Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
I feel like it’s derived from Luther’s time. Not sure how it could be applied to NJ, USA and the like, where I dwell... So I feel like some aspects of it, although a pretty ideal concept overall, become N/AHello,
Can someone expain and prove the doctrine of the lesser magistrate for me? I've read about it numerous times before, but just can't see it.
Hello,
Can someone expain and prove the doctrine of the lesser magistrate for me? I've read about it numerous times before, but just can't see it.
What is a lesser magistrate to begin with? Governor? Mayor? DMV worker?
Hello,
Can someone expain and prove the doctrine of the lesser magistrate for me? I've read about it numerous times before, but just can't see it.
Yes, The lesser magistrate is Prime Minister of Australia. The greater magistrate is Prime Minister of New ZealandWhat is a lesser magistrate to begin with? Governor? Mayor? DMV worker?
Yes, The lesser magistrate is Prime Minister of Australia. The greater magistrate is Prime Minister of New Zealand
might it be argued that even if the people do not have the right to incite a rebellion
Read Lex, Rex. Rutherford works through the problems.
https://tentsofshem.wordpress.com/2016/11/30/working-outline-of-lex-rex/
C4: Nature and Destruction
C5: Kingmakers
- Law is rooted in nature and nature can’t be destroyed. Therefore, a king doesn’t have the power to destruction (66).
- What if a people are conquered?
- This is why there really can’t be a “blank check to Nero” type interpretation, otherwise it gets really silly.
- This means “might makes right.”
- So, the new conqueror is automatically “the powers that be”?
- Does that mean the old–indeed, legitimate–ruler is now illegitimate?
- At what point does he become illegitimate–when the new conqueror conquers 50.01% of the land?
- Presumably, given the analysis in 2.1.1-2.1.4, a people would be sinning in resisting. Yet, let’s say they “reconquered” the conquerors. Does that automatically make them “in the right?”
- The Holy Spirit invests the people (Deut. 17.15-16) with kingmaking power.
- But that’s the Old Testament!
- Fair enough–it is also Western (and Russian) legal tradition.
- Can the people cede all of their liberty to the king?
- No, for the people do not have absolute power over themselves.
- You cannot cede what you do not have (81).
- They give the king political power to their own safety, but reserve natural power to themselves. Here Rutherford buttresses his argument with natural law reasoning and the 6th Commandment.
- Inferior magistrates are also “powers from God” (else, if Paul were just talking about the king, why didn’t he simply say “power”?).
- They also bear God’s sword (90).
- Scripture notes the people make the king, never the king the people (113).
- The people united to make David king at Hebron.
- The king is above the people by eminence of derived authority as watchman, but he is inferior to them in fountain-power, as the effect to the cause (115). This is Rutherford’s key, and in my opinion, strongest, argument in the book.
Yes, New Zealand is a small Island nation but we have 5 times the population of Australia per square kilometer.I think if you take all the habitable portions of Australia you come up to the equivalent mass of New Zealand, so you may be right.
Would this doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate say that their struggle was unjust because a new established power was in place?