Christian Liberty and Civil Government

Christian Liberty

Ever since the fall of man in the garden, natural man has been a slave to sin:

None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one. (Romans 3:10-12 ESV)

Jesus Christ came to set us free from the bondage of our sin:

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” (Isaiah 61:1 ESV)

This liberty in Christ, however, is not licentiousness; it has a purpose:

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. … For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” (Galatians 5:1, 13 ESV)

The English poet John Milton described Christian liberty this way:

Christian Liberty means that Christ our liberator Frees us from the slavery of sin and thus from the rule of the law and of men, as if we were emancipated slaves. He does this so that, being made sons instead of servants and grown men instead of boys, we may serve God in charity through the guidance of the spirit of truth.

Christian liberty is just like Christian worship; it cannot be confined to the inner, personal realm. It is part of every aspect of life, and must inform our considerations of the more public arenas of government, markets, and civil liberty.

Government Before and After the Fall

Government has existed from the beginning. Before the fall, government took these four forms:

• God’s governance of man
• Man’s governance of earth
• Man’s governance of himself
• A husband’s governance of his family

Christian liberty is essential to proper governance. Before the fall, man was not a slave to sin and thus was capable of faithfully exercising the liberty of his conscious and thus could submit to God’s governance and properly govern themselves, their family, and creation.

However, man needed maturity to govern properly. God designed government to facilitate maturity. Adam and Eve would mature as they submitted to God’s governance, and Eve and their children would mature under Adam’s governance of his family. Even creation would mature under man’s governance.

Of course, they (and thus we) failed in this. Rather than liberty, they sought license. Adam and Eve’s license brought about a catastrophic failure in governance. They failed to submit to God’s governance and also failed to exercise self-governance, family governance, and governance of the world.

Post fall, Christian liberty is still essential to governance. However, the two have been sundered by human sin, in two primary ways. First, man sets liberty above governance, resulting in license. Second, man sets government above liberty, resulting in oppression. Both are expressions of man’s bondage to his sin. And lest there be any confusion on this point, license also results in oppression.

God’s governance of man, of course, continues after the fall–He does not suffer from a lack of liberty of conscience. Personal and family governance also continues, however marred they might be. But God did introduce new institutions of governance to address sin in the post-fall world.

The first of these was angelic governance of man. Angels served as intermediaries between God and man:

What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas. (Psalm 8:4–5 ESV)

This was the situation until Christ completed His work, part of which was to restore man as the governor of the earth.

The other two institutions of governance introduced were church governance and civil governance.

All Government is Upon His Shoulders

Of course, in church and civil governance and in all the forms of governance, Christ is the King:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. (Isaiah 9:6–7 ESV)

To properly understand civil governance, it is vitally important to understand that because Christ is King over all forms of government that all forms of governance will look very similar. Regarding church governance, I have previously noted:

the PCA’s polity certainly—and I think intentionally—pulls [the laity] in the direction [of striving for the peace and purity of the church]. The first way in which this happens is when we vote and thus select those who will lead us and represent us, i.e., rule us. (By the way, is any of this sounding familiar? As I have studied this, I have been struck by the similarities of the PCA’s polity and the structure of American government. Which should be no surprise given the common reformational and Puritan roots of our nation and our church). 

The biblical guidance for church governance also generally apply to civil governance, to which we shall now turn.

Civil Government and Christian Liberty

What is the focus of civil government? The same as all other forms of government:

to bring good news to the poor; … to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.

This is where many Christians fail in their understanding of civil government. Just because church government should be separate from civil government doesn’t mean they don’t have the same end in mind. Both are under the Kingship of Christ, and He does not have two minds. Christ glorifies Himself in the Trinity and, for some reason we cannot fathom, desires to bring His people into that glory. Thus all forms of government over which He is King, including church and civil government, are designed for this purpose as well. To be sure, different means–or swords–are employed in this pursuit, but the end is nonetheless the same.

I have written how Christian laity should participate in the governance of the church:

But in order to vote responsibly, we should study the peace and purity of the church. We should read the Bible. We should study doctrine. We should make ourselves aware of the issues in the church and the culture that are affecting the kingdom of God. And we should get to know the men whom we are going to vote on and the issues that they occasionally bring to us. And pray for clarity whether God is calling them to the office on which we are voting.

This pattern is not just for the Christian laity in the Christian church, however. It is required of all participants–whether they are Christians are not–in all forms of governance. So in civil government, all participants–voters, government workers, and elected officials–are obligated to inform their understanding of and the design of civil government with Scripture in a way that reflect Christian liberty and the other aspects of Christ’s government. Not everyone will do this, of course–and even Christians who attempt it will do it imperfectly, but all are nonetheless obligated to do so. 

Liberty and Markets: the Freedom to Fail

From the moment of man’s creation, liberty was at the forefront of God’s governance of man. And we see from the events in the garden and throughout human history that one of the essential characteristics of Christian liberty is the freedom to fail:

because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. – 1 Peter 3:20

For a period of about forty years He put up with them in the wilderness. – Acts 13:18

Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? – Romans 2:4

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. – 2 Peter 3:9

This freedom to fail covers all aspects of human life, including the central mission of human activity, making the earth fit as a dwelling place for man with God, carried out through the cultural mandate and the great commission. We carry out the cultural mandate by being industrious and fruitful as we “recreate” the natural elements God has given us. This is called production. We have to produce first because we have to consume to survive. And in order to produce enough to sustain the billions of people God has put to work at the cultural mandate, we have to exchange the fruit of our production. Thus markets are born. 

Unfortunately, many Christians seem to be bound by the idea that markets are somehow separate spheres of human activity unrelated to our calling in the cultural mandate. Christian liberty is rarely discussed in connection with markets, and the freedom to fail is usually ignored. Instead, Christians tend to promote regulation of markets to “protect” the poor from the fruitful and the consumer from the industrious. This takes the place of considerations of Christian and civil liberty and, as American’s Founding Fathers put it, the need to secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Thus we see today that government has turned into a mechanism for ensuring ethical behavior. The problem is, as government grows bigger in this pursuit–which it always will: there are always additional opportunities to eliminate unethical behavior, unethical human behavior seems to increase right along with it. 

Unethical people continue to find ways to behave unethically no matter how big the regulatory regime grows. The end result of a large regulatory regime is not protection for the oppressed but oppression of all people and greater poverty.

The Purpose of Government

One reason God established civil government in this fallen world was to make it possible for humans to carry out the cultural mandate. We need three things to carry out the cultural mandate successfully: life (made in God’s image), liberty (the freedom to fail), and property (with which we supply our needs for survival).  

It is not suited to God’s will to force people to behave ethically or charitably or force people into dependence on government; it is oppressive: “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor” (Psalm 72:4). This applies whether the oppressor is an oppressive businessman or an oppressive government official. 

Instead, there is a biblical call for universal liberty:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9 ESV)

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21 ESV)

Government is clearly part of God’s plan for our path to freedom, and one of its primary goals and functions should be to “set at liberty those who are oppressed.” But government’s purpose today, one that is all too often mistakenly supported by Christians–even evangelical Christians, is to reach into all aspects of our lives to hinder the pursuit of freedom through oppression:

Through respect for men, [Darius] forgets the deities and substitutes himself in the place of the gods, as if it was in his power to attract the authority of heaven to himself! This, as I have said, was a grievous sacrilege. Hence we are taught by this example that no virtue is so rare in kings as moderation, and yet none in more necessary; for the more they have in their power, the more it becomes them to be cautious lest they indulge in their lusts, while they think it lawful to desire whatever pleases them. – John Calvin

“He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants.” – 1 Samuel 8:15 (ESV)

Let me offer, then, this definition of the purpose of civil government: to secure life, liberty, and property in order to facilitate the faithful completion of the cultural mandate and the great commission.

Charity Comes from Individuals, not Government

In opposition to Christian liberty, many Christians–both liberals and “compassionate conservatives”–will talk about charity. They do so indicating that charity, the individual’s responsibility to love his neighbor–including caring for the poor, is something that can be accomplished by the government through the appropriation of the fruits of individuals. This is simply not the case. Even though there is a corporate responsibility for expressing compassion for the poor and needy through charity, it cannot be carried out by governments funded by tax dollars forcibly taken from individuals.

There is simply no charity in taxation and government programs. Charity can only be carried out voluntarily through individuals. And will only be carried out to the best it can be through Christians, i.e., through the church. Christians must obediently carry out their obligations to love their neighbor, to care widows and their children, to help the poor, etc. The biblical model for individuals and the church to carry this out can be seen in activities such as gleaning (Ruth 2:7) and deacons (Acts 6:1-3).

Profiting, or being fruitful beyond our own needs, is also an important aspect of our pursuit of liberty. Profit helps us to be charitable, though the amount of the profit may be small: “For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (Mark 12:42-44). But taking away an uncharitable person’s profit to fund government welfare programs does not lead to charity; it leads to oppression. For both rich and poor:

“Equity with respect to justice requires that the responsible person not be penalized for being responsible, and that the slothful person not be rewarded for his slothfulness.” – R.C. Sproul

Conclusion

Focusing on Christian liberty helps us understand how we should also seek political and economic liberty for this world. These don’t bring salvation, but they do reflect Christ’s coming “to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”

Those more predisposed to a “libertarian” perspective on government must remember, though, that God uses oppression to teach us about Christian liberty. The deepest darkest pits of oppression are where many have found the true meaning of Christian liberty in their lives. Yet, just as Paul cautions us against sinning in response to the forgiveness of our sins, neither should we celebrate government oppression just because it has forced many to acknowledge their need for God’s forgiveness in Christ.

Edmund Burke described the relationship of Christian liberty and civil liberty:

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites . . . It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Liberals and many compassionate conservatives will use the failure of humans in our fallen condition, i.e., the fact that we are by nature unqualified for civil liberty, as an excuse to promote a bigger role for government in all aspects of our lives. However, while they may not intend to do so, those who replace civil liberty with oppressive government deny the liberty that Christ brings us through His life, death, and resurrection much like the adulterer denies Christ’s faithfulness to His church. And in many ways seek to replace God with government, as if government could end poverty and reconcile us with each other.

We should not worship government, nor should we worship liberty or treat it as an end. Instead, we should pursue liberty as the means by which we can glorify God and enjoy Him forever. A government designed to secure life, liberty, and property will help us accomplish this.