It was John 19, verses 1-12. And let's stand together for the reading of God's word. John 19, verses 1-12. Then Pilate took Jesus and scourged Him, and the soldiers plaited a crown of thorns and put it on His head. And they put on him a purple garment and said, Hail, King of the Jews! And they smote him with their rods. Then Pilate went forth again and said unto them, Behold, I bring him forth to you, that ye may know that I find no fault in him at all. Then came Jesus forth, wearing a crown of thorns and a purple garment. And Pilate said unto them, Behold the man! Then when the high priests and officers saw him, they cried, saying, Crucify! Crucify him! Pilate said unto them, Taking him, and crucify him, for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate heard that word, he was more afraid, and went again into the common hall, and said unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him none answer. Then said Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and power to loose thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. And that ends the reading of God's word. Let's pray. Father, help us to apply these things in our own experience, our own circumstances. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. And please be seated. Constantine the Great, also known as Constantine I or Saint Constantine in the Orthodox Church as Saint Constantine the Great, equal to the apostles, was a Roman emperor from 306 to 337 AD. Constantine was the son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, a Roman army officer, and his consort Helena. His father became Caesar. The deputy emperor in the west in 293 AD, Constantine was sent east, where he rose through the ranks to become a military tribune under the emperors Diocletian and Galerius. In 305, Constantius was raised to the rank of Augustus Senior, western emperor, and Constantine was recalled west to campaign under his father in Britain. Acclaimed as emperor by the army at Iboracum, which is the modern-day York, after his father's death in 306 AD, Constantine emerged victorious in a series of civil wars against the emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become sole ruler both west and east by 324 AD. As emperor, Constantine enacted many administrative, financial, social, and military reforms to strengthen the empire. The government was restructured and civil and military authority separated. A new gold coin, the solidus, was introduced to combat inflation. It would become the standard for Byzantine and European currencies for more than a thousand years. The first Roman emperor to claim conversion to Christianity, Constantine played an influential role in the proclamation of the Edict of Milan in 313, which decreed tolerance for Christianity in the empire. He called the first Council of Nicaea in 325, at which the Nicene Creed was professed by Christians. Constantine was the first emperor to stop Christian persecutions and to legalize Christianity along with all other religions and cults in the Roman Empire. In February 313, Constantine met with Licinius in Milan, where they developed the Edict of Milan. The Edict stated that Christians should be allowed to follow the faith without oppression. This removed penalties for professing Christianity, under which many had been martyred previously, and returned confiscated church property. The edict protected from religious persecution not only Christians, but all religions, allowing anyone to worship whichever deity they chose. A similar edict had been issued in 311 by Galerius, then senior emperor of the Tetrarchy. Galerius' edict granted Christians the right to practice their religion, but did not restore any property to them. The Edict of Milan included several clauses which stated that all confiscated churches would be returned, as well as other provisions for previously persecuted Christians. Scholars debate whether Constantine adopted his mother, Saint Helena's Christianity in his youth, or whether he adopted it gradually over the course of his life. Constantine would retain the title of Pontifex Maximus until his death, a title emperors bore as heads of the pagan priesthood, as would his Christian successors to Gratian, 375-383. According to Christian writers, Constantine was over 40 when he finally declared himself a Christian, writing to Christians to make clear that he believed he owed his success to the protection of the Christian high God alone. Throughout his rule, Constantine supported the Church financially, built basilicas, granted privileges to clergy, for example, exemption from certain taxes. promoted Christians to high office, and returned property confiscated during the Diocletian persecution. His famous building projects include Church of the Holy Sepulchre and Old St. Peter's Basilica. However, Constantine certainly did not patronize Christianity alone. After gaining victory in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, a triumphal arch, the Arch of Constantine, was built, 315, to celebrate his triumph. The arch is decorated with images of the goddess Victoria. At the time of its dedication, sacrifices to gods like Apollo, Diana, and Hercules were made. Absent from the arch are any depictions of Christian symbolism. However, as the arch was commissioned by the Senate, the absence of Christian symbols may reflect the role of the curia at the time as a pagan redoubt. Later in 321, Constantine instructed that Christians and non-Christians should be united in the observing of the venerable day of the sun, or Sunday, referring to the sun worship that Aurelian had established as an official cult. Furthermore, and long after his oft-alleged conversion to Christianity, Constantine's coinage continued to carry the symbols of the sun. Even after the pagan gods had disappeared from the coinage, Christian symbols appeared only as Constantine's personal attributes, and that he wrote between his hands or on his labarium, but never on the coin itself. Even when Constantine dedicated the new capital of Constantinople, which became the seat of Byzantine Christianity for a millennium, he did so wearing the Apollarian sunray diadem. No Christian symbols were present at this dedication. The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the emperor as having great influence and ultimately regulatory authority within the religious discussions involving the early Christian councils at that time. For example, most notably the dispute over Arianism and the nature of God. Constantine himself disliked the risk to societal stability that religious disputes and controversies brought with them. preferring, where possible, to establish an orthodoxy. One way in which Constantine used his influence over the early church councils was to seek to establish a consensus over the oft-debated and argued issue over the nature of God. Most notably, from 313 to 316, bishops in North Africa struggled with other Christian bishops who had been ordained by Donepus in opposition to Sicilian. The African bishops could not come to terms, and the Donatists asked Constantine to act as judge in the dispute. Three regional church councils and another trial before Constantine all ruled against Donatists and the Donatism movement in North Africa. In 317, Constantine issued an edict to confiscate Donatist church property and to send Donatist clergy into exile. More significantly, in 325, he summoned the Council of Nicaea, effectively the first ecumenical council, unless the Council of Jerusalem is so classified. The Council of Nicaea is most known for its dealing with Arianism and for instituting the Nicene Creed. Now, what I've just read is a short biography of Constantine the Great. It's from the Wikipedia article on his reign as emperor. And those dates are 306 to 337. The article adequately describes what is ultimately a deathbed conversion of a pagan Roman empire. And we note the mixed influences that operated in the empire the entire time. You know, pluralism. It's not only that Christianity is legalized, it's that any religion is legalized. You can worship anything you want, and that's good enough for us. Then it's hard to understand whether the man Constantine was a sincere Christian, or whether this conversion that he experienced and talked about was a matter of imperial policy and the attempt to unify the empire. The confusion is further magnified when you inquire into the emperor's doctrine, because Arianism was what the emperors always desired, and so that played a part in what the empire was seeking. And that also highlights the Council of Nicaea's independency. The Council of Nicaea, when the church was called together and the bishops got together, they refuted Arianism, and the Nicene Creed was designed to do that. Well, that's a little bit on Constantine. For our purpose, it is the policy of the empire that is of interest to us. what we're interested in, the Roman Empire and its conversion to Christianity, so to speak, for the policy of the empire. And we note that the religion of the people is by decree of the emperor. We're going to allow certain things, and we're not going to allow certain things. And whether it's Diocletian who hates Christianity and wants to stamp it out, or Constantine who says it's to be tolerated and allowed, and the Edict of Milan will stand, it is still by decree of the emperor that religion is adopted. Now, it's a reflection of what the king will tolerate as a matter of policy, and that comes out in his dealing with the Donatists in North Africa. The political theory of the Roman Empire, this pagan empire converted to Christianity, so to speak, is called Sacero-Papism. It is the doctrine that the king is also the head of the church. The king is primary in matters of religion. The king will decide, the king will hear, the king will judge, but the church is to be formed on the decree of the emperor and the decision of the emperor. And back to that doughnut discontroversy, that was what was going on in North Africa. When they had the the Council of Carthage, the Conference of Carthage, it was before a delegate from the Roman emperor who was there to hear the dispute in the church and to judge for the empire. That's caesaropatism. That's the nature of it. The doctrine that the king is also the head of the church. And you have to note in that, for Rome, that was nothing new. That was the old doctrine. That's the doctrine of paganism. It has been the doctrine of paganism throughout the centuries. Tertullian had mocked the Romans. And he said it was an antecedent decree that no one should be consecrated a god but by the emperor until the Senate had expressed its approval. Marcus Aurelius did thus concerning a certain idol, Albertus. And this is a point in favor of our doctrine, that among you, divine dignity is conferred by human decree. If a god does not please a man, he is not made a god. Thus, according to this custom, it is necessary for man to be gracious to God. Now that's Tertullian mocking the Romans. The gods are made by decree of the Senate. Not even the emperor can make a god unless the senate agrees. So man must vote a god to be a god, and that's how gods are made in Rome. Now that's a mockery of any kind of concept of a god, you see. But that's the way it was in Rome. That's the way it is in paganism. And Rome's conversion to Christianity was the establishment of this same principle, the principle of paganism, In Christianity, Caesar wrote Papism, the king, the emperor, as the head of the church. Well, coming forward in history, the battle for the church was against the perverse use of that. And so what you have then is kings, emperors. After the breakup of the Roman Empire, the principle doesn't go away. Now you have kings in all these various areas. Whatever their dominion is, whatever their reign is, they're deciding policy for the church. They're saying what the church is. They're saying what the doctrine must be. Cesar of Papism still operative in the world and in the church as you come forward in history. The church was seen as useful to the state, and the state sought, therefore, to control it. The kings sought to instill a moral allegiance among their subjects. Why is the church useful for the state? Because they can tell you it's God's will, and they can place moral requirements that lead to your submission to state edicts. a moral sanction, a religious sanction for state policy, and the state understood that that was useful, and they sought to control the offices in the church and of their opponents. Now that issue came to the forefront with the Roman Bishop Hildebrand, who we know as Gregory VII, who through his battle with the German kings, carved out what was a legal independency for the church. Now, to say it was a legal independency is not to say that it was not a centralized tyranny. It was a centralized, unitary government of the church lodged in the bishop and Rome. Prior Roman bishops had said, what's this idea that the bishop of Rome is the head of all the church? There was a Roman Pope in 800 that mocked the whole idea and said it's pure nonsense. Well, Hildebrandt was a designing bishop. Hildebrandt, he saw a real problem. He saw that Caesaropapism was a real problem. But for him the goal was carve out an independent jurisdiction and lodge it in me. And so the kings no longer can appoint bishops. I will appoint the bishops. The suggested bishops must be approved by the Roman bishop. And so he is, in reality, carving out a legal independency. But he was also battling for his own far-reaching authority, the authority to appoint bishops in every kingdom. and a separate jurisdiction over issues of law in areas like marriage and divorce. And so, all of a sudden, realize throughout, on an international basis, the church adopted or won responsibility for various areas of law that the state was excluded from. Separate jurisdiction far-reaching authority, but a centralized, unitary government lodged in the Pope at Rome. Now, incidentally, the doctrine of celibacy that is still confessed in the Roman Catholic Church comes out of Hildebrand, Pope Gregory. It was the policy of kings to take a bishop in the church and to give him a landed wife. and to so corrupt him or bring him into the orbit of the state so that he could be controlled. And so he was given land, and he was given a state, or he was given a place. His allegiance was drawn from the church to the realm. And of course, King accomplished this by giving a wife to the bishop, or giving a wife to the churchmen, in order to draw him into entanglements with the state. So the origin of celibacy was Hildebrand's answer to this problem. Our bishops aren't going to marry." And that was seen as taking the power of the king to do this thing, corrupt the church this way, was seen as taking it away. So this whole situation now, the Roman Catholic Church goes to the investiture struggle of 1076 and the policy of Gregory VII. It aimed at keeping kings from exerting influence in the church. And the medieval Romanism we meet at the time of the Reformation is built on Pope Gregory and the investiture struggle. Okay, so you see sort of a counterbalancing attempt. On the one hand, saceropapism, the doctrine that the king is the head of the church, and whatever his realm is, he dictates what the church will be, he controls the church, he sets the doctrine, and of course he does it in order to achieve the policy that he wants in the realm. And on the other hand, a centralized unitary government that seeks to draw the Church out of the orbit of the nations, but nevertheless seeks centralized authority in a Roman bishop. That's the world at the time of the Reformation. So, the Romanism, the Catholicism that we meet at the Reformation is built on Pope Gregory. He was successful. The church was seen as having international jurisdiction. But, of course, how they used their jurisdiction was much the same as how the kings used their jurisdiction. The popes dared to depose kings and say, you are excommunicated and call the subjects of the realm to rise up against the king and to overthrow him. And so they presumed to dictate matters of civil polity, not merely application of the law of God, matters of civil polity internationally. So 450 years later, the church was no more faithful to the Christian gospel than the previous kings were. And that's what the Protestant Reformation was confronting. the perversions of the church with the goal of amending those perversions. Now, every European nation has its own unique history related to the Protestant Reformation. You can trace victories and failures. You can trace the early Reformation in Germany with Martin Luther and how the reform wasn't total, but what they wanted to do away with things that were obviously against the Word of God. They didn't take it as a positive principle that in order for the church to do it, it has to be founded on the Word of God. They just simply said it can't be against, and that was as far as they went in terms of their Reformation. You can take the French Huguenots, okay? They had the Edict of Nance. They were given toleration, and then they were betrayed and murdered in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and men fled. You see? And so that's the story, and so France was a Roman Catholic country. France drove out the Reformation, and France ended with a bloody revolution, you know, in the late 18th century. Well, so you can take this, but our interest is not in the total picture of the Reformation in every nation. We're going to pass over that thing, because our interest This is a series concerning the doctrine of the civil magistrate. Our interest is in the United States, and because our interest is in the United States, it is the nation of England which is central to our development. America is the result of English colonization, and as the other nations which were active You know, there were other colonies, you know, there was New Amsterdam, that's, we know it as New York. You know, there were colonies of the Spains, and colonies of the French, and so on and so forth, but they all ceded, ultimately, land and rule to English authorities. So what we are is, came out of the English Reformation. It's the result of the English Reformation. And we have to understand English history as normative or formative in our experience in order to understand who we are and where we've come from and what our institutions are about. And it is so formative that we are still playing out the answers to English questions. So you can't understand the United States, you can't understand the Constitution of the United States, you can't understand where we are in the present apostasy, unless you understand we're still working out the way they answered the questions that came up at this time. That's how formative English history is for American history. And so if we are to understand ourselves, we must deal with the English Reformation. Well, if we're going to deal with the English Reformation, we have to deal with the central figure of the English Reformation, who is King Henry VIII. And once more, I'll turn to a Wikipedia article to give introduction. King Henry VIII was born the 28th of June, 1491, and he lived till the 28th of January, 1547, was King of England, from the 21st of April, 1509 until his death. He was the first English king of Ireland and continued the nominal claim by English monarchs to the kingdom of France. Henry was the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, succeeding his father, Henry VII. Besides the six marriages and many extramarital affairs, As well as his effort to obtain an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which led to a conflict with the Pope, Henry is known for his subsequent and consequential role in the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. His disagreements with the Pope led to his separation of the Church of England from papal authority. with himself as king, as the supreme head of the Church of England, and to the dissolution of the monasteries. Because his principal dispute was with papal authority rather than with doctrinal matters, he remained a believer in core Catholic theological teachings despite his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. Henry oversaw the legal union of England and Wales with the laws in Wales, Acts 1535 and 1542. He's also well known for a long personal rivalry with both Francis I of France and the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, with whom he frequently warred. Domestically, Henry is known for his radical changes to the English Constitution. ushering in the theory of the divine right of kings to England. Besides asserting the sovereign's supremacy over the Church of England, thus initiating the English Reformation, he greatly expanded royal power. Charges of treason and heresy were commonly used to quash dissent. And those accused men were often executed without a formal trial by means of bills of attainder. He achieved many of his political aims through the work of his chief ministers, some of whom were banished or executed when they fell out of his favor. Figures such as Thomas Wolseley, Thomas More, Thomas Cromwell, Richard Rich, and Thomas Cramner figured prominently in Henry's administration. An extravagant spender, he used the proceeds from the dissolution of the monasteries and acts of the Reformation Parliament to convert money formerly paid to Rome into royal revenue. Despite the influx of money from these sources, Henry was continually on the verge of financial ruin due to his personal extravagance as well as his numerous costly continental wars. His contemporaries considered Henry, in his prime, to be an attractive, educated, and accomplished king, and he has been described as one of the most charismatic rulers to sit on the English throne. Besides ruling with considerable power, he was also an author and composer. His desire to provide the HBD English with a male heir, which stemmed partly from personal vanity and partly from his belief that a daughter would be unable to consolidate Tudor power and maintain the fragile peace that existed following the Wars of the Roses, led to the two things for which Henry is most remembered. his six marriages, and his break with the Pope, who would not allow annulment of Henry's first marriage. As he aged, Henry became severely obese and his health suffered, contributing to his death in 1547. He is frequently characterized in his later life as lustful, egotistical, harsh, and an insecure kin. He was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Now that, again, is the Wikipedia article, gives you a nice overview of King Henry. But let's cover Henry a little more closely. Henry was the second son of his father. So when a king has a son, what he does with his son, well, the first son is being groomed to reign. And the second son, in these times especially, was trained as a Roman Catholic priest. Henry was trained as a Roman Catholic priest, and he viewed himself as a great theologian. He wrote treatises against the Reformation. That's what won the English king the title Defender of the Faith. That was from Henry. That was from Henry arguing against the Reformation principles. And so he was this great king and philosopher king, great theologian, and that's how he viewed himself. Well, so he was trained as a Catholic priest, trained as a theologian, and all that was changed when his brother died. Henry not only took over the vocational calling of his brother, that to be too. But as a matter of policy, was married to his brother's widow, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine of Aragon was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of the Spains. And you remember them from last week and from our discussion of Columbus and Columbus' missionary voyage. The date of Henry's coronation is April 21st, 1509. prior to Martin Luther, right? Eight years before Martin Luther. Eight and a half years before Martin Luther. Henry's father had come to the throne by military force. The English throne was under dispute at that time, and there was no clear heir. So that's the history. Henry knew of the history. He knew of his father's battle. He knew of the war over who would be king, and that's what he wanted to avoid. in the situation with his own posterity. He sought a male heir. Now, by the time of Luther's 95 Thesis in 1517, Catherine of Aragon had given birth to four stillborn children, a son who lived seven weeks, and this sickly girl named Mary was the only living child. six attempts, one sickly child. Henry was also a philanderer and had at least one illegitimate son, so the issue of his marriage was not about sleeping rights, was not about who he cohabited with, it was about the kinship and about the heir to the throne wanting a male heir, wanting to avoid what he grew up with, the knowledge of warfare over the throne. So when Catherine was age 42, Henry sought a papal annulment of his marriage. And he did so claiming a crisis of conscience on the basis of Leviticus 20 and verse 21. Leviticus 20. So the man that taketh his brother's wife committeth filthiness, because he hath uncovered his brother's shame, they shall be childless. And Henry said, see, that's what my experience is, and that creates a crisis of conscience with me. I've done what's wrong. That explains the failure of all this. Children have died, you know, and this kind of thing. So Henry, you know, perhaps was sincere on one level with respect to this. So he would claim it's the judgment of God that I'm experiencing, I've sinned, and Pope, I repent of this sin, I want you to disannul this marriage. But Catherine is the daughter of a Roman Catholic king. This is furdening. And the Pope is not about to give dispensations on this thing to King Henry, and anger the entire Spanish realm against him. Well, the English Reformation was Henry's response. And that was simply to make... Henry didn't change, as the article said, Henry didn't change any doctrine. He was a trained Roman Catholic theologian. He believed those things. He argued for those things. He didn't change anything related to the doctrine of the Church. He simply said, this Church is independent from the Roman Pope. We're independent of papal authority. The Acts of Supremacy in 1534 declared him the only head of the English church. Now, do you see what's just happened? Does this make connection with you? England has just returned to the old Roman pagan system. The inception of the English Reformation is a return to Sacero-Papism. And today, almost 500 years later, Anglicanism is still the same. The king is the head of the church and the heir apparent to the throne, Prince Charles, is a reduction to absurdity in such a system. And I say that because there's no way to interpret him as a Christian. You know, you have somebody who is running around talking about the glories of all the religions, including Islam, and his commitments are to all other things other than the Christian faith. It's a reduction to absurdity. How absurd a thing is it to say the king, regardless of his testimony, is the head of the Christian church? And I hope his mother outlives him. Not that she's anything great, you know, but it's absurd, it's ridiculous. That's what the English Reformation is. That's what England has been for 500 years since Henry VIII. Well, now notice the other point that the article made. It credited King Henry for the origin of this doctrine, the divine right of kings, theory of government. Now, Henry was, again, trained as a Roman Catholic priest, and the divine right of kings is the civil counterpart of Rome's concept of authority implicit in apostolic succession. See, the Roman Church claims that it has the only legitimate ministry. And why is that? Because we go all the way back to Peter. Peter laid his hands on somebody, and they laid their hands on somebody, and they laid their hands on somebody, and so authority is communicated by succession from Peter. And whoever gets the authority is the legitimate one in authority. You can't question how the authority is used. You can't question the decisions that are made by that authority. The fact is, when all debate ceases, because we are the legitimate authorities, because we have the succession of Peter. Now, that's the Roman Catholic concept of authority that justifies anything that they want to come up with, from their Mariology, to their Idolatry, to the idolatrous forms of worship, to Purgatory, to indulgences. You can't question it because we're the ones in legitimate authority. And that's the final trumping argument. Well, the civil counterpart of that is the divine right of kings. that God has placed the king in authority. And you can't question the king in authority. That's the idea. So the authority is that the legitimate leader cannot be questioned once you've gained legitimacy. Once you are the successor, once you are in the position, no man can question you and what you do. Once I'm in, no one on earth can call me to account for the things that I do as king or as church leader, pope, whatever. Legitimate king answers to no one but God alone in heaven. Now, for all practical purposes, this means the king's word is absolute. And so what you have in the name of Christianity and divine right is a return to the policies and the principles of the ancient world. You might as well have the king as a god as to have him be God's alone vicar in the civil realm. You see? You might as well have him be a god as to have him rule by divine right. And there's little to separate the concepts except lip service. I mean, the king who rules by divine right gives lip service to God. He builds his concept of divine right on God's word and the exposition of God's word, but it's a false exposition. That's the situation that we're dealing with. Well, this principle was a principle of Tudor kings, Henry, of Edward, who was reformed incidentally, but just a young man. He was nine years old when he came to the throne, so we really can't say much about him personally. He didn't reign that long. The principle of Tudor kings, Henry, Edward, Mary, bloody Mary, and Elizabeth, good Queen Bess. is also the principle of their cousins, the stewards. In fact, James I, and we know him for the King James Bible, wrote his political works dedicated to his son Charles, and explained his concept of the theory of authority that's lodged in the king. And I'll, again, read this time from James, James I. This is the true law of free monarchies. And he explains it this way. And he's commenting, incidentally, on 1 Samuel 8, verses 9 to 20, when the people ask for a king to rule over them. And so, again, this exposition, this concept of authority, is drawn from the exposition of Scripture. Not that James I was qualified to exposit the Scripture, but he makes his argument from Scripture as he builds his case for divine right. And so, commenting on, Harken unto the voice of the people, this speech of Samuel to the people was to prepare their hearts before the hand to the due obedience of that King which God was to give unto them. and therefore opened up unto them what might be the intolerable qualities that might fall in some other kings, thereby preparing them to patience, not to resist God's ordinance. But as he would have said, since God has granted your importunates suit in giving you a king, as ye have else committed an error in shaking off God's scope, and over hasty seeking of a king, so beware ye fall not into the next, in casting off also rashly that yoke which God at your earnest suit hath laid upon you, how hard ever it seemed to be. For as ye could not have obtained one without permission and ordinance of God, so ye may no more For he be once set over you, shake him off without the same warrant. Therefore, in time, arm yourselves with patience and humility, since he that hath the only power to make him hath the only power to unmake him, and ye only to obey." Now, do you get this from the king? Do you understand what he's saying? I mean, it's a little bit of old English here. God made the king, and only God can unmake him, and you have no choice but to obey and suffer if the king is bad. That's it. Again, another passage, same treatise. For although a just prince will not take the life of any of his subjects without clear law, Yet the same laws whereby he taketh them are made by himself or his predecessors, and so the power flows always from himself, as by daily experience we see. Good and just princes will from time to time make new laws and statutes, adjoining the penalties to the breakers thereof, which before the law was made had been no crime to the subject to have committed. Not that I deny the old definition of a king and of a law, which makes the king to be a speaking law and the law a dumb king. For certainly a king that governs not by his law can neither be accountable to God for his administration nor have a happy and established reign. For albeit it be true that I have at length proved that the king is above the law, as both the author and giver of strength thereunto, yet a good king will not only delight to rule his subjects by law, but even will conform himself in his own actions thereto. A good king will frame all his actions to be according to the law, Yet he is not bound thereto, but of his good will, and for good example giving to his subjects." Okay, you got that? The king is the law. That was the competition of the reformers between this divine right and the doctrine of the kings and the doctrine of scripture. And the king rights wrecks less. The king is law. And the reformer writes, lex rex, the law is the king. You see? So here, the king is above law. That's divine right of kings. Again, it's the Roman Catholic concept of authority. You put me in office, once I'm in legitimate office, no one, I only answer to God, no one can question the thing that I do. And so he counsels his subjects, Patience, earnest prayers to God, and amendment of their lives are the only lawful means to move God to relieve them of that heavy curse of tyrannical kings, in other words. And finally, in this contract betwixt the king and his people, God is doubtless the only judge, both because to him, only the king must make account of his administration. And likewise, the oath in the coronation, God has made judge and revenger for breakers. Okay, you got it? That's the divine right of kings. And that is what Christian, quote-unquote, Christian monarchs are holding up as the teaching of Scripture at this time. So let's summarize And try to make this all very clear. These two points are the continuing conflict in English history. And I said, we're still working this thing out. You understand? We're still in the throes of the errors of working this problem out. But these two points are the continuing conflict in English history. The king as the head of the Christian church. or the church as a department of state, and number two, an unaccountable view of the nature of human authority. So America, in all its experience, is the attempt to deal with the heresy of satyro-papism and of the divine right of kings. And that encapsulates the issue that America is the answer to. Now regardless of whether the true law of free monarchies is exposited from scripture, English Christianity had reverted to the old pagan forms of government. And the reversion is traceable to the kings of England as we have seen. And so the question is, how will the true reformation confront this error in the kings? How will Christianity, how will true reform doctrine, the truth of Scripture, how will the truth of Scripture confront these errors in the kings? What will the church do with these two doctrines? That's the question that we have to face. OK, in our text in John 19. Jesus had been mocked and beaten in the hands of the Roman authorities, and that mockery of justice is really what it was to permit this kind of a treatment. Look at verses 1 to 3. Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. The soldiers plaited a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and they put him in purple garment, and said, Hail, King of the Jews, and smote him with their rods. And you can read the parallel accounts. They spit on him. They beat him. This thing went on all night. This mockery of Jesus. And yet, at the same time, in verse 4, Pilate can bring him forth and say, I find no fault in him. Now, look at the view of authority that's implicit in the paganism. You know, Jesus can be an innocent man and not have any fault, and the Roman governor can still scourge him, let the soldiers beat him, treat him like that, dress him up, mock him, spit on him, and so on and so forth. It doesn't matter whether he's righteous. Pilate, if you don't find any fault in him, why are you letting them treat him this way? And that's the point. It's an unaccountable view of authority. It's this shared view with the divine right of kings. that the king is not bound by law. He is a living law. He is a speaking law. What he says is law for the people. It's this kind of an idea that we see in the pagan government of the Roman Empire. And there's no conviction or concern on Pilate's part over this whole situation. Now, Pilate, his statement in verse 10 then is interesting. Then Pilate said unto him, Speakest thou not unto me, knowest not that I have power to crucify thee and have power to loose thee." What's Pilate saying? He's taking this attitude in relationship to Jesus and all that has happened. I can take you and beat you. I can release you. I can do whatever I want. And if I ask you a question, Jesus, you're not going to answer me. Don't you know that I can do whatever I want? Isn't that already evident to you? Haven't you suffered at the hands of my soldiers? Doesn't matter whether you're innocent or not, I'll beat you if I want to. I'll mock you if I want to. I'll make an example of you if I want to. Don't you understand that, Jesus? Jesus' answer in verse 11 is what's instructive for us. Jesus answered, Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Therefore, he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. That's fascinating. Fascinating answer. What does Jesus mean, though? What's he talking about? Well, in the first place, It is a statement of God's providence. What is man's life but a vapor? Who can say, I will do this and I will do that? James says, you better quit talking like that. You better say, if the Lord wills, I'll go and do this and go and do that. Because every man is dependent for his next breath on the God of Scripture. So Jesus' first point, the first thing wrapped up in this is a statement of God's providence. It's in the power of God and in His providence that you can do anything at all to Him. In fact, Jesus is restraining Himself to allow it to take place. Don't you think I could call right now seven legions of angels? He's restraining himself to permit it to happen. Secondly, again, Jesus saying you could have no power over me. This word power is the Greek word exousia, meaning privilege or jurisdiction. Jesus is confronting Pilate with the nature of authority. All power is given by God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Authority is not an autonomous thing, but it's to be exercised according to God. And it makes man answerable for the wrongs he does in position of authority. And that's what Jesus is pressing with Pilate. Pilate is saying, I'm talking to you. Hey, I'm talking to you. You get that in New York or in the movies. That's what Pilate said. Hey, I'm talking to you. Aren't you going to answer me? Don't you know I'm an autonomous man? Don't you know I have power? Don't you know? And Jesus says, you don't have any power over me. There's God's promise. And the powers that be are ordained of God. That's what Jesus is pressing with Pilate. The powers that be are ordained of God. You see, you, Pilate, are going to answer for everything you do and say. That's being pressed by Jesus. So, authority is not an autonomous thing. It's to be exercised according to God. Now, that doesn't answer the question of human restraint of kings. That's not what we're taking up in this text. But it does make man answerable. to God for the wrongs that he does in position of authority. And that Jesus is pressing with this king who views himself as autonomous. Well, the most curious part is Jesus' answer at the last. Therefore, he that delivered me up, or delivered me unto thee, hath a greater sin. That's curious. Now, he that delivered me has reference to the Jewish Church. The claims that Jesus is pressing with Pilate were the claims that the Jewish Church should have been pressing with Pilate. The Jewish Church should have been pressing with all civil governments wherever they were bound. It was their responsibility to say and to teach these things as well. In other words, Jesus is saying, you know, this thing that I'm saying to you, Pilate, is what they're responsible for, too. Now, you can see openly how they violate these principles. Rather than confront the pagan society in which they live, they sought to profit from it and to maintain the status quo. And you remember the motive of these Jewish leaders back in John 11 and verse 48. You know, they said, if we leave him thus alone, all men will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and the nation. If we leave this guy alone to teach these things, He's going to shake up the status quo, and the Romans aren't going to like it. And we're going to lose our place and position, our authority. We're going to lose the great situation that we have under Roman rule, because we have a place at their table. I mean, that's what Ralph Reed said. All we want is a place at the table. The Coptics and the Jews are saying, we've got a place at the table. We don't want anybody messing this thing up. That's their motivation in destroying Christ. So the motive of the Jewish leaders was to maintain the status quo. Where, on the other hand, it was their responsibility to press these same claims that Jesus was pressing with Pilate. Jesus is the sole witness to the truth, the truths that were their duty. Therefore, the Jewish church is doubly responsible in rejecting their calling. The Jewish church is doubly responsible in furthering the rogue view of authority that was held by the civil leaders. And that's what we want to keep in mind as we go forward in this study. Say, well now, how has the church, the church of the Reformation, has the Christian Church of the Reformation and since the Reformation been any better than the Jewish Church of the Old Testament or of the first century in Jesus' time? Because it was their responsibility. Because they had responsibility for the doctrine of this thing. They were given this by God. They had the responsibility to press the claims of God with men, with civil magistrates, and we want to know, we want to study, have they done any better than the Jews did? And again, you know, it's... We've got to go here to get to the answer to that question. So I hope that you will understand that this doesn't develop overnight. It's going to take us, you know, time to develop the issues so that we understand them properly. Let's pray. And Father, we do pray that as we have looked at these things, you would give us understanding that we would be able to see what the issues of life are, what the issues of civil polity are, what the issues of your word in relationship to civil polity are, help us to understand as we study. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.