Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

For many average Christians, repentance probably brings to mind a generic admission of “our sins” before the Lord. The “sins” in question here might be the time you snuck a cigarette behind your mom’s back, smoked marijuana, or kissed a girl — things that never really seem to concern God. Sin is often thought of as being mostly one’s personal failings, rather than breaking God’s commandments. To focus on the pothead or something of the like has been a great way of watering down the idea of sin so as to avoid the much more grievous and accurate sin of things like statism and patriotism, which are decidedly commandment-breaking acts of having other gods than the Lord and supporting political systems that are based on theft, covetousness, and murder. The popular idea of sin has more or less been nothing but the personal failings of individuals, which has served to get statist idolaters off the hook for being guilty of it. As the Christian anarchist Jacques Ellul pointed out,

“Sin in effect exists only in relation to God. The mistake of centuries of Christianity has been to regard sin as a moral fault. Biblically this is not the case. Sin is a break with God and all that this entails” (Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity, p. 20).

Thus, few people really think about things beyond such personal acts. It hardly crosses anyone’s mind that their political philosophy of statism, where they support false gods as their rulers, might be a major point of needed reform, even though well-known scriptures exhort those who are reformed in Christ to “to put off your former way of life, your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be renewed in the spirit of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24) or to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). It hardly crosses anyone’s mind that those who are in Christ will have new minds and hearts that have repented from identifying as “citizens” of the kingdoms of men. For many, there is no real problem in saying, “I’m a Christian and I’m proud to be an American.”

For many Christians, these things—faith and political theory—are supposedly separate and distinct from one another. Faith is what you have for the heavenly things above, an otherworldly salvation, the afterlife, or maybe your private prayer life or commitment to attending church and professing to know the Lord. But in the meantime here below, men must (supposedly) support political rulers and derive their political philosophies from men. The Bible (in their mind) is really only about “spiritual” things, not instruction in the way that men ought to live. Rarely is scripture recognized as a political-economic textbook, a freedom manual, a virtual anarchist manifesto, a holy book that instructs us in right living. The Bible (for them) doesn’t really tell us how the world works or how we should act — and maybe even (in their minds) has (being under grace) given us a license to do whatever we want to do and be whoever we want to be.

Thus, many Christians see no issue in being a “Christian nationalist,” a “Christian socialist,” a democrat, a Marxist, a voter, someone who supports man-kings, etc. These things, for them, are separate realms. Their faith—a loosely-held idea that such a thing just makes up some narrowly defined “religious” component of their lives—doesn’t get in the way of their politics, which they believe is to be decided outside of God’s counsel. (So much for thinking these things are separate, they don’t realize that to adopt a statist philosophy is necessarily to follow after a false religion).

Without being serious about changing who we are and what we think, many professing “Christians” are thus able to continue on with their absolutely idolatrous and evil state-worshiping and even their service to the State as a soldier or police officer. They may have confessed, “I’m a sinner,” one Sunday morning somewhere. But they have not turned back from their current path and their world ideologies (i.e., the humanistic philosophy of statism). They have not heeded God’s call to “walk not in their path” (Proverbs 1:15). They do not attempt to be able to say, “I have kept my feet from every evil path, that I may keep Your word” (Psalm 119:110). They have not listened to God, saying, “Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evildoers” (Proverbs 4:14).

But in a call to repentance by the prophet Hosea, men are admonished precisely to abandon their statism and worshiping of kings and their systems, which in the prophetic books is more or less always the “sins” of God’s people. In a call for people to turn from their evil, the prophet tells them to say to the Lord, “Assyria will not save us, nor will we ride on horses” (Hosea 14:3). 

Statism is a rebellion against God and the false belief that Assyrias and Egypts will “save” us — that all our social problems are solved, not by relying on the Lord, but by setting up human kings and having them enact (supposedly) society-saving “laws,” thereby denying that God’s was perfect (Psalm 19:7). But trusting in (false) man-saviors (i.e., presidents, congressmen, law enforcers), they cannot say with the psalmists, “His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him” (Psalm 18:30). They have thought that while they have “faith” in God (though not really, since they don’t truly rely on Him for protection) and trust in Him for soul-salvation, that “we” (supposedly) still need man-saviors (governments, armies, police forces) to keep us “safe” down here below.

This, unfortunately, makes up probably the vast majority of those who call themselves Christians today, especially in the United States, one of the most brainwashed countries in the world when it comes to conflating God and “patriotism.”

At least a significant part of our repentance then demands that we renounce the State-god, and furthermore, that we refuse to serve it. Any true repentance would have to include the promise to God that we will not ride on horses, i.e., we will not drive patrol cars for police departments and extort God’s children on the side of the road, we will not ride into neighborhoods with the SWAT team and kick down doors and kill men who allegedly possess marijuana, we will not operate their tanks and go into war, we will not fly their planes and drop bombs on children in the Middle East, we will not man the cages of their dungeons in our modern-day slave system that is euphemistically called “corrections,” we will not work in their tax offices and help them extort our neighbors, etc. 

The main sins of our people that the prophets are more often than not talking about is the sin of statism: trusting in false gods, ie., human rulers, as one’s lords, kings, lawgivers, and saviors. It is precisely turning to States for “salvation” that every society goes wrong and can be counted as a people who have turned their backs on the Lord. As the prophet Hosea makes it clear elsewhere, the problem is that “they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria” (Hosea 7:11). Instead of turning to God for protection, men (now and then) are “gone up to Assyria” (Hosea 8:9). 

Conclusion

It is not good enough to confess sins to the Lord and go on as a servant of Pharaoh, or (for those who are not so inclined to strap on boots for the beast) to continue in their faith in his protection and sword. The prophets call us to “turn now from your evil ways and deeds” (Zechariah 1:4), which most certainly includes turn from supporting the political violence that all too many men find acceptable and moral.

True Christian repentance requires seeing that the salvation-State, as a false god attempting to substitute itself for the Lord, is a false salvation, and that salvation is in the Lord Jesus Christ — the one true King. Those who rely on militaries and police to save them are fools. “A horse is a vain hope for salvation; even its great strength cannot save” (Psalm 33:17). 

Trusting in state rulers to “save” us is one explicit way of rebelling—sinning—against the Lord. 

“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in their abundance of chariots and in their multitude of horsemen. They do not look to the Holy One of Israel; they do not seek the LORD” (Isaiah 31:1).

We have a choice to either place our saving faith in God, or the false-god State and its armies, police officers, legislators, etc. As one psalmist makes clear, 

“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember the name of the LORD our God” (“Psalm 20:7).