Top 10 Verses: Tyranny

September 13, 2024

Institute for Faith & Culture

September 13, 2024
20 Minute Read

Romans 13:1-7

1 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. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Let us first consider the positive description given by God to define the role and purpose of government and civil authorities. In the first case, Paul is clear that civil authority is ordained by God. God created humanity to exercise dominion and this means that governance is a natural function of human nature. Likewise, God created humanity for social relationships—husbands with wives and children, extended families, and neighbors beyond. Particularly due to the fall and the entrance of sin into the world, civil authorities are necessary in maintaining justice among peoples. Because of sin, however, civil authorities are also subject to forces of corruption, which means tyranny is a viable option.

The particular role God gave to civil government is to be the agent of legal justice— to be the "servant" of God by acting as "an avenger who carries out God's wrath," as a "terror" to evil conduct.

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The particular role of government is to be the “servant” or deacon of God by acting as “an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer,” as a “terror” to evil conduct. Civil authorities are those who “bear the sword,” which means that civil authorities possess punitive authority, including the power to execute those whose crimes are particularly heinous, violent, or murderous. Likewise, civil authorities are to give “approval” to those who “do what is good.” Government authorities should offer support and public approval to those citizens who act righteously. He is to do all these things because he is “God’s servant for your good” and a “ministe[r] of God.”

In order to be a faithful servant or minister of God, it is necessary to recognize that God is the true authority who defines good and evil. Government officials will be accountable to God for their actions in office and the standard will be God’s own commands. By this, we can also see that civil authorities can fail in various ways. Civil authorities should be regarded as failures when they fail to punish evil, refusing to bear the sword of God’s wrath against those who do wrong. Likewise, civil authorities are failures to their God-given duties when they enforce evil standards, punish the innocent, or use different standards in order to punish who they please.

Now, does this passage mean that Christians cannot ever resist wicked laws or tyrannical rulers? No, it does not, and we have dozens of biblical examples of those who did just that and were commended by God for it. Paul is providing a description of government as it ought to function. This passage is prescriptive rather than being descriptive (certainly, the Roman Empire could not be described as being a faithful servant of God, enacting justice in obedience to God). This passage provides us with the standards that God has for government and bids Christians to submit to the proper administration of justice. We are, first and foremost, the servants of God who desire to submit to his will, which means we should have no trouble in submitting to righteous law. Likewise, civil authorities are supposed to enact justice for the very same reason—they are also the ordained servants of God.

If the state commands us to do something that disobeys God, we cannot submit. The state has no authority to command disobedience to God because the state is itself established according to God’s own authority (for examples of civil disobedience, see Daniel 3 and 6, Acts 5, etc.).

Where we have influence in the political process, Christians must seek to see biblical standards of justice established in the land, reminding political leaders that they are the servants of God.

1 Samuel 8:10-18

10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. 11 He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. 12 And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. 15 He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. 17 He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. 18 And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

In this critical period of Israel’s history, God’s people demanded that they should be ruled by a king “like all the nations” (1 Sam. 8:5). Rather than being governed by God directly, through the mouth of the prophets and guidance from the scriptures, God’s people desired to conform their government to the world’s practices. God grants them this request, but in this passage Samuel provides God’s warning for what their tyrannical kings will do. What we see might be somewhat shocking when we consider the practices of our own government today.

In order to establish control, tyrants undertake various methods to establish dominance over their constituents. Tyrants act to economically deplete their own constituents, both through overtaxation and conscription. Samuel says that tyrants will demand ten percent of their income. This is an equal sum to God’s own demand of a ten percent tithe (Lev. 27:30, Deut. 14:24, 2 Chron. 31:5). That is, tyrants are idolatrous—they demand equal tribute to God himself.

Likewise, the tyrant robs families of both their sons and daughters, sending sons to fight in wars of conquest and personal gain, and taking daughters for household servants (and we have many historical examples, including disobedient kings in Israel, of taking hundreds of women as wives and concubines).

Tyrants also establish administrative control through the appointment of corrupt leaders. The tyrant’s commanders will be family members, friends, compromised lackeys, and ‘yes’ men sycophants. If key positions of government are filled with corrupt appointees, there remains little recourse to oppose a tyrant’s wickedness, particularly if the people are being simultaneously depleted of resources.

When we consider God’s standards for rulers and the actions of tyrants, the contrast is clear. Godly rulers will not treat their citizens as a cash cow, depleting their income through overtaxation or inflationary policies. Godly rulers will seek to spend money in a judicious manner, funding only those activities that God has commanded them to undertake (establishing justice, national defense, etc), rather than using tax funds to enrich themselves or their friends particularly. Godly rulers will appoint capable officials, cabinet secretaries, and judges, rather than filling these positions with corrupt allies. Godly rulers will undertake actions that preserve the ability of their constituents to build families and lead productive lives, free from incursion by violence or government overreach.

Godly rulers will undertake actions that preserve the ability of their constituents to build families and lead productive lives, free from incursion by violence or government overreach.

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Exodus 1:8-21

8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.
15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families.

The Exodus account is a foundational story for God’s people and it shows us a quintessential tyrant. At the conclusion of Genesis, Joseph had been elevated to the right hand of Pharaoh and, because Joseph was faithful to God, his wisdom allowed Egypt to flourish in the midst of the great famine that was coming. Even the household of Pharaoh and his chief priests and advisors came to acknowledge that Joseph had the Spirit of God with him (Gen. 41:38). But afterward, there came a forgetful king who did not know Joseph and cared nothing for peace.

As discussed in relation to 1 Sam. 8, tyrants seek to deplete a people’s resources, conscript them, and destroy their ability to have children. Because God had blessed his people, they were fruitful and multiplied, so Pharaoh took them as slaves and drove them to build cities, growing more vicious over time. Finally, he sought to have all the male children killed, attempting to cull the next generation. In order to weaken a people, you must deplete them of personal resources, force them to work for the benefit of the tyrant, and find ways to remove their children from the equation.

This passage also shows us one of the key examples of civil disobedience. The midwives refuse to obey Pharaoh’s command to kill the children because the feared God more. As believers we are required to obey God above all other authorities. We must submit to lawful commands because God expects that, but we must not submit to evil and unlawful commands that disobey God.

Patterns emerge when we observe the biblical tyrants. The scriptures say that all who hate God and his wisdom love death (Prov. 8:36). God bids people to marry and be fruitful. Unsurprisingly, those who love death seek to target the family and children particularly. Anti-marriage, anti-family, pro-abortion, pro-IVF, pro-surrogacy, LGBTQ+ ideology, along with many other modern examples we could consider, directly target and harm children. While what we are experiencing is not the same direct assault against children and families as in Exodus, there is little practical difference if people are convinced to do that killing, sterilizing, or maiming themselves. The same goal is achieved. Consider the staggering fact that it is estimated around one-third of children who would have been counted as millennials were aborted. “Pharaoh” doesn’t need to have babies drowned, if we’re doing the drowning ourselves.

Christians should approach our civic life with the recognition that the establishment and development of flourishing, fruitful, natural families is God’s primary design for human society. First, we must understand that all education is discipleship at its most basic level. Our children were given to us by God to raise into faithful Christian adults—he did not give the education of our children to unbelieving government employees in poorly performing government schools. Christians must take responsibility for the education of their children and work to establish counter-educational institutions and resources in order to assist Christian families in succeeding in this task.   

Christians should approach our civic life with the recognition that the establishment and development of flourishing, fruitful, natural families is God's primary design for human society.

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With regard to our political options, Christians should oppose any policy that endangers the basic norm of heterosexual marriage, which should be our societal ideal and legal standard, including in the case of fostering and adoption. Men and women are not interchangeable. We should oppose any acceptance of the transgender conception of sex and gender, as if those concepts are malleable and subjective, and uphold the natural, biblical definition of men as male and women as female, each in God’s image. But we must go further because these differences are not arbitrary, but directly relate to God’s purpose and design for each of us as men and women. God designed children to be born and raised by their nature mother and father, which forms the basic unit of all society. Children thrive in these circumstances above all others, and no other circumstances should be promoted for this reason. Christians must oppose policies that weaken the stability of nuclear families. Christians must oppose the willful destruction of children, whether with abortion or during IVF. Christians must oppose the commodification of babies as products to be bought or sold, or women’s bodies and wombs as rentable for the production of sellable babies.

Christians should support whichever candidate has a greater understanding of these basic principles and will more likely promote a culture of life.

Isaiah 10:1-6, 12, 15

1 Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, 
    and the writers who keep writing oppression,
 2 to turn aside the needy from justice 
    and to rob the poor of my people of their right, 
that widows may be their spoil,
     and that they may make the fatherless their prey! 
3 What will you do on the day of punishment, 
    in the ruin that will come from afar? 
To whom will you flee for help,
     and where will you leave your wealth? 
4 Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners 
    or fall among the slain. For all this his anger has not turned away, 
    and his hand is stretched out still.
5 Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger;
     the staff in their hands is my fury! 
6 Against a godless nation I send him, 
   and against the people of my wrath I command him,
 to take spoil and seize plunder, 
    and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. 
12 When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria and the boastful look in his eyes.
13 For he says: “By the strength of my hand I have done it, 
   and by my wisdom, for I have understanding…”
15 [But s]hall the axe boast over him who cuts with it, 
    or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?

Here is a fascinating passage in which God grants us a glimpse behind the curtain of heaven, to see how he is moving the kings of the earth as pieces on a chess a board to accomplish his purposes.

In the first portion, we see an indictment against God’s own people. God’s people had turned aside from faithfulness to God’s law and perverted justice. They command “iniquitous decrees” and their legislators are “writers who keep writing oppression.” Their policies are extractive—they “rob the poor of my people of their right” and make “widows… their spoil [and] the fatherless their prey.” But, though they have climbed to the summit of human achievement and wealth through their corruption, God warns them, “What will you do on the day of punishment, in the ruin that will come from afar?” In order to punish his people for their evil, God had determined to raise up Assyria, a foreign power, to batter Jerusalem and plunder its people and goods. The wicked rulers of God’s people would not escape, nor would their wealth. They were going to “crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain.” A warning we must all remember: our lives are a gift given by God and we live according to his mercy. All the wealth and power of the world cannot hold back his hand against us should he decide to act.

Even further, however, this passage shows us an interesting twist with regard to Assyria. Although God would use Assyria as the “rod of my anger,” he vows to punish Assyria once their destruction of Jerusalem is complete because the king of Assyria arrogantly boasted that it was his power alone that granted him victory. God asks the king, “Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it?” The king claims all responsibility for his victory, when it was God who had orchestrated the conquest himself.

From this passage, we can see a few things. First, rulers should take heed lest God choose to chastise them. The law should function to bring genuine, biblical justice to the innocent and protect the people from harm. In our own nation, we can think of many modern examples that parallel God’s indictments here. Consider Social Security mismanagement alongside ever-increasing property taxes. The government taxes your income throughout your life, leaving you with less immediate resources throughout the course of life, to then provide you a monthly stipend worth much less than what you would have received if you had personally invested that money yourself. The result is that, with inflation and increasing property taxes, many elderly individuals will lose the homes they raised their children in because they can’t afford their taxes due to their limited Social Security income. These are the sort of iniquitous decrees the deprive the poor of their rights—mandatory government Ponzi schemes and the unjust seizure of property in response to the problem the government created, all to the economic benefit of those exploiting the system.

But this passage makes clear that God will eventually act. Even if all the courts of the land are unjust and no one considers the plight of the widow or the fatherless, God sees their suffering and hears their cries. From Abel onward, innocent blood that is shed on the land cries out to a God who listens. And God is sovereign over all the political powers of the world.

Where Christians have influence, we must work to see true justice enacted because we know that God can and will bring justice against those who do evil. God instituted government for the sake of their people and to establish legal justice that protects the innocent; God did not create people for the purpose of being robbed by extortionist, incompetent governments.

Even if all the courts of the land are unjust and no one considers the plight of the widow or the fatherless, God sees their suffering and hears their cries. From Abel onward, innocent blood that is shed on the land cries out to a God who listens.

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Isaiah 59:3-10

3 For your hands are defiled with blood 
    and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies;
     your tongue mutters wickedness.
 4 No one enters suit justly;
     no one goes to law honestly; 
they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, 
    they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity.
 6 Their works are works of iniquity, 
    and deeds of violence are in their hands.
 7 Their feet run to evil,
     and they are swift to shed innocent blood;
 their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity;
     desolation and destruction are in their highways. 
8 The way of peace they do not know, 
    and there is no justice in their paths;
 they have made their roads crooked;
     no one who treads on them knows peace.
9 Therefore justice is far from us, 
    and righteousness does not overtake us; 
we hope for light, and behold, darkness, 
    and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. 
10 We grope for the wall like the blind; 
    we grope like those who have no eyes; 
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
     among those in full vigor we are like dead men.

This particular passage is useful because is describes what happens to a people who reject the Lord, particularly with regard to their ability to reason. It is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of the Lord is the hatred of evil (Prov. 8:13, 9:10). If leaders and a people reject the Lord and embrace evil, they ultimately become dominated by foolishness. Theologians refer to this as the noetic (the intellectual) effects of sin—in simple terms, sin makes you stupid.

Today, most who seek to reject religion, spiritual realities, the Bible, or any influence of God, tend to do so because they believe themselves to be enlightened. They know more. They have moved beyond superstitious nonsense. But, of course, God is more real than the world itself—God is the uncreated and self-existent, while the world was fashioned by God’s own hand. Abandoning God may sound lofty and intellectually grand, but it ultimately leads to a kind of insanity: if you deny the basic reality of God and that the world was created intentionally by him, you lose the ability to understand how the world truly works.

The prophet describes when a society turns to sin. People become swift to shed blood. Lies become the common language. The law doesn’t consider real evidence or provide due process to the accused, but instead prosecutes with lies and turns a deaf ear to those being truly oppressed. When all people turn to sin, everything that is straight becomes crooked. Up becomes down, down becomes up. Confusion is God’s judgment for people who abandon justice according to biblical standards.

The reason it may seem like things are going crazy today is because things are going crazy today. We are witnessing this passage before our eyes, “[W]e hope for light, and behold, darkness… We grope for the wall like the blind; we grope like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as [if] in twilight.” It’s the reason we see such insanity coming from elite academic institutions (institutions, of course, which were all once Christian). We are a people at war with the nature of reality. We imagine ourselves to be gods and find ourselves frustrated by the world God actually created. And the more we war against God and his world, the more confused we become.

When a Supreme Court justice is lauded for being a black woman, but says she cannot define “woman” because she isn’t a biologist, this is evidence of God’s judgment. Perhaps even more so when we also all know that Kentanji Brown-Jackson knows perfectly well what a woman is, but simply could not bring herself to speak honestly because doing so would have negative political ramifications.

Christians, as those who have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), are the only truly sane people. We are the only people who have the ability to understand the world as it truly is, because we are the only people who have a direct, covenant relationship with the God who created it. We must seek to promote truth in the midst of the chaos of confusion. We must seek to establish order amid the cacophony of foolishness.

Daniel 2:36-41, 44-47

36 “This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king. 37 Your Majesty, you are the king of kings. The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory; 38 in your hands he has placed all mankind and the beasts of the field and the birds in the sky. Wherever they live, he has made you ruler over them all. You are that head of gold.

39 “After you, another kingdom will arise, inferior to yours. Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth. 40 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron—for iron breaks and smashes everything—and as iron breaks things to pieces, so it will crush and break all the others. 41 Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay.

44 “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. 45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.

“The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”

46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. 47 The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.”

The book of Daniel is uniquely pertinent to the topic of tyranny and righteous authority. This particular passage in chapter 2 details Daniel’s interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon’s dream. Daniel interprets the dream as referring to four empires that would arise, with Babylon being the first. Although God had granted Nebuchadnezzar great authority over all peoples and would grant that same authority to emperors long after him, there was coming a time not long ahead in which God’s own kingdom would be established in the midst of the world, and it would dash all the great empires to pieces.

This is a critical detail that modern Christians must not fail to grasp. The coming of the kingdom of God is not a purely spiritual reality, if we think of spiritual to mean a heavenly, ethereal, disconnected from the reality of every day, earthly life. The coming of the kingdom of God means that the very real, flesh-and-blood tyrants of the world will come crashing down from their thrones. The coming of the kingdom of God means that all the powers, forces, and manifestations of sin and evil will be overturned and corrected—the crooked ways even being made straight.

The coming of the kingdom of God is not a purely spiritual reality, if we think of spiritual to mean disconnected from every day, earthly life. The coming of the kingdom of God means that the very real, flesh-and-blood tyrants of the world will come crashing down from their thrones.

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In the heart of history with the coming of Christ, the God of heaven has established his never ending kingdom, of which every Christian has been made a citizen. Our churches are embassies of the Empire of Christ and we are ambassadors and priests in his service (2 Cor. 5, 1 Pet. 2). The church is more like a counter-nation than it is a club. We, as Christ’s people, live together according to the ways of the God of heaven. We exist as an earthly manifestation of the coming New Jerusalem (Rev. 20-21). Which means, in a world which hates God and seeks to throw off obedience to him, the Church naturally exists as a counterinsurgency living at the heart of the world’s kingdoms. We will be the best citizens anyone might hope for, yet our proclamation remains that Jesus, and no one else, is Lord. Because we can never acknowledge the ultimate authority of any other Lord, we will always face brutal opposition even though we may be as mild as lambs.

As we approach the political process, we need to remember this image. The empires and kingdoms of this world are going to all be defeated by the never ending kingdom of the Lord. We participate in that work through our faithfulness in life, in our work, in our families, by building businesses and institutions, through our gathered worship and our efforts to preach the gospel. As we have the opportunity to engage in the political process through voting, we should seek to secure the protections of our neighbors from evil and the establishment of justice against those who seek to harm them, recognizing God’s standards as our model.

John 19:1-16

1 Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. 2 And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. 3 They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. 4 Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” 5 So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” 6 When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” 7 The Jews[a] answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” 8 When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. 9 He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10 So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” 11 Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”
12 From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” 13 So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. 14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” 15 They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” 16 So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

Revelation 21:8 includes cowards among those who will face judgment in hell and Pontius Pilate may be one of the clearest examples of a coward in all the scripture. Cowardice is more than merely hiding or fleeing out of fear. Fleeing danger is often the wisest course of action. The cowardice in view biblically is the choice to approve of or do evil out of selfish concern. The coward is one who has no spine, who gives himself over to any necessary corruption in order to protect himself. The coward knows what is right and willfully does what is wrong out of selfish concern.

The execution of Jesus was the result of two sham trials. First, the leaders of Israel convicted him of blasphemy and sentenced him to die, using false witnesses to justify it. Then, knowing that Pilate would face the judgment of Caesar if he did not maintain the peace, they goaded Pilate into going along by exploiting his fears. Because they had feared losing their influence, the leaders of Israel proclaimed that Caesar, not Jesus, is their Lord; the true blasphemy. Despite determining himself that Jesus did not warrant death, nevertheless Pilate handed Jesus over for execution.

Fear is one of the greatest tools of manipulation used by the enemies of God. Fear causes people to react, often without thinking. Yet, God’s command, “Do not be afraid,” is repeated more than any other phrase in the Bible. Knowing the truth enables us to stand firm without compromise. Jesus is Lord and God can save us whether we’re in a furnace, thrown to the lions, or he’ll raise us from the dead on the last day—what weapon can harm us, what enemy can overcome us even if they kill us? The gospel makes us the witnesses—the Greek word is martyrs—of Jesus.

But God’s ultimate desire for the world is not that Christians would constantly be killed for their faith, but that justice would be established. While we must be willing to die if necessary, we have the duty to seek to see true justice done in our land. The devil himself is a coward, “Resist [him], and he will flee from you” (Jas. 4:7). When believers—even one—stands firm in the face of evil, God often uses that one act of defiant faithfulness to turn his enemies on their heels. Even tyrants have been known to repent (Dan. 3-4). We should take courage and comfort knowing that no power on earth has any authority that has not been given by God himself. God can raise up and he can lay low. Our goal is to faithfully worship God, live our lives in light of his design for the world and his commandments, and to seek to make the nations obedient disciples of Jesus. If God is for us, none can stand against us.

Christians, of all people, should be joyful warriors, waging spiritual war as the psalmist sang, "Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands" (Psa. 149:6).

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This truth should lead us into a cheery disposition. We must be wise, which means we should be prepared; but we need not give ourselves into frantic anxiety or hopeless nihilism. We, of all people, should be joyful warriors, waging spiritual war as the psalmist sang, “Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands” (Psa. 149:6). Indeed, even Jesus, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is [now] seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2). The victory is secured already—let us rejoice!—and let us fight the good fight.

Psalm 2

1 Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain? 
2 The kings of the earth rise up
     and the rulers band together
     against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
 3 “Let us break their chains
     and throw off their shackles.”
4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs; 
    the Lord scoffs at them. 5 He rebukes them in his anger 
    and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, 
6 “I have installed my king
     on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:
He said to me, “You are my son;
     today I have become your father.
 8 Ask me,  and I will make the nations your inheritance, 
    the ends of the earth your possession. 
9 You will break them with a rod of iron;
     you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
10 Therefore, you kings, be wise; 
    be warned, you rulers of the earth. 
11 Serve the Lord with fear
     and celebrate his rule with trembling. 
12 Kiss his son, or he will be angry
     and your way will lead to your destruction,
 for his wrath can flare up in a moment. 
    Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

The psalms are filled with chapters that deal with God’s rule over all the nations, his intent to redeem the nations and take them into his possession, and the judgment he promises all peoples for continued disobedience (Psalm 9, 46, 82, 86, etc.). Psalm 2 is pivotal for our topic because God directly addresses the civil authorities of the world, issuing a specific command he expect them to obey: Bow to the true Lord, Jesus Christ.

Throughout the course of the old covenant, God was primarily dealing with one nation—Abraham’s family. But, if we recall the ultimate purpose of the Abrahamic covenant, it was in order to bring God’s blessing to all the nations (Gen. 12:1-3). Paul tells us in Galatians 3 that the promise made to Abraham was the coming gospel of Christ and the giving of the Holy Spirit to all who have faith as Abraham did,

And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed’… [so that] in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:8, 14).

God chose to raise up a particular people as his own under the old covenant, but his purpose for doing so was in order to bring redemption to all the peoples of the world in Christ—the one seed of Abraham (Gal. 3:16).

Psalm 2 shows us the state of the world from God’s heavenly vantage point. The nations and rulers of the world rage against God, seeking to cast off his authority and any limitations he would place upon them. The world and its rulers are in high rebellion. But God’s response is mocking laughter. God holds the world’s tyrants in gleeful contempt because he established the rightful king, the very begotten Son of God.

The scriptures tell us that Psalm 2 is a prophecy concerning Christ, indicating that it was fulfilled by the crucifixion of Jesus and his ascension to the right hand of God, enthroned in the heavenly Zion (Acts 4, cf. Heb. 12:22-24, Gal. 4:21-31, Rev. 21). God promised that all the nations of the world would be given to his Son, the very possession of the whole earth. And God warns the world’s rulers that they must serve Jesus with fear and trembling, kissing the Son as a vassal would kiss the ring of their liege, lest he rise up to destroy them. Indeed, God grants Jesus the authority to dash the nations with his rod of iron.

With these passages in mind, we should be filled with great confidence and hope. From our vantage point, things can appear utterly desperate. But God laughs from heaven because he has established the throne of the ascended Jesus, who will bring the nations of the world to heel. But we must also begin to reorient our expectations. The scriptures promise that the kings of the nations will enter in to the new Jerusalem, but one can only gain entrance by faith in Christ (Rev 21:24). If God intends to draw all the nations to worship and obey him (Psalm 22:27, 67:2, 82:8, 86:9, etc.) and establish justice from coast to coast (Isa. 42:1-4), this will only occur as the gospel goes forth.

Our mission is nothing short of conquering the whole world with the message of Jesus, but we must take heart—Jesus has all authority in both heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18-20).

Our mission is nothing short of conquering the whole world with the message of Jesus, but we must take heart—Jesus has all authority in both heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18-20).

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Psalm 110

1 The Lord says to my Lord:
     “Sit at my right hand,
 until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord sends forth from Zion
     your mighty scepter.
     Rule in the midst of your enemies!
 3 Your people will offer themselves freely
     on the day of your power,
     in holy garments;
 from the womb of the morning,
     the dew of your youth will be yours.
 4 The Lord has sworn
     and will not change his mind,
 “You are a priest forever
     after the order of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
     he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
 6 He will execute judgment among the nations,
     filling them with corpses;
 he will shatter chiefs
     over the wide earth.
 7 He will drink from the brook by the way;
     therefore he will lift up his head.

 A recurring theme throughout the Psalms and prophets is the theme of progressive expansion of the kingdom of God throughout the world. This runs directly counter to the expectations of most evangelicals in America because we swim in the waters of premillennial dispensationalism—an end times view which believes the kingdom has not yet come to earth and will do so all at once. As Douglas Wilson once quipped, the premillennial view is that the kingdom is coming in like the 82nd Airborne Division. But the biblical language used to describe the nature of the kingdom is that the Lord’s dominion spreads throughout the earth over time.

Isaiah says that when David’s son becomes king, “of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end” (Isa. 9:7). The anointed messiah will “establish justice in the earth,” but we are told he “will not grow faint or be discouraged” until he has accomplished that task (Isa. 42:4). Or as Psalm 2 describes, the reign of the Son begins prior to the time the kings of the earth actually acknowledge his authority. All these examples indicate that the kingdom is established, but then expands progressively over time. As Jesus himself said, the kingdom is like leaven added to flour, which eventually leavens the whole dough (Matt. 13:33).

Psalm 110 gives us a slightly different perspective than that of Psalm 2, in which the active rule of Jesus is described. The passage begins with Jesus’ coronation at the right hand of God, in which the Father says to Jesus, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” This passage is regularly quoted by the apostles with reference to Christ’s present reign in heaven (Acts 2:34-36; Heb. 1:13, 10:12-13; 1 Cor. 15:25). Christ’s reign is not from Jerusalem below, but from the heavenly Zion (Heb. 12:22-24, Gal. 4:21-31, Rev. 21). This passage also fits the expectation that the reign of Christ will increase over time. Christ rules “in the midst of [his] enemies.” With his rod of iron Jesus strikes forth and shatters kings, as he did when he killed Herod for allowing the people to blaspheme (Acts 12:21-23).

It is significant that we see the connection between the role of king and priest, but it fits the full scope of the narrative of scripture. Adam was created both for the purpose of having dominion over the earth (king) and for the purpose of tending and guarding the garden sanctuary (priestly). Adam was both king and high priest and his central failure was in refusing to expel the serpent from God’s holy sanctuary. God’s priests are never called to be pacifists—the tribe of Levi was chosen to be the priests of God because they were willing to take up sword and immediately put to death all those who bowed to golden calf (Ex. 32, Num. 3).

Christ, the eternal priest-king, has inaugurated his kingdom by his death and resurrection, and is establishing the reign of God throughout all the earth.

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In Psalm 110, we see Jesus himself take up the role as the eternal priest-king. Although in Adam the world has fallen into the deepest darkness, Christ has inaugurated his kingdom through his death and resurrection, and he is establishing justice and the reign of God throughout all the earth. And he will sit at the right hand of God until all his enemies are bowing before him.

Acts 5:27-42

27 And when [the captain of the temple] had brought [the apostles], they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, 28 saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” 29 But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men. 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. 32 And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

33 When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. 34 But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. 35 And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. 36 For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. 37 After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. 38 So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice, 40 and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. 42 And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

There is a principle in this passage that we see in many examples of scripture and history. Tyrants seek to exercise centralized control that allows them to enforce a particular worldview upon their subjects which places the governing authorities in the place of God. From the garden on, the spiritual war has always been a war over dominion. Tyrants can tolerate no rivals, including God himself. It’s for this reason that the Romans began killing Christians during the first century—not because they worshipped Jesus, but because the Christians refused to make sacrifices to Caesar because Jesus, not Caesar, was their Lord.

This is why, despite the fact that Christians are peaceable, tyrannical rulers will always seek to limit, discourage, or even eliminate the influence of Christianity in their midst. The central proclamation of the Church is Jesus Christ is Lord. This means that no one else is Lord in the ultimate sense, even if they may be an emperor on earth. The gospel we proclaim—the good news that Jesus came to deliver—is the good news that the eternal kingdom has been inaugurated because Christ has atoned for sin, defeated death, and cast Satan down (Luke 4:43, John 12:31-33). As Paul said, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere [even Caesar!] to repent” (Acts 17:30).

In the early decades after Jesus’ ascension, however, the primary persecutors of the Church were the leaders in Israel (Acts 4-8, 12-13, etc.). You can imagine that fear of the priests and leaders of Israel as the gospel began to spread throughout Jerusalem, with thousands becoming Christians within a few short months of Jesus’ crucifixion. They had conspired to kill Jesus in the hopes of eliminating his influence, but the unthinkable had occurred—God raised Jesus from the dead, proving beyond any doubt that Christ is the Lord. Their best efforts in stopping the purposes of God were the very cause of their own downfall.

Christians must remember the central importance of the proclamation that Jesus is Lord. We should not kid ourselves in assuming that secularism or pluralism will not ultimately seek to destroy us as well. We proclaim that Jesus is Lord, to whom all honor, obedience, and allegiance is owed. This message will never be palatable to the world, which always seeks to supplant God’s authority. It also means that political movements that neglect to recognize Christ will always be woefully insufficient in bringing true justice. But, despite the difficulties and sure possibility of future persecution, we must take heart. What began as a small handful of disciples in Jerusalem has become 2.5 billion Christians today, despite every effort to stamp out the preaching of Jesus’ name. As Gamaliel said, “ [If] this undertaken is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!”

What began as a small handful of disciples in Jerusalem has become 2.5 billion Christians today, despite every effort to stamp out the preaching of Jesus' name.

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