If you are a Christian who hasn’t given a lot of thought to Romans 13 over the last year and a half, then you are not a very thoughtful Christian. We have heard a lot about that chapter from numerous perspectives, and I am intrigued by the polarized opinions of it. On one end of the spectrum of interpretation we have, “you must obey the government no matter what;” and on the other end we have, “don’t worry about Romans 13, meet me at the Capitol.”
It’s More Serious than You Think
If ever there was a time for thoughtful conversation about one of the most relevant Scriptures in regard to the Christian’s relationship to the state, it’s now, and even more so a year and a half ago when the government locked people in their homes and forced them not to work or go to church.
I’m not being dramatic. If I went back in time to 2019 (we had no idea what a grand time we lived in) and told you what was about to happen, you never would have believed me. You might not believe me if I went back to 2013 and told you Donald Trump would be president—oh, and half the country believes he’s a Russian spy and a nazi and somehow also an extreme capitalist. That would be a different kind of unbelievable, but at least you would have the capacity to imagine a world where a very rich man gained enough influence to become president. That isn’t so outlandish.
In 2019, we had no capacity to understand what would take place in March of the next year. “Unprecedented,” indeed. We can understand government force, overreach, and tyranny. No problem there. What takes a stretch of our mental ability to understand would be people’s willingness to go along with it all. “You’re telling me that everyone will stay in their houses because the government told them to?” “You’re saying people will in some cases go months without working or earning an income?” “You’re saying the government is going to give us $1,000 every couple of months and that’s going to be enough?” “You’re saying this is all because of a germ that statistically kills nobody?”
What would be more unbelievable still to our 2019 sensibilities would be the church’s response to these things. To see almost every church close their doors to “love their neighbor” and in some cases still not be gathering halfway through 2021, would be unthinkable—to say the least. Most bizarre was seeing organizations like 9Marks and The Gospel Coalition, who were once champions of the necessity of local church membership, attendance, and the Lord’s Supper, write articles about how we should no longer do those things—and how great it is that we have the opportunity to show the world how loving we are by doing so! We saw a global event accomplished by rhetoric alone, that utilized inculcated phrases like “super spreader,” “grandma killer,” “shelter in place,” “self-quarantine,” and “stay home, stay safe,” but the rhetorical regime found its own abhorrent subculture within Christianity by using phrases like, “love your neighbor,” “obey the government,” and “be good witnesses.” Fantastic and undeniable truths of the Christian lifestyle if robbed of their context, but not applicable to the situation we found ourselves in at all.
An entire culture of people used to say that if the government outlawed Christianity, they would die for the cause. When the time came, hardly anyone had a quibble with it. Hopefully, we’ve already witnessed the closest thing to Christianity being outlawed, and we will never see it again. But let us never forget how quickly “I would go to jail for the Gospel,” devolved into “stay home and stay safe, everybody. We’re all in this together.”
This was all justified by pointing to the Bible’s commands to obey the ruling authorities, and the most notable place in Scripture where that is discussed is Romans 13. But there are a lot of questions left about how we should understand that chapter.
What Is Our Criteria?
For all this talk of Romans 13, I am left not thinking as much about the passage itself, as much as the criteria our interpretation of the passage should meet. Let me exhort you first and foremost that the command to obey the government is never going to infringe on the commands of God. In case we are once again tested on this in our lifetimes, that means that as soon as the government starts telling us not to go to church, the time has come to disobey.
I hope the depravity is not lost on you—the fact that for months on end the Church at large forsook the gathering of the brethren, did not partake in the Lord’s Supper, did not baptize new converts, and did not obey practically any of the “one another” verses in the New Testament, and all the while called it responsible and loving to their neighbor. Something is wrong with that. As soon as the state required the cessation of the gathered church, Romans 13 was off the table. We obey God and not men, and this was well understood until March of 2020 when it really mattered.
In addition to that, whatever your interpretation of Romans 13, it should probably be one that applies to the government and wouldn’t apply equally well to a street gang or the nazi regime. If war lords stormed our cities, took them over, and subjugated local Christians to death, destruction, and imprisonment, our response wouldn’t be, “obey your rulers.” Prior to 2020 I believed it wouldn’t have been. Having lived through 2020, I’m doubtful that such a resistance would ever manifest. I think it would be appropriate to flee, to disobey, to fight, and even to kill if such a reality came to fruition. The rule of such war lords should never be viewed as legitimate. But now we know that as long as they had the rhetoric to manipulate the Church into accepting their rule, they would succeed.
I Still Have Questions
That’s my biggest struggle with regard to how to interpret the Bible’s commands to obey the government. The government is just a street gang. It is just war lords. Governments rise to power in one of two ways: one, they are thugs who steal from, kill, and destroy every non-submissive yokel who dares to challenge their newfound rule, and after a few generations become known as the benevolent state who paves the roads and gives us welfare. The other way is for a group of powerful and influential people to be given the power willingly by democracy or pragmatism. We saw a blend of these two options at the dawn of this nation. The Red Coats, the Loyalists, and the native people of this land were all collateral damage in their conquest, and there were those who willingly submitted to the new government. But, “hocus pocus, you’re our new ruler,” or an elaborate voting system doesn’t make them any more legitimate than the street gang, and no one born since that generation has had the option to vote on or give consent to live under their reign.
In either case, the state is either just an idea—just people who generations ago were arbitrarily chosen to be this mystical priesthood of people who make laws and have a monopoly on violence—or it really is just a gang of thugs who imposes their will on the people. Here in the U.S., such a proudly diverse country, we’re lucky enough to live under both of these ideals.
If you don’t believe me when I say that the state only exists because we decide it does, then I’ll ask you one question: what would happen if every U.S. citizen decided not to pay their taxes? Well, my friend, I’d be happy to tell you that we just successfully abolished taxation. Because it’s only by a majority of people going along with the demands of the state that it is able to maintain such power. They do not have the resources or the power to enslave us the way they do without a willingness on our part. If the majority of us submit to the payment of taxes, then taxes there will be. (I’m not telling you not to pay your taxes. Just the opposite. My point is they have the resources to go after one person, not everyone.)
But how can there be Capitol buildings, a military, and a president if the state is just a concept? The same way there can be mosques without an Allah. Ideas manifest through action. If I made decrees from my balcony and people started to obey them, then I just became the new government, and I have every right to that rule that the current government has… I simply took it and people obeyed. My rule would be every bit as legitimate as the current one.
The Problem with the Constitution
Another point for consideration is one that Douglas Wilson has made many times since the start of the lockdowns. If the Constitution is meant to be the highest law in the land, then any “leader” contradicting it with their own edicts would technically be an insurrectionist, and our obedience to their ridiculous commands would make us nothing more than fellow mutineers. If your governor makes a decree contrary to the Constitution and you obey it, you take part in disobedience against the highest law in the land. Romans 13 gets murkier and murkier the more you think about it.
But who decided the Constitution has authority in the first place? A group of people hundreds of years ago decided that. Are we obliged to live under it? Do we all implicitly agree to live under it? Questions like that hardly even matter when you’re talking about a piece of paper no one follows anyway.
“this much is certain, that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case it is unfit to exist.”
Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority, Published 1870
An argument can be made that the Constitution should be the highest law in the land, and I would certainly take that over our present situation, but that doesn’t make it anymore legitimate than the thugs who rule the streets by force.
In Conclusion
I really have no idea how we should interpret Romans 13, but I hope to eventually apply the criteria above to come to a biblical, practical, and logical understanding of it. How do you apply Romans 13 to a street gang? I don’t think any of us should. How do you apply it to the nazi regime? I hope none of us would. How do you apply it to a concept that has no legitimate claim to its reign? I have no idea. How do you apply it to a country like the U.S., where you have the Constitution, the President, your governor, your mayor, your city council, and various congressmen and senators between them all forcing different compulsions for how you must practice your religion? All I know is that so far we have fallen short.