A few days ago, our brother in Christ, Todd Friel of Wretched Radio, posted a show discussing the biblical response to mandates over the vaccine. Todd is a wonderful Christian commentator and teacher and greatly loved by me, your humble writer. With that said, and in the spirit of truth and fellowship, allow me to respond to his commentary.
Todd professed an understanding of the Christian duty to obey government that I believe is fraught with danger and misidentifies the meaning of Romans 13. At one point he states that we must obey the civil magistrate even to the point that if he was told to wear pinwheels on his head when he left the house, he’d comply. Clearly, that would be Todd’s choice but the question is, is that what the Scripture commands?
The answer is a hard no. The Christian is not to see a renegade state, such as we have now, that continually usurps authority, as legitimate. The government is one of God’s authorities for, as Romans 13 states clearly, there are no authorities except from God and those that have been instituted have been instituted by God. In other words, the Scripture clearly states that no state has any authority not given to it by the Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord, not Caesar. If Caesar, therefore, commands us to worship him, or takes unto himself the right to define right and wrong outside of Scripture, he sins against God and exceeds his mandate.
Rejection of God’s law always leads to chaos, violence and tyranny. Always. For this reason alone, we should consider it carefully. The thing to know is that the Lord has established four primary spheres of rule/authority.
The first is self-government. We must take charge of our affairs and are held accountable by God for our decisions. If we aren’t responsible for our sins then none of the Bible makes any sense whatsoever. Why would we be called to repent if we aren’t personally responsible to Him?
Next is family government. Scripture tells us (Colossians 3:20) that parents are God’s representatives for the child and, therefore, must be obeyed. The point to consider is that this authority of the parent, given by God, comes with responsibility. “Fathers, do not provoke or irritate or exasperate your children (with demands that are trivial or unreasonable, humiliating or abusive…treat them tenderly with loving kindness), so they will not lose heart and become discouraged or unmotivated (with their spirits broken) (Colossians 3:21 AMP). The beauty is how the Lord’s divine character and sovereignty are the standards of parenthood! The parent isn’t allowed to rule by dictatorial whim but according to the standard of the word of the Lord.
This authority structure, in the family, is the first order of society as given us by God. Other rulers, therefore, must see this as the pattern of all other structures. No one may rule according to their own standard lest tyranny result. This is also why the breakdown of the family is such a tremendous problem for any culture.
Church authority is next and the powers and responsibilities are clearly defined in the New Testament. Lastly, is that of the civil magistrate. His authority is defined as being a “sword bearer” and “avenger” of God. The civil magistrate is to be a terror to criminals, not to law-abiding citizens. This is the biblical order for the separation of church and state, unlike how we understand it today – that being that the state is a moral free agent, able to make laws and rules however it wants.
Tyranny, as we’ve pointed out with the family, happens when one authority transgresses on the grounds of another. Modern church-goers are often too complacent, too overindulgent, to notice what tyranny is. They have a picture in their head of Nazi’s goose-stepping down a street in a military parade and figure that so long as they don’t see that, there’s no tyranny. This is childish thinking that has led America to the brink of dissolution where law is, not from God, but whatever is momentarily expedient to those in power.
A people that have no idea what tyranny is in principle aren’t going to recognize it in practice.
If they think it’s the Soviets or Nazis, and the mental imagery is of parades and grainy black-and-white footage from long ago, they’re unlikely to notice that Anthony Fauci or the CDC don’t actually have the God-given nor constitutional authority to tell anyone what to do. A doctor may tell a patient to stop eating too much but he can’t go to his house and confiscate the junk food. This entire last year and a half has been a sterling example of what happens to a people who reject God’s sovereignty for that of the state.
Dr. Fauci’s opinion on health has literally no power over the property rights of any citizen and to think that it does is, simply put, tyrannical. The notion that anyone has the authority to force citizens to wear a mask is as absurd as it is illogical – especially since cloth masks do virtually nothing to stop an airborne virus.
To put things in better perspective, imagine if a father is a picture of joy and felicity on average for 29 days a month. One or two days, though, after a bad day at work, he loses his temper and beats his children. Wouldn’t you call that a tyrannical home? Does it matter that the father is overwhelmingly good insofar as the calendar is concerned?
Or imagine that the father goes across the street to tell another family what to do. He’s clearly exceeded his authority and his command would have no authority whatsoever.
What if a pastor, trying to keep husbands from surfing porn, demanded that all men turn in their mobile devices and computers to the church? Does a pastor, in the name of sexual purity and for the good of the families, have authority over the private property of the members? You see where this is going…and it’s the same thing with the state. The state has no authority outside of what God has given it. To claim that it does is to claim that Jesus isn’t, in fact, Lord. The claim that government must be obeyed unquestionably is a form of idolatry in that it sets up a dual lordship that is anathema to Scripture.
The thing to remember is that the Lord didn’t make tyrants when He lovingly established life’s authority structures. He didn’t provide sanction for the leaders of His church to violate the conscience and freedom of members. We should and must soberly consider this. A man might go to church and listen to the pastor deliver a word-rich message prohibiting a certain sin and then that man might leave and go do that very thing God forbids.
Note carefully that he’s FREE to do that and the church may not, under any circumstances, apply any force against him. They are charged by God to confront the sinner, to plead with him, to call him to repentance and that is all. If he refuses to repent, the Lord provides the hammer of discipline: excommunication. No force can be applied to the sinner and the authorities may not transgress this line that the Lord has put down.
Note this: all authorities are established by God, in His infinite wisdom, to restrain sin. To beat sin, Jesus Christ lived the perfect life we owe God and died the death we deserve for sin. No authority on earth can make men holy so, therefore, all attempts to make men good are tyrannical and cause worse things than that they attempted to fix. Look at the mess of Prohibition for a prime example. Alcohol abuse is certainly sinful but God gives no man the authority, nor the state, to stop someone from sinning unless that sin would require force by the victim to repel it! This is always the rule of abuse. Tyranny, great and small, always initiates force against others to make them comply with a man-made moral code. God only allows the use of force in self-defense – both for the individual and, in the event that the criminal was successful in creating a victim, by the civil magistrate. Notice that carefully. Since we are sinners and sinners are usurpers of authority, we must be ever vigilant to notice such transgressions. God’s order prohibits the use of force, personally or by man-made law, for any reason other than self-defense. This is why Romans 13 states that he, the civil magistrate is “God’s avenger.”
With that said, what authority does the government have over “public health?” None. It has a mandate to enforce God’s moral law against crime – theft, fraud, assault, murder, rape, etc. – where there’s a victim. The principle is that if the victim could have defended themselves with force, the government avenges the wrong as God’s agent for the victim. If a citizen couldn’t have used force to resist the issue then no actual crime has been committed. The government is simply not free to redefine God’s moral order anymore than I can tell you how to raise your children. God leaves us free to follow our conscience in matters where crime isn’t involved. The state is absolutely prohibited from usurping that power.
So, does the state have a right to tell you to wear something – even a mask? No. It’s irrelevant what you or I or any government think is a good thing or not. Our standards and hearts are wicked and deceptive. There’s a way that seems right to us that turns to evil. For this reason we must submit and apply to our particulars the principles of authority God has placed us under. We repeat: tyranny is when an authority, any authority, goes outside the mandate God has given it. To go beyond the fence God has placed around us is to play god, which only leads to chaos, conflict and violence.
This is the fuller context of what Todd Friel left out in his comments about submission to authority. The Bible is clear that all of man’s problems in life stem from his refusing to submit to God’s law and trying to establish his own. This is the issue that Mr. Friel omitted in his comments that must be addressed. America’s founding, in fact, had everything to do with this subject. The American Revolution wasn’t against a tax, per se, but the claims of limitless authority by Parliament. The Declaration of Independence was a divorce document from Britain that charged it, the mother country, with abuse of authority. The American Revolution was a war of self-defense.
America was founded on the Christian principle that only God’s word is sovereign law and for any other law to be authoritative, it must be in subjection to God’s law. America is, therefore, a country that rests, constitutionally, on the premise of the absolutism of God’s word/law and the doctrine of lesser magistrates. All other law is tyrannical in that it initiates the use of force or threat of force against someone who refuses to agree with whimsical dictates made by men.
As Paul appealed to his status under Roman law in Acts 22, we should also appeal to our rights under God and recognized by men in the Constitution, to resist the tyrannies of our time. That the good Mr. Friel omitted this is regrettable. To forget this is to consign mankind – and our country – to the chaos and tyranny that always follows when men think they (through the state) are the final standard of authority. We must obey God’s law. Everyone must. And no one has the right to make moral law, only follow it in the Lord for the Lord is the final standard of all authority and law.
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