The above title may seem like strong words, for surely that can't be correct? Jesus an anarchist? One must be joking, right?
But you read
correctly, and I will demonstrate exactly that. At this point you may
be incredulous, but I assure you that I am quite serious. If you are a
Christian and find the above title at all hard to believe then you of
all people owe it to yourself to find out what the basis of this charge
is, for if the above comes as news to you then you still have much to
learn about Jesus and about the most vitally important struggle which
has plagued mankind since the dawn of history: mankind's continuing
struggle between freedom and slavery, between value producers and the
violent parasitical elite, between peace and war, between truth and
deception. This is the central struggle which defines mankind's history
and, sadly, continues to do so. As Christians and as people in general,
what we choose to believe and accept as the truth is equally as vitally
important, for ultimately it is people's beliefs about the world that
will shape and determine what outcomes transpire in the world. If the
mass of people believe in political falsehoods and deceptions then
mankind will continue to repeat the same gruesome mistakes, as it does
presently, and the aforementioned struggle will continue to be no closer
to a desirable resolution. Genuine change must first come by changing
one's mind, and if what one had believed before was in error then one
cannot expect good results to proceed forth from it. And all change
starts with the individual. You can help change the world by simply
changing your mind. All I ask of you is to believe in the truth--know
the truth and the truth will make you free (John 8:32).
It is the
purpose of this document to demonstrate the above claim, and if you are a
Christian then I submit that it should be your task to honestly
consider what is presented here, for if the above claim comes as a
surprise then I will show that what you thought you knew about Jesus was
not the whole story: Jesus is far more radical than many would have you
believe, and for good reason--it threatens the status quo. For the
consequence of this truth becoming understood and accepted by even
one-tenth of the population would be quite dramatic indeed: governments
would topple like so many dominoes. For as the 16th century Frenchman
Étienne de la Boétie observed in The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude (http://www.blancmange.net/ tmh/articles/laboetie.html),
all governments ultimately rest on the consent of the governed, even
totalitarian dictatorships. Now this "consent" does not have to be in
the form of active promotion and support of the State, it could simply
be in the form of hopeless resignation, such as accepting the canard
"nothing's as sure as death and taxes." All governments can only exist
because the majority--in one form or another--accept them as at least
being inevitable. They believe in the deception that even though
government may be evil that it is nevertheless a necessary evil, and
therefore cannot conceive of a better alternative. But if such were true
then Jesus Christ's whole message is a fallacy. But such is not the
truth, there is an alternative: liberty. And I will show that Jesus has
called us to liberty, and that liberty and Christ's message are
incompatible with government.
You may
wonder where I got the one-tenth figure from in the above if all
governments require the acceptance of their rule by the majority of
their population. Again, the reason is because this acceptance doesn't
have to be active support but merely resigned, as it usually is. If just
one-tenth of the population strongly believed that government was
itself the greatest moral evil and that there was a better alternative
it would be enough to turn the tide. Since most people are followers and
uncritically accept the reigning political opinions, those who do not
accept the status quo and who are able to form and articulate a critical
alternative will come to be the intellectual leaders by default when
the popular regime suffers a crisis and people begin to look for
alternatives. If the history of governments teach us anything it is that
such crisis is a regular occurrence, for governments by their nature
tend toward instability. If it be asked Why then do we still have
government?, it is here answered that it is because no viable
alternative to government has been articulated by a critical mass at
such a crisis, in that most people throughout history have accepted the
deception that government is a necessary evil and could not conceive a
better alternative.
Now I will
articulate that better alternative, the one that Christ commanded us. I
will show that Jesus and His message are necessarily anarchistic. And
what better place to start than in the beginning?:
Jesus's
Very Life Began in an Act of Defiance to Government (And Would Later
End in Defiance to Government)
If it were
not for Joseph and Mary's intentional act of defying that which they
knew to be king Herod the Great's will and escaping with baby Jesus from
out of Herod's mid as fugitives to the land of Egypt then Jesus would
have been mercilessly killed and needless to say His ministry and the
fulfillment of Scripture would have never come about. Thus in the most
fundamental of regards, there is a great antagonism from the very start
between Jesus and government (to say the least): Jesus was born into the
world as a criminal and would latter be killed as a criminal--a
criminal as so regarded by the government, that is. And what was baby
Jesus's crime? From Matthew 2:1-6 we find the answer:
Now
after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the
king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where
is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in
the East and have come to worship Him." When Herod the king heard this,
he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And when he had gathered
all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he inquired of
them where the Christ was to be born. So they said to him, "In
Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: 'But you,
Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, Are not the least among the rulers of
Judah; For out of you shall come a Ruler Who will shepherd My people
Israel.' " (NKJV, as elsewhere unless noted otherwise.)
So here we
learn that Herod became troubled at the thought that there might be
someone else that people would come to regard as their king other than
Herod. Herod regarded Jesus as a threat to his power: was his fear
unjustified? It is my judgement and this document's central thesis that
Herod was correct in his assessment of Jesus as being a threat to his
power--although not just to Herod as an individual but to all that Herod
represents, in a word: government; along with the unholy usurpation,
deception and subjugation of people that it necessarily entails. For as I
will show, Jesus's Kingdom is to be the functional opposite of any
Earth-bound kingdom which has ever existed. And for government, this is
the ultimate crime of which Jesus was guilty, and which required His
extermination.
Here we read of this pivotal act of holy defiance to government, without which there would be no Christ as we know of:
Matthew
2:13-15: Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord
appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and
His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for
Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him." When he arose, he took
the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was
there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called
My Son."
As well, so
enraged was Herod upon learning that the wise men had disobeyed his
order to report back to him on the location of baby Jesus that he
ordered the extermination of all the male children in Bethlehem and the
surrounding areas from age two and younger, all in the hopes that baby
Jesus would be among the slaughtered (Matt. 2:12,16-18). It was only
after king Herod the Great had perished that Joseph brought his family
out of the land of Egypt, and then only to Nazareth as Herod's son
Archelaus was then reigning over Judea (Matt. 2:19-23).
How very considerate indeed Jesus was being when He advised His disciples in Mark 8:15:
Then He charged them, saying, "Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod."
At the time
Jesus offered the above advice He would have been referring to Herod
Antipas. Jesus would later be mocked and ridiculed by Herod Antipas
before finally being put to death as a common criminal by the Roman
government (Luke 23:8-12). In handling the case of Jesus, Herod Antipas
asked Jesus many questions, but Jesus refused to answer any of Herod's
questions (Luke 23:9). Thus, not only did Jesus's very life begin in an
act of holy defiance to government but it would also end in holy
defiance to government. It was also Herod Antipas who beheaded John the
Baptist (Matt. 14:1-12; Mark 6:14-29; Luke 9:7-9).
The story of
Jesus's life can in part be summed up as suffering through this unjust
Satanic world system for having preached the Truth, with government
being chief among the culprits of this Satanic world system. All one has
to do is review the life story of Jesus to plainly see that
government--far from being instituted by God--is and has been a demonic
tool of Satan used to oppress the righteous. And I will demonstrate that
Jesus and the early Church leaders--as recorded the Bible--knew this to
be the case and preached the same. The instrument which Satan used in
an attempt to snuff-out that Truth in an act of deicide was
government--from the beginning of Jesus's life to the very end, it was
government which sought to exterminate this most dangerous threat of all
to its power.
The
Golden Rule Unavoidably Results in Anarchism
Jesus commanded us that in all things we are to treat others as we would want others to treat us. Thus:
Matthew
5:17-18: "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I
did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you,
till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means
pass from the law till all is fulfilled."
Matthew
7:12: [...] "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to
them, for this is the Law and the Prophets." (See also Luke 6:31.)
By saying
that this commandment is "the Law and the Prophets" Jesus is saying that
by following this one commandment that one is thereby fulfilling the
Law of Moses and the principles of the Prophets--in other words Jesus is
saying that it is the be-all and end-all when it comes to the proper
ethic of social relations. This ultimate social ethic which Jesus
commanded everyone to follow is commonly known as the Golden Rule.
But if
indeed Jesus actually meant what He said when He spoke these words--and
He most certainly did--then this alone is more than enough to prove that
Jesus is of necessity an anarchist, and not just any kind of anarchist,
but a libertarian, free-market anarchist in particular.
The reason
this would necessarily have to be the case is because it is impossible
for any actual government to actually abide by the Golden Rule even in
theory, let alone in practice. All governments must of necessity violate
the Golden Rule, otherwise they would not be governments but would be
something else instead.
To
understand why this is unalterably true, one must first have a clear and
precise understanding of just what a "government" is and just what it
is not, i.e., the distinguishing characteristics of Government which
differentiates it from all other things that are not Governments.
(When the
word is used in the sense above) Government (i.e., a State) is that
organization in society which attempts to maintain, and is generally
successful at maintaining, a coercive regional monopoly over ultimate
control of the law (i.e., on the courts and police, etc.)--this is a
feature of all Governments; as well, historically speaking it has always
been the case that it is the only organization in society that legally
obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for
services rendered but by coercion.
It is here
where we find why it is quite impossible for any government to actually
abide by Jesus's ultimate commandment. The reason quite simply is
because all governments do to their subjects what they outlaw their
subjects to do to them. That is, all governments, in order to be a
government, must enforce a coercive monopoly on ultimate control of the
law--this is a necessary feature of all governments. All governments set
up courts and enforce control over ultimate judicial decision, while
outlawing others from engaging in the same practice. Thus, for example,
if a group of people become dissatisfied with the judicial services that
the government is providing and decide to set up shop offering their
own private arbitration and protection services on the market without
seeking the permission of the government to do so then the government
will attack these people and put an end to their competitive judicial
services, and would thereby enforce its monopoly on ultimate control
over the law. If the government failed to enforce its monopoly on
ultimate control over the law then it would cease to be a government,
but would instead become just another private protection agency offering
its services on a competitive market.
The above
scenario leaves out something extremely vital though, as it merely
assumes that this government in question somehow obtains its revenue by
voluntary contribution and not by coercion. Yet all actual governments
throughout history have obtained their revenue not by voluntary
contribution or payment for contracted services but by coercion. Thus
all governments throughout history steal and extort wealth from their
subjects which they call "taxes," yet at the same time governments make
it illegal for their subjects to steal from each other or from the
government. Thus here again in taxes we see that historically all
governments do to their subjects what they outlaw their subjects to do
to them. I say "historically" because while although all governments
throughout history have found it necessary to fund their operations
through theft and extortion, it is not necessarily the case that all
governments in theory must be supported by taxes: one could imagine that
most people in a certain society simply voluntarily donate their money
to fund a government, as unlikely as that possibility is in practice. So
while although a monopoly on ultimate control of the law is a logical
necessity of all governments, taxes are not--taxes have simply been a
practical necessity throughout all of history in order for governments
to function.
And so we
find that all governments must of necessity continuously violate Jesus's
ultimate social commandment even to simply exist. The principle which
all governments are founded upon and follow may properly be termed the
"Luciferian Principle." This logically follows, because to not follow
the Golden Rule is to do the opposite of the Golden Rule: i.e., rather
than doing to others what you would want others to do to you, you would
instead be doing to others what you do not want others to do to
you. Hence, if we may term the Golden Rule the "Christ Principle," or
otherwise the "Christian Principle," then it certainly follows that the
opposite of this principle would properly be termed the "Luciferian
Principle": which is none other than doing to others what you do not want others to do to you.
It is for
this reason that anyone that takes Jesus's ultimate ethical commandment
seriously must of necessity advocate the abolition of all Earthly
governments wherever and whenever they may exist, as governments are
necessarily incompatible with Jesus's ultimate ethical commandment and
diametrically opposed to it. In passing, it's important for me to
distinguish "Earthly governments" from what is sometimes called the
"Kingdom of God" or the "Kingdom of Christ." In the above discussion I
have been analyzing governments as they are operated by men here on
Earth--but as I will show, the "Kingdom" which Christ is to establish on
Earth will be the functional and operational opposite of any kingdom
which has ever existed on Earth before, i.e., it won't actually be a
government in the sense in which I defined above and will in fact be
perfectly consistent with the Golden Rule.
Above I also
stated that Jesus's commandment of the Golden Rule not only proves that
He is an anarchist, but also necessarily a libertarian, or free market,
anarchist to be specific. The reason that this is so is because an
anarchist is simply someone who desires no government to exist: only
this and nothing more. Thus, one could desire no government to exist and
yet still feel that it is alright to, say, slap people upside the head
for no reason. Yet someone who follows the Golden Rule must not do to
others what they do not want others to do to them--this necessarily
means that one must respect the autonomy of other people's person and
their just property: which unavoidably leads to not just anarchism, as
was demonstrated above, but also to the free-market, voluntarist,
libertarian order. The rigorous proof of this is that everyone, by
definition, objects to others aggressing against what they regard as
their own property. If such were not the case then, by definition, such
action would not be an aggression but a voluntary action. But ultimately
all just property titles can be traced back by way of voluntary
transactions (which would thus be consistent with the Golden Rule) to
the homesteading of unused resources; or (2) in the case in which such
resources were expropriated from a just owner and the just owner or his
heir(s) can no longer be identified or are deceased, where the first
non-aggressor possesses the resource (which can then be considered
another form of homesteading). Thus, for anyone to come into possession
of property which either was not homesteaded by themselves or which was
not obtained by a voluntary transaction would thereby be violating the
Golden Rule, for to do so would mean that they are obtaining a good by
involuntary means from another who can trace their possession of the
resource either to direct homesteading or through voluntary transactions
leading back to homesteading (i.e., of either of the two types given
above). Yet, by definition, this aggressor would not want others to take
his property against his will which he had come into possession of by
voluntary means--and surely everyone possesses such property, even if it
is just their own body.
Hence, if
Jesus was serious about the Golden Rule--and He most certainly was--then
it necessarily means that He is a consistent libertarian, as the Golden
Rule as a political ethic is completely congruent with the libertarian
Non-Aggression Principle, i.e., that no person or group of people may
initiate the use of force against another, or threaten to initiate force
against another.
Jesus
does not Respect the Person of Men
According to
the Bible, every person is equally subject to the commands of God, and
one does not become exempt from God's law simply because one has managed
to receive some sort of title of nobility. We are instructed to treat
everyone by the same law. Yet this automatically rules out the
possibility that governments could ever be legitimate, as they can only
exist do to a privilege of monopoly on the ultimate control over the law
which they enforce while excluding all competitors. As well, they
collect taxes, which they call "theft" and "extortion" if anyone else
engages in the same behavior against them or others.
As it is
recorded in the Gospels, it seems that the people that knew of Jesus in
His day were aware that He did not regard the person of men (i.e.,
titles of nobility, etc.):
Matthew
22:16: And they sent to Him their disciples with the Herodians, saying,
"Teacher, we know that You are true, and teach the way of God in truth;
nor do You care about anyone, for You do not regard the person of men."
(See also Mark 12:14.)
Yet this
would have been merely conforming to people's expectation that Jesus
would have been following the Old Testament commands not to regard the
person of men (Lev 19:15; Deu. 1:17; 16:19; Job 32:21; 34:19; Prov.
28:21.). But that this is indeed the case was confirmed in the apostles'
writings:
Galatians
2:6: But from those who seemed to be something--whatever they were, it
makes no difference to me; God shows personal favoritism to no man--for
those who seemed to be something added nothing to me.
And:
James
2:8,9: If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture,
"You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; but if you show
partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as
transgressors. (See also 1 Peter 1:16.)
Yet consider
what James's above admonition means as it concerns Jesus's ultimate
ethical command of the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31). If we as
Christians were to take Jesus's command seriously and apply it to
everyone without partiality, then it would necessarily require that we
demand the abolition of all governments wherever they may exist, as they
can only exist by a continuous violation of the Golden Rule (see
above).
Jesus
on Taxes: Nothing is (Rightly) Caesar's!
The story of
Jesus commanding us to give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's (Matt.
22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26) is commonly misrepresented as
His commanding us to give to Caesar the denari which he asks for (i.e.,
to pay taxes to government) as--it is assumed--the denari are Caesar's,
being that they have Caesar's image and name on them. But Jesus never
said that this was so! What Jesus did say though was an ingenious case
of rhetorical misdirection to avoid being immediately arrested, which
would have interfered with Old Testament prophecy of His betrayal as
well as His own previous predictions of betrayal.
When the
Pharisees asked Him whether or not it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar
they did so as a ruse in the hopes of being able to either have Him
arrested as a rebel by the Roman authorities or to have Him discredited
in the eyes of His followers. At this time in Israel's history it was an
occupied territory of the Roman Empire, and taxes--which were being
used to support this occupation--were much hated by the mass of the
common Jews. Thus, this question was a
clever Catch-22 posed to Jesus by the Pharisees: if Jesus answered that
it is not lawful then the Pharisees would have Him put away, but if He answered that it is
lawful then He would appear to be supporting the subjection of the
Jewish people by a foreign power. Luke 20:20 makes the Pharisees' intent
in asking this question quite clear:
So
they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be righteous, that
they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to the power and
the authority of the governor.
Thus, Jesus
was not free to answer in just any casual manner. Of the Scripture
prophecies which would have gone unfulfilled had He answered that it was
fine to decline paying taxes and been arrested because of it are the
betrayal by Judas (Psalm 41:9; Zech. 11:12,13), and His betrayer
replaced (Psalm 109:8--see Acts 1:20); see also Acts 1:15-26 and Psalm
69:25. Here is a quote from Peter on this matter from Acts 1:16:
"Men
and brethren, this Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit
spoke before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide
to those who arrested Jesus."
In Matt.
26:54,56 and Mark 14:49 Jesus testifies to this exact same thing after
He was betrayed by Judas. As well, Jesus Himself twice foretold of His
betrayal before He was asked the question on taxes--see Matt. 17:22;
20:18; Mark 9:31; 10:33; and Luke 9:44; 19:31. See also John 13:18-30,
which testifies to the necessity of the fulfillment of Psalm 41:9, as
Jesus here foretells of His betrayal by Judas.
In addition,
it appears that the only reason Jesus
paid the temple tax (and by supernatural means at that) as told in Matt.
17:24-27 was so as not to stir up trouble which would have interfered
with the fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture and Jesus's previous
prediction of His betrayal as told in Matt. 17:22--neither of which
would have been fulfilled had Jesus not
paid the tax and been arrested because of it. Jesus Himself supports
this view when He said of it "Nevertheless, lest we offend them . . ."
(NKJV), which can also be translated "But we don't want to cause
trouble" (CEV). He said this after in effect saying that those who pay
customs and taxes are not free (v. 25,26)--yet one reason Jesus came was
to call us to liberty (Luke 4:18; Gal. 4:7; 5:1,13,14; 1 Cor. 7:23; 2
Cor. 3:17; James 1:25; 2:12).
It should be
remembered in all of this that it was Jesus Himself who told us
"Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be
wise as serpents and harmless as doves." (Matt. 10:16). Jesus was being
wise as a serpent as He never told us to pay taxes to Caesar, of which
He could have done and still fulfilled Scripture and His previous
predictions of betrayal. But the one thing He couldn't have told people
was that it was okay not to pay taxes as He would have been arrested on
the spot, and Scripture and His predictions of betrayal would have gone
unfulfilled. Yet the most important thing in all this is what Jesus did not
say. Jesus never said that all or any of the denari were Caesar's!
Jesus simply said "Give to Caesar that which is Caesar's." But this just
begs the question, What is Caesar's? Simply because the denari have
Caesar's name and image on them no more make them his than one carving
their name into the back of a stolen TV set makes it
theirs. Yet everything Caesar has has been taken by theft and extortion,
therefore nothing is rightly his.
Tax
Collectors are Sinners!
A further demonstration that Jesus considered the institution of taxation to be unjust is given in the below story:
Matthew
9:9-13: As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew
sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, "Follow Me." So he arose
and followed Him. Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the
house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down
with Him and His disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to
His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and
sinners?" When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well
have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn
what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come
to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." (See also Mark
2:14-17; Luke 5:27-32.)
It's
important to point out here that Jesus actually made a stronger case
against the unrighteousness of tax collectors than the Pharisees
originally had in questioning Jesus's disciples about it: the Pharisees
actually separated the tax collectors from the sinners when they asked
"Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Yet when
Jesus heard this He answered the Pharisees by lumping the two groups
together under the category of sinners--thus: "For I did not come to
call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."
Yet since
this is the story of Matthew the tax collector being called to
repentance by Jesus we will do well to ask how it was that Matthew
obtained repentance. The answer: By first giving up tax collecting! And
from this beginning Matthew would thus go on to become one of Jesus's
twelve disciples.
On Paul
and Romans 13 and Titus 3:1
It is often
claimed that Christians are required to submit to government, as this is
supposedly what Paul commanded that we are supposed to do in Romans 13.
Thus:
Romans
13:1-7: Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For
there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist
are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists
the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on
themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do
you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will
have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But
if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for
he is God's minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices
evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also
for conscience' sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they
are God's ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render
therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom
customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
But in
actual fact Paul never does tell us in above excerpt from Romans 13 to
submit to government!--at least certainly not as they have existed on
Earth and are operated by men. In fact, Paul would be an outright,
boldfaced hypocrite were he to command anyone to do such a thing: for
Paul himself did not submit to government, and if he had then he would
not even have been alive to be able to write Romans 13. For Paul himself
disobeyed government, and it is a good thing that he did as we would
not even know of a Paul in the Bible had he not disobeyed government. As
when Paul was still only known as Saul he escaped from the city of
Damascus as he knew that the governor of that city, acting under the
authority of Aretas the king, was coming with a garrison to arrest him
in order that he be executed. This was right after Saul's conversion to
Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. The Jews in Damascus, hearing of
Sauls conversion, plotted to kill him as a traitor to their cause in
persecuting the Christians. Saul was let out of a window in the wall of
Damascus under cover of night by some fellow disciples in Christ (see
Acts 9:23-25). In none of Paul's later writings does he divest himself,
or disassociate himself, from these actions that he took in knowingly
and purposely disobeying government: in fact, this very event is one of
the things that he later cites in demonstration of his unwavering
commitment to Christ (see 2
Cor. 12:22-33)!
Indeed, ever
since Paul's conversion to Jesus Christ, he spent the rest of his
entire life in rebellion against mortal governments, and would at
last--just as with Jesus before him--be executed by government, in this
case by having his head chopped off. Paul was continuously in and out of
prisons throughout his entire ministry for preaching the gospel of
Christ; he was lashed with stripes 39 times by the "authorities" for
preaching Christ; he was beaten with rods by the "authorities" for
preaching Christ; and none of these rebellions of his did he ever
disavow: indeed he cited them all as evidence of his commitment to Jesus
(again, see 2
Cor. 12:22-33)!
But even
more importantly, if Paul is saying in Romans 13 what many people have
said he meant, i.e., that people should obey mortal, Earthly
governments, then it is questionable whether Paul could even be a
genuine Christian. For as was pointed out above, Jesus would not even
have existed as we know of today had it not been for Joseph and Mary
intentionally disobeying king Herod the Great and escaping from his
reach when they knew that Herod desired to destroy baby Jesus (see Matt.
2:13,14). Thus, if indeed Paul meant in Romans 13 that we are to obey
Earthly governments then this would mean that Paul would rather have
Joseph and Mary obey king Herod the Great and turn baby Jesus over to be
killed.
So what in the world is going on here with Paul and Romans 13? Is Paul a hypocrite? Is Paul being contradictory? Actually, No
to both. Once again, as with Jesus's answer to the question on taxes,
this is another ingenious case of rhetorical misdirection. Paul was
counting on the fact that most people who would be hostile to the
Christian church--the Roman "authorities" in particular--would, upon
reading Romans 13, naturally interpret it from the point of view of
legal positivism: i.e., that such people would take for granted that the
"governing authorities" and "rulers" spoken of must refer to the men
who operate the governments on Earth. But never does Paul anywhere say
that this is so! (Legal positivism is the doctrine that whichever
gang is best able to overpower others with arms and might and thereby
subjugate the populace and who then proceed to proclaim themselves the
"authority" are on that account the rightful "Authority.")
But before
proceeding with the above analysis, what would the motive be for Paul to
include such rhetorical misdirection in his letter to the people at the
church of Rome? In answering this, it must be remembered that just as
with Jesus, Paul was not free to say just anything that he wanted. The
early Christians were a persecuted minority under the close surveillance
of the Roman government as a possible threat to its power. Here is
Biblical proof of this assertion written by Paul himself:
Galatians
2:4,5: And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in
(who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ
Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage), to whom we did not yield
submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue
with you.
Paul never
intended that his letter to the Roman church be kept secret, and he knew
that it would be copied and distributed amongst the populace, and thus
inevitably it would fall into the hands of the Roman government,
especially considering that this letter was going directly into the
belly of the beast itself: the city of Rome. Thus by including this in
the letter to the church at Rome he would help put at ease the fears of
the Roman government so that the persecution of the Christians would not
be as severe and so that the more important task of the Church, that of
saving people's souls, could more easily continue unimpeded. But Paul
wrote it in such a way that a truly knowledgeable Christian at the time
would have no doubt as to what was actually meant.
The Church
leaders at the time would have known that Paul obviously couldn't have
meant the people who control the mortal governments as they exist on
Earth when he referred to the "governing authorities" and "rulers" in
Romans 13, for that would have made Paul a shameless hypocrite and also
meant that he would desire that baby Jesus had been killed (for surely
the histories of Paul and Jesus's lives would have been fresh on their
minds). The only answer that can make any sense of this seeming riddle
is that one doesn't actually become a true "governing authority"
or "ruler" simply because one has managed by way of deception, terror,
murder and might to subjugate a certain population and then proceed to
thereby proclaim oneself the "King" or the "Authority" or the "Ruler."
Instead, what Paul is saying is that the only true and real authorities are only those that God appoints, i.e., one cannot become a real
authority or ruler in the eyes of God simply because through force of
arms one has managed to subjugate a population and then proclaim oneself
the potentate. Thus, by saying this Paul was actually rebuking the
supposed authority of the mortal governments as they exist on Earth and
are operated by men!
"Let every
soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority
except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God."
(Rom. 13:1.) leaves wide open the possibility that those who control the
mortal governments on Earth are not true authorities as appointed by
God. The fallacy most people make when encountering a statement such as
this is to unthinkingly and automatically assume that Paul must be
referring to the people in control of the mortal governments that exist
on Earth--for after all, don't these people who run these Earthly
governments call themselves the "governing authorities"? Do they not
teach their subjects from birth that they are the "rulers" and the
"authorities"? But when we factor in the life history of both Jesus and
Paul, then it can leave no room for doubt: Paul most certainly could not
have been referring in Romans 13 to the people who control the mortal
governments as they exist on Earth--otherwise Paul would be an outright
hypocrite as well as an advocate of deicide against baby Jesus. Indeed,
God Himself directly confirms this very thing:
Hosea 8:4: "They set up kings, but not by Me; They made princes, but I did not acknowledge them."
But, some may inquire, what about Paul telling us to pay taxes in Romans 13:6-7? Thus:
Romans
13:6,7: For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God's
ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to
all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs,
fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.
But does
Paul really tell us to pay taxes here? Again, just as with Jesus,
nowhere does Paul actually tell anyone to pay any taxes! Paul continues
with the rhetorical misdirection that he started in the beginning of
Romans 13, knowing--just as Jesus knew before him--that those who would
be hostile to the Christian church would automatically assume what they
are predisposed to assume: i.e., that the taxes and customs "due" are
due to those in control of the governments who levy them. But here Paul
was being wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, as Paul never said
any such thing. For when Paul says "Render therefore to all their due:
taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs" this just begs the
question: to whom are taxes and customs due? The answer to which could
quite possibly be "No one." And this is precisely how Paul proceeds to
answer his own question-begging statement, in Romans 13:8-10:
Owe
no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another
has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit
adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not
bear false witness," "You shall not covet," and if there is any other
commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love
your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore
love is the fulfillment of the law.
So there we
have it in no uncertain terms: Owe no one anything except to love one
another! Yet since when have taxes ever had the slightest thing to do
with love? As was explained above, all mortal governments throughout
history steal and extort wealth from their subjects which they call
"taxes," yet at the same time governments make it illegal for their
subjects to steal from each other or from the government. Thus in taxes
we see that historically all governments do to their subjects what they
outlaw their subjects to do to them. Thus, all Earthly, mortal
governments, by levying taxes, break the Golden Rule which Jesus
commanded everyone as the supreme law.
In the
earlier discussion on Jesus and taxes we learned that when Jesus said
"Give on to Caesar that which is Caesar's and give unto the Lord that
which is the Lord's" he was, in effect, actually saying that one need
not give anything to Caesar: as nothing is rightly his, considering that
everything that Caesar has has been taken by theft and extortion.
And what of
Paul writing in Titus 3:1: "Remind them to be subject to rulers and
authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work"? As was clearly
demonstrated above, Paul was referring to the true higher
authorities as recognized by God, not to the diabolical, Satanic, mortal
governments as they have existed on Earth--as Paul spent his entire
ministry in rebellion against the Earth-bound, mortal "authorities," and
was at last put to death by them. (For other cases of righteous
disobedience to government in the Bible, see Exo. 1:15-2:3; 1 Sam.
19:10-18; Esther 4:16; Dan. 3:12-18; 6:10; Matt. 2:12-13; Acts 5:29;
9:25; 17:6-8; 2
Cor. 11:32,33.)
And as
further proof of this, consider Paul's advice to Christians as regarding
being judged by what the government considers the "authority":
1
Corinthians 6:1-8: Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go
to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not
know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be
judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you
not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain
to this life? If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to
this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to
judge? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man
among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his
brethren? But brother goes to law against brother, and that before
unbelievers! Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that
you go to law against one another. Why do you not rather accept wrong?
Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do
wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren!
Paul said
that the government judges "are least esteemed by the church to judge"!
It is clear that he considered them to be no authority at all!
But moreover, even Jesus didn't consider the Earthly, mortal "rulers" to be true rulers and authorities! Thus:
Mark
10:42-45: But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know
that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over
them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall
not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall
be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave
of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,
and to give His life a ransom for many."
By saying
this Jesus was in fact rebuking the supposed "authority" of the Earthly
"rulers"! Just because mortals on Earth may consider someone to be an
"authority" and "ruler" does not mean that God considers them to be so!
On Peter
and 1 Peter 2:13-18
Another
Bible passage that is sometimes cited by statists in an attempt to
demonstrate that people ought to submit to mortal government is 1 Peter
2:13-18:
Therefore
submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,
whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are
sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those
who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put
to silence the ignorance of foolish men--as free, yet not using liberty
as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love
the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Servants, be submissive to
your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to
the harsh.
But Peter
himself did not so submit! Peter and the apostles were arrested in
Jerusalem by the Sadducees for preaching the gospel of Jesus and brought
before the Sanhedrin court for questioning:
Acts
5:27-32: And when they had brought them, they set them before the
council. And the high priest asked them, saying, "Did we not strictly
command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled
Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man's blood on
us!" But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: "We ought to
obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom
you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to His right hand
to be Prince and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness
of sins. And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the
Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey Him."
So here we
have it from Peter himself: We ought to obey God rather than men! Yet
Jesus already commanded that the ultimate Law is for everyone to treat
others as they themselves would want to be treated--therefore, according
to Peter, any command by men that are contrary to this ultimate Law are
automatically null and void.
Once again
one must consider that the Christians at this time were a persecuted
minority under the surveillance of the mortal "authorities" as possible
insurrectionists, and so statements like what is written in 1 Peter
2:13-18 were included to pacify such "authorities" so that the most
important task of saving people's souls could continue--yet, just as
Paul included an "escape clause" in Romans 13 ("Owe no one anything
except to love one another"), Peter also includes an escape clause
contained in 1 Peter 2:13-18, which is the 16th verse therein:
For
this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the
ignorance of foolish men--[verse 16:] as free, yet not using liberty as a
cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God.
The NIV
Bible translates verse 16 as "Live as free men, but do not use your
freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God." Most other
modern English Bible versions translate the beginning of this passage as
either "Live as free" or "Act as free." So in other words, when this is
combined with what Peter said in Acts 5:29, we can take the entire
passage of 1 Peter 2:13-18 to mean that we ought to obey all the
ordinances of men: except for all such ordinances that happen to
conflict with our God-given liberty and Jesus's ultimate
commandment--which is virtually every single one of them! But other than
that, do indeed obey every other ordinance of man, for in so doing one
will merely be obeying Jesus's commandment--in which case the ordinances
of man which one ought to obey are merely redundant!
Also, consider the following statement by Peter which some statists might try to construe in their favor:
2
Peter 2:9,10: [...] then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of
temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of
judgment, and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the
lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous,
self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, [...]
As has
already been pointed out, the statist fallacy when encountering such
statements is to automatically deem the "authorities" and "dignitaries"
spoken of in these cases as necessarily being the "authorities" and
"dignitaries" that the positive law (i.e., the government's law) so regards--but such cannot be the actual case, as it is written:
Hosea 8:4: "They set up kings, but not by Me; They made princes, but I did not acknowledge them."
As well, Jesus Himself rebuked the supposed "authority" of the Earthly "rulers":
Mark
10:42-45: But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know
that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over
them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall
not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall
be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave
of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,
and to give His life a ransom for many."
The Ruler and
God of This World and Age which All Mortal Governments Worship is
Satan (A.K.A. Lucifer)
The Bible is
quite explicit as to who it is that really controls all the mortal
governments on Earth, and which god is the god that the mortal rulers
worship:
Luke
4:4-8: Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all
the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to
Him, "All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has
been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if
You will worship before me, all will be Yours." And Jesus answered and
said to him, "Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall
worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.' " (See also
Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12,13; Luke 4:1-13.)
This is one
of the offers Satan made to Christ during the forty days in which Satan
tempted Jesus, an event now sometimes referred to as the Temptation of
Christ. Satan wasn't lying when he made the above offer to Jesus: it was
an absolutely real offer that Satan would have delivered on. This is
necessarily the case, as Luke even writes in verse 2 of the above
chapter that here Jesus was "tempted for forty days by the devil"--thus,
this had to be a real offer or else it could hardly qualify as a real
temptation, as certainly Jesus would have known whether or not what
Satan said here was true: if what Satan was saying here were false then
Jesus would have already known that, and hence Satan's offer could not
have been the least bit tempting to Jesus.
How true
indeed Satan was being when he said that all the kingdoms of the world
have been delivered to him, and that he gives them to whomever he
wishes: which are those who worship him as their God! All Earthly,
mortal potentates have quite literally made a pact with Satan!--every
last one of them has literally sold their soul to Satan in return for
Earthly power! As God spoke in Hosea 8:4: "They set up kings, but not by
Me; They made princes, but I did not acknowledge them."
And Jesus
later said on two separate occasions that Satan is the ruler of this
world--thus in John 12:31: "Now is the judgment of this world; now the
ruler of this world will be cast out." And in John 14:30: "I will no
longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he
has nothing in Me."
And Paul in two separate letters writes that Satan is the god and ruler of this age:
2
Corinthians 4:3,4: But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to
those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded,
who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
who is the image of God, should shine on them.
And in Ephesians 6:11,12:
Put
on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but
against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places.
All one has
to do to realize just how literal and true Satan, Jesus and Paul were
being when they made the above statements is to consider that more than
four times the amount of non-combatants have been systematically
murdered for purely ideological reasons by their own governments within
the past century than were killed in that same time-span from wars. From
1900 to 1923, various Turkish regimes killed from 3,500,000 to over
4,300,000 of its own Armenians, Greeks, Nestorians, and other
Christians. Communist governments have murdered over 110 million of
their own subjects since 1917. And Germany committed genocide against
some 16 million people--6 million of them Jews. (The preceding figures
are from Prof. R.J. Rummel's website: http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills.)
Over 800,000 Christian Tutsis in Rwanda were hacked to death with
machetes between April and July of 1994 by the Hutu-led military force
after the Tutsis had been disarmed by governmental decree in the early
1990s, of which disarmament decree the United Nations helped to enforce.
On several occasions, United Nations soldiers stationed in Rwanda
actually handed over helpless Tutsi Christians under their protection to
members of the Hutu military. They then stood by as their screaming
charges were unceremoniously hacked to pieces. This massacre happened
one year after the United Nations helped to put in a national ID card in
Rwanda, and it was that very national ID card system which the Hutus
used to track-down and identify the Christian Tutsis. Needless to say,
all of the subject populations of the above mass murders had been
disarmed beforehand.
The wars and
mass murders which the mortal governments routinely engage in are
literal human-sacrifice orgies that the Earthly rulers of those
governments offer up to appease their God Satan, a.k.a. Lucifer!
Government,
throughout all of recorded history, has been the most methodical and
efficient human-meat grinder to ever exist. It is a purely Satanical
machination masquerading as humanity's salvation, but has always
been--and forever will be so long as it exists--the scourge of mankind
and its decline.
Jesus Defended
the Right to Freely Contract and Private Property Rights
Besides the
Golden Rule which Jesus commanded as the ultimate social ethic, another
Biblical account of Jesus's teachings which clearly demonstrates His
attitude toward the institution of private property and the free and
voluntary trade thereof is given in His below Parable of the Workers in
the Vineyard:
Matthew
20:1-16: "For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out
early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. Now when he had
agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his
vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing
idle in the marketplace, and said to them, 'You also go into the
vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.' So they went. Again he
went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise. And
about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing idle, and
said to them, 'Why have you been standing here idle all day?' They said
to him, 'Because no one hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into
the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive.' So when evening
had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, 'Call the
laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the
first.'
And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each
received a denarius. But when the first came, they supposed that they
would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. And when
they had received it, they complained against the
landowner, saying, 'These last men have worked only one hour, and you
made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the
day.' But he answered one of them and said, 'Friend, I am doing you no
wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and
go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it
not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye
evil because I am good? So the last will be first, and the first last.
For many are called, but few chosen."
It never
ceases to amaze me when Socialists sometimes try to claim that Jesus was
some sort of proto-Socialist or Communist. Anyone who is the least bit
familiar with the Socialists' attitude toward such matters would know
that the typical Socialist response to such a landowner's actions
towards his workers would be to scream bloody murder! Of course, a
Socialist government's response to such a land owner would be to
exterminate him. Yet here Jesus
reinforces the correctness of the libertarian creed on the absoluteness
of lawfully being able to do what one wishes with their own possessions,
as well as being able to freely and voluntarily contract said
possessions as one sees fit--even if doing so greatly upsets others! So
long as one has kept one's word in the contracts in which one has agreed
to--and so long as one's actions pertain to their own property--then
the right of the individual to make decisions concerning their property
remains absolute!
Greatness
is in Serving
One of the
things which most clearly demonstrates just how different Jesus's
Kingdom is to be from the mortal, Earthly kingdoms and governments--and
also why we should be very careful to never confuse the two together--is
given in the story of when the apostles James and John came to Jesus
asking if they may have the favor granted to them of being able to sit
on either side of Jesus's
throne, one to the right and the other to His left, and this is how
Jesus answered them:
Mark
10:42-45: But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, "You know
that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over
them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall
not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall
be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave
of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,
and to give His life a ransom for many." (See also Matt. 18:4; 20:25-28
Mark 9:35; Luke 22:26.)
How
diametrically opposite the Kingdom of Christ is indeed from that of the
mortal, Earthly governments! Thus, when it is claimed herein that Jesus
is an "anarchist" it needs to be born in mind that this is in relation
to how all mortal governments on Earth have operated. If one wishes to
refer to the "Government of Christ" or the "Kingdom of Christ" this is
fine so long is one realizes that the Government of Christ will in no
sense be an actual government as they exist on Earth and are controlled
by mortals.
It needs to
also be pointed out here that above in Mark 10:42 Jesus rebukes the
supposed "authority" of the Earthly "rulers"! Thus He says of them "You
know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over
them, and their great ones exercise authority over them"--here is clear
proof that just because mortals on Earth may consider someone to be a
"ruler" does not mean that God considers them to be genuine rulers! In
the eyes of God, those who are the greatest among men are those who seek
to serve their fellow men, not those who seek to be served by their
fellow men!
Slaves
Obey Your Masters?
While although not directly related to the issue of the ethical status of government per se,
some individuals have asserted that certain statements in the New
Testament by Paul and Peter condone the institution of slavery, and for
this reason it is important as it concerns social relations in general.
Thus:
Ephesians
6:5-9: Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart,
as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants
of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing
service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good
anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a
slave or free. And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up
threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there
is no partiality with Him.
Colossians
3:22-4:1: Bondservants, obey in all things your masters according to
the flesh, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in sincerity of
heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord
and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward
of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. But he who does wrong
will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality.
Masters, give your bondservants what is just and fair, knowing that you
also have a Master in heaven.
1
Timothy 6:1,2: Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count
their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His
doctrine may not be blasphemed. And those who have believing masters,
let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve
them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach
and exhort these things.
Titus
2:9,10: Exhort bondservants to be obedient to their own masters, to be
well pleasing in all things, not answering back, not pilfering, but
showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our
Savior in all things.
1
Peter 2:18-25: Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear,
not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is
commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief,
suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for
your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if
you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you
were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example,
that you should follow His steps:
"Who committed no sin,
Nor was deceit found in His mouth";
who,
when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did
not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; who
Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died
to sins, might live for righteousness--by whose stripes you were healed.
For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the
Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
But to quote
the above passages as condoning the institution of slavery, one would
thereby be confusing the offering of pragmatic advice on how to best
handle a bad situation as granting the rightness of that situation. Yet
obviously Peter and Paul didn't so regard the institution of slavery as
being at all just, for then there would have been no cause for Peter
compare the slave's suffering to that of Jesus in 1 Peter 2:21-25--as
certainly any true Christian regards the scourging and execution of
Jesus to have been unjust, to say the very least. Thus the fact that
Peter did compare the slave's suffering to that of Jesus is by itself
enough to demonstrate that he considered it to be unjust.
So what of
the actual ethical status of the institution of slavery as it concerns
Jesus's own teachings? On this question there can be no doubt, as one of
the main reasons Jesus came was to call us to liberty! Jesus said this
Himself as recorded in Luke 4:16-21:
So
He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom
was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to
read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had
opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
"The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."
Then
He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And
the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He
began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your
hearing."
So here we have it: Jesus Himself said that He came to proclaim liberty to the captives and to set at liberty the oppressed!
The word "liberty" in Luke 4:18 is a translation of the Greek word aphesis,
and means: release from bondage or imprisonment; forgiveness or pardon,
i.e., remission of the penalty. Thus, it is a complete and absolute
negation of the condition of being a slave. And since there exists no
recorded instance of Jesus qualifying the above statement, it then
becomes quite clear that Jesus is very much against the institution of
slavery--besides of course slavery being totally incompatible with the
Golden Rule.
So how are
we to make better sense of Paul and Peter's above statements, since it
is clear that the institution of slavery is very anti-Christian in the
most literal sense of the word (i.e., as it concerns the actual doctrine
as preached by Jesus Christ)?
One must
bear in mind that Paul and Peter knew better than most of the injustices
contained within this Satanic world system--Paul himself was
continuously in and out of prisons during his ministry, and would at
last be beheaded by government for preaching the gospel of Christ, just
as John the Baptist was beheaded by government before him for preaching
the same. In 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 Paul clarifies his above statements
while at the same time declaring the absoluteness of his God-given
rightful liberty:
For
though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all,
that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I
might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I
might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as
without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward
Christ), that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I
became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to
all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the
gospel's sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.
It is here
where the seeming contradiction of certain passages in the Bible whereby
Paul and Peter admonish slaves to "obey their masters" (see Eph. 6:5;
Col. 3:22; 1 Tim. 6:1; Tit. 2:9; 1 Peter 2:18) is cleared up. Such an
admonition is a pragmatic one, not an categorical moral one--as Paul
himself declared his absolute rightful freedom from all men (and also
called for people to "Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ," 1 Cor.
11:1)! So rather than laying hands on one's Earthly "master," or trying
to run away--which in the end would probably only affect one's freedom
in a negative way--a much better and effective solution would be to
convert one's Earthly "master" to Jesus, and if one has truly succeeded
in doing so--i.e., whereby one's Earthly "master" becomes infilled with
the Holy Spirit--then one will have at once gained one's God-given
absolute liberty, at least in relation to what the positive law
considers one's "master." The reason that this is necessarily the case
is because Jesus commanded the absolute law as treating others as you
would want others to treat you (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31), yet the very
institution of slavery is founded upon the exact opposite principle, as
Abraham Lincoln pointed out (if only it had been that Lincoln himself
had bothered to follow the logic of his below argument!):
If
A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave
B.--why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he
may enslave A?--
You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color,
then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care.
By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a
fairer skin than your own.
You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually
the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave
them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first
man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.
But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest;
you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it
his interest, he has the right to enslave you. (Abraham Lincoln, Fragments on Slavery, c. April 1, 1854)
In the above
discussion on the Golden Rule as commanded by Jesus it was pointed out
that to not follow the Golden Rule is to do the opposite of the Golden
Rule: i.e., to treat others as you would not want others to treat
you--of which ethic was termed the Luciferian Principle (see the above
discussion on this as to why such a designation logically follows). Yet
this is the very principle on which the institution of slavery
necessarily rests.
And in
further support of my contention that the conversion of a slave's
Earthly "master" to Jesus would be the most effective and practical
solution in obtaining one's God-given absolute liberty--at least in
relation to what the positive law considers one's "master"--consider
Paul's own words on this matter:
2 Corinthians 3:17: Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
The word "liberty" in 2 Corinthians 3:17 is a translation of the Greek noun eleutheria
and is completely congruent in meaning with the English word "liberty,"
i.e., as in "freedom from slavery," "independence," "absence of
external restraint," "a negation of control or domination," "freedom of
access," etc. Thus, it is the complete negation of a state of slavery.
But in fact, Paul even goes further than this in the very passages above
which some have contended condone the institution of slavery. Thus in
Ephesians 6:9 Paul writes:
And
you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening,
knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no
partiality with Him.
Yet it is plainly clear that if a slave's "master" were to actually and truly give up threatening--of
all things--then there can hardly even be said to exist a state of
slavery any more in relation to what the positive law considers the
"master" and the "slave," as the very institution of slavery is enforced
by the threat of either physical harm for non-compliance or recapture
in the case of escape. Thus, this passage is actually a case of
advocating the de facto abolition of slavery even while a state of de jure slavery--as considered by the positive law--may still be in place!
It is for
the above reasons why the above cited passages which some have contended
condone the institution of slavery can only make any sense within the
Christian point of view as pragmatic advice on how best to handle a bad
and unjust situation, and certainly cannot be regarded as commentary on
the ethical rightfulness of the institution of slavery; nor for that
matter as a categorical moral imperative as to how one is always to
conduct oneself--as Paul and Peter were often in rebellion to what the
positive law considered their "masters." Extreme problems arise for
those who would try and contend otherwise--for just one example of the
problems presented to those who would thus contend, consider the
following statement by Paul:
1 Timothy 5:23: No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities.
Yet this
statement by Paul is completely unqualified, and far more direct than
his above advice to slaves. Thus, for those who would contend that Paul
was giving a categorical moral imperative as to how a slave is always to
conduct himself in relation to his "master"--as opposed to merely
offering advice as to the best and most practical way in which a slave
could go about obtaining his God-given liberty in relation to his
"master"--such individuals, if they are to be consistent, would also
have to contend that according to Paul it is a sin not to drink wine! In
fact the case for this contention would actually be much stronger than
in that of Paul's advice to slaves, for unlike in his advice to slaves
nowhere does Paul qualify the above statement! Yet obviously to make
such a contention would be absurd, as in both cases it would be
confusing pragmatic advice with a categorical moral imperative.
But moreover, here is what Jesus Himself had to say about the serving of masters:
Matthew
6:24: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one
and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the
other. You cannot serve God and mammon." (See also Luke 16:13.)
Yet what in
the world is the institution of slavery if not mammon? If the
institution of slavery does not qualify as mammon then there is nothing
that possibly could! For it is a method of obtaining wealth that is a
complete and utter violation of Jesus's ultimate ethical commandment:
Matthew
7:12: "Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them,
for this is the Law and the Prophets." (See also Luke 6:31.)
Thus it
becomes clear that the institution of slavery is just another product of
this sick Satanic world system--of which system Jesus is to ultimately
overthrow in the time of His Judgement. Mammon indeed!
Jesus
Supported the Collecting of Interest (Usury)
One of the
Socialists' great bugbears has been the institution of usury, or
otherwise the collecting of interest. Yet in the only instance in which
Jesus commented upon this He was clearly in favor of the concept, as is
given in His Parable of the Talents, in which a man traveling to a
far-away country leaves his three servants with some talents to make use
of in the best way they see fit while he is away--the first two
servants invest the talents and receive more talents from their initial
investment, and this makes the lord of the estate happy to hear this
upon his return; but here is what Jesus says of the third servant:
Matthew
25:24-27: "Then he who had received the one talent came and said,
'Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and
gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went
and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.'
But his lord answered and said to him, 'You wicked and lazy servant,
you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not
scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the
bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with
interest." (See also Luke 19:21-23.)
Now
obviously this parable is a lesson on how Christians should be ever
vigilant in converting people to salvation in Christ, in that we should
not keep the Gospel of Christ to ourselves but always seek to increase
the number of Christians in the world. But even so, it nevertheless
demonstrates that Jesus was hardly hostile to the concept of the
collecting of interest, considering that this was his only commentary
given on the subject. But moreover, it ties in quite appropriately with
Jesus's attitude toward the absolute lawfulness of an individual doing
what they wish with their own property--including freely contracting
thereof--as told by Jesus in his Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
as recorded in Matthew 20:1-16.
The Cleansing
of the Temple: Righteous Libertarian Vigilantism
The only recorded act of violence by Jesus was what is now known as "the cleansing of the temple":
Matthew
21:12,13: Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all
those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of
the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to
them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but
you have made it a 'den of thieves.' " (See also Mark 11:15-17; Luke
19:45,46; John 2:14-17.)
Now this
event is often misinterpreted as being some sort of revolt by Jesus on
the bad aesthetics of commerce being conducted inside of God's temple,
and so is given as anti-libertarian and free-market commentary. But if
that were really what this episode was about then there would have been
no cause for Jesus to accuse the priests of turning the temple into a
"den of thieves."
Jesus was
being literal when he said that. To understand what Jesus was talking
about one has to understand the nature of what was being bought and sold
in the temple as well as the function of the "money changers." What was
being bought and sold in the temple were animals which were to be
sacrificed as a sin offering, and the function of the money changers was
to convert the Gentile Roman money into the Jewish money which would
then be suitable to present inside the temple for purchase of the
sacrificial animals. The people who bought these animals did not get to
take them home to eat--if they had then Jesus would have had no good
reason to object the commerce being conducted at the temple, and
certainly would have no grounds to accuse the priests of thievery.
Rather, the animals stayed in the temple to be sacrificed by the
Levitical priests, which by so doing would (as it was supposed) atone
for the sins of the purchaser of the sacrificed animal. So when Jesus
accused the priests who conducted this practice of being thieves what he
was saying was that the people who bought these animals to be
sacrificed to atone for their sins were being ripped-off--i.e., that the
animal sacrifices weren't doing anything for their sins. In other
words, the priests were selling religious snake-oil--misrepresenting
their product as curing something it couldn't cure; hence they were
committing fraud (per libertarian rights theory).
Now realize
what is at stake here: Jesus came to save people's very souls, and here
people are being deceived and defrauded into believing that sacrificing
these animals is setting their souls right with God. As it is written in
Hebrews 10:4-7:
For
it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away
sins. Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: "Sacrifice and
offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me. In
burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure.
Then
I said, 'Behold, I have come--In the volume of the book it is written
of Me--To do Your will, O God.' " Previously saying, "Sacrifice and
offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor
had pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the law) [...]
If we assume
that Jesus is God's Messiah then He was in a particularly unique
position to accurately determine whether or not these animal sacrifices
were achieving what was being claimed for them, and having determined
that the priests were defrauding their patrons He took appropriate
libertarian action (per Rothbardian theory in particular) by using
retaliatory force against these thieves. It is important to point out
that it is only a true Messiah from God which could have rightly taken
such action, for any normal man would not have possessed the requisite
information in order to make that determination honestly. Thus, not only
was Jesus's only use of force quite libertarian, but it was also in a
situation which would have been inappropriate for most anyone else.
Jesus on the War
on Drugs (and all Forms of Prohibition)
In the
modern era one of the most virulent scourges which has plagued the
Western societies in particular is the so-called "drug problem," i.e.,
the use of, and combating the use of, illegal drugs. Yet, why has the
"drug problem" only become such a problem within, predominately, the
last century? What is the cause of this? But first, before we answer
this question, the more important issue from the Christian's viewpoint
is: what is Jesus's position on the so-called "drug problem," i.e.,
whether it is called "the War on Drugs" or "Prohibition"? More directly,
what does Jesus have to say about prohibiting by law the use of certain
drugs, or inebriants?
Most people at this point will probably be thinking that the issue only concerns which
drugs or inebriants ought to be prohibited and how severe the penalty
for their use should be--as those calling themselves Christians have
traditionally been at the forefront of not only the Prohibition of
alcohol during the '20s in the U.S., but so also with the continuing War
on Drugs. So, first of all, what does Jesus have to say about which
substances ought to be outlawed?
On this
question Jesus is quite clear about it in no uncertain terms--although
the answer may come as a surprise to some: absolutely no law ought to
exist prohibiting the consumption of any substance whatsoever! Jesus
says quite clearly in the strongest of terms that there is no substance a
man can consume that could possibly defile him--thus we read in Mark
7:15-23:
"There
is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the
things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man.
If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!" When He had entered a house
away from the crowd, His disciples asked Him concerning the parable. So
He said to them, "Are you thus without understanding also? Do you not
perceive that whatever enters a man from outside cannot defile him,
because it does not enter his heart but his stomach, and is eliminated,
thus purifying all foods?" And He said, "What comes out of a man, that
defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil
thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,
wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride,
foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man."
(See also Matt. 15:11, 17-20.)
This is the
only directive that Jesus gives in the entire Bible as to what
substances should be, or should not be, prohibited. Some may claim that
Jesus was only talking about food in the above, and not psychotropic
drugs. Yet if this were truly the case then Jesus's above claim is a
false one: Jesus saying "There is nothing that enters a man from outside
which can defile him" would be wrong, for then there would indeed be
something which could thereby defile a man--namely: psychotropic drugs!
Yet Jesus is absolutely clear on this issue: there is no substance a
person can consume which could possibly defile them! Also, there is not
even any clear distinction between "drugs" and "food" in the first
place: just about any drug, in principle, can also be made into a
food--and traditionally often have been and continue to be: thus, the
drug ethanol is almost always consumed not by itself, but in combination
with non-inebriants as a drink; the drug caffeine is almost always
consumed as the beverage known as coffee; marijuana has often been
consumed as an edible baked into brownies; cocaine was once an
ingredient in the original formulation of the name-brand soft-drink
Coca-Cola; etc. If the modern-day Prohibitionists desire to maintain
that Jesus did not mean to include substances such as psychotropic drugs
when He gave this clear directive then the burden is on them to show
where in the Bible Jesus qualifies His above statement to include the
possibility that psychotropic drugs are an exception to His above
all-inclusive directive. But search the Bible high and low and no such
alternate, qualifying directive is anywhere to be found.
Some may be
quick to point out that the angel sent by Jesus to John the Reveler said
in Revelation 9:21 "And they did not repent of their murders or their
sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts" (see also Rev.
18:23; 22:15) and that the word that is here translated as "sorceries"
is in the original Greek pharmakeia, i.e., as in "pharmaceutical" or "drugs." But the original sense of this Greek word pharmakeia
meant the mixing of various ingredients for magical purposes, whether
or not they were actually ever intended to be consumed by anyone, or
whether or not they had what we would call today "pharmacological"
properties: in other words, it was for the most part pure
spell-casting--often black-magic in nature, such as casting hexes on
people. Thus, the most accurate translation of this word into modern
English is indeed "sorceries," and not "drugs"--and this is indeed how
almost all English Bible translations have handled this word: whether it
be the King James Version or almost all modern translations. But even
if such were not the case and one were to maintain that pharmakeia here really did mean "drugs" then this would present such a person with quite a serious problem: which drugs? If indeed one were to maintain that pharmakeia
here should be translated as "drugs" then one would logically have to
so also maintain that all drugs are thereby meant by it, irregardless of
whatever psychotropic properties they may or may not have--the reason
being is because no type of drug in particular would then be
specified in the above Bible passages. Thus, there would then be no
grounds for singling out psychotropic drugs such as ethanol over, say,
penicillin, or any other life-preserving medicine for that matter. To be
consistent, some may get around this problem by saying: very well, all
drugs, including medicine, are thereby meant by it. But to so maintain
this would just create an even bigger problem than the one it just
solved: for the Bible teaches that "A merry heart does good, like
medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones" (Prov. 17:22); and
Ezekiel, in the description of the Heaven on Earth that Jesus is to
establish after the Judgement, writes of it, in part:
Ezekiel
47:12: "Along the bank of the river, on this side and that, will grow
all kinds of trees used for food; their leaves will not wither, and
their fruit will not fail. They will bear fruit every month, because
their water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and
their leaves for medicine."
So quite
simply put, if one were to so maintain that all drugs must be meant by
the above passages in Revelation then one would be going against
Biblical doctrine, as what little the Bible does have to say about
medicinal drugs it is nevertheless clear about: that curative drugs are a
good thing. Thus, if these passages in Revelation actually meant
"drugs" instead of "sorceries" then the Bible would be contradicting
itself here, as the passages in Revelation would thereby be inclusive of
all drugs, not just any kind in particular. But even if we were
to here grant for argument's sake that one could somehow narrow it down
to some sort of drug types in particular, one still would not be able to
derive that such drugs should therefore be outlawed, as nowhere would
these passages in Revelation then so much as even suggest that mortal
governments make any laws against such drugs.
Thus, even
under the most favorable interpretation of the Bible--from the viewpoint
of modern-day Prohibitionists--Jesus's declaration that "There is
nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him" would still
stand--at least as it concerned all mortal, Earthly forms of judgement.
Some
diligent readers may now say at this point, to the effect of: "Wait a
minute! The Mark of the Beast is an obvious exception to something which
possibly enters a man from the outside which can defile him!" (The King
James Version translates the Mark of the Beast as being "in" the hand
or forehead, while most modern versions translate it as being "on,"
although the original Greek can actually be accurately translated either
way. I suspect the reason most modern versions have preferred to
translate the Mark as being "on" the hand or forehead is because this
then, in almost all cases, covers both possibilities: as in almost all
cases, in order to put some identifying mark "in" the skin would require
that one also leave a mark "on" the skin.) But this would ignore
Jesus's follow-up elaboration about all such substances under discussion
eventually being "eliminated" from the body by its natural excretion
processes, as the Mark of the Beast is meant to be a life-long
identifier, and thus is not excreted by the body's natural processes, as
are eventually all foods and drugs. But if one still wants to persist
in this line of reasoning they may counter that indeed not all drugs are
eliminated by the body's natural excretion processes: of those who die
of drug over-doses, the drugs which thereby caused their deaths are not
then excreted by the body's natural processes. While although this is
quite true, one would still not be able to derive therefore from it that
there ought to be laws against certain drugs, as all drugs are capable
of causing death from over-dose; indeed, most lethal drug over-doses are
not caused by illegal psychotropic drugs, but legally used
medicines--and hence, one would be presented with the original problem
discussed above on this. And, it should be stated in passing, it would
also be completely nonsensical to make a law against taking a lethal
over-dose of a drug, as the penalty for taking a lethal dose of drugs
would be, by definition, an automatic death-penalty: therefore any such
law-breaker would automatically be out of the reach of any Earth-bound,
mortal law-enforcer.
Thus, any
which way one slices it, it is simply quite impossible to justify any
form of drug-prohibition whatsoever from a Biblical perspective. But
even far stronger than such drug-laws being merely unjustifiable from a
Biblical perspective, all such laws go directly against Jesus's clear
directive that all things which a person may consume cannot possibly
defile them! And thus, not only are all drug-laws extra-Biblical in
origin, they are all also extremely anti-Christian in the most literal
sense of the word! If there should be the slightest shred of doubt left
in one's mind as to the veracity of this, then hereby, once and for all,
let Paul slay that misplaced sense of doubt:
Colossians
2:20-23: Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles
of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject
yourselves to regulations--"Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,"
which all concern things which perish with the using--according to the
commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an
appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and
neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the
flesh. (See also Rom. 14:14.)
So we see in
no uncertain terms that all forms of drug-prohibition are completely
unjustifiable from a Biblical viewpoint, and indeed anti-Christian. If
then such drug-laws are extra-Biblical and anti-Christian, how is it
that many self-professed Christians came to be on the forefront of all
the various forms of drug-prohibition within recent history? Quite
amazingly, this very question was already answered almost 2000 years ago
by Paul, and in shocking but no uncertain terms:
1
Timothy 4:1-5: Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some
will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and
doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own
conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding
to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving
by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is
good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving;
for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
As was
already pointed out above, there is no clear distinction, in principle,
between "drugs" and "food": just about any drug, in principle, can also
be made into a food--and traditionally often have been and continue to
be. Indeed, the first truly large-scale form of drug-prohibition in a
Western society in the modern era was what was known as simply
"Prohibition" in the U.S., which was the outlawing of consuming the drug
ethanol, i.e., "alcohol." Yet alcohol is consumed almost exclusively as
a food-stuff in mixture with non-inebriating potables! Indeed, strait
laboratory-grade ethanol is virtually inedible, if not actually quite
painful to so consume. So how very true and accurate Paul was when he
wrote the above words, as it was predominately self-professed Christians
who lead the movement to outlaw the food of alcoholic beverages! And to
grasp the awful extent that these self-professed Christians must have
been truly deceived by demons in order to prohibit the food of
alcoholic beverages, just consider that the first miracle recorded in
the Bible by Jesus was to turn water into wine during the wedding at
Cana (see John 2:9-11)! What absolute blasphemy for them to prohibit the
resultant product of the first miracle of their self-proclaimed God!
Deceived by demons indeed!! Truer words could not have been written by
Paul to describe such a perverted situation.
Indeed, it
was Paul himself that counseled to "No longer drink only water, but use a
little wine for your stomach's sake and your frequent infirmities" (1
Tim. 5:23). And Psalms 104:14,15 says of God: "He causes the grass to
grow for the cattle, And vegetation for the service of man, That he may
bring forth food from the earth, And wine that makes glad the heart of
man, Oil to make his face shine, And bread which strengthens man's
heart." (See also Judges 9:13.)
Many in the
Temperance movement responsible for Prohibition had falsely claimed that
these Biblical references to "wine" were in reality grape juice. But
the Greek word for wine in the New Testament, oinos, is a fermented drink, whereas the Greek word for fruitjuice is khymos.
And besides that, this claim demonstrates either an appalling ignorance
of Jesus's own parables or outright deceit, as Jesus even referred to
the fermenting of wine in one of his parables:
Matthew
9:16,17: "No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; for
the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse. Nor
do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break,
the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine
into new wineskins, and both are preserved." (See also Mark 2:22; Luke
5:37.)
In ancient
times goatskins were used to hold wine. As the fresh grape juice
fermented, carbon dioxide would be generated by the living yeast's
metabolism, increasing the volume of gas contained in the wineskin, and
so the new wineskin would stretch. But a used wineskin, already
stretched, would break. Not only that, but before 1869 it was impossible
to store grape juice in temperate to hot climates (which are the
climates grapes grow in) without it either quickly going bad or becoming
wine. If grape juice is left exposed to the open air then it will
quickly go bad due to mold and bacteria--sealing grape juice from the
open air protects it from these aerobic microorganisms because the yeast
which is present naturally in the grapes creates an atmosphere of
carbon dioxide while at the same time making alcohol. Consequently,
storing non-alcoholic grape juice was an impossibility until 1869, when
Dr. Thomas Bramwell Welch succeeded in applying the process of
pasteurization to freshly squeezed must. About the only people who may
have been drinking grape juice before 1869 were those who pressed the
freshly picked grapes themselves (without refrigeration grapes will
quickly go bad, unless they are dried into raisins). It is for this
reason that the suggestion that the fruit of the vine that Jesus and the
twelve disciples drank during the Last Supper on Passover (Mark
14:23-25) was grape juice is absurd, as the growing season for grapes in
Palestine is from April to October (the dry season), yet Passover
starts on the 14th of the Jewish month Nisan (the actual Last Supper
occurred either on the 14th or 15th of Nisan, it's debatable which day
it actually was), which is a lunar month that roughly corresponds with
the latter part of March and the first part of April--so quite simply,
there would have existed no unfermented grape juice at this time, as no
grapes would have existed, since the growing season for them had just
started.
In the
beginning of this discussion on drugs, it was first inquired as to why
the "drug problem" has only become such a problem within, predominately,
the last century. The reason is precisely because of the very laws
against drugs! The government's War on Drugs has turned what once was an
individual problem into a social problem by inventing new make-believe
"crimes" that aggress against no one, while spawning a whole true crime
industry associated with it (just like during Prohibition). The effect
of libertarian legalization would be to make drugs an individual problem
again instead of the grave social problem that it is today. As they
say, we don't have a drug problem, we have a drug-problem problem. Were
it not for the government's War on Drugs, the gang turf-wars, theft, and
other various true crimes that are associated with the distribution of
drugs and the procurement of money in which to support habituations to
drugs, of which the price has been artificially inflated, would not
exist.
How many liquor stores
have shoot-outs between each other? Yet when alcohol was illegal the
black-market distributors of alcohol found it necessary to have shoot-outs
and murders between each other on a regular basis. This was because,
being that their business was illegal, they did not have access to the
courts in which to settle their disputes; as well, because their business
was illegal, this raised the stakes of doing business, for if they got
caught then they would go to prison--thus it became profitable to resort
to murder in order to solve problems which would otherwise lead to prison.
And how many tobacco smokers resort to theft and prostitution in order
to support their habit? Yet clinical studies have shown that tobacco
is more habit forming than heroin. The reason you don't see tobacco
smokers doing such things is because tobacco addicts can afford to support
their habit. When Russia experienced an artificial shortage of cigarettes
over a decade ago due to its socialist economy, tobacco smokers took
to the streets en masse rioting--requiring emergency shipments
of Marlboros and other cigarette brands from the U.S. in order for it
to cease. If heroin or crack were legal it would cost no more (and probably
less) than a tobacco habit, and so heroin and crack addicts would be
able to support their habit by working at a regular job instead of resorting
to theft and prostitution. If one should doubt this last statement,
it should be born in mind that the original laws in the U.S. against
the use of opium were to punish the Chinese opium-smoking immigrants
in the early 1900s, who were so productive that they were taking railway
construction jobs away from native White Americans.
As a parting
note on this subject, I will leave you with what Peter counseled us:
"But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a
busybody in other people's matters" (1 Peter 4:15). How very much this
last admonition applies to all forms of drug-prohibition!
Woe
to Lawyers!
In Jesus's
day, as well as in modern times, lawyers have had quite a system worked
out for themselves. Not only are lawyers the ones that write the laws,
but they are also the ones who become rich in prosecuting and defending
people from those very laws that they or their colleagues have written
in the first place. As well, most politicians, especially in modern
times, are also lawyers. Thus, throughout history there has existed a
grotesque system whereby the very people responsible for the laws have a
perverse incentive in making sure that they are as arcane,
unintelligible, Byzantine and numerous as possible--hence, always
insuring a healthy demand for their services.
This fact was certainly not lost on Jesus, and He
made a point to warn lawyers that they are putting their very souls at stake in their chosen profession. Thus:
Matthew
23:13 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!
You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not
enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." (NIV)
Luke
11:46,52: And He said, "Woe to you also, lawyers! For you load men with
burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with
one of your fingers. [...] [verse 52:] "Woe to you lawyers! For you have
taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and
those who were entering in you hindered."
This is not
to say that all lawyers throughout history are unrighteous. There has
existed and does exist a few principled lawyers who entered their
profession in order to defend righteous people from the unjust laws that
their colleagues are responsible for--but they are and have been quite a
minority indeed. The simple fact of the matter is that most lawyers are
simply in it for the money, and generally have shown little to no
interest in rolling back or defending against unjust laws if doing so
negatively affects their bottom line. Even the ones that often appear on
the surface to be fighting against bad laws are usually being paid
quite handsomely in doing so (think ACLU), or are loyal opposition and
have already been bought and paid for to purposely
lose the case in order to generate bad legal precedent in the case law,
etc., etc.
So a
"Christian lawyer" is not an absolute contradiction in terms, it's just
exceedingly rare--and to the extent that such rare individuals do exist
God has
undoubtedly blessed them for their work in protecting His children
against this Satanic world system. But in the main, how true indeed
Jesus was being when He warned lawyers that they were jeopardizing their
very souls in practicing the profession that they have chosen! Woe to
lawyers indeed!
Jesus
on Government Courts: Avoid Them!
Another
thing which is quite congruent with Jesus's above warning to lawyers is
Jesus's advice for the faithful to avoid the government's courts if at
all possible:
Matthew
5:25,26: "Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way
with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand
you over to the officer, and you be
thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get
out of there till you have paid the last penny."
And:
Luke
12:57-59: "Yes, and why, even of yourselves, do you not judge what is
right? When you go with your adversary to the magistrate, make every
effort along the way to settle with him, lest he drag you to the judge,
the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer throw you into
prison. I tell you, you shall not depart from there till you have paid
the very last mite."
Needless to
say, government judges are also lawyers, so Jesus's advice here fits in
with His warning to lawyers. It also completely demolishes the notion
that Jesus considers what the government's positive law regards as
"authorities" to be true authorities--or otherwise Jesus would
have no problem with such government judges resolving disputes among the
faithful. In fact, Paul absolutely confirms this notion in 1
Corinthians 6:1-8:
Dare
any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the
unrighteous, and not before the saints? Do you not know that the saints
will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you
unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall
judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? If then
you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you
appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? I say this
to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not
even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? But brother
goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers! Now therefore,
it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one
another. Why do you not rather accept wrong? Why do you not rather let
yourselves be cheated? No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do
these things to your brethren!
And this
also conclusively demonstrates that the "authorities" that Paul spoke of
in Romans 13 could not possibly have been the "authorities" as so
regarded by the government--as Paul said that the government judges "are
least esteemed by the church to judge"! Thus it is clear that he
considered them to be no authority at all!
And so also James writes in James 2:6:
But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?
It needs to
be pointed out that most of the rich in the days in which the above
passage was written were rich due to grants of privilege by the
government--particularly that of collecting taxes. Thus when James
writes in the above of the rich oppressing the faithful and dragging
them into the courts he is speaking of actual violations of individuals'
just property rights, and not of individuals reneging on voluntary
contracts in which they had entered into. And this brings us naturally
to the next point which needs to be made:
Jesus
on the Rich
Jesus had this to say about the rich:
Luke
18:18-30: Now a certain ruler asked Him, saying, "Good Teacher, what
shall I do to inherit eternal life?" So Jesus said to him, "Why do you
call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the
commandments: "Do not commit adultery,' "Do not murder,' "Do not steal,'
"Do not bear false witness,' "Honor your father and your mother."' And
he said, "All these things I have kept from my youth." So when Jesus
heard these things, He said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell all
that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven; and come, follow Me." But when he heard this, he became very
sorrowful, for he was very rich.
And
when Jesus saw that he became very sorrowful, He said, "How hard it is
for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter the kingdom of God." And those who heard it said, "Who then can be
saved?" But He said, "The things which are impossible with men are
possible with God." Then Peter said, "See, we have left all and followed
You." So He said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who
has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children, for the sake
of the kingdom of God, who shall not receive many times more in this
present time, and in the age to come eternal life." (See also Matt.
19:16-30; Mark 10:17-31.)
Some have
given this as anti-libertarian commentary. But first of all, in
analyzing this statement by Jesus it needs to be pointed out that it is
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for any person
whatsoever to enter the Kingdom of God. But Jesus also said that "The
things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (verse 27).
It is standard Christian doctrine that it is impossible for anyone to
enter the Kingdom of God on their own--that the only way in which anyone
enters the Kingdom of God is through the saving grace of Jesus Christ
alone (see John 14:6). Thus, the rich are by no means unique in this
particular aspect. And so also, from this alone it cannot be claimed
that Jesus had it in for rich people per se more than any other group.
Second, when
Jesus counseled this particular rich person to sell all that he had and
distribute the proceeds to the poor, this was in fact an exceedingly
libertarian thing for Jesus to advise this person. For this was not just
any kind of rich person--this was a rich person of a particular type: a
ruler, i.e., one who has some variety of command over an
Earthly, mortal government. And thus, the riches that this particular
rich person was in possession of had been obtained through extortion and
theft, i.e., by the threat and force of arms and might--this particular
ruler's opinion to the contrary (verse 21) not withstanding scrutiny:
almost no rulers throughout history have ever regarded their wealth as
having been obtained through stealing:
Justice
being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what
are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made
up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together
by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed
on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a
degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities,
and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom,
because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the
removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that
was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a
pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he
meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold
pride, "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do
it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with
a great fleet art styled emperor." (St. Augustine, Book 4, Chapter 4 of
The City of God.)
Thus, when
Jesus offered this counsel to this particular rich person, He was merely
telling this person what any good libertarian would have said in the
same situation--particularly a natural-rights libertarian such as a
Rothbardian.
Jesus Engaged
in Conspicuous Consumption when He Could have Provided for the Poor
Instead
Some have
maintained--usually in an effort to make some larger political
point--that Jesus was some sort of ascetic who was against individuals
having material riches, especially when those material goods could be
used to provide for the poor instead. Yet Jesus Himself engaged in
conspicuous consumption when He could have provided for the poor
instead:
Matthew
26:6-13: And when Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper,
a woman came to Him having an alabaster flask of very costly fragrant
oil, and she poured it on His head as He sat at the table. But when His
disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, "Why this waste? For this
fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor." But
when Jesus was aware of it, He said to them, "Why do you trouble the
woman? For she has done a good work for Me. For you have the poor with
you always, but Me you do not have always. For in pouring this fragrant
oil on My body, she did it for My burial. Assuredly, I say to you,
wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has
done will also be told as a memorial to her." (See also Mark 14:3-9;
Luke 7:37,38; John 12:1-8.)
Yet here in
this case of luxurious consumption on the part of Jesus is purely of
ornamental value, i.e., of a purely aesthetic value--and a fleeting one
at that! When Jesus's disciples complained about this "waste" Jesus told
His disciples to stop bothering the woman about it! At the very least,
this demonstrates the notion that Jesus was some sort of austere,
principled ascetic to be an untenable one--and thus also, any attempt to
make some larger political point out of such a notion is automatically
moot.
As well, Paul had this to say as to one's ultimate responsibility in providing for others:
2 Thessalonians 3:10: For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.
Jesus Has Called
us to Liberty--Yet Those Who Pay Taxes are not Free!
Another
Bible passage that is sometimes cited by statists to supposedly
demonstrate that Jesus supported the paying of taxes--but which in
actuality demonstrates the exact opposite--is in Matthew 17:24-27:
When
they had come to Capernaum, those who received the temple tax came to
Peter and said, "Does your Teacher not pay the temple tax?"; he said,
"Yes." And when he had come into the house, Jesus anticipated him,
saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth
take customs or taxes, from their sons or from strangers?" Peter said to
Him, "From strangers." Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free.
Nevertheless, lest we offend them, go to the sea, cast in a hook, and
take the fish that comes up first. And when you have opened its mouth,
you will find a piece of money; take that and give it to them for Me and
you."
But it
appears that the only reason Jesus paid the temple tax (and by
supernatural means at that) as told above in Matt. 17:24-27 was so as
not to stir up trouble which would have interfered with the necessary
fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture (see Psalm 41:9; 69:25; 109:8;
Zech. 11:12,13--see also Matt. 26:54,56; Mark 14:49; John 13:18-30; Acts
1:15-26) and Jesus's previous prediction of His betrayal as told in
Matt. 17:22--neither of which would have been fulfilled had Jesus not
paid the tax and been arrested because of it. Jesus Himself supports
this view when He said of it "Nevertheless, lest we offend them . . .,"
which can also be translated "But we don't want to cause trouble"
(CEV)--at any rate, this comment by itself clearly demonstrates that
Jesus was hardly enthusiastic about the prospect of paying taxes.
But
moreover, Jesus said this after in effect saying that those who pay
customs and taxes are not free (v. 25,26). This is the necessary
implication of this passage, for if the sons of the kings on Earth are
free because they are exempt from paying taxes then this certainly
implies that those who are required to pay taxes are therefore not
free on that account--either that or Jesus was merely being insipid
when He said this (which at least from the Christian's viewpoint is
certainly not something Jesus was ever known for). Yet the fact that
Jesus considers those who are required to pay taxes as being unfree is
enough to conclusively demonstrate that Jesus is necessarily against
taxes, as one of the main reasons Jesus came was to call us to liberty!
Jesus said this Himself as recorded in Luke 4:16-21:
So
He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom
was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to
read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had
opened the book, He found the place where it was written:
"The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD."
Then
He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And
the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He
began to say to them, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your
hearing."
So here we
have it: Jesus Himself said that He came to proclaim liberty to the
captives and to set at liberty the oppressed--and yet Jesus also said
that those who are required to pay taxes are not free!
Some may
attempt to get around this glaring fact by pointing out that the word
"free" in Matthew 17:26 is a translation of the Greek word eleutheros, whereas the word "liberty" in Luke 4:18 is a translation of the Greek word aphesis. But eleutheros is the adjective form of the noun eleutheria,
and means: freeborn, i.e., in a civil sense, one who is not a slave, or
of one who ceases to be a slave, freed, manumitted; or at liberty,
free, exempt, unrestrained, not bound by an obligation--and aphesis
means: release from bondage or imprisonment; forgiveness or pardon,
i.e., remission of the penalty. Thus, when used in the context above
these two words are completely congruent in meaning with each other. As
well, if one desires to go back further to the original Hebrew of Isaiah
61:1 which Luke 4:18 is quoting from, the word aphesis is a translation of the Hebrew word rwrd
(which roughly transliterates as "darowr") which is a noun that means: a
flowing (as of myrrh), free run, or liberty. And so this word, too, is
completely congruent in meaning with eleutheros when used in the above context. Indeed, the Greek Septuagint translates this Hebrew word in the above passage as aphesis.
Thus it cannot be honestly maintained that Jesus had in mind two
separate meanings when he spoke the above words, as the only sensible
meaning of these separate words are completely congruent with one
another when used in their above context.
It might be pointed out by some that the New International Version translates the Greek word eleutheros
in Matthew 17:26 as "exempt." But this is a damning example of how some
modern Bible translations have been Bowdlerized in order to avoid
inconvenient facts--particularly political ones--that are often found in
the Bible. As was mentioned before, if indeed this were assumed to be
the correct translation of this word, then for Jesus to make such an
utterly pointless and vapid comment would have been totally insipid on
His part--again, not something Jesus was ever known for, at least from
the true Christian's perspective. The only meaning in which this comment
by Jesus can be taken which actually makes any point whatsoever and
avoids meaningless, inane and idle talk on His part is for the Greek
word eleutheros in Matthew 17:26 to be translated as "free" (or
otherwise "at liberty," etc.)--which is precisely how the King James
Version and most other English Bible translations have handled this
passage. Again, trying to avoid this most obvious and direct translation
renders Jesus's comment here absolutely irrelevant and inane.
As well, Paul and the original apostles understood that one of the main reasons Jesus came was to call us to liberty. Thus:
1 Corinthians 7:23: You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23: For though I am free [eleutheros]
from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the
more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to
those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those
who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not
being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I
might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I
might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might
by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel's sake, that I may
be partaker of it with you.
2 Corinthians 3:17: Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty [eleutheria].
Galatians
4:6,7: And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His
Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" Therefore you are no
longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through
Christ.
Galatians 5:1: Stand fast therefore in the liberty [eleutheria] by which Christ has made us free [eleutheros], and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
Galatians 5:13,14: For you, brethren, have been called to liberty [eleutheria]; only do not use liberty [eleutheria]
as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love
your neighbor as yourself."
James 1:25: But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty [eleutheria] and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
James 2:12: So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty [eleutheria].
1 Peter 2:16: Live as free [eleutheros] men, yet without using your freedom [eleutheria] as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. (RSV.)
It needs to be pointed out that the Greek noun eleutheria
is completely congruent in meaning with the English word "liberty,"
i.e., as in "freedom from slavery," "independence," "absence of external
restraint," "a negation of control or domination," "freedom of access,"
etc. Some have contended that any demarcation of property "restricts
liberty," i.e., the liberty of others to use these resources, and so
have maintained that the very concept of "total liberty" for everyone is
an untenable one. But as Prof. Murray N. Rothbard has pointed out in Power and Market (pg. 242):
This
criticism misuses the term "liberty." Obviously, any property right
infringes on others' "freedom to steal." But we do not even need
property rights to establish this "limitation"; the existence of another
person, under a regime of liberty, restricts the "liberty" of others to
assault him. Yet, by definition, liberty cannot be restricted thereby,
because liberty is defined as freedom to control what one owns without
molestation by others. "Freedom to steal or assault" would permit
someone--the victim of stealth or assault--to be forcibly or
fraudulently deprived of his person or property and would therefore
violate the clause of total liberty: that every man be free to do what
he wills with his own. Doing what one wills with someone else's own
impairs the other person's liberty.
Jesus Will Overthrow
All the Governments of the World and Punish All the Rulers in the
Time of His Judgement (i.e., His Second Coming)
In the above
it was clearly demonstrated that the Earthly, mortal governments are
firmly under the control of Satan--that it is Satan who is the true god
and ruler over this perverted governmental world system wherein
power-mad psychotics rule over our existence and exempt themselves from
every standard of decency which people would otherwise expect from any
common stranger. Yet this diabolical, demonically-controlled government
system is not to last forever. The Bible is quite clear and explicit in
many passages as to what God's Judgement--i.e., the Second Coming of
Christ--is to be about.
Lucifer's
false Christ--i.e., the Anti-Christ--will come to strengthen and empower
government during the last days: cementing together for the first time
in human history a world government--of which God will allow to continue
for a short time (Rev. 17:9-18). This world government will be the
ultimate culmination of the very essence of everything which government
represents: in short, it will be the most diabolical government which
has ever existed, with mass murder of the righteous on a massive scale
(Rev. 20:4). All the rulers of the Earth will whore themselves with this
world government and be aligned against Jesus Christ during the final
battle of Armageddon (Rev. 16:14; 17:2; 18:3,9; 19:19).
Yet the
coming of God's true Christ--Jesus Christ--is to be the exact opposite
of Satan's Christ! Instead of strengthening government, Jesus Christ
will come to abolish and utterly annihilate all the governments of the
world: including all the rulers of those governments along with them!
As it is written in the Old Testament concerning the End-Times Judgement of God, i.e., Jesus's Second Coming:
Psalms
110:5,6: The Lord is at Your right hand; He shall execute kings in the
day of His wrath. He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill the
places with dead bodies, He shall execute the heads of many countries.
And the above prophecy is also mirrored by the prophet Isaiah:
Isaiah
24:21,22: It shall come to pass in that day That the Lord will punish
on high the host of exalted ones, And on the earth the kings of the
earth. They will be gathered together, As prisoners are gathered in the
pit, And will be shut up in the prison; After many days they will be
punished.
This is
quite amazing indeed when one realizes that the prophet Ezekiel foresaw
this exact thing concerning God's End-Time Judgement--this time as it
specifically concerned the rulers over Israel:
Ezekiel
34:1-10: And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, "Son of man,
prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them,
'Thus says the Lord GOD to the shepherds: "Woe to the shepherds of
Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?
You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the
fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. The weak you have not
strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the
broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost;
but with force and cruelty you have ruled them. So they were scattered
because there was no shepherd; and they became food for all the beasts
of the field when they were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the
mountains, and on every high hill; yes, My flock was scattered over the
whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them."
'Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: "As I live," says
the Lord GOD, "surely because My flock became a prey, and My flock
became food for every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd,
nor did My shepherds search for My flock, but the shepherds fed
themselves and did not feed My flock"--therefore, O shepherds, hear the
word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, I am against the
shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand; I will cause them
to cease feeding the sheep, and the shepherds shall feed themselves no
more; for I will deliver My flock from their mouths, that they may no
longer be food for them."
Now
obviously when God, speaking here to Ezekiel, refers to "shepherds," He
is using this as a metaphor for rulers, just as "flock" is a metaphor
for the masses of people. Consider also the following passage by the
prophet Zechariah concerning God's End-Times Judgement:
Zechariah 10:3: "My anger is kindled against the shepherds, And I will punish the goatherds. [...]"
Now
obviously again, God, speaking here to Zechariah--just as Ezekiel before
him--is not talking about literal shepherds and goatherds, but is using
these expressions as metaphors for rulers--indeed, this is how the NRSV
translates it: "My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will
punish the leaders. [...]"
Thus, there
is an amazing continuity within the Old Testament prophecies as to what
God's End-Times Judgement is, at least in part, to consist of: the
punishment of all the Earthly rulers and the abolition of all mortal
rulerships! Can there be any doubt left in an honest, true Christian's
mind as to just how much Jesus absolutely abhors and detests government?
If there should be the slightest shred of doubt left in one's mind,
then please, choose to walk in the clear light of Liberty and let Paul
slay--once and for all--that last misplaced sense of doubt!:
1Corinthians
15:23,24: But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits,
afterward those who are Christ's at His coming. Then comes the end, when
He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all
rule and all authority and power.
How could it
possibly be stated any clearer?! The governments of the Earth are not
of God, they are of Satan, and Jesus will come to utterly destroy them ALL during His Judgement!
As it is written:
Revelation
19:19-21: And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their
armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse
and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the
false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived
those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his
image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with
brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from
the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled
with their flesh.
In the above
passage from Revelation, the "rest" referred to being "killed with the
sword which proceeded from the mouth" of Jesus in verse 21 are "the
kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war
against Him who sat on the horse and against His army," which was
previously referred to in verse 19.
And so it is
found that from the Old Testament through the New Testament that there
is a remarkable continuity and agreement as to what the fate of the
Earthly governments shall be during God's Judgement. And so also, this
all demonstrates unmistakably just how much God is opposed to the
ghastly, Satanical machination called government!
There can be no honest doubt: Jesus is an anarchist!
God's People are
to be Volunteers and Self-Rulers in the Kingdom of Christ
Some may
object to the designation of Jesus as an anarchist--as some may counter,
What about the Kingdom of Christ that is to be established after the
Judgement? But as was pointed out in several places above, the "Kingdom
of Christ" will in no sense be an actual government as they have existed
on Earth and operated by mortals. For the Kingdom of Christ is to be
the diametrically functional opposite of any government which has ever
existed on Earth before. Thus, it is perfectly fine to refer to the
"Kingdom of Christ" so long as one bears in mind that it has nothing
whatsoever to do with any historical government that has ever existed.
And so when it is said herein that "Jesus is an anarchist," this is
merely an objective designation as it refers to all Earthly, mortal
governments, and all governments of their kind. People have been trained
from birth by the Satanic, mortal governments to fear this word and to
recoil from it, but it is used here only in its most objective sense.
It has been
said above that the Kingdom of Christ is to be the functional opposite
of any government which has ever existed before. What exactly is meant
by this?
Well, to
begin with, unlike all mortal governments, which compel people to
support them whether they want to or not--in the form of taxes,
etc.--the only thing which anyone can give to God which He does not
already have is their voluntary love. God gives to all their very life,
and God sustains all (Job 34:14,15; Acts 17:25). The seeking of material
possessions means nothing to God as He is what makes their very
existence possible. Therefore taxes and their like will have no place in
God's Kingdom, as God has no need for such material support, as do the
mortal governments.
But God is
always seeking our love: but true love cannot be forced from someone,
real love can only be a voluntary process. Therefore there will be no
compulsion on the part of God. As it is written in Psalm 110:3
concerning the establishment of Jesus's Kingdom:
Your people shall be volunteers
In the day of Your power;
In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning,
You have the dew of Your youth.
Thus the
people of God's Kingdom shall be volunteers! How different indeed from
all the mortal governments which compel people to support them through
theft and extortion!
And in further elaboration of this, let us consider the following passage from Revelation:
Revelation
5:8-10: Now when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and
the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp,
and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sang a new song, saying:
"You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
[verse 10:] And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth." (See also Rev. 1:6.)
Yet what
exactly is verse 10 in the above passage talking about? If we righteous
shall all be volunteers and all the workers of iniquity have been cast
into Hell, then who exactly is left for us to be king over and what
exactly shall we be reigning over? Each other? Does that make any sense?
Obviously the only who for us to be kings over is our own persons and the only what
for us to reign over shall be our own domain. For the first time in
history mankind will truly be free from the yolk of bondage--that
Satanic world system of servitude in all of its many guises. For the
first time ever we will be self-rulers and our homes truly will be our
castles! We shall be complete and absolute sovereigns over our own
lives!
Because it
very much bears repeating, I will leave this section by citing what Paul
had to say on this matter one more time, for he said it as well and as
plainly as it could possibly be stated:
1
Corinthians 15:23,24: But each one in his own order: Christ the
firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming. Then comes
the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an
end to all rule and all authority and power.
Amen.
In Closing
"The
Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found
difficult, and left untried."--Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Part I,
Chapter 5, "The Unfinished Temple," in What's Wrong with the World.
In all of my
research into Jesus Christ I have discovered that He is nothing if not a
perfectly consistent libertarian, at least as it concerns His political
ethic. I could come across not one instance of Him contradicting this
position, either in word or in action. I can't say that I was really
surprised by this, although I suppose to many it may be surprising to
learn this. For one thing, when Jesus gave the Golden Rule as the
ultimate social ethic (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31), it's clear that He
actually meant it. Yet, as was demonstrated above, this ethic is just a
different formulation of the libertarian
Non-Aggression Principle, at least as a political ethic. As a strictly
political ethic it is
actually completely congruent with the libertarian
Non-Aggression Principle, in that as political ethics they actually
prohibit the same activity: i.e., aggression against people's just
property--and ultimately all just property titles can be traced
back by way of voluntary transactions (which would thus be consistent
with the Golden Rule) to the homesteading of unused resources; or (2) in
the case in which such resources were expropriated from a just owner
and the just owner or his heir(s) can no longer be identified or are
deceased, where the first
non-aggressor possesses the resource (which can then be considered
another form of homesteading).
What I have
shown above is that Jesus has called us to liberty, and that liberty and
Christ's message are incompatible with government. Indeed, governments
throughout history have been the most demonic force to ever exist on
Earth. We need not lament their passing, but instead look forward to it.
Before I
leave you, there exists a couple of other points that need to be
mentioned as to what the importance of this message is:
To start
with, as Christians how can we be attentive to the cries of the
oppressed if we don't even recognize the oppressor? How can we comfort
and give aid to someone if we don't even recognize them as a victim? We
are liable to be obtuse and uncaring to those who have been unjustly
wronged by this Satanic world system if we don't even recognize the main
instrument of Satan's power on this Earth. So that is first and
foremost: by realizing and understanding the truth as to the diabolical
origin of government one will thereby have gained back part of one's
humanity which this Satanic world system has worked so hard in making
people oblivious to. One need only watch some of the old Nazi propaganda
films of thousands of German youths goose-stepping in unison to realize
just how effective this demonic world system can sometimes be in
striping people of their humanity.
Second,
according to the Bible, it makes a difference as to when Jesus's Second
Coming will occur depending on our actions in being able to raise the
awareness of the world's population. While although I mentioned Étienne
de la Boétie in the introduction and pointed out that if a critical mass
of the population could come to understand and accept the truth as to
the true nature of governments that it would be enough to topple them,
this is ultimately true because it would in this case hasten the coming
of Jesus Christ! Thus Peter wrote about Christians being able to hasten
the coming of Christ:
2
Peter 3:11,12: Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved,
what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which
the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will
melt with fervent heat?
And another
extremely important reason for this message presented herein has already
been touched on in one of the above sections. The Bible tells of a
massive End-Times deception perpetrated by Lucifer upon the masses in
the form of the Anti-Christ. Although if one understands what the coming
of God's real Christ is to be about--as Paul puts it "Then comes the
end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end
to all rule and all authority and power" (1 Cor. 15:24)--then it will
be impossible for one to be deceived by the Anti-Christ, as the
Anti-Christ will come to strengthen government, not to abolish it. Some
Christians mistakenly believe that so long as one accepts a person
called "Jesus" as their Lord and Savior then they will have eternal
salvation. Yet there will be many people in the End-Times Judgement who
will consider themselves to be good Christians worshiping the true
Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and yet in doing so they will have
condemned themselves to Hell! The Anti-Christ will present himself as
being the Second Coming of Jesus! But Jesus said, "I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John
14:6)! Thus if one worships a lie in place of the truth then the fact
that one will have called this lie by the name of "Jesus" will be of no
help! In fact, to do so is blasphemy! In order for one to really worship
Jesus one first has to know what the truth of Jesus is about. And that,
my friends, is the ultimate purpose of this document: that people may
come to know the real Jesus. And what Jesus is about is liberty--at
least as politics is concerned.
But lastly,
many unjust government actions have been supported by self-professed
Christians, such as with Prohibition and the War on Drugs, even though
such unjust laws are completely unjustifiable from a Biblical
perspective and indeed very anti-Christian in the most literal sense of
the word. As well, such government actions as taxes are also completely
anti-Christian. Thus, in clearly demonstrating how Jesus was nothing if
not a perfectly consistent libertarian--at least as it concerned His
political ethic--from this Christians can get a clear picture as to what
their objectives should be as it concerns such matters, instead of
"giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons" as Paul put
it (1 Tim. 4:1). I dread to think how many young men have been raped in
the U.S. prison system because they had violated some make-believe
"crime" against using or selling certain pharmaceuticals--that aggresses
against no one--which people calling themselves Christians had
supported. As Christians, we need to be aware of the tricks Satan has
used throughout history to get people to support his empowerment. We
need to be above all the pettiness and walk in the clear light of
liberty which Jesus commanded us and declare everyone to be a sovereign
over their own domain, unless they should violate another's right of the
same.
**********
Appendix: Articles Everyone Should be Familiar With:
The Anatomy of the State
by Prof. Murray N. Rothbard:
http://www.mises.org/easaran/chap3.asp
Defense Services on the Free Market
by Prof. Murray N. Rothbard:
http://www.geocities.com/vonchloride/marketdefense.html
The Private Production of Defense
by Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe:
http://www.mises.net/journals/jls/14_ 1/14_1_2.pdf
or:
http://www.mises.org/journals/scholar/ Hoppe.pdf
and:
Fallacies of the Public Goods Theory and the Production of Security
by Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe:
http://www.mises.net/journals/jls/9_1/9 _1_2.pdf
December
19,
2001 |
The “higher powers” referred to in Romans 13 are God’s Law.
Poorly educated Christians who have been raised in ignorance by the
State and deluded by false authorities would have us believe that the
servants living in the basement who produced Man’s Law (known as
“statutes”) have moved upstairs to the master bedroom and have become
higher powers. Examine the complete chart (above) and realize for
yourself the profound absurdity of such a contention.
It
turns out the assertion that Satan’s rule is inevitable is…how can I
put this delicately… a pile of rubbish promulgated by Christians who,
when God said “brains” thought he said “trains” and have been “off
track” ever since.
The
only power Satan has over America is the power We the People gave him.
God’s Kingdom will descend upon Earth as soon as Christians fulfill
their moral responsibility to enforce God’s Natural Order over America.
The
whole of what has gone wrong cannot be covered in merely this one
article, but know this…all of the trouble that America is now going
through has occurred as a result of evil men replacing the original law
of America (Biblically-based common law) with another type of law that isn’t actually law!
