The NXR Podcast - BONUS - A Primer On Christian Government Part 1 of 6

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.

00:00:03.440 If you've been blessed by our content and you like this show,

00:00:06.440 would you take just a brief moment and leave us a five-star review?

00:00:09.760 This is quite possibly the most effective thing that you can do

00:00:12.880 to ensure that this content gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks.

00:00:18.000 Hi, you're listening to a bonus episode of Theology Applied. I'm joined by Toby Sumter

00:00:22.320 to talk about his 50-question catechism on the governments. He talks about four forms of

00:00:29.400 government. Self-government, the government of the family, the government of the church,

00:00:34.280 and the government of the state. In this episode, we lay out the foundation for human governments

00:00:40.200 and the authority, ultimate authority, of the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:00:44.460 Applying God's Word to every aspect of life. This is Theology Applied.

00:00:53.780 All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied. I'm your host,

00:00:56.940 Pastor Joel Webin with Right Response Ministries. And in this particular episode, I'm very privileged

00:01:01.260 to be joined by Pastor Toby Sumter. He's in Moscow, Idaho. He has been a pastor of Christ

00:01:07.440 Church alongside Doug Wilson for a very long time, but now they're particularizing and planting a new

00:01:12.660 church. So he's going to be the primary preaching pastor in that church. But without further ado,

00:01:17.720 Toby, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks, Joel. It's great to be with you again.

00:01:22.800 Great. So this is what Toby has done recently that a lot of you probably saw this, but I feel like

00:01:27.880 it's just, it merits more attention. Toby and the, you know, the cross politic boys, Gabe and

00:01:34.420 Chalk Knox and those guys, all the Idaho crew, Darren Doan, they put out a lot of material and

00:01:39.760 it's fantastic. We praise God for what he's doing with this group of guys. But one of the things,

00:01:44.360 one of the pieces of material that Toby recently put out that I was immensely blessed by and that

00:01:49.460 I just want to slow down before it just gets buried underneath, you know, the thousand

00:01:54.180 podcasts you guys will do next week.

00:01:56.000 I want to slow down and retroactively go back and say, wait, wait, wait, this one, it's

00:02:00.240 all good, but this one was especially good.

00:02:02.560 And, uh, and that was your catechism.

00:02:04.820 I forget the title.

00:02:05.700 Was it God and government?

00:02:06.660 What was the title of this catechism?

00:02:08.540 I think I just called it a catechism on the governments.

00:02:11.820 Great.

00:02:12.320 A catechism on the governments.

00:02:13.820 And as you guys probably just picked up listening, uh, that's plural governments.

00:02:17.780 And so he primarily talked about how God instituted four, not just three, three sovereign spheres, but we have four governments.

00:02:25.500 And these spheres are not just spheres of society, but we should understand them as governments.

00:02:29.960 There's the government of the family, the government of the church, the government of the state.

00:02:33.280 And then Toby added to that, which I believe is thoroughly biblical, self-government, the government of the individual, right?

00:02:39.640 If we're going to lead a family well, we need to be a good self-leader, these kinds of things.

00:02:43.880 And so, Toby, what inspired you to do this?

00:02:46.840 You know, this is just one of those areas. I mean, I think it's, first of all, I mean, it's part of our reformed heritage, you know, going back, honestly, to the reformers and even before that. And Abraham Kuyper really pounded away at it. But I think the whole COVID moment has impressed on all of us.

00:03:08.700 I mean, suddenly you care about who your county commissioners are, who your city council members are, who your health district guy is or whatever.

00:03:18.020 And we've had all these discussions and conversations about, you know, do you have the authority to do that?

00:03:23.520 Do you have the authority? Who has the authority to say that your church can't meet or that if you're going to meet, you have to stand six feet apart or you have to wear this thing on your face or you need to get this jab or your business can be open or not?

00:03:36.840 And all of that is basically a question of authority and government and power.

00:03:43.060 And so this has been stuff that we've been talking about a lot on CrossPolitik.

00:03:47.120 It's been a subject of a lot of our sermons and messages as we continue to teach and preach on this.

00:03:52.680 But basically, the thought was, as I don't know, maybe it came to me in the shower.

00:03:59.260 I have no idea.

00:03:59.880 But the idea was basically, what if I put together something that would be just sort of short questions and answers?

00:04:08.860 Remember, the Reformers put out tons of catechisms.

00:04:12.540 Catechism is kind of a historic way that a lot of Christians, especially in the Reform tradition, have said,

00:04:20.020 let's just break these topics down, these concerns down into short, simple questions and answers that even our kids could memorize if we wanted to.

00:04:28.500 or you could teach through on a Sunday evening or something like that.

00:04:32.420 You know, so you have the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Larger Catechism.

00:04:35.520 You've got the Heidelberg Catechism.

00:04:36.680 Those are just the famous ones.

00:04:38.500 But there were actually probably, you know, dozens if not hundreds of catechisms written during the Reformation.

00:04:43.980 And so in the hope of a new Reformation, here I am presenting another catechism saying,

00:04:49.620 hey, if God would be gracious and kind to give the Christian church, especially in North America,

00:04:54.320 a recovery of these basic realities of authority and government, I think we would have a massive

00:05:00.660 reformation on our hands. I agree. You know, you said the thought came to you in the shower,

00:05:05.040 you know, you're kind of joking, but I bet you did come in the shower. And this is why

00:05:07.900 you were in the shower and you're thinking about how Joe Biden wants to reach his hand in there

00:05:11.540 and regulate the temperature of your shower. And you're like, I need to do a catechism that

00:05:15.580 reigns that guy in. That's why it came. You got it, Joel. You got it. But thank you for

00:05:21.040 connecting those dots for me. All right. Well, without further ado, let's go ahead and hop into

00:05:26.020 it. So you broke it up, I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, I've got in front of me,

00:05:29.720 but I think you broke it up into six sections. You have like an introduction, then you have the four

00:05:34.320 different governments, self, family, the government of the self, government of the home,

00:05:39.680 then government of the church, government of the state, and then a conclusion to wrap it all

00:05:43.500 together that talks about what happens if these governments overlap. Do they ever overlap? Who

00:05:49.520 who gets jurisdiction, those kinds of things. So let's just start with your introduction,

00:05:54.580 which I believe is six questions. Would you, would you just, let's just go through all six

00:05:59.860 because if we stop at the end of each question, we're going to be in trouble. So could you read,

00:06:04.400 maybe you read number one and answer, then I'll read number two and answer, then you read number

00:06:08.560 three and answer, and let's just finish all six of those and then we'll discuss it.

00:06:11.840 Okay. Introduction number one, where does all authority and power come from? All authority

00:06:17.640 and power in heaven and on earth originates in the triune God and has been given to the Lord Jesus

00:06:22.700 Christ. Amen. Number two, if all authority is from God, what kind of authority can humans have?

00:06:28.620 Because all authority is from God, all human authority is delegated and limited.

00:06:35.420 Three, what does it mean that all human authority is delegated? Delegated authority means that it

00:06:41.100 was given directly by God and can be revoked by him. Number four, what does it mean that all

00:06:47.600 human authority is limited? Answer, all human authority is limited by the particular assignments

00:06:54.680 given to them by God in his word. Any leader who goes beyond, misuses, or abdicates their particular

00:07:02.500 assignments has no authority to do so. Five, what governments have been established directly by God?

00:07:11.160 God has established the responsibility of self-government in every individual, and family

00:07:16.540 government, church government, and civil government in society. And number six, who is the head of

00:07:22.580 every government and power? Answer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Since he exercised self-government

00:07:29.440 perfectly in his sinless life, atoning death, and glorious resurrection and ascension, he has been

00:07:36.180 made father of all the families of the earth, king of all the kingdoms of the earth, and the only head

00:07:43.160 of the church in heaven and on earth. Amen. So, all right. So, let's talk about those,

00:07:48.700 especially, I think, especially that last one, but anything that you want to draw out of those

00:07:53.540 first six questions and answers? No, I think just simply, hopefully everybody hears the echo of the

00:08:00.900 Great Commission in the first question. All authority in heaven and earth has been given

00:08:05.640 to me. Jesus says, therefore, go. And so that's what we're doing there. I think it's really

00:08:14.120 important to recognize just those concepts of delegated and limited authority, which I think

00:08:20.780 is pretty straightforward, but is really important to put at the outset because I think sometimes

00:08:28.600 I think it gets muddled when we start thinking about specific authority, particularly in our

00:08:33.520 day and age of the state and the civil magistrate. Um, but those would be the key things that I want

00:08:39.560 to highlight there. Cool. Yeah. I've heard it said, uh, you said delegated and limited, like,

00:08:43.900 which absolutely, um, another word I've heard is like, um, divested that human authority. There

00:08:49.340 is no inherent human authority. All, all authority given, um, to human beings by God is precisely

00:08:56.060 that it's given it's divested. Um, it ultimately rests with the Lord God almighty. It can be

00:09:00.940 revoked if, if abused. Um, so it can be taken away. So there's no inherent divine right within

00:09:07.120 man that I have this, you know, this inherent claim to this title, to this position, to this

00:09:12.500 power. Um, and, and it's unconditional that I can do whatever I want. That's right. That does not

00:09:17.960 exist. Um, I love what you said with number six, um, you know, who is the head of every government,

00:09:22.900 the Lord Jesus Christ, right? He exercised perfect, uh, self-government, right? Resisting

00:09:28.180 sin, and not just an absence of sin, but fulfilling all righteousness in his act of obedience. John

00:09:33.860 the Baptist, you should be baptizing me, but I must do this to fulfill all righteousness. So his

00:09:39.960 act of obedience in his life, resisting sin, self-control, moderating, all these things

00:09:46.100 perfectly, loving the Lord as God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his mind, all his

00:09:50.940 strength, every minute of every day. But then not only that, but he's been made the father of every

00:09:57.560 family of the earth. I like that. King of all kingdoms on the earth and the only head of the

00:10:03.640 church. And so the only thing that I wanted to add with that is, because you're absolutely right,

00:10:07.520 but I think a lot of Christians miss this, the saying that John MacArthur with COVID and when

00:10:14.880 they decided to open back up, he wrote that article, Christ, not Caesar, is head of the

00:10:19.400 church. And you and I would both say, of course, yes and amen. But it is just as biblically true

00:10:25.520 that Christ, not Caesar, is also head of the state. Caesar is not the head of anything,

00:10:31.900 right? As Caesar is a deacon, he works under a head. He works for God. Anything you want to add

00:10:37.560 about that or any thoughts you have on that? Yeah, no, I think so in all three of these

00:10:42.300 spheres or jurisdictions where God has given authority and power to anyone, so family,

00:10:47.840 he gives authority and power. We're going to get into this to father and mother. It's real

00:10:53.480 authority, it's real power. He gives authority and power to pastors and ministers and teachers

00:10:58.480 of the gospel. And he gives authority and power to magistrates. But again, it's all delegated and

00:11:06.520 therefore limited power. And so, absolutely. So, in every one of these spheres where you

00:11:13.880 are under authority, which all of us are, all of us are under authority in these three spheres,

00:11:18.400 Nevertheless, when you look to the authority that's over you, you must see Jesus standing

00:11:23.320 behind it.

00:11:24.960 So whether it's a wife looking to her husband, a wife submits to her husband in the Lord,

00:11:31.280 meaning he has real authority, but she sees Jesus standing behind him.

00:11:34.780 That's right.

00:11:35.780 Children, obey your parents in the Lord.

00:11:38.240 What does that mean?

00:11:39.240 It means you see Jesus standing behind him.

00:11:41.320 And the same thing goes for political authority.

00:11:43.760 We do not submit to civil magistrates mindlessly.

00:11:47.940 submit to civil magistrates in the Lord as to Christ, and that means you see Jesus standing

00:11:53.700 behind your local magistrate, judge, mayor, governor, president, Supreme Court justice.

00:12:02.980 And so absolutely, and what I tell sometimes in premarital counseling when I'm walking

00:12:08.140 through some of these principles with a young couple, and we're talking specifically about

00:12:12.600 duty of a wife to submit to and obey her husband in the Lord, I say, so you see Jesus standing

00:12:18.540 behind your husband, and in so far as your husband is either doing those things and leading

00:12:23.820 you in those things that are explicitly commanded by Jesus, or are those things which Jesus

00:12:30.420 has given to us to make wisdom calls in, you know, like the color blue, you want to, you

00:12:36.200 know, take a job in Des Moines, Iowa, you know, all things being equal, it's not a sin,

00:12:41.780 He's not causing you to sin, then you see Jesus standing behind him and you can obey

00:12:45.280 with a clean conscience.

00:12:47.780 But at the moment in which your husband says, now we're going to go rob the bank or now

00:12:52.120 we're going to look at porn together, you see Jesus standing behind your husband and

00:12:57.060 you say, absolutely not.

00:12:59.960 And that is Christian submission, Christian obedience, because the only authority he has

00:13:04.420 is from Jesus to lead you toward Jesus. 0.54

00:13:08.220 And the same thing then goes for a pastor, an elder, and the same thing goes for a civil

00:13:13.560 magistrate, a police officer, a judge, a health district, whatever.

00:13:18.500 They have authority from Jesus to lead you to Jesus, to lead you to obedience to Christ

00:13:23.460 and those things that are consistent with that.

00:13:25.940 But as soon as they deviate from that path, we have the freedom and if they're leading

00:13:30.980 us to sin, the duty to say, no way, I'm a Christian and you don't have the authority

00:13:36.360 to do that because i know your boss yep amen uh yeah and i and i think one of the things that i

00:13:41.160 like about this also is that what you're drawing is that uh there may be um a separation of church

00:13:46.960 and state or family and church or you know separation between these sovereign spheres

00:13:52.120 they are autonomous sphere they're independent although it's like a venn diagram that you know

00:13:56.720 the family and and the church may overlap it does overlap and at times the state and the church may

00:14:02.060 overlap. But these are two separate institutions, divinely instituted spheres, but they may be

00:14:08.720 separate from one another, autonomous in that sense, but none of them are separate or autonomous

00:14:14.720 from Christ. And so a lot of times that's what people assume. They're like, well, separation

00:14:19.960 of church and state. And it's like, well, first, that doesn't mean what you think it does.

00:14:23.720 The idea that, yeah, we should not have a national church. We should not have a federal church that

00:14:28.800 would conflict with state churches and these kinds of things. And we shouldn't have the state

00:14:32.040 controlling the church. That's what the founders were really worried about. They weren't worried

00:14:36.060 so much about the church controlling the state, but the state, its involvement in the church.

00:14:40.300 But beyond that, whatever church and state, separation of church and state means, it does

00:14:45.440 not mean a separation of Christ and state. And so I think people have ultimately, what they've

00:14:50.820 bought into is the lie of secularism, which the fundamental lie of that, I think, is the lie of

00:14:55.640 neutrality, that Christ doesn't speak to these things, or Christ isn't interested in these

00:15:00.680 things. These are neutral things. And then I also think part of the problem is people aren't

00:15:06.200 Calvinist. And what I mean is that it's funny, these new fault lines, right? Like all of a

00:15:12.100 sudden, I've got people in my church that are not Calvinist. And it's novel to me because

00:15:16.960 for the longest time, I mean, that was one of the big dividing lines. If people came to my church,

00:15:21.040 you know it was because they were looking for a reformed church uh whereas now people come to my

00:15:25.920 church because they're looking for a church that doesn't wear masks right that's new to me you know

00:15:30.280 what i mean that's just it's so it's funny so people will tolerate my soteriology uh because

00:15:34.940 because we're you know haven't lost our mind on the civil issues and the cultural issues and we're

00:15:40.180 fighting back and um but i what i have noticed is and i'm more than happy i'm honored to to link

00:15:46.160 arms with with brothers and sisters in christ who disagree with me on secondary issues who are not

00:15:50.740 not a Calvinist. However, so this isn't to put down those individuals, but it is out of sympathy

00:15:57.080 for those individuals to say, it would be so much easier. I think it is so much easier.

00:16:03.640 So I think of like what, you know, to women, you know, and you are truly Sarah's descendants,

00:16:09.300 I think it's 1 Peter 3. You know, if you do what she did, calling Abraham her Lord,

00:16:13.880 and if you do this and do not fear anything that is frightening, there's this, you know, because

00:16:19.040 one of the, so what is frightening? Well, I would imagine one of the things that's frightening is

00:16:22.780 being commanded to submit to a sinner. That's pretty frightening. But that Calvinistic view

00:16:30.300 that there is no autonomous free will, that God is the only truly autonomously free being

00:16:38.220 in the universe, and that he is the only one who has inherent authority in the universe. And he

00:16:43.360 is sovereignly behind every human authority so that when they do right, it is his authority for

00:16:49.840 blessing. And when they do wrong, you are free to rebel against that. But even providentially

00:16:56.180 within God's sovereign will, not his revealed will, but within his sovereign will, it's still

00:17:01.040 for your good. And so I find that the Calvinistic framework makes submission easier. Do you have

00:17:06.940 any, and that is very much, I think of Christ standing behind this human authority. I think of

00:17:12.460 of his authority but i think of his sovereignty you know this all seems to imply calvinism

00:17:17.520 absolutely no it reminds me of the story of joseph i mean there you have an example of you

00:17:21.840 know one providential hardship after another uh where you know in his own family then he's

00:17:27.260 you know betrayed by his own brother sold into slavery uh he works for potiphar potiphar's wife

00:17:31.960 falsely accuses him he's thrown into jail um and there's you know all through that story there

00:17:38.400 actually are um elements of he's got to submit to certain authorities while nevertheless not

00:17:44.880 just doing it mindlessly he he doesn't just do whatever they want um even in jail he ends up

00:17:50.440 being the leader of the the prisoners um he's forgotten by the um cupbearer by the cupbearer

00:17:57.160 and uh and then you know it's only after you know years later um when he's remembered and

00:18:02.260 pharaoh's having bad dreams that he's raised um and then of course the whole story you know

00:18:06.840 comes back around with the brothers showing up, and then, you know, after they move down

00:18:12.880 to Goshen, and Jacob dies, the brothers come before him, and now you're going to get revenge,

00:18:19.360 and of course, and Joseph has those wonderfully Calvinistic words there at the very end of

00:18:25.040 Genesis, is that what man meant for evil, God meant for good. And so, absolutely, I think you

00:18:32.280 look, you see in the life of Joseph that very, the same principle you're talking about, which is that

00:18:36.400 Um, it gives us the courage and the hope to both, um, undergo hardships and persecution

00:18:42.780 and difficulty while recognizing God still has the reins of this thing.

00:18:46.620 Nothing spun out of control.

00:18:47.980 I can both submit to persecution and hardship, and I can resist as needed, trusting that

00:18:54.820 the Lord is in control of it all.

00:18:56.620 He is the one that is working out all of the outcomes.

00:19:00.660 Yep.

00:19:01.120 Amen.

00:19:01.600 Amen. So yeah, I keep thinking neutrality and autonomy are two lies that I feel like that sixth question and answer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

00:19:12.540 Who's the head of every government and power? The Lord Jesus Christ.

00:19:15.520 He is the Lord of the home. He's the Lord of the self. He's the Lord of the state.

00:19:21.020 He's the Lord of the church. He's the head of all these things.

00:19:23.780 And that being said, and we'll see later on, but that doesn't mean that Christ is the head of the state in the same way that he's the head of the church.

00:19:30.100 Christ is uniquely head of the church in the sense that he gave himself up for her.

00:19:34.460 But Christ is head in the sense of authority over all of them.

00:19:37.580 And what that does is it eradicates the myth of neutrality.

00:19:40.860 None of these institutions are neutral.

00:19:43.000 They all have a boss.

00:19:44.600 And it eradicates the myth of autonomy.

00:19:48.340 So I think by right there off the bat, getting rid of autonomy, the myth of autonomy, that

00:19:53.560 these are free agents that might use their free will to do something irrevocably harmful to me.

00:20:00.740 They might harm me beyond repair. No, they don't have the power to do that. Even in their abuse

00:20:05.240 of authority, they can't do that because Christ is king and he's standing behind them and he is

00:20:09.560 sovereign over every molecule in the universe. And so the autonomy factor is a myth. And so

00:20:15.480 we don't have to fear that which is frightening, like what Peter says in terms of Sarah submitting

00:20:21.060 to to abraham um so so autonomy is a myth and neutrality right separation of church and state

00:20:26.520 is one thing but separation of christ and state um is is thoroughly unbiblical and so it's yeah

00:20:32.640 jesus told pilot uh when pilot says don't you know that i have authority to you know take your life

00:20:38.600 and jesus says you would not have that authority unless it was given to you that's right um i think

00:20:43.340 also just the the you know that it seems like at christmas time uh everybody believes in that jesus

00:20:49.560 is king of all kings. We say the government is on his shoulder. We quote the prophecy

00:20:56.700 from Isaiah, you know, Psalm 2, ask of me and I will give you the nations as your inheritance,

00:21:02.500 the ends of the earth as your possession.

00:21:04.000 He rules the world.

00:21:06.000 Yeah, right. Exactly. And, you know, he makes the nations prove the glories, you know,

00:21:11.920 all that. The hallelujah chorus from Revelation, Handel's famous Messiah, the kingdoms of this

00:21:18.900 world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever.

00:21:24.260 So absolutely, no autonomy, no neutrality. Every knee must bow. Every tongue must confess that

00:21:30.940 Jesus is Lord. That includes the magistrates. Amen. Thanks so much for listening. But real

00:21:37.000 quick, before you go, do us a small favor, take a moment, and leave us a five-star review if you

00:21:42.720 enjoyed the show. This is undoubtedly the best way that you can help us get this biblically

00:21:48.200 faithful content to as many people as possible. Thanks so much.

The NXR Podcast - April 20, 2022

BONUS - A Primer On Christian Government Part 1 of 6

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript