What the Bible Says about Human Rights #1

I. Introduction
A. We are not a church that focuses on social issues. We believe that the gospel of Jesus Christ is man’s greatest need and that our eternal danger is more acute than any earthly dangers.
1. We don’t believe that poverty and injustice and disease will ever be eradicated in this world because of the condition of the human heart.
2. However, part of our calling is to love people where they live in this broken world.
3. Jesus didn’t ignore their earthly needs. He fed the hungry and healed the sick.
4. And part of Christ’s calling in our lives is to do unto others what we would have them do to us.
B. And so since we live in a world and have responsibilities to others it seemed fitting to spend a month of sermons on social issues.
C. Not only this, but
1. Dec.10 was International Day of Human Rights
2. And this is the month of Martin Luther King’s birthday and of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.
3. It seemed like a good month to stop and think about human rights and what the Christian role should be in addressing these realities.
D. These two sermons were sparked by hearing a fellow Christian’s comment re: human rights: “As I see it, there is no such thing as human rights, because we don’t deserve anything.”
II. The passage I’ve chosen is Romans 11:33–36: Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
A. Paul has just been addressing some troubling and mysterious themes (in chapters 1-11).
B. And before moving on to the next section of his epistle in chapter 12 he turns all the troubling mystery into worship in these final verses of chapter 11.
C. In the midst of it he asks two rhetorical questions in v.35:
1. “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” Who knows as much as God? Who can advise Him about how to do His job better?
2. “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” Who has given something to God that wasn’t already is so that God is indebted to them? To whom does God owe anything?
D. In other words, God is all-knowing, He knows what He’s doing. And we know so little. We can’t judge God as if we know better than Him.
1. And we can’t demand anything from God since He doesn’t owe us anything.
E. So, in this sense the Scripture is clear that humans have no rights before our Creator. We have no footing upon which to challenge God. And when in Romans 9 Paul imagines someone objecting to the way God has worked, he says, “Who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will the pot say to the potter, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay? (Romans 9:20–21)
1. So the first thing to say about human rights is that humans have no rights before God, and that God has absolute rights over humans.
2. God is who He is, not who we want Him to be. And our job is to believe in Him, not edit Him.
3. God is perfectly good and will not compromise His goodness or His good will.
4. Not only this, but when mankind fell into sin, he forfeited his claim to God’s just reward for righteousness. So now man stands guilty before God and is due nothing but a just penalty.
III. But the fact that man has no rights before God doesn’t eviscerate the concept of human rights.
A. You see, there’s a difference between people having rights before God and people having rights before each other.
B. The concept of human rights is not generally referring to rights humans have before God, but before one another.
C. So this is the question of human rights: Are there things we owe to others just based on the fact that they are fellow human beings? And are there rights we have as human beings that we can legitimately claim from each other? What are people “due” from one another? What if anything do we owe one another?
D. Just because I have no rights before God doesn’t mean that the guy who mows my lawn has no rights over me. If I hire someone to mow my fields and he does the job, then when he’s finished I owe him the agreed-upon money.
1. James 5:4 “The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.”
E. The Bible also speaks of human rights in passages like:
1. Psalm 82:3 “Give justice to the weak and the fatherless; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.”
2. Proverbs 31:8–9 “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.”
3. Isaiah 10:1-2 “Woe to those who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their rights, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!”
4. In addition to this, things which the Bible considers crimes imply human rights. For instance, the criminalization of murder, theft, kidnaping (Exodus 21:16; Deuteronomy 24:7) imply the right to life, property and liberty.
F. In the Bible:
1. There are things rulers owe to their people and things the people owe to their rulers.
2. There are things husbands owe to their wives and things wives owe to their husbands.
3. There are things children owe to their parents and things parents owe to their children.
4. There are things bosses owe to their workers and things workers owe to their bosses.
5. And there are things citizens owe to and are owed from one another.
6. The Bible is clear that God holds us accountable to give others their due.
G. In fact, not only can you find the notion of human rights in the Bible, but I would argue that the word of God is the source of the concept of human rights.
1. No historian disputes the fact that the concept of human rights has Christian roots. Karl Marx rejected the concept of human rights specifically because it was a product of Christianity (Marx and Engels Works, Vol. 1).
H. We’ll talk more about the details of human rights next week. However, there is one more thing I’d like to talk about this morning.
IV. I spoke earlier about the fact that people have no rights before God. Well, the fact is that there is one place in the Bible that uses the language of people having rights before God.
A. It is John 1:12.
1. Let’s read John 1:9–13 together: “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
2. This is strong language. It doesn’t just say, “to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he allowed them to become children of God.”
3. This is the only time I know in the Bible when something is elevated to the level of a right, a power, an authority that man has before God.
a. It is not an inherent right, of course. It is a given right, a right we have by grace.
b. And it’s not a right that every human enjoys. It belongs only to those who receive Jesus, who believe in His name.
c. But the Bible says that those who receive and believe in Jesus are given the right to become children of God.
4. It reminds me of 1John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
a. He is JUST to forgive our sins? It seems like it should say, “He is merciful to forgive our sins” or something like that. But it says He is just to forgive us. In other words, in some way, if we confess our sins, God owes us His forgiveness; God would be unjust to not forgive us!
b. How can this be? Apparently it is because God has already punished Christ for the sins of those who believe in Him, and therefore it would be unjust for God to punish the sinner as well. The sin is already paid for! Forgiveness is the just thing for God to do to the one who cries out to Christ.
B. An important part of the reason God says these things is because He is wanting to assure His people that He will indeed keep His promise.
1. So instead of merely telling us what has been done to secure our salvation, He binds Himself by an oath.
2. Hebrews 6:16–19 “People swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul.”
3. Man has developed the practice of taking oaths to convince others of what is being said: like “I swear to God, it is true.” Jesus discouraged the practice because it was being used to justify lying, as if you don’t need to tell the truth unless you’re under oath (Matt.5:33-37).
4. But God Himself employs an oath. Of course, it’s impossible for the God of truth to lie, but nevertheless, instead of just promising us salvation, He guarantees it with an oath. Why? Because He “desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose.”
5. Now we can be assured that He will indeed follow through on what He says. Investing our lives in Christ is a sure investment which will prove true in the end. “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” – Hebrews 4:16