Christ in Law — Aaron Rock

Christ in Law and Culture

The title of the message today is Christ in Law. Now two years ago if you came to church it probably would have seemed kind of strange if the pastor said, hey guess what we're going to preach on today?

We're going to preach on law. We're going to preach on law and culture. We're going to preach on law in Canada. You'd be like why are we talking about this? After all what does that have to do with the gospel?

What does that have to do with worship? What does law have to do with everyday life? Well things have changed and we're thinking about law a lot are we not? People are asking questions like am I required as a Christian to obey the law of the land if it conflicts with my conscience?

Or why is it that I suddenly feel rather unprotected by Canadian law? Why are there laws that would appear that politicians foist upon us but do not abide by themselves? How would we process that? Some people are asking hey I'm in law enforcement and I'm struggling with what laws I am required to enforce.

Others are asking why is it that unelected officials seem to have so much power maybe even more power than elected officials over the formulation of laws in our culture? How do we process all of this?

Well let's start off with a very basic definition. What is law? Law essentially is composed of this a system of rules that govern our behavior as a society. A system of rules that govern our behavior.

Now in the west and when we say west because everybody's west of someone else we live in a sphere but when we say west what we're talking about are those cultures those countries those nations that historically had a Christian foundation.

Doesn't mean that everyone was ever entirely Christian we understand that but they had a certain Christianized we call them Christianized countries. There was a recognition of the supremacy of God. There was a recognition that law should in some way shape or form be based upon biblical law.

So in western nations historically our laws were largely rooted in biblical law or ecclesiastical law canon law. The shape the structures and systems within that were based primarily on Roman law. So the idea of case law or how contracts are written or the notion of legal precedents those come not so much from the scripture but those structures those organizational mechanisms within legal codes and western nations are mostly based upon Roman law from the emperor Justinian.

But the moral foundation of western nations really is historically been built off of and based on and even vetted by biblical law from one end of the bible to the other by the way. So we have law and law in culture is used to enforce a particular moral code.

So for example no you can't murder people no you can't steal other people's property that's immoral. We recognize that in our nation and then we have organizational law civil structures within law and those are not necessarily moral some of them are some of them aren't but for example somebody has to circle a date on the calendar and say this is when your tax returns have to be submitted whether it's the end of March end of April or end of May the bible doesn't say but those are the civil structures that we put in place or the way a contract's written and yet in fact you have to sign it and date it and maybe have a witness.

These aren't moral issues whether you're signing five documents to buy a piece of property or three documents to buy a piece of property the bible doesn't speak of those things so we have moral law and we have civil law and they sort of come together and shape the law of every nation.

Biblical Law as the Foundation of Nations

Now while there are many ways to shape civil laws nations we know that are founded upon God's laws are a blessing to the world and by the way when I say God's laws don't think oh Levitical law oh how to butcher a goat how to offer your sacrifice.

I'm not talking about law like Levitical. I'm talking about all the principles commands promises of God from Genesis right through to Revelation the laws of God the righteous statutes and decrees of God the whole of the bible biblical law.

So if you look at immigration patterns over the past hundred years nobody's fleeing to atheistic countries. Nobody's fleeing to countries ruled by shiara law. Islamic countries. If people want to move they want to move to whether they know it or not western countries that are founded largely upon biblical law because what's unique about western nations is they historically have stood for freedom of worship.

They encourage you to actually work and bring your money home and keep it for yourself rather than in communism being told you have to work and you're not getting paid. For example I was with a young Romanian couple yesterday and they were telling me when their parents grew up in Romania they would be conscripted at times to go and pick corn and you didn't get paid for it.

You just did it because it's supposed to be patriotic to pick corn for the nation. So you're working but you're not getting paid. Nobody wants to live in countries like that. However we've seen a shift and a very rapid shift in the last several years and that people are starting to think I'd like to get out of my western country too because they're clearly not basing their laws upon biblical law.

And now we have a rise of tyranny and dictatorships and property confiscation and freezing of bank accounts and all sorts of threats. This potential stripping of charitable status from churches. The problem is where do you run to if there's no nation basing their laws upon the word of God you kind of feel like a rat in a cage right.

You can't get out. So this is the state of our world now when we talk about bringing God's law to bear on civil law we want to be clear on this point. We're not talking about bringing heaven to earth.

We understand this world will always be imperfect. There's always going to be a measure of evil. There's always going to be a measure of impurity. There's always going to be some tyranny here and there.

There's always going to be someone drunk on power. But we at least want to push back against evil to push the darkness back and to create cultures within which there's freedom to worship. There's freedom to raise your family to actually say I have authority over my kids not the public school system to be able to have freedom to worship freedom to raise your family and freedom to work to seek gainful employment without the government taking it all from you.

Law, Authority, and the Kingship of Christ

So here's the thing folks every nation every nation has a god every nation they may not call it a god. But what we're actually talking about when we're discussing matters of law is we're discussing authority.

Essentially is what we're discussing who's your authority. Law equals authority. And the battle that is raging in the west and in fact all around the world today is really a battle that revolves around the question who will rule us.

What king. What prime minister. What president. What parliament. What legislature has ultimate authority over our lives. Who will rule us now. I was curious to have received several questions in the past couple of years from people.

And through my podcast and through my correspondence with people oftentimes I'll have someone send me a message or an email and they'll say something like you know I like what you're talking about. But what about the fact that Jesus wasn't political.

Jesus wasn't political. So why is it that so often politics kind of seems to creep into your sermons. And why is your church so politically engaged. Good question right. Well the answer to this is to ask a question back what is politics.

Politics fundamentally is about governance and power. Is it not. It's essentially about governance and power. Did Jesus ever have happened to have anything to say about governance and power. Jesus was the most political person to ever walk the face of the planet.

Jesus was highly interested in matters of governance and power. In fact he was nailed to a cross for claiming to be king of the Jews which offended both the Jews and the Romans. It says in Matthew 27 11.

Now Jesus stood before the governor and the governor asked hey what was your last sermon Jesus. No he asks him a very political question. Are you the king of the Jews. And Jesus like oh no you got me wrong.

No no no wrong guy. I don't get involved in politics. No Jesus said you have said so. Which is his way of saying you yes in kind of a style that's unique to Jesus. Now this isn't. This isn't a blip in scripture.

In Revelation 17 14 in the apocalyptic vision of what is yet to come it says they that is the rulers of the world will make war with the lamb that is Christ and the lamb will conquer them. Listen to this.

For he is lord of lords and king of kings. And those who are called and chosen and and those with him are called and chosen and faithful. Well Jesus declares himself to be king of kings and lord of lords.

So Jesus declares himself to be the ruler of all political establishments and all political systems. If you're a king you're a politician. If you're a lord you're a politician but you have a boss to answer to.

And your boss is not the democratic will of the people. Your boss is God through Christ. In that respect. If you understand the politics about governance and power Jesus was incredibly political. He claimed to have authority in this world and in the next over every throne every ruler every principality and every power.

The problem is for the last several hundred years most of the Christian church has been sort of dualistic in their thinking let's just about getting to heaven man let's just get to heaven. And we've reduced the gospel down to the salvation message which is incredibly important.

It's central to the message of Christ. But if we call an individual to repent of their sins and make Christ their lord but we don't help them to understand that Christ is actually lord of everything. It's kind of a weird gospel.

It's not a biblical gospel. So the gospel brought the broadest definition of the gospel is about the rule of God through Christ he is king of kings and lord of lords. And we don't have to wait for heaven for him to qualify as such.

He is the lord of your life right now whether you acknowledge it or not he is the lord of the parliament of our nation. Whether they acknowledge it or not he is the lord of every mayor in Essex county and beyond.

Whether they acknowledge him or not he's the king of kings and the lord of lords. And therefore if he is the ultimate king follow my logic then he's the ultimate authority over law. He's the ultimate determinant of what's right and wrong.

Law, Grace, and the Restraint of Evil

He's the ultimate one who decides how we act how we live and how we conduct ourselves. Because he's not a micro king he's the king of kings and the lord of lords. Now one of the questions that's often raised when you start to speak about God's law is doesn't preaching God's law diminish grace and diminish the gospel.

This is the fear that many have. So if we start going around in culture and saying to prime ministers and parliaments and neighbors and friends and family actually Christ is the king of kings and the lord of lords and his laws are binding upon you and you need to follow his laws.

Aren't we sort of preaching a gospel of works. Aren't we falling into the trap of maybe communicating to them that if you just do this do that do this do that and do this and do that that you're going to get to heaven.

So there's a there's a an apparent conflict that people set up. Are we about grace and the gospel or are we about law and works well there's no conflict at all in the scripture. We aren't. We obviously understand very well as biblical Christians that you don't get to heaven by obeying God's laws but you do go to hell by breaking them.

And so you need to understand what God's laws and expectations are. Law doesn't exclude grace. In fact law preaching rightness and wrongness is a prerequisite to even understanding what grace is. Why do I need mercy if I'm perfect.

Why do I need to be saved if I'm already fine. So we preach the moral word of God into culture in order to remind people first of all that they're sinners and they're in need of a savior. And I don't think we've done a very good job of that in all honesty in the modern church because the temptation is to go to church and we immediately want to go to grace mercy and love right and heaven.

But God forbid if we preach hell hellfire and brimstone sin that adultery is actually a sin still even in 2022 the fornication is still a sin in 2022 that lying and cheating is still a sin in 2022. We want to get to the good stuff because that feels good.

But actually it doesn't feel that good if you don't know where you came from. So we preach God's word into culture in order to help people to see that they're sinners in need of a savior. But secondly we preach God's words God's laws into culture because God's laws actually restrain or constrain evil.

Let me give an example of this in our country we have no abortion laws. So therefore 85 000 Canadian babies are butchered in our country in the womb every year. Why. Because we don't have any laws that restrain that behavior.

If we had laws that restrain that behavior wouldn't that be a good thing. If we could reduce the number to zero that would be great. But even if we could reduce it by half that'd be better than 85 000 babies being butchered every year.

But we have no law. And yet in the modern church especially over the past two years you're going to get more flack bumping into a christian at home depot if you're not wearing a mask in violation of a provincial statute than you are likely to ever hear them weep and wail and picket and protest against 85 million babies that are being butchered in our country every year.

And what's the notion you got to obey the law. Pastor rock if our premier says it you're responsible to obey it. But we don't have laws to govern the sanctity of life in the womb. And many people just given up on that.

So obviously salvation presupposes sin. The bible says for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of god romans 3 23. But we also preach god's laws god's word. And again i'm not talking about levitical law not talking about the dietary laws although some of them are pretty good actually.

But i'm not talking about preaching those into culture as some sort of legalistic mechanism to bind people to it but to restrain evil. But again many christians are more religious about keeping civil law than they are religious about keeping religious law.

And when civil law violates religious law we have a responsibility to disobey civil law. Erwin lutzer as he comments on what took place in the events the decades leading up to the holocaust. He's someone gave me a book this week which is pretty interesting book sort of written back in 2010.

I thought it was written like yesterday. But it's talking about a lot of the cultural issues that we're dealing with. And he's tying it into some of the things we saw in germany. And he says in his book and i'll just quote here quote the experience of nazi germany reminds us that whoever controls a nation's laws also controls a nation's agenda and values.

Interesting. You control the laws you control the values. So what were some of the laws that were put in place before the holocaust. Holocaust didn't just happen like that. People had to be propagandized.

People had to slowly warm up to the idea their worldview had to be shifted in shape. So coming out of world war ii there was a major inferiority complex in germany. They lost the war they were under sanctions.

And so hitler comes along and he starts printing money. And of course it's basically worth nothing like our money. I saw a little thing on facebook this week. It's like the new canadian twenty dollar bill and it's the hundred dollar bill.

Our money's not worth that much because they're just printing it printing it it's not backed by anything. It's just plastic. That's what hitler did. Just started printing money. You could take a billion mark bill and throw it out because it's worth nothing.

So they had all these issues in their in their nation. So what he did is he had this slow propaganda campaign and believe it or not he identified a group of people called the jews and he started calling them things like undesirables kind of like fringe minority right.

And he started putting laws upon them. So he deprived jews of citizenship kind of like wouldn't it be crazy if in canada you could be a citizen and you were deprived of some of your charter rights. Could you imagine if you were barred from leaving the country for example or barred from going to church or barred from opening your business.

That would never happen here though right. So he put restraints upon their ability to live as full citizens. He outlawed intermarriage between jews and non-jews. He called that unnatural. And get this he made criticizing hitler treasonous.

So you can't. You can't fly obscene flags for example that demonstrate your dislike for hitler. And by the way i'm not a fan of them. Okay. But you might have seen in ottawa they they barred those obscene flags from being flown sort of trash talking hitler.

The same people that are enforcing that are totally fine with scantily clad naked people on almost every television show you can watch. So this kind of obscenity is okay with this. This isn't because it's a threat to the political establishment.

And then that led up ultimately to the massacre of eight million jewish people and non-jewish people that were all lumped into this undesirable category. This set the stage for the holocaust. So what if you can if you can control the laws.

You can control the propaganda. You control the writing of the textbooks. You control the universities. You control what can be taught what can't be taught. And you control the economic system outside of god's law.

You can get people to do some incredibly horrendous things. So this it's not a one-for-one. I get that what we're going through is not a one-for-one to to the holocaust. But we need to learn from history.

And when a nation abandons god's laws in the area of economics abandons god's laws in the area of the value of human life abandons god's laws by starting to segregate and separate families and churches and people groups.

You set up a nation for collapse. You set up a nation to do some despicable things. So the laws of a land there are. There are laws in our land that are morally neutral. Again should we submit our taxes by april 30th april 15th may 15th.

Let the government decide that who cares. It's not a big deal. But many are founded upon a nation's answer to the question who will rule us. Who will be our god. Our charter claims that we believe in the supremacy of god.

But i think they've almost inserted a footnote that said oh p .s the god that we are referring to is the state. The state decides what's right and wrong. Who can marry. What the definition of marriage is.

Who can worship. Who can't worship. Who can speak out. Who can't speak out. Who's guilty of disinformation. Who's guilty of proper information. Every nation is a god of sorts upon which its laws derive.

We falsely many of us if you're kind of my age ish or younger maybe even a little older probably all of us we have falsely been taught that secularism is the perfect neutral ground for all religious faiths to flourish.

Right. Secularism is morally neutral. Secularism is not morally neutral at all. Secularism puts the power in the hands of the state and that's what we have seen in our own country. So in canada the fight is we're not fighting against mask mandates.

I hope you understand that we're not fighting against social distancing mandates fundamentally. We're not fundamentally fighting against percentages in churches. We're fighting against the question who will be our god.

God as the Source of Law and the Problem of Lawlessness

And what are the limits that god has put upon the state to govern people. So is man or god the source of law. Well before the kings were put in his in place in israel you remember they they begged for a king.

They first it was abraham then he had a son who had a son. And then they started started to reproduce. They took the creational mandate pretty seriously. And there was a lot of them and that freaked out pharaoh and he pushed him out of into slavery.

And they ran from egypt and they got a land of their own. And for a period of time they they didn't really have a civil structure. It was just sort of an ad hoc governance system. Whoever sort of stood the tallest yelled the loudest became the judge became the ruler.

And there were some pretty interesting characters that led the nation of israel. But eventually they had a kingship put in place. But before they had the kings israel had a legal code. It was sort of like their charter the 10 commandments.

There were 600 other commandments but there was the top 10. And those top 10 commandments were the supreme summary of all of god's laws for the nation. Now ideally they would have consulted god directly for every decision that they made.

But in a fallen world that doesn't generally work very well. So god permitted them as an accommodation to human sinfulness to set up a monarchy. And the role of the monarch the king was to consult god to be a theocratic king a king on god's behalf under the judges they had a problem.

An example of this is recorded in judges 21 25. In those days there was no king in israel and everyone did what was right in his own eyes just kind of made up the law for themselves. So ideally that would have worked if everyone's in tune with god and everyone's directly dialoguing with god.

You wouldn't need a king. You wouldn't need pastors. You wouldn't need police officers. Everyone's just sort of following god. But in a broken world it doesn't work that way. So god puts this layer in called civil government.

So then when people when jesus later on in the new testament calls people lawless so some of you are lawless. What was he referring to. What kind of lawlessness the people are lawless. What do you mean.

I mean they're. They're. They're riding their donkeys too fast through the streets breaking the speed limit. No they were lawless and that they were violating god's divine law. They had forsaken god's moral law.

This is why paul later on in romans 6 19 said i'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations we're all limited in our knowledge and understanding. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness moral lawlessness leading to more lawlessness.

So now your members now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. In other words there's expectations that god has placed upon us for our conduct. And he's reminding us here that there's a standard upon which human thought and behavior is expected to conform.

So we can't we think of god's law reduce it down to dietary laws or speed limits or whatever it might be. God's laws encompass all that god legislates. And god has a lot to say in his divine legislation.

Delegated Authority and the Limits of Civil Government

From a christian perspective this is fundamental to all of this. God is the ultimate law giver. God is the ultimate law giver. And any law or rule or edict that we put in place in any sphere of life cannot contradict god's law.

A husband who's the spiritual leader over his wife can never ask his wife to do something that violates god's law. Or she can say no sir. A pastor who has authority over the church can never ask his people to do something that violates god's law.

They can say hey thank you. But no thank you. And citizens are not obliged to follow laws put in place by civil authorities that violate god's law because god is the ultimate determiner of what's right and what is wrong.

Now he does delegate authority as he delegates authority parents over their children husbands over their wives elders over churches governments and kings over nations. He delegates authority to civil rulers in order to help us to have a properly ordered society.

But listen to this anyone who's in a position of authority is a servant of god. You're a king. Yeah. But you're not the king of kings. You're a father. Yeah. But you're not the father of fathers. You're a pastor.

Yeah. But you're not the great pastor of the church. Ultimate authority is reserved for god alone. This is why in romans 13 which has become the new john 3 16 in the last couple of years it's very clear it says.

For rulers are not a terror to good conduct but to bad. Oh there's moral language who decides what's good and what's bad. The parliament through a vote i don't know god decides what's good and what's bad.

Would you have no fear of one who's in authority. Then do what is good and you will receive his approval. Listen to this. For he is god's servant for your good. He's god's servant for your good. But if you do wrong be afraid.

For he does not bear the sword in vain which is a symbol of public justice presiding over the courts the military police services. For he is the servant of god. An avenger who carries out god's wrath on the evildoer.

This is really critical to understand this. When a ruler pours out his wrath upon the citizenry he must always do it and he's constrained to do it in accordance with the wrath that god wants poured out on them.

A ruler is not authorized to put his wrath upon a pastor trying to gather his people to minister the word and sacrament. You're not god's deacon. When you're doing that work you're not god's deacon. When you're saying to this group of people you can't open your business because that's bad.

But if you're a big tech big corp we're going to let you open your business. And if you do open your business small business owner we're going to fine you or confiscate your property. You're not god's deacon.

You're a tyrant. You're claiming to be the king of kings and the lord of lords. It says therefore one must be in subjection not only to avoid god's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. So it's very clear in this passage that the biblical idea is that people who are in positions of authority including rulers and kings serve under god as god's deacons as god's servants.

If god says it's right then they reward the righteous. If god says it's wrong then they punish the evildoer. But what they don't do is reward the evildoer and punish the righteous. When they do that they violated their job description.

They've stepped outside of the boundaries of their authority. However not understanding this and having sort of a reductionistic mindset many christians are far more concerned in the modern era with enforcing civil laws many of which have now been proven after two years to be fraudulent or politically motivated have nothing to do with your health.

Many christians are more concerned about enforcing those civil laws than they are god's moral law like don't forsake the gathering together. Believers is somewhere in the habit of doing greet each other with a holy kiss visit the sick baptize people in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit.

But over the past two years many churches have suspended those biblical practices because of provincial statutes that aren't rooted in any way shape or form in any amount of authority that god has ever given to king ruler prime minister or premier.

Well how do we expect to win the bigger battles like the abortion battle if we can't even acknowledge that christ is king of kings and lord of lords and that the law of any nation is subject to him. So we have a job to do.

Divine Law, Natural Law, and Creational Rights

Don't we. It's an uphill. It's an uphill task. Well what happens if a ruler violates god's law. Well it's important to understand there's sort of two categories of laws we've already alluded to. There's divine law.

Sometimes it's called natural law meaning that when we say natural law we don't mean it's it's disconnected from god. But it's it's evident it's self-evident in the natural world. For example the sanctity of life.

You don't go around killing people. So the sanctity of life is self-evident. But it's also ultimately from god's law. It's based upon god's morals. It's inherent. It's rooted in creation. It's often by the way acknowledged in charters.

The great charter of england the constitution of the united states the charter of our own country. Unfortunately the charter of our country is not very good because it has this demonstrably justifiable clause in it which means well we can actually take them away if we want.

But that's actually a violation of government authority. Because if you have a right granted to you by god no king no prince no prime minister and no legislative assembly can ever take those from you for example.

And i hope you know this. You don't need the permission of the state to worship no matter what the law civil laws say. You don't need the permission of the state to worship. You don't need the permission of the state to have children.

This is why the policies of china the one child policy are immoral. Oh but what about overpopulation. Here's my answer to overpopulation. Travel a little bit. The world is not overpopulated in any way shape or form.

The problem is you get millions of people all want to live in the same acreage. That's a problem. But if you've traveled i've been probably to most of the continents in the planet. There are billions of acres of unused land everywhere we live in canada look around so the problem is not that we have too many people.

The problem is we're not stewarding it well by spreading out packing people into small areas. But you don't need permission from the state to have children. You don't need the permission from the state to eat your supper.

You don't have. You don't need permission from the state to obey the the commands of god. Work six days and rest on the seventh. Oh do you think i could open my business now after three months of closure.

Pretty please. We shouldn't have to ask that from the state. They don't have authority over our ability to work. They don't have authority over the stewardship of our bodies or our resources. Folks these are pre-political laws.

These are creational laws laid down before anyone was ever elected to any office. They're natural in the sense that they are creational. They include and let me rhyme some off a responsibility to steward your life and your resources genesis 126.

And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the ground. They include the right to life because you're made in the image and likeness of god.

So god created man in his own image. In the image of god. He created them male and female. He created them. So the right to life maleness and femaleness by the way is a creational law which is under attack.

You look at what's going on in culture folks. All the creational laws are under attack. All the most fundamental and foundational laws that god laid down in the creation of the world are all being challenged.

You can't find one that isn't the right to marry and multiply genesis 128. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. This is why i ditched my ontario marriage license five six years ago. I refuse to be an agent of the state.

We will recognize marriages under god in our church. We don't need the permission of the provincial government that will marry anybody under any circumstances to declare you married or not. But the state strangely in the last 75 to 80 years has decided it decides who can get married and under what circumstances.

And you have to come to us for your document. Historic western nations understood this. If you go to england you're doing genealogical research or ireland. You don't go knocking on the city hall to find your marriage license.

You go to the parish church. They recorded it and in the age when there wasn't facebook to find out if someone was cheating this is why they'd get up and they'd announce. Did anybody have a reason why this person shouldn't lawfully marry.

It's like yeah they're actually married in the next village already all right. They didn't have a central database. So they would proclaim the bans. And if anybody said yeah they're actually married to this guy's married to betty a couple villages over then they'd say this is an illegitimate marriage.

The Ten Commandments and the Moral Order

But the point is is that churches recognized marriages not governments. Governments acknowledged them but they didn't authorize them. We have the 10 commandments. We could summarize it as follows. There's a command to worship properly the first four.

There is a command to acknowledge parental authority over children. There's a command to acknowledge the sanctity of life. You shall not murder by the way there's justifiable reasons to take human life.

Whoever sheds the blood of a man by man shall his blood be shed genesis 9 6. It's called capital punishment. It's biblical. But you don't have the right to murder someone indiscriminately. You have the right to property ownership.

This is why we have a command that says don't steal. This is why we have a command that says don't covet another person's possessions. That's their property. It's not yours. There's a command in there that is supposed to keep our courts honest.

Don't bear false witness. This is not about general lying. This is about perjuring yourself in court. If you don't have honest courts it's catastrophic. So who who decides if if we're allowed to steward our resources live marry multiply worship demand respect from our children own our own property and expect to be treated rightly in a court of law god not the state not a legislative body not a democratic process.

You can't vote these things away as much as people try. You can't legislate these things away. They are divine laws laid down in the natural order of things and should be inherently owed and protected.

And then of course we have civil law statutes case laws. There's municipal there's provincial there's federal and these are laws that regulate human behavior beyond god's laws. There's nothing wrong with that.