I have obviously heard this
argument many times before, but perhaps not in as outrageously absolute terms.
John MacArthur, Jr., via partner-in-intellectual-crime Todd Friel, just
posted their radical version of the classic dualism between theology and politics
and the alleged irrelevance of “earthly” stuff to the kingdom of God.
Let me say up front there is
more than one theological issue at stake here: this great error deals not only
with the nature of the kingdom of God, but also with the role of biblical law
in that kingdom, the prophetic role of the pulpit to society, as well as
eschatology (a biggie!). I also acknowledge up front that there are a few
points upon which we would agree (political decline does not mean the current
rule and will of Christ is failing, for example). The overall tenor and
direction of these statements, however, are as dangerous and irresponsible as
they are outrageous and simply wrong.
What happens in America politically has absolutely nothing to do
with the kingdom of God. Whether America is Republican or Democrat, whether it
is libertarian or socialist, whether it becomes a communist country or whether
it becomes a dictatorship—what happens in America has absolutely nothing to do
with the kingdom of God [his emphasis].
Note the stark dichotomy marked
by the word “absolutely.”
Friel splices himself in to
concur with this view: “No earthly kingdom has anything to do with the kingdom
work that Jesus is doing.”
What is their rationalization
for this view? Here’s is MacArthur’s scriptural support:
Jesus said to Pilate, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my
kingdom were of this world my servants would fight.” We don’t fight on that
level. I’ve got a lot of battles. None of them are political.
This verse is to
Dispensational, premil, fundamentalists what “judge not” (Matt. 7:1) is to the unbeliever—that is, it is
the most frequently abused verse related to the issue of the nature and scope
of the kingdom of God. Thankfully, there is no need to write a new dissertation
on it: Christian Reconstructionists already did this long ago, notably in a
1991 essay in the book Christian Reconstruction: What It
Is and What It Isn’t (see p. 27 ff.).
I gave a lecture on this very topic, on this
very essay actually, at GGC15. Listen to it, or read Gary North’s
original version reproduced below. However you imbibe this, please learn it so
that you will not be deceived and ruined by the misapplications of men like
MacArthur and Friel.
(For more on what I mean about
the danger of these guys’ position, see “Driscoll, MacArthur, Trump: who’s really to blame?”)
***
The Nature of God’s Kingdom
Gary North
Few passages in the Bible are
misinterpreted in our day as often as this one. The only other one that seems
to rival it is the favorite verse of the people who resent all church
discipline (or any other kind of discipline imposed in the name of God): “Judge
not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). (Can you
imagine a police department that went by this rule?) We will consider the
interpretation of this passage in Chapter 2. But before we do, we need to know
exactly what Jesus meant by the word, “kingdom.”
What about the kingdom of God?
Does it have any jurisdiction or manifestation on earth, or is it strictly
heavenly and limited to the human heart? Whenever a Christian argues that
Christians have a God-given responsibility to work today to build God’s kingdom
on earth, unless he is referring only to personal evangelism or missions,
someone will object. “Jesus wasn’t building a political kingdom. He was only
building His church. The church isn’t an earthly kingdom. After all, His
kingdom is not of this world.”
Notice the implicit argument.
First, Jesus was (and is) building His church (true). Second, Jesus was (and
is) also building His kingdom (true). Third, the church is not supposed to be
political (true). Fourth, His kingdom therefore is not political (true only if
His kingdom is identical to His church).
Question: Is His kingdom
identical with His church?
Protestants and Catholics
It always astounds me when I
hear Protestants cite John 18:36 in order to
defend a narrow definition of God’s kingdom in history. Four centuries ago,
this narrow definition was the Roman Catholic view of the kingdom. Roman
Catholics equated the kingdom with the church, meaning the church of Rome. The
world is outside the church, they said, and it is therefore doomed. The
institutional church is all that matters as far as eternity is concerned, they
argued. The world was contrasted with the kingdom (“church”), and the church
could never encompass the world.
In sharp contrast, the
Protestant Reformation was based on the idea that the institutional church
must be defined much more narrowly than God’s world-encompassing kingdom.
Protestants always argued that God’s kingdom is far wider in scope than the
institutional church. So, from the Protestant viewpoint:
1.
The kingdom is more than the church.
2.
The church is less than the kingdom.
The Protestant doctrine, “every
man a priest”—as Protestant an idea as there is—rests on the assumption that
each Christian’s service is a holy calling, not just the ordained priest’s
calling. Each Christian is supposed to serve as a full-time worker in God’s kingdom
(Romans 12:1). What is this kingdom? It is
the whole world of Christian service, and not just the institutional
church.
What we find today is that fundamentalist Protestants have unknowingly
adopted the older Roman Catholic view of church and kingdom. Writes
Peter Masters of Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle: “Reconstructionist writers
all scorn the attitude of traditional evangelicals who see the church as
something so completely distinct and separate from the world that they seek no
‘authority’ over the affairs of the world.”1 We do not argue, as this critic argues to
defend his own position of cultural isolation, that “The kingdom of
God is the church, small as it may sometimes appear,
not the world. . . .2
This definition of the
kingdom of God as the institutional church is the traditional Roman
Catholic definition of the kingdom, and it has led in the past to
ecclesiocracy. It places everything under the institutional church. The church
in principle absorbs everything.
This same definition of the
church can also lead to the ghetto mentality and cultural isolation: it places
nothing under Christianity, because the kingdom is narrowly defined as merely
the institutional church. Because the institutional church is not authorized to
control the State (correct), and because the kingdom is said to be identical to
the church (incorrect), the kingdom of God is then redefined as having nothing
to do with any thing that is not strictly ecclesiastical. This is our critic’s view of the
kingdom.
So, pietists have sharply separated the kingdom of God (narrowly defined)
from the world. Separating the institutional church from the world is
necessary, but separating God’s kingdom from this world leads to the
surrender of the world to Satan’s kingdom. Thus,
it is never a question of “earthly kingdom vs. no earthly kingdom”; it is
always a question of whose earthly kingdom, God’s or Satan’s? To deny
that God’s kingdom extends to the earth in history—the here and now—is
necessarily to assert that Satan’s kingdom is legitimate, at least until Jesus
comes again. But Satan’s
kingdom is not legitimate, and Christians should do whatever they can to roll
it back. Rolling back Satan’s earthly kingdom means rolling forward Christ’s
earthly kingdom.
What Christian Reconstructionists
argue is that this originally Protestant view of the kingdom of God in history
has been steadily abandoned by Protestants since at least 1660, to the
detriment of the gospel in general and Protestantism specifically. They call
for the recovery and implementation of the older Protestant view of God’s
kingdom. This is what has made Christian Reconstructionists so controversial.
Today’s Protestants do not want to give up their medieval Roman Catholic
definition of the kingdom of God, and they deeply resent anyone who asks them
to adopt the original Protestant view. Their followers are totally unaware of
the origins of what they are being taught by their leaders.
The Kingdom of God
There are a lot of definitions of
the kingdom of God. Mine is simultaneously the simplest and the broadest: the civilization
of God. It is the creation—the entire area under the King of Heaven’s
lawful dominion. It is the area that fell under Satan’s reign in history as a
result of Adam’s rebellion. When man fell, he brought the whole world under
God’s curse (Genesis 3:17–19). The
curse extended as far as the reign of sin did. This meant everything under
man’s dominion. This is what it still means. The laws of the kingdom of God
extend just as far as sin does. This means every area of life.
God owns the whole world: “The earth
is the LORD’S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein”
(Psalm 24:1). Jesus Christ, as God’s Son and
therefore legal heir, owns the whole earth. He has leased it out to His people
to develop progressively over time, just as Adam was supposed to have served as
a faithful leaseholder before his fall, bringing the world under dominion (Genesis 1:26-28). Because of Jesus’ triumph
over Satan at Calvary, God is now bringing under judgment every area of life.
How? Through the preaching of the gospel, His two-edged sword of judgment (Revelation 19:15).
Reform and Restoration
The kingdom of God is the arena
of God’s redemption. Jesus Christ redeemed the whole world—that is, He bought
it back. He did this by paying the ultimate price for man’s sin: His death
on the cross. The whole earth has now been judicially redeemed. It has
been given “a new lease on life.” The lease that Satan gained from Adam has
been revoked. The Second Adam (Jesus Christ) holds lawful title.
The world has not been fully
restored in history, nor can it be; sin still has its effects, and will until
the day of final judgment. But progressively over time, it is possible for the
gospel to have its restorative effects. Through the empowering of God’s Holy
Spirit, redeemed people are able to extend the principles of healing to all
areas under their jurisdiction in life: church, family, and State.
All Christians admit that God’s principles can be used to reform the
individual. They also understand that if this is the case, then the family can
be reformed according to God’s Word. Next, the church is capable of
restoration. But then they stop. Mention the State, and they
say, “No; nothing can be done to restore the State. The State is inherently,
permanently satanic. It is a waste of time to work to heal the State.” The
Christian Reconstructionist asks: Why not?
They never tell you why not. They never point to a passage in the Bible
that tells you why the church and family can be healed by God’s Word and
Spirit, but the State can’t be. Today, it is the unique message of Christian Reconstruction that civil
government, like family government and church government, is under the
Bible-revealed law of God and therefore is capable in principle of being
reformed according to God’s law.
This means that God has given to the Christian community as a whole enormous
responsibility throughout history. This Godgiven responsibility is far greater
than merely preaching a gospel of exclusively personal salvation. The gospel we
preach must apply to every area of life that has been fouled by sin and its
effects. The church and individual Christian evangelists must preach the
biblical gospel of comprehensive redemption, not just personal
soul-winning.3 Wherever sin reigns, there the gospel must
be at work, transforming and restoring. The only area of life outside of the
reach of Spirit-empowered restoration is an area that was not affected by the
fall of man. This, of course, means no area at all.
Denying Responsibility
There are millions of Christians today (and in the past) who have denied
the obvious implications of such a view of God’s earthly kingdom. Nevertheless,
very few of them have been ready to deny its theological premises. If you ask
them this question—”What area of life today is not under the effects of
sin?”—they give the proper answer: none. They give the same answer to
the next question: “What area of sin-filled life will be outside of the
comprehensive judgment of God at the final judgment?”
But when you ask them the
obvious third question, they start squirming: “What area of life today is
outside of the legitimate effects of the gospel in transforming evil into good,
or spiritual death into life?” The
answer is obviously the same—none—but to admit this, modern pietistic
Christians would have to abandon their pietism.
What is pietism? Pietism preaches a limited salvation: “individual
soul-only, family-only, church-only.” It rejects the very idea of the
comprehensive redeeming power of the gospel, the transforming power of the Holy
Spirit, and the comprehensive responsibility of Christians in history. In this
rejection of the gospel’s political and judicial effects in history, the
pietists agree entirely with modern humanists. There is a secret alliance be
tween them. Christian Reconstruction challenges this alliance.
This is why both Christians and humanists despise it.
1.
Peter Masters, “World Dominion: The High Ambition of
Reconstructionism,” Sword & Trowel (May 24, 1990), p. 18. [
]
]
2.
Idem. []
]
3.
Gary North, “Comprehensive Redemption: A Theology for Social
Action” (1981), reprinted in North, Is the World Running Down? Crisis in the
Christian Worldview (Tyler, Texas: Institute for Christian Economics,
1988), Appendix C. []
]