Section 1
The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish. The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
Superior and Inferior Courts
From where did Congress obtain the power to ordain and establish the Judicial Branch of the United States? If Yahweh1 had been their source, the framers would have said as much. Instead, this power originated from the same god that established Congress – WE THE PEOPLE.
Christian2 Constitutionalists generally believe the provision for a superior and inferior court system was derived from Jethro’s counsel to Moses in Exodus 18:
Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to Godward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God: And thou shalt teach them ordinances [statutes] and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens: And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee. (Exodus 18:19-22)3
This passage does provide biblical precedent for a judicial system somewhat similar to the United States graduated court system, but that is where any similarity ends. The Bible stipulates, among other things, that judicial appointees must be men of truth who fear Yahweh and hate covetousness. The United States Constitution requires no qualifications whatsoever. Furthermore, the Constitution does not stipulate that judges rule on behalf of Yahweh, rendering decisions based upon His commandments, statutes, and judgments as required in Exodus 18 and Deuteronomy 1:
Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you…. So I took the chief of your tribes, wise men, and known, and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes. And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it. (Deuteronomy 1:13-17)
That not even one Constitutional framer contended for Yahweh, as did King Jehoshaphat, speaks volumes of the framers’ disregard for Yahweh and His court system:
And he [King Jehoshaphat] set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city, and said to the judges, Take heed what ye do: for ye judge not for man, but for YHWH,4 who is with you in the judgment. Wherefore now let the fear of YHWH be upon you; take heed and do it: for there is no iniquity with YHWH our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts…. And he charged them, saying, Thus shall ye do in the fear of YHWH, faithfully, and with a perfect heart. (2 Chronicles 19:5-9)
In order for a court to be just, it must be impartial. The only means for a court to be impartial is for its justices rule on behalf of Yahweh, instead of the state, any one class, or any one person. Constitutional government adjudicates on behalf of the state and the people. It is no wonder so many rulings from United States judges are unjust and even adverse to Yahweh’s morality:
YHWH reigneth; let the earth rejoice … righteousness and judgment [justice, NASB] are the habitation of his throne. (Psalm 97:1-2)
…they have sinned against YHWH, the habitation of justice, even YHWH, the hope of their fathers. (Jeremiah 50:7)
As R.J. Rushdoony put it in The Institutes of Biblical Law: “If the judge does not represent God’s Law order, he is ultimately a political hack and hatchet man whose job it is to keep the people in line, protect the establishment, and in the process to feather his own nest”5 and “the judge was not to be an impartial referee but a partisan champion of the law of God, actively concerned with bringing God’s justice to bear on every situation ‘by requiting the wicked, by recompensing his way upon his own head; and by justifying the righteous, by giving him according to his righteousness’ (II Chron. 6:23).”6
Even if the framers were influenced by Exodus 18:19-22, the Christian Constitutionalists’ attempt to yoke the United States Constitution with the Bible is another effort to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. If the framers had truly borrowed from the Bible, they would have provided the biblical qualifications for judges. However, anticipating what was to follow in Article 6 – their prohibition against Christian religious test oaths – they could not require judges to fear Yahweh in Article 3. It must not be overlooked that Yahweh’s law requires that judges fear Yahweh, whereas the Constitution bans the same qualification.
Because nothing requires Constitutional judges to rule exclusively according to Yahweh and His morality, they have tacit authority to adjudicate according to Allah, Buddha, Krishna, or Baal. This is especially true because of the pluralistic and polytheistic provision for freedom of religion in Amendment 1. Americans should prepare themselves for courts ruling according to Islamic sharia and Jewish Beth Din laws, as is already occurring in England:
Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. The government has quietly sanctioned the powers for sharia judges to rule on cases ranging from divorce and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence. Rulings issued by a network of five sharia courts are enforceable with the full power of the judicial system, through the county courts or High Court.
Previously, the rulings of sharia courts in Britain could not be enforced, and depended on voluntary compliance among Muslims. It has now emerged that sharia courts with these powers have been set up in London, Birmingham, Bradford and Manchester with the network’s headquarters in Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Two more courts are being planned for Glasgow and Edinburgh.
…Muslim tribunal courts started passing sharia judgments in August 2007. They have dealt with more than 100 cases that range from Muslim divorce and inheritance to nuisance neighbours.
Jewish Beth Din courts operate under the same provision in the Arbitration Act and resolve civil cases, ranging from divorce to business disputes. They have existed in Britain for more than 100 years, and previously operated under a precursor to the act.
Politicians and church leaders expressed concerns that this could mark the beginnings of a “parallel legal system” based on sharia for some British Muslims.7
Just as nocuous, constitutional judges are also required to decide in favor of the U.S. Constitution over the Bible anytime the two are in disagreement:
A law violating a constitution established by the people themselves would be considered by the judges as null and void.8 (James Madison)
…when they [the judges] consider its [a law’s] principles and find it to be incompatible with the superior power of the Constitution, it is their duty to pronounce it void.9 (James Wilson, Signatory of the U.S. Constitution and Supreme Court Justice)
They [judges] could declare an unconstitutional law void.10 (Luther Martin, Maryland Delegate to the Constitutional Convention)
[The Judiciary’s] duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.11 (Alexander Hamilton, Signatory of the U.S. Constitution)
James McHenry, a signatory of the U.S. Constitution and later Secretary of War, took what appears to have been a nearly opposite position:
…the Holy Scriptures … can alone secure to society, order and peace, and to our courts of justice and constitutions of government, purity, stability, and usefulness. In vain, without the bible, we increase penal laws and draw entrenchments [defenses] around our institutions. Bibles are strong entrenchments [defenses]. Where they abound, men cannot pursue wicked courses.12
One cannot help but wonder why he agreed to and signed his name to the United States Constitution.
Good Behavior
The only qualification provided in Article 3, Section 1 is that judges are to be men and women of good behavior. Of what worth is such a requirement if good behavior is nowhere defined? It is worthless, especially in light of Psalm 14:
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good. YHWH looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Psalm 14:1-3)
In Mark 10:18, Yeshua13 declared that “no one is good except God alone.” Good behavior can be defined and understood only from the parameters of Yahweh and His morality. Anything else is humanism, which leaves “good behavior” up to each individual’s assessment.
What the framers did was essentially the same as a father telling his five-year-old son to be a good boy, without explaining to him what is required of him to be good. When the son comes up with his own ideas about what qualifies as “good,” the father has no grounds to discipline him. It is no wonder that bad judges are so seldom disciplined and so difficult to remove from their benches.
Because all judges are lawyers and because lawyers have dominated every congress since 1789, the lawyers in the legislative branch are unlikely to turn on their fellow lawyers in the judicial branch. The majority of presidents have also been lawyers. So much for the United States Constitutional Republic’s purported separation of powers.
Section 2, Clauses 1-2
The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be party: to controversies between two or more states, between a state and citizens of another state, between citizens of different states, between citizens of the same state, claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.14
In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before-mentioned, the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
The Supreme Court
There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.15
Note in particular the phrases “the judicial power shall extend to all cases,” “the supreme court shall have original jurisdiction,” and “the supreme court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to the law and fact.” That’s a lot of power. The Supreme Court, composed of one chief justice and eight associate justices, with its power to not only judge the facts of any case but also to interpret, judge, and overrule any “law” passed by Congress (what Gary North described as “retroactive legitimacy to legislation”16) makes the Supreme Court the powerhouse or “big god” of this polytheistic system.
In a letter to the honorable Thomas Cockey Deye, Speaker of the House of Delegates of Maryland, Luther Martin, attorney general of Maryland and one of Maryland’s delegates to the federal Constitutional Convention, pointed out that the Supreme Court ultimately negates the jury system as well:
…in all cases where the general government has jurisdiction in civil questions … its appellate jurisdiction, absolutely declares the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and fact. Should, therefore, a jury be adopted in the inferior court, it would only be a needless expense, since, on an appeal, the determination of that jury, even on questions of fact, however honest and upright, is to be of no possible effect. The Supreme Court is to take up all questions of fact, to examine the evidence relative thereto, to decide upon them in the same manner as if they had never been tried by a jury…. But, Sir, the appellate jurisdiction extends … to cases criminal as well as to civil; and, on the appeal, the court is to decide not only on the law, but on the fact. If, therefore, even in criminal cases, the general government is not satisfied with the verdict of the jury, its officer may remove the prosecution to the Supreme Court, and there the verdict of the jury is to be of no effect, but the judges of this court are to decide upon the fact as well as the law….17
The power of the people of the United States of America and their representatives is subject to the Judicial Branch, and ultimately the Supreme Court, which is essentially immune from any kind of censure. The real power or sovereignty of the United States government resides in a biblically unqualified and nearly always anti-biblical five-to-four majority.
To put it another way: The United States government is ultimately under the control and direction of five lawyers. And why not? It was predominately lawyers in 1787 (thirty-four of the fifty-five delegates were lawyers) who framed the Constitution and gave ultimate power into the hands of their own kind. Concerning public opinion in 1787, Forrest McDonald wrote that “few Americans except lawyers trusted a truly independent judiciary.”18
The church … was thrown out into the street by the lawyers of Philadelphia, who decided not to have a Christian country…. [I]n effect, they took all the promises of religion, the pursuit of happiness, safety, security, all kinds of things, and they set up a lawyers’ paradise, and the church was disenfranchised totally.19
This is nearly identical to Yeshua’s denunciation of lawyers:
Woe unto you, lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in ourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. (Luke 11:52)
The key of knowledge is the law of Yahweh and lawyers (including those in 1787) have altered that law:
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee … seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. (Hosea 4:6)
The Supreme “Legislator”
In the United States, rights are proclaimed in the Constitution, but they are defined by the Supreme Court, which the Constitution has established to provide a reliable and definitive interpretation of the law.20
Although Article 6 declares that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, whoever has the power to interpret that law is, in fact, the supreme “legislator.” In 1978, in the introduction to William Swindler’s The Constitution and Chief Justice Marshall, Chief Justice Warren Burger commented on the landmark case of Marbury vs. Madison (5 U.S. 1 Cranch 137), which established judicial review under Article 3 of the Constitution:
The cornerstone of our constitutional history and system remains the firm adherence of the Supreme Court to the Marbury principle of judicial review that “someone must decide” what the Constitution means.21
This is essentially the same as declared by James Madison in 1789:
I acknowledge, in the ordinary course of government, that the exposition of the laws and Constitution devolves upon the Judiaciary.22
In Cooper vs. Aaron, Supreme Court Associate Justice Charles Evan Hughes commented upon this inescapable fact:
Article VI of the Constitution makes the Constitution the ‘supreme Law of the Land.’ … [But it] is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is…. It follows that the interpretation of the [Constitution] enunciated by this Court … is the supreme law of the land….23
In God, Caesar, and The Constitution, Leo Pfeffer points out that the Supreme Court not only interprets and explains the Constitution, but expands and rewrites it as well:
The words “respecting an establishment of religion” [from Amendment 1] are not clear and self-defining. While the words “prohibiting the free exercise” are no doubt clear, they certainly cannot mean literally what they say; the constitutional fathers could not have intended to forbid Congress from forbidding human sacrifice by a religious cult in the District of Columbia. Since the words of the Constitution cannot in all cases be clearly understood, there had to be a Supreme Court to interpret and apply the written rules governing encounters between church and state.
The court does not merely interpret the rules; it expands them, as indeed it must in view of their cryptic incisiveness and the ever-multiplying and changing nature of the confrontations between religion and government which the court must resolve…. On occasion the court must even rewrite the rules. In the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins, it ruled to deny an atheist the right to be appointed to the office of notary public would violate the clause against prohibiting the free exercise of religion, thus rewriting the amendment to encompass the free exercise of nonreligion [sic] or anti-religion.
In short, while the Constitution provides formal methods for its amendment, the Supreme Court can be considered a de facto continuing convention expanding or rewriting the Constitution as the need arises. This, of course, applies not only to the Establishment and Free Exercise clauses but to all other parts of the Constitution….24
In other words, the Constitution is what the Supreme Court – at any given time – says it is.
How paradoxical that the first nation to base its political philosophy on the principle that all political authority derives from the people, and that the people express their will through elected representatives, should also be the first to embrace the principle that the ultimate interpretation of the validity of the popular will should be lodged not in the people themselves, or in their representatives, but in one non-elected and, therefore, non-democratic branch of the government.25
Thomas Jefferson and George Mason were eerily prophetic in their comments about the judiciary:
The constitution … is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.26
It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression ... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary ... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped….27
The Judiciary of the United States is so constructed and extended, as to absorb and destroy the Judiciaries of the several States; thereby rendering Law as tedious, intricate, and expensive, and Justice as unattainable, by a great part of the Community, as in England, and enabling the Rich to oppress and ruin the poor.28
The Prophet Isaiah described it best:
Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people, that widows may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless! (Isaiah 10:1-2)
This is an accurate depiction of the United States Constitutional judicial system, which is disposed toward the wealthy and often wrests judgment from the poor. The scales are tipped in favor of the rich simply because the average person cannot afford the same quality and quantity of attorneys as can a wealthy man (James 2:6). This, in itself, is a type of unjust weights and measures. Money and attorney gamesmanship – not justice – rule today’s courts, and the result, all too often, is the plundering of the innocent.
Yahweh demands equity in His courts for poor and wealthy alike:
Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his cause…. Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor in his cause. Keep thee far from a false matter…. And thou shalt take no gift: for the gift blindeth the wise, and perverteth the words of the righteous. (Exodus 23:3-8)
Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. (Leviticus 19:15)
Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God’s…. (Deuteronomy 1:17)
Thou shalt not wrest judgment; thou shalt not respect persons, neither take a gift: for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise, and pervert the words of the righteous. (Deuteronomy 16:19)
But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced [convicted, NASB] of the law as transgressors. (James 2:9)
Inherently Flawed
Constitutionalists believe the superiority of the United States Judicial System can be seen in that even Supreme Court decisions can be overturned and made right by either future Supreme Court justices or by constitutional amendment. But what Constitutionalists seldom seem to consider are the injustices that often occur in the interim.
Nothing probably demonstrates this inherent fundamental defect in the United States Judicial System better than the infamous Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision. Roe v. Wade constitutionally provided for millions of infants to be murdered, until possibly one day it is overturned. Had, instead, Exodus 21:22-23 been the standard, not one baby would have been murdered during the same period of time. And while Christian Constitutionalists wait for the system to hopefully correct itself, millions of more infants will be murdered.
Furthermore, overturned decisions can be overturned again by a later court. Judicial records expose this capricious nature of the United States judicial system. Previous decisions are overturned all of the time.29. In Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion, David Barton remarked that judicial “standards now change as rapidly as the Justices. This causes an uncertainty for society; and, in fact, often establishes a dubious standard which, in effect, is no standard at all.”30. This should come as no surprise, because, unlike the Bible, the U.S. Constitution itself is not an infallible standard.
Appellate System
Unlike the United States Constitutional Republic, Yahweh’s court system has no appellate process. Appellate systems usually only delay judgments, when required.
Lawyers
This chapter would be incomplete without something said regarding lawyers, who, as was pointed out earlier, have predominated all three branches of the United States Constitutional Republic from the onset, and have only become more entrenched since its ratification:
Whenever lawyers dominate a society – usually during the society’s final years – they steadily substitute formal procedure for ethics…. They adopt a theology of salvation by law, or at least continued employment by law. The practice of law replaces the law itself; “law” becomes case laws, precedents, and procedures, but without any thought or hope concerning an integrated law-order that provides meaning to the law in general. Law becomes what men say it is, and men do not agree. Humanism’s implicit judicial polytheism then leads to the disintegration of civil law: jammed courts, endless litigation, plea bargaining, and all the other aspects of twentieth-century judicial tyranny that we have become numbed into accepting as normative.
The Bible is concerned with ethics, not formal courtroom procedure…. It is the mark of a culture in the process of disintegration that it substitutes procedure for ethics, the letter of its law for the spirit of its law. Even more important [in such a system] is the bureaucratic machinery that defines the letter of the law…. Techniques of judicial interpretation are considered more fundamental than the substance of the law. Such an attitude invariably transfers authority from the people to a self-certified elite, the interpreters. It creates a secular priesthood.31
Section 2, Clause 3
The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the state where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any state, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.
The Unbiblical Jury System
You will look in vain for anything that resembles a jury system in the Bible. Section 2, Clause 3 is just another instance in which the framers decided they knew better than Yahweh. In an attempt to make the U.S. Constitution – in this instance, its jury system – appear biblical, one Constitution-promoting pastor wrote the following:
The jury was not invented by human minds but is a system that came from God through His Israel people. Deu 1:22 “And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land, and bring us word again by what way we must go up, and into what cities we shall come. 23 And the saying pleased me well: and I took twelve men of you, one of a tribe:”32
Deuteronomy 1:22-23 has nothing to do with a jury system. It provides the account of Moses sending one man from each of the twelve tribes to spy out Canaan. If this is a precedent for a jury system, it is a poor one because ten of the twelve “jurors” came back with a bad verdict.
Even were jury nullification – the right of a jury to judge a law as unjust, oppressive, or inapplicable to any particular case – restored, juries would still render decisions based upon the prevailing immorality33 of the general population. It was a jury that awarded 2.3 million dollars to Stella Liebeck when she burned herself with McDonald’s coffee, and it was a jury that found O.J. Simpson innocent on all charges.
Although it only takes one juror to dissent and prevent a “railroad job,” most people lack the independence and resolution to resist the will of a majority. More often than not, today’s jurors reflect the type of people we are warned against in Exodus 23:
Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest judgment. (Exodus 23:2)
Yahweh’s law does not provide for, but rather condemns, the jury system.
Unless juries can be stacked with educated, pronomian Christians, they will produce, at best, erratic justice. In other words, without Yahweh’s perfect laws as the standard, jury decisions are based upon the capricious immorality of the people. Nothing demonstrates this better than Yeshua’s trial by a jury of His peers with Pilate presiding. The prevailing immorality of the day demanded Yeshua be crucified although he was guilty of nothing that warranted such a judgment. This fact regarding today’s Constitutional judicial system was not overlooked by Rushdoony:
The character of the courts, judges, and legal system cannot be long maintained if the character of the people is delinquent and degenerate. Courts and judges do not exist in a vacuum: they are part of the faith, culture, and moral standards of the people at large, of the nation of which they are a part.34
The Prophet Hosea put it in the following terms:
And there shall be, like people, like priest: and I will punish them for their ways, and reward them their doings. (Hosea 4:9)
Even when a criminal is convicted, juries are, more often than not, soft on crime in their verdicts. A jury could not come to a consensus for the death penalty even in the case of China Arnold who was convicted of aggravated murder in the 2005 death of her three-week-old daughter, whom she microwaved.
A Safeguard of Liberty?
The Constitutional right of a trial by a jury of twelve or six “impartial” peers is regarded by Americans – especially Christian Constitutionalists – as one of America’s safeguards of liberty and the last bulwark against tyranny. If this is true, one would think Yahweh (who is unquestionably a God of justice and liberty) would have provided juries somewhere in His perfect laws and righteous judgments. But He did not.
Surely one of the reasons Yahweh did not provide for juries is that juries (like elections) place government policy and juridical determinations squarely in the hands of an unpredictable and unequally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14-17) public.
Biblical Judges
The following passages provide for judges, officers, and magistrates, but nowhere does the Bible mention juries:
…teach them ordinances and laws…. Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness…. And let them judge the people at all seasons…. (Exodus 18:20-22)
For all manner of trespass … the cause of both parties shall come before the judges…. (Exodus 22:9)
And I charged your judges … saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him. (Deuteronomy 1:16)
Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates … and they shall judge the people with just judgment. (Deuteronomy 16:18)
If there be a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. (Deuteronomy 25:1)
And thou, Ezra, after the wisdom of thy God, that is in thine hand, set magistrates and judges … all such as know the laws of thy God…. (Ezra 7:25)
When a judicial system is governed by biblically qualified judges – whose decisions are based solely upon Yahweh’s commandments, statutes, and judgments – juries are unnecessary. Under such a system, all juridical decisions reflect Yahweh’s never-changing morality rather than man’s capricious immorality.
In Deuteronomy 25:1, Yahweh admonished judges to “justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked.” Where is this most likely to occur – in the courts of sinners or in the courts of the saints? Do not look for it in the courts of the unrighteous:
Her princes within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves … they have done violence to the law. (Zephaniah 3:3)
Today’s unbiblical judges create laws based upon their own values, or lack thereof, and these rulings become the binding precedents, called case law, that compel juries to render decisions accordingly:
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the color of justice….35
When tyranny is exercised under cover of legality, the problem worsens:
Her prophets are light and treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law. (Zephaniah 3:4)
In an article entitled “…And Justice for None,” Paul Craig Roberts expounded upon some of the inherent problems in today’s judicial system:
The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world and imprisons 6 to 10 times as many people as any other industrialized country. Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. population increased 13 percent. The U.S. prison population more than tripled.
There are hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans in prison. They are there because the criminal justice system no longer works to discover the truth of a crime, but to convict at all cost whoever happens to be charged with a crime. And they are there because the United States criminalizes more acts than any other country in the world, including tyrannical police states….
Almost everyone in prison is wrongfully convicted, even the guilty. According to the Department of Justice, 95 percent of criminal convictions result from plea bargains. What is a plea bargain but self-incrimination, conviction without a trial by jury and without a test of the evidence against the defendant?
An uninformed public believes pleas bargains to be sweet deals for criminals. Sometimes they are, but more often, pleas result from prosecutors piling on charges until the defendant, innocent or guilty, cries “uncle” and gives up.36
In a news article entitled “American Legal System is Corrupt Beyond Recognition, Judge Tells Harvard Law School,” Geraldine Hawkins reported on United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Edith Jones’ February 28, 2003, lecture to the Federalist Society of the Harvard Law School:
She said … what is morally right is routinely sacrificed to what is politically expedient…. “The integrity of the law, its religious roots, its transcendent quality are disappearing….”37
Unless exclusively governed by Yahweh’s laws, today’s “conservative” judges are inevitably disposed toward the rich, just as today’s liberal judges are inclined to favor the poor. Actually, when measured against the laws of the Bible, America no longer has any conservative judges, except in the sense that some judges are “conservative liberals.” In fact, very few, if any, of today’s judges would be appointed to the bench if biblical qualifications were the standard. (See the list of qualifications provided in Chapter 5.)
Christian Courts
Because the situation was similar in first-century Rome, the Apostle Paul admonished Christians to set up their own courts of law:
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? No, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren? But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded? (1 Corinthians 6:1-7)
When expounding upon this text, preachers usually emphasize Verse 7 to the exclusion of everything else. However, Verse 7 cannot be fully understood if robbed of its context. Taken in context, Paul is saying that Christians should maintain their own judicial system and that if they cannot find a wise man among themselves to judge between them, it is better to be defrauded than to be judged by infidels. This is essentially the same thing Yeshua declared:
Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing. (Matthew 5:23-26)
In the absence of a biblical court of law, Yeshua taught that Christians should avoid Roman jurisdiction. Paul encouraged Christians to set up their own judiciary – what amounted to launching a theocratic government governed by the perfect laws of Yahweh, rather than man-made constitutions and their inferior judicial systems, governed by the imperfect laws of man.
Anything less than a Christian court system, governed by Yahweh’s commandments, statutes, and judgments, and adjudicated by biblically qualified judges fails Paul’s criteria. The fact that Article 3 does not specify the same conditions, demonstrates that the Constitution does not provide for Christian courts but instead secular courts.
What Paul described was to begin with Christians judging Christians, but with the intent of someday judging the world:
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? …How much more things that pertain to this life? (1 Corinthians 6:2-3)
When was this to occur?
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled. (2 Corinthians 10:3-6)
The New American Standard Bible more correctly renders verse 6:
And we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete. (2 Corinthians 10:6)
This verse is usually interpreted as referring to disobedience in the church, which is illogical. Why would Paul delay punishment of disobedient Christians until they were obedient? Why would he wait to punish their sin until after they had repented?
Instead, Paul is referring to a future time when the Christian community would have grown large and powerful enough to influence and even control government polity, including the judgment and punishment of the wicked. This is also borne out in Romans 13. The word “revenge” in 2 Corinthians 10:6 (KJV) is derived from the Greek word ekdikeésai, which comes from ékdikos and is translated “a revenger” in Romans 13:
For rulers [judges, Exodus 18:21-22] are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Romans 13:3-5)
Like 1 Corinthians 6, Romans 13 is describing a Christian body politic that metes out Yahweh’s judgments upon the wicked.38
Romans 13 and 2 Corinthians 10 are first and second witnesses to Paul’s instruction in 1 Corinthians 6 charging the Christian community to set up their own judicial system by which (at some point) they would judge not only themselves but the world. A third witness is found in 1 Timothy 1:
But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; knowing this, that the law [its judgment] is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine; according to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. (1 Timothy 1:8-11)
Paul fully anticipated and expected the Christian community to be in control of the civil body politic by which they – via their courts of law – would administer Yahweh’s righteous judgments upon the wicked. (Chapter 18, which will address Amendment 8, will discuss Yahweh’s judgments in more detail.)
Regrettably, modern Christianity has ignored these instructions and has been content to let non-Christians and even antichrists rule and administer unrighteous judgments. In other words, Christianity has become saltless and good for nothing but to be trampled under the foot of man (Matthew 5:13), which, among other things, means being judged by man’s standards in man’s courts. This is precisely the opposite of what we find described by Solomon:
The evil bow before the good; and the wicked at the gates of the righteous. (Proverbs 14:19)
Biblical judges held court at the gates of a city (Deuteronomy 16:18; Amos 5:12, 15; Zechariah 8:16; etc.). This also sets precedent for a court (as well as all executions) open to the public. (See Chapter 15, which addresses Amendment 6, for more regarding public trials and executions.)
What is most regrettable about this is that at an earlier time in America, Christendom controlled the body politic, administering Yahweh’s judgments. Consider again Connecticut’s Fundamental Agreement, particularly as it relates to Christians administering Yahweh’s judgments upon the wicked. Note also that 1 Corinthians 6:1-6 is one of the biblical references they used as their authority:
Fundamental Agreement of the Colony of New Haven, 1639
Agreement; We all agree that the scriptures hold forth a perfect rule [Psalm 19:1-9] for the direction and government of all men in duties which they are to perform to God and to man, as well in families and commonwealth as in matters of the church; so likewise in all public officers which concern civil order, as choice of magistrates and officers, making and repealing laws, dividing allotments of inheritance, and all things of like nature, we will, all of us, be ordered by the rules which the scripture holds forth; and we agree that such persons may be entrusted with such matters of government as are described in Exodus 18:21 and Deuteronomy 1:13 with Deuteronomy 17:15 and 1 Corinthians 6:1, 6 & 7.
Regarding the ecclesiastical history of New England, Leonard Bacon (1802-1881), wrote the following concerning New Haven’s juridical system:
Notice in the next place, how great a change, in respect to the inflicting of capital punishments was made by adopting the Hebrew laws, instead of the laws of England. By the laws of England, more than one hundred and fifty crimes were till quite lately, punishable with death. By the laws which the New England colonists adopted, this bloody catalogue was reduced to eleven [murder, treason, perjury against the life of another, kidnapping, bestiality, sodomy, adultery, blasphemy in the highest degree, idolatry, witchcraft, rebellion against parents]…. The greatest and boldest improvement which has been made in criminal jurisprudence, by any one act, since the dark ages, was that which was made by our [colonial] fathers, when they determined, ‘that the judicial laws of God, as they were delivered by Moses, and as they are a fence to the moral law, being neither typical, nor ceremonial, nor having any reference to Canaan, shall be accounted of moral equity, and generally bind all offenders, and be a rule to all the courts.”39
The Judicial Branch provided for in Article 3 of the Constitution is not the court system Paul described in 1 Corinthians 6. Instead, it is the consequence of Christianity’s neglect and rejection of Romans 13:1-7, 1 Corinthians 6:1-6, 2 Corinthians 10:4-6, and 1 Timothy 1:8-11. May Yahweh help us return to the wisdom and obedience of America’s true Christian pronomian founders.
Section 3, Clause 1
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
Treason
The framers were not concerned with treason against Yahweh. This alone proves that the government they established was not biblical. In fact, because treason is a crime against sovereignty, the Constitutional Republic established in 1787 was itself a treasonous act against Yahweh and His government. Two sovereigns cannot coexist. When the framers constituted the United States government as sovereign, they became guilty of First and Second Commandment treason against Yahweh.
Two Witnesses
Section 3, Clause 1 does require two witnesses, but only to the crime of treason. Deuteronomy 19:15 requires two or more witnesses in all criminal cases:
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established. (Deuteronomy 19:15)
If Deuteronomy 19:15 was the inspiration for the two-witness requirement of Section 3, it was – as were all of Yahweh’s laws to one extent or another – compromised by the framers.
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End Notes
1. YHWH (most often pronounced Yahweh) is the English transliteration of the Tetragrammaton, the principal Hebrew name of the God of the Bible. For a more thorough explanation concerning the names of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 69363, for a suggested $4 donation. *
2. Not everyone claiming to be a Christian has been properly instructed in the biblical plan of salvation. Mark 16:15-16; Acts 2:36-41, 22:1-16; Romans 6:3-4; Galatians 3:26-27; Colossians 2:11-13; and 1 Peter 3:21 should be studied to understand what is required to be covered by the blood of Yeshua and forgiven of your sins. For a more thorough explanation concerning baptism and its relationship to salvation, “Baptism by the Scriptures” and “Fifty Objections to Baptism Answered” may be read online, or the book Baptism: All You Wanted to Know and More may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for free.
3. All Scripture is quoted from the King James Version unless otherwise noted. Portions of Scripture have been omitted for brevity. If you have questions regarding any passage, please open your Bible and study the text to ensure it has been properly used.
4. Where the Tetragrammaton (YHWH) – the four Hebrew characters that represent the personal name of God – has been unlawfully rendered the LORD or GOD in English translations, I have taken the liberty to correct this error by inserting YHWH where appropriate. For a more thorough explanation concerning the names of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska, 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*
5. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1973) p. 613.
6. Rushdoony, p. 625.
7. Abul Taher, “Revealed: UK’s first official sharia courts,” TIMESONLINE, September 14, 2008, <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4749183.ece>.
8. James Madison, during the Convention debates of Monday, July 23, 1787, The Papers of James Madison, Henry D. Gilpin, ed. (Washington DC: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840) vol. 2, p. 1184.
9. James Wilson, at the Pennsylvania Ratification Debates on Saturday, December 1, 1787, Jonathan Elliot, ed., Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Washington, DC: Printed for Jonathan Elliot, 1836) vol 2, p. 446.
10. Luther Martin, quoted by Madison during the Convention debates on Saturday, July 21, 1787, Henry D. Gilpin, ed., The Papers of James Madison (Washington DC: Langtree & O’Sullivan, 1840) vol. 2, p. 1168.
11. Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist, #78, p. 421.
12. James McHerny, quoted in Bernard C. Steiner, One Hundred and Ten Years of Bible Society Work in Maryland, 1810-1920 (Baltimore: The Maryland bible Society, 1921) p. 14.
13. Yeshua (yay-shoo'-ah) is the English transliteration of our Savior’s given Hebrew name. For a more thorough explanation concerning the names of God, “The Third Commandment” may be read online, or the book Thou shalt not take the name of YHWH thy God in vain may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $4 donation.*
14. The two italicized passages were later limited by Amendment 11.
15. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America and Two Essays on America (London, UK: Penguin Books Ltd., 2003) p. 315.
16. Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989) p. 502.
17. Luther Martin, “The Genuine Information, Laid Before The Legislature Of Maryland…,” Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention 1787, Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1838 (Hawthorne, CA: Omni Publications, 1986) pp. 80-81.
18. Forrest McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1985) p. 85.
19. Otto Scott, “Easy Chair” audiotape #165 (March 10, 1988) distributed by Chalcedon Foundation, P.O. Box 158, Vallecito, CA 95251, quoted by Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1989) p. 675.
20. International Information Programs, USINFO.STATE.GOV, “Religious Liberty in the Modern Era,” Rights of the People: Individual Freedom and the Bill of Rights, <http://uninfo.state.gov/products/pubs/rightsof/modern.htm>.
21. Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, introduction to William Swindler, The Constitution and Chief Justice Marshall (New York, NY: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1978), p. xiii.
22. James Madison, June 17, 1789, The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1834) vol. 1, p. 520.
23. Cooper v. Aaron (358, U.S. 1, 1958).
24. Leo Pfeffer, God, Caesar, and The Constitution: The Court as Referee of Church-State Confrontation (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1975) pp. 30-31.
25. Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason: How Europe Imagined and American Realized the Enlightenment (New York, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1977) p. 229.
26. Thomas Jefferson, H.A. Washington, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 9 vols. (Washington DC: Taylor & Maury) vol. 8, p. 134.
27. Thomas Jefferson, Andrew A. Lipscomb, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 20 vols. (Washington, DC: The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States, 1905), vol. 15, pp. 331-32.
28. George Mason, David Wootten ed., The Essential Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers, (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2003) pp. 1-2.
29. David Barton, Original Intent: The Courts, the Constitution, & Religion (Aledo, TX: Wallbuilder Press, 2005) pp. 233-39.
30. Barton, p. 233.
31. Gary North, Tools of Dominion: The Case Laws of Exodus (Tyler, TX: The Institute for Christian Economics, 1997) p. 107.
32. Everett Ramsey, America Today (Houston, MO: America Today Publishers) October, 1995.
33. There is no morality outside of Yahweh’s morality, as codified in His commandments, statutes, and judgments.
34. Rushdoony, p. 639.
35. U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982).
36. Paul Craig Roberts, “…And Justice for None,” American Free Press, 16 February 2004.
37. Geraldine Hawkins, Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, “American Legal System is Corrupt Beyond Recognition, Judge Tells Harvard Law School,” 7 March 2003, <http://www.massnews.com/2003_Editions/3_March/030703_mn_american_legal_system_corrupt.shtml>.
38. Christian Duty Under Corrupt Government: A Revolutionary Commentary on Romans 13:1-7 may be ordered from Mission to Israel Ministries, PO Box 248, Scottsbluff, Nebraska 69363, for a suggested $7 donation.*
39. Leonard Bacon, Thirteen Historical Discourses, on the Completion of Two Hundred Years, From the Beginning of the First Church in New Haven, With an Appendix (New Haven, CT: Durrie & Peck, 1839) p. 32.
*We are admonished in Matthew 10:8 “freely ye have received, freely give.” Although we have a suggested a price for our books, we do not sell them. In keeping with 2 Corinthians 9:7, this ministry is supported by freewill offerings. If you cannot afford the suggested price, inform us of your situation, and we will be pleased to provide you with whatever you need for whatever you can send.
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