The Covenant Structure in Judging 3

The outline of Judging's Covenant Structure should appear like this:

1. Transcendence/Sovereignty - Jurisdiction, limited for man, unlimited for God.

2. Delegated Authority/Hierarchy - The human courts and the judges, lawfully delegated the authority to make judgments, the goal of which are to apply God's judgment, not man's.

3. Law - Law, but only God's law or law based on the equities of God's law.

4. Sanctions - Sentences/Judgments, if applied lawfully to those committing unrighteous acts.

5. Inheritance/Continuity - the taking of life can affect a man's inheritance.

The jurisdiction question encompasses the boundaries of other kingdoms, like the Church. The Church is not just a club of people with similar beliefs; it's the organization established by Christ, who after his death, resurrection, and ascension to the right hand of God became ruler of all. Thus the Church is God's established embassy on earth. Like any earthly kingdom, the Church is off-limits, not subject to the jurisdiction of the civil government. The two governments - the Church and the Civil Government - are equal in power but different in function.

The Church holds the keys of the Kingdom of God and can dispense forgiveness and excommunicate the unrepentant. The civil government holds the power of the sword and can exercise coercion to force compliance with God's law. It can even execute certain offenders.

However, the secular world ignores these facts and calls the Church just another religion, another opinion with no authority, not claim on mankind, no jurisdiction beyond the four walls of the church building. The separation of church and state does not require officials to deny there is a God who judges the universe. Because the ruling, intellectual elite in the legal community construe religion as some “opiate of the masses,” they do not see religion as anything but a personal predilection that receives constitutional protection, sort of like how they view the protection that sexual orientation should receive. They do not see that the First Amendment honors the fact that God exists and that His realm, the Church, must have a sphere that is not trespassed upon by the state. The “reasonable” legal minds have, therefore, narrowed what the First Amendment is all about in order to prevent anyone from appealing to the God of Heaven for relief from unjust human rulings.

There are significant implications for this type of “reasonable” thinking. First, the protection of the young, the weak, the vulnerable is abandoned to the seductions of the predator, as in the case of homosexuality, and the whim of the more powerful, as in the case of abortion. Second, there is no limit to what is allowable. Mock all day those who predict the acceptance of sexual acts more heinous than homosexuality and the incorporation of all forms of relationships into the category of marriage, if the U.S. Supreme Court rules for the perverting of the definition of marriage. Such consequences are simply the logical follow-on for the abandonment of the traditional definition.

Third, the failure to protect the righteous will logically follow the failure to punish the wicked. Equality means no judgment on those who differ, even if that difference is a moral defiance of God's law. The god "humanity" must not be blasphemed. If a human being chooses a lifestyle, all must accept it. To condemn those who choose something because it violates another god's law is to defect from the "true" religion. Thus equality is fundamental to all of Humanism.

The acceptance of evil behavior by the civil government logically means that all those working for the civil government will have to engage in the systematic persecution of the righteous. They will be hounded from the workplace, they will be demonized as bigots on the level of the KKK, and they will be penalized for not participating and celebrating in the new “equality.” Consider the verse in Hebrews 11 that speaks of those who stood up for righteousness in the bible, those “of whom the world was not worthy.” They were cast out of society because the society of the time was unfit for the presence of those who stood with the Lord.

In other words, the sanction against evil, the fourth element of the covenant, which the civil authority is supposed to apply to the wicked gets applied to the righteous. The civil institution turns the power of the sword against the righteous instead of the wicked. It cannot be otherwise. To favor one segment of the society, which is the enemy of the other, is to become allied with that enemy. The civil government either attacks the wicked, or it attacks the righteous. It becomes an agent for evil instead of an agent for good.