“But test all things carefully (so you can recognize what is good). Hold firmly to that which is good. Abstain from every form of evil (withdraw and keep away from it). 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
The truth of the America Revolution is hardly known. It was, in point of fact, a revolution of self-defense, one based upon the principles of Scripture. The root of it all was the principle of authority/sovereignty. In other words, the issue came down to this fundamental question: is man or his institutions ultimate, or is God and His word? This was foremost in the founders’ minds and furthest from our own, which is why the truth of it is all but lost. The “cause” as it was known then, was that of the distrust of ultimate power in the hands of men. Why? Because the founders knew the power of sin. All other revolutions pull an old sinner off the throne and try and replace him with a new one. This was the power of the American Revolution – and the uniqueness of it in history. For example, unlike the French Revolution which took place soon thereafter and which descended into chaos and bloodshed, the American Revolution was based on Christian principles of law. This alone separated it from all other revolutions and is why it, and the country it gave birth to, has been unique in world history.
Christians should understand this issue better. We should rejoice in it, in fact because it will show us a way to think about politics that’s foreign to us because we’ve almost all, some unwittingly and others flat out, accepted the wisdom of the times. The issue of absolutism is the key to it all! Once this idea has been recovered from the past – where enemies of freedom and Christ would like to keep it buried – we can once again have fruitful conversations about freedom and history. Not until then, however. Nothing is more futile, we must point out, than modern conservatives trying to win the day and stave off Marxism’s latest evil spawn by unwittingly accepting the premise of absolutism while arguing against a variant of it. And more than this, it will help us check our premises too for no one can serve two masters. Alarmingly, many Christians of our day, ignorant of this issue, ascribe to government those qualities reserved for God alone, thus making them guilty of idolatry.
The founding generation didn’t arrive at revolution lightly nor by accident. Thoroughly infused by the Christian worldview, they understood that every aspect of society was made up of sinful men and this sin, it must be known, will always and forever seek to exploit its power. Absolute power resides in no man or group of men. This is a tremendous truth and the only truth that sets men free. All moral truth, authority and power proceed from God and He alone dictates the standards and divisions of these issues. Evil is man’s attempt to usurp this divine right. Evil is man playing god. And the number one way for men to play god is by seizing the power of the state. This is the true story of the Tower of Babel, which is false religion (humanism) combined with the state. It has many variants but this is the source.
John Cotton, the Puritan, understood this clearly. He knew that giving unlimited power or authority to either church or state, and those being made up of sinful men, was bad news. He said, “It is necessary therefore, that all power on earth be limited, Church power or other…It is counted a matter of danger to the State to limit Prerogatives; but it is further danger, not to have them limited…It is therefore fit for every man to be studious of the bounds which the Lord hath set…”. Cotton knew that men, even men of the church, being sinners themselves in need of grace, should not have too much power. The temptation to sin with such power was too great.
It’s common to dismiss the wisdom of the Puritans. To ignore their contributions but no where else do you find this gem from Cotton – “If you tether a Beast at night, he knows the length of his tether before morning.” In short, evil resides in the hearts of all men, regardless of race, class or sex. No matter the restraint, they will find ways to exploit their advantages.
A.F. Pollard said, “The colonies had been as anxious to get rid of James II in 1688 as they were to be free from Parliament in 1776. Their fundamental objection was to any sovereignty vested in any State whatever even in their own. Americans may be defined as that part of the English-speaking world which has instinctively revolted against the doctrine of the sovereignty of the State and has, not quite successfully, striven to maintain that attitude from the time of the Pilgrim Fathers to the present day…It is this denial of all sovereignty which gives its profound and permanent interest in the American Revolution. The Pilgrim Fathers crossed the Atlantic to escape from sovereign power; Washington called it a ‘monster’…”.
John Courtney Murray added, “The United States has a government, or better, a structure of governments operating on different levels. The American state has no sovereignty in the classic Continental sense.”
You see, Cotton and the Puritans knew history through the lens of Scripture. Thus, it can be said that they knew the same facts as others except that they could rightly interpret them. In every case, the Christian sees the same facts that secular man sees. But sinful eyes will never admit man’s errors and lust for the simplicity of total power. In all, it’s simply impossible to understand men and history without knowing at the bottom of it that there is sin and rebellion against God. Lest we do this, if we insist on rejecting God’s word about our condition, we will run off after every new utopian scheme and crucify each other in order to save society or some segment of it. Man’s war for salvation never ends because it’s based on the lie of Genesis 3:5; God’s “war” for salvation ended on Calvary when Jesus Christ the righteous said, “it is finished.”
Back to absolutism.
Knowing the reality of life and sin, through the Scriptures, the founders rejected any human claim of absolutism. Absolutism in the king had already been rejected. Such a concept had already been dealt a fatal blow in the English Revolution and the Glorious Revolution. The problem they were dealing with was that Parliament had taken up that power. But how could absolutism, evil in the king, be transferred to Parliament? If such was evil for one man, how was it not equally evil for many?
This led to the Continental Congress charging the King and Parliament with breach of contract. In this way, ours was a legal revolution! As Tocqueville pointed out, at this stage of the play the Colonies rejected legislative absolutism completely. The English clearly did not. Delolme said, “It is a fundamental principle with the English lawyers that parliament can do everything except making a woman a man, or a man a woman.”
Alas! In America we do even that now!
This is all to say that America’s revolution was a revolt against the claim of absolute power in any man or group of men. It was a call to the preservation of limited government that was based, as Cotton mentioned, in the delegated powers of the Lord. Each power, specifically, family, church, local government, state government and federal government, were separate and divided by God’s order. None could transgress on the God-given authority of the other! This is God’s structure of civil order in the gospel age and it shows forth the glories of Christ in that only through the gospel and repentance of sin can men be saved from the wrath of God. Other revolutions are, at first, anarchistic in nature – that is, they seek to abolish restraints of law and order for self-gain. Anarchy creates a power vacuum that’s eventually filled by despotism. In either event moral law is subverted by brute force. A criminal, mob or tyrannical state all stand against the Lord’s law/word and claim sovereignty. All revolutions, save for America’s were Psalm 2 working out in real time – wars against God’s word/law.
(Abuses of absolutism by the church are equally sinful and tyrannical as the church is authorized to preach the gospel, for in it is the power of God for salvation! The church is not the state and the state not the church, though both are the Lord’s. Trying to use legal power of state to make men “holy” is a supreme act of unfaithfulness by the church in that it shows their misunderstanding of the power of sin and, consequently, the glory of Christ. Salvation is from the Lord alone! Conflating the work of preaching the gospel with punishment of crime shows how easily we can be misled as to the extreme power of sin and its only remedy at the cross. The separation of powers is a divine mercy by the Lord to protect us from the social ravages of sin. No authority has legitimacy outside the Word of the Lord. A legitimate church, therefore, has no more business punishing criminals than it does running the affairs of private families or businesses. Though this is true, the principles of Scripture taught by the church will certainly inform those other spheres.)
The question of absolutism is always key, therefore. What law is absolute? Is it in one man? Is it in democracy – that is, many men? Is it in a parliament? Where is absolute moral power? This is the question always before us and until we answer it correctly, we will continue to sacrifice each other and peace.
Modern revolutionaries, as seen in the last year in America are like those in France during their bloody revolution. The protestors of our day aren’t calling for a return to God’s law – for the civil magistrate to act in accord with its mandate from God, which is defined and limited. Instead, they aim to tear law down. They violate property rights. They burn cities. Our current state is lawlessness on the southern border and many Democrat cities/states openly flaunt immigration law. Though congress has never voted for it, they demand a wholly new immigration policy – or lack of one. In short, they demand anarchy in one area of society but tyranny in others. Riots and violence are the essential tools of tyrants throughout history to create disorder so that they can use that unrest for their ascension to power. It’s happening today too. Power is the goal.
In the American Revolution the aim was to establish and keep law. The founders weren’t concerned with “abstract” rights but with legal ones because they knew that sin was crouching at the door, ready to pounce. Their preoccupation with limited government and defined rights was precisely because they had a biblical worldview and knew that man’s heart was tyrannical.
The modern revolutionaries would have us believe that they are personally to be trusted with absolute power, not to be restrained by God’s law. This is the flashpoint. They push a counterfeit gospel with the false prophet of secular humanism. Instead of original sin, they say America is intrinsically racist. Their answer to this racism isn’t a return to God and His law/word and a Christian order to life and society, but a return to Babel and the all-powerful state. They accept no limits to man’s power through the state because they’re acting on the principles of humanism. And in this there is no grace, no forgiveness of sin in Christ, which is why the French Revolution had the bloody terror of 1793 and the guillotine – and it’s why Marxism led invariably to incessant purges.
Modern American “revolutionaries” are deceived to think that sin can be solved by government. The best example of the false worship of the state, of state idolatry, is how American slavery is seen as a consequence of racism rather than an abuse of raw power. It’s ignored that all other cultures practiced slavery too and it was always the outworking of the exploitation of economic and military might. That any immoral abuse of others could be made legal is testimony to man’s sinful condition – both personally and collectively. The answer is, therefore, a recognition of the sin in light of God’s law (we must love our neighbor as we love ourselves) and a call for the civil magistrate to function as God intended it – that is, without partiality, God’s avenger on the criminal wrongdoer. What the modern rabble-rousers would have us do is avenge old wrongs with new ones. It would use the tyrannical power of the state for itself against others. In this way, the modern Left is like a child playing with a lion in a cage, assuring itself that the beast won’t turn on them.
Once again, to be clear, we must say that the founding generation knew, and we should too, that no person or group should be trusted with absolute power because of sin. The natural consequence of men and women rejecting God’s authority is the assertion of their own. But when people all claim to be little gods, and morality is whatever these little gods say it is, conflict and bloodshed are inevitable. Power struggles must proceed from the premise that each person on earth is their own god and the final arbiter of right and wrong.
Once this is set in motion there’s no stopping the logical outworking of the idea. Because all men and women are created by God in His image, and we live in His universe, which is moral, we will counterfeit His truth. Without His sovereign will as dominant we’ll seek security from fear – of both our neighbor and the economic future – through the predestination of the state. Attributes of God alone we will transfer, falsely, to the state.
Again, the question is always, who is absolute? The answer to this question ought to be a simple one and every man and woman ought to be forthright with it. So, as always, we can test the new revolutionaries by putting what they say in the great sieve of Scripture. What is absolute for them? Is it God or the state or themselves? What is sin? Is it rejection of God’s law or some other thing? What is the answer to sin? Is it repentance and a new life in the Spirit, adhering to God’s law or is it a state-run utopia run on man’s arbitrary laws that swing this way and that?
As always, choose this day whom you will serve. Choose carefully.
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