*** w59 4/15 pp. 228-236 The Perfect Government for All Mankind *** The Perfect Government for All Mankind “To him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.”—Dan. 7:14, RS. NOTHING should be plainer today than that a perfect government is needed for all mankind. The fact that mankind is all one on every continent and island of the seas is undeniable. The fact is also true that we are, all, as human creatures, confined to this one earthly home, our terrestrial globe, so that we must all live together. No other planet in the universe will provide living space for us. More than ever now, the lives of each and all of us overlap one another. Our lives are all bound up with one another, particularly so in this modern day. 2 There is no isolation anywhere on earth today. Like it or not, all of us are subject to one common danger. This is recognized by the human leaders of the day as being World War III, which will be global in its consequences. But aside from this global nuclear war, which is so much dreaded and which many are convinced cannot be avoided in the near future, there is another conflict that will be more terrible in its consequences. That will be the act of the God of heaven himself. It cannot be ignored any longer: the great Creator of heaven and earth is going to perform an act. This will be beneficial, however, to all men of good will who take their stand on his side. That will mean life for them. All of us as human creatures have one common craving, and that is to live happily and to live here in harmony with Heaven and the divine power that heaven represents. To have our craving fulfilled, we need a world government, and this government must be perfect. 3 Is a perfect government possible? It is a pleasure to say here at the outset that a perfect government is possible, and it is certain to come. How, though, is such a perfect government to come, and also when will it come with the relief that it is sure to bring to all men of good will? Again it makes us happy to say that this perfect government for all mankind is due to come in our own time, within this generation, so that we have something very pleasurable to which to look forward. Will it come by means of the political scientists among men? No! Political scientists have been experimenting for the past millenniums. If we had to wait upon the political scientists to develop a perfect government for us by the method that they have apparently been trying, the method of trial and error, how long it would be before they would ever get anywhere near success! In the meantime men all around the globe would be obliged to keep on suffering from the continued imperfection and the further mistakes and bungles of human governments, always keeping us in difficulties. This is not desirable. But on the authority of the greatest Book in the world, the book of authentic prophecy, it can here be stated that this perfect government is going to come by no one else than by the glorious act of the One who created our universe. 4 As we look into the heavens by means of our mighty telescopes and even by the naked human eye, we can see the perfection that crowns this universe, with all the celestial bodies that shine down from outer space upon this earth, to give light and warmth and life to mankind. As we examine into the intricate relationship of all the heavenly bodies, we can see that there is perfect order prevailing among them according to universal law. It does not take modern science to show us that the law by which these heavenly bodies function is perfect. This harmonizes with what the psalmist of ancient times, the prophet King David, said regarding the heavens: “The heavens are declaring the glory of God, and of the work of his hands the expanse is telling.” David also says in that very same connection that the law of Jehovah God is perfect. (Ps. 19:1, 7) The operations of the universe bear out this fact, that God’s law is perfect. If, now, we have perfection of law and order throughout the universe, which is beyond mankind’s scope, why, then, should we not have perfection of law and order right here upon this earth among mankind? It is only reasonable that we should. 5 The perfection of the law functioning throughout the universe toward all created things is a proof that there is an intelligent, supreme, all-governing and all-controlling Lawgiver, an Almighty Creator, who is the Source of all life that is enjoyed in all creation in the invisible realms of his own abode and in the visible realm of man’s abode. He is God. The Holy Bible says his name is Jehovah. This great God of perfection is the One from whom emanates this law that so beautifully governs all the universe. 6 When it comes to the matter of government, this great God of perfection certainly must be able to estimate or evaluate what is a perfect government. That he is perfect and that he believes in things perfect is stated in the prophecy of Moses, in Deuteronomy 32:3, 4: “I shall declare the name of Jehovah. Do you attribute greatness to our God! The Rock, perfect is his activity.” Since he is the God of perfection, what must his conception be of the governments by man upon this earth? Could we ever think that this God of perfection is any more satisfied with the human governments on this earth than we people are who live under such governments? Could we ever think that he could be satisfied with imperfect man-made governments, when we ourselves, who are imperfect, are not satisfied with them? He is wiser than all the political parties in the various nations that are quarreling among themselves and that are criticizing the governments of the different political parties and that oust one another from the seat of control in government by the elections that are carried on every now and then. If mankind throughout the ages has been dissatisfied with the governments that men have established over the nations, no government throughout all human history has been satisfactory to the great God of perfection. He will not let his dissatisfaction go on forever. 7 The Bible record gives the history in brief of all the governments that have had to do with God’s people. The Bible was completed nineteen centuries ago, and yet it foresaw also the governments future from the time of completing the writing of the Bible. Thus the Bible shows that God Almighty in heaven, whose name is Jehovah, foresaw all the human governments down to our own day and that he determined the value of them, also the nature of them. According to the estimation or evaluation of this great God, who is perfect in wisdom, justice, love and power, all of such earthly governments in their long procession throughout the centuries till now have been beastly governments. Regardless of man’s national pride, the Holy Bible describes the governments of man’s creation as wild beasts. Even the very last book of the Holy Bible, the Revelation or the Apocalypse, pictures the human governments down to this day as beastly in their nature. In proof of this, read for yourselves Daniel’s prophecy, chapter seven, and Revelation, chapters thirteen and seventeen. 8 Because of the beastliness of the human governments as betrayed by the carnage and sacrifice of precious human life and all the havoc that they have wrought among the nations, Jehovah God the Governor of the universe has decreed the end of all the man-made governments in his own chosen time. In the past he has brought governments to ruin in fulfillment of his word. Read the Bible accounts of Egypt, of Assyria and of Babylon. In each case we find that Jehovah God, who controls the affairs of humankind, even declares himself responsible for bringing those animalistic governments of antiquity to their disastrous end. As regards the later governments, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire and the Roman Empire, the Bible also foretold their coming. These, too, have had their day and, under God’s disapproval, have ended up with calamity. The main reason has been that all these imperfect governments have been under the invisible power and control of God’s chief enemy, Satan the Devil, the unholy god of this wicked world.—Luke 4:5, 6; 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 John 5:19. 9 Of all the empires to dominate this globe, the Anglo-American dual world power has been the greatest of human history. The Bible also foretold it and the international organization for which it is chiefly responsible, the United Nations. However, the plain-speaking Bible states that even these governments of today, magnificent though men may consider them to be, are to have their end, whether they be of the Communist type or of the noncommunist type. They are all imperfect governments; and things that are imperfect are not going to last here forever according to the will of the God of perfection, the Creator of our earth. 10 There is one government that has come into existence in our day that Jehovah God Almighty will not knock out of operation and out of existence. That is the perfect government, the government of his Messiah, the government of his Christ, the government of his heavenly Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Instead of knocking out this government, God Almighty will use it to knock out all the imperfect human political systems that are causing such distress among the peoples and kindreds and tribes of our time. In the approaching war over universal domination the perfect government will prove victorious and will remain forever to God’s praise and honor and to the everlasting blessing of humankind. 11 A perfect government, we must all agree, cannot be possible without a perfect ruler, or a perfect body of rulers, and, furthermore, without a perfect God. All human governments past and present have acknowledged a god. The gods that they have acknowledged have been unable to give their worshipers a perfect government. The fact that a perfect government depends upon the ruler or body of rulers who wield the power of control is conceded by all reasonable persons. Here at hand is a legal opinion that has been handed down by an American judge, a District Judge, within the State of Idaho. The judge gave this opinion on April 8, 1958, in the case known as the State of Idaho vs. Raymond Brungardt. In it he said: 12 “William Penn, over two hundred years ago, he, to whom the Crown [of England] gave the State of Pennsylvania when he established his Quaker colony here in this new land, his colony of Friends, and for whom the State of Pennsylvania was named, taught: 13 “‘Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as Governments are made, moved by men, so, by them they are ruined, too. Wherefore, Governments rather depend upon men, than men upon Governments. Let men be good, and the Government cannot be bad. If it be ill they will cure it, but if men be bad, let the Government be ever so good, they will endeavor to warp and spoil it to their turn.’”—Page 6 of the printed opinion. 14 This agrees with the Bible, the Word of God, that the perfect government is dependent upon a perfect ruler, the one whom God himself will provide for all mankind. ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT 15 How have human governments come into existence? Why have they gone bad and failed? Histories written by men inform us that governments have come into operation and power by various methods. The first government after the flood of Noah’s day four thousand years ago was a grab by a dictator named Nimrod. Without the approval of Noah or of Jehovah God but with the approval of Satan the Devil, Nimrod grabbed ahold of the government that was set up in the Middle East, in the land of Mesopotamia. It was the dictatorial kingdom of Babylon. Nimrod was an enemy of God, “a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah.” He carried on military expeditions against the people in the neighboring lands in order to establish the old or first Babylonian Empire. (Gen. 10:8-12) Since then, mankind has had many forms and types of government ruling over various areas of the earth. 16 These governments have come into being by various means, by seizures of power, by rebellion of the masses of the people, by conspiracy of those who have thirsted for power over the people, by usurpation by one strong character who ousted another ruler and seated himself. And then, as in the United States of America, man has set up a government not merely in a revolt, a rebellion, against a political power abroad, but by a Constitutional convention, such as the Constitutional convention that drew up the Articles of Confederation in 1777 for the thirteen American colonies of the British Empire. Those Articles of Confederation controlled the colonies for a number of years, until the Constitution that today rules the nation was inaugurated in the year 1788. 17 Men do not desire the God of heaven, Jehovah, to set up a government over all mankind. Their running ahead of him and their self-willed actions show that they doubt God’s ability to set up on earth a government. Nevertheless, can God set up a government over all mankind? To this question simple reason answers: If imperfect human creatures can establish a government by various means, why could not their Creator, God Almighty, who governs and controls the entire universe and rules angels, have the power to organize, set up and operate a government over men on earth? He does have this power. In times past he demonstrated his power to establish the best of governments. The first king on earth that had God’s approval was a man named Melchizedek, who was both a priest and a king. He ruled in the city called Salem, which was later called Jerusalem. Melchizedek blessed the patriarch Abraham in the name of the Most High God. His government in Salem passed out of existence—just how, it is not known. The Bible record is silent upon the matter. (Gen. 14:18-20) But this government of the priest-king Melchizedek is used in the Bible prophecy as a prophetic type or prefigurement of the perfect government that God will establish over all mankind in the hands of a perfect ruler, like Melchizedek.—Ps. 110:1-4; Heb. 5:10; 6:20; 7:1-17, 28. 18 The next government that God set up on earth was that of Israel in the sixteenth century before the Christian era. Through the leadership of the prophet Moses he brought out his chosen people of Israel from the land of Egypt, where they were unwilling slaves. He brought them into the wilderness, to the foot of Mount Sinai, on the Arabian peninsula. There he established a government over them with himself as their invisible heavenly King. The basis of that government was the well-known Ten Commandments. (Ex. 20:1-17) To these Ten Commandments Jehovah God added hundreds of other laws and these became the God-given laws by which the nation of Israel was to be governed. In due time, at their request, God established a visible kingdom over the nation of Israel. This was hundreds of years after he had brought them into the Promised Land of Canaan and settled them there and had driven out the wicked, demon-worshiping inhabitants of that land.—1 Sam. 8:4-22; 10:17-26; 12:1-14. 19 The government that God established over Israel was the finest government that the world had known till that day. Because it had God-given laws, it was a theocracy, that is, it was a government, a nation, that was ruled by Jehovah God. Therefore the government was a theocratic one, even though the nation did have a visible representative of God down here on earth as its human leader. The Bible tells us that the nations back there marveled at the set of laws that Israel had, and said, ‘What nation has such righteous regulations and judicial decisions and such a God as this great nation of Israel has?’ And Jehovah God promised the Israelites that if they carried out these laws and worshiped and obeyed him as their God, then he would make them the head of the nations instead of the tail and they would be on top of the nations instead of being on the bottom of the nations, as the nation of modern Israel is today.—Deut. 4:5-8; 28:13, 14. 20 The heights of glory and of splendor and of blessing to which this government established by Jehovah God in Israel was capable of reaching was illustrated during the peaceful reign of the wise king Solomon. All the world has heard of the wisdom of Solomon. In the holy Book, the Bible, we have some of the marvelous wisdom of King Solomon preserved to our day. In Solomon’s day men from all the kings of the earth came to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Even the queen of Sheba came, as it were, from the very ends of the earth in order to hear the wisdom of Solomon and to see the glory of his kingdom in Israel. (1 Ki. 10:1-10; 4:34) The Bible account tells us of the blessings that the Israelites enjoyed under this kingdom. It says that from Dan to Beer-sheba the children of Israel were feasting, every man sitting under his own vine and fig tree, and rejoicing in the goodness of their God and in the government that he had put over them.—1 Ki. 4:20, 25. 21 Yet, glorious and splendid though it was, and even as great a blessing as it was to the subjects of the kingdom, that government of Solomon was merely a prophetic foreshadowing of the perfect government to come under which all the families and nations of the earth will be blessed in God’s due time. It will have a grander ruler, a wiser ruler, than King Solomon. Nineteen centuries ago there stood a man in the land of Israel and he said to the Jews that the queen of Sheba came from the southern ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and that she would be raised up in the time of judgment with that generation of Jews. Why? Because, although she had come from afar to hear the wisdom of an imperfect man, yet there in the midst of the Israelites of that day there was someone who was greater than Solomon, someone who was more than Solomon, and yet the Israelites refused to listen to this one. They even had him killed. (Matt. 12:42) It is this one, who is something greater than Solomon, something more than Solomon, who is going to be in charge of the perfect government that Jehovah God will establish at his appointed time in full power over the earth. 22 Now, if the Israelites under the reign of King Solomon enjoyed the blessings of peace, prosperity, happiness and godliness, how much more will all mankind enjoy like blessings under this mighty Ruler, this perfect Governor, who is someone greater than wise King Solomon of ancient time! They will be the blessings of everlasting life, of enduring peace, of undiminishing happiness and of ever-abounding prosperity together with godliness. 23 Today we have every reason to look forward confidently to this coming perfect government. Away back there the Israelites lived merely under the typical kingdom of God under human kings that were anointed by his high priest, so that those kings were said to sit in “Jehovah’s throne”; and yet those Israelites did not enjoy perfection of government. All of them, king and subjects alike, found themselves unable to carry out the perfect laws of God. Why was this? Because they were all descendants of Adam and Eve. The Word of God tells us that from Adam and Eve all of us inherited sin and imperfection. Correctly the Christian apostle Paul said: “Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12) We have all been born in sin. In fact, we have been conceived in iniquity by our mothers. This was true of the Jewish nation even under their theocratic government. King David himself admitted this sad fact. (Ps. 51:5) So both their rulers, their anointed kings, and the people themselves were imperfect and dying. 24 Jehovah God purposed that the law that he gave through the prophet Moses should teach his people Israel that they were sinners, that they were imperfect. As the apostle Paul, formerly a Jewish Pharisee, said: “By works of law no flesh will be declared righteous before [God], for by law is the accurate knowledge of sin.” (Rom. 3:20) Whereas we try to keep God’s law, we find that we cannot do so, which fact shows us that we were born imperfect, and our imperfection results in our being sinners. So the honest Jews learned to appreciate, and God’s law helped them to appreciate, that they were sinners and hence could not have a perfect government, inasmuch as sinful men were serving as their rulers, as their anointed kings. Here the question is quite appropriate that the prophet, the patient Job, asked: “Who can produce someone clean out of someone unclean?” What mother, being imperfect herself and conceiving by imperfect man, has been able to bear a perfect child? Job answered: “There is not one.” (Job 14:4) Hence, men being imperfect and supplying rulers of government, how could we expect them ever to bring forth a perfect government? They cannot do it. God’s law through Moses served to impress that fact upon the faithful, believing Israelites. 25 In order for a perfect government to come forth there has to be a perfect source of the government. The only perfect source is God. The law of God as given to the Israelites through Moses was meant to show the Israelites more than that they were imperfect, sinners needing redemption by the perfect human sacrifice that God would provide through his Son. God’s law through Moses was meant also to show the Israelites that they needed a perfect government. That divine law was meant to point the Israelites not only to the Redeemer whom they needed to lift them out of sin, imperfection and death, but also to their King. God’s law through Moses ordered them: “You should without fail set over yourself a king whom Jehovah your God will choose.” (Deut. 17:14, 15) “Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you,” says the prophecy of God.—Zech. 9:9, RS. 26 God, the perfect Source, can not only bring forth the perfect government but can also provide the necessary perfect ruler for that government. He has promised to do this. More than nineteen centuries before the Christian era he called the faithful patriarch Abraham out of the Mesopotamian land of Chaldea into the Promised Land in the Middle East. God said to faithful Abraham that he would make Abraham a blessing to all the families of the earth and that in him and in his seed, in his offspring, all the families and nations of the earth should be blessed. (Gen. 12:1-3; 22:17, 18) It was when Abraham was a hundred years of age and his wife Sarah was ninety years of age that God miraculously gave the patriarch Abraham a son named Isaac. Isaac never became a king. But when God told Abraham that he was going to give him this son by his wife Sarah, God said that Sarah was to become the ancestress of kings, yes, rulers, governors, royal monarchs: “I will bless her and she shall become nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” This was why her name was changed to Sarah, meaning Princess. (Gen. 17:15, 16) So this Seed whom God said he would in due time produce and in whom all the families and nations of the earth would be blessed was to be a royal Seed; it was to be a King! There was to be a royal government! 27 The patriarch Abraham had twelve great-grandsons. These produced the twelve tribes of Israel, and Jehovah God formed these into a nation. He established a theocratic government over them. As their divine King and Lawgiver, he gave them the Ten Commandments. (Deut. 33:1-5) Out of those twelve tribes of Israel God selected a particular tribe through which he would bring forth his ruler for blessing all mankind. It proved to be the tribe of Judah when this blessing was pronounced by his father upon Judah: “The scepter will not turn aside from Judah, neither the commander’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh [the great Peaceful One] comes, and to him the obedience of the people will belong.” (Gen. 49:10) So, which descendant of Judah would become King? 28 The promise that God made to Abraham and his wife Sarah, that eventually kings would come from her, really began to be fulfilled in David, the shepherd lad of the little city of Bethlehem. David was the eleventh in the line of descent from Judah. In due time David was anointed king over the twelve tribes of Israel. Soon he established his seat of government in the holy city of Jerusalem. God’s holy ark of the covenant was brought there and lodged near King David’s palace. Then God made a covenant or a solemn contract with King David, that the kingdom would never depart from his family, from his lineage, from his house, from his line of descent. (2 Sam. 7:12-16) In the 89th Psalm God said that he had made this covenant with David and that he would never profane it, for which reason the perfect king that would come forth from David would have a throne that would endure just as long as the sun and the moon would endure, that is, it would be eternal, never having an end, never needing to have a successor in government.—Ps. 89:3, 4, 19-37. [Study Questions] 1, 2. (a) How are our lives all bound up with one another, and therefore what is needed for us? (b) What common danger for the future do men recognize, but what will be worse and yet beneficial? 3. (a) Is such a perfect government possible? (b) When will it come, and how, according to the best authority? 4. Our examination of the heavens and its shining bodies raises what question concerning law and order for the earth? 5. (a) Of what is that perfection of universal law a proof? (b) What is the Source of this law named? 6. (a) Why is he able to estimate or evaluate what is a perfect government? (b) What questions concerning him does our own dissatisfaction with human government raise, and to what conclusion do we come? 7. What history of human governments does the Bible give, and, according to this, how does God regard such governments as respects their quality? 8. (a) Because of their beastliness, what has God decreed for these human governments? (b) What governments have already ended up under God’s disapproval, and for what main reason? 9. What has been the greatest empire dominating the earth, and why are all governments of today, regardless of type, to have their end? 10. What government will God not knock out of existence or operation, and to what end will it remain forever? 11-13. (a) Without what can a perfect government not be possible? (b) How is the importance of a ruler or body of rulers to good government stated in the judicial opinion on the State of Idaho vs. Raymond Brungardt? 14. In regard to what governmental principle does this opinion agree with the Bible? 15, 16. How have human governments come into operation and power since the old Babylonian Empire? 17. (a) As to government, what do men not desire God to do? (b) What answer must be given as to whether God can set up a government on earth, and what was his first demonstration? 18. What was the next government that God set up on earth, and in what way was it a kingdom? 19. In what way was Israel’s government a theocratic one, and why was it the finest on earth till that day? 20. What did the reign of King Solomon illustrate concerning a government established by Jehovah God? 21. Of what was the government of King Solomon a foreshadowing, and why will it be something greater? 22. How about the blessings to be enjoyed under the government of this Ruler greater than Solomon? 23. Why did the Israelites back there not enjoy perfection of government, even with kings seated on “Jehovah’s throne”? 24. What fact did God purpose that his law through Moses should teach the Israelites, and what question and answer by Job showed why they did not have perfection of government? 25. What is necessary to the bringing forth of a perfect government, and so what other fact was God’s law through Moses meant to show the Israelites? 26. Besides a perfect government, what else can God provide, and when did he promise to do this? 27. Whom did Jehovah form into a nation with an established government, and through which section of this nation was the promised King to be brought forth? 28. In whom did God’s royal promise to Abraham and Sarah really begin to be fulfilled, and what did God’s solemn contract with this one really mean?
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 22:02:23 +0000
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