The Intended Role of Government
Romans 13:3-5
We're in Romans 13 and tonight as we look at verses three through five we'll
also look at comparisons in 1 Peter to see the intended role of government as
well as deal with some issues of what happens when government oversteps its
bounds. One of the things I want to impress on everyone is the importance of
the Biblical command to be submissive to government. Submission applies to
every sphere of authority. We talked about different spheres. A couple of weeks
back we went through all the different passages where the mandate to submit
occurs: wives being submissive to their husbands, slaves being submissive to
their masters, citizens being submissive to government and all of us being
submissive to God and all believers being submissive to one another. Whatever
applies in one area applies in another.
One reason I said that is that if you're in a situation and you think
about civil disobedience and civil issues such as we talked about the Cliven
Bundy issue that's getting headlines, you need to be aware. But there are a lot
of more important behind-the-scenes situations that we need to be aware of.
Some of these are very subtle and they may affect you. Remember in Genesis 3
we're told that the serpent was the most subtle of all the creatures. So
there's a subtlety to these that often you're almost entrapped in the situation
before you realize that you got sucked into a trap. So we have to learn to
think very clearly and we need to pray for a lot of discernment in different
issues.
There are circumstances that affect high school kids. In fact, I think the
younger you are, the more you come into some of these problems. If you're in
school, for example, this last week something happened I'm going to reference.
Just two days ago I heard on the news a local school district where a young
girl in the second grade was told she couldn't read her Bible. It was a reading
period. Pam immediately said, "That's just dead wrong. If it's a free
reading period, a child can read whatever they want to as long as it's
something they can read and something that may challenge them a little bit in
terms of their reading skill." This child was told she could not read her
Bible that she had brought to school to read during the reading period.
Immediately someone alerted the Liberty Institute, which is one of several
conservative constitutional groups that are out there doing excellent work
defending people's First Amendment rights. They immediately had a discussion
with the administration in the Cy-Fair school district and they were very
responsive to what the Liberty Institute lawyers were informing them about.
A lot of this happens, especially in Texas not because we have an
anti-Christian culture but that a lot of teachers just aren't well informed as
to what role religion can have in the classroom and in public schools. They err
on the side of excessive caution and they just want to get everything out and
not have anything about religion there. That is not what the law says. So you
have to be educated and informed so you can take a stand for your
constitutional rights. That situation was immediately corrected but that is one
example of how we legitimately deal with assaults by authority. Unfortunately
some of these situations don't get resolved but according to the e-mail I
received from Liberty Institute nearly all of these situations do get resolved
in favor of the person who's trying to get their rights.
For example, there have been valedictorians who wanted to reference the
Bible in their valedictorian speech. A case that occurred over in Jasper or
somewhere in East Texas where the high school had a Bible verse on a banner.
The students had been using this. They got challenged by one of these antibody,
antichurch, anti-religion organizations and that got resolved in their favor
although part of it is still in court. So we have to understand what our rights
are and what the avenues are that are available to us when we believe that we
are becoming a victim in these areas.
It's not about physical armed resistance. There's something about the
conservative mindset that makes them immediately want to jump to 1776. I think there
are a lot of frustrated Revolutionary soldiers around masquerading as
conservatives today. But as I pointed out last time in terms of legal options
we've got a long way to go between where we are where some people think we are.
In some cases, like the Cliven Bundy situation I talked about last week, the
big problem there was the overreaching power of the federal government. As I
pointed out, Bundy is taking a very difficult legal position which I don't
think is a cause that should be generating a response but the fact that the
federal government came in with snipers and Special forces and all these other
tactical units and everything was totally unacceptable and totally unprovoked
response to this situation but legally the federal government probably may have
the stronger case.
I may comment some more on that. That's a moving target. As I pointed
out last time, when you're sitting on top of a historically developing
situation it's very difficult to do good analysis because you're not always
sure you have all the facts. That's definitely a moving target. There have been
other things revealed since last week and so on but if you're going to go and
make a case against unacceptable or illegal federal incursion on state power
you need to make sure that the case you're dealing with is right and you've got
legal strength on your side.
For example, you'll be reading about a situation with land on the
Texas/Oklahoma border. This is a very different case than what's been going on
in Nevada. Both Governor Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott are on top of
the situation, giving us an example of what the Nevada state government and the
county sheriff in Clark County, Nevada should have been doing in terms of
protecting their citizens from an overreaching federal government.
So anyway, that's all I'm going to say about that this evening. We need
to get into the Word and continue to understand what the Scriptures teach. One
of the problems that we have in terms of where some evangelical teaching is
today is to take passages, such as Romans 13:1-7 as if there are no exceptions.
The passages in the Scripture that talk about submission, whether it's
submission in the home or elsewhere have exceptions. The Scriptures, as we'll see,
are filled with exceptions. One thing you should think about where you think
the federal government is mandating something and you don't think it's right
try to draw a parallel within the home. Try to draw a parallel between what's
going on there in the home because the idea of children submitting to parents
is there.
Sometimes parents are not always wise. See the Scripture says there are
two kinds of ways to talk about wrong. I can be foolish or unwise and I can ask
my children to do something that is foolish or unwise. That's not unbiblical,
immoral, or illegal. Foolish is not necessarily sinful, unwise, or a violation
of Scripture. It's foolish. It's not wise. There's a difference and it may not
be the best thing to do but it's not telling them or expecting them to do
something that violates what the Word of God says. We can think about drawing a
parallel between times when we as a parent may not be making the best decision
or the wisest course of action but we expect the family to obey and follow on.
And the family should obey and follow along because that's not one of the times
in the Scripture when we can disobey the authority. So as we look at how the
Scripture talks about obedience in one arena of authority, try to draw a
parallel to another arena of authority. Maybe that will help you with this
issue of submission.
Okay, as we look at the passage the first two verses of Romans 13 lay
out the point. In fact, Romans 13:5 comes back to repeat the principle of verse
1. The basic command is to "let every soul or person be subject to the
governing authorities." This is picked up in verse 5 when it says,
"Therefore you must be subject…" There's not an option there in terms
of submission to authority. I find that the way you understand if you're submissive
is if the person in authority, teacher, commanding officer, husband, or parent,
is asking you to do something you really don't want to do but it's not illegal,
immoral, or unbiblical but it's just something you think is stupid or you just
don't want to do and you fight it, you're not submissive. That's when we learn
if we're submissive when the person in authority is asking us to do something
we don't want to do and we fight it. That's when we discover that we're not
submissive.
It's real easy to be submissive when the people asking us to do
something we don't mind doing. It's when they're asking us to do something that
we really don't want to do or we really don't think it's in our best interests
that we find out whether we're really submissive or not. So submission isn't
obeying the authority because you think they're right or you agree with them or
it's comfortable with them, or you like what they're asking you to do. Those
qualifications aren't there. Why would someone tell you to be submissive when
someone is telling you to do things you want to do? You don't need to hear
that. That's an irrelevant command. Submission is only relevant if the
authority is asking you to do something you really don't want to do like pay
taxes. I thought I'd get a chuckle or two out of that.
Now as we look at the verses I want to focus on tonight, Romans 13:3-5
says, "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; 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. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath,
but also for conscience' sake." Now these three verses or at least verses
two and four are really a parentheses in the flow of Paul's thought.
The main idea is stated in verse one and repeated in verse five and in
between you have some general principles expressing an ideal situation, but
we'll get to that in a minute. So in the first command we're told to be subject
to governing authorities three times for "there's no authority except from
God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God." Now immediately
what comes to a lot of people's mind is whether that means that an unjust ruler
is appointed by God. Does that mean that Nero was appointed by God? Well, yes,
Nero was ruling when Paul was writing. Was Adolph Hitler an authority appointed
by God? Yes, he was. Was Stalin appointed by God? Yes, he was. There are no
exceptions here. Now some people want to bring their rational philosophy into
it but those are the people who don't accept the Scripture as their absolute
authority.
I'm going to give you examples of Scripture where God appointed leaders
who were not good and righteous and wonderful. As Romans 13:1 says that no one
can rule except God allows it, even Pilate. I pointed that out from a passage
in John 19 that when Jesus is talking to Pilate, Jesus pointed out that
Pilate's authority came from God. The authority to violate the law and execute
an innocent man is the authority and that came from God because there is no
authority that exists apart from God.
Habakkuk in the Old Testament had this problem. We don't have to turn to
it but the situation with Habakkuk is that he's a little bit self-righteous.
He's a prophet. And he's really concerned about the fact that the Jews in the
Southern Kingdom are really unrighteous. They're idolatrous. They're unfaithful
to God. They're disobedient to the law. They're immoral, unethical, and
self-centered. Habakkuk just wonders why God is not bringing a punishment on
these people. He points out that they are breaking the Law every day and it
seemed to him that God was just sitting in heaven and letting them get away
with it, year after year after year. He pleaded, "God, bring a punishment.
Judge these people."
In the first chapter God says, "Yes, I am going to judge
them." In Habakkuk 1:6-11 He gives Habakkuk a little lesson on how God
raises up rulers that aren't necessarily righteous and kind and good. In
Habakkuk 1:6 we read God saying, "For behold, I am raising up the
Chaldeans." God raised up Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan king that was not
righteous at all. A pagan king that was going to come in and slaughter hundreds
of thousands of Jews and take many who survived back as captives to Babylon.
And God told this to Habakkuk by telling him He was going to take care of the
situation by raising up the Chaldeans. Basically Habakkuk's reaction is going
to be, "God, how can you do that? They are worse than the Jews are. How in
the world can a just God raise up such an unholy people and use an unholy people
to accomplish His purposes?" And God tells Him it's because He's sovereign
that He can do that.
God puts so sometimes unjust rulers in place in order to bring
discipline upon their subjects because of their unfaithfulness to God and their
paganism, and because of their immorality. So God raises ungodly rulers and
puts them in place for certain reasons. Look at the description we have of the
Chaldeans in Habakkuk 1: 6-11, they're called a "bitter and hasty
nation". They're angry. They don't have righteous motivation. They're
terrible and dreadful. They're fiercer than the evening wolves. They all come
for violence. He commits offenses and he ascribes the power to his own god.
He's an idolater. He's terrible. Yet God raised up Nebuchadnezzar for this very
purpose.
We see this same kind of purpose later on in the book of Daniel. In
Daniel chapter 4 God is going to bring judgment upon Nebuchadnezzar who is
ruling one of the greatest empires of the ancient world and has become
excessively self-absorbed and arrogant. In the previous chapter he built an
enormous idol and mandated that everybody in the kingdom worship him. That
threatened the lives of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and we know the story
of the fiery furnace. So in Daniel 4 God warns Nebuchadnezzar that He's going
to judge him for his arrogance and teach him a lesson in humility.
In Daniel 4:17 as Daniel is giving the interpretation of the dream he
says the decision is by the decree of the watchers. That's a reference to
angels who are assigned to different empires and different territories.
"This sentence is by the decree of the {angelic} watchers and the decision
is a command of the holy ones, in order that the living may know that the Most
High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom He wishes and
sets over it the lowliest of men." God rules over the affairs of mankind.
He raises up rulers and He destroys rulers. You may not like the rulers that
he's raising up over you at any given point in time but then we're not privy to
all the reasons why. So God is in control of who rulers.
So back to Romans 13. We're to submit to the governing authorities
because they are God's ministers. One of the points I keep reiterating because
there's a tendency in some of the analysis of the passage here to try to make
the authorities relate to an abstract authority like the Constitution. But it's
not just talking about abstract authorities. It's talking about the people who
are holding the various authority offices. So in Romans 13:4 it says that the
one in the office is God's minister. I'm just going to say, "Fill in the
blank and realize that you can put whatever politician you want in that
sentence. Put the presidents or the vice-president's name in there. He is God's
minister over you." Don't squirm. That's what Paul is saying, and this is
the inerrant Word of God so we have to understand what Paul is talking about.
God has a reason.
It said in verse 2 that when we resist authority, we're resisting the
ordinance of God. This is one of the problems. When we resist the authority
that God has established in any way, we are resisting God. But remember when I
say "in any way" I don't mean that in an exclusive sense because
there are legitimate reasons we'll look at for genuine civil disobedience—disobedience
to any authority. We're going to look at some of the Biblical examples of that
later. The emphasis of Scripture is on submission. It's not on the exceptions.
But there are exceptions.
What we learn from this is that God has established government. Now I
have heard some people make some unguarded statements like "Government is
evil." In the sense "government is evil" government is an
abstract entity. But all government is not evil. God governs the universe. That
government is not evil. So government in principle cannot be evil: first, in
terms of divine government; secondly, because God instituted government in
human history as part of what we refer to as the divine institutions.
Now the Divine institutions are important to understand because God
established these as universal principles or social laws within the framework
of His creation. They were designed for the purpose of the preservation and
protection and stability of the human race. Three of these were instituted before
there was ever sin. So the first three are not related to controlling evil.
They are related to producing prosperity and happiness and stability. We've
gone through these many times before. The first is individual responsibility.
The second is marriage. And the third is family. All of these were instituted
even though there was no family. That doesn't mean it wasn't instituted prior
to the first conception and birth. It's instituted in the command to "be
fruitful and multiply" that God stated back in Genesis 1:26-28 and the
design for God's plan was for the human race to perpetuate itself before the
fall.
Now this is one of the reasons I don't believe that a lot of time went
by before the fall occurred. I don't think a lot of time occurred before Satan
fell. The only reason a lot of people want to insert a lot of time is that they
bought into some sort of evolutionary lie to begin with that there had to be
long periods of time at the beginning. So you have individual responsibility,
marriage, and family. Besides the hermeneutical blunder that you have to accept
if you think that when God told Adam and Eve to "be fruitful and
multiply" that it really didn't mean, "you can't do this until after
you sin". God says the same thing to the animals. No one puts an asterisk
there. You have to treat them as the same thing. When God said to be fruitful
it meant to get started. That's the impact of the grammar. It doesn't mean,
"Well, you can't really do it." Now it may not have been in God's
permissive will to allow it to fructify but that doesn't mean the command
wasn't to go into effect immediately.
There are a lot of us that would like to do a lot of things God
commanded. We would like to give a lot of money to support certain ministries.
But God has not given us permission by giving us the wealth needed in order to
do that. But that doesn't mean the command is irrelevant or isn't to be applied
if necessary. Just a lesson in total irrational logic to think that Adam and
Eve were told to do something that God really meant they weren't supposed to do
it when He said to do it but to wait until after you sin.
So then you have two more Divine institutions that are set up after the
fall. The first three are designed to promote productivity and advance
civilization and the last two are designed to restrain evil. Now the fourth one
is the one we're talking about: government. It's the establishment of judicial
authority. Someone once asked me how you could have government if you didn't
have nations. Easy. You have city government, county government, and state
government. There are all sorts of small social entities that have some form of
government. So that doesn't necessitate nations or nationalism.
So the fourth Divine institution was established by the covenant with
Noah where judicial authority to take the life of a human being who had
committed murder was delegated to the human race. It's the principle that if
the most significant or serious responsibility is delegated then all other
lesser judicial responsibilities are also delegated. And that God is the One
who oversees and is the authority to whom these national leaders are
responsible. This is seen in Psalm 82. "God stands in the congregation of
the mighty. He judges among the gods." Now the word there translated
"gods" is the word Elohim,
which as a term was often used to apply to rulers as it is in this passage.
Obviously God is not talking about other gods because there's only one God. The
term is used again down in Psalm 82:6, "I said, 'You are gods'…"
He is addressing these rulers. Why? Because He is delegating this
judicial responsibility that was previously His alone. He's delegating that to
human magistrates or human leaders. So in this passage we see that God is the
One who holds the political leaders accountable. In Romans 13:1 He judges among
these rulers. We see the criteria listed in verses Romans 13:2-5, talking about
how they are accused of judging unjustly so a judge should judge justly. He
should not show partiality to the wicked. He should defend the poor and the
fatherless and He should do justice to the afflicted and the needy. He
should not allow people to take advantage because of their power and wealth of
those who don't. Justice should be purely objectively and should apply equally
to those who have wealth and those who do not, those who are in need as well as
those who have great possessions.
In Romans 13:3 we're told, "For rulers are not a cause of fear for
good behavior, but for evil." Here Paul is explaining the principle or
what is the intended role of the ruler. The ruler is to not be a "terror
to good works" [NKJV] but is to be a terror to evil. He
is to bring order into society so that those who seek to do evil will not go
unpunished. Then Paul asks the question, "Do you want to have no fear of
authority? Do what is good…" How many times have we all [maybe there's
someone here who's so perfect] gone down the highway doing 80 in a 65 or 60 or
doing 90 in a 70 MPH speed zone? What are we doing? We
are watching everywhere to make sure there's not a speed trap somewhere where
we're going to get caught. But if we were going the speed limit, or in Texas
what we call the "Texas ten", as long as we're not going more than
ten miles over the speed limit we're given a little grace so that if we're going
reasonably close to the speed limit we just don't think about it. You're not
worried about it. But if you're going somewhere in a hurry and you know you're
going through an area where there might be a speed trap you're going to be more
alert. If you're doing the right thing then you don't have to be afraid. If you
have a good record, you will have praise from the same.
A couple of years ago, true confession time, I was driving up to
Abilene. I usually go up about this time of year. I'll be going up in a couple
of weeks to go fishing and hang out with an old buddy of mine from college, ROTC from college, and we usually hunt or fish or shoot or
whatever. We just have a good time for a couple of days. I take off after
church on Sunday and I drive up there. But this time I got pulled over for
doing, I don't know, 80 something in a 75 zone. I wasn't watching it. So this
highway patrol pulled me over. He came up on the right side of the car.
This was back when if you had a CHL you still had to inform the officer if you had a
weapon in the car. It's almost like that joke that comes up. I put my hands on
the steering wheel and he said, "Where are you going?" I answered,
"Well I want to let you know that I have a CHL and I have a weapon in the
car. He said, "What do you have?" I said, "Well I've got a 9 mm
in the glove compartment." He said, "Okay, anything else?" I
said, "Yeah, I've got a 40SMW in the console." He kept asking
"You got anything else?" I said, "Yeah I've got an AR in the
trunk." "Anything else?" he asked. I answered, "Yeah,
there's a 45 in the backseat."
So after that he said, "Well I figured that. You've got an NRA cap
on and you've got your bumper stickers indicating that. So that's no
problem." He asked for my driver's license. He went to check and when he
came back he asked, "What do you do?" "I'm a pastor." I
learned that a long time ago, to play the pastor card. I told him this was my
weekend to go visit a friend from ROTC in college and
we're just going to hunt and fish." Well," he said, "You've got
a clean record. I don't want to mess it up. Just slow down and have a great
time." See, if you have a clean record then you will have praise from the
authority. So, that worked out very well and I breathed a sigh of relief and
drove on just a little bit slower.
So Romans 13:4 says, "For it [authority] is a minister of God to
you for good." It is the authority, whether local gendarme, local police
or sheriff's department, or whether it is the federal government, it's purpose
is to keep order and peace so we can go about our business so we can have
success and prosperity and we can do well in life's endeavor. This is one of
the reasons Paul says we're to pray for our government and rulers is to we can
have peace to go about the proclamation of the gospel and teaching God's word
without government interference. It's telling us that the authority, whatever
sphere it's in, is God's minister to you for good. That is their purpose.
Then he goes on to say, " 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." This means if you
break the law, if you're doing that which is illegal you should be afraid.
"He does not bear the sword for nothing" is a very important phrase
that Paul uses here because bearing the sword in vain indicates the power of
life and death. It indicates the government has the right to take life under
certain circumstances. This is a veiled reference to the right of capital
punishment that every government should have and should utilize. So once again
not only does the Old Testament teach about capital punishment but also it is
alluded to positively in the New Testament.
The word for avenger is the same word we saw back in Romans 12:19 and it
has to do with executing justice. It's not talking about personal
vindictiveness. It is to bring about a righteous judgment and enact the
sentence. So the authority is an avenger to execute wrath. Now wrath, as I keep
pointing out, doesn't have an emotive context. It has a judicial context. Wrath
is a term, a use of a hyperbole, in order to express the seriousness or the
extremity of the judgment.
Now as we look at this back in verse three we were asked if we wanted to
be unafraid of the authority. It's a singular noun. That means it's no longer
talking about authorities in an abstract sense. It's talking about the
individuals who hold that office. That's affirmed in verse 4 when it uses the word
minister, the individual in that office: that he has been appointed to that
individually by God.
Now the Scriptures mention various authorities using that same word to
describe their authority. It's used of Israel's high priest in Acts 23:5 in
relation to Paul's arrest in Jerusalem. It's used about those in charge of the
synagogue in Matthew 9:18 and 23 and Luke 8:41. It's used to describe the
members of the Sanhedrin. Remember these were people who brought unjust charges
against Jesus Christ so He would be executed. It's used of a judge in Luke
12:58. It's used of pagan officials in Acts 16:19 so even those who are not
Christian still have delegated authority from God. Also it's a term used of
demons in terms of their hierarchy of authority in several gospel passages like
Matthew 9:34, Matthew 12:24, Mark 3:22, and Luke 11:15.
Now in a parallel passage, echoing the same language and the same
thoughts that is here in Romans 13:3-4 we have the passage in 1 Peter 2:13-16.
It uses the same word HUPOTASSO. Peter says, "Submit yourselves
for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in
authority." Where Paul calls the authority the ordinance of God Peter
refers to it as the ordinance of man, every human institution. Why do we submit
to the ordinance of man? We do it for the Lord's sake. It may not feel good for
us. It may not be the right thing to do in our opinion, but we submit for the
Lord's sake.
That's the same rationale that Paul expresses when he talks about wives
submitting to their own husbands as unto the Lord. Husbands are to love their
wives as Christ loved the church. He always brings in this relationship to God
as a fundamental reason for why we are to relate to others the way we do. And
Peter goes on, "Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of
evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God
that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men."
I'm introducing some words we'll come back to. The higher magistrate is
the king and the lower magistrate are the lesser authorities, and the governor
delegates those who are sent by him. That would be not only the state
government but also county and city government. Their divinely authorized
purpose is to restrain evil and to praise those who are doing good. Doing good
here is being subordinate to the authorities over you, not being rabble-rousers
or troublemakers.
There's a place and a way to disagree. Remember, a right thing done in a
wrong way is wrong and unfortunately, too often, you get people who come up
with the wrong way to accomplish their goal. I think I've mentioned that when I
was in Kiev I was somewhat skeptical of what was happening down in Independence
Square when I first got there but as I learned more I realized that some of the
leaders of those who were demonstrating were really trying to do right, not
create property damage even though some took place. The most outstanding
example I saw was when the police were forced to evacuate a cultural building,
when the demonstrators went in, they took pictures of how the police had just
trashed the place and the demonstrators made a contract with the owners of the
building to pay rent and utilities while they occupied the building. They were
showing they were trying to be law-abiding citizens and they weren't just being
rebellious troublemakers for their own ends. I've learned that the acting
president of Ukraine is an evangelical Christian. I don't know anything more
than that. That's a broad term but that is certainly an interesting fact to be
aware of. So he's trying to do the right thing and he has some Biblical
background at least.
1 Peter 2:1-5 tells us this is God's will that by doing good you can put
to silence foolish men. Now in 1 Peter 2:18 we have a passage that talks about
some of the extent of obedience that we need to apply to governing authorities.
In 1 Peter 2:18 the issue is related to servants and master. "Servants, be
submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and
gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable." Listen to this. It's not
only because they're good and gentle or you like them or they're nice to you
but also to the harsh. The word there for the harsh is the Greek word SKOLIOS where we get the medical term scoliosis for someone
who has a medical condition where their spine is crooked or bent. So we could
translate that also as "those who are crooked or bent, those who are harsh
and dealing with you in an unjust manner." You think you're being mistreated,
maltreated, and they're being hard on you. Peter is saying not to just be
obedient to the ones who are nice. So this is important to understand that when
submission is mandated by Scripture there's not a qualification, other than
when it comes to those who are telling you to disobey Scripture.
There's a parallel in 1 Peter 3:1, "In the same way, you wives, be
submissive to your own husbands so that even if any {of them} are disobedient
to the Word, they may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives as
they observe your chaste and respectful behavior." Notice they're not even
believers. It's not telling you when you're to be disobedient to the Word. They
just are disobedient. They're unbelievers. They're immoral, amoral, unethical,
or whatever. Just because they are a loser doesn't give you justification to be
disobedient to them. There are reasons, perhaps, to not follow their authority
but that's not what's being covered here. Notice it doesn't say they will be
won by the conduct of their wives. They might be won by the conduct of their
wives. If their wife is a rebellious, cantankerous, resistant, whatever, I'll
tell you what. You're not going to win them.
Submissive doesn't mean you're a doormat. If you're an American woman
and you've heard doormat you've been brainwashed by the ERA, by the feminist movement in America. I've learned in
thirty years of being a pastor that when women hear the word "obey"
they think it means they're supposed to be a doormat. The only reason you think
that in the post-World War II generation is because you had the feminist
movement tell you that that's what that meant. But Biblically that doesn't mean
that. The most submissive man in the Bible is Moses. Was Moses a doormat? Not
at all. We started this section in Romans telling us not to be conformed to
this world and if you think being submissive is being a doormat you have let
the world dictate the meaning of that term to you. That is not what the
Biblical concept talks about.
It doesn't mean to be a weak, wimpy milquetoast woman. It doesn't. Not
at all. It doesn't mean to be a weak, wimpy, milquetoast man. It doesn't mean
to let people run all over you. It's not so much what a lot of people are
doing, it's how they're doing it. They don't know how to be assertive and stand
up for themselves without being nasty, arrogant, angry and self-centered. They
don't know how to do that. You have to learn how to do that and how to be firm
and strong but submissive at the same time. Those are not contradictive terms.
Look at the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the perfect example. He's
submissive to the unethical treatment He received before He went to the cross
but He never reacts. There's no anger, no sense of personal retribution or
bitterness that come out of His mouth. But He's certainly not a doormat. So we
have to rethink how we understand these terms. In fact, I think that a very
strong woman who understands biblically the concept can be an incredible
testimony to her husband. She's not going to let the guy roll over her but then
she's not going to be rebellious either.
Now Scripture talks about the fact that God uses and establishes unjust
rulers a lot of the time. That's one of the objections you often hear when you
teach about the fact God establishes the authority. People say, "Well,
that guy's not good. He's unjust. He's a liberal. He's a Marxist. He's not
really a constitutionalist." Was he duly elected? Yes. Was there fraud in
the election? Yes, but it doesn't matter because no one called him on it. It's
been legalized. "But I don't like it." So? This is the devil's world.
There are a lot of things we don't like. You have to grow up and get over it.
God uses unjust rulers. God raised up Assyria and Isaiah called Assyria
"the rod of God's anger." The Assyrians were arguably worse than the
Nazis. They loved to torture their enemies. They got great pleasure in seeing
how long they could torture an enemy before they would die. They tried to keep
them alive as long as possible. They were comparable to the Comanche Indians on
the High Plains. They loved that. Many of the Native Americans, the American
Indians, were so influenced by the demonic that it's just unbelievable. I think
that's one of the reasons God brought judgment. That's not politically correct
but if you go back and you study the cultures they were immersed in demonism,
in all kinds of occult and evil things.
Anyway, the Assyrians were like that but God raised up that evil power,
that evil empire, in order to execute His righteous judgment on the Northern
kingdom. Later on Isaiah called Cyrus, "His anointed." Now some
people think that because of that Cyrus must have been a believer. I don't
think so. The word "anointed" simply means, "appointed to a
task." God appointed Cyrus to a task. Cyrus when he became the emperor of
the Persian Empire issued a decree to allow the Jews to return to their native
homeland. That fit his policy. His policy was to send these people who had been
resettled under the Babylonians to send them back to their native territories
to rebuild the temples for their gods. This was not just in Jerusalem but many
other peoples so their gods could pray to his god to be merciful to Cyrus. So
he's not a believer but God appointed him to the task to be used by God to
restore the Jewish people back to their land. He did this in A.D. 538 sending the first group back under Zerubbabel to
reestablish their presence in the land God had given them. Jeremiah in Jeremiah
25:9 said that evil, wicked Nebuchadnezzar which had just astounded Habbakuk,
was God's servant.
Now a couple of interesting quotes about how to handle magistrates. This
is from Matthew Henry. I thought this was interesting because Matthew Henry is
one generation removed from the Puritans and the Presbyterians that beheaded
Charles I. He's in the generation, I believe, but he may have been a teenager
when the Glorious Revolution took place after Cromwell's Protectorate ended.
James II was installed as king, and then all of a sudden, all of the lords and earls
recognized that "Oops, we put this Roman Catholic in and he's worse than
we thought so let's figure out a way to get rid of him."
They had what was called the Glorious Revolution to bring in William of
Orange. So a lot of thought went in to the relationship of the people to the
king by Christian theologians and lawyers during the middle part of the 17th
century, the1600s. Matthew Henry is a Presbyterian pastor and he writes in
regard to Romans 13: "In the administration of public justice, the deterring
of quarrels, the protection of the innocent, the righting of the wrong, the
punishing of offenders, the preserving of national peace and order, that every
man may not do what is right in his own eyes." That's the theme of Judges.
You can't do what's right in your eyes. You have to submit to governing
authorities.
"In these things it is that magistrates act as God's
ministers." He certainly had experience with unjust magistrates. "As
the killing of an inferior magistrate while he is doing his duty is counted
treason against the prince." So the prince sends out some low level
bureaucrat to take up the taxes and you don't like him so you kill him, that's
considered an act of treason against the king. He uses that analogy. "So
the resisting of any magistrate in the discharge of these duties is the
resisting of an ordinance of God." A very clear statement that the
magistrate is God's minister to you for good so we are to be in obedience to
him.
Now the last verse I'm looking at is Romans 13:5, Therefore you must be
subject not only because of wrath but because of conscience sake." I'm
going to remember this because often I hear people arguing that the term wrath
of God is a term that indicates that God has emotion. This is a great use of
the term wrath in a judicial context in Romans where emotion is not present.
You don't want an emotional judge. You want a judge who is going to execute the
law and the term wrath is often used as a hyperbolic expression, which means an
exaggeration to show the full extent of the law is being applied. The fullest
extent of the penalty is being applied.
There are two motivations given here for why we want to be obedient.
First of all because we don't want to feel the full effects of the courtroom.
We don't want to feel the legal punishment brought against us but it's also for
conscience sake. As believers we have a conscience based on Scripture that
tells us what is right or wrong. We don't want to offend that conscience. James
says that once you start offending your conscience then you set up a precedent
where even if your conscience is wrong by violating your conscience you begin
to train yourself and rationalize disobedience to your set of norms and
standards. James 1 says that sets a precedent that when your conscience is right
you've already set a habit pattern of rationalizing disobedience. So you don't
want to violate your conscience. Your conscience tells you it's right to obey
the Word and the authorities so for those two reasons we want to obey
Scripture.
I'm going to stop here. I thought I would get to the point where we
could talk about what happens when the government is wrong. What happens when
the government is telling us to do things that are truly wrong, that violate
Scripture and violates God's express will? We'll come back to look at that next
time and we'll also bring in some other important features of that that have
been applied down through church history.