Christian Mandate in Parable on God's Judgment (Christianity and Culture)

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Philippians 2:9–11 is presented as a trumpet-blast declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord God incarnate, exalted by the Father, and sovereign over heaven, earth, and all powers. That confession meant Caesar was under Christ, not the other way around. The early church therefore functioned like an embassy of a foreign kingdom within Rome: obedient to civil order where possible, but ultimately governed by God’s law and commissioned to advance Christ’s kingdom. This claim provoked persecution and has remained the central conflict of history: the ungodly repeatedly seek to restore a totalitarian state over the freedom the gospel won.

Rushdoony traces the church’s historic resistance through Gelasius I’s “two powers” doctrine church and state both under God, with rulers accountable to divine judgment. Medieval emperors and monarchs repeatedly tried to reclaim pagan-style supremacy over the church, while the church at times resisted and at times was corrupted. The Reformation renewed the struggle, and Rushdoony highlights Calvin’s Geneva as a key example of the fight for the church’s independence from civil control and for the state’s obligation to submit to Christ. From Calvin’s legacy, later thinkers like Kuyper and Van Til developed “sphere sovereignty”: every sphere (family, school, arts, business, science, state, church) answers directly to God, and no sphere may tyrannize another.

The core is self-government under God’s Word. An “enscriptured Word” was revolutionary because it placed responsibility on ordinary believers to read, learn, and obey treating Scripture not merely devotionally, but as marching orders for dominion service. Van Til’s contrast stands: theonomy or autonomy. Rushdoony ends by linking Joshua’s commission (Joshua 1) to the Great Commission: God calls His people to courageous obedience, meditating on His law day and night, moving forward in faith to occupy and disciple the nations confident that Christ’s kingdom will prevail.

(TEC) Episode #46 (June 7, 1983)

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