HOME | REFORMED WITNESS MAIN PAGE | PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION

 

REFORMED WITNESS

Volume I, July 1993, Number 7

The doctrine of the state as developed in the December 1988 issue of the Standard bearer dealt with many aspects of the church-state relationship; only the issue of submission to the state: conditional or unconditional?, will be examined in this newsletter - (editor).

Conditional Submission?

Editorial by Prof. D. J. Engelsma
From the April 1, 1989 issue of The Standard Bearer

Also in this issue:



OTHER ISSUES FOR
THIS YEAR

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December


 

 

See more articles by this author

In the February 15, 1989 issue of this magazine (The Standard Bearer-ed.) appeared a letter out of strife-torn Northern Ireland referring to the views on the Christian's calling towards the civil government of the Scottish Presbyterian, Samuel Rutherford. This letter asked whether the teaching of Rutherford is in harmony with the teaching of John Calvin, or whether it is a "departure from the Reformed Faith and Scripture itself and therefore to be exposed and repudiated as error?" In response to our request, our correspondent has written a summary of Rutherford's beliefs on this matter, which we publish in this issue under the heading, "Rutherford and Resistance."

The article sets forth in brief the contents of the book in which Rutherford propounded his political theory, the famed Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince. Because Rutherford's position on the calling of the Christian towards the state is by this time the prevailing position, not only of Presbyterian and Reformed people, but also of evangelicals of every stripe and because this position is spiritually perilous to believers in times peculiarly suited to make Rutherford's position appealing to believers, an examination of this position, as our corespondent has requested, will be profitable for us all. We will be assuming, and not restating, the doctrine of the state that was developed by many writers in the special issue of December 1, 1988* that occasioned this request, and that was enlarged upon in two subsequent editorials on "Another look at Nonresistance". We remain convinced that this doctrine of the state is , in the main, the Reformed teaching, based squarely on the inspired Scriptures.

Rutherford's position, which is that also of many Presbyterians, Reformed, and evangelicals, is that the Christian has the perfect right to revolt against the rulers of the nation under certain circumstances. It is not merely Rutherford's position that the believer is required at times to refuse to obey the rulers (which no one denies); but it is his teaching that the Christian may take up arms against the existing government in order to overthrow it and set up a new government. This condition is that the rulers faithfully carry out their duty. When the magistrates become unfaithful to their duty, ruling unjustly and tyrannically, the Christian is released from his obligation to submit and may freely resist the officials of the state.

Presbyterian men and women put this doctrine into practice. Rutherford issued Lex, Rex (in which this teaching was set forth) in the heat of the conflict between Scottish Presbyterianism and the tyrannical Stuart kings. Encouraged by the license given them in this book, Presbyterians declared themselves free from the authority of the kings and parliaments of their country; fought against the king's officers and armies with the decidedly carnal weapons of bullet and steel; and refused to pay taxes. When the Presbyterian preacher, James Renwick, was on trial for his life in 1688, he was asked if he acknowledged King James II to be his lawful sovereign. He answered , "No! I own all authority that has its prescriptions and limitations from the Word of God..." To the question whether he had taught that it was unlawful to pay taxes to the king and his government, Renwick replied that "it was unlawful so to do" (that is, pay taxes to such a king and such a government) (Jock Purves, Fair Sunshine, pp. 111, 112). Presbyterians resisted the higher powers. Not all did as Purves reminds us in his delightful little study of the Scottish "Covenanters," as the Presbyterians of that day are called, for many bore their persecution at the hands of the wicked, tyrannical, and antichristian Stuart kings patiently. But some revolted. And they did so because they believed that submission to government was conditional. For this belief, Samuel Rutherford was largely responsible.

Rutherford's position in Lex, Rex is erroneous.

It has already been shown in a previous editorial that this position is violently in conflict with the teaching of John Calvin. Rutherford, like his fellow-countryman, John Knox, rejected Calvin's teaching as to the unconditional nature of the believer's calling to submit to the state.

This departure from Calvin is serious because Calvin faithfully gave the teaching of the Word of God.

The error is, first, that Rutherford supposes that the source of the state, and its authority, to be the people. There is very little difference between his view and the modern view that holds that government is the result of a compact between the ruler and the ruled, so that whenever the ruler fails to keep the bargain, the ruled have every right to withhold their submission, and rebel. Scripture, however, teaches that the source of government is God. Not only government in general, but every existing government - whatever government there may be - has been set up in authority by God. "For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God" (Rom. 13:1). Even when it is the case that God uses election by the people to put rulers in office, as is the case in our own country, the source of these rulers' authority is not of the people, but God. Besides, the notion that government is due to a "social compact" is a pure fiction, historically. God established government in the headship of Adam, quite independently of any agreement of wife Eve or of the posterity of Adam. Government through democratic process has been very rare in history, and is relatively recent. Were the Roman Caesars of the apostles' day chosen by popular vote? Did the Christians addressed by the first epistle of Peter suppose that the royal power of the kings whom they were called to honor in reality lay in them? Did our Lord teach that Pilate's authority came to him from below (the people) or from above (God), in John 19:11?

This error about the source of the state's authority is basic. If "royal power is three ways in the people" as Rutherford, and many today, teach, submission by the citizens is indeed conditional. I would go further and say that, in this case, submission depends upon the whims of the people, for the ruler is nothing but a creature of the people. But if the source of the state is God, submission depends, not upon the will of the people, but upon the will of God.

Back to the top

Rutherford and Resistance

Article by Mr. J. Clarke
From the April 1, 1989 issue of The Standard Bearer.

Samuel Rutherford was the leading theologian in Scotland during the first half of the 17th century. To most of us he is probably best known by his letters, said by Spurgeon to be "the nearest thing to inspiration which can be found in all the writings of mere men." But this is not his only work. He wrote extensively against Arminianism and as a defender of Presbyterian church government. His fame was soon established. He was made Professor of Divinity of St. Andrews and was more than once invited to serve as a Professor of Theology at Utrecht. As one of the Scottish Divines who took part in the Westminster Assembly he had a prominent and active role in drawing up the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.

His great treatise on civil government, entitled Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince, was published is 1644. Its publication was occasioned by the appearance of a book by John Maxwell, an Episcopalian, who contended for the right of kings to rule independently of parliaments and people, and required of the people passive obedience in the most absolute and unqualified terms. This belief in the absolutism of the divine right of kings was held and practised by the Stuart kings who ruled throughout most of the 17th century in Scotland.

The opposition expressed against this belief by Rutherford was not the first in Scottish Presbyterianism. Almost a century before, John Knox's memorable reply to the question put to him by Queen Mary, "Think you that the subjects having the power may resist their princes?" was this: "If princes exceed their power, no doubt they may be resisted even by power. For no greater honour is to be given to kings than God has commanded to be given to father and mother. But the father may be struck with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. Now, Madam, if the children arise, join together, apprehend their father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, keep him in prison till the frenzy is over, think you, Madam, that the children do any wrong? Even so, Madam, it is with princes that would murder the children of God that are subject to them."

Nor was it the last to be published on this subject amongst Scottish Presbyterians. It was followed in 1687 by Alexander Shield's book, A Hind Let Loose, which can be ranked almost with Rutherford's own as a study in political science, and is in line with the thinking of Rutherford and the early Scottish Reformers.

Although Rutherford's arguments are particularly directed toward the form of government that existed in his day, namely a monarchy, the principles he expounds have a much wider application. Through forty-four chapters or "Questions," Rutherford develops his argument. The book itself, according to Dr. Hume Brown, is "tediously pedantic," and the reading of it for us today is not without difficulty. Nevertheless, the reader who perseveres will find a work of real power, and amidst the minute details will discover the passion of a man who has a great love for liberty.

At the outset Rutherford states the source of all government. Government is established not only by divine law but also by "natural law." This law does not exist by itself but is the result of God's having made human beings with the desire to join together and provide themselves with government. Rutherford insist that all men are born free, and that by birth one does not have authority over others. "No man cometh out of the womb with a diadem on his head or a sceptre in his hand." The authority to rule must come from the people as a whole since it is to them that God has given this authority by nature. He accepts that the authority of the king is a trust originating with God, but he insists that it reaches the king by the suffrages of the people. He asks, "Whence is it that this man rather than that man is crowned king? and whence is it -- from God immediately and only -- or is it from the people also and their free choice? For the pastor and the doctor's office is from Christ only, but that John rather than Thomas be the doctor or the pastor is from the will and the choice of men. The royal power is three ways in the people: 1) Radically and virtually, as in the first subject. 2) collative vel communicatue, by the way of free donation, they giving it to this man, not to that man that he may rule over them. 3) Limitate -- they giving it so as these three acts remain with the people (1) that they may measure it out by ounce weights, so much royal power, no more and no less, (2) so as they may limit, moderate, and set banks and marches to the exercise, (3) that they give it out conditionate, upon this and that condition, that they may take it again to themselves what they gave out upon condition if the condition be violated.

In support of this position that the people make the king he quotes such scriptures as 1 Kings, chapter 16 where the people make Omri king and not Zimri, and Deuteronomy 17:15ff. The king having been chosen, there exists between the people and the king a covenant (II Sam. 5:3) which imposes certain obligations on both ruler and people. In answering the question, what happens if the king fails to fulfill his obligations and becomes a tyrant, we discover Rutherford's views on resistance. Here, having regard for the due process of law, Rutherford, like Calvin, places the leadership of resistance in the hands of the lesser magistrates, they being "vicars" of God just as much as the king. Central also to Rutherford's view of resistance is the importance of the Law: Lex est Rex. To the sovereignty of law, as agreeable to God's Word, king and people must be subject. He states, "A king essentially is a living law, an absolute man is a creature they call a tyrant, and no lawful king." To the question, who shall be judge between the king and the people when the people allege that the king is a tyrant, he replies, "There is a court of necessity no less than a court of justice and the fundamental laws must then speak; and it is with the people in this extremity as if they had no ruler."

He believes in the justice of a defensive war against a king by his own subjects. He says, "If it be natural for one man to defend himself against the personal invasion of a prince, then it is natural and warranted to ten thousand, and to a whole kingdom, and what reason to defraud a kingdom of the benefits of self defence more than one man." When the king acts as a tyrant he is acting contrary to his God-given power; and since such an abuse of power is not from God, it may be resisted. Hence Rutherford distinguishes between a ruler who is of God and a particular exercise of power that is not of God. He says, "That power which is contrary to law, and is evil and tyrannical, can tie none to subjection."

In his explanation of Romans 13 he contends that this passage refers to the office of magistrate (the magistrate in abstracto), i.e., to a person using his power lawfully. When a king acts unlawfully, he is not a "higher power", but is acting as an ordinary man. The lawful ruler is not to be resisted because he is not a terror to the good works but to the evil; but that ruler who persecutes the church becomes in these acts a terror to good works, and therefore the reason in the text proves that a man who does these things against the office is to be resisted. We are only to be subject to the power and royal authority in abstracto, in so far as, according to his office, he is not a terror to good works, but to evil.

In answering the question as to whether or not a kingdom may lawfully be purchased by the sole title of conquest, he asserts, "Mere conquest by the sword, without the consent of the people, is no just title to the crown." He accepts however, that , "This title by conquest, through the people's after consent, may be turned into a just title."

Having looked briefly at some of Rutherford's main arguments in his treatise, we conclude with a short analysis of the impact of his work. It was received with great excitement by the Scottish General Assembly. "Every member," says Guthrie, "had in his hand the book lately published by Mr. Samuel Rutherford which was so idolized that whereas Buchanan's treatise, De Jure Regni apud Scotos, was looked upon as an oracle, this coming forth, it was slighted as not anti-monarchical enough and Rutherford's Lex, Rex only thought authentic." The principles taught in Lex, Rex were those that undergirded the Puritan revolution in England. So this book is their best theoretical vindication. It became the political textbook of the covenanters and its arguments are their justification for their taking up arms against the king. It helped to lay the basis for the establishing of the constitutional monarchy in Britain; and the bring over of William of Orange was the practical outworking of the principles of Lex, Rex. It has been said, "The principles of this book, however obnoxious they may be to the devotees of arbitrary power and passive obedience, are substantially the principles on which all government is founded and without which the civil magistrate would become a curse rather than a blessing to a country."

"It is reported," writes Howie, "that when King Charles saw Lex, Rex he said, it would scarcely ever get an answer, not did it ever get any except what the Parliament in 1661 gave it, when they caused it to be burned at the Cross of Edinburgh by the hands of the hangman."

Back to the top

Conditional Submission? (2)

Editorial by Prof. D. J. Engelsma
From the April 15, 1989 issue of The Standard Bearer.

In answer to a request from a reader in Northern Ireland, we are analyzing the views of the Scottish Presbyterian theologian of the 17th century, Samuel Rutherford, on the duty of the Reformed Christian towards the civil state. (Cf. the April 1, 1989 issue of the SB for a summary of Rutherford's doctrine and for the first installment of the critique of this doctrine.) Particularly, the question is whether the Christian's calling to submit to the state is conditional, so that whenever the state becomes unjust and tyrannical the Christian may revolt. This was the position of Rutherford in his book, Lex, Rex, or the Law and the Prince, as it is the position of many Presbyterian, Reformed, and evangelical Christians in our day.

In the previous editorial, we judged Rutherford's doctrine of a conditional submission to magistrates erroneous inasmuch as it denied the Biblical teaching that the origin of whatever state exists, and the offices of the state, is God. The origin is not the people, by means of a contract, as Rutherford held. Since government is ordained of God, as the apostle writes in Romans 13:1, it has its authority -- its right to rule -- from God, not from the people; and, therefore, the people do not possess the right to strip the government of its authority by means of civil disobedience, threats, and uprising.

It is a second error of Rutherford that he misinterprets the crucial passage of Scripture on this question: Romans 13:1-7. At bottom, the issue is one of the authority of the Word of God; but then the Word must be rightly divided. Rutherford explains Romans 13 as teaching that the Christian citizen must submit to the government only if the government on its part is carrying out its duty, namely, punishing evildoers and praising welldoers. The submission enjoined in Romans 13 is a conditional submission. This fits his theory as to the origin of government in a contract between the people of a nation and its rulers. They have made a bargain. As soon as the ruler fail to keep their part of the bargain, the people are freed from their obligations. Verses 3 and 4, then, are the condition of the calling of the Christian in verses 1, 2 and 5.

This has become a popular interpretation of the passage among Reformed and evangelical theologians. It is the interpretation of Francis A. Schaeffer in his A Christian Manifesto, in which (with express appeal to Rutherford's Lex, Rex) this influential evangelical thinker legitimizes the use of civil disobedience and the resort to force by Christians against the government. This is also the interpretation of Romans 13:1-7 of so conservative a Bible expositor as William Hendriksen. Hendriksen does not think that Romans 13:1-7 explicitly answers the question, "Does the moment ever arrive when, because of continued governmental oppression and corruption, the citizens have the right, and perhaps the duty, to overthrow such a government and to establish another in its place?" In fact, he supposes that the passage implies that the answer to this question is yes. For Paul is thinking of the ruler who does his duty, i.e., rules justly. Hendriksen goes so far as to mistranslate verse 6: "...for when the authorities faithfully devote themselves to this end, they are God's ministers." The text, of does not contain the word, "when" reading simply, "for they are God's ministers...."

This classic passage on the Christians calling towards the state does indeed lay down the state's duty toward the people, as well as the Christians citizen's duty towards the state. But the duty of the Christian is not conditioned by the faithfulness of the state. Paul does not write, "Let every should be subject to the higher authorities, if they show themselves just and good." The gospel-precept of submission must be given to the "froward" authority, as well as to the good and gentle authority (I Pet. 2:18). The Roman government of Paul's day was certainly not a good, just, Christian state. It was corrupt. It was the fulfillment of the prophecy of the fourth beast of Daniel 7, which blasphemes the Most High, opposes the Kingdom of God, and oppresses the saints. Every Christian to whom Paul wrote knew this well; for this state had condemned and crucified Jesus. But it was still the "higher power." The Christian had still to submit to it. Indeed, most governments and most officials of government are ungodly, unjust, and unfaithful to their calling as servants of God. Rutherford was correct in his response from his deathbed to the officials of Charles II who served him with a summons to appear for trial, that the heaven to which he hoped shortly to go was a place "where few kings and great folks come." If Christians must submit only to Christian governments or to rulers who are righteous, they will submit to no government at all and to precious few government officials.

In explaining I Peter 2:13 ("Submit yourselves...to the king") and Titus 3:1 ("Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates..."), Rutherford tries to evade the force of the apostolic admonition by distinguishing between the office and the man occupying the office, as though one might reverence kingship while revolting against the current king:
    Also, it is true, subjection to Nero (the New Testament requires submission to the moral monster, Nero!-DJE)...is commanded here, but to Nero as such a one as he is obliged, de jure (by right- DJE) to be ...but that Paul commandeth subjection to Nero, and that principally and solely, as he was such a man, de facto (in actual fact -DJE), I shall then believe, when antichristian prelates turn Paul's bishops...(Lex, Rex, Questions XXXIII).
This evasion is not unfamiliar even among us. It is used by the wife who professes to honor headship of the husband as a general principle, but who rebels against her own particular husband. It is the tactic of the very pious church member who is loud in his protestations that he has the greatest respect for the office of pastor and the office of elder, but who treats his own particular elders shamefully. It is the clever distinction that teenagers know how to make: "Oh, yes, I believe that the parental office is authoritative; but I rebel against my own particular parents because they are unworthy of my respect." But the distinction is unbiblical. Scripture calls us to submit to the flesh-and-blood men and women in their offices on account of the office they occupy. Specifically, Romans 13:1-7 and I Peter 2:13,14 call us to submit to President Bush, Prime Minister Thatcher, my own parents, and the policeman who patrols the highway.

A third error of the Rutherford-position is that it confuses the theocracy of the Old Testament with the nation to which those who maintain this position belong. Rutherford viewed Presbyterian Scotland as the kingdom of God. It ought, therefore, to resist the heathen king and his Arminian, Roman Catholic-leaning bishops with force, just as Israel warred against her godless foes in ancient times. And the Presbyterians ought in this way to restore the kingdom of God in Scotland. This explains his use of Old Testament to justify resistance. But Scotland never was the kingdom of God! Nor is Northern Ireland God's kingdom, or South Africa, or the United States of America. The kingdom of God is the true church in these nations. It is entirely and radically different and distinct from the state.

It is not, and may not be, identified and entangled with the government of the nation. It is spiritual, not earthly. Its power is spiritual, not physical. Its weapon is the Word of God, never gun and sword. The confusion of church and state that began with Constantine in the 4th century has been disastrous. Luther and Calvin began to straighten things out again, so that the church would be the church and the state would be the state, each with its own sphere of authority, each with its own kind of authority, each with its own calling. For Presbyterians to engage in political resistance against ungodly rulers in the name of establishing, or restoring, a Christian nation in the United States or God's kingdom in Ulster is ignorance of the fundamental reality of the kingdom of God.

A fourth error in Rutherford is the sad misunderstanding of the calling of the Presbyterian Christian and of the Presbyterian church under a government that oppresses the saints because of their confession of the truth. This calling is not that the saints defend themselves and the purity of their worship with force, much less that they take the offensive to overthrow the persecuting government. But our calling is to suffer for Christ's sake. Suffering for Christ's sake is not the ultimate evil, to be avoided at all costs, but a privilege and a blessing: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:10). That was the true glory of the Covenanters in the "killing time." It was not the marching of some of them to do battle with the king's dragons, though they were singing Psalm 68 as they came on. But it was their patient endurance of cruel suffering for the sake of the "crown rights of King Jesus." Even when the state becomes the persecuting beast, the believer may not resist.

The submission that has such an important place in the Christian life is unconditional. Unconditionally, we submit to God. Unconditionally, we submit to those whom God puts over us (which does not, I repeat, imply unconditional obedience). Conditionality is the bane of the Christian life and the ruin of the vital institutions in which this life is to be lived (as it is the spoiling of the gospel of grace). Wives now submit to their husbands, conditionally -- if their husbands please them. Children submit to their parents, conditionally -- if they approve of their parents' rule. Church members submit to their elders, conditionally -- if they like the particular elders and if the elders' decisions suit them.

This is supposed to be Protestant Christianity. It is not. It is revolution and anarchy. It does not come from the Spirit of Him Who submitted to unjust authority. It arises from the king that sits in the beast of each of us. The result is divorce, strife in the home, schism in the church, and shame heaped on the name of Jesus Christ.

Rutherford himself recognized that the practical consequence of his position was the chaos of the mob. To the question, who finally determines whether the rulers are tyrants, his answer was, "There is a court of necessity no less than a court of justice and the fundamental laws must then speak; and it is with the people in this extremity as if they had no ruler." This is to dissolve all order in the nation, and to baptize the disorder as Presbyterian. The dreadful evils to which Rutherford's position leads were starkly illustrated in the cold-blooded murder of Archbishop James Sharp by a band of Presbyterians in the course of their resistance to the higher powers of the 17th century. The deed was dreadful, not only because it was murder, but because it was murder done in the name of Jesus Christ as confessed by the Reformed religion. Of it, even Alexander Smellie, sympathetic though he was to the "men of the covenant," had to say, "The deeds were foully done." But the deed was born of the notion that submission to the state is conditional. Whenever Christians take up the sword to defend Jesus Christ, or to promote His gospel, against a hostile state, similar atrocities will stain His banner. Indeed, the very act of taking up the sword is a blot on His glorious standard.

This is no mere academic study of a slice of history.

The question, conditional or unconditional submission to the higher powers, is a living issue for every Reformed christian in every nation. Without exception, Christians are living under governments that are not Christian and under governmental officials who are unjust. Increasingly, the state exalts itself as the ultimate reality in human life, taking on the features of the Antichrist. Pressure will be exerted upon the confessing church. Her calling will be what it has always been, namely, faithfulness to her Lord Jesus Christ -- faithfulness in pure worship; faithfulness in orthodox confession and preaching; faithfulness in a Biblical liturgy and right church government; faithfulness in the godly rearing of the covenant children. There may be not compromise! Jesus Christ is Lord, not the state. We are ready to seal this confession with our blood.

But exactly this faithfulness to King Jesus forbids resistance, unconditionally.

| Back to top | Back to main Reformed Witness page |

The Reformed Witness newsletter is published monthly under the auspices of the Evangelism Committee of the Hope Protestant Reformed Church of Redlands. This newsletter is available to anyone who is interested in the Reformed Faith. If you would like your name added to our mailing list, please write to:

The Reformed Witness
Hope Protestant Reformed Church
1307 E. Brockton Ave.
Redlands, CA 92374-3802

or email us: