The Simple Answers… To Life’s Most Important Questions.
Bible Study Course Lesson 8 – 5
For righteousness to exist in a world where selfishness also exists, some form of government must exist. It’s a nice theory to have no laws, for everyone to just love each other… but in the real world, these forms of communism and communal living never work. Because, as I said, selfishness exists.
Something bigger and stronger than our selfish nature must keep it in check. Since we, being human, almost never do it perfectly, we need something else; something that will not only remind, it will compel, selfish creatures to act properly.
Notice I said that the government must be stronger than the selfishness. That means that the stronger the selfishness, the stronger must be the force used to keep it under control. A person who is slightly selfish needs little government; a person who is very selfish needs a lot.
I’m going to get the “one scripture” out of the way up front this time: 1 Corinthians 11:31. But this lesson, like the book of First Corinthians itself, exists because we do not judge ourselves. And when we don’t, we must be judged… how harshly, depends on us.
Consider the animals; a beast cannot be asked not to step on you; he simply doesn’t care. He must be forced not to; by yelling, whips, or fences. But a well-trained animal, with its own spirit trained to keep its heart within the boundaries you’ve set, only needs a look or a sound to obey. But the ideal animal is one who knows what you want before you do; who, in effect, trains himself.
There’s an old story that goes “which is better, to build a fence at the top of the cliff, or a hospital at the bottom?” And that’s a good point. Building a fence is obviously a better option in most cases. Better to be ruled by a spirit, than to leave it up to the beast.
And yet, the question leaves out a third option “…why don’t we just teach people why they shouldn’t walk so close to the edge?”
The world’s approach to this problem involves one of the first two options; either punish the person who has sinned, or make a law to fence off the sin. Either make a whip to punish his beast, or make a statute to guide his spirit.
And those both work, at least, well enough. But they never solve the problem. They fence it off, or they clean up the damage, but a true solution is teaching a soul to watch where the beast puts its feet! That way no fence or hospital is needed!
In this way the individual’s soul takes the burden off of society to control him and fix his mistakes – as he controls himself, and has to fix his own mistakes. Because no one ever learns to do the one without the other.
All of us change only when we have no other choice… we only do the right thing because God, or someone, makes the wrong thing hard. Our soul won’t break our spirit – and our spirit wouldn’t allow it to break it – unless it is scared of the consequences.
As long as it knows there’s a hospital at the bottom of the cliff, a beast has little motivation to worry; as long as it knows that building a fence is someone else’s responsibility, the spirit has little reason to pay attention to where the edge is. Only when it knows that it will bear the price for its own sins will a soul be sufficiently motivated to prevent them (Romans 14:11-12).
Notice in that verse, as always, the three fractions; the beast must bow, in humility; the spirit must confess that God was right; and the soul must give account for their actions, and why it didn’t rule them better.
THE LINES BETWEEN US AND ANIMALS
Nebuchadnezzar was the head of the first beast (Daniel 2:38), in all of the various symbols told throughout Daniel and Revelation. So in a very real sense, he was the beast. In Daniel 4:16, the angels said of the proud Nebuchadnezzar “Let his heart be changed from man’s, and let a beast’s heart be given unto him; and let seven times pass over him.”
But if men are already beasts, as we are told in Ecclesiastes 3:18, how is this possible? (Bonus points if you caught this contradiction when I left it unresolved in Series 4). After being put out to pasture, this was the conclusion Nebuchadnezzar drew from the experience:
Daniel 4:37 Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.
Notice a familiar pattern there; three ways he showed praise, corresponding to the fractions; and three ways in which he realized that God is better than he was, and therefore three ways in which God deserves praise, corresponding to God’s fractions.
So why exactly did Nebuchadnezzar act like a beast? Daniel 4:34. Because his understanding had left him. The statutes of his spirit were taken away! Animals will drink from a pond while peeing in that same pond.
It simply doesn’t occur to them that this is gross because there is no UNDERSTANDING to tell them so! And without Nebuchadnezzar’s spirit to tell him things like that, he no longer understood them, which made his heart like a beast’s!
And what else returned to Nebuchadnezzar? Daniel 4:35-36. His reason – his ability to judge – returned at the same time that his understanding returned. So in order to make Nebuchadnezzar “as a beast before thee” (Psalms 73:22), God must have “taken away” his spirit and his soul.
Now He can’t have literally done that, for it would cause death (James 2:26). Yet Jesus said death is pretty much the same as sleeping (John 11:11-14). And so, in the sense of the fractions, God simply put his soul to sleep (as it may already have been), and also put his spirit to sleep.
This madness of Nebuchadnezzar demonstrated what happens when we completely give up rule of our bodies to a beast, in any sense of the world; utter selfishness leads to being in no way better than an animal. It leads to men being beasts!
Yet had you talked to him, strolling through his magnificent palace at Babylon, you would have been certain that he was a person; but was he, really? Or was he just a soul with lustful eyes eager to please his heart, and a spirit eager to protect his heart from correction?
This thin veneer, the pretense of personhood, is all that separates most of the world from gnashing on their enemies with their teeth (Acts 7:54). Cut through the flimsy spirit and the subservient soul with words that hurt the beasts’ feelings… and you’ll see how civilized they truly are.
And his subsequent insanity points to what’s wrong with most “crazy” people today; for whatever reason – trauma (psychological or otherwise), chemical imbalance, poor nutrition, birth defect, etc. – their spirit and/or soul are “asleep”.
Which is all that separates any of us from being animals. And to the exact degree that we let either of them drowse and nod off throughout the day we are animals (Proverbs 20:12-13).
THE FIRST BEAST
Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity was a punishment for “walking in pride”, and he needed “to be abased”. Now if he was walking in pride, it means his soul and his spirit were being led around by his heart – which Daniel reminds Belshazzar of a generation later in Daniel 5:18-23.
The point of this story, this humbling of the beast, was to tell everyone up front that this beast of Babylon ruled over the world because God allowed it. But on a personal level, it reminds us that our beast rules over our body only because our own internal “lord” allows it – the soul!
Genesis 1:25-26 specifically gave Adam’s soul authority over the beasts (hearts), the birds (the spirits), the serpents (the evil spirits). In Genesis 3:14, the serpent was specifically compared to the beasts and cattle; as an angel, he would have been symbolized by a bird (Ecclesiastes 10:20).
Yet after he sinned, he was better pictured as a serpent (compare Matthew 10:16). And because he acted like a selfish human heart in the Garden, he was cursed even more than the dumb beasts were. Because it was this serpent, who persuaded the human heart to lust after the fruit, who created all the beasts! (Revelation 13:4). This was the first time he gave them power!
And Adam had dominion over him, in all his forms (bird, beast, and serpent). But because the devil empowered his heart, and now he didn’t WANT to rebuke the devil, or his deceived spirit! His soul WANTED the fruit to please his beast! And that is why he needed government!
By allowing this sin, he showed God that he required another soul to judge him, and rule over him! For without government, Adam had become a beast – the servant of whom he served. For the true ruler isn’t the guy whose name is in the throne… it’s the guy whose will gets done (Romans 6:16).
Likewise, the pasturing of the king of Babylon was meant to show all of us that without government, THIS is all Nebuchadnezzar, or any of us, truly are. And so like all of us… Nebuchadnezzar, by obeying his beast… became a beast.
Which is why God called him, and all his sons “the beast” throughout prophecy: because these empires are selfish beasts with a false prophet for a spirit and a dragon for a soul! (Revelation 20:10).
BECOMING MORE THAN THAT
The first line of defense against the selfish nature is the spirit of man. It is trained by our society to keep the beast within the boundaries of acceptable behavior; what exactly constitutes acceptable behavior varies widely with the society, but it is what keeps people from acting like animals.
The spirit speaks the language of the heart by reminding it “if we do that, people will laugh at us”, or “if you hurt him, he’ll hurt you back”. But remember, the spirit isn’t altruistic… it does the right thing to protect the heart, not everyone else.
So there must be a soul to rule over both of them, a second line of defense to catch the egregious blunders the spirit sometimes commits in the name of “doing the right thing” (John 11:49-50, for example).
We can see all this in the Garden of Eden; the serpent, picturing the selfish heart, whispered to the woman, picturing the spirit, who was overcome by his arguments and turned to her husband, picturing the soul, to deceive him too.
Rather than rebuking her, Adam ate the fruit – just as our own souls have so often succumbed to our selfish heart and corrupted spirit. And thus the internal sin burst over that last bulwark and became external, forcing them out of the Garden.
An internal sin cannot hurt anyone but you. So if you fail to contain your heart, it will only cause you stress and worry and fear. Society need not govern this, because it cannot harm society. But what happens when your sin is no longer confined to your own body, and breaks out and runs through the neighborhood?
Your soul is the last line of defense for internal sins, and if it fails, a new set of defenses is needed. For when your sin becomes external, it starts to threaten other people. And so it must be controlled, as it happens, by the same set of three defenses… just in an external sense.
LAYERS OF GOVERNMENT
In 1 Kings 19:15-17 you see a clear principle; three layers of government all of which were ordained and whose leaders were anointed by God (Romans 13:1-5). Hazael was a king of Syria, a Gentile, and thus a beast government.
Hazael couldn’t be expected to enforce righteousness as we understand the term – not well, anyway – but he would prevent his citizens from hurting each other in the most grievous ways. Everyone agrees, even without having a law from God, that certain types of behavior are bad for society, and all nations enact laws to discourage or prevent them (Romans 2:14).
So Hazael, like any modern president/premier/dictator would ensure that his citizens would have some recourse against theft, murder, covenant breaking, and so on – as all beast governments in the world do even today.
These are merely “common sense” laws, but Israel was supposed to pattern their laws after His word; and a person whose sins escaped the notice of Hazael – say, a Sabbath-breaker – who strayed into Israel would be promptly caught and punished by the sword of Jehu.
Jehu pictures the OC spirit, a king whose job was to enforce the laws in stone (Deuteronomy 17:14-20). He may not understand their meaning, but even the letter would be enough to create righteousness and happiness (Deuteronomy 4:7-8, Proverbs 29:18).
It was not about the people in the nation… it was the laws God gave them which made them great! So any group, any nation, any church which demands that its citizens obey some portion of those laws is, to that extent, bearing the sword of Jehu.
Jehu lacked a lot of being a good king, but he still managed to destroy Baal out of Israel (2 Kings 10:28) by killing all the priests and followers in the nation. In a similar way, Seventh-Day Adventists use crosses and keep Christmas ( 2 Kings 10:30-31) but they still fight the beasts with the sword of Jehu for our right to keep the Sabbath.
All of those “wet nurses of Sarah” are types of the spiritual authority in this world; no, they may not be the true ekklesia, but they can still spread truth (Jeremiah 23:21-22). They can still correct sin, discourage fornication, teach the Golden Rule.
In a broader view, any nation who bases even a portion of their laws on the laws of the Bible could also be considered “the sword of Jehu”. This doesn’t just include nations whose legal systems were written by Protestants, such as the US and Britain; for the laws of Muslim nations were also based in some way on the laws of Moses as well.
Any and all organizations who followed some portion of the OC law as their legal foundation, even in part, are fulfilling in that measure the charge of the “sword of Jehu”. But that righteousness, based at best on the letter of the law, cannot catch all sins – only the sins Moses wrote down.
For the rest, there is the sword of Elisha; obviously, he represents the soul. The highest authority, and the only one qualified to judge complex questions of right and wrong. Thus these three categories of government rebuked, reproved, and exhorted (2 Timothy 4:2) the heart, spirit, and souls of the world.
Now Elisha had fulfilled the same office as Elijah (1 Kings 19:16), as leader of the ekklesia. As such, he had two main jobs; to teach souls who were willing to become more than beasts, more than spirits (2 Kings 2:15, 4:38), and to correct the spirit when it failed to do its job.
Consider 1 Kings 18:40; these were false spirits which were counselling the king of Israel – the sword of Jehu. In 1 Kings 18, Elijah had dutifully “tried the spirits, whether they were of God” (1 John 4:1), and having shown incontrovertible evidence that they were not, had “cast them out”.
In a similar way, the king – the spirit, the authority in the letter of the law – had sent his armies to capture Elijah (2 Kings 1:9-17). They, as representatives of a flawed and evil spirit, were killed by the soul. And why not? They knew, by their own words, that Elijah was a “man of God”. Thus a soul who should be respected!
Yet, because their king had ordered them, they demanded that the man of God drop what he was doing and “come down quickly”. So in a sense, their beasts died because they believed their spirit outranked their soul! Isn’t that, in a way, what kills us all eventually?
They had escaped the sword of Hazael, escaped the sword of Jehu, but only the third captain escaped the sword of Elijah… the captain who respected the soul’s authority from God. The captain who turned his spirit’s demand into a polite request like it should have been in the first place!
METHODS OF GOVERNMENT
Gentile governments are cruel and brutal (2 Kings 8:11-13). Because they have to be – they are, after all, forcing animals not to hurt each other, and violence is the most efficient way to do that. And being beasts themselves, the feelings of lesser beasts is worth less than nothing to them.
The government of OC churches is full of a lot of fire and brimstone, yelling about hell and sin and the devil. Crude, but also effective at breaking spirits. Or at least, beating them into line with the herd. Ostensibly, they care for the people, but in practice they care less about the people in the herd than the herd itself (contrary to Jesus’ example in Matthew 18:12-13).
On the other hand, the true Christian – the only one of these authorities whose soul is in charge – usually has no real power on this Earth at all; when it comes to correcting the masses, or even the spirits, he often just says something cryptic and walks away (Matthew 21:23-27 comes to mind).
That is why Jesus wasn’t too concerned about whether people were offended by what He said (John 6:53-66). Because if you love the truth, you’ll figure out what He meant… and if not… maybe it’s better if you don’t understand Him for now (Matthew 13:10-17).
And for those who don’t feel like trying to figure it out, there’s a church on every corner where you won’t have to think (Matthew 15:12-14). If taking responsibility for your salvation is too much work, go to one of them.
But if you want the truth, you’ll have to go find the prophet, and more than likely, convince him you’re worth his time… for he won’t be chasing you (2 Kings 2:2, Ruth 1:6, John 6:67-68, etc.). Why? It’s a test, as always: 1 John 2:19. How much do you really value the truth? Matthew 13:44-46.
OUTGROWING GOVERNMENT
If your heart is good, you need no spirit; if your spirit is good, you need no soul; if your soul is good, you need no prophet; if you listen to the prophet, you need no church; if you listen to the church, you need no beast kingdom to judge you.
In a way, this life is about progressing backwards along that run-on sentence; and each of these layers of government are there to catch you in your sins, and give you a reason to do better – with the ultimate goal of making themselves unnecessary.
1 Timothy 1:9 tells us that the law was not made for a righteous man; the Protestants make a big deal out of this verse, but it’s simply saying that good drivers don’t need laws; the laws are for the bad drivers.
Likewise people who love their neighbor do not need a law to make them; so the law is redundant for those who rule themselves. And yet, even if it is never used, it is not contrary to loving your neighbor (Galatians 3:21). A good law will never get in the way of a good person doing good (Romans 13:3-4).
A good guardrail, in a nation with good drivers, will never get scratched. Yet it will not get in their way for they are good drivers and would never cross that line anyway! In the same way, I have never crossed paths with the laws of this land about, say, possessing drugs.
I barely even know what they are. Because they were not made because of me, they were made because people abuse them. Yet I may run afoul of the laws on, say, parking – if for no other reason than because I didn’t notice the signs indicating I was supposed to pay. So that law, and that fine, is made for me.
In order to be thrown in jail for, say, murder, by the world, you have to be a very bad person (or at least, mistaken for a very bad person). In order to be kicked out of a Protestant church, you have to be a moderately bad person (or at least, disagree with the preacher).
But you can be a pretty good person and still have me on your case all the time. Because my standards are higher; I know you’ve already escaped those other swords, but it’s not good enough because you’re still not constantly ruling your own heart and spirit. Thus the sword of Elisha is not yet through with you!
However, even when I can find nothing wrong with you, it doesn’t mean you’re a perfect person; it just means your soul has managed to hide it inside. You can be a great person, and your own soul will still know how far you fall short of the mark inside.
And even if your soul can find nothing wrong with yourself, it doesn’t mean your heart is perfect; it just means that your spirit’s yoke is keeping it under control. It’s only when you find peace inside, when your spirit finds the heart never straining against the yoke, that you are truly a good person (1 Thessalonians 5:23).
BARBS ON THE FENCE
All of these six layers of government – and there are more layers involving angels, as the pattern repeats in higher orders – are all yokes; all fences to guide you into treating all men as you would want to be treated.
But if your soul will not listen to Elisha when he whispers, then God will see if Jehu can break your spirit when he yells; if you will not listen to Jehu, God will let the sword of Hazael destroy the flesh of your beast, or take it as a slave.
None of this is necessary if you can objectively see and hear your self, and judge accordingly 1 Corinthians 11:28-31 (2 Kings 10:28-31). If you can’t or won’t do that, then you need to be punished ( 1 Corinthians 11:32-34). If you don’t listen to that punishment (Proverbs 3:11), God will have someone else do it.
This is why God commanded that the incestuous man be put out of the ekklesia, “delivered unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh” (1 Corinthians 5:5). This man wouldn’t listen to the NC government (Elisha/Paul), so he was given to a lesser government.
So if you cannot keep your sins internal like you should, then God’s ekklesia, whomever is nearby, will judge you. If you won’t listen to them, their ultimate penalty is to shun you (Matthew 18:17); individually, remember, because they are not a church!
Then the spirits of the world will judge you. The nations and churches who wield the sword of Jehu with all their flaws – whom God has sent to teach teach your spirit statutes to rein in the worst of your beast’s impulses.
If you still persist in your sins, if neither your soul nor your spirit is capable of containing your heart, then your nation must judge you; they’ll fine you, punish you, lock you up in jail if necessary; then prison; then solitary confinement; whatever is necessary to achieve an acceptable level of righteousness.
Carrying it one step further, if your nation does not judge your sins (say, for adultery which is sadly not a crime today) then God must find some other, more righteous nation to judge your nation (and, by extension, you) for your crimes (2 Samuel 7:14).
And if the world is so corrupt that there is no one more righteous than you to judge you… well, that’s why the Flood was such a great idea.
REVERSING THAT PROCESS
That’s the worst case scenario, of course; the goal is, at some point, it will be too painful and uncomfortable to keep sinning, and you’ll stay within the fences of that layer of government. God will put you under whatever form of government you need, and give them whatever force is necessary to guide you to, hopefully, being a better person – or, at the least, not becoming a worse one.
He will see to it that you’re controlled as much or as little as necessary to ensure that; whether you need an iron yoke, a wooden yoke, or a styrofoam yoke – it’s all up to you. And as you outgrow the need for a yoke of iron, He will let you try a lighter yoke; and a lighter, until He sees that all yokes are unnecessary.
Because that’s why all these governmental layers exist… each one separates us a little farther from the animals. And each time you graduate beyond the need for a type of government, you are a step closer to God.
Each layer that becomes unnecessary makes us a little bit more like the Elohim that we could be, with the ultimate goal of our heart being an unwalled city, with nothing in it but the law of God (Psalms 40:8, Isaiah 51:7).
This process will continue until your beast doesn’t need fences around it to stay where it belongs (Psalms 119:33-34); notice, as always, the fractions; the lord/soul gives the spirit statutes to keep; and when it understands them, and keeps them, they become written on the heart. And when they’re written there… what more is there for the spirit to do?
And when your heart is filled with the law, and your spirit doesn’t need supervised to speak the truth… your soul will have so little to do, that it actually could sleep if it needed to, knowing the spirit would wake it if it was needed!
Or, it could work on waking up some other soul so that they, too, can outgrow their fences. But you’re not there yet. These layers of government exist because you need them. And it’s not so much that you outgrow them… you just grow beyond them.
It’s not that you need to leave the world (which is impractical anyway – 1 Corinthians 5:10). No, you simply outgrow it, because most of their laws are there for a good reason anyway, and shouldn’t be broken (Romans 13:4).
The fences that are good, you never notice – for your own soul would stop you before the fence did, even if they’re not there. The fences that are inconvenient or wrong, you only cross if they prevent you from following God (Acts 5:32).
So you pay their taxes (Luke 20:21-25), knowing God will make it up if it’s unfair (Matthew 17:24-27), you render honor to those in authority, respect them that have the rule over you (Hebrews 13:17); and by doing so, slowly, you realize that they have nothing to say against you (Daniel 6:2-5).
So if you’re acting as you should, you simply won’t have much dealings with the sword of Hazael. Or with the sword of Jehu, for that matter. You will need to spend more time to outgrow the sword of Elisha, however… but that’s another lesson.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
In 1 Samuel 12:14-15, 24-25, God told us how He governs us – a righteous people will be governed by a righteous king. It’s that simple. On the other hand, a wicked people require a wicked king. You get the government you deserve – as invasive and oppressive as God feels necessary.
Laws come into existence because a significant percentage of the people are harming their neighbors in a way that must be prevented by curtailing the freedoms of all citizens. Thus government is a necessary evil, made necessary by evil.
All God has ever wanted us to do is follow the Golden Rule. If you govern your own heart and spirit, then you will never need to be governed by anyone else (1 Corinthians 11:31). That is what God has always wanted, and what I’ve been showing you how to do for dozens of lessons now.
The whole point of the plan of God is to teach our souls to rule our hearts and spirits. But if you were capable of doing this right the first time, you would never have sinned… ever. So when you cannot (or will not) govern yourself, something else must govern you (Romans 13:1-7).
And if you love your neighbor at all, you should want something to govern you, because you care about their safety.
This government need not be invasive or strict; you may only need a quiet voice whispering “this is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21), and you need that only when you stray from the path. If so, it’s all the government God has to use.
But David wasn’t listening to that still small voice; the raging beast saying “Bathsheba!!” was all he could hear. Likewise Paul couldn’t hear that voice over his spirit stubbornly chanting “I MUST go to Jerusalem” (Acts 20:22).
So if you can’t hear God’s “still small voice” over the din of your own fractions, then a push may be necessary (Acts 20:23-24, Acts 21:10-12). If you can’t hear His spirit, maybe it will inspire some other man, who DOES have ears to hear, to tell you!
If that push also proves to be too subtle, a rod will be used, and chains (Acts 21:30-33). And as Paul was bound by an unbroken spirit, so God had him bound by the Romans and imprisoned by them as his spirit had imprisoned his own soul (Acts 28:16).
God was guiding Paul where and how He wanted him to go; and if he wouldn’t go the easy way, God would do it the hard way. And then the harder way. God uses the minimum force possible to achieve His goals. A whisper, a nudge, a missed bus, or an old friend asking an odd question.
If you rule your own spirit and your own heart, why would God need to put any other government over you? But the less people govern themselves, the more force must be used to govern them. To sum up this lesson, I cannot improve upon the words of Benjamin Franklin, who upon signing the American Constitution, said…
“there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and I believe further that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.”