The Theocratic King and the Oath of Allegiance
‘” And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of jDriests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” — Ex. XIX. 3-6.
“And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said. All the words which the Lord hath said will we do. And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt-offerings, and sacrificed peace-offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basons; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said. Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” — Ex. xxiv. 3-8.
Flavius Josephus was a learned Jew who flourished in the latter half of the first century, and who wrote two admirable works on Hebrew history. Besides these he published a tract, still extant, and known as Josephus against Apion. Of this tract one object is to explain to Gentile readers Hebrew peculiarities, and to vindicate as facts what many of them deemed mere Jewish fables. In the course of it, having occasion to explain the Hebrew polity, he uses the following language: — “Some legislators have placed their people under a monarchy, others under an oligarchy, and others have resolved them into a republic. But our legislator took no account of these modes of government, but instituted what we may call a Theocracy — ascribing all power and authority to God, and persuading them to have regard to Him as the author of all their privileges. He taught them that it was impossible to escape God’s observation in any of their outward actions or even in any of their inward thoughts; and his legislation had this advantage over other legislations, that whereas they made religion a part of virtue Moses made all virtues a part of religion. As so many ingredients in piety towards God, he included justice, and fortitude, and temperance, and the loyalty to one another of the different members of the commonwealth.”
As far as I know, it is in the passage that the
Tis diroi iSiaaafiepos tov Xoyov ^eoKpariav. 2 Jos. c. Apion, ii. 17.
word “Theocracy” first occurs — a word so convenient and so constantly used, and which is so admirably descriptive of Hebrew polity, as distinguished from every other. Commonwealths like Athens and republican Rome were self-governed; monarchies like Persia and Egypt were kinggoveriiccl; but Israel, rescued from Egypt, and as God designed to plant it in Palestine, was Goclgovernecl. JSTeither Moses, nor Aaron, nor Joshua claimed to be king or first consul or president of the republic; but the Lord was the king, the Lord was the lawgiver, and Moses and all the rest were only His ministers or servants — the channels or internuncios through whom He published His edicts and made known His will.
Although eventually modified, although conceding to the foreseen desire of the people to have a visible head of their commonwealth, Jehovah Himself gave directions as to the regal office, yet the true and original type was, in the word coined by Josephus, a theocracy, or government by God. And had the people but been worthy, no position could be nobler. Here they were just rescued from thraldom — clean sundered from Egypt and its abominable idolatries, baptized in the Eed Sea, on the eagle wings of Omnipotence transported into this large place with its sabbatic silence and its impregnable seclusion, and Jehovah draws near, and if they themselves are inclined and feel equal to it, He offers to be Himself their captain and their king. “Let it be a compact. Make a covenant and keep it, and ye shall be all my own — from all earth’s peoples selected as my own peculiar treasure, — a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.” Had the people but been equal to it here was an occasion unprecedented, an opportunity given to a new and virgin nation to start on a career the like of which had never been exhibited, receiving their laws from God and from Him deriving their protection, — God dwelling amongst them palpably, fighting their battles, brightening their abodes, preserving their going out and coming in, and with His approving presence glorifying their entire existence.
The ideal was imperfectly realized. Except to a very partial extent, and for brief intervals, the nation never rose to its high calling, and seldom was it that either the camp of the pilgrimage or the land of the promise suggested the heaven on earth which it ought to have been. But no knowledge of Israel’s frailty, no foresight of human failure, hindered the Most High from propounding His own gracious plan, and showing Moses in the mount its pattern — a pattern suggestive of higher things elsewhere — for if God was so kind and condescending as to come down and offer to be their sovereign, how could earthly life more nearly approximate the life of the celestials, what earthly citizenship could come nearer the citizenship in heaven, than that nationality which recognised the Holy One of Israel as its almighty and its only King?
“When in the history of a nation any great epoch arrives, it is usual to emphasize it by some solemn celebration. A great deliverance has taken place, a new dynasty has acceded, a new prince begins to reign; and on the one side a constitution is proclaimed or a code is promulgated — on the other the oath of allegiance is taken, and the people vow to be faithful to the sovereign.
In one sense Jehovah had all along been the head of the Hebrew race, and as far back as the days of Abraham He had sworn, “I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee.” But now that seed had become a mighty nation, a separate and self-contained community, and, released from slavery, it was in a position to judge and act for itself; and therefore the opportunity was given to the nation by a distinct and deliberate act to accept or reject Jehovah as its king.
On Jehovah’s side a constitution had already been proclaimed, and a code promulgated: “If ye will obey my voice and keep my covenant, ye shall be my peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation;” and mounting His theocratic throne amidst thunder and lightning and the pomp of flaming “”seraphim, the Eternal had proclaimed, as the essence of His code and the basis of all further legislation, the Ten Commands. And now the time was come that the people should plight their faith, and vow allegiance to their mighty but condescending Monarch. And with a view to this they all were mustered, and by some suitable arrangement Moses orally communicated “all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments.” They were good precepts and gracious promises, and the people could only answer with one voice, “All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.” This preliminary assent received, Moses retired and consigned to writing the various provisions — the Decalogue, and most probably those regulations contained in the intervening chapters; and next morning early he came forth with the written document, and met the assembled people.
That day was a high day, — the swearing-in of an assembled people to their Eedeemer- Sovereign, — and with much work to do, Moses rose betimes. Beneath the mountain, and at God’s footstool, he reared an altar, and facing it, to denote the twelve tribes of Israel, he set up twelve pillars; and as soon as the young men appointed for the purpose had slain the calves and bullocks, and half the blood had been poured upon the altar, and whilst the
272 THE THEOCllATIC KING AND
smoke of the oblation began to ascend into the serene summer sky, Moses produced the roll of the covenant, and from the volume of that book read all the words which God Himself had dictated; and when to the august recital from over all the plain a multitudinous murmur answered, “All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient,” to ratify the deed Moses took a hyssop- sprinkler, and, dipping it in mingled blood and water, he showered the crimson rain over the swarming throng, and by way of signature and seal, with a few drops of the self- same blood he bedewed the all-important document, and set it aside till that sacred shrine was ready, soon after known as the casket of the covenant, the Ark of the Testimony. And from this great swearing-in at the foot of the mount which might not be touched, the people passed away with a sublime and awful consciousness that God had spoken and so had they. “I wdll be your God,” had Jehovah said, ‘’ And all that Thou hast spoken will we do,” had they replied, and, registered in heaven, it seemed as if the vow were written on the floor and roof at once of that great desert sanctuary. Gone into God’s memory, if from their own it ever faded, the stones of that altar and these twelve pillars would cry aloud and condemn the covenant-breakers; and even although the volume of the book should perish, and no blood of confirmation blush again to confront the false swearers, the words of that great vow had burned deep into every conscience, and rather than that God should be without a witness Sinai would once more break silence, and that “faithful witness in heaven,” the sun, which that morning shone over the grey wilderness of Paran, would publish to the universe the treason.
It was a great event, the transaction of that day, which on the separate and self-contained nationality of Israel placed a crown of glory, by superadding Jehovah’s sovereignty. Every devout and believing soul through that populous camp, looking at the fiery-cloudy column, as it moved ahead, at once a royal standard and an aerial fortress, could say to himself with thrilling assurance, “The Lord is our defence; the Holy One of Israel is our King.” And although in later centuries between the people and their King immortal and invisible a monarch was interposed, both visible and mortal, faith and affection always ascended to Jehovah as the true king in Jeshurun, and under pious princes like Hezekiah and Josiah, when the covenant was renewed, overlooking, or at least overleaping the earthly ruler, the people swore again the oath of allegiance to the Sovereign Supreme, the Divine and undying Head of the Hebrew commonwealth.
This theocratic element accounts for many things in Hebrew institutions and Old Testament history.
274 THE THEOCEATIC KING AND
For instance, it explains the severity with which idolatry was punished. It was not only a sin, but a treason. Amalek was not more truly the king of Moab, Pharaoh was not more exclusively king of Egypt, than Jehovah was king of Israel; and the Israelite who bowed the knee to Bel or Moloch, who adored the golden calf or Apis, he not only committed a gross and disgraceful sin, but a capital offence, and for revolting against his Liege, his Lord and Sovereign, he was liable to be cut off from among his people. And although there were good reasons over and above why such outrages as the golden calf should be visited by signal retribution, it must not be forgotten as an important element that the thousands who were cut down on that occasion were mutineers against their Captain, — rebels caught red-handed in revolt against their King. And so, although in a somewhat different way, the same principle explains other incidents in which our first feeling may be a sense of extreme severity. For instance, soon after Jericho was taken, the Israelites were mysteriously repulsed in an assault on Ai. Inquiring at the Lord, the answer was, “Israel hath sinned, and they have transgressed my covenant: for they have even taken of the accursed thing, and they have also stolen, yea and dissembled also, and have put it among their own stuff.” As Josephus says, “The Israelites were taught that nothing could escape the observation of their Divine King, either in their outward actions or their inward thoughts.” But this was a lesson hard to learn, and needed to be enforced by some startling instances. And here was one. Flushed with an easy and surprising success at Jericho, they were all the rather chagrined by their defeat at Ai. It seemed utterly inexplicable, but, though burning to revenge the disaster, they were told it would be vain to resume the battle till a secret fault was confessed and put away. So all pleading ignorance, it was referred back to God’s omniscience, and when amongst the assembled million His finger was firmly placed on the son of Carmi, “My son,” said Joshua, “give glory to the God of Israel, and confess what thou hast done;” and as the golden wedge and Babylonish garment came to light, the troubler of Israel paid the forfeit not more of his covetousness than of his atheism, and as the smoke of Achan’s funeral pile ascended in the vale of Achor, spectators slowly turned away musing on the painful lesson, but penetrated with the conviction, — “Yea, darkness hideth not from Thee.”
Need I say how, under the new dispensation, the theocratic principle has been perfected! It is no longer national but personal. The Most High does not now lay hold of a captive nation, and, wrenching it from the jaws of the oppressor, carry it on eagle wings into some desert sanctuary; but He lays hold on an individual. Some slave of Satan He singles. out, and, rescuing him from his cruel taskmaster. He brings him to Himself and says, “I will be thy God; take hold of my covenant and thou shalt be my peculiar treasure;” and thenceforward made a king and a priest himself, he becomes a God-governed man.
And indeed the only way to be truly free is to be God-governed; the only man who walks at liberty is the man who is “under law to Christ.” During the days of the Saviour’s sojourn there were men possessed by the deviL As if to impersonate and make palpable those evil propensities by which bad men are borne along, and in order to make more personal the contest between the devil and Him who came to destroy the works of the devil, in some instances it was permitted to demons to take personal possession of bad men; that is to say, when a bad man had sold himself to some course of wickedness, an evil spirit took possession of him and urged him on to yet wilder extremes of the self- same wickedness; and even although lucid moments might intervene during which the man grew sick of his foul familiar, and would fain have turned him out, the unclean spirit was sure to come back again and carry his unhappy victim captive at his will; and it was not till Jesus spoke that mighty word, which “devils fear and fly,” that the foul fiend absconded to his own place and left the vacated house open to a worthier occupancy. If that vacated sanctuary received the Saviour — if into his thankful heart the man received his mighty Deliverer, by becoming the servant of Christ he became master of himself. He who had been fiend-possessed became self-possessed by becoming God-possessed, — Christ’s servant, and so his own master.
And so, if you have not given yourself to God you are still the servant of sin; his servant you are whom you obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness. If you have not given yourself to God, you are still in the bond of iniquity; you carry your Pharaoh within — a tyrant in the shape of some master-sin, or “many masters” — so many petty tyrants, so many domineering taskmasters in the shape of divers lusts and passions — foul desires, fantastic follies, lawless affections, to which you yield by turns — sometimes cursing your infatuation, and sometimes drowning remorse in the delirium of a new excitement, till, your strength and substance wasted, youth gone, strength and beauty gone, money gone, health gone, life going, eternity coming, you exclaim, “1 have played the fool; I have erred exceedingly.”
Do you desire deliverance? Would you be free from this hateful dominion, this horrible lust, this frantic possession? Then give yourself to God. In the lucid interval fall at Christ’s feet, and, like the dispossessed demoniac, beg that He would not leave you, nor suffer you to leave Him; and as Christ’s Spirit takes possession of your mind, as in answer to prayer the Comforter comes, in the peace and the purity which He sheds abroad, unruly emotions will subside, angry passions will obey the voice, “Peace, be still!” and a stronger than Satan having entered in and expelled the usui3)er, you will taste the blessings of a renovated heart and a heavenly rule, and will find that you have returned to your right mind in returning to your rightful Master.
In the gospel, God invites each of us to take Himself for our God, and He offers to take each of us as His ]Deculiar treasure; and it is well that, like Israel at Sinai, this kind offer of His should be met by an act of our own, express and explicit. Personal covenanting and solemn self- dedications were not unusual among our godly ancestors, and documents like the following still are extant: —
“Oct 20, 1686. — I take God the Father to be my chiefest good and highest end. I take God the Son to be my Prince and Saviour. I take God the Holy Ghost to be my Sanctifier, Teacher, Guide, and Comforter. I take the Word of God to be my rule in all my actions, and the people of God to be my people in all conditions. And this I do deliberately, sincerely, freely, and for ever.
(Signed) “Matthew Henry.”
And as a date, as a definitive landmark and starting-point, there may be an advantage in a form thus written and subscribed; but if made too minute, above all, if in any way it assume the form of an oath or vow, it will become a snare and a source of subsequent distress and embarrassment, for, after every declension and failure, you will feel that you have been unfaithful in your covenant, and that you have sworn deceitfully. Happily for us, God’s voice has been obeyed, and His covenant has been kept on our behalf by our glorious Representative, and it only remains for us, by a meek and thankful assent, to enter into all the blessings thus bought for us, whilst, with a voice more subduing than the trumpet of Sinai, Christ’s sacrifice calls for our surrender. Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price; tell the Saviour how thankful you are, and how willing; and whilst you deeply feel that for all your future constancy you are dependent on His own good Spirit in the competition for your heart’s supremacy, do you decide for that King who reigns in righteousness, and who makes His subjects kings and priests unto God His Father.