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Biblical Money--Part 4

Every citizen of a Kingdom nation that is ruled by biblical law is supposed to own a piece of land. His land cannot be taken away from him by any government. Only God Himself can disenfranchise the people as a whole if they continually violate His law (as a nation). Furthermore, the land itself cannot be taxed, because the power to tax is the power to destroy (or confiscate for non-payment of taxes).

Land ownership is a basic property right in the Kingdom of God. It is the common man's "golden parachute," because he can always own something of value and can return to the land if he loses a job in the city.

If he loses the land through poverty or by court order (to pay for a crime/sin), it must always return to him or his heirs in the Year of Jubilee. The loss is never permanent. There is always another day to start over with a clean slate.

In Micah 4 we see a prophecy that the "mountain" (that is, the KINGDOM) of the Lord will be established at some point in the future. Daniel called it the "stone" kingdom (Dan. 2:35). But in Micah 4:4 we read,

"And each of them will sit under his vine and under his fig tree, with no one to make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken."

In the coming "stone kingdom" every family will have its own land inheritance as a basic right. The impact of this law upon a nation's economy is enormous. In fact, it is really the foundational economic law of a Kingdom nation. Taxes are then based, not on the property itself, but upon its production. A tithe is a 10% tax on all wealth (agriculture, ranching, mining, etc.) derived from God's labor in creation. Wealth itself is measured by the practical use of property, rather than by speculative values of things. Even the value of gold or silver is based upon its intrinsic worth as property, instead of some speculative value.

If all property is wealth, then all property is money (though not currency), if we define money as being something of value. Commerce is the exchange of property or things of value. It is barter, or trade, whether we use currency or not. Currency is simply a contract to pay property, because it can be redeemed for property whenever a person goes to the store. Because Kingdom currency would be created by the national government to represent the gross national product, it would always represent the actual wealth in the nation.

Currency, of course, is a relatively new invention, or innovation. There is nothing intrinsically evil about currency. It is a mere convenience that facilitates long-distance trade without having to send gold, silver, or other property in exchange. He could send the merchant a piece of paper, which the merchant could then convert into the property of his choice or pay his employees, who would then do the same.

Currency has its value because the national government guarantees that it has backing--not merely by gold or silver, but backed by whatever a person wants to purchase. There will always be enough goods in the marketplace to be purchased by the amount of money in circulation.

To picture how this works, let us suppose that every producer in the country were to sell his product to the national government and receive a receipt for its value. We will call that receipt "currency." The government, then, would have thousands of warehouses ("stores") around the country, where people could come and purchase whatever they wanted. Every piece of paper money, then, would be backed by goods in those warehouses. We would have money that was backed by something of value.

Of course, there is no need for the government itself to be the only merchant in town. It only needs to monitor the amount of money needed in circulation, calculated according to the actual production of the people. The only other major duty of government is that of providing security through its military, although in a Kingdom setting, this would take a quite different form as well. That is a different topic, reserved for another day.

In a Kingdom nation that functions according to biblical law, the economy would have no inflation or deflation. Prices would not need to be "fixed" either, because they would generally remain the same. Minor fluctuations would occur primarily if, say, a drought brought about a shortage of wheat. A rise in the price of wheat would not be due to people fighting over a bushel in a bidding war, but rather because it might cost more to ship it from another country where they had excess wheat for export.

With stable prices existing naturally, it is not hard to see why the Bible would make the statement that a homer of barley was equal to 50 shekels of silver (Lev. 27:16). This was a mere statement of fact--not an artificial government price-fixing scheme to keep down the price of barley or silver. It is evidence of stable prices, not a government-induced attempt to keep inflation under control.

Most of us have been educated in schools that sing the praises of Babylon and its economic system. We have functioned in a Babylonian system for so long that we have forgotten the songs of Zion. Religious schools actively teach against the biblical system, as if it were outdated or downright evil. Furthermore, many Christians are taught in church that in the end they will be going to heaven where they will live for eternity, where economic laws are irrelevant and all people living there will be perfect and in need of no laws at all.

They do not often contemplate that in the Tabernacles Age to come, there will be many people living yet on earth who will want to learn more of God's law (Isaiah 2:3). The Stone Kingdom will grow until it fills the whole earth, Daniel says, but this will take time. Not all will be instantly perfected and educated in the ways of God. That is our job in the Pentecostal Age and in the Tabernacles Age to come.

As more and more people come to know Jesus Christ, they will want their national governments to reflect His moral values (laws). They will want to know if God has a better economic system than Babylon had. They will want to know if there is a better alternative to the prison system. They will want to know how to have a moral society, if abortion is really murder, if homosexual marriage is condoned by God, and a host of other questions that now divide us.

The Bible does speak explicitly about these issues. Babylonians (civil and religious) do not agree with God, so they write a lot of propaganda to discredit God's Word. But Babylon has had its day, and it has failed to bring righteousness into the earth. It is now falling, and the saints have been given the adjudication (authority and the right to decree) in the Kingdom (Dan. 7:27). If we are called to rule and reign with Christ (Rev. 20:6), then the first step is to know the will of God, as defined in His Word and Law (Rom. 2:18).

Pentecost, as a leavened feast, put away the law; Tabernacles reinstates the law. Tabernacles is the only feast where the law was actually read, because it indicates that the law is to be written in our hearts. They used to read the entire book of Deuteronomy every year at the feast of Tabernacles while meditating in their booths.

If we believe that we have a Tabernacles anointing, then we ought to prepare our hearts by studying the law, the prophets, the Gospel--yes, the whole Word of God. We should live by every word that proceeds out of His mouth (Matt. 4:4).