To Whom Shall I Pledge My Allegiance?
Roman 13:1-7, Philippians 3:20
At the center of the universe, both visible and invisible, there is a throne, and seated on that throne is Almighty God. And if you had the privilege that the Apostle John did in Revelation 4, of hearing a command, “Come up here and I will show you,” you would see a throne with everything centered around that throne, and all of heaven ordered around the will of the one seated on the throne. But we live on an earth in which that fact, that central fact of the universe visible and invisible, is systematically obscured and denied by the father of all lies, Satan. The essence of his lie is rebellion against that throne.
We, the human race, joined in his rebellion through our ancestor Adam. And we have been in rebellion ever since. Therefore, the essence of the saving work of God is to take sinners like you and me, rebels against authority, essentially in rebellion against God, and restore us back into glad submission to that throne. That’s what he’s doing. That is the saving work of Jesus Christ. Therefore, he began his gospel ministry in Matthew 4:17 by preaching, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” I can’t do any better than to say the same thing to you. Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
We must repent. We must come back under glad submission to the authority of God. That’s the essence of our salvation. And that’s the joy of preaching – that I could be instrumental through the power of the Spirit to help you and me do that very thing, repent and come gladly under the yoke of Christ. Now God, in his wisdom, established human governments to help those who have not yet fully repented, who have not come back fully under the authority of that central throne to make it through this world without anarchy. He ordained human governments, and he ordained that we, his people, his adopted children should submit to those human governments.
That is what God is doing through the cross, he’s taking sinners and bringing us back under the throne.
Now in Romans 1-11, we see 11 chapters of doctrine that detail how God has worked in history through Christ to take sinners, rebels like us, and redeem us, save us, cover over our rebellion, transform us by the power of the Spirit into new creations, and bring us into a whole new way of life. That is what God is doing through the cross, he’s taking sinners and bringing us back under the throne.
In Romans 12-16, Paul explains to us what our lives here in this world are going to look like as a result. Again, with Francis Schaeffer answering the question, “How then shall we live?” How shall we live considering Romans 1-11? And as we come to Romans 13:1-7, the issue is, how shall a Christian, a Spirit-filled Christian live with secular government? What is a godly way for us to live under secular government? In essence, the scripture teaches that we are citizens of two different countries. And the fact that they are different makes for serious challenges.
Now, in the year 410 AD, the Western world was shocked to its foundation by Alaric and the Goths sacking the city of Rome and burning it to the ground. In one fell swoop they conquered the Western Roman Empire. It was shocking. Rome burning, the “eternal city” under pagan boots, the Western Roman Empire conquered? And all that less than 100 years after Constantine declared himself to be a Christian. There were some critics, some pagans within the Western Roman Empire saying Christianity had weakened the Roman Empire. It did fine before Christianity became the official state religion. Now look, we’re weak. And some wondered if with the fall of the so-called Eternal City, that Christianity would fall because the Roman Empire had been protecting it. Constantine had been using all of Rome’s might, political machinery, and military strength to protect the Christian faith. At least, that’s what some people thought.
Well, there was a man at the time who knew better named Saint Augustine. And three years after the fall of Rome, he wrote one of the greatest treatises, City of God. And what he says in the City of God is that basically Christians are members of an eternal city, but it isn’t Rome. It’s the Eternal City, the new Jerusalem which will come down out of heaven from God. He further argued that while we are citizens of the city of God, we are also citizens of another city, the city of man.
And the city of man is represented by the rise and fall of one human government after another. Characterized by wars and rumors of wars and good kings and bad kings and all kinds of politics and machinery and all of that, that’s the city of man. The challenge is that we Christians are called to be good citizens of the city of God and the city of man at the same time. And that’s a problem because the city of man is made up of sinners who rule and reign sometimes very unjustly. This sometimes leads us to a dilemma.
Now, this dual citizenship that we’re talking about is clearly established in the life of the Apostle Paul. Paul was a Roman citizen, and he claimed that status again and again. And he used it at a key time. For example, in Acts 22, he was being stretched out to be flogged by some Roman soldiers and he mentioned to one of them, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?” Ahh. Shock? So, they went and got the Roman commander, and he hurried immediately to Paul. The commander went to Paul and said, “‘Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ he answered. Then the commander said, ‘I had to pay a big price for my citizenship.’ ‘But I was born a citizen,’ Paul replied,” a Roman citizen.
But Paul says to the residents of Philippi who are Christians, who just by the fact that they were members of the city of Philippi, were also themselves Roman citizens, he says our citizenship, Philippians 3:20, is in heaven. “Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” We are citizens of whatever Rome we’re under, and we’re also citizens of God. Citizens of the city of God.
Now, that dual citizenship is going to bring us into some problems. And those issues, those ethical questions have plagued and troubled brothers and sisters in Christ for 20 centuries. My desire is that you would gladly happily submit to whatever authority God has established, to do it with delight and joy as far as you are able, but to have the wisdom to know when you are no longer able. When government for example, has crossed the line and is now compelling you to do something that will violate scripture or forbidding you to do something that God has commanded you to do, to know how to say no.
(Section of the sermon The Christian and Government, Part 2)
