Does the government have the right to command any and everything it wills to us?
Acts 4:18-19
Some Christians have taken Romans 13 as a requirement for unquestioning submission to human government. For example, Martin Luther the German reformer did. The Peasant Revolt of 1525 occurred when German peasants sought redress for legitimate grievances against their medieval overlords but were ignored. They decided to revolt in protest and thought that they would get support from Luther.
Oh, how bitterly disappointed they were when Luther wrote one of his most vicious tracks ever, against the “murderous and thieving hordes of peasants.” You open it up and you read, and it does not look good. Ominously, he says to the princes and nobles that they should crush, kill, and destroy these rebellious peasants. Luther’s basic argumentation was they were rebelling against what God had ordained, God-ordained authority.
The German sense of duty and submission to authority was a very strong national trait. They had a very strong sense of a chain of command. We saw the extreme form of this during the time of Hitler and the Nazis. The Nazis took over the Protestant church in Germany and made it a whipped pup except for a few courageous pastors who formed the Confessing Church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of those willing to pay the price for rebellion against Nazi domination over the church. But they argued Romans 13, Romans 13, Romans 13.
This question of the limits of Christian submission to government is really an old one, and the Bible has much to say about it. Peter and John were commanded by the Sanhedrin. They were given a very clear command by the Sanhedrin to stop preaching Christ and his resurrection. And their answer, Peter and John’s answer, in my opinion, stands for all time as a limit to Christian submission to government, a limit to it. In Acts 4:18-19, they called them in again, and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus, but Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God, for we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
Are you being forced to do something that violates your conscience? Are you being forbidden to do something that God’s commanded you to do?
Alright, now what’s the key thought? Judge for yourselves whether it’s right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. Now that “rather than” is huge, isn’t it? You have to discern, are you forced to disobey God by this government injunction? Are you being forced to do something that violates your conscience? Are you being forbidden to do something that God’s commanded you to do? Now, that’s the issue.
Later in Acts the same issue comes up again. They call them back in. Say we noticed you’re not obeying the command we gave you earlier. Well, they could say we already told you. And they did tell them again in Acts 5:27-29,
Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,’ he said, ‘and yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Peter and the other apostles, replied, ‘We must obey God rather than men.”
Again, “rather than.” When the government forces you to violate your conscience, compels you to do something that you know will break one of God’s commandments, or when the government forbids you to do something God has commanded you to do, you must say no. There’s a limit to obedience, a limit to what the government can do with us.
And it goes even into the Old Testament. The Hebrew midwives were blessed by God by disobeying; after disobeying Pharaoh’s command to kill all the boy babies, they were blessed by God for that. And the Book of Daniel gives us actually repeated examples of godly people who refuse to obey an ungodly command and yet maintained a stance of submission to the government. Daniel and his friends would not eat the defiled food in chapter one, but they asked permission not to eat the defiled food. In Daniel 3, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego will not bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s gold statue. They’re thrown in a fiery furnace, but God rescues them. And then Nebuchadnezzar comes and gives them a lawful command. “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, come here” (Daniel 3:26).
They said, “Yes, King.” And they came out. They did what they were told, as that was a lawful command, Come out. That doesn’t violate my conscience, but bowing down definitely does. There’s a difference.
And then later, Daniel refused to obey the unjust command of prohibition against prayer. He was prohibited from praying to God. He could pray to King Darius, but he was not allowed to pray to the true God. He went ahead and bowed down and was thrown in the lion’s den. And he says, when he’s brought out, he says, “I was found innocent in his [God’s] sight nor have I done anything against you, O King” (Daniel 6:22). He was submissive to the king’s authority up to that point but then he refused to obey.
Christians suffering persecution under the Romans were forced to burn a pinch of incense to the deity of the Roman Emperor. They refused to do it because that would violate their conscience. Many of them suffered as martyrs as a result. I don’t know what the immediate future holds for us here in America. But in the future when human government gets as evil as it can be under the reign of the Antichrist, the government at that time will try to compel you to receive the mark of the beast, without which you will not be able to buy or sell. And you will need to discern and have the wisdom, it says, to know what the mark of the beast is and not receive it. You will need to stand firm. Apparently, anyone who does not receive the mark of the beast is going to be beheaded. You will need to resist the government at this point, because the command is evil, wicked, and damning.
It says in Revelation 13:16-17, “He [the anti-Christ] also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark which is the name of the beast or the number of his name.” What’s so bad about that? Well, Revelation 14,
A third angel followed them, said in a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he too will drink the cup of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest, day or night for those who worship the beast and his image.”
In other words, in that era, if you do obey human government, you will lose your soul. And this is the horns of the dilemma of living in two kingdoms. Do you see it? God has said No, the government will say Yes, and you’ll be forced to choose. Be ready, be ready for that time. God will give you courage and what to say. Why would you want to keep living under Antichrist’s reign, anyway, when you could live under the reign of Christ? You can be freed from this world by martyrdom and go into the very presence of Christ! Why would you refuse to do that? And you won’t if you’re the elect of God, not one of you will. Just be ready, be aware it could happen in your lifetime or mine. Romans 13 says we must gladly as an act of worship submit to lawfully ordained authority. We must do that but there are limits to it.
(Section of the sermon The Christian and Government, Part 2)