Ambassadors for Christ: Carrying Forward the Legacy of Christian Reconstruction

When my father, Rousas John Rushdoony, started Chalcedon in 1965, it represented a unique approach. I do not know if there is an older worldview organization in existence or not, but Chalcedon and its message of Christian Reconstruction was from its inception something of an outlier.

A worldview is a “big picture” approach to understanding our times, one that puts them in a larger context. In a recent article, Martin Selbrede addressed the problem of not keeping the big picture of our worldview in focus.1 He warned against emphasizing issues, which are symptoms of more fundamental causation. Focusing on such manifestations without going to the root of the problem can then be counterproductive, as the “solution” is likely to be a wound-dressing at best, certainly not a preventative. Large-scale social issues are then dealt with in a top-down, external approach that seeks to suppress the manifested issue. Such approaches that focus on issues rather than their core causes tend to rely on pragmatic, external fixes. Unfortunately, many who engage in such issue-oriented “reforms” become very self-righteous in their methodology, declaring that “at least we are doing something.”

Chalcedon’s approach has always been to keep believers aware of the big picture. Issues should and must be addressed, but in terms of the bigger picture of the Kingdom of God and our responsibilities therein. Seeing how several analogies common to Scripture and Christian lingo necessarily relate can help us understand our responsibility.

“Ambassadors for Christ”

In discussing the transformation of the word in terms of the risen Christ (II Cor. 5:14-21), Paul first reminds us of the fact that the redeemed man is a “new creature” (v. 17) who has been given a “ministry” (v.18) and “the word of reconciliation” (v.19). Paul then says that he and others who declare that Word “are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us” (v. 20). Paul’s specific word as an ambassador was that the Corinthian Christians be “reconciled to God” (v. 20).

An ambassador does not speak his own words or convey his own opinion. An ambassador gives the opinion and position of the one he represents; he speaks on behalf of that one.

In 1915, Woodrow Wilson wrote a letter declaring his position on the sinking of the Lusitania by Germany. Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan had campaigned for Wilson on an anti-war platform but felt that Wilson was now leading the nation into war. Unable in good conscience to advocate for Wilson’s new position, Bryan resigned as his Secretary of State. He knew his obligation as ambassador was to represent Wilson’s position, not his own. 

We are ambassadors of Christ, who “hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (II Cor. 5:19). We are to represent that Word, not our own. If we fail to represent God’s Word, or offer the world another message, we are doing more than neglecting our duty, we are supplanting God’s Word with our own.

The idea of men being the mouthpiece for God’s Word was not a new one. Human agency is never presumptuous when it is pursuant to God’s decree. Note that “the Lord testified” against Israel “by all the prophets, and by all the seers… which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets” (II Kings 17:13). Moreover, even disobedient priests were reminded that their calling was to be “the messenger of the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 2:7). Jesus told the seventy, “He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and him that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me” (Lk. 10:16). This is why Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthian church, “For I know nothing of myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord” (I Cor. 4:4). Paul was not saying he was above reproach as an apostle, but he knew what he was speaking was faithful to the word of the God.

Jesus is King

The references to Jesus as king don’t mean much to us because we are unfamiliar with kingship. The modern examples familiar to us in the West are powerless, figurehead monarchs who may be given ceremonial deference but possess no real power. In Western governments, men confer power on their leaders, but that is not the image of Jesus in Scripture. It is the Kingdom of God or Heaven that is in view and from which emanates “the power, and the glory forever…” (Matt. 6:13). Until modern times kings proclaimed the law in their name (by their authority as the monarch). They made decisions of life and death that were to be obeyed. As the representative of Roman authority, Pontius Pilate’s only concern about Jesus was if He claimed to be king, a revolutionary claim of treason against Rome (Jn. 18:31ff). Jesus deflected the question as He sometimes deflected questions and challenges of the religious authorities because He would not let men set His agenda. When Jesus said His kingdom was not of this world and that His purpose was to speak truth, Pilate dismissed the issue. Pilate assumed Jesus was a religious mystic concerned with abstract philosophic ideas and so dismissed any political implications. What Pilate did not see was that Jesus was claiming a transcendent position over “this world.” When we see references to Christ as Lord or King, we must see Him in this light. When we refer to His Word, we are not to think of it as a dated one, but as the authoritative law-word of the God-man and Redeemer, the Lord of all lords and the King of all kings.

The Law of the King

This brings up the issue of God’s law. We must not dismiss it by our own criteria. Christ is the King in the Kingdom of God and God’s Law its law-word. We are speaking of His Kingdom, His jurisdiction. If we deny His law-word we cannot claim to be His ambassadors. We will, in fact, be working against His Kingdom if we are personally disobeying Him; and if we are teaching others to disregard His law, we are actually being subversives in His Kingdom. When churchmen declare that law-word no longer valid, and that we must figure out law for ourselves, we have planted a revolutionary flag in His court and defied His royal prerogative. This is the issue of theonomy, which merely means God’s laws (Theos=God, nomos=law).

The greatest tragedy of the church of our day is its rejection of the binding nature of God’s law and the substitution of man-made standards. We would expect this of the world, of course, because the unbeliever is a rebel against God. But tragically the church in the twentieth century largely chose to address “theonomy” as an abstract matter of theological debate rather than a plan of action. The revival of theonomy did not lead to repentance and obedience. In speaking of God’s law conceptually, the modern church betrays its deadness. In seeing it as a matter of debate, it is not addressed as the law-word of King Jesus or the marching orders of the citizens of His Kingdom.

Theonomy (“God’s law,” remember) is even falsely given an evil connotation as an alternative to God’s salvation by grace. It has never been presented as such by its modern advocates. My father, in his introduction to Institutes of Biblical Law,2 clearly affirmed the Reformation stand of salvation as justification by God’s grace received through faith alone. The issue of God’s Law was of sanctification, our obedience and growth in grace.

The church has a long way to go when its theological debate is “Do we really have to obey God?” It refuses to ask, “How is this to be made our plan of conformity and action?” One thing that is abundantly clear from the history of God’s people in the Bible is that He never blesses them in their sin. As Assyria collapsed, Judah was descending into the crude apostasy of fertility cults (Baalism). God sent them into captivity to be discipled by Ezekiel until a faithful remnant was allowed to return. But when God was ready and a people was prepared, God resumed His purposes through that smaller group.

I believe things are different now. We are told that “of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this” (Is. 9:7). This speaks of the Messianic Kingdom continuing to grow. Count the evil empires that have come and gone and then see the growth of Christianity, a growth that in my lifetime has come to be the dominant faith in Africa, a powerful if yet persecuted force in China, and a significant segment in Islamic countries. It has grown and will continue to grow with or without us.

Humanism is, like Assyria, failing. It will not be replaced by an antinomian church of subjective pietism. What we do not know is how or when the Holy Spirit moves to expand the Kingdom. What we do know is that there are more people today self-consciously taking God’s law seriously than during any time in the last century. Those who say “Christian Reconstruction is dead” because Rushdoony, Bahnsen, North, and Chilton are gone cannot see the forest for the trees. Their work was as ambassadors, and it was only valuable to the extent they faithfully represented the Word of God. God did not need them to be His permanent ambassadors but to run the race set before them.

You and I have a limited amount of time and energy to be ambassadors of Jesus Christ. Be faithful to God’s Word; that is your calling, and why He gives you breath. Be assured your labor is not in vain because our King’s law-word is not going away.

1. Martin G. Selbrede, “Issues vs. Foundations” in Arise & Build (Vallecito, CA: Chalcedon Foundation, September 2024) pp. 1-3.

2. Rousas John Rushdoony, The Institutes of Biblical Law (Nutley, NJ: The Craig Press/ Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, 1973) p. 4.