Righteous Obedience

Introduction

Let us take a trip back in time. Imagine that you are English. Raised in London in the mid 1700’s. Loyal to the crown. You are not always in agreement with King George. But England has been good to you. Your family sees that there is a desire in you for adventure so your father proposes you travel to the new world of America and begin a business. You think it is a great idea and you make plans and then travel there. You buy property and build a business. After a while there is talk of revolution but you ignore it. Years pass and the tension builds and you realize why the colonists are upset. Taxes are everywhere and they begin to drain your business. Along with the taxation, the government is not returning services for the taxes. They are stealing in a sense. You see the injustices your friends have endured yet you are still loyal to the crown.

Time passes and the talk of revolution cannot be avoided now. You must choose your loyalty. What do you do? You love your homeland but your conscience has become rooted in America. Do you side with England or oppose them? Now, you have been invited to become a brother in arms with a militia. Do you become a minuteman or distance yourself and pray for the British forces to come?

Now, let us travel to the mid 1800’s. You own a plantation in the south. A massive one with peaches, cotton, and many other crops with many slaves. This system has allowed you to increase wealth year after year. Everything is great. Until you become a Christian and your uncommonly brave pastor is preaching that slavery is wrong. Friends try to justify it from Scripture but you know that it is wrong deep down in your soul.

The issue now hits a massive nerve when a new president is elected and your state secedes from the Union. War ensues quickly thereafter. What do you do? Do you release your slaves and join the Union forces and abandon your family plantation? Or ignore your conscience and remain in the South?

Now, let us move to the 1930’s Germany. You are a German Christian in Berlin. When this mad dictator with extreme prejudice takes power and has supreme authority. Things are looking bright in Germany for its future though. It has once again became prosperous, people are working, your own business is now returning a profit even the Olympics that year will make Germany feel proud again. All the while, your Jewish friends are being forced to wear this big star of David and some have even been disappearing without an explanation. Along with this you are being pressed daily to choose either to support the Fuher along with most of your peers or to advocate for the fair treatment of those who have been deemed “the undesirables?”

Do you openly stand against your government? Or recognize its sovereignty and obey its commands?

Very difficult situations for the believer to be in. Do we become detached and become anti-government and defy all forms of it? Or do we become so uninvolved where we think that civil affairs are a waste of time?

It is to this that the apostle Paul addresses in this section.

In what follows Paul shows us...

What Righteous Obedience Is: vv. 1-7

This section is not a strange offshoot that was just pitched in here. It is perfectly fitting because of what Paul has been saying. Remember when Christ was crucified and the chief priests said they had no king but Caesar (John 19:15). This thought carried on and developed into the “followers of Jesus have another king and are subversive, treasonous.” Paul is saying that we are not to be subversive but obedient because we know that “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me [Jesus Christ]” (Matthew 20:18). We are obedient because we know where the real authority is.

Also, this section is following perfectly behind the last section of love commands and the commands of love that follow. If one is living the Christian ethic of love out correctly, then they will be able to submit to the authorities.

Even though these authorities are part and parcel of a world system that rewards evil and opposes God. How, then, is obeying them honoring God?

It is, as Paul explains, because they are only in power because God is in power. They are where they are because God has allowed them to be. They only have a limited amount of autonomy and authority which they frequently use in a poor and bad way.

These authorities are in place by God as agents of law and order. God created the government. He did so because He is an organized God and He knows that people cannot rule themselves correctly. He has a purpose for every created thing.

Governments establish laws and order. This is done even when done imperfectly. This means that government is a divinely established institution much like family and church are and it is essential to society as are those two.

They only thrive with His permission and they cease when they no longer serve His plan. Daniel 2:21 tells us that “He [God] changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings...” Also, Jeremiah 27:5-7 states that God gives power and the earth to whomever seems right to him. At that time it was Nebuchadnezzar but that was only until the time of his own land came then he would become the slave to many nations.

Simply, God ordains all governments, even the wicked and evil regimes.

We can only rightly submit when we have transformed our minds by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ. When we have done this we hate evil and love good, remember? When we are in this mindset we will know that authorities are in place for good. They are in place so we can fear God and not people.

Authorities are in place to promote good behavior. Even wicked regimes promote good behavior amongst its people. If you act out of line in one of them you may be imprisoned unceremoniously or killed as a possible insurrectionists. So, if we oppose them, we oppose justice. Which leads back to us trying to take vengeance when that is the Lords.

Even these evil regimes usually approve of and desire their peoples to live peacefully, be productive, and cause no trouble. Only those doing wrong should fear the authorities. Simply, if we want to live without fear we must do what is right. We must keep the law of the land. We must be obedient and subject to authorities.

We have a few benefits of being obedient to authorities and therefore living without fear of them. 1) We are free to fear God and respect His authority and do right because it pleases Him, 2) we are more free to serve God because we are not stuck in a prison somewhere. An example of this concept can be found in Acts 18:2 where Paul meets a couple from Rome who had been commanded to leave. This command went to Jewish Christians as well. They were ordered to leave because of insubordinate behavior. The chance to witness was lost because of this insubordination. Paul is warning all to be subordinate and be able to remain and witness.

Not only is it because of this why we are to be obedient but we are to be so we have a clear conscience. When we have a clear conscience it means we have been obedient to not only the authorities but God also. It is to this conscience that we must bide because the conscience is developed by our transformation of our mind by the Holy Spirit. When our minds are transformed we are being led by the Spirit and not our own worldly infected thoughts.

When we are trusting the guidance of the Spirit because of our transformed minds we will obediently pay taxes to the authorities because they are ministers of God and God’s servant for our good. Even Jesus stated that that one was to render to Caesar what was Caesar’s and to God what was God’s (Matthew 22:21). Even though Caesar was not a righteous man the government was established and it needed funding to stay active. As Paul is saying here, paying taxes is contributing to the common good because the authorities are God’s ministers, God’s ministering priests in the government, for approving the good behavior and punishing the bad behavior. You see, the authorities, all the powers that be are the servant of the people. The word Paul uses for servant is the same Greek word we get deacon from. Just as the deacon is the servant of the church, the governing authorities are the servant of the people. This as well as the ministers to the people. As the ministers they meet our needs for schools, relief agencies, postal services, roads, and transportation, and many other functions. They need funding so they can provide services to the communities. That is why Paul says we should pay taxes to whom taxes are owed and revenue to who revenue is owed.

We see God telling the Israelites through Jeremiah that they are to “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf; for in its welfare you have welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7). This was for the nation that took them captive. Took their freedoms. Took them from their homes. God told them to seek its welfare and pray for it. Crazy, Huh?

Through this we show respect and honor. By showing respect and honor we may win some to the Lord because we are not living as the world does. No, we are faithfully serving God by faithfully being obedient to the government and authorities. By this I mean we are not going out and willingly rebelling against the authorities. We do things rightly as our government has established it. We don’t go around killing and bribing people. No, we obey God and serve Him and are obedient to the governing authorities.

Even though this is the case, there are times when we are not in submission. We see this throughout the book of Acts. When the Apostles were ordered to stop preaching Christ, they did not. No, they stood up and preached but they knew the consequences and they obediently accepted them. They did not fight and kill anyone to get away. No, they went peacefully to jail to await their punishments. But many were won to Christ by these actions. Many saw that they rejected the government abuse of religion and proclaimed Christ anyway. They also saw humble and obedient men who accepted the punishment rendered them because of their disobedience to mans law.

They disobeyed with their morality still in place. They rejected the wickedness of the authorities but not violently but through love. They did not get mad and incite riots. No, the made their arguments for faithfully following God over man and then took the punishment, persecution, or had to flee. Never once do we see them taking up arms and killing the authorities.

Some authorities become so vile and so against God that there may be a need to remove it from power. This is not going against God because they have already gone against God with their vileness and rejection of God. We may have to defend the innocent from these regimes. We have to always gauge what we do against what God says. That is our standard, not our emotions. We have to make sure whatever we do is by God’s standard and not ours. This is how we show honor to whom honor is owed, by being faithful to God and obeying Him as He has commanded us.

We must remember that the government is God’s servant for the good and against the evil. They are God’s servant, they are not God. Any government that seeks to fill the role of God is directly in opposition to its divine mandate.

When we live this way and pay what we are to pay then we are showing forth...

Respect and Righteous Living: vv. 8-14

In this section we see that Paul has a concern for the believer to be living as they should in this world. The time is near for Christ to return. It is nearer every day and we should be more concerned about others believing than the governing authorities. He is explicitly saying that we are to owe nothing to anyone but love. If we are behaving as we should in the world we should be in good stead and be able to show love to those around us. As verses 8 and 10 say, “the one who loves has fulfilled the law…love is fulfilling the law.” Love of others and for others is what we are to focus on. Paul placed the command to be obedient to governing authorities before this because he knew that we needed to hear that we are to be obedient so we can focus on love and reaching others for Christ.

Paul distills these commands, even the one to submit to authorities, down into one command: YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.

If we loved others this way we would not commit adultery. Nor would we murder, steal, or covet. By this we would be obedient to authorities because we would fulfill not only God’s law but the law of the land.

By showing true Christian, authentic/genuine, love, we would not hurt our families and maybe other families by adultery. We would not murder anyone or hurt them by harming things they care about.

We won’t litter, scream at others because of what we deem as ignorance. We will be able to bless those who are against us, that hate us, and be genuinely happy for them and not covet their successes or revel in their failures.

If this love was performed by all people, the world would be an extremely different place.

We would not have dictatorship, evil regime, governments. We would have peace. We would not divorce because each would have a genuine love for the other. By this neither would be controlling the other nor would they treat the other as less than they are or be violent to them. By this type of love, children would grow up seeing love and knowing they are loved and would not go out and commit acts of vandal for attention or out of hate.

Also, if this command was followed war would cease. All nations could disarm without fear of the others attacking. There would be no more fear of terrorism or nuclear threats. All things would be in peace. Crime would totally vanish. And by this we would no longer have the tax burden we now have because the government would not need the funding for prisons, police, or courts.

The list is endless of the benefits of this commandment being filled. This love is only fueled by a love for Christ that one attains by the transforming of their minds and their disdain for evil and desire to overcome evil with good. By this we will be obedient because we know that love is more important than anything. This love being the genuine love for others as Christ loved us. This love is the love that desires all to be saved and know Christ and therefore overcome evil with good.

Once we have attained to this type of love, to the best of our abilities, we will see that we need to remove our heads from this fog of this world. By this I mean we will see that we need to seek the good of our nation as best we can by the laws we have but that we need to see Christ as more important.

We need to awake and be on the move for Christ. We need to go and share this great love He has given us. We need to go and live as a Christ follower in this wicked world and be obedient to the laws of the land and show that we live out what Christ has set for us to do.

We do not live in the darkness like the darkness. We do not act as the darkness. No! We live as lights in the darkness. We shine forth true Christian love to this dying world.

We stand for Christ at all times because Christ is worthy of this. We stand for Him because He stood for us. We stand for Him because to die for Him is a worthy cause. It is considered gain by Paul.

We do not involve ourselves with the ways of the world. Yes we are in the world but we are not like the world. We live out godly Christlike true loving lives. We avoid quarrels and jealousies. We avoid all immorality. All of this is accomplished by the transforming of our minds, by loving genuinely, hating evil, clinging to good, and overcoming evil with good.

And the only way we accomplish living like that is by, “PUT[TING] ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND MAKING NO PROVISION FOR THE FLESH, TO GRATIFY ITS DESIRES.”

When we have put on the Lord Jesus Christ we will be able to properly submit to authorities. We will live respectfully and righteously because we have made no room for the flesh or its desires.

Along with this, we will act like Daniels in this world. Where the only thing anyone can find about us is our love and devotion to God (Daniel 6:5). He was submitted to the authorities in all manners until it was a clear mandate against God (c.f. Daniel 1:8-16). Just as John, Peter, James, and Paul were obedient in all areas except when it violated God. They stood and spoke up for Christ and the church. That is genuine love. That is loving your neighbor as yourself. That is waking up and living in the light.

That is the only time that we can stand in opposition and break the law is when it is in a direct violation of a mandate of God. We just need to be sure that it is on scriptural authority when we stand against the law. And we need to be ready to face the wrath of man when we do.

Everything we do should be done to the glory of God and that alone.

Conclusion

Now, let us return to our trip to the past.

I believe that each instance in the time travel episode warrants rebellion.

With the Englishman and the 1700’s the British government was basically stealing. They were because they were taxing and not doing what they were supposed to do.

The Southern plantation owner would have been justified to release his slaves and stand with the pastor and not fight at all.

Definitely we see a reason to rebel against the authorities with the 1930’s Germany example. That was a destruction to humanity by destroying the people. Image bearers of God were being treated as animals or worse and many being killed. That calls for a standing on the word of God and seeking change.

God has given us clear instructions for life in His Word. We can make calls to stand against the governing authorities but these must be based on what God’s Word says and not our emotions.

The main point of this entire section from chapter 12 to the end of chapter 16 is that we are to be transformed and live an entirely different way than the world. We love good and hate evil. We cling to good and overcome evil with good. Simply, we love God and we love people. We seek o change the world by how we were changed. We strive to reach people for Christ and show them His love. Then we demonstrate this love by following Him and not being rebellious because our emotions were offended.

We serve God and follow God so when laws are not overtly against Him, we obey them and live as much as we possibly can in peace with others.

But when those laws are against God we stand with God and live or die on that stance.

This is only accomplished by your faith resting in Christ alone. If you haven’t already done this please do so today. Jesus is so worth any and all submission you may have to do. With Him you are truly free even when you submit and obey all the laws.

Believe upon Jesus Christ and go and live for Him and you will see how much better life is. It won’t be easy nor free of struggle but you will have a peace about you that people will not miss. That is because no matter what is going on, you know that Christ is the one who is in control above any authority.