Miscellaneous

Submission to Civil Government – 549A

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels, and Sermons

Lesson: 1-1

Genre: Talk

Track: 1

Dictation Name: Submission to Civil Government – 549A

Location/Venue:

Year:

[Audience Leader] Submission is not one we hear a lot about. It is not one that, you turn on the radio, and you look through the preachers on the radio or the television, or you see the banners or the billboards put up about great things being held at (Arthur?) Arena by different church ministries; very seldom do you see the doctrine of submission- as a matter of fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. And yet it is the topic that we must, we must reclaim with the churches, if we are going to be blessed by the Lord Jesus Christ in this age we have got to learn Godly submission. So that is the topic of the conference. Not only submission, because all power and authority is given to the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore there is a sense in which Christians need to be in submission in the home, in the church, and in the state; and certainly submission in terms of personal government of the self. And so that is what we are going to look at today.

Not all of the speakers are going to agree; they are going to disagree about a lot of things, they don’t all have to agree. The only thing you need to agree with them on is where what they say agrees with this (lifts Bible) alright, that’s the only rule we have, and that is what we want you to do when you check what they say- we hope you brought your Bibles today- because our goal is to edify the saints in accordance with the word of the living God. And so you may or may not agree with everything that you hear, there is certainly… this is an area that a lot has not been said about, and so it is sort of a first step in a lot of ways, and we pray that the Lord will bless it.

Romans 13 lays down principles of submission in Civil Government, and our first speaker this morning, Reverend R.J. Rushdoony, I always say he needs little introduction, because most of you- it would be pretty hard to be here this morning without having read some of his books. He has had a tremendous influence in our age on bringing us back; it is like the gospel got taken off and got put in one of those monasteries for a lot of part of this century, and we thank the Lord for the job that fundamentalism did in preserving the doctrines of salvation by grace and doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ, His divine birth and salvation through His blood; and yet the application of the faith is something that the church has not been doing very well in our age, and a lot of the reclamation of the application of the gospel in every area of society has benefited from the work of R.J. Rushdoony. I know he has been very important in my life, and I know in many of the lives of you here.

He has two topics, the first we are going to depart from your schedule, after these were printed we had a change in scheduling, and he is going to speak with regard to submission as it involves civil government, but then at the end of his talk he is also going to address the differences between submission to civil government, and submission in the church as it relates to the purpose of government, and how they differ in the ecclesiastical realms. And at this time I would like to invite once again to join us from this pulpit, Reverend R.J. Rushdoony.

[Rushdoony] Submission is a doctrine that all Christians affirm, and disagree on. We need to understand also that when we speak of submission we do not mean inaction. It is a serious error ever to say that submission means inaction. Sometimes the doctrine of submission has absurd presentation. One of the most popular stories of the Middle Ages is the story of Patient Griselda. How many have ever read that story or heard of it? Well, good, you didn’t miss anything. Griselda was a very ordinary young woman from a poor background who was taken into the household of a great lord who married her. He humiliated her at every turn- he treated her like a servant. Even when her daughter was getting married, she was not invited because she was not of an equal status as the other guests, and Griselda submitted to it all, and then finally when she was well into middle age, her husband rewarded her as a good woman.

It is a very offensive story, but the Middle Ages, or at least the preachers in the Middle Ages, loved it. It was not true to life. Medieval women were strong willed, very strong willed. Nobody bossed them around like Griselda- you can read a great many stories of the Middle Ages and never find anything resembling Griselda.

Now that is fiction. However in real life we have had a group of men who in a sense have represented the same ideal of Griselda, the Jesuit Order. Jesuits voluntarily took a vow of unreserved and unqualified submission to the pope. This made them a powerful force for the Counter Reformation, but it created for them an intense hatred within the Catholic Church which exists to this day.

Now some Protestants are very anti Jesuit, but not to the same degree that a great many Catholics are. Within the Catholic church, the animosity and hatred for the Jesuits was so great, that the Catholic monarchs finally demanded the suppression of the order. They did not trust any group that was so submissive to the Vatican. The events that followed were quite brutal; only Russia and Russian Orthodoxy and some Protestants, something not commonly known, protected many, many of the Jesuits when they had to go into hiding. All kinds of slander were directed against the Jesuits, which still survive. The problem for the critics was a very simple one: unquestioning and absolute obedience to God is one thing, but a like obedience to the Pope or to any church is another. Outside the Jesuit order, not many Catholics agreed with that, nor do they agree now. The general opinion was that anyone making such a submission was capable of anything.

Today we have in many Protestant circles a Jesuit-like demand for submission on the part of members and clergy. The results are deadly, as always. Among the Biblical texts commonly used to affirm the doctrine of submission, two notable ones stand out: 1 Peter 2:13-14 “Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well.” The other great text is Romans 13:1-5.

Now, these two texts do not deal with submission in the church, nor in the family, but in the Civil state, in the state or Civil government. Their basic premise is first that we live in a world government predestined by God- our rebellion, however evil the circumstances, is a revolt against God. The world indeed is full of sin, but our rebellion does not remove the fact of sin, and it does not do more than aggravate it. Second, God’s way of transformation is not Revolution, but Reformation. The state is a ministry of justice, the church a ministry of salvation, and the one is dependent on the other. The state cannot be a ministry of justice; and Augustine said that it would be “no different” to put it in modern language: “than a larger mafia, unless the people were Christians, and the state were Christianized.”

Man finds it easier to turn to revolution and conflict, because it demands no change in him. God’s way requires not only that we submit to His will and be obedient, but also that in Him we be made a new creation. The only efficacious change comes through regeneration. Thus the Biblical doctrine of submission has as its necessary correlative the doctrine of regeneration. You cannot submit unless you are regenerate, and if you are regenerate than your submission can be a form of action that is productive of true change.

The fallen man wants revolution, or some kind of external imposition on people. He sees it as the only way of effective change. If he believes in education as an alternative, it is compulsory, statist education; no less a revolutionary device. The Christian must affirm that humanistic efforts and devices are superficial, and that only Gods regenerating power can effect true change. Thus we cannot separate submission from regeneration.

Then third, social order is not maintained by every man doing that which is right in his own eyes, as in the days of the judges. Such a condition prevailed when God is not king over the nation and its people. Even the worst of rulers must maintain some kind of social order.

Fourth, rulers are ordained of God. If we have bad rulers, it is because we are a bad people, and the solution again is not in revolution but reprobation. We have the kind of men we do in Washington because we deserve them; we chose them, they are a reflection of the character of the people. This does not preclude using peaceful means to alter a society, but it does mean that our essential hope is in regeneration. Rulers are ministers of God; not all ministers are good, we know that looking at the church. But neither are we the people. Godly submission begins with submission to God and His law word. It means that the problem of sin and evil is not countered with violence and evil, but with the recognition that Christ’s atonement alone destroys the power of sin and death, and His regenerating power alone makes us into a new human race, one empowered to do good and establish justice.

This makes submission a matter of conscience. It emphatically not a surrender to evil, it is a recognition that sin is not eliminated, nor curtailed by revolution and violence, but by good works, and these Christ’s people must supply.

The Romans 13 text cannot be separated from that which follows, verse 5, namely that paying taxes is a religious duty, according to verse 6, in order to maintain some semblance of social order. So verse 7 requires all due tribute, custom, fear, honor and dues to be paid as a form of obedience to God- no tax revolt, in other words. It is a revolutionary device, its origin was Karl Marx.

Then, second we are to be debt free as a normal thing, although debts up to 6 years are permitted by God’s law. Our service to God involves avoiding bondage to men, our obligation to other men should not be money or debt, but love. Third, love is the fulfilling or putting into force of the law; we do not commit adultery, meaning that we respect the integrity of our neighbors marriage; we do not kill, we respect the integrity of his life; we do not steal, we do not violate his property or possessions; we do not bear false witness, we respect his good name and reputation; and we do not covet that which is our neighbors in word, thought, or deed.

We manifest our love for our neighbor in obeying God’s law in relation to him. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. Love is thus defined as keeping the law of God in relation to one another.

Then fourth, it is time for us to wake up we are told, out of the sleep of our dark world, and put on the armor of light. We can only change the world by submission to Jesus Christ and His law word. We must therefore, Fifth, walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife or envying; we are a people with work to do.

6th, this means put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof; we are not here to please ourselves but to please God, and we dare not forget this. It is not what we want from God that is all important, but what God wants from us. The verses that follow 1st Peter 2:13-14 are similar to those in Romans, the alternative to civil revolution is the godly reordering of society, of our lives, and of our world. We are told first that it is the will of God that we submit to evil to put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. All kinds of foolish charges are made against Christians by the ungodly, we must not provide grounds for more.

Secondly we are to live as free men in Christ, as servants of God; never using our freedom as an excuse for misconduct. This means, third, that we love our fellow believers, honor all men, reverence God, and honor the king. The world looks with hatred towards others than its own. We must treat all men as God would have us do.

Fourth, servants are next addressed. This term can include anyone who works for another person. Such a relationship is not perfect, and it does sometimes involve suffering wrongfully. We must be patient. We are called to live in an evil world as did Jesus Christ, and this means suffering wrongfully at times. He sets an example for us of patient endurance.

Then Fifth, in 1 Peter 3:1-7 we are told of the duties of wives and husbands, the regenerated life, rather than a revolutionary one. Peter goes on to say much more, that this is enough to indicate that the Christian life is regenerative, not revolutionary and destructive. Our texts have dealt with the Christian in a civil and social context, in an unsaved world as in the New Testament era. Submission thus has been viewed in the context of a fallen and unchristian world. But what about submission within the Christian community?

In part, Peter touches on this in his counsel to husbands and wives, this is submission in the Lord; but there is much more involved. But before we look at it, let us see the premise of regeneration versus revolution, to examine a contemporary problem. We have here two kinds of opposition within the Christian community: on the one hand we have had some who oppressively oppose abortion by lawless acts aimed at abortuaries, including murder, inviting radical civil tactics in return. But men cannot be regenerated by violence. The way of fallen man is to try to change the world by violence, not by regeneration. On the other hand, many Christians have worked to counsel women seeking abortion, to offer Godly help and Biblical solutions, to hold prayer meetings and to work with the girl. Much remarkable work has been done, because the basis of their efforts is to save the life of the unborn child, and the soul of the mother. The answer of humanism to problems is compulsion and violence, ultimately death. For the Christian it is Christ and life. The two ways could not be more different.

So, the doctrine of submission is different in the church than in the state. The Christian community- are we to submit to evil here? If we are dealing with presumably regenerate men, are we to submit as we would to the ungodly from whom we cannot expect God’s justice? As we have seen, the Jesuits have required an unquestioning submission to the pope, and they have earned the hostility of many Catholics over the generations, including Catholic clergy; an unquestioning and total submission to anyone other than God is rightfully seen as wrong, and those making such a vow have been mistrusted even by their fellow Catholics.

It is very dangerous to require submission of any such dimension to any other than to God and His word. So what does submission mean within the Christian community? The Alpha and the Omega of our understanding of Godly submission is that we recognize that every word of God is God-breathed and binding upon us. Because it is God-given, the words of scripture are all God’s law. The Bible is God’s law book.

Now in Matthew 18:15-17 we are given God’s way of dealing with problems created by sin in the Christian community. The first step when we have an offense committed against us is to go to the offender quietly, and to tell him of the problem. “If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” The presupposition is that an actual offense has occurred. Second, if this effort fails, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. We are dealing with a procedure which is both neighborly and Godly, and yet also legal. Its purpose is restorative. Then third, “if he shall neglect to hear thee, then tell it to the church. But if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican.” Notice that this reads, ‘tell it to the church.’ As long as the church was small in numbers, and for at least two centuries home churches were the rule, this could be true; but in time this hearing was delegated to the elders.

We are told in 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15 “And if any man obeyeth not our word by this epistle, note that man, that ye have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed. And yet count him not as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.” Do you see the difference? We are now in the sphere of regenerate men. Now, some may not be, but basically it is the sphere of regenerate men. Here we can do something, we do not need revolution as the ungodly do, or coercion. We can go to them in the Lord.

Paul exercised apostolic authority, to function by the Holy Spirit as the church in this episode. What is relevant for us is that the disciplined man was not to be counted as an enemy, but as a wayward brother. The goal was to make him ashamed and repentant. On occasion however, the judgement could be severe; in 1 Corinthians 16:22 Paul writes: “If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema.” Or ‘accursed.’ Sometimes we find anathema, or ‘Maranatha’ which means ‘come Lord Jesus,’ joined together in the early church. Maranatha was a Hebrew word meaning ‘the Lord has come’, its use meant ‘the Lord has come in judgement,’ or ‘Lord, come in judgement.’ In either case, its usage stressed the solemnity of the judgement.

Now as we have seen, the Jesuit error was absolute loyalty to the Pope, rather than to Jesus Christ. And this misplaced loyalty was resented by other Catholics. A like misplaced loyalty is to the church rather than to Jesus Christ. A related error is to insist that there can be no reversals of any church court’s decision, except on procedural grounds. A great injustice may be perpetrated, but if the legal procedures of the session or presbytery are correct, supposedly there can be no reversal, unless an incorrect form has been filed- a technical error. This is also true of our civil courts in this century. What this does is to declare that the decision of the court of origin is virtually infallible.

So, with respect to justice, this is a denial of it, and of course a denial of the Reformation. The Reformation stressed the fallibility of men and institutions, including the church. Calvinism in particular made clear that no class of men nor organizations, neither church nor state, are ever exempt from sin. To trust in men and institutions was tantamount to distrusting God and His word. Even though the Calvinist tended to be well educated and scholarly, Calvinism was regarded for centuries as a faith unfit for gentlemen, because it placed them all on the same level as common people. For a Calvinist, so called, to insist on trusting the church was a denial of their heritage.

In a very real and important sense we have begun at the wrong end by insisting on the work of the church court, because the church is a community whose central rite is not the session, or the meeting of the church court, but communion. And every judicial action must be preceded by prayer, and Godly, loving care by the people.

In talking about the sin of a member, members are wrong; they must be in prayer first, and manifest a family concern for an erring member. The text requiring this prayerful concern for one another are too many to remember. I believe there are eight in the gospels alone- we are commanded emphatically in John 15:15-17 to love one another. Any church that ceases to be a family of Christ and becomes simply a court has failed. The elders cannot replace the functions of the family members, and to reduce the churches duty to the work of elders is to handicap the elders. Life depends on obedience, and without it we have anarchy and death; and in fact our Lord tells us in John 7:17 that knowledge depends on obedience. “If any man will do His” (Gods) “will, he shall know the doctrine.” This means that an inactive congregation will be an ignorant one.

There is an important aspect of the doctrine which now comes to light, one I mentioned at the beginning: Submission is not inaction, but rather a reliance on Christian action. Godly submission to the word of God, to God, and to authority within the church, means that every member is praying for all the other members, and for the work of Christ, and for all the needs as He sees them; only then are they in true submission to God. Otherwise, they are asleep and Paul’s counsel is: “awake thou that sleepest.”

So, there must be brotherly helpfulness, rather than censoriousness. The goal must be restoration before judgement. We began by calling attention to the very different views of non-Christians and Christians; the difference between revolution and regeneration, the first sees compulsion and violence as the answer, and too often in church history men have put their reliance on compulsion. For the Christian the answer is regeneration and restoration, and this means the ways of grace. Now grace is not without judgement, but in essence its ways are the ways of peace. We live in a culture that refuses to admit the existence of supernatural grace, but this does not dismiss nor diminish its reality, and neither does the widespread prevalence of revolutionary violence demand that we submit to violence and accept it as our way of life. We, the people of God have God’s work to do and it must be done in God’s way. When our Lord declares: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God” He does not say: ‘Blessed are the elders who are the peacemakers.’ It is all. If we know enough about a problem in the church to gossip about it, perhaps we know enough to help remedy it, and we certainly have time enough to pray about it.

Submission begins with submission to every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. We submit to civil powers in most instances, although when the freedom of the word is at stake, we ought to obey God rather than men. The scope of non-Christian civil solution is limited, and even in a Christian state the state is at best a ministry of justice, not salvation. Salvation is from the Lord. We must constantly seek the regenerating power of the Lord, and here the church and the Christian people in communities have God’s power in many ways that the state does not. Christians can evoke Christ’s regenerating power to cope with sin, as against coercive power the Christian must invoke the regenerating power of God. If we do not do so more often, it is perhaps because we have come to believe more in compulsion than in grace, more in revolution than in regeneration. Too many churchmen have become children of their time, and expect compulsion to be more effective than grace.

Christian submission begins with placing ourselves under the every word of God, and in His Spirit; for only so can we do His work. We must remember that the world was won for Christ in the time of the Reformation, in one country after another, because there were men like John Welch, whose wife would find him late at night out of his bed, in his study, on his knees praying for erring Christians, and praying for the country: “Lord, give me Scotland err I die!”

Welch never put his hope in coercion, only in the Lord and only in the prayers of the Christian community; Godly submission. [Tape Ends]