If evangelical pastors don’t understand or refuse to apply key Christian doctrines—like the Trinity and the Incarnation—to today’s biggest issues, then a robust Christian culture will remain elusive. When, as now, there is so much talk about about “threats to democracy,” pastors have a great chance to preach the gospel and help their congregants share the gospel. Not applying these doctrines leave our nation’s fundamental problem unaddressed,
In principle, democracy or human consent as a basis for public authority obliterates all God-ordained offices. It substitutes some form of human consent as the foundation for that authority. This makes mankind supreme in relation to public authority. I often speak about this on my podcast, God, Law & Liberty, and on my Substack page.
Sadly, my thirty years of direct political engagement with ministers and Christians have led me to conclude that this heresy is prominent among evangelics.
The Bible is clear: God never gave any individual, as an individual, authority over another. The fundamental essence of our being means we are all equal in authority. However, without more, this makes democracy sound “right” and appealing to many Christians.
Therefore, any teaching on equality must be coupled with the teaching that authority of one individual in relation to others is rooted in God-ordained offices. They must understand that the authority of an office can only be derived from the offices appointed by the Father to the Lord Jesus Christ.
If this balance is lost, room for autonomous human authority slips in, and it has. The only remedy is a sound application of the doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation to public authority.
Unless we reject any notion that public authority arises strictly from human or is rooted in the endowments of those we elect to office, a Christian culture cannot arise.
Public authority over a general populace is rooted in the office of King of kings and Lord of lords. God the Father bestowed this office on Jesus in his human nature as the second man who is the head of a new humanity, the Church. It is from his human vice-regency under God that the authority of all lesser human magistrates is derived.
That this office is vested in the man Jesus, as the Christ, is no slight to God the Son. Understanding the two natures in the one person, Jesus Christ, explains why he said “all power (authority) is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Mathew 28:18, KJV). As God, Jesus has never lacked all power (authority); as a man, a power (authority) was given him.
For ministers not even to know how the Trinity and the Incarnation apply to the discussion of democracy in the public square and in their pews has tragic consequences I will explain.
Perhaps for some of them the public significance of these doctrines has been lost because evangelicalism has largely accepted the Enlightenment philosophy’s. It reduced everything to the individual human. There is little room anymore for a humanity, and thus, little room for a “public” anything that is not grounded first in the individual.
However, I submit that a minister is falling short in his calling as shepherd if he understands how these doctrines apply and never presents it to their flock, especially when false thinking is rampant.
In support, I offer the example of the Apostle Paul who “kept back nothing that was profitable” to the Christians at Ephesus (Acts 20:20). Surely at least part of what is profitable is not Christians be “spoiled,” i.e., robbed of the “riches” of “assurance” they should be have in their “acknowledgment of the mystery of God, of the Father, and of Christ in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Colossians 2:2-3 (emphasis supplied).
As I will explain, both Christians and society are robbed of those riches when they succumb to an Enlightenment philosophy that substituted the individual’s reason and will as grounds for public authority for God’s reason and will.
To allow the heresy of democratically-based authority to enter the church allows Christians to be robbed of the assurance that the Lord Jesus Christ is presently mediating over all public authorities even when they don’t see it.
Here the re-assuring Gospel words in Hebrews 2:8-9 come to mind. Though “now we see not yet all things put under him,” we do “see Jesus.” And the passage tells us our Heavenly Father “hast put all things in subjection under his feet” and “he left nothing that is not put under him.”
Taking this a step further, it makes it easier for Christians to lose sight of what will happen when these purveyors of a falsely-grounded public authority fill up their cup of iniquity. God “shalt break them with a rod of iron” and “shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel” (Psalm 2:9, KJV).
In sum, Christians can be robbed of the peace of God in this present world that comes when their faith embraces a present application of these two doctrines. What a great witness our peace could be to those we know who are disturbed by every turn of events.
When this heresy festers among Christians, the most grievous of all the implications becomes manifest in a society. The glory of the triune God and the glory intended by the Father for His Son is diminished and can be, for a time, completely obscured. Seeing the glory of God in the face of Christ will form a Christian culture; it will not arise from preaching and politics that continue to obscure it.
If my assessment is not intelligible, then I suggest John Owen’s Meditations and Discourses on the Glory of Christ. The Holy Spirit used it to set me straight a few years ago.
Until that preaching comes and reaches those in public authority, may the God of Heaven show mercy.
