The Need To Ground Law In Transcendent Truth – Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it.

Ignorance may deride it. But in the end, there it is. Those the words of Winston Churchill. These days, justice is all about strategy.

Truth is irrelevant. Just find a friendly courtroom and if you're well connected, you're all set. Our legal system is broken. How did we get here? Erwin Lutzer will tell us how.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, today we begin the fifth and final message in your series, The Eclipse of God. Tell us about the need to ground law in transcendent truth. Well Dave, I can think of nothing better than to simply summarize Isaiah chapter 59 verse 14, where it says, justice is turned back and righteousness is not allowed to enter because truth has stumbled in the public square. And when truth stumbles, people can call justice anything that they want. There can be economic justice, which is socialism. There can be marriage justice, which is same sex marriage. There can even be environmental justice. That's why these kinds of truths must be grounded in God and in that which is transcendent. I'm holding in my hands here, a book I've written, a brand new book entitled The Eclipse of God.

I'm going to read a paragraph and then I want you to think about the situation that I am describing. Clearly historic Christianity had to be cleansed from the fabric of society. Its foundational principles were destroyed to make room for a more optimistic, humanistic and equitable future. Science would replace religion. The collective human consciousness would replace God. And the new optimism of a revived country would fit in with positive Christianity. That actually is a description of Nazi Germany. I'll tell you why. Hitler was not interested in destroying Christianity.

He was only interested in reshaping Christianity. And the implications for us are huge. For a gift of any amount, we're making this book available. It's entitled The Eclipse of God.

In order for you to receive a copy, you go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now let us listen. Well tonight, I'm going to speak to you about law. I'm going to be speaking to you about the need to ground law in transcendent truth. Show me your laws. I will show you your God. If you don't believe that there are any laws above the Supreme Court and you believe that they are the ultimate authority, they ultimately become God for you. If you think that you're the one that makes up laws for yourself, then you are your God. Show me your laws.

I will show you your God. Why is it that we need laws? Well, the answer to that question is to curtail human nature. Laws are intended to reign in the natural impulses, the sinful natural impulses that all of us are born with and all of us develop as time goes on. And God instituted three different agencies that were supposed to take care and help reign in human nature. One was the home where children were to be instructed regarding right and wrong and disciplined.

The second is the church and the responsibility of the church to teach its congregations correctly and to reign in evil impulses and behavior. And then of course, there was also the state. Now when you look at the city of Chicago, for example, oftentimes the homes are so badly arranged, by that I mean to say that many of them are dysfunctional homes, you have a lot of crime that is taking place and the state has to step in and often do things that were really the responsibility of the home.

And then when you have a sense of justice where criminals are oftentimes seen as not the villains but rather the victims, you have a great deal of lawlessness and that's not unique to Chicago, it's unique to many cities in the United States. But what I want to do is to talk to you today about the role of law and in order to do that I want to speak about Nazi Germany. Now it's important for me to emphasize at the outset that America is not Nazi Germany. But the reason that I turn to Nazi Germany is because it is perhaps the best example, at least the best example that I know, the best example of what happens when law is disconnected from transcendent values and we shall see what takes place as a result. As you know, after World War I, Germany was in disarray, it had lost the war, there were soup lines in Munich and in Berlin and elsewhere, people were out of work, people were desperate and desperate people are willing to sign on to almost anything.

Now I won't tell you about the Weimar Republic, which didn't work out very well. Hitler received much of the vote, he never received a majority but he was able to finagle his way in to become the authority and eventually the chancellor and the ruler of Germany. But what he needed was a good reason to rein in what was happening in Germany, to control it and from his standpoint, what he really needed was the opportunity to begin to take tight control and it came in 1933 with the burning of the Reichstag, that great parliament building in Berlin.

Now it was actually done by a Dutchman but it was blamed on the communists and it might well be that Hitler's henchmen were behind it because later on Hitler is going to say it was a gift from the gods. Because after the burning of the Reichstag, Hitler said the communists are coming so he had the enabling act a law to relieve the distress of the German people and what he did is he took away freedom of assembly, freedom of the press, opposition parties were outlawed and anyone who disagreed or tried to overthrow him was summarily taken care of and executed and so forth. Now the question is how did the Germans respond to the taking away of civil liberties?

The answer is for the most part they were quite happy because when you have a time of chaos you need strict rule and sometimes in desperation you have to do whatever it is that you have to do. So Hitler saw this as an opportunity to take control and he took control by the enabling laws. But what he needed to do was to appease the church. The church in Germany was very strong. People went to church, both Catholic and Protestant. Church attendance was high and he knew that he was going to have to control the church in some way but now he went through a period of appeasement.

Appeasement meant that he tried to do all that he possibly could to get the church to support him without in any way intimidating them. As a matter of fact he put forth a proposition called positive Christianity. I won't take time to read my definition of positive Christianity but I will simply read what Hitler said. We insist upon the freedom for all religious confessions in the state provided they do not endanger its existence or offend the German races sense of decency and morality. The party as such stands for a positive Christianity without binding itself denominationally to a particular confession.

Did you catch that line? It says a positive Christianity that does not offend the German races sense of decency and morality. And he would be the one who would determine what would offend the German sense of decency and morality. Thankfully there were some pastors who immediately saw what it was all about. For example there was one pastor and I'm not going to be reading the text though I have them here.

I'm going to be paraphrasing for lack of time. But he basically said this, we can't accept this at all. We don't want the government to support us but we want the government to allow us to preach the gospel. He says the best German, the noblest German is a sinner and we have to offend sinners in order that they might believe the gospel and they have to be told the truth about themselves, the truth about evil so we can't go along with that. Even Karl Barth who is known to many of us as not an evangelical but a somewhat of an evangelical I guess you could say. He spoke against it and his big point was he said you can go into a church and you can shout Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ a thousand times.

And he says it will not do any good unless you can tell men and women that they are in danger of the judgment of God and therefore of course you have to offend their sense of decency. There is an offense of the cross. We've largely lost that oftentimes in evangelical circles but the point is that the death of the church was put forward by Hitler as the new liberation of the church to a positive version of Christianity which we might say today is progressive Christianity. Now in order for you to take control of a country if you're a dictator what you need is an enemy. There are reasons for this. It's very important when it comes to propaganda and the enemy was close at hand. It was seen as the Jewish nation. Why was it that the Jews were seen as the enemy in Germany? Well the answer is because they were blamed on the defeat of Germany in World War I. There was a tremendous amount of propaganda against them and Hitler used them as a scapegoat for Germany's failure and he began to persecute them and I have to say this that the persecution of the Jews in Germany and all throughout Europe had a long history of hundreds of years.

I could stand up here and I could tell you many different instances and stories but I must hurry on. So Hitler following the science in fact some of his doctors would take Jewish skulls and hold them up and show them that they were subhuman. So following the science he eventually had what was known as the Nurnberg laws. Of course as you might have guessed I used that phrase following the science with a little bit of tongue in cheek and a little bit of sarcasm. I thank God for science.

I'm not arguing that at all science has done wonderful things for us but just because you hear something follows the science you still have to investigate it because it could be terribly wrong. So what Hitler did is now he took over the role of lawgiver. So the Nurnberg laws basically said that the Jews were subhuman and because of that they could be killed without reprisal. The state overtook the media and once of course the media was in line with Hitler then you have propaganda and all that. But the Nurnberg trials okay the war is over.

World War II was ended. 21 Nazis are tried in Nurnberg at those famous trials. 15 were Protestant. Six were Catholic. There was a chaplain from St. Louis who spoke German a very conservative Lutheran who was asked by our government to go there and to be a chaplain to them. It's a fascinating book that was written about him and he discovered that many of these knew the Lord's Prayer. They were able to quote Psalm 23 because they had all been brought up in church.

But here was the question and this becomes very critical now. By what laws should these men be tried? Should they be tried by the laws of England? Should they be tried by the laws of America? The henchmen of Hitler argued we didn't break any laws. To quote Eichmann, he was not at Nurnberg but found elsewhere, he said I was just obeying the laws of my country and the laws of my flag.

So what he was really saying is that you can't try me. I'm guilty of nothing, none of these crimes. Well there was an American attorney by the name of Robert Jackson who stood up and gave a marvelous speech and said that there is such a thing as a law above the law. There is a transcendent law that applies to all cultures and you're going to be tried by that law and ultimately as you think about it that transcendent law is really rooted in the fact that God exists and that's why indeed there is a transcendent law. Now what does the Bible say about law?

Well there's much to be said. I want to read some passages of scripture. It says in the book of Genesis that if someone sheds blood by others his blood shall be shed and then it says in Deuteronomy a single witness shall not suffice facing any crime in any way. You had to have a number of witnesses and there's even instruction as to what happens if you have a malicious witness. So there had to be evidence but let me read some other verses. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality and you shall not accept a bribe for a bribe binds the eyes of the wise and subverts the justice that should follow. It is not good to be partial to the wicked or to deprive the righteous of justice. Evil men do not understand justice but those who seek the Lord understand it completely for the Lord is our lawgiver and the Lord is our king.

He will save us and then this verse I wish I could camp on it for a moment. Justice is turned back and righteousness stands far away for truth has stumbled in the public square and unrighteousness cannot enter. I do have to say this very quickly that when it comes to social justice this is the verse that we need to apply to what's happening. You see if truth stumbles in the public square if justice is cut off from transcendent values justice can be whatever you want justice to be. So you can have such things as environmental justice which is the Green New Deal. You can have marriage justice which is same-sex marriage. You can also have economic justice which is socialism. You can take the word justice and you can apply it wherever you want it to be applied.

And the verse says it is important that people recognize that justice must be based on truth and if it isn't of course it is perverted. Now all that about Nazi Germany about the role of law and the power of law. Laws can enable people to do evil.

Laws are intended hopefully biblically for good but they can certainly go otherwise. Now what I'd like to do is to talk about America. You know I was born and raised in Canada and I am a naturalized American citizen and I don't know too much about the founding of this country because I didn't have the same education that all of you have had but I tell you this the more I contemplate the Declaration of Independence the Constitution and the Bill of Rights Americans have no idea of how fortunate they are. These documents are intended to reign in human nature because the founding fathers knew that the history of the world was basically tyranny and they were aware of that. And so what they did is to make sure that they would have a form of government that would be under control in such a way that it could correct itself. The president would have a lot of power but he would also be reined in by the Supreme Court and then of course you have justice and they are brilliant documents. But one of the phrases that is most famous and most important is that we are created equal and we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights and that is of course life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So we have a constitution that balances freedom of religion with laws necessary laws and oftentimes there is conflict and we can expect there to be conflict. But by the 1800s a man by the name of Christopher Landell of Harvard University began to teach that what the Constitution said was not the important thing it was how it was interpreted. And he began to promote the idea that it's not what the Constitution says as much as it is what the justices say that it is. And then you have none other than Oliver Wendell Holmes saying laws are beliefs that have triumphed and nothing more. Truth is the majority vote of the nation that can lick all others. So what you have now is the beginning of sociological law where law is no longer directly based upon our founding documents but it is rather malleable. That is to say the Constitution is malleable and it can be interpreted in different ways and that's of course why you have the abortion rights and so forth which are not found in the Constitution. The great threat that we are facing in America today has to do with the so-called SOGI laws.

That's something that you should be acquainted with. SO standing for sexual orientation and then GI for gender identity. SOGI laws. And these laws oftentimes are not intended to protect these classes of people but they are written in such a way that they want to coerce others to agree with their lifestyle. And this may be instituted by the government. It may also be instituted by businesses as you well know. A man in a business texted me some time ago and said can a Christian sign this document? I'm expected to sign this document where I work. And I said well you know you can sign this and this and this but you can't sign that. So these kinds of laws are being imposed upon people with the intention of silencing any opposition and people going along with the lifestyles of people with whom we of course disagree.

Any objection to the SOGI laws or to such things as same-sex marriage can be deemed as a violation of this kind of a law. Yes my friend this is Pastor Luther and I've just described where we are at as a nation. Let me ask you a related question. Why does the Bible say that human wisdom cannot attain the wisdom of God? Why is it that human wisdom in fact is spoken of as foolishness? Man has a lot of knowledge. Think of all of the inventions and the brilliance of the human mind.

Why? These are the kinds of issues I discuss in my new book The Eclipse of God. And of course what I'm doing is showing why God is absolutely necessary for truth, for law, for morality and why we need to get back to the God of the Bible and not the God of popular culture. For a gift of any amount we're making this book available for you. And I have to emphasize it would be a wonderful gift for a college student those who are wrestling with their faith to show that ultimately everything that is true and good and right has to be grounded in God. For a gift of any amount we're making it available for you. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. We'll give you that info again.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. The title of my new book The Eclipse of God, our nation's disastrous search for a more inclusive deity. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Who defines what laws to obey when deciding life or death for a defendant? The judges faced that question in the famous Nuremberg Trials after World War II. There's a desperate need for a baseline on which to enact all laws. Next time, why the baseline has to be what Erwin Lutzer calls transcendent truth. Please join us then. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.