# Does the bible teach the divine right of kings?



## Pergamum (Sep 14, 2012)

Had a friend ask if the bible taught the divine right of kings or that you just had to put up with the system of government you have and must not ever oppose it (and especially not rebel against it..and never by force).

How would you answer?

Also, does the bible assume monarchy over democracy?


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## Miss Marple (Sep 14, 2012)

I'd be interested in others' opinions of my following thoughts:

1. No. The king may not compel you to sin. If he tries to compel you to sin, you are not to comply.

2. No. He does not have the right to tyrannize, murder, torture, etc. If he does, he may be resisted. Just as you may oppose a husband or church elder who tries to hurt or kill you, you may oppose a ruler who tries to hurt or kill you.

3. Resistance should be peaceable if possible (voting, avoiding, leaving the area legitimately) but laws may be broken if peaceable means are no longer available (you can sneak out, resist to death someone trying to kill you or another innocent person, break out of an unjust prison if possible, etc.)


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## Peairtach (Sep 14, 2012)

Modern kings or presidents aren't in the line of the Kings of Israel and Judah, who were the Lord's Anointed. Modern kings or presidents aren't the Lord's Anointed.

Christ fulfils the position of the kings of Israel and Judah, firstly by being King in His Church, which is the Israel of God, over which He is spiritual, priestly and kingly Head. 

He is also King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He rules the nations in His divine providence and that should ultimately be recognised by them all.



> Also, does the bible assume monarchy over democracy?



No. Just what works best for a particular nation at a particular time in history/stage of development, should be followed. Great Britain has both democracy and constitutional monarchy.


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## Christopher88 (Sep 14, 2012)

Miss Marple said:


> 1. No. The king may not compel you to sin. If he tries to compel you to sin, you are not to comply.
> 
> 2. No. He does not have the right to tyrannize, murder, torture, etc. If he does, he may be resisted. Just as you may oppose a husband or church elder who tries to hurt or kill you, you may oppose a ruler who tries to hurt or kill you.
> 
> 3. Resistance should be peaceable if possible (voting, avoiding, leaving the area legitimately) but laws may be broken if peaceable means are no longer available (you can sneak out, resist to death someone trying to kill you or another innocent person, break out of an unjust prison if possible, etc.)



M. Rothenbuhler, 
I agree with you, but being as how I too have asked the question our OP had asked of him I will expand on this. What verses in scripture states Christians can oppose a leader if they are of tyranny?


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## DeniseM (Sep 14, 2012)

I thought that the teaching of 1 Samuel 8 was that having a king was a judgment upon the nation of Israel. Daniel chapter 3 certainly shows the Lord's blessing and protection on the three Hebrew men who defied Nebuchadnezzar.

I was just reading yesterday that the purpose of Samuel Rutherford's book _Lex Rex_ was to give a Christian defense of the Law as King and not the King as the Law. I do hope to get a chance to read this sometime soon as it seems to be a necessary subject to properly understand in this era of President's, etc. who do not base all of their judgments upon God's laws.


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## thbslawson (Sep 14, 2012)

The best, and biblical form of government is a perfect monarchy, where a perfect king rules over a perfect and obedient people. The perfect king orders everything in the kingdom, and the people perfectly and happily submit. We're not there yet, but that's what we're waiting on. Therefore, in the meantime we make do with what we have. Different forms of government may work well for different peoples and nations depending on history and culture. For much of the western world, it seems that a republican (not the party, the form) government best serves us to maintain peace. Checks and balances provide accountability and helps guard against corruption. In one sense, one could say that the US form of government assumes that man is a sinner!


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## Zach (Sep 14, 2012)

Romans 13 does not specify a Monarch, it merely tells us to submit to the governing authorities whoever they may be.


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## Miss Marple (Sep 14, 2012)

Philip, 

"I agree with you, but being as how I too have asked the question our OP had asked of him I will expand on this. What verses in scripture states Christians can oppose a leader if they are of tyranny?"

From my tentative point of view, it is the principle of being allowed to kill in order to defend our lives, or the innocent lives of others. I won't look up the verses; I am sure you are aware of the laws that say we may, indeed perhaps even should, kill a person who is reasonably understood to be trying to kill us. The thief coming in the window at night and all that.

I don't see, from Scripture, where someone who is a leader gets to murder people. It seems to me he can be killed, or resisted, in self-defense just like anyone else.


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## earl40 (Sep 14, 2012)

Miss Marple said:


> Philip,
> 
> 
> I don't see, from Scripture, where someone who is a leader gets to murder people. It seems to me he can be killed, or resisted, in self-defense just like anyone else.



I have often how this may apply to the unborn...who cannot defend themselves.


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 14, 2012)

We have to accept there are providential limitations on our authority to intervene, or to rebel.

Judges are instituted by God, and they have their authority, *and sphere of authority*, from him. Here is where we appreciate the doctrine of interposition, in which lesser magistrates exercise authority to protect those within their sphere (as a father might for his small family-sphere).

But there are real limitations on our spheres of authority. Sometimes we have virtually no authority, and the one court of appeal we have is to the very throne of God. This is where the test of our faith is greatest. We see or experience some injustice; and we might rashly leap to act, carrying with us some self-appointed right to execute judgment in the earth. This is exactly wrong. It is the spirit of vigilanteeism, of zealotry, and it is condemned by God.

Calvin wrote plenty about governance; he lived in an era when there were reasonable expectations that magistrates would from his mouth actually listen to the Voice of divine authority, and fear Him (God, not Calvin). But, if possible he had more to say to the many more ordinary Christians whose job it is to submit to authorities, even when they are wicked and foolish.

What does it say about our real understanding of the way authority flows down from Christ, when we resist the power on our own recognizance? We call ourselves masters of our own destinies, who have not first learned to submit properly? I think not! Nor do I think such persons are fit to lead us to "freedom" from tyranny. They are the least fit. Abandon them. 

Calvin had a true shepherd's concern for the breakdown of almost any social order that kept the worst of human nature in check. He understood that suffering injustice is a tool of God's sanctification, and could be for the good of the church. Many today, besotted by "rights," stand for zero-tolerance and maximum retribution upon the slightest perceived injustice. Suffering is intolerable for modern, comfortable man.


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## Miss Marple (Sep 14, 2012)

"I have often how this may apply to the unborn...who cannot defend themselves. "

My thought about this is, they are dependents, and and should rightly be defended by their parent(s).

For instance, in a country like China, where women are forced into aborting a second child, I'd posit that it is permissible to hide, flee, or physically resist someone trying to forcibly abort you. I theorize that if more abortion forcers were resisted unto death, the forced abortions would stop.

Whereas normally we are not to hide from government authorities or resist them. But when they get to the point of forcibly killing our child, I do believe it is a sin not to resist, if able.

I don't know if Rev. Buchanan's comments above would indicate that these authorities should not be resisted? I am not calling for maximum retribution upon the slightest perceived injustice, here. I would call for zero tolerance of the killing of our covenant children, though, I must admit I'd resist to the utmost of my capacity.

We are to submit to our authorities, even if they are wicked and foolish (this would include husbands, fathers, bosses, and elders, not just kings or presidents). However I am putting forward the notion that I don't have to let them kill me, or cause me great bodily harm. I am going further and saying I should do all in my power to protect any dependents of mine from them also (i.e. my father can't give my little brother a concussion, my husband can't throw me down the stairs, my elders can't beat me, my boss can't attack my daughter, and I'd physically intervene to stop it if able).

Otherwise what justification does a wife have for resisting a husband who chokes her or molests her children? What justification would I have for resisting if my father abused me? What justification would I have for resisting an elder who pushes me, or a boss who waves a knife towards me? These are legitimate authorities, also, who I must mind even if they are weak and foolish - but only to that point.


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 15, 2012)

Miss Marple,
I believe we should rescue the perishing, provided we are in a position to offer aid, Job.29:12-13, having immediate knowledge of the crisis as it happens (so to speak) in arm's reach.

But we must also rebuke the zealot, the murderer of the murderer, and foreswear the one who lies in wait for him toward whom he has sworn a secret enmity.

I'm very far from claiming that authorities have unlimited power, or that good faith attempts to preserve one's own life or the lives of others _under one's care_ are presumed to be illegitimate, unless shown otherwise. But neither does any man have absolute right-to-life, the right to resist a lawful authority that comes, legitimately, to take his forfeited life.

What is audacious is the one who has no calling in the realm of justice, but passes his own judgment, and takes the law into his own hands. "Who made you a judge over us?" Ex.2:14. Those Israelites (at least one of them) was in the wrong. But so was Moses, until God had finished preparing him, and commissioned him. But Moses' parents had been in the right, for saving and preserving him in defiance of Pharaoh's edict, as were the midwives.

The early-Moses would have led Israel in an insurrection for deliverance. But this was not God's intention, and would have never brought him the glory (or even Moses' glory) that would come from a more fitting salvation after 40 years. And all that while, Israel languished more. But God's timing had not been disturbed.


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## Pergamum (Sep 15, 2012)

How normative is the example of Moses to us today?


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## Miss Marple (Sep 15, 2012)

Rev. Buchanan,

In re your comment "But we must also rebuke the zealot, the murderer of the murderer, and foreswear the one who lies in wait for him toward whom he has sworn a secret enmity," 

I think you understand I am not saying that I don't think we should go out and murder murderers. I am saying that I think we can resist being murdered, and resist our dependents being murdered. I don't think that means we are passing judgment, but rather engaging in legitimate self-defense.

In short I am thinking that self-defense includes the right to defend ourselves against government agents that may attack us or our dependents, as in perhaps the example of Chinese authorities doing forced abortions.

I am not saying that, after a forced abortion, a woman should hunt down the OB/GYN and kill him. Rather that she should resist him if possible at the time of the assault.


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 15, 2012)

Pergamum said:


> How normative is the example of Moses to us today?


What do you mean, Pergy?

I'm focused on the _morality_ of Moses actions, something not terribly conditioned by time or place. More to the point, I'm concerned to point out that at the time Moses was a private citizen, he had no special commission by God to command Israelites' obedience; and he *especially* had no authority to kill the Egyptian. Not sure how anyone can argue that a shift away from a covenanted-nationality and types pointing ahead to the present age of semi-eschatological fulfillment, calls into question the benefits of observing a saint's moral example. I mean, if David's folly is instructive, why not Moses'?


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## Miss Marple (Sep 15, 2012)

As I consider to ponder this issue I'd like to the throw out the notion of the legitimacy of the "avenger of blood." 

I began to think about this case law as I thought about Rev. Buchanan's comments. What is the place of the "avenger of blood" today? I know we don't have the literal cities of refuge and etc., and I am not being facetious. Is there a principle there that continues today? Is it actually allowable for a family member to avenge a murder? It seems it was allowable for a family member to even avenge an accidental death, unless the accidental killer fled to a city of refuge. What is the parallel, if any, today?


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 15, 2012)

The _goel_ (redeemer) was an *office*, one that fit within the clan-amphicityonic social construct of ancient Israel. These were not "family-feud" situations. Otherwise, we should be proposing a situation in OT Israel that resembled the "Wild West" at its Hollywood-inspired worst. No doubt, it is extraordinarily hard for us to imagine what experience in that society in those days was like. This is a terribly hard remove, even as some people assume the ease with which it may be surmounted.

But, it was an orderly society--not an order that could be maintained for a single day if anyone and everyone was considered an equal-opportunity Judge. And the reality is that life most places outside Israel, when she held to her Law, was unimaginably harsher. Those were places where life was cheap, all the time.

Where is today's "avenger" or "redeemer"? This office doesn't map conveniently to some new figure, in a new situation. Modern society entrusts vengeance to its dispassionate surrogates with badges, robes, and legal-blindfolds on (ideally). That's just the way it is, nor should we decide that we'd _have to be_ better off, if we were back in the days of the ancients, and had such a public office again. We aren't going back to States or Counties or Townships in which everyone who lives there is probably cousin by only a few removes--not any time soon.


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## Peairtach (Sep 15, 2012)

Pergamum said:


> How normative is the example of Moses to us today?



It's only a general equity for the modern state, as our Confession says (Chapter 19; Section 4)

It is only a general equity - not a specific re-application -because Israel was a unique nation and kingdom, which finds its primary fulfilment in the NT Church or "Israel of God".

_General_ equity means that OT Israel is not some kind of simplistic blueprint for modern states. There are applications to the Church and the State, but they are not simplistically derived. There's not some kind of "straight line" application from OT Israel which was the OT Church and Kingdom of God, to modern Britain or America, so that e.g. because Israel had a king for most of its history, modern America should have a king! Or because there was no human king for the period of the judges, but God was supposed to be king, Britain should therefore get rid of the monarchy and be ruled under God by judges that are raised up from time to time!

It's far more sophisticated and complicated than that.

See, e.g., the books on applying OT ethics by Christopher J.H.Wright:

Living as the People of God: Relevance of Old Testament Ethics: Christopher J. H. Wright: 9780851113203: Amazon.com: Books

Walking in the Ways of the Lord: The Ethical Authority of the Old Testament: Christopher J. H. Wright: 9780830818679: Amazon.com: Books


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## Peairtach (Sep 15, 2012)

*Denise*


> I thought that the teaching of 1 Samuel 8 was that having a king was a judgment upon the nation of Israel. Daniel chapter 3 certainly shows the Lord's blessing and protection on the three Hebrew men who defied Nebuchadnezzar.



Does that mean that having a king is a judgment on any nation that has a king, or would that be a simplistic and unwarranted derivation from God's Word, misrepresenting the mind of the Lord?

The reason the Lord was displeased was the motivation of the Israelites, in that they were rejecting His Kingship.

The fact that it wasn't wrong _per se_ to have a king is shown by the fact that the Lord allowed it to happen in His providence, and that the kingly office in Israel became an eminent type of the Messiah's kingly office, such that kings in Israel were "the Lord's Aniointed".

Some kings were good and some kings were bad. Some acted as true representatives of God's rule to the people, and as shepherds and servants of God and the people while others didn't.

Our Lord taught us how good leaders are to behave in church and state, whether it's the King of Timbuktu, with untrammeled power, the Queen of Britain, with only representative power, or the President of the good ol' USofA.



> But Jesus called them , and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
> But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant: Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Matt 20:25-28)



See also the standards for kingship in Deuteronomy 17.



> When thou art come unto the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king over me, like as all the nations that are about me; Thou shalt in any wise set [him] king over thee, whom the LORD thy God shall choose: one from among thy brethren shalt thou set king over thee: thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother. But he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he should multiply horses: forasmuch as the LORD hath said unto you, Ye shall henceforth return no more that way. Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel.


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## Peairtach (Sep 15, 2012)

Miss Marple said:


> As I consider to ponder this issue I'd like to the throw out the notion of the legitimacy of the "avenger of blood."
> 
> I began to think about this case law as I thought about Rev. Buchanan's comments. What is the place of the "avenger of blood" today? I know we don't have the literal cities of refuge and etc., and I am not being facetious. Is there a principle there that continues today? Is it actually allowable for a family member to avenge a murder? It seems it was allowable for a family member to even avenge an accidental death, unless the accidental killer fled to a city of refuge. What is the parallel, if any, today?



This would merit another thread. I think the main general equity application of this law to the modern state is that there is some kind of provision to distinguish between accidental and unlawful killing and that unlawful killing is punished by death, whereas killing generally is thoroughly investigated and those who have accidentally killed are protected by the state.

The detaining of the fugitive in the city of refuge until the death of the High Priest typologically pointed to the need for the death of Christ, a Man, or _the_ Man, the ultimate High Priest, to atone for the worst sin crimes such as revengeful blood-shedding if the cleared accidental slayer went furth of the city of refuge. Outside of the Church there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

For non-presumptious sins there was the typological expiatory death of an animal.

We can distinguish between the ceremonial law and the judicial law in OT Israel, but that doesn't mean that they weren't related to each other in their OT context, nor that there is nothing typological in the judicial law that must influence our interpretation and application of the judicial law.


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