Limits on government - John Locke

"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would
be unlawful for them to do themselves." ... whenever the Legislators endeavor
to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to
Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the
People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to
the common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and
Violence. Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this
fundamental Rule of Society, and either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption,
endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other an Absolute
Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People; By this breach of
Trust they forfeit the Power the People had put into their hands, for quite
contrary ends, and it devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their
original Liberty."
-- John Locke

John Locke here expresses an essential principle for Christians, whether in the First Century or in the Twenty-first Century. It is not possible for ANY group of people to do anything AS A GROUP which they are not authorized by God to do individually: indeed, Scripture shows that groups of people - even churches organized in accordance with the New Testament have no more authority to make laws, override God's commands, punish people, or anything else than the individual Christians which make up that church. How much more does this principle apply to human, secular government?

Locke also points out the logical corollary to that principle: Attempts by human rulers to take that power not granted to them by God forfeit ALL power, and the people are thereby free, in the eyes of God, to resume their original liberty. That is the liberty which is God's gift to all humans.