The Obedience of the Nations

Purpose

The Lord has commanded us to disciple the nations, teaching them to obey all that He has commanded us.

This is an attempt to map what an obedient nation looks like, for the purpose of guiding us to that end.

The End of Discipleship

The end of all creation is to glorify God, by reflecting His wisdom in correctly ordered living in all areas of life. Because of sin, the nations of the earth rage against Christ; but they will be discipled unto Him as His inheritance.

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image, and received not the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand; and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

May His word be a lamp unto our feet, and a light for our scepter.

In the bringing of the nations into the obedience to Christ, God is glorified through the rightly ordered living out of His wisdom, which He has revealed, both generally in creation and specially in revelation.

Goal

The goal of this work is to be a map, that the user may quickly identify and rectify sin in specific domains of life, and that time may be allocated to the greatest areas of need for the most significant gains.

Existing capital ought to be mapped upon the matrix for rectification and direction.

Present State

I, Michael Seethaler, live in a degrading, backsliding people. Deep rot in the flesh of my nation; it’s desolation comes if there comes not repentance. But we saints have not lost heart, our God gives life to the dead.

Better yet, there is a great abundance of Christian capital: believers, families, institutions. The mother may be dying, but if we operation fast, we may save the babies. We must see, and cut, quickly, decisively.

1. Authority

All authority has been given to Christ in heaven and on earth. The rightly ordered nation is rightly ordered towards Him in every domain. It obeys His word wherever it touches. All property is owned finally by Him.

2. Covenantal Governments

God instituted four direct governments, which have distinctive ends: self, family, civil, church.

1. Christ, as creator, establishes all civic governments, through a variety of legitimating factors.

They are instituted for the purpose of upholding righteousness and punishing lawlessness. They exist by nature to promote the common good. The object governed is the body politic.

The Civic office acquires property through tribute, is held by public trust, for its end of ministering justice. A trust the holding of the property of a granter by a trustee for the purpose of administration that property for the beneficial end of a beneficiary.

Ezek 45:7-9, 46:16-18, 1 Chron 27:25-31

2. Christ, as redeemer, established the church. The church’s purpose is to gather the elect from the nations and shepherd the chosen flock of God into eternal life (WCF 25). The primary means of grace given to the Church is the Word of God and the sacraments. The object governed is the congregation of believers.

For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men,

instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world;

looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works.

The church acquires property through tithes and offerings, held in sacred trust, for the end of worship, ministry and mercy.

3. Christ, as Creator, established the government of family, through the institution of marriage, and dominion mandate.

And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food:

and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so.

The distinct purpose of the family is propagation and dominion over the creation. The means of the family is instruction, the rod, nurture, and property.

The family acquires property by labor and inheritance, holds it in ownership proper, administered by the head for the benefit of the members, with claims on the property existing by members.

4. Christ as Creator established individual man as governor of himself. The end of this governance is holiness and vocation, and the means are the conscience informed by the Word of God and talents and gifts.

The individual acquires property through labor and gifts, held as personal possession, for the ends of individual calling, sustenance, and giving.

However, upon the creation of a household, the ends of the property change to those of the family, and the claimants on that property change in accordance to marital and filial relations.

Domains

Domains are the categories of life in which a nation obeys and is sanctified. They are ranked generally by degree, the principle of their rank is prior dependence, at least formally, but in the actualization of things, order can vary. As the waters of life from from the temple of worship, more and more of the nation is submerged in the vivification and regeneraiton from the fountain of life.

0. Missions: the gathering of the elect from the nations by the preaching of the Gospel, baptizing them and gathering them into the Church. (Mt. 28:19-20, Rom 10:14-15)

1. Worship: The weekly approach to the throne of God by the covenant of grace in the power of Christ’s blood. Weekly Sabbath worship on the Lord’s day.

2. Education: Training the minds of the young and old in the doctrines of faith and life, particularly centered around the systematic passing down of the faith to the next generation, i.e. Christian schools.

3. Economy: Dominion through vocation and production.

4. Mercy: Giving of sustenance, what has been produced to those which lack the necessary things of life, food, clothing, shelter.

5. Scholarship: articulating and defending what has been handed down, and applying to novel situations.

6. Public order: the correct administration of justice and the enactment of just laws to govern the body politic.

7. Public Culture: Expressing and reproducing the faith and its fruits skillfully in public and commending them to foreign nations.

Each domain is a genus, with various species, viz. fields. The domains are each categorized upon a single principle.

*Scope, viz. inward (this nation) or outward (foreign nations), is an attribute of each Missions field.

**Level of government, viz. local, county, state, national, is an attribute of each field, not it’s own species.

Institutions

An institution is an established, enduring order of persons or households under a common rule toward a common end. The word derives from instituere, to set up or establish; institutio also carries the sense of instruction.

Two types:

• Covenantal Governments: established directly by God.
• Voluntary Associations: established by men under the governments. Self-governing according to founding principle with derived authority.

As association is an ordering of members (persons, households, congregations or civic governments) under a common rule (subordinate to God’s law) for a common end; it serves as an instrument of the covenantal governments within a domain of life.

The rule (regla, a straightedge of measure) is the binding norm that orders the action of members to the end. For an association, it is the compact: charter, bylaws, terms of membership. The rule-sets nest in the following manner: God’s law binds all; each government’s law binds within its jurisdiction, the associations compact binds its members.

An association is an instrument: an instrumental cause with its own operation, producing an effect beyond itself as a its principle directs it. It is a ministerial instrument to be directed by its principle. Every association needs a charter naming it’s principle, its end, and how the principle directs it.

The Matrix

• Rows are the four governments. Columns are the domains, in degree order from 0 to 7.
• Each cell is formal respect: how one government engages one domain.
• Means within a cell are direct (the government acts by its own office) or instrumental (it acts through an association).
• Relation of a government to a domain:
  • Principal: acts directly by its own office.
  • Constitutive: its body enters the domain’s associations as members.
  • Regulative: bears on the domain from outside, within its own competence.
  • None: lacks jurisdiction.
• Each cell records: relation, end, means, agent, norm, boundary, and failure modes (neglect and usurpation).

This is a normative matrix, to be used to map present capital and diagnose areas of necessary allocation.

6. The confederacy

The confederacy is a covenanted union of free, self-governing members (persons, households, congregations or civic governments), each keeps its own government. It is the bond of covenantal love running through all.

Glossary