BIBLICAL PROTEST
Ezekiel 33:3–4
[If a watchman] sees the sword coming upon the land and blows on the trumpet and warns the people, then he who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head.
Biblically based kingdom political involvement recognizes that since God rules over all, the political realm must be held accountable for straying from His authority and brought back into submission to Him. This is not done by unrighteous political revolution, which is a change imposed from the top down, but by social transformation based on spiritual principles from the bottom up. God is against unrighteous revolution in the sense of imposing violent governmental change from the top down, because that’s what Satan sought to do.
Satan tried to pull a coup d’état against God’s government in heaven. He rebelled against God’s leadership, but the rebellion was put down. When a government acts unrighteous, what God wants from His people is not revolution but transformation.
This involves the doctrine of interposition, which is a biblical form of protest. Interposition is when righteous agents of God interpose themselves between an unrighteous government and its innocent victims in order to reflect and defend His standard publicly. As Christians, we are called to act whenever unrighteousness raises its head and threatens to bring the judgment of God upon society. If Christians shun politics, there will be no one to act as a watchman (Ezekiel 33:1–9), to warn the people of danger and to hold back the judgment of God. We need to be like Abraham, interposing ourselves between God and an unrighteous society, pleading with God to spare the innocent and deliver our communities from His judgment. One major and intentional manner we are to act in interposition is to vote according to God’s kingdom values. Every voting choice you make ought to be for the candidate, platform, party, or policy that will best represent the values of the kingdom of God. Simultaneously, we are to seek to change the non-biblical values that exist.
REFLECTION: What is required of a Christian citizen? How can voters base their decisions on God’s Word? What are you teaching your children, or communicating to others, about living as a Christian whether or not one’s government honors God?
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