Governments Can Not Be Christian
By L. A. S.
No remedy for the evils which show themselves in church and state in these last days is to be found in the effort to Christianize the civil government. Civil governments can not become Christian, and when they do become ostensibly so, they are invariably unchristian. A profession of religion by the civil government, which manifests its will only by the exercise of force, inevitably involves the persecution of dissenters from that religion. Christianity is the manifestation of the life of God. It is God made manifest in human flesh. As God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, so Christ is to-day in us, his followers, that we may continue the ministry of reconciliation. Christianity is this, and only this, and the only manifestation of Christianity that can be in any government or nation must be found in the individual lives of its people. Civil government aims at justice. It is instituted to preserve the rights of the people, and can do this only by being strictly just to the full extent of its powers. Christianity, on the other hand, is a system which combines justice with mercy, justice falling not on the transgressor but upon a vicarious substitute, and the violator of the law obtaining mercy. To mete out justice to the transgressor would defeat the whole purpose of Christianity. Its purpose is not to inflict the penalty of the law on guilty men, but to save them from it. God, in the exercise of his infinite wisdom and power, has instituted a system of government which can combine justice with mercy, and be grandly successful. To this end agencies are required which are altogether above and beyond any that can be created or directed by man. In the first place, in order that God might be just, and at the same time be the Justifier of them that believe on Jesus, there was required the death of the Son of God. Such a vicarious sacrifice is altogether unknown to any earthly system of government. Then again, angels, divine messengers from the throne of God, are required to be ministering spirits to the followers of Christ on the earth. And more than this, there is required the Holy Spirit to convince the world of sin, and to be the infallible teacher of truth and the Comforter of God's people in their earthly trials. All these superhuman agencies are required for the administration of God's divine system in which mercy is shown to the transgressor. No such agencies are at the command of any earthly government. Human governments can exercise only human power through human agencies. They are therefore altogether incapable of imitating or administering Christianity. They can not even attempt to be Christian without defeating the purpose of their existence. Christianity provides forgiveness for the transgressor; this is its vital purpose, without which it would be entirely useless to mankind. ‘If thy brother . . . trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.’ How long could civil government exist without falling to pieces if it should forgive the transgressor, the violator of its laws, as often as he might say, ‘I repent’? Civil government and Christianity—the divine government—are essentially different. The one is of man, conceived in human wisdom and administered by human agencies; the other is of God, conceived in divine wisdom and administered by divine agencies. The purpose5of the one is to preserve rights; that of the other is to save souls. Civil governments, however, while they can not be Christian, are not necessarily unchristian, and will not be so while their aim is to uphold justice; for justice is not against Christianity, being itself a necessary part of Christianity. But justice is only a part of Christianity, and alone can not constitute Christianity at all. When civil government tries to be more than just, it succeeds only in being less than just to some of those under its laws. The hope of the world to-day is Christianity, not civil government in any form, or anything that can be done through civil government, but the extension in the earth of the divine system of government, which saves the transgressor from his sins. L. A. S.