What I mean is -- XX.iv limits/qualifies our obedience only to 'lawful' power. This is in alignment with Rutherford's *LEX, REX* vs. *REX, LEX* -- the law is the king; the king is not the law. (I am reading the [American revision of 1788](https://www.opc.org/documents/WCF_orig.html), BTW.)

Thank you, Brother, for taking your time to respond to my perhaps all too abbreviated complaint about the WCF. I will try to do at least slightly better in this answer, though it must of necessity be a limited summary...😀

> (Is this 'corrupted' and 'fundamentally erroneous'? - he asks, with a mischievous yet fraternal grin)

Scripture is, of course, our foundation. What has been corrupted are the creeds, confessions, canons, and (in short) the aggregating barnacles of all the "traditions of men" that act as a hidden foundation, confusing and hiding the truth. This has led to the misapplication of (most frequently and egregiously) 1 Peter 2 and Romans 13 to the evil beast known as "the state" (merely human governments at ALL levels, city, county, state, and in the greatest display of centralized, hierarchical evil, federal nation-states). It has misdirected us into the very dangers you've pointed out in your reference to the Ventrella series; to wit, the danger of "worshipping and serving the creature rather than the Creator."

The core underlying (and I believe satanically influenced) assumption is what has come to be most widely recognized and taught as Kuyperian "sphere sovereignty." This is the attribution of equal but distinct authority to different "spheres" of life (family, church, state, work). I call this "corrupt and fundamentally erroneous" because (like most of our adversary's lies) it contains truth that has been subtly twisted. While I certainly recognize that we as fathers have primary authority over our own households (οἰκεῖοι), the system of thought goes off the rails when it considers other "spheres."

Cutting to the chase--and I confess I am a very poor historian--the reformers (and perhaps others earlier?) miscategorized two "spheres" of life, and I hear the strong echo of this in your replies. The error is dividing life into "civil" and "ecclesiastic" spheres. This is a misclassification. The authentic, biblical categories are "kingdom of satan" and "Kingdom of Jesus/God." In truth, the "kingdom" of satan is really a plethora of his competing fiefdoms that are in process of being destroyed/self destruction.

Another related error I'll mention in response to your reference to Rutherford's work is the conflation of the only *authentic* law (the law of God) with human statutes. As an aside, would you care to guess how many of the 400+ references to "law" and its cognate words in Scripture can arguably be said to refer to human statutory law?🧐 We must in this context remember these Scriptures:

"For Yahweh is our Judge,Yahweh is our Lawgiver,

Yahweh is our King;

He will save us—"

- Isaiah 33:22

and

"He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords"

- 1 Timothy 6:15

With that background, I'll try to state my point concisely (LOL)...

The reformer's began with a fundamentally unbiblical world-view/foundation. The New Testament is in truth a handbook for God's intended form of government, to wit, the Kingdom of Jesus, his Anointed King. Ephesians Chapter One states this clearly (when accurately translated). God intends to rule the world through the means and apparatus of his ecclesia (assembly) which are literally Jesus' bodily presence on earth. (Ephesians 1:22; Jesus is the head of EVERYTHING, exercising that headship via the MEANS of the church).

All human organizations claiming a "right to rule" humanity are illegitimate pretenders. Every ersatz "president" and "king" and "premier" and etc. are in all truth antichrists (Greek: substitute/replacement/pseudo/fraudulent "christs"). God WARNED us of this via Samuel (1 Samuel 8) when he flatly described the people's insistence on a "king." "...they have rejected Me from being king over them." The functions of "civil governance" all fall on the local churches, and are all exercised in a voluntary fashion in local contexts.

As a bitcoiner and nostrich, I would hope that you can readily grasp the superiority of decentralized, voluntary, non-coercive human interactions? Jesus our King is the ONLY point of centralization. He is quite capable of running a WORLD full of local assemblies and coordinating their actions and activities. This is what he meant by the Kingdom of God advancing through the world like leaven, not easily observed.

And what of nation-states? They are self-destructing before our eyes. God laughs at them (Psalm 2). Jesus, our Rock, the "stone cut out without hands," is rolling down from the mountain, pulverizing them to dust, and we will watch them blow away into oblivion (Daniel 2).

Running out of steam here, but thank you again for your gracious interaction.😀