Romans 13

Romans 13:1-14

Subdivision 2. (Romans 13:1-14.)As strangers and pilgrims in the world.

1. Now we have the Christian attitude toward the outside world, to which we are not to be conformed. “Strangers and pilgrims” in it, we yet recognize, surely, all that is of God. Government is of God, not this or that form of it; there is no decision as to what is best or of any form being best. The world is outside of us and all that belongs to it, but God’s hand is in it and over it, and with a restraining power upon the evil, which is immense mercy to all. Government is of God, whatever exists, whatever we find practically in the place in which we are. We are only passing through, and it is not ours to meddle or make.

Any form of government whatever is comparatively beneficial: think of what anarchy would mean. While all forms fail, as Daniel at large shows us, because the One who alone is capable of exercising perfectly righteous rule has not come.

God’s mercy comes in everywhere to temper things; but the world is in opposition to God and therefore to us. As long as we are here, there will never be another condition of the world. Our place is in the world to come. There we shall reign with Christ, but now, if the apostle says to Christians, “Ye have reigned as kings,” it is plainly a reproach on his lips, and he adds “without us.” If they got reigning, they were out of communion with the apostles, clearly; they were more apt to be in a prison than on a throne; and, if we are to be in communion with the apostles, it must be so still with us. If we say times have changed and our conduct therefore must change with that, the world is still the world, if it is without God. If it is with God, it is not in the evil sense “the world”; but who will assert that, however Christianized it may apparently be, the mass is not truly the world any longer?

If this shifts for us, if the world is gradually growing better and our position in it is to be affected by that, then we are without practical guidance in the word of God. The changed times would require a new Bible.

The Lord’s prophetic words speak of His disciples being brought before rulers and kings for a testimony against them and the nations, nothing else. The apostle of the Gentiles is left at the close of the Acts in the Gentile prison; and, while we find in his epistles careful directions for Christians as subjects, there are plainly none for Christian kings or magistrates. We may say, perhaps, that there were none at that time, but that does not argue that there would be none; the coming king was provided for in Judaism long before he came, as well as the absolutely necessary law book in which he would find the divine laws which he was to execute. Think of Christian magistrates and kings to execute laws other than divine! Plainly, nothing of all this is given to us; and yet we accept the authorities that are as “ordained of God,” and “he who setteth himself against the authority, withstands the ordinance of God.” Thus, plainly, “he will receive to himself judgment.” Nothing that is of God can rightly be resisted, and on the whole, through His mercy, things are so ordered that rulers are still His ministers for good, not a terror to the good work, but to the evil. Blessed it is to be able to realize how, through all that seems to be most opposed to Him, God nevertheless works, and thus we are to be in subjection for conscience, sake.

How good to know that in every circumstance of this world through which we pass, while yet we are strangers in it, the world is not so strange but that we shall find God everywhere, and things that seem the most contrary, yet ordered by Him. If, indeed, the governments of the world yet require of us that which is in plain conflict with the word of God, we must obey Him rather than men, but in suffering, not resisting.

This the apostle carries out to the smallest detail. We are to render to all their dues: “Tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, and honor” also “to whom honor.” We are not permitted, even, to have freedom of speech against that which is of God’s institution. 2. Now comes the debt to all men. Here, it is not a question of loving the brethren merely. We are to owe no one anything save to love one another, and here it is pointed out that we have the fulfilment of that which the law sought, but could never obtain. Love is that which is the fulfilment of the law, or the whole of it, for if we love our neighbor as ourselves, love works no ill to one’s neighbor. The commandments give us only the prohibition of these various forms of ill. Love owns the debt to all men and pays it. “The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” 3. We have now another thing. We are “children of the light and of the day.” We walk in the night and in the darkness, but the darkness is passing away. The hour of dawn is approaching. It is already time to be aroused out of sleep. Our salvation, final salvation of course, is getting ever nearer, but for us, already the light shines upon us.

If it has not come for the world, for us it has come. We are in it in such sort that we should be reflecting it. Heaven is open to us, and the glory in the face of Christ already shines upon us. Practically to enjoy this is to manifest it and to manifest what we are. It is to put on the armor of light. Who is unaware of what a defence light is in itself in the midst of darkness?

The evil deeds of men are done in the darkness. Light reproves them. How blessed to walk in the joy of that which manifests us for what we are, and which, by its presence in us, rebukes evil and breaks, as it were, the power of temptation; but we have, therefore, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ in a practical way. It is, in fact, but to sit in the sun and the sun will make its mark upon us; but that means the heart laid hold of and therefore no thought of provision for the flesh, which, with its lusts, belong to the darkness.