The other day, a friend of mine emailed me some very important questions that have also been on my mind during the covid fauxpocalypse. These questions have also, I think, been on the minds of many other Christians, so I decided to answer them here to the best of my ability. Hopefully, you will find my answers helpful, if only in giving you more to think about in these trying times.

The email reads as follows:

“I have often been reminded when reading Scripture, just during the 'reading for the day,' that the Lord visited Israel with various judgments for various sins. It seems to me that whenever God is judging Israel in the OT they were to repent and submit to the punishment rather than rise up to fight the oppression.

I really don't know if I've got this twisted and would appreciate anything you have written on this. Whilst the Apostles could have rejected Nero, it would seem they did not. But on the other hand, we have passages in the Psalms which do teach about praying for curses on enemies.
[…]

I know that as a nation, Australia has been murdering babies by the hundreds of thousands every year for over 40 years with almost non-existent opposition to the wickedness. Shall not God destroy a nation for such sin? And if I sense judgment in the current Government oppression, am I to resist that, or see it as the hand of God in righteous condemnation and submit as per Jeremiah below?

‘How shall I pardon thee for this? thy children have forsaken me, and sworn by them that are no gods: when I had fed them to the full, they then committed adultery, and assembled themselves by troops in the harlots' houses. They were as fed horses in the morning: every one neighed after his neighbour's wife. Shall I not visit for these things? saith the LORD: and shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?’ [Jer 5:7-9]”

My friend's email has several questions that we can draw out, so I first want to make them explicit, and then answer them accordingly.

Questions

1. Will God judge a nation for its pattern of grievous sin?

2. If God is judging the nation in which a Christian lives, specifically by giving that nation wicked and oppressive rulers, should Christians submit to the judgment (which in this case entails submitting to wicked rulers)?

3. If God is judging the nation, would it be right for Christians to oppose the government (seeing as it is being used by God to judge the nation)?

4. Given the pattern of Israel having to submit to God's judgment, shouldn't Christians also submit to God's judgment?

5. How do we reconcile the passages of Scripture which, on the one hand, call for us to submit to God's judgment on a nation and, yet on the other hand, show us examples of godly men praying that God would destroy his and, consequently, their enemies?

6. What about the apostles and the Roman government?

Answers

1. Scripture is very clear that the Lord will, and does, judge nations for their sins. There is a distinction to be drawn between historical (pre-eschatological) and eschatological judgment, of course, and so I think we would do well to consider what we ought to do if the judgment is not eschatological, as I’m using the term, but historical.

If the judgment is eschatological, then we know the outcome is fixed. Our actions will not lead to some other consequence than which God has declared (viz. Christ will return in power and glory and judge the nations once and for all1). However if the necessary eschatological conditions laid out by Scripture have not been met, then what we see happening is not the eschatological judgment but an historical judgment. Since we don't know the day or the hour of our Lord's return,2 then is it our duty to continue following him faithfully until he returns.

Consider the situation we find in Paul’s second epistle to the Thessalonians. After reminding the Thessalonians of how Christ will return to judge humanity,3 Paul goes on to say:

Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.4

It is God's will that his people continue to walk by faith in obedience to him until Christ returns. To that end, the apostle goes on to explain what must come first before Christ returns, and warns the Thessalonians about those who, in contradiction to Paul's delineation of events, claim that Christ has already returned.5

He follows this by telling them –

But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.6

Note the command for the Thessalonians to “stand fast.” Now, note Paul’s benediction – “…may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father…comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work.” The Thessalonians, and all Christians, are to stand fast in the faith and continue in good works, in the assurance that God will comfort us and establish us as we do so, until Christ returns for his bride.

After this, the apostle Paul closes his epistle with several exhortations to the same effect, stating explicitly in 2nd Thess 3:6-13 –

But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.

For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.

But as for you, brethren, do not grow weary in doing good.

After explaining the day of the Lord and what must precede the Lord's return, Paul says that the Thessalonians must continue to walk by faith in obedience to Christ. He further reveals what this looks like – withdrawing from brethren walking in open disobedience, working with one’s own hands, not being lazy, and living a quiet life/not being a busybody.

This is important because it shows us that as we await Christ’s return we ought to be loving our neighbors as ourselves. Loving our neighbor as ourselves necessarily implies promoting the well being, and preserving the life, of our neighbor. This ties in to the second answer to the second and third questions raised by my friend’s email.

2 & 3. Seeing as we know we are to love our neighbor while our nation is under historical judgment, and seeing as we are to love him by promoting his well being and preserving his life, it follows that we cannot simply submit to the evil actions of our rulers. So how are we to understand our duty in this situation?

Firstly, note that if the governing authorities are acting contrary to their intended purpose given by God then it follows that they are disobeying God and, thereby, nullifying any claim they have to authority over us in the matter under consideration (e.g. mask mandates, vaccine mandates, vaccine passports, stay at home orders for the healthy, and so on).

Secondly, what is more, if those actions lead to the destruction of my neighbors, for whom I am accountable, then it is my right and my duty to protect my neighbor from those actions in any way that I possibly can. Allowing my government to kill my neighbor because we are both guilty of sin before God, but not for some publicly and evidentially demonstrable crime which God’s law defines, is akin to allowing a stranger to kill my neighbor because we are both guilty of sin before God. Simply put – It is not justifiable.

I can promote the well being of my neighbor, as well as preserve his life, by informing him of what is actually taking place in the world via the government’s oppressive policies, laws, mandates, etc. I can do the same by modeling obedience to God, in contradiction to obedience to men, via acts of civil disobedience. This does not require one to rise up and overthrow the oppressor. It requires something much more difficult to obtain – persistent, resilient, and indefatigable faith in the face of persistent, resilient, and seemingly indefatigable evil. But if we ask him, God will grant us faith to persevere.7

If historical judgment is occurring, given what the apostle Paul says in 2nd Thessalonians it is right and good for me to oppose the rogue government’s actions against myself and my neighbor. The reason for this is that it is my duty to promote my neighbor’s well being and preserve his life against all who would seek to illegitimately destroy him. If the government is subjecting myself and my neighbor to harm and possible death for doing what is lawful before God and men (e.g. refusing to wear a mask while sitting in a public place, refusing to be vaccinated in order to continue working, breaking lockdown restrictions, and so on), then my government has abdicated its proper role, gone rogue, and is now functioning as a body of murderers.

If I don’t oppose what they are doing, then I am complicit in their evil.

4. Yes, there are OT passages in which God tells Israel to submit to their punishment and not rise up in opposition to their oppressors. However, Israel’s situation was unique. As we read in Deuteronomy 4:1-8 –

“Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe, that you may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal Peor; for the Lord your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you.

Surely I have taught you statutes and judgments, just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore be careful to observe them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes, and say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.’

For what great nation is there that has God so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are in all this law which I set before you this day?”

Israel’s life and prosperity as a nation was, like the life and prosperity of Adam and Eve, contingent upon her obedience to the stipulations of the covenant God made with her. This is not true of any other nation in the world, as the passage from Deuteronomy teaches us clearly. Yes, God would destroy nations whose sins would eventually be “complete”8, but that does not imply that these nations were in a covenant relationship with God. It was Israel alone who stood in this relationship to Jehovah.

Additionally, under the Mosaic covenant Israel's disbelief was manifested not merely in their rebellion against the explicitly stated laws of God, but also in their inability to accept the fact that they were breakers of the covenant who were being stripped of their covenantal blessings. Rather than accept that their existence and prosperity was dependent on their obedience to the covenant, they continued in obstinate and unrepentant sin. Rather than admit they were idolaters engaging in all kinds of wickedness that resulted in God removing their covenantal blessings, they hid their idolatry (as we see in Ezekiel), engaged in witchcraft and soothsaying (as we see in Isaiah), persecuted and refused to listen to the prophets (as we see in Jeremiah), and still thought of themselves as being in good standing with God. Being urged to submit to their judgment was a final call, it seems, for them to correct course by repenting and believing God's Words in Deuteronomy 28.

But they did not.

Hence Christ, alluding to Isaiah 5 where God talks about his vineyard that bore bad fruit, confronts the hypocritical leaders of his day who had still refused to accept that they had broken God's covenant, lost their covenant blessings, and incurred God's promised wrath. He tells them the parable of the wicked vine dressers in Matt 21:33-44, a short story which details the history of Israel's rebellion which would culminate in her crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, leading to her undergoing the wrath of God and being stripped of the kingdom. Christ then ends his speech by declaring –

“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it.”9

The kind of judgment that Israel underwent seems to now be applied to churches. Unlike the Old Covenant, the granting of the blessings of the New Covenant are not contingent upon our obedience to the Law. However, churches that fail to deal with sin in their camp, and who yet believe themselves to be in good standing with the Lord, can be judged by God, cut off, and stripped of all blessings given to them. In Revelation 2 & 3, Christ makes this clear, declaring –

Ephesus – “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent…”10

Pergamos – “Repent, or else I will come to you quickly and will fight against them with the sword of My mouth.”11

Thyatira – “…you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. And I gave her time to repent of her sexual immorality, and she did not repent.
Indeed I will cast her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of their deeds.”

Sardis – “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you.”

Laodicea – “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.”14

5. My last answer contains some information on how we are to reconcile the seemingly contradictory situation we encounter in the OT where the saints understood they were under judgment and that, given Israel’s breaking of the covenant, they were to accept this punishment, and yet they prayed imprecatory prayers against their enemies. In a word, God’s judgment being executed through wicked rulers and nations on Israel did not exempt those nations from being under God’s Law as well. This means that while those instruments of judgment were materializing divine justice, as it were, they were still responsible for the way in which they so doing.

Consider the following from the book of Isaiah –

The Lord sent a word against Jacob,
And it has fallen on Israel.
All the people will know—
Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria—
Who say in pride and arrogance of heart:

“The bricks have fallen down,
But we will rebuild with hewn stones;
The sycamores are cut down,
But we will replace them with cedars.”

Therefore the Lord shall set up
The adversaries of Rezin against him,

And spur his enemies on,
The Syrians before and the Philistines behind;
And they shall devour Israel with an open mouth.15

Israel is under judgment, but instead of repenting chooses to continue in rebellion, refusing to recognize that their situation was directly due to their breaking of the covenant. So God tells them he is raising up foreign nations, ruthless foreign wicked rulers, to punish his people. Yet look at what he says in the very next chapter –

“Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger
And the staff in whose hand is My indignation.
I will send him against an ungodly nation,
And against the people of My wrath
I will give him charge,
To seize the spoil, to take the prey,
And to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
Yet he does not mean so,
Nor does his heart think so;
But it is in his heart to destroy,
And cut off not a few nations.

For he says,
‘Are not my princes altogether kings?
Is not Calno like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad?
Is not Samaria like Damascus?
As my hand has found the kingdoms of the idols,
Whose carved images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria,
As I have done to Samaria and her idols,
Shall I not do also to Jerusalem and her idols?’ ”

Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Lord has performed all His work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem, that He will say, “I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty looks.”16

God chose to use the wicked nations and rulers to execute justice against Israel, but he held them accountable for the wicked ways in which they performed this task. God judged their intentions. Not only this, but given that these men were not believers it seems reasonable to assume that they also inflicted more violence on Israel than was necessary for executing God’s judgment. In either case, they were to be held accountable by God.

So Israel could simultaneously understand that they were under God’s judgment, and yet pray that the very actions taken against them by God’s instruments of justice be visited upon those nations. Psalm 137 perfectly captures this dual reality. Another reality to consider is the fact that parents are given the responsibility of executing justice in the household, and yet we are warned against doing so in a manner that is sinful. If our children sin, it is right for us to punish them, and it is right for them to submit to the punishment they deserve. However, this doesn’t mean that all that we do in our punishment of our children is righteous. We can have anger and pride in our hearts, attitudes that are not only inherently evil but can also, and I would argue usually do, lead to punishments that don’t fit the transgression/s committed.

6. Regarding the apostles, we need to contextualize their actions as well given that their situation differed from ours in some ways. Firstly, however, we need to remember that God created all of us to be upholders of his Law. Now seeing as God had already given Adam and Eve dominion over all of the creatures,17 and the serpent was included among those creatures,18 they inherently possessed authority over the serpent. Additionally, Adam was given the Law of God constitutive of the covenant of works,19 which shows us that he not only had authority over the animals as respects where they were to be placed and what function they would play in the subdued creation. Adam possessed physical authority over the serpent as well as moral authority over the serpent. Adam was, in other words, the lesser magistrate. Adam could have, and should have, exercised his authority over the serpent’s lying tongue, but he did not do this and so sinned. Not only this, but Adam, as the recipient of the commandment, had a responsibility to uphold justice when his wife had broken it, but he failed to do this as well.

With regard to the non-human creatures, Adam and Eve were the lesser magistrate given the role of upholding God’s justice in the world according to his law. With regard to one another, it is implied, Adam and Eve were also lesser magistrates. Adam was the head, but had he sinned it would be incumbent upon Eve to identify his sin and seek God’s justice for the transgression Adam committed. Though Adam had authority over Eve as the head, in other words, had he told her to sin she would not be in sin for refusing to follow his orders, for her primary duty was to glorify God by doing what he commands and refraining from what he forbids. Similarly, the same applies to Adam and Eve’s children. Had Adam told Cain and/or Abel to sin, it would have been right and necessary for them to refuse to comply with Adam’s sinful commands, seeing as their primary duty was to glorify God by doing what he commands and refraining from what he forbids.

Every man is, in other words, the lesser magistrate. It is incumbent upon every one of us to recognize that God is the supreme authority who has established lesser authorities – Civic authority, Church authority, Family authority. It is also incumbent upon every one of us to recognize that we can never fail to do what is right before God because we “lack the authority” to do what is right. That is simply not the case. If there existed a society in which no one in the chain of authorities established by God was doing what was right, it would still be incumbent upon the individual to do what is right, even if that entails refusing to comply with the authorities above, or even openly and physically opposing them. For if the magistrates above oneself are all acting outside of their jurisdictional boundaries in all that they do, then they are no longer acting as magistrates but as rebels, autonomous transgressors of God’s law, and no one is above God’s law.

This position as lesser magistrate over humans is made more clear in Genesis 9 where God tells Noah –

Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.

And as for you, be fruitful and multiply;
Bring forth abundantly in the earth
And multiply in it.”20

What was implicitly laid out in Gen 1 & 2 regarding man’s inherent physical and moral authority over the animals, as well as man’s moral authority over transgressors of God’s law (in this case murderers), is here made exceedingly clear. Every individual is the lesser magistrate.

Thankfully, God has been merciful to us in every age and has not ever left us with a chain of authorities where every individual up and down the hierarchical order is failing to do his duty as one who rewards what is good and punishes what is evil. Even in the worst societies (e.g. Ancient Rome) there were men who understood when their superior magistrates were acting out of line and chose to oppose those magistrates, choosing instead to interpose on behalf of those who ranked beneath them (e.g. non-political citizenry). What we see in the New Testament, as well as in the early church, is a recognition from believers that there is God given order in society, and that there are means available to non-governmental/non-political citizenry to aid us in seeking justice against the higher magistrate (e.g. an emperor in Ancient Rome). Hence, Paul addresses the Jews as a member of the Jewish community, and addresses Romans on the basis of his own citizenship as a Roman.21 He recognizes the order in society and works within it to seek justice for wrongs done against him (e.g. false claims made about his intentions, his ministry, etc) and, in a word, freedom to do what God has called him to do – preach the Gospel and establish churches.

The post-New Testament church theologians worked in a very similar way. If you read the treatises of men like Justin Martyr,22 Athenagoras,23 Augustine,24 and Tertullian,25 you learn that they recognized an order in society, their position in society as a theologian/minister, and used the means available to them to address the greater magistrate (e.g. writing letters challenging the reasonableness, morality, and legality of the state’s persecution of Christians). The apostles and church fathers didn’t simply submit to persecution, but did so during and after attempts to reason with higher magistrates, appealing to them as authorities who had a role to fulfill as ministers of justice according to their own national laws and philosophy of jurisprudence, and more importantly under the universal Law of God recognized by pagans and Christians alike.

While Christians underwent persecution, therefore, they also recognized that what was happening to them was morally wrong. They suffered gladly for the name of Christ, but they didn’t fail to acknowledge that their persecutors were sinning greatly. In fact, they boldly acknowledged it. Why Christians did not engage in physical opposition to the powers that be is a question that needs to be answered by looking at their individual cases. The caricature of the early church as a pacifistic religion completely opposed to all forms of political involvement, however, is one that is in need of correction. The early post-NT church opposed the state’s wicked use of violence against innocent individuals, e.g. Christians who were not breaking the law, but did not oppose the state’s use of violence as a means of punishing the wicked, and also seemingly were not opposed to Christians being involved in the military.26 What this means is that there was a recognition of order God had given to society, a hierarchical order which could be, and ought to be, opposed when it ceases to perform its divinely ordained task (e.g. the punishment of evil and the rewarding of good).

Concluding Remarks

Our time is rife with political problems, problems that are directly affecting Christians throughout the world. In places like Canada and Australia, Christians are openly under direct attack from the government, being told they cannot engage in corporate worship, or that they can only engage in corporate worship in severely diminished numbers which amount to a fracturing of churches and spiritual harm done to those who don’t attend out of fear of the state’s retributive actions. In America, Christians are being told that religious exemptions from vaccine mandates are going to be closely scrutinized and likely rejected in some places,27 and have been told for going on two years now that engaging in corporate worship is a self health risk that amounts to a form of hating, and not loving, our neighbor.

While engaging in civil disobedience will not stop God’s decreed timeline from coming to fruition, it will demonstrate our commitment to the God who has ordained whatsoever comes to pass, including sin and the judgment of our nations. Submission to God first and foremost means that we acknowledge his law as supreme, and our commitment to his righteous ordinances as our highest and most socially beneficial duty. We ought to avoid violence, and plead with our accusers and enemies in every way that we can – appealing to the highest magistrates in our land, as well as every other magistrate beneath them, utilizing our civil and national privileges in order to peacefully maintain our right to worship God in the manner he has prescribed (inside and outside of the church). However, if the entire hierarchy of magistrates fall corrupt and fail to do their job of rewarding the good and punishing the evil, this merely means that we are to continue to uphold the righteousness of God by functioning as the lesser magistrate, which are all by nature.

As for the COVID related rules and regulations that are being used to destroy our economies, kill our weak, and destroy our lives, one question we might want to ask is:

Are these rules actually coming from our higher magistrates?

I have written on the illegality of these mandates, given the teaching of Scripture regarding the duties of the civil magistrate. However, assuming for the sake of argument that these mandates are not opposed to divine law, is it the case that they are actually coming from our duly elected officials? And if they are not, does this not clearly justify our non-compliance and rejection of those mandates?

I hope to answer these questions in my next post.

Until next time, remember that Christ is the King of all kings. We are duty bound to serve him, even if it costs us our lives.

Soli Deo Gloria.

1 cf. Matt 24:15-27 & 25:31-46; Rev 11:15-19.

2 cf. Matt 24:36.

3 2nd Thess 1:3-10.

4 2nd Thess 1:11-12.

5 2nd Thess 2:1-12.

6 2nd Thess 2:13-17.

7 If my neighbor gives himself over to the rogue governing authorities to be murdered (metaphorically or literally), despite having been reasoned with and warned, then I believe he is guilty of taking his own life.

8 cf. Gen 15:12-16.

9 Matt 21:43.

10 Rev 2:5.

11 Rev 2:16.

12 Rev 2:20-22.

13 Rev 3:1b-3.

14 Rev 3:15-19.

15 Isa 9:8-12a.

16 Isa 10:5-13.

17 cf. Gen 1:26.

18 cf. Gen 3:1a.

19 cf. Gen 2:15-17.

20 Gen 9:5-7.

21 Read Acts 21-22 for a clear demonstration of Paul’s action.

22 See The First Apology of Justin Martyr, https://biblehub.com/library/justin/the_first_apology_of_justin/index.html; also, The Second Apology of Justin Martyr, https://biblehub.com/library/justin/the_second_apology_of_justin_for_the_christians/index.html.

23 See A Plea for the Christians, https://biblehub.com/library/richardson/early_christian_fathers/a_plea_regarding_christians_by.htm.

24 See City of God, https://biblehub.com/library/augustine/city_of_god/index.html.

25 See Apology, https://biblehub.com/library/tertullian/apology/index.html.

26 For instance, see Otto, Jennifer, “Were the Early Christians Pacifists? Does it Matter?” in The Conrad Grebel Review 35, no. 3 (Fall: 2017), https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/publications/conrad-grebel-review/issues/fall-2017/were-early-christians-pacifists-does-it-matter.

27 For instance, California and New York.

In the Beginning, Work.

The Scriptures begin with God working, creating, forming, organizing, delegating tasks – and his created image bearer being given the blessing and responsibility of reflecting those actions in a creaturely manner. Man was created to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, exercise dominion over the creatures, and do so in accordance with the Law of God written on his heart, as well as in accordance with the Law of God given to him in the garden of Eden (cf. Gen 2:15-17). Man was created, in other words, to work. This means that any prohibition against working that is not coming from God is evil. You do not merely have the freedom to work, you are required to do so under divine Law.

So why have so many today forgotten this? Facing the tyrannical mandates of many local governing authorities and the White House’s current Resident, many have chosen to simply cave in to the pressure and cease from working when they are told to, or only continue working once they have met the terms and conditions the powers that be are arbitrarily and wickedly setting up. Why?

In my opinion, it is partly because men are tired – tired of learning, tired of dealing with the shame of having been conned by authorities they once trusted, tired of having to think through novel obstacles to them simply being alive and providing for their families, tired of having to think up novel approaches to get things done in spite of the useless and wicked mandates of tyrannical magistrates. Tired.

I think it is also simply easier to abdicate our responsibility to think individually, and to collate and evaluate and weigh our options as local bodies of responsible and critically thinking individuals. Thinking is difficult. Rather than use technology to assist us in our research as we think for ourselves, we have been conditioned to let Google search results do our thinking for us. Sadly, the internet has become an infallible Magic 8-Ball for many of us, rather than a tool to augment our finite research abilities. And so, many of us just rely on whatever information we receive from the mainstream media online, in print, on the radio, or on television.

The Broader Cultural Problem

However, there is a broader reason for this, I think. It seems to me that in the mid to late 1800s, the academic distinction between the sciences and the liberal arts became more pronounced than it had previously been. With the promotion of Darwinism and the advent of the industrial revolution, practical developments in the hard sciences were desired and viewed as real, i.e. tangible, developments in man’s intellectual, social, and, consequently, material evolution. The liberal arts were viewed as academic disciplines that were not capable of obtaining objective knowledge, but were mere repositories of subjective notions.

Studying philosophy or literature or the arts in general was akin to studying the history of what other people in those fields thought and practiced before they understood that the hard sciences alone were capable of giving us objective truth. This is not to say that there weren’t developments in philosophy and literature, but that they were, and still are, viewed as mere theories whose value primarily consists in raising questions for science to either dissolve (i.e. identify as meaningless and, thereby, disregard) or resolve by means of empirical exploration and experimentation.

With this, it seems, came the general movement toward hyper specialization, a phenomenon further resulting in what one philosopher has called “the tyranny of the experts.”1 Individuals have been encouraged not to gain a broad education enabling them to take in and analyze/critique data gathered, arguments formulated, and conclusions drawn by a wide variety of academic disciplines and social bodies, but to stay in their place. Despite the fact that discovery in any field can come from any human being who just so happens to pose the right questions or answers, men have been discouraged from thinking that they could learn enough to make them competent judges of, at the very least, the arguments being formulated by the so-called “experts.”2

So rather than viewing the question of governmentally mandated prohibitions on working as one which any man with a grasp of the law of non-contradiction and the basic theology of the Bible can meditate on and thoughtfully and, perhaps, correctly answer by making an appeal to logic and the Scriptures, we have seen many men abdicate their responsibility to think about this matter. Men have sought the easier route of giving other men free rein over their own deliberations. And after all, why not? Your position in life, in academia, in the great intellectual chain of being, as it were, is completely distinct from the position of a Fauci or a Gates. On this view, you not only are not on the same level as these men, you are essentially a foreigner who must be led around by the hand through their pretentious academic constructions, and accept their self-disclosure as infallible, inerrant, and the basis for the formation of whatever thoughts in those disciplines you may have.

Back to Work

But this is clearly not the case, given that the Lord God has given us a very simple break down of how things in his creation are to work. In particular, the book of Genesis tells us very early on that work is activity that is required by the Lord. God did not suggest that Adam and Eve ought to work six days and rest on the seventh. He did not insinuate that it might be good for them to follow that pattern. He declared that this was the very purpose of man –

• Be fruitful

• Multiply

• Take dominion over the earth

• Subdue the earth

Man is, in other words, morally obligated to work six days a week. This is divine law, not the fanciful decree of some petty tyrant. Those who make your employment dependent on your submission to their arbitrary commands, mandates, edicts, etc are in flagrant violation of the law of God. To whom then do you submit? Are you arguing that it is in your interest to simply comply in order to not “stir the pot”? Then you are not reading the Scriptures closely enough.

Back to Genesis & the Fall

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. He made man in his image – as a rational, volitional, and moral personal being. Being made in God’s image not only means that man is a rational, volitional, and moral personal being, but that he is such in a way that distinctly mirrors God. Man occupies the highest seat of authority over all of the vegetal and animal creatures in the universe (under God, of course) and, thereby, is capable of, and culpable for, exercising dominion over them. Working, in other words, is an inseparable consequence of man being the image of God. If man is not working, then he is not acting in accordance with his created nature which is the imago dei. Man, by his created nature as well as by divine decree, is obligated, and blessed with the opportunities and responsibility, to work.

If our understanding of the world is to be in accordance with the Scriptures, therefore, we must view man not merely as one who may work and thereby physically and externally reflect God’s image, but one whose being must do so. Not only this, but we must also view any prohibition on man’s ability and responsibility to work, if not explicitly or implicitly revealed by God, to be illegitimate, an illegal order that we ought not obey, lest we find ourselves placing the orders of wicked magistrates and rulers above and against the orders of the King of kings.

Please note that I am not here talking about those who are ill, disabled, etc who cannot work, as such conditions are, I believe, legitimately excusable grounds for one not working, as well as for not requiring another to work. Rather, I am talking about those who are forbidding others to work because they have not met some governmentally decreed arbitrary set of terms and conditions, as well as those who are fully capable of working and yet refuse to work because they have not met those arbitrary terms and conditions set up by the government. These individuals are forbidding what God commands (viz., work), and commanding what God forbids (viz., idleness).

While we exist outside of the Paradise Adam and Eve occupied, our occupation has not changed. Adam was placed in the garden to till and keep it, according to Gen 2:15. And once he had sinned, the Holy Spirit tells us the following –

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’:

“Cursed is the ground for your sake;
In toil you shall eat of it
All the days of your life.
Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you,
And you shall eat the herb of the field.
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread

Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.”

[…]

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.3

Prior to the Fall, man’s job was to till and keep the earth. After the Fall, man’s job was the same. And this implies that it is likewise our job to this day. Note the words used by the Lord in the passage above –

“…all the days of your life…”
“…till you return to the ground…”

How long is man to work? As long as he arbitrarily determines? Or all the days of his life? Till he gets bored or is too afraid to work? Or until he returns to the ground? The text is clear about this – man is to work, in one way or another, as long as he can, until he returns to the dust from which the Lord created him.

While we await the Lord’s return for his church, we are to work. If we are capable of working, we must. If the governing authorities attempt to tell us we cannot work unless we meet their terms and conditions, we must decide who it is we are going to obey – the Lord of the universe whose jurisdiction is over all of creation? Or those who are acting outside of their jurisdictional boundaries – namely those of rewarding good and punishing evil (as per Rom 13:1-7) – and placing themselves as authorities over and above and against the Creator himself?

1 See my article “The Tyranny of Bureaucracy vs. The Sovereignty of God,” Invospec, Oct 29, 2020, https://www.invospec.org/2020/10/the-tyranny-of-bureaucracy-vs.html.

2 See my article “Debunking the ‘Expertise Rule,’” ThornCrown Ministries, July 10, 2020, https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/2020/7/10/debunking-the-expertise-rule.

3 Gen 3:17-23. (emphasis added)

In this last part of my series on how to love God and your neighbor, I will present a broad outline of why it is we are exempt from mandatory vaccinations as Christians. The basic argument is simple –

Given that mandatory vaccination overrides the magisterial authority of Scripture, as well as the ministerial authority of Logic and the academic and practical disciplines subservient to it, mandatory vaccination violates our religious liberty to worship God with all of our mind and body.

Mandated/forced vaccination hinders us from worshiping God as he has prescribed in his Word. Indeed, it forces us to sin against God. This not only violates our freedom of conscience, and our freedom to exercise religion, but attacks the very substance of Christian living and, therefore, Christianity itself.

This will be a little lengthy, but I feel the need to get into more details on this matter. I pray that you will find this profitable, and be able to utilize it in any way that will edify the body of Christ.

I. The Scope of Sola Scriptura

As the Westminster Confession correctly explains,

The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture…1

The scope of the Scriptures’ sufficiency, let us note, is broader than many would like to concede. This is evident from the authors’ use of the universal terms whole and all, as well as by their reference to (a)that which is expressly/explicitly set down in Scripture and (b)that which is necessarily implied by (a). Scripture covers all that is necessary as respects the glorification of God, man’s salvation, the doctrines man must believe, and the day to day actions that man must perform in order to glorify God.

There is nothing hidden from the Word of God, from his verbal/written judgment.2All actions are revealed to be either glorifying to God or not when they are examined in light of the Scriptures’ explicit and implicit teaching. Paul says the same in his second epistle to Timothy, writing –

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.3

All of Scripture is of divine origin and authority. All of Scripture is profitable for making one equipped every good work. No work of the regenerate man is, therefore, excluded from the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture. All of our works are subordinate to the Word of God, receiving either approval or condemnation from God. Hence, the Westminster theologians go on to explain that –

The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.4

Again, note the universals here – all controversies of religion, all decrees of councils, all opinions of ancient writers, all doctrines of men, and all private spirits – indicating that the Word of God is the supreme judge of all thinking and action.

II. The Definition of “Good Works”

Whatever has been deemed to be a good work, then, must be examined in light of not merely the explicit declarations of God’s Word, but also the implicit teaching necessarily inferred therefrom. When this is done, we see that good works are

…only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention.5

That which God requires of men, as revealed in his Word, constitutes what we can legitimately call “good works.” If there are actions that are not commanded by God, or which contradict the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture as to the nature of godly living, i.e. obedient living that brings glory to God, then those actions do not constitute what we can legitimately call good works.6

III. The Scope of “Good Works”

We have defined what constitutes a good work, and now we must turn to Scripture to understand the scope of that which is covered by the term “good works.” Is it a narrowly defined sphere of activity? Or is it the whole of a man’s life? Well, given that the Westminster Larger Catechism, following the Scriptures, states that “man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever,”7 it is the case that man’s very existence – the entirety of his life – ought to be lived in a manner that brings glory to God. This implies that every act of man is intended by God to be a good work.

Every action of man ought to be performed in good conscience before God, in faith that what is being performed is that which is in accordance with God’s Law, for “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.”8 Every action, consequently, must be performed in order to bring God glory. As the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians –

…whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.9

Good works, then, are firstly those which are explicitly stated in the Law of God, the Ten Commandments. Good works, however, also include all the actions of men, covering every aspect of human existence, taken by faith in accordance with the Law of God explicitly stated in Scripture.

The apostle Paul also makes this clear when he tells the Romans the following –

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.10

We are called to firstly have our thinking conformed to God’s Word, and then our bodies (performing those actions which we have, by faith, determined to be in accordance with God’s Law). This conformation, via testing (i.e. reasoning about our thoughts and actions in the world), enables us to discern what thoughts and actions are good before God (i.e. what actions may be performed in accordance with God’s explicitly stated Law).

IV. Daily Individual Worship and Lord’s Day Corporate Worship

It is noteworthy that Paul defines the whole of our bodily existence as “spiritual worship.” While we are called to not forsake the assembling of the local body which meets together for corporate worship on the Lord’s Day,11 we are also called to individually worship God by having our minds and, therefore, thoughts and bodily actions conformed to the Word of God. Our daily activity is, in other words, worship to God, as is our weekly meeting on the Lord’s Day. These two forms of worship are distinct and complementary to one another, not contradictory. We worship God daily, and meet together as a body to worship him on the Lord’s Day.

V. The Individual Temple

The individual body, like the corporate body,12 is identified as the house of God, the physical place where God dwells and governs over man’s thoughts and actions by his Spirit and his Word. Writing to the Corinthians, the apostle Paul explains –

…we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.13

In this passage, Paul repeatedly identifies the believer’s body as the dwelling place of God’s Spirit. The Holy Spirit governs over the activities of this house, just as he governs over the activities of the corporate house of God.

The apostle Peter, likewise, identifies his body as a “tent,” or “tabernacle,” in his second epistle. He writes –

…I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.14

Peter H. Davids’ commentary here is very useful:

Rooted in their previous nomadic life (many of the peoples in the Mediterranean had once been nomadic) and the present use of tents as temporary shelters, the image of a tent for this mortal life is found in the OT (Isa 38:12…), but is more common in Hellenistic Judaism. For instance, in Wisd 9:15 we read, “For a perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind,” a clear indication of both the tent = body imagery and body-soul dualism…15

The apostle Paul elsewhere identifies the believer’s body as “a temple of the Holy Spirit.”16 And these all, of course, are following the Lord Jesus Christ’s identification of his own body as The Temple of God.17 While Christ’s body as the Temple of God has a much greater and richer significance than our individual bodies being temples of God, the point of derivation and overlap cannot be ignored. The Son of God tabernacled among men,18 the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in him bodily,19 and was given the Spirit without measure.20 We are tent-dwelling sojourners in this world, redeemed sinners in whom the fullness of the God does not dwell bodily, and who do not possess the Holy Spirit without measure, whose flesh lusts against the Spirit as he works to conform us to Christ’s image.21

VII. What This Means for Us

The significance of our bodies being temples of the Holy Spirit lies in the fact that they are to be governed by the Holy Spirit as he teaches us from his Word, thereby making us wise and capable of discerning what is the good and perfect will of God. The good and perfect will of God is comprised of those good works which God has ordained for his people,22 and fall under two categories – 1. Good works explicitly commanded by God in his Law, and 2. Works that are judged to be in accordance with God’s Word after prayerful study and reflection on the explicit and implicit teaching of Scripture. And these two categories of good works constitute the whole of our Christian life, rendering all of our daily activities either fulfilled or failed attempts at worship.

Thinking for oneself in light of the Scriptures’ explicit and implicit teaching, in other words, is a daily act of worship in which all Christians must engage. Forcing Christians to act against our consciences, insofar as they are informed by the Word of God, not only violates our freedom of conscience and our God-given right to worship God freely, but also forces us to sin against God. This is an attack on our ability to live in accordance with Scripture and, therefore, an attack on the Christian faith (which addresses all areas of our life) in its entirety.

Consequently, forced vaccination – whether by physical coercion, intellectual and/or emotional manipulation, or government mandates – is something with which we cannot comply, lest we sin against our Lord and Savior by subordinating his Word and Spirit to the words, wishes, and powers of men and their institutions. The Christian system of doctrine teaches us that man’s body is his own possession, a creation meant to be ruled and governed by the Spirit and Word of God. Christians, in particular, are revealed to be temples, places of worship, which must be governed by the Spirit and the Word. The subordination of the Word of God and his Spirit to any authority constitutes a flagrant act of idolatry in which no Christian can, or would want to, participate.

Ultimately, the Christian is free, and must be free, to reflect on all of his actions in light of the revealed Word of God (explicit and implicit). He is free, and must be free, to judge whether or not taking an experimental medication is in accordance with the revealed Word of God (explicit and implicit).

1 Ch. 1, Art. 6.

2 cf. Heb 4:12-14.

3 2nd Tim 3:16-17.

4 WCF, Ch. 1, Art. 10.

5 ibid., Ch. 16, Art. 1.

6 See, Isa 5:20-21; Mark 7:9-13; 1st Tim 1:8-11.

7 WLC, A.1.

8 Rom 14:23b. (emphasis added)

9 1st Cor 10:31. (emphasis added)

10 Rom 12:1-2. (emphasis added)

11 cf. Heb 10:19-25.

12 See 1st Cor 11:17-22 (this is implicit to Paul’s rhetorical question in v.22a), Eph 2:18-20, 1st Tim 3:1-5 & 14-15, 2nd Tim 2:15-21, 1st Pet 2:4-6 & 4:17, Heb 3:1-6 & 10:19-25.

13 2nd Cor 5:1-10.

14 2nd Pet 1:13-14. (emphasis added) [N.B. I’ve used the NKJV rendering here because the ESV does not provide a translation of the original Greek here, but interprets the Greek word as an analogy/metaphor for the body. This interpretation is correct, but it subtly undermines the significance of the original wording. If the body is the Lord’s tabernacle, this ties directly into Peter’s identification of believers as “sojourners” in the present age (cf. 1st Pet 2:11).]

15 The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdman’s, 2006), 194. (emphasis added)

16 1st Cor 6:19-20.

17 See John 2:13-21.

18 cf. John 1:14.

19 cf. Col 1:19-20 & 2:9.

20 cf. John 3:34-35.

21 cf. Gal 5:16-25.

22 cf. Eph 2:10.

In my last article,1 I didn’t urge readers to not get vaccinated because I didn’t have the time to gather all the relevant articles demonstrating that the mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective. My goal, moreover, was to get Christians to think about the propaganda that they are up against, and to love God with all of their mind by making a wise, God-glorifying decision. Given that the vaccines are being promoted by means of propaganda, however, that is enough for us to refuse them. Manipulation, coercion, threats, emotionalism, and the redefinition of love render any decision made upon such appeals sinful. If we want to love our neighbor, then, we must not act in defiance of the first table of the Law of God by abdicating our responsibility to rationally assess the present situation.

In this article, I am not going to delve into the data that demonstrates how the mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective. Instead, I want to give a single reason, and an important one, for my refusal to get the vaccine. My goal is to make an argument that can be used in everyday (i.e. not overly technical/scientific) discussions with other believers, or with unbelievers, that clearly states why a Christian should not get “the jab.”

You Shall Not Bear False Witness

As of the moment, the mRNA vaccines are being aggressively promoted by the media, government officials, and media personalities. While there are therapeutics that have been shown to be safe and effective in the treatment of COVID-19, these promoters of the mRNA vaccines do not promote them. They not only fail to promote them, they actively discourage the use of these therapeutic treatments. They argue fallaciously in order to manipulate their audiences into getting the mRNA vaccine, rather than getting cheap and safe and effective drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

For instance, rather than reporting on the successful treatment of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine, the media reported on a man who had taken chloroquine tablets intended for fish and, subsequently died from it.2 The media’s intention was to make Trump responsible for health misinformation and, consequently, the man’s death. It was also intended to mock anyone who dare to seek treatment that was not approved of by the FDA. One news outlet made the false claim that hydroxychloroquine was not approved of by the FDA for the treatment of COVID-19, despite the fact that it had been given Emergency Use Authorization very early on and would only have that authorization revoked several days afterward.3

Another media outlet called those who were promoting hydroxychloroquine conspiracy theorists,4 falsely claimed that the drug was “condemned by the US Food and Drug Association,”5 deceptively reported that “hydroxychloroquine is well documented for increasing serious heart problems, and in some cases, resulting in death,”6 and mocked President Trump and anyone else who would dare to think differently than the so-called experts. This was more than a simple attempt to dissuade people from using the drug; it was propaganda meant to belittle, ostracize, and vilify seekers of the drug. Many other outlets did the same,7 and are now reusing the same tactics with respect to another drug that is being used successfully as a COVID-19 therapeutic, namely ivermectin.

In a recent article by Oliver Darcy, the CNN reporter, as well as the FDA, misrepresent ivermectin as “an anti-parasitic drug used for livestock,”8 while simultaneously affirming that “there are human uses for ivermectin.”9 Another CNN writer, Chris Cillizza, does the same in his article “What the ivermectin debacle reveals about the hypocrisy of the anti-vaxxer crowd,”10 identifying those promoting the drug as conspiracy theorists. He goes on to identify the drug as “a drug used to de-worm large animals, in stock,”11 and as “medicine meant for horses and cows,”12 only to then state that “there are formulations of ivermectin approved for human use in the United States, but it's intended for intestinal parasites and conditions such as head lice and rosacea,” thereby revealing his equivocal use of the word “ivermectin.”13 The goal? To identify the drug as harmful, unapproved by the FDA, and dangerous.

In a dark twist of irony, however, the same media outlet has an article written by a physician explaining why you should not “wait for full FDA approval to get your Covid shot.”14 This highlights the fact that whether or not one should take hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin or get “the jab” is being determined not by the sheer preponderance of data but the sheer exercise of authority. If FDA approval should not keep one from getting an experimental gene therapy, then why should it keep one from taking hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, two drugs that have – over their long lifespan – a death rate that is much lower than the 13,000 plus deaths15 attributable to the new mRNA vaccines that have only been in use for about a year or so? This doesn’t add up.

Moreover, given the revelation only a few months ago that Anthony Fauci knew hydroxychloroquine was a safe and effective therapeutic treatment for COVID-19,16 why did he and the media lie about his knowledge of the drug’s efficacy?17 Given that there have been major studies showing the efficacy of ivermectin as a safe and effective therapeutic treatment18 for COVID-19, why are the media, talking heads, politicians, and the FDA arguing deceptively, manipulatively, and fallaciously in a frantic attempt to keep people from getting access to the drug?

We can guess, with reasonable accuracy, the reason behind these attacks on demonstrably successful treatments for COVID-19. It’s simple – If there exist safe and effective alternatives to the vaccines currently being promoted by the government and the media – alternatives whose benefits outweigh their risks, and are more beneficial and less risky than the mRNA vaccines – then the vaccines will lose their EUA status. According to the FDA’s own official document, the organization

...may issue an EUA after FDA has determined that the following statutory requirements are met […]

• The chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) agent referred to in the March 27, 2020 EUA declaration by the Secretary of HHS (SARS-CoV-2) can cause a serious or life threatening disease or condition.

• Based on the totality of scientific evidence available, including data from adequate and well controlled trials, if available, it is reasonable to believe that the product may be effective to prevent, diagnose, or treat such serious or life-threatening disease or condition that can be caused by SARS-CoV-2.

• The known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat the identified serious or life-threatening disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.

• There is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing,

preventing, or treating the disease or condition.19

And while bullet point 1 has obviously been met, points 2-3 have repeatedly been shown to have not been met. Given the amount of deaths and adverse side effects caused by the mRNA vaccines, it is not reasonable to believe that they can “prevent, diagnose, or treat such serious or life-threatening disease or condition that can be caused by SARS-CoV-2.”20 This is because the vaccines have not been determined to be safe and effective on the basis of “the totality of scientific evidence available” but by studies that have systematically excluded unfavorable data. Nor has it been determined on the basis of “data [obtained] from adequate and well controlled trials” but has been determined on the basis of incomplete and poorly controlled trials.21 Consequently, EUA has not been granted to the vaccines because “the known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat the identified serious or life-threatening disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.” Yet by excluding unfavorable data, drawing conclusions from incomplete and poorly controlled mRNA vaccine trials, and lying about drugs like hydroxychroloquine and ivermectin, the FDA has provided itself a plausible basis for claiming that bullet point 4 has been met.

The truth is that the vaccines have not met the requisite conditions justifying the FDA granting them EUA. There are, and have been, many “adequate, … and available alternative[s] to the [mRNA vaccines] for diagnosing, preventing, or treating [COVID-19]” – e.g. hydroxycloroquine,22 ivermectin, budesonide,23 quercetin alongside high doses of vitamins C and D3,24 and Regeneron25 – to name a few. If these alternatives are ignored, sidelined, lied about, etc, however, and are identified as unsafe and ineffective, then the vaccines retain their EUA.

Conclusion: Why I Am Obligated to NOT Get the Vaccine

Given that the government and media have lied about the safety and efficiency of numerous treatments for COVID-19, and that the government and media have lied about the safety and efficiency of the mRNA vaccines, and that the government and media have utilized fallacious and unsound reasoning in an attempt to retain EUA for an experimental treatment that has been shown to be not only very dangerous but ineffective, I am obligated to obey God and not participate in their false witness bearing. I cannot get the vaccine because doing so would imply that I am in agreement with their lies, lies that have not only been used to destroy the lives of many people who could have otherwise been saved by cheap, safe, effective, and easily accessible treatments, but have also destroyed the personal reputations of many doctors who promoted those treatments because they were concerned with saving lives, and not with lining their pockets with blood money.

So in a word – I am obligated to refuse the jab because I am obligated under divine law to not bear false testimony, and the very reason why the vaccines have EUA and, what is more, have been touted as the best means of fighting against COVID-19 is because the media and government have borne false testimony on numerous levels. These lies have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the defamation of many doctors and front line workers, the destruction of innumerable businesses, the psychological ruination of many children, the dissolution of families due to suicide or substance relapse or domestic violence, and the psychological abuse of many elderly people who were denied, and are still being denied, access to their loved ones.

Because love does one’s neighbor no harm, I am obligated to not get the vaccine.

1 See Hiram R. Diaz III, “How to Love God and Your Neighbor – Think Before You Get “The Jab,” ThornCrown Ministries, Sept 2, 2021, https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/how-to-love-god-and-your-neighbor-think-before-you-get-the-jab.

2 See Erika Edwards and Vaughn Hillyard, “Man dies after taking chloroquine in an attempt to prevent coronavirus,” NBC News, March 23, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/man-dies-after-ingesting-chloroquine-attempt-prevent-coronavirus-n1167166.

3 ibid. [N.B. While the NBC News article mentions that hydroxychloroquine was being looked at as a potentially useful therapeutic, that is only partially correct. It was granted Emergency Use Authorization on March 28, 2020. The EUA was revoked on June 15, 2020. See “Authorizations and Revocation of Emergency Use of Drugs During the COVID-19 Pandemic; Availability,” Federal Register: The Daily Journal of the United States Government, Sept 11, 2020, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/11/2020-20041/authorizations-and-revocation-of-emergency-use-of-drugs-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-availability.]

4 Jenae Madden, “Hydroxychloroquine: the conspiracy theorists’ answer to coronavirus, explained,” Happy, April 4, 2020, https://happymag.tv/hydroxychloroquine-the-conspiracy-theorists-answer-to-coronavirus-explained/.

5 ibid.

6 ibid.

7 See Daniel Funke, “Conspiracy Theory Proven False: Hydroxychloroquine Is [Still] Not a COVID-19 Cure,” Physicians News, July 31, 2020, https://physiciansnews.com/2020/07/31/conspiracy-theory-proven-false-hydroxychloroquine-is-still-not-a-covid-19-cure/; Ann McLaughlin, “Investigating the most convincing COVID-19 conspiracy theories,” June 23, 2020, King’s College London, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/investigating-the-most-convincing-covid-19-conspiracy-theories;

8 “Right-wing media pushed a deworming drug to treat Covid-19 that the FDA says is unsafe for humans,” CNN, Aug 23, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/23/media/right-wing-media-ivermectin/index.html.

9 ibid.

10 CNN, Aug 25, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/politics/ivermectin-covid-19-fox-news/index.html.

11 ibid.

12 ibid.

13 Ivermectin for animals differs in concentration levels from ivermectin for humans. Logically, this makes the two uses of the word distinct. The genus here is ivermectin, and the species are (a.)animal and (b.)human. By identifying the use of (a.) as proof that (b.) should not be used, the author is committing the fallacy of equivocation.

14 Jonthan Sackner-Bernstein, CNN, July 28, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/opinions/dont-wait-for-fda-approval-to-get-vaccine-sackner-bernstein/index.html.

15 See Tucker Carlson, “How Many Americans Have Died After Taking COVID Vaccinations?,” FOX News, Brighteon, https://www.brighteon.com/2a2fd903-220a-4b4f-86bf-0f78aaa8fd2a.

16 See Jim Hoft, “SMOKING GUN: FAUCI LIED, MILLIONS DIED — Fauci Was Informed of Hydroxychloroquine Success in Early 2020 But Lied to Public Instead Despite the Science #FauciEmails,” Gateway Pundit, Jun 3, 2021, https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/smoking-gun-fauci-lied-millions-died-fauci-informed-hydroxychloroquine-worked-lied-public-instead-despite-science-fauciemails/.

17 See Daniel Funke, “Don’t fall for conspiracy about Dr. Anthony Fauci, hydroxychloroquine,” Politifact, May 6, 2020, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/06/blog-posting/dont-fall-conspiracy-about-dr-anthony-fauci-hydrox/.

18 For example, see Morimasa Yagisawa, Patrick J. Foster, Hideaki Hanaki, and Satoshi Ōmura, “Global trends in clinical studies of ivermectin in COVID-19,” in The Japanese Journal of Antibiotics 74 – 1 (Mar.\ 2021), 45-95. [N.B. The PDF, for now, is accessible online here – http://jja-contents.wdc-jp.com/pdf/JJA74/74-1-open/74-1_44-95.pdf].

19 Emergency Use Authorization for Vaccines to Prevent COVID-19, 3. FDA website, May 25, 2021, https://www.fda.gov/media/142749/download.

20 ibid.

21 See Ronald B. Brown, “Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials,” in Medicina

57, 199 (2021), https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina57030199; Richard Harris, “Long-Term Studies Of COVID-19 Vaccines Hurt By Placebo Recipients Getting Immunized,” NPR, Feb 19, 2021, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/19/969143015/long-term-studies-of-covid-19-vaccines-hurt-by-placebo-recipients-getting-immuni; Lance D. Johnson, “Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials RIGGED by vaccinating the control group… blatant science FRAUD exposed,” Natural News, Aug 10, 2021, https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-08-10-moderna-and-pfizer-vaccine-trials-rigged-vaccinating-control-group.html; Tyler Durden, “Ex-Pfizer Exec Demands EU Halt COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Over 'Indefinite Infertility' And Other Health Concerns,” ZeroHedge, Dec 6, 2020, https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/ex-pfizer-exec-demands-eu-halt-covid-19-vaccine-studies-over-indefinite-infertility-and.

22 See C. Prodromos and T. Rumschlag, “Hydroxychloroquine is effective, and consistently so when provided early, for COVID-19: a systematic review,” in New Microbes and New Infections 38, Nov (2020), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297520301281?via%3Dihub.

23 See “Common asthma treatment reduces need for hospitalisation in COVID-19 patients, study suggests,” University of Oxford – News and Events, Feb 9, 2021, https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-09-common-asthma-treatment-reduces-need-hospitalisation-covid-19-patients-study; Sanjay Ramakrishnan, et al., “Inhaled budesonide in the treatment of early COVID-19 (STOIC): a phase 2, open-label, randomised controlled trial,” in The Lancet – Respiratory Medicine Vol. 9, Issue 7, (April 9, 2021), https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00160-0/fulltext.

24 See Giuseppe Derosa, et al., “A role for quercetin in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),” in Phytotherapy Research, Wiley Online Library, October 9, 2020, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ptr.6887; Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, et al., “Quercetin and Vitamin C: An Experimental, Synergistic Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 Related Disease (COVID-19),” in Frontiers in Immunology 19, June (2020), https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.01451/full; Joseph Mercola, “Evidence Regarding Vitamin D and Risk of COVID-19 and Its Severity,” in Nutrients 12, October (2020), https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/11/3361.

25 See Kezia Parkins, “Regeneron’s antibody cocktail helps prevent and treat Covid-19 in Phase III studies,” Clinical Trials Arena, April 13, 2020, https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/regenerons-antibody-cocktail-regen-cov-helps-prevent-and-treat-covid-19-in-phase-3-studies/; Alistair Smout, “Regeneron’s antibody therapy cuts deaths among some hospitalised COVID-19 patients -study,” Reuters, June 16, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/regeneron-covid-19-therapy-cuts-deaths-among-hospitalised-patients-who-lack-2021-06-16/; Lenny Bernstein and Laurie McGinley, “Monoclonal antibodies are free and effective against covid-19, but few people are getting them,” Washington Post, August 20, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-monoclonal-abbott/2021/08/19/a39a0b5e-0029-11ec-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html.

Seeing as many Christians are aware of the ethically suspect, if not entirely corrupt, process of vaccine development, and are aware of the serious side-effects of the gene-therapies that are now being rebranded as vaccines, there is a growing tide of individuals who feel the need to tell us that we are “not loving our neighbors” if we don’t get vaccinated. Visit social media and you can see them saying “I thought you were a Christian. Aren’t you supposed to love your neighbor?” Listen to the talking heads on television and online media outlets and you can hear them confidently asserting that “Jesus would have gotten the jab,” and so all Christians should get the jab in order to “love your neighbor like Jesus did.”

But what we are not seeing so much of is a biblical answer to the question posed by the singer Haddaway in 1993 –

What is love?

Instead, those who are “encouraging” us to get vaccinated assume that we share their definition of love and, therefore, should feel guilty for not acting in accordance with their definition of love. And, sadly, for many that is actually the case. Upon hearing that Christians who will not get vaccinated don’t love their neighbors, many professing Christians will feel guilty and get vaccinated against their convictions. This kind of manipulation is occurring on a daily basis and warrants a better response that is biblical and to the point. I hope to present that in this short article.

Defining Love

The American Heritage Dictionary online defines love as follows –

A strong feeling of affection and concern toward another person, as that arising from kinship or close friendship.

[…]

A strong feeling of affection and concern for another person accompanied by sexual attraction.

Similarly, Webster defines love in the following manner –

…strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties

…attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers

…affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests

What we see in these definitions, which I think are representative of how most people think about love, is that love is an affection – i.e. a favorable and tender disposition toward some person or thing – that arises from kinship or some other kind of intimate relationship we have with others. This understanding of love is problematic for a host of reasons. Let’s look at why it is problematic, and then look at what the Scriptures have to say.

In the first place, defining love as an affection (i.e. a favorable and tender disposition toward some person or thing) means that actions taken toward another person that are not favorable or tender are not loving. Yet our own proclamations of love for people show us that this is not the case. Leaving aside the question of who gets to define what is or is not “favorable” to the object of one’s love, we simply point out that those whom we love are often those with whom we tend to lack tenderness in certain situations. For instance, the father who loves his daughter will reprimand her harshly for using drugs, hanging out with the wrong crowd, disrespecting her mother, etc. He will also “tell her like it is,” knowing that it will drive a wedge between the two of them. Is his love suspended for his daughter when he keeps her from destroying her life with drugs, for instance, because he speaks harshly to her? We recognize that the father’s love is what fuels his response. His response is an instance of love, and it lacks the aforementioned tenderness and favorableness, from his daughter’s perspective that is, that is supposedly definitive of love.

The examples here can be multiplied –

• A sister who does not approve of her brother’s decision to divorce his wife and, therefore, refuses to give him emotional and financial support in his endeavors to split up his marriage.

• A church that disciplines a member who continues in flagrant and unrepentant sin.

• A parent who cuts off financial support for his children so that they can learn how to fend for themselves in the world.

• God taking the life of David’s child born of adultery.

• Christ calling Peter Satan.

The harshness in these examples is not evidence of the absence of love but, in fact, the proof of its central presence in the relationships described. What this means is that affection, as described above, is not essential to love. One can love another person by doing what is, according to that person, unfavorable and harsh. Our popular understanding of love, then, is wrong given our own understanding of our behaviors toward those whom we claim to love.

Secondly, because love is not an affection it cannot “arise from” some relationship we have with another person. Our relationship with another person may lead to us having positive/warm feelings for that person, but that isn’t the same thing as love. Our relationship with another person may lead to us acting tenderly toward that person, but that isn’t the same thing as love. We can interact tenderly with strangers we’ve never before met. We can also interact tenderly with people whom we hate. We can act favorably toward another person as a means of retribution, allowing that person to entertain delusions and engage in all kinds of self-destructive behavior, simply because we want him to suffer. Tenderness and favorableness cannot, therefore, be definitive of love.

So why do most people think love is a favorable and tender disposition toward another person? Simply put – they confuse the feelings they have while expressing love for another person with love itself. Unlike God, we experience emotional changes, as we are temporal and mutable creatures. We relate to others in time, moreover, experiencing emotional changes as time progresses in those relationships, and those relationships either grow to maturity or disintegrate. Is the building up of some shared life goal something that evokes positive emotions? Do those positive emotions grow as two people grow closer and see one another as reliable, trustworthy, considerate, and so on? Conversely, is the breaking of a covenant between two persons something that evokes negative emotions? Do those negative emotions grow as two people grow father apart and see one another as unreliable, untrustworthy, inconsiderate, and so on?

As creatures with passions – i.e. emotional states correlative to our proximity to perceived goods or evils – every relationship we have with others is marked by emotional changes. But as we saw above, we can be favorable and tender toward those we hate (as an expression of our hatred), just as we can be unfavorable and harsh toward those we love (as an expression of our love). Love, therefore, is not an affection, although it is accompanied by affection in many cases.

Another problem we must recognize is that of the love of God. Given that God does not have “passions” (as defined above), because he is perfect and unchanging, how are we to understand love?

Scripture Defines Love

In Romans 13:8-10, the apostle Paul writes –

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Within this pericope, we are given the definition of love, as well as examples of love in action. Love, he says, is the fulfilling of the law. The Law in question here is the law of God, i.e. the Ten Commandments, which include the first table (i.e. those commandments immediately pertaining to our relationship with God) as well as the second table (i.e. those commandments immediately pertaining to our relationship with other people). Actions which are loving are those which do no harm to our neighbor, including refraining from adultery, murder, stealing, and coveting.

But that isn’t everything. Paul adds this small clause “and any other commandment,” thereby implying that it is not merely our adherence to the second table of the law that constitutes love for our neighbor, but our adherence to the first table as well. To love one’s neighbor is to walk in accordance with God’s Law as it pertains to our relationship with him and with our fellow human. Love is the fulfillment of the law. Consequently, any act of love toward one’s neighbor that results in our disobedience to the first table of the law is not an act of love at all. Likewise, any act of love toward God that results in our disobedience to the second table of the law is not an act of love at all.

Consider Christ’s words in Mark 7:9-13 –

And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Note here what Jesus is criticizing – it is the Pharisees’ attempt to pit obedience to God (in giving sacrificially to him) against obedience to God (in honoring one’s father and mother). What motivated these hypocrites was not love for God but sin, specifically greed, and that is evidenced by the result their supposed love for God produced – the Word of God was nullified, rendered incoherent, self-contradictory. By pitting obedience to the first table against obedience to the second table, the Pharisees had not done what is commanded by either table of the law.

Our Current Context

Given that love is not an emotion/affect but the fulfillment of God’s Law, are appeals to our duty to love our neighbor and “just get the shot” sound? In short, no. When we are told by others “if you really loved your neighbors you would get the jab!” we are being guilt tripped. This kind of manipulation is particularly nasty, seeing as it explicitly states that you don’t love your neighbor and, therefore, necessarily implies that you also don’t love God. It is important to know how this twofold accusation is false, therefore, in order to not be deceived into supposedly loving God or our neighbor at the expense of either and, consequently, failing to love either.

Let’s look at the argument being made:

If you love your neighbor, you will get the vaccine.
You will not get the vaccine.
Therefore, you do not love your neighbor.

In order for this argument to be sound, at least three things need to be true. Firstly, it must be the case that the vaccine will not harm me. Secondly, it must be the case that the vaccine will do my neighbor no harm. Thirdly, it must be the case that my decision to get vaccinated is not due to me having been manipulated, deceived, guilt-tripped, or coerced.

These three situations must be true in order for this syllogism to be sound. For in the first case, if I knowingly get vaccinated with a drug that will render me unable to fulfill the vocations which God has given me, then I am willingly abdicating my divinely ordained responsibilities (e.g. being a husband, father, worker, teacher, etc). Willingly getting vaccinated, in this instance, would not be an act of love toward God or my neighbor because it would render me incapable of worshiping God as he has commanded by making my body incapable of doing what is necessary to ensure no harm comes to my neighbor. In a word, if getting vaccinated renders me incapable of doing what is necessary to ensure no harm comes to my neighbor, then it is not an act of love toward God or my neighbor.

In the second case, if getting vaccinated does harm to my neighbor then it is an act that is loving toward neither God nor my neighbor. Physical harm is not the only harm that one can do to his neighbor, so even if we assume that the vaccine will not physically harm me or anyone else, there is still the danger of harming my neighbor socially. If getting vaccinated entails being publicly praised and retaining my God-given rights, and not getting vaccinated entails being publicly shamed and having my God-given rights suppressed, then getting vaccinated entails socially, and eventually physically, harming my neighbor who will not get vaccinated. For if my neighbor’s God-given rights are suppressed, then he is hindered from loving God by performing the vocations God has given him in order to love God and love his neighbor.

In the third case, if I get vaccinated because I have been manipulated, deceived, guilt-tripped, or coerced, then I have not acted in accordance with the truth. I have placed obedience to men on a par with, or above, obedience to God and, thereby, have engaged in idolatry. The duty to love God with all of my mind requires me to rationally assess my circumstances, and determine what actions I can or cannot take in order to achieve a goal that will directly or indirectly assist me in not doing my neighbor any harm. If I don’t do this, but instead succumb to the pressure to get vaccinated, I am not acting in accordance with the truth, and consequently not loving God or my neighbor.

Conclusion

Even if the vaccine is safe and effective, loving my neighbor requires me to love God, and loving God requires me to act not in submission to governmental mandates, media manipulators, or frantic family members, but in submission to the Lord God of Truth. If I am being told to succumb to bribes, manipulative emotional outbursts, coercive mandates, and so on, then I am being told to commit idolatry by not subjecting myself to the truth. I don’t have to demonstrate that the vaccines are not safe and effective, in other words, in order to justify not getting vaccinated. If I love God and my neighbor, then I will not obey another authority placing himself above God by forcing me to forgo the reasoning process requisite to making a good and God-honoring decision. If I love God and my neighbor, then I will not get vaccinated if that entails the ostracization of my neighbor because he is convinced that the vaccine is not safe and effective.

Those who are arguing that it is unloving – i.e. sinful – to not “get the jab” are engaging in behavior that is unloving toward their neighbors and God. This is not because they are promoting vaccination per se, but because they are twisting Scripture, disregarding truth, placing the desires of men above the revealed will of God, and placing love for God and love for one’s neighbor in contradiction to one another in their attempt to get their neighbors vaccinated. This is evil and must be rejected and refuted. Christians are to obey God rather than men, and God commands us to rationally assess our life situations in order to make decisions that are good for our neighbor’s well-being, and which bring God glory.