NXR Podcast - BONUS - A Primer On Christian Government Part 1 of 6
Aired: 2022-04-20
Duration: 21:51


=== Sovereign Spheres and Authority (13:37) ===

[00:00:00]  Hey guys, real quick before we get started, I have a small request.
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[00:00:18]  Hi, you're listening to a bonus episode of Theology Applied.
[00:00:20]  I'm joined by Toby Sumter to talk about his 50 question catechism on the governments.
[00:00:27]  He talks about four forms of government self government, the government of the family, The government of the church, and the government of the state.
[00:00:36]  In this episode, we lay out the foundation for human governments and the authority, ultimate authority, of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:00:44]  Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
[00:00:48]  This is Theology Applied.
[00:00:54]  All right, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
[00:00:56]  I'm your host, Pastor Joel Webbin with Right Response Ministries.
[00:00:59]  And in this particular episode, I'm very privileged to be joined by Pastor Toby Sumter.
[00:01:03]  He's in Moscow, Idaho.
[00:01:05]  He has been a pastor of Christ Church alongside Doug Wilson for a very long time, but now they're particularizing and planting a new church.
[00:01:13]  So he's going to be the primary preaching pastor in that church.
[00:01:16]  But without further ado, Toby, thank you so much for coming on the show.
[00:01:20]  Thanks, Joel.
[00:01:21]  It's great to be with you again.
[00:01:23]  Great.
[00:01:23]  So this is what Toby has done recently that a lot of you probably saw this, but I feel like it's just, it merits more attention.
[00:01:31]  Toby and the, you know, the cross-politic boys, Gabe and Chalk Knox and those guys, all the Idaho crew, Darren Doan and They put out a lot of material and it's fantastic.
[00:01:40]  We praise God for what he's doing with this group of guys.
[00:01:43]  But one of the things, one of the pieces of material that Toby recently put out that I was immensely blessed by, and that I just want to slow down before it just gets buried underneath, you know, the thousand podcasts you guys will do next week.
[00:01:56]  I want to slow down and retroactively go back and say, wait, wait, wait, this one, it's all good, but this one was especially good.
[00:02:03]  And that was your catechism.
[00:02:05]  I forget the title.
[00:02:05]  Was it God in Government?
[00:02:06]  What was the title of this catechism?
[00:02:08]  I think I just called it a catechism on the governments.
[00:02:12]  Great.
[00:02:12]  A catechism on the governments.
[00:02:13]  And as you guys probably just picked up listening, that's plural, governments.
[00:02:18]  And so he primarily talked about how God instituted four, not just three, three sovereign spheres, but we have four governments.
[00:02:25]  And these spheres are not just spheres of society, but we should understand them as governments.
[00:02:29]  There's the government of the family, the government of the church, the government of the state.
[00:02:33]  And then Toby added to that, which I believe is thoroughly biblical, self government, the government of the individual, right?
[00:02:39]  If we're going to.
[00:02:40]  Lead a family well.
[00:02:41]  We need to be a good self leader, these kinds of things.
[00:02:43]  And so, Toby, what inspired you to do this?
[00:02:47]  You know, this is just one of those areas.
[00:02:48]  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.
[00:03:00]  And Abraham Kuyper really pounded away at it.
[00:03:03]  But I think the whole COVID moment has impressed on all of us.
[00:03:08]  I mean, suddenly you care about who your county commissioners are, who your city council members are.
[00:03:14]  Who is your health district guy, or whatever.
[00:03:18]  And we've had all these discussions and conversations about do you have the authority to do that?
[00:03:23]  Do you have the authority?
[00:03:24]  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?
[00:03:37]  And all of that is basically a question of authority and government and power.
[00:03:43]  And so this has been stuff that we've been talking about a lot on Cross Politic.
[00:03:47]  It's been a subject of a lot of our.
[00:03:48]  Our sermons and messages as we continue to teach and preach on this.
[00:03:52]  But basically, the thought was as, I don't know, maybe it came to me in the shower.
[00:03:59]  I have no idea.
[00:04:00]  But the idea was basically what if I put together something that would be just sort of short questions and answers?
[00:04:08]  Remember, the Reformers put out tons of catechisms.
[00:04:12]  Catechism is kind of a historic way that a lot of Christians, especially in the Reformed tradition, have said 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, or we could teach through on a Sunday evening or something like that.
[00:04:32]  You know, so you have the Westminster Shorter Catechism and the Larger Catechism.
[00:04:35]  You've got the Heidelberg Catechism.
[00:04:36]  Those are just the famous ones.
[00:04:38]  But there were actually probably, you know, dozens, if not hundreds of catechisms written during the Reformation.
[00:04:43]  And so in the hope of a new Reformation, here I am presenting another catechism saying, hey, if God would be gracious and kind to give the Christian church, especially in North America, a recovery of these basic realities of authority and government, I think we would have a massive Reformation on our hands.
[00:05:02]  I agree.
[00:05:02]  You know, you said the thought came to you in the shower.
[00:05:05]  You know, you're kind of joking, but I bet you it did come to the shower.
[00:05:07]  And this is why you were in the shower and you're thinking about how Joe Biden wants to reach his hand in there and regulate the temperature of your shower.
[00:05:13]  And you're like, I need to do a catechism that reigns that guy in.
[00:05:17]  That's why it came.
[00:05:18]  You got it, Joel.
[00:05:19]  You got it.
[00:05:20]  Thank you for connecting those dots for me.
[00:05:23]  All right.
[00:05:23]  Well, without further ado, let's go ahead and hop into it.
[00:05:26]  So you broke it up, I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, I've got in front of me, but I think you broke it up into six sections.
[00:05:32]  You have like an introduction, then you have the four different governments, self government, Family, the government of the self, the government of the home, then government of the church, government of the state, and then a conclusion to wrap it all together that talks about what happens if these governments overlap.
[00:05:48]  Do they ever overlap?
[00:05:49]  Who gets jurisdiction?
[00:05:50]  Those kind of things.
[00:05:51]  So let's just start with your introduction, which I believe is six questions.
[00:05:58]  Would you just let's just go through all six?
[00:05:59]  Because if we stop at the end of each question, we're going to be in trouble.
[00:06:03]  So could you read maybe you read number one and answer, then I'll read number two and answer, then you read number three and answer, and let's just finish all six of those and then we'll discuss it.
[00:06:12]  Okay.
[00:06:13]  Introduction.
[00:06:13]  Number one, where does all authority and power come from?
[00:06:17]  All authority and power in heaven and on earth originates in the triune God and has been given to the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:06:23]  Amen.
[00:06:24]  Number two, if all authority is from God, what kind of authority can humans have?
[00:06:29]  Because all authority is from God, all human authority is delegated and limited.
[00:06:35]  Three, what does it mean that all human authority is delegated?
[00:06:39]  Delegated authority means that it was given directly by God and can be revoked by Him.
[00:06:45]  Number four, what does it mean that all human authority is limited?
[00:06:49]  Answer, all human authority is limited by the particular assignments given to them by God in His Word.
[00:06:57]  Any leader who goes beyond, misuses, or abdicates their particular assignments has no authority to do so.
[00:07:06]  Five, what governments have been established directly by God?
[00:07:11]  God has established the responsibility of self-government in every individual and family government, church government, and civil government in society.
[00:07:20]  And number six, who is the head of every government and power?
[00:07:25]  Answer the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:07:27]  Since he exercised self government perfectly in his sinless life, atoning death, and glorious resurrection and ascension, he has been made father of all the families of the earth, king of all the kingdoms of the earth, and the only head of the church in heaven and on earth.
[00:07:46]  Amen.
[00:07:47]  So, all right, so let's talk about those, especially, I think, especially that last one, but anything that you want to.
[00:07:52]  Draw out of those first six questions and answers?
[00:07:56]  No, I think just simply, hopefully, everybody hears the echo of the Great Commission in the first question.
[00:08:03]  All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.
[00:08:06]  Jesus says, therefore go.
[00:08:09]  And so that's what we're doing there.
[00:08:12]  I think it's really important to recognize just those concepts of delegated and limited authority, which I think is pretty straightforward, but is really important to put at the outset because I think.
[00:08:28]  Sometimes our thinking gets muddled when we start thinking about specific authority, particularly in our day and age of the state and the civil magistrate.
[00:08:38]  But those would be the key things that I want to highlight there.
[00:08:40]  Cool.
[00:08:40]  Yeah.
[00:08:41]  I've heard it said, you said delegated and limited, which absolutely.
[00:08:45]  Another word I've heard is like divested that human authority, there is no inherent human authority.
[00:08:52]  All authority given to human beings by God is precisely that it's given, it's divested.
[00:08:58]  It ultimately rests with the Lord God Almighty.
[00:09:00]  It can be revoked if abused.
[00:09:03]  So it can be taken away.
[00:09:04]  So there's no inherent divine right within man that I have this inherent claim to this title, to this position, to this power, and it's unconditional that I can do whatever I want.
[00:09:17]  That does not exist.
[00:09:18]  Exactly.
[00:09:19]  I love what you said with number six who is the head of every government?
[00:09:22]  The Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:09:24]  He exercised perfect self government, resisting sin.
[00:09:29]  And not just an absence of sin, but fulfilling all righteousness and his act of obedience.
[00:09:33]  John the Baptist, you know, you should be baptizing me, but I must do this to fulfill all righteousness.
[00:09:39]  So his act of obedience in his life, resisting sin, self control, moderating, you know, all these things perfectly, loving the Lord as God with all his heart, all his soul, and all his mind, all his strength every minute of every day.
[00:09:53]  But then not only that, but he's been made the father of every family of the earth.
[00:09:59]  I like that.
[00:10:00]  King of all kingdoms on the earth and the only head of the church.
[00:10:03]  And so the only thing that I wanted to add with that is because you're absolutely right, but I think a lot of Christians miss this, you know, the saying that John MacArthur, you know, with COVID and when they decided to open back up, you know, he wrote that article, Christ, not Caesar, is head of the church.
[00:10:19]  And you and I would both say, of course, yes and amen.
[00:10:23]  But it is just as biblically true that Christ, not Caesar, is also head of the state.
[00:10:29]  Caesar is not the head of anything.
[00:10:32]  Right?
[00:10:32]  As Caesar is a deacon, he works under a head.
[00:10:34]  He works for God.
[00:10:36]  Anything you want to add about that or any thoughts you have on that?
[00:10:39]  Yeah, no, I think so.
[00:10:41]  In all three of these spheres or jurisdictions where God has given authority and power to anyone, so family, he gives authority and power.
[00:10:49]  We're going to get into this to father and mother.
[00:10:53]  It's real authority, it's real power.
[00:10:54]  He gives authority and power to pastors and ministers and teachers of the gospel.
[00:10:59]  And he gives authority and power to magistrates.
[00:11:04]  But again, it's All delegated and therefore limited power.
[00:11:08]  And so, absolutely.
[00:11:11]  So, in every one of these spheres where you are under authority, which all of us are, all of us are under authority in these three spheres, nevertheless, when you look to the authority that's over you, you must see Jesus standing behind it.
[00:11:24]  So, whether it's a wife looking to her husband, a wife submits to her husband in the Lord.
[00:11:30]  Yeah.
[00:11:31]  Meaning he has real authority, but she sees Jesus standing behind him.
[00:11:34]  That's right.
[00:11:35]  Children.
[00:11:35]  Obey your parents in the Lord.
[00:11:38]  What does that mean?
[00:11:38]  It means you see Jesus standing behind him.
[00:11:41]  And the same thing goes for political authority.
[00:11:43]  We do not submit to civil magistrates mindlessly.
[00:11:47]  We submit to civil magistrates in the Lord as to Christ.
[00:11:52]  And that means you see Jesus standing behind your local magistrate, judge, mayor, governor, president, Supreme Court justice.
[00:12:02]  And so absolutely, and what I tell sometimes in premarital counseling when I'm walking through some of these principles with a young couple, and we're talking specifically about the duty of a wife to submit to and obey her husband in the Lord, I say, so you see Jesus standing behind your husband.
[00:12:19]  And insofar as your husband is either, Uh, doing those things and leading you in those things that are explicitly commanded by Jesus, um, or are those things which Jesus has given to us to make wisdom calls in, you know, like the color blue, uh, you want to, you know, take a job in Des Moines, Iowa, uh, you know, all things being equal, it's not a sin, he's not causing you to sin.
[00:12:43]  Then you see Jesus standing behind him and you can obey, right, with a clean conscience, right?
[00:12:47]  But at the moment in which your husband says, Now we're going to go rob the bank, or Now we're going to look at porn together, right.
[00:12:55]  You see Jesus standing behind your husband, and you say, Absolutely not.
[00:12:59]  And that is Christian submission, Christian obedience, because the only authority he has is from Jesus to lead you toward Jesus.
[00:13:08]  And the same thing then goes for a pastor, an elder, and the same thing goes for a civil magistrate, a police officer, a judge, a health district, whatever.
[00:13:18]  They have authority from Jesus to lead you to Jesus, to lead you to obedience to Christ, and those things that are consistent with that.
[00:13:25]  But as soon as they deviate from that path, We have the freedom, and if they're leading us to sin, the duty to say, No way, I'm a Christian, and you don't have the authority to do that because I know your boss.

=== Christ Standing Behind Human Leaders (03:40) ===

[00:13:38]  Yep.
[00:13:38]  Amen.
[00:13:39]  Yeah.
[00:13:40]  And I think one of the things that I like about this also is that what you're drawing is that there may be a separation of church and state or family and church or separation between these sovereign spheres.
[00:13:52]  They are autonomous spheres, they're independent, although it's like a Venn diagram that the family and the church may overlap.
[00:13:59]  It does overlap.
[00:14:00]  And at times, the state and the church may overlap.
[00:14:02]  But these are two separate institutions, divinely instituted spheres, but they may be separate from one another, autonomous in that sense, but none of them are separate or autonomous from Christ.
[00:14:16]  And so a lot of times that's what people assume.
[00:14:19]  They're like, well, separation of church and state.
[00:14:20]  And it's like, well, first, that doesn't mean what you think it does.
[00:14:24]  The idea that, yeah, we should not have a national church, we should not have a federal church that would conflict with state churches and these kinds of things, and we shouldn't have the state controlling.
[00:14:33]  The church.
[00:14:33]  That's what the founders were really worried about.
[00:14:35]  They weren't worried so much about the church controlling the state, but the state, its involvement in the church.
[00:14:40]  But beyond that, whatever church and state, separation of church and state means, it does not mean a separation of Christ and state.
[00:14:48]  And so I think people have ultimately bought into the lie of secularism, which the fundamental lie of that, I think, is the lie of neutrality that Christ doesn't speak to these things or Christ isn't interested in these things.
[00:15:01]  These are neutral things.
[00:15:02]  And then I also think part of the problem is people aren't Calvinist.
[00:15:07]  And what I mean is that it's funny, these new fault lines, right?
[00:15:11]  Like all of a sudden, I've got people in my church that are not Calvinists.
[00:15:14]  And that's it's novel to me because for the longest time, I mean, that was one of the big dividing lines.
[00:15:19]  If people came to my church, you know, it was because they were looking for a reformed church.
[00:15:24]  Whereas now, people come to my church because they're looking for a church that doesn't wear masks.
[00:15:29]  Right.
[00:15:29]  That's new to me.
[00:15:30]  You know what I mean?
[00:15:30]  That's just it's so it's funny.
[00:15:31]  So people will tolerate my soteriology because we're, you know, Haven't lost our mind on the civil issues and the cultural issues, and we're fighting back.
[00:15:41]  But what I have noticed is, and I'm more than happy, I'm honored to link arms with brothers and sisters in Christ who disagree with me on secondary issues, who are not a Calvinist.
[00:15:51]  However, so this isn't to put down those individuals, but it is out of sympathy for those individuals to say it would be so much easier.
[00:16:01]  I think it is so much easier.
[00:16:03]  So I think of like what, you know, to women, you know, and you're truly Sarah's descendants, I think it's 1 Peter 3, you know, if you do what she did, calling Abraham her Lord.
[00:16:14]  And if you do this and do not fear anything that is frightening, there's this, you know, because one of the things that is frightening, well, I would imagine one of the things that's frightening is being commanded to submit to a sinner.
[00:16:26]  That's pretty frightening.
[00:16:28]  But that Calvinistic view that there is no autonomous free will, and like that God is the only truly autonomously free being in the universe, and that he is the only one who has inherent authority in the universe, and he is sovereignly behind.
[00:16:45]  Every human authority, so that when they do right, it is his authority for blessing.
[00:16:50]  And when they do wrong, you are free to rebel against that.
[00:16:54]  But even providentially, within God's sovereign will, not his revealed will, but within his sovereign will, it's still for your good.
[00:17:01]  And so I find that the Calvinistic framework makes a mission easier.
[00:17:06]  Do you have any?
[00:17:07]  And that is very much, I think of Christ standing behind this human authority.
[00:17:11]  I think of his authority, but I think of his sovereignty.
[00:17:15]  This all seems to imply Calvinism.

=== Calvinism Makes Mission Easier (03:13) ===

[00:17:18]  Absolutely.
[00:17:18]  It reminds me of the story of Joseph.
[00:17:20]  I mean, there you have an example of one providential hardship after another, where in his own family, then he's betrayed by his own brother, sold into slavery.
[00:17:30]  He works for Potiphar.
[00:17:31]  Potiphar's wife falsely accuses him, he's thrown into jail.
[00:17:35]  And all through that story, there actually are elements of he's got to submit to certain authorities while nevertheless not just doing it mindlessly.
[00:17:46]  He doesn't just do whatever they want.
[00:17:49]  Even in jail, he ends up being the leader of the prisoners.
[00:17:52]  He's forgotten by the cupbearer.
[00:17:58]  And then it's only years later when he's remembered and Pharaoh's having bad dreams that he's raised.
[00:18:05]  And then, of course, the whole story comes back around with the brothers showing up.
[00:18:11]  And then after they move down to Goshen and Jacob dies, the brothers come before him and say, Now you're going to get revenge.
[00:18:19]  And of course, and Joseph has those wonderfully Calvinistic words there at the very end of Genesis is that what man meant for evil, God meant for good.
[00:18:30]  And so, absolutely, I think you look, you see in the life of Joseph, that very same principle you're talking about, which is that it gives us the courage and the hope to both undergo hardships and persecution and difficulty while recognizing God still has the reins of this thing.
[00:18:46]  Nothing spun out of control.
[00:18:48]  I can both submit to persecution and hardship.
[00:18:51]  And I can resist as needed, trusting that the Lord is in control of it all.
[00:18:56]  He is the one that is working out all of the outcomes.
[00:19:00]  Yep.
[00:19:01]  Amen.
[00:19:02]  So, yeah, I think just 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]  Who's the head of every government in power?
[00:19:14]  The Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:19:15]  He is the Lord of the home.
[00:19:18]  He's the Lord of the self.
[00:19:20]  He's the Lord of the state.
[00:19:21]  He's the Lord of the church.
[00:19:22]  He's the head of all these things.
[00:19:24]  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]  Christ is uniquely head of the church in the sense that he gave himself up for her.
[00:19:34]  But Christ is head in the sense of authority over all of them.
[00:19:37]  And what that does is it eradicates the myth of neutrality.
[00:19:40]  None of these institutions are neutral.
[00:19:43]  They all have a boss.
[00:19:44]  And it eradicates the myth of autonomy.
[00:19:48]  So I think by right there off the bat, getting rid of autonomy, the myth of autonomy, that these are free agents that might use their free will to do something irrevocably harmful to me, they might harm me beyond repair.
[00:20:02]  No, they don't have the power to do that.
[00:20:04]  Even in their abuse of authority, they can't do that because Christ is king.
[00:20:08]  And he's standing behind them, and he is sovereign over every molecule in the universe.
[00:20:11]  And so the autonomy factor is a myth.
[00:20:15]  And so we don't have to fear that which is frightening, like what Peter says in terms of Sarah submitting to Abraham.
[00:20:23]  So autonomy is a myth and neutrality, right?
[00:20:25]  Separation of church and state is one thing, but separation of Christ and state is thoroughly unbiblical.

=== Autonomy Is A Myth (01:20) ===

[00:20:31]  And so it's, yeah.
[00:20:33]  Jesus told Pilate when Pilate says, Don't you know that I have authority to take your life?
[00:20:38]  And Jesus says, You would not have that authority unless it was given to you.
[00:20:41]  That's right.
[00:20:43]  I think also just the, you know, it seems like at Christmas time, everybody believes that Jesus is king of all kings.
[00:20:51]  You know, we say the government is on his shoulder.
[00:20:54]  Right.
[00:20:55]  You know, we quote the prophecy from Isaiah, you know, Psalm two ask of me, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the ends of the earth as your possession.
[00:21:04]  He rules the world.
[00:21:05]  Yeah, right.
[00:21:06]  Exactly.
[00:21:08]  And, you know, he makes the nations prove the glories, you know, all that.
[00:21:13]  The Hallelujah Chorus from Revelation handles, you know, famous Messiah.
[00:21:17]  The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever.
[00:21:24]  So, absolutely, no autonomy, no neutrality.
[00:21:28]  Every knee must bow, every tongue must confess that Jesus is Lord.
[00:21:32]  That includes the magistrates.
[00:21:34]  Yep.
[00:21:35]  Amen.
[00:21:35]  Thanks so much for listening.
[00:21:36]  But, real quick, before you go, do us a small favor take a moment and leave us a five star review if you enjoyed the show.
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