Against Both Legalism and Liberalism 

The Need for Law 

Sometimes you have to say to a young child very firmly, “Don’t do that!” Yet unless you really instil a fear of doing it, possibly with consequences, the very prohibition will add to the excitement of doing it. Therefore, the fear of doing it needs to be inculcated, together with obvious love, at an early age, so that obeying becomes automatic before enough intelligence develops to find reasons for disobedience. That is why God says in Proverbs 13:24, “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent with discipline.”
 
When government makes any law, the fear of disobeying is enhanced by sanctions should the law be broken. But unless a majority of the people are on board and in agreement with it, a law will eventually be weakened by disobedience and rebellion.
 
If we believe in laissez-faire, so that anything goes, we’ll see human nature as it really is: fallen from grace, with people hurt, abused and abusing.

Unless a majority of the people are on board and in agreement with it, a law will eventually be weakened by disobedience and rebellion.

Therefore, a population needs laws which make sufficient sense to the majority, and which keep people safe from each other, whilst maintaining freedom of speech and thought so that the best ideas might be garnered for greater prosperity, and so that every person might openly find their way to personal faith in Almighty God.

And yet, arguably, the days of Christendom, which helped to enable this, in many ways appear to be finished.

The problem of policing speech

If we believe that everyone should be able to be fraternal because we deem everyone equal, and that it should therefore be possible to mix people from widely different cultures, old fashioned laws that have been culturally determined might be unacceptable to those belonging to other cultures and ideologies. In order to formulate new law for this ideology of equality, we might subtly manipulate language so that it appears inoffensive and might help us to get along together.
 
But such language, which in today’s culture has been labelled ‘woke’, which psychological science reckons will integrate people of widely differing beliefs, does nothing to actually change human nature. Since the attempts at forced ‘inclusive’ language is contrived and inauthentic, it can never ultimately be satisfactory to human beings who are all essentially made in the image of God. After realising the dangers of a universal language, God firmly decided to confuse the languages of the world (Gen 11:7).

Since the attempts at forced ‘inclusive’ language is contrived and inauthentic, it can never ultimately be satisfactory to human beings who are all essentially made in the image of God. 

The imposition of ‘woke’ language cannot, in consequence, be expected to bring peace, and must eventually lead to chaos. Sooner or later, particularly when new laws are offensive to some intelligent people, it will become apparent that some are more equal than others. For authentic language and behaviour breaks out in rebellious response to the new, enforced way of speaking, particularly when punishments for infringements seem excessive.

Societal entropy 

Science has revealed that energy eventually becomes unavailable for creative work in a closed system. We can see that this applies not only to materials in the physical realm, but also to secular human relationships. When law controls and restricts what is permissible to say and think, rather than maintaining freedom of thought and speech, a closed system of chaotic unproductive energy will inevitably ensue. The scientific word for such frustrating stagnation is ‘entropy’. The ordinary word is ‘stultification’. Entropy damages both the economy and culture.
 
Unless Almighty God, the God of Israel, Creator of the universe, is openly honoured, we have only a closed system. The eternal God offers an open relationship in which He sets our spirit free in Him when we thank Him for setting us free from this fallen world by sending His only begotten Son to save us.

Understanding the need for fear of God

Furthermore, Proverbs 16:7 says, “When one’s ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even His enemies be at peace with Him.” Such peace is supernatural and spiritual. It is not due to any sort of crippling fear. It comes, rather, from the sort of fear which is awe and respect for goodness and truth in a person whom you naturally love and honour, whom you are glad to walk and talk with and whose wisdom you are glad to receive.

Without such fear of God, any population or nation can logically be expected to descend into dangerous chaos far worse than a class of unruly children. 

I remember with gratitude and respect a teacher at school whose presence always kept order in classes of unruly boys and whose teaching was efficient and effective because the boys respected him. I believe his authority was due to his Christian integrity. He was a man of encouragement and compassion with a sound understanding of what is good and right. We could say there was a sort of awe and fear of him that maintained a good relationship with him and thereby kept the peace.

The fear of God is like that; and without such fear of God, any population or nation can logically be expected to descend into dangerous chaos far worse than a class of unruly children. And if Antichrist should be the phoenix that arises from the ashes of such chaos, deceptively appearing to bring some sort of peace, he or she will come to nothing.

Our need for God

In general, people ‘on the make’ have no time for God. Locked into ruthless materialistic success to provide for their people, they fail to acknowledge God, not understanding that He would actually make things better.
 
Something might happen at various times, however – quite often something rather tragic – that makes a person seek a new and deeper understanding beyond secularism. Then some people might come to a realisation that they cannot manage without the Lord Jesus. But forfeiture of self-sufficiency can feel like a death, and the faith which any hope entails can seem preposterous to those who have not understood about Jesus. Thus, the ruthless are in the majority and they are the ones who have the say in a liberal democracy. They are the ones who make the laws. They do not know that what ultimately counts is following the Lord Jesus Christ and listening to His Spirit.

The ruthless are in the majority and they are the ones who have the say in a liberal democracy. 

In an increasingly deceptive and ruthless world, therefore, Christian churches must focus on revealing the person of Jesus, reading the whole Bible, ministering the Lord’s provision for His people, and becoming places of sanctuary for those seeking Him, as implied in the first chapters of Acts of the Apostles.
 
After personal tragedy in my own life, I eventually reached a point where intense involvement in the medical and psychological sciences and psychotherapeutic philosophies had failed to bring peace and healing.
 
True healing only came after I got down on my knees and asked the God to whom I had given my life in my youth to come and take over. And I have never looked back.
 
The only God who really heals is the God of Israel, Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
 
Dr John Gordon’s three books on Amazon detail biblical healing for the mind and for mental illnesses.

(Image by Sang Hyun Cho from Pixabay)