Kim Davis is right: The Biblical Theology of Resisting Tyranny

Kim Davis, a humble county clerk in Kentucky, is standing up for God’s unchanging moral law as it relates to marriage. She refuses to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals who think they have a right to get married. A federal judge has put her in jail for contempt of court for her refusal. Yet many people, even Christian ministers, are telling Kim she ought to “do her job” and issue the licensees or resign. Confusion reigns and yet we have the clear light of scripture to help us understand what is truly at stake. It is nothing less than the glory and justice of God and His Law and our liberty.

In the end it boils down to standards and authority.

By what authority are we to live as citizens? Are we a nation enslaved to the arbitrary laws and opinions of men or are we all free and equal under God’s unchanging law? The Founders created a system of authorities and laws designed to maximize our freedom based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. In doing so they liberated us from a tyrannical Kings and Bishops.

“We the people” have God-given rights and corresponding God-given duties to God and neighbor. No legitimate government can justly keep us from exercising our religion in conformity with our biblical duties to God. He is the final unchanging arbiter of righteousness and justice.

God’s authority and standards are obvious to all. We all know that we did not create ourselves and therefore owe obedience to our Creator who will judge us all in righteousness. His power and majesty are on full display in nature. He has created the world to operate in particular ways. We call that natural law. Sodomy obviously is a violation of natural law.

God’s Law is also written on our hearts. We all have an innate basic knowledge of right and wrong, though men suppress that knowledge in sin and spiritual rebellion and must be called to conform his actions to God’s law or suffer the temporal and eternal consequences.

God has revealed His authority and standards in the Bible. Jesus, God the Son, is called “The Word” and He is the full and final revelation of God. He affirmed the full, binding authority of the Bible, including the laws against sodomy.

Legitimate law comes from God. God is not morally conflicted nor does He change. What was evil in Genesis is still evil in Revelation. Because God is the author of all the “books” of the law (i.e. nature, conscience and the Bible) all agree.

Kim Davis in upholding God’s Law and is actually doing her God-given duty. Five tyrannical justices of the Supreme Court issued an opinion that homosexual matrimony is legal. There is no such thing. It is a legal and moral fiction. Therefore, the Supreme Court ruling is null and void on its face.

There is no right for anyone, including elected or appointed political authorities or courts, to approve of that which is contrary to God’s Law. The Supreme Court ruling has no force of law because it conflicts with God’s transcendent law, THE true source of Law.

Now what?

Because nothing less than God’s glory and the future of our rights and duties are at stake we MUST stand with Kim Davis. Her cause is just and if we allow her to be jailed for doing God’s will this will only lead to further usurpations of our rights.

We must call on the Governor of Kentucky to do his job and protect the rights of the citizens of Kentucky from tyrannical federal courts.

For more in-depth treatments of the biblical doctrine of resistance to unjust political authority you can read:

The Magdeburg Confession, (1550); Translated by Matthew Colvin

John Knox, The Appellation from the Sentence Pronounced by the Bishops and Clergy: Addressed to the Nobility and Estates of Scotland (1558)

Theodore Beza, On the Rights of Magistrates: Concerning the Rights of Rulers Over Their Subjects and the Duty Of Subjects Towards Their Rulers (1574)

Christopher Goodman, How Superior Powers Ought To Be Obeyed By Their Subjects: And Wherein They May Lawfully By God’s Word Be Disobeyed And Resisted. (1558)