[This is part 26 in an article series on Sin, Repentance, Salvation, and Revival. See part one. two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, twenty seven, twenty eight, twenty nine, thirty, thirty one, thirty two, thirty three, thirty four, thirty five]

Leaving Egypt Ministries, Obadiah D. Morris

Since there are a handful of words or concepts for the idea of betraying God in some way or another, from sin, iniquity, rebellion, revolt, or simply doing evil or wickedness, we must cover all of them to secure the case for statism as mankind’s great revolt against God and His Kingdom, especially because we are dealing with tens of millions of idolaters who call themselves Christians all while their evil deeds and wicked works make them the main enemies of God and His Kingdom. This has to be done because statists will try to weasel their way out of the charges that they have turned from God by seeking a more general definition like “missing the mark,” which helps keep them from being under fire as men who are living in an active and ongoing rebellion to God. Though we have already shown that all these concepts can be tied into a statist context, perhaps we can say this conclusion that man’s great sin against God has been his political whoredom with the kingdoms of the world is even harder to avoid under the Hebrew word פֶשַׁע or pesha (Strong’s H6588), which is primarily translated into “transgression” but refers also to rebellious acts. As one site notes, 

“The word pesha’ (פֶּשַׁע) is the most intense Hebrew term for sin. It is often translated as ‘transgression’ or ‘rebellion.’ In ancient Hebrew culture, this word was used to describe a person breaking a covenant or a treaty between two parties. It isn’t just missing a mark or being twisted; it is a deliberate betrayal of a relationship.  When the Bible uses pesha’, it highlights that our sin is an act of rebellion against God’s authority. It is a choice to ignore His commands and set ourselves up as the rulers of our own lives. It transforms a moral failure into a relational betrayal.”

With over 90 occurrences spanning the Old Testament, it is another significant word to look at when investigating the various acts and ideas that represent man’s revolt against God. Once again, contrary to those who would make man’s sin against God into merely some vague or inadvertent acts that men cannot really help but to commit so long as they are human, here we have a word that refers more so to a conscious and willful rebellion against God. Strong’s definition is “a revolt (national, moral or religious)—rebellion, sin, transgression, trespass.” 

The principal way that men rebel against God’s rule is to raise up and support systems of human rule. This has been the case since the early days of Cain and Nimrod, whose rebellion against God was characterized by the erection of statist political systems. When men seek human rulers and their governments, they rebel against God as their King and transgress His Law, which commands men to have no other gods than the Lord their God. It has always been the wicked act and evil idea of raising up human rulers and human governments that represents man’s main revolt against the anarchistic Kingdom of God. It has always been the statism of a people, from their mere ideological belief in human rulers to the actual wicked deed of raising them up, that stands as the foremost example of a people living in rebellion to God. It is these types of people—the statist idolaters of the world—who God says are “children of transgression” and “offspring of deceit” (Isaiah 57:4). 

The statist revolt against God 

As with other descriptions of the general idea of sin, we find that Isaiah 59 is a rich prooftext for showing that the ideas and practices of statism as being the principal transgression against God—whether the mere belief in political plunder, voting human rulers into office, or even joining joining forces with them as a politician, soldier, or police officer. This chapter in particular is packed with various such descriptions and comes in exactly a context of violence and plunder which is inherent to a statist society. As the prophet says, 

“For our transgressions are multiplied before You, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions are indeed with us, and we know our iniquities: rebelling and denying the LORD, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering lies from the heart” (Isaiah 59:12-13). 

The context that these verses sit in is clearly one where the charges coming against a people are for the specific evildoings inherent to a statist people. As the prophet adds,

“Their deeds are sinful deeds, and acts of violence are in their hands. Their feet run to evil; they are swift to shed innocent blood” (Isaiah 59:6-7). 

When the prophet Micah speaks of the “transgression of Jacob” and the “sins of the house of Jerusalem” (Micah 1:5), it is also clear that the evils that the people were practicing were all those wicked works bound-up with a statist people and their ruling elite. The men who were targeted for such a prophetic charge were those “who devise iniquity and plot evil on their beds! At morning’s light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands. They covet fields and seize them; they take away houses. They deprive a man of his home, a fellow man of his inheritance” (Micah 2:1-2). If this isn’t clear enough, the charges are made more expressly against the evils of the rulers themselves: 

“Hear now, O leaders of Jacob, you rulers of the house of Israel. Should you not know justice? You hate good and love evil. You tear the skin from my people and strip the flesh from their bones. You eat the flesh of my people after stripping off their skin and breaking their bones. You chop them up like flesh for the cooking pot, like meat in a cauldron” (Micah 3:1-3). 

The main people in the world who transgress God’s Law are those who either believe in the plunderous and murderous systems of human government, or who directly partake in these wicked deeds with their feet as voters, governors, politicians, soldiers, police officers, or in any other capacity. This is also evident when God says that “the rulers transgressed against Me” (Jeremiah 2:8). It is unmistakable that the transgressors here, who God empowered the prophets to pronounce judgment against, are the statists of the world: 

“As for me, however, I am filled with power by the Spirit of the LORD, with justice and courage, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. Now hear this, O leaders of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel, who despise justice and pervert all that is right, who build Zion with bloodshed and Jerusalem with iniquity” (Micah 3:8-10). 

The accusation of “transgression” in the rest of the prophets only furthers the case that the principal acts of men that violate God’s Law and represent a rebellion against His rule are those deeds which are carried out by the statists of the world, who, being in command of the political apparatus, are precisely in the position of committing such wicked acts. 

“For I know that your transgressions are many and your sins are numerous. You oppress the righteous by taking bribes; you deprive the poor of justice in the gate” (Amos 5:12). 

Statism as transgression 

Continuing our study linking statism to the various Biblical conceptions and expressions of living in rebellion to God or turning away from Him in some way or another, we have the Hebrew word פָשַׁע (Strong’s H6586), which is the root-word of pesha’. Its transliteration is pasha’ (pronounced pah-shah’). This is a verb describing the action of transgressing or rebelling and gets translated into transgress, revolt, and rebellion. One definition given is “to break away (from just authority), i.e. trespass, apostatize, quarrel.” Men break away from God’s authority when they raise up human rulers to be their gods. They apostatize from the Christian gospel of salvation under the Lord when they buy into the promises of politicians to “save America” or bring peace and prosperity to the land. How else could men possibly display a greater act of rebellion against the Lord’s kingship than to seek human kings and rulers? There is no other way. This is it. 

As with all other Hebrew words expressing some idea of sin and rebellion against God, it is not difficult to connect the idea of “transgression” with the statist ideas and works of men. When Jeremiah uses the word that gets translated into “transgression” (e.g., Jer 5:6, KJV), it is done directly in the context of God calling the prophet to find “a single person who acts justly” (Jeremiah 5:1)—a scarce man indeed in a statist society, which are necessarily filled with ungodly men who have turned away from the Lord as their King and Savior. All statist systems are founded and furthered by ungodly men and could not exist without them. All systems of political plunder rely on sinners for their origin and continued existence, without which they would be abolished. All human civil governments are raised up rebels who are revolting against God as their King, and all such political disorders stand as the primary example of a people who have transgressed the laws of God. Men sin against God when they pursue man-made law systems which must, as a matter of course, corrupt justice and pervert His Law. All human governments must pervert law and justice, because they are all socialist institutions that fund themselves via taxation and force and thus could never possibly uphold God’s Law against theft and murder, which they are not exempt from being under. One is unjust to even pursue these systems, because it implies coveting your neighbors property to fund these institutions.

The mere longing for human rulers, much less the evil deed of actually supporting them once they exist, has always been the chief manifestation of man’s rejection of God’s rule. It was always through idolatry and lust for false gods and the pagan kingdoms of this world that a people turned away from God and fell into the “wisdom” of the world and its political ideology. As God said of the prideful people of Judah and Jerusalem, 

“These evil people, who refuse to listen to My words, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who go after other gods to serve and worship them, they will be like this loincloth—of no use at all” (Jeremiah 13:9-10). 

It was for all the whoredoms and adulteries with the kingdoms of the world and their armies that God saw a people to be in rebellion to Him.

“Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?” (Jeremiah 13:27). 

The transgression in the Book of Hosea 

When God says that the people in question have “transgressed against Me” (Hosea 7:13) in the book of Hosea, we have yet another undeniably statist context. The rebellion of Israel here was that “they call out to Egypt” and “they go to Assyria” (Hosea 7:11) — that is, that they sought protection and aid in the political systems of the world rather than trusted in God as their savior, which is the same sins of men today who look to presidents, politicians, police, and soldiers to provide their peace, freedom, prosperity, and justice for them, only to eventually find they will have none of the above by seeking it in false saviors. 

In the following chapter, when God charges that the people have “transgressed My covenant and rebelled against My law” (Hosea 8:1), the case for statism as man’s great sin against God is sealed. The rebellion was this: “They set up kings, but not by Me. They make princes, but without My approval” (Hosea 8:4). The sins of the people were that they had “gone up to Assyria” (Hosea 8:9), i.e., begged for the militaries and rulers of the world to save them from their enemies. God never once commanded men to set up kings and always said that it was a rejection of His kingship. Every time men have raised up human rulers throughout history, it has been a rebellion against God’s Kingdom and transgression against God’s Law. Whether they call these men “presidents” or “kings,” or their systems “monarchies” or “constitutional republics,” is of no significance whatever. All systems of human civil government are an abandonment of God’s rule for the rule by false gods. All statists are transgressors against God and His Kingdom and have never known the Lord as their King.