"“Welcome to our
peaceful protest.”
In the spring of 2020, government mandates forced churches
across North America to close their doors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
As societal fear and unrest increased, Christians were forced to grapple with
how God wanted them to respond to these state-imposed restrictions. After all,
didn’t the closure of churches pose a serious threat in a time when people
needed spiritual direction more than ever?" - Amazon
blurb (preface)
The reality is that GCC shut down for 4 months in
obedience to the government. Now they're profiting off of their reversal as if
they were always courageous. Actually, it was biblical churches
that obeyed God rather than man and therefore never did shut down their
churches and didn't feel the need to thumb their noses at the government by making videos and announcing it. They quietly, like Daniel, continued on with how they'd been practicing sound doctrine. They treated and continue to treat Scripture and it's doctrine as it is: God's very word, knowable and essential, and not given to situational obedience. The government has zero jurisdiction over the local church. In any way. It neither defines it nor regulates it. That is solely the jurisdiction of Christ Jesus. Rather, James tells the elders to go to the
sick. Quarantines in the OT was for the lepers and all the
regulations of how, when, and for how long is given in detail in Leviticus to
the Jews for a specific reason, mainly to show the insidiousness of
sin and it's widespread growth in man. Never were the healthy quarantined
or isolated. Johnson neglected these important distinctions.
Phil Johnson in May 2020 posted:
This guy, angry that Grace Community Church yielded to the 9th Circuit Court's ruling banning church meetings in California this weekend, Tweets at me: "An unjust law need not be followed."
I'm appalled at how many people who profess to believe
Scripture echo that sentiment. Nero was emperor when Paul wrote Romans 13:1-7: "Let
every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority
except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. . .
." First Peter 2:13 was
written to people suffering unjustly. ("Be subject for the Lord's sake to
every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to
governors as sent by him...")
Peter goes on to say: "Be subject . . .
also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one
endures sorrows while suffering unjustly" (vv. 18-19). Indeed, "to
this [unjust suffering] you have been called, because Christ also suffered for
you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps." (v.
21). When someone in authority over us treats us unjustly, the example we are
to follow was set for us by Christ, who simply "continued entrusting
himself to him who judges justly" (v. 23).
The only exception to this
principle is when the one in authority instructs us to sin. Then "we
must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).
The answer to that question may vary according to where we live. Quarantining people in the midst of a pandemic is a legitimate prerogative of government. How long the quarantine should last and who should be exempted are questions that don't have clear, fixed answers. The severity and duration of the pandemic determines what's reasonable or not. We may or may not agree with how the quarantine is being implemented (I certainly do not), but we have a clear duty to submit unless we are being asked to sin.
How long until the government-ordered quarantine is
undeniably excessive, or we conclude that it's targeted persecution against our
worship and therefore an illegal attempt to make us disobey Hebrews 10:25? That time may
come, and when it does, we may have to implement the principle of Acts 5:29. The question
of whether we have already passed that point is another subjective
issue, but it's clear that among believers—in the church itself—there is not
yet consensus on whether the quarantine has gone too far.
Nevertheless, if you hang out on Twitter or Facebook, you may
have noticed that there are countless people in the evangelical community who
refuse to regard any of the above questions as matters of conscience. They
believe the answers are perfectly obvious. They are eager to tell you
what you and your church ought to be doing. They are locked
and loaded with vituperation for anyone who sees matters differently. Two camps
of them have squared off against each other—hordes of angry Karens at opposite
extremes, all of whom disagree with the position I've outlined above. Some of
them are scolding us for thinking Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 actually apply in
today's circumstances. The others are berating us for wanting to resume public
worship ASAP.
Sorry, but in the words of Martin Luther, here
I stand. I can do no other. I cannot and will not recant anything, for to
go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help us.
~Phil
Johnson May 25, 2020 [bold, original; underline, mine]
But a
little over two months later, he and his church became JUST AS DOGMATIC:
Churches
are shutting down. Large churches are shutting down until (they
say) January. I don't have any way to understand
that—other than they don't know what a church is and they don't shepherd
their people. But that's sad. And you have a lot of people in Christianity
who seem to be significant leaders who aren't giving any strength and
courage to the church. They're not standing up and rising up and calling on
Christians to be the church in the world.
—John
MacArthur (2 August 2020) (italics, mine)
GCC's stance changed 4 months later, going from "we need to submit to the government--Romans 13!!, to stating what biblical
churches and Christians had held to and practiced from the moment of the shut
down—that the government has no jurisdiction over the Lord's church ever---the very stand Johnson ridiculed as “angry Karens”.
Johnson
partially quoted Romans 13, but forgot to include the JURISDICTION of
the government God gave (aka, context). It was not over health, family,
marriage, working (work is mandated by God); who to isolate and not isolate for
health risks, how to run a church. Rather, the government’s jurisdiction given
by God is VERY NARROW:
Rom
13:3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil.
Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have
praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But
if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for
nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath
upon the one who practices evil.
1 Peter 2 explains
what the "good" and "evil" is--it's according to
Scripture, not Caesar. 1Pe 2:14 or to governors as sent by him
for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. 1 Peter 3:14 says it's in regard to righteousness. So, tell a church how to function especially when it’s against Scripture IS sin. It’s source of authority is
satanic and therefore illegitimate. It goes back to the ancient Serpent in the Garden of
Eden, saying “Has God said?”. Yes,
He has said. He has spoken. Any view that is not a biblical view is sin. Doing
things from fear rather than faith, is sin (James 4). So, for Johnson to infer that disobedience to the government is allowed only if they command
you directly to sin (for example, only IF they say “you shall bow to an
idol” or “you shall take the mark
of the beast”, or "you must have an abortion"), is a very immature view of Scripture. It’s really a low
view of God, Scripture, and His church, His people. (I think a better example is Daniel,
who obeyed God in food, drink, and worship regardless of what the government
said, yet still showed honor to
the king. Note that he did nothing different when things got
bad—he continued on as he always had done—pray to Yahweh, obey Scripture, trust
in God. He continued to LIVE according to biblical doctrine. )
Months later he changed his tune. It was his experience with ongoing regulations, not a clear understanding of and trust in Scripture, is what changed his mind. He wasn't a little off and just needed "fine tuning". He did not start with the presupposition of God's Word trumping government mandates and fear. He didn't start with having a high view of the Lord's children. He mocked them. He got angry and impatient with them. Rather his post comes off as everyone has their own own interpretation of Scripture---the very thing he slammed the Emergent Church (Post-Modernists) for. He said,
But GCC ended up saying what we said all along: we won't submit to the government shut down of churches because it was wholly unbiblical. But for a quarter of an entire year they cowered before unholy men who dared to dictate to Christians and how they relate to God. And they didn't admit they were wrong, apologized to all those they rebuked for daring to be dogmatic on sound doctrine and practice. No, they rewrote the narrative, painting themselves as fierce, unmovable heroes of the faith when the fact was, they were cowards for months. That's dishonest and it's fleshly.
The problem is that GCC thinks time is what
justifies or does not justify disobedience to the Lord when it comes to closing
down a church, having no communion, no fellowship, no church discipline. Their
view was purely pragmatic, self-preserving, and out of fear of government and
illness. For four long months they kept their flock from
obeying the Lord as they continued to not obey the Lord as
"leaders". It was over-lording the people with their own fear and
rebellion. And now they wrote a book on how bold and courageous they were to
stand (even taunt, if you look at MacArthur's video statement), against the
shut down AS IF they had always stood open.
So
that’s the problem with the book. For four months, GCC was doing that very
thing they accused others of doing: redefining by action what a church is;
shepherds not shepherding their people and not giving strength and courage to
the church. I’d add they didn’t deal with sin within the church either.
Rather they were cowering and in fear of a less-than-lethal virus and the
government. They really want to be heroes and make some money and gain some recognition out of it. It's fleshly.
(Tangentially, it was MacArthur who refused to submit to the
human institution of WASC, the accreditation institute, when starting TMS. He
said he knew they weren’t supposed to start the seminary because WASC said no,
but went ahead, “hoping for forgiveness later” (TMS Chapel 8/21/18 Part 1 time
mark 4:25). So the hypocrisy goes back quite a ways with them- obey or
disobey at whim.) They are no Daniel. Not even close.
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