Zeal For Truth

Author’s Note: This article arose from a discussion following last Friday’s set of links. It was buried in the comments of that piece and is being brought out separately for consideration as part of its own case. For clarity and consistency, there have been some changes and additions to the original post.

Because there is no specific (or implied) biblical mandates for how we are to address the secular legality of drugs and prostitution (some would stop me here and cite certain commandments, but I will deal with those later). Indeed, there is very little political philosophy in the bible at all - we must use a different approach. One legitimate way to determine biblicality then, is to draw logical conclusions from the fundamental nature of God revealed in scripture. There may also be related or implied passages that can then be applied with the knowledge of God’s character. To start, let’s explore the fundamental nature of God, as it relates to these issues.

God Unilaterally Grants, Respects and Supports Free-will through Allowing Choice
God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree, but he left the tree in the garden (Genesis 2:9). He left the choice available to them (and they chose poorly). God gave his law to the people and allowed them to chose if they would follow him (Joshua 24:14-15) - he did not make them robots which unconditionally loved him. Jesus died for all mankind and God desires that all men be saved (2 Peter 3:9), but he doesn’t force them into heaven. He does not force them to repent and believe. He educates, he explains the consequences, he unabashedly reveals his desire that men would turn from sin (and drugs and prostitution are sins, morally evil in the sight of God) but yet he does not whisk the drugs and lust away as he well could.

God holds absolute respect for the order he gave the world, and the freedom he gave man. He demonstrates his love by declaring, in frank terms, the consequences for evil that man will bring upon himself if he continues to chose poorly. God’s respect of freewill is based on education, love and choice not on fear and control (2 Timothy 1:7).

Each individual man is responsible for his own sins. Fathers aren’t punished for their son’s sins. God will not destroy the righteous with the wicked. A sin that anyone commits, from lies, murder, drug-use, lust, fornication, etc… is soley accountable to the man who did it. No one else is punished (Ezekiel 18:20).

Real Change Only Comes Through Conversion
The only way a man can make morally good choices is through conversion, otherwise he is darkness (Ephesians 5:8). It is not compliance with God’s law, in and of itself, which converts a man. God’s law is an educational tool, not a list of requirements. Obedience to the law is totally unable to produce actual inward change (conversion). Conversion takes place by education about the law (Psalm 19:7).

The law reveals that man is sinful and requires a supernatural change (Romans 3:20). Through understanding the purpose of the law, he is empowered to seek Gods power to convert his soul and make wise, morally good choices. But God still does not remove the choices, reminding the man whenever he choses evil, that he must depend on God for goodness, not on his own willpower. Were God to remove choice after conversion, man would consider God’s work a one-time-only solution, and not a consistent change in lifestyle for the rest of his life. The converted man now despises sin and is convicted when he sins - the unconverted man has no ability to gauge sin, and has only the inward inclination to continue in sin, without a real desire to change. Sin is not effectively addressed without conversion. Christians have no other solution or alternative to see man actually turn from sin.

Prohibitions on drugs and prostitution are a tremendous detriment to conversion, which is the called work of the church. By forcing the right choice (by removing wrong choices), we disable a man to chose correctly. It is required of a man to humble himself and chose to follow God - this is the responsibility associated with free-will (Micah 6:8). In order to turn from sin, there must be sin to turn from - otherwise it’s a false choice. God is smart enough not to do this, are Christians smart enough to obey God?

Christians Must Emulate God
As Christians (”Christ-like”, “little Christs”) it is our job to emulate God (Ephesians 5:1) not to do things our way, and violate his order. That means we must never (because God does not ever) violate free-will. He has given us no permission to do so and will not because he himself does not violate his own order.

We see that God will act on behalf of innocents to protect them from violations of their free-will by others. And, not surprisingly in perfect consistency, man is given jurisdiction to protect against violations of the above (Gen 9:6), not to violate God’s order and infringe these things. There was, at least, some Christian foundation to our country, as these principles were enshrined in the declaration of Independence. Namely, that

…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

How Should the Christian Deal With All Sin?
To determine what the Christian should do, we must determine what God does. God will punish sin in the day of judgment. His “punishment” though, is interesting because it is a punishment of ultimate permission. That is, God submits his desire that all would be saved to the principle of free-will, and allows man an eternity of total absence from God and all things pertaining to his nature (love, joy, goodness, hope, light, etc…). God’s punishment is not a negative punishment, but a positive one. It affirms man’s freewill rather than deny it (Galatians 6:7).

Continue reading ‘A Biblical Case Against Drug Prohibition and Anti-Prostitution Laws’