I recently watched the movie produced by Grace Community Church titled “The Essential Church”. It is a two hour documentary presenting facts of the events that took place in 2020 when Grace Community Church was forced to close its doors. It was an incredibly well-done film that I highly recommend you either watch at your local theater or obtain a copy if and when GCC makes it available digitally. The film presented a few significant over-arching ideas that I believe any American and certainly, and most importantly, any Christian should take into serious, prayerful consideration:
First, Freedom of Assembly. It is a lawful right that only a very small percentage of countries have. As we see persecution and hate of the Christian faith increase in Western societies and ramp in up other societies it wouldn’t be far-fetched to consider the question, “what if the freedom to gather and worship God becomes unlawful in my country?” The short answer is simple — that right is worth protecting. The constitutional right of Freedom of Assembly, to the Christian, means more than protecting our personal human rights, it is a fight for the freedom to worship The Almighty God among fellow believers. It is the right to visit the elderly and sick to sing hymns with them, pray over them, and witness to them. It is the right to do what God commands us to do in Hebrews 10:25, “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near” so that we can Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. This verse commands Christians to continue to encourage and lift up fellow followers of Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:11). and help each other grow in the Lord “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another (Proverbs 27:17)”. If church services, Bible studies, and fellowship activities are outlawed, what do we do then? Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s right? Doesn’t the Bible tell us to obey our governing authorities? It does. However, though we must not stir up chaos, initiate violence (verbally and physically) and be unlawful, if the laws of governing authorities blatantly go against God’s commands then it is our duty as children of God to say respectfully and ardently, “NO”. The movie brings up this very important distinction by referring to Acts 5 that tells us we must obey God rather than Man, and Romans 13 where it tells us to obey our governing authorities and those that don’t will incur judgement. At first glance, it would seem that the two commands contradict one another. With God’s Word, the things that ‘seem’ contradictory actually are not so at all if you dig deeper into the context of the entire Bible and the attributes of God which is revealed in the Word of God. In other words, practice good exegesis. All of scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16-17) and God, being perfect in justice (Deuteronomy 32:4) and wisdom (Romans 11:33), God cannot contradict Himself (Hebrews 6:18).
So which is it, Acts 5 or Romans 13? First, here are examples in the Bible of civil disobedience:
- The apostles in the book of Acts preached The Gospel even though the government authorities had told them they shouldn’t and were subsequently thrown in jail. Multiple times the Apostle Paul was also charged with civil disobedience for preaching and thrown in jail when Paul refused to comply.
- The midwives in Exodus refused to kill the baby boys.
- In the book of Daniel, right after they made the law that prayer was forbidden, Daniel opens his windows, kneels down prays.
- Also in the book of Daniel you have Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that wouldn’t bow down to the physical idol of the Babylonian golden statue
- In the book of Esther, she is told by her Uncle Mordecai that she shouldn’t go to the king when not bid to because she was going to be killed for breaking the law. Esther’s response was basically, so be it. And she breaks the law, willing to risk her life to save her people. In God’s providence, the king mercifully raises the golden scepter and spares her.
- The foreign wise men who had come to worship Jesus outright ignored King Herod’s commands to return and tell him where Jesus is located (so that he can kill Jesus). The wise men simply took a different route home so that Herod wouldn’t be able to pursue them.
In all of these examples, the godly men and women were never rude, confrontational, seditious, or rebellious. They would firmly resist Man’s commands but still obeying God’s command to honor governing authorities by their respectful approach. We can still honor our government when we are disobeying a particular law that goes against the commands of God. We pray for our government leaders’ salvation and wisdom, we uphold other laws that don’t break God’s commands, we approach and converse with authorities with wisdom and restraint of emotion, we conduct ourselves peacefully and respectfully without violent speech or actions, we don’t organize large protests and riots that would disturb the peace of communities, and so on. I’ll make the point again, that this was modeled by our Savior Jesus Christ and the Apostles. They preached even when it was against the law, yet they did not rise up in violence against their oppressive rulers. They trusted God for protection and lived in faith that their true life and home awaited them beyond their own deaths. Many people in our country, The United States, believe that violence and seditious rebellion are warranted when a law made by the government is unconstitutional. Now, let me say that I was grew up in The United States by immigrant parents who became US citizens shortly after we came here. I was raised during a time when American patriotism was valued in schools and society and my classmates and I, lead by the teacher, would begin every school day right up through college with The United States of America Pledge of Allegiance. In Elementary and Middle school we’d have regular events where at the opening of the events our entire school would sing “God Bless America” and other such songs. I love my country USA. I understand the anger and feelings of injustice that arise when authorities demand citizens to follow something that clearly goes against God. But that never permits us to break God’s commands in order to exalt His authority. As a country, we are a Representative Republic by identity and we have a Democratic system. Under that system, citizens cannot just decide for themselves that a law is unconstitutional and violently oppose the government willy-nilly. It is immature and bafoonish, first of all, and secondly we have a great system in place (albeit is undeniably infiltrated with corruption) to oppose something we believe is unconstitutional. We must appeal to the courts. We have a right biblically and legally to take our grievances to court and let the court system decide, all the while trusting the providence of God in the process; yielding to the government’s right to punish us if that is how it plays out.
Now let’s look at why Acts 5:29 (obey God rather than Men) supercedes Romans 13 (obey governing authorities). In Genesis, when Eve was deceived by the serpent and Adam failed to protect his wife from the enemy they ate of the forbidden fruit. When God confronted Adam with the responsibility of the grievace sin of both Eve and Adam (because he is head of his house) what did Adam do? He blamed his wife. God also confronted Eve. What did she do when God called her to account for her part in the sin? She blamed outside circumstances, the serpent, for deceiving her. Even though Adam had authority over his wife, by God’s design, he still had to be accountable to God for the way he led and protected her. Even though Eve had the ‘covering’, if you will, of her husband she was still responsible for her sin as an individual. God was and is the ultimate authority, yet neither of them took responsibility for their sinning against their Holy God. Adam and Eve each had terrible consequences for their sin which was passed down to humankind from there on (original sin). Whether we are the instigator of sin or whether we sin as a result of something “forced” on us (perceivably), we will be responsible to God for both our willingness to sin or our willingness to go along with something that which we knew to be sin. And what is sin? Any action or thought that goes against what God is clearly against which is revealed to us in the complete work of The Bible. If God commands us not to neglect gathering together with one another to worship and sit under the expository teaching of a sound preacher to hear and go deeper into The Gospel, and sharpen each other in faith through fellowship as a congregation, then we cannot disobey those commands of God to obey Man’s law because it prohibits Christians to obey the Word of God.
Why did Romans 13 make the obedience of governing authorities so serious then? If we take the text for face value, it would be an easy decision to say what ever law is made by human authorities we must obey no matter what. But how do we reconcile that with Acts 5 and so many other Bible passages that tell us to obey God over Man? The answer is how you view the sovereignty and headship of Jesus over his church. We know from verses like Psalm 118:22, 1 Corinthians 11:3, Colossians 1:18, Ephesians 1:22 and most famously Ephesians 5:23, and more, all tell us that Jesus Christ is the head of the church. There is no true “Christian nation” or government, even if it was first founded upon biblical beliefs. This world is ruled by satan and the government is often a vehicle for his influence in the world; we see evidence of that more and more in these times due to God’s judgement over a nation that has turned its back on Him. Eternally speaking, this is also what we ought to expect because God is separating the wheat from the tares, even among those in the church who are deceived by false doctrine (Matthew 13:24–43; also see this on Martin Luther’s teaching about this passage). Therefore, as Christians we should expect opposition as the Bible tells us (they hate you because they hated Me first, John 15:18) and understand that we are living in exile in “Babylon” no matter what country you live in. Our ultimate citizenship is in God’s Kingdom — we are merely soujourners who are subject to our authorities with allegiance to our respective country because that is where we are placed on earth until we get to Heaven. But our true and permanent allegiance is in Jesus Christ, in His Kingdom (see 1 Peter 2:11). That is key. Government is a God-ordained instrument on earth to restrain the true evil that mankind has in their hearts (see 1 Peter 2:13 and 2 Thessalonians 2:7). To think that with all that is going on in the world, God in his grace is restraining that from all it could actually be, it ought to make us shudder in terror and grateful that we have our eternity secure because of our hope in Christ, the embodiment of Hope who has made a place for us in a Kingdom where there is no pain, no sorrow, no suffering; no sin… but I digress.
John 19:11 says, “Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” You see what Jesus did there? With clear and Holy defiance Jesus made three points to Pontius Pilate:
- The authority that Pilate had over Jesus while he was on earth was a common grace given by God (“unless it had been given you from above)
- Because of the sin of unjust death penalty, and against the Son of God no less, it is actually Pilate that is committing the crime, unbeknownst to Pilate because of his own spiritual blindness.
- Pilate may have temporal authority, but Jesus being fully God and fully man, had eternal authority over all things for all time because He is God, Creator and Sustainer of all the universe.
Furthermore, Colossians 2:10 says, “and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; So Jesus’s, God’s authority supercedes ALL rule and authority. He is the ultimate authority, no if’s and’s or but’s! The Bible tells us that government is to help preserve order and people’s ability to live “peaceful and quiet lives,” in Paul’s words, in a sinful world. Yes, we are to be lawful citizens unto Caesar. But when mankind’s governance perpetuates evil and rebellion against God we look not to Caesar but to God for what to do. Again, that does not mean we take up arms and go looking for trouble or revenge — the Bible is very clear about that. When we are faced with the decision that we must disobey the government for the sake of obedience to the head of our church, Jesus Christ, we must not do so in haste or do so gleefully. We must proceed in a sober fashion, carefully thinking and praying through our action. In The Essential Church movie, there was actually quite a bit of disunity among the 40-man Elder Board of Grace Community Church. They did not take their decision to go against the State lightly or hastily. They held meetings for weeks upon weeks leading into months to discuss, pray, and weigh the consequences with scripture. Their hearts were pained. Some Elders resigned as a result of their differing views. But after much deliberation and pouring over the scriptures, they finally arrived at the conclusion that Jesus is the head of the church and the governing authority of Caesar is its own system and the governing authority of God over His chosen people is His own — church and government is not a unilateral system (see Mark 12:17). God does have sovereignty over government and allows the government to operate how He sees fit for His purposes.
What can we conclude about the importance of gathering in church? It’s more weighty than something you ‘have’ to do as your religious duty on Sunday. It’s more than a gathering of people you are fond of (or at least tolerate). It is a command from God for our good and His glory and from this gathering God promises in His Word that whenever two or more are gathered He is there in their midst. It is where He refreshes, empowers, renews, and edifies His people and connects them with one another for the sake of His purposes and unifying His people under one banner of Truth. That is what the Freedom of Assembly truly stands for. We must stand on God’s truth and protect it at the risk of humiliation and persecution just as Grace Community Church did, for the glory of God for the display of Jesus as head of HIS church.
Here is my brief review of the movie
Here is a wonderful interview of John MacArthur by Justin Peters about the movie (note: this video is over an hour long — very much worth watching, but expect to sit a while)