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Jerald Finney
Copyright © February 9, 2018
Covenant Theology has had clear consequences. Roger Williams pointed out, concerning religious persecution based upon Covenant Theology: “He [that is, the established churches] that kills and he [those defined as heretics by the established churches] that is killed, they both cry out, ‘It is for God, and for their conscience.”[i] Only one side can be right, and the Bible shows that side to be the persecuted Baptists. Both protestants and papists, Williams continued, “pretend they have spoke with Moses and the prophets, who all, say they, before Christ came, allowed such holy persecutions [and] holy wars against the enemies of holy church.”[ii]
It is impossible for a Gentile nation prior to the return of Christ to operate as a true theocracy. As seen in Section I, Chapter 6 of God Betrayed (which is published online in an edited version), a theocracy is a “Government of a state by the immediate direction of God; or the state thus governed.” All alleged “Christian” theocracies (church over state, state over church, or a combination of church and state; called ecclesiocracies by the author) are only poor imitators of the one true God-ordained theocracy in Israel. God never told the church to work with the state, over the state, or under the state.
Israel, the only theocracy which has ever existed, operated as a theocracy only until the Israelites rejected God and demanded a king, and God acted on their request and gave them King Saul. In the theocracy, all ten of the commandments were enforced. While operating as a theocracy, Israel was directly under God, and God initially spoke directly to the leaders of the nation of Israel. After God allowed Israel, at Israel’s request, to be ruled by a king, the Jewish religion and the civil government no longer worked together, although God spoke to the kings of Israel through his chosen prophets.
God no longer speaks directly to leaders of civil government, to the leaders of church government, or to others. He speaks to believers, led by the Holy Spirit, through His Word, the Bible. This is consistent with the fact that He only ordained one theocracy, Israel, prior to the second return of Christ. Yet Covenant Theology united church and state, with the church taking the place of God in speaking directly to the civil government. As a result, the “church” used the strong arm of the state to enforce its own particular brand of religion, or the state itself enforced its preferred religion. The only way to justify such a union is to use a false interpretation of Scripture, an interpretation which, since it is based upon Satan’s principles, must have been developed by Satan himself and implemented either by his children or by children of God who were not walking in the spirit according to knowledge.
The most noticeable and atrocious consequence of all church-state and state-church unions has been the confiscation of property, dissemination of lies about “heretics” as defined by the state-church, and other persecutions such as the beating, torture, imprisonment, and killing of untold millions of people who have dissented from the views of the state-church. The ultimate result of church-state or state-church alliances is always the same—the alliance of church and state called for by a perverted interpretation of Scripture forces others to profess allegiance to the doctrines of the official church under penalty of persecution, thereby attempting to stamp out those who practice free will. The state-church or church-state enforces its own peculiar doctrines including all of the Ten Commandments among which are the first four commandments which deal with man’s relationship to God. In effect, it requires many to be dishonest with both man and God. Since no one can be forced to choose to believe a particular religious belief in their heart, a lot of religious hypocrites are thereby created.
Endnotes
[i] Roger Williams and Edward Bean Underhill, The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience Discussed and Mr. Cotton’s Letter Examined and Answered (London: Printed for the Society, by J. Haddon, Castle Street, Finsbury, 1848), p. 33, First published in 1644.
[ii] Ibid., p. 34.
Simply Church: God's Prescribed Relationship Between Church and State 