Transcript

America's Providential History Podcast looks at the framework of godly government

>> Stephen McDowell: Welcome to America's Providential History Podcast, where we talk about the real story of America and explore the hand of God in our history. Now, here's your host, Stephen McDowell. Hello. I'm glad you are joining us for this edition of America's Providential History Podcast. Today we will be looking at the framework of the American republic. In the last few podcasts, we've been looking at the power and form of a constitutional republic, which we are. We were founded as the American Christian Constitutional Federal Republic. We first examined the power, the internal principles and ideas that need to be part of the life and thinking of the citizenry in order to build a free society. The last podcast, we began to look at the framework of the American republic. And we, looked at two aspects of the framework. Decentralization of governments and constitutionalism. And so in this podcast, I want to continue on, taking a look at more of the framework of godly government. And, and again, to be able to the thinking of the founders, their ability to construct a form of government reflecting these concepts that we are covering is because they had a biblical worldview. They understood the power of government, the purpose of government and the premise of government, as we explored briefly in the last podcast. And so with that understanding, they then could go and construct a form of government. And of course, each of the framers of the Constitution, those men who came together in the summer of 1787 to come up with a new form of government and the reason they did that, we'll explore this in future context. We'll look at the historical reasons why this came about. But the form of government, the Ardos Confederation, under which they were acting during the American Revolution in these first few years, had deficiencies. It wasn't working well. And they understood we need a better form of government for the United States of America under which it can operate. So they came together to form this government and they were ones who many, they were involved in framing their own form of government in the states. And they studied the history of governments that John Adams read and studied about the history of 50 different governments to help prepare him when he went to the Constitutional Convention.

Third idea that is part of the framework of Godly government is separation of powers

And so, we're now ready to look at concept number three. Third idea that is a part of the framework of Godly government or the framework of the American republic, and that is separation of powers. Separation of powers. Now, we talked about the premise of government. That man is sinful and sinful man tends to abuse power. And since sinful man tends to abuse power, those who govern should be limited in how Much power they exercise. And so there, in other words, there should be a division of the legislative, executive and judicial powers of government. Every government, no matter what form, monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, democracy, representative republic, every one exercises three functions. There's a legislative function. That's the aspect of government that makes laws. The executive function carries out the law. And judicial function interprets if a law is violent. Each of these aspects of government, any form of government operates according to that. But if you're wise, if you understand the nature of man, then you're going to divide each of these and set up a series of checks and balances, between them in order to keep any one branch from abusing its authority. Montesquieu is a French political philosopher who wrote the Spirit of laws in the mid-1700s. He said when the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, are in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty. And so when you began to unite these three different functions and powers among one or few people, there can be no liberty. And that's why the framers of America separated the powers of government, separated the three branches of government. Article 1 of the Constitution, delegates or lists the powers of the legislature. Article 2 deals with the duties and structure of the executive. Article three, the duties and structure of the judicial. And so you know, we have the legislative power on the national scene is represented by the US Capitol. Because in the US Capitol building in Washington D.C. this is where the legislature meets. And the legislature is the one that makes the law. And to further check its power, it was divided into two different houses. The House of Representatives, or that body that represent based upon population. And so the larger states have more members of the house of represented in the smaller states. And the amount of representatives have. Is based upon the population of the state. But the senate represents the state itself. And every state has two senators. because the state, especially at the beginning the states had m Much more authority and power than they do today. And the individual states, the smaller states did not want to be there to be walked all over by the bigger states. And so this is part of the compromise by the framers of coming up with how are we going to deal with how many legislators we had. And so there's the legislature has a House and Senate. And the House and Senate, have certain duties and responsibilities. And they must both agree to the bills that are then sent to the executive. And the executive power of the US Government exists in one man, the president, who's Elected by all the people. Elected by all the people in all the states, or really by electors that are elected by the people. And then the judiciary is given. There's a supreme court, one court set up. And the Constitution gives the authority to the legislature to set up inferior courts. And so Article 1 in the legislature reveals the duty of that branch. They are to make laws, they appropriate money, they impose taxes and approve treaties and appointments. It also gives insight into the structure. It has two houses, the Senate, two members from each state, and the House. The numbers are based upon population. And as the population grew, Initially I think one House member represented about 25,000 people. But it's more population grew. It was eventually capped at 435 legislatures. And that's what it is today. There are 435 members of the House, 100 members of the Senate. Since we have 50 states now. Article 2 speaks of the duties of the executive. It has the duty to enforce laws made by the legislature, makes appointments, commands the armed forces, and has the power of the veto of law passed by the legislature. The structure, according to the constitution of the executive. There's a president, there's a vice president, and there are also executive assistants appointed by the president. This is the cabinet and many administrative agencies. Then, article three lists the duties and structures of the judiciary, the judicial branch of government. It interprets laws and tries cases involving federal laws. Its structure is that there's a supreme court. Now, today there are nine members. That specific number is not given in the constitution, but it's determined by Congress. But for many years we've had nine members. These are appointed by the president and must be approved by the Senate. And over time we've set up many lower federal courts. And today I think they're like 11 circuit courts, 90 district courts, and there are a number of different special courts as well. So the separation of powers is based upon the idea that man is sinful. And so these three powers of government are separated. But also there's a series of checks and balances set up among them to guard that power. So in other words, for example, the legislature makes laws, and those laws are then sent to the chief executive, the president. And that president can sign it into law or he can veto it. Now, if he vetoes the law, it can be overridden by the legislature, but it requires, the laws sent to the executive only have to pass by a simple majority, just over 50%. To override a veto. You have to have 2/3 of the legislature vote to override that veto. And so that's one aspect of checks and balances set up between those two branches of government. And there are many others, and they are presented in the Constitution that you can read and study. So then number four, fourth idea aspect of the framework of the American republic is the idea of impartial judiciary and trial by jury. See, there must be a safe and orderly process to determine the guilt of lawbreakers. If someone is charged with breaking the law or violating the law, there must be an orderly way, a safe way to affirm that that truly is the case. Because of course, historically governing leaders have often gone and charged citizens with committing a crime. And when they're charged, they had no recourse but to suffer the consequences. They could be dragged out of their house and thrown into a dungeon, never to be seen again. but because of the biblical, thinking of the founders that developed over time, they began to recognize there has to be an orderly way for people to given a defense. You know, now in the Bible, when you study the Bible and it has many safeguards of people that were charged with violating a law. I wrote a little booklet called Crime and Punishment. And in that I listened to the various biblical crimes, crimes against life, crimes against property, and the penalties that the Bible gives for those crimes. And there are many, many, many safeguards that the Scripture gives to make sure that the innocent are not found guilty. Like you have to have two or three witnesses is one of those biblical safeguards. Every individual has a right to hear what crime he's charged of and to give in a defense, to have witnesses to affirm, that he committed the crime or affirm he didn't commit the crime. And not only that, but the whole idea of having the decision for hearing the evidence and weighing the evidence and making a verdict on the evidence didn't rest with the government, those that charged them with the crime, but a group of peers. This is the idea of trial by jury of peers. And so within it's very important to have impartial judiciary and trial by jury. You need to have honest and knowledgeable judges, judges that won't take bribes. This is Scripture. Scripture gives us qualifications for judges and officials and one of those that they are honest, they don't take bribes, they're knowledgeable.

Jury trials were developed in the Christian Western world over centuries

So they need to know the law, know the intent of those who frame the law. they need to be, can't be bought off. But you not only this is not enough. What we also see the within the scripture, the foundation of jury trials, where a jury of Your peers, people are just like you, who live in your society, and live, under the same laws that you do, that they're going to hear the evidence, they're going to hear your defense, and then they'll make a decision based upon the evidence. So jury trials are root in the Scripture and actually were developed in the Christian Western world, in particular in England over, many centuries. You may remember when we talked about William Penn in an earlier podcast, how there were jury trials in England at the time of Penn going on trial, but they weren't very free to give their verdict based upon their own convictions. And because William Penn stood up, that was a great help in securing the rights of juries to give a verdict without fear of repercussions. And so trial by jury of peers is rooted in the Scripture. It developed historically in the Christian world and is recognized in the Constitution of the United States. Article three, Section two, paragraph three, talks about trial by jury of peers and as well as Amendment 5, 6 and 7. Another aspect of, receiving justice in the judicial system is having the writ of habeas corpus. Article 1, section 9, paragraph 2, the writ of habeas corpus. It means just to have the body, that is, if you're charged with a crime, that you have the right for you, your body, for you to go in and hear what you're charged with, to hear the evidence and to be able to defend yourself against that. As I said, historically, many times people would be charged with a crime, arrested, thrown in jail, they don't even know what they're supposed to have done and don't give an opportunity to defend themselves. And so this is a very important constitutional right that we possess as citizens of the United States, to hear what crime we're charged against and to call witnesses and give a defense, for that, and then to have a jury of peers. Because, as John Adams said, it's a great security to know that if we're charged with the crime, it's not going to be the judges or the attorneys that charge us that are going to decide if we're guilty or not, but it's going to be a group of our peers, just like us, living under the conditions that we do that, will hear the evidence and make that decision. So our life, liberty and property, this is another safeguard to that in our form of government. Number five. A fifth idea that's part of the framework of the American republic is civilian control of police and military forces. Paul tells us in Romans 13 that civil government bears the sword. God gave it the sword in order to perform its function of protecting our life, liberty and property. And so sword isn't given to individuals or to the family or to the church to administer civil justice. That's the purpose of civil government. It has given the ability to use force if necessary, to protect the citizens. Now this is both to protect the citizens from enemies outside our nation that would attack us and try to destroy us and our life, liberty and property. But also civil government's given the sword to protect us from criminals in society who would steal from us or commit other crimes against our life, liberty or property. So civil government then bears the sword through military and police power. So the military is to protect us from foreign invaders, police power from internal criminals. And again, the purpose is to protect citizens both foreign and domestic. This is a legitimate function of civil government. And God says that they are given the power to use the sword, to have the sword, to have force in order to accomplish its purpose of protecting our life, liberty and property. But to guard against military tyranny, which has often been the case, throughout history, that the so called, people's army, like in China, that's what they call that. It's not really the people's army at all, but it's the ruler's army and has been used by the rulers in order to keep the people in control or to take their property or else. But to guard against military tyranny, the leaders of the police and m military should be subject to the control of the people. How is that done? Well, one, we elect our commander in chief. Now the president is the commander in chief of the military, but the president is subject to the people. We elect him. If we don't like how he's carrying out his duty as commander in chief, then we can elect another one. Same on the local level. Quite often in localities the chief of police may be elected. Or you would elect a city council who appoints a chief of police. But putting the leader of the military and police in subject to control of the people is very good. It's to guard against military tyranny. Samuel Adams, known as the father of the American Revolution, said, where there is a necessity of the military power, wise and prudent people will always have a watchful and a jealous eye over it. For the maxims and rules of the army are essentially different from the genius of a free people and the laws of a free government. And so because man is sinful, we do need military power, we do need police power. So a wise and prudent People will always have a watchful and a jealous eye over it. And so the way we can do that and the way our Constitution does it, it subjects the commander in chief to the control of the people through elections. So the civilian control of police and military is another important concept that's built into our constitutional form of government.

Separation of jurisdictions, the economy, press, church, family and education

A sixth concept or idea that's part of the framework of the American Republic is separation of jurisdictions. Separation of jurisdictions, the economy, press, church, family and education should be separate from, from civil government control. That God creates individuals in his image, and he creates three divine institutions, family, church, and state, and that each of these has a unique purpose and responsibility. And the Scripture reveals to us the purpose and responsibilities of each of these. We write about these in our books and writings. And ruling over the earth, a biblical view of civil government. I explore that, and we explore that in our book America's Providential History, and others as well. But it's important that we recognize these unique, jurisdictions that God has established and that we make sure that one jurisdiction doesn't usurp the authority of another, jurisdiction. And so, and so the Constitution keeps the state from interfering with or controlling the church, family, press and nation. You know, you've heard of this expression, separation of church and state, and some claim that our Constitution mandates a separation of church and state. Well, that phrase isn't contained in our Constitution anywhere, any of our founding documents at all. But the concept of separating the function of civil government and the function of the church does exist. And that basically it says the civil government has no business getting involved in the affairs of the church. That's where the true wall of separation exists between church and state. But not only does the Constitution keep the state from interfering in the church, but it also, it shouldn't interfere in the family and the press and, faith and in these various other spheres, it's to protect our life, liberty and property, provide peace so we can fulfill our purpose. It's not to interfere and try to control and regulate all of these things. Now, Jesus taught the concept of jurisdictional authority, separation of jurisdictions. He did it in Matthew, chapter 22, verse 17 through 21. Now, this is where the Pharisees were trying to trick Jesus. And they came to him and they asked him, is it lawful to give a poll tax to Caesar or not? In response, Jesus said, well, show me the coin used for the poll tax. Which they showed him a coin, and the coin would be one that would have had the image of Caesar on it. Pagan kings love to put their own images on money. And there are many coins in the Roman Empire that are, images of Caesar. So he said, show me the coin used for the poll tax. And he asked, whose is this image? And their response was Caesar's. Then Jesus told them, then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. This is one of Jesus civil teachings. And it transformed the world that when he said, rendered to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, he was giving legitimacy to civil government. He was exclaiming that Caesar, now Caesar, represents civil government. He was the ultimate civil authority in all the Roman Empire. And he's saying, look, give to Caesar. Give the civil government the things that belong to Caesar. Now, one of those are coins. Okay, here's coins. Caesar demands taxes so you can give him a coin he can, tax so that Caesar can fulfill its purpose. So he then made. He did then declare civil government is a legitimate institution. In fact, it's a divine institution. We learned that in Genesis 9, 6. God gave man the authority to handle matters of justice there early on, after man fell. But he doesn't stop his teaching here, say, okay, give to Caesar what belongs to him. But then he goes on to say, and to God the things that are God's. Jesus was declaring that the authority of Caesar was limited. He was saying that there are certain areas of life that are outside the jurisdiction of Caesar. Caesar has no business getting involved in these areas. Now, Caesar saw himself as the ultimate authority over all things. Civil affairs were under his domain, but so were economic affairs, educational affairs, the family, religion, everything came under the domain of Caesar in his thinking, because he saw himself as God walking on earth. At least many of the Caesars did. But Jesus was saying, look, we'll give you what is due you. But there are things that belong only to God. Now, on that coin, Caesar's image is stamped, but whose image is stamped upon each one of us? We're not stamped with the image of Caesar. We're not made in the image of Caesar. We're made in the image of God. God. That's whose image is ingrained and stamped on each one of us. And so our life doesn't belong to civil government. It belongs to God. Our worship, our ideas and convictions in the communication of those do not belong to civil government. They belong to God. Our children and the education of our children does not belong to civil government. It belongs to God. And we have a, duty and responsibility to train up our children the way that they should go. Give them unto the Lord, and let them be instruments that God can use to advance his kingdom. So we render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, but we give to God what belongs to him. And in this teaching, Jesus was declaring that the authority of civil government is limited and that there are institutions, divine institutions, that that have their own jurisdiction, their own authority and power, and that the civil government shouldn't encroach upon them. See, the Bible answers the question, to whom has God commissioned to do what? In the biblical conception of society, there's one ultimate authority, God himself. God created individuals in his image, and then he created three divine institutions, family, church, and state. There's one ultimate authority, God himself and his authority. His power flows into his creation through individuals and the divine institutions of family, church and state. And the Bible reveals who, what is the purpose and responsibility of each one of these. And these should be kept separate. The state should not encroach upon the responsibility of the family or the individual or the church. It's to be separated. And so our constitution recognizes the separation of jurisdictions, that, the state is not to usurp the role of the church, family or individuals. Amendments 1, 9 and 10 deal with this separation of institutions that Amendment 1 deals with. That, we have a guy given right to worship and to assembly and to, to the, to the press and other other things. And that the specific authority not given to the national government rests with the people or with the states. So recognizes and mandates a separation of jurisdictions. because this is a biblical idea, a biblical, concept. And so this is number six, number one, decentralization of government. Number two is a government of laws, constitutionalism. Number three, separation of powers. Number four, impartial judiciary and trial by jury. Number five, civilian control of police and military. Number six, the separation of jurisdiction. And then the seventh idea is the election of representatives. See, government leaders must be subject to the people through frequent and fair elections. Accountability is important to have righteous rulers. So this is another way, another recognition that man is sinful. We need to keep his power in check.

Among all these other things that we've already covered, another way to hold government accountable is through elections

Among all these other things that we've already covered, another way to hold them accountable is through having frequent and fair elections. Because if any legislature, executive or judicial, member of government begins to abuse authority, there needs to be a way to get rid of them. Now, according to the US Constitution, the members of the House of Representatives are chosen every two years by the people. Article 1, section 2, paragraph 1. Now, the reason the House members were chosen every two years, because every bill that dealt with appropriating money that is taking our property, because taxes are a form of taking property, and it's through our representatives we can give our consent to this, but since it's our money, represents our person really, then we need to be able to get rid of those people very quickly that appropriate. Or are unable to take our property. Senators were elected by the people every six years because the senators originally, they're the ones that represented state's interest, and they were originally chosen by the state legislatures or whatever mechanism each state wanted to set up to choose senators. They weren't elected by popular vote because they didn't want to be subject to kind of political influence, but to be wise, kind of elders, if you will, in the government because they dealt with making treaties and other things. So they were elected every six years, and a president was chosen every four years by electors chosen in the states. Article two, section one. But, amendment 12 has to deal with electors. Now, this whole idea of election of representatives has its roots in the Bible. In fact, Israel had an election of representatives. We see, for example, in Deuteronomy 1, verse 13, Exodus 18, verse 21, it presents, this is where Moses, following the godly advice of his father in law, Jethro, he was the one who was judging in matters and was becoming exhaustive. And there's way too, too much for him to do by himself. So, so God, the advice given to Moses was, look, tell the people to choose from among themselves men who then can begin to judge and govern. And it gives the qualifications for those men as well able men, wise, understanding, knowledgeable men, men of truth, men hating covetousness such as fear God. And so from those passages of scripture, we can summarize the biblical qualifications for officials in three things. They need a biblical worldview. They need Christian character, and they need a fear of God. So the ideal qualifications for those that we elect to office would have all three of these. They'd fear God. They, display Christian character, and they would think biblically. In some ways you could argue that having a biblical worldview is most important because people vote based upon how they think. You could have a sincere man that loves God, but if he thinks like a pagan, he could enact policies that will take our property unjustly. And so we want especially to have leaders who think biblically and understand the limited nature of government. therefore it's going to be limited how the taxing, how much taxes it imposes upon us. But ideally, we'll have individuals who would display all three of these character qualifications. So the election of representatives is an important way to hold people accountable. It's a reflection that power rests with we, the people of the United States of America. And so these, seven ideas comprise the framework of godly government. Again, decentralization of government, constitutionalism, separation of powers, partial judiciary, trial by jury, civilian control of police and military forces, separation of jurisdiction, and election of representatives. So the power and form of the American republic are both biblical, they're both Christian. The North American review is a prestigious literary journal. In 1867, it wrote, the American government and constitution is the most precious possession which the world holds or which the future can inherit. This is true, true because the American system is the political expression of Christian ideas. If you were going to take a civil document and express biblical ideas, the best example we have in history is the American Christian constitutional federal republic. Our constitution is a reflection of biblical ideas, as this review says. It says it's the political expression of Christian ideas, so it externally expresses those ideas built upon those principles. The power of the American republic we covered in earlier podcasts, John Adams wrote that our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. See, our Constitution can only function properly if you have a moral and religious people. Now, when our framers, founders used the word religious, they meant Christian Christianity, because that's true religion. See, only Christianity provides the power and form of a, of the American republic. When the United States Constitution went into effect in 1789, it was really the first constitution that there was within nations. England, in a way, had a constitution, but not a constitutional republic. It had a series of laws and things built up over many generations. But really the parliament is still supreme. And the parliament, can tomorrow kind of override principles and concepts that have been passed, in England in times past. But, America's was really the first constitution. Today There are some 175 nations that have constitutions. Many of them, they're built based upon the idea of the American Constitution, the fact that we have government of laws rather than men that they recognize there's something important and valuable of having a government of laws written down so that people can have them. But many nations, while they have copied America's form, some almost word for word, they haven't had the same fruit, because it's not just enough to copy some external form of government, even if it's a good form, because without having the internal principles and ideas in the hearts and minds of the citizens, it can't support that form of government. And so it's not enough to have constitutional government, no matter how good it's made only for a m moral and religious people. Only a Christian people with Christian character embracing those seven principles of liberty can support our unique constitutional republic. It's wholly inadequate for the government of any other. So governments that embrace a Christian power and form will best be able to fulfill the biblical mandate to protect the life, liberty and property of the citizens, which will enable them to fulfill their biblical purpose. That's why we need good and godly government in order for the people to be able to carry on the mission that God has for them to extend the kingdom of God in the earth. And so we've briefly taken a look at the power and form of the American Republic. This is very important for all Americans and really people all over the world to understand because if we want to maintain our liberty, provide an atmosphere where flourishing will take place, it's very important that, we implement the power and form of the American Republic. Well, to learn more, I invite you to pick up some of our books, America's Providential History. We take a look at the historical context of bringing forth America, our Constitution. We also present principles, these internal principles and aspects of the external framework of government. My book, Ruling over the A Biblical View of Civil Government looks in more detail at some of these things that we've touched on in these last number of podcasts. You might want to pick up a copy of that. You can do so by visiting our website, Providence foundation, and we have many articles and videos that you can watch and learn from as well. So thanks for joining us today. I hope you can join us next week on another America's Providential History podcast. Hope to see you then.