January 28th, 2007 Romans 13:1-7 (Part 2 of 3) "Submission to God, Submission to the State"

Last week, among other things, we talked about the fact that all authority comes from God and that every government that has ever existed in this world from ancient Mali to modern-day France is under his authority and sovereignty. We talked about the fact that Jesus is Lord over all the earth, even though we don’t yet see all things under his feet and sometimes it feels like the world is becoming more twisted and evil every day. And we talked about how Romans 13:1-7 has to read in the immediate context of chapter 12 and the end of chapter 13 (and we see immediately that the action of the state to carry out vengeance is DIRECTLY CONTRASTED with the action of the follower of Jesus, who is forbidden to exact vengeance on another. We looked at the context of the author of the letter’s life, as well as the context of the early church’s life, and centrally and primarily in the context of Jesus’ life. If we are called, compelled to understand God’s Word as followers of Jesus, it is ESSENTIAL that we don’t read the Bible like a series of quotes, disconnected from one another, and all having whatever meaning we choose to place on them.

And so, the message we get from the larger contexts we looked at last week is, quite simply, “Church in Rome, and Christians everywhere…live like good citizens. Pay your taxes and owed revenue. Be people of integrity. Don’t raise a ruckus just for the sake of raising a ruckus. BUT, and this is a HUGE BUT, don’t let that commitment tempt you to think this gospel, this global movement of reconciliation, isn’t revolutionary. So revolutionary, in fact, that if the government demands of you something that God has declared unfaithful, you MUST refuse to participate in this.”

Elaine walked up to me after worship, and said quite simply so me, “I’d like to say one thing, Nate. God is not a God of anarchy, but of order.” And her comment meshes well with what we’re looking at today, because what she said is true. Civil governments exist in the world to maintain order, and Paul says here in verses 1-4:

We don’t have to look far to see states in disorder in the world from a lack of central authority. Anarchy and mob rule is terrifying, not comforting. But I want to emphasize today that ultimately the governing authorities are secondary servants of God, part of the fallen powers in the world that God STILL can use for his purposes. Now, you may not believe me on this point, but when Paul says, “For there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God,” which authorities does he mean? (EVERY AUTHORITY!!!!)

One of the pitfalls that a citizen of ANY country can fall into is the belief that THEIR government came into power and exists because of the action of God, and therefore has God on its side. This is a terribly pitfall lots of folks in the world fall into…and to emphasize the inconsistency and the twisted nature of this idea, I’m going to give what we consider an extreme case here to show how this works.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany, he appealed to the economic need of the lower and middle classes, restructured the economy, rearmed the military, pursued an aggressive foreign policy, and began invading neighboring countries, many German citizens supported his action because they believed German interests were most important. Now the DISTINCT and TWISTED reality about the church in Germany at this time was NOT ONLY that a vast majority of “Christians” went along with Hitler, they actively served him and believed in him. How could they come to such a place? (was it because they’re German, and Germans are evil?)

(Ultimately, it was because they SO BELIEVED that Germany was right and that God was on their side that they shut their minds off and blindly followed into disgusting evil) There are several lessons that we could pull from that situation, but the most relevant for us today is the reality that when Paul talks about “the authorities that exist,” he’s not talking about the United States, he’s saying, whatever governing system you’re under is AN authority in a SYSTEM of multiple authorities.

And, as disgusting and terrible as it can sound, when Paul talks about the “authorities that exist,” if we lived in the 1930s and 40s, that includes Nazi Germany, and today includes the United States, France, Germany, South Africa, Iran, Russia, and others. I just want to establish this, so we don’t fall into the pitfall folks across the world can when we each read the Bible of thinking Paul’s just talking about OUR individual governments being King.

If you’re not convinced or downright disagree with me about this, I want to highlight something in the Old Testament that would have seemed SCANDALOUS to a good Israelite. We know that in the Old Testament, God worked centrally through the state of Israel, who were his “blessed” people meant to show the world the beauty of a life lived in submission to God’s purposes. But in the Old Testament, did God work ONLY through the state of Israel, and were they the only ones “blessed” by God?

Turn with me to Jeremiah 27

Now the situation here’s relatively simple. To give you a 30 second glimpse in a long time, the people of Israel were one kingdom under David and Solomon, but afterwards split into two kingdoms for a variety of reasons. After these splits, over a period of time, the people were terribly unfaithful to God, tempted to worship the Gods of neighboring nations, intermarried with pagans, valued wealth and comfort over faithfulness, and God sent prophet after prophet to the people to remind them of their unfaithfulness, of his patience, and of the consequences if they continued down the path they were on. As we read here today in Jeremiah, we are at the end of almost 350 years of the people of God sliding down a slippery slope of unfaithfulness, and God’s patience has been spent,

Jeremiah 27
“ Early in the reign of Zedekiah ^[a] son of Josiah king of Judah, this word came to Jeremiah from the LORD : 2 This is what the LORD said to me: "Make a yoke out of straps and crossbars and put it on your neck. 3 Then send word to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre and Sidon through the envoys who have come to Jerusalem to Zedekiah king of Judah. (All the nations of their known world) 4 Give them a message for their masters and say, 'This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "Tell this to your masters: 5 With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. 6 Now I will hand all your countries over to my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him. 7 All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him.

8 " ' "If, however, any nation or kingdom WILL NOT serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon or bow its neck under his yoke, I will punish that nation with the sword, famine and plague, declares the LORD, until I destroy it by his hand. 9 So do not listen to your prophets, your diviners, your interpreters of dreams, your mediums or your sorcerers who tell you, 'You will not serve the king of Babylon.' 10 They prophesy lies to you that will only serve to remove you far from your lands; I will banish you and you will perish. 11 But if any nation will bow its neck (SUBMIT) under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serve him, I will let that nation remain in its own land to till it and to live there, declares the LORD." ' "

Now THIS is SCANDALOUS stuff! God allowed the pagan nation, the mortal enemy of Israel, Babylon, to rule over them?! God called Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan king, his SERVANT?! The nation of Israel, the Promised Land, will be reduced to ruins, the people led off into slavery?! And the worst part, if Israel had fought against Babylon (which they did), they were fighting against God, who had blessed and was working most centrally through their enemy. And so they were led off into chains.

But the story doesn’t end there. Look at verse 7…remember when I mentioned last Sunday that there will always be a top dog in the world? What does verse 7 say?

(read Jeremiah 25: 12-14)

Seems like a double message, that God would use Assyria for his purposes, then turn around and judge them for their actions against the people of Israel, but that illustrates the central point here: God can use the fallenness of any government to work for his ultimate ends and purposes, and in his freedom and sovereignty judge them for their actions along the way And so, even though they’ve played a role in accomplishing his purposes, they are ultimately judged for THEIR unfaithfulness.

And this is a HUGE REALITY for us to be aware of as we read Romans 13, because Paul never declares the actions of the authorities to be MORALLY GOOD and ESPECIALLY does not DEMAND that we participate in their actions as followers of Jesus.

Instead, Paul quotes Psalm 44 just a bit earlier in the letter to the Romans 8:36, “‘For your sake, (God) we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’” Paul knows that civil authorities are not just a terror to bad conduct. They a terror to good conduct sometimes. They kill Christians, just like Jesus said they would, when he reminded his disciples, “They will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. This will result in your being witnesses to them. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me. 18But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life.”

This means that the Roman Christians and we today have to deal with the fact that civil governments exist. They’re imperfect, they’re open more reflective of prejudices, hatred, and fear than they are of justice, and they’re fallen. ALL OF THEM. Yet through all of this, God is using fallen, twisted people for his ends, to reconcile the world to himself. But that’s not all we have to hope for: we live differently in this age, we do not conform to the patterns of this world.

Many of Hitler’s acts were evil and unjust and twisted. Stalin killed 30 million of his own people. South Africa treated black people like second-class citizens by law until 1994. The United States dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities. We are taxed and must pay a portion of our revenues. Yes, we can be imprisoned for obeying God rather than man.

And yet we submit to the authorities out of reverence for God—not reverence for the ruler. God has stripped rulers of their final authority. That's what verse one means. The authorities are not God. God is God. “Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution” (1 Peter 2:13).

All of this is ROOTED in the reality that the primary and central and life-defining citizenship we carry as the people of God is what we pay attention to first and foremost. The church does not exist to serve America, or Germany, or Britain, or Iraq…it exists with the vision and the mission of a model society, a global people. We can talk about lots of things, and there are a LOT of things that aren’t black and white, truth and lie, things that we face in this life, but one thing we can count on is that when we place our lives under the lordship of Jesus, every other commitment in our life becomes vastly secondary to it; and if we fail to do this, if we fail to be God-centered, Christ-exalting, faithfulness-pursuing people first, and centrally when we dare to call ourselves Christians, the most fearful and convicting and awful and piercing moment will come when we stand before the judgment seat of Christ. God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and quick in love, but he WILL NOT settle for second place in our lives. He cares SO DEEPLY about our rebellion as human beings that he will not hold back his wrath for our failure to care about him and line our lives up with his desires. Now THAT’S NOT a touchy-feely reality, but it IS reality.

To follow Jesus will COST us something. Christians are ultimately aliens and exiles in in every government in the world they are a part of; because Jesus is our King, and no human authority is above him.

So this is the hard reality: An infinitely powerful and sovereign God is to work at the same time through the sufferings of his committed disciples who return good for evil AND through the wrathful vengeance of civil authorities who punish evil with evil.

Next Sunday we’re going to investigate the last element of our look at Romans 13 by walking through the reality that we do live in a society where we have relatively more freedom that in other societies to impact things; and sometimes that means standing up for what we believe in in the interest of changing the law, or at the very least letting the world know what we care about. This affects stances on abortion, pacifism, marriage, and other issues, and I want this to be very conversational next Sunday, because there is a need sometimes for cooperative civil disobedience to reach a goal of justice.