[This is part 2 in a series on the “King of kings.” See part one, three]. 

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

In order to defend their own idolatries toward state rulers, many “Christians” trick themselves into believing that the kings and princes of the world—the presidents, legislators, congressmen, soldiers, police, etc—have been sent by God for the administration of social order. (However, States have been sent to bring judgment upon people who were foolish enough to trust in them). Since there were kings in the Bible (who were set up in rebellion to God and always failed God anyway), they like to assume that man-kings have received God’s moral stamp-of-approval, rather than to see them for what they really are: Self-exalted rulers who pose as gods (Ezekiel 28:2-6), trick men into serving them, and are at best established to carry out evils upon those who rebel against God.

It is very common to hear the view that “God is a monarchist” and (supposedly) gave us a feudalist type of order for governing society. The idea of an anarcho-theocracy—a free and stateless society under God’s law—is almost wholly excluded for consideration among the majority of Christians, even though it’s arguably the way God has taught us to live. 

But nowhere in scripture are we commanded to set up a State and trust in human kings for social order. Not during the Creation, or after the Great Flood (when we might expect it), did God give us a “State” for social order or suggest we were in need of one. Instead, in all the origin stories of human kingdoms, we are shown how they have been formed in rebellion to God (1 Samuel 8). They were attempts to escape God’s order, make themselves into gods, and go after the ways of men. Cain (before the Flood) sought to get “out from the presence of the Lord” (Gen. 4:16) when he “built a city” (Gen. 4:17). When Nimrod built Babel, they sought to “reach unto heaven” (Gen. 11:4). When the Israelites sought kings other than God, they did so to “be like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:20).

Not only does God never tell us to form States then, but we are given explicit commandments against forming them. Thus we are not merely inferring this thesis from an omission in the word of God; human kings are false gods.

This is no light matter that men have been caught supporting the “kings” of the world. We might go as far as to argue that there is no greater manifestation of sin, according to the scriptures, then for men to seek man-kings. It is virtually always the indictment against God’s people in the books of the prophets. Despite that most men exempt their political participation from being considered sinful and usually chalk up some relatively minor thing (eg., lying) to be what God says is sinful, setting up political rulers is really the chief way that men rebel against God. When the Israelites asked for a human king (1 Sam 8:6), God said “they have rejected Me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:7).

Clearly, God considers seeking human kings to be turning away from Him and His protection, to be turning away from His Kingship. God offers protection against enemies, and there is no “earthly need” for a man-king. Those who think they need men—presidents, congressmen, militaries and police forces—to “protect” them don’t know the Lord their King.

Kings as the work of men

Far from the kings of the world being desired by God, His holy word always makes it clear that seeking the kingdoms of men was outside of His instruction and counsel. As the prophet Hosea says, very bluntly, 

“They set up kings, but not by Me. They make princes, but without My approval” (Hosea 8:4). 

It doesn’t get much clearer than this. Man-kings are an abandonment of the Lord as your King. They are set up by the will of men, in their rebellion, not by the perfect will and desire of God. These political efforts are carried out behind God’s back, contrary to His will. And they fool themselves into thinking that God doesn’t notice and that they can get away with it.  

“Woe unto them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the LORD, and their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us? and who knoweth us?” (Isaiah 29:15).

The slavery of human kingdoms

Far from human kingdoms being God’s will, as so many argue, God has always warned that they would mean nothing but slavery (1 Sam 8:10-18). Far from human kingdoms being necessary to God’s order, as statists argue, seeking human kings over the Lord our King is the very thing that leads to God’s judgment against a society, namely in the form of allowing statists to rule over a people who are foolish and sinful enough to go this route (Isaiah 10:5; Jeremiah 25:9). King-seeking brings this type of judgment. As the prophet Hosea said very succinctly, “Israel has rejected good; an enemy will pursue him” (Hosea 8:3). 

Human kings are the ways of the Egyptians from which God had rescued His people. To seek kings is thus to return to the methods of the Egyptians that God exhorts His people to avoid (Exodus 23:24; Leviticus 18:3, 20:23; Deuteronomy 12:29-31; Jeremiah 10:2; Romans 12:2). Indeed, the prophet Hosea says that for this sin of king-seeking (among others), that “they shall return to Egypt” (Hosea 8:13). Such people who seek human kingdoms are “gone up to Assyria” (Hosea 8:9). Chasing after the kings of our world is to have gone astray from the Lord. Those who believe we need political rulers have forgotten the Lord. As Hosea says, “Israel has forgotten his Maker” (Hosea 8:14). 

But isn’t God in control?

Now, people try to argue that the existence of kings is proof that God “ordained” them. This is not entirely wrong. God, of course, is the Sovereign of all things. If man-kings exist, it is because God allows them. But this is not proof that God wills it to be so; men are still capable of rebellion and are still proving it today by rooting for their next presidential “savior.” There is a difference between God’s perfect will and His permissive will — between what He wants of us and what He allows us to make for ourselves. God does not stop men from doing evil; He lets them reap the consequences—the curses—of disobeying His law. Just because God allows men to suffer the consequences for their decision to idolize human rulers does not in any way mean he approves of those rulers; these tyrants come as the price we must pay for the sin of statolatry (idolatry of the State).

But God has never commanded men to seek human kings, not even—notwithstanding “Christian nationalist” arguments otherwise—to carry out His commandments. God always promised, and history has proven and continues to bear witness to this fact, that all these systems would mean robbery, murder, and general tyranny. 

At best, out of His permissive will, God reluctantly (though not without warning) gives men kings once they beg for them. And, knowing what it will mean for them, He does so as punishment for such a sinful request. As the prophet made clear, God says, “I gave thee a king in my anger” (Hosea 13:11). It is only after God is so disappointed in the sin of men—which in the scriptures is namely going after such violent political systems as your “god” (1 Sam 8:8)—that God grants their evil wishes and gives them a king (1 Sam. 8:7-9). But He hands men who don’t want to live under His kingdom to statist rulers so that they may learn a lesson and realize their own evils. Men who trust in human legislators, presidents, politicians, police and soldiers, deserve all the evils that these men bring (as much as they fight against it and act like their ways never brought such evils on). Men who praise men have what’s coming to them. This is why the scriptures tell us that “it is better to trust in the Lord than to trust in princes” (Psalm 118:9). Verily, to trust in men means political captivity.

It is true that we have “kings” today. But kings were not given originally as part of God’s plan for social order; God gave us the family (Gen. 12-35) and wrote His law on our hearts for that (Jer. 31:31-34). Rather, they were set up by men who sought to rebel against God’s natural order of family-based (patriarchal) society. Man-kings, more than most anything else, are the chief mark of man’s rebellion against the Lord as their King (1 Samuel 8:6-8). God wanted His people to be under His Sovereignty and Lordship, but they sought, as one of the main ways our people have abandoned God, to be under human kings instead — they started regarding States as “sovereigns” rather than “God.” As another prophet puts it, “I have raised children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against Me” (Isaiah 1:2) — namely, by choosing human kings (false gods) instead. 

Conclusion

The kingdoms of men of our world are man-made — formed out of human rebellion rather than the will and desire of God. If God wanted men to have kings and their political plunder systems, He would have made them from the beginning. But He didn’t. That men have fought against this truth shows that they are not very upright in heart, as God makes clear the rebellion and sin of statism all throughout His word. But such evils are evident to those who know God. We don’t need to question whether God likes human kings or not, as all those men do who try to place kings among part of God’s plan for social order. As one proverb says, “My words are plain to the discerning and upright to those who find knowledge” (Proverbs 8:9). God’s people know the truth.

The people today who apologize for the statist systems of the world are the same sinners as those in the scriptures, who never want to come to God’s truths, who always refuse God’s wisdom. They are “a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the Lord” (Isaiah 30:9). Men are estranged from God when they are caught up in the idolatries of the statist society, and God calls them to “return to the One against whom you have so blatantly rebelled” (Isaiah 31:6).

Those who think that the kings of the world are given to us by God for “law and order” have some soul-searching to do. They might ask, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). Because their support of human kings is based in the idolatries and evils of old. It’s nothing new seeing men voting for false kings, and rather wild that men are continuing in the same evils that were recorded millennia ago in the scriptures. Will men ever learn before it’s too late?