The Magistrate Does Not Spank Heinies or Give Its Teats to Be Suckled

One of the most persistent objections raised against a theonomic understanding of civil government (namely, one in which God’s Law-Word is sufficient legislation to establish justice via adjudication) is an appeal to the analogy of the family. The argument typically runs as follows: just as it is wrong for a child to disobey the household rules of his father, so it is immoral for a citizen to disobey the hundreds of newly enacted statutes of legislators. After all, does not Romans 13 command submission to the governing authorities? At first glance the parallel appears persuasive. Upon closer examination, however, it becomes clear that Scripture draws a categorical distinction between the jurisdiction, purpose, and methods of family government on the one hand and civil government on the other. To conflate the two is not merely imprecise; it is a theological error with enormous practical consequences.

The Unique Jurisdiction of the Father and Mother

The Bible nowhere hesitates to describe parental authority in robust, formative terms. From the earliest chapters of Holy Scripture, the family is established as the primary institution through which God transmits covenantal faithfulness, moral instruction, and practical wisdom to the rising generation. “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching” (Prov 1:8). The father is charged to “train up a child in the way he should go” (Prov 22:6), and Paul expands this duty in the New Covenant: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4).

This discipline is explicitly pedagogical and character-forming. The book of Proverbs repeatedly commends the use of the rod as an instrument of love: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” (Prov 13:24); “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother” (Prov 29:15). The author of Hebrews interprets such corporal correction as the very mark of sonship: “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives…He disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness” (Heb 12:6, 10). The goal is not mere external compliance but the driving of foolishness far from the heart (Prov 22:15) and the cultivation of a mature, godly character capable of taking dominion under God.

Because the child is not yet a fully responsible adult, the father and mother are granted wide discretionary authority to establish household rules that may have no direct warrant in the case-law of Exodus or Deuteronomy. Curfews, dietary restrictions, educational requirements, speech standards, and limits on recreation all fall within the legitimate sphere of parental prudence. The end is sanctification and preparation for adulthood, and the means include both positive instruction and, when necessary, corporal punishment.

The Retributive Jurisdiction of the Civil Magistrate

The civil magistrate, by contrast, is never given a formative or pedagogical commission – other than the byproduct of education in the Law-Word of God spreading as he adjudicates cases and establishes justice. His authority is retributive and adjudicative. Paul’s classic description is unequivocal: “He is God’s servant for your good, but if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer” (Rom 13:4). Peter echoes the same limitation: governors are sent “to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Pet 2:14). The magistrate’s sword is not a rod of nurture; it is an instrument of terror against evildoers.

Throughout the Old Testament, righteous rulers are praised precisely for establishing justice in the gate, not for issuing comprehensive regulatory codes. “Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate” (Amos 5:15). Job describes his own exercise of civil authority: “I delivered the poor who cried for help… I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy…I sat as judge in the gate, and righteous judgment was my robe and turban” (Job 29:12–17). The magistrate’s role is reactive, not proactive; he hears cases brought before him – murder, theft, adultery, false weights, boundary violations, rape, kidnapping – and renders judgment according to the revealed statutes of God (Deut. 1:16–17; 16:18–20). When no plaintiff appears, the magistrate is silent.

Significantly, the civil sanctions of Scripture are almost exclusively restitutionary or capital, never pedagogical in the parental sense. A thief repays double or four- or five-fold (Exod. 22:1–4); he is not sent to a state-run reeducation facility. An adulterer is stoned, not grounded for six months. The magistrate has no biblical warrant to invent new crimes, to punish thought, to require licenses for dominion-taking activities, or to treat adult image-bearers as if they were still under tutors and governors (Gal 4:1–2).

Common Objections Considered

“Does not Romans 13:4 say the magistrate is God’s servant ‘for your good’?” Yes, but the “good” in view is the good of retributive justice, not paternal formation. The immediate context defines the good as freedom from fear for those who do right and terror for those who do wrong (Rom 13:3–4). Paul is not granting the magistrate discretionary authority to act in loco parentis.

“Isaiah 9:6 calls the coming ruler ‘Everlasting Father.’” This is a messianic prophecy concerning Christ alone. Only Jesus perfectly combines the fatherly heart with the sword of justice. To transfer the title “Everlasting Father” to Caesar or Congress is to commit the very error against which the Reformers protested when popes styled themselves “Holy Father.”

“Israel’s kings sometimes acted in a fatherly manner toward the nation.” When they did, it was almost always tyrannical. Samuel warned that the king would take their sons and daughters, fields and vineyards, and make them servants (1 Sam 8:11–18). Even David, the man after God’s own heart, functioned as a shepherd-king who executed justice and defended the realm, not as a national father who set bedtimes or dietary laws for the entire covenant community.

“Someone has to make rules for the common good.” That “someone” is every individual image-bearer under God, guided by the law revealed in Scripture. The common good is secured precisely when each man governs himself and his household under God, and the magistrate confines himself to punishing those who violate God’s Law-Word.

Another objection sometimes raised is the language of Isaiah 49:23: “Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” The verse is regularly pressed into service to suggest that civil rulers are given a parental, nurturing role over adult citizens. The Genevan reformers, however, recognized the metaphor and applied it to the advance of the Gospel: “Kings shall be converted to the Gospel, and bestow their power and authority for the preservation of the Church.” It does not follow from that imagery that the magistrates will begin spanking citizens, issuing curfews, or having people suckle at their teats. To literalize the metaphor in that direction is to turn a beautiful promise of eschatological blessing into a warrant for the nanny-state.

The most common pushback against this distinction runs as follows: if fathers may establish binding household rules that go beyond the explicit case-law of Scripture, why may civil rulers not do the same? The answer lies in the nature and purpose of the authority granted to each sphere. Hebrews 12:9–10 explicitly states that earthly fathers discipline us “as it seemed best to them” for our profit and holiness; their discipline is formative, discretionary, and often prophylactic, aimed at shaping character before evil is fully formed. Many parental rules address no objective evil at all; they exist simply to train a child toward maturity. The civil magistrate, however, is never granted such discretionary, character-forming authority. His sword is drawn solely against objective evil that violates God’s revealed judicial law (Rom 13:4; 1 Pet 2:14). One authority wields a rod on the heinie for what “seems best” to drive foolishness from the heart; the other wields a sword on the neck only for what God has already declared evil. The moment the magistrate claims the father’s discretionary “as it seems best to them” prerogative, he has ceased to be a minister of justice and has become a tyrannical nursemaid. The distinction is therefore not arbitrary; it is the difference between a spanking and a beheading, between nurture and retribution, between the home and the public gate.

The Consequences of Conflating the Spheres

When the civil magistrate is treated as a father, the inevitable result is the therapeutic, paternalistic state we inhabit today. Adult men and women are required to obtain permission slips to work, build, sell milk, carry tools of self-defense, or educate their own children. Non-violent offenders are caged for years at taxpayer expense rather than required to make swift restitution. The state presumes to know what is best for us better than we or our actual fathers ever could. This is not biblical magistracy; it is idolatry dressed in paternal language.

Let fathers and mothers raise their children with the rod of correction and the instruction of the Lord. Let them establish whatever household rules prudence dictates for the formation of godly character. And let the civil magistrate confine himself to the gate, hearing cases, establishing justice between neighbors, and bearing the sword against those who commit objective evil. When these God-ordained jurisdictions are kept distinct, families flourish, children mature into responsible image-bearers, and the public square is governed by justice and justice only (cf. Deut. 16:20). When they are conflated, we get neither godly families nor just societies – only an omnipresent state that treats grown men like toddlers and funds its paternalism with money stolen from actual fathers.