Romans 13:1–7

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.

There is a kind of desperation that begins to grip a people ruled not by legislators, but by judges who declare the Constitution to mean what they say it means. This desperation leads to talk of desperate measures in a Christian Manifesto, in 1981,

“If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the Living God. If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the Living God, because then you are to obey it even when it tells you in is own way at that time to worship Caesar. And that point is exactly where the early Christians performed their acts of civil disobedience even when it cost them their lives. Christian Manifesto.” Francis Schaeffer

That government is best which governs least.” Thomas Jefferson—Henry David Thoreau
The disciples responded by disobeying the state, and this raises the question of civil disobedience. The very thought disturbs many people.

IV, chapter XX of Calvin’s Institutes is entitled “Civil Government.” “Obedience to man must not become disobedience to God.”

Sammuel Rutherford in Lex Rex, 1640, offered suggestions concerning illegitimate acts of the state. A ruler, he wrote, should not be deposed merely because he commits a single breach of the compact he has with the people. Only when the magistrate acts in such a way that the governing structure of the country is being destroyed—that is, when he is attacking the fundamental structure of society—is he to be relieved of his power and authority.

Millions of Christians in history and many around the world today have lived under civil authorities that forbid them to do what the Bible commands or that command them to do what the Bible forbids. This raises a problem for our understanding of Romans 13:1–7.

There Should be Good Reasons for Submission

1) The first overarching reason for submission and all others flow from is in verse 1b: “For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

2) The second reason for submission to civil authority is that they are there for our good. It is better that there is civil authority rather than everyone doing what is right in his own eyes.

3) The third reason for submission is that the civil authorities bear the sword, and if you don’t submit, they will punish you.

4) The fourth reason for submission is because of the moral law of God expressed in the words “right” and “wrong.” So if you go against the authority, beware lest your conscience condemn you for going against the moral law of God.

The moral law of God defines what government should call submission

Paul assumes that not submitting involves doing something that is wrong apart from whether it is forbidden by the state, and so your conscience will condemn you. Right and wrong do not equal submitting; right and wrong are what the state supports and punishes. The state does not define right and wrong,

The tension involved in submitting.

This brings us to the critical problem with our understanding of this text. Historically and biblically we know that civil authorities do not always reward the good and punish the bad. They often reward bad behavior and punish good behavior. We have seen that extreme currently with all the woke people and some BLM destroying property and nothing being done about it.

If you are a Christian living in China, North Korea, Viet Nam or several Islamic states, you are confronted with the question of civil disobedience daily. Just being an obedient Christian can be a breach of the civil law.

In America our history is defined by the way we have qualified Romans 13. The Declaration of Independence justified the abolition of British government over the colonies.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. To secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The roots of our constitution are grounded in the man-centered Deism of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Romans 13 says that governments derive their just powers from God.

I would say that democracy is the best kind of government to protect us from the tyrannical opposition to God that rules in every human heart apart from Christ.

However, the way to get there is not by denying the deity of Christ, putting God at a deistic distance and elevating man. However you understand the Declaration of Independence, one thing is clear: America’s very existence hinged on the way Romans 13 was or was not understood and obeyed.

It was similar a hundred years later with the Civil War. The issue was whether states must submit to the laws of the union, especially laws about slavery. It was similar again another hundred years later with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The issue was whether segregation laws were so morally wrong as to justify peaceful non-violent civil disobedience.

Our country is defined from the beginning until now by events and movements that have to come to terms with Romans 13 and the command to submit to the governing authorities.

Fleshing out disobedience

Samuel Rutherford’s work and the tradition it embodied had a great influence on the American Constitution, even though modern Americans have largely forgotten him and his influence. John Witherspoon, president of Princeton University, member of the Continental Congress, and one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, followed Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex directly.

Thomas Jefferson picked up his Christian teaching in secularized form from John Locke, the English philosopher who stressed

unalienable rights,

government by consent,

separation of powers, [and]

the right of revolution.

Writing on the same subject some time later, Dr. Schaeffer said this: Lex rex means “law is king”—a phrase that was absolutely earthshaking. Prior to that it had been rex lex, the king is law. In Lex Rex he [Rutherford] wrote that the law, and no one else, is king. Therefore, the heads of government are under the law, not a law unto themselves.

So wherever you live around the world, the issue of submitting to the governing authorities and the meaning of Romans 13 are important matters.

What is the evidence from the Bible that God sometimes approves of his people not submitting to the very authority he had put in place?

When is such civil disobedience right, and what should it look like?

How does such civil disobedience fit with Romans 13:1–7, and why are the statements about the goodness of government stated here with such unqualified absoluteness

If the Bible allows for civil disobedience sometimes as in Acts 5:28–29, then why does Paul speak the way he does in Romans 13?

Here are some Possible reasons why Paul spoke like this

Paul is probably writing knowing that it would probably be read by government officials as well as by the church in Rome. He also knows that this letter will find its way into Caesar’s household and into the hands of the civil authorities.

He wants them to understand two truths.

Christians are not out to overthrow the empire politically by claiming Jesus, and not Caesar, is Lord. Christians submit to laws and pay taxes and show respect and do good in the community. We are not revolutionaries against your throne.

It is a powerful statement that Caesar is not God. He is not absolute, he is not in control, God is in control. So the absoluteness of the statement may be designed make it clear that God is absolutely above Caesar. For Christians, God has put governments in place and submission should be our first impulse, but the government does not have the final say.

Civil authority must itself submit to the moral law of God. There is a right and wrong, but the Government does not create it. The Government is to conform to it

Paul seems to be concerned with our humility and self-denial and trust in Christ, than he is about our civil liberties. Maybe Paul risked being misunderstood on the side of submission because he saw pride as a danger to Christians more than government injustice.

Both civil liberties and social justice matter, but also personal faith, humility and self-denial. The main issue is not being treated justly in this world by civil authorities. The main issue is trusting Christ, being humble and denying ourselves for the glory of Christ and the good of others.

Subjection to God and Subjection to the State

Paul knows that civil authorities are not just a terror to bad conduct, but they can be a terror to good conduct sometimes.

They kill Christians, just like Jesus said they would, “You will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.… and some of you they will put to death” (Luke 21:12–16).

What is the evidence from the Bible that God sometimes approves of his people not submitting to the very authority he had put in place?

Acts 5:27–29 where Peter and the apostles say, “We must obey God rather than men.”

Daniel 6:6–10

Therefore King Darius signed the document and edict. When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem; and he got down upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. Daniel shows blatant disobedience.

Daniel 3:9–18

The case of Daniel’s friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, was slightly different. The decree was made that all should bow down before the king’s image. In other words, Daniel was forbidden to do a thing, and his friends were commanded to do a thing. They would not, blatant disobedience. This was civil disobedience on the basis of religious conscience. And for it they were thrown into the furnace.

Exodus 1:15–20

Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwifes … “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the birth stool, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” But the midwifes feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live … So God dealt well with the midwifes; and the people multiplied and grew very strong.

Queen Esther is honored for disobeying the law against unsolicited approach to the king. King Ahasuerus had decreed that Jews were to be annihilated young and old, women and children (Esther 3:13). Mordecai, Esther’s uncle asked Esther to intervene for the Jews to save their lives.
Esther’s response was to remind Mordecai that any unsolicited approach to the King was against the law. She could be killed (4:11–12),

Is it morally right to break the speed limit to rush a dying wife to the hospital?

Is it right to break into a neighbor’s house to put out a fire, or save a child?

Under what conditions, then, might civil disobedience be morally called for?

If the law commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands then you must break the law. But the problem with that simple guideline is that much of the civil disobedience in history has involved doing things that are not clearly commanded by God.

Some Christians have come to the point in history where they believed laws were so unjust and so evil, and political means of change had been frustrated so long, that peaceful, non-violent, civil disobedience seemed right.

What factors should help us decide if we should do that kind of civil disobedience?

What is the grievousness of the action sanctioned by law. Is it a traffic law that you think is dumb? Or is the law sanctioning killing?

What is the extent of the unjust law’s effect. Is it a person affected here or is it millions?

What is the potential of civil disobedience for clear and effective witness to the truth?

Is there a movement of the spirit of courage and conviction in God in people’s lives that indicates the time is right for this civil disobedience?

Non-Resistance and Active Love for Your Enemy

Matthew 5;38 You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your

This raises the question whether the non-resistance and compliance of verses 38–42 is always the best way to love others and do them good as in verses 43–48. Is passivity always the best way to do good?

The answer becomes more clear when we realize that in most situations of injustice or persecution we are not the only person being hurt.

Is love passive when it is not just your cheek that is being smacked but someone else’s—and repeatedly?

Or what about the command to give to the one who asks. Is it love to give your coat to a person who will use it to kill a baby?

And how do you go the extra mile (lovingly!) with a person who is taking you along to support bloodshed?

When love weighs the claims of justice and mercy among all the people involved, there can come a moment, when love may go beyond passive, compliant non-resistance and drive the money changers from the Temple (Mark 11:15).

What is the role of Christians in the political, governmental life, with a special focus on the complicating fact of increasing pluralism, as the world and all its views and religions comes to America?

What is clear in Romans 13 is that it does not matter whether a government exists because a king has appointed his son to rule, or a tribal chief has defeated his rivals, or a people have voted for their candidate—all authority is there because God put it there. Verse 1b: “There is no authority except from God.” And we know that includes bad authority because Pilate, the man who ordered Jesus crucified, was a bad authority, and Jesus said to his face in John 19:11, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”

So it doesn’t matter what human means brought the authority to power, and it doesn’t matter whether the power itself is just or unjust—this text says that God is behind all authority and that all authority has at least some claim on our submission.

The implication this has for America is that we are to be submissive to the governing authorities even if we ourselves, under God, are the ones who put them in place. And, as you know, there are two senses in which we did put the government in place and two senses in which we submit. First, the people established the constitution which, under God, is the foundation of our nation and governs us profoundly. The Constitution begins:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

So under God, the people ordained and established the constitution which now governs this country. Therefore, in America, submission to “governing authority” is first submission to a constitution. This has significant implications for the way the constitution is interpreted and applied—which is a weighty issue in American life at the present time. One implication is that a constitution (or a contract or a lease or a statute or a Bible) cannot have authority over us if we can make it mean whatever we want it to mean.

If you don’t believe that there are objective, original intentions of the authors of the Constitution that define and control its meaning, then you will give to it your own meaning, and that is the opposite of submission to it. So one great implication of saying that God calls us to submit to the Constitution (including its due process for amendment) is that it implies that the Constitution has a fixed, objective meaning.

As we have seen in the last several years and in the days to come, as appointments to the Supreme Court are put forward, we will be hearing much about how judges interpret the constitution. I am saying that implied in Romans 13 and in the Bible as a whole is the truth that documents can have authority no further than they have objective unchanging meaning. And the Constitution should have authority and therefore it should be interpreted according to the objective meaning given by the authors, along with all the proper applications of those meanings which the authors may not have foreseen.

The universality of the moral law is what makes it possible for a pluralistic society to agree on enough things to hold the nation together. There is no guarantee it will hold together, because there are always forces at work to obscure the moral law.

The scriptures shape our involvement in politics

We should use the Bible to guide us in what behaviors we seek to put into law. Behaviors revealed in Scripture are essential to the common good—essential to the survival of a society—should be aggressively commended by Christians for enactment as law by every means of persuasion possible—with both biblical arguments and natural arguments.

For the present controversy over the nature of marriage and whether it can be redefined as a relationship between two men or two women. Marriage between a man and a woman is so fundamental to the survival of society that Christians should work for its legal protection.

If someone says that we are legislating our morality we should respond: Laws protecting marriage are in the same category with laws protecting life and property and contracts. But no one complains that the prohibition of murder and stealing and perjury is the legislation of morality. So no one should complain that the protection of marriage is the legislation of
morality. Marriage between a man and a woman is a moral and natural reality so profoundly woven into fabric of human life and society that to undo it will probably be the undoing of our nation.

One of the most important teachings of the Bible on public life is that Christians do not use physical force to advance the kingdom of Christ. Therefore preaching and teaching the word of God are the most precious freedoms that Christians have in this world.

Christians are tolerant of other faiths not because there is no absolute truth or that all faiths are equally valuable, but because the one who is Absolute Truth, Jesus Christ, forbids the spread of his truth by the sword. Christian tolerance is the commitment that keeps lovers of competing faiths from killing each other. Christian tolerance is the principle that puts freedom above forced conversion, because it’s rooted in the conviction that forced conversion is no conversion at all.

Our desire is to preach Christ and in politics to work, more than anything else, for the freedom that secures the rights for all to persuade and preach and teach and publish and assemble.