Sins in the market, conclusion

How do you reconcile your belief in unregulated free-market capitalism as a divine protection against tyranny, with the fact that so many of the most profitable commodities in a capitalist market are the ones that appeal to our very basest and most disordered desires (drugs, p&rn, etc.)?

It is true that there is a lot of money to be made in the market by catering to people's sinful desires. Christians are, of course, forbidden to be the ones to make this money.

But remember that many items are multi-purpose. A gun may be used to murder, or it may be used to hunt for food to provide for one's family. A pencil may be used to draw a pornographic drawing, or to write an evangelistic sermon. Radio may be used to play music advocating violence, or to preach the Gospel. The Internet ... well, you already know about the Internet.

People all the time use good things that God has created for evil purposes. The free market is one of them. Evil people may prosper in this world, but in the end, the pleasures of sin are only for a season. None of this is an argument for getting rid of the free market, especially since God commanded it.

Judge not

Do Christians have the right to govern? We've already seen that they do not. We've also seen that governing other people is immoral unless they agree to participate, and that restricting people's liberty like this is bad for the prosperity of society, because it's bad economics. (Basically it's socialism, even if you like to call it "democracy" and pretend it is "liberty.")

But people have the right to establish whatever voluntary associations they want. The members of those associations may delegate their authority to those associations. So, they may give or loan some of their property to the group. They may empower the group to act in their defense. They may not legitimately have the group take what doesn't belong to its members, or use force against non-members for purposes other than defense of rights. (If they do, they have founded a criminal organization, like the Mafia, even though (like the Mafia) the group may go around telling everybody that it is "protecting them" and so they need to "pay up," calling itself "the state" to pretend it is something other than a criminal organization.)

As a Christian, I take Jesus Christ as my King. (Contrary to popular premillenial theology, the Bible teaches that Jesus is sitting on the throne now and that Christians are members of His kingdom in the present tense, not waiting for it in the future. See Colossians 1:13.) With the Lord as my King, I submit to His commandments, and His administration. We won't study all that the Bible has to say about church organization here, nor cover the differences of opinion within different churches on the subject, but the Bible indicates Jesus commands that I be part of a church or congregation, and subject to the leadership of that congregation, which from my reading I understand to be a group of bishops. The exact organization of your church may vary somewhat from mine, and I'm not going to debate that here, but either way, we are each part of what is essentially a voluntary association of human beings. We are all of us members of our churches voluntarily; for the most part, nobody is a member of a particular church because they were told to be. And to some extent, we are governed by our churches.

Rather than defending my rights, the leadership of my church is empowered to "watch for my soul" (Hebrews 13:17). They have a handful of tools, a set of authorizations from the Lord, in order to accomplish this. The primary method is by teaching. But if I should start having problems in my spiritual walk, they are then supposed to rebuke me. However, they are not permitted to use force against me. Their job is persuasion, not compulsion. They aren't told they can imprison me or fine me (Acts 5:4) to try to get me to do what is right. At the last, if I refuse to repent, they are empowered to put me out of the church. This process is described in I Corinthians 5:5 as "delivering such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." Once a person has been put out, he is treated "as a heathen and a tax collector" (Matthew 18:17).

Outside of the church, the church has no power whatsoever to judge. This is explained in the rest of I Corinthians 5, which purposely specifies that this limited judging power of the church is only employed against believers:

9 I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;
10 I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world.
11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.

So the Bible is very clear: Christians are governed by their churches, but not permitted to judge those outside. Within the church, you may confront someone about their immorality, teach them, persuade them, rebuke them, and encourage them to repent. But if you are passing laws that punish immorality for people outside of the church, you are in violation of I Corinthians 5. You are judging outsiders. God judges those people. Leave them alone.

Sins in the market

How do you reconcile your belief in unregulated free-market capitalism as a divine protection against tyranny, with the fact that so many of the most profitable commodities in a capitalist market are the ones that appeal to our very basest and most disordered desires (drugs, p&rn, etc.)?

As long as this world lasts we are going to be struggling with the problem of sin. And the solution to sin is always going to be Jesus Christ. "There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved." (Acts 4:12) Jesus is the sacrifice for sin, "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." (John 1:29) Moreover, those who receive Jesus will have God, the Father, and the Holy Spirit living within them (John 14:23), which is how they will begin to have the power to resist sin, by virtue of the fact that over time they will become more and more like Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29).

God's word has been sent out into this world with this purpose, and it will not fail (Isaiah 55:11). God's power to save is the Gospel, a message -- not force (Romans 1:16).

Any other proposed solution to the sin problem will be substandard. God's word is more powerful than all the other solutions we can imagine. It is more effective to preach God's word to a sinner than it is to force that sinner to stop his sin. We can change a man's outward behavior, but it is God's word that reaches the heart. Moreover, a sinner who stops sinning is still not saved. His guilt will only be taken away by Jesus. Until then, "all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment" (Isaiah 64:6). His garments are dirty, and ceasing to apply more dirt will not make them cleaner. He needs to be cleaned.

Government is not the solution to the sin problem. It will not work because it can only affect outward behavior. It will not work because it cannot reach the heart. It will not work because it cannot atone for sin. And it will not work because it cannot accomplish a transformation of a person's character into the image of Jesus Christ.

But even more specifically, this avenue is forbidden to us. I Corinthians 5:10-13 prohibits us from executing judgment against those outside the church. We're not allowed to interfere with the behavior of those people. We're required to allow them to go on their way, abandoning them Satan, with the hopes that the destruction of this world will inspire them to seek salvation in Christ. More on this later this week, I hope.

But the free-market is not the solution to this either. The free market is simply the way God has mandated for us to handle property. He mandated this when He commanded "Thou shalt not steal," and He confirmed it when He taught through the apostle Peter that property belongs to its owner, to be done with as the owner (not the electorate) wills (Acts 5:4).

That does not mean the free market solves all our problems. It just means that it's the best way we can live in this fallen world. The free market will not eliminate scarcity, but it has been proved to achieve the best allocation of our scarce resources in order to meet the most wants. Thankfully the free market allows us to use our time, property, and other resources to bring about true change through the preaching of the Gospel, using the power of Jesus Christ to transform people's wants. When the market is not free, the interference constitutes economic waste. That's waste that could be put to better use. And without freedom, people have the right to vote on whether or not we can share the Gospel, how we can share it, and what portions of it we can share.

For whatever reason, God gave us liberty to sin. And He does not empower us in any passage of Scripture that I am aware of to take that liberty away from anyone else.

Covetousness as national policy

It dismays me how often I hear Christians appealing to covetousness as a basis for laws and regulations. How often have you gotten email forwards appealing to you to try to punish gasoline companies for high prices? Usually these emails propose some kind of boycotting scheme which honestly is not rooted in rational economic thought -- the proposed plan would usually alter but not diminish demand for gasoline, and so prices would not be affected. Or how often do you hear people, often Christians, complaining about Wal-Mart or other large companies, basically for having too much money, for being too successful?

All of these appeals have their base in covetousness -- wanting that which is not ours, and being upset that somebody has something which we do not. With these attitudes, we are prey for politicians who want to expand government power in our name, at the expense of the economic prosperity of our nation, our neighbors, and ourselves, and as well as at the expense of doing what is right and Godly.

God's word couldn't be more clear about covetousness. "Thou shalt not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exodus 20:17). "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, and you shall not desire anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Deuteronomy 5:21). "I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be covetous" (I Corinthians 5:11 -- wow!). "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth: covetousness, which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:5). I encourage you to go look for the word "covetousness" in your New Testament yourself, because there are some other very shocking and damning things God has to say about it.

In the Old Testament, covetousness was not to be used as the basis of policy, or as the basis for the decisions of the judges. We're encouraged today to try to use the sword of the government as a weapon to make those who have (we're led to believe that they have because they stole ... this may sometimes be the case, but usually if they did steal it was government doing the stealing for them) share with those who have not (often they have not because government stole from them, too ... or because government stole from those who would've employed them, or made laws against trading with them). While we are supposed to be compassionate to the poor with our own money, we are not to violate the principles of justice and private property to do it. "You shall not follow a multitude in doing evil, nor shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after a multitude in order to pervert justice; nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his dispute." (Exodus 23:2-3) God anticipated this urge to favor the poor and steal from the rich to "help." This is prohibited. If you want to help the poor, do so with what God has given you and use the power of the Gospel to preach that others should do the same.

Finally, check out Acts 5:4. This is the case of somebody who had property that could've been used to help the poor. Acts 5:4 teaches us God's inviolable principle of private property: "While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control?" You'll want to read the context of this yourself in order to fully understand the story. The church didn't get to vote on making members sell property and give to the poor. The church didn't get to use the government to get around this restriction, either.

Do Christians have the right to govern?

God states in Romans 13 that all governments which exist have been established by Him. He did not say that He established only democracies, or only monarchies, or only good governments, or only those that are established on the principles of His word. In fact, He says this about the Roman empire -- a government which practiced nearly every form of depravity and oppression imaginable.

Clearly when God says He established governments, He was not saying that He sanctions all of their actions. Instead, God declares throughout Scripture that He uses governments, just as He uses the actions of all men, good and evil, to bring about His will. The Lord causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). God raised up Pharaoh of the hard heart and established him as an oppressive ruler of His own people in order to display His glory and majesty (Exodus 9:13-17). God used arrogant Nebuchadnezzar to discipline His people, Judah. (In fact, even though He tried desperately in the book of Daniel to call Nebuchadnezzar unto Himself, He also declared in Isaiah 14 that He would punish Babylon for this sin of rising up against His people. The action was wicked. The result was used by God for good. But those who took the wicked action bore their guilt.) God used Judas to betray the Lamb of God for crucifixion.

So God commands Christians to submit to government, and declares that He uses government and has established it Himself, but does not sanction everything governments do or declare them to be perfect.

Are Christians permitted to govern other people?

To ask this is to ask the question: are Christians permitted to engage in the actions that governments engage in?

We have already seen that Christians may not engage in taxation because Christians are not permitted to take what does not belong to them.

God has placed a sword in the hand of government in order to punish evil (Romans 13:4). May Christians punish those who practice evil?

What is a Christian supposed to do to someone who practices evil in the church? The most famous passage about this is found in Matthew 18:14-20: Christians are to reprove other Christians when they practice evil, first privately, then with witnesses, with the intent of restoring the wayward Christian so that he will not be lost. Ultimately if a Christian will not repent of practicing evil, he is to be put out of the church. This practice may also be seen in I Corinthians 5 and I Timothy 1:20, where it is referred to as "delivering a person to Satan," and again in these passages the idea is that the person is put out of the church, back into the world tormented by Satan, with the hope that he will repent after such a consequence and be restored to fellowship. (You might also see I John 5:16-17.)

What about a person outside of the church? Christians are absolutely forbidden to judge those outside of the church. I Corinthians 5:9-13 declares: "I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges." Persons outside of the church cannot be "delivered to Satan" (put out of the church), because they are already in the grasp of Satan.

So, for those inside of the church, the maximum penalty that Christians may oppose is to put them out of the church, and for those out of the church, no penalty may be imposed.

Therefore, it is wrong for Christians to take upon themselves the role of government, to attempt to punish evildoers. Within the church, Christians are under the government of God, the kingship of Jesus, and the administration that He has set up (with accountability to fellow Christians, to elders, etc.). Outside of the church, I Corinthians 5:13 states, people are judged not by us, but by God. One means God uses to judge people and punish evil is government, as we have seen from Romans 13. So, if God is judging them and we are not, then government is clearly not our domain.

Remember this the next time someone tells you that Christians need to vote on a measure outlawing sin.