Book Review: On Civil Government by David Lipscomb

David Lipscomb’s book, “On Civil Government: Its Origin, Mission and Destiny and the Christian’s Relation to It,” was first published in the Gospel Advocate in 1866-1867, shortly after the time of the Civil War. His purpose of the book in the end was to try to show that citizenship in the kingdom of Christ requires that we remain separate from human governments, and that Christians are therefore to avoid holding public office, serving in the military, voting, and anything else that supports the human government. I do not agree with all of his conclusions. But much of the work in the book up to that point is very good.

Lipscomb began by establishing the fact that there are two types of government over man – the divine government (God’s rule), and human government. He demonstrated that human governments began as a rebellion against God. In the Bible, we first read of the beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom (Genesis 10:8-10) which developed into the central power of Babel, or Babylon (Genesis 11:1-9).

Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people were expected to serve Him to the exclusion of serving the leaders of human governments. Abraham was to leave his country for a place God would show him. The children of Israel were in bondage in Egypt. When God finally led them out and into the promised land, they were commanded to destroy the inhabitants of the land. Yet any who would forsake the human governments and join the Israelites under God’s rule were welcome. The children of Israel were not to make alliances or treaties with the nations around them. When they demanded a king so that they could pattern themselves after the other nations, it was seen as a rejection of God and His rule. Failure to eliminate the influence of the surrounding nations ultimately led to the downfall of both the northern and southern tribes. Lipscomb pointed out all of this in the book.

Lipscomb used the prophecy of Christ’s kingdom in Daniel 2 to make his point about the inherent animosity between human governments and the divine government. The passage says,

“In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever” (Daniel 2:44).

In King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Christ’s kingdom, the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, destroyed the statue that represented four world empires – Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. Lipscomb believed the statue was representative of all human governments, even the ones that exist today. This is where I begin to differ with the author. I think he was correct in affirming the human origins of civil governments and how God was able to use them for His purposes. But Daniel said that God’s kingdom would crush these kingdoms, not all kingdoms.

Throughout the Bible, we see the hand of God as He works to build a nation from the seed of Abraham, preserve the children of Israel, and prepare the right conditions for Christ to come into the world. This occurred in the days of the fourth kingdom in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream – the Roman Empire. With this purpose fulfilled and mankind now awaiting the Lord to return in judgment, there is no need for God to continue to raise and destroy nations. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, there has been a fundamental change in the relationship between God and the human governments. Through the time of Nimrod to the days of the Roman kings, there was hostility and strife between human governments and the government of God. Now that the final kingdom of Daniel’s prophecy, the Roman Empire, has been destroyed and the kingdom of Christ has gone into all the world, we have no indication that such hostility still exists. Rather, we have what we might call a divine indifference to the human governments provided they fulfill the role God has left for them which is spelled out in Romans 13.

But in his book, Lipscomb spoke of an ongoing hostility between God and human governments. He depicted the kingdom of Christ as having the mission to destroy all human governments (not just the ones represented in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream) through the conversion of people to Christ. He believed that by converting to Christ, one would necessarily be obligated to forsake whatever role they had in human governments. Of course, we have examples in the New Testament of soldiers and officials obeying the gospel, but no mention is made of them giving up their positions. Lipscomb acknowledged that this is not mentioned, but assumed that they did this anyway. He even cited writings of early Christians (second century and later) to back up his point. While it may be interesting to see what second century Christians believed, we must understand that they were not inspired and that misunderstandings and even apostasy do not take long to develop. So we should not go to these writings as a basis for our beliefs and practices.

Lipscomb introduced, but did not develop in this book, an interesting idea about the end of the world. It seemed as though he may have been saying that Jesus would return in judgment only after all human governments were destroyed. Like I said, he didn’t develop this thought, and I haven’t read any other material he wrote about the Second Coming, so this may or may not accurately represent his beliefs. But there was a strong indication in the book that this was his position.

In the end, even though I disagreed with many of his conclusions, I enjoyed reading this book. It was interesting, thought-provoking, and challenging. He aptly shows the human origins of civil government, contrary to the belief that God established civil government in the beginning.  But I believe he goes too far once we get to the New Testament, particularly with the fall of the Roman Empire. But all in all, it was a good read.

This book is available at Amazon.com – “On Civil Government: Its Origin, Mission and Destiny and the Christian’s Relation to It” (affiliate link)