abstract: |

Skip Navigation

by Gordon J. Keddie

Your publication (Christian Statesman, May-June 1991) of the texts of the recent RP/OP exchange of views on the doctrine of Christ's mediatorial kingship calls for some comment and clarification, particularly from a Reformed Presbyterian perspective. While Mr. Pockras' presentation was in some respects the clearest on this subject heard in recent years, it nevertheless did not deal with some important considerations, a grasp of which is vital if we are to make any progress in this debate.

1. First of all, there is a common conception, especially in the RPCNA, that the doctrine of Christ's mediatorial kingship is distinctive to the Reformed Presbyterian Church and is even a uniquely RP contribution to the wider corpus of Reformed theology. This view is now seeing something of a revival, not coincidentally, in the context of interchurch talks with the OPC.

   What needs to be said and ought to have been said explicitly by Mr. Pockras, is that the doctrine of Christ's mediatorial kingship is a doctrine common to Reformed theology and is not at all distinctive to the RPCNA. Your readers will have noticed that there is no disagreement between Messrs. Pockras, Eckardt, and Hilbelink as to the doctrine that Christ is King as Mediator and the fact that this includes His rule over the Church and His rule over the nations. The reason for this unanimity is that this is the common doctrine of the Reformed churches, taught in the Confessions and expounded by the classic theologies (see J. Dick, C. Hodge, R. L. Dabney, A. A. Hodge, and H. Hoek-sema). Curiously and ironically, the only "systematic theology" ever published by an RP (Thomas Sproul's 1882 Prelections on Theology) never uses the term "mediatorial kingship" (Sproul speaks of "headship") and does not even make the elementary distinction between the essential kingship of the Son and the mediatorial kingship of Christ--omissions that do not indicate any heightened sense of the distinctiveness of these doctrines to the RPCNA!

   The fact is, the RPCNA has no distinctive doctrine of Christ's mediatorial kingship!

2. What, then, is distinctive to the RPCNA in connection with the doctrine of Christ's kingship? The short answer is that what has been distinctive to the RPCNA is not any doctrine about Christ (i.e., mediatorial kingship), but is a package of doctrines that amount to a particular political theory about the state and Christian citizenship.

   First and foremost was the doctrine that modern nations should covenant with God. This is not in the Westminster Confession of Faith, but is in the RP Testimony (22:9). On this point the post-1690 Cameronians (later, RPs) parted company with the vast majority of the Church of Scotland, which was content to be established by law in an uncovenanted Scotland. The RPs held the Scottish Covenants--and other covenants made from time to time by the church--to be perpetually binding on succeeding generations. As a result, they regarded the Scotland that adopted the 1638 and 1643 Covenants, but refused to renew them in 1690, as "covenant-breaking" and of "immoral constitution." RP emigrants took this view with them across the Atlantic and, after the Revolution, applied it to the U.S. Constitution on the grounds that it did not recognize the kingship of Christ over the new republic. You can see that this is a very distinctive theory of the States in its relation to God.

   The mistake was in failing to take proper account of the fact that Israel was, first (and foremost), the Church of her time and was only a political entity to the extent that this preserved her status as the people of God. When Israel covenanted with God, for example, she did so as the Old Testament Church and, as such, provides a model for the New Testament Church in her confessions of faith and witness for truth. To apply this equally to the state founders is to ignore the fact that the state is not the Church. This is not to say that modern nations may not and should not declare themselves Christian by constitutional enactment and God-honoring legislation, but it is a mistake to regard this as an act of "covenanting" in the sense of Israel at Sinai or Gilgal.

   When states adopt Christian constitutions and enact Christian legislation, these are policies, not confessions of faith. It is worth pointing out that while the RP Testimony still calls for civil governments to "enter into covenant with Christ" (23:4), it has repudiated its former commitment to "perpetually binding" human covenants, of all sorts, and redefined "covenanting" in terms of "confessing Christ and his Lordship" (22:9). What this means is that while the RPCNA retains the traditional language of covenanting, it has in fact departed from the substance of the older idea of covenanting. Mr. Pockras defends a position no longer held and gives the impression that the RPCNA stands where it once did.

   The second pillar of this distinctive RP outlook was a particularly rigorous doctrine of complicity in error. Mr. Pockras never mentions this, but it is in fact the underlying basis for his assertion (p. 13) that no Christian should vote for anyone who is ready to uphold a "Christless constitution" (a reference to the U.S. Constitution). In this, Mr. Pockras goes beyond the RP Testimony (23:29), which only says that "the Christian should support and vote only for such men as are committed to scriptural principles of civil government." This statement represents the abolition in 1964 of the historic RP prohibition of all voting. It has the effect, therefore, of making voting a matter for the individual conscience, albeit within the constraints of the Testimony's advice as to the suitability of candidates.

   The assumption is that if you vote for a candidate who, in turn, takes an oath of allegiance to a "Christless constitution," you are an accomplice in his sin. The same holds true for an oath of joining the military, or serving on a jury--anything which implicitly upholds the "Christless constitution." RP political involvement therefore was historically one of patriotic non-compliance--hence its common appellation, political dissent.

   The logic of political dissent is highly suspect. It is as good as saying: "You compromisers, pagans, etc., will have to vote in a Christian constitution and government before we will have anything to do with it!" Consistent Christians must dissent (i.e., withdraw from all involvement, including voting), while others (inconsistent Christians and unbelievers) are supposed to make the constitution and business of government Christian enough for us to become involved!

   I wonder if the many RPs who voted for Ronald Reagan and George Bush really believe that these men were publicly committed to scriptural principles of civil government as outlined by Mr. Pockras, or that they made the "proper qualification" in their respective inaugural oaths of allegiance to the "Christless" Constitution of the United States of America? Mr. Pockras knows his answer and he calls such voting "lese-majeste [i.e., treason] to Jesus." Now, that may be an RP position, but I doubt if it can be called the RP position.

3. Which thought prompts my final observation. Wherein is the RPCNA actually distinctive? Does the RPC have a different doctrinal understanding of Christ's mediatorial kingship? No, we have seen she does not! Read the Confessions and theologians! Does the RPCNA require that her people not vote (as OPC speaker Robert Eckardt correctly perceived Mr. Pockras to be asserting, p. 17)? Not at all! Read the RP Testimony, chapter 23. Consider it in the context of the pre-1964 prohibition of voting and you will realize that what it does in effect is make voting a matter of individual conscience. For Mr. Pockras to imply that the anti-voting stance of "political dissent" is still an RP distinctive is to misread the changes of the last quarter century in the RPC. There are those in the RPCNA, to be sure, who sincerely believe in the old position, but the denomination has certainly departed from her former stance.

   What is no doubt distinctive about the RPCNA is that she holds still that the state ought to recognize--formally, constitutionally and practically--the Lordship of Christ. This found its focus for many years in the effort to promote a Christian Amendment to the Constitution. To what degree such a position can be regarded as a "distinctive" requiring a distinct confessional and denominational existence is highly debatable. I for one--and I am a minister of the RPCNA--find this a rather abstract, even arbitrary, question. I am a citizen of a state (the United Kingdom) which has had a Christian "constitution" (albeit unwritten) for centuries. I have seen firsthand the ineffectiveness of "paper" acknowledgements of God.

The real issue is not constitutional instruments, however desirable they might be in principle. The real issue is what righteousness God wants the civil magistrate to do--across the whole spectrum of governmental responsibility before God. To make "distinctives" out of grandiloquent demands for a covenanted state or a Christian constitution puts us in great danger of missing the real point of our witness. For 200 years, RPs lobbied for others to change the U.S. Constitution so that they could feel right about voting and being involved in government. It didn't happen, of course, and the fact is that modern RPs are voting and are getting involved in government. And, instead of letting abstract and abstruse discussions about Christian amendments and the like inhibit their activity, they are giving their minds to the precise ways in which national righteousness ought to be expressed and implemented. This is the real position of the RPCNA today!

back to top