What Does Liberty Look Like: Government and Rulers

One of the conceits of modern man is to deny the multiple spheres of government. When we hear the word government, we think almost exclusively of civil government. But it has not always been this way.

As recently as 1828, Noah Webster defined government as: “Direction; regulation. “These precepts will serve as the government of our conduct.” This had a much broader application than the sphere of civil government. And so does the biblical concept of the term.

Our understanding of government should come from the source of government, Jesus Christ. Isaiah tells us that “the government shall be upon [Christ’s] shoulder.” His government is over of all creation, encompassing and ruling over all spheres of life and human government.

When it comes to human government, there are four different types of government that Christ has ordained:

• Self government. This was the first form of government: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16–17 ESV). This was also the first failure in governance, when Adam and Eve failed to govern their passions and desires, and sought to put themselves in God’s place: “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls” (Psalm 25:28). In their failure to self govern, Adam and Eve were overrun by the enemy and defeated;
• Family government. This came into being when Adam was made had over Eve: “For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (Ephesians 5:23–24 ESV). Family governance, along with self governance, was how disciples were to be raised and order kept throughout the unfallen world as human population grew from two to billions in the pursuit of fulfilling the cultural mandate. Family governance also failed in the garden, as Adam failed to disciple and protect his wife in the face of deceit and temptation from Satan;
• Church government. Though individuals worshiped and sacrificed to God from almost the beginning (Cain, Abel, Noah), the first evidence of church government came with Melchizedek: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High)” (Genesis 14:18 ESV). The Jewish priesthood was then established in Aaron, and finally in the New Testament the form of church government with which we are familiar came to be: “Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God” (1 Peter 5:1-4);
• Civil government: The first civil institution seen in the Bible is the city, the first one of which seems to be Enoch, built by Cain. Yet early governance seems to have been of a tribal nature, as seen in Lamech (Genesis 4:23). After the flood, Noah’s descendants became nations, yet still there is little indication of governing structures and rulers until the time of Abraham. There, we see kings, including Melchizedek. With him, we get our first taste of what is required of rulers. Later, God’s design for government and rulers is spelled out in greater detail starting in Exodus (18:21). While government may seem to have evolved in some ways, we still know that it is from God: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1).

What we miss today by not considering these differing types of government in our discussion of government is that each was ordained by God to work in different spheres of human life: “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Instead, even Christians tend to fall into the trap that outside of worship the civil government is in charge of everything.

Yet the reformed church readily acknowledges the concept of separate spheres of government. For instance, we do not believe the church has the authority to take control of a child’s education. Likewise, we would say that the Catholic church was wrong in using the steel sword, i.e., the power of civil government, to enforce its beliefs through burning and beheading people. And would disagree with the English Crown’s attempts to dictate who held offices in the church. Despite this, many of us get weak-kneed when it comes to considering what limits might be placed around civil government’s intrusion into the spheres of personal and family government.

But there are limits. These limits begin with limits placed upon rulers, who are under the same ethical requirements as rulers as they are as individuals. So the general law, such as the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20), applies to them: no stealing (as a person or a king), no putting other gods (like government) before him, no murdering, etc. So do other requirements like, “You shall not oppress your neighbor or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning. You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor” (Lev. 19:13-15)

There are also laws and limits specific to rulers. “[R]ulers are not a terror to good conduct” (Romans 13:3),” they are to “serve the LORD with fear” and “Kiss the Son” (Psalm 2:11-12) and “Execute justice in the morning, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed” (Jeremiah 21:12), but are not to “build his house by unrighteousness, and his upper rooms by injustice, [or] make his neighbor serve him for nothing and does not give him his wages. Neither should rulers “acquire many horses for himself [or] wives [or] excessive silver and gold” (Deuteronomy 17:16-17).

Deuteronomy goes on to make clear that rulers are to obey all of the law, and God: “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel” (Deuteronomy 17:18–20 ESV).

It is important to understand that rulers are not only limited by the laws directed specifically toward them. They are also limited by what authority God has given to other spheres of government. This authority granted to other forms of governance and the limits it imposes on civil authorities require particularly careful study. Yet the concept is simple; God’s authority delegated to man ALWAYS comes with limits. Because we are created and limited and He is not. These is as true for rulers as for everyone else.
Civil authorities are also constrained by the purpose for which God established civil government. Which will be our next area of investigation.

This is the fifth post in the ongoing What Does Liberty Look Like series.