Apologetica Christos: 6th Disputation

Ever wondered why God's government will need to replace human governments when Christ returns?

Most excellent Theophilus, greetings and peace in the Almighty name. In my former disputation, the promise was made to make comparison between human and divine government. I bring you to a gentleman much wiser than I who shall open your eyes on this issue. He states that when a law has been violated...:

“...new duties devolve upon both the Government and the criminal. The governor must then take steps to maintain the integrity of the law, the honor of the State, and thereby to protect the subjects from the consequences of wrong-doing. For every violation of the law is an invasion upon the rights and liberties of the citizens.” - John H Waggonner, AERS pg 32.2

As already explored, it is ‘the governor’ who maintains ‘the integrity of the law’ by ensuring punishment for violation of the law is meted out. Should the governor seek to pardon the guilty, he may only do so under the hazards of dishonoring and nullifying the integrity of the law... unless if and only if, a substitute were provided that fully satisfied the justice of the law in replacing the guilty and on whom the full penalty would fall. Seeing that pardoning the guilty is equivalent to killing the law, the only fit substitute for the guilty would invariably be the person that embodies the law itself, and, that alone is the Governor.

Such a system of vicarious suffering is not available in human legal musings for two reasons, first, few to no Governors would substitute their lives for a convicted and guilty criminal as Paul writes, "For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.(Romans 5:7). And second, such a Gubernatorial substitute suffering on behalf of the guilty under human law would not really satisfy the claims of justice for the bereaved or violated. But why? doesn't the principle hold? - one equal to the law must be punished in place of the guilty. Well, here comes the shocker. All human governments are actually not sovereign at all.

Scripture teaches that: “there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” (Romans 13:1). This means that the idea of government in effect comes from God. It follows that if the idea of government is copied from God, then there’s only one real government, God’s government. And all copies are thus "ordained of God" (ibid). Remember when Pilate stood facing our Lord and Jesus spake to him saying, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (John 19:11). Our Master was reiterating this same principle, all earthly rulers are merely vice-regents. It is because of this fact that no vice-regent can truly embody the law that governs a principality, and consequently, why it is impossible to demonstrate gubernatorial vicarious punishment with regard to human law.

As concerns God's government, this is very much a possibility. Only one equal to the law, one who embodied the law, one whose mind and character was the expression of the law, could be our substitute. I write you one last time on this, till then the love of God and the courage of His Christ be with you.