NOTES for Rom 13:1-2

Taken apart from the context of the whole letter, the apostle's words that there is no authority except from God provoke not merely bewilderment but immediate protest. We are all in one way or another connected with the monstrous history of the twentieth century, the century in which weapons of mass destruction were invented, the century of persecutions of Christians of different confessions, the century of death camps and Hiroshima. One wants to say at once: the apostle simply could not have imagined such a thing! That is where we are mistaken. We must not forget that Paul lived in a time when openly confessing Christ meant bringing upon oneself the wrath of the authorities wherever one lived, in Palestine or in Rome. Moreover, he writes to a community living in the most difficult conditions from this point of view, in Rome, the heart of the Empire, which at that time was openly destroying Christians in the most terrible way. Let us also remember the fate of Paul himself, taken in chains and spared death on the spot only because he was a Roman citizen. (see Acts, ch. 21 and following) What does he mean when he says, 'whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed'?

But let us read carefully: Paul nowhere says that authority is good or that it is right; nowhere does he justify the deeds of those in power. What matters most to him is that authority, even if it is a hundred times terrible and inhuman, has been established for us by God; these are the conditions given to us for our salvation.

What then should we do when the actions of the authorities are monstrous and inhuman, when everything inside protests, when we see injustice and ourselves become its victims? Here we should remember everything Paul writes in the previous chapter, and most of all how it ends: 'Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.'

In our hands we have the most powerful, and above all the only, weapon against evil: to show this world the love and mercy of God, to give drink to the hungry and comfort the weeping. Only in this way can we turn this world from evil toward good.