In order to discern a prudent path, we as Christians must grow in our understanding of the reality of what God is ultimately working toward in our world and how he has ordained to accomplish it. This means applying the truth of our kingdom citizenship to our understanding of social and political life. Only having done that can we answer questions of racial justice.  Fleshing out that application is the goal of this essay. 

Christian faith has taught explicitly and luminously about personal and social morals rooted in the morality God. The Judeo-Christian tradition is one of the first and most widely influential traditions that connects the character of a morally perfect singular God with the personal and social moral actions of all human beings, not just believers. 

Mature faith must recognize that the forgiveness and new identity we receive freely in Christ (what we often call “salvation”) make us not only us new people, but also citizens of a new kingdom, what Jesus called “the kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of heaven.” We must understand that personal salvation leads to citizenship in the kingdom, and the life of the kingdom is at the heart of what it means to be both individual Christians and the church together. 

Kingdom citizenship must be centered around making disciples of the king, since that is the church’s main commission. However, it also means showing the kingdom’s significance by helping all people pursue human flourishing. This comes by the ethics of blessing—seeking what is good, true, and beautiful. This is a key part of our work in the world, especially since most of us must spend more time displaying discipleship in the offices of vocation, family, and friendship than in gospel proclamation. For evangelism to draw people to the king, his citizens must display the beauty of godliness in our many vocations in creation.  

Civil and Divine Authority

The first major and explicit biblical teaching on government executive authority is negative. God himself, through the prophet Moses, was the “legislative” branch of Jewish government in that he provided their laws. The people were themselves supposed to be virtuous enough to enact their laws and to utilize the institutions God created in the Torah (first five books of the Bible) themselves. Moses, with help from other tribal leaders, was supposed to be a judiciary, deciding the hard cases that proved subtle and confusing. Penalties were to be carried out by the people democratically, hence the use of stoning.¹

Careful observation of this system reveals that God’s original gift of governance for the Jewish people included no executive. There was no president, no mayor, and no police. This is because the need for an executive is itself a moral condemnation of free people with clear laws. Executive control is necessary only for people who are not virtuous enough to govern themselves (at least in this historical situation).

The Reality of Human Kings

When the people finally asked for a king in the book of 1 Samuel, God told them that they were rejecting him as king and says six times in chapter eight that their king “will take” their sons, their daughters, the best of their fields and vineyards, their servants, the best of their cattle and livestock, and the taxation of their flocks. In the end, “you yourselves will become his slaves.” This is the nature of all human executive power. When you put a human person (or group of people) in charge (quell anarchy with hierarchy), and you give him/her broad executive authority and control, that power tends to corrupt that person. Power and responsibility tempt leaders to self-indulgence and to giving out special privileges to consolidate and maintain their power. They will take from you. They will often take from you some of the things you hold most dear and give you very little in return. Constitutional democracy seeks to lessen this corruption through the separation of powers, federalism (local control when possible), and the use of faction. However, corruption finds a way in all systems if virtue fails. This is why John Adams said that even our constitution could only govern a religious and virtuous people.²

By the time we get to Romans 13 in the New Testament, the apostle affirms that all authorities are put in place by God (providentially) as a common grace to restrain anarchy and promote what Jonathan Edwards called “common virtue” (virtue that comes from incentives other than love of God and the good that is free of self-interest). All governments have the task of commending those who do good and punishing those who do evil. The common teaching of the New Testament commands Christians to submit to them “in everything.” However, this does not, in any way, erase the primary biblical teaching that the existence of human government is itself an admonition that we cannot govern ourselves with the good, and that all governments, as inherent hierarchies, will be noticeably corrupt.

Corruption finds its way into all human hierarchies. It can be minimized but never eliminated. Therefore, to the Christian, government is a tragic good. It is necessary to prevent anarchy but is always tending toward tyranny. Tyranny is not only destructive to liberty; it is destructive to the moral character of a people as well. Tyranny naturally and simultaneously incentivizes a culture of dishonesty and dependency. Pastors and churches are not immune to any of these dynamics, and the work of ministry is subject to the same corrupting tendencies. This is why the biblical requirements for elders are almost all virtues with only a couple competencies.³

The City of God

Parallel to this arrangement of civil governments is what the New Testament calls “the kingdom of God.”⁴ St. Augustine’s fifth-century work The City of God offers a useful commentary on this biblical idea. He contrasts the worldly administration of what he calls “the City of Man” and the workings of God in his own reign and rule in “the City of God.” For the present, both dominions exist simultaneously and overlap. Though God also providentially rules over the City of Man, the City of God is to be an expression of his rule and character. It refers to the reign of God over all creation and the real extension of that reign into the affairs of the earth, and especially into the societies of men and women. 

So although every Christian must live with a certain ordered respect towards the authorities of the City of Man that exist under the providential workings of God, our true citizenship is in the City of God—God’s presence and coming kingdom for which he has given the message of redemption. The ultimate goal of Christ is not just the individual salvation of believers, but the creation of a whole people for himself under God’s final fully reestablished and everlasting reign. This is the kingdom we become citizens of when we come to Christ. All of Jesus’ references to the kingdom of God presumed that his followers seek not only to fulfill the minimal requirements of the City of Man, but also to be reformed in their character and life to live on earth in line with the ethics and reality of the unseen kingdom of God. 

Jesus taught that the kingdom of God, though unseen and not yet reestablished, is still completely morally and spiritually present. Jesus’ disciples are those who accept citizenship in the kingdom of God by putting their faith in him. They choose voluntarily to live for the kingdom, even while that kingdom seems unseen. Meanwhile they accept the present physical jurisdiction of the City of Man with its benefits and despite its injustices and evils. The role of citizens in the kingdom of God is to invite people to citizenship in God’s kingdom while working for the peace and flourishing of the City of Man. Therefore, Christians in the City of Man are neither insurrectionist nor indulgent in its pretensions. 

New Testament scholars almost universally agree that the message of the kingdom was the center and heart of the message of Jesus. Jesus’ call to salvation through repentance and faith in himself is the means not just of escaping damnation but also of entering into the fullness of His salvation. That fullness carries many gifts, including citizenship in the kingdom of God. 

The Cross and the Kingdom

So what does this mean for the Christian? Does it mean that pursuing “salvation” means the pursuit of social justice or societal flourishing? Yes and no. Kevin DeYoung helpfully distinguishes between the wider and narrower lenses of salvation in Christ. He differentiates what we might call “the gospel of the cross” from “the gospel of the kingdom.” When many evangelicals refer to the “gospel” they implicitly mean what DeYoung calls the gospel of the cross. This is the message of invitation away from damnation and into salvation. It consists in believing that Christ has died for our sins, paying the penalty for our misdeeds and bringing us into union with himself so that we can share in his righteousness and his standing before God the Father. As we put our faith in Christ’s death and resurrection, God: 

• pardons our sin.
• reconciles us relationally to himself and other believers.
• credits us with Christ’s righteousness (imputation).
• does the spiritual miracle of regeneration in the part of us deadened by sin (what Ezekiel calls “the heart of stone”).
• counts us as his children and heirs.
• gives us the leading and strengthening power of his Holy Spirit.
• promises us his future victory and his eternal home.
• includes us in his mission as ambassadors to those who have not yet put their trust in this gospel.

All these benefits of personal salvation have the effect of making us full citizens of God’s kingdom. Even more than that, we are not just citizens, but also ambassadors for that kingdom and stewards of its reputation. The language for this we have received from the Reformation is that we live for “the glory of God alone,” that is, to ever increase God’s reputation. Functionally, that is to increase the reputation of the king and his kingdom. We are called to display God the King’s glorious beauty both together as the church and in our influence in the City of Man.

Therefore, there is a second view of the gospel we might call “the gospel of the kingdom.” Believing in and living out the gospel of the kingdom is to live out the full ethic of love that was manifest in the complete life of Jesus and that will rule all things in the final revelation of the kingdom of God. This includes combating injustice that God abhors (see essay one). Our best example of this is Christ himself, who held in perfect tension his direct declaration of the gospel of the cross and the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus called all people to repent and believe in him as their personal means of entering into a reconciled relationship with God and becoming an heir of all that God has and is doing. Everyone who is saved must receive salvation personally. Yet, all throughout that ministry, Jesus preached the more widely dilated view of the kingdom as a whole. The Sermon on the Mount is a good example of this. Jesus preached the gospel of the cross while giving exposition of the gospel of the kingdom. He used many teachings about the kingdom of God to invite people to repent and believe in God for their salvation. He was simultaneously preaching the personal transformation that must come by faith and the social transformation that comes in and from the new community that pursues God’s righteousness now out of faith.

Every Christian can take away from this some basic ideas to use in reasoning through the events of our troubled times:

1.

We must resist reducing the gospel to either the cross or the kingdom. A disproportionate focus on political actions of social justice undervalues the absolute necessity of personal salvation. Every person needs forgiveness for offenses already committed against the King and his kingdom. Further, to live for God’s kingdom, we need the empowerment of the mind of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that God gives to those who trust the work of the cross. Personal salvation is the only way to experience the transformation unto virtue that is necessary to live out citizenship in the kingdom of God. Therefore, everyone must experience the miracle of personal salvation by believing the gospel of the cross before they can live out their citizenship in the kingdom of God. 

Conversely, if we forget that we are born into citizenship in the kingdom, then we become so focused on the new birth that we forget about the new life. We become so focused on God’s means that we ignore God’s ends, and we go about seeking our own. Not only is this a reduction of the whole gospel, but it leads to two other great ills: First, it keeps us from being agents of good in the City of Man. Second, it bewilders those to whom we are Christ’s ambassadors. If the church will not live out the ethic and spirituality of the kingdom, the invitation to personal salvation through the gospel of the cross will be unpersuasive and therefore ineffectual. We must tell the whole story of salvation and connect it to some of our world’s greatest hopes and needs—especially justice. 

Therefore, we can neither be like theological liberals who have abandoned the doctrines of personal salvation in order to pursue the social gospel of political action, nor be like Christian fundamentalists who want to “just preach the gospel” of personal salvation without being “distracted or corrupted” by its implications to the pursuit of virtue, justice, and human flourishing.

2.

We must live in keeping with kingdom values. It is the church’s primary work to make disciples of Christ and to live together in an alternative community (the church) that functions by the ethics of the kingdom. The church is to proclaim, as Jesus did, the gospel of the cross in conjunction with the gospel of the kingdom. To do so, we must live out the ethics of the kingdom, and this comes first within the social family of the church itself. Yet as the church loves God with all its heart, soul, mind, and strength, and seeks to love its neighbor as itself, it will inevitably come up against structures or interests in the City of Man that block the way of kingdom life and diminish our capacity to proclaim the gospel of the cross. When we see such injustices, Christians have an opportunity and obligation to tell the truth, even if it results in significant cost to themselves. Christians have called this “the way of the cross.” It is being willing to face predictable suffering to live out the gospel of the kingdom and to proclaim the gospel of the cross. Yet focusing first on living out the life of the Kingdom in the church forces us to live honestly, responsibly, and persuasively so that we will be morally qualified to influence and petition the City of Man. 

3.

Christians should recognize that all government, regardless of its form or philosophy, is both an inherent good and an inherent evil. To believe either idea by itself or to disbelieve either is destructively naïve from a biblical perspective. I think the Bible offers no prescribed government or set of public policies, because there is no system that assures human justice or flourishing. The gospel can be believed and Jesus followed in any country and under any regime, and Christians at different times have had different views on what is a just and prudent application of the truth. When people are virtuous, almost any system moves toward justice and flourishing. When people are wicked, no system that can resist the creeping of corruption.⁵ Further, all governments will be corrupt to some extent and foster injustice to some extent. Sometimes, decreasing the government’s participation in one injustice will inevitably increase other injustices. Temporal governments are a limited and dull tool and are fickle partners in kingdom goals. Christians can see government as a useful ally in working for flourishing while recognizing the inherent perverse incentives and necessary corruptions that prevent it from being the final solution to human injustice. 

This is what led the American founders to create a federal government while seeking very strict limitations to its scope and size. This was in keeping with both Christian and classical social thought about government, virtue, and liberty. As it turns out, God has made a world with no short cuts. There are no hacks for freedom, equity or real unity. Flourishing, justice, and unity require freedom. Freedom is sustained by virtue. Virtue is sustained by religious piety, principle, and practice. In the end, godliness is our only hope.

4.

Those who see government as a means of achieving any good on a universal scale have very often found this to be not the way of liberty, but what F.A. Hayek called “the road to serfdom.” Yet government can only be both robust and limited if the people of a society are virtuous. When people lose hope in their neighbors and in voluntary institutions like the church, they turn to government to meet their needs. This increases the incentives of corruption and tyranny while feeding alienation between neighbors. Therefore, though Christians may differ on the specific scope of proper government, we should not see government as a universal social tool. Every Christian should see the church as the main portal by which the City of Man experiences the City of God. We should expect that relationship to be a strained one, even in a representative democracy. Many times, especially in seeking governmental or social reform, we may work for years and seem to have completely failed to bring about justice by our influence. Walking in “the way of the cross” should show us that we may sacrifice everything for the good, see nothing in return, and still know we have done the right thing.

5.

Christians should not think themselves immune to any of the corrupting tendencies of power, whether that power comes in the form of public governance or an organization doing advocacy. The community networker and local reformer can get just as drunk on power, vanity, and self-righteousness as the government official or business executive. Christians in the current season of the City of Man should be marked by an intense distrust for our own righteousness because of our robust doctrine of depravity. Understanding the gospel should also make us more sensitive to various forms of idolatry and self-righteousness. Our voice will not be different if it is just another voice of “selfish ambition and vain conceit” (Philippians 2:3).

6.

Christians should seek the eternal values of pursuing justice within the temporal structures of respecting God’s providence and the dignity of his image-bearers by obeying governmental authorities in every way possible. 

This means at least that every form of the redress of grievances that respects the laws that govern us must be exhausted before any breaking of those laws can be permitted. After all those avenues have been exhausted, we are obligated in civil disobedience to break only the law(s) that must be broken to pursue justice, and to do so with methods least likely to impact the ability of others to fulfill the mandates of God as image bearers. Disregard for public laws and the destruction of private property break the basic bonds of trust that form the basis of the social contract between diverse peoples. When one group trespasses on these bonds of trust, it fuels defensiveness (physical and psychological) in the second group instead of cooperation. The acts of desperate, impulsive people are typically flawed and sinful. Even in cases when laws must be broken in the pursuit of justice, we must strive to do so without demeaning our neighbors or authorities. If we cannot honor a person’s ability to live as an image bearer (business or property owner, man, woman, child) in how we break the law, the Christian cannot participate. Our use of such means would give the false idea that disgracing an image-bearer or their work is acceptable in the kingdom of God. This is difficult when authorities hold powers by office that citizens do not. Whether we like it or not, we have a call to obey when possible, and when we disobey, to do so without disgracing image bearers.

As the redeemed family of God, we as Christians are responsible for representing God’s interests—all of them—in the City of Man. This means holding in tension his interests in order and authority, justice and reformation, each image-bearer’s ability to live out their creation mandate, and his heart for each person to experience redemption and reconciliation in Christ. Without a full understanding of these coordination priorities of God—i.e. without mature discernment and virtue—even our most sincere efforts in any one of these areas will do damage to the others, yielding injustice in the end.

Whether we want equality, unity, flourishing, or peace, God has shown us what is good: To do justly, love mercy, and walk humble with God in faith, hope and love. No Christian should pursue the solution to any problem while forgetting the inescapable structure of the good that God has forced us to face.

Why is this important enough to talk about? Isn’t it enough that there is a more intense conversation about and emphasis on racial justice? I don’t think so. Is this White fragility talking or psychologically couched gaslighting? Maybe in some percentage, but probably not enough to dismiss it. As a pastor, my goal is not that of a judge or politician. I am not trying to mete out justice or gain power. My goal is that the good would be pursued through faith and virtue so as to lead to harmony and flourishing for the glory of God.

Footnotes

1. The moral significance of stoning, other than being a capital punishment, is that it must be done by the whole community: applying certain guilt from breaking a publicly known, clear and just law.
2. Some have objected to references to the US constitution as having moral authority in these conversations, since it governed over a regime that held Africans enslaved. It is objected that this makes it a document of White supremacy, or one not designed to govern all people. I am not persuaded by this claim, though I do affirm some of its reasons. The constitutional convention debated the issue of slavery vigorously as an institution that already existed (hence the 1619 Project) and its place in the new nation. The convention had neither the power nor the purview to abolish slavery. However, the document holds a distinguished place of primacy in a 1700-2000 yearlong transformation of British peoples in relation to human freedom and dignity codified in English common law and ultimately in a constitution that portended the end of slavery. Though we are learning more about Black history in the Americas, which is very good, most Americans are no longer being taught English history and the long painful road of emancipation that led to modern notions of liberty. I do not expect most Americans to know the more than millennium-long story that goes back to Britons and Saxons, through St. Patrick and the monasteries, and the conquests and subjugations of the Danes and other conquerors, to the development of Magna Carta, all the way to the disputes around religious toleration and the Pilgrims. America had two beginnings: one in Plymouth in 1620 and one in Jamestown in 1619. One sought a new birth of freedom and piety, and the other a new birth of wealth. Other colonies were formed on different principles, and even from different nations. New York, for example, was a Dutch Colony. These 13 separate colonies considered themselves independent states, what we would call countries. The concept of “one America” did not exist. And for more than 100 years, the nation was referred to as “these united states,” referencing that they were politically united yet separate states/countries. Most historians have conceded that had northern states unilaterally insisted on the abolition of slavery at the Constitutional Convention, there would have been no United States. This would have led to a separate nation of slave holding states, and no long political conflict over slavery, no Civil War, and no emancipation until who knows when. The 3/5 Clause and limitation of slavery’s spread west kept the South from using Black slaves as population to be counted in order to gain more representation in the federal government in order to keep Blacks enslaved. Ultimately, Americans proved that they were not religious or moral enough for our constitution because we could not end slavery peacefully through its means, but only through a civil war. Like MLK, I see the American constitution as being a key step in the progress of freedom over millennia, rather than an historical example of a document that wasn’t good enough because it didn’t do what it couldn’t have and did much more than most of us would have done at the time. The historical context of a text need not limit its ideas and meaning. I think it is wise to recognize this if we are trying to unify people around racial justice. It does harm rather than good to criticize from our present moment some of the greatest moves forward in human liberty and self-governance. I believe it is an insufficiently mature way to view human beings and history.
3. This is one reason why High Point is structured with a plurality of elders and why I teach consistently about the limits of my own power and make sure that those who serve under me have direct access to people who can keep me accountable on the elder board. It is also why in most of my leadership I am consistently working to move people by inspiration and consensus rather than by the consolidation of power.
4. Or as Matthew puts it, the “kingdom of heaven.” This name communicates the same thing. The difference is probably due simply to the fact that it is considered pious in Jewish circles not to say the word “God” without extreme necessity.
5. What is true politically is also true economically. Virtuous economic behavior tends toward flourishing, and wickedness leads toward exploitation—which, ironically, is profoundly unproductive.