CIVIL GOVERNMENT: THE NEGLECTED MINISTRY

By Archie P. Jones

Our present civilizational crisis is largely traceable to Christians' sins of omission. To fail to do that which the Lord requires is a serious offense, for it involves the breaking of His covenant and the violation of His law. And God does not permit violations of His covenant law to escape His sanctions. Blessings are the reward of covenantal faithfulness, but curses are the reward of unfaithful covenant-breaking (See Deuteronomy, and, for that matter, the Old Testament.).

The Lord established three fundamental institutions for the governance of men: family, the Church, and civil government. While these three institutions are separate spheres of authority under God, they clearly have mutually supportive, interwoven functions. The performance — or lack of performance — of each inescapably influences the functioning of the other two. This mutuality of influence derives from an overarching unity of purpose for man and society derived from the eternal will and plan of God for His creation. God's creation manifests His existence and attributes. It is the same with His institutions, provided that men adhere to the Creator's requirements for those institutions. God's institutions have, as does His triune Being, both a unity of purpose and a division of function. The unity of purpose of family, Church and civil government is to glorify God, by teaching, obeying and enforcing His word and law. Family, Church and civil government all are to do these things, but each is given a unique function or sphere of operation. This division of function is not historical, in the sense of historical dispensations in which one or the other of God's institutions is to dominate (the three were united in our first parents), but is rather a continuity of division of labor over time.

This unity of purpose and interdependent division of labor is of both theoretical and practical importance, for none of God's institutions is fully independent of the others. Neglect one institution and you inevitably impair the functioning of the other two, and with it the testimony of godly men to each other and to others. Neglect one institution and you reduce the ability of God's elect to glorify God, to teach, obey and enforce His law. Neglect one institution and you distort and retard the progress of the Kingdom of God.

The Magistrate's Ministry

Romans 13, considered the key New Testament chapter on civil government, is one of the most neglected and misread chapters in the Bible. It is for this reason that it is all the more important to develop an understanding of our Lords requirements for magistrates and governmental activity. The word of God in Romans 13 teaches very clearly that the ruler, the magistrate, is a minister. First, the ruler is ordained of God, for he is definitely a power, and "the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13:1). Just as ministers in the Church are ordained of God, so the civil governors are ordained of God.

Second, the magistrate, the ruler, "is the minister of God to thee for good" (vs. 4). The ruler is God's minister, His diakonos. He is a deacon, a laborer, a ministrant, an attendant to people for God. As the derivation of diakonos shows, he is one who runs errands: God's errands. In particular, he is to be a Christian teacher and pastor. If the ruler is the minister of God to men for good, then he must rule in accordance with God's judgment of the good, not man's willful, subjective desire to redefine the good. If the ruler is a minister to men for good then he must enforce God's law, not man's desires: there is no other alternative.

The teaching, pastoring function of the ruler or magistrate is of crucial importance. We are popularly told today that the government should not seek to enforce morality — especially (Surprise!) Christian morality — because "you can't legislate morality." Clearly, this contention is at best a half-truth, and as such is a dangerous distortion. It is a distortion which fits quite well with the Humanist canard that "you can't mix religion and politics." All law commands human action; it seeks either to restrain or to urge particular actions. It necessarily says either "Thou shalt" or "Thou shalt not," and it backs these commands to action or restraint with coercion, with sanctions enforced by the power of the sword. The sword and the word are united in law. And because the word commands action by men, the word of law is necessarily a morel teaching, a teaching which seeks to guide the ruled along a particular way of action, of life. This way of life which the law-word commands is what the ruler or lawgiver considers good, and for this reason it is again inevitably a moral teaching, of one sort or another. By teaching men to obey the ruler or lawgiver's commands, via the punishment of those who disobey, who break the law, and by his personal exam pie, the magistrate can do nothing else than teach people moral principles. His teaching, punishing function is a pastoring function, for by it he guides his sheep toward what he considers green pastures and the safety of the fold, and away from what he considers precipices and beasts of prey. His sword is like the shepherd's staff: "if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil" (vs. 4). By striking fear into the hearts of the evil, he diverts them from their destruction and toward doing that which is good.

Now, the actual laws passed and enforced by the magistrate may or may not be God's laws. Clearly, if man's laws contradict God's laws, then man's laws are both truly lawless and without authority. since they command us to do that which our Lord forbids us to do. Human laws which contradict God's laws may be part of a"moral system," and inevitably convey a "moral" teaching, but we cannot escape the fact that words which command that which God forbids are immoral, lawless words: This is part of the reason that the ruler, in his pastoring, teaching function, must enforce God's laws, God's moral system and moral teaching: otherwise, he would be not God's minister to men for good, but rather man's minister to man for evil. Rulers who enforce man's antinomian (against God's law) laws become false shepherds who drive the sheep to destruction.

Another reason why rulers are to enforce God's law is that God's law is a schoolmaster to drive men to Christ (Gal. 3:24). A lawfully wielded sword of a godly ruler strikes fear in the hearts of the ungodly, a feet which may become the fear of the Lord, and thus the beginning of wisdom. Without godly rulers enforcing God's law, the Church in its fullest sense, the body of Christ, the beliefs and actions of believers, loses one of its most powerful teaching ministries. For if Christian rulers enforce ungodly laws they cannot teach men to fear that which is evil, cannot pastor men to do that which is good, cannot protect the good against the evil, and cannot therefore, promote the fear of God in men. Ungodly laws are a schoolmaster, but not a schoolmaster to drive men to Christ.

When rulers or magistrates enforce God's law, they become the ministers of God to people for good, ministers of God to bring God's revenge by executing God's prescribed wrath upon those that do evil (Rom. 13:4). It is for this cause that we are to be subject to them for conscience' sake, and to pay tribute to them: "for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing" (Rom. 13: 5, 6). The inspired word of God used for "minister" here reinforces the nature of the ruler's calling and duty. The ruler is a leitourgos, a public servant of God, a public functionary in the Temple or Gospel; in the general sense of the word, he is a worshiper of God or (and)  a benefactor of man. His function is, as the derivation of the word makes clear, an active one: he is to toil, as an effort or occupation. For those of us who lack a knowledge of Greek, the word of God makes this point evident: the ruler,'God's minister, is to be "attending continually upon this very thing" (vs. 6).

There can be no "benevolent neglect" of the ministry of government. For to neglect the ministry of the magistrate is to neglect the Christian's duty to be a teacher, missionary and servant of the Lord, to neglect the Lord's command to occupy for Him, to surrender a third of the very Kingdom of God! To occupy. the ministry of the magistrate is to wield a powerful sword in the army of the Kingdom of God.

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