Rushdoony on Romans 13
In light of the disturbing revelation that the U.S. government has been training clergy to help quell civil unrest in lieu of martial law, the issue surrounding Romans 13 has become central. This video clip shows how the ignorant clergy will feed their flocks with doses of Romans 13 in order to get the "sheeple" to submit. But, is that what Romans 13 teaches? I've taken the time to extract and publish here Rushdoony's commentary on this important portion of Scripture.
Two general comments are in order. First, spies were commonplace then as now. The national leaders used spies to build a case against Jesus (Luke 20:25), and they were no less hostile to Paul. Thus, both Roman and Judean spies and informers would be ready to use any material possible against Paul and to denounce him to the authorities. Second, despite this fact, Paul speaks out plainly and bluntly, and, by placing every civil government under the triune God, he radically altered the nature of politics.
In v. 19, Paul says, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord." As we have seen, to "give place unto wrath" means to allow the wrath and vengeance of God to operate rather than to play god ourselves. We are now told to be subject, "not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake" (v. 5). The Greek word translated as wrath is orgen, a form of orge. It has reference, not merely to a feeling of anger, but to anger in action to bring about retribution. The use of this word thus requires us to believe in God's justice and to expect it and work for it. It refers to God's justice at work in history.
Terror is phobas, or fear. The required fear is a religious one, God-centered, because it is God's order and God's restraint on sin that is at stake. This terror is thus with respect to God and His law order, not man's. Hence, this terror must be aroused in evil-doers, not the godly.
The word sword, macharian, is a short sword or dagger. Of this weapon, Vincent tells us, that it was
Conscience is suneidesin, knowing oneself (before God). Paul says "ye must needs (Or, there is a necessity to) be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." The necessity is thus twofold: first, we are required to be confident in God's vengeance, not our own. Second, our conscience before God tells us that God's judgment produces sure justice, and ours injustice when we act in independence from God.
It should be apparent by now that Paul not only places civil government under God, but he implicitly and surely requires that civil government comply with God's law. This is clear from Paul's references to civil government: it is "ordained of God," as are all things, and, like everything else in the universe, must serve God. This same verse 1 also requires
everyone to be "subject unto the higher powers." Both words, ordained and subject, have reference to a God-established order, and both every man and every ruler are placed under that order with a duty to comply to it. The declaration by "Peter and the other apostles" that "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29) applies equally to the subject and the ruler, to the state and to the citizen. There are no exemptions from God's law.
Moreover, Paul, as we have seen, is intensely faithful to the Old Testament: The sacrificial system made clear that the greater the responsibility, the greater the culpability, so that the sin of the priest, for example, was the most grievous (Lev. 4, etc.). Our Lord sums up the matter thus: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more" (Luke 12:48). The duty of obedience to God and His law is equally mandatory for both a civil government and the peoples thereof, but the penalty for disobedience is greater for the rulers.
"There is no power but of God." Since He made all things, all things and the conditions of their lives are God-imposed and inescapable. According to Robertson, Paul tells us, "God is the author of order, not anarchy .... Paul is not arguing for the divine right of kings or for any special form of government, but for government and order. Nor does he oppose here revolution for a change of government, but he does oppose all lawlessness and disorder."[2] Robertson to the contrary, when Paul tells us twice in this verse that God has ordained all governments in every sphere, he does not mean thereby that every sphere can be a law unto itself. Clearly, the implication is that every sphere of life and authority is under God and His law.
In v. 2, Paul deals with resistance to authority. If we set ourselves in array against authority, we incur judgment, given in English as damnation. The word "resisteth" implies an across-the-boards radical defiance of authority, not a moral stand on a particular point. Bartlett said, "But man's law must be rooted in God's laws. A government that defies the laws of God is heading for disaster."[3] Paul is not requiring an unquestioning submission to all authority. Rather, he is saying that we cannot without sin challenge the fact of authority in any sphere, family, church, state, or elsewhere. He is generalizing, although civil government is clearly in mind.
The Christian's relationship to civil government was a problem for the early church, as it should be today also. The fundamental confession of the early church was "Jesus Christ is Lord" or Sovereign (Phil. 2:9-11). This, however, ran counter to the claim of Rome that Caesar was lord or sovereign. Paul answers the question, can we obey Caesar, who claims to be our lord? Paul's answer is that Caesar is "the minister of God," i.e., diakonos, servant. We obey Caesar as God's servant, not as a sovereign.
What Paul says here is in line with Old Testament prophetic teaching. It was echoed in the Wisdom of Solomon, an apocryphal work c. 50 B.C. and A.D. 40, which admonished all the rulers of the earth to remember that their dominion came from God; they were obligated to keep His law or be judged. Gerald R. Cragg saw clearly the agreement of Paul with this.[4]
Lenski saw this section as dealing with "The Christian in the Secular World."[5] There is a degree of truth to this, but, more important, Paul tells us that every kind of authority and every civil government lives in God's world under God's government. Our perspective is badly warped if we forget this. This universe will cast into outer darkness, into hell, all who by-pass God's law for their own. In Revelation 13:9-10, we are told
Paul thus gives us no doctrine of passive obedience. The comments of Hodge are very telling here:
Luther held to a monastic view: "the world is conquered and subjected in no other way than through contempt."[8]
In vv. 3-4, Paul defines the state. First, the state is not a god but God's servant. Second, as God's servant, it must be a terror to evil, "a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Since in v. 19 Paul tells us that vengeance belongs to god, it can only be exercised by the state under God, by delegation, according to God's law. Since God's vengeance has reference to God's law, no state has the freedom to create its own law and use coercion to enforce it. Third, if we do good, we should have "praise" from the civil government, and "good" in the form of godly order. Lange said, "Commendations by the magistrates, in opposition to punishments, were common even in ancient times."[9]
Let us remind ourselves that Paul was a very learned and faithful Israelite. Basic to the historic and Biblical political faith of Israel was the sentence in the law, "thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother" Deut. 17:15). A non-covenant man cannot be made a ruler. The penalty for breaking the covenant is to be ruled by evil men (Deut. 28:14-68). Isaiah tells us that the prelude to outside oppression and rule is being ruled by children and women, i.e., an abdication of godly authority by men.
When this happens, civil government ceases to be God's minister and becomes God's wrath to others and to itself. It becomes a terror to the godly, and the protection of evil men, as our courts are becoming now.
Because obedience is grounded (v. 5) in conscience and in the confidence in God's wrath of which Paul speaks, it is not servile obedience but a regenerative obedience. It obeys within the limits of God's law and it works to reconstruct the entire social order by obedience to God. Necessity is attached to this, because society cannot be make good by negation. Peter tells us, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake" (1 Peter 2:13).
A society and its various areas of government reflect the nature and character of men. A society made up of evil and reprobate men will reflect their character. The homosexual and degenerate nature of Roman leadership and authorities began to appear even in Paul's day. The old proverb says simply, "You can't make a good omelette with bad eggs." The essence of non-Biblical politics is to try to do precisely that, to so arrange the bad eggs to produce a gourmet dish, i.e., to take sinful, fallen men and to create a just social order. This is the purpose of revolutions in the modern era. We can, in more than a few cases, say that the old regimes overthrown by revolutions were bad, but we must add that the new ones have been far, far worse. If we apply systematically the premise that man without Christ can create a just social order we thereby enthrone evil as the means to good.
Revolutions assume evil to be a class trait rather than a human trait, and they are therefore unable to cope with it. Instead, they become incarnations of evil.
Paul places all men and institutions under God, including the state. St. Augustine understood this well. He declared that all states without justice, i.e., not under God, are like bands of robbers, like a Mafia:
1. M.R. Vincent: Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. II, p. 746. MacDonald Publishing Co., MacDill AFB, Florida, reprint.
2. Archibald Thomas Robertson: Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. IV, p. 407. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House (193 1) reprint.
3. C. Norman Bartlett: Right in Romans, p. 115. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1953.
4. Gerald R. Cragg, "Romans," in The Interpreter's Bible, vol. IX, p. 602. New York, New York: Abingdon Press, 1954.
5. R.C.H. Lenski: The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, p. 783ff. Columbus, Ohio, 1945.
6. Charles Hodge: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, pp. 639, 641. New York, New York: A.C. Armstrong (1882),1893.
7. Walter Luthi: The Letter to the Romans, pp. 187, 192f. Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1961.
8. Martin Luther: Lectures on Romans, in Luthers Works, vol. 25, p. 468. Saint Louis, Missouri: Concordia, 1972.
9. John Peter Lange: Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Romans, p. 399. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, reprint.
10. St. Augustine: The City of God, Bk IV, ch. 4; p. 112f. Marcus Dods translation. New York, New York, The Modern Library, 1950 reprint.
1. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.We come now to one of the more controversial portions of Paul's letter, verses that have often been used to require an abject subservience to the state. This should not surprise us. People have used the Bible to vindicate homosexuality despite its plain statements. Why not statism as well?
2. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.
3. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:
4. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
5. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Romans 13:1-5)
Two general comments are in order. First, spies were commonplace then as now. The national leaders used spies to build a case against Jesus (Luke 20:25), and they were no less hostile to Paul. Thus, both Roman and Judean spies and informers would be ready to use any material possible against Paul and to denounce him to the authorities. Second, despite this fact, Paul speaks out plainly and bluntly, and, by placing every civil government under the triune God, he radically altered the nature of politics.
In v. 19, Paul says, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay saith the Lord." As we have seen, to "give place unto wrath" means to allow the wrath and vengeance of God to operate rather than to play god ourselves. We are now told to be subject, "not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake" (v. 5). The Greek word translated as wrath is orgen, a form of orge. It has reference, not merely to a feeling of anger, but to anger in action to bring about retribution. The use of this word thus requires us to believe in God's justice and to expect it and work for it. It refers to God's justice at work in history.
Terror is phobas, or fear. The required fear is a religious one, God-centered, because it is God's order and God's restraint on sin that is at stake. This terror is thus with respect to God and His law order, not man's. Hence, this terror must be aroused in evil-doers, not the godly.
The word sword, macharian, is a short sword or dagger. Of this weapon, Vincent tells us, that it was
Borne as the symbol of the magistrate's right to inflict capital punishment. Thus Ulplan: "They who rule whole provinces have the right. of the sword (jus gladii)." The Emperor Trajan presented to a provincial governor, on startine for his province, a dagger, with the words, "For me. If I deserve it, in me."[1]Trajan (c. A.D. 53-117), of course, comes after Paul, but his words represent the best in the Roman legal tradition. The symbol of the sword thus represents both capital punishment and justice.
Conscience is suneidesin, knowing oneself (before God). Paul says "ye must needs (Or, there is a necessity to) be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." The necessity is thus twofold: first, we are required to be confident in God's vengeance, not our own. Second, our conscience before God tells us that God's judgment produces sure justice, and ours injustice when we act in independence from God.
It should be apparent by now that Paul not only places civil government under God, but he implicitly and surely requires that civil government comply with God's law. This is clear from Paul's references to civil government: it is "ordained of God," as are all things, and, like everything else in the universe, must serve God. This same verse 1 also requires
everyone to be "subject unto the higher powers." Both words, ordained and subject, have reference to a God-established order, and both every man and every ruler are placed under that order with a duty to comply to it. The declaration by "Peter and the other apostles" that "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29) applies equally to the subject and the ruler, to the state and to the citizen. There are no exemptions from God's law.
Moreover, Paul, as we have seen, is intensely faithful to the Old Testament: The sacrificial system made clear that the greater the responsibility, the greater the culpability, so that the sin of the priest, for example, was the most grievous (Lev. 4, etc.). Our Lord sums up the matter thus: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required; and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more" (Luke 12:48). The duty of obedience to God and His law is equally mandatory for both a civil government and the peoples thereof, but the penalty for disobedience is greater for the rulers.
"There is no power but of God." Since He made all things, all things and the conditions of their lives are God-imposed and inescapable. According to Robertson, Paul tells us, "God is the author of order, not anarchy .... Paul is not arguing for the divine right of kings or for any special form of government, but for government and order. Nor does he oppose here revolution for a change of government, but he does oppose all lawlessness and disorder."[2] Robertson to the contrary, when Paul tells us twice in this verse that God has ordained all governments in every sphere, he does not mean thereby that every sphere can be a law unto itself. Clearly, the implication is that every sphere of life and authority is under God and His law.
In v. 2, Paul deals with resistance to authority. If we set ourselves in array against authority, we incur judgment, given in English as damnation. The word "resisteth" implies an across-the-boards radical defiance of authority, not a moral stand on a particular point. Bartlett said, "But man's law must be rooted in God's laws. A government that defies the laws of God is heading for disaster."[3] Paul is not requiring an unquestioning submission to all authority. Rather, he is saying that we cannot without sin challenge the fact of authority in any sphere, family, church, state, or elsewhere. He is generalizing, although civil government is clearly in mind.
The Christian's relationship to civil government was a problem for the early church, as it should be today also. The fundamental confession of the early church was "Jesus Christ is Lord" or Sovereign (Phil. 2:9-11). This, however, ran counter to the claim of Rome that Caesar was lord or sovereign. Paul answers the question, can we obey Caesar, who claims to be our lord? Paul's answer is that Caesar is "the minister of God," i.e., diakonos, servant. We obey Caesar as God's servant, not as a sovereign.
What Paul says here is in line with Old Testament prophetic teaching. It was echoed in the Wisdom of Solomon, an apocryphal work c. 50 B.C. and A.D. 40, which admonished all the rulers of the earth to remember that their dominion came from God; they were obligated to keep His law or be judged. Gerald R. Cragg saw clearly the agreement of Paul with this.[4]
Lenski saw this section as dealing with "The Christian in the Secular World."[5] There is a degree of truth to this, but, more important, Paul tells us that every kind of authority and every civil government lives in God's world under God's government. Our perspective is badly warped if we forget this. This universe will cast into outer darkness, into hell, all who by-pass God's law for their own. In Revelation 13:9-10, we are told
9. If any man have an ear, let him hear.The word "sword" is again "machaira," the Roman symbol of state power. We are thus told that when the state abuses God's law and enslaves people unjustly, or kills them without cause, God will enslave and kill that state. This confidence in the wrath of God "is the patience and the faith of the saints."
10. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Paul thus gives us no doctrine of passive obedience. The comments of Hodge are very telling here:
All authority is of God. No man has any rightful power over other men, which is not derived from God. All human power is delegated and ministerial. This is true of parents, of magistrates, and of church officers....Luthi saw "three principles" in these verses. First, all authority comes from God. Second, authority is God's servant to promote good and suppress evil. Third, every person must be subject to the governing authority. Luthi held that we must be in subjection even when we cannot be in submission, and we go to prison for it.[7] Such a perspective sees nothing of Paul's view of the state under God. It is not merely persons who under God are under the state's authority but also the state and every other agency. The doctrine of the divine right of kings has its echo in too many commentaries which call for passive obedience.
It was his (Paul's) object to lay down the simple principle, that magistrates are to be obeyed. The extent of this obedience is to be determined from the nature of the case. They are to be obeyed as magistrates, in the exercise of their lawful authority. When Paul commands wives to obey their husbands, they are required to obey them as husbands, not as masters, nor as kings; children are to obey their parents as parents, not as sovereigns; and so in every other case. This passage, therefore, affords a very slight foundation for the doctrine of passive obedience.[6]
Luther held to a monastic view: "the world is conquered and subjected in no other way than through contempt."[8]
In vv. 3-4, Paul defines the state. First, the state is not a god but God's servant. Second, as God's servant, it must be a terror to evil, "a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." Since in v. 19 Paul tells us that vengeance belongs to god, it can only be exercised by the state under God, by delegation, according to God's law. Since God's vengeance has reference to God's law, no state has the freedom to create its own law and use coercion to enforce it. Third, if we do good, we should have "praise" from the civil government, and "good" in the form of godly order. Lange said, "Commendations by the magistrates, in opposition to punishments, were common even in ancient times."[9]
Let us remind ourselves that Paul was a very learned and faithful Israelite. Basic to the historic and Biblical political faith of Israel was the sentence in the law, "thou mayest not set a stranger over thee, which is not thy brother" Deut. 17:15). A non-covenant man cannot be made a ruler. The penalty for breaking the covenant is to be ruled by evil men (Deut. 28:14-68). Isaiah tells us that the prelude to outside oppression and rule is being ruled by children and women, i.e., an abdication of godly authority by men.
When this happens, civil government ceases to be God's minister and becomes God's wrath to others and to itself. It becomes a terror to the godly, and the protection of evil men, as our courts are becoming now.
Because obedience is grounded (v. 5) in conscience and in the confidence in God's wrath of which Paul speaks, it is not servile obedience but a regenerative obedience. It obeys within the limits of God's law and it works to reconstruct the entire social order by obedience to God. Necessity is attached to this, because society cannot be make good by negation. Peter tells us, "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake" (1 Peter 2:13).
A society and its various areas of government reflect the nature and character of men. A society made up of evil and reprobate men will reflect their character. The homosexual and degenerate nature of Roman leadership and authorities began to appear even in Paul's day. The old proverb says simply, "You can't make a good omelette with bad eggs." The essence of non-Biblical politics is to try to do precisely that, to so arrange the bad eggs to produce a gourmet dish, i.e., to take sinful, fallen men and to create a just social order. This is the purpose of revolutions in the modern era. We can, in more than a few cases, say that the old regimes overthrown by revolutions were bad, but we must add that the new ones have been far, far worse. If we apply systematically the premise that man without Christ can create a just social order we thereby enthrone evil as the means to good.
Revolutions assume evil to be a class trait rather than a human trait, and they are therefore unable to cope with it. Instead, they become incarnations of evil.
Paul places all men and institutions under God, including the state. St. Augustine understood this well. He declared that all states without justice, i.e., not under God, are like bands of robbers, like a Mafia:
Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Afexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet are styled emperor."[10]We do not eliminate criminals by becoming criminals. The problem is in the fallen nature of man, and the remedy must begin there. This means that the just must live by faith.
1. M.R. Vincent: Word Studies in the New Testament, vol. II, p. 746. MacDonald Publishing Co., MacDill AFB, Florida, reprint.
2. Archibald Thomas Robertson: Word Pictures in the New Testament, vol. IV, p. 407. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House (193 1) reprint.
3. C. Norman Bartlett: Right in Romans, p. 115. Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1953.
4. Gerald R. Cragg, "Romans," in The Interpreter's Bible, vol. IX, p. 602. New York, New York: Abingdon Press, 1954.
5. R.C.H. Lenski: The Interpretation of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, p. 783ff. Columbus, Ohio, 1945.
6. Charles Hodge: Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, pp. 639, 641. New York, New York: A.C. Armstrong (1882),1893.
7. Walter Luthi: The Letter to the Romans, pp. 187, 192f. Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1961.
8. Martin Luther: Lectures on Romans, in Luthers Works, vol. 25, p. 468. Saint Louis, Missouri: Concordia, 1972.
9. John Peter Lange: Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Romans, p. 399. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, reprint.
10. St. Augustine: The City of God, Bk IV, ch. 4; p. 112f. Marcus Dods translation. New York, New York, The Modern Library, 1950 reprint.
