How Would Jesus Vote

How Would Jesus Vote

Principles of Scripture to Guide Christians

as They Face Another Election

Part 1

            This presidential election cycle has been one of the toughest I’ve ever seen in my lifetime to be able to select people for the elected offices which will guide this nation for the next four years. I know many Christians are particularly distressed when they look at the two major Presidential candidates, because they see major problems with both of them. The third party candidates may be an option, but let’s be honest, no third party candidate will win this election. The most a third party candidate has ever done is to cause one party to lose because they took votes away from that candidate. It happened in 1980 when John Anderson took votes away from Jimmy Carter thus allowing Ronald Reagan to become president. In 1992 and 1996 it was Ross Perot taking votes away from George H. W. Bush and Bob Dole respectively, thus giving us the eight years of the Bill Clinton administration.

            It is not my goal here to tell you who to vote for as President. Instead, what I want to do is to give you some scriptural principles that ought to guide you in voting for all the offices that need to be fulfilled, from school boards to the President. Every office and every proposition or measure on the ballot is important and needs a good decision made on our part. I know too that there are many Christians who feel strongly that they don’t need to vote at all in any election. This first blog in this series is designed to destroy that idea. So let’s begin.

            Many American Christians do not vote in elections and they have many reasons why they choose to not participate in the process. Some simply don’t see candidates that they feel are perfect enough to earn their vote. Others may believe their vote doesn’t count because they live in an area where the opposing party is so strong they have no chance of seeing someone from their party elected. They have essentially given up trying. There are many other reasons for not voting, but I want to examine the question of what the role should be of Christians in democratic societies when it comes to electing their leaders.

            The first principle that I feel we need to understand is found in a number of passages in the Bible and it can be summed up simply as, “God is the one who puts people into places of authority and power and He is the one who removes them”. One such verse is Daniel 2:21 (ESV) “He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding”. Some might read that and determine that they have no role in choosing leadership, that it is already determined by God and thus they don’t need to be involved. However, that is not the Biblical perspective.

            If we go all the way back to the very beginning, we find God creating man and giving him dominion over the earth. Why would God give dominion of the earth to mankind? Couldn’t God simply rule over the earth by Himself? Of course He could, but that is not His plan. God’s plan has always been to bring His kingdom rule to bear on the earth through human beings who would work with Him to accomplish His purposes. His first choice was Adam. Adam fell and yet that did not change God’s plan. If we go to the very end of the book we find that even in the time when Jesus rules and reigns from Jerusalem for one thousand years we will be ruling and reigning with Him.

            In Matthew 16:18 we have the famous declaration of Jesus that He would “build His church”. It is unfortunate that in our English translations the word church does not carry the same meaning as the word Jesus used in the original text. When Matthew wrote this account of the gospel he used the Greek word “Ecclesia” to express what Jesus was planning to build. What an ecclesia? This word comes from the Greek civilization prior to the Roman Empire when they were ruled by city states. Each city was a state unto itself. Kind of like the fifty states of our union are unique and somewhat independently ruled by governors and legislatures. In the same way, these ancient Greek city states were ruled by a group of elected people who formed the ecclesia. We can think of them as being comparable to our three branches of government: the executive branch – our president, the legislative branch – our senate and house of representatives, and our judicial branch – our supreme court. The Greek ecclesia did the same thing for those city states that our three branches of government do for us. So, when Jesus said He was going to build His ecclesia, He was not instituting a social club. He was letting us know that He was establishing a ruling body of chosen and elected people who would work with their heavenly Father to carry out His will on the earth. That’s why Paul often referred to believers as chosen or as the elect. He understood this concept. Jesus even taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

            Thus, it is the responsibility of the followers of Jesus to do all they can do bring the kingdom of heaven into reality on the earth. I’m not saying that we will completely establish the kingdom on the earth before Jesus returns. What I am saying is that we are to do all we can to live out the kingdom here and now, taking down the kingdom of the enemy until Jesus returns. Jesus Himself, gave us our marching orders when He said in Matthew 6:33 “…seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” Our focus is to be doing everything we can to establish righteousness and subdue wickedness in this world.

            That then brings us back to the issue of voting. As American citizens, we have the right to put into office, men and women who lead this nation. As Christians, we have the responsibility to choose men and women who will institute righteousness and not wickedness. The fact that we may be out-voted is not important. Consider it like this: do you think it is the responsibility of your senators and representatives to vote on every piece of legislation? We expect that of them, don’t we? We expect them to vote even when they may be vastly outnumbered in the final tally. We expect them to do everything they can to sway the vote in our direction, even if it means a filibuster. That’s all part of their job.

            It is also part of our job as the ecclesia. We are to do everything we can to sway the vote in a Godly direction, even if we lose. So, this year, in this election, let every Christian vote and do all we can to influence others to vote for Godly leadership, not just for the presidency, but for every office being contested on the ballot.

            In my next blog I will address the issue of whether or not we should vote for candidates that are less than “ideal”.