Living by Faith - Romans

The State and God

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Living by Faith

Lesson: 52-64

Genre: Talk

Track: 052

Dictation Name: RR311ZA52

Location/Venue:

Year: ?

Let us worship God. This is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us. Having these promises, let us draw near to the throne of grace with true hearts in full assurance of faith. My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning oh Lord, in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up. Let us pray.

Unto Thee oh Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, we direct our prayers and we look up unto Thee. We beseech Thee our Father, to minister unto our every need. Be with our loved ones everywhere, and watch over them, heal the infirm and the sick, bless our children and prosper them to Thy glory, and guide us every step of the way that we should go. We thank Thee our Father that our times are in Thy hands, who doest all things well, and so we wait on Thee, that by Thy grace and mercy for us the best is yet to come because we are in Christ, we are in Thy hands who makest all things work together for good. Bless us now as we study Thy word, and grant that we may be made strong by Thy word and by Thy Spirit, in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Romans 13:1-5. Romans 13:1-5, and our subject: The State and God.

“13 Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:

4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.”

These verses are of course very controversial, and have over the centuries been the subject of intense debate and struggle between church and state. All too often these verses have been used to support an abject subservience to the state. But this should not be surprising to us, people use the Bible to support a great many things that the Bible is plainly against, such as homosexuality. Books have been published in recent years by pastors and priests claiming that the Bible is in favor of homosexuality. This is making black read white and white read black.

Two comments of a general sort are in order as we begin to study these verses. First of all, spies then as now, were commonplace, even more common in those days than they are in our life today. We encounter for example, spies sent to report on what Jesus was saying in Luke 20:25. Any writing that might come into unfriendly hands was open to misuse, and therefore anything a person wrote was always written with this awareness; it could be dangerous.

But second, despite this, Paul speaks out very plainly. Now, Nero was the emperor at the time; he does not give us his opinion of Nero, he does not comment on Nero’s administration, and his comments had he made them would have been of historical interest only, and not of great moment to us. However, what Paul does is to place every ruler, every civil government under the Triune God, and this radically altered the nature of politics.

Because in terms of the Roman view, religion was a branch of politics. This was true also of other pagan states; in Greece, ethics was a branch of politics, so that morality was what the political order said it was. But Paul says that rulers are the servants of God.

To understand this passage, let us first look at some key words. Earlier in verse 19 of the previous chapter, Paul says: “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” ‘Give place to wrath’ means allow the wrath of God, the vengeance of God, to work. Vengeance belongs to God, and for us to play God is wrong.

We are now told in verse 5 to be subject to rulers, not only for wrath, but for conscience sake. The Greek word wrath is ‘orge,’ ‘organ’ in this instance, and it refers not only to the feeling of wrath, but anger in action to bring about retribution. So when we are told to give place to wrath, we are told to give place to a process already in action, God’s vengeance upon sin. Now we may not live to see that in all its fullness, but it is an action.

We are required to believe in Gods justice, and to expect it, and to work for it. So wrath refers to God’s justice at work in history. Again, Paul uses the word ‘terror,’ ‘phobos’ which we have in phobia. It is a required fear, a religious fear that he is talking about, God centered. It is God’s order, and God’s restraint on sin that is at stake; terror, thus, as a ruler is required to produce, is a terror not against Godly men, but a terror that must be aroused in evil doers.

Then again, we are told that rulers bear the sword. Now again we have a very important word, a technical word. The word in Greek is ‘Machairan’ it means a short sword or dagger, something worn by all civil authorities. It was the thing worn by judges, by officials, by anyone who was given a position of authority by the emperor.

As Vincent tells us of this weapon, it was and I quote: “Borne as the symbol of the magistrate’s right to inflict capital punishment. Thus Ulpian: “They who rule whole provinces have the right of the sword.” The Emperor Trajan presented to a provincial governor, on starting for his province, a dagger, with the words, ‘For me. If I deserve it, in me.’”

Now of course Trajan, whose dates are something like 53 A.D. to 117 A.D. comes after Paul. But his words represent the best in the Roman legal tradition. The symbol of the sword as worn by the magistrate and by governors and other officials, represented both capital punishment and justice.

Moreover, Paul says, “ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.” ‘ye must needs’ can also be translated: “It is necessary.” So that, we are told, it is necessary that we recognize that God’s wrath is always operative, his vengeance, works, but also that we have a duty to be subject. This means to be confident in God’s vengeance, not in ours, and our conscience before God tells us that God’s judgement produces sure justice; and ours injustice when we act in independence from God.

Thus, Paul not only places civil government under God, but he implicitly and very surely requires civil government to comply with God’s law. This is clear from Paul’s references. He says civil government is ordained of God, as are all things; and like all things else must serve God. This same verse tells us that everyone is to be subject to the higher powers. This applies not only to our relationship to the state, it applies to our family relationship, our work relationship, and our relationship to God.

Both words, ‘ordained’ and ‘subject’ have reference to God’s established order. Both every man and every ruler is placed under that order with a duty to comply to it. Paul and the other apostles declare in Acts 5:29 “We ought to obey God rather than man.” And this applies equally to the subject and to the ruler, to the state and to the citizen. There are no exceptions to God’s law.

Now Paul is always intensely faithful to the Old Testament and to the Old Testament sacrificial system. The Old Testament sacrificial system makes clear that the greater the responsibility, the greater the culpability. Our Lord makes the same point, in Luke 12:48 He says: “But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.”

Now Paul tells us there is no power but of God, which is very blunt. It tells us that the state has no power except from God, and wherever God gives power He gives a law for its use. God is the author of order, not of anarchy; and Paul is here not approving of a specific ruler or a specific system of government, he is establishing the premise that all authority is under God, is duty bound to obey it, and must proceed in terms of God’s law.

But what about Paul therefore, when he says: “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” The word ‘damnation’ is literally ‘judgment.’ Resistance is a word that implies an across the boards, radical defiance of authority. Not a moral stand on a particular issue. In other words, what it says here, ‘anyone who refuses to pay any attention to government in any sphere, in the family, in the school, at work, in the state, anywhere, is resisting authority and is therefore condemned. They are resisting the ordinance of God.’ God has created all kinds of institutions that are natural to man, we have no right to try to overthrow them. But this, which applies to a general rebellion against the premise of authority, does not cover a moral stand on a particular issue; and this is what the apostles taught. Again and again, they resisted on a particular issue, they did not deny the fact of authority; only its misuse, morally, in a particular instance.

This point is a very critical one to understanding what Paul has to say. As Bartlett comments on this and I quote: “Mans law must be rooted in God’s law. A government that defies the laws of God is heading for disaster.”

Thus Paul does not require an unquestioning submission. He says we must accept authority; he is generalizing about all spheres, and so is saying: authority must exist in human life, and it must be respected. But authority must be faithful to God, and we must be faithful to God.

Paul wrote these words because there was a question in the minds of early Christians about the state. Should they ever obey the state? That was the big question that occurred to early Christians. After all, the state said that ‘Caesar was Lord.’ this was required as an act of submission, as an act to prove you were not a traitor, to say ‘Caesar is Lord.’ But the Christians refused; they said Jesus Christ is Lord. Should they then have nothing to do with Caesar? Paul says no. Within his place, Caesar has a function, but only within his place.

Caesar is a minister of God, he is the minister of God. The word ‘minister’ is ‘diakonis,’ our word deacon, it means a servant. So civil rulers are servants, not sovereigns. What Paul says is in line with the Old Testament teaching. All rulers are under God, and they must obey God or He will judge them.

One of the things that is distressing in some of the commentaries comes to light in Lensky, an outstanding Lutherans commentators, when he titles these verses in Romans: “The Christian in the secular world.” But this is turning what Paul says upside down; what Paul is talking about is the civil rulers, including Nero, under God in God’s world. So Paul never concedes that the world is a secular world or a pagan world, he is saying it is God’s world, and these people are in that world, and they have to be under God or take the consequences.

What Paul says is said again by the apostle John in Revelation 13:9-10. We read: “9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.” What is John saying? He is using the same word for sword, the sword of the magistrate. Alright, the magistrate who kills unjustly with the sword is going to be killed in due time.

“And he that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity.” Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Now this is the position of the whole of scripture, from Moses through John in Revelation. There is no doctrine here of passive submission, passive obedience. The comments of Hodge here are very telling when he writes and I quote: “All authority is of God. No man has any rightful power over other men, which is not derived from God. All human power is delegated and ministerial. This is true of parents, of magistrates, and of church officers.... It was his (Paul’s) object to lay down the simple principle, that magistrates are to be obeyed. The extent of this obedience is to be determined from the nature of the case. They are to be obeyed as magistrates, in the exercise of their lawful authority. When Paul commands wives to obey their husbands, they are required to obey them as husbands, not as masters, nor as kings; children are to obey their parents as parents, not as sovereigns; and so in every other case. This passage, therefore, affords a very slight foundation for the doctrine of passive obedience.”

And yet, it has so often been read to mean precisely that. One scholar, European, a Luthie, said that there are three points in this passage; first that all authority comes from God, second that authority is God’s servant to promote good and suppress evil, and third that every person must be subject to the civil rulers. But what he overlooks is that it is not merely persons that are under authority, but the state. This kind of view has warped the perspective of Protestantism too much. Luther took a monastic view and said and I quote: “The world is conquered and subjected in no better way than through content.” He was taking the perspective advocated by one great medieval document: The Contempt of the World. But that is not really the conquest of the world.

In verses 3 and 4, Paul defines the state: “For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”

Paul says very simply that first, the state is not God, it is God’s servant. Second, he says the state must be a terror to the evil, the wrath of God must be implemented by the state, which means that the state has no freedom to make its own laws or to seek independence of God. And third he says, if we do good we shall have praise of the same. This was once done in Rome, it was done in other ways in this country when the family got a break in the tax laws. That was the last trace of it in our country, and that is gone now. Those most taxed, those most regulated and governed, are the law abiding, the productive, the Godly.

I have said again and again that Paul was a good Israelite whose words always echoed the Old Testament. A fundamental premise of the Old Testament as set forth in Deuteronomy 17:15 is this: “Thou mayest not set a stranger over Thee which is not Thy brother.” In other words, no pagan as a ruler. The penalty for breaking the covenant was to be ruled by evil men, as Deuteronomy 28:14-68 tells us so powerfully.

Because obedience is grounded in conscience and in God’s wrath, God’s justice, Paul does not speak to us of a servile obedience or submission, but a regenerative obedience. We are to obey within the limits of God’s law, and to work for reconstruction. As Peter says in the first chapter, the thirteenth verse of his first epistle: “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man, for the Lord’s sake.” Not for the state’s sake. Now society reflects the nature and the character of men. If you have evil men you will have an evil society. The old proverb is still true: You cannot make a good omelet with bad eggs. But of course, this is what politics in our day, all over the world, is about. Taking bad eggs and making a good omelet, making the ideal social order. This is what revolutions have been about in the modern world, to take bad eggs and make a good omelet; and in fact to make a good, even a gourmet dish, with bad eggs. And the results are usually a worse social order.

But Paul places all men and institutions under God, including the state.

Saint Augustine in The City of God understood this well. He declared that all states without justice, that is, not under God, are like bands of robbers; and we would say in modern language, like a mafia. This is what he wrote: “Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, “What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet are styled emperor.”

We do not eliminate criminals by becoming criminals. The problem is the fallen nature of man, and the remedy must begin there. This means the just must live by faith. They must believe that the solution is not to imitate the ungodly, but to obey and apply the law of God, and to know that it is God’s order that alone shall prevail. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we give thanks unto Thee that Thou art on the throne, and that all the petty bands of robbers, mafias of our time, that call themselves republics and democracies and states, shall feel Thy wrath; shall know Thy vengeance and be shaken and shattered. Give us faith to give place to wrath, and to work in the knowledge that Thou hast begun a great and mighty work in this world; that Thy son our savior is king of kings and Lord of Lord’s, and it is His will and His kingdom that shall alone prevail. Give us grace always to move in this faith, in Jesus name, amen.

Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Otto Scott] John Knox really tipped the Christian revolution in Scotland by charging the rulers with having violated the law.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and he is not forgiven to this day for having told Queen Mary that; for having told her that she was a sinner, a very obvious fact, and that she was irresponsible. Years ago I read the account of that conversation. The one thing that came through was that he was very respectful, but he never flinched as to the truth. And again and again I have encountered people who say that they do not see how anyone can ever forgive John Knox for having been so unkind to Mary Queen of Scots. This tells you more about the person who talks and writes that way than it does about history. Yes?

[Audience Member] An interesting study was done about the Mayflower Compact that kind of relates to what you were saying about kingdoms and how they were set up with the priors and what have you, because apparently the Mayflower Compact was written in response to the possibility that because they were beyond the kings realm, they had to have some instrument of government in order to counter what the crew might do the passengers once they reached land. I can’t remember now who wrote the essay on it, but they were talking about the motivation of the Mayflower Compact and why it was written, and that until the Compact was drawn up there was no law in the area.

[Rushdoony] And we forget because they used a word that was modern then, compact, that what they were doing was to establish a covenant between themselves and together with God. It was a thoroughly Old Testament perspective.

Any other comments?

Well, if not, let us bow our heads in prayer.

Oh Lord our God, Thy word is truth, and Thy kingdom the eternal one. Make us every joyful that Thou hast called us to be Thy people and citizens of Christ’s realm. And now go in peace, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, bless you and keep you, guide and protect you, this day and always, amen.