The authority of the state
The authority of the state
This brings us to another perplexing question in seeking to relate the cross to the problem of evil, namely how Christians should regard the state and its authority. A careful study of Romans 13 should help us to avoid the extremes of divinizing it (pronouncing it always right) or demonizing it (pronouncing it always wrong). The Christian attitude to the state should rather be one of critical respect. Let me try to sum up Paul’s teaching here about the state’s authority under four heads relating to its origin, the purpose for which it has been given, the means by which it should be exercised and the recognition which it should be accorded. In each case a limitation is placed on the authority of the state.
First, the origin of its authority is God. ‘Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established’ (v. 1a). ‘The authorities that exist have been established by God’ (v. 1b). ‘Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted’ (v. 2). This perspective was already clear in the Old Testament.7 We are not to think of the functions of the state in terms of ‘authority’ only, however, but of ‘ministry’ too. For ‘the one in authority’ (which seems to be a generic reference which could include any state official from policeman to judge) ‘is God’s servant to do you good’ (v. 4a). Again, ‘he is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer’ (v. 4b). Yet again, the reason why we are to pay taxes is that the authorities are ‘God’s servants, who give their full time to governing’ (v. 6).
I confess that I find it extremely impressive that Paul writes of both the ‘authority’ and the ‘ministry’ of the state; that three times he affirms the state’s authority to be God’s authority; and that three times he describes the state and its ministers as God’s ministers, using two words (diakonos and leitourgos) which elsewhere he applied to his own ministry as apostle and evangelist, and even to the ministry of Christ.8 I do not think there is any way of wriggling out of this, for example by interpreting the paragraph as a grudging acquiescence in the realities of political power. No. In spite of the defects of Roman government, with which he was personally familiar, Paul emphatically declared its authority and ministry to be God’s. It is the divine origin of the state’s authority which makes Christian submission to it a matter of ‘conscience’ (v. 5).
Nevertheless, the fact that the state’s authority has been delegated to it by God, and is therefore not intrinsic but derived, means that it must never be absolutized. Worship is due to God alone, and to his Christ, who is the lord of all rule and authority (Eph. 1:21–22) and ‘the ruler of the kings of the earth’ (Rev. 1:5; cf. 19:16). The state must be respected as a divine institution; but to give it our blind, unqualified allegiance would be idolatry. The early Christians refused to call Caesar ‘lord’; that title belonged to Jesus alone.
Secondly, the purpose for which God has given authority to the state is in order both to reward (and so promote) good and to punish (and so restrain) evil. On the one hand, then, the state ‘commends’ (expresses its approbation of) those who do good (v. 3) – by the honours it bestows on its outstanding citizens – and exists to ‘do you good’ (v. 4). This phrase is not explained, but it surely covers all the social benefits of good government, preserving the peace, maintaining law and order, protecting human rights, promoting justice and caring for the needy. On the other hand, the state, as the minister of God and agent of his wrath, punishes wrongdoers (v. 4), bringing them to justice. Modern states tend to be better at the latter than the former. Their structures for law enforcement are more sophisticated than those for the positive encouragement of good citizenship by rewarding public service and philanthropy. Yet punishments and rewards go together. The apostle Peter also brackets them when, perhaps echoing Romans 13, and certainly writing after Christians had begun to suffer persecution in Rome, he affirms the same divine origin and constructive purpose of the state as ‘sent by God to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right’ (1 Pet. 2:14).
Nevertheless, the state’s double function requires a high degree of discernment. Only the good is to be rewarded, only the evil punished. There is no warrant here for the arbitrary distribution of favours or penalties. This is specially so in relation to law enforcement. In peacetime the innocent must be protected, and in wartime non-combatants must be guaranteed immunity. Police action is discriminate action, and the Bible consistently expresses its horror at the shedding of innocent blood. The same principle of discrimination is an essential aspect of the ‘just war’ theory. It is why all use of indiscriminate weapons (atomic, biological and chemical) and all indiscriminate use of conventional weapons (e.g. the saturation bombing of civilian cities) are outlawed by this text and deeply offensive to the Christian conscience.
Thirdly, the means by which the state’s authority is exercised must be as controlled as its purposes are discriminate. In order to protect the innocent and punish the guilty it is clearly necessary for coercion sometimes to be used. Authority implies power, although we have to distinguish between violence (the uncontrolled and unprincipled use of power) and force (its controlled and principled use to arrest evil-doers, hold them in custody, bring them to trial, and if convicted and sentenced oblige them to bear their punishment). The state’s authority may even extend to the judicial taking of life. For most commentators interpret the ‘sword’ which the state bears (v. 4) as the symbol not just of its general authority to punish, but of its specific authority either to inflict capital punishment or to wage war or both.9 Luther and Calvin argued that it was legitimate to extrapolate in this paragraph to include the ‘just war’, since the ‘evil-doers’ the state has authority to punish may be aggressors who threaten it from without, as well as criminals who threaten it from within.
Of course there are obvious differences between sentencing and punishing a criminal on the one hand, and declaring and waging war against an aggressor on the other. In particular, in warfare there is neither a judge nor a court. In declaring war a state is acting as judge in its own cause, since as yet no independent body exists to arbitrate in international disputes. And the set procedures and cool, dispassionate atmosphere of the lawcourt have no parallel on the battlefield. Nevertheless, as Professor Oliver O’Donovan has shown, the development of the ‘just war’ theory ‘represented a systematic attempt to interpret acts of war by analogy with acts of civil government’,10 and so to see them as belonging to ‘the context of the administration of justice’ and as subject to ‘the restraining standards of executive justice’.11 In fact, the more a conflict can be represented in terms of the quest for justice, the stronger will be the case for its legitimacy.
The state’s use of force, being strictly limited to the particular purpose for which it is given, must with equal strictness be limited to particular people, i.e. bringing criminals to justice. No possible excuse can be found in Romans 13 for the repressive measures of a police state. In all civilized nations both police and army have instructions to use ‘minimum necessary force’ – sufficient only to accomplish its task. In war force has to be controlled as well as discriminate. The Christian conscience protests against the appalling overkill capacity of current nuclear arsenals.
Fourthly, the due recognition of the state’s authority is laid down. Citizens are to ‘submit’ to the governing authorities because God has established them (v. 1). In consequence, those who ‘rebel’ against them are rebelling against God, and bring his judgment upon them (v. 2). It is necessary to ‘submit’, however, not only to avoid punishment but also to maintain a good conscience (v. 5). What, then, is included in our ‘submission’? Certainly we shall obey laws (1 Pet. 2:13) and pay taxes (v. 6). We shall also pray for rulers (1 Tim. 2:1–2). Example, taxes and prayer are three ways of encouraging the state to fulfil its God-given responsibilities. Whether we go further and suggest that due ‘submission’ will include co-operation, and even participation in the work of the state, is likely to depend on whether our ecclesiology is Lutheran, Reformed or Anabaptist. Speaking for myself, since the authority and ministry of the state are God’s, I can see no reason for avoiding, and every reason for sharing in, its God-appointed service.
Nevertheless, there must be limits to our submission. Although (in theory, according to God’s purpose) ‘rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong’ (v. 3), Paul knew that a Roman procurator had condemned Jesus to death, and he had himself on occasion been the victim of Roman injustice. So what should Christians do if the state misuses its God-given authority, perverts its God-given ministry and begins to promote evil and punish good? What if it ceases to be God’s minister and becomes the devil’s, persecutes the church instead of protecting it, and exercises a malevolent authority derived not from God but from the dragon (Rev. 13)? What then? We reply that Christians should still respect an evil state, much as children should respect bad parents, but meek submission is not required of them. The apostle gives no encouragement to totalitarian rule. We have a duty to criticize and protest, agitate and demonstrate, and even (in extreme situations) resist to the point of law-breaking disobedience. Civil disobedience is, in fact, a biblical concept honoured particularly by Daniel and his friends in the Old Testament and by the apostles Peter and John in the New.12 The principle is clear. Since the state’s authority has been given it by God, we must submit right up to the point where to obey the state would be to disobey God. At that point, if the state commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands, we disobey the state in order to obey God. As the apostles said to the Sanhedrin, ‘We must obey God rather than men!’13
If in extreme circumstances disobedience is permissible, is rebellion permissible too? Certainly the Christian tradition of the ‘just war’ has sometimes been extended to include the ‘just revolution’. But the same stringent conditions have been laid down for armed revolt as for war. These relate to justice (the need to overthrow a manifestly evil tyranny), restraint (last resort only, all other options having been exhausted), discrimination and control (in the use of force), proportion (the suffering caused must be less than that being endured), and confidence (a reasonable expectation of success). A conscientious application of these principles will make the drastic step of rebellion very rare.
Let me sum up the aspects and corresponding limitations of the state’s authority. Because its authority has been delegated to it by God, we must respect but not worship it. Because the purpose of its authority is to punish evil and promote goodness, it has no excuse for arbitrary government. To fulfil this purpose it may use coercion, but only minimum necessary force, not indiscriminate violence. We are to respect the state and its officials, giving them a discerning submission, not an uncritical subservience.