The Believer and Civil Government. Romams
13:1-7
Rom 13:1 Every person is
to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority
except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
Rom 13:2 Therefore whoever
resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed
will receive condemnation upon themselves.
Rom 13:3 For rulers are
not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no
fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same;
Rom 13:4 for it is a
minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it
does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger
who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.
Rom 13:5 Therefore it is
necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for
conscience’ sake.
Rom 13:6 For because of
this you also pay taxes, for {rulers} are servants of God, devoting themselves
to this very thing.
Rom 13:7 Render to all
what is due them: tax to whom tax {is due;} custom to whom custom; fear to whom
fear; honor to whom honor.
Points of review
1.
Civil government
was first instituted by God in the Noahic covenant, Genesis 9:5, 6 when God
ordained the sword for capital punishment for capital crimes (specifically
murder). There is no mention of the word “government” here, so how do we get
government out of this. If we are going to apply the principle we have to think
about this. If we are now responsible for taking the life of somebody who
commits this kind of act how do we go about adjudicating the decision? How do
we decide of a person is truly guilty? How do we decide if it was an accident
or intentional? Who is going to be given the authority within a society in
order to carry out this punishment? What kind of redress might there be in this
case for somebody who might be unjustly condemned? All of these things must be
taken into account if we are going to apply this principle.
2.
We must recognize
that civil government is part of what we call the divine institutions. These
are established by God. The term “divine institution” has been used by
Christians to speak of the absolute social structure that was established by
God and embedded within the social makeup of human beings. So in order for
human beings to realize their full potential as image bearers these
institutions must be followed. They are for the entire human race, believer and
unbelievers alike. When they are followed there can be a measure of success and
prosperity; when they are violated that society will eventually erode and
collapse from the inside. In contrast, modern paganism (and paganism throughout
history) has used these as simply byproducts of man’s psycho-social evolution;
they are viewed as cultural conventions: that God didn’t ordain or establish
marriage—marriage is something that people found to have a pragmatic value and
so it was developed or evolved along the way; that God did not establish
government, it is a convention that man developed. We have to understand that
there is a difference between an institution as we are using the word and a
convention. Human convention has to do with things that may differ from culture
to culture, country to country, language group to language group, because they
are developed by different peoples in order to carry out basic structures of
their society.
3.
There are five
divine institutions and three of them were established prior to the fall. That
is important to understand because they don’t have to do with sin; they weren’t
designed by God in order to somehow control sin. They were there is perfect
environment and so the first three divine institutions were designed for man’s
prosperity, his blessing and his growth. The first was individual
responsibility: each person is accountable to God for how he lives his life in
terms of the resources God has given him. The second was marriage which was to
be between one man and one woman. (The issue with homosexuality is that it is a
sin which attacks the very core of a successful society; it attacks the divine
institution of marriage) When the institution of marriage crumbles the family
crumbles and future generations suffer so that its society will implode as
these cancers eat away internally. Family is the third divine institution, it
is the core education system for providing for the next generation, for passing
values on from one generation to the next. These were all in place before the
fall. Then after the flood was the development of the fourth divine institution
which was human/civil government, the judicial aspect, and individual nations.
These come along after sin enter into human history. The purpose of the first
three, the pre-fall divine institutions, is to promote productivity and advance
civilization so that man can experience all of God’s blessing in his society in
a social sense. The post-fall divine institutions are designed to retrain and
inhibit evil which would destroy productivity and prosperity. Human government
and nations are designed to protect the human race from evil and tyranny, but
unfortunately living in a fallen world where these institutions are under the
direction of fallen human beings, human government is often perverted to do
just the opposite of what it was intended to do. Nevertheless it is an
institution that has been established by God.
4.
The problem that
we run into as Christians is when the authority of civil government conflicts
with the mandates and responsibilities that are assigned to us by God. The
problem is when the government specifically and directly contradicts what the
Bible directs us to do. So we are to understand how we are to respond and what
our attitude should be toward civil government.
The epistle to the Romans
was written by Paul, some say as early as 54 AD, which would be the same time
that Nero begins to reign as emperor, the last in the line from Augustus.
Romans chapter twelve is
the major dividing section in the book of Romans. Through Romans chapter eleven
we have more of a doctrinal discourse unpacking what God has done in our
salvation in order to satisfy His righteousness, and to provide us with
righteousness that we may live a righteous life. Starting in chapter twelve
Paul describes what that righteous life should look like, and that righteous
life is a life that is in submission to God’s authority. That is a key concept
that we find running through this section; we are to be subordinate to the
authority of God. Roman 12:1, 2 sets the theme for the section and chapter
thirteen addresses how the believer is going to relate to government in a way
that honors and glorifies God as part of our service to God. Under the overall
theme of being subordinate to God and living a life that is pleasing to Him,
demonstrating that His will is good, acceptable and perfect, it has a
particular application in the role or relationship of the believer to
government. We see this developed in Romans 13 in certain ways. We see the
words “evil” and “good” in the patter part of chapter 12 as well as 13:3, 4.
Another thing we note is that the idea of wrath which is an expression of God’s
judicial condemnation of unrighteousness is mention in both