Declaration of Independence Chafes King George for Replacing God's Law with Man's Law



Posted: Wednesday, December 22, 2010

by Randy Pope
Modest Clothing Distributors

Of all of the scriptural principles for civil government, the one principle that is repeated over and over throughout the Biblical record is the importance of choosing Godly men to lead. Deuteronomy 1:13-17 underscores this principle. The passage then goes on to punctuate the principle of ruling with the purpose to judge with a righteous judgment.

In verse 17 it is stated that, “the judgment is God's.” The note of the reformers in the 1599 Geneva Bible says, “and you are his lieutenants.” This one phrase accentuates an important, and unfortunately a controversial issue within Christendom. There is no question that the context of this passage is concerning civil judgments among the people of Israel. Concerning these judgments Moses writes that, “the judgment is God's.” The reformers then attempt to clarify this further, as if it needs further clarification, essentially saying that the judge is under the authority of God in the matter of judgment.

The greatest problems with this is not necessarily the understanding of the simple phrase. As is pointed out earlier, this phrase is very straightforward. The first problem with this statement is the tendency in much of the Evangelical church to discount the Old Testament. This is called anti-nomianism, and is prevalent among churches today. The adherents to anti-nomianism never even read this straightforward statement, because after Exodus they skip to the prophecies in the Old Testament. They have eliminated the Old Testament law from scripture. Concerning this problem it only need be said that it is a dangerous and arrogant thing for man to disregard portions of God's revelation.

The second problem surrounding this statement is an understanding of how to determine God's judgments. Much of the evangelical church relies on an inner leading of the Spirit to determine God's judgments. Although scripture speaks of following the Spirit, this can be dangerous if you have discounted the only anchor that grounds you in truth. All kinds of laws of men have replaced the laws of God because of this phenomenon. This smacks of a “Christian relativism” if there is such a thing. In fact that is an oxymoron. Truth can only be Christian or relative, not both. It would be accurate to say that this doctrine has lead Christians into the realm of relativism, which is not Christian at all.

If God's word, and all of God's word, is the Christian's guidebook to all of life, Moses' statement in Deuteronomy is clear. “The judgment is God's” can only mean that the civil magistrate must govern based on Biblical law and punishment. If he is not he has taken himself out from under the authority of Christ. This has resulted in a plethora of evil laws, and a drought of good laws. The founding fathers accepted this view of law, and listed grievances against the King, concerning his inclination to replace God's laws with his own, in the Declaration of Independence. This is further evidence of the Christian character of the Declaration of Independence.
Randy Pope is the founder of Modest Clothing Distributors, which is a distributor of quality Modest Clothing for women and girls. Clothing that is difficult to find in your common department stores. We wish to make modest clothing more available in the mainstream marketplace. we wish to affect the culture with the beauty of modesty. You can find us at www.modestclothingdistributors.com.

You may read Randy Pope on other topics at www.ChristianWorldviewofHistoryandCulture.com.

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