Art 48-49 The Authority of the State

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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This section of the confession may very well be the most culturally relevant portion that we have studied so far.

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Certainly everything we've looked at is important and the doctrinal portions are very important.

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But right now in our world there is a lot of discussion among Christians about how much allegiance we owe to the government.

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And if you didn't know those conversations were going on then you must not spend any time at all on social media because that is like the one thing that people are going back and forth about.

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Just how much is the Christian expected to obey and when are we allowed to dissent? Some people are claiming an almost total blind obedience.

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Just do what you're told.

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No matter what, just do what you're told.

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I was looking online at a conversation that was going on between other people and it was about the subject of masks.

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Now these were not Christians.

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This was just a community group that was asking about masks for their kids at school.

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And one parent asked the question, how can I opt out of masks for my children? And then a couple of parents showed them a link that they could follow to be able to opt out for masks.

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But wouldn't you know it, not everyone agreed that their children should be allowed to opt out of masks.

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And wouldn't you know it, they made their opinion known and the overriding repetition of opinion was just do it.

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I mean it was just big bold letters.

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Just do it.

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Don't ask questions, just do what you're told.

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I mean that was it.

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I mean I could show you the post and they were like indignant.

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How dare you even question the authority.

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Government told you to do it, you do it.

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But then there's the other side.

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The side that's always ready to disobey.

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Always ready to dissent.

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I met a guy one time about 15 years ago who had a ministry that he did and one of the things he said in his lesson was, you know, we used to teach people kill a commie for Christ.

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You know, that was like, so like his attitude, much different.

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You know, so you've got the one side which is blind obedience with no dissent.

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And then the other side that's always looking to take up arms.

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And this is not an easy issue.

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And one of the things that I have recognized, especially in the last two years, because honestly COVID has opened a lot of eyes to a lot of things regarding governmental tyranny and overreach and misuse of authority.

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One of the things that I have recognized, and I hope you have too, is that it is not always an easy answer.

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Sometimes there are areas where good Christian men and women can disagree.

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So when we come to Article 48 and 49, what I think the brothers do in these two articles is they strike a balance between the responsibility to be obedient citizens and the responsibility to take a stand on biblical authority above all.

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That's the balance.

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I will be an obedient citizen, but I will focus first and foremost, I will prioritize my allegiance to Christ.

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And that's what we see in the book.

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It says Article 48, civil government, Article 49, the believers accountability.

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I would change the second one because it's really, to me, it's not so much as I read it several times.

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It's not so much about accountability.

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The second one is the counterbalance to obedience.

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When is it time to disagree? When is it time to dissent? And I don't know what I title it as, but I think it's more than just accountability.

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It's about when do we take a stand? So now I want to read the two and I want you to hear what I'm saying because I do think we're not going to, I know there's a long note in between 48 and 49, and we're going to talk about that note later, but I just want you to hear the articles back to back so you get to hear what I'm saying.

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So Article 48 on civil government, a civil magistracy is an ordinance of God.

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And by the way, a civil magistracy or a civil magistrate is the state, the authority of the government.

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That's what it's referring to here.

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And so the government in a sense is an ordinance of God set up by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of them that do well.

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That's almost exactly taken from Romans 13, that the government is God's minister to bring justice upon the evildoer and to encourage those who do right.

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It goes on, and that in all lawful things commanded by them, subjection ought to be given by us in the Lord, not only for wrath, you know, not just because we're afraid that they're going to hurt us, but for conscience sake, because it's the right thing to do.

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And that we are to make supplications and prayers for kings and all that are in authority that under them, we may live a quiet and peaceable life and all godliness and honesty.

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So really all they did was take Romans 13, 1 Peter 2 and 1 Timothy 2 and just sort of combine the wording to one article.

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We are to be subject to the governing authority in all lawful things.

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And that is, if you're underlining or marking in your book, the phrase all lawful things is an important, because they don't say in all things.

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And this is the qualification that I often talk about when I discuss the concept of subjection to government.

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Husbands love your wives and wives submit unto your husbands.

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Now we tell our wives that they should submit to their husbands, but it's not an absolute submission.

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If the man's beating you into the ground, you can walk away for a time.

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You know what I mean? There's a certain sense in which the submission does have a requirement for the one being submitted to.

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Husbands love your wives.

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Now that doesn't mean she doesn't have responsibility if he doesn't love her to still submit, but she can move out of the way of the punches.

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You understand? We wouldn't tell her to just stand there and take it.

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So in the same way when we talk about the government submission, there are limitations.

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And that's when we get to Article 49.

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The Article 48 is about government.

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I think 49 is as well, because listen to this.

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First of all, it starts off with the adversative but, so you know it's continuing the thought.

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But in case we find not the magistrate to favor us herein, yet we dare not suspend our practice because we believe we ought to go in obedience to Christ in professing the faith which was once delivered to the saints, which faith is declared in the Holy Scriptures and this our confession of faith a part of them, and that we are to witness to the truth of the Old and New Testaments unto death if necessity require, in the midst of all trials and afflictions as his saints of old have done, not according, excuse me, not accounting our goods, lands, wives, children, fathers, mothers, brethren, sisters, yea, and even our own lives dear to us, so we may finish our course with joy, remembering always that we ought to obey God rather than men, who will, when we have finished our course and kept the faith, give us the crown of righteousness, to whom we must give an account of all our actions, and no man being able to discharge us of the same.

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What are they saying? They're saying this, when the government comes and bars us from doing what is right unto God, we have the responsibility to continue to do right unto God, even in light of what may be a punishment.

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The government may threaten us for doing good, and what happens when the government threatens us for doing good? They violate their responsibility, because what is their responsibility? The government is God's minister, that's the word used in Romans 13, the government is God's minister for good.

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So when the government, in fact let's read, go in your Bibles, go to Romans 13, and let's actually look at the passage, because this is the part that's often overlooked, is the responsibility of the government.

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Often we look only at our submission responsibility, but the government is given a responsibility as well, and it is to be God's minister for good.

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Let's read it, we'll read Romans 13 beginning at verse 1.

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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, even Adolf Hitler.

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I only point that out, that no authority has given except that which is from God.

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But, even though I said Adolf Hitler had his authority from God, does that mean that the people who hid the Jews were wrong? No.

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Because even though Adolf Hitler was placed in a position of authority, I believe as judgment over the German people, because God gives wicked rulers as a judgment, I think we're seeing that in our country right now.

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But a wicked ruler gives an opportunity to do right, even in opposition, and so the people like Corrie ten Boom, who hid Jews in her walls, her and her family, and were themselves put into concentration camps because of it, was she violating Romans 13? Absolutely not.

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Because it goes on to say, therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed and those who resist will incur judgment.

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You say, well right there she's doing wrong, she's resisting the government.

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Verse 3, for rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad.

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Would you have no fear of one that is in authority then do what is good and you will have, you will see approval.

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And you say, well wait a minute, okay he must not be, this must have a context.

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Because Corrie ten Boom did right and she was still afraid of the government.

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Well verse 4, for he is God's minister for your good.

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But if you do wrong be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain.

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You see the role of the government is supposed to be this, it's very simple.

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The role of the government is to punish the evil and to exalt the good.

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And what we see often in governments is a reversal of that, a celebration of evil and a punishing of the good.

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What does Isaiah say about that? Woe unto them who call good evil and evil good, who replace bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

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That is how you know a country or a nation is under the judgment of God.

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When they have begun to replace that which is good with that which is evil.

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There was a time when our nation understood at least in a sense what was right and wrong.

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And there was a celebration of the good.

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There was a celebration of the right.

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There was a time when we could say, we could hold our heads up high and say I'm proud to be an American or at least I know I'm free.

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We could sing right along with, what's his name, I forget, can't think of it, who is it? Lee Greenwood.

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Thank you.

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Did you say Carmen? Oh, Carmen probably did it too.

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But we find ourselves in a time now where there's an awful lot of questions about motivations.

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There's an awful lot of questions about who's right and who's wrong.

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There's even questions about who has more authority.

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We don't live in a country that's run by a king.

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We live in a country that has a different type of governing authority that has ever existed before in humankind because we don't have a central person who has all authority.

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In fact, what is the highest authority in the land? The Constitution.

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And so is it not right to expect that when our leaders are out of line that they would also be accountable to that Constitution because that's the highest authority? I think so.

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And again, this takes us back to, well, who then do we submit to? What if the government said all women who have more than three children have to have abortions because that's too many babies? You say that could never happen.

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Happened in China.

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And it wasn't three.

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It wasn't.

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It was one.

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More than one child and you have to have no more children by order of the state.

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You say, well, what's the biblical precedent? Go back to the time of Pharaoh and he told those midwives to kill those children as they were born.

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And what did the midwives do? They refused.

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And they even lied.

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They made up an excuse.

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These women have their babies so fast we can't get in there to get them.

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Remember? I forget the words the Bible uses, but it was that idea that they just, they're so fast.

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They just come out so quick we can't get in there and stop them.

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And you know, the Bible exalts those women.

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And Daniel.

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Yeah, I was getting to Daniel, exactly.

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Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

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Why do we consider them heroes of the faith? Because they didn't kneel.

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They didn't kneel to the statue.

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Why do we consider Daniel a hero? Because even though it would have been very easy for him to pray in private, he went out onto his patio and he prayed for all to see.

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Back during the time of the Revolutionary War, there was a divide within the churches.

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We need to sit under the authority of King George come what may.

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Doesn't matter.

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Romans 13 says, submit to the authority.

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We have to submit.

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But there were pastors, many of them Presbyterian, to the credit of the Presbyterians, they said, no, that there is a higher authority than King George.

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And it was, I think, John Calvin who said, to defy tyrants is to obey God.

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Now, some disagree with that.

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Some would say, no, the early church didn't defy Nero.

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But I think they did.

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Because Nero made it illegal to be a Christian.

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Religio illicita.

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But they did not stop worshiping.

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They did not stop having their churches, even to the point that they were fed to lions and burned in his garden.

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They continued to worship.

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So where do we draw the line? That's the hard question.

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Is it the masks? Is it the poke? You guys know what I'm talking about, the vaccine, you know, what is it? What is it? I do think that that's where the difficulty lies.

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But I do remember Martin Luther's speech that he gave before the Council of Worms.

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And it stands to me as one of the greatest speeches ever given in the history of men when he stood before those men and he said, and I can't quote it verbatim, but he basically said this, no man has power over my conscience.

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My conscience is captive to the word of God.

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So, I'll leave you with this.

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Yeah, I was able to get it in my time, too, because I'm almost done.

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I had a lot more I could say, but I want to leave you with a thought.

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Can I? Please.

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Okay.

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The Bible describes three spheres of authority.

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And I may have talked about this before, if I have, forgive the repetition.

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It's good for the mind to be reminded.

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The Bible describes three spheres of authority.

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The first sphere of authority is the family.

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The second sphere of authority is the church.

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And the third sphere of authority is the state.

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Within the family, there is a structure of authority.

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The father, you guys are like this, you're the magistrate of your home.

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Wives are also magistrates, lesser magistrates.

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But just in the sense that you have, he has authority that you submit to.

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But you're still an authority, right? So, father, mother, and then you have your own little city.

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Depending on how many children you've had, you might have quite the town.

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But you have the children who have the responsibility to obey mom and dad.

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And what is the language that is used? Obey your parents in the Lord.

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What's the language for the wife? Submit unto your husband as unto the Lord, right? So, there is the language also used in regard to the state, submitting in the Lord, right? We read that earlier and we've noticed that.

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So, that's an interesting, there is a hierarchy, an authority structure in the home.

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And in the church, I don't want to go through it all, but we understand in the church, there is, well, I'm not even going to put the elders on top, what's on top? Christ, but Christ is authority overall, so that's not fair.

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Christ, the point I'm getting to is Christ is overall.

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So, let's say the Bible is the highest position of authority.

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And then the elders are responsible to interpret the Bible and to teach it.

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And, of course, the deacons have a certain level of service authority.

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And then the body, of course, is there.

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All right, so the church has a structure.

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And then the state.

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The state has authority, and we said, like in our government, it's different than North Korea.

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What's North Korean government? Kim Jong-un, he's the head.

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In China, Xi Jinping is the head and ultimate ruler authority.

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But the state has a position of authority that we do have to recognize.

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And we could say in America, it's the Constitution.

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And after that, you could begin, and we could talk about lesser magistrates.

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And this is actually, the lesser magistrate conversation is very interesting.

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We don't have time to go into it tonight.

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But, for instance, let's say you have a president who says, we have to do this, and a governor who says, no, we don't.

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Who do we listen to? Well, we listen to DeSantis, right? Because he's the one we like.

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But do you understand the conflict, though? Because now we're not dealing, we're still dealing with magistrates.

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They're all in positions of authority.

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What if the mayor disagrees with DeSantis? He's the closest in proximity to authority.

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You understand what I'm saying? Now you begin to have a big, if the government says you have to do this, the state says you doesn't, but the city says you do.

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We sort of had that issue back in 2019, right? Because we had the government was saying, lock down.

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DeSantis was saying, don't lock down.

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But Lenny Curry was saying, do lock down.

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Everybody's going like this with their locks because they don't know what, lock it up, close it up.

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We don't know what to do.

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Who's in charge? I don't have a great answer for you.

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I'm just proposing a question that you might spend some time with.

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But at the end of the day, Christ is in charge.

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And that's what I want to show.

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I don't have any room above.

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So I'm going to put Christ, and just remember he's above everything.

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Because ultimately, Christ is the authority.

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Ultimately, Christ is the authority.

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My conscience is captive to the word of who? The word of God.

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That's why I go back to Luther.

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My conscience has, if at first, my heart is captive to the word of God, then I will be, in a sense, one of the best citizens.

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Because I'm going to pay my taxes.

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I'm going to do what I'm supposed to.

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I'm going to pay all men that which is owed to them.

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I'm going to show honor where honor is due.

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Taxes to whom taxes are due.

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That's what Romans goes on to say, right? I'm not going to be a cheat.

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I'm not going to be a miscreant.

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I'm not going to be a liar or a deceiver.

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But I am going to stand for what's right, even if it costs me everything.

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And my wife and I have had this conversation, and I hope you don't think that I'm being some kind of, like I have a martyr complex.

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I really don't.

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But I've seen history, and I've studied enough about history to see the trends and where things go.

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And I said, honey, you may one day have to talk to me through glass, but we have to preach the truth.

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It's hard within the same family.

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There's an honest difference of opinion and the idea of what God is speaking to you on the issue.

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Absolutely.

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And it's very stressful and hard.

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Absolutely.

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And this is where there are times where I think Romans 14, and you'll notice in the second article, it references Romans 14 like two or three times, because there are times where your conscience may be bound differently than mine.

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And as brothers and sisters in Christ, we have to be able to, on those issues, still love each other, even if we disagree.

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You know, I have brothers and sisters in Christ who take, like I said, the really strong, you know, got to, if they say it, do it.

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There was a guy on the radio talked about, if the government told me to wear pinwheels in my hair, whenever I go to Publix, I'm going to wear pinwheels in my hair, because the Bible doesn't say it's a sin, so I can do that.

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And I said, it's going to take a lot for me to put pinwheels in my hair.

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And that was my response.

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But you understand, he and I, you know, brothers in Christ, we can disagree on an issue of conscience, because Romans 14 allows for that.

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But what we shouldn't disagree on is on what is and isn't sin.

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But we would also say it has to be with consciences directed by the Scriptures, and not just by a whim or a desire.

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I mean, I've seen things with, we've all seen the bumper stickers, that if 10% is good for God, it's good for the government.

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I mean, I don't see any scriptural warrant to support that.

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Sure, yeah.

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I mean, I've had discussions with people where they say, well, they'll say, what if the government said you're going to pay 50% taxes? I mean, at what point do you say, no, I'm not paying no more taxes? I mean, those kinds of things, those discussions are hard to have.

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But I do think as long as we stay within the framework of what our conscience is bound by the Scriptures, because otherwise, I mean, it's a wide field.

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Sure, absolutely.

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And that's why I say this particular conversation is difficult and can certainly inspire many other thousands of many conversations.

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And I'm sure probably will.

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Y'all may all wanna come and talk to me after.

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But I wanna show you now, I mentioned earlier, I was gonna mention the note in the book.

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I know some of you already closed your books.

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Please open them back up just for a second.

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I want you to read with me.

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I can't read the whole notes too long.

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And again, this note is, let me tell you what the gist of the note is.

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The gist of the note is the government that these brothers were under was doing them good.

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But the previous government apparently wasn't.

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And they were thanking God in a sense.

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They say, the supreme magistracy of this kingdom we acknowledge to be the king and the parliament now established freely chosen by the kingdom and that we are to maintain and defend all civil laws and civil officers made by them which are for the good of the commonwealth.

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And we acknowledge with thankfulness that God hath made this present king and parliament honorable in throwing down the pre-lactical hierarchy because of their tyranny and oppression over us under which this kingdom long grown.

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So it's basically saying, we got a good government now, we had a bad government before.

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But notice what it says toward the end.

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And I do ask you to jump down.

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I don't have a point in the, it begins with the word and.

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It says, and as we cannot do anything contrary to our understandings and consciences, so neither can we forbear the doing of that which our understandings and conscience bind us to do.

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And if the magistrate should require us to do otherwise, we are to yield our persons in a passive way to their power as the saints of old have done and thrice happy shall he be that shall lose his life for witnessing though but for the least little of the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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What are they saying there? They're saying ultimately we may have to die.

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We may have to give ourselves unto death.

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They're not saying we are going to roll over and take it.

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They're saying we're going to take a stand even if it means we give up our life.

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That's the hard part.

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That's the hard part.

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Do you know the passage which says that no one can say Christ is Lord unless it be given to him of the Holy Spirit? That passage has been misused and misunderstood for a long time.

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I even remember Mike and I have talked about this.

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There was a preacher who had a microphone and he would walk around in the audience.

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And he'd, can you say Christ is Lord? And he would, and the person would say Christ, oh, Holy Spirit gave you that.

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And they'd walk to, did you, can you say Christ is Lord? And that, Christ is Lord, Holy Spirit gave you that.

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And he would quote that verse to prove his point.

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Here's the context of that verse.

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In the first century, the demand of Rome was that all must pronounce Kaiser Kodias.

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Kaiser Kodias is Caesar is Lord.

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Caesar is Lord.

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And they would carry incense on, on rolling carts.

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And they would demand that people would come and take a pinch of incense.

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And burn it to Caesar and say Kaiser Kodias.

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But the Christians would say, no, Yeshua Kodias, Jesus is Lord.

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And at that moment would be forfeiting their freedom and possibly even their own lives.

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So Paul says, no one can say Jesus is Lord.

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Lest it be given him by the Spirit.

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In reality, if we look at history, the church has always been in one way or another at odds with the authorities.

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Because the authorities believe themselves higher than God.

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But Christ is Lord.

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And if Christ be our Lord, we will be, as I said, we'll be good citizens.

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And we will seek to live a peaceable life.

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Doing good to all men.

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Loving even those who hate us.

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But we must never allow the government to rob us of our faith.

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And Warren Wiersbe said this, I'll leave you with this quote.

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He said, faith is not believing in spite of evidence.

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Faith is obeying in spite of consequence.