: By the
gospel, Christ will convert a majority of Scotland, or of the United States, or even of
all the nations of the world. In this way,
Christian nations and even a Christian world are a possibility.
Scripture teaches a radically different earthly future prior to the second coming
of Christ. “Let no man deceive you by
any means: for that day [of Christ] shall not
come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of
perdition” (II Thess. 2:3).
The future of politics is not a carnal
kingdom of Christ, but the world-kingdom of Antichrist, as is the teaching of the last
book of the Bible and as is confirmed by developments in the world of nations today.9
Apart from its false doctrine of the last things, the notion that a future
Christian state will be the glorious kingdom of Christ suffers from two fatal errors. First, this notion cannot rid itself of the Jewish
conception of the Messianic kingdom as political: earthly
power, indeed dominion, by the physical sword of civil government. What Jesus taught of His kingship and kingdom in John 6 and John 18 holds
to the world’s end: His kingship and
kingdom are spiritual. He is not a political
king, and His kingdom is not a political kingdom.
The kingdom of God in Christ never was, is not now, and never will be the Rome of
Constantine; the Zurich of Zwingli; the Scotland of Knox and Melville; the England of
Cromwell; the Netherlands of Kuyper; the United States of Paine, Jefferson, Franklin, and
Washington; or the Christian world-kingdom dreamed of by Christian Reconstructionists in
North America and by Presbyterians in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
If the United States should someday come to have a Christian civil government, the
United States would not thereby be the kingdom of Christ, or an especially glorious form
of the kingdom of Christ. The true church
would still be the kingdom of Christ.
The Presbyterian theologian, Geerhardus Vos, was right when he observed that
“the Jewish hope [of the kingdom of God] was intensely political and national,
considerably tainted also by sensuality.” Vos
added: “From all political bearings
our Lord’s teaching on the kingdom was wholly dissociated.”10
Closely related to the error of politicizing the Messianic kingdom is the error of
supposing that a future Christian state will be the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel as
a nation. The truth is that the
fulfillment of Old Testament Israel as a nation is the New Testament church of
believers and their children. This is the
explicit teaching of the New Testament in I Peter 2:9:
“But ye are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises
of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.”
The apostle quotes from Exodus
19:4-6, where Jehovah describes Old Testament Israel as “a kingdom of priests,
and an holy nation.” Applying this
description to the New Testament church, the apostle identifies the New Testament elect,
believing, despised, persecuted, culturally insignificant church as the true nation and
kingdom of God on earth. The church has been
the kingdom of Christ in the world since the day of Pentecost. The church is the kingdom of Christ today. The church will be the kingdom of Christ until the
Lord returns. The church will be the kingdom
of Christ everlastingly in the new world.11
Does the New Testament church believe this? Does
she take herself seriously as God’s nation in the world? Does she take God seriously when He clearly
identifies her as His nation?
The church in the catacombs in the first few centuries after Christ was the
national kingdom of God. The Presbyterians
worshiping God on the moors of Scotland in the seventeenth century were the national
kingdom of God. They were the kingdom of God
by virtue of being the true, believing, worshiping church, not by virtue of any signing of
a national league and covenant. The small,
culturally unimpressive, physically powerless true churches of Christ in all the world
today are the national kingdom of God. Two or
three gathering in Christ’s name for worship are the national kingdom of God.
If the United States or Scotland should become “Christianized” and
Christian, that earthly nation will not be the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel as a
nation. It cannot be. The church is the fulfillment of Old Testament
Israel as a nation.
Recognition of the New Testament church as the fulfillment of the nation of Israel
also delivers Reformed theologians from the illusion that there can and should be national
revival of Scotland, or the Netherlands, or the United States as fulfillment of the
national reformations of Judah in the Old Testament.
The fulfillment of the national reformations of Judah during the days of
Judah’s godly kings is not the reformation of Scotland or of the United States, but
the reformation of God’s church in the world. Neither
Scotland nor the United States is the New Testament reality of which Judah was type. The church is.
“You who are being built up a spiritual house by virtue of your union with the
living stone by faith, you elect strangers scatted throughout all nations—you
are the holy nation of God in the present age, the spiritual reality of which Judah in the
Old Testament age was merely an earthly type” (I Pet. 1:1, 2;
2:1-10).
And if someone asks, “How is the church to behave as God’s nation in the
world?” the answer is not that the church exert herself to get political dominion
over the world of the ungodly, or that the church attempt to impose the civil laws of Old
Testament Israel upon the wicked, or that the church work to “Christianize”
society. The calling of the church as
God’s nation is the right worship of God, a faithful witness to the world of the
truth, especially by the sound preaching of the gospel, and obedience to God’s law in
the holy lives of the members. The church is
“a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Ex. 19:6).
Recognizing that the Messianic kingdom is not political puts the discussion of the
proper relation of state and church on a sound footing.
Promoting the Gospel with the Steel
Sword
The position I reject holds that civil government, in addition to keeping order in
society, must consciously and actively promote the true church and the gospel. According to those who hold this position, civil
government must officially recognize, or establish, the true church in distinction from
all other churches and religions. Civil
government ought to support the true church financially from the funds of the state and,
generally, throw the full weight of the state behind the true church and her work. Civil government is also called to condemn and
prohibit idolatry, false worship, heresies, and heretics.
It should punish those citizens who are guilty of these religious crimes, whether
by fines, imprisonment, banishment, or death.
It is curious that contemporary defenders of the position that the state is called
to promote the gospel with its steel sword
shrink from asserting that the state must punish the heretical, idolatrous, and
irreligious. At the critical point of the
issue, they rather advocate religious toleration and liberty of conscience.
The Scottish theologian William Cunningham defended “the principle of national
establishments of religion—namely, that it is competent to, and incumbent upon,
nations, as such, and civil rulers in their official capacity, or in the exercise of their
legitimate control over civil matters, to aim at the promotion of the honour of God, the
welfare of true religion, and the prosperity of the church of Christ.” But he condemned as “unlawful,” that
“civil rulers, in seeking to discharge their duty in regard to religion” should
“inflict upon men civil pains and penalties—fines, imprisonment, or
death—merely on account of differences of opinion upon religious subjects.” Cunningham rejected “all intolerance or
persecution” on the part of magistrates carrying out their duty of promoting the true
church and the gospel.
Cunningham took issue on this matter with the Reformers, particularly Beza. Beza had written a treatise vigorously defending
the calling of civil government to punish heretics with death. He was particularly interested in vindicating
Calvin’s act of handing Servetus over to the magistrates for burning as a heretic. Cunningham condemned Beza’s position as
“intolerant and persecuting principles.” Contrary
to the thinking of Beza, and indeed of most of the Reformers, Cunningham declared that
“under the Christian dispensation, civil rulers are [not] warranted, … much less
bound, to inflict the punishment of death upon heretics and blasphemers.”12
The same inconsistency appears in James Bannerman.
Against the advocates of the “Voluntary cause,” who hold that the state
must “maintain neutrality between the profession and the denial of
Christianity,” Bannerman boldly asserted the calling of the state publicly to
acknowledge the true church and to promote its interests.
The state should make the church’s confession of faith part of its
constitution: “embody its confession of
doctrine in the national statute book.” The
state should endow the true church:
The state may furnish out of the national resources pecuniary aid for
upholding Gospel ordinances, and providing such an endowment for Gospel ministers, as may
secure that they be set apart wholly to their office of ministering in sacred things.
This amounts to the establishment of
the true church as the religion of the state.
Such recognition, support, and promotion of the church are the state’s calling
from God: “There is nothing in all this
but what is imperatively demanded from the state as a duty done to God on behalf of
God’s ordinance, the Church.”13
One could only expect that Bannerman would insist on the state’s duty to
proscribe all false public worship and to punish all idolaters and heretics, if not all
who practice religion apart from the true church. Surprisingly,
Bannerman rejected the teaching that the state must punish idolatry, heresy, and false
worship. Such a doctrine is a
“persecuting principle.” He
criticized the seventeenth century Scottish theologians Rutherford, Dickson, and Fergusson
for calling the state to punish idolaters and to eradicate heresy and false worship with
their cold, steel sword.
Rutherford, Dickson, and Fergusson … in some instances went too
far, and laid down positions which were indefensible, and really involved persecution. Their errors on this subject mainly arose from
their holding that the Jewish political laws were of permanent obligation, and
consequently that capital punishment might still be lawfully inflicted for such offences
as idolatry.14
Bannerman defended the doctrine “of the full toleration that is to be granted
[by the state] in spiritual matters to societies as much as to individuals.”
No plea that the religious opinions of an individual are in
themselves false and unfounded, will set aside his legal right to adopt and hold them, if
his conscience so teaches him; and, in like manner, no plea that the proceedings or
deliverance of a Church are in substance and upon the merits wrong, will warrant the
interference of civil authority, if the Church is acting within its own province, and in
re ecclesiastica.15
Avowal of the state’s duty to establish the true church, while disavowing
religious persecution, as was the position of Cunningham and Bannerman and as is the
position of many Presbyterians today,16 is an exceedingly strange and inconsistent position. The position that the state must establish the
true church and promote the gospel with the state’s sword necessarily includes the
calling of the state to forbid the public worship of false religions and false churches,
as well as to punish those who do not worship the true God rightly or who do not worship
Him at all.
First, to establish and support one church is a kind of punishment of all the
others, especially if tax-money goes to support the established church.
Second, nothing less than the prohibition of false worship and the punishment of
false worshipers was what the Reformed confessions called for in their original editions. Article 36 of the Belgic Confession, on the
magistrates, declared:
[God] invested the magistracy with the sword, for the punishment of
evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.
And their office is, not only to have regard unto and watch for the welfare of the
civil state, but also that they protect the sacred ministry, and thus may remove and
prevent all idolatry and false worship; that the kingdom of antichrist may be thus
destroyed, and the kingdom of Christ promoted.17
The Westminster Confession of Faith, though denying to the state the power of the
keys, affirms that the civil magistrate
hath authority, and it is his duty to take order, that unity and
peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire, that all
blasphemies and heresies be suppressed, all corruptions and abuses in worship and
discipline prevented or reformed…(23.3).18
The language of the creeds, as always, is clear.
The state must recognize, support, and promote the true church. This is its calling from God, whose servant the
state is. This recognition, support, and
promotion include prohibition of false worship and punishment of heretics and idolaters.
If anyone attempts to evade the clear, forceful language of the creeds, the
teaching and practice of the Reformers, whose views on the duty of the state were
incorporated into these sections of the creeds, put the matter beyond doubt. John Calvin firmly believed and openly taught the
necessity of the punishment, the capital punishment, of heretics by the civil
government. With his consistory, he handed
the heretic Servetus over to the Geneva state for execution. In the face of widespread criticism already in his
own day, Calvin defended his action in the affair of Servetus to the end of his life.19
Beza wrote a well-known tract in defense of Geneva’s dispatch of Servetus in
particular and of the state’s duty to punish heretics in general, De Haereticis a
civili Magistratu puniendis (That Heretics are to be Punished by the Civil
Magistrate).
Bannerman acknowledged that leading Westminster divines held that the state should
punish idolatry with death.20
Third, the biblical passages appealed to in support of the state’s promotion
of the gospel do not merely support the idea of an established church. These passages require the state to punish
idolaters and heretics, and to punish them with death.
The only conceivable biblical support for the position that the state must
recognize the true church and promote the gospel is the Old Testament laws requiring
Israel to enforce the true worship of Jehovah God. There
is no support whatever for the position in the New Testament, although the New Testament
is not lacking in passages that describe the duty of the state as a servant of God. James Bannerman admits that all evidence is
lacking in the New Testament for the position he advances.
“Nor is the doctrine of the duty of the state to recognise and aid the Church
invalidated by the absence of an express command in the New Testament Scriptures,
confirmatory of the duty as announced in the Old.”21 But the Old Testament laws that established the
pure worship of Jehovah God also called the rulers of the nation to stone idolaters and
false prophets. “That prophet ... shall
be put to death” (Deut. 13:5).
Indeed, a private person who tried to
convert an Israelite to another god had to be killed (Deut. 13:6-11).
Those who do attempt to ground the position that the state must establish, support,
and promote the true church on the outstanding New Testament passages on the state, Romans 13
and I Peter 2,
thereby commit themselves to teaching that the state must prevent false worship and punish
false worshipers. If these passages mandate
the state to establish the true church and promote the gospel, they also require the state
to execute wrath upon every false worshiper, to punish every heretic with the state’s
sword, and thus to be a terror to all who are outside the true church, for no other reason
than that they are outside the true church.
“Put Up Thy Sword”
Reformed churches must repudiate the position that the state has the calling from
God to recognize and support the true church, to promote the gospel, and to destroy the
false church and false religion. Reformed
churches must repudiate this view of the calling of the state even though it was held by
most of the Reformers. Reformed churches must
repudiate this doctrine of the state’s calling as found in the original edition of
certain of the Reformed confessions.
First, there is the undeniable fact that in the almost two thousand years of the
history of the church of the New Testament after Pentecost it has almost never been the
case that a godly state has established and promoted the true church as its duty to the
Lord Jesus Christ. There certainly have been
times when God in His providence used the state to protect and defend the true church in
extraordinary circumstances. One thinks of
Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, of Elector Frederick of the Palatinate in the
sixteenth century, and of Prince Maurice of the Netherlands in the seventeenth century. But God’s use of the state in His providence
is not the same as a godly state’s consciously promoting the true church as an act of
obedience to God. Even in the most
outstanding instances of the state’s protection and defense of the true church in New
Testament history, the genuine godliness of the prince is suspect. Regarding Constantine and Maurice, there is good
reason to believe that their energetic defense of the true church was motivated not so
much by a desire to obey God as by a desire to use the church for their own political
ends.
The doctrine of an established church, so passionately held by some, is
unrealistic. It is a doctrine about something
that has never been, is not anywhere on earth today, and never will be to the world’s
end. It has no practical application. This in itself is not so serious, perhaps,
although the advocates of the doctrine contend for it as if it were a fundamental doctrine
of the Reformed faith, but the doctrine presents itself as God’s will for civil
government.
The question about the doctrine is this: Is
God’s will for civil government unrealistic, unrealized, and unrealizable? In the language of Romans 13:1,
if the higher authorities are God’s servant by establishing the true church and
promoting the gospel, are these authorities, in fact, never God’s servant at all?
Although this was not true of the Reformers, most modern Presbyterian defenders of
the notion that the state must establish the church and promote the gospel hang their
doctrine of the state on the peg of postmillennialism.
They concede that states have not yet been the servants of God they are called to
be, or truly the servants of God as they ought to be. They concede the impossibility of any contemporary
state’s being the servant of God. But
they pin their hope on the coming millennium. When,
in the earthly future, Scotland, the United States, and all the other nations of the world
are “Christianized” by the conversion of the vast majority of the human race,
then, finally, the state will become the servant of God, establishing the Reformed church,
making her confessions the law of the land, outlawing all other public worship, and
punishing heretics, if not all who dissent from the Reformed religion.
As James Bannerman cast about for proof in Scripture that the state must
“recognise, and, in so far as circumstances permit, … endow the Church,” he
could only appeal to “the alliance of Church and state among the Jews.” But he quickly, and significantly, added:
This evidence of the Divine sanction given to the support and
recognition of the Church by the state might be very greatly augmented by a consideration
of those predictions in regard to the future or millennial state of the Church, in which
kings and kingdoms are especially represented as in the latter days bringing their gold
and their honour unto it, and becoming the great instruments of promoting its spiritual
interests.22
Projecting the state’s service of God by establishing and promoting the true
church into the millennium concedes that until that time the state has not, in fact, been
the servant of God, or, at least, the servant of God as it ought to have been. Since postmillennialism is a dream—according
to the Second Helvetic Confession “Jewish dreams”23 —the notion that the state will one day be the servant of
God by recognising and promoting the true church is fantasy.
A second reason for rejecting the doctrine that the state must actively support the
true church is the warning of church history. This
warning is that whenever a civil government did exert itself to establish the church,
support it with money and the other physical resources of the state, punish ministers who
opposed the church’s doctrine, and extirpate dissenters, the result has always been
detrimental to the true church. Indeed, the
result has been well-nigh ruinous.
One of the greatest disasters in church history was the recognition of Christianity
as the religion of the realm by Constantine. Thousands
of hypocrites flooded the church. The church
began to rely on the steel sword of the state rather than the spiritual sword of Christ. And the Romanizing of the church was assured.
Usually, the establishing of a church meant persecution for the true church. Very clearly before my mind is the suffering of
the Reformed saints in the Netherlands in the sixteenth century at the hands of the state
and the Roman Catholic Church in unholy alliance and again in the nineteenth century at
the hands of the state and the established Reformed church.24
Even the most ardent advocates of the position that the state must support,
promote, and defend the true church admit that the implementing of the position has proved
to be harmful to the church. Arguing that
nations and their rulers are obliged “to aim, in the regulation of national affairs,
at the good of the church of Christ, and the welfare of true religion,” William
Cunningham acknowledged that “it is undoubtedly true, that in most cases the
interference of the civil power in religious matters has done more evil than good.” He referred particularly to the evil of the
established church’s consenting “to sinful interferences upon the part of the
civil authorities with the rights and privileges which Christ had conferred upon [the
church].” Cunningham doubted whether
“any Protestant established church has ever wholly escaped this sin and degradation,
except the Church of Scotland at the era of the second Reformation.”25
In the third place, and most importantly, there is no biblical warrant for the
position that God mandates the state to establish the church, punish heretics, and root
out false religion.
The mandate to Old Testament Israel to punish idolaters and the examples of kings
actively promoting the true worship of Jehovah God do not apply in the new dispensation to
any earthly nation. The application is alone
to that nation which is the fulfillment of Old Testament Israel. That nation is the church. The church is the “holy nation” today (I Pet. 2:9).
The church promotes the right worship of God
and wars against the kingdom of the lie, not by physical force, but by purely spiritual
power and weaponry. “Ecclesia non
sitit sanguinem.”
The true church is established and promoted, not by the sword of the state, but by
the gospel. Heresies within the church are
dealt with by the church’s excommunication. False
religion and idolatry outside the church are destroyed by the church’s confession of
the truth. “We do not war after the
flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are
not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down
imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and
bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Cor.
10:3-5).
The state has no power to promote the gospel.
All that the state has is the steel sword. Promotion
of the gospel demands the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17). The state has no ability to promote the
gospel. What competency does Caesar have to
judge doctrine? to recognize the true church
among all the sects and false churches claiming to be the church of Christ? to destroy
“spiritual wickedness in high places,” which is the real foe of the church? (Eph. 6:12)
Certainly, God does not charge this institution, this servant, of His with a duty
for the execution of which He gives His servant neither power nor ability.
The state has no authority to recognize, establish, support, and promote the
true church. In the entire New Testament,
there is no divine mandate to civil government, to promote the true church with its steel
sword. There is a mandate to civil government
in the New Testament. Repeatedly, the New
Testament charges civil government with a vitally important duty. It charges every civil government with this duty. It charges the civil governments of that day with
their duty. But the mandate of the New
Testament is not that the state promote the true church by establishing the church and by
destroying false religions.
Very few even of the most ardent advocates of the supposed duty of the state to
establish the true church dare to appeal to the New Testament. For good reason.
Romans
13:1-7, classic passage on the state and its service of God, teaches that the existing
state, the godless, idolatrous Roman Empire, is—not should be, or will be,
but is—the servant of God. As
servant of God, the godless Empire—the Caesar—has a mandate from God, which it
is also carrying out—in Paul’s own day.
That mandate, which the Roman state is also carrying out, certainly is not
recognizing, supporting, and promoting the true church.
The notion is absurd. Nor is the Roman
state, in Paul’s own day, the servant of God by virtue of its punishing
heretics and rooting out false religion. Obviously,
the mandate is something completely different. The
service of this servant of God to its divine master is radically different from the
service rendered to God by the kingdom of Christ, the true church. God intends that the service of earthly nations be
radically different from that of the spiritual nation, the church.
When Jesus told Peter to put his sword away and when He reminded Pilate that His
servants would not fight, He laid down a universal, inflexible, profound, and necessary
law: His kingdom is not promoted by physical
force; neither does His kingdom wage war on the kingdom of Satan with carnal weapons (Matt. 26:52,
53; John
18:36). This law rules out the promotion
of the church by the state, for the only force the state has is physical and the only
weapons the state has are carnal.
For all his stubborn insistence on the duty of the state to execute heretics and to
defend the church with arms, Calvin was too biblical a theologian to rest easy with this
stand. Immediately after his defensive
comment on John
18:36 quoted earlier in this article, that those who infer from the text that
“the doctrine of the Gospel and the pure worship of God ought not to be defended by
arms are unskilful and ignorant reasoners,” Calvin quickly and correctly, though
inconsistently, added: “The kingdom of
Christ, being spiritual, must be founded on the doctrine and power of the Spirit. In the same manner, too, its edification is
promoted.” He assured his readers that
magistrates only “accidentally” defend the kingdom of Christ. And, happily, he concluded: “The kingdom of Christ is strengthened more
by the blood of the martyrs than by the aid of arms.”26
Luther on the Temporal Authority
Of all the Reformers, only Martin Luther saw and clearly expressed the basic issues
in the controversy whether the church and the gospel should be promoted by the cold, steel
sword of the state. In his treatment of
“temporal authority,” that is, the state, in 1523, Luther asserted and
demonstrated that the duty of the state is exclusively to keep outward order in the
nation. “The temporal government has
laws which extend no further than to life and property and external affairs on
earth.” “The temporal lords are
supposed to govern lands and people outwardly.”
In Romans
13:1ff., the apostle does not mandate temporal authority to “command faith,”
but “he is speaking rather of external things, that they should be ordered and
governed on earth.” The “human
ordinance” of civil government of I Peter 2:13
“cannot possibly extend its authority into heaven and over souls; it is limited to
the earth, to external dealings men have with one another, where they can see, know,
judge, evaluate, punish, and acquit.” “Worldly
princes” must address themselves only to such matters as “usury, robbery,
adultery, murder, and other evil deeds.”
Luther emphatically denied that the state should concern itself with worship,
doctrine, and faith. “Where the temporal
authority presumes to prescribe laws for the soul, it encroaches upon God’s
government and only misleads souls and destroys them.”
For civil government to decree, judge, and enforce belief and confession of the
gospel is madness and folly.
For faith is a free act, to which no one can be forced. Indeed, it is a work of God in the spirit, not
something which outward authority should compel or create…. The blind, wretched fellows fail to see how
utterly hopeless and impossible a thing they are attempting. For no matter how harshly they lay down the law,
or how violently they rage, they can do no more than force an outward compliance of the
mouth and the hand; the heart they cannot compel, though they work themselves to a
frazzle…. They only compel weak
consciences to lie, to disavow, and to utter what is not in their hearts.
The state must “let men believe this or that as they are able and willing, and
constrain no one by force.”
Luther’s condemnation of the state’s punishment of heretics was
brilliant, and conclusive. In light of the
fact that this condemnation of the state’s attempt to eradicate heresy by its sword
is at the same time a condemnation of the state’s attempt to promote the gospel, the
following long quotation of the greatest of all the Reformers is warranted.
Heresy can never be restrained by force. One will have to tackle the problem in some other
way, for heresy must be opposed and dealt with otherwise than with the sword. Here God’s word must do the fighting. If it does not succeed, certainly the temporal
power will not succeed either, even if it were to drench the world in blood. Heresy is a spiritual matter which you cannot hack
to pieces with iron, consume with fire, or drown in water.
God’s word alone avails here, as Paul says in II
Corinthians 10 [:4-5], “Our weapons are not carnal, but mighty in God to destroy
every argument and proud obstacle that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and to
take every thought captive in the service of Christ.”
Moreover, faith and heresy are never so strong as when men oppose them by sheer
force, without God’s word. For men count
it certain that such force is for a wrong cause and is directed against the right, since
it proceeds without God’s word and knows not how to further its cause except by naked
force, as brute beasts do. Even in temporal
affairs force can be used only after the wrong has been legally condemned. How much less possible it is to act with force,
without justice and God’s word, in these lofty spiritual matters! See, therefore, what fine, clever nobles they
are! They would drive out heresy, but set
about it in such a way that they only strengthen the opposition, rousing suspicion against
themselves and justifying the heretics. My
friend, if you wish to drive out heresy, you must find some way to tear it first of all
from the heart and completely turn men’s wills away from it. With force you will not stop it, but only
strengthen it. What do you gain by
strengthening heresy in the heart, while weakening only its outward expression and forcing
the tongue to lie? God’s word,
however, enlightens the heart, and so all heresies and errors vanish from the heart of
their own accord.27
A few years earlier, Luther had written:
I refuse to fight for the Gospel with force and slaughter. With the Word, the world was won, and by it the
Church is preserved, and by it the Church will be restored.
For as Antichrist [the pope] arose without arms, so without arms will it be
confounded. If the Gospel were of such a
nature that it could be propagated or preserved by the powers of this world, God would not
have entrusted it to fishermen.28
On one occasion, Luther remarked that if heresy could be destroyed by physical
force the hangman would be the best evangelist.
Luther’s insight is not nullified by his own undue dependence upon the state
or by his failure, later in his life, to adhere to the principle that the state is not to
punish heresy and false religion.
Separation of Church and State
By no means, however, does the denial of the state’s calling to establish,
support, and promote the true church imply that there is no relation between church and
state, or that the state does not have a God-given calling to serve the church, or that
the state is not a servant of the kingdom of Christ.
The state, or civil government, is an institution of God, not in His grace, like
the church, but in His providence. Whether
the origin of civil government, biblically, is the family as ordained by God in His
creation of man on the sixth day of creation, or the divine Word to Noah in Genesis 9:5,
6 concerning the execution of murderers, civil government is not grounded in the
gospel, but in the revelation of God in creation. Civil
government does not concern itself with the salvation of sinners, but with the existence
and order of the nation. The validity of
civil government does not depend upon the state’s adherence to Scripture, or upon the
Christianity of the rulers, but “the powers that be are ordained of God,”
whether Shih Huang-ti of China, or Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, or Caesar Nero of Rome, or
Hitler of Germany.
The state is separate from, and independent of, the church. A strong doctrine of the separation of church and
state is not an American theory. It is the
plain teaching of the Bible in both testaments. As
regards the teaching of the New Testament, there can be no dispute. Alongside the churches in all countries were civil
governments. These governments had no
connection with the churches whatever, had little, if any, knowledge of the churches, and
certainly did not establish, support, and promote the churches. For the most part, the rulers were pagans. But these civil governments were institutions of
God among men. As citizens of a particular
nation, the members of the churches were called to honor the rulers in the state as vested
with authority from God (Rom. 13:1-7;
I Pet.
2:13-17).
Also the Old Testament clearly teaches the separation of church and state. It recognizes the legitimacy of the rulers of the
nations as appointed by God to their office, even though those rulers sustained no
relation whatever to the Old Testament church (Israel) and even though those rulers were
heathens. “Thou, O king, art a king of
kings,” said Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar, “for the God of heaven hath given thee a
kingdom, power, and strength, and glory” (Dan. 2:37). “The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men,
and giveth it to whomsoever he will” (Dan. 4:25, 32;
see also Dan.
2:21 and 5:21). These heathen rulers
rightly kept order in their nations, punished murder, and defended their countries against
invasion. When, occasionally, the God-fearing
Israelite came into contact with these rulers, as Joseph with Pharaoh, David with Achish,
and Daniel with Darius, he honored them as appointed to their rule by God.
The only argument from the Old Testament, indeed from the whole of Scripture, for
an intimate relation, even union, of church and state in which the state actively supports
and promotes the church rests on a serious misunderstanding of Israel. This is the argument that contends that the
distinctly ecclesiastical and distinctly national character of Israel is fulfilled in a
modern Christian state that will support the true church, as King Josiah supported the
high priest Hilkiah.
Arguing for “the lawfulness of a friendly alliance and co-operation between
the Church … and the state,” James Bannerman appealed to the union of religion
and political authority in Old Testament Israel.
Under the Jewish economy there was a close and intimate union between
the Church and the state—between religion on the one hand, and the civil magistrate
on the other. The Church and state were not
merged into each other under that system, but still remained separate and independent. They were different in regard to their laws, to
their office-bearers, and to a certain extent in regard to their members; but nevertheless
they were nearly connected, and that, too, for a lengthened period of time, and under the
express sanction of the Almighty. In this
fact we acknowledge and assert a warrant for the alliance of things civil and sacred, for
the connection and co-operation together of the king and the priest, of the throne and the
altar.29
The misunderstanding is that Israel as a nation is fulfilled in some earthly nation
or other, especially Scotland. The truth is,
as I Peter
2:9 clearly teaches, that Israel as a nation, as well as Israel as the church, is
fulfilled in the New Testament church of believers and their children. The local congregation is both the kingdom and the
church of Jesus Christ. The distinction
between, and relation of, the ecclesiastical and the national in Old Testament Israel have
nothing to do with any political state in the present age and nothing to do with proper
relations of the church and the state in the New Testament.
Such is the witness of the Bible to the separation of church and state that one of the most fervent advocates of the supposed duty of
the state to establish and promote the church acknowledged this separation. James Bannerman wrote: “The separation between Church and State [is]
so strongly asserted in Scripture.” He
continued:
There can be no doubt that the principle so plainly laid down in
Scripture, of the entire separation between the religious and political societies [church
and state] as to the nature of their powers and as to the subject-matter of their
administrations, legitimately and inevitably carries with it the conclusion, not only that
each is complete within itself for its own work and its own objects, but also th |