Frankly, it is hilarious to me that today's text appears in my march through Romans now, as April 15th is on the horizon. Romans 13:1-7 has to do with paying taxes, among other things. There's no doubt that, two days from now, I'll be doing that very thing. Do I want to write that check? No. Am I commanded to? Yes.
1Let 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. 2So the person who resists such authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will incur judgment 3(for rulers cause no fear for good conduct but for bad). Do you desire not to fear authority? Do good and you will receive its commendation, 4for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be in fear, for it does not bear the sword in vain. It is God’s servant to administer retribution on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of the wrath of the authorities but also because of your conscience. 6For this reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants devoted to governing. 7Pay everyone what is owed: taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.
The apostle Paul tells us that we should be obedient to our government "rulers", insofar as we are able, without denying or abrogating our faith in Jesus Christ. Obviously (due to the weight of other scriptures), our first loyalty is to Christ's heavenly kingdom, when the earthly "kingdom" stands in direct conflict. But, otherwise, we are to pay our taxes, obey the civil and criminal laws, work to create a country that reflects our Christian values and generally not bring dishonor on the name of Christ.
Paul not only makes the point that "authority" is a godly concept, given by God Himself to bring order to our world, but that He places "rulers" into positions of authority. Right now, we are in the midst of a highly contentious presidential election season. As citizens, we are required to, as Paul mentions, adhere to and protect our rights of citizenship. This means exercising our right to campaign for a candidate and then to vote for him or her. If you are a Christian but you don't vote, you are violating scripture by committing a sin of omission. This refusal to fight for the liberties you have been given goes against Romans 13. If you are a Christian and you break the law, you are guilty of a sin of "commission".
I have been reading Erick Erickson's book, You Will Be Made to Care.1 It's a pretty horrifying and damning book, if you are a Christian. His basic point, from what I've read so far, is that we as Christians have not followed Romans 13:1-7. Oh, we have probably obeyed the speed limit and the seatbelt laws, most of the time. The traffic laws are ones we generally obey, since ignoring them can be deadly. Most of us citizens pay our taxes, because to not do so will land us in jail. But, the American Church has sat back and let a godless minority, "a small and arrogant oligarchy" as Erick puts it, take over our country. We've done this in the name of "live and let live", forgetting that a representative republic (which is our American government type) not firmly anchored in a biblical morality cannot survive. John Adams, our nation's 2nd president, wisely recognized this and said the following: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."2
Now, we are seeing the disastrous results of our collective Christian complacency over the last 60 years. If God-fearing people do not begin to wake up and speak out, our freedoms will continue to disappear until the country we older citizens inherited will be unrecognizable. It is already happening. The question is whether or not God's people will stem the tide.
Christians who interpret Romans 13 with a sniveling, hand-wringing "Oh, well, there's nothing I can do" type of response or a "Someone else will take care of that" response disgust me. Hundreds of thousands of men and women have given their lives so that we could enjoy the liberties accorded to us citizens in the greatest nation of the past 240 years. What great debtors we are to their sacrifices! Despite that, many pampered, cocooned Christians today will further disengage from the culture, will do nothing to stem the tide of godlessness, in the name of "being subject to the governing authorities". What a gross misinterpretation of this scripture!
American government was designed from its very birth to be steered by "We the People" (Preamble to the U.S. Constitution). Abraham Lincoln famously referred to this government "of the people, by the people, for the people" in his Gettysburg Address. It might have been better phrased as "for those people who care enough to not lose it". As Benjamin Franklin said upon leaving the Constitutional Convention of 1787 - - - {We have} "a republic...if you can keep it."2
If you adhere to a Christian worldview and the belief that this country's best hope is to return to the God-given principles on which it was founded, then the question is: "What are you going to do about the current abysmal "state of affairs"? The remedy is going to require more from God's people than merely paying taxes.
Father, You guided our founding fathers to establish this country on the moral foundations of the Bible. Your Church in America has failed to fight for those same freedoms to be maintained, in the name of a false "liberty", a pseudo-compassion. Only in godliness is there true liberty and the most compassionate thing we can do at this point is to stand up for what Your Word says is right. I pray that You will start a great spiritual revival out of which will flow a great revival of civil conscience in America, so that we can once again be known as a Christian nation, a beacon of godly liberty. In Jesus' name, amen.
Sources:
1 Erickson, Erick, and Bill Blankschaen. You Will Be Made to Care: The War on Faith, Family, and Your Freedom to Believe. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2016. Print.
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