Government Ordained by God

I find a very interesting command made by Jesus, to the multitudes following Him. You will see it in the fourth paragraph below (in bold print). This one command (along with so many other passages in the scripture, of course) seems to be speaking even to us here in America! But don’t skip ahead...first read the scathing rebukes Jesus directed at the scribes and Pharisees:

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you shut the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither enter yourselves, nor allow those who would enter to go in.” (Matthew 23:13 RSV)

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the Law, justice and mercy and faith; these you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel! (Matthew 23:23-24)

And yet, just before Jesus said all of that (and much more) to the scribes and Pharisees, he said this to the multitudes:

“The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice. They bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with their finger. They do all their deeds to be seen by men; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the market places, and being called rabbi by men. But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:1-9 RSV)

After all that we have learned, all the nitty-gritty bad stuff about the scribes and Pharisees, after seeing just a small handful of the voluminous laws that they misguidedly added to the law of Moses, now we see Jesus telling the crowds that they are to “practice and observe whatever they tell you”, even though they are hypocrites? Jesus says, just be sure not to do what they do, for they don’t practice what they are preaching, basically. But still, even with all the weight of the law that they “lay on men’s shoulders”? Are the followers of Jesus still to do even that?

It seems so to me!

In fact, just a few verses ahead of all of this above, is the place where Jesus tells the Pharisees (and the Herodians: Jews who liked the government of Herod and wanted to support it) to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

With Jesus rebuking the Pharisees and scribes right and left, right in front of the public crowds, it must have given the folks a bit of a pause, that He now tells them to do what they say, just not what they do. It gave me pause when I caught that. I have read it many times, but I just caught it now. In fact, this posting was going to go a whole other direction, until the Holy Spirit, I believe, showed me this small part of scripture that I had before now missed. Or maybe I didn’t miss it, maybe I just glossed over it, as though it were something of minor importance. But maybe it’s not so minor.

Here in America, the country (and its government) that is being bad-mouthed “from sea to shining sea” (from within and from without), it could be that we Christians need to heed the words of Jesus in these scriptures more closely than ever before.

Do we remember that God is sovereign? So completely and thoroughly sovereign that no king, president, or government exists in any capacity whatsoever, unless God has ordained it to be so?

What if we lived under a dictatorship or a corrupt regime?

Yep, those too. For if God is sovereign, and He is, then He is sovereign over even those vessels that He uses for dishonor. Remember that scripture?

“For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth…..Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory.” Romans 9:17-23

Because the seat (government) of Moses (ordained by God) had succeeded to the scribes and Pharisees, and because they had become corrupt, didn’t mean it was no longer ordained of God. But in case we begin to believe that the seat of Moses is different than the seat of Herod (as far as the sovereignty of God) Jesus is helping us see that this is not so: in terms of the sovereignty of God there is no difference between a religious government or a civil government, be it Godly or un-Godly. God is the Head over them all.

So, if I am understanding the scripture correctly, we know this:

1) All government is ordained of God.
2) All government has God as its Head (authority) whether the government recognizes and admits that or not.
3) As citizens of the civil government, at least, we are to “render”(this does not mean give, it means return) to the government what the government has supplied to us, which is money, in the form of taxes. Does this mean that no matter how the government uses the funds, or how “heavy the burden” of taxes placed upon us, we are still to “render” those things unto “Caesar? I think so. What do you think?
4) In what attitude are these things then to be rendered? With bitterness and resentment? Or as unto the Lord?
5) As citizens of our country’s government, how are we to speak of that government? If we bad-mouth it are we not also bad-mouthing the Lord?

What about the government of the local church?

1) As members of the local church, are we to submit to the government that is established in that church?
2) How are we to speak about the members of that local church, or of its government?
3) What is our responsibility when we see things not going according to scripture?

I think the first 5 questions are easily answered by us all.

But what about the last 3 questions? I’m not answering those yet. I think we should have a bit of time to study it out for ourselves (I certainly need to do so) before we answer.

The most important thing to think about and study further is this: did Jesus rebuke the Pharisees and scribes as an example for us to follow?

Or not?