How would He govern? (God vis-a-vis world)

The reason that Jesus' ethics in the Sermon on the Mount only seem to give us a partial sense of how a Christian would govern is because his words, like those of so much of the New Testament, were aimed at the governed rather than the governing. Jesus, Paul, Peter and others presume that the situation in which the Christian will find him or herself is one in which the governing force is either completely independent of or more likely hostile toward him/her.

Jesus' words on turning the other cheek picture a person in the role of the slapped. Paul draws a sharp dichotomy between church and state in his comment that we make judgments in the church but that God will judge the world--leave it to Him (1 Cor. 5). Hebrews and 1 Peter both picture the Christian as the stranger and alien on the earth, not as the emperor or senator.

On the one hand, the love ethic--love God and love others--is the greatest absolute of the Christian ethic. God gives no exceptions to this rule, so we can set down the first rule of Christian governance. A Christian will govern with a view to the benefit of those within as well as without.

As a side note, it does seem likely to me that for God, His justice ultimately does triumph over His mercy if there is a hell without the possibility of repentance. God is not bound by some abstract "rule" that says He doesn't really want to send people to hell, but He has no choice. If God is God, He has a choice. If God consigns individuals irrevocably to hell, then He must ultimately consider love of Him a priority over love of others.

But I believe the opposite priority is in force on earth. On earth, mercy should triumph over justice. The cross is the ultimate demonstration of this principle.

Of course it is true also that God occasionally does seem to enact justice before mercy on earth as well. While He most of the time gives us a chance to repent up until our deaths, Ananias and Sapphira were immediately taken from the earth. Similarly, if there is such a thing as the unpardonable sin, it is an irrevocable instance of God's justice set in stone on earth. In general, we might suppose that there are people who we observe to be unwaveringly unrepentant. Has God withdrawn the grace that leads to repentance from such individuals? In other words, is this the triumph of justice over mercy even on the earth and before the final judgment?

To return to our subject, the teachings of Jesus while on earth and those of the other New Testament authors do not address as directly the question of governance as they do the question of those governed. A nation will not turn the other cheek long before it makes the transition from the governing to the governed. "If someone shoots an ICBM at the east coast, give the coordinates to the west coast as well"? If this is the Christian way to govern, then Christians will not govern for long. Some take this position--Christians simply should not get involved in governance.

But I would suggest that the most appropriate model God gives us for how a Christian would govern is not Jesus' ethical teaching aimed at the disempowered.

Similarly, I would suggest that it is not God's relationship with Israel that provides the model either. On the one hand, I have already suggested several clear differences between our situation and that of God's relationship with ancient Israel. We have no Moses. We have no biblical basis for thinking ourselves a chosen nation over other nations. And the New Testament modifies several Old Testament laws beyond continuance.

Further, the relationship between God and Israel is more analogous to that of Christ and the church than to that of God and the world. Although Israel often did not keep the covenant, Israel represented those who were "in," as the church (also full of sinners) represents those who are putatively "in."

But a nation like America is not a gathering of those who are "in." It is a mixture of the ins and outs.

In the end, it is the relationship between God and the world or that of the risen Lord and the world that is a closer model. In other words, the biblical model that comes closest to that of a Christian governing a society is that of God governing the world, a world both with people who serve Him and a preponderance of those who don't.