Politics as Usual

Candidates for federal government always make a big promise in order to garner votes. With all sincerity and claims of fidelity, the candidates make this promise over and over. This promise is guaranteed to provide lively matter for debate between the candidates, each one vowing to outdo the other to champion his cause.

The promise is to clear out corruption. Each candidate claims to be the anti-corruption candidate. Each candidate promises to drain the swamp, to clean up the mess, or to do some other metaphorical, expressive action. The candidates go further. They promise to clean up the laws and work to make them more fair. To this end the candidates take special aim at the “higher ups”—the rich and others favored by special laws that seem to be passed for their benefit and at the expense of those below them.

These promises matter to the voters. Among reasons they give for voting the way they do, the promise of cleaning up corruption is prominent. Thus candidates dedicate their campaign platforms to their promises, and some candidates are elected into office. Such promises are prominent also in inaugural speeches. The elected officials have heard the loud and clear voices of the people. The officials promise to do what they have been elected to do and to appoint and authorize persons and committees to carry out the campaign promises to the complete satisfaction of everyone.

But they all must die. All the promises and professions. All the vows and declarations.

Power will not let them quietly fade away into the background and die a slow death due to negligence. Neither will power rest content to take such promises and stab them to death in some back alley.

Power must parade the beaten and bloodied promises through the streets. Power must raise a scaffold and declare a public gathering to witness the hanging of the promises. All must know that power is power after all. All must know that power does not need to keep promises. For power to be proper and true power, it must despise any obligation to honor what it has spoken before. Power cannot be accountable or responsible. Accountability and responsibility, power accounts as weakness.

So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter. (Eccl. 4:1)

This becomes evident in politics. Travel restrictions are imposed on the people, but the powerful must travel. They must travel for business, business that must continue for the sake of the people. The powerful must also travel for leisure because carrying on the important business of the people requires rest and relaxation. Health agencies that have been given legislative and enforcement powers impose masking and social distancing rules on the people. The powerful can fine and imprison the violators, but the powerful can wine and dine and party together with no masks and ignore social distancing with no compunction whatever. So the powerful carry on without fear or shame.

But some people watch and listen. They see the double standard. Some brave souls in the news media are determined not to ignore but to publish the flagrant violations and to expose the double standard. As a result there is a debate among the people, a debate that results in division. Many choose to ignore what is before their eyes or even vigorously to deny it. Some even justify it by distorting what has truly happened with an explanation that the most evident non-compliance is actually compliance! But others take it in and realize that it is all a shame that the powerful belie their rules by their actions. These others reason, “Why follow the rules if the powerful do not feel obligated to follow them?” So some follow the powerful leaders and disobey the rules too.

This division continues as those in power continue with their ongoing reckless flaunting of the rules.

Often something happens when those in power are confronted with their reckless behavior. Sometimes they do not justify their actions. They actually address their behavior. They offer apologies. They address the damage that they have caused by their actions. They speak of their regret at what they have said or done. They declare their sorrow on account of their conduct. They identify and promise some kind of change that they will undertake in order to restore the trust of the people.

Among those who hear such apologies there is further division. Some implicitly trust the apologies and are fully satisfied. What contrition and sorrow has been shown! Those who apologized will certainly change their behavior! Surely, the people have every reason to expect that trust has been completely restored! If some still do not trust their leaders, then shame on them!

But others see and hear something completely different. They see only political posturing. As they have seen the hypocrisy of the original rule-flaunting, so they see the hypocrisy of the apologies. They see the sorrow, the admission of damage, and the promises of change in the same light as the promises originally made to fight corruption. All of it means nothing. They are all expressions of the same power that must, according to its nature, speak and live as above all law.

Listen carefully. Watch closely. Listen not for what you want to hear. Watch not for what you want to see. Listen and watch not for the sake of preserving implicit trust in the power. Listen and watch not for the sake of maintaining the comfortable notion that you will be well cared for by those in power over you. Listen and watch not because you want to hear and see that the institutions you need for your sense of security are really stable. But determine to hear what has really been said. Determine to see what has really been done.

What you will so often hear and see are the same continued expressions of power.

What you will hear and see are the real works of power. Power may say, “If.” “If I was misunderstood…” “If I caused any grief…” “If I did any damage…” Power must also distort what was said or done. Sometimes power will not say, “If…” Sometimes it will directly admit causing misunderstanding, grief, and damage of some kind. But what it admits is beside the point. When power speaks of correction or change, the promised correction or change is not what will truly address the original problem or its full scope. No promise is made to repair the gash in the ship’s hull through which water is pouring in. Instead, a promise is made to rearrange the deck chairs.

This is because power must show itself to be completely in charge, because power will not be beholden to the people to truly restore trust, and because power knows that it does not really need sincerity and truth presented: blind trust is its ally, while true accountability and responsibility is its enemy.

How important it is to understand this working of power! How important it is not to be captured by a society and culture so oriented to political power and to be so overwhelmed by its force as to drown in an ocean of dark fear!

In the Church

How blessed then to be part of another society and another culture that runs independently of the world’s society and culture, which are so dominated by political power! How blessed to be in the church of Jesus Christ, the church that is founded on the truth (Matt. 16:18) and that is the pillar and ground of the truth (1 Tim. 3:15)! In the church of Jesus Christ, the gospel is preached, the gospel of the eternal kingdom of God, the kingdom that is dominated not by tyranny but by the love of God in Jesus Christ. In the church is the fellowship of the gospel that brings freedom to the heart, freedom from fear of death and the condemnation unto death, through the publishing of the gospel of free justification of sinners apart from their works. Through that gospel believers receive the riches of that kingdom in their salvation by the cross of Jesus Christ. In those riches are all their comfort and peace. That comfort and peace are solid and sure, no matter what tyranny they experience at the hands of all earthly power.

Or at least they should have this comfort and peace.

What cause for alarm and despair when they do not have this comfort and peace in the church! Instead they meet with the same circumstances in the church as they endure in the world. How much worse is their plight when it becomes evident that in the very place where they ought to enjoy freedom from tyranny by the pure preaching of the word of God, they meet only with bondage! How great their suffering and their bondage in that suffering! Instead of finding the gracious rule of Christ proclaimed to them, they find themselves in bondage to men.

Men who are supposed to proclaim the gospel of peace and freedom in Jesus Christ proclaim instead the necessity of doing good works in order to possess and grow in assurance. The people are told that they cannot possess assurance of forgiveness and salvation merely by faith alone in Christ alone. They are told that such a doctrine is the heresy of antinomianism. They are told that subsequent blessings from God will be given to them only in the way of their obedience and good works by faith. To look for such blessings from God’s grace alone, without their works, will make them careless and indifferent to a life of good works. Gratitude for salvation proclaimed in the gospel is not a sufficient motivation.

Then the people watch the men who proclaim these false doctrines. The people recognize that these men do not appear so interested in holiness or good works for themselves. They see these men showing no mercy but dealing harshly with those who question their teachings. They see these men refusing to deal with protests and appeals that would require admission of teaching false doctrine. The people see these men attacking with slander and lies those who would hold them accountable to God’s word. They see these men misusing the Church Order and twisting it in order to protect themselves and to deny their objectors. They see these men driving out faithful people of God and decrying them as slanderous and schismatic.

However, just as in the world, so in the church, sometimes these men are required to give apologies. Sometimes they are found to be in error. Ecclesiastical assemblies decide that apologies must be given. Wrong and hurt must be acknowledged. Sorrow must be declared. A change of manner or behavior must be promised. But power is still expressed in the apologies. Words are spoken, read, or published in letters to congregations, but the words are not genuine. They signify only the further exercise of power. The powerful are quickly excused and declared orthodox, sound, and upright in every way. Those beneath the powerful, those who have pursued matters and whose labors have brought about such apologies, are treated with contempt. They receive no thanks for their efforts in behalf of the gospel of Christ. They are branded as troublemakers, and the sins of schism and slander are imputed to them.

In the meantime the power builds its institutional walls higher and thicker. The power builds more and more legal bulk in those walls, pretending that bulk is spiritual. Inside the walls is salvation. Outside is damnation. Cut off from the outside, warned against all the perils and dangers lurking without, God’s people are told that their only safety and peace are within the walls. But within the walls the tyranny and abuse continue and grow. God’s people are more and more bewildered by false doctrine that masquerades as the truth. They are led further and further from the truth that sets them free and into a labyrinth of innumerable errors. These errors deprive them of the peace and joy of their salvation and put them in deeper bondage to their leaders. Confusion dominates, and the abusive, domineering power promises all help through the confusion, if the people will but trust wholly in the power.

What wretchedness! What misery!

There is the wretchedness that is caused by the powerful. Their tyranny is oppressive to freedom in the truth and freedom in Christ. Their tyranny demands that they and their precepts of men be served. Their teachings as the teachings of men must be believed and confessed by those under them. Their tyranny means that their apologies must be accepted as genuine and sincere. Those questioning their genuineness and sincerity are treated as malicious and destructive.

There is also the wretched misery of their blind followers. Some are glad to find their refuge under the power of men. They gladly echo what they have heard from their leaders and multiply reasons for adhering to their teachings, exactly as the teachings of men. They present tokens of loyalty on every occasion, lauding and applauding the faithfulness, goodness, and holiness of their leaders. Exactly as they are told, they do. They labor in ignorance, unable to present the simplest explanations for the doctrines or actions of the powerful. But still they criticize and shun those whom they find disagreeable. Elders discipline members for raising questions and concerns, without any idea what those questions and concerns truly represent. They are just following orders, orders from the power.

Judgment to Flee

What great evil is afoot! These are the circumstances that are set out in Psalm 12:8: “The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.”

Surrounded by this wretchedness, God’s people raise the cry of verse 1: “Help, Lord; for the godly man ceaseth; for the faithful fail from among the children of men.”

Similar are the descriptive words of the lament that follows in verse 2: “They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.”

That language is that of proud rebellion against the Lord, as is made clear in verse 4: “Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord over us?”

These verses describe the particular pride of men shown in words of boasting. With their words they command and control. With their words they exercise oppressive tyranny in every possible way. They oppress the poor and cause the needy to sigh, who must bear upon their hearts the heavy weight of the hard and harsh words of those tyrannical men.

God’s word in this psalm not only addresses the proud, oppressive words of the wicked and of those who flatter the wicked, but also God’s word is set against the words of the wicked. The word of God judges their words to be vanity (v. 2). In contrast to their words are the words of Jehovah. “The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (v. 6).

God in Psalm 12 judges power’s words of vanity and deceit that cause such misery to God’s oppressed people. “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him” (v. 5). “Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever” (v. 7).

In these circumstances, especially in the church, the child of God must not suppose that God is far off, that God takes no notice. Though the powerful oppressors have used their words to push away the knowledge of God’s truth, he is near. He is near in judgment. Note carefully the circumstances. The proud know better. They know doctrine. They know true holiness. They know church order. But what they know, they distort. What they know, they set aside. What they know does not serve their oppressive purposes, so they cast it aside. They distort because it serves their oppressive purposes. In their boastful, proud words they give evidence of the judgment of God. God gives them over to their evil ways to pursue them with reckless abandon. Hear in their words and see in their deeds the judgment of God against them. That judgment of God is why the powerful show no shame even in their apologies.

That judgment of God manifesting itself must cause God’s people to flee from those proud men with their vain words. In their flight they must pay no attention to the high and thick walls that are meant to keep them in. They must not allow the fear of being shunned to keep them under their oppressive circumstances. They must not suppose that their departure from such corrupt institutions is departure from the kingdom of heaven and the loss of their salvation.

Their flight is escape into freedom, the freedom of the truth, the freedom to live not as the servants of men but as the liberated servants of God. The freedom outside the walls that are dominated by corrupt power is the power to serve God from the heart, the heart filled with gratitude for the joyful freedom of their salvation from the bondage of men.