If your want to know the future, study the past.
Moses, Joshua
The Civil State
“And Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this [place]: there shall no leavened bread be eaten.” Ex. 13:3
Moses was a leader of a nation. He took the people out of a particular kind of governmental system and then he taught a system of faith where men’s allegiance was to their own God-given conscience and not under the authority of other men.
The Ten Commandments was not a religious document, but, like the 12 tablets of Rome, it was the foundational laws of an entire nation and its government.
For four hundred years, men governed themselves in a free Republic under God, not as the property and resources of the central state government or economy, but as free souls under God. What was this government called “Israel” like? How was it intended to work and why did they call it Israel, where God prevailed? How did the Israelites end up in Egypt?
“If we want better people to make a better world, then we will have to begin where people are made, in the family.”
Joseph’s brothers delivered him into bondage as a result of their own selfishness, envy, and covetous hearts. Had they not done this, Joseph’s relation with God would have revealed to them the coming events. It would have been Israel, not Egypt, that would have prepared for the famine to come. The sons of Jacob would have become wealthy among nations. Instead, they betrayed the Law of the Family and cast the source of their own salvation into a pit of jealousy, envy, and pride. The family broke down, and, without it, their days would not be long upon the land.
The individual contributed to and relied upon his family and the family contributed and sometimes relied upon the community. There were thousands of systems provided by communities to establish this social safety net, but two disparate forms prevail. One of these forms has, in its nature, the hope of strengthening the family, the foundation, and the second, by its degenerate nature, weakens the family and the individuals within it while centralizing control in others. The latter of these forms could be called “civil”.
“The civil law reduces the unwilling freedman to his original slavery; but the laws of the Angloes judge once manumitted as ever after free.”
Why is it believed that the civil law reduces a man to slavery and what is so different about the law of the Angloes? What do they mean “civil law”? Again, “civil” contains the concept of subjection and duty to the will of a ruling body to which the individual is subject. While civil structures tend to create strong central government, they have a tendency to weaken the individual as he becomes more reliant upon the civil structures than upon his own power, knowledge, and ability.
The word “civil” is defined in several ways:
“1. Pertaining to a city or state, or to a citizen in his relations to his fellow citizens or to the state; within the city or state.”
An individual might be considered a citizen as an inhabitant, but not within the jurisdiction of the civil state. It is also defined:
“2. Subject to government; reduced to order; civilized; not barbarous; -- said of the community.”
Being “barbarous” did not mean cruel or raging out of control, but rather that one had not been reduced to a subject under a ruling body of the civil state. He was still a free man under the law of nature and nature’s God.
“3. Performing the duties of a citizen; obedient to government;....”
Civil law is not self-creating. It is law within pre-existing maxims of law, sometimes called the Law of Nature or Divine Will. Without entering into civil societies in a position of subjectivity, an inhabitant may have rights independent of the jurisdiction of the civil powers. Yet, in a wider sense, those inherent rights may still be called “civil rights” in reference to that fundamental and original kingdom or dominion of God.
“Civil rights are such as belong to every citizen of the state or country, or, in a wider sense to all its inhabitants, and are not connected with the organization or the administration of government. They include the rights of property, marriage, protection by laws, freedom of contract, trial by jury, etc… as otherwise defined, civil rights are rights appertaining to a person in virtue of his citizenship in a state or community. Rights capable of being enforced or redressed in civil action. Also a term applied to certain rights secured to citizens of the United States by the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments to the constitution, and by various acts of congress made in pursuance thereof.”
In this simple legal definition, there is divine right not connected to the organization or administration of civil government and civil rights that are subject to the state and its ruling power such as Cain, Nimrod, Egypt, and Rome.
“Civil Law, Roman Law, and Roman Civil Law are convertible phrases, meaning the same system of jurisprudence.”
Originally, criminal law was not statutory, but based on Customary Law that resulted from the Law of Reason or the Law of Nature and Nature’s God, sometimes called Divine Will. This law was expressed in government documents like the Ten Commandments. Sometimes, this was called “common law” which is not subject to statutes, but has been the result of long understood concepts of right and wrong. Such systems were the rule, not the exception, and depended on the virtue, wisdom, and justice of every man within society.
Gods many
Who exercises the authority of the civilized governments of men which they make for themselves? Those who had the right to judge the people and enforce that judgment were called ruling judges or “gods”.
“For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,)” 1Corinthians 8:5
What is Paul talking about? Who are “called gods” in heaven and in earth? And why are there “gods many”?
And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for [am] I in the place of God? Genesis 50:19
How was Joseph in the place of God? Is this blasphemy? He had the power of judgment over the people. He literally administered the ownership possessing the equitable title to their land, belongings and labor.
Again, it bears repeating that, in the Old and New Testament, the words “gods” and “God” are translated from words defined as “rulers, judges”, which includes the right to exercise authority, power, and jurisdiction over other men. The words “God or god” was “applied as deference to magistrates”and “figuratively, a magistrate” in both Israel and Rome.
To realize that, at the time of Christ, you would address a judge in a Hebrew, Roman, or Greek courts as “god” should change the entire way you read your modern Bibles. This is why there are “gods many”.
Another example of the word “god” is found in Acts 7:19, 21: “In which time Moses was born, and was exceeding fair, and nourished up in his father’s house three months: And when he was cast out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him up, and nourished him for her own son.”
What do they mean “exceeding fair”? Fair is from the word, asteios, which in the original form was astu (a city). Here, it is a form that meant “of the city” or “civil power”. The word is only used in reference to Moses in the Bible.
The word “exceedingly”offers some clarification. Of the over 1300 times it appears in the New Testament, it is translated as “exceedingly” only once, and the rest it is translated “God” or “gods”.
Yes, Moses was a “god” of the civil authority and had the power to rule over his brothers with executorial judgment as a “god”. He had become the son of the daughter of Pharaoh when he was three months old. By that adoption into the house of Pharaoh, he was an heir to the office of ruling judge.
Moses had the right to judge and rule over the people in this high office of Egyptian government. The power wielded by persons in arbitrary civil jurisdictions can tempt and change men. Moses feared what his soul was becoming and turned from that ancient temptation and fled Egypt.
Moses showed this holy restraint many times, as in the case of Dathan and Abiram, who could have been judged by Moses as god of Israel. Instead, he left judgment to God the Father for Moses knew “vengeance is mine saith the LORD” Rom 12:19.
The God of Heaven eventually arranged that Moses was able to redeem the people and bring them out of this corvee’, or civil bondage, of Egypt. They were given the gold and silver (an honest money system), replacing their denominated scarabs issued by the government through their usurious Egyptian banking temples. According to Philo, when the people were led out of that system by Moses, they received the title to their animals, possessions, and families back. This was a parallel to Abram leaving Haran.
God brought the souls of Israel out of Egypt where the people served strange gods. He then gave them a specific command to guide them in this new governance:
“I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Exodus 20:2-3.
The people knew what gods were. They knew that the gods were not the statues, but the men and jurisdictions they represented. Does anyone worship the flag or the Capital Dome or the statue upon the top? Those are just the symbols of the people's allegiance and service.
“Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:” Ex. 20:4
In the days of Abraham, Nimrod, Daniel, and Rome, these images of lions, elephants, and eagles were simply symbols of jurisdictions. God goes on to clarify this simple truth:
“Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.” Ex. 20:5-6
We cannot serve a statue like the one on the top of the Capital Dome or the eagle above the American flag, but we can serve the jurisdiction of that government and the men who make its laws. As lawmakers, they have the power to appoint judges over the people of their created civil society and execute judgment upon those who dare disobey their will.
“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” Ex. 20:5-6
The third office created by the Senate of Rome and requested by Augustus Caesar, as Emperator, was the office of the Apo Theos, appointer of gods. The duty of this office was to appoint magistrates or judges throughout the Empire, who were called “theos” or “gods”. There were many gods exercising judgment over the people by way of the thousands and thousands of laws passed by the Senate or Conscripti Patres (conscripted fathers) and ratified by the elected President of Rome, Augustus.
It should not be so strange to think of the Roman Emperors as gods when you realize that George Washington himself is deified in the ceiling of the Capitol Dome. “Across the Dome’s eye, 180 feet above the floor, spreads a gigantic allegorical painting by the Italian artist Constantino Brumidi. The painting depicts the ‘Apotheosis,’ or glorification, of George Washington.” The Vatican painter, “Brumidi depicted George Washington rising to the heavens in glory… The word ‘apotheosis’ in the title means literally the raising of a person to the rank of a god…”
“Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?” John 10:34
Why would Jesus say “ye are gods”? If the people exercise freewill, they remain the ruling judges of their own actions. They are gods, but only over themselves, not over their neighbor. They, of course, are answerable to the Laws of God, but no man or civil power stands between them and their Father Creator. How was chaos avoided?
Moses found the authoritarian centralized power of the Civil State to be in opposition to God’s plan. Central powers decide what is good and what is evil. These systems also grant power to government to define charity, hope, and faith. A ruling elite can decide what is given or received and when. This annihilates hope and robs the individual of the divine right of choice and charity. Guaranteed entitlements entice men to trust in the governments of men and lures them away from faith in God.
What form of Government could Moses employ in managing those millions of souls that followed him out of Egypt and into the wilderness?
“The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute.” Proverbs 12:24
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