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by Andrew Sandlin

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matt. 4:17).

The kingdom which Jesus preached was not a political kingdom. This is quite clear. Jesus declared to the Pharisees that the kingdom of God comes not "with observation," or outward show (Lk. 17:20-23). As he stood accused before Pilate, he delivered those memorable words, "My kingdom is not of this world" (Jn. 18:36). He did not mean that his kingdom was not designed to pervade the world. He meant that its source was heavenly, not earthly. Similarly, St. Paul, one of Jesus' leading disciples after the ascension, teaches that in regeneration, God translates us from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God's dear Son (Col. 1:13). Clearly, this is not a political kingdom.

Jesus' mere presence, however, created political conflict. This conflict began at his birth. Herod was informed by the wise men of the East that the King of the Jews was to be born in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:1-8). The goal of their long trek was to see and to honor this King. The wise men were warned not to alert Herod of Jesus' location. Herod, in his insane jealousy, demanded that all infants in Bethlehem age two and younger be killed (Matt. 2:16-18). If he could not ferret out the young King, he would destroy an entire generation of infants. An abundance of families suffered grievously as a result of Herod's miscalculation. When he heard the phrase, "the King of the Jews" (Matt. 2:2), he thought immediately of a political kingdom. He thought that the young King had been birthed with a design to supplant his own royal position. This was a serious misunderstanding. Herod thought that Jesus Christ's kingdom was to be a political regime; actually, it was to be a religious regime with political implications. Herod thought that the conflict was political; in reality, it was religious. Any political conflict emerged as a result of the fundamental religious conflict.

During Jesus' earthly ministry, many Jews made the same mistake Herod did, though from an entirely different angle. They were weary of the Roman yoke and longed for national and political emancipation. A pesky group of them were political revolutionaries.¹ Their objective was to overthrow Roman political authority. Eventually they were squashed in the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. When these Jews and those whom they influenced heard Jesus' claims of kingship, they made the same mistaken inference Herod had: that Jesus' was a political kingdom. They were anticipating a political messiah. Interestingly, the Old Testament, which many of them knew well, provided a measure of justification for this inference. It spoke of the Great One who was to come, the Messiah who would break the yoke of the Jews' captors and restore Israel to a place of prominence among the nations.

There is no question that this is what the Old Testament teaches (Jer. 23:5-8; Ez. 34:24-31; Mic. 5:5-6; Zech. 9-10). Unfortunately, these politically motivated Jews contemporary with Jesus did not read all the Old Testament. Elsewhere the Old Testament had made clear that the Messiah was to suffer for the sins of his people. His principal objective in his coming was "to make his soul an offering for sin" (Isa. 53:10). John the Baptist had made this clear when he declared when he saw Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world" (Jn. 1:29). To the two disciples on the Emmaus road, Jesus expounded the teaching of the law and the prophets in all things concerning himself; among other things he noted how that the Old Testament itself had taught that Christ must first suffer and then enter into his glory (Lk. 24:26). Israel's victory over her enemies is a result of Christ's death. Death precedes enthronement. Most of the Jews of Jesus' day misunderstood this. They tried to separate the king's redemptive ministry from its political implications. They therefore saw in Jesus a political revolutionary. He was nothing of the kind. He commanded soldiers in the Roman army to be faithful to their calling (Lk. 3:14). He told his disciples that those who lived by the sword would die by the sword (Matt. 26:52). In the Sermon on the Mount, he required of his followers long-suffering in the face of provocation and persecution (Matt. 5:38-48). When Jesus perceived that some of his listeners would try to force kingship on him, he hid from them (Jn. 6:15). These are hardly the marks of a political revolutionary.

On the other hand, it would be totally in error to hold that Jesus' life and teaching had nothing to do with politics. All to the contrary, a politics that does not issue from a proper understanding of Jesus' teaching will be a seriously misguided--and ultimately dangerous--politics. In three ways especially the life and teaching of Jesus impinge on politics and political issues.

The Authority of Old Testament Law

First, Jesus explicitly confirmed the authority of Old Testament law (Matt. 5:17-19),² which contains a number of requirements designed to cover political life. The first thing to notice is that certain specific laws are required by God to be implemented in the civil sphere. These include the well-known laws prohibiting murder, theft, rape, kidnapping, witchcraft, and so forth. These are laws to which civil penalties are attached, sometimes even the death penalty. Let us not miss the point that Jesus himself confirmed the authority of the entire Old Testament, and we cannot exclude the civil laws from that category. The only Old Testament laws or classifications of laws which are no longer applicable are those which the Bible itself sets aside. A leading example is the Old Testament sacrificial system, which the book of Hebrews makes clear was designed to be done away with in Christ, the final, enduring sacrifice (Heb. 9). But we discover no teaching in the Bible itself that the civil laws--at least most of them--have been suspended. For example, the New Testament no where tells us that the civil laws prohibiting murder, blasphemy, homosexuality, and false witness in a civil case have been abrogated. These laws, and many others within this category, remain in force. If we are to take seriously the entire range of Jesus' teaching, we must take seriously his teaching about the authority of the Old Testament. And if we are to take seriously his teaching about the authority of the Old Testament, we must take seriously what the Old Testament teaches about civil law. Jesus confirmed that Old Testament civil law should govern the civil aspects of life.

We should recall, in addition, that Jesus' confirmation of Old Testament law alerts us to Old Testament requirements for civil magistrates. For one thing, they must be "wise men," and God-fearing fathers and husbands (Deut. 1:12-18). The book of Deuteronomy declares that the king is to write out the entire law so that he will remain humble before God and before his citizens (Deut. 17:18-20). This obviously implies that any civil magistrate should be acquainted with the teaching of biblical law. God's law governing magistrates strictly forbids taking bribes to pervert justice (Ex. 23:8; Prov. 29:4), debasing currency (Lev. 19:35-36; Prov. 20:10; Ez. 45:9-10), and the oppression of the poor, weak, and foreigners (Ex. 22:22-25; 23:6, 9). These are all requirements which prospective civil magistrates must take seriously indeed. Not only does the Old Testament set forth the laws by which the commonwealth should be governed; it also establishes the laws by which the magistrates themselves should be governed. No one is above the law; this is a biblical fact. Jesus' confirmation of Old Testament law, therefore, reveals clear political implications.

Ultimate and Subordinate Civil Authorities

Second, Jesus validates the authority of de facto civil governments while asserting the fundamental authority of God.³ This is the lesson of the story of the tribute money (Matt. 22:15-22).⁴ Several Pharisees confronted Jesus with what they thought would be a sticky question: "Here is a coin on which Caesar's face appears. Is it lawful to render to Caesar?" (that is, should one pay taxes?). They assumed that they had placed Jesus on the horns of a dilemma. If he replied that one should pay taxes, the revolutionary Jews would consider him just another lapdog for Caesar. However, if he responded that citizens should not pay taxes, this would get him into big political trouble with the Roman Empire. The answer was unequivocal: "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." He recognized the subordinate authority of the Roman Empire, while asserting the ultimate authority of God.

In this account we can deduce a second prime implication for politics from Jesus' life and ministry: God grants de facto civil government legitimate authority; but when the authority of civil government conflicts with God's authority, Christians must obey God. This is exactly what the early disciples believed: "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Ac. 5:29). On the one hand, this prevents sedition and anarchy in the name of Christian fidelity; on the other hand, it limits the authority of all human civil government. Man is not God and may not exercise divine prerogatives. Civil government is a divinely delegated authority. We should remember that the Roman Empire of Christ's day was anything but a Christian empire. It was authoritarian, if not in some ways totalitarian. Yet Jesus Christ did not counsel sedition or revolution, and he counseled his hearers to pay their taxes--even to a corrupt regime. Sedition, revolution and anarchy are not legitimate Christian recourses. As the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ was committed to the power of regeneration, not revolution (Jn. 3:1-10). Why have revolution and the coercion and tyranny it brings in its wake been so pervasive in the last three centuries? Because gradually men have lost faith in regeneration. When men lose hope in the power of regeneration, they must place confidence in the power of revolution. If men cannot be supernaturally changed internally, it is assumed that they must be naturally coerced externally.

This is not the Christian method of changing man. The message of the gospel is the message of peace (Ac. 10:34-36; Eph. 6:15; cf. Rom. 3:17). It is salvation by grace through faith in Christ and his atoning work (2 Cor. 5:17-21). Regeneration reorients man in every aspect of his being. It begins the process of sanctification whereby man is gradually conformed to Christ's image (Rom. 12:1-2) and to the standard of biblical law (Matt. 5:19-20). As men are changed, they begin to act differently in every sphere of life. Eventually this sanctification works its way into the political sphere. Godly political change, consequently, is a result of regeneration.

Almost all modern political ideologies reject this idea. Marxism is a prime example. It holds that man is essentially "plastic."⁵ Man is shaped by the factors of his environment. In other words, men can be fundamentally changed by naturalistic means. Of course, this is a formula for totalitarianism, torture, terror and all the other horrors of modern politicized states. Jesus' view is that man can be fundamentally changed only by regeneration. The state cannot change man fundamentally, and if it tries to change him fundamentally, it ends up creating hell on earth. The message of Jesus Christ is that men are fundamentally changed by being born again, or born from above (Jn. 3:3). This has drastic implications for the political sphere.

We render to Caesar what is Caesar's. We pay our taxes. We serve in the military. We obey Caesar's laws unless they conflict with God's laws in the Bible. This is Christ's teaching. But Caesar, from the Christian standpoint, should have only a limited role in life. The fundamental issues are always religious, not political. This implies quite a minor role for the state, and this is what the Bible teaches elsewhere. Romans 13 relates to us the role of the state. It is to "execute wrath" on evildoers. But how do we define evil? This is not arbitrary. The Bible defines it for us. Sin is the transgression of God's law (1 Jn. 3:4). Most sins are not crimes; they are not punishable by the state. But some sins, like murder, theft, and kidnapping, are defined as crimes in the Bible. Evil is what the Bible defines as evil. The Bible is the standard to which we must appeal when deciding what the state may and may not criminalize. When we do this, we discover that it is a very limited scope. For instance, the Bible does not authorize the state to correct "income inequalities." It does not direct the state to furnish universal or old age health care or guaranteed retirement income. It does not enjoin the state to provide taxpayer-funded education.

In biblical terms, the state has a very limited role: the punishment of evildoers. It thus protects, in early United States' terms, life, liberty and property. It is not authorized to make men Christians or persecute those who are not Christians. It is authorized to punish those who violate that section of biblical law appropriate to the civil sphere.⁶ Jesus affirms the Bible, and the Bible gives a very limited role to the state. One chief implication of Jesus' teaching for politics, therefore, is that the state must be limited to its biblical prerogatives.

The Victory of the Kingdom and the Political Sphere

Jesus' life and teaching relate a final crucial fact about politics. It is that we can expect the gradual advancement of the kingdom of God in time and history which will influence and eventually shape the political realm. In Matthew 13:31-33, Jesus relates the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven:

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.

The objective of these parables is to describe how the kingdom of God from small beginnings grows to an overwhelming size. Kenneth Gentry says of the parable of the mustard seed, "The imagery is unquestionably of something magnificent beyond expectation."⁷ The parable of the leaven in the dough speaks of the intensive working of the kingdom of God--it pervades the entire dough. This is how the kingdom of God grows. Its beginning is minute, almost unseen. However, it steadily, gradually grows to magnificent proportions. This parable of Jesus' sounds quite like Nebuchad-nezzar's dream which Daniel interpreted in Daniel 2. There, Messiah's kingdom is likened to a small, supernaturally thrown stone which crushes the feet of the image. This image is the four great world empires, the Roman Empire being the last. The stone, merely by striking the feet, destroys the entire image. Gradually the stone grows to be a mountain to fill the entire earth. It begins as something small, and soon engulfs the entire world.

Jesus' parable of the growth of the kingdom of God teaches the same thing. But what is the kingdom of God? We have already noted that it is not a political kingdom. Theologians distinguish between God's universal, providential kingdom and Christ's mediatorial kingdom. God's universal, providential kingdom is his rule over all things--it is the exercise of his sovereignty fulfilling his will on the earth (Ps. 24; 95:3; 98:5-9; 146:5-10). Christ's mediatorial kingdom is somewhat different. It is set forth in texts like Psalm 2:7-12 and 1 Cor. 15:24. It is the special rule over the nations which God the Father grants to his Son as a reward for his faithfulness.

When Jesus begins his ministry by saying the kingdom of God is at hand, he certainly is not referring to God's universal, providential kingdom. It had existed long before Christ's incarnation. Rather, he is talking about his own messianic kingdom. He refers to the rule of the nations which he will exercise.⁸ Recall that many of the Jews confused this kingdom with a revolutionary political kingdom that would break the yoke of the Roman oppressors and establish a Jewish theocracy on the earth. Jesus quickly disabused the Jews about this. He pointed out that the kingdom of God is not by public show and pomp, but exists in the midst of those near to him (Lk. 17:20-23; cf. Matt. 12:28). He stated that the kingdom comprises those who are poor in spirit and persecuted for their obedience (Mt. 5:3-12; 6:33). Only those who are born again (Jn. 3:3) and who do God's will enter the kingdom (Matt. 7:21). In other words, the kingdom of God as the realm of Christ's reign is not fundamentally political, but is religious and ethical. However, it affects the state. In the Old Testament we learn that Messiah's kingdom will include the widespread submission to his law (Isa. 2:3), and even political rulers will bow to his will (Isa. 49:23). The kingdom will affect every area of life, and the political sphere will not be excluded.

To preach and teach the kingdom of God, therefore, is to preach and teach the message of comprehensive salvation: Christ shed his blood as atonement for sinful man. All of those who by faith alone cast themselves upon him are swept into his kingdom. They thereby bow themselves to his authority expressed in his Word. This begins the process of sanctification. Sanctification affects the entire man. This Christian man, if properly taught, works to sanctify every area of life and thought. This is the comprehensive, biblical teaching of salvation. As an increasing number of individuals are converted and apply the Faith to all of life, they affect all areas of society. This does not exclude politics.

We cannot consistently argue that the Bible and the Christian faith applies to the individual, the family, and at most the church, but that it does not apply to the state. We cannot say that Christ is Lord of the Christian, the school, and the denomination, but that he is not Lord of the state. This is to deny Christ's claims of Lordship. It is to assault his mediatorial kingdom. In whatever we do--including politics--we are to do it to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31).

If we are elected to political office, we must glorify God. We do this by obeying the Bible. And Jesus Christ himself confirms the authority of Old Testament civil law as properly enforced in the state. In other words, although Jesus did not teach political revolution, his teachings, when properly implemented by his people on a wide scale, will produce great political change by peaceful means. The kingdom of God is not political, but it has significant implications for politics, just as it has significant implications for art, education, science, technology, and so forth. Every area of life should be Christianized, including the state.

Christianity: Radical or Reactionary?

Finally, this answers the question of whether Christianity is either a radical or a reactionary force. If we had listened to many of the "Jesus People" in 60s and 70s, we would have heard that Jesus was a revolutionary political radical. One of his main objectives was to overthrow the Roman political system and establish something akin to a socialist commune. Even radical evangelical political magazines like Sojourners and The Other Side articulated this view. At the opposite end of the spectrum are those today who charge that Jesus Christ and his followers were politically and socially reactionary: women are held to be subordinate to men, slavery is permissible, private property is inviolable, and so forth. In other words, some leftists use the Bible to prove that the Bible supports leftism, while other leftists attack the Bible because it is anti-leftism. The former consider the message of Christ and the Bible radical, while the later consider it reactionary.

Christianity is neither radical nor reactionary but regenerative. ⁹ Christ's message is one neither of political reaction nor radicalism, but of fundamental regeneration. Christ's message was not one of political revolution. Notwithstanding, we must never assume by that his message invariably supports the status quo. The message of Christ and the Bible is the message of change across the entire spectrum of life--by regeneration, not by revolution.

This is the core message of Jesus Christ as it relates to politics: political change is the effect of a religious re-orientation. Most Christians are not called to full-time political activity (for this we can be grateful!). They are called, however, to obedience in every area of life. This includes obedience at the ballot box in a democracy. If Christians are faithful in every sphere in which they are involved, eventually their faithfulness will be reflected broadly in politics.

Nevertheless, some Christians are called to direct political involvement. In the Bible, Joseph, David, Daniel, and many others were. Politics is a legitimate sphere of Christian activity. What should the goal of Christians be in a political sphere? Simply stated, it is to be just as Christian in the political sphere as in any other sphere. In modern Western democracies, it means pressing for godly change within the state: electing Christian candidates or candidates who will act on biblical truth, working to pass legislation that will reflect and enforce biblical law; working to halt the modern leviathan state which has become a substitute religion, alerting colleagues in politics that the political sphere is not amoral, but inherently reflects religious perspectives. The explicitly biblical political task is not easy. Christians must work in a system presently dominated by non-Christians. But this is really no different than most other Christian callings in the world. The kingdom of God advances slowly and incrementally in the world; it advances slowly and incrementally in politics. Christians should work faithfully, patiently, but relentlessly in pressing the claims of biblical Christianity in the political sphere.

Conclusion

Jesus' message was not a political message. It was a religious message. Men are saved by trusting in Christ and him alone (Jn. 14:1, 11). They are called to submit to his Lordship (Mt. 16:24-26) and obey his word (Lk. 9:28-35). If they do this, however, they will act differently in the political realm than unbelievers. They will recognize the authority of the Bible, specifically Old Testament law, in the civil sphere. They will acknowledge that both God and the state are valid authorities, but that in any conflict between them, man must obey God and not the state. Finally, Christians will recognize that the kingdom of God will progress gradually in time and history, and that it will one day pervade the political realm. Christians are called to obey in politics no less than any other area of life. Jesus is Lord in politics just as he is in the family and church.

Endnotes

1. Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (New York, 1905), 2:385.

2. Greg L. Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ, 1984 edition); Rousas John Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law (no loc., 1973).

3. Andrew Sandlin, "Principled Resistance to Tyranny: One Man's View," The Christian Statesman, vol. 141, no. 1 (January-February 1998), 5-7.

4. Ethelbert Stauffer, Christ and the Caesars (London, 1955), 112-137.

5. Milhail Heller, Cogs in the Wheel: The Formation of Soviet Man (New York, 1988).

6. Andrew Sandlin, "The Christian Libertarian Paradigm: Freedom Under God's Law," Christianity and Society, vol. 4, no. 3 (July 1996), 24-26.

7. Kenneth L. Gentry, He Shall Have Dominion (Tyler, TX, 1992), 238.

8. William Symington, Messiah the Prince (Edmonton, Alberta [1884], 1990).

9. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York, 1951), 190-229.

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