Church Identity and Perpetuity Part 17

 The sixth mark of the Apostolic Church was religious liberty, soul-freedom, a complete separation of church and state, the entire independence of each church from all state control so far as regarded the membership, ministry, organization, faith, worship and discipline of the church. --Hassell

Elder Hassell calls this a fundamental and unchangeable principle that true Baptists advocate religious liberty, not just for themselves but for all men.

It's important to distinguish between religion and church. A religion describes the ultimate value set that rules our whole life, including when it is justified to use violence. There is no question that the Word of God should be guiding our government and to have a “Christian Government” in the sense of Christ-like would be a blessing. Government is an institution ordained by God for punishing evil so that we may live quiet and peaceable lives.

Fundamental religious commitments are necessary to determine what is lawful and what is aggression, so the laws of a nation necessarily express elements of a religion which all people in an earthly territory are obliged to follow. Since there is only one God, and Jesus Christ is the fulness of the Godhead bodily, religion is divided between Christianity and idolatry. There is no middle ground, there is no neutrality in religion; if it’s not Christian, it’s idolatry. This war is fought in the halls of government and in political campaigns, but it’s primarily fought within the person of each child of God. Instead of Christian people against idolatrous people, it’s more like my spiritual nature against my flesh nature and Christian ideas against idolatrous ideas. Gal 5:17, Eph 6:12.

The Christian idea is that God is all in all. The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy 2:5 says “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” We believe that Christ acts directly on each man and each man is accountable directly to Christ in their whole walk of life. As we relate to others in society, we are also accountable to various institutions under the overall headship of Christ. But there is an idolatrous tendency in this world for one institution to consolidate power and regulate all efforts to maintain peace, prosperity, and general welfare among all men. This could be a church assuming control of state or a state assuming control of the church. Baptists agree that Christ prohibits his church from using the sword or coercion to induce participation in church membership and fellowship; and indeed it counteracts the spiritual witness of the glory of God in the church.

In distinction, the church that Jesus established on this earth did not include a civil government to rule over all people regardless of their faith. It is a peculiar institution for a peculiar people who love God and pledge their lives to serve him to worship together, to keep the ordinances, to uphold the truth of pure religion and glorify God.

The battle between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of antichrist rages in all the temporal affairs of men. The weapons the church is given are spiritual, not carnal (2Cor 10:4). Although men get impatient and are not content with the “success” of those methods (in our carnal judgment Mt 16:23), when those methods are used it’s a surrender to the antichrist, not a victory.

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. Gal 4:28-30

When Constantine “converted” to Christianity, he took an interest in the church and had an interest to unify the empire. There is no question this was incredibly refreshing and exciting for all Christians, but there were at least two specific ways it corrupted the church. Public favor and financial incentives were bringing people into the church that weren't interested before, and churches were appealing to the emperor to decide church issues. The members of the church disagreeing with the imperial council were expected to conform, or they would lose their legal status and sometimes had their property confiscated and bishops exiled. Whatever is true about the faith and practice of any persecuted party, I know the sect on the side of the violence (known as Catholics) was not of the Spirit but of the flesh and therefore had no inheritance in the true gospel church (Gal 4:28-30). Primitive Baptists came from people who were always distinct and separate from this church-state alliance.

Now let's consider the civil law delivered by Moses to the Old Testament Church and how that translates to the nature of the New Testament Church.

God gave Moses tablets with a moral law that has always been valid for his creation and always shall be, but he also gave a civil law that was applicable to a peculiar people for a particular place and time so long as they kept the law of God and eschewed idolatry. But the Israelites broke this conditional covenant (Jer 31:32) and it had lost its sovereignty among the nations. The scribes, pharisees, and many of the Israelites including the apostles had expected Christ to come and restore an earthly kingdom. This was evidenced by Peter rebuking Jesus for prophesying his death, (Mt 16:23) but Jesus insisted that Peter was thinking carnally and hadn’t grasped how much better of a kingdom was coming through his death and resurrection.

It was prophesied and confirmed by the Apostles that that Sinaitic covenant was completed and done away with in favor of a new covenant of Grace in the New Testament (2 Cor 3:6-9).  God sent the law to his people as a kind of schoolmaster for the time before Christ to teach us about him and his kingdom, but now that Christ is come, we have freedom. How appropriate would it be for a graduating senior to go back to kindergarten? Just as appropriate as teaching that the Mosaic civil law applies to us today (Gal 4).

Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate for Judgment on the charge that he was making himself a king to compete with Ceasar. Jesus never denied that he was a king, but his proof that he wasn’t changing the civil government was that if he were, his servants would fight to keep him from death. (Jn 18:36). This is conclusive that the church of Jesus Christ is not a political entity. Furthermore, in the garden when they could have made a stand, Jesus commanded his disciples to put up the sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword. (Mt 26:52). So, it can’t be argued that the work of the sword is for a later time, or after the sacrifice has been completed. The work of the sword is for the institution appointed for that purpose, but not for the work of the church that Jesus established with his apostles.