Jesus is the epitome of suffering unjustly. He neither acted with sin nor reacted in sin. Peter tells us: He “committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten” (1 Pet. 2:22-23). What do we do when we are provoked, particularly when we know we are in the right?

But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. (1 Peter 2:20, NKJV)
“For to this you were called.” That’s how Peter begins verse 21 as he lifts our eyes to our Lord Jesus. What is the “this?” Clearly, it is suffering unjustly, suffering for righteousness’ sake. We are not to be surprised by suffering but expectant of it and prepared for it.
Peter couches suffering in terms of our calling. It is part and parcel of denying ourselves and taking up our cross to follow Jesus as His disciples. Jesus is our model. “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps” (1 Pet. 2:21).
Jesus is the epitome of suffering unjustly. He neither acted with sin nor reacted in sin.
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Walking by the Spirit refers to our daily conduct, rooted in our union with Christ in his death and resurrection and empowered by the Spirit who redirects our desires to godly fruitfulness. The Spirit is the animating power in our lives, shaping our daily decisions as we wake up in the midst of the spiritual war. Paul’s call is for us to daily take up arms in the battle, to encourage and gratify our spiritual desires, and to keep in step with the Spirit because we belong to Jesus.

Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. –Galatians 5:16–17
In seminary, this passage reshaped my vision of the Christian life. At one level, the passage is simple. It contains an exhortation (“walk by the Spirit”), a promise (“and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh”), and an explanation or rationale (the conflict described in verse 17). But as we meditate on this passage, we discover that it also offers a threefold vision for the Christian life as a whole.
Acknowledge the War Within
First, Paul insists that the starting point for the Christian life is recognizing the war between the flesh and the Spirit.
I say “starting point” because of the logic of verses 16 and 17. In seminary, I was taught that one way to clarify the logic of a passage like this is to read the verses in reverse order while keeping the logical relationship intact. In other words, turn an “A, because B” argument into a “B, therefore A” argument. “I eat, because I am hungry” becomes “I am hungry, therefore I eat.”
When we do that, the passage looks like this:
(Verse 17) The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. (Verse 16) Therefore (that’s the logical connection) walk by the Spirit, and you will certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh.
As Christians, we wake up every day in the midst of a war. Fleshly desires pull us in one direction; the desires of the Spirit pull us in the other. The status quo is a frustrated stalemate in which we are kept from doing what we want to do. Spiritual desires frustrate fleshly desires, and fleshly desires frustrate spiritual desires.
Starting with this recognition means we can be realistic about the difficulty of the war. The frustration we feel in the face of the passions of the flesh is real, and Paul encourages us to be honest about it. That’s where we begin as Christians.
Staggering Promise of Not
But according to Paul, we don’t have to stay there, because, second, we have a new destination. We don’t have to surrender. We can live a life in which we absolutely don’t gratify the desires of the flesh. This is a staggering promise. The “not” in verse 16 is intensified in the original Greek; it’s what’s called an emphatic negation. Paul essentially says, “If you walk by the Spirit, you will absolutely and certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh.”
Now, it’s important to be clear about what Paul is and isn’t promising. He’s not saying that our fleshly desires disappear altogether. Instead, he promises that we will not gratify or complete those desires. In other words, the desires may still be present and still at war with our spiritual desires, but now, as we walk by the Spirit, we won’t indulge them.
The basic idea is that all desires have a direction, a destination, a trajectory. They incline us towards some perceived good, some object that we believe will satisfy. In short, desires want to take us somewhere.
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We live in a time where many voices across the political spectrum are questioning the wisdom of the democratic liberal order we’ve had in much of the West for the past 200 years. As Christians grieve what has been lost of their former cultural influence (and fear what lies ahead), there have been new discussions and new discoveries about what political arrangement can best serve our nation and our world. Some of these discussions have been more heat than light, but many have been welcome forays into a deeper understanding of political theology. 

Abstract: In 1788, American Presbyterians meeting in Philadelphia approved a revised version of the Westminster Confession of Faith. The most significant change to the original 1646 version concerned the doctrine of the civil magistrate in chapter 23. In the century and a half following the Westminster Assembly, many Presbyterians grew wary of granting coercive powers to the civil magistrate and were drawn to more robust notions of religious liberty. In revising the Westminster Confession, Presbyterians in America rejected an older, European model of church-state relations whereby the magistrate was obligated to suppress heresies, reform the church, and provide for church establishments. As new debates about the proper relationship between church and state continue to multiply, it’s important to recognize that the two versions of WCF 23:3 represent two different and irreconcilable views of the civil magistrate.

The version of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) used by most Presbyterians in America isn’t identical with the version approved by the Westminster Assembly in 1646. Most of the differences between the historic text and the text used by the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) are small—a change related to marrying the relative of a deceased spouse, a softened stance toward swearing oaths, and the removal of a reference to the pope as the antichrist. The most substantial changes—really, the only substantial changes—have to do with the relationship between church and state.
When the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America adopted the Westminster Standards in 1788, they amended the Standards in four places: WCF 20:4, 23:3, 31:3; Westminster Larger Catechism 109. The most significant change is in chapter 23, where the third article was almost completely rewritten, reflecting a new understanding of church and state that allowed for more toleration and gave much less power to the magistrate over the realm of religion.
The purpose of this article is to show what changed in the American revision of WCF 23:3 and why the changes were made. In exploring these changes, it’ll become clear the two versions of WCF 23:3, though overlapping in some areas, are, in significant ways, contradictory. In addition to examining the historical record, this article aims to make a point of contemporary relevance: that there’s more than one Reformed view of the civil magistrate and that those who want to subscribe to the Westminster Confession—either in general spirit or in an official capacity—should think carefully about which version they believe is correct.
A church officer in the OPC or PCA, for example, who subscribes without exception to his denomination’s version (the American version) of WCF 23:3 is implicitly rejecting the view that the civil magistrate has the duty to purify the church, to suppress heresies, and to call ecclesiastical synods. He is, instead, affirming a different view of the civil magistrate that does much more to restrict the magistrate’s power and gives members of the commonwealth much more freedom and liberty in the realm of religion (even to the point of practicing no religion at all).
In short, what the Westminster Assembly confessed in London about the civil magistrate in 1646 is not what American Presbyterians confessed in Philadelphia in 1788. The two versions of the Westminster Confession don’t say the same thing, and they cannot both be right.
1. What Didn’t Change
We can see what changed and what didn’t change by looking at a side-by-side comparison of the two versions of WCF 23:3. What’s bolded is the same in both versions (except moving from singular to plural); everything else was a change from 1646 to 1788.

Historic Text (1646) 
Chapter XXIII
Of the Civil Magistrate
III. The civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments, or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven: yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God.

American Revision (1788) 
Chapter 23
Of the Civil Magistrate
3. Civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven; or, in the least, interfere in matters of faith. Yet, as nursing fathers, it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest, in such a manner that all ecclesiastical persons whatever shall enjoy the full, free, and unquestioned liberty of discharging every part of their sacred functions, without violence or danger. And, as Jesus Christ hath appointed a regular government and discipline in his church, no law of any commonwealth should interfere with, let, or hinder, the due exercise thereof, among the voluntary members of any denomination of Christians, according to their own profession and belief. It is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the person and good name of all their people, in such an effectual manner as that no person be suffered, either upon pretense of religion or of infidelity, to offer any indignity, violence, abuse, or injury to any other person whatsoever: and to take order, that all religious and ecclesiastical assemblies be held without molestation or disturbance.

As we can see, the first sentence of the revised version is unchanged from the historic text up until the word “or.” The Westminster divines and their 18th-century American counterparts agreed that “civil magistrates may not assume to themselves the administration of the Word and sacraments,” and that they mustn’t exercise “the power of the keys” in the courts of the church. The Confession rejected any species of Erastianism—named after the Swiss physician and theologian Thomas Erastus (1524–83)—that insisted on the state’s authority in ecclesiastical affairs. The Westminster divines may have thought the magistrate was afforded a power about religion (circa sacra), but he wasn’t to exercise power in religion (in sacris).
The Scottish commissioner George Gillespie figured prominently in this debate. True, the lore surrounding Gillespie’s role at the Assembly is sometimes more legend than fact. The 19th-century historian William Hetherington has Gillespie single-handedly vanquishing Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Thomas Coleman, and John Lightfoot; toppling John Selden in a single speech; and thoroughly demolishing Erastianism for all time with Aaron’s Rod Blossoming (1646).
At the same time, it’s true that Gillespie, the youngest member of the Assembly, was an intellectual prodigy and one of the most frequent speakers and most effective debaters. In print, Gillespie argued that while the civil and ecclesiastical powers agreed in many respects (e.g., both are from God, both must obey God’s commandments, both ought to be honored, both can issue censures and correction), they differed in “their causes, effects, objects, adjuncts, correlations, executions, and ultimate terminations.” As he wrote several pages later, “The Magistrate himself may not assume the administration of the keys, nor the dispensing of Church-censures; he can but punish the external man with external punishments.” In short, the church was to be the object of the magistrate’s care but not of his operation.
Gillespie’s views on the civil magistrate, if not entirely convincing to every member of the Assembly, represented the kind of two-kingdom thinking that had been dominant in Scotland for three-quarters of a century. In 1578, the General Assembly in Scotland approved a brief manual on church government called the Second Book of Discipline, what has since been called “the first explicit statement of Scottish Presbyterianism.” A central theme throughout the document is that the Kirk (i.e., the Church of Scotland) and the civil magistrate may work toward some of the same ends but “always without confounding the one jurisdiction with the other.”
The magistrate can only deal with external matters; he cannot make laws that demand affections or compel the conscience to believe certain things. Crucially, the Second Book of Discipline also stipulated that the “magistrate neither ought to preach, minister the sacraments, nor execute the censures of the kirk, nor yet prescribe any rule how it should be done.”
Unlike its neighbor to the south, Scotland insisted the head of the church and the head of the state weren’t the same. When Reformed and Presbyterian pastors make a declaration in the name of “Jesus Christ, the only King and Head of his Church,” they’re denying not only the authority of the pope but also the authority of any earthly monarch over the church.
The Westminster Confession stands in the same tradition, believing the civil realm and the ecclesiastical realm are both under God’s authority but with different officers, different responsibilities, and different aims. As Calvin put it, “Whoever knows how to distinguish between body and soul, between this present fleeting life and that future eternal life, will without difficulty know that Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and the civil jurisdiction are things completely distinct.”
2. Civil Magistrate as Guardian and Avenger
Of course, “completely distinct” didn’t mean for Calvin, or for the Second Book of Discipline, or for Gillespie, or for the Westminster divines that the civil magistrate had no role to play in the establishment, defense, and promotion of true religion. On the contrary, they all believed the civil magistrate was responsible for enforcing both tables of the law. These responsibilities didn’t mean the state was ushering in Christ’s kingdom. That was the work of the gospel and the church. But the magistrate did have a responsibility to reform the church, to suppress false teaching, and to ensure the moral law was honored by all.
Until recently, most Reformed Christians, especially in America, would have quickly dismissed the historic text as tragically mistaken and embraced the 1788 revision as obviously correct. In recent years, however, as republican virtue has waned and as the democratic-liberal consensus has broken down, some Christians have wondered anew if the magisterial reformers and the confessional documents from the 16th and 17th centuries may have been right after all.
Stephen Wolfe, for example, has argued for a “Christian prince” in our day to do the following: “If the ministry degrades, he should reform it. He should correct the lazy and erring pastor but not perform the duties of pastor. He should protect the church from heretics and disturbers of ecclesiastical peace, ensuring tranquil spiritual administration.”
Wolfe insists the Christian prince “has the power to call synods in order to resolve doctrinal conflicts and to moderate the proceedings. Following the proceedings, he can confirm or deny their theological judgments; and in confirming them, they become the settled doctrine of the land.” According to Wolfe, the prince may look to pastors for theological advice as a father seeks advice from his son, but the prince “still retains his superiority.”
The Westminster divines thought about the relationship between church and state in the way most Reformed Christians did at the time: the civil magistrate has a duty to keep the church pure, to suppress blasphemies and heresies, to ensure the church’s worship and discipline are properly reformed, to maintain a settled church establishment, to call for church synods, and (like Constantine of old) to provide for them if necessary.
The Belgic Confession (1561), for example, declared that the “government’s task is not limited to caring for and watching over the public domain, but extends to upholding the sacred ministry, with a view to removing and destroying all idolatry and false worship of the Antichrist; to promoting the kingdom of Jesus Christ; and to furthering the preaching of the gospel everywhere; to the end that God may be honored and served by everyone, as he requires in his Word.”
Sixty years later, the Dutch theologians were still staying the same thing. The Synopsis of a Purer Theology—often called the Leiden Synopsis because it originated in 1624 as a series of disputations among faculty members at the University of Leiden—argued the civil magistrate’s duties fell into two broad categories: (1) the magistrate must make sure the civil laws are in agreement with the law of nature and with the recorded moral law; (2) the magistrate should establish and keep pure the worship of God in his region, reform what has become corrupt in the church, and “as far as he is able” go against heterodox teachers and those who block the way of progress of true religion.
While the Synopsis does espouse a basic two-kingdoms philosophy, it also argues for “the greatest possible harmony . . . between the two administrations, i.e., the political and ecclesiastical one.” The civil magistrate is lauded as nothing less than the “guardian and avenger of both tables of the Law.”
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