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What is the Difference between Good and Bad Government?
Romans 13:4, Revelation 13:1-2
Government Demonstrates God’s Passion for Justice
Good government demonstrates God’s passion for justice. Governments, police, court systems give daily pictures of judgment day. Every night on the local news, you can see somebody getting arrested, or somebody being arraigned, or somebody being convicted, or somebody being brought off to prison. These images are in our minds all the time. They are a picture of judgment day, aren’t they? We see it every day. It is a display of God’s basic nature to bring things to justice, to deal with things. The court was seated, and the books were opened, it says in Revelation 20. Well, we have a picture of that because of government.
Government Promotes Order and Peace – Essential to the Spread of the Gospel
Government promotes order and peace. With God restraining the natural tendency of humans to do evil, a basic level of peace and order can be established. This enables people to live orderly and peaceful lives. Order and peace are essential to the gospel advance. How can we preach the gospel if there’s rioting and looting in the streets? If you’re cowering up in the hills, and you’re not sure where your next meal is going to come from, how are you going to share the gospel with your neighbor? It’s going to be hard.
As a matter of fact, Paul talks about this in 1 Timothy 2:1-4. He says, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
We need to pray for governments that they would do their job well so that we can advance the gospel.
Do you see how Paul connects government and the orderliness of society with the advance of the gospel? God’s desire is to get people saved. We need to pray for governments that they would do their job well so that we can advance the gospel. So, we need the quiet orderliness that government provides so that we can share Christ.
Order and Peace is Also Essential to General Productivity
Order and peace are also essential to general productivity. Governments maintain infrastructure, like roads and bridges and ports. Also, they support emergency things like 911, hospitals, ambulances, and fire departments. These things come from government. Good governments also manage economic opportunities in a way conducive to the general welfare. This enables Christians to obey Paul’s command in 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12, where he says, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” Without government keeping everything under control, you can’t do this. God can’t put your daily quiet life on display, your hard work with your hands. Instead, again, you’d be running and cowering and trying to survive the day. And so, as a result, good things happen with the order of government. And government encourages love and good deeds. It says in Romans 13:4, “The ruler is God’s servant to do you good.”
Good Government is a Blessing
Good government is a blessing from God. That’s the basic idea of Romans 13. Listen to the preamble of the Constitution. It says there, “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution of the United States of America.” Well, that’s a list of blessings. Those are good things. All of them can be supported in scripture. That’s why the Constitution was written, that’s what the government was for. Good government is a blessing from God.
Bad Government is a Curse
But at the same time, bad government is a curse from the devil. He’s a governor, he’s a king, he’s a ruler, and he rebelled against God. Not even just God-ordained authority, he rebelled against God Himself. Thus, bad government is in the image of the devil, promoting evil and chaos.
I was reading a book about the history of the civil rights recently and a civil right leader quoted Saint Augustine, who said, “Without justice, government is nothing more than a band of armed robbers.” In other words, without justice, a government itself becomes a lot like anarchy. Look at, for example, Nazi Germany in 1938, October 9th and 10th, what’s called Kristallnacht. That night government permission was given to anti-Semites to roam the streets, destroy Jewish businesses, arrest Jewish people without any charges, hold them, bring them to concentration camps and execute them without a trial. How is that different than the anarchy I was just describing? Very little difference.
And so, bad government is a curse from the devil. The key passage on good government being a blessing from God is Romans 13. The key passage on bad government being a curse from the devil is Revelation 13. It’s a good kind of parallelism there. Romans 13, government is a blessing from God. Revelation 13, evil government is a curse from the devil. There it shows in Revelation 13:1-2, the dragon stands on the shore of the sea. The sea in Daniel 7 represents the churning of the nations and up out of the sea come these beasts in Daniel 7. Well, Revelation 13 picks up on the image, and there the dragon, Satan, is standing by the sea. He looks out over the churning sea and up out of the sea comes a beast. It has ten horns and seven heads with ten crowns on its horns and on each head a blasphemous name. “The beast I saw resembled the leopard but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and throne and great authority” (Revelation 13:2). That’s government, but it’s wicked government, it’s from the devil, Revelation 13.
Now, the future of bad human government is the reign of Antichrist. Antichrist will reign over this beast, this wicked human government. He is the man of sin mentioned in 2 Thessalonians 2. He sets himself above all things, desiring to be worshiped himself. Jesus will destroy him by the breath of his mouth Christ and by the splendor of his second coming. Amen and amen. And at last, human government will be finished. But that’s the future. We have yet a future of bad human government.
In summary, we see in Romans 13 that government is established by God. The government official is God’s servant to do you good. In Revelation 13, government usurped by the devil is wicked. The wicked government is the beast from the sea. The final form of wicked human government is that of the Antichrist whom Christ will destroy.
