[This is part 6 in an article series on Sin, Repentance, and Revival. See part one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Though such central and crucial biblical truths as we are covering here escape most professing Christians today, those who fall into the idolatry toward human government — that is, the mere ideological belief that human rulers should even exist — are committing the very essence of sin and rebellion against God. They are the very people who we may rightly call sinful, evil, wicked, and workers of iniquity. 

In continuing our exploration of the various Biblical words used to convey the general idea of what we call sin today, and the relationship of this concept and its various portrayals to the inherently corrupt systems of human government, we come to the Hebrew word עָוֹן (Strong’s H5771), which gets transliterated as `avon (pronounced ah-vone). This word, appearing more than 200 times in Scripture, is the word that is often translated as iniquity. It conveys the idea of something being bent, twisted, distorted, or otherwise a corruption of what is right in God’s sight. It is often defined as “perversity” or “moral evil.” Its root word עָוָה (Strong’s H5753), which gets transliterated as `avah (pronounced aw-vaw’), is a verb that describes “to bend, twist, distort,” to “do perversely,” or “to commit iniquity, do wrong, pervert.” Strong’s gives a longer range of definitions of “do amiss, bow down, make crooked, commit iniquity, pervert, do perversely, trouble, turn.”

Twisting the truth 

At least once, the word `avah is used in the sense of a man with twisted or corrupt thoughts (Prov 12:8), such as the men who adopt the statist political ideology of the world, which says that human rulers are necessary for protection, national defense, welfare, law, justice, and social order more generally. In this sense, we might see that much of man’s rebellion against God today is not always so much an outright rejection or denial of God as it is subtle corruptions, small perversions, and slight distortions of the truth and the reality of God’s anarchist Kingdom. In the hands of false pastors and false prophets, the anarchistic Gospel of the Kingdom of God — that is, the campaign promise preached by King Jesus of salvation unto another Kingdom that is not of this world and its systems — is often diluted into an almost meaningless concept of a merely theological doctrine which men assent to in order to have eternal life in heaven when they die, rather than a political concept of another literal Kingdom that rivals the gospels of human rulers and forbids professed followers of Jesus the Christ from going after these presidents and their kingdoms. Rather than outright deny the Lord, whose names their still vainly profess with their lips, they seek to bend the Gospel of the Kingdom of God into a diluted, non-political concept that makes their professions of faith compatible with their idolatry for human government, which is most certainly to abandon God and His Kingdom for the pagan kingdoms of false gods. Rather than abandon their claims to Christianity altogether, they twist it into a statist doctrine that enables them to pledge allegiance to the kingdoms of the world — that is, the governments of the devil — while claiming they are God’s children. 

It is men who take God’s name in vain, i.e., those who say “Lord, Lord” while pursuing the satanic kingdoms of the world, who are perverse and bent men who distort the truths of God and twist them to their corrupt, unstable, and double-minded ways. We might think here of those who claim God’s name, such as self-proclaimed “Christian” nationalists, but who seek the reformation of Babylonian systems into supposedly “Christian” institutions, rather than repent of this sin altogether and seek the Kingdom of God exclusively. These men do not outright or admittedly reject the Lord, but they profane His name by associating it with the unrighteous works of human government that Jesus made clear were enemies of His Kingdom, which operates wholly differently and apart from the political institutions of the world. 

The iniquity of statism 

Perhaps the most notable use of this word `avon, which gets translated into iniquity here, is the first chapter of Isaiah — the opening chapter of the prophetic canon that comes out spitting fire against the statist order of the day.

“Alas, O sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a brood of evildoers, children who act corruptly! They have forsaken the LORD; they have despised the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on Him” (Isaiah 1:4). 

The prophet gave this word directly to the rulers of the day, who were referred to as the rulers of Sodom and Gomorrah (Isa 1:10). It was given also against the people at large who, like the idolatrous American masses who wave flags from their porches as the government they support explodes children overseas and cages their brothers at home, were certainly partaking in and approving of all the evils that are inherent to all systems of human civil government. To be sure, it is never just that individual men are being sinful or evil in some vague or even petty sense, but that the great sins and iniquities of mankind are those evil deeds that bound up with these worldly systems of human government, all which exist as an apparatus of extortion, a means of legal plunder, a killing machine that men use to wield force against other men, and centralized systems for hatching plots against other men and conspiring to take their lives.

It becomes clear that the works and deeds of people in a statist society are the sins, evils, and iniquities being discussed here once we see that God’s suggested course-correction (i.e., the things which men to repent from) is precisely in regards to people getting back to practicing pure religion again rather than false or public religion (socialism), which means turning away from both the vain rituals practiced in the so-called churches that don’t actually care for the sheep as citizens of another Kingdom, as well as turning away from the socialist systems of the world that use violence against one’s neighbors in order to meet the needs of the people or the desires of wicked men who are greedy for gaining at the expense of other men. 

“Wash and cleanse yourselves. Remove your evil deeds from My sight. Stop doing evil! Learn to do right; seek justice and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless and plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:16-17). 

The main evils and iniquities of men are their partaking in the violent politics of the world, where they attempt to “love” their neighbor at the tip of a bayonet or police club, which is authoritarians’ only method of operating systems of welfare or protection. The prophet thus calls for people to turn from these sins and take up their personal responsibility—directly and freely—to serve their neighbors again, which they had forsaken either by thinking that the Sunday rituals and man-made traditions that men call “church” have anything to do with actually worshiping God (Isa 1:11-15), or by passing off these duties to corrupt and lawless systems of human government that only exist to rob and enslave men. To be sure, the prophet pins the problem directly on the rulers, who can only pervert justice and charity and use their coerced revenues toward their own ends. 

“Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love bribes and chasing after rewards. They do not defend the fatherless, and the plea of the widow never comes before them” (Isaiah 1:23). 

State rulers and those who put them into place through idolatry, who vote them into office, who beg for free bread from Caesars who dole it out to bring men into bondage and who feast at the tables and temples of these false gods, or who allow them to exist simply by failing to seek God’s literal Kingdom, are rebels against the Kingdom of God, which operates on freewill offerings, private charity, love of neighbors, and the perfect law of liberty. Both human rulers, as well as their numerous flag-waving idolaters among the population, are thieves and murders and friends with thieves and murderers. They are people who not only do not care about the poor, because they do not help them directly themselves, but are men who exist precisely to extort and oppress the poor and keep them down. 

The judgment of statism 

Once we see the use of the word iniquity in the context of divine judgment against a people for specific acts like idolatry and perversions of law and justice in their society which are intrinsic to the worldly political practices of statism, it becomes even more clear that what scripture calls iniquity has everything to do with the evils of statist ideology and deeds. The sinful ideology of statism, which raises up human rulers, ends up being a judgment upon a people in the form of the very evils that such rulers and systems will always bring upon a people. This was always the divine warning of the causal reality implanted in the universe by the Author of the Law, by the Creator and Architect of mankind and social order.

It is the iniquitous, statist practices of men that have led to their bondage today. This is always the case in Biblical context too. It was always the Egyptian ways of a people that brought about all sorts of evils upon their own heads. It was always the the statist practices of trusting in kings, presidents, congressmen, soldiers, police officers, and other false gods and false saviors, that landed a people in trouble. As God directly warns, 

“‘Woe to the rebellious children,’ declares the LORD, ‘to those who carry out a plan that is not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin. They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh’s protection and take refuge in Egypt’s shade. But Pharaoh’s protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt’s shade your disgrace. For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes, everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They bring neither help nor benefit, but only shame and disgrace’” (Isaiah 30:1-5). 

The sinful ideology of statism is held by a people who have yet to learn that “Egypt’s help is futile and empty” (Isaiah 30:7). It was always a statist people, i.e., a people who believed that “commander in chiefs” and millions of tax-funded horsemen were necessary to “keep our country safe and free,” who the prophets could call a “rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to obey the LORD’s instruction” (Isaiah 30:9). It was always a people who rejected the correction and wisdom of the Lord, as given through His word or His prophets (Biblical or contemporary) who warn of the judgment and consequences for turning away from God’s anarchy, that God could say are a people who have “stubborn and rebellious hearts [who] have turned aside and gone away [and] have not said in their hearts, ‘Let us fear the LORD our God” (Jeremiah 5:23-24).

It was always a rejection of God’s word and ways, which calls upon men to turn away from their whoredom and adultery with kings and their armies and all the human domination associated with these men, that God says is the iniquity (`avon) which will bring further judgment upon a people:  

“Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: ‘Because you have rejected this message, trusting in oppression and relying on deceit, this iniquity of yours is like a breach about to fail, a bulge in a high wall, whose collapse will come suddenly— in an instant!” (Isaiah 30:12-13). 

It is for man’s unfaithfulness to God, seen primarily in his great prostitution with human rulers, their armies, and their police officers, who he lusted after to be his lawgivers, kings, and saviors instead, that God can say a people “have burdened Me with your sins; you have wearied Me with your iniquities” (Isaiah 43:24). If men insist on being ruled by false gods and living under the jurisdiction of pagan kingdoms, then God allows these rebels to forsake His ways and eat the fruit of their own ways and be filled with their own devices, as a judgment for these sins: 

“A conspiracy exists among the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant that I made with their fathers. Therefore, thus says the LORD, Behold, I am bringing disaster upon them that they cannot escape. Though they cry to me, I will not listen to them” (Jeremiah 11:9-11) 

An idolatrous statist people, like Americans today, must be destroyed for their sins. God simply cannot tolerate a people who insist on being ruled by false gods (e.g., presidents), lest they come to believe there are no consequences for sin. To prove these proud statists wrong, God thus always promises that He will “doubly repay their iniquity and their sin, because they have polluted my land with the carcasses of their detestable idols, and have filled my inheritance with their abominations” (Jeremiah 16:18).

The connection between sin and bondage, or iniquity and judgment, was always there. The inevitable evils of statism — the ideology which has manifested into a wicked system of human rulers — are the price to pay for the sinful, idolatrous, and adulterous ways behind this worldly philosophy. It is the wicked act of pursuing human government that men turn away from God and that God, in turn, walks always from men and abandons them to be destroyed for their own wicked ways. As another prophet makes clear,

“And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them” (Ezekiel 39:23-24). 

It is the iniquities that are intrinsic to human governments and their supporting ideologies, such as violence, theft, and murder, that bring a people into bondage and which demonstrate the chief forms of mankind’s sin against God.