Is it perfectly acceptable, then, to do nothing?
No. I'm just saying there's no reason to make the government do it instead of doing it ourselves.
More importantly, what are the implications? If God's law is optional,
No.
and we clearly can't be expected to follow it,
"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law;
indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." - Romans 8:7-8
Paul's words, not mine. Until a person undergoes a
personal, individual, internal change of heart, he
cannot submit to God's law.
So unless you're somehow going to set up a nation where you know every single person in it is a true believer, your system isn't going to work.
why bother trying at all?
Why should a Christian try to obey the law? Because we want to.
Why should an unbeliever try to obey the law? Well, I wouldn't argue that they should. It certainly wouldn't be my first advice to them.
In expecting only a certain group to follow God's law, you still have a law that's only given to that one group to set them apart.
Wait, are you implying that Christians
shouldn't be set apart and different from the rest of the world?
Unless I'm missing something, what you're suggesting isn't all that different from the Old Testament system, except people would make even less effort to not sin because there's absolutely no punishment to fear.
What I'm suggesting is traditional Christian theology.
Or maybe you suggest what is effectively moral relativism, where what is bad for one person or group is just fine for another?
No.
Let's look at Romans 13 again.God establishes governments and leaders, even under the new covenant. The state can't just not have a role.
Once again, Romans 13 is written to the subjects, not the government. It's telling those ruled by governments that aren't the way they'd like them to be not to get upset about it. Which is why I'd suggest you find a different text to support your argument. Especially considering it's the only specific Biblical reference you've used.
Did the Roman government that Paul
told his audience to submit to play a role in the way you say it should? The Roman government that fed Christians to lions and all that?
Again, though, does that mean we should just scrap the whole thing and do nothing?
No. It also doesn't mean that we should pick and choose which parts of the law we like the best to be part of the government and leave other ones out.
Does that excuse people from obeying God? Can they just do whatever they like, the consequences, like them eventually, if we leave them to their devices, be [darn]ed?
I see nothing in the Bible that indicates we must evangelize through legislation.
I don't see the contradiction. Helping the "the least of these" is something we're supposed to do on our own, without being forced to by the government. Not allowing sodomites is something the government is supposed to do. By all means, spend money on charity. Just don't force people to spend money on charity.
Why? How do you draw the distinction? Especially since Israel's government under Levitical law
did help the least of these?
Workers were forbidden from picking all the grain on their field. If they dropped any, they were forbidden to pick it up, and they had to leave the corners, both so that poor people could go in and get it for themselves. That wasn't voluntary, that was required by the government. As was tithing. And the Year of Jubilee, where every 50 years, all property ownership was reverted.
Would you incorporate all those laws into your version of the U.S. government?
How can you say that the government must enforce morality, but must not enforce charity, especially going on an Old Testament standard, where the government did both (if you can even separate morality and charity, especially in the New Testament)? How can you see the verses that tell us we must give to the poor of our own accord and not see that obeying the law is the same thing?
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40)
Jesus said that the whole Law boils down to "Love God and love your neighbor." If the government is going to enforce the Old Testament Law,
that must include caring for the least of these. (Come to think of it, I can't recall ever seeing an actual Bible passage saying that the government shouldn't give to the poor.)
You're splitting the Law into morality and charity. Where do you get that split? Wouldn't you say it's immoral to not give to charity if you are able? Why shouldn't the government enforce that aspect of morality?
If all the Law is summed up with "Love God" and "Love your neighbor", how are you splitting it? Are you saying that "love your neighbor" is charity and "love God" is morality, and the government can force us to love God but can't force us to love our neighbor?
If your reasoning for why the government shouldn't enforce charity is because "God wants you to give from the heart," then why doesn't that also apply to morality? The government can't make you moral any more than it can make you charitable. Laws don't change hearts. So if you're not changing the heart, you can only be concerned with the external effects of forcing people to follow the law. But what positive net benefit does it have on society to stop people from sinning in ways that don't affect others (sinning against God, not against man)? And if you're concerned with the external effects, what about the external effects that forcing people to give to charity would have?
I thought this was kinda relevant in several places, but not relevant enough in any one place, so I'm just putting it here:
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
One last thing: The Bible is not written as advice for unbelievers to improve their life. You can find some good helpful stuff like that in there, but the
only parts of the Bible that are addressed to unbelievers are the parts that say "Repent, and be forgiven." The Bible has no room to say to unbelievers "Well, you should repent, but if you're not gonna, then at least don't do it with a dude before you go to hell." The only thing the Bible has to say to unbelievers is "Stop not believing." The rest of it is written to God's people. In the past, that was the physical nation of Israel, but
it is no longer a physical earthly nation, and has not been for the past 2,000 years.
Hebrews 8 again.
Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, One who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tabernacle that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tabernacle tent, he was instructed by God, saying, "See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain." But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant He mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
For He finds fault with them when He says:
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand out of the house of Egypt.
For they did not continue in My covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put My laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, "Know the Lord,"
for they shall all know Me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.
In speaking of a new covenant, He makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
Look at the Jeremiah passage that the author of Hebrews quotes in there. It's clearly referring to the church body, no longer a physical bounded nation. That's why Paul prescribed church discipline rather than civil legal punishment.
You're seeing a false dichotomy between an Old Testament theocracy (well, sort of a mishmash of one, but still) and anarchy. But the earthly government in the Old Testament was only meant to be a type and shadow of the heavenly kingdom that has been set up for the past two millennia. We can still have governments that keep us safe and give us liberty to follow Christ's teaching's the way we should. In fact, that's pretty much exactly what we've had in America for 250 years.
Yes, we still need government. But we don't need it to keep us moral. Christians have the power of the Holy Spirit to keep them moral, which is far more powerful than any earthly government. Unbelievers cannot possibly follow the law, and even if they started, it still wouldn't solve their actual problem. So who would the government be doing a service to by requiring everyone to follow [parts of] Leviticus?
Why do you want the government to make people follow the law? Because they'll go to hell if they don't? Even if the government successfully prevented any future lawbreaking, they'd still go to hell for their past sins. Because God wants people to follow His law? He doesn't want people who are forced into it (
which you agree with when it comes to charity).
For public safety, to keep us all from killing each other? Homosexuality poses no direct threat to public safety.
AND EVEN putting all that aside, how would you justify setting up an Old Testament theocracy under the United States Constitution? You can't.
I rest my case.