NOTES for Rom 13:1-7

Taken separately from the context of the whole letter, the apostle's words that there is no authority except from God provoke not merely bewilderment, but instant 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 immediately wants to say: the apostle simply could not have imagined such a thing.

Here is where we would be mistaken. One should not forget that Paul lived in a time when openly confessing Christ meant bringing down on oneself the wrath of the authorities wherever one lived, in Palestine or in Rome. More than that, he is writing to a community living under the most difficult conditions from this point of view: in Rome, the heart of the Empire, which at that time was openly destroying Christians, and in the most terrible way. Let us also remember Paul's own fate, taken in chains and spared death on the spot only because he was a Roman citizen (see Acts, ch. 21 and following). What then does he want to say when he says, "whoever resists the authority resists what God has appointed"?

Let us read attentively: Paul nowhere says that authority is good, that it is right. He nowhere justifies the deeds of people in power. The most important thing for 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.

But what should we do when the actions of the authorities are monstrous and inhuman, when everything inside protests, when we see and ourselves become victims of injustice? Here one must remember everything Paul writes about in the previous chapter, and above all how it ends: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

In our hands there is the most powerful, and most importantly the only, weapon against evil: to show this world God's love and mercy, to give drink to the hungry and comfort the weeping. And only in this way can we turn this world from evil to good.

Paul’s words about authority, which cannot fail to be from God, often provoke inner resistance in readers of his letter. It is all too obvious that representatives of authority often use their “swords” not at all for good works, even in the sense in which they themselves understand good, and as for God’s laws there is no need to speak of them. Meanwhile the apostle’s words are far from so unambiguous, even if one approaches them formally and tears Paul’s statement about “authority not from God” out of context. In any case, they certainly cannot be used to support any particular authority: if every authority really is from God, then one can speak of the legitimacy of a particular authority and particular rulers only so long as that authority exists and those rulers remain in power. And in the event, for example, of a coup or a revolution, the new authority will have to be acknowledged, since it cannot fail to be from God.

Of course, supporters of the overthrown authority will speak of illegality, of rebellion, perhaps even of violating God’s commandment, but... as the poet said on this occasion, “rebellion cannot end in success: otherwise it is called by another name.” And if that is so, then the new authority too is “from God,” just like the former one. But in that case it is obvious that God does not directly support any authority. He simply allows it to exist, every kind and variety of it, depending on the situation and on the spiritual condition of the people that produces that authority. In such a case theologians speak not of God’s will but of His permission: not of what He supports, but of what He allows to exist without taking part directly in the process of its existence by His will. He allows it sometimes to avoid a worse alternative, and sometimes simply because there is no alternative.

In general, this attitude toward the state and state authority can be considered broadly biblical: the Bible knows no good authority at all. Authority can only be bad or very bad. Sometimes, with God’s help, it is possible to bring it about that in a particular place and at a particular time authority is not very bad, but no one has ever managed to make it good from God’s point of view. And still, there is no point in making political struggle an end in itself. For supporters of political messianism, of whom there were more than enough when the letter was written, this approach of the apostle was unacceptable: they were convinced precisely that the Messiah had to become an earthly king, and therefore religious-political struggle was for them something self-evident, as was the war for the Kingdom in which it would someday inevitably end.

For Paul, however, it was obvious that a war for the Kingdom against earthly authorities is absurd, because the Kingdom had already entered the world without any war, above all political barriers. But this does not remove the need to make a choice when, in conscience, one cannot obey earthly authority. It is no accident that the apostle says there is sense in obeying earthly authority not out of fear, but precisely for conscience’s sake, that is, when conscience does not condemn such obedience. But if something is done against conscience, obedience has no meaning: God does not need such obedience, for it then becomes an empty formality and only destroys that inner wholeness of the person without which normal spiritual life is impossible.

As long as obedience to earthly authority does not hinder Christian life, it is the most proper choice. But if such obedience destroys Christian life by forcing one to act against conscience, it loses all meaning and becomes spiritually destructive. This position is entirely understandable: the purpose of Christian life is to abide in the Kingdom, and everything that hinders such abiding must be removed from life, whether it is loyalty to earthly authority or the absence of such loyalty.

Paul's attitude toward a person's obligations can at first glance appear somewhat contradictory. He says: if you owe someone something, that debt binds you and requires repayment. Everyone must receive what he has a right to, and this cannot be denied to anyone, whether it is tax, obedience, or simply respect. And immediately he adds: owe no one anything except the debt of mutual love. In fact, Paul evaluates obligations themselves in the context of a person's relation to secular authority, a theme that was undoubtedly very sharp in those days.

Sharp at least because of the rather widespread political messianism in Jewish circles, which regarded the very existence of secular authority as evil and obedience to this authority as sin. Paul does not think so. He says directly that there is no authority that could exist apart from God's will. And this is not a call to blind loyalty, as many would like or, conversely, would not like to think, but the statement of an obvious fact. If God permits one or another authority to exist, then He does not consider it necessary to intervene. As for a Christian's relation to secular authority, here everything is more complex.

On the one hand, one can speak of a "God-pleasing" or "God-opposing" authority as a state institution, in the context of what Paul says, only very relatively. "There is no authority except from God," in the context of world history, and even Roman history, with its palace and other coups, conquests, revolutions, and so on, sounds rather indifferent. If any authority is "from God," then one can speak of legitimate authority only very relatively. But then one can also speak of God-pleasing authority very relatively. Rather one has to conclude that God tolerates any authority until a certain time in order to avoid something worse, and here it is better for a Christian not to interfere. But one can obey any authority only "for conscience's sake"; otherwise obedience loses all meaning.

Any other obedience does not count before God. And if obedience "for conscience's sake" is impossible, then it is more honest before God to refuse obedience to authority. In that way one can at least avoid the hypocrisy of formal obedience to it, and therefore avoid violating at minimum the ninth commandment. And everything a person owes to representatives of secular, or any other, authority, he owes only as a consequence of this obedience "for conscience's sake." But if it is "for conscience's sake," then it must be to the end, so that there is nothing with which to reproach oneself and so that one can answer, also according to conscience, for one's obedience both before people and before God.

Here it is the same Gospel "let your yes be yes, and your no be no." And this concerns all human relationships in general: all obligations flow only from mutual love. Without it, the fulfillment of duty becomes a kind of spiritual, if not psychological, hypocrisy. A fulfillment that spiritually dries up the one who fulfills it and does not benefit the one who uses the fruits of such fulfillment. In the Kingdom such relations are impossible, and the apostle calls Christians in every case to remain inhabitants of the Kingdom, whether this concerns their relation to authority or to one another.