Posted on 06/05/2009 5:52:10 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
The Question of Judicial Representation
In your paper, "Was the Killing of Dr. Gunn Just?" on page 4, you cite R. J. Rushdoony's 1971 book "The One and the Many." You cite his discussion of the Trinity, in which he discusses the Trinity as being equally one and equally many: the equal ultimacy of both unity and diversity. As a philosophical concept, this is a correct analysis of the meaning of the Trinity. But then you apply it in a unique way. You write: "All of reality reflects the nature of God and the equal ultimacy of the one and the many. When applying this principle to our civic life one may ask, which is more important, the leadership the individuals have elected (the one) or the individuals that constitute the society (the many)? The answer is that neither are more important, they are equally ultimate." And then, in bold face, you add this: "Therefore, both the individuals and their authorities have equal ultimacy as to their responsibility to defend life."
Here you make the classic mistake of the revolutionary. You move away from covenantal law to radical individualism. You go in the direction of pure anarchism. You are an anarchist. Your statement reveals anti-covenantal outlook.
The biblical position is that there must always be judicial representation. Adam represented all of mankind before God in the fall. Jesus Christ represented all of mankind as well as His people before God in His death, resurrection, and ascension. There must always be representation. Moses represented the civil magistrates of Israel. Aaron represented the people as the high priest of Israel.
There must always be judicial representation, and it is established biblically through ordination. There are but three covenantal institutions that God recognizes: Church, State, and Family. Each of them is established by a vow taken before God. A self maledictory oath and we say in our marriage vows, "'til death do us part." In the Church, we are baptized, which symbolizes going through the death and resurrection with Jesus Christ. Death is always a possibility for covenant-breaking. This death is announced through excommunication. In the State, we take a vow, or at lease implicitly we do, to uphold the law. We are brought under the sanctions of God if we unlawfully violate an oath of subordination. The point is: there must be, in every covenant, a representative. This representative is ordained to his office.
The father represents his wife and his children before God because he holds high covenantal office to which he has been ordained. The minister represents the congregation because he has been ordained. The civil magistrate represents the covenanted nation because he has been elected or lawfully appointed by those who have been elected. There is no lawful covenantal office without ordination.
What you are talking about in your essay is the equal ultimacy of both the individual and the ordained civil magistrate in fighting crime. This position is utter nonsense biblically. There cannot be equal ultimacy of those two, for one of them has been ordained, and one of them has not. The officer has a covenantal responsibility before God that is unique, but the individual does not. The officer is oath-bound to enforce the law, while the individual is oath-bound to obey it. One of them is at the top of the hierarchy and is invested by God with the power to exercise the sword, while the other is not.
Your theory of civil law does not reveal any trace of judicial subordination. Your system of interpretation of Rushdoony's passage is a violation of every principle of biblical covenantal law because there is no hierarchy in your system. Every covenant has to have a hierarchy. Every legal order has to have a judge. Every ecclesiastical order has to have a minister. But you obviously do not believe this. When you were excommunicated, you set up your own home church in which you were the self-ordained authority, by which you said you had the right to administer the sacraments to your wife and your children. But who ordained you? Who anointed you? No one. You were an excommunicate at the time you ordained yourself.
You are an anarchist and a rebel. The problem is, there are a lot of others just like you, with the same mind set, who are equally armed and dangerous.
The secular anarchist says that he speaks for himself -- a pure anarchist. He says, "There is no authority beyond me." This is the doctrine of the divine right of the individual. The divine right of the individual teaches that there is no lawful court of appeal beyond him. This is the pure anarchist.
Most anarchists are not pure anarchists. You are not a pure anarchist. You claim that you speak in the name of the community. And presumably, you have two communities in mind: the church of Jesus Christ, which excommunicated you, and the civil government, which has locked you up and now threatens to execute you. Yet you, as an unordained individual, claim that you possessed the right to act for the community in the name of the community. Either you spoke in the name of the church and the state or else you spoke in the name of the broad-based community as an whole. This is not clear in your essay.
Here is the judicial reality: no one ordained you to this ecclesiastical position as spokesman; no one anointed you to this civil position as spokesman. You ordained yourself, anointed yourself, to speak both as priest and civil magistrate in issuing your theological manifestos. Then you gunned down a man, gunned down his escort, and wounded the escort's wife. And you did this, you claim, not in the name of yourself simply as an individual, but in the name of Jesus Christ. You did this, you say, as a representative agent of Jesus Christ's kingdom, both ecclesiastical and civil. Because you were once ordained and issued a theological manifesto, you took up a shotgun and killed them. Who ordained you? Who anointed you? The answer is: you anointed you. You ordained you. You, in your supposed capacity as an equally ultimate judge under God, ordained and anointed yourself. Then you got your gun.
Not many people are trained to think judicially. Not many are trained to think biblically. Even fewer are trained to think covenantally. The problem is, you had a little theonomic training, a little theological understanding, and a whole lot of pride. You also had a shotgun. And so you combined what little you knew of biblical law and what little you knew of theology with your shotgun. The result is your incarceration.
Fortunately, your church had excommunicated you before you grabbed your shotgun. The press has not been able to tar and feather the Christian church, because the church exercised its good judgment and declared you outside the jurisdiction of Christ's ecclesiastical kingdom. It publicly announced that you are going to hell unless you repent. That cleared the church of any responsibility for you. This is an enormous blessing to the church of Jesus Christ. If more churches would do this, there would be less embarrassment for the church of Jesus Christ when those who are excommunicated go out and practice exactly what they preach. But churches do not excommunicate people very often, and so churches get tarred and feathered by the press when those under their jurisdiction do things much less violent than what you did
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!
Thank you for sharing your views, dear brother in Christ!
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