“When you come to the land that the LORD your God is giving you, and you possess it and dwell in it and then say, ‘I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,’ you may indeed set a king over you whom the LORD your God will choose.” Deuteronomy 17.14, 15

The oft-repeated lamentation of the book of Judges – “at that time there was no king in Israel; everyone did that which was right in his own eyes” – shows what can happen when national government is nonexistent or indifferent to the ends of justice. That time of lawlessness, violence, and vigilantism nearly ruined the nation and people of Israel. No wonder that, toward the end of that period, the people demanded a king to rule over them.

One of the important functions of the national government God provided for the people of Israel was to ensure a political framework within which justice, according to the Law of God, would prevail throughout the land. Israel’s king was to know the Law of God, to live and exemplify the model of justice, and to serve as the highest bar of appeal in bringing the benefits of that Law to the people.

There is certainly a role for national government in the economics of justice outlined in God’s Law. A national government is important for such areas as national defense, suppressing evil, maintaining a sound currency, facilitating transportation and commerce, and serving as a final bar of appeal as required in questions of justice.

But national government too easily becomes a forum, not for the pursuit of justice, but for the practice of partisan politics and the aggrandizement of politicians and special interests.

T. M. Moore

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