An Exposition of Article Thirty-Six of the Belgic Confession -- The Civil Magistrate
In Judges 21:25 we find a remarkably insightful description of what happens when sinful human nature goes unchecked by legitimate governing authority–“In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Where there is no legitimate civil government, lawlessness reigns, even in the covenant community. Because God is gracious to his sinful creatures, he has given us civil government to protect us from ourselves and from each other, as well as to provide a certain level of order and protection so that the church can go about its own divinely-appointed mission of preaching the gospel and administering the sacraments. In Romans 13:1-7, the apostle Paul speaks of the pagan Roman Empire with Nero as the current emperor as a “minister of God.”
As we near the end of 37 articles of the Belgic Confession, we come to Article Thirty-Six, which deals with the Christian view of civil government. Like so many of the other articles of our confession, this article must be considered against the historical circumstances at the time it was written. As we have mentioned on numerous occasions, the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster is clearly in his mind when Guido De Bres composed this article in 1561. During the years of 1534-35, a number of Anabaptist radicals led by John Mattys and then after his death, John of Leyden, overthrew the city government of Münster and instituted what is now known as the “Anabaptist kingdom of Münster.”
Claiming to receive direct revelation from the Holy Spirit, and appealing to those Old Testament passages which refer to Israel’s unique role in redemptive history as a theocracy ruled by divinely-appointed kings, and then applying those verses to himself as though he himself were a Davidic king, John of Leyden and his followers declared all forms of civil government to be illegitimate–except, of course, that government which they claimed God was establishing through them.
Not only did John declare all existing contracts and marriages null and void, he abolished all private property and established a city-wide communal form of living. Seeing Münster as the locale of the millennial kingdom of God then dawning upon the earth, John and his followers took up arms, and for nearly two years held off the poorly trained local armies, claiming these military victories proved that God was on their side. John’s soldiers were not defeated until the local prince finally brought in paid mercenaries for whom the Anabaptists were no match.
The Anabaptists were not only guilty of heresy (for their Christology and rejection of justification sola fide), but of anarchy as well. With the fall of Anabaptist kingdom of Münster and the execution of all those who brought this horrible thing to pass, all of Europe was determined never to let such a thing happen again. In fact, some have argued that the roots of modern Europe’s current secularist mind set can be traced to this very event–if religious zealots can do such things, then religious zeal is a bad thing. If the Reformed wing of the Reformation was to have any legitimacy at all, Reformed theologians and confessions had to be very clear that they had no sympathies for the Anabaptists, not only on a theological level, but they must also clearly state that the Anabaptist view of civil government was unbiblical and those who perpetrated this disaster got everything they deserved–harsh as that was. God gives the sword to civil government to defend its citizens from the likes of John of Leyden.
As our confession takes up this very important subject, De Bres must not only set forth a biblical view of civil government–especially its legitimacy (indeed, its necessity), but he must distance the Reformed view of civil government from that of the Anabaptists, since it was a common Roman Catholic tactic at the time to contend that the Anabaptist’s behavior was the inevitable consequence of the Reformation’s challenge to Rome’s authority. The Roman church saw itself as the glue which held together all of the various institutions of life. So, if Protestants attack the authority of Rome, they are sowing the seeds which came to full flower in Münster.
To read the rest, Article 36 of the Belgic Confession -- the Civil Magistrate