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The Garden-Kingdom
W. H. Chellis
The origin of civil power
As we continue to discuss the claims of Christ over the nations, let us spend a month considering the origins of civil government. Within the evangelical and reformed community it has become increasingly popular to view state authority as a product of the fall. This perspective is far from new but reflects the historic teaching of the Anabaptist movement. Since the Anabaptists considered civil authority to be an institution established in response to man’s sin, therefore they rejected Christian involvement in politics as worldly and sinful. The 1527 Schleitheim Confession declares:
Sixth. We are agreed as follows concerning the sword: The sword is ordained of God outside the perfection of Christ… In the Law the sword was ordained for the punishment of the wicked and for their death, and the same [sword] is [now] ordained to be used by the worldly magistrates.
Although less critical of Christian civil government, Pennsylvania’s “Quaking†founder William Penn (1644-1718) wrote in his Preface to the 1682 Charter of Liberties and Frame of Government of Pennsylvania in America:
When the great and wise God had made the world, of all his creatures, it pleased him to choose man his Deputy to rule it: and to fit him for so great a charge and trust… But lust prevailing against duty, made a lamentable breach upon it; and the law, that before had no power over him, took place over him, and his disobedient posterity, that such as would not live conformable to the holy law within should fall under the reproof and correction of the just law without, in a judicial administration.
Again, Penn points to mankind’s sinful rebellion as the origin of civil government. Hence, we inquire, is civil government a product of sin? Is the sword a necessary evil and therefore a vocation to be avoided by the godly? Should we wear rubber gloves into the voting booth and the jurors box?
According to the Anabaptist position, the sine qua non of civil power is the lawful use of the sword to impose order. If civil authority is defined by its relationship to sin, no civil authority could exist before the fall. It is precisely this assumption that this column intends to challenge, presenting and defending the biblical basis for recognizing civil authority as a Divinely instituted creation ordinance. As the German Reformed political theorist Johannes Althusius (1557-1638) wrote:
For all government is held together by imperium and subjection; in fact, the human race started straightway from the beginning with imperium and subjection. God made Adam master and monarch of his wife, and of all creatures born or descendent from her. Therefore all power is said to be from God.â€[i]
The cultural mandate
Undeniably, since the fall, God has ordained that order be preserved through the limited and lawful violence of the civil magistrates’ sword (Gen. 9:5,6; Rom. 13:4). According to Scripture, the power to rightly order society preceded the rebellion.
In Genesis 1:28 God commands, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.†Theologians often call this commandment the cultural mandate. Later we read that although Adam was to exercise dominion over the whole creation, God had separated a portion of that creation to be the special arena of His glory. “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.†(Genesis 2:8). Here man was to go about the work of building God’s kingdom, transforming the raw materials of the garden into a glorious garden-city (compare Gen. 3 and Rev. 22). Eden was a holy kingdom.
A priest over a garden-temple
Since God’s covenantal presence dwelt with man in the midst of Eden, the Garden was not only a holy kingdom but also a holy temple where God and men communed in covenant fellowship. As God dwells in holiness and cannot suffer the presence of sin, so Adam was charged with the priestly and kingly service of defending the garden from rebellion and evil.
When thinking of priestly duties, we envision the alter of bloody sacrifice where the old covenant priesthood meditated between God and Israel by typologically presenting the divine drama of substitutionary atonement. Interestingly, when the tribe of Levi was chosen to serve the Lord, it was because of their proficiency at shedding blood rather than their zeal for godly worship that was central. The tribe of Levi had a history of violence (Gen. 34:30,31). Their bloodshed brought a curse from the Patriarch Israel, but curse was ultimately turned to blessing at the foot of Mount Sinai (Gen. 49:5-7). It was the sword of Levi that heeded Moses call to slay the idolaters gathered around the golden calf (Ex. 32:26). The LORD God, who is a jealous God, had a need of such men. God was seeking men who would be violent in their defense of His holiness, men who would preserve the holy character of His true worship. Thus, God made Levi the priests of Israel (Deut. 33:8-11). Likewise in Eden, Adam served as a priest defending the holiness of God in the midst of the primeval garden-temple.[ii]
A king over a garden-kingdom
A priest over a garden-temple, Adam was also a king over a garden-kingdom preserving godly order within society. We might imagine that order sounds a bit confining for our sinless parents. Did they not enjoy perfect freedom? Our minds betray a modernist tendency to divorce law and liberty. Rather, in Christian thought, true liberty is freedom to be conformed to the law of God. This was true in the state of innocence, is true today, and will be true in glory. Our freedom in Christ is always an ordered liberty.
As Adam fulfilled God’s command to be fruitful and multiply, his immediate family would have developed into a tribe, his tribe into a nation, and his nation into a confederation of nations united in their exercise of godly dominion. Thus, the need for organizational, cultural, and political order would have multiplied. While there would have been no need to exercise civil authority to punish sin, there would have been a need to preserve order among competing forms of good. Covenanter theologian Samuel Rutherford (1660-1661) notes:
though man had never sinned there should have been a sort of dominion of the more gifted and wiser above the less wise and weaker; not antecedent from nature properly, but consequent, for the utility and good of the weaker, in so far as it is good for the weaker to be guided by the stronger, which cannot be denied to have some ground in nature. [iii]
The sword of the priest-king
Finally, against all theories which refuse to recognize civil authority as a holy, just, and good ordinance of creation, I wish to insist that Adam, even in the state of innocence, was given responsibility to exercises the sword in defense of godly order. Under Adam’s watchful care, a rebellious enemy attacked God’s holy garden-kingdom. By Satanic design, the lowly serpent rose up against the woman, and the woman, seduced by the serpent, rose up against her husband. The divinely established hierarchy of order was subverted. God’s holiness was impugned. What was Adam’s duty when he heard the lying words of the subversive serpent? Adam’s duty as the priest-king of Eden was to exercise the sword entrusted to him by God and to crush the head or the odious rebel.
[i] Johannes Althusius, Politica, (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1995), 20.
[ii] Priests also function as teachers of God’s law and leaders of public worship. In the state of innocence, Adam exercised these priestly duties as well.
[iii] Samuel Rutherford, Lex Rex or the Law and the Prince, (Harrison, Vg: Sprinkle Publications, 1982), 51
Christina Hitchcock
November 23rd, 2006 at 11:13 am
“Master and monarch of his wife”?? Can I please get some biblical evidence from Genesis 1-2 that this kind of authority was given to Adam?
The ideas of Adam as priest-king seem conjencture at best. Genesis 1-2 does not speak of Adam receiving a “sword,” either figuratively or literally. There are no commands charging Adam, or anyone in the Garden, with its defense from rebellion and evil. Adam is told to be obedient to God, to care for the Garden, to be fruitful and multiply, and to name the animals. It seems a lot is being read into the Genesis account here.
And lest we forget, Eve’s rebellion was not against Adam, it was against God.
Tom Muldoon
November 24th, 2006 at 8:59 pm
Bill, I think you are missing the point. Would you acknowledge that
crucifixion came after the fall?
Yet, Jesus Christ, the holiest of all, let Himself be crucified for our sins. Likewise, even if civil government involves bloody swords and messy compromises, the Christian may follow His Lord’s example of walking through the God-forsaken political landscape when the needs of Christ’s brethren call him to do so…. In the Army I consoled myself with the verse
from Psalm 65 “Iniquities are daily prevailing over me…”
Certainly God created man to have dominion, but to say that civil government existed before the fall, when there were just Adam, Eve, and the plants and animals, may be technically right but is also very funny. Did Adam
and Eve invent the bureaucracy?
Dave
December 2nd, 2006 at 1:54 pm
“Adam’s duty as the priest-king of Eden was to exercise the sword entrusted to him by God and to crush the head or[sic] the odious rebel.”
This would seem to introduce death into the perfect garden; I’m not sure I can see that happening outside of Adam’s rebellion (or Eve’s by proxy).
I understand “…as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin…” (Romans 5:12) to mean that there is an actual chronology. What I don’t understand is how the ramifications of Adam “exercising the sword” could be viewed in any other way than itself introducing death; and that in a way not provided for by the Genesis account.
Therefore, in the context of physical and spiritual death being a result of sin and rebellion, not antecedent to it, how would Adam have exercised the sword? Is it unreasonable to think that Adam should have simply rebuked (having authority to do so-Gen. 1:26) the serpent possessed of Satan?
Daniel Howe
December 5th, 2006 at 4:54 pm
What Bill writes is in substantial agreement with Christian theological reflection in the last two millenia, or so I gather from my very limited sampling of that tradition. It is completely rational to me to say that there was “civil government,” in some sense, in the Garden. O’Donovan points out that Christianity has basically located government in the act of judgment, which Adam was charged with doing (keep=guard the Garden from intruders, like the serpent). He failed to judge, and so was judged by God afterward. Abdication is the best way of putting this. Kline finds God’s judgment of Cain to be the first act of civil government, but I can’t see why it isn’t earlier. What is harder for me to see is that this “civil government” was not also sacral government. Adam had a priestly role as well as a kingly one.
Right: Eve did not rebel primarily against Adam, but against God. It would probably be better to view Adam and Eve as a unit, with Adam as head.
Mike M.
December 7th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I agree the law is gracious in nature in that it shows us how a Christian ought to live. However, the real question is the civil magistrate. Look at Gen 9:6. It is not until after the flood that the “sword” is delivered to the magistrate. Before the flood there is no authority for man to take the life of man for any reason. After the flood this changes. What does this mean? Well see also (Gal 3:19) because of sin the law was added. What law? Civil law. Further, prior to the bringing of a King each man did “what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 17:6). Now does that mean there was no magistrate? No, but the magistrate had been removed. If it had been removed it had once been in place, but when? There is an argument that at creation ‘go forth and subdue the Earth’ is the act of the magistrate, but it may also be the domain of the covenantal family (Adam of Eve). I would like to see the line of argument that addresses at what point was the civil magistrate granted authority. Clearly the “sword” was not added until after the flood.
MarkPele
December 8th, 2006 at 12:04 am
It seems that the death penalty is already in place at the time of Cain… Gen 4:14-”Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
Having said that, there are some very interesting arguments about the nature of the civil government. I would like to answer some of the smaller points.
1) The Bible doesn’t have to name civil government in Gen 1-2 for it to exist before the fall. There are many things that seem absent there that can be determined through a logical study of the post-Fall economy.
2) A quick read of Romans 13 says that the purpose of government is to restrain evil and to commend good. Since both evil and good existed pre-Fall, I don’t see why there is a compelling argument against the existence of government.
3) I think we are all equating ‘civil government’ with OUR notion of civil government - bureaucracy, corruption and politics. I think we can safely say that those are a result of the Fall and that a pre-Fall government would have none of the above.
4) While the world was in a sense perfect before the Fall, it was also, in a sense, incomplete. Man had a significant amount of work ahead of him in bringing all of creation in subjection to God. Since we expect that resource constraints are not a result of the Fall (hint: there were only two workers to tend the Garden), we can expect that there would always be some need for direction, which would be provided by…civil government.
W.H. Chellis
December 8th, 2006 at 9:33 am
Interesting discussion on this topic.
I agree with Mark when he says that Cain’s appeal to God suggests that the death penalty was already deeply embedded in the conscience of mankind. How could the fall not have provided such an effect?
Further, after Cain is driven from the city of God he builds a city of man (Enoch). Was Cain not a ruler, a civil governor, over this city?
Also, what of the Nephilim in the days before the flood? Who were these mighty men who filled the earth with violence?
Does the picture of the world before the flood suggest tyranical rulers whose bloodlust had institutionalized a system of anti-christ?
What then of the Noahic covenant and God’s command to use the sword? I would suggest that this is another indication of grace perfecting nature.
After the fall, mighty men used the sword to enforce their will. Lawful civil authority degenerated into tyranny. But, with the Noahic covenant, God establishes common grace. The institutions of creation are, in an explicit way, placed under the mediatorial authority of Jesus Christ. Nature, distorted by sin, will begin to be restored in Jesus Christ (redemptive grace). In the mean time, even tyrannical magistrates might be used by Christ to preserve order and establish some approximation of justice (common grace).
W.H. Chellis
December 8th, 2006 at 9:39 am
David,
Yours is a good question. It presumes that not only was there no human death before the fall but that there was no death at all. This is more than I know to be true. Yet, it is possibly true and, if so, your question is warrented.
Of course, the fact that no death existed before the fall does not mean that the THREAT of death did not exist. It certainly did. The death penalty was promised for those who broke God’s covenant. If Adam, as federal head were to break the covenant, all would be imputed to have broken the covenant. In some sense this would include the lower kingdoms (animals, ect.).
The account tells us that the snake rose up from his lowely place in the order of being and encouraged the woman to rebel against her more exalted state as well. Neither the sin of the snake or the woman had federal implicatons. Yet, they had broken the covenant and were deserving of death. That death would not be imputed beyond themselves, but they were deserving of death none-the-less. As caretaker of the garden, I think it is wholly reasonable for Adam to have inflicted the sentence of death upon the snake before he seduced the woman.
Mike Muller
December 8th, 2006 at 11:13 am
In response to Mark & Bill,
Gentlemen, the argument that Cain was in fear of death may suggest the establishment of civil authority or it may only reflect the effects of sin and tyrannical rule by the deprived in the absence of such authority. Either case is an argument from silence unless someone can site a reference (the nearest being the post flood mentioned previously).
On another related note is the question of “No death before Adam”. I realize this is a hot topic at the moment, but it does relate to the civil magistrate as well. Clearly there was no human death before Adam (hence the nature of the curse) though the threat of death remained, but what about animal death. If there was animal death the civil authority over the serpent would be unmistakable, but if not the contrary case can be made (the creation was ‘good’ and did therefore did not require civil governance). On a side note I ask this question to solve the question of teeth in carnivores before the fall.
W.H. Chellis
December 8th, 2006 at 11:34 am
Again, what is the nature of civil government for a sinless people? My article roots it in the need for hierarchical order toward good. Sure, when the fall occured there were only two living people. It could have, hypothetically, been otherwise. As the family grew into a clan, and a clan grew into a tribe, and the tribe grew into a nation, order would be necessary. This order is the origin of civil government.
Remember, Rom 13 says that civil magistrates reward the good as well and punish evil. Was there no room for rewarding the good before the fall?
In the end, it does not matter whether animals died before the fall or not (if they did not does this make Christian vegetarianism a biblical duty?). The threat of death was given for disobedience. If Adam disobeyed, one would assume that God alone could enforce the threat… He alone was Adam’s superior. But if an animal rebelled (like a snake for instance) is it not possible that God’s vice-gerent would exercise the sword in His stead? I think it is very plausable. So, even if animals did not die natural deaths, they might still have died through there own individual sin.