Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
Israel wandered in the wilderness for a full generation (40 years) without a king, at the beginning of its national history.
In fact, in the first giving of the law, which occurred at Mount Sinai, there was no provision given for a king in Israel at all. Moses was certainly the leader of the new nation, but his governmental function was to serve as the judge of Israel’s supreme court. The law created an appeals court system, with Moses as the court of last appeal. He was not their king.
Under that arrangement, which we call the Old Covenant, God himself was the king of Israel. Again, initially there was no allowance for a human king.
A generation later, the nation stood on the banks of the Jordan River, about to cross over into the land of Canaan. God directed Moses to give the law a second time. This is our Bible book of Deuteronomy. The name combines two Greek words: “deutero” (or, second) and “nomos” (law).
This is not a bare repetition, but contains some expansion here and there, with some additional statutes. Halfway through, we finally get a set of rules for a future, human king over Israel. This is at the end of chapter 17. Israel would make no use of those guidelines, however, for hundreds of years, until the book of 1 Samuel.
It’s noteworthy, at least, that when they took the step of seeking a king, God was not pleased. It represented a rejection of his own rulership over them. However, since he is a God of grace and mercy, he gave the king rules to follow, for the sake of keeping him from becoming the sort of tyrant we all fear, and which, paradoxically, we keep voting into office every four years.
A couple of those commands were meant to remind everybody that the king was accountable to keep the same laws as everyone else. As far as the law was concerned, he didn’t occupy a privileged status. He was bound by all the same rules.
Just because you’re in office, you don’t get special powers or rights. If we can’t do it as citizens, then neither can you as part of the government. I can’t coerce money from my neighbor and call it taxation. You can’t either. No one has that right. Consequently, since that power doesn’t belong to any of us, we can’t get together and give that right to someone else. It’s not ours to give.
This is the point at which our democratic republic has turned idolatrous. We think we, like little gods, can appoint representatives to do our bidding, even if that bidding is flatly immoral. We don’t care: we voted for it, after all, so it’s legal, which means it must be moral.
But there is no magic to putting a man in office. He doesn’t then fall under a different scheme of morality. That official will have his or her own date with judgment and eternity, like the rest of us. And the basis of the judgment will be the same: Did we obey God, or find excuses for going our own way?
Gordan Runyan is pastor of Tucumcari’s Immanuel Baptist Church and author of “Radical Moses: The Amazing Civil Freedom Built into Ancient Israel.” Contact him at: