Perfect, sure, right, pure, true, altogether righteous, resulting in conversions, wisdom, joy, enlightenment, better than fine gold, and sweeter than honey. If all of this weren’t enough, it also provides a great reward.
Is this what the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution265 provided America? Close your ears to all the spurious propaganda spread by Christians and patriots alike, and contemplate America’s plight.
America’s descent into today’s abysmal state of affairs is the result of what was at first a slow but incremental—at breakneck speed presently—plunge into moral depravity, officially commencing with the adoption of the United States Constitution as the law of the land,266 sired by the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration Speaks for Itself
Paragraph #2, Sentences 6-7
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Grievances #13 & 22
He [Britain’s King George III] has combined with others [members of England’s Parliament] to subject us to ... their Acts of pretended Legislation:... For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
King George was suspending the American colonials’ legislatures and replacing them with those of his own making. In turn, immediately following the War for Independence, the colonials suspended King George’s legislature and replaced it with legislatures of their own making as found in each of the thirteen original states’ Constitutions. The same was repeated thirteen years later with the adoption of the federal Constitution267:
Article 1, Section 1: All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.
The phrase “own Legislatures” in Grievance 22 should set off biblical alarms for the following reason:
For ... Yahweh is our lawgiver.... (Isaiah 33:22)
There is no biblical justification for men forming their own legislatures, thereby empowering finite men as lawmakers to create their own laws by which to govern themselves—whether it be King George, the 18th-century American colonials, the constitutional framers, or anyone else.
The framers’ great aspiration is known as the Grand Experiment in Self-Government. It was, therefore, inescapable that they would create their own laws by which to govern themselves, rather than submitting to Yahweh’s perfect law of liberty, as reflected in His commandments, statutes, and judgments.268
If ever there were a recipe for disaster, self-government is it. Self-government is what Adam and Eve attempted in the Garden. How well did that turn out for them? How well has it turned out for America?
Judgment by Spurious Laws
Yahweh is sovereign over all His creation, thus none of what was done in the 18th-century American colonies was without His overarching supervision. Self-appointed legislators and man-made legislation is but one of God’s means for judging man for rejecting Him and His perfect law of liberty:
[T]he most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest [lowliest, NASB] of men. (Daniel 4:17)
Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers’ idols. Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live ... that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am Yahweh. (Ezekiel 20:24-26)
The Prophet Micah depicts the best of the lowliest of men as briars and the most upright among them as sharper than a thorn hedge (see Micah 7:4). It’s what today under the Constitutional Republic is often described as the lesser of two evils. Sometimes it’s the worst of two evils, and it’s always the evil of two lessers. No wonder “no one’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”
This is invariably true unless, of course, we’re talking about Yahweh’s legislature, consisting of Him as exclusive lawgiver via His Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments as the law of the land268:
Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as Yahweh my God commanded me.... Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as Yahweh our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? (Deuteronomy 4:5-8)
Do we then make void the law through faith [under the New Covenant]? God forbid: yea, we establish the law. (Romans 3:31)
Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. (Romans 7:12)
Clashing Legislators
The Prophet Isaiah contrasts the caliber of leaders who serve God as Lawgiver with Micah’s briars and thorns representing finite usurpers:
Seek Yahweh while he may be found, call upon him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return unto Yahweh, and he will have mercy upon him ... for he will abundantly pardon.... For you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace.... Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree.... (Isaiah 55:6-13)
The fir and myrtle trees are indicative of the civil leaders the Apostle Paul depicts in Romans 13:1-7269 as men of God who are a continual blessing to the righteous and a perpetual terror to the wicked, under which:
The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. (Psalm 92:12)
Under man’s surrogate governments, the best you get for rulers are “briars” and “thorns.” Under a biblical government established on the perfect law of liberty,270 adjudicated by biblically qualified judges, we get “fir” and “myrtle trees” for civil leaders. However, for the “trees” to flourish, the “briars” and “thorns” must be eliminated:
Give the king thy judgments, O God, and thy righteousness unto the king’s son.... He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass: as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish; and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. (Psalm 72:1, 6-8)
This Psalm depicts what everyone in his right mind desires for his nation, people, and posterity. Yahweh is always true to His word, thus when early 1600s America was governed by His law, these blessings were exactly what America experienced:
They [the 17th-century Puritans] exercised the rights of sovereignty; they named their magistrates, concluded peace or declared war, made police regulations, and enacted laws as if their allegiance was due only to God. Nothing can be more curious and, at the same time more instructive, than the legislation of that period; it is there that the solution of the great social problem which the United States now presents to the world is to be found [in perfect fulfillment of Deuteronomy 4:5-8, demonstrating the continuing veracity of Yahweh’s law and its accompanying blessings, per Deuteronomy 28:1-14].
Amongst these documents we shall notice, as especially characteristic, the code of laws promulgated by the little State of Connecticut in 1650. The legislators of [New Haven] Connecticut begin with the penal laws, and … they borrow their provisions from the text of Holy Writ ... copied verbatim from the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.…271
America’s former greatness (blessings from God) was the result of the early 17th-century colonial governments of, by, and for God, established upon His unchanging moral law, per Deuteronomy 28:1-14.
On the other hand, God curses nations that reject His sovereignty and replace His law and legislature with their own man-made surrogates, per Deuteronomy 28:15-68. America began to be cursed (only incrementally at first, thanks to God’s long-suffering) when the 18th-century founders replaced the 17th-century biblical governments with their own humanistic government of, by, and for the people, based upon capricious man-made Enlightenment and Masonic traditions, including the Constitutional Republic’s legislative branch.272
Without repentance for these sins of sedition against our God and Creator and America’s complicity therein ever since, it was inevitable America would find herself teetering on the precipice of destruction. This is especially true when her preachers and pastors (those who are supposed to be America’s watchmen on the wall, per Ezekiel 3:17-21) have been some of the greatest proponents of the framers’ sedition as the law of the land.
Source of Morality
As the source of all true morality, Yahweh is likewise the source of all true law. His never-changing immutable morality (aka His righteousness) is codified and reflected in His triune law of liberty:
Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished. Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law. ...my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation. (Isaiah 51:6-8)
Because Yahweh’s righteousness can never be abolished, neither can His moral law that conveys His righteousness to us. To change His law is to change Yahweh’s moral nature, and to change His moral nature is (in theory) to eliminate God Himself.
Source of Law
Because legislation enacts morality (or immorality as the case may be), morality and legislation are indivisible. Because Yahweh holds the exclusive authority for determining what constitutes good and evil, He likewise holds the monopoly on legislation.
Anything else is merely man making legal what God has determined as unlawful (e.g., government-financed in utero infanticide, sodomite “marriages,” and religious pluralism) and making illegal what God has determined or dictated as lawful (e.g., mandatory biblical qualifications for civil leaders). For any man (e.g., King George) or group of men (e.g., the constitutional framers) to form their own legislatures and to legislate a law code different from Yahweh’s is tantamount to calling good evil and evil good, per Isaiah 5:20. In turn, it makes a mockery of God and His law and, in so doing, repeats the same sin responsible for casting Adam and Eve out of the Garden.
Usurped Divinity
Calling good evil and evil good—as the Constitution repeatedly does,273 not to mention its biblically criminal legislature ever since—is a claim to divinity. One of the attributes of God is His exclusive authority to define good and evil. Because there is only one true God (Deuteronomy 6:4, 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, etc.) and Lawgiver (Isaiah 33:22, James 4:12), there is likewise only one standard for what constitutes good and evil. Anyone who attempts to alter His determinations for good and evil is usurping His place as God:
[T]he other gods about whom we must be concerned are, as they ever have been, to be found in the seats of temporal, or human, government.274
This is what Christ, in Matthew 23:2, depicted as fraudulently sitting “in Moses’ seat.” This is precisely what King George, the American colonials, and the constitutional framers were all guilty of when they created their own legislatures.
Last Five Grievances
The last five grievances essentially address different aspects of the same thing:
Grievances #23
He [King George] has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
Grievances #24
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
Grievances #25
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
Grievances #26
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
Grievances #27
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
Ungodly Acts of Warfare
All of this sounds terrible! But has the United States of America fared any better? Not to sound trite, but this is the way of nations that have rejected the Bible’s perfect law of liberty as the foundational standard for society. Case in point: The Constitutional Republic’s imperialistic empire and its military industrial complex that has disregarded the biblical laws of warfare as, for example, found in Deuteronomy 20.
No one will argue that the power to declare war is a very serious responsibility. So why were the constitutional framers so vague in defining the parameters of war and the conditions under which it could be declared? Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11275 is the only place of “substantive significance” where warfare is mentioned in the Constitution:
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11: [Congress shall have the power] To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.
Read that again. The only foundational difference from what King George was doing is the number of men empowered to do so.
For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. (Jeremiah 2:13)
Source Notes
265. Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective, in which every Article and Amendment is examined by the Bible,
bibleversusconstitution.org/BlvcOnline/blvc-index.html
See also audio series “Bible Law vs. Constitutionalism,” beginning at bibleversusconstitution.org/tapelist.html#T742.
266. Chapter 9 “Article 6: The Supreme Law of the Land” of Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective,
bibleversusconstitution.org/BlvcOnline/biblelaw-constitutionalism-pt9.html
267. Chapter 4 “Article 1: Legislative Usurpation” of Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective,
bibleversusconstitution.org/BlvcOnline/biblelaw-constitutionalism-pt4.html
268. For how the Bible’s immutable/unchanging moral law applies today and should be implemented as the law of the land, see Law and Kingdom: Their Relevance Under the New Covenant,
bibleversusconstitution.org/law-kingdomFrame.html.
Also A Biblical Constitution: A Scriptural Replacement for Secular Government at bibleversusconstitution.org/biblicalConstitution.html.
Also ten books on each of the Ten Commandments and their respective statutes and judgments, beginning with Thou shalt have no other gods before me at bibleversusconstitution.org/onlineBooks/first-commandment.html.
269. The Romans 13 Template for Biblical Dominion: Ten Reasons Why Romans 13 is Not About Secular Government,
bibleversusconstitution.org/Romans13/Romans13-contents.html
270. A Biblical Constitution: A Scriptural Replacement for Secular Government, bibleversusconstitution.org/biblicalConstitution.html
271. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 2 vols. (New York: NY: The Colonial Press, 1899) vol. 1, pp. 36-37
272. Chapter 4 “Article 1: Legislative Usurpation” of Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective,
bibleversusconstitution.org/BlvcOnline/biblelaw-constitutionalism-pt4.html
273. Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective, in which every Article and Amendment is examined by the Bible,
bibleversusconstitution.org/BlvcOnline/blvc-index.html
274. T. Robert Ingram, The World Under God’s Law (Houston, TX: St. Thomas Press, 1981) p. 33
275. Chapter 4 “Article 1: Legislative Usurpation” of Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective,
bibleversusconstitution.org/BlvcOnline/biblelaw-constitutionalism-pt4.html
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