Family government and conscience

Jerald Finney
Copyright © April 19, 2011
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Preface

 “[M]ost, even of sincere believers, soon retire from any serious effort to master the content of the sacred writings. The reason is not far to seek. It is found in the fact that no particular portion of Scripture is to be intelligently comprehended apart from some conception of its place in the whole. For the Bible story and message is like a picture wrought out in mosaics: each book, chapter, verse, and even word forms a necessary part, and has its own appointed place. It is, therefore, indispensable to any interesting and fruitful study of the Bible that a general knowledge of it be gained…. From beginning to end the Bible has one great theme—the person and work of the Christ” (1917 Scofield Reference Edition, p. i.).

Some mature Christians will already know the information presented in many of these articles. However, do you, the individual reader, know how all these articles fit together to explain not only the biblical principles of government, church, and separation of church and state, but also how these principles correlate and converge at Christ?

Can you make a practical application of these principles to law and actions of churches in the real world? Do you know about and understand the theologies (one correct and one incorrect) that competed in the colonies and continue to strive or control in America today? Do you know how America has applied and/or misapplied these principles? More importantly, do you know how churches have applied these principles? Have you or can you understand church incorporation and Internal Revenue Code § 501(c)(3) status and whether such status grieves our Lord and why or why not? Do you know that a historical Baptist church in America can organize according to biblical principles and also according to civil law? Do you see how God’s prophecies for the last days are unfolding before our very eyes as revealed in the heresies and apostasy of many churches?

These articles all converge at Christ and His feelings concerning His churches. Nothing is more important. Nothing leads to more successful (in God’s eyes) soul winning and maturing of those who have taken the first spiritual step of being born-again. This blog is dedicated to a systematic study of biblical principles concerning government, church, separation of church and state, and the practical application of those principles in America.

“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…” (Ho. 4.6.). And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge….  ” (2 Pe. 1.5, ). “[f] ye do these things, ye shall never fall” (2 Pe. 1.10).

Family government and conscience

Prior to the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, man and woman were co-regents. Neither ruled over the other. After the fall, God established family government. He said to the woman: “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee (Ge. 4.16). The Bible teaches that the husband is to be the head of the wife (1 Co. 11.3; Ep. 5.22-26; 1 Pe. 3.1, 5-7; 1 Ti. 2.11-15), and children are to be instructed and led by the parents (Ex. 20.12; De. 6.6-7; 11.18-21; Pr. 4.1, 2, 10, 11; Ep. 6.1, 4; Col. 3.20). Parents, not the state, are to care for their children: “But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Ti. 5.8). Even an infidel has a love for his children placed there by God (Mt. 7.9-11). God desires that man satisfy his sexual desire only in marriage. “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Ex. 20.14). “Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband” (1 Co. 7.2).

God desires parents, not civil government, to provide a God-centered education for their children:

“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (De. 6.4-7; see also, Pr. 4.1, 2, 10, 11; 5.1, 2; 22.6; Ep.6.4).

After the fall, God gave mankind a chance to be directed by his conscience (an awareness of doing wrong), still to be individually controlled only by self-government (no civil government). God had told man, prior to the fall, “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof [of the forbidden fruit], then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (Ge. 3.5). After man ate the forbidden fruit, God told them, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Ge. 3.22a).  Dispensationalists  usually refer to this economy as Conscience, the title being taken from these verses:

 “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another” (Ro. 2.14-15).

Section III, Chapter 3 of God Betrayed defines and analyzes Dispensational versus Covenant Theology and future articles on this blog will examine these theologies as well– See Endnote below for more information on God Betrayed and other books.

The Holy Spirit also strove with man during the days before the upcoming flood: “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Ge. 6.3).

God gave mankind certain responsibilities:

“During this stewardship man was responsible to respond to God through the promptings of his conscience, and part of a proper response was to bring an acceptable blood sacrifice as God had taught him to do (Gen. 3.21; 4.4). We have a record of only a few responding, and Abel, Enoch, and Noah are especially cited as heroes of faith. We also have the record of those who did not respond and who by their evil deeds brought judgment on the world. Cain refused to acknowledge himself a sinner even when God continued to admonish him (Gen. 4.3, 7). So murder came on the scene of human history” (Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism (Chicago: Moody Press, 1995), pp. 52-53).

In the story of Cain and Abel, we see that God still did not allow civil government (direction and control over man by man). After Cain killed Abel, the Lord told Cain, “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth” (Ge. 4.11-12). Since Cain feared that “every one that findeth me shall slay me” (Ge. 4.14), God said, “… Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him” (Ge. 4.15). The Supreme Ruler of the universe was telling man that he had no authority to rule over man.

At the flood, God delegated to man the authority to rule over man under God because man had demonstrated that since “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Ge. 6.5), “all flesh … corrupted his way upon the earth” and the earth with man guided only by his conscience became “filled with violence” (Ge. 6.12-13). Sadly no nation has ever ruled under God for any extended length of time. The next article will begin the biblical based study of civil government.

Endnote

God Betrayed/Separation of Church and State: The Biblical Principles and the American Application (Link to preview of God Betrayed): may be ordered from Amazon by clicking the following link: God Betrayed on Amazon.com or from Barnes and Nobel by clicking the following link: God Betrayed on Barnes and Noble. All books by Jerald Finney as well as many of the books he has referenced and read may also be ordered by left clicking “Books” (on the “Church and State Law” website) or directly from Amazon by going to the following links: (1) Render Unto God the Things that Are His: A Systematic Study of Romans 13 and Related Verses (Kindle only); (2) The Most Important Thing: Loving God and/or Winning Souls (Kindle only); (3) Separation of Church and State/God’s Churches: Spiritual or Legal Entities? (Link to preview of Separation of Church and State/God’s Churches: Spiritual or Legal Entities?) which can also be ordered by clicking the following Barnes and Noble link: Separation of Church and State on Barnes and Noble.