In the event that Romans 13 is not ringing in our ears like a claxon’s call, let us renew our understanding of God’s word by reading from it:
1Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
8Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. 9For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 10Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
11Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. 12The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
For many of my fellow believers, this is where the argument over obedience to the authorities begins and ends. And it is here that I wish I could likewise bury my head along with them. Although, in so doing, we would all have to repent of the historical fact that America exists at all, as well as the fact that the Jewish race still graces this planet. For America was born of conflict with its originating authorities, and it was because of that conflict with its authorities that the saving of the Jewish race could even be accomplished by the actions of this revolutionary American nation/state.
Granted, God could have made a saving nation out of the rocks inhabiting the shores of Normandy. But that was not His will. He used His fallen creatures, in conflict, and war, to achieve His purposes. But let us not lay this governmental fiasco at God’s doorstep. Certainly He has ordained its coming to pass, as he did Hitler’s rise to power. But to what end did He allow for these things? That we will not fully realize an answer to these questions this side of heaven, suffice it to say, that He did allow it, and that it will all in the end ascribe to Him greater glory, for that is the very purpose of History.
“But what about Romans 13?” I hear you say. Yes, that is a conundrum, indeed.
I believe that the issue in question revolves upon governmental types. Truly, if America were a formal monarchy, that fulfilled the right responsibilities of government, then there would be no righteous contention against that government, and Romans 13 would indeed be the beginning and the end of the discussion for all Christians. However, that is not the government we have by constitutional law. Our constitutional government is a Representative Republic and it exists, or doesn’t exist, by the consent of the governed. In case you’ve forgotten; We, the People, are the governed.
The manifold Tyranny that is now unfolding around us is, from my point of view, in complete dereliction of its authorized, constitutional limits; and it has set itself up such that the normal course of airing grievances, by means of redress through our representatives, assembly, and protests has been conveniently curtailed through petty police action and the contrived assistance of all the major social media platforms.
Thus, we no longer are being governed by a legitimate or recognized authority. We are under a Tyranny, in the classical sense of the word.
Let us investigate a portion of the document that announced America’s birth:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
I may not add anything to what has been stated above. We, as a nation, are no longer being governed, even under sufferable evils, but insufferable. Romans 13 is no longer applicable to these “authorities” for they have, of their own minds, sought to reign according to a power that is not given to them by men and therefore not ascribed to them by God either.
neonapologia 