Submission to the Authorities
1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Love, for the Day is Near
8Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. 9The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet,"[1] and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."[2] 10Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
11And do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. 14Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.[3]
Notice several points in these verses:-
V1-6 – Government authority. God delegated authority to human government following the Genesis Flood. He granted
man the right to take the life of a murderer (Genesis 9:6). Paul says that everyone must submit to the government,
because all existing authorities have been established by God. Human government is instituted and ordained by God.
But it’s more than that. No man or woman could occupy the position of authority they have apart from the
sovereign, decretive, permissive will of God. John 19:11; Daniel 4:17,25,32; 2 Chronicles 20:6 If you rebel
against that authority, you are bringing judgment on yourself. Submit to authority out of reverence for God,
not solely out of reverence for the ruler. Matthew 10:28; 1 Peter 2:13-17 It is not wise to fight against that
which God has established. Acts 5:34-39
A question generally comes up here, wondering if every leader – Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. – should be
considered “appointed by God.” And the answer, tenderly spoken, is, “Yes.” Proverbs 21:1; Daniel 2:21 Look at
how Judah and Israel were split after Solomon’s reign. 1 Kings 12:1-15 “So the king [Rehoboam] did not listen
to the people, for this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word the LORD had spoken to Jeroboam.”
Consider the circumstance of Nebuchadnezzar or Pilate. Jeremiah 27:6; John 19:10-11 Furthermore, these
authorities are “to do you good.” Even “evil empires” offer “good” services to their people. Even communism
provides land for its people… What would you do if 9-1-1 didn’t answer? What if roads were never paved and
potholes never repaired?
According to Paul, unless you are a wrong-doer, there is no reason to fear the government. What are some
differences between Paul’s definition of government and ours? How about the different types of governments
(democracy, constitutional republic, monarchy, communist dictatorship, tyranny, etc.)? Is there reason to
fear any of these governments if you don’t “do wrong”? “Wrong-doing” is objective, not subjective, and Paul
is essentially commanding civil authority to be subject to God’s moral law. I wonder if he knew that Caesar
would hear his instructions on this. I wonder if Caesar did hear his instructions on this. Caesar might have
appreciated them, as they do say that God has placed authorities in power to do good to the people. This
would not have offended Caesar. With what we’ve noted so far, there are clearly vast implications on the
world and its people. Any thoughts?
Paul says, “Do right and be free from fear; in fact, be commended. The government is God’s servant to do you
good.” Submitting is a matter of both avoiding punishment and conscience. One role of government is to install
fear of punishment into the culture as a deterrent of crime. Can you imagine the implications of true anarchy?
Consider that even a case of anarchy is “established by God for His sovereign purpose.” Then again, we also
submit to the government not out of fear of punishment by the authorities, but due to our Christian conscience
convicting us. Both should keep us in obedience, but unfortunately the second one often does not. Examples
might include speeding, taxes, etc.
So to summarize, we submit to civil authority (1) because it’s instituted by God, (2) because it is good for us
that there is civil authority, (3) because if we don’t, we get punished, and (4) because if we don’t, our
consciences condemn us for breaking the higher moral law of God. Now, there are exceptions in which we do
not have to submit to government, and the guideline is that we live a life of love for others. If others
stand to benefit, civil disobedience is perhaps permissible. Notice these Biblical examples:
(1) Exodus 1 – the Hebrew midwives disobeyed pharaoh’s command to kill the baby boys; civil result = no penalty
other than rebuke / God’s blessing = families of their own; (2) Joshua 2 – Rahab disobeyd the command to reveal
the location of the Jewish spies; civil result = no penalty / God’s blessing = salvation for her and her family
and everlasting commemoration in Scripture; (3) Daniel 3 – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused the command
to bow down in worship of the king; civil result = fiery furnace / God’s blessing = life and witness;
(4) Daniel 6 – Daniel disobeyed Darius’ decree that the people could pray only to him for 30 days and
not to other “gods”; civil result = lion’s den / God’s blessing = life and witness; (5) Matthew 2 – The wise men,
warned in a dream, refused to obey Herod’s command that they report back to him the location of infant Jesus;
civil result = no penalty / God’s blessing = spiritual life?; (6) Acts 5 – The apostles disobeyed the Pharisees’
command that they not teach in Jesus’ name; civil result = flogging, rebuke / God’s blessing = rejoicing that
they had experienced persecution and additional witness opportunity. Notice that all of these civil disobediences
are done humbly and in love, without aggression or arrogance.
The government does not bear the sword for nothing; the government is God’s servant as an agent of wrath to
punish the wrong-doer. We might experience this in the form of paved roads and a speeding ticket. Others get
it in the form of police protection and capital punishment. What are your thoughts regarding capital punishment?
Finally, Paul confirms that it is right to pay taxes to the government, as those serving as agents of God in
civil authority do so full-time, and thus deserve to be paid. Policemen, firemen, judges, Congressmen, etc.
need to be paid, because, even if they are as anti-Christianity as you can possibly imagine, they are carrying
out God’s decretive will and serving Him and us in that way.
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V7-8 – Give what you owe; the only commanded debt is that of love. Paul commands those in his audience to obey,
to give what is owed. And notice that we need to respect and honor those in authority. That’s especially hard to
do when they don’t meet our expectations in their job. God put them there to serve; we must honor and respect
them.
“Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another.” People have understood this
to mean that we should not go into financial debt, but that’s not what Paul is saying. Rather, Paul is aware
that the borrower is slave to the lender, and thus he says that we should pay off our debts in a timely fashion.
There is nothing wrong with borrowing books from the public library. That’s what it’s for! But return the books
on time; avoid late fees. By repaying debts in a timely manner, you are being a good witness; by delinquency or
negligence in debt payments, you are being a bad witness.
Let no debt remain outstanding – except that of love. We can repay a debt and scream, “I’m debt free,” as Dave
Ramsey listeners often do, but we can never pay someone a debt of love and scream that. We will never pay enough
love forward to be out of the debt of love. In fact, the more we pay on our debt of love, the more love we have.
Think about it: When you pay a credit card debt with cash, you end up with less cash. But when you pay the debt
of love with love, you end up with more love. If we ever think we are free of the debt of love, we will certainly
be bad witnesses. This principle drives the apostle Paul in his ministry. What ever he does, he wants to avoid
being a bad witness. Romans 1:14 – He is obligated (literally a debtor) to all people to share the Gospel with
them in love. And because of this obligation, he is eager to do it! But how did we become debtors to love? We
freely received the love of God by the grace of God, and thus we are obligated to share the love of God.
Because the love of God is given by the grace of God, we dare not try to pay God back. It can’t be done. So
we are debtors to the world. Love your neighbor as yourself; love your neighbor as Jesus has loved you.
Matthew 10:8; John 13:34; 1 John 3:16, 4:11
But it’s more than just that. Paul is commanding us to pay every debt out of love. When you owe someone honor,
honor them as a form of love. Return your library book on time as a form of love. Let all of your payments be
paid as forms of love, out of love. That’s the idea. Paul says, “He who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the
law.” Galatians 5:14 Why? See v9-10…
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V9-10 – The sum of the commandments: Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does no harm to its neighbor;
therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. The 613 commandments of the law can be summed up by the 10
Commandments found in Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5. These 10 commandments can be summed up by the two
commandments found in Matthew 22:36-40. These two commandments can be summed up by one word: LOVE. A basic
definition of love here might be: “seeking the best interest of another.” And notice that, for Paul, love
and law are not contradictory. Love fulfills the law; obeying the law is done out of love. “If you love Me,”
Jesus said, “you will obey My commands.” Love compels you to do exactly what the law requires.
Paul lists the “second tablet” laws, those which involve our relationship to mankind (the “first tablet” laws
involve our relationship to God), and he sums them up with Jesus’ penultimate commandment (Matthew 22:37-39).
The first and greatest (ultimate) commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all
your soul and with all your mind.” So if we LOVE both God and our neighbor, then we will not break any of the
laws, and thereby fulfill the law.
Lastly here, notice that we can only love according to God’s command by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Because the practical action demanded in the command to love is impossible for us to measure up to its standards,
we need grace. Both the law and the Gospel call us to love rightly, wholly, genuinely; and none of us “love” that
way consistently, thus we need grace. That’s why Paul spends 11 chapters on grace before he begins to lay out
this beautiful representation of what it means to live the Christian life. The foundation for this kind of living
in love is found only in the grace of God, given to us and present in us by the indwelling Holy Spirit. And it’s
not that our goal in loving is to fulfill the law. Rather, we love because Christ fulfilled the law by love and
we want to glorify Christ by imitating Him.
V11-12 – Salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. Put aside the deeds of the darkness and put on the
armor of light. There are four places in the New Testament where God tells believers to wake up: Ephesians 5:14;
1 Corinthians 15:34; 1 Thessalonians 5:6; Romans 13:11
Paul begins with, “Do this, understanding the present time.” Do what? Wake up and love! Now is the time for
Christian love. We love not to fulfill the law, but because it’s time for love! We live in an overlap between
the time of the dominion of darkness and the Kingdom of God. Awake from your slumber; the time we have to serve
the Lord in love is now limited. Our days are few in number as it is, and we’re one more day closer than we were
yesterday. We need to make the most of every opportunity as we serve Him in our fading time. 1 John 2:8 It’s
still dark, but the daytime is near. One commentator said on this passage, “Faith is indeed nothing but living
in light of what is to come.” We live for Christ, because He is coming.
Put off the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light (faith in Christ, hope in Christ, and love for
Christ). Notice the parallel nature of Paul’s writings here and in Ephesians 5-6 and in 1 Thessalonians 5.
WAKE UP AND PUT ON YOUR ARMOR. Why? We are at war and the battle is raging; we’re fighting for our lives, and
it’s not peace-time yet. This is typical of Pauline writings; he loves the military analogies, and he loves to
issue double commands, one being negative (don’t do this) and one being positive (do this). He is reminding us
that we are in moral, spiritual, and ethical warfare. To be encumbered by sin and unarmed without armor would be
like a soldier on the frontline failing to do his duty, disobeying his commanders. Without the armor of light,
the transformation that accompanies union with Christ, we are not armed for the fight of faith. The Christian’s
life is not sleep, but a battle. So be conscious that we are in spiritual war.
And quickly the good news for us, amidst this battle, is that salvation is nearer now than when we first
believed. What a treasure! Salvation is nearer now, and now, and now, and now. The time of our eternal rest
is closing in. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So Paul’s command is to love, in light of the
fact that we are in a war and in light of the fact that the end is near.
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V13-14 – Clothe yourself with Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. Paul tells
us to behave decently, as in the daytime. It’s still nighttime, but we ought to have our day clothes on. We ought
to be who we are, children of the light. We ought to be wearing Christ even in the darkness. Galatians 3:27 says
that we as believers have already put on Christ. Galatians is talking about justification; here we are talking
about sanctification. The same thing is evident in “putting on the new man.” Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians
3:9-12 We must not behave as if it’s still nighttime, even though it is. We need to avoid party sins or
substance abuse, orgies and drunkenness, which tend to occur at night; we need avoid chamber sins or sexual
lusts, sexual immorality and debauchery, which often happen behind closed doors when the lights are off; we
need to avoid sins that desire attention or control, dissension and jealousy, which stem from pride.
People notice the clothes you wear; do they see you wearing Christ? Do they see you wearing the ugliness of the
flesh, which the world thinks is beautiful. To us it seems like a harsh expression to speak of putting on a
person, but the Greeks understood this language to mean “to imitate a person’s example, to copy his spirit,
to become like him.” Christ is the light, so we clothe ourselves with Him, putting on the armor of light,
Christ, visible as the fruits of the Spirit of Christ.
Footnotes
- 13:9 Exodus 20:13-15,17; Deut. 5:17-19,21
- 13:9 Lev. 19:18
- 13:14 Or the flesh
Bible text from
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International Bible Society.