The last time I read Abraham Kuyper’s 1898 Stone Lectures at Princeton Seminary was 20 years ago. Myself and many others were prompted by John Piper’s frequently quotation of Kuyper’s words “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!” I was prompted to read it again after finishing Ruler of Kings by Joseph Boot.
What immediately struck me was how clearly Kuyper speaks to the present. Before we look back at his argument, I want to begin with his scathing rebuke for future generations who fail to defend liberty of conscience.
“It has cost a heroic struggle to wrest this greatest of all human liberties from the grasp of despotism; and streams of human blood have been poured out before the object was attained. But for this very reason every son of the Reformation tramples upon the honor of the fathers, who does not assiduously and without retrenching, defend this palladium of our liberties. In order that it may be able to rule men, the government must respect this deepest ethical power of our human existence. A nation, consisting of citizens whose consciences are bruised, is itself broken in its national strength.”
Just how important is liberty of conscience? Kuyper explains, “A man of ripe and rich development will rather become a voluntary exile, will rather suffer imprisonment, nay, even sacrifice life itself, than tolerate constraint in the forum of his conscience. . . The government…must give way itself to the Sovereign conscience.”
On what grounds is a man able to rebel against his government in defense of liberty of conscience? In what follows he argues that obedience to and rebellion against government is rooted in divine sovereignty. Not only is this rebellion rooted in divine sovereignty he will argue that rebellion against tyrants is submission to God.
“It makes it easy for us to obey authority, because, in all authority, it causes us to honor the demand of divine sovereignty. It lifts us from an obedience born of dread of the strong arm, into an obedience for conscience sake. It teaches us to look upward from the existing law to the source of the eternal Right in God, and it creates in us the indomitable courage incessantly to protest against the unrighteousness of the law in the name of this highest Right. And however powerfully the State may assert itself and oppress the free individual development, above that Powerful State there is always glittering, before our soul’s eye, as infinitely more powerful, the majesty of the King of kings, Whose righteous bar ever maintains the right of appeal for all the oppressed, and unto Whom the prayer of the people ever ascends, to bless our nation and, in that nation, us and our house!
. . . Bound by its own mandate. Therefore, the government may neither ignore nor modify nor disrupt the divine mandate, under which these social spheres stand. The sovereignty, by the grace of God, of the government is here set aside and limited, for God’s sake, by another sovereignty, which is equally divine in origin. Neither the life of science nor of art, nor of agriculture, nor of industry, nor of commerce, nor of navigation, nor of the family, nor of human relationship may be coerced to suit itself to the grace of the government. The State may never become an octopus, which stifles the whole of life. It must occupy its own place, on its own root, among all the other trees of the forest, and thus it has to honor and maintain every form of life which grows independently in its own sacred autonomy.
. . . Let it suffice to have shown that Calvinism protests against State-omnipotence; against the horrible conception that no right exists above and beyond existing laws; and against the pride of absolutism, which recognizes no constitutional rights, except as the result of princely favor.”
What Kuyper explains that all of these social spheres have a divine origin and exist under one divine Sovereign. As such the state has no right to become “an octopus” with its suffocating tentacles wrapped tightly around other spheres of life. The State has both a specific divinely instituted purpose as well as divinely instituted limited sphere of influence. Observing the majority Protestant reaction to the multitude of state-sanctioned tyrannies in 2020 it is apparent that these concepts were not at the forefront of the evangelical mind.
We are given some indications of the root cause of our present failures as Kuyper examines the failings of Protestants in his own day. After looking at what he calls a “unity of life-system,” or worldview, of Catholicism and Islam he laments:
“Protestantism alone wanders about in the wilderness without aim or direction, moving hither and thither, without making any progress.”
He further explains the precarious situation in which the church finds herself:
“. . . among Protestant nations Pantheism, born from the new German Philosophy and owing its concrete evolution-form to Darwin, claims for itself more and more the supremacy in every sphere of human life, even in that of theology, and under all sorts of names tries to overthrow our Christian traditions, and is bent even upon exchanging the heritage of our fathers for a hopeless modern Buddhism. . .
And why did we, Christians, stand so weak, in the face of this Modernism? Why did we constantly lose ground? Simply because we were devoid of an equal unity of life-conception, such as alone could enable us with irresistible energy to repel the enemy at the frontier. . .
The responsibility for this degeneration undoubtedly rests in part with the Christian churches themselves, not excepting those of the Reformation. . . these last churches had fallen asleep, had allowed leaf and flower to wither on their branches, and had apparently become forgetful of their duties in reference to humanity at large, and the whole sphere of human life.”
Returning to the opening rebuke we have indeed failed to “assiduously and without retrenching, defend this palladium of our liberties” and in that failure we have trampled upon the honor of forebears who poured out streams of blood to attain it. Indeed many even celebrated this betrayal as they walked lockstep in obedience to lockdowns and rallied in support of vaccine mandates that trampled upon liberty of conscience and broke both our own national strength and that of many nations around the globe. We have failed, quite miserably to live up to Kuyper’s expectation that “a man of ripe and rich development will rather become a voluntary exile, will rather suffer imprisonment, nay, even sacrifice life itself, than tolerate constraint in the forum of his conscience.” We must repent of forgetting our “duties in reference to humanity at large, and the whole sphere of human life.” As the octopus-like tentacles of globalist tyrants continue to tighten and extend their grip around every sphere of human existence we must recover what he calls “the special trait of Calvinism.”
“But it remained the special trait of Calvinism that it placed the believer before the face of God, not only in His church, but also in his personal, family, social, and political life. The majesty of God, and the authority of God press upon the Calvinist in the whole of his human existence. He is a pilgrim, not in the sense that he is marching through a world with which he has no concern, but in the sense that at every step of the long way he must remember his responsibility to that God so full of majesty, who awaits him at his journey’s end. In front of the Portal which opens for him, on the entrance into Eternity, stands the last Judgment; and that judgment shall be one broad and comprehensive test, to ascertain whether the long pilgrimage has been accomplished with a heart that aimed at God’s glory, and in accordance with the ordinances of the Most High.
What now does the Calvinist mean by his faith in the ordnances of God? Nothing less than the firmly rooted conviction that all life has first been in the thoughts of God, before it came to be realized in Creation. Hence all created life necessarily bears in itself a law for its existence, instituted by God Himself.”
Indeed the whole of our life is to be lived before the face of God from church and family life to business and politics and the arts. Only when we recover this will be able to truly grasp and apply Kuyper’s exclamation;
“there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human life of which Christ, Who is Sovereign of all, does not cry: “Mine!”
Now, we declare that we have heard that cry, and only in response to that cry have we approached this task which surpasses our human strength. We had heard brethren complain about their tragic impotence. Because their learning did not fit their principle and left them defenseless, they could not plead their principle with the power commensurate with the glory of that principle. We had heard the sighs of our Christian people who, in the shame of their self-abasement, again learned to pray for captains to lead them, for shepherds to tend them, and for prophets to inspire them. We realized that the glory of the Christ may not thus remain trodden tinder scoffers’ feet. As surely as we adored Him with the love of our souls we must again build in His Name. And it was of no avail to look upon our little power or the superior might of our opponents, or the preposterousness of such a daring attempt. The fire continued to burn in our bones. There was One, mightier than we, Who urged and spurred us on. We could not rest. In spite of ourselves we had to go forward. Even the fact that some of our brethren, advising against building at this time, preferred living in with Humanism, was a painful source of shame, but increased the inner urge, because the hesitation of such men was an increasingly strong threat to the future of our life principle.”
We too are surrounded by those who are content to live in humanism, who are content to let the secularists win, who are squabbling for seats at tables they should be flipping over. May we not trample upon the blood bought liberties secured by our forebears. May that same fire burn within our bones and may we once again begin to build and subject the whole domain of human existence to the sovereignty of Christ.
Missio Dei 