Isaiah Roman

Rule of Law: Formation

If you get pulled over on the highway for speeding and the police officer gives you a ticket, the police officer is not passing judgement on you. He is also not condemning you for your actions. Rather, the judgement has already been passed; going at a speed above the posted limit is illegal. You have, by speeding, condemned yourself. The police officer is merely witnessing the fact that you have broken the law and thereby exposes your guilt.

This is the basis of the rule of law:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone believing into Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. The one believing into Him is not condemned; but the one not believing has already been condemned, for he has not believed into the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:16-18)

If there is a moral law, then there is a moral law giver. The moral law does not describe a granting of rights and privileges. Rather, all rights and privileges are assumed, within the conditions of the moral law. Therefore, the moral law both describes the conditions, and prescribes the consequences of the destruction of those conditions. The very first law was given by the moral law giver at creation:

And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, You may freely eat of every tree in the garden; but of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil you may not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. (Genesis 2:16-17)

Every tree was given as food, but the one tree was reserved for God. The punishment for breaking the terms of the societal contract are clearly spelled out.

The Bible is clear in it’s assertions concerning the meaning of law. The law condemns. In a society where man is created in God’s image, man has been created with his rights intrinsic to that creation. The restrictions man places upon himself through law are those restrictions that maintain the conditions of the societal contract enacted as a part of that creation. These restrictions were further codified into structure when God gave the law to Moses at Sinai1.

Every system of laws begins with the basic principle of crime and punishment. The only question is who is the criminal? This basic principle has plagued societies ever since there have been societies. There are two distinct ways of looking at the formation of law within humanity; evolutionarily, or theologically.

The evolutionary model says that men invented laws as a part of the advancement of the species. This explanation leaves the human in charge of laws, allowing for the human abrogation of laws in favor of personal interest. As we will show, it is when men change laws to suit their own interests that societies fall.

The theological model says that God wrote laws as a part of a covenant with his creation. This explanation removes the ability for men to abrogate laws for personal interest. As history has already shown, when men follow the rules best suited for order within creation societies thrive.

Our founding fathers, the patriarchs of the United States, clearly understood that unless each man recognized the primacy of moral law as given by God, no government would succeed, regardless of it’s composition. The Constitution of the United States is founded on this concept. It, in and of itself, is not a religious document. Those men who crafted it’s words knew all too well what happens in a society where men assume the role of God.

The Church of England was created as an arm of King Henry VIII in order to mold divine law to his own will. Over the years kings came and went, some righteous, some not. The inevitable outcome, however, had already been determined. By the time King George III came along the church had already demanded a homogeny of religion under the command of the throne and had gone so far as to grant appointment to clergy by royal decree through payment to the throne. This was, in part, the reason for the protestant revolution in the first place.

The crafters of the Constitution clearly understood that in order for men to be free, they must have the freedoms given to them by God. However, they also understood that without the condemnation of law, those persons within society who would from time to time break the societal covenant would have nothing to fear. The Constitution is a covenant with the people. It was created to allow the people to compel government to keep it’s hands out of issues like religion, speech and the pursuit of personal gain.

Our government was formed of structures that were directly intended to remind it’s people of these prime underpinnings. We have a triune government; three co-equal branches of government, in one governmental structure. Those three branches are executive (Father), legislative (Spirit), and judicial (Son). We have a Constitution that stands as the Law (Logos, the Word) which binds all men together in one condition of being. We have individual states (tribes) who’s autonomy is guaranteed and so long as each state adheres to the general covenant, they are free to eat the fruits of their own labors.

What many do not understand in today’s world is that the Constitution of the United States was not created to grant power to the government. It was created to limit the power of the government by establishing law to govern over government itself. The law condemns, and all laws within the constitution were created not to condemn the people if they were to break the societal laws, but to condemn the government if it broke it’s societal contract with the people.

The Constitution begins with the words “We the People of the United States,” This one phrase clearly establishes the people as the primacy of government, and that government is subject to the people. In turn, the Amendments which follow are the people’s rules of law to be imposed upon the government. They are not, as many believe, the government’s rights of rule over the people.

This fundamental change in the understanding of the meaning of the rule of law found it’s fruition in the mid-eighteen-hundreds with the advent of spiritism and occultism in the United States. The influences of Southern slavery and the trade with a Europe already in deep decline brought to these shores a sense of ownership over law. The ideals of the crafters of the Constitution began to be trampled on even while the ink was drying on the parchment. It wasn’t until Abraham Lincoln though that these forces had gotten to a point where they were at complete loggerheads.

What would come next was a battle of the fundamental understanding of the Rule of Law; Republican and Democrat.

1. Commonly referred to as “the Ten Commandments” in Exodus 20:1-17. However, there are many more civil, ceremonial and religious laws given throughout Moses’ time on the earth.