I want to post something I just wrote for a friend of mine. To put it in context, I had previously appealed to Revelation 18:4 as a command from Christ that Christians withdraw their consent from the state, and he replied that Revelation was too difficult of a book to interpret to stake such a belief on. He mentioned people in some third world countries suffering unspeakable violence and being desperate for a more powerful state to administer justice. The following was my reply:
It's not just in Revelation, it's all throughout the Bible, beginning to end. From the line of Cain who founded the first city-states, to Nimrod, to Babel, to Pharaoh, and every other Empire. The Israelites themselves were in the very position you describe, as a third world nation desperate for a far more powerful institution of justice administered by the state. God famously rebuked them for this in 1 Samuel 8 (where taxes, eminent domain, and conscription are all among the sins he tells them the king will commit). And that was not the first time--see the parable of the trees in Judges 9. Satanic power behind the state is seen in the Old Testament (Job 1:15, 17; Daniel 10:13, 20-21), as well as the New. It isn't just in hard-to-interpret books like Revelation, but also in the Gospels, where we see that Satan is not just in control of a kingdom here and there, but all the kingdoms of the world (Matthew 4:8). When Paul says that the wisdom of God is something "none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." does he mean that the rulers of this age are earthly political rulers (in which case, notices the all-inclusiveness of his words), or demonic ones (such as he often means by this language)? I think it's ambiguous because in Paul's thinking the demons and the earthly political rulers are essentially two facets of the same cosmic criminal gang.
The Beast of Revelation doesn't refer to every state in a literal way. But he isn't unique in being evil. He is (or was or will be) only the evil state par excellence. All the other states that have ever existed belong to the same basic category.
Peel back the causes behind the unspeakable violence suffered by the people you're talking about, and you will find that it came about through the effects of colonialism, or war, or a former violent state-regime in that territory, or rebellion against such a regime, or in some other way the activities of the state.
Like ancient Israel, these people may look to other peoples with powerful rulers subjugating them, and say they want to be more like them. But, like Israel, they're mistaken if they think the way to peace is through violence. And when you advocate for a state, you are always, by definition, advocating for violence. The use of deadly force to compel the submission of people who would otherwise choose something else is the defining essence of the state. Human relationships and groups that are characterized by wholly voluntary participation, though they may rightly be called governments, could never be called states.
And this gets back to my final, and most unassailable, biblical argument. If there is one grand unifying motif in biblical political ethics, it is that God does not have a double standard, or to use the biblical idiom, he is no respecter of persons. The meaning of this is that God holds kings to the very same laws he holds everyone else. If anything is a sin when the commoner does it, it is a sin when the king does it. There does not exist some subset of the population who have the moral right to do what would be theft if you or I did it, and simply to call it taxation when they do it, and not be morally guilty of theft. Likewise, if conscription or compulsory education would be kidnapping when you or I as individuals imposed them on our neighbors, then they cannot become morally allowable when the state does them. Significantly, when the Herodians (i.e. the statists) asked Jesus their question about paying taxes, they premised their question saying, "We know you are no respecter of persons," implying that Caesar should have no right to collect other peoples' money beyond what right any of the rest of us have, and Jesus never disputed that premise, a detail which readers sadly often miss.
Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant." (Matthew 20:25-26). Notice, he allows for no exceptions in his description of what the nations' rulers do. He is portraying their very essence. Notice also that he orders us not to do the same. How could we possibly obey this order if we try to adopt the state, and the tools it uses to lord it over its subjects, as the means by which we improve this world?
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Originally Posted by erowe1
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