21. Our relationship to the state: conscientious citizenship
In Romans 12 Paul has developed our four basic Christian relationships, namely to God (1–2), to ourselves (3–8), to one another (9–16) and to our enemies (17–21). In Romans 13 he develops three more: to the state (conscientious citizenship, 1–7), to the law (neighbour-love as its fulfilment, 8–10) and to the day of the Lord’s return (living in the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’, 11–14).
Before we go any further, however, we need to consider a debate which has divided theologians. It concerns the identity of the authorities (exousiai) of verse 1. It has been argued by some (beginning, it seems, with Martin Dibelius in 1909) that there is in exousiai a double reference, namely to the civil powers on the one hand and to cosmic forces on the other, which stand behind them and work through them. The chief proponent of this view has been Oscar Cullmann, whose case may be summarized as follows. First, Paul undoubtedly believed in, and frequently referred to, superhuman intelligences whom he names ‘principalities’, ‘powers’, ‘rulers’ and ‘authorities’. So these are the ‘authorities’ of Romans 13:1. Having been conquered and tamed by Christ, they have now ‘lost their evil character’, and they ‘stand under and within the lordship of Christ’. Second, it is ‘certain’, Cullmann writes, that in 1 Corinthians 2:8 ‘the rulers of this age’, who if they had known God’s wisdom ‘would not have crucified the Lord of glory’, were both ‘these invisible forces and powers’ and at the same time their ‘effective agents, namely, the earthly rulers, the Roman administrators of Palestine’. Third, if we come without prejudice to Romans 13, ‘it is by far the most natural thing to give to the plural exousiai no other sense than that which it always has for Paul, that is, the meaning of “angelic powers”’, although he was also plainly writing of the state ‘as the executive agent of angelic powers’. Indeed, these expressions (‘authorities’ and ‘powers’) were deliberately chosen, Cullmann believed, in order to make clear ‘the combined meaning’.
The majority of scholars have not been persuaded by these arguments, however. Three main obstacles stand in the way. First, although Paul clearly believed in cosmic principalities and powers, and although he wrote of their overthrow at the cross, he also wrote of their continuing opposition to God and his people. The New Testament ‘affords no evidence in support of the contention that hostile spiritual powers were re-commissioned, after being subdued, to a positive service of Christ’. Second, 1 Corinthians 2:8 cannot bear the weight Cullmann puts on it. ‘Nowhere else does the New Testament attribute the crucifixion to angelic beings’; it is always attributed to human rulers. Third, the meaning of exousiai in Romans 13 must be determined in the end by its context, and not by its very different use elsewhere. Here we are required to submit to these ‘authorities’. But nowhere else are Christian believers said to be under the principalities and powers. On the contrary, they are now under us because we are in Christ and they are under him. We conclude, therefore, that the phrase ‘the governing authorities’ in Romans 13:1 refers to the state, together with its official representatives.
Relations between church and state have been notoriously controversial throughout the Christian centuries. To oversimplify, four main models have been tried: Erastianism (the state controls the church), theocracy (the church controls the state), Constantinianism (the compromise in which the state favours the church and the church accommodates to the state in order to retain its favour) and partnership (church and state recognize and encourage each other’s distinct God-given responsibilities in a spirit of constructive collaboration). The fourth seems to accord best with Paul’s teaching in Romans 13.
That church and state have different roles, and that Christians have duties to both God and the state, was clearly implied in Jesus’ enigmatic phrase, ‘Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.’ Now Paul enlarges on the state’s God-appointed role and on the role of Christian people in relation to it, although his emphasis is on personal citizenship rather than on any particular theory of church–state relations. What he writes is especially remarkable when we recall that at that time there were no Christian authorities (global, regional or local). On the contrary, they were Roman or Jewish, and were therefore largely unfriendly and even hostile to the church. Yet Paul regarded them as having been established by God, who required Christians to submit to them and cooperate with them. He had inherited a long-standing tradition from the Old Testament that the Lord is sovereign over human kingdoms ‘and gives them to anyone he wishes’, and that by his wisdom ‘kings reign . . . [and] princes govern’.
It is conceivable that Paul was responding to those ‘constant disturbances’, as a result of which the Emperor Claudius had ‘ordered all Jews to leave Rome’, and which Suetonius said in his Life of Claudius had happened ‘at the instigation of Chrestus’. We lack information about the causes of this unrest. Did some Roman Christians regard submission to Rome as incompatible with the lordship of Christ or their freedom in Christ? It seems idle to speculate.
1. The authority of the state (13:1–3)
Paul begins with a clear command of universal application: Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities (1a). He then goes on to give the reason for this requirement. It is that the state’s authority is derived from God, which he affirms three times:
1. There is no authority except that which God has established (1b).
2. The authorities that exist have been established by God (1c).
3. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted (2a).
So the state is a divine institution with divine authority. Christians are not anarchists or subversives.
We need to be cautious, however, in our interpretation of Paul’s statements. He cannot be taken to mean that all the Caligulas, Herods, Neros and Domitians of New Testament times, and all the dictators of our times, were personally appointed by God, that God is responsible for their behaviour, or that their authority is in no circumstances to be resisted. Paul means rather that all human authority is derived from God’s authority, so that we can say to rulers what Jesus said to Pilate, ‘You would have no power [exousia, authority] over me if it were not given to you from above.’ Pilate misused his authority to condemn Jesus; nevertheless, the authority he used to do this had been delegated to him by God.
Having called for submission, Paul now warns against rebellion, since rebels are not only setting themselves against what God has instituted (2a), but in addition will bring judgment on themselves (2b). In consequence, it is both right and wise to submit. Paul explains the wisdom of it. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended (3). The statement that rulers commend those who do right and punish those who do wrong is not of course invariably true, as Paul knew perfectly well. Although he had himself experienced from procurators and centurions the benefits of Roman justice, he also knew about the miscarriage of justice in the condemnation of Jesus. And if all provincial courts were just, he would not have needed to appeal to Caesar. So, in depicting rulers in such a good light, as commending the right and opposing the wrong, he is stating the divine ideal, not the human reality.
Yet the requirement of submission and the warning of rebellion are expressed in universal terms. This is why they have constantly been misapplied by oppressive right-wing regimes, as if the Bible gave rulers permission to develop tyranny and to demand unconditional obedience. Commenting on verse 2 (whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted), Oscar Cullmann has written:
Few sayings in the New Testament have suffered as much misuse as this one. As soon as Christians, out of loyalty to the gospel of Jesus, offer resistance to a State’s totalitarian claim, the representatives of that State, or their collaborationist theological advisers, are accustomed to appeal to this saying of Paul, as if Christians are here commanded to endorse and thus to abet all the crimes of a totalitarian State.
But, as the context shows, ‘there can be no question here of an unconditional and uncritical subjection to any and every demand of the State’.
How can it be shown that Paul’s demand for submission is not absolute? Given that the authority of rulers is derived from God, what happens if they abuse it, if they reverse their God-given duty, commending those who do evil and punishing those who do good? Does the requirement to submit still stand in such a morally perverse situation? No. The principle is clear. We are to submit right up to the point where obedience to the state would entail disobedience to God. But if the state commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands, then our plain Christian duty is to resist, not to submit, to disobey the state in order to obey God. As Peter and the other apostles put it to the Sanhedrin: ‘We must obey God rather than human beings!’ This is the strict meaning of civil disobedience, namely disobeying a particular human law because it is contrary to God’s law. To trespass and organize a sit-in, or to obstruct the police in their duties, may also in some circumstances be justified, but it should be called ‘civil protest’ rather than ‘civil disobedience’, since in this case the laws which are being broken in order to publicize the protest are not themselves intrinsically evil.
Whenever laws are passed which contradict God’s law, civil disobedience becomes a Christian duty. There are notable examples of it in the Bible. When Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew midwives to kill the newborn boys, they refused to obey. ‘The midwives . . . feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.’ When King Nebuchadnezzar issued an edict that all his subjects must fall down and worship his golden image, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to obey. When King Darius made a decree that for thirty days nobody should pray ‘to any god or human being’ except himself, Daniel refused to obey. And when the Sanhedrin banned preaching in the name of Jesus, the apostles refused to obey. All these were heroic refusals, in spite of the threats which accompanied the edicts. In each case civil disobedience involved great personal risk, including possible loss of life. In each case its purpose was ‘to demonstrate their submissiveness to God, not their defiance of government’.
Further light is thrown on the ambivalent nature of the state’s authority when Romans 13 is compared with Revelation 13. Some thirty years have elapsed since Romans was written, and the systematic persecution of Christians has begun under the Emperor Domitian. Now the state is no longer seen as the servant of God, wielding his authority, but as the ally of the devil (pictured as a red dragon), who has given his authority to the persecuting state (pictured as a monster emerging out of the sea). In this way Revelation 13 is a satanic parody of Romans 13. Yet both are true. ‘According as the State remains within its limits or transgresses them, the Christian will describe it as the Servant of God or as the instrument of the Devil.’
To sum up, we are to submit to the state’s God-given authority, but it has been given for particular and not totalitarian purposes. ‘The gospel is equally hostile to tyranny and anarchy.’
2. The ministry of the state (13:4–7)
Paul makes it clear that the state’s authority is with a view to its ministry. Indeed, just as he has affirmed three times that the state has authority from God, so now he affirms three times that it has a ministry from God:
1. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good (4a).
2. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment . . . (4c).
3. The authorities are God’s servants (6).
These are significant statements. If we are seeking to develop a balanced biblical understanding of the state, central to it will be the truths that the state’s authority and ministry are both given to it by God. Moreover, in writing about the ministry of the state, Paul twice uses the very same word which he has used elsewhere of the ministers of the church, namely diakonoi (although the third time he uses leitourgoi, a term which usually meant ‘priests’ but could mean ‘public servants’). We have already noted, when considering the gifts of the Spirit, that diakonia is a general term which can embrace a wide variety of ministries. Those who serve the state as legislators, civil servants, magistrates, police, social workers or tax collectors are just as much ‘ministers of God’ as those who serve the church as pastors, teachers, evangelists or administrators.
What, then, is the ministry which God has entrusted to the state? It is concerned with good and evil, which is a recurring theme throughout Romans 12 and 13. Paul has already told us to detest what is evil and cling to what is good (12:9), to repay no-one evil for evil but rather to do public good (12:17), and not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good (12:21). Now he describes the role of the state in relation to good and evil. On the one hand, do what is right [to agathon, ‘good’] and you will be commended (3b), that is, you will have its approval. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good [4a, to agathon again]. On the other hand, if you do wrong [to kakon, ‘evil’], be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer [the one who practises to kakon, ‘evil’, 4b].
Here, then, are the complementary ministries of the state and its recognized representatives. ‘The one in authority is God’s servant for your good’ (4a) and ‘they are God’s servants . . . to bring punishment on the wrongdoer’ (4b). The same dual role is expressed in Peter’s first letter, that ‘governors . . . are sent by him [sc. the Emperor] to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right’. Thus the state’s functions are to promote and reward the good, and to restrain and punish the evil.
The restraint and punishment of evil are universally recognized as primary responsibilities of the state. Indeed (5), it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment [literally, ‘on account of God’s wrath’, i.e. in order to avoid it] but also as a matter of conscience [i.e. from a conscientious recognition of the state’s God-given role]. The apostle says nothing about what kinds of sanctions and penalties the state may employ, but he would almost certainly have endorsed the principle of using ‘minimum necessary force’ in order to arrest criminals and bring them to justice. He also writes that rulers do not bear the sword for no reason (4). Since the word for ‘sword’ (machaira) has occurred earlier in the letter to indicate death (8:35), and since it was used of execution, it seems clear that Paul means it here as a symbol of capital punishment. ‘The sword was carried habitually, if not by, then before the higher magistrates, and symbolized the power of life and death which they had in their hands.’ God had justified this to Noah as affirming the unique value of the life of his image-bearers. The taking of human life in murder is such a serious offence that it deserves the taking of the murderer’s life. Yet this does not seem to have been obligatory, since God himself protected Cain, the first murderer, from being killed. Because of its finality, the risk of an innocent person being executed in error, and the termination of the opportunity to respond to the gospel, many Christians believe that, at least whenever there are mitigating circumstances or any uncertainty, the death penalty should be commuted to a life sentence. Yet I think the state should retain its right to use ‘the sword’, in order to bear witness both to its solemn God-given authority and to the unique sanctity of human life.
When rulers punish wrongdoers, they are functioning as God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment upon them (4b). This expression is surely a deliberate reference to the command in the previous chapter that we should not take revenge but ‘leave room for God’s wrath’ (12:19), since justice belongs to him and he will punish evil. Now Paul explains one of the main ways in which he does so. God’s wrath, which one day will fall on the unrepentant (2:5), and is now seen in the breakdown of the social order (1:18ff.), also operates through the processes of law enforcement and the administration of justice. It is important to hold Romans 12:19 and 13:4 together. We human beings are not authorized as private individuals to take the law into our own hands and punish offenders. The punishment of evil is God’s prerogative, and during the present age he exercises it through the law courts.
In this distinction between the role of the state and that of the individual, we may perhaps say that individuals are to live according to love rather than justice, whereas the state operates according to justice rather than love. This is by no means a completely satisfactory formula, however, since it sets love and justice over against each other as if they are opposites and alternatives, whereas they do not exclude each other. Even in loving and serving our enemies, we should still be concerned for justice, and also remember that love seeks justice for the oppressed. And even in pronouncing sentence, judges should allow justice to be tempered by love, that is, mercy. For evil is not only to be punished; it is to be overcome (12:21).
The role of the state is not only to punish evil, however; it is also to promote and reward goodness. This was certainly the case in Paul’s day. Dr Bruce Winter has shown that from the fifth century bc to the second century ad there was a ‘long-established tradition’, well evidenced from both inscriptions and literary sources, ‘which guaranteed that benefactors would be publicly praised’ and appropriately rewarded. He also shows that Paul’s very words about ‘doing good’ in verses 3–4 occur in inscriptions relating to a public benefaction.
Yet this positive function of the state is much neglected today. The state tends to be better at punishing than at rewarding, better at enforcing the law than at fostering virtue and service. At the same time, although this is a controversial area, most governments acknowledge that they have a responsibility to preserve their society’s values (not least through their educational system) and to encourage citizens to share in their welfare programme by voluntary service. Most countries also have some arrangement for recognizing those of their citizens who have made a conspicuous contribution to the public good. They give them a citation or a certificate, a title, a decoration or some other token of appreciation. But they could probably improve and extend their award system, so that only outstanding merit is rewarded, and their honours become increasingly prized and coveted, like the international Nobel and Templeton awards. Perhaps citizens should be given stronger encouragement to recommend people from their community for public recognition.
Paul concludes his section on the state with a reference to the raising and paying of taxes. Taxation was widespread and varied in the ancient world, including a poll tax, land taxes, royalties on farm produce, and duty on imports and exports. Paul regarded this topic as an aspect of the ministry of the state. This is also why you pay taxes: it is because the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing (6), literally ‘to this very thing’, which in the context seems to mean not just tax collecting but the service of God in public life. Political parties differ over the scope of the state’s role in the nation’s life, and whether it should increase or lower taxation. All agree, however, that there are some services which the state must provide, that these have to be paid for, and that this makes taxes necessary. So Christians should accept their tax liability with good grace, paying what they owe in full, both national and local, direct and indirect, and also giving proper regard to the officials who collect and apply them. Give to everyone what you owe them: if you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour (7).
Paul gives us in these verses a very positive concept of the state. In consequence Christians who recognize that the state’s authority and ministry come from God will do more than tolerate it as if it were a necessary evil. Conscientious Christian citizens will submit to its authority, honour its representatives, pay its taxes and pray for its welfare. They will also encourage the state to fulfil its God-appointed role and, as they have opportunity, actively participate in its work.