Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

In a desperate attempt to find a Biblical justification for their own personal idolatry for human rulers, men often make a subtle distortion of the Biblical understanding of the State. Rather than to see its use as one of God’s main tools for divine judgment upon a wicked people (ie., a people who adopt the sinful ideology of statism that advocates a political system of rule by men), they recast the State into some “necessary” institution for “criminal justice” in society, transforming the very system that is consistently condemned in scripture as evil into some sort of divinely ordained system for social organization that we are to seek for ourselves, as opposed to an evil that has come precisely because we sought human civil government rather than God’s Kingdom. Because God makes use of States and or may “ordain” them for His purposes, these statists would have us believe that God intends for men to have human civil governments rule over them and commands us to set them up, when clearly they are set up in rebellion to God.

But God did not give us human civil government to have for social order. Never once has God instructed men to set up these political systems as their means of ordering society. To the contrary, these are systems that are raised up by men in their rebellion to God and His Kingdom. They are characteristic of a people who turn away from God, such as the case with Cain building his city-state or Nimrod at Babel. They are plunder systems that are at best used by God to plunder those who believe in these systems — to place a people in bondage to the men who they sinfully trusted in for their security and freedom. Since God may make use of these rebellious plunder systems in order to bring judgment upon a people for their sin of statism and idolatry for human rulers and their systems of bondage, men have tried to make the case that the kingdoms of this world are godly, righteous, and given to us as a blessing rather than a curse.

The State as God’s tool for judgment

There is a trickery to the subtle distinction here between God’s use of the State as a form of judgment and His simultaneous condemnation of this system. Since God makes use of the State, those desperate to make a Biblical case for statism want us to believe that we are not forbidden from seeking such political rule ourselves. In a way here, they are putting themselves on the same level of God and saying that since God makes use of such regimes as the Assyrians, that we may do the same. Rather than see the State as one of God’s tools for judgment upon a statist people who have these political evils in their heart and deserve to get plundered good and hard, they try to make the case that we are to use these systems ourselves because God has “ordained” them, ie., put them into place. From the perfectly fine idea that God is sovereign even over the rulers of this world and allows them to exist, men jump to the illogical conclusion that therefore He morally approves of them and desires us to be ruled by men and partake in these systems ourselves, all while the real case is that we’re ruled by them exactly for believing such things as this and failing to seek God’s Kingdom. Out of the idea that even States are allowed by God as part of His permissive will that allows men to throw away their liberty and find themselves living in captivity, men have argued that statism is a legitimate and permissible method of organizing society and even that it’s what God has told us to seek. Forget that part about repenting and seeking the Kingdom of God!

The confusion here is that men are able to jump from the one idea (that God “ordains” human government) to the other (that God wishes us to seek States as our means of having social order) without justifying the latter claim. They see that God makes use of state rulers and then claim that we might well do the same. We have no problem conceding the first part. God indeed “anoints” state rulers. But why does He do it is the question? Is it because they bring order to society and are God’s plan for the smooth operation of society and provision of law and order and prosperity? No. God allows rulers and sets them up to bring evil upon people and show them exactly what their statist ideology results in. And He does so as a means of correcting them and teaching them to turn away from these evidently painful systems where they find themselves living under the boot and burden of men. States bring vast injustices to society which should ideally turn men away from these systems and back to God. The evils that are inevitably a part of these systems serve God’s purposes of judging a people who thought political organization, rather than seeking the Kingdom of God, was a proper means of having social order. They should have known better that governments are evil, and now they are going to find out the hard way. God is going to make sure of it.

It is when we leave out the rest of the story that we don’t understand what this means. God “ordains” States to bring terror upon a people’s wicked works, ie., upon a people whose statist ideology leads them to support human rulers. God “anoints” statists to bring police states, tax officers, and federal agents against people who say such evil things as “back the blue” or “Trump 2024” or “who would educate our children without property taxes and public schools?” God gives these people all the evils they beg to have, which States are always sure to bring upon a population. If you want police to rule over you so badly, God will let them kick in tens of thousands of your doors and kill you, and steal billions of dollars worth of property from you every year — more than the private criminals you thought they were needed to fight against. If you believe that Pharaohs and their armies are needed to “fight for our freedom,” God will let them extort you for trillions of dollars a year and march down your street. If you think governments are needed to educate your children, God will allow local tyrants who call themselves the “county government” to tax your property and send in their “sheriff’s deputies” to evict you from your home and steal your property entirely if you don’t pay them. The evils of statism, conceived here as the existence of a political institution that rules over society, are the judgment for philosophical statism, conceived here as the ideology that supports such a system. When men sinfully believe they need human rulers, God lets them have their wishes, and leave them to be plundered and enslaved for their sins. Statists deserve to be tyrannized for their belief that human government is necessary to freedom, “public education,” “public health,” or “public safety.” 

Besides a people’s own idolatry and preexisting statism that leads them to think God approves of States just because He has made use of them, the failure to distinguish between these things has also helped people to think that it is acceptable for us to be statists simply because God has used them for His purposes. That God allows state rulers to do wicked things to state worshipers does not however mean that God is a statist or calls us to be. States are still terroristic, destructive, and evil. In fact, they are so evil and destructive that they serve God well by bringing evils upon an evil people who evidently want to be ruled by men and thus deserve to reap what they have sown. God permitting States to dominate men is His concession to human stubbornness, not a divine endorsement. It is a means of giving men who beg for rulers all the evils they deserve.

As we see, there is often great misunderstanding about the role of the State in our society, which God sends as a form of judgment upon idolaters rather than as a means of having social order and justice. Political organization is never God’s prescribed method of organizing one’s society and obtaining “law and order.” Indeed, States bring injustices upon society—taxation, home invasions, conscriptions, mass incarcerations, labor camps, predatory police patrols—as God’s means of bringing judgment upon a people who foolishly and sinfully erect and support these systems. God calls us to be free souls under Him as our method of being provided for in all things, not to turn to the kingdoms of men for law, justice, security, education, welfare, etc. 

Romans 13

Since more or less the whole scripture is a condemnation of statism and a political manifesto for liberation from statism through God, statists have to cherry-pick a few verses to attempt to defend their worldly ideology. The most common verses are those of Romans 13:1-7, which they incessantly use to defend their own idolatry rather than see that they are tax slaves precisely for this reason. These verses, which statists wrongly believe are the beginning and end of political theology, have been dealt with in a handful of different ways by Christian anarchists. Some have seen it as a pragmatic call to comply and get by and avoid coming under the State’s radar, given the historical context of Roman persecution and writing under the emperor Nero (Jacques Ellul). Some have suggested that “governing authorities” (exousia), as some translations have it, doesn’t refer to human civil government at all but perhaps spiritual entities or even church authorities. Others have taken it to be a call for actually submitting to human rulers as a part of a radical Christian witness where nonviolent resistance exposes the evils of human government (Leo Tolstoy) — blessing those who persecute you (Rom 12:4), not resisting evil (Matt 5:39), and overcoming evil with good (Rom 12:21) and all that. Similarly, it has been suggested that the focus is more on Christian non-violence than obeying authorities, where a pacifist ethic is being emphasized more than anything. Others have perceived this as instruction to submit to government being that such systems are temporary in a world that is passing away, seeing as Paul pivots to the nearness of salvation in the rest of the verses of this chapter (v. 11-14). Some have even argued that Paul is being sarcastic, saying that human rulers are “God’s servants” as a way of mocking them, making the verses out to be purely subversive by making the rulers into a joke. (If we understand how evil men have been called God’s “servants” elsewhere in scripture, it’s hard to think that we should interpret these famous verses this way). Others have even argued that it is an interpolation: that someone (eg., the rulers) have added it to the text later to justify Biblical submission to their rule as divine.

If we understand God’s use of the State and human rulers throughout scripture, though, it might not be so hard for us to see how exactly it is that we might call the State a “servant” of God. Throughout the Old Testament, we see that States are part of God’s permissive will, where God (reluctantly) allows these entities to come into being as a means of bringing judgment (eg., tax slavery) upon a people who seek these very wicked systems for their salvation and aid. If we take from the nature of the State in the Old Testament, like with Samuel 8 which comes long before we get to Paul and Romans 13, we see that setting up human kings is both rebellion against God (Sam 8:7-8) and something that God promises will bring evil upon a people who forsake the Lord their King to trust in these systems of men (Sam 8:10-18). God sends evils—often state rulers and their accompanying tax plunder and enslavement of populations—as a recompense for those who raise up rulers in their sin and idolatry, who indeed act as a terror to these wicked works (Rom 13:3) and do not bear the sword in vain (Rom 13:4). He “uses” the king the Israelites set up in their rebellion to rebuke the people through taxation and slavery in order to make them cry out to the Lord (Sam 8:18), ideally making us realize our error. (Of course, men are hardheaded and hate the truth and rarely see a need to repent and seek God’s Kingdom. But this is still the idea).

When translations like the New International Version say that the “governing authorities” have been “established” by God, we need not think that it is meant that God has given us this political system as His provision for social order that we ought to seek and abide in ourselves. The Greek word translated as “established” here is tetagmenai, from the word tassō, which means “to appoint” or “order.” It doesn’t inherently mean “ordained” in any sort of sacred or intentional sense of the word, ie., that God gave us States to have for the good of our society. It can simply mean “put into place” or “arranged.” After all, God is sovereign over all things, good and bad (Isa 45:7).

That God’s sovereignty would extend to political rulers does not imply that He approves of these systems or the system-makers who advance them. There is no reason for us to think that because God allows human government to exist or allows men to set these systems up in their rebellion to the Lord, that it is therefore legitimate and given to us as our God-given means of having law and order in society. It is easy to see a picture where human governments have their origin in man’s rebellion to God (Sam 8), which are then used by God as a tool of judgment (Rom 13), all while not being part of His ideal or intended design for social order. Human government is a rebellion that God tolerates and even uses to dish-out the same evils as the ones that were behind the people who sought them, again as a punishment for their statist ways. We are not told in Samuel 8 that God gives human kings as order-givers to society. Far from it, the evils that God promises are sure to come upon the Israelites for seeking kings (from taxation to conscription) are a consequence for their sin of setting them up. 

Those who say such evil things such as “taxation is the price we pay for civilization” and support a State under this thinking deserve the very tax bondage they’re living under. They are people who are living in tax bondage because they have turned away from God as their ruler, who as a punishment has given them the human rulers they have begged to have over them. People who elect human masters into political office are proud slaves who have asked for their bondage, which God assures is forthcoming. 

Judging from Samuel 8, where these state systems are clearly set up in man’s rebellion to God, such systems are more so repurposed by God to discipline those who are in rebellion to His rightful kingship, rather than given by Him for “law and order.” We see clearly in the Israelites’ king-seeking that God doesn’t wish for us to seek human kings or give them to us for order, but nevertheless reluctantly permits them to come upon a backward people as a sort of self-inflicted punishment, even warning them of all the evils that inevitably follow such a political endeavor. God is always willing to give people over to the evils they seek (Rom 1:24-28), without us having to think He approves of them. He is willing to let political systems, which are inherently evil, bring injustices upon people as a form of punishment for the evils of setting them up or supporting them.

It is somewhat ironic then that statists quote Romans 13 as if tax-funded governments are given by God as a means of having social order and to organize human society — that we pay taxes because government armies and police forces are (supposedly) God’s (socialist) means of providing these things, rather than man’s mistaken method of obtaining them. For it is this very way of thinking that men wind up living as captives to men who extort them from hundreds of billions of dollars a year and throw them in cages by the millions. Those who cite Romans 13 as a defense of their statism deserve the very punishments (eg., taxation) that such systems bring upon a people.

The irony is that none of this would exist if these people didn’t think like such slaves to begin with and had obeyed God rather than men from the beginning. The tax bondage has come because people thought they needed human rulers to provide for them, rather than trusting in God for all things. It’s interesting that anyone would cite Romans 13:1-7 to defend their statist ideology, ie., their belief that human rulers are essential for society and order. For it is this very ideological statism—the sinful belief that we need a human government to coercively provide alleged “public goods” for us by robbing our neighbors—that has led to the Egyptian captivity today. If they were truly devoted to Scripture, rather than cherry-picking verses to justify their preconceived worldview, they would recognize that the Bible consistently teaches that belief in human rulers is the root cause of all our political evils today like taxation and inflation, not some natural law or part of God’s plan for social order. God calls us to recognize Him as our one true King of kings and live under His exclusive kingship. It is only when men reject this idea that they open themselves to oppressive rulers who plunder them for all they’re worth — who bring the tax regime upon them that they believe God calls us to have. A people who find themselves under tribute have already messed up a long time ago and failed to obey God in the first place, which they continue to do in their attempt to make a Biblical case for their own unrepentant statism. Those who use scriptures like Romans 13 to justify their statism are themselves enslaved and deserve the tax slavery that they advocate in their belief that such verses call for us to have a tax-based society.

The State as God’s “Servant”

If one seeks to understand the State through the lens of worldly ideology, where men idolize human government as the founders and saviors of human civilization, they will likely believe they have stumbled upon a Biblical justification for statism with verses like Romans 13. This is how they think and therefore what they wish to see in the scriptures. It is telling that men anxiously cite it upon any rebuke of their worldly ways, for these verses aren’t recalled as part of some general understanding of scripture so much as they are something that these idolaters have already sought out to defend the beliefs they had before finding it. (If they knew the Bible, they would know that God hates statism and that Romans 13 is not the “gotcha” they believe it to be). Most people who think they have derived a statist political theology from the Apostle Paul are people who have only read from the Gospels on and think that they have discovered a statist ethic as soon as they get to the Book of Romans. Though their own idolatry, rather than some honest attempt to know what God thinks, is probably a better explanation for why so many men are always ready to say “Romans 13” against all criticisms of their favorite Caesar who they voted for, it is always possible that these people are also not well-versed in the scriptures. They don’t see how the prophets treat the State as judgment upon statists, and so conclude that political theology starts and ends with Romans 13:1-7, as if God had nothing else to say about this heinous institution in the rest of His word. But if we understand, quite easily, that the States of the world, as evil as they are, can “serve” God’s ends of bringing evils upon a people who beg for them, then it isn’t too hard to see how God can make use of these political regimes while at the same time regarding them as evil and calling us away from them. Because God makes use of a State does not provide us with an excuse to do the same. In fact, God makes use of States and their consequent evils precisely because we seek them ourselves. To think we should support States because they have come against us as judgment is something like saying you should keep drinking alcohol because you’re an alcoholic, when the only reason you’re an alcoholic—the only reason you’re ruled by a State—is because you’ve been drinking.

The problem with many people is they will use this idea of the State as God’s “servant” to jump to the illogical conclusion that States are non-evil and serve God by “fighting crime” and “protecting our country,” when they actually serve God by sinning — by robbing and murdering people. They understand this title of “servant” to mean that States serve God by bringing order and justice to society. But they have failed to see how it is that political rulers serve God, which is not in the worldly sense that they think, where government is some sort of divine law- and order-giver to society. Pharaoh’s “law enforcement” agents don’t “serve” God by actually upholding “law and order,” which they don’t actually do despite this widespread public perception of the role of government police. They “serve” God by putting their boots down upon the necks of people who were foolish enough to think social order requires tax-funded government police. Again, States “serve” God by doing the very thing that all States already do and which God finds abhorrent and sinful: they rob and murder people as their method of operation. Those who sinfully believe they need a State for social order deserve the evils of statism to come down on their heads, and it is in this sense—punishment for the sin of turning to other gods than the Lord—that States “serve” God.

Anyone who wishes to simply call the State a “servant” of God without explaining its divine purpose of terrorizing a people who believe in it has not understood how God acts through States throughout the whole Old Testament, or has simply not cared because they’re idolaters who want to kid themselves that there is nothing wrong or contradictory about believing in “God and country” or saying such things as “God bless our troops” or “pray our police officers make it home safe.” If they knew their Bibles, or actually cared to repent for their evil ways of thinking, they would know that States are used by God for terrorizing people who deserve it for statist ways of their own — that the police who they are praying to make it home safe are “serving” God by preying upon and extorting a population of people who think government police are absolutely essential to social order.

At any rate, they don’t see how God is often willing to send statists against a people as a means of chastising them.

“The LORD sent Chaldean, Aramean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Jehoiakim in order to destroy Judah, according to the word that the LORD had spoken through His servants the prophets” (2 Kings 24:2).

God brings statists against a people who turn from His rulership (Jer 5:5). And He assures they come on strong (Isa 5:26-30). Either statist idolaters don’t want to see the truth, or they just aren’t familiar with God sending statists as enemies against a people who wouldn’t listen to God’s instruction to live free. But this is always how God uses States.

“For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans— that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and feared; from themselves they derive justice and sovereignty. Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves of the night. Their horsemen charge ahead, and their cavalry comes from afar. They fly like a vulture, swooping down to devour” (Habakkuk 1:6-8).

Societies that practice violent ways, such as wishing to be ruled by men, are the very type of people God aims to deal with.

“For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘Cut down the trees and raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This city must be punished; there is nothing but oppression in her midst. As a well gushes its water, so she pours out her evil. Violence and destruction resound in her; sickness and wounds are ever before Me. Be forewarned, O Jerusalem, or I will turn away from you; I will make you a desolation, a land without inhabitant’” (Jeremiah 6:6-8).

These people are due evils because they have failed to follow the ways of the Lord, which call us away from these practices.

“Hear, O earth! I am bringing disaster on this people, the fruit of their own schemes, because they have paid no attention to My word and have rejected My instruction” (Jeremiah 6:19).

The problem seems to be largely that most men don’t see how it is that God is willing to use violent statists as a tool of judgment against people.

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Behold, an army is coming from the land of the north; a great nation is stirred up from the ends of the earth. They grasp the bow and spear; they are cruel and merciless. Their voice roars like the sea, and they ride upon horses, lined up like men in formation against you, O Daughter of Zion’” (Jeremiah 6:22-23).

As evil as statists are though, God is willing to call them His “servants.” And it is this context that we should understand the term. These “servants” serve as agents of evil. None of this would be foreign if people actually read their Bible rather than knew a handful of verses from their false pastors. God calls Assyria—an exceptionally evil kingdom to be sure—the “rod of My anger” (Isaiah 10:5). He calls Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon at the time, “My servant” (Jeremiah 25:9). Pagan kings like Cyrus are (even more interestingly) called “his anointed” (Isaiah 45:1). We are even told that God had raised up the Pharaohs of Egypt, who were, of course, still enslavers (Rom 9:17). That rulers may be called “God’s servants” (Rom 13:4), diakonos theou, just means they can serve His purpose, and again doesn’t imply moral endorsement. 

That God may work through human rulers to accomplish His ends of judgment against people who have turned from His law and His kingdom, and toward the kingdoms of this world that are run by human rulers, is still Biblically consistent with the fact that States are evil. We do not need to accept that States are good just because God may work through them. “The LORD has made everything for His purpose—even the wicked for the day of disaster” (Proverbs 16:4). God works through the States of the world to bring evils upon people who deserve it. For the punishment of trusting in Egyptian systems to protect you from wicked men far away (eg., Assyrians or Chinese or North Koreans or Russians), God brings those very people upon you. He “ordains” Assyrians to come rule over you for your sin of forsaking His protection alone. For believing that state rulers are needed to keep away “the bad guys,” God allows people to be occupied by the men they thought would conquer them if they didn’t have a State. The American system that they thought would be their salvation from communists becomes the very communists they sought to avoid by trusting in it. For clamoring for “National Socialism,” God sends communists to thwart your plans, only to later assure that the communists’ own evil systems fail, too. For praising “constitutional republics” as your savior, God sends a massive plunder State to rule over you. Ideally, men learn that perhaps the way to be secure and free is to trust in God alone, and that trusting in men only gets you living under the very domination-by-men that you wanted to avoid.

Getting it backward

It was apparently too much for men to see how God can use States and still see them as evil at the same time — a paradox, to be sure, but not a contradiction. None of this means that God supports the Assyrians or calls us to be like them, as men do when they fear various “bad guys” (real and imagined) around the world. Again, these evils come against people who act like Assyrians themselves and set up “Defense Departments” in the belief that they need men and national militaries to keep them “safe” and “free.” The best (or only) way to keep the Assyrians away is still to trust in God alone. But this is how backward men have understood the State today without relying on the counsel of God’s word but instead seeking it through their own understanding. Whereas statists tell us Egyptian systems (state militaries, human lawmakers, government law enforcers, central planning) are essential to “peace” and “freedom,” God tells us the opposite: that protection is in the Lord, and all those who trust in men—these Egyptian state-worshipers who tell us this is the “land of the free”—get the opposite of peace and freedom. We either obey God and abide in His protection, or we trust in men and God sends the statists against us whom we deserve.

“If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best of the land. But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken” (Isaiah 1:19-20). 

If men were not idolaters seeking a Biblical justification for their sinful ideology that comes from the world, or actually knew the Bibles and were honestly seeking an answer, they would understand the sense in which the prophets call political regimes “servants” of God without thinking that He morally approves of them or calls us to do the same. They would see how God makes use of these evil regimes for His purpose of rebuking idolaters like themselves. If men either repented of their sin of statism or knew the prophets better, rather than take the isolated words of Paul as a case for their own statism, they would see that God sends the sword of the State upon men who sinfully trust in human rulers and allows them to terrorize such people and keep them in bondage to their sin. 

“The nations will know that the house of Israel went into exile for their iniquity, because they were unfaithful to Me. So I hid My face from them and delivered them into the hands of their enemies, so that they all fell by the sword” (Ezekiel 39:23).

This is how backward people have gotten things today. Whereas States serve as a form of divine judgment against wicked works (ie., against a statist people), most men conceive of them as God’s gift to us for social order that we must set up and support ourselves as the divinely ordained method of organizing society, all while God always explains that statism is precisely to turn from Him. Whereas statists tell us States of “our” own are the only way to keep the “bad guys” away, God tells us that seeking human kings is a guarantee that the bad guys will come and bring terror upon a people. Indeed, He assures it. Those who fear men so much that they disobey God and seek human rulers to protect them receive the very evils they fear.

“You fear the sword, so I will bring the sword against you, declares the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 11:8).

Those who set up States and support them deserve to be terrorized by these regimes, as they are the people who God says “have neither followed My statutes nor practiced My ordinances, but…have conformed to the ordinances of the nations around you” (Ezekiel 11:12). Just like the Israelites, who said “make us now a king to judge us like all nations” (Sam 8:5) and sought one so that they could “be like all other nations” (Sam 8:20),  a people who chase after the worldly political system of human civil government have only begged to be dominated and ruled by men. God makes sure their wishes come true and gives them human rulers and the subsequent evils that are sure to follow. 

The State as God’s servant for judgment

Though the statists themselves are not serving God in the sense that they are doing as He has commanded, that is police officers are not and cannot be servants of the Lord in the sense that they keep His word and abstain from committing evils like robbery and murder as a routine part of their job, there is some sense where agents of the State do indeed “serve” God: by bringing an Egyptian police state upon people who have turned away backward from the Lord and trusted in men to “protect and serve” them. Though statists use this idea as a defense of their rulers, we needn’t fight against the idea that “President X was given to as by God” — as cringy as it seems on the surface and as idolatrous as it is intended by most people who say it. The fact is that God has raised them up — but has done so as a form of judgment against a reprobate people who seek human rulers, and not as “saviors” of their country.

Though God opposes these systems and only sends them upon a people who beg for them in their rebellion against divine rulership in the Lord, there is still a sense—namely as an instrument of judgment—where we may understand the State as God’s servant, without seeing this as contradictory to the simultaneous claim that States are evil and ungodly. God indeed refers to States as His “servants” (Jer 25:9, 27:6, 28:14, 43:10). This point is that these evil men are not “servants” in the way most have always twisted it: as men who represent His kingdom or carry out true justice on earth. Rather, these men—in these passages king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon—are “servants” in the sense that they bring destructive consequences upon those people who disobey God and start kingdoms of their own. Though most people think of human civil government as a God-given institution for justice, law, and order, as opposed to this resting in the family or the community of believers functioning as a godly and decentralized “government” of men serving their neighbors freely and voluntarily, this institution—to the contrary—serves God precisely by bringing injustice, lawlessness, and disorder upon a people who trust in it, and it does so as God’s method of waking men up to their error of trusting in men rather than the Lord. Those who beg to be under man-kings are handed over to perverted law systems as a form of judgment for refusing to live under the Lord their King. As God says, for man’s refusal to practice God’s method of voluntary social organization where men live freely under God, “I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live” (Ezekiel 20:25). The corrupt law systems we live under today are a direct result of the sinful belief that we needed human kings and lawmakers to stand over us, which God “ordains” as a judgment against such a faithless people as are statists and socialists. These wicked plunderers set us up with a system of “laws” and “law enforcement officers” that are impossible to live under and make our lives a living hell. 

When we don’t serve and trust in God and put our faith in man-kings instead, then God gives us the statism we so deserve. The price to pay for fearing human rulers and setting them up for alleged “protection” from others is to get dominated yourself by men and find yourselves living under tyrants on a tax plantation. The very fear that causes men to say they need an Egyptian system themselves to fight Egyptians—the Red Scare idea that we need to build up the domestic American State to fight the communists—will come to pass, and they will be ruled by socialist plunderers.

“In fact, I will hand you over to those you dread, who want to take your life—to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and to the Chaldeans” (Jeremiah 22:25). 

God’s judgment on kings

Hopefully we have established that God’s use of tyrannical regimes does not provide us a case for God’s politics being statist, nor should it lead us to think that we are to adopt such political means of social organization. It is precisely chasing after these kingdoms of men that God brings His judgment upon a people. God uses the State as a chastening rod for those foolish enough to worship human kings instead of the King of kings, which is really man’s great sin. But it is not an instrument of His perfect will or His desire for men, who He most surely wants to live freely rather than as human property to Pharaohs. God doesn’t take any pleasure in sending Pharaohs upon people who act like Egyptians; this is just what they justly receive for begging for human rulers and voting them into office. That God sends statist tyrannies upon a people does not mean that He desires us to live this way. Rather, States are being wielded by God against people precisely because of their statism. God desires to see a people who seek liberty under God, not slavery under men. 

Far from representing a godly means of social organization, the kingdoms of men are not only an instrument of God’s judgment, but also the very subjects of His judgment. It is political regimes that the Lord our God targets for a toppling throughout His word. Though States are used by God to bring evils upon a statist population like American society is today, we must recall that they are nevertheless evil and that this is why God uses them: they are inherently evil institutions that do a great job of terrorizing those who want to be ruled by men rather than God. While States serve God by sinning, though, they must also pay for their own sins. Whereas a given State may at one time and place be used by God to bring judgment, at another time judgment will come upon these systems themselves. God may use the Soviet Union to stop the Nazis, only to turn around and cause the collapse of the Soviet system itself. This doesn’t mean God is a communist; it means He hates all socialist systems.

That judgment must also befall the political entities that God uses as instruments of divine judgment against a backward people is even less of a reason to trust in these systems of men. God brings judgment precisely on those (eg., kings) men who pretend to be gods and think they are high, mighty, autonomous, and invincible as they destroy a people, all while they are only being used by God without realizing it. His judgment comes upon kings and their kingdoms “because thou hast lifted up thyself in height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his height” (Ezekiel 31:10). 

Lest anyone think that statist organization is God’s perfect will or His prescribed or commanded method for organizing our societies, rather than functioning as an instrument of divine judgment upon statists for their wicked ways, the judgment that returns to the statist systems themselves is meant by God to be the proof that we were to never trust in these systems in the first place, which is how we wound up in bondage to them. God smashes States to expose the rulers as false gods. This is how “the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians” (Isaiah 19:21). 

Conclusion

Those who think that God’s use of statists as His “servants” or His “ordaining” of States provides a case for their own adoption of the statist ideology have not understood the sense in which States “serve” God. States “serve” God because they are highly adept at doing evils against a people, which is a just punishment for a people who fly “thin blue line” flags off their homes, vote for presidents, and pray to these false gods for salvation, welfare, and protection. The evils of statism—political rule over society—are what a statist people get in return for their political rebellion against God. If you worship Egyptian systems, you deserve to have the Assyrians invade and occupy your society, because you were a foolish statist who denied God as your Lord and Savior and King. If you set up Egyptian systems believing they protect you, then you deserve for them to turn out to be plunderers after all. If you believe “constitutional republics” are God’s system of human government, you deserve to find out that they grow into plunderous empires that justify all their evils acts as “constitutional.” If you trust in men to “protect” you from “bad guys,” you deserve to be looted for hundreds of billions of dollars by “your” government who enriches their political connections and ships it overseas for foreigners to squander. 

It shouldn’t be that controversial to see that God controls States but also hates these systems and tells us not to be like them. There is nothing statist about the assertion that God “ordains” States or makes their rulers function as His “servants.” God the Sovereign, of course, “has supreme dominion and power over all things; all the powers of earth and hell are subject to his control” (Matthew Henry Commentary, Rev 17:7-14). There is nothing about asserting that the “King of kings” controls even the kings of the earth that calls us to the statist path ourselves. It does not mean that the kings are following God’s path, but that He may even make use of them for judgment. The “King of kings” does not mean that the Lord is the top-king in a system of good-guy kings, but that He is the only legitimate King and can make use of any earthly kingdom or tear it down whenever He decides. The true Kingdom of God has no human kings whatsoever, but only the Lord our King. God’s political ideal is not middle-men kings or other men serving as proxies, but just God and His people. Human kings only come upon those who have rejected God as their King and have sought worldly kingdoms as their protectors and lawgivers. These evil “servants” of God come upon a people who trusted in men to “serve” them.

God has shown us the way of security through Him, but our people have consistently trusted in human rulers, police officers, and soldiers as their “protectors” and are reaping all the evils they have sown today. God offers divine and providential protection for those who trust in Him alone to provide it, but our people have been hard-headed and evilly cited “Romans 13” as some blanket justification for their own unrepentant, statist ways that have brought them into bondage. When will our people wake up and realize that statism is evil and that God calls us to seek a different path?

“How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways? How long will scoffers delight in their scorn and fools hate knowledge? If you had repented at my rebuke, then surely I would have poured out my spirit on you; I would have made my words known to you. Because you refused my call, and no one took my outstretched hand, because you neglected all my counsel, and wanted none of my correction, in turn I will mock your calamity; I will sneer when terror strikes you, when your dread comes like a storm, and your destruction like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish overwhelm you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will earnestly seek me, but will not find me. For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the LORD. They accepted none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof. So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the waywardness of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But whoever listens to me will dwell in safety, secure from the fear of evil” (Proverbs 1:22-33).