Guest essay by Al Vipiana
When we prepare to celebrate the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, I think it is well for us to look back and remember the Biblical principles that are the foundation for the real meaning of this event. Unfortunately we are living at a time when we have forgotten the real meaning of the Declaration. The Declaration in part mentions “the laws of nature and of nature’s God” and it goes on to say that “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The fact that we do not even fully understand the principles and the terms used in that document, I believe, is the result of taking God, the Bible, and Biblical principles out of our culture. As a culture we have determined that man’s reasoning is what is important, and we have set God and His word aside.
We are certainly involved in a culture war in America between Godly standards and man’s will. I believe that we have been in a culture war since it started in the Garden of Eden when Satan told the big lie to Adam and Eve. The lie from the beginning was that human wisdom is smarter than God’s wisdom. The lie has always been that we could reject God’s standards or God’s principles without any consequences. The culture in America has reached a point where Biblical principles don’t seem to matter and not too many people have any in-depth knowledge about what’s in the Bible.
I believe the Bible refers to the culture as soil in which the seed of the word of God must be planted; and, in order to have a healthy growth, that seed must be planted in good soil. I also believe that moving away from Christian principles and toward man’s reasoning is certainly the reason for the moral decline in America. In other words, it has become much more difficult to plant the seed of Biblical truths in our culture at this time.
God has been removed from American History, God and prayer and the Ten Commandments have been removed from public schools and also from the public square. Removing God from the foundation of our culture is why our culture is where it is at this time. This is well illustrated in Matthew 7:24-27 (nkjv):
“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. Now everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
Our Founding Fathers believed in following Biblical Principles and Biblical Principles were used in the writing of the Declaration. We have reached a point in America where we are building our nation on man’s reasoning, not Biblical principles. We are building our house on shifting sand. How then can we change this process and go back to a Biblical foundation? Do we have to figure out how to do that? I don’t think so. I think we simply have to remember from where we have come. We have to remember our Christian foundations.
God tells us throughout Scripture to remember what God has done, remember from where we have come. In the book of Deuteronomy God has Moses remind the people what God had done for them, as after forty years of wandering through the desert, all of the generation in the exodus from Egypt except Joshua and Caleb had died. God felt that it was very important for them to remember before entering the Promised Land. As we move on to the book of Judges, we find that after the death of Joshua and other leaders, the people again forgot what God had done and the principles that he gave them to live by, and they again started to rely on their own human reasoning. It states that everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
In the New Testament we are told to remember what God has said to us. 2 Peter 1:12 says, “For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth.” In the book of Revelation 2:5, the Ephesian church is told to remember from where they have fallen.
We also in America must remember from where we have come and what God has done for us. America’s government and laws had their foundation built on Biblical Principles that were clearly understood by our founding generations, but now they have been blurred by man’s secular reasoning. It is difficult for us to even understand the terms used in the Declaration of Independence. We are told by so many secular scholars and leaders that these are non-Christian terms and most of us do not really understand that document. We are also told that the Declaration is not really important since the US Constitution is the law of the land.
The Declaration, however, spells out very carefully what a government should be and what are its functions, and our US Constitution was written on that basis. For this reason I believe that it is important to understand and remember the Biblical foundations in the Declaration as we are dealing with the Biblical foundations of law and government. Unfortunately we have moved very far away from that solid foundation.
Before looking at the document itself, I believe that it is important to understand that the terms used there were not something new that Thomas Jefferson or the other men given the task of writing the Declaration came up with. The terms of the Declaration were well understood by the people of that day, as they had been living by most of those principles for over 150 years, and you can see this in their writings.
When the Pilgrims and the founding fathers who followed them came to America, their charters gave them tremendous liberty in how they would form their churches and their civil governments. First, one of the reasons that they left England was that the civil government there had control over what the churches could and could not do even in the worship service. Our Founders instead followed what Scripture had to say about forming a church, especially the worship service.
Second, when it came time to forming their civil governments, the Pilgrims for example, were told by their Pastor who did not come to America with them, to choose leaders from among themselves, and they looked at what the Bible had to say about civil government. There also were many sermons on election days that taught what the Bible had to say about government.
In order to give you a small example of some of the principles that were given to them about forming their governments using Biblical principles, I would like to quote from an election sermon delivered by the Rev. John Davenport in 1669. He stated that,
“The power of Civil Rule, by men orderly chosen is God’s Ordinance. Civil government is an ordinance of God not of man or it would be contrary to Romans 13:1 which states, ‘Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed from God.’ The choice of good rulers will be a sign and a pledge of God’s intention to bless their government and His people through them. If this is neglected, the government will not be blessed and the welfare of the people will be ruined.” (Davenport)
As we look at the Declaration, I would first like to point out that about the first one-third of this document identifies the people’s rights to form a government and the basic reason for a government; and about two-thirds of the document lists all of the things that Great Britain did that gave our country the right to separate from the mother country. We will be looking at the first part of the document. Unfortunately, we only have time to look at three different terms that are used, but this should help us have a better understanding of the Biblical Principles applied in this document.
First, there are two principles in the opening paragraph that I believe are important for us to understand and that is the reference to “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.” These terms were frequently used during the first two hundred years of this nation and yet they are not really understood now, even by Christians. The term “laws of nature,” especially, has been twisted by some contemporary anti-Christian writers to have some kind of a deist or even pagan meaning. It was a legal phrase that simply meant God’s law revealed in nature; while the laws of nature’s God are only to be found or revealed in the Bible. (Amos, 40)
From the canon law of the Catholic Church, the term “law of nature” made its way into the common law of England. In the Christian common-law tradition of England from the 1260s to the forming of America as a nation, the term law of nature meant the eternal moral law of God the Creator that He established over His created universe. It was a technical term for “creation law,” the original scheme of things willed by God. (Amos, 41)
Sir William Blackstone wrote the Commentaries of the Laws of England and he was quoted perhaps more than anyone else on this subject of the laws of nature.
“When God put that matter in motion He established certain laws of nature.”
We have for example certain laws of physics and other laws relating to other things. He then stated that,
“Man, considered as a creature must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being…. And consequently as man depends absolutely upon his maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker’s will. This will of his maker is called the law of nature.” (Blackstone, I:8-41)
What was referred to as the law of nature can be found in Romans chapters 1 and 2. While I believe that these two chapters of the book of Romans spell out very clearly what Blackstone is talking about, I think we can best see the essence in Romans 1:18-20:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,…”
Blackstone then described the law of nature’s God or revealed law, the law of God found in the Bible. He stated that,
“revealed law was given to man because of his imperfections and the blindness of human reason. These precepts as they are revealed are really part of the original of nature.” Then he stated that, “Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation depend all human laws, and no human laws should be made to contradict these.” (Blackstone, I:42)
What a marvelous foundation we had in America. We have now turned away from this foundation and we are looking to man’s reasoning for our laws. Our legal system and our government are built on shifting sand.
Basically our educational system has been allowed to create the culture that we have. There are many people who recognize this fact, and I believe that is why there are tens of thousands of children across America who are being home-schooled and many are also in good Christian schools. Unfortunately there are a much larger percentage of children that are either in public schools or in private secular schools.
As a result of this situation, those children who receive a good Bible based education are confronted with a world around them that doesn’t understand or believe in the same principles that they do. It is therefore much harder for them to reach the public in all areas of life with Biblical reasoning and actually make an impact on our culture.
Second, the next thing we see in the Declaration is the statement that, “we hold these truths to be self-evident.” What truths are self-evident? Self-evident truths take us right back to the laws of nature and Romans 1 and 2. The writings of the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 and 2 are also the Biblical source for the Christian belief about self-evident truth. According to Paul, what can be known about God, apart from the gospel of salvation, is known by all men, because God causes them to know it. They know the truth but they suppress that truth with unrighteousness. This is also made abundantly clear in some of Paul’s other Epistles.
So for the Apostle Paul some truths are made known to men by the direct action of God on man’s conscience or intuition, and also by God’s use of nature as a teaching tool to communicate primary truths to man. It is divine revelation, but of a different sort than the special revelation of Scripture.
Third, the last principle that we are going to look at is the statement that, “we are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Unalienable rights, simply means rights that cannot be transferred.
Few today believe that rights are God-given. Most see “rights” as a matter of politics; the government creates rights, and the government can take them away. While there is a great deal of talk about “human rights” and “civil rights,” hardly anyone speaks of “unalienable rights.” Even in America the concept is all but lost.
The starting point for a Biblical model of rights theory is Genesis 1 and 2 where we find that in the beginning God created the universe and everything in it. We also find in Genesis 1 that God created man in His image. Being made in God’s image makes man a being of enormous value. Man is entirely dependent upon God for all things. Man is God’s creature and servant.
While many believe that the rights theory originated in Rome or Greece or even in the Renaissance period, the Biblical model of rights began to surface in the twelfth century when the Catholic Church sought to free itself from the emperor or kings and to separate the church from secular politics, even though the principles had been present in the language of Scripture for over a thousand years. (Amos, 41)
The Bible and Christianity, because of their unique view of the importance and value of each person, gave birth to the concept of unalienable rights centuries before it found its way into the Declaration.
Americans should be very concerned that the Biblical foundations of our nation have been exchanged for a wholesale commitment to the present secular philosophy. Secular philosophy and politics are based on the pagan notion of power, while Biblical politics is based on the concepts of authority originating with the Creator.
In the secular view, nothing is ever impermissible because no lines are drawn that cannot be crossed. In the secular view, whoever wields power can determine the content of laws and the extent and even the existence of other people’s freedoms. Biblical philosophy, on the other hand, provides predetermined lines of authority which the civil government is not permitted to cross. Personal rights and freedoms are God-given and unalienable; they do not exist merely for civil convenience or at the discretion of those who hold civil power.
In closing, now that we have examined some of its truths, let’s look at the first part of the Declaration:
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. [Emphasis added.]
This has only been a brief look at the Declaration of Independence, but I hope we can better appreciate its full meaning and the Biblical Christian beliefs and foundations that are at the heart of this document. We are so often unfortunately told that we were founded as a secular nation; but when you examine our founding documents, you can clearly see that we were founded as a Christian nation.
Because I believe that it is important to understand the thinking of our Founding Fathers, I am going to close with three quotes from our founders.
First, James Madison, who was called the father of our Constitution and was our fourth president, stated, “We have staked the future of our American Civilization upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.” (Federer, 411, Endnote 16 on 783)
Second, a quote from John Jay, our first chief justice of the Supreme Court, who stated, “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and to prefer Christians for our leaders.” (Federer, 318 , Endnote 39 on 765)
Finally, a quote from Benjamin Franklin, who was not considered a particularly religious man: This occurred at the Constitutional Convention when the delegates had been meeting for several weeks and they seemed to be getting nowhere. They had not been opening their meetings with prayer as they had done during the revolutionary period. Benjamin Franklin stood up and stated,
“I have lived Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men…. We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that ‘except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests, our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages….” (Federer, 248–249, Endnote 48 on 754)
The delegates had come to the convention with the idea only to push the interests of their own state, and Benjamin Franklin is telling them instead to prayerfully consider what God would have them do in the forming of this new nation.
I would say that although he was quoting from the book of Psalms, specifically, Psalm 127:1, he was agreeing with the sayings of Jesus which I quoted earlier, and that is that unless they would build their house on the solid rock of Biblical principles they would be building on shifting sand. Let’s not lose sight of God’s will in all that we do.
Bibliography
Amos, Gary T. Defending the Declaration by Amos: How the Bible and Christianity Influenced the Writing of the Declaration of Independence. Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth and Hyatt, Publishers Inc., 1989.
Blackstone, William, Commentaries on the Laws of England, Volume I. A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765–1769, “Of the Rights of Persons.” Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Federer, William J., America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations. Coppell, Texas: FAME Publishing, Inc., 1994.
Davenport, John, Election Sermon of 1669, A Sermon Preached at the Election of the Governor at Boston, May 19, 1669. Found at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article =1052&context=etas.
Al Vipiana took an interest in politics and government when he saw the increasing influence of secular humanism. He eventually became chairman of the United Republicans of California for the San Francisco. Al started a study of America’s Heritage from original-source documents. He served on the board of Directors of the Foundation American Christian Education for five years. Al has taught on the “Hand of God in the Forming of America” at his church, and has taught in other Christian venues. Eventually his pastor asked him to bring sermon messages on “The Providence of God in America” each year on the Sunday closest to the Fourth of July. This message on the “Declaration” was one of those. Al resides with his wife Alice in San Rafael, California. They have two children and five grandchildren.
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