“Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme.”
whether to the king as supreme
The king was supreme in Peter’s day. If he wanted to put someone to death, he could do it without recourse. He had power over life and death. No one questioned him. No one took a vote on it.
Nero was the king at this time. He governed viciously and was autocratic. His government placed hundreds of thousands of people in slavery. It was a government of corruption, drunkenness, immorality, and violence. There was no democracy, no voting.
The Bible does not espouse any particular form of government. The king was the highest authority in the Roman Empire. God does not endorse any particular type of government, but he does emphasize the principle of nationalism as opposed to internationalism. This is why Christians should oppose globalism.
PRINCIPLE:
God wants us to recognize the importance of the social order, the divine institution of nationalism.
APPLICATION:
God does not want us to submit to a person but to a principle – the principle of the national entity (Romans 13:1-7).
Every Christian has a responsibility to his nation. It is easy for people in North America to live under our government, relatively speaking. If you read this in China or North Korea, that is a different story. Being a Christian in those countries will cost you more.
However, a bad government is better than no government. If we go without government, we have anarchy. We take the law into our own hands. It is not right to take the law into our own hands. God does not want lynch mobs running around. The child of God should have nothing to do with riots and civil disobedience.
When we think of the skyrocketing national debt that the next generation must pay off, it is no wonder a baby cries when it is born! Yet the Bible says that we are to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Mt.22:21).
The believer’s relationship with the government is to be the best citizen possible. Often the Christian is the worst kind of citizen. God calls upon Christians to be salt. Salt retards corruption.
