The following article was actually a Facebook comment made by a friend of mine, Erik Feist, years ago in regards to somebody’s misunderstanding of anarchy (which they likely called “chaos” and “lawlessness”). I read it again from a note where I had saved it, because it was absolutely brilliant and worth reading t again years later. He clears up some biblical misunderstandings about the role of government, as well as the intent of Jesus when he rebutted the religious and political figures of the day for their own insistence upon enslaving people with their religious laws.
I would challenge your definition of anarchy. Anarchy is not lawlessness. It’s is the absence of rulers. In a republican form of government, self-government is the rule. Men are not born subject to rulers. The sovereignty of the king (of England) devolved upon the people at the revolution, such that, according to the Supreme Court, each of the people are sovereigns without subjects; meaning they are not subject to rulers, except by consent. Governments are instituted (constituted, actually) by the people to govern those consenting to be governed. The sovereignty of the people (individually) is ceded in part only by agreement. Agreements being contracts which abide all the rules of contract including a meeting of the minds, full disclosure of terms and mutual benefit. One of the sovereign people is not subject to constituted government, except by consent.
As far as : “God instituted government and granted them authority for a limited purpose over a limited group of people.” I’m not in agreement with that. That was the basis of the fallacious ‘divine right of kings.’ In my world, law is established by contract (agreement). Contract makes the law. That law being consensual agreement to specific terms, not the imposition of presumptive ‘authority.’
Of course the Natural Law rules all and is the foundation of any bona fide human agreements. God doesn’t limit or endorse any specific types of agreements established among men other than providing the absolute platform for them. He has laid out The Law such that deviation from His established moral absolutes will lead inevitably to death and destruction and honoring them leads to life abundant.
It is my firm belief that Romans 13:1,2 is a sorely mistranslated passage. Men are to be subject to their own agreements by their own choice(s). Of course if their will be ignorant, indifferent, lazy and grossly immoral choices; these lead to the subjection of the chooser. These are actually types of consent to be governed because those individuals have abdicated their own throne. This is where government derives its ‘just powers’ : through the consent of the governed.
The righteous man (the one who judges himself rightly and thus stands in judgment of no man) is not subject to external governance (particularly in the republican form of government). He lives by compact of his own intention and will and is not subject to any presumptively imposed government. He will have servants in government, not rulers imposing positive law.
The Pharisees and scribes sought to trick the Master into subjection where he would be subject to the codes and statues of their positive law. He would have no part of it. He could see right through their jurisdictional tricks and traps. Most of us today are not so circumspect and wise. We have delusions regarding either the benevolence of governance or the presumptive right of governance.
In this world today citizens believe they are experiencing self-government. Nothing could be further from the truth. Citizens are subjects, as to a king, just as it was at the revolution. However, the propaganda effectively keeps them all deluded.
“It behooves us to remember that men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others. If from lawlessness or fickleness, from folly or self-indulgence, they refuse to govern themselves, then most assuredly in the end they will have to be governed from the outside. They can prevent the need of government from without only by showing that they possess the power of government from within. A sovereign cannot make excuses for his failures; a sovereign must accept the responsibility for the exercise of the power that inheres in him; and where, as is true in our Republic, the people are sovereign, then the people must show a sober understanding and a sane and steadfast purpose if they are to preserve that orderly liberty upon which as a foundation every republic must rest.” Theodore Roosevelt (At Jamestown Exposition, April 26, 1907.) Mem. Ed. XII, 593; Nat. Ed. XI, 312.
It is my contention that this speech [by Theodore Roosevelt] was a public notice that (a tyrannical) government would be imposed upon all who would not be vigilant, responsible and assertive of their God-given rights very shortly. The implementation of The Federal Reserve Act effectively set the table for the 1933 New Deal bankruptcy wherein all subjects would have their wealth confiscated as their contribution is the presumptive social contract, being reduced to trading bank notes instead of real money.
“You cannot give self-government to anybody. He has got to earn it for himself. You can give him the chance to obtain self-government, but he himself out of his own heart must do the governing. He must govern himself. That is what it means. That is what self-government means. . . . There must be control. There must be mastery, somewhere, and if there is no self- control and self-mastery, the control and the mastery will ultimately be imposed from without.” Theodore Roosevelt (At University of Wisconsin, Madison, April 15, 1911.) Mem. Ed. XV, 548; Nat. Ed. XIII, 594.
This means only those capable and willing can ever be self-governing. Contrary to popular belief it is not an ‘American heritage.’ It’s availability is an American heritage. Quite like salvation, it is not heritable; it must be chosen and diligently defended on an individual basis. The heritage of self-government is not a collective experience, except once one has entered into it. Quite like salvation, which is also not a collective experience, until one actually enters into it.
Governance is imposed from without because people are consenting to be governed through their own irresponsibility, fickleness, indifference and delusion.
-Erik Feist
