Rulers are God’s ministers

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. — Romans 13:3-7 (NKJV)

Government keeps coming up in various of the replies to various of my postings, so I thought it might be a good thing to look at Romans 13, the main Scripture which most clearly looks at government from a clearly Christian point of view. And, what Saint Paul says is not popular in modern America. I suspect that this is why this particular passage is rarely quoted in modern Christian political discourse.

I hope that it is clear to you what government is not. According to Saint Paul, government is not merely a structure that exists at the will of the governed. Nor does it govern only with the consent of the people. Rather, government exists also at the will of God and governs also with His consent. Now, please notice that I did not deny that there is a role for the will of the governed and at the consent of the people. But, like so many things that come from our God, there is both a human and a divine aspect to government. What a surprise! He whose Son incarnated and took on human nature and who gives us the Holy Spirit, so that by grace we mimic what Our Lord Jesus is by nature, also made established governments that are composed of both human and divine aspects.

But, Saint Paul goes even farther. He says that rulers fulfill the role of being one of God’s ministers. That is, they administer both God’s wrath, but note that it also says that he is “God’s minister to you for good.” We may not limit government to only the suppression of evil doers, government also has a role in promoting the good.

But, some theologians have also argued that governments have an eschatological role. That is a fancy way of saying that they have a role related to the end times. 2 Thessalonians 2 says:

Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. . . . And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.

There are some theologians who argue that the man of lawlessness will take God’s place in government, and that what restrains the man of lawlessness until now is the fact that God restrains men through governments and limits their evil through those same governments. They argue that there will come the day when God will withdraw His hand from government and this will release the man of lawlessness, in fact it will release evil itself to do its work upon the Earth. [Note: I did not say I agree with that theology, but I am pointing out that there is an argument that assigns the concept of government to the end time itself.]

But, I will argue that the idea of government, in some type or another, existed from the Creation itself. The whole point of God’s asking Adam and Eve to name the animals was the beginning of government. Remember that government need not be elected, it may be inherited (think royalty). Adam and Eve “inherited” God’s rule in order to take care of the Creation under God’s guidance. That is, government actually predates the Fall. How do I know? Well, in Genesis 1 it says:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

So, where does this leave us so far? First, government comes from God. In fact, it predates the Creation. The Holy Trinity relates to each other in a governmental relationship. Read the Reformed theologians and you will find they thoroughly agree.

Second, no Christian should ever speak of government as though it were a purely human thing or as something that should be put down. We can argue about specific acts of particular governments. But, no Christian should ever imply that government itself is a problem. Government is both a gift of God and a reflection of the very relationships within the Trinity, in the same way that the Church and the family are also both reflections of the Trinity and of the relationships within the Trinity. Any attempts to picture the concept of government as somehow the enemy of the Church is mistaken.

But, we need to get a little more practical.

===MORE TO COME===