Sunday, September 04, 2005

Man's Law

The principles of civil government are primarily set out in the Old Testament.

Two different government roles are described in the Old Testament. The first is the military commander who calls soldiers together to defend the nation when it is attacked by an enemy. This is probably not a permanent position, but only comes about when the nation is attacked. Moses, Joshua and David took this role.

The second role is that of judges who settle legal disputes based on God’s law. Moses and Samuel took this role.

These two roles require different skills, so they are not always carried out be the same person. Moses did both, but Samuel was just a judge and Barak was just a military commander. The evidence of the book of Judges is that strong military commanders generally make inadequate judges.

The judges apply the law of God, as revealed in the Ten Commandments. There is no evidence in the Old Testament of a group of people being elected to decide what the law should be. They did not need to do this, because God had already provided his perfect law.

This means that there is no basis in the Bible for a parliament that makes laws. A parliament can only make man’s laws. We should be living under God’s laws.

For the LORD is our judge,
the LORD is our lawgiver,
the LORD is our king; it is
he who will save us (Isaiah 33:22).
If God is our Lawgiver, why are we voting to elect law makers?

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi Ron

I agree that man is not called 'make laws' in the sense that God is the ultimate 'law giver', but are we not entrusted to 'interpret' the law, and is that not a legitimate role of Parliament?

For example, the Bible is silent on the need for MAF boarder control to keep out insects and pests that could destroy our agricultural economy. Doesn't parliament have a right to consider that this falls under 'defense of the realm' and pass laws accordingly?

A topic for discussion while we watch the live entertainment on Saturday night?

Blessings
Brendan

Ron McK said...

I agree that the law needs to be translated into the modern world. It also needs interpretation. I am not sure why an elected rabble could be trusted to be wise interpreters of the law.
The Old Testament gives this responsiblilty to judges.

The role of border control is part or the military commander role. If this is important for an economy, then the military role might be a permanent one.