There are three fundamental types of government which issue out of God's order of things. They are theocracy, anarchy and totalitarianism.
In order to understand government, we must return to a proper starting point in God. When we recognize that God, who is the ultimate source of rights, has desired that man should be only a proximate source of rights, we can understand what happened to Adam in the garden. According to God's design, Adam was to have yielded all his rights to God, thereby allowing God to rule through him as a vice-regent in the earth. Had Adam and his posterity followed this plan, it would have meant theocracy-the wonderful government of God over all the universe. Instead Adam chose to keep those rights for himself. Governed by his appetite, he entered upon a course of self-rule which actually brought anarchy. He wanted to be a god in his own right-free to do that which seemed right in his own eyes. This in essence is the spirit of anarchy which has ruled in rebellious hearts since the Fall.
If we are honest enough to face the full implications of this principle, we will see that democracy can work only as long as men deliberately choose God as their individual ruler and submit themselves and their rights to Him. As God is allowed to set up a theocracy over individual lives of a people, they are able to maintain freedom from oppression. Now let us see what has happened to our democracy. Because of the utter selfishness of men, our citizens have insisted on using their rights for their own welfare and benefit. The spiritually dead are alive only to appetite. Instead of living unto God with concern for the needs of others, each has done that which seems right in his own eyes. As a result the trend in recent years has been for government to step in to curb selfish tendencies. Although the people have not, in the constitution, given the government the right to do this, it has usurped more power to act for what it calls ''the common good." The power of the class has been discovered and exploited, and our present trend toward a welfare state has the inherent seeds of totalitarianism.
It requires little wisdom to recognize that all government tends to one of these three types-God rule, or self-rule or Satan-rule. The typical modem man does not really want self-rule. He only thinks he does. Self-rule implies too much responsibility, and responsibility is a burden-the awful burden of answering the searching question, "What is the real purpose of your life?" If man has a purpose, he must live purposefully. Purposeful living requires discernment and discipline. This is why theories which deny, or transfer, man's freedom are so prevalent today.
-DeVern Fromke _________________ Ron Halverson
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