The State, The Savior, and Sin

I don’t intend to weave current politics into this, but I want to mention something relevant to and relatable to the topic.

Former President Trump is selling a $60 Bible on his social media account. In a script he reads, he calls it his favorite book and says we need “more religion” in America. It is a King James Version of the Bible that also contains the American founding documents, i.e., the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

I jokingly, on Instagram, wondered how the Seventh Commandment (“Thou shall not commit adultery”") would read in Donald Trump’s Bible. The comments are instructive as to people’s defensiveness, lack of humor, or contempt for me or him. I admit I intentionally posted that to provoke a response.

First, I want to note that, contrary to the former President, we do not need “more religion” in America. We are overloaded with religion. We need more Jesus and that is a very different thing. The left is, arguably, the most religious group of people in America today and look at them.

Second, I want to say something here that I said on the radio, and some people reacted very angrily to it.

Jesus Christ is not transactional, and He does not want us to be transactional with each other but relational. You all know my feelings on Trump—I don’t hate him as some claim, but I don’t care for him even though I think he is personally very likable and funny in direct settings.

But Trump is Trump, and I get that. He is not going to change.

Here’s what pisses me off and what I do hate.

The former President is surrounded by a group of mainly prosperity gospel ministers who treat him like they treat God — a sugar daddy with whom they transact business. They attest to Trump’s bona fides and, in exchange, want donations, policies, pictures, connections, etc.

They want Trump to give them policy wins and other things, and, in exchange, they give the man their loyalty and support.

But have any of them truly ministered to a man who has repeatedly cheated on his wives and publicly declared on multiple occasions to many that he has never needed to repent? Are the Christians who cheer on Trump so transactional that they’ll take what they can get from him now, damn his soul?

Donald Trump is created in the image of the Living God Almighty, who raised Trump from the dust of the earth, stitched him together in his mother’s womb, and raised him to the highest office in this land. And you’d think the “spiritual advisors” around him would be willing to risk their relationship with him and access to him to save his soul.

But you don’t see that. You don’t hear that. And you don’t get a sense of a penitent heart change reflected in Trump through the patient ministry of those pastors around him. You do not hear from the man who says he has never needed to repent the plaintive cry of the convicted sinner,

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. 11  Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12  Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13  Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14  Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15  O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16  For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Ps 51:10–17). (2016). Crossway Bibles.

Every believer knows the joy in the voice and words of believers, particularly those freshly released from the death grip of sin.

And this is not on him, but on them.

Christians, we cannot be transactional with Donald Trump. He’s fearfully made in the image of God and will go to Hell unless his heart bends towards God and he repents.

Spare me the “baby Christian” stuff and all of that — this really matters. Who of these pastors is willing to call him out and convict him of his sins at the expense of being able to sit in his orbit? I don’t see any of them doing that. I don’t see ministers willing to risk their relationship with Trump to get Trump in a good relationship with Jesus.

We can’t be transactional with eternity and people need to stop making excuses or waiving all this away.

And that leads me to the larger point.

The people of Christ’s day expected a prophet who would call down fire from Heaven like Elijah did and a king like David who would raise an army and defeat Caesar.

The people had sociopolitical expectations of Christ, but Christ presented Himself differently than that. The people wrapped Christ into their sociopolitical worldview, and He called them to a different worldview.

Christ showed strength where others showed weakness. He showed weakness where others showed strength. He was calm in the storm, and He was the storm in the calm. He turned everything on its head.

And so, we should be very careful to use scripture as a weapon in our sociopolitical worldview arsenal. We should not treat God’s word as a political tool. We should not think Christ is coming to save our nation. He is actually coming to end it.

We have to choose—Christ or country. He will make us choose, and I think we, as a faith community in this nation, are right now going through a refining process where more and more of our idols will be smashed, leaving nothing behind but a clear choice—the world or Christ. We are being sorted, and, frankly, if you really trust Christ, you need to remember your first goal is not the salvation of a nation but glorifying God.

We need to pray for our President and the former President — for them, not around them or against them. But we also need to remember Christ will not conform to the sociopolitical box we want to put him in because that would be a transactional Jesus. Instead, we have a relational Jesus who wants a relationship with you so badly He died on the cross for you.

That must matter more than anything else.