On the Nature of Government and Christian Submission

We might think we live in unique times but we don't. There is nothing new under the sun and that means that there is nothing new when it comes to figuring out how a Christian should respond to authority. Revolts are as old as the world itself and are rooted in our original sin. If it is, in fact, our primary problem, i.e., rebellion against God's authority, then it will manifest itself wherever it has opportunity to do so. Indeed, it will manifest itself even in the form of piety when we pit an exercise of God's authority through a human agent against God's authority itself. Conspiracy theories abound to justify defiance but would it really matter if they were all true? Because there seems to be a lot of confusion on the matter, I submit this teaching on the nature of government and Christian submission to those who have ears to hear.

The first place we need to start when looking at the nature of authority is at its source. According to the Bible, all understanding stems from what is called the "fear of God." It may have been said to you at one point that "fear" here means "respect." This is a complete falsehood. Our word for respect has more of a correspondence to the concept of honor in the Bible. The word "fear" actually means "fear," not respect, and this is a very important point. Fear is linked to any person or situation where one realizes he has no control. It is the thing outside of himself, outside of his control, that has control, and he therefore becomes afraid. The Bible tells us that the fear of God, i.e., the recognition that He has control and we do not, is the beginning of all wisdom. It is only when we realize that God has all of the say and we have none of it that we can begin to understand that the world around us is about God's glory and act in a manner that acknowledges that fact in everything that we do and say.

 

One might think that he is good so far. He recognizes that God has all of the control and we have none but there seems to be a fundamental disconnect when it comes to those to whom God delegates His control/authority. The very idea that one can pit a human authority against the authority of God implies that the human authority is a lesser authority and not the same authority. What I want to argue here is that the Bible teaches that the authority of magistrates/human governments is not a lesser authority, but one and the same authority as God’s. I do not mean by this that the government is God, of course, but rather that its authority is not something other than God’s authority. Paul makes this very claim in Romans 13:1 when he says οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἐξουσία εἰ μὴ ὑπὸ θεοῦ “because there is no authority if not by God.” So authority only exists as the authority of God. If not by God, there is no authority at all. Some will argue that ἐξουσία is a lesser, delegated authority, but this is not gained from the word. The word is used in places that refer to absolute authority, such as in Matthew 28:18. It simply refers to authority, and as Paul has argued, there is only one authority and that belongs to God. Paul means to say here, then, that all authority that is in place has God’s authority, and he makes this clear by saying that αἱ δὲ οὖσαι ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι εἰσίν “and the authorities which exist are established by God.” Hence, if anyone has authority, it is God’s authority which he or she wields and God has appointed that person to be so.

This brings us back the issue concerning the fear of God. Those who have authority have it from God and exercise an authority that is derived from God. Hence, the term “fear” is used when referring to human authorities (Rom 13:3-4, 7; Eph 5:33; 6:5; 1 Pet 2:18; 3:2), which themselves are connected to a fear of Christ and recognition of God’s authority (Rom 13:2; Eph 5:21; Col 5:22; 1 Pet 2:13, 17).

What this means is that a governing authority has the authority of God Himself, and to obey that authority is to obey God. To disobey that authority is to disobey God, and this authority is not one derived from the people under it but rather from God.

This latter point is very important. If the authority of an individual in government is derived from God and is described as something that one should be in fear of, then this means that it cannot be conferred upon or revoked by those who are under it. They have no control over whether an authority exercising the authority of God uses it correctly or incorrectly. The authority has power over the individual no matter what that individual desires.

Hence, the apostles argue that no one is really obeying a human authority but God and Christ by obeying those human authorities that have been set in place by them. Romans 13:2 tells us that “the person who resists such authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will incur condemnation.” Ephesians 5:22 states: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” Ephesians 6:5-8 states:

5 Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ, 6 not like those who do their work only when someone is watching—as people-pleasers—but as slaves of Christ doing the will of God from the heart. 7 Obey with enthusiasm, as obeying the Lord and not people, 8 because you know that each person, whether slave or free, if he does something good, this will be rewarded by the Lord.

1 Peter 2:13-14 command believers to “be subject to every human power for the Lord’s sake, whether to a king as supreme or to governors as those he commissions to punish wrongdoers and praise those who do good.”

Christians are not told to obey authorities because they are good people, because they stay in their lanes for why God set them up, because they are right in what they say, because they have the best of intentions, because they mean the people no harm. Instead, they are told to obey them because they represent God in their authority and their authority is God’s authority. Hence, Christians are to recognize this, realize they do not have control of who is over them or what is commanded, fear God and the authorities over them, and therefore, submit to God through them. Hence, it does not matter if all that is said of these authorities is true. They could be incompetent, inconsistent, wicked, conniving, conspiring to do harm, etc. All of this is irrelevant to whether they retain their authority and whether we should obey them in the fear of God.

Now, this is very important. It is often argued that we see exceptions from other Scriptures so these Scriptures must not be absolute. However, these Scriptures give no exception because there isn’t any exception. Christians are told to obey God. They obey God through the Scriptures, through the Church, and through the government. They are always obeying God. That is the point of obeying these means that carry His authority in them. Scripture cannot err by commanding one to disobey God, but the Church and government can. One’s husband can err by telling his wife to disobey God. One’s parents can err by telling one to disobey God. Hence, it is very important to understand that there are not exceptions because these texts are telling Christians to always obey God, whether through Scripture or through human agency. So there is no need to go off to other Scriptures, like Acts 5:28-29, since all of these texts already make it clear that one is to always obey God.

What this means is that human authorities always have God’s authority and have the right to command whatever they desire of their subjects. They simply don’t have the authority to tell people to disobey God because Christians are never really engaged in the act of obeying any human authority but rather always engaged in the act of obeying God’s. To undercut God’s authority, then, is to undercut their own and any need to obey them. However, even if an authority should command such a thing, this does not mean that they lose authority to command anything else that does not conflict with obeying God’s revealed will.

Parents do not lose the right to tell their children to wear a suit to church or to get out of the street because they may tell their children to lie. The children are only obeying the parents because they are obeying God, and since God tells us to tell the truth, they will obey God rather than man. So there is no exception. The commands to obey human authorities were always commands to obey God in everything and nothing more.

This is why these texts can say to wives under a human authority, “so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything (Eph 5:24)” or to children, “Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing in the Lord” (Col 3:20), or to slaves, “Slaves, obey your earthly masters in every respect (κατὰ πάντα  “according to all things” v. 22). Because they are always obeying God in all things they can obey their authorities in all things but the “all things” is understood to not be in conflict with what God has commanded believers to obey. Believers are not told to obey human authority, therefore, by any of these texts. They are told to obey God’s authority in all things through human authorities.

This means that one has no justification for disobeying a human authority unless that human authority has commanded him to disobey God’s authority. It does not even matter if the human authority uses or abuses its authority to reach beyond the boundaries for which that authority was given. This is why submission to God’s authority through human authorities is commanded even when those human authorities do not use their authority for the benefit of the people under them. In 1 Peter 2:18-23, we see those in authority who have not used it properly for the benefit of their subjects but rather in an abusive manner.

18 Slaves, be subject to your masters in all fear, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are σκολιοῖς “wicked/perverse/unjust/unfair.” 19 For this finds God’s favor, if because of conscience toward God someone endures hardships in suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it if you sin and are mistreated and endure it? But if you do good and suffer and so endure, this finds favor with God. 21 For to this you were called, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example for you to follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin nor was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was maligned, he did not answer back; when he suffered, he threatened no retaliation, but committed himself to God who judges justly.

Likewise, wives under husbands, who instead of washing their wives in the word as husbands were given their authority to do, and are disobedient to the word, are still told to submit to them (3:1-6).

Although some try to make the argument today that the Roman authority when Paul is writing is not that abusive, most scholars recognize two facts: (1) Paul mentions taxes here because there was much civil unrest about over-taxation in Rome at the time and many wanted to say the Roman government had no right to collect them. (2) Not only can the argument be made that Nero, the emperor at the time (Romans and 1 Peter were written under Nero) was a bad guy before he persecuted the Christians, the Christians were being mistreated and people in general oppressed by Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius before him. Peter and Paul are not unaware of the abuses of these human authorities or of the governments under them. The wicked priests in the Sanhedrin crucified the Son of God. How much more evil could you possibly get. If anyone was no longer worthy of their authority it would be that priesthood. Yet, the high priest functioned as a governor over Jerusalem since the time of the Maccabees and so was a ruler of the people. Hence, when Paul ignorantly speaks against the high priest after being unjustly hit in the face for proclaiming the truth, even breaking the law to do so (surely not the purpose of God in that government’s authority), Paul repents by saying, "Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written: 'Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people'" (Acts 23:5).

Rather than justify disobedience to these authorities who abuse their power, these texts challenge Christians to display their submission to God even when they are abused by their authorities as a picture of Christ and the gospel as well as an opportunity to silence those saying that Christians are rebels. Christians are to display that they are always obeying God, even when it is hard to do so under unjust authorities, and the display of that submission relates that submission to God both when they obey in all things not in conflict with God’s commands and when they do not obey human authorities when what is commanded does conflict.

A rebellious child is rebellious not because he is obedient to God but because he is a devil. A Christian child obeys God in all things and at all times, so that he is only in rebellion against human authority when God’s commands demand it. So also a wife or a slave or a citizen of a nation.

So herein is the point. All Christians are to obey God in all things and that means they are to obey human authorities, whether they overreach beyond the purposes for which they were made or not. They are to obey them because they are obeying God and the singular reason for not obeying them at any given time is to continue to obey God in all things. One under authority has no right to revoke the authority over them. He is merely obeying God by not obeying man in those cases. He has no right to revoke the authority of God that was given by God. He is to remain in fear, i.e., the recognition, of God’s authority through these human agencies, an authority not derived from its human subjects but from God. Hence, a human subject can never sit in judgment over a human authority. He must let God decide what must be obeyed and not obeyed through His revealed will. This means that the human in subjection to government authority has no right to decide when he will or will not obey it apart from what God has commanded that may be in conflict with that human authority. This means that one cannot simply say that the government is not doing its job or it is overreaching and therefore does not need to be obeyed. That is a judgment for God to carry out, not the human subject. Children do not get to tell their parents that putting a suit on to meet Aunt Sally is not a part of the job description for why God gave them authority. “What does putting a suit on have to do with being raised in the fear and admonition of the Lord?” they might argue. Yet, it is the very fear and admonition that is being secured in the obedience to human government. Likewise, a wife could argue that her husband’s command to clean the house has nothing to do with washing her in the Word and therefore she need not obey. But, again, this misunderstands that the very obedience he requires is a washing in what God has commanded in the Word. Hence, God brings about His sanctifying work in the Christians life and the exaltation of the gospel that will restrain the criminality of wicked men by even having His appointed authorities exercise His authority in areas for which He did not give it, even unjustly, not because God is pleased with injustice, but because He is pleased with the submission of His people even when it is a loss in this world for them to submit, even when it is inconvenient.

The real tyrant is the flesh of the Western Christian that has been programmed to be dogmatic in its rebellion against any authority that inconveniences it. It works hard to justify itself with every bad argument possible, using the type of biblical interpretation one would expect from a JW on the Trinity or a gay Christian on the homosexual passages of Scripture. Every verse taken out of context and twisted, every dissenting voice slandered as "not getting it," every irrelevant issue and grievance brought as a support beam, thought to be a cedar of Lebanon in the mind of its orator but nothing more than a broken reed once the weight of good exegesis is put upon it, any and everything to justify a defiance, not of human authority that commands something that makes it impossible for the Christian to continue to obey God, but of God's authority through human agents, who may use or abuse their authority but not in such a way so as to hinder obedience to God. Yet, all authority is established by God and he who resists authority resists the decree of God. The real evil, the real incompetence, the real inconsistency and conspiracy theory here is the same one that has existed from the beginning. Man does not want to submit to God. He wants to be God and he'll make every excuse in the book to be as pious as he can in being so.