We find in Scripture two institutions of very great symbolic and typical significance yet with very limited and carefully circumscribed powers. These are church and state. The state is the ministry of justice (Rom. 13:1-7), and it very clearly has thus a very important function. Justice being basic to the Kingdom of God, the state’s function is thus an obviously important one. Moreover, the analogy between the state as a realm, dominion, or kingdom and the Kingdom of God is a very obvious one also, although the state can never be identified as the Kingdom of God, but, like the church, as only an aspect thereof.
God, however, very severely limits the powers and the scope of the state by restricting its taxing power to the head or poll tax, whose purpose is the civil covering, atonement, or protection of society (Ex. 30:11-16). Beyond this, apart from possibly some fines, the state has no taxing power and is thus given, as its legitimate area, a severely limited field of activity. The modern state, by exacting, directly and indirectly, taxes on various levels equal to about 45 percent of the citizen’s income, is thus illegitimate, lawless, and godless. The state in Scripture thus has an important meaning but a restricted and secondary function.
This is no less true of the church. Whereas the state is the ministry of justice, the church is the ministry of grace. As such, the ministry of the word of grace is its essential function. The response of man to that word of grace is in part worship, and worship thus constitutes a central aspect of the life of the church. Worship wanes as the word of grace is adulterated and neglected, because worship is the grateful response of the people of grace. The church is the body of Christ, and its meaning is one of very profound and far-reaching implications, but again, as with the state, Scripture severely restricts its powers and scope.
As we have previously noted, Numbers 18:21-28 makes clear that only one-tenth of the tithe went for worship, to the priests, whereas nine-tenths went to the Levites, whose function was instruction essentially. Only a handful of Levites were engaged in Temple service, as against the vast numbers whose work was instruction (Deut. 33:10). At best, the Levitical contribution to worship equalled another one-tenth of the tithe, meaning that eight-tenths of the tithe went towards instruction.
Thus, in Scripture, church and state both have a severely limited scope of power while an important meaning. In the New Testament, the word of God as it appears in the epistles is addressed often to “the saints,” and sometimes to the “church.” Clearly, the saints includes the church, but it goes beyond the ecclesiastical boundaries. The Corinthian epistles are addressed to “the church of God which is in Corinth” (1 Cor. 1:2; 2 Cor. 1:1), because a church problem is central to St. Paul’s concern therein. This is true also of the epistle to the Galatians (Gal. 1:2), but not of Ephesians, Colossians, and other epistles, although the church is in mind in these epistles, as in Philippians 1:1. The Thessalonian epistles are again directly addressed to the church there. The saints are the Christian community, inclusive of the church but more than the church.
The activities of these saints, the early Christian community, included a wide variety of activities: not only churches in homes, but study groups in homes, a great deal of charity through
the church and apart from the church, refuges for abandoned children, hospitality for strangers, hospitals by the end of the fourth century, and much more. While there is no question that the power of the church over these activities grew steadily, it is also apparent that there was earlier a difference, an interpenetration of activities and institutions rather than a centralized jurisdiction. The problem in history has been the unhappy sacramentalization of church and state. The Old Testament anointing of king and high priest pointed to their roles as types of Christ, and in the New Testament their ministries in Christ are stressed. The sacrament, however, is with Christ, not with the institution. We are “baptized into Jesus Christ” (Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27), not into the church; our baptism is administered by the church, but it is into Christ. Similarly, communion sets forth, not that we are one body with the church, but with Christ, and with one another in Christ.
Increasingly, the modern state is a sacramental state: it seeks to make the people one body in itself, to bring them together into peace and unity by statist acts of law and coercion. The result is the destruction of the people by the Moloch state.
Similarly, the church sees itself as the sacramental body and preempts Christ’s role. Communion is thought of as a church rite rather than Christ’s ordinance. In the New Testament, communion is a potluck dinner of people who worked during the day and could meet only late at night. The Lord’s Supper was instituted as the true continuation of the Old Testament Passover, the celebration of Israel’s redemption by the blood of the lamb. The Passover was and is a family meal, and the Lord’s Supper is inclusive of the family of Christ. It is spoken of as a “feast of charity” or “love feast” in Jude 12 and 2 Peter 2:13. This feast celebrated Christ’s redemption of His people by His atoning death and resurrection. Because of Christ, their second Adam and their re-creator, the people of God are one family in Him. There is no true sacrament without “unfeigned love of the brethren” (1 Pet. 1:22), which is the mark of family members (Rom. 8:29; 12:10; 1 Thess. 4:9; Heb. 2:11; 13:1; 2 Pet. 1:7; 1 John 3:14, etc.). No one can rightly take communion without a love of Christ and a love of the brethren. Communion celebrates a common life in Christ, and it can never be reduced to a rite, although it cannot be separated from it. As against an empty rite, Christian fellowship in Christ’s calling, around a table, is closer to the meaning of the sacrament.
The first Passover, moreover, was also the first sabbath of Israel, and it celebrated God’s redemptive work, and the reestablishment of Israel, about to leave for the Promised Land, in God’s calling to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth. Shortly thereafter, the law was given to enable them thereby to exercise dominion in God’s appointed way. The sabbath is inseparable from work: it celebrates rest in God’s efficacious work and our effectual work in Him (1 Cor. 15:58). Wherever the theological meaning of God’s work and man’s work is diminished, the meaning of the sabbath diminishes.
But church and state are not productive agencies. Rather, their essential function lies elsewhere. The state is a protective agency whose function is to maintain a just order, to insure restitution for civil wrongs, and to protect the people from external and internal enemies. The Westminster Confession, chapter 25, section 3, says of the church,
Unto this catholic visible Church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by His own presence and Spirit, according to His promise, make them effectual thereunto.
The church’s function is protection and nurture by means of its ordained ministry. Both church and state thus have important and necessary functions, but they are not productive ones.
It will appear to some that an emphasis on production is a capitalistic reading of the faith. It must be held, however, that modern capitalism is an apostate version of the creation mandate which, for all its importance, is withering because it has lost its Christian function. Man, set to work by God in a new creation in Adam, and set to work in a fallen creation by Christ, the last Adam, must conquer every aspect of that creation and make it productive in terms of God’s purpose. All work, capitalistic, socialistic, and other, is under the curse apart from Christ. Only in Christ can work be effectually and permanently productive, with consequences for eternity.
In pagan antiquity, cultures, beyond a certain point, faded rapidly, because their productivity was destroyed by state and temple. Capitalization was wiped out or prevented by the claims of state and temple. The ethnologist Soustelle, in studying the remnants of the Maya in Mexico, describes their religion. “All in all, religion weighs heavily on the daily life of a Lacandon.” It is a difficult struggle for him to wrest a living from the jungle, and he lives very meagerly. Yet he must work to take better care of his gods than of himself. “In short, the Indian, who already has so much difficulty in obtaining and producing what is strictly necessary for himself and his family, forces himself to work almost as hard again in order to serve his gods.”153
More cultures than the Mayan have collapsed under the burden of state and temple.
Today, our society is being similarly decapitalized. The state takes about 45 percent of a man’s income, and the church claims to be the legitimate repository of the tithe and claims 10 percent or more. With some sects, it runs up to 30 percent. As a result, what remains is usually only sufficient to maintain the family in its living expenses, not to recapitalize the family and society. Whenever and wherever church and state (or temple) reach this point, civilization begins to decapitalize and crumble. God’s ordination is a very modest head tax for the state, and a tenth of a tithe, one percent of one’s income, for the church. To go beyond this is to begin digging the grave of a civilization.
In Revelation 13, we have the anti-Christian church and state presented as two beasts who are the destroyers of mankind. Anti-Christianity, however, is more than avowed hostility: it includes all departures from God’s word, including claims to powers which do not belong to church and state.
Moloch worship is forbidden in Leviticus 18:21 and 20:2-5; Moloch means king. Moloch worship divinized the state and made the state man’s visible god. When the state required it, children had to be sacrificed to the state, but, under any circumstance, they belonged to the state.
Baal worship similarly asserted the lordship of the state. Moloch worhip thus consumed man and society in the blasphemous, idolatrous, and nonproductive worship of the state.
In Scripture, centrality of function is given to the family and to instruction. To the Levites, as we have seen, the major portion of the regular tithe was given, so that instruction was regarded as more important for society than church or state in God’s tax laws. The function of instruction is the theological and intellectual capitalization of a society, and there can be no other capitalization if a society is lacking in the capital of sound faith and knowledge. Instruction is thus highly productive. The capture and corruption of schools is a sure means to the decapitalization and destruction of any society. Thus, while worship has a very high place in God’s plan, priority belongs to instruction. The school is more essential to Christian society than the church, although both are necessary institutions.
The family, as we have seen, is the most powerful institution in society, controlling as it does, in terms of biblical law, the three key areas of society, children, property, and inheritance. It is, in addition, the major welfare agency of all history, with its care of old and young, relatives and friends, and its assistance to members of the “nuclear” family. The family, too, has its place in the tithe. Waller called attention to a curious fact about the tithes. The first tithe, Numbers 18:21, 26, to the Levites and to the priests, was not considered sacred by the Talmud and Jewish commentators. On the other hand, the tithes of Deuteronomy 14:22-28 and Deuteronomy 26:12- 15 were “regarded as a holy thing.”154
The family’s rejoicing before the Lord, and its sharing of their bounty in the third and sixth years with the Levites, the fatherless, and the poor, were basic to the holy community, to love of the brethren, and unity in the Lord. Such a tithe was productive not only of rest and refreshing to God’s people, to enable them to work more joyfully, but also of godly community. The family is the religious, social, and productive unit; it is also the key institution of sociey. As a result, it must strengthen itself by holy rest and by holy communion with the Levites and the needy, to realize more closely the meaning of the Passover (and communion).
The family and the school thus, with their functions and their portion of the tithes, are instrumental in developing communion and vocation. Society moves forward and is capitalized religiously, intellectually, and materially when the family and instruction are given their due. Where church and state monopolize man’s income, there is a radical decapitalization. If today only a segment of the Christian population gave 8 percent of their first tithes to instruction, to Christian schools, colleges, educational missions, and foundations, and to godly scholarship, the recapitalization of faith and ideas would be considerable. God’s legal provisions are not accidental nor haphazard. They have a major function in God’s plan for the conquest of men and nations. To neglect them is to surrender the future.