By Kaka D. Iralu
The word of God in Psalms 115:16 says: “The Heaven, even the heavens, are the Lord’s; but the earth hath he given to the children of men.” Here, what I want to emphasis is this: That though both heaven and earth have been created by God (Ps. 115:15), God had reserved his right to rule heaven and ordained man to rule the earth on his behalf. That is why Jesus had taught us to pray: “They will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”(Matt.6:10). To put it in Munroe’s beautiful words: “The ultimate goal of God the creator was to colonize earth with heaven.”
In the light of this truth, I am using a figurative expression in which, by HEAVEN, I mean God’s realm, and by EARTH, I mean man’s realm. And in this distinction between Heaven and Earth, I want to say that there are certain things in which Heaven will not intervene for earth. This is so, because Heaven (or God) has already sanctioned and assigned some laws to man for ruling the earth with those laws. These laws are laws that have to do with our earthly affairs like man’s social lives, political lives, civil administration lives and even religious lives.
Now “to rule” means to be in charge of. But to rule, we need “rules” or to be exact-“laws.” These “rules” or “laws” have already been given by God to mankind but man has no absolute freedom to formulate, twist or distort these laws according to his own whims and fancies. For example man has not been given the freedom to frame a law that will permit him to kill anybody he does not like. Rather it is God who has given his laws regarding punishment for different kinds of crimes including capital punishments, depending on the severity of the crime and also in commensurate to the crime. These laws of God also agrees with the universal conscience of man which has been written into our hearts by God our creator (Rom. 2:14&15).Therefore no human being on earth can justify or excuse himself on the plea of ignorance to these unwritten laws in our hearts.
At this juncture, let us note that God’s purpose for creating man after creating the universe and the earth was so that man can have dominion over the earth. To quote the exact words, it is stated thus in Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our own likeness and let them have dominion… over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
One very important point to be noted here is the fact that after the creation of man, God did not talk about a “Joint rulership of God and man on earth”. On the contrary, the words used are: “and let THEM have dominion over all the earth.” A second important point to be also noted is the fact that, though man was given the dominion (Rulership) status of the whole world and all the creatures therein, he was not given any authority to rule over his fellow man (In the sense of master and slave or one country ruling over another country) Also when man was created and put in the Garden of Eden, there were no laws given for civil or criminal administration as it was an age of innocence. There were no criminal offenders until Cain killed Abel. Then with this first murder in human history there came in an avalanche of criminal offenders so that by Chapter 4 of Genesis, Lamech was boasting: “If Cain shall be avenged seven fold, truly Lamech seventy and seven fold” (Gen 4:23,24). Then as evil multiplied, by Chapter 6 of Genesis, God had lamented to Noah: “The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Gen. 6:13). And to cut a long story short, after the world wide flood, civil codes were set up where God declared: “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood; by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man”(Gen 9:6). Finally, by the time of Moses and the Exodus, codified law was finally written down on stone tablets by the very fingers of God (Ex. 20 & Dt.:10). This same codified law is today, universally practiced by all Governments on earth which are mentioned in Romans chapter 13.
Now, these laws of God, written by God, and given to man for application in God’s fallen world, is God’s own second multi-colored Rainbow stretching over the expanse of the universe. This Rainbow connects heaven to earth. At the one end of the Rainbow is the heart of God and at the other end is the heart of man. This multicolored Rainbow addresses not just religious and spiritual issues but also moral legal, political, economic and social issues of our lives on earth. In essence, God’s laws are for enforcing the rules of heaven in the affairs of man on earth. But the tragedy for many Christians is that they see only the religious colors of the Rainbow and miss out all the other colors that address the other social aspects of our lives on earth. As a result, though we Nagas are in a political mess today, many Naga Christians would not flip through the Bible to find out the political laws under which we must make our stand as one of God’s nations on earth.
Now God did not give us His laws so that we can keep them hanging over our heads or keep them in abeyance for some future use in Heaven. An entire book can be written about these laws of God and how it applies to the whole of God’s creation. But in this present article, I am trying to draw the reader’s attention only to what Heaven will not do for earth in our political context in Nagaland. We must however start our reflections on this issue not by quoting a Naga political opinion but by quoting a scripture given by God for the conduct of the whole world’s earthly affairs.
In this context as mentioned earlier, God never gave Adam a law that man can dominate and rule over his fellow man. It also never says that one country can invade another country and rule over it. It instead clearly states, that God himself had from one man made all the nations of the earth and had given them their respective periods and the boundaries of their habitations-Acts 17:26. (The beginning of this anthropological history is clearly mentioned in Genesis Chapter 10). God also never sanctioned that an invading country can rule an occupied country with draconian laws like the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. This Indian Government act has nullified even the very right to life for so called Nagaland citizens of India. In fact such a law transgresses all the value of man as a HUMAN BEING created in the image of God. God’s laws also clearly declares that whosoever sheds man’s blood in acts of murder rape torture and burnings etc should be punished by man’s laws which are based on God’s own laws. Now therefore, to rebel against such laws as AFSPA is to be obedient to God’s laws. After all, as the scripture says: ‘To fear the Lord is to hate evil” (Prv.8:13).
And yet many Naga Churches and Christians think that such laws that defy the very relationship of God and man is none of their business. Can a Christian state like ours allow such acts of lawlessness to prevail in our own country with our consent? In the end, can all that the Churches in Nagaland do is to call for clean elections only after four years of repeated lawless corruptions and wealth accumulations? Surely despite the very religious exterior, Nagaland must be one of the most hypocritical Christian states in the world- especially in the realm of politics!
Rather than fighting against India’s political sins over our lands, we seem to be wallowing in those sins ever seeking our own comforts and safety zones in this enemy occupied land of ours. Our topmost priorities seem to be to get (or even buy with money) a secure Indian Government job with accessibility to accumulation of wealth through corruption. Building mansions and buying the best cars to satiate our endless lust for the latest and fastest and strongest car models in the present global market seems to be an obsession of many parents and children in Nagaland today.
Can such a people and a nation escape the wrath of God which will come through a harvest of all our years of indifference and apathy to our national struggle? With the exception of a few dedicated national workers, today, even our national struggle is swelling with so called leaders seeking their own political fortunes through the blood and tears that were shed by other patriots.
In this forthcoming catastrophe, God will not intervene and stop the consequences of our piled up problems from exploding in our faces. God will not intervene because He has already given us his laws regarding our nationhood and our territories but we have not acted on them for too long. For far too long, we have only been pursuing a life of comfort and pleasure in the midst of an invasion which is war! Indeed we shall reap what we have sown for all these years of apathy and indifference to God’s political laws.
Here Heaven will not do anything for earth with regards to Nagas.
