Inscribed on the walls of Minnesota’s State Capitol are many quotes and scenes that helped shape Western thought on law, government, and personal liberty. Even in this deep blue state, the specter of our Christian heritage haunts public life. These apparitions include a painting of Moses and the Ten Commandments and a poignant quote from James Otis Jr., one of our Founding Fathers. It reads, “The safety of the people is the law of God.” These words indict a state that often rebels against God’s law and God’s design for civil government.
Otis’s statement asserts that the primary function of the government is to protect the people’s God-given rights. First among these rights is the right to live. This leads us to the sixth commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exod. 20:13). The command itself is straightforward, but its application to civil life is fraught with complexities. In what sense, if any, is the sixth commandment binding in the civil realm?
Answering that question touches on many issues including how the covenants relate to each other, God giving the power of the sword to the state, and how Scripture relates to “secular” governments. My Baptist theology and Progressive Covenantal convictions seem to intensify an already present tension. Yet, it is my belief that the sixth commandment is binding, not only on the church, but on every person including the civil government. To make this case, I will explore the biblical foundation for the broad jurisdiction of God’s law, the primary ministry of the state, and then apply the sixth commandment to modern ethical problems.
The Public Jurisdiction of God’s Law
In today’s debates around Christian nationalism, natural law, theonomy, etc., there is intense disagreement about how the law of God applies in the New Covenant era. For some, Scripture itself has no binding authority outside of the life of individual Christians and the church.1 Such thinking is contrary to the prominence of the Ten Commandments in the Western legal tradition. This prominence is plain in many places including the Magna Carta, William Blackstone and British Common Law, and the walls of our courthouses. God’s law has shaped our legal systems.2
1. David VanDrunen makes this case throughout his book Living in God’s Two Kingdoms: A Biblical Vision for Christianity and Culture (Crossway, 2010). Concerning the political sphere, see pages 194–205. To a lesser extent, Brian Rosner’s work also appears to limit God’s law’s ongoing relevance to public life, see Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God (IVP Academic, 2013).
2. Joseph Boot, The Mission of God: A Manifesto of Hope for Society (Wilberforce Publications, 2016).
The New Testament speaks in varied ways about how the law relates to us in light of the work of Christ. Ardel Caneday demonstrates there are at least seven different ways the New Testament uses the word law.3 These include law referring to God’s character (Rom. 7:25), the covenant (Gal. 3:17), the Pentateuch (Matt. 5:17–18), and as a referent to Scripture in general (1 Cor. 14:21). When we realize the different ways the NT uses the word, it becomes easier to understand how the law applies to us today. For example, the law is ended as a covenant, it is enduring as Scripture, and it is eternal as it reveals the moral character of God which is the foundation for all justice.4
3. Ardel Caneday, “The Law of Moses—The Mosaic Covenant Viewed Through Progressive Covenantalism (Part 1),” Christ Over All, September 19, 2023.
4. See Levi Secord, “Jesus, the Law, and You (Ephesians 2:14–16),” sermon, Christ Bible Church, accessed August 6, 2026.
As the law reveals God’s unchangeable character, it also issues moral commands like prohibiting the unjust taking of human life. These commands are universally binding on us as individuals and as societies. Murder is wrong because it contradicts God’s character; he is the God of life. Murder is an attack on God’s image, which is an attack on God himself (Gen. 9:6). Only God can rightfully commission the taking of a life.
Does this mean the sixth commandment prohibits all killing? No. As the Supreme Judge, God has sanctioned death as a judicial penalty for some crimes, which he alone has the authority to do. He also limits that authority. God himself established the death penalty (Gen. 9:5–6) and he delegated that authority to the state (Rom. 13:4). In God’s law, he also demonstrates that not all killing is murder. In addition to capital punishment being just, God allows for self-defense (Exod. 22:2) and even differentiates between murder and manslaughter (Deut. 19:1–13).
Biblically, God’s moral law is universal, and therefore, it applies outside of God’s people and to “secular” governing authorities.5 Consider two examples. First, John the Baptist condemns the sexual immorality of Herod. He calls it unlawful for Herod to take his brother’s wife (Mark 6:18). Herod was not a Jew and held a seat of authority for a pagan government. Nonetheless, John directly applies God’s law to Herod, specifically Leviticus 18:16 and 20:21. While modern Christians are often embarrassed by Leviticus, John shows no such hesitancy in applying its prohibitions to those outside of the covenant. It was against God’s law for Herod to take his brother’s wife.
5. I am using “moral law” in a broader sense than many use it as a referent to the Ten Commandments. I believe all of God’s law teaches some moral truth about God, the world, justice, and man. As we rightly understand that moral truth, and bring it through the person and work of Christ, it then must be applied to our lives. What reveals God’s objective, universal moral standards is binding on all.
Second, Paul tells us that the law can be used lawfully (1 Tim. 1:8–11). He asserts that the lawful use of the law is one directed at the “lawless and disobedient . . . for the ungodly and profane” (1 Tim. 1:9). Again, the law is applied to those outside of the covenant, to evildoers, the sexually immoral, and the murderers. This sense of the law, as an eternal revelation of God’s moral standards, is binding on everyone who bears God’s image. To use the law in this way is lawful, good, and necessary. Even after the work of Christ, the law reveals right and wrong and thus has an ongoing binding application. The scope of the Scripture’s authority is not limited only to the individual or the church. There is no secular space free from the jurisdiction of God’s moral law. God’s law possesses a universal dominion precisely because God universally reigns over all things.
The Primary Ministry of the State
This broad jurisdiction of God’s law crystallizes as one accepts the biblical understanding of the state’s ministry. Romans 13:1–7 reveals that God has given the sword to the state. After the flood, God instituted the state to punish those who unjustly took human life (Gen. 9:5–6). Capital punishment is one way God preserves and honors life. If someone commits murder, the principle of lex talionis demands the harshest of punishment—execution. A murderer, in essence, forfeits his right to live.
Romans 13:1–7 also asserts that the state is God’s servant whose job is to execute his wrath (Rom. 13:4). The state exists as a temporal enforcer of God’s justice, which is revealed in his law. As a servant, the state’s master is God.6 Christians must remember there is no bland, generic theistic God. The only true God is the God of Scripture who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He rules over the state (Ps. 2; Dan. 4:17–32; Rev. 1:5) and the state’s responsibility is to execute justice according to his standards.
6. For more on the state functioning as God’s servant, see Levi Secord, Servant Not Savior: An Introduction to the Bible’s Teaching About Civil Government (Center for Cultural Leadership, 2025).
It is no accident that Paul connects the Christian’s relationship with the state to the second table of the Ten Commandments (Rom. 13:8–10). Christians are to give what they owe to others. This includes taxes, respect, and honor to governing authorities (13:7). Paul continues by explaining what we owe our neighbors—keeping the second table of the Ten Commandments. Love is marked by respecting the God-defined rights of our neighbors.7 Paul writes this in the context of the Christian’s relationship to the state and the desire to “have no fear” of those who hold political authority (Rom. 13:3). The second table of the law, including the sixth commandment, is intimately connected to the ministry of the state.
7. Kenneth J. Turner, “Exodus,” in What the Old Testament Authors Really Cared About: A Survey of Jesus’ Bible, ed. Jason S. DeRouchie (Kregel, 2013), 93–94.
The Sixth Commandment and Modern Ethical Questions
Though God has given the state the power to justly take human life, its use of the sword must be limited by God’s moral standards. The sword must be directed, not by the whims of the people, but the eternal moral law of God, including the sixth commandment. How, then, should the sixth commandment direct the state’s thinking about contemporary issues like war, euthanasia, and abortion? Let’s take them in turn.
Border Patrol, Police, and War
First, the state must protect its citizens’ right to life. The safety of the people, their lives, is God’s law and the state is charged with protecting it. The state’s duty includes protecting its citizens from threats both within and outside its borders. The sword is to be aimed both at common criminals and foreign warlords who seek to steal, kill, and unjustly conquer.
One of the primary functions of the state is to defend its nation from foreign threats. This requires both a strong and capable military, and strong enforcement of one’s borders and immigration laws. Christianity has a long tradition of thought on what makes a war just, but it rests on an application of the sixth commandment—thou shalt not murder.8 The sword of the state exists to prevent unjust invasions. This preserves the lives, property, and liberty of its citizens. This means one nation cannot merely invade another, through war or immigration, just to further its own fortunes. Such a war is unjust and is a violation of God’s law.
8. See John Jefferson Davis, Evangelical Ethics: Issues Facing the Church Today, 4th ed. (P&R Publishing, 2015), 234–57.
Euthanasia
Second, we must consider the issue of euthanasia. A few generations ago, euthanasia was not only illegal, but largely unthinkable. Today, as respect for the imago Dei vanishes, euthanasia grows. In Canada, euthanasia is reported as the fifth leading cause of death.9 One such horror story includes a doctor diagnosing and prescribing euthanasia in a Tim Hortons parking lot.10
9. Levi Minderhoud and Daniel Zekveld, “The Cautionary Tale of Euthanasia in Canada,” In All Things, Dordt University, March 18, 2025.
10. “Canada Doctor Euthanizes Man After Evaluation at Tim Hortons,” New York Post, May 27, 2026.
While allowing a terminally ill patient to die by rejecting artificial prolongation of life is permissible, actively ending the life of another image-bearer is murder. God alone holds jurisdiction over life and death. The state’s job is to protect life, not to protect ghoulish doctors who kill those they are meant to help. Euthanasia laws are just the latest way that governments destroy the purpose for which God instituted them.
Abortion
Third, the biblical case for life beginning at conception is overwhelming (Ps. 51:5; 139:16). States that allow abortion at any stage of development are allowing murder. Legalized abortion is a direct attack on the image of God; thus, it is an attack on God himself. It is the sign of a desperately sick civil government that is actively undermining the very purpose for which it exists—to protect the lives of its citizens and enforce God’s wrath upon evildoers. Instead, our governments (both on the state and federal levels) use the coercive power of the sword to protect the murder of countless innocent children. Humans in utero are worthy of equal protection as fellow image-bearers (Exod. 21:22–25). Voters who cast ballots to protect such vile acts are likewise guilty accomplices to murder. Sadly, our nation is stained red with the innocent blood of our most vulnerable citizens. Worse still, many celebrate such wickedness.11
11. Dr. Jones, “Women Applaud as Massachusetts Governor Signs Bill Allowing Abortion until the Moment of Birth,” Not the Bee, August 11, 2026.
Conclusion
God’s law, as it is understood and applied in light of the work of Christ, reveals eternal moral truths. These truths are universally binding on all people. It is lawful to use the law, particularly the sixth commandment, as a foundation for the ethical standards of a just society. The law of God is the safety of the people, and this is the mission statement of civil government. God has commissioned the state to protect the rights of its citizens by giving it the sword. If we hope to live in a just society, then governing officials must know and submit to the law of God, and his standards must direct and limit the reach of the state’s sword.
