Chapter Eighteen: The Governor and the God

Romans 13:1–7 — The Most Versatile Passage in Political Theology

"Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except by God's appointment, and the authorities that exist have been instituted by God." — Romans 13:1 (NET)

Every government in the history of Christendom that has required Christian cooperation with its agenda has cited Romans 13. And every Christian resistance movement that has defied governmental authority has also been shaped by Scripture. The tension is real and it has cost people their lives on both sides. Getting Romans 13 right is not an academic exercise.

The absolute submission reading has been used to require Christian cooperation with repressive regimes across the centuries. The reading imports an assumption the text does not contain: that instituted by God means approved by God and that therefore the commands of the institution must be obeyed regardless of their content. That assumption does not survive contact with the rest of the New Testament.

The Normal

The context of Romans 13 is a specific community — the Roman church — in a specific moment. Paul is not writing a political theory. He is addressing a community tempted toward the kind of zealot resistance to Roman authority that would have been suicidal and would have confirmed the Roman suspicion that Christianity was a seditious movement. The pastoral instruction is: do not give the empire a political reason to come after you. Pay your taxes. Honor the officials. Live quietly. That is not a theology of absolute governmental authority. It is a pastoral strategy for a community in a precarious position.

The Limit

Acts 5:29: We must obey God rather than people. This is Peter and the apostles, addressing the Sanhedrin — the legitimately constituted religious authority of Israel — and refusing to comply with their command to stop teaching in Jesus' name. The principle of prior divine obligation is not an exception to Romans 13. It is the frame within which Romans 13 operates. When government commands what God forbids or forbids what God commands, the prior obligation to God determines the response. Acts 5:29 is not the exception that overturns Romans 13. Romans 13 describes the normal. Acts 5:29 describes the limit. Both belong in the reading.

The Symmetrical Principle

That principle applies in every direction. It is not a license for resistance when a government you dislike is in power, or a mandate for compliance when a government you approve of is. It applies regardless of which government, which political direction, and which demand is in question.

The Recovery

Read Romans 13:1–7 alongside Acts 5:29 and Acts 4:19–20. Note that the same apostles who wrote about governmental authority also refused to comply with governmental commands that violated their prior obligations. The resolution is that they describe different situations and both apply: genuine honor and cooperation with governmental authority in its proper scope, and the prior obligation to God when the scope is exceeded. The political application is not simple. The theological principle is clear.