As we approach the Fourth of July holiday, celebrating the birth of our American Republic, I am reminded of the greater republic which preceded and helped to inspire ours. This is not just idle babble either. Rather, it is the re-introduction of Biblical ideas that we desperately need to bring back to rebuild the civil government. This is no small thing, nor is it a futile dream that has no chance. It is, in fact, the fulfillment of God’s own revealed plan for human government in the nations. It is a wedge, a fine Christian, Biblical, wedge, that ought to be used to split away the church from the surrounding unchristian culture and its wicked governments. It is a return to the original intent of our Christian founders, and offers an entry point for the return of the gospel and Godly rule in our country. All of this babble inspires grand thoughts of success for the church and righteous government returning in our time.

In our era we generally suppose our form of government to have been an invention of genius minds (some modern historians may say, evil-genius minds) compiling the best of what they could conceive. We have sometimes heard that our form of government was unprecedented in its construction, and a marvel of the centuries. While I am all for expressions of gladsome praise for our original Constitutional structures, I am not convinced they were without an historic pattern. Some historians inform us that our founding fathers looked to Greece and Rome for their inspiration. Perhaps a few did, but the model to which they more closely adhered was the Hebrew republic founded under Moses and Joshua. The Bible is by far the book most quoted by America’s founders. These were men of the Book and the government they set up reflected Biblical wisdom for civil governance. It was normal in America at that time to view the Old Testament as being the best Word for informing our law and civil affairs. Hence, it was the place to search when designing the legal structure for this fledgling nation.

The republican form of government, as we know it, is representative (not democratic) so that a selected group of leaders make national decisions. Those leaders may be selected by popular consent, but decisions about specific laws are not voted on by everyone. Thus, in a republic, it is not a single king or ruler who decides policy, nor is it a vote of every man, rather it is the vote of representatives of the people who make decisions for the nation.

Under Biblical design representative government is exactly the type of government God established for our example. We can see the nation of Israel operating under this concept in the Old Testament stories. For instance when Joshua presided over the division of Israel, described in Joshua 18:4-5, where seven tribes had yet to receive their tribal lands, the text reads,

Provide for yourselves three men from each tribe that I [Joshua] may send them, and that they may arise and walk through the land and write a description of it according to their inheritance; then they shall return to me. And they shall divide it into seven portions…

So, the people were to select three men from each tribe, but Joshua was to “send them”, words which I understand to mean there was a consecration, a sending, as the men went forth to represent their respective tribes. The governmental work of dividing up the land was not done by Joshua alone, and it was not done by democratic vote. It was accomplished through representatives under the authority of an executive (Joshua) and the election of the people. This is an example of their republic in action. There are many other references to the chiefs of the people or of the princes and how they interacted on behalf of the people. All of these were a model for American thought during our founding period helping to keep us from the despotism of a too strong central authority or from the mob-rule of a democracy. It takes into account the sin nature of man and restrains that nature.

Israel also provided the original example of ‘We the People’ through their covenantal oaths at the outset of their national experiment. Though they were twelve tribes, God treated them as a single nation traveling together in a single cause in a united land.

These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb (Deuteronomy 29:1)

When the writers of our Constitution opened their now renowned document with We the People they were not recalling Rome or Greece. In those nations it was not We the People who established the nation or exercised its highest powers. The pagan nations could never long maintain a happy combination of representative government with an executive head. They were forever tortured between the oppressions of violent, lawless monarchs or the tyranny of anarchy. Righteous government was not possible because unredeemed nations lack the wisdom and morals to conceive it. It was the Hebrew republic that defined and gave example for a righteous civil government. We the People, is a term used to describe that uniting of individual free states under a Godly, covenantal structure.

While a great deal more could be said, I will mention only that the Hebrew republic was united under a single system of unchanging law. That law was given to Moses and to the people as God’s very will and definition of justice for their all nations. Nations come and go, but God’s law remains forever. The law that God gave Moses was the same law David meditated on day and night. It is the same law that would free our nation from its endless thousands of conflicting and cruel statutes.

During the founding era of our nation the broadly accepted law commentary was Blackstone’s. Blackstone assumed everywhere in his commentary that the law of Moses was entirely valid and still the only right basis for any nation. God’s law was assumed as the foundation for common law rulings. It was the law of the people and the law of our land in the early years. As we became more atheistic and godless we traded God’s law, the law of the Hebrew republic, for man made statute law. Now we are oppressed by an unending myriad of statutes that bind us hand and foot with every foolish notion to make its way through Washington.

These concepts, along with several others were the guiding light for the structure of our republic. The founders patterned the government of our republic after that of the Hebrews. These principles of right and wisdom for nations are still available to us today. We have improved our technologies, but we have forgotten many of the truly important things. If we will once again be a blessed people, we must return to our God and the revealed precepts for civil authority, justice, and liberty found in His Word. These are the principles that will free our nation and help bring back the fresh air of liberty and prosperity many of us so long to breathe. It is never too late to return to God and His wisdom for nations. It is Biblical hope and change that that has the power to bring happiness to the nations.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach

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