Judge not, Madam Premier, and you shall not be judged!

“On the appointed day Herod, wearing his royal robes, sat on his throne and delivered a public address to the people. They shouted, “This is the voice of a god, not of a man.” Immediately, because Herod did not give praise to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.” (Acts 12:21-23)

These little-known verses from the book of Acts recount the rather ignominious demise of Herod Agrippa I. This Herod was the grandson of Herod the Great (so called) who is best remembered for his slaughter of the infant children when Jesus was born (Matthew 2), and nephew of Herod Antipas, who murdered John the Baptist (Luke 9). Evidently, they were all chips off the same rancid block.

Herod was ‘eaten by worms and died’, Luke says, and not the other way around. From a medical point of view, we might assume Herod had acquired some sort of intestinal tape worm, but the point here is not scientific but spiritual. Herod died because he was judged by God, and judged because he committed the most fundamental of all human sins – idolatry. He put himself in the place of God.

Today we live in a proudly secular society where we maintain a strict separation between church and state. I support this separation completely, as history has taught us very clearly that once the church is given executive power, it becomes as corrupt as every other human institution.

Constantine was the beginning of the end, in my view. I suspect that his famous vision where he saw an image of the cross and heard the words “by this conquer” came either from his own imagination or straight from the devil. He took the sacred symbol of the suffering Christ and aligned it with warfare, violence, rape and murder! And when Constantine did conquer all his enemies, the cross became associated with something else – namely, extreme executive power! Political power is not something the church has ever handled well.

Of course, the separation of church and state has two sides to it, and just as I would hate to see the church assume political power, my greater concern today is with the state trying to assume spiritual power! Every time I hear the Premier of New South Wales refer to people doing ‘the wrong thing’ it makes me shudder.

“When people knowingly do the wrong thing and pretend they didn’t know, that’s not acceptable. … The vast majority of people are doing the right thing but when a handful don’t it is a setback for all of us."

I have no issue with the Premier (or any representative of the state) singling out those of us who break the law, but the civil law and the moral law are not the same thing. One is secular and one is spiritual, and they need to be kept as separate as church and state.

In truth, neither the premier nor the police force, nor any secular judge, has any right to pass moral judgement on us, and most especially when those breaking the law are doing so for reasons of conscience, and yet the premier goes further. She not only passes moral judgement, but presumes to judge what is in the hearts of these law-breakers:

“It’s really people knowingly having disregard, unfortunately, for their loved ones and also the rest of us in breaching the health orders."

To presume to pass judgement on people like this is really to put yourself in the place of God! I hope the Premier is eating plenty of coconut. It’s apparently very effective in expelling intestinal worms.

From a Biblical point of view, this question of moral authority goes right back to the beginning. It’s the original issue that is the undoing of Adam and Eve! They eat of the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’, thinking that it will make them like God!

“But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”” (Genesis 3:4-5)

Adam and Eve eat of the tree because they think it will give them knowledge, and with knowledge comes power! By attempting to grasp the true knowledge of good and evil, our forefather and foremother are depicted as trying to usurp God’s authority.

Only the Almighty truly understands good and evil. God alone can judge. God alone understands the complexity of the moral universe, and the complexity of the human heart, and so can judge with love, equity, and compassion.

Adam and Eve eat of the fruit and so gain initiation into a far more complex world, but the serpent lied to them. It is not a world they will ever fully understand and so they will never be able to take on the role of moral judge. They have to learn their proper place in the created order, and learn it the hard way.

You can read the rest of this article here: http://fatherdave.com.au/judge-not-madam-premier-and-you-shall-not-be-judged/

Dave
http://www.fatherdave.org
http://www.fighting-fathers.com