Reading Romans with John Stott, Vol. 2 by John Stott Dale Larsen Sandy Larsen

Author:John Stott,Dale Larsen,Sandy Larsen [Stott, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780830893331
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
Published: 2016-07-27T00:00:00+00:00

Submit to Authorities

Romans 13:4-5

4For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents 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 as a matter of conscience.

Just as he has affirmed three times that the state has authority from God, so now Paul affirms three times that it has a ministry from God. These are significant statements. If we are seeking to develop a balanced biblical understanding of the state, central to it will be the truths that the state’s authority and ministry are both given to it by God. Those who serve the state as legislators, civil servants, magistrates, police, social workers or tax collectors are just as much ministers of God as those who serve the church as pastors, teachers, evangelists or administrators.

What is the ministry that God has entrusted to the state? It is concerned with good and evil, which is a recurring theme throughout Romans 12–13. Here, then, are the complementary ministries of the state and its accredited representatives. “The one in authority is God’s servant for your good” and “to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” Thus the state’s functions are to promote and reward the good and to restrain and punish the evil.

The restraint and punishment of evil are universally recognized as primary responsibilities of the state. When governmental authorities punish evildoers, they are functioning as “servants of God, agents of wrath” on them. God’s wrath, which one day will fall on the impenitent and is now seen in the breakdown of the social order, also operates through the processes of law enforcement and the administration of justice. We human beings as private individuals are not authorized to take the law into our own hands and punish offenders. The punishment of evil is God’s prerogative, and during the present age he exercises it through the law courts.

In this distinction between the role of the state and that of the individual, we may perhaps say that individuals are to live according to love rather than justice, whereas the state operates according to justice rather than love. This is by no means a wholly satisfactory formula, however, since it sets love and justice over against each other as if they are opposites and alternatives, whereas they do not exclude each other. Even in loving and serving our enemies, we should still be concerned for justice, and we should also remember that love seeks justice for the oppressed. And even in pronouncing sentence, judges should allow justice to be tempered by love, that is, mercy. For evil is not only to be punished; it is to be overcome.

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