The Necessity of Divided Powers

Unchallenged power among sinful human beings allows for the worst expressions of tyranny and rebellion. As the old adage says, ''Absolute power corrupts absolutely.'' Sitting on the Mount of Olives, in Matthew 24, Jesus spoke of events leading up to the last days of human civilization. He said, ''You will hear wars and reports of wars; watch out, don't be alarmed. For it is necessary (ought, is proper) to be, but it is not yet the end'' (my translation). Though not the point of the passage, our Lord sees conflict between competing states as a necessary check, presumably upon tyranny, oppression, and rebellion against God.
The Lord's insistence upon divided powers stretches all the way back to the plains of Shinar, when the people assembled to become a single governed entity. Genesis 11 tells the story: ''Now the whole world had one language and a common speech...They said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.'''
The Lord's reaction to this was not favorable. The attempt to reach God by their own efforts, combined with their refusal to spread throughout the earth as God had prescribed, was setting the stage for a humanly-unopposable, rebellious rule that would bode ill for people. As the Lord expressed it, ''If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their langguage so that they will not understand each other.'' In response, God established multiple, competing people groups, the corrolary of which--warfare between them--Jesus calls necessary for the preservation of human civilization. How predictable, then, that in the last days men will fall under the authority of a single, totalitarian rule.
The threat of overthrow from outside forces compels a ruler to maintain the allegiance of his people by assuring them that his continued rule is in their best interest. When that breaks down, so does a nation; when the nation breaks down, she becomes vulnerable. The founding fathers of our great nation recognized the value that such a threat poses, as explained in the Declaration of Independence. The tyranny of the ruler, not maintaining the best interests of the governed, made him vulnerable to (and deserving of) opposition, and so the United States were formed. In this same spirit they established the Second Ammendment, ensuring not only the security of the citizens from outside forces but also preserving an internal threat should the leaders insist upon governing for their own benefit. It was this worldview that also ordered our government around the separation of powers, a 'non-violent' check upon the 'tyranny' of its constituent parts.
War is not an ultimate and unqualified evil, much to the contrary of many modern liberal sensibilities. In fact, when Jesus returns it will be to make war against his enemies. I, for one, would never call one of his actions evil. Much evil may happen in war, and certainly evil on the part of at least one party makes it necessary. But without this consequence of divided powers, we'd all be far less free, and our suffering would be far greater.