Submit to ALL Government?
by Barrett Wolf
I’m so glad the American Founding Fathers rejected certain commands in the Bible. Particularly, Romans 13:1-2 where Paul tells his readers (Roman Christians living under a tyranny) to submit to their governing authorities and because “there is no authority except from God…and whoever resists authority opposes the law of God.”
All government is “God-ordained” and to disobey the law is to disobey God. All government? Even evil government? No, I don’t think so. Here’s my problem with this (aside from the obvious): The Bible itself tells people that the governments of the world are controlled by evil (Satan).
Daniel 10:13 seems to indicate that there was a Satanic governing force (the Prince of Persia) that had spiritual authority over that region. Daniel is full of examples of disobeying governing authority (remember how Daniel was thrown to the lions or his 3 friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were put in the furnace for their disobedience to the law). This evil force explained in Daniel 10 shows us why God wanted them to disobey the law.
Ephesians 6:12 suggest that evil controls some elements of human government “world forces of darkness and spiritual forces of wickedness”. Should we really submit to all authority when the Bible teaches that these authorities are inspired or even controlled by evil?
1 John 5:19 says that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
Finally, consider the 3 big temptations of Jesus, when Satan tries to get Jesus to “sin” after he prays and fasts for 40 days. That story is recorded in Matthew and Luke. But the Luke story (Luke 4) says that the devil told Jesus, “all domain and glory has been handed over to me and I give it to whomever I wish.” (Luke 4:6).
Why would Paul command Roman citizens to submit to all governing authorities, even a tyrannical government? As an American, I’m thankful our founding fathers who wrote and signed the Declaration of Independence did NOT obey the command giving in Romans 13.
