Authority Ordained by God. Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13
The sin of disobedience to authority is a crucial sin, one that is emphasized as being a danger throughout Scripture; and the reason is because whenever any of us decides that an authority is unjust or unqualified then what we are basically doing is putting ourselves in a position of omniscience and a judge of somebody else. And what gives us the right to do that? Are there any conditions that give us that right? And this in many cases is something that is rather easy to do but in some cases it seems to get kind of muddy because of some of the circumstances. So the question arises: Is there ever a right to disobey divinely instituted authority.
If a young person grows up completely rebellious then they will always have serious problems in their life because they never learn to orient to authority. You have to be oriented to authority to learn anything or to succeed at anything, and all of us know that there are times in our life when we are under people who are not qualified to be in authority over us—maybe for a variety of different reasons.
In order to answer these questions we have to go to the Scriptures. We have two areas in the Scripture that we have to evaluate. First are the specific statements related to government authority that we have in the New Testament. These are given in Romans chapter thirteen and in 1 Peter chapter two. But there are some other passages that give us other ideas so that Romans 13 and 1 Peter 2 doesn't say all that there is to say about the believer's obedience to authority. There is the comment made by the Lord Jesus Christ such as He made asked about paying a tax and He said: "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and to God the things which are God's." He clearly recognized that there was a division of authority between things that were in the earthly political sphere and things that were in the spiritual sphere. Above all we have to look at these things in terms of biblical examples which are given in Scripture. There are numerous examples in Scripture of individual believers who disobeyed authorities that God set over them. When we look at some of them they are indeed troublesome for some people because they don't easily fit within certain political scenarios or preconceived ideas of social justice as it is set forth in different political philosophies today.
Authority is either going to be viewed as something that is generated within the creation or it is going to be something that is inherent within the ultimate reality outside of the creation. It is going to be one or the other; we don't really have another option. There are two systems in monotheism of viewing the ultimate Being of God. One is a Unitarian monotheism. This is exemplified most clearly in Islam. It means that there is one god who exists forever and ever and ever, all by himself, out there wherever Allah exists, without any companionship, without any other person or being; and he is all alone. Within that understanding of a strict Unitarian monotheism that god is not a social being—not interacting with other beings, he is all by himself. So when Allah creates he creates because he in some sense needs subjects. But ultimately within relationships of social beings there has to be love. Without love all you have is somebody who exercises brute force and brute authority that end up being nothing more than the whims of that authority. There is pure tyranny.
If that is your view of ultimate authority in Islam who do you think that is going to work itself if you are trying to be consistent with your ultimate view of reality? How are you going to structure society in terms of government or society in terms of family? Within the Islamic model there is this top-down model—Allah, the head of the family, head of the tribe, the chieftain, the head of the family (all males), and then there are the women. The women in Islam are really third class, fourth class beings; actually lower than the donkeys and the horses or whatever livestock they might have. This is consistent with that view of authority. Because ultimately in the universe is not a being who relates to others on the basis of love. The word "love" never ever appears anywhere in the Quran; there is no love within Allah.
But when we come over to the Hebrew Scriptures and the Scriptures of the New Testament we recognize that the God who is presented in both is the God who is inherently a God of love, a God who is not just some tyrant out there at the edge of the universe dictating to people, but He is a God who has personal, social relationships and is knowable by His creatures. In Genesis 2 when God creates Adam and Eve He appears to them and He talks to them. In Genesis 3 we learn that on a regular basis God came to talk with Adam and Eve; there was various social interaction going on. And there is never that social interaction in the Quran. That relates to authority because in Islam the conception of authority that is at the core of Islamic thought is just this kind of one-shot dictatorial, tyrannical mandates from on high. But that is not what we have in Scripture.
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Scripture certainly gives mandates but within His mandates are principles based on love. In the Mosaic Law man is to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and they are to love their neighbor as themselves. There is nothing like that in Islam. This is directly related to an understanding of authority. Authority without love is tyranny; love without authority is just mindless emotion and pseudo compassion. There has to be love. So when speaking of authority the God of the Bible is a God who is not talking about the same kind of thing that there is in Islam.
When we look at the Bible the man is the head of the home and the wife is created to be the helper, but not as a subordinate being as there is in Islam. The woman and the man are both created (according to Genesis 1:26, 27) in the image and likeness of God. There is no qualitative difference between man and woman. They are equal in being before God but they have distinct roles as outlined in the Scriptures, and within that there is an order of authority which is not a tyrannical authority even though there are those who have twisted what the Scripture says Because they can only hear it within a tyrannical kind of framework. For example, Ephesians 5:22 has the command that wives submit to their husbands as to the Lord. Then the last clause in the section says, Let the wife see that she respects her husband. These are parallel statements so that this last phrase is used in a synonymous parallelism to the word for submission. The verse that opens this section in Scripture says that we are to be submitting to one another in the fear of the Lord. It is not an authority battle, it is the idea of mutual respect but that one person is put in charge as the leader in the home and that is the husband, and the wife is to respect his leadership.
So when Paul says let every personsubmit to the higher authority he is stating the general universal principle and he is not stating that this is a principle without exception. There are numerous exceptions in Scripture. He is not saying that it doesn't matter who they are or what the situation is or what the conditions are that if somebody in authority tells you to do something no matter what it is you have to do it. It is not unlimited, but this is the general principle that is stated in Scripture: "Let every person submit to the higher authority." Why? Literally Paul says, "For there is no authority except under God." What he is establishing is the sovereignty of God, that God established and instituted all of the authorities in the universe, and He overrides and oversees all of them. There is no authority except by God. Romans 13:1 NASB "Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God…" Then the last clause says, "…[but] those which exist are established by God."
What is interesting is that in this verse authority is mentioned twice and both uses are nouns without a definite article. In English we see that clearly but in verse 2 there is a "the" before authority. That doesn't communicate well in English because the reason the article is put in front of the third use of "authority" in verse 2 it is called the article of previous reference. The article is put there in order to indicate to the reader that you are talking about the same authority you've just been talking about in verse 1. The reason there is no article put in front of the noun is because in Greek if you want to emphasize the quality and the universality of a word then you don't put the article in. It doesn't mean it is not definite, it means you are emphasizing something deferent.
What we learn from this is that every person is to submit to governing authorities, but there are limits to every authority. Secondly, we learn is that the term here is in the plural. So it applies not only to the ultimate authority in the land but it applies to every other authority designated by the Constitution in the land. Third, there is no authority except those authorized by God. There are two ways of understanding that. The first is in a general sense that God's sovereignty from the time of creation established the authority spheres. The second way to look at this is that this is talking about each specific authority that gets established in history. The reason for saying it is probably the first: that it is just establishing the fact that God in the past established or instituted these authorities is that the verb tasso [tassw] for those that are appointed is a perfect passive participle. A perfect participle means it is completed action; it is something that is done and finished in the past. It is not saying that God continues to appoint different authorities down through history. It is talking about authority, therefore, in the institution sense as established by God from the beginning. There is some indication from a parallel use of this phrase that this should preferably be translated "the authorities that exist are divine institutions"—not "are appointed by God." When we read that in the English—"these are appointed by God"—what is "appointed" in terms of its part of speech? In the English it is a verb, but in Greek it is a noun.
Now Paul is going to draw a specific conclusion. Romans 13:2 NASB "Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves." So again he is stating a principle. So "whoever resists authority" is antitasso [a )ntitassw]. He resists the ordinance of God, the diatage [diatagh]—meaning an injunction, and institution or an ordinance or commandment of God—so that whenever we are in disobedience to authority it is as if we are disobeying God. How can he say that? Again, take Ephesians chapter five. When Paul talks to the wives and says they are to submit to their husbands, how are they to do this? "As to the Lord." He is drawing a parallel. How ladies submit to their husbands says a lot about how they submit to the authority of God. How men submit to authority in their life also says just as much about how they submit to the authority of God. There is a parallel there. Men and women are to relate to one another as they relate to the Lord.
What Paul is saying here is a general principle again because verse one is a general principle about authority. Whenever anyone has a problem with authority he resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. If you disobey the law then the law is going to hit you, is basically what he says. There are some within the conservative political camp who want to take this passage and reinterpret it as if what Paul is saying is that this defines what government is suppose to be. Where they go with that is, if government doesn't do this then we are not responsible to obey that government and we can overcome that government. The problem with that is, if you are an unjust husband your wife then doesn't have the right to overthrow your authority.
So Paul lays down an other general principle. Romans 13:3 NASB "For rulers …" He starts this with a gar [gar] in the Greek, which indicates that he is continuing to explain a previous statement. That is why verses 1 and 2 have to be universal principles. When people come along and say what Paul is talking about here is specifics and if government doesn't live up to these specifics then we can throw them out. The problem that we have with that is that we have a real problem with David and Saul. Saul is God's anointed king of Israel. He is rebelling against God, he is disobedient to the Torah, he is killing his own citizens, massacred the priests at Nod, has personally tried to kill David on more than one occasion, and he is chasing David in order to arrest and kill him. When David could easily take his life in the cave he didn't, because even the very act of cutting the hem of Saul's garment was a sign of disrespect for his office. David recognized that he didn't have the right as a subject, no matter how abusive that authority is for him, to violate that authority and show disrespect for the office. "… are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil…." This is laying down their general purpose. It doesn't mean every ruler is going to be this way, but this is how God established the authority. "…Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same." He is laying down a principle here, he is not addressing every exception or possibility. [4] "for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil."
Romans 8:28 NASB "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to {His} purpose." A lot of people never hear "work together for." What they hear is "all things are good." The Scripture doesn't say that, it says "all things work together for good." Under the sovereign plan of God, God is able to weave together all of those bad decisions that people make to produce the end result which He desires, which is going to be good. When it is all over with we will look back and will see that.
The government is God's minister to you for good. That is their purpose—to provide order and discipline within a culture. And if you do evil, i.e. commit crimes, be afraid: "for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil." Bearing the sword is an idiom for having the right to take life (capital punishment). Romans 13:5 NASB "Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake." You have to do what your conscience says is right or wrong. [6] "For because of this you also pay taxes, for {rulers} are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing." The government has the right to impose taxes. The government is to serve God in the administration of the nation. [7] "Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax {is due;} custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor."
1 Peter 2:13 NASB "Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution [ktisis/ktisij, which has to do with creation of man], whether to a king as the one in authority." God established that authority. Even if you don't agree with that authority, submit to it as to the Lord. [14] "or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. [15] For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men." This ultimately has to do with our testimony, not only before the angels but before men. [16] "{Act} as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but {use it} as bondslaves of God. [17] Honor all people, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king."
With all we have in Romans chapter thirteen and 1 Peter chapter two we might think that what God is saying is that no matter what the government says we need to obey, even if they are genuinely unjust. But that is not what he is saying, and that is why we have to go to other passages and other examples to understand that there are qualifications and limits to government authority.