You Can’t Vote for Jesus—Who Can You Vote For?

Image Attribution: Flickr/Mark Taylor under CC license. Original image edited.

The major parties have selected their presidential candidates and stood them up on the debate stage with much fan-fare. These, they say, are our best candidates. As the election approaches many of us Christians find ourselves hemming on this foot and hawing on the other. We do not like the one candidate but we fear the other. Both major candidates may scare us but not voting for one of them seems unthinkable. How can sincere Christians decide what to do? How can we know what choice is God honoring? How best may our liberties be defended?

Biblical Qualifications for Civil Servants

We don’t have to live in indecision and fear. We can honor God and defend liberty with our votes. The Bible has much to say about God’s qualifications for civil servants, for the types of men we should choose, and as Christians we should be quick to listen. The inestimable King David in his last words stated, “He that rules over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” This establishes a minimal standard for civil servants. If a man is not just and does not fear God he is not qualified to be in office. This is helpful to know and certainly narrows the field. If a man does not reflect these two qualifications we should not put him in office.

For a more detailed definition of necessary character qualities for civil servants (judges), we can look to Exodus 18. There we read that Moses was instructed to choose, “able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness” and place them in office over the nation. In case we missed it, both Scriptures demand the candidates fear God.

But, We Can’t Vote for Jesus…

Many of our Christian compatriots have worked to befuddle us with discussions about how these qualifications are subjective. Breathlessly, they remind us that there is no perfect candidate and that “we can’t vote for Jesus.” You would almost think God had erred when He told us to choose God-fearing men. These brethren seemingly cannot imagine any one who fears God other than Jesus—a peculiar turn in theology in itself. They point out that measuring fear of God, truthfulness, or ability are not mathematical. In this they are correct. When God laid out these standards, however, He also expected people to choose men who exemplified the attributes. He even gave two judges, Moses and Joshua, as examples of qualified men lest we think (as many now do) that such men would be impossible to select.  But the standards, be assured, are not impossible to fulfill. Able men who fear God do exist. We should be able to identify them if they run for office.

Growing Up is Hard to Do

Part of our problem with identifying men who are just, or able, or who fear God, is that we have not been taught to discern these virtues. We are unaware of the specifics of God’s law because no one has ever taught us His statutes. For the most part pulpits in America are no longer aflame with righteousness as they were two centuries ago. We are untaught in ideas of biblical liberty, and thus disarmed in the battle for liberty in our time. We have come to believe that righteousness is a concept applying only to personal behavior and not to our national character. We naval gaze concerning the inner man but accept the national shoulder shrug toward God and His law saying, “it’s a sign of the times.”

I fear we have become like those first century Christians addressed in the book of Hebrews:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil (Hebrews 5:12–14).

The word of righteousness the writer mentions is God’s word of righteousness. It is a word of righteousness defined as being past or beyond the milk of the word. We are not supposed to spend our entire lives doodling and dipping in warm milk doctrines. Our God expects us to become mature and to eat solid food. Once we have learned the “elementary principles” (doctrines about individual salvation, God’s ordinances, and the resurrection—Hebrews 6) we are to master knowledge needed to advance God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. This is no small task. It is the intensive work of a lifetime.

Silent & Whimpering Churches

Few of us have heard sound teaching about civil government, elections, biblical liberty, or the qualifications for civil magistrates discussed within our churches. We wait in vain for decades to hear a single sermon mentioning such crucial ideas. Many of us have come to believe that Scripture has nothing to say about the proper relationship between God and government. Fortunately the Bible is not as silent as many preachers. The wisdom of God shouts in the streets but whimpers in the pulpits. If we want to see the return of our fading liberties we need to hear the roar of uncompromised truth from the fronts of our churches. Some may call my public discussion of this issue unfitting but it is not. Patrick Henry proclaimed,

“Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.”

The words of this liberty man of the past speak just as urgently to us today. The desperate epoch into which we are entering will not be mitigated by any amount of coddling of those who have lured us into such a fateful sleep. Liberty and Christian governance may yet be restored but not by our silence.

Calling All Liberty Men!

Men who desire liberty must speak up for it. The Christian vote can be a means to restore righteousness and wise governance to our land. An impassioned Christian people unswerving in their commitment to obey God in all things can still move mountains. An electorate voting only for biblically-qualified candidates can help restore this republic and our liberties. Everyone has a part to play in the fight to renew liberty in America. We do not need merely a man or two to lead the charge, a Patrick Henry here or there. We need liberty men across the nation who will vote biblically, pray with us for better wisdom for our nation, and trust the God who rules nations to do what is good in His sight.