Whenever the question of radical Christianity is seriously discussed the question inevitably arises: “But how does Romans 13 fit into what you are saying?” Few other passages in the New Testament have suffered as much misuse as this one. A series of articles will attempt to deal with the State in the New Testament and the Christian’s political responsibility. The purpose of this paper will be (1) to suggest several causes for the misunderstanding of biblical teaching on this subject, (2) to examine the importance of the Christian’s political responsibility from the contexts of several key passages, and (3) to discuss two commonly misunderstood political motifs in the New Testament: “honor” and “submission.” Biblical research demands that Emily Post and Richard Nixon both be reconsidered.
I. Causes of Misunderstanding
The difficulty in interpretation is more cultural than exegetical and says more about the problem of the American church than the problem of the passage. Neither those with prior allegiance to a particular ideology nor those with vested interest in the status quo can be called “impartial” interpreters of God’s disturbing Word. One wonders whether J. Howard Pew, multimillionaire Christian businessman and chairman of the board of Sun Oil Corporation, had more than exegetical considerations at stake when in a recent issue of Reader’s Digest he writes how the church should keep to the “real gospel” and not get involved in political and social issues. Even those without vested ideological or economic interests are easily caught up in the mind-sets of their age and uncritically adopt an un-Christian nationalism and its myths. Such a cultural ideological-nationalistic grid is then imported to the text with devastating results.
The extent and diversity of the New Testament material that must be considered accounts for the exegetical difficulty that remains. Though there are only five basic passages of direct political teaching with primary reference to the state (Mark 12:13-17 and parallels; Romans 13:1-7; 1 Timothy 2:1-7; Titus 3:1-3, 8; 1 Peter 2:13-17), there is a wealth of indirect teaching with a secondary reference (see Cranfield for a summary of the attitudes and actions of Jesus, Paul, Peter, and John toward civil authority). By showing how the authors themselves interpreted and acted upon their direct statements, such passages shed a qualifying light on the basic passages of primary teaching.
In addition, the political significance of all scripture must be seriously reconsidered. The lordship of Christ, eschatology and the kingdom of God, ethical teachings, the doctrine of man as the marred image of God, and other major doctrines have crucial political implications and a critical significance in translating New Testament teaching into a different political context where the Christian can, and therefore must, do more for the maintenance of a just state and society. Biblical teaching has been consistently truncated and misunderstood by absolutizing those passages with direct reference to the state and considering them in isolation from New Testament material.
The diversity of material is quite striking. The New Testament teaches both the necessity of the state as willed by God to meet the emergency of a fallen creation, and the demonic possibilities inherent within the state. Accordingly, the state in Romans 13 is seen in a positive light and is said to be “ordained of God,” while in Revelation 13 it is seen as a beast from the abyss, not “ordained of God” but empowered by the dragon who is Satan (13:2, 12:9) and the manifestation of his demonic presence on earth. Likewise, it was in Satan’s hand to give the “kingdoms of the earth” to Jesus (Matthew 4:8-9). Such contrasting views stem from the same basic understanding of the state as provisional and temporary (see Cullman for an elaboration of this theme). The New Testament allows neither a renunciation of the principle of the state, nor an uncritical acceptance of any historical concretization of it, as if a particular state were absolute and final.
II. Importance of the Christian’s Political Responsibility
The contexts of those basic passages with direct political teaching highlight the importance of the political for the Christian. These passages are enmeshed in contexts of ethics, countercultural resistance, evangelism, worship, and love. Political indifference is never a mark of spiritual superiority but a sign of defective ethics, a betrayal of the distinguishing nature of the church in the world, a mark of truncated evangelism, false worship, and lack of love.
The Christian’s political responsibility is a necessary part of his ethical responsibility. This is so obvious that it is often overlooked; yet the common assumption underlying the context of all the basic passages is that the Christian’s political obligation is part of the ethical demand placed upon him by God. It is not an optional extra contingent upon one’s leisure, personal temperament, or particular interests. Romans 13 begins with “every soul” and 1 Timothy 2 is an exhortation which Paul makes “first of all.” In 1 Peter 2 the author’s first area of concern in ethical application is the political. Politics and religion cannot be separated either in principle or in practice.
To the extent that politics concerns itself with values and religion concerns itself with God (unfortunately neither is always the case), to that extent they cannot be divided, because one cannot separate ethics and God. “Ethics is transcendental” (Wittgenstein), and the transcendental is ethical. It is equally impossible to separate the two in human experience. To live is to be political and to be religious. Those who claim to be a-religious usually operate on the basis of implicit and often undefined religious assumptions; those who claim to be apolitical operate on the basis of implicit and often undefined political assumptions.
Countercultural resistance is a necessary prelude to a proper fulfilling of the church’s political task. The basis for the political teaching of 1 Peter 2:13-17 is given in verses 11-12: “I urge you as aliens and exiles, to resist every false orientation to human life.” (“False orientation” is an expanded rendering for “lusts of the flesh.” Flesh in scripture is often used to refer to the whole nature of fallen man and may include Pharisaic religiosity as well as exploitive sexuality.) The Christian’s political responsibility stems from the shape of his calling in this world as “alien and exile.” The first term indicates a settled foreigner with no legal rights or status, the second a temporary resident. Taken together they give emphatic expression to temporariness and “foreign-ness.”
The proper political response of the Christian can only be made by those outsiders and resisters whose ultimate allegiance is not to this present order; it cannot be made by those who assimilate and accommodate themselves to their milieu. Christians are to be those whose state and whose citizenship is in the coming
They are to be a prolongation of the God-Man from Outside; they are to continue the incarnation of God among men. So conscious was the early church that it was a colony of outsiders that the word rendered “alien” (paroikia) came to be a regular term for the Christian congregation, from which the word “parish” is derived and still used today. When the church becomes no longer alien and exile whose pledge of allegiance is to God’s coming order and not to the present disorder and reign of man, when the church becomes no longer outsider but insider, indistinguishable from its milieu, then it betrays its distinctive character in the world and cannot fulfill its political function.
The Christian’s political responsibility is a necessary part of his evangelistic responsibility. 1 Timothy 2:1-7 occurs in the context of man’s salvation: “I urge you that prayers be made for all who are in authority that we may live a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” The New Testament knows no dichotomy between the sacred and the secular. Prayer is here emphasized as a proper political response. The fulfilling of this political-spiritual obligation was meant to produce external conditions conducive to men’s salvation by enabling the Christians to live out their lives in quietness and peace.
The broad contextual grid for the entire ethical section of Romans 12-15 is given in the first two verses. Romans 13:1-7 is a part of the practical outworking of the principles in Romans 12:1-2 and so must be seen in a context of worship, countercultural resistance, and love.
“I urge you therefore by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your logical worship,” “Worship” is elsewhere translated “service.” Hebrew thought does not distinguish between the two. “Logical” worship is that which is consistent with the gospel and in the context is identified with the continual offering of the whole of one’s life (= body) from day to day. Internal emotions and feelings unaccompanied by daily outward obedience in all areas of life are not worship. When the “service” in Sunday morning ends, “worship” begins. There is a politics of worship. The Christian’s political responsibility is a necessary part of the “logical” worship that is to characterize the follower of Christ.
The Christian’s political task must be seen in the context of countercultural resistance: “stop allowing yourselves to be conformed (schematized) to this world-system and do not grow conformed to this age, but continue to let yourselves be transformed (metamorphosized) by the renewing of your mind.” The Christian must live out his life in a process of continual disentanglement from the values that dominate this age, sensitive to those cultural blind-spots that mold his thinking and shape his actions to the standards of the order that is passing away. He must do this “so that he may find out and learn by experience what the will of God is—and approve of it” (Romans 12:2c). Accommodation to the world-system blunts the moral sensitivity of the Christian. The accommodated church cannot fulfill its proper political responsibility, because she must render to Caesar only that which belongs to Caesar, not that which belongs to God. And the morally blunted milieu-church can neither recognize nor approve of that which belongs to God. There must be a politic of countercultural resistance.
The immediate context of Romans 13 is love. Romans 12:9-21 is a loose section of the marks of love, climaxing in the denial of vengeance and the affirmation of love as the guiding principle of the Christian life. Romans 13:8-10 emphasizes the "debt of love" which Christians are to owe one another. The Third World Priests' Movement in
Love is the defining characteristic of the Christian—it is that quality by which people know that we are Jesus' disciples. To be defective in our political responsibility is to be defective in love and to that extent to blur our connection with the Lord Christ. The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. The war in
III. Emily Post and Richard Nixon Reconsidered
Two commonly misunderstood motifs in the passages with direct political teaching are "honor" and "submission." The honor motif occurs in Romans 13:7 ("Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor"), 1 Peter 2:17 ("Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king"), and Titus 3:1-2 (the author moves from an attitude of submission to an attitude of "perfect courtesy toward all men"). Billy Graham probably had these verses in the back of his mind when he labeled singer Carol Feraci's anti-war rebuke at the White House festivities as "rude" no matter how sincerely motivated. Does the respect and honor taught in these passages exclude the Carol Feracis of our society who humiliate presidents in public?
The submission motif is the dominant theme of political teaching in the epistles, occurring in Romans 13:1 ("Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities"), Titus 3:1 ("Remind them to be subject to rulers"), and 1 Peter 2:17 ("Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution"). Does the submission taught in these passages exclude the Daniel Berrigans of our society, those jailed for burning draft records in protest of the war in
To honor those in authority means "to take them seriously—usually much more seriously than they take themselves—as the ministers of God," as people thus accountable to God for the solemn responsibility God has committed to them (see C. E. B. Cranfield). It is believed that Nero was emperor at the time Romans and 1 Peter were written. For the recipients of the letter, honoring the king meant treating with full seriousness (for the sake of his office) a man who had little or no understanding of the true dignity of that office and who in himself was contemptible. That to which honor is due is primarily the office and only secondarily the occupant of the office. In classical Greek literature "honor" was often used as a legal term in estimating the amount of punishment due to the criminal and awarding the penalty. This meaning carried into the literature of the first century, suggesting that honoring a person does not exclude administering rebuke.
When those in authority overstep the limits of their office, respect necessitates prophetic resistance. This was John the Baptist's stance toward Herod (Mark 6:18, Luke 3:19) and of John it is said that there was none greater born of women. Jesus' own behavior toward Herod might be thought to indicate disrespect by today's Emily Post standards: he evaded Herod, sent him a message of contempt, and when face to face with him at his trial had nothing to say to him. In Luke 13:32 he called Herod a "fox," a term used in contrast to a lion to indicate "low cunning" and an insignificant third-rate person, as opposed to a person of real power and greatness.
When the economic interests of some leading men of the city of Philippi were undermined by the work of Paul and Silas, they were brought before the chief magistrates: "These men are throwing our city into confusion, and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or observe, being Romans," which being retranslated might mean, "The stuff these troublemakers and outside agitators are teaching is both illegal and un-American" (Acts 16:20-21). Paul was not showing disrespect for these magistrates but was rather paying them true respect when he did not politely obey the police request to leave in quiet after a charge of false arrest had been dropped. "The chief magistrates have sent to release you. Now therefore come out and go in peace." But Paul said to them, "They have beaten us in public without trial, men who are Romans, and have thrown us into prison; and now are they sending us away secretly? No indeed! But let them come themselves and bring us out." (Incidentally, here a spiritual issue was not primarily at stake—it was simply that the authorities had not acted within the proper limits of their office).
The New Testament "respect" thus allows for and even necessitates a Carol Feraci. There can be respectful language to the person, yet a serious questioning of whether he is fulfilling the responsibility of his office. Christians who follow Jesus Christ and not Emily Post are to "speak the truth in love." May God raise up more Carol Feracis to so "honor the emperor" and call presidents back to the dignity of their office.
Peter closes his section on the state with an injunction from Proverbs 24:21 ("My son, fear the Lord and the King") which he significantly alters to avoid using the same verb to indicate what is owed the emperor and what is owed God: "fear God, honor the king." Proper respect for the emperor is still something quite different from the reverence and trembling which is to be given God alone. Not only is the emperor not to be put on the same plane as God, but he is not to be feared. Nowhere in the New Testament is there a general exhortation to fear civil authorities (Romans 13:4 is addressed to the wrongdoer, not to men in general). Fear belongs only to God. The system cannot threaten the Christian, not by withholding its rewards, not even by death. It is precisely the inability of Nero to intimidate the Christian that in turn makes all Christians a threat to Nero. Such "threatlessness" is part of the defining core of Christian radicalism.
Submission to those in authority cannot be equated with an unquestioning obedience to the authority's every command. C. E. B. Cranfield's extensive study of this word in his commentary on Romans 13 shows that the usage of the word in literature and the examination of how early Christian leaders interpreted and acted upon this injunction does not allow such an equation. This is not the ordinary word to use if the author meant an unambiguous "obedience."
Three other words commonly employed in the New Testament to mean obedience are avoided in these passages. The standard dictionary for classical Greek literature lists only one example where the verb means "to be obedient" and of 21 occurrences in the Greek Old Testament only one instance of the verb emphasizes "obedience." The word is used 30 times in the New Testament to indicate the proper attitude of the Christian to God, to leaders of the church, to civil authorities, of wives to husbands, of slaves to masters, of the younger to the elder, of the church to Christ. Of this New Testament usage Cranfield writes: "Though the idea of obedience is sometimes clearly prominent (Romans 8:7), in the majority of cases, while it may be included, it is not clear that it predominates."
Ephesians 5:21 ("and be subject to one another") clearly excludes the idea of obedience which cannot be reciprocal. In Titus 3:1 submission is coupled with a verb clearly meaning obedience, not because the writer thought the two terms synonymous, but as is more likely, because he felt the idea of obedience was not necessarily included in the idea of submission. The term appears most equitable in Romans 12:10 ("in honor preferring one another") and Philippians 2:3 ("each counting the other better than himself"). The thrust of the word in the New Testament seems to be the recognition of the other person's standing in God's plan.
To submit to the state does not mean to adopt an uncritical and blind obedience to the authority’s every demand, but to recognize the civil authority as part of God's plan for the world and to responsibly act in the light of that recognition. Cranfield summarizes: "While it will often include obedience, it is never simply obedience and nothing more, is never an uncritical and unquestioning obedience, and in some circumstances will not include obedience at all."
When it is not a matter of disobeying God, submission does mean obedience. In Titus 3:1 the two words are closely associated, suggesting that submission normally entails obedience. 1 Peter 2: 13-16 warns the Christian not to use his freedom in Christ or an appeal of obedience to the will of God in a socially irresponsible manner. But whenever obedience or even silence involves disobeying God, resistance and responsible civil disobedience becomes not just an option, but a necessity. The same man who wrote "submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution" (1 Peter 2:13) had no problems with standing before the authorities in Jerusalem and saying: "whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge" (Acts 4:19): "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).
Most Christians agree that ultimate allegiance must be to God and not to Caesar, but they disagree over the content of allegiance to Caesar and over the tactics of resistance when Caesar oversteps his limits. To understand what a qualified submission entails we must ask: (1) when is Caesar to be resisted, and (2) how is Caesar to be resisted?
When is Caesar to be resisted? What is the content of our allegiance to Caesar? Or to ask the same question from another point of view, what is the content of our allegiance to God?
Many Christians argue that civil disobedience is legitimate only when the right to preach the gospel is denied. The war resistance of Daniel Berrigan is not allowed, because it is a "political" and not a "spiritual" issue. That which belongs to Caesar and that which belongs to God in Mark 12:17 is not explicitly defined, but the context is very suggestive.
Rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's does not mean giving him everything he asks. The arbiter of what belongs to Caesar is not Caesar, but God. And our God is a jealous God, a consuming fire—we dare not render to Caesar that which belongs to God alone. In the context, Caesar is to be given back the coins stamped with his image. So let us give back to God that which is stamped with His image, namely our whole lives.
The gospel is more than a proclamation of words; it is more than a standing on street corners and a passing out of tracts. To argue that Caesar is to be resisted only when the right to so preach the gospel is being denied makes God very little. It implicitly defines the gospel and narrows the magnitude of what is owed to God alone.
The church in
There is no such thing as a value-free gospel; a gospel without ethical implications is not a gospel at all. There comes a point when a church's silence and tacit acceptance of the givens of a society negate the words that are proclaimed. The accommodated, silent church "cannot" preach the gospel, even when it is allowed.
If it be only for the gospel that the state may be resisted, then let it be for the proclamation of the whole gospel. Let it be the Nazareth manifesto proclaimed by Jesus that the "Spirit of the Lord is upon His people again; anointing us to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19).
Priests and prisoners have more in common than the milieu-Christianity of
How is Caesar to be resisted when he oversteps his limits? Neither Jesus nor Paul marched in demonstrations. They worked primarily with individuals, not with structures. They did not sit-in for the civil rights of the poor in
The question of tactics boils down to this: Is the Christian of the 20th century limited to the political concerns and responses of first century man? To answer affirmatively is to assume that all is now prohibited that is not explicitly permitted by the biblical material. Often this translation principle is rigorously applied to political tactics but tacitly broken when a "spiritual strategy" of evangelism is being worked out.
Mass TV evangelism is not explicitly permitted by New Testament material. Yet few Christian would question that it is an evangelistic option prohibited today. It is correct that Jesus did not march in demonstrations, but neither did he write his congressperson. Both the political and evangelistic responses of the first century Christian must be seen in the context of the limited number of options that were available. Mass TV evangelism was not quite a viable option for the first century. Likewise, neither writing congresspeople that didn't exist nor marching to sensitize a public opinion that didn't matter to Caesar were what might be called viable alternatives.
The political options available in the first century were fewer than the options available today. Early Christians were operating in a politically authoritarian context that responded minimally to the pressures of its citizens. We are working in a vastly changed political climate where Christians can, and therefore must, do more for the maintenance of a just state and society. It is these added options and the "more" that can be done which makes cultural translation necessary.
How is this "more" to be determined? It begins with Romans 12:2, allowing the renewing of our mind to transform our values and sensitize us to God's will. This is why the accommodated church cannot fulfill its political responsibility—accommodation blunts the church's ability to recognize and approve of that which belongs to God. We must not only proclaim an alternative, we must be and live an alternative, metamorphosized by the living and resurrected Lord into a people sensitive to God's concerns.
Further, a viable Christianity today demands a serious exegesis both of the first century biblical material and of 20th century man; we must know the issues of our day and sensitize ourselves to its moral dilemmas. When silence and inertia mean continued human suffering, then political ignorance becomes a spiritual issue, a symptom of lack of love. "To one who knows the right thing to do, and does not do it, to him it is sin" (James 4:17).
Finally, we must recover the political significance of scripture, putting our bodies where our doctrines are. We must rediscover the Kingdom ethic. Understanding the significance of people as made in God's image, we must oppose all in a society that objectifies humans and makes them a means. We must flesh out the political significance of what it means to say "Jesus is King" and let it be said of us as it was of His early followers:
These men have turned the whole world upside-down. And now they have come to our city. They're staying at Jason's place. They are breaking all the emperor's laws, and they say there is another king, called Jesus. (Acts 17:6,7)
May Your name, Father, be hallowed. May Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done now on earth, as it is in heaven. So be it.
Bibliography
Cranfield, C. E. B. A Commentary on Romans 12-13. Scottish Journal of Theology Occasional Papers No. 12.
Cranfield, C. E. B. “The Christian’s Political Responsibility according to the New Testament.” Scottish Journal of Theology, XV (1962), 176.
Cullmann, Oscar. Jesus and the Revolutionaries.
Cullmann, Oscar. The State in the New Testament.
Bob Sabath was on the staff of The Post-American when this article appeared, and is currently Web technologist at Sojourners.
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