The Divine Mandates For Government According To Romans 13:1-7, Part 1

 This coming Sunday I will preach a sermon based on Romans 13:1-7 that is titled, “Six Directives For The 2020 Election.” Since I am preaching only one sermon on this passage that is pregnant with significant points that Paul makes, there is much I must leave untouched. Because of that, I want to blog on the passage this week to give greater understanding as we go into Sunday’s sermon.

We will start by looking at the context.

1. CONTEXT.

Paul has just called upon Christians not to see themselves as the avengers against those who wrong them. In Romans 12:19a he writes: “Beloved, never avenge yourselves….” Instead, as Paul quotes Deuteronomy 32:35, he teaches Christians should recognize vengeance belongs to God: “…but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Rom. 12:19b-c). 

What Paul does in Romans 13:1-7, then, is to turn to a specific example of how God carries out vengeance in this world and so he is explaining to Christians they should not become vigilantes. This is seen with greater clarity when we zero in on verse 4 that speaks of government leaders: “For he is God’s servant…an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”. The word for “avenger” is ekdikos, a related word to “vengeance” (ekdikēsis) in 12:19. The avenger is the one who brings or accomplishes vengeance.

So, what we have in Romans 13:1-7 is an example of how God has ordered things in the world to function such that he carries out vengeance in the civil or political sphere through government leaders who are his servants. Paul is saying, then, that if we are to present our entire being to God in worship (12:1-2) and if we are to love those who are hard to love, when they are opposed to us (12:9-21) and in the way God desires, then we must place ourselves under the authority and leadership of government leaders and leave vengeance to them as God’s servants.

We should not miss from a look at the context that an implication is that advocating for godly and just government is an act of love toward others.

It is also helpful before moving on to highlight from the context of all Scripture that since God’s justice is his righteousness (his moral character) applied to the public arena (e.g. Ps. 82:3), those who represent him are to seek to carry out his justice, his righteousness applied to the public arena, as well. Such justice is to be “blind,” i.e. equitably applied no matter the person’s status in life and in light of what is true about the person (Ex. 23:1-4; Lev. 19:15; Prov. 24:23). In Proverbs 17:26 we learn that to punish the righteous is not good.

There would be an implied obligation for Christians to seek this kind of government as part of our righteousness lived out in love for others.

Now we will turn our attention to the main command in the passage. 

2. THE MAIN COMMAND. 13:1a

Paul writes: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” In other words, the citizen, especially the Christian citizen, is to place him/herself underneath the government, that is, as we see in verse three below, those authorities (and their laws and structures, as seen in 1 Peter 2:13) who are part of the government (cf. Lk. 12:58; 24:20; Acts 4:5, 8, 26; 1 Cor. 2:6, 8).

Note what Paul does not write. “The Bible never tells people always to obey every command of a secular civil government…. To ‘be subject’ to a government in general does not mean that one always must obey every command of that government.” (Wayne Grudem, Christian Ethics: An Introduction To Biblical Moral Reasoning, 189)  This will become much more apparent as we go on. In essence we learn here a similar principle to the sixth commandment: “You shall not murder.” The Bible teaches that we are not to take another human life unless we have just cause (defense, capital punishment, self-defense). The same is true with government submission. We are to submit unless we have just cause not to submit and thus to oppose and even remove a government or government leaders. 

Once Paul covers the main command, he turns in the bulk of his teaching to address the rationale for the command. We will turn to consider that rationale in our next post.