The Anabaptist View of Government - Stephen Russell and Dean Taylor

I was in the last draft for the Vietnam War, and my number was too low, so it didn't matter. But when I gave my life to the Lord, I knew—I thought I knew two things. One, I want to serve the Lord, and the other was, His people don't kill anyone. And that's not exactly non-resistance, but it's a beginning. And I'd just like to share a few things that I think are important about that. Absolutely. And one of them is, you mentioned Romans 13.

N.T. Wright, I believe, did his first major work on the book of Romans. And one thing that he said is, "Watch the pronouns." Is it saying "you"? Or is it saying "they"? Or is it saying "we"? So watch the pronouns. Well, watch the pronouns in Romans 13. Okay. Mr. Wright didn't do that.

If you look at chapter 12, it's about receiving the gifts and then living the life, the Christian life. And it's "you." Now, in English, "you" is not—when it's a command, it's not expressed. But it's, "You do this, you do that." So it just says, "Do this, do that." Okay, but that's "you." Okay? It's talking to us. It's talking to us Christians. 13, then, the first seven or so verses are "they." Interesting. They are the ministers of God. They bear the sword for vengeance and for protection, for our good. And you pay them them. Okay? You pay them custom, taxes, reverence, honor, whatever it says. And then it shifts back to, "Oh, no man, anything." That's us.

You owe no man, anything. And then it goes down after that. So, for instance, one thing it says is, "Overcome evil with good." You overcome evil with good. It also says, "As much as lies within you, live at peace with all men." All of 12 and the rest of 13 after the first seven verses, the non-Christian can't do. We can barely do it. Right, right, right. You know, we need the Spirit, and sometimes we just ignore Him. Exactly. But anyway. Are you saying that N.T. Wright, in this case, was wrong? He—no, he's right. Oh, he's right in saying that. I'm saying he missed—he missed his own point. Ah, right, right, right. Because he is not non-resistant.

I saw—I didn't—I wasn't there. I saw a time when he spoke somewhere, I don't remember where it was, and a young man, obviously hoping for a yes, got up and said, "Aren't you a pacifist?" Oh. And he said, "Well, I am a bishop in the Church of England. It's a state church." Okay.

And now I'm paraphrasing. Right, right. And I am in Parliament. Okay. He was in Parliament. He gives speeches. Yeah. Well, he was in the House of Lords. Okay. And no, I'm not a pacifist. Which means he wasn't paying attention to his own—now, I do that too. I'm absolutely sure that I may hit the nail on the head about a particular issue and miss it somewhere. But he missed it in 12 and 13 of Romans. Which is—Romans is kind of his theme, so to speak. That's excellent. I love that point that you're making of the difference there. It's his point. It's his point. Well, it's good. I love it. You know, and you think of this whole concept, and he's talking about this walking the resurrection, being followers of Christ, this and about the—we being like these cities that we're gathering a community, not part of this world, but a community of faith.

It's truly putting to practice, you know, in Isaiah, when it gave the prophecy of the increase of this government and peace, there shall be no end when the Messiah will come. And so we see that, that gathering together and putting the teachings of Jesus as the cure for humanity is such a powerful thing to get behind.

And you just mentioned Isaiah, so I want to say a little bit about the Old Testament. Okay. Okay. Most Christian and Jewish interpreters of the Old Testament would say that the government was established after the fall—after the flood. Where it says in chapter 9 that an animal will be killed if he takes a man's blood, but so will a man. So the take—if a life is—a human life is lost, it means that the blood of that other person must be shed. Now, that is not God's heart. You go back to where the first murder occurred. That's where you see God's heart. God warns Cain.

He says, "You don't have to do—you don't—we don't even know what's up." But Cain is angry because his brother was favored, because his brother did what he should. And God warns him. And nonetheless, Cain kills his brother. And then God doesn't say—he doesn't say, "I want everyone to go after you and kill you." He says, "I'm going to put a mark on you so that you will not be killed." There's a reason. God's heart is always to repent and come back. Wow. Now, the law is different because mankind is so corrupt. And the chapters from chapter 4 to 11 show how corrupt we became. So we need a really strong restraint. And that's where you get government.

God institutes government to really pull back on us. But even after that, in the Old Testament, you see so often this is a restraint. It's not God's heart. You hear it with the setting up of kings and the way, "Yes, you are rejecting me in that you've asked for a king." When the Israelite people demanded a king, yes. But God works with them where they are. And He gives them that king. But He sure doesn't give them what they want. But another thing that's interesting, God did establish government. And I agree with Augustine. In the city of God, he says that every nation, every empire was established by violence, and it will end in violence.

But in between—now, this is not Augustine—in between that establishment by violence and being wrecked by violence, one of the things that happens over and over again in the Old Testament is this area has been pacified, you could say, and all of a sudden it prospers. And this is represented in the Old Testament by either calling this place a mountain with lots of fruit or a tree that provides shelter for animals and food and all that. And I remember being shocked when I think it's Ezekiel 31. It's either 31. I think it's 31, where God is warning Egypt. And He says, "Look at Assyria. They were this beautiful tree." Well, Assyria was probably the worst enemy the Israelites ever had.

And they complained to God, "Why are you letting this happen?" Okay, but after any one of the—whether it's the Assyrians or the Babylonians or the Persians or the Romans—after the violence comes widespread peace, a peace that's imposed, but fallen man needs that. And then comes prosperity. So there's this pattern all the way through. But that's what government does. It uproots—often it does this in a very—well, it always does in a very violent way. It uproots evil, provides possibility for good and prosperity. But then it's going to pay. Wow. Augustine says it's going to pay. So I think—oh, one more thing. The Anabaptists. So what I see in the Old Testament is, yes, we need government.

Even now, we need government because of the evil of men's hearts. And the kinds of things that have to be done, the kind of wisdom that's needed is not the kind of wisdom Christians have. And it's got to be done. You know, the worldly men want prosperity. Right. And they don't want violence. So they're going to use violence to get rid of the violence and then have prosperity. Yeah. The Anabaptists look back at this. We know they were being challenged. And they said, "Yes, God's people in the Old Testament bore the sword." And God let them bear the sword, although He also told them He doesn't really want them to have a king, but if you insist.

Okay. So in the Old Testament, God's people were allowed to bear the sword. In the New Testament, we hear His heart. And it's that His people should not bear the sword. And the early Anabaptists said—so the early church got this. They were non-resistant. And God took the sword from the Jewish people in the Jewish-Roman War.

So He didn't even want them to have it. Wow. This is how the Anabaptists saw it. So I think it's very clear if one gets—this is one of those places, I think, that you need to go beyond just what the Bible says simply because it's important to know historically what happened. Yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying. Yeah. It's interesting. The other Anabaptist, Peter Ridderman, mentions, he said, "Whenever we see the government of God, it's a reminder to us of the wrath of God." God gave us this government. And Hosea mentions, "I gave you a king in my wrath, and I took him away in my—what is it?—in my anger," I think it says. And so this idea is—he works with that.

He works with us as people. He has mercy on us. But I agree with you. It's not the best. So they're saying, "We were given this way of Christ to spread the kingdom of God on earth." They have a right, but that's not the church. That's not the people of God. But we can't rebel against Him. We shouldn't be negative. We shouldn't be these rebels or anything like that, you know? But that's our place. And I think that is so well articulated in the Shlodheim Confession. Yes, we should honor them. I do think it does—I don't think it means we can't tell the truth. Yeah. To be prophetic still. I'm talking about a ruler. We should respect him, but we can tell the truth.

And be able to be prophetic to our generation. Yeah. Amen. Well said.