God & Gov't: Biblical Principles To Shape Our Practice
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Today we are taking a detour from our sequential study of Luke to discuss a doctrine that involves our submission to God by submitting to governing authorities. What led up to this is the episode in Luke 20 where the ruling Jews try to entrap Jesus with a question that would either get him in trouble with the people or put in in hot water politically (or so they thought). Instead, they were left to marvel at him and become silent when Jesus gave a simple answer that legitimizes governing authority (even taxation) as compatible with God’s rule over us, while still stating the supremacy of devotion to God.
He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
Now we’re going to go from there to other biblical texts to discuss the doctrinal issue of submission to human authority, particularly government. Although this a topical message, it is nonetheless aimed at allowing God’s word to speak for itself, so that we can set down some principles from God’s word that might help us be discerning in the situations of our lives.
Let’s begin by reading two texts from Jesus’ apostles that focus on the issue at hand: Turn to 1 Peter 2.
Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
Keep your finger or bookmark there and turn to Romans 13.
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 whoever 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 the one 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. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
So what I’m aiming to do is to set down some key principles from God’s word, most of them arise from these first two texts, but with some from other passages, as you will see. (I’ve tried to order these in a sort of systematic progression of thought, which I hope is helpful to us.)
1. Submission to human authority is commanded by the supreme authority, God.
1. Submission to human authority is commanded by the supreme authority, God.
-“Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution,” (1 Pt 2:13) and “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.” (Rom 13:1)
-The Apostles speak here with full authority from God. Their authority is given them for the church by our Lord Jesus Christ, who has “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Mt 28:18). What the Apostles have said to the churches we can take as God’s word for his people.
-Submission to human authority is a command from God. Human governments are not contrary to God’s rule, but a part of it. Rather than viewing government as God’s enemy, we are to see it as God’s agent. (We tend toward two extremes. One is to view government as God’s enemy and to always oppose it, and the other is to regard it too highly as if it will be man’s salvation and security. Only God can give salvation and security, which he does through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the institutions that he has created for our common good are not the basis of faith. God is.)
-Be subject/submit. What is submission? Submission is an attitude of yielding and surrender, which causes us to willingly follow the leadership of another. - *Submission is a matter of the heart behind behavior.*
2. Human authorities are God’s servants and subject to his authority.
2. Human authorities are God’s servants and subject to his authority.
(Even though many or most don’t even acknowledge God, that does not change his sovereignty.)
Rom 13:4a “[The ruler] is God’s servant for your good” & 13:6b “for the authorities are ministers of God” & 13:1b “For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”
-Even when they do not know it or strive to please God in this way, their purpose is to create order and to restrain wickedness in the world. (Rom 13:3-4 and 1 Peter 2:14)
-A government does not have to be godly (which none will ever be with sinners running it) to have the overall benefit of restraining wickedness and promoting ordered living. … or for us to submit to them.
-But, of course, evil laws do not honor God. (Keep that in mind as well as we continue.)
3. Christians submit to human authority as a means of submission to God.
3. Christians submit to human authority as a means of submission to God.
And we don’t get this backwards. We don’t worship a state-sanctioned deity or deities.
-For the believer, submission to human authorities is a means of submitting to God. (Rom 13:2 “Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”)
In other words, we aren’t doing this because the human is worthy but because God is worthy of our obedience. (The Roman emperors were godless and ruthless men.)
-Christian submission to government honors God and gives Christ’s enemies no excuse to abuse Christians aside from their own ignorance, foolishness, and hatred for God. (1 Pet 2:15 “For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”)
4. Christians are to pray that governing authorities will submit to God.
4. Christians are to pray that governing authorities will submit to God.
- that leaders might repent and put their faith in Jesus (1 Tim 2:4)
- that they will govern in such a way that allows us to lead peaceful and quiet lives of obedience to God (1 Tim 2:2).
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
We pray that God will transform their hearts, and that the decisions they make will somehow be influenced by God’s wisdom in order that our laws will honor him (thereby allowing Christians to live godly lives in peace).
5. Submission to government can include appealing to the law and participation in the process of governance.
5. Submission to government can include appealing to the law and participation in the process of governance.
(the law & proper institutional channels)
Allow me to give you three brief scriptural examples:
-See Daniel 1:8 where King Nebuchadnezzar decides to take some of the young captives from Israel and have them trained and prepared for his service in the future. He also commanded what they should eat, but apparently some of that would have violated Jewish law (either unclean animals or food sacrificed to idols, etc.).
But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.
Rather than immediately disobey, Daniel decided to appeal to the authorities first. He respectfully requested that he and his fellows Jews be allowed to follow a different diet. And God put compassion in the chief eunuch’s heart and gave Daniel wisdom to suggest a test that would keep the chief eunuch out of trouble (who was afraid the king would find them less healthy and endanger his own life). After the 10-day trial of Daniel and his friends eating vegetables and drinking water, God made it obvious in that short time that they were healthier. (God blessed them for honoring him.)
-Much later in the years of captivity, Nehemiah served as cupbearer to the Persian king Artaxerxes. When he heard about the condition of Jerusalem, he prayed a prayer of confession to God for the sins of Israel and then asked God to give him favor in the eyes of the King (Neh 1). And when this simple cupbearer requested of the King that he be allowed to return to rebuild the city of his ancestors, God made the King so favorable that he granted each request and more, sending letters to the regional rulers back home (with officers along to make it official) and materials for the rebuilding process (Neh 2)!
-In the NT, the Apostle Paul tells Timothy that Christians can expect persecution, but he’s not advocating that the rule of law is supposed to allow unjust persecution or that we should just take it lying down! Even as I mentioned last week, Paul used the rights of Roman citizenship more than once to draw attention to the illegitimacy of the way they were being treated (Acts 16:37, 22:25-27) and used proper legal channels as a means to advance the gospel in Rome before the highest authorities, even Caesar himself (Acts 25:10-11).
A final point to make here is that God used MANY people who feared him rightly within the institutions in place, whether or not the institutions themselves were ideal: Kings (like David & Josiah), priests (like Samuel and Zechariah, father of J the B), and slaves (like Daniel & Nehemiah and Esther).
6. We ought always to submit to human authority where doing so honors God.
6. We ought always to submit to human authority where doing so honors God.
NOTICE! In most cases, then, your conscience should be clear as you submit to government.
Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience.
(examples given in the following verses in Rom 13 = paying taxes (even though undoubtedly some is used in ways we disagree with), and showing respect and honor (even when the leader and his policies are less than honorable) - Please let me emphasize here, that whatever else might follow about the limits of submission to gov’t, I do not believe we have a single instance of God’s people disrespecting authority that is put forward as a good example, even when they might disobey (to honor God).
[repeat #5] Honoring the emperor (1 Pt 2:17) does not take precedence over fearing God and obeying his command. - In other words, Jesus says, pay taxes to Caesar bc you can do so with a clear conscience. But Jesus also says that your whole self belongs to God. It’s his likeness imprinted on you. Luke 20:24-25
“Show me a denarius. Whose likeness and inscription does it have?” They said, “Caesar’s.” He said to them, “Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
***
God’s people are to submit to human authority in order to honor God. - That leaves room for disobedience where we are asked by human authority to disobey or dishonor God. - Submissively obey the law commanded unless you are convinced that what they are asking you to do violates the word of God. And submissively obey the law commanded if your conscience is clear that you can do so and honor God.
Now this room for discernment as a believer carries with it an inherent danger concerning your conscience. - You cannot trust your conscience alone. What I mean is that your conscience, even as a one born again in the family of God by faith in Jesus Christ, is always being informed by three things, two of which cannot be trusted to honor God: the sinful flesh, worldly wisdom, and the Holy Spirit. The old nature still clinging to you until final glorification does not seek to honor God. Worldly wisdom is under the influence of the devil and certainly does not match God’s wisdom (cf. James 3:13-18). Both of these literally battle against the Holy Spirit.
So how can you know for sure then that you are listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit and not the other two? By searching and and submitting to the authority of God’s revealed word, which is inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet 1:21).
OK, how do we getting from ‘obey human authority’ to ‘unless you cannot do so and still honor God,’ because there isn’t a direct statement to that effect in the Bible? Now we look to biblical example to give us guidance.
Consider the Hebrew midwives in Ex 1 who would not kill the baby boys born to Israelites.
Look to the example of the Apostles in their own context:
So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.”
Later…
And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.
And there are there are other examples that are more subtle: The Apostle Paul escaped from the authorities once in a basket out a window! (Acts 9:25)
[repeat #6]
7. Where we must forego submission to human authority, we entrust ourselves to God’s care, knowing and accepting the earthly consequences for our actions.
7. Where we must forego submission to human authority, we entrust ourselves to God’s care, knowing and accepting the earthly consequences for our actions.
-Go back to the book of Daniel to see Daniel and the other young Jewish trio as examples. In chapter 3, the trio wasn’t looking for trouble but they were not going to obey a law that caused them to worship an idol (Neb’s golden image). Look at Daniel 3:8ff. ***
The kicker is that they were willing to sacrifice their lives to the fiery furnace rather than dishonor God.
-When Daniel was older (having now lived through Neb and King Belshazzar—of the fame of the writing on the wall, Dan 5), we find Daniel in chapter 6 serving under a new empire and emperor, Darius the Mede (5:31). Now because of God’s blessing on Daniel and his prominence under Darius, other leaders were jealous of Daniel. See Dan 6:4-5, then v. 10. He knew the new law was explicitly meant to damage him, and he pressed on with his prayer to God in the normal manner to show them that he didn’t fear man but God.
I don’t know that we can say with absolute confidence why Daniel did this. From what happens later with the level of sympathy and effort the King had toward trying to rescue Daniel from his own law (v. 14), it’s not unreasonable to think that Daniel might have gone to Darius to express the subterfuge of these other men before disobeying the law. But he chose not to do that here, and instead used this as a moment to display that he feared God and not man. - Daniel knew and was willing to suffer the consequences.
God chose to rescue those men in both cases to display his superiority as the Most High God, far above all the other false gods worshipped by these kings and peoples.
The Apostle Paul knew that appealing to Caesar might not end well for him, but he did it in order to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ before the highest human authority. It’s quite possible that Paul was delivered after his first set of trials there, but we believe it is likely that both he and Peter were ultimately tried and killed at the hands of Roman authority.
Why would we in some cases be willing to die at the hands of human authority in order to obey God? *** Luke 12:4-5
“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
The bottom line is to fear God.
If we will fear God first, we can be good citizens of nations and communities on earth while still focusing our primary allegiance and energy toward Christ and his kingdom.
If we will fear God first, we can be good citizens of nations and communities on earth while still focusing our primary allegiance and energy toward Christ and his kingdom.
Peter calls us strangers (foreigners, aliens) and sojourners with respect to this world because, as sons and daughters of God through faith in Christ, our higher citizenship is in heaven and our first allegiance is to the Lord Jesus.
And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
We can honor God and be active peace- and justice-promoting participants of earthly institutions. But we fear God above government, and our faith and hope are not in those institutions but in the God who is supreme over all, and who has made us his own through the precious blood and resurrection power of Jesus Christ our Lord and through regenerating work of his Holy Spirit.
PRAY
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Further Application and Discussion:
Can we and should we interact with one another and with others (further removed from us in Christian worldview) on political issues with kindness, civility, reasonableness, and grace? Support your answer from Scripture.
Where do we find the balance between activism and complacency in our involvement in politics?
ex. The right to free speech and free assembly and free worship greatly help us to be able to stay on the right side of human institution while following God’s command. Would we be foolish/selfish not to be actively involved in promoting and protecting such things, here and elsewhere?
ex. Protecting human life and safe-guarding against unnecessary suffering and wrongful treatment are things that we care about because our heavenly Father cares for every person he has made. We need those who will stand in the political ring and speak up for truth (seasoned with salt/grace).
Speaking of submission to government, what about civil disobedience for the purpose of encouraging our government to do what is right? - ex. Jim Crow laws and the movement that (Christian pastor) Martin Luther King, Jr. became the face of in Alabama
Discuss this statement: Never take dramatic action (or speak out forcefully) without careful research of all the facts and clear conviction that God is in favor of you taking this stance.
When participating in electing officials, do particular positions/stances matter more, or does character matter more? Or should both matter? Try to explain your thought-process with principles and examples from the Bible.
Discuss this statement: It is reasonable to conclude that our (American) constitution and form of governance (ordered liberty with checks and balances, the governed involved in their governance, etc.) came about from collaborative wisdom that was undergirded by a culture that had a respect for God’s word. But let’s not forget that our government is not on a par with God nor our constitution on a par with God’s word (the Bible). —> Therefore, patriotism to your country is more than team spirit (Go Branson Pirates, go KC Chiefs) but significantly less than devotion to God. We must not elevate our nation or any earthly leader as an idol. Our supreme aim must be to honor God in our hearts (desires and thoughts), in our speech, and in our behavior.