Grace, Law, and Immigration: Does the Bible Teach Open Borders and Amnesty?

Does the Bible teach amnesty?

Does the Gospel of Grace mean that people who broke into a country illegally should be allowed to stay?

The Bible does NOT teach that.

Let's start with Scriptures in the Old Testament, the expectations laid out for men and women who wanted to immigrate into Israel.

First, a brief summary provided by Thomas Williams on Breitbart:

Every nation has the right to distinguish, by country of origin, who can migrate to it and apply appropriate immigration policies, according to the great medieval scholar and saint Thomas Aquinas.

In a surprisingly contemporary passage of his Summa Theologica, Aquinas noted that the Jewish people of Old Testament times did not admit visitors from all nations equally, since those peoples closer to them were more quickly integrated into the population than those who were not as close.

Some antagonistic peoples were not admitted at all into Israel due to their hostility toward the Jewish people.

The Law “prescribed in respect of certain nations that had close relations with the Jews,” the scholar noted, such as the Egyptians and the Idumeans, “that they should be admitted to the fellowship of the people after the third generation.”

Citizens of other nations “with whom their relations had been hostile,” such as the Ammonites and Moabites, “were never to be admitted to citizenship.”

  

“The Amalekites, who were yet more hostile to them, and had no fellowship of kindred with them, were to be held as foes in perpetuity,” Aquinas observed.

In the Old Testament, there were clear passages against allowing certain people to even enter into the congregation of worship until certain generations has passed.

"An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever:" (Deuteronomy 23:3)

Notice how severe the stricture was here.

But ... a Moabite would eventually enter into the congregation of Israel.

Ruth and Naomi

How and when did this happen? Through Ruth!

She was a Moabitess, therefore a despised people whom the Israelites were supposed to have no concourse with.

Yet Noami, an Israelite, ended up in Moab because of her husban Elimelech, who decided to settle there because of a severe famine.

The husband died, and their two sons also died, and the two daughters-in-law remained.

Then check out what Ruth said to her mother-in-law:

16And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 17Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me. 18When she saw that she was stedfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her.

Let's declare the clear demacations of a proper immigrant:

First of all, she didn't barge into Israel on her own. She didn't violate the borders of the state of Israel. She recognized her initial status as a Moabite.

Second, she came in legally, specifically through a sponsor: her mother-in-law. She was related by kinship and had a base of support with her.

Now, notice the five-fold identification she established with her:

1."Where you go, I will go." Her pathway would be determined by the Israelite, not her own. She would live with her family member. In Hebrew, the word "Halak" speaks not just of walking, but identification. She would conduct herself in Naomi's fashion, she would act according to her precepts and principles, not her own. 

2. "Where you lodge, I will lodge." She did not become a burden on someone else. She did not seek to take up space or squat in someone else's home. She will rest in the home of her mother-in-law. She seeks refuge with a family member, not with the government.

3. "Your people will be my people." The Israelites did not tolerate or embrace mulit-culturalism. The people who entered Israel were expected to become Israelites. Immigrants must give up their full identity to their home country and assimilate into their new country.

4. "Your God will be my God." This is the most powerful statement in the list of five points. She would reject the pagan traditions of her country and embrace the spiritual values of her new country. This statement is especially crucial, because a country's moral compass and world view determines whether a country and a culture survives or not. 

This tenet should give us every right to reject Islam and reject Muslims from entering the United States.

5. "Where you do, I will die and be buried." With this statement, Ruth announces that her future will be invested in her new country. She refuses to be buried in her former homeland, choosing to identify fully with her new home.

These are the principles, the expectation which everyone of us should expect from immigrants. Men and women who want to enter the United States must do so with the express interest of embracing the American culture, both moral and political, and desire to become Americans.

There are other clear passages about keeping out ardent enemies and their ways from Israel:

30Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. 31Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

Immigrants should come to a country to enjoy and enter into the culture. They should not come in to take from everyone else and degrade or destroy the country which they are entering.

The New Testament

Granted, God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son (John 3:16)

That's about as inclusive as it gets.

But what about nation states? Do they not matter?

Yes, they do.

God had already intended for men and women to be separated into different peoples when He divided their languages:

7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

Paul and Peter urge respect for temporal authorities, too.

First, Paul:

1Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. 2Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. 3For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. (Romans 13:1-3)

The same powers which come from God outline clear borders and distinctions among peoples.

The phasing out of national borders will not come until His reign on the earth.

Then Peter:

13Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme;14Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. 15For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: 16As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.17Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. (1 Peter 2: 13-17)

We are called to honor temporal authorities, in that they are in full submission to the will and direction of God. In modern times, republican forms of government have emerged, which permit citizens to elect their representatives and leaders.

The distinctions between countries, the borders and the enforcement of immigration laws all fall under "Fear God. Honor the king." People who break into another country are trespassing, and that is a crime. They are not honoring the rule of law in their home country or the other country.

This is a basic principle, which no one has a right to deny or dispute.

Even in the Church, there were clear borders, in the metaphorical sense that anyone who was not conducting himself according to the Gospel of Grace was confronted on it--and anyone engaging in ongoing perversion without consequence was held accountable:

"7Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:" (1 Corinthians 5:7)

and

28Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. 29For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. (Acts 20: 28-30)

By the way ... even the New Jerusalem will have walls:

"And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:" (Revelation 21:12)

Final Reflection

Borders, security, national identity, inclusion vs. exclusion, and immigration, Christians can respond effectively to these issues through the Bible. The Bible does NOT teach that countries should allow men and women from other countries to flood another country. The Bible does not teach or outline that borders should be phased out, and that men and women should strive to impose some one-world, borderless government.

The Bible does not teach that individuals must go out of their way to succor and supply everything to illegal aliens. Yes, there is such a thing as "illegal", and the word of God does not impose on men and women in any country to give up their own resources by force.

Look again to Ruth and her assimilation into the Commonwealth of Israel. That picture, by the way, is a picture of God's grace. She was not supposed to even enter the congregation of Israel at all! Yet she did.

Yet even in the picture of God's grace, behold how Ruth gave up her Moabite status and past and embraced being a Jew, a convert to Israel. God not only blessed her, but she became an ancestor of the great kings David and Solomon, and the Greatest King of All, Jesus Christ! (Matthew 1:5)