The Freedom of God’s Monarchy
Theocracy is the latest scare word among society today. It sparks a bigger negative reaction than “jihad” and “terrorist” and has become associated with those same words. When those few (and I do mean few) Christians who dare utter that same word in association with their political theory, then they become “Christian terrorists” on the same level of rhetoric as those who bring down buildings and blow up buses and malls.
One could contend that the West cannot hope to prevail against the Moslem threat unless they recognize that what is currently underway is a war of theocracies: that of the Christian God and that of Mohammed. Yet the West finds little strength or comfort in this. In our current culture, the word “theocracy”, be it Christian or otherwise, involves a suppression of freedoms and an enforcement of brutality and tyranny. For example, this attitude is aptly expressed in the following letter:
If we suddenly followed the “word of God” to the letter, our nation would quickly become consumed with the stench of rotting and burning flesh pleasing to the Lord. Anyone who is guilty of homosexuality would be put to death (Leviticus 20:13), but the orders to kill would not stop there. Anyone who curses his father or mother, anyone who commits adultery, any man who sleeps with his daughter-in-law, anyone who has sexual relations with an animal (Leviticus 20:9-16), any man who claims his new wife is not a virgin but is proven wrong (Deuteronomy 22:20), rebellious children including drunkards (Dt 21:19-20), kidnappers (Dt 24:7), those who worship other gods (Dt 17) and any man who sleeps with a woman who is committed to be married to another man would all be put to death either by stoning or by fire.
So God’ Monarchy is a place of rules and death for disobeying those rules. In fact, many rather obscure laws are often brought up to illustrate the supposed brutality of God’s Laws. Sometimes in their zeal, those who make this assertion end up making some rather obvious mistakes. For example, the “man who claims his new wife is not a virgin but is proven wrong” is not executed but is forced to marry her forever without a provision of divorce. Also with a punishment of death by stoning (haven’t found the fire reference yet) for rape—the context of the “sleeping with” passages mentioned above—just might cut down on the occurrence of that act.
Yet the overall effect of the coming of the Kingdom in the Scriptures was not tyranny or suppression or terror but freedom. By citing Isaiah in the synagogue in Nazareth (Lk 4:16-19), Jesus linked the coming of God’s Kingdom with a time of freedom, both spiritual, physical, and especially political. According to Clarke :
This is found in Isaiah 61:1; but our Lord immediately adds to it Isaiah 42:7. The proclaiming of liberty to the captives, and the acceptable year (or year of acceptance) of the Lord, is a manifest allusion to the proclaiming of the year of jubilee by sound of trumpet…This was a year of general release of debts and obligations; of bond-men and women; of lands and possessions, which had been sold from the families and tribes to which they belonged.
The Jubilee celebration in Israel when debts were forgiven, slaves set free, family lands restored, and the land set free to rest while a full year celebration ensued (Lev 25:10-13). This “vacation” was after a previous Sabbath cycle which would have happened in the 49th year (the seventh in a seven year cycle). As such, the Jubilee was a year of liberation offered after a year of rest. It was not a time for the killjoy, but for the partier; something Jesus embodied as much as he proclaimed.
The freedom offered under God’s monarchy/kingdom/theocracy has been lost in much of history; however, it was not lost on at least one author: Jacques Ellul. In his thin, but monumental volume, Anarchy and Christianity, Ellul declares the following:
[T]he Biblical God is above all the Liberator…The Jews regard Exodus as the basic book. They primarily see in God not the universal Creator but their Liberator. The statement is impressive: “I have liberated you from Egypt, the house of bondage” (cf. Exodus 13:14; 20:2). In Hebrew, Egypt is called Mitsraim, and the meaning of this term is “twofold anguish,” which the rabbis explain as the anguish of living and the anguish of dying. The biblical God is above all the one who liberates us from all bondage, from the anguish of living and the anguish of dying. Each time he intervenes it is to give us again the air of freedom. (Pgs 38-39)
And even closer to the point:
[T]he more I studied and the more I understood seriously the biblical message in its entirety (and not simply the “gentle” gospel of Jesus), the more I came to see impossible it is to give simple obedience to the state and how there is in the Bible the orientation to a certain anarchism. (pg. 3)
Though Ellul may overstate his case, there is no question his error is on the correct side of the fence. God’s monarchy—the theocracy—may not be totally describable as anarchy, but it certainly comes the closest to it in terms of political theory. Due to Christ’s proclamation that God was once again taking over Kingship of his domain, human kings no longer have their authority. All of their former authority has been given over to God’s right hand man, Jesus. Therefore, men in a Christian theocracy should be characterized by freedom and liberation rather than oppressions under minute rules and regulations. They are free to pursue life, both for themselves and others. Mercy (or generosity) takes the place of sacrifice. God no longer bow before angels, and therefore even less to human powers and principalities.
To alter the common saying in the Book of Judges in the Old Testament, “There is no king on the Earth, all men are to do what is pleasing in the King in Heaven’s eyes.”