The God-Given Right To Weapons
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 10 months ago
Not just firearms, but weapons of all kinds necessary to defend life and liberty. This is our claim. But not everyone sees it that way.
Quoting from the email I received from this group, “Constitutional Carry is the simple concept that law-abiding citizens shouldn’t need to pay a tax and get permission from their sheriff to exercise their God-given right to keep and bear arms.”
I laughed aloud when I read this email. Who knew God had given us the right to own guns? I mean, chapter and verse, please. God didn’t have anything to do with the U.S. Constitution, no matter how hard you want to try to do the mental gymnastics to say so. The Constitution is a creation of mankind, period. It is a great document, but it isn’t the Holy Scriptures, nor is it divinely inspired, so let’s back off of that bit of hyperbole.
And therein lies one of the principle bits of propaganda you will see in regards to many issues in the political arena. God is not into politics, nor politicians, nor even the political entities we call nations except, perhaps, the nation of Israel, the only group of people he ever promised a piece of land to call their own.
American politicians today, and probably for all the time we have been a nation, have tried to co-opt God to make him on the side of one political party or another or to have God endorse some act the nation was attempting to do on the domestic or world stage. Here is a free tip: You can be on God’s side by doing the work of God’s kingdom, but don’t believe for a minute you can bring God onto your side to endorse the works of man. It doesn’t work that way.
We can agree that trying to co-opt God is an improper project. Rather, we need to be on God’s side, and His side is found in the Holy Writ. So you’ve laid down the gauntlet, and we’ll respond.
To begin with, it’s a bit more complicated than “chapter and verse please.” Let’s start our discussion with The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1.6: ““The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.”
The clearest right to own weapons also invokes a duty. John Calvin, commenting on commandment and prohibition, observes the following.
We do not need to prove that when a good thing is commanded, the evil thing that conflicts with it is forbidden. There is no one who doesn’t concede this. That the opposite duties are enjoined when evil things are forbidden will also be willingly admitted in common judgment. Indeed, it is commonplace that when virtues are commended, their opposing vices are condemned. But we demand something more than what these phrases commonly signify. For by the virtue of contrary to the vice, men usually mean abstinence from that vice. We say that the virtue goes beyond this to contrary duties and deeds. Therefore in this commandment, “You shall not kill,” men’s common sense will see only that we must abstain from wronging anyone or desiring to do so. Besides this, it contains, I say, the requirement that we give our neighbor’s life all the help we can … the purpose of the commandment always discloses to us whatever it there enjoins or forbids us to do” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, Book 2, Chapter viii, Part 9).
Simply put, thou shall not take life unjustly also means thou shall defend innocent life. The clearest right (and thus command) is to be found right in the moral law given to all men everywhere. These are corollaries, and it is inescapable. Furthermore, to claim agreement with this and then deny either someone else or yourself the weapons necessary to effect that defense of innocent life is insulting to the Almighty. The thief may express agreement with the commandment not to steal, but that rings hollow when he then takes your possessions.
But if you wish for more direct evidence of ownership of weapons in the Scriptures, look no further than what Jesus commanded in Luke 22:36. Let’s look at the cultural context for a moment.
… for some evidence, see Digest 48.6.1: collecting weapons ‘beyond those customary for hunting or for a journey by land or sea’ is forbidden; 48.6.3.1 forbids a man ‘of full age’ appearing in public with a weapon (telum) (references and translation are from Mommsen 1985). See also Mommsen 1899: 564 n. 2; 657-58 n. 1; and Linderski 2007: 102-103 (though he cites only Mommsen). Other laws from the same context of the Digest sometimes cited in this regard are not as worthwhile for my purposes because they seem to be forbidding the possession of weapons with criminal intent. But for the outright forbidding of being armed while in public in Rome, see Cicero’s letter to his brother relating an incident in Rome in which a man, who is apparently falsely accused of plotting an assassination, is nonetheless arrested merely for having confessed to having been armed with a dagger while in the city: To Atticus, Letter 44 (II.24). See also Cicero, Philippics 5.6 (§17). Finally we may cite a letter that Synesius of Cyrene wrote to his brother, probably sometime around the year 400 ce. The brother had apparently questioned the legality of Synesius having his household produce weapons to defend themselves against marauding bands. Synesius points out that there are no Roman legions anywhere near for protection, but he seems reluctantly to admit that he is engaged in an illegal act (Letter 107; for English trans., see Fitzgerald 1926).
In this passage, Jesus is quite literally ordering His disciples to ignore the Roman laws and disobey them, buy weapons, and be ready to use them. He is turning His disciples into lawbreakers for the sake of having self defense.
There are more passages to which we may turn, but these will suffice for now. So, Mr. Cosby, you may get letters which are incomplete accounts of the Scriptural mandate to be prepared for defense of the innocent, but those are merely letters. They don’t mean such an account cannot be made.
You might want to seek out a little more theological training before you make those bold statements that you called … what was it … hyperbole.
The second amendment didn’t come from God, and God doesn’t need it. He alone grants rights and duties. However, it doesn’t end there. The constitution is a covenant, and for understanding this we may turn to “Lawful Oaths and Vows” also in the Westminster Confession of Faith.
It is a terrible thing to break a lawful oath or vow, cosmic treason against God’s laws, but we’ll leave that for another time and let you ruminate on what we’ve said thus far.
Please let us know if you need anything else.
On February 1, 2022 at 12:15 am, Ed said:
Biden Admin Has Records on Nearly One Billion Gun Sales January 31st, 2022 Via: The Washington Free Beacon:
The Biden administration is in possession of nearly one billion records detailing American citizens’ firearm purchases, far more than Congress and the public has been aware of, according to new information from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The ATF disclosed to lawmakers that it manages a database of 920,664,765 firearm purchase records, including both digital and hard copy versions of these transactions. When a licensed gun store goes out of business, its private records detailing gun transactions become ATF property and are stored at a federal site in West Virginia. The practice has contributed to the fears of gun advocacy groups and Second Amendment champions in Congress that the federal government is creating a national database of gun owners, which violates longstanding federal statutes.
Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas), who led an investigation into the ATF database following a November Free Beacon report that the Biden administration had stockpiled records of more than 54 million gun transactions in 2021, expressed shock at the number of gun records being kept by the federal government. Cloud maintains that the ATF’s database could be exploited by the Biden administration to surveil American gun owners as it pursues new restrictions on firearms.
“A federal firearm registry is explicitly banned by law. Yet, the Biden administration is again circumventing Congress and enabling the notably corrupt ATF to manage a database of nearly a billion gun transfer records,” Cloud told the Free Beacon. “Under the president’s watch, the ATF has increased surveillance on American gun owners at an abhorrent level. The Biden administration continues to empower criminals and foreign nationals while threatening the rights of law-abiding Americans. It’s shameful and this administration should reconsider its continued attacks on American gun owners.”
Posted in [???], Dictatorship, Police State, Surveillance
[Ed.: Marry that with Jade Helm.]
On February 1, 2022 at 8:31 am, Fred said:
Mr. Cosby, treads upon ground for which men receive damnation from Holy God.
“1 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.
2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” Romans 13:1-4
Several things are very clear in Romans 13.
1) That governmental authority, and therefore government itself, is ordained of God. Therefore either the constitution is a covenant among men with God or a revelation of God. Since it surely isn’t a revelation, it’s the former.
2) Government is to be a terror to evil. The men who wrote the covenant were without question under the faith and knowledge that the Holy Scriptures are the ONLY inherent source of right and wrong. Therefore, clearly, when government becomes a terror to good it no longer serves the purpose for which governments are instituted.
3) government is a minister of God for good. But, the definition of good is the bible itself not the vain imaginings of men.
Two examples: the bible says if man doesn’t work he shouldn’t eat. And that men ought not to kill. But the government, having broken the covenant and rejected the only true source of right and wrong which is God Almighty, now feeds the lazy and licenses the duty to preserve life while engaged in the wholesale slaughter of the innocent in the womb.
To Herschel’s point about oaths and vows, there is no more honorable a way for a man to live uprightly than mean what he says, and say what he means doing exactly as he has agreed to do.
“But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne:
35 Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King.
36 Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black.
37 But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” Matthew 5:34-37
Christ said to swear by nothing letting your word be your bond. When you say yes, mean it. When you say no, mean it. Americans used to run on the handshake between men. And you know what? When it comes right down to it, it still does.
On February 1, 2022 at 11:41 am, Frank Clarke said:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”
This is the cornerstone of the American polity. Anyone who does not ‘hold these truths to be self-evident’ is not an American. Period.
Then, it is self-evident that we are endowed with a right to our life that cannot be extinguished by the actions of men. A right to life must, of necessity, include a right to defend that life, and a right to defend must, of necessity, include a right to the means of that defense.
Deny the means of defense and you have denied the right to defend.
Deny the right to defend life, and you have denied the right to life.
Deny the right to life, and you have denied that you are an American.
Simple as that.
On February 1, 2022 at 2:53 pm, MTHead said:
Not only did Jesus tell his people to break the law and carry weapons. He said it was such an imperative that one should be willing to sale one’s coat to purchase them.
Basically that it is better to be cold and armed. And watchful to your own defense. “And if the goodman of the house would have known in what hour the thief would come. He would have watched. And NOT suffered his house to be broken thru.”
Should we not consider our country the same as our home and hearth?
And I’ll be damned if Jesus wasn’t considered a criminal by the politicians of the day. And executed by that same political power for what they considered a crime.
If the father didn’t send him to show us that satan runs politics on this world. And we are at war with it? We are at war with politics also.
And what enemy would not lie to get you to give up your arms?
Most especially the father of lies and liars?
Satan would have you disarmed. Are not those wanting the same, his?
On February 1, 2022 at 6:42 pm, Stefan v. said:
Novus Ordo Seclorum.
Annuit Coeptis.
That constitution was a compact between God-less men. It destroyed your articles of confederation. Rebellion is as witchcraft. The last refuge of scoundrels is patriotism. That compact was doomed as it was written. It glittered a long while, and beguiled all the more.
Thank you for your service. Thank you for the war crimes. Thank you for the explosion of heresy (Finney, Sunday, Graham, Warren, Osteen, Mormonism, Watchtowerism, SDA, CoG, Charismania, WF, Azuza, exempla gratis) disguised as orthodoxy, as long as one had the dream and the ear itch scratched. Thank you for just good enough to dupe the industrious mass to crush the rest, exported as regime change and democracy and he may be a sonofabitch but he is our sonofabitch. While we all slumbered and joined in.
Of course it had to happen, and somebody had to do it, but realising you actually did it cannot be fun, however good your intentions were. In the end, there will be no excuses, each man will face Judgement alone. Get your fleshly weapons and die upon them, but the time is past for using them to reset the clock. While you caress your idols of iron and wood, someone has stolen your real sword, the Word of God, from whence all the other defences spring.
As an amillenialist, H, your postion is looking precarious. How will The Kingdom manifest? By mens hands? Has the sovereign Lord decreed that the usurpers may have free rein to demonstrate, and yet finally be curbed by flesh and iron so that He may receive what is His at His return, whenever that is?
Why did he give us the comfort of His grace, but the promise of the manner of His bodily return and deliverance of His groaning creation dependant upon our feeble conquering? Why does He speak of a return which can be measured, and one which cannot: contrast details like “Watch!” and 1260 days, 1335 days? Learn to divide rightly. To whom was it said, and for what purpose? Can He return more than once?
Have you looked at the forces arrayed against us, even Him? He has a day of wrath, does He promise that upon His children? Unless He come quickly, there is no remedy. All human flesh will die: well over half the people have already accepted permanent genetic poison, and both the virus and the cure mean death unless one submits to unrighteousness. It is only time between catching that filth and dying anyway. The pool is defiled! As in the days of Noah, but this time there is no water, but fire and blood and columns of smoke You cannot shoot this poison, and shooting the assassins is too late.
Whoever has fleshly weapons, learn them, hide them, but apart from limited tactical use, they will not avail. Why die five minutes later and yet face Him and realise that there was something weightier? Your worldly covenant partners have long since broken the treaty they made to break in their time. Why play a rigged table? The time is long past that you can cling to an amendment of a streaky bit of toiletpaper by a pack of scoundrels and expect any transitory benefit.
The clock runs out when the fullness of the gentiles has come in, then it reverts to Israel. His promises stand. So what are we fighting for?
On February 1, 2022 at 8:06 pm, Fred said:
Who is Israel?
On February 1, 2022 at 8:35 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@Stefan,
Wow. That’s a word salad indeed. So much there, difficult to know where to start.
In fact, it’s such a jumble I don’t even know what your objection is. The post has to do with the God-given right to own weapons. Your response has absolutely nothing to do with the subject.
I am not an amillennialist. I am post-. Why do we not currently see the results we seek? Do you count the way God counts?
I’m not certain what “remedy” you seek. This article is about the God-given right to bear arms.
IDK what “reverts” to Israel. I’m not a dispensationalist. I see the history of dispensationalism as wicked and diminutive of the church and the kingdom of God.
Beyond that, I’m not sure how to respond to you. Your comment makes such little sense to me.
On February 1, 2022 at 9:27 pm, Fred said:
They don’t believe it can be done because they deny the power of God. The don’t believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation. They whine and cry and stamp their feet saying it can’t be be done. They say the mustered seed can’t become the greatest tree in the garden. They cite every possible negative verse and most out of context to deny our King His enemies be put under His feet. They spend years in vain babblings about land areas in the middle east. They deny that every people will be blessed by the seed of Abram which is Christ.
Meanwhile, 122 souls received an unspeakable gift that morning of pentecost. Since that day men have gone about the life risking, arduous, sacrificial life task of building that kingdom for our King. They’ve been beheaded, and still more believed. They’ve been boiled in oil, and still thousands upon thousands more have believed. They’ve been crucified, spat upon, disinherited, beaten, cursed, fired, fired upon, burned alive, stoned, and what? Millions have heard and believed that a great King is building His kingdom and “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
And while the nay sayers of every imagination of eschatological persuasions scream it can’t be done, they’re still out there, His army, going door to door, town to town, hedgerow by hedgerow, park and town square, workplace and passtime. Still being crucified, stoned, living out of their cars, traveling the countries, abandoning lucrative careers, leaving naysayer family, having cultists kill their pets and mark their doors, getting fired, government of every stripe trying to limit and stop the advancing army of the Great and mighty God who proclaim the thrice holy resurrected Christ in whom has been given all power and authority in heaven and in earth so that it will be, as Christ when He walked among men said; on earth as it is in heaven.
And so it is and so it will be that even in the face of Christ’s greatest naysayers; those whining little hearers of the word deceiving themselves, that the doers of the word carry the precious message year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, century after century and on into an eternal inheritance of the irrefutable truth; Christ died for your sins and rose in power and glory to rule and reign as heir, the first fruits, and we with Him at the resurrection.
Nowhere does the bible say that carrying this message unto the uttermost parts of the earth won’t be arduous. Nowhere does the Scripture say it won’t be a thousands of years long enterprise. But it does say only those that take up their cross, those that make Jesus the way and the truth and the life, those who pray down the power of God to fill their soul to overflowing that His gospel would come pouring out to be heard, received and believed upon by yet millions and millions and millions more. You have to believe!!!
My King declares that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church!! That doesn’t mean that the gates of the church somehow hold back the forces of evil, it means that hell will not withstand the onslaught of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen and amen. You can bow now or bow later, but you will bow. Jesus Christ is King. Period. Full stop.