Is God an Insurance Agent?
Many church members treat God as an insurance agent. They believe Him when He talks about Heaven and hell, death and salvation, and other such things, but they do not believe in Him.
- R. J. Rushdoony
California Farmer 242:7 (Apr. 5, 1975), p. 34.
I believe my insurance agent when he talks about insurance. He is competent, helpful, and accurate. But I do not believe in my insurance agent. When he talks economics, religion, or almost any other subject other than insurance, I can only shake my head with dismay at his departure from the faith of his fathers.
Many church members treat God as an insurance agent. They believe Him when He talks about Heaven and hell, death and salvation, and other such things, but they do not believe in Him. Moreover they do not believe Him when He talks about Himself, His sovereignty, justice and predestination, His requirement of the death penalty, of faithfulness, and much more.
They will calmly tell you that they are Bible-believing Christians, and that it is not necessary to believe in predestination and like things. In fact, earlier this year, when I was a guest invited to speak for four Sunday evenings at a church which prides itself on being true to the Bible, I was “asked” not to return after the second Sunday because I mentioned capital punishment favorably. We are under grace and love, I was told, not under law.
Indeed, I said, we are dead to the law as a death penalty against us, a handwriting of ordinances indicting us, but it is we, the old man in us, who are dead, not the law. Jesus Christ declared, “[I]t is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17).
The mistake people make is to treat God like an insurance agent. I can pick and choose what I want from my agent. I cannot pick and choose with the Lord. I cannot buy life insurance or fire insurance from Him. He will not sell it. Anyone who thinks he can pick and choose from what God has to offer, to believe or not to believe, does not believe in God. They simply believe God on certain insurance concerns and matters. They have confused insurance with grace and mercy with lawlessness.
I only need my insurance agent when it suits me. At all other times, I want no part of him. I cannot deal so with God. I do not buy Him or His protection. He has bought me with the price of His only begotten Son, and I am totally His. I cannot use Him at my convenience, but He requires me to be used at His every word. He does not need to hear me, but in His grace He does. I must, however, hear and obey Him, because it is I who am His agent, not He mine.
To treat God as an insurance agent is to despise Him and to deny Him. The Lord can only be approached and known as God.
- R. J. Rushdoony
Rev. R.J. Rushdoony (1916–2001), was a leading theologian, church/state expert, and author of numerous works on the application of Biblical law to society. He started the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. His Institutes of Biblical Law (1973) began the contemporary theonomy movement which posits the validity of Biblical law as God’s standard of obedience for all. He therefore saw God’s law as the basis of the modern Christian response to the cultural decline, one he attributed to the church’s false view of God’s law being opposed to His grace. This broad Christian response he described as “Christian Reconstruction.” He is credited with igniting the modern Christian school and homeschooling movements in the mid to late 20th century. He also traveled extensively lecturing and serving as an expert witness in numerous court cases regarding religious liberty. Many ministry and educational efforts that continue today, took their philosophical and Biblical roots from his lectures and books.
