Obey the government….really, always? Romans 13.1-7

What is our responsibility to the government? Paul closed out Romans 12 with a list of the concrete ways we ought to love one another, and promote harmony within the family of God. Now he turns his attention to instruct Christians living under the rule of a secular government.

Paul writes: 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 he who 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 him 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; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay all of them their dues, taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. Romans 13.1-7

Having read the first several verses, one might think that Paul was writing to believers who lived and worshiped freely under fair-minded rulers. Wrong! When Paul wrote this, Nero was the emperor of Rome—Nero, who tortured Christians and even burned Christians at the stake for entertainment. So, as Paul suggested in our text, did/does God really institute all governments? And corrupt or not—are we to ‘be subject’ to these governments? Let’s unpack this passage.

Paul establishes five things: 1) All human authority is derived from God’s authority; 2) If one chooses to ignore the law of the land, there will be judgment/punishment, 3) and a guilty conscience; 4) As with all authority, if one submits to it, there is no cause to fear; 5) Pay your taxes… period.

Paul does not explain any situation where civil disobedience is the right course of action for the Christian, however, civil disobedience is condoned and praised by God several times in the Scripture. Consider the time of Moses, when the king of Egypt ordered midwives to kill all Hebrew male babies because the Jewish population was growing so large… the midwives were blessed by God for protecting the babies—an act of civil disobedience, right? (Exodus 1)

The book of Daniel describes two times when disobedience was the right course of action: first, when Nebuchadnezzar ordered citizens to bow down to the image of his god, and then when Darius forbade folks to pray to anyone but him for 30 days. Because Daniel obeyed God rather than these kings, there were consequences. The first resulted in Daniel being thrown into the fiery furnace, but God kept him from being burned alive; the second time, he was thrown into a den of hungry lions, who did not harm Daniel at all because God ‘closed the mouths of the lions’, protecting him again.

Disobedience to governing authorities is the correct course of action WHEN obedience or subjection to the law would mean disobedience to God. Thus, it was right for Daniel to refuse to bow to Nebuchadnezzar, and to disobey when commanded to pray not to God, but to Darius. Whenever laws are enacted which contradict God’s law, civil disobedience becomes a Christian duty.1

Now as for Paul’s writing to the church at Rome in about 56 or 57 A.D., what was taking place? Yes, Christians were persecuted and the government condoned that; but the larger story is amazing. The sheer size and power of the Roman Empire facilitated the spread of Christianity in several ways.

Both Jesus and Paul had been born during the era referred to as the pax romana—or Roman Peace. For nearly 200 years there was little military conflict within the empire, which allowed for freedom of movement, facilitated by the quality of thousands of miles of roads. Add to that, the common language was ‘koine’, vernacular Greek. Life wasn’t at all easy for Christians in and around the city of Rome; in fact, both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome. Nonetheless, the Gospel spread far and wide in the latter part of the first century. It is believed that by 312 A.D., one in ten people in the Roman world called themselves Christians.2

So, on the one hand, there was a corrupt, immoral, godless man at the helm, even so, God was at work.

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities…” Indeed, but man’s laws cannot supersede God’s law! Peter said it well, “we must obey God rather than men.”3

Christine Koski

1 John Stott, The Message of Romans

2 A History of Christianity, K.S. Latourette

3 Acts 5.28

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