Imagine for a second that you’re at Sunday worship, the minister is in the middle of his sermon, fist extended and Bible in hand, but all anyone can think about is the acrid smell of smoke and the fact that the walls and now the ceilings are presently being engulfed in fire.
In that situation, a firefighter would have every right, and one could even say the responsibility, for him to walk up to the pulpit and escort mr preacher as well as the gathered faithful hastily out of the building.
Let’s go back a few steps. Sphere sovereignty is the title given to the reality that in Scripture, God has ordained three governments. The basis of the three governments is the self-government of the individual that comes from being made in the image of God, and is so thoroughly explained and taught in the New Testament. The self-governing individual being the atom, God has ordained the family as the smallest government, in which the Husband and Father is the pastor and leader of his family. This model is precious, because it reflects the way that Christ is the head and leader of his body, the Church, and it reflects the way that God the Father leads Jesus, his son. Before the gentle reader is dismissive of this government, consider that it was Adam’s failure to lead his wife that precipitated the sin that caused the fall. One might even say that governmental corruption precedes the fall, if one were seeking to evoke a subtle grin from one’s reader, or simply taking an oblique dig at Scott and Dan.
The next government that God instituted is the local Church. No, that does not mean there should be a political party competing against Labour and Liberal called ‘the Church’. The reason our society is altogether unfamiliar with church government, the same unfamiliarity a man might feign on the Maury show, is that Church Discipline is to him a gentile and a tax collector, in short, it is a responsibility the church has largely abdicated. Church government encompasses not only the proper selection and hiring of faithful men who meet the biblical qualifications to be pastors and elders, and proper selection of deacons, but it also includes the same process of chastisement and restoration or expulsion described in Matthew 18:15-20, Romans 16, Titus 3 and more. If the reader has completed the sum of 2+2, and correctly arrived at 4, they may be wondering how this would even be possible in a megachurch. Let’s just say, a wise shepherd would not attempt to care for 6000 sheep, if he was indeed a wise shepherd, and if the definition of ‘care’ had not changed since this was written.
Whilst the Father is the head of the family government, and the pastor and elders the head of the church government, their authority stays within their sphere. Just because a husband can require his children to be obedient doesn’t mean that he can wander into the sanctuary on Sunday morning, insisting that the chairs be set up in this fashion or that, pontificating upon the ratio of water to juice used in the administration of communion, nor what time the service should start. His authority is limited to his sphere. Similarly, the elders of the church have every right to call a member of their church to get their act together if they are openly disregarding God’s word in their conduct, and are not repenting and confessing this sin. If a man abdicates his responsibility of washing his wife with the word and raising his children in the love and admonition of the Lord, he has not broken the State Law of Victoria, but he has gone against God’s law, and the men that God has placed above him as ministers to him have the responsibility to God to hold that man accountable.
This note on the separate spheres is very important, and is the reason for the infernal image supplied at the start of this piece.
The third government that God has instituted is the State. Before we tuck into the meat of this matter, the side dish we cast your attention to is the fact that God ordaining the state government is in itself a slam dunk argument against any anarchist system, but perhaps more on that at another time. The state is uniquely but explicitly given the sword. That is, God has given your country not only the right, but the responsibility, to justly kill those who have committed crimes worthy of death. If the reader finds this uncomfortable, their best course of action is to get a sharpie and scribble out Genesis 9:6 from their Bible, though I suspect this may prove deleterious to their respect for God and his word. At this point, some readers who are keenly aware of the well-documented cases of improper executions and who yearn for justice might see this as a system that simply doesn’t work the way it is supposed to. That is why God’s law should be the standard when matters of life and death are on the table, but for more of that the reader should scroll back to our piece on Theonomy. Romans 13 is a prescription and a description of good government. 1 Peter likewise asks Christians to be good citizens. The state is ordained by God to rule justly, and when it does, everyone thrives. When it rules unlawfully and unjustly, Christians are required to obey God, which will mean disobeying the state. This makes the Christian the best citizen, not a danger, because the Christian realises who the bigger fish is, and would probably rather see their nation fall back in line with God’s word than store up his wrath.
If all of this talk on who’s who and what’s what has become like shades of beige, or a smorgasbord of ‘who cares’, then let us arrive at the crux of the matter.
The government was not given the right to assume authority outside its sphere. Nor was the church, or the family. A man cannot require the state to raise the regulation height of the street curbs by 8cm. The church cannot require a wife and her husband to shop at Coles instead of Woolworths, and the state cannot require the church to stop gathering to worship God.
Let me say that again in no uncertain terms. The state government of Victoria has disobeyed God and stepped out of line by forbidding what God in his word commands. And no, Zoom is not church. We feel passionate enough about this to commit the faux pas of starting a sentence with a coordinating conjuction. The thing is, the Christian is not being a lawless troublemaker by disobeying this unlawful command. They are honouring God.
That is where the fireman comes in. If your church was on fire, the state would be operating correctly to step in there and interrupt worship, even if you were right in the middle of administering the sacraments. They have the responsibility to guard you against immediate danger and certain death. For a while, before we knew better, many churches thought that the big sneeze was indeed a fire, and closed their churches in good conscience.
However, as bottle shops and abortion mills remain open, it has become obvious that there is no fire, the emperor has no clothes, and yet the pews remain empty and the doors remain shut.
Distilled Orthopraxy 