The role of the citizen

 * I have heard some say that I have changed.  They mean by that that I am not preaching and teaching what I used to, that my emphases have changed, my convictions have changed, my leadership has changed.  In fact, it hasn't.  Anyone can go back and listen to the sermons preached at Faith even 8 years ago, and they will find I was saying the same things then.  Actually, I used to grieve over the fact that people seemed to be hearing without hearing.  I suspect that with the onset of the pandemic and the legal implications of what I was teaching that suddenly congregants who weren't hearing began to hear.  And that is why they have become unhappy under the preaching, because they are hearing now with ears that hear!  And now it isn't just theoretical but profoundly practical.

The following is a sermon preached in December of 2013.  I have not updated it except to highlight in bold portions particularly relevant now.     

Romans 13

The role of the citizen

What is the role of the citizen?  How should Christian Canadians deal with their government?  There are some who would tell us, “have nothing to do with it”.  

Most would tell us “submit.” Now, telling us to submit is not at all unreasonable.  Paul himself says as much.  But the call to submission is in context: the context of the disciple’s outright refusal to submit when told to stop preaching the gospel, and the context of this passage which tells us that the magistrate is ordained of God and therefore in a very real sense His vice-regent.

 Notice how Paul argues for submission.  He doesn’t say "submit because he is thd civil magistrate."  He says "submit because he is a minister for good as you would expect God’s agent to be!"

 So what I want to do this afternoon is look at our responsibility to those in positions of authority over us, particularly as citizens.  Some duties are universal.  They are always binding under every circumstance.  Other duties depend on the situation. 

 Now what’s clear here is that submission in this passage is not operating in some vacuum.  Paul is not saying that the duty of the Christian is to submit always and no matter what.  In fact, this passage assumes that the magistrate to whom we will submit will be a minister of God for good.  Assuming then that you have such a magistrate you absolutely must - he says - give them what’s due.  They deserve it.  They are there as the minister of God, as a “revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”  This is why you ought not to resist them.

Sometimes the temptation is to resist authority because we are allergic to the very notion of authority.  [We say things like] "I shouldn’t have to do what someone else tells me to do.  They’re no more special than I am.  Besides it robs me of my dignity and self-worth…"  This is certainly how people sometimes react when talking about what the Bible says to women.  

The same can happen here whether we’re talking about the Prime Minister a president a mayor or some other magistrate.  We have absolutely no intention of giving them the honor they are due simply because we do not recognize the office as ordained by God.

Paul clears that up; and he is very straightforward about it.  [If] You have a minister for good than you must give them the honor they are due.  You submit to them.  You pay your taxes.  You honour them.  The temptation again is to complain about them, to criticize their every move, to want to bring them down to our level because of our own pride and Paul is unequivocal… again and again he says they are God’s.  He ordained them.  They are His vice-regents.

 So what do you do when the civil magistrate is not a minister for good?   William Symington thinks that when Paul wrote these worse he framed it on  purpose to reprove them, by presenting a striking contrast.  Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive a more cutting sarcasm on Nero and his associates in power, than is here furnished…”   He adds “Nor is it easy to conceive a greater insult that could be offered to the Holy One of Israel, by whom kings reign, than to represent such a monster as Nero as ‘the minister of God for good,’ or his government as ‘the ordinance of God’ which coud not be resisted on pain of damnation.”

 You see its one thing to recognize that this all according to God’s providence, that Paul had Nero and we get Stephen Harper while the Americans get Obama… and that its falling out according to God’s sovereign decree.  It is common for us to distinguish between the secret and revealed will of God… but just because in God’s providence there are increasing numbers of couples being divorced doesn’t mean we should go ahead and endorse it or just because in God’s providence a tyrant is raised up doesn’t mean we don’t have a duty to oppose him. 

Symington says, if it is a breach of duty to set up  as his representatives or vice regents “persons devoid of every requisite qualification for office, equally at variance with the duty we owe to him must it be to honor and acknowledge such persons when set up.”

In other words, if it is wrong to put such people in power it is wrong to honour and acknowledge them.  It may be providential that they are there – in fact, you and I would insist it has to be!  All of it is falling out according to His will… but in this case because contrary to His express and revealed will we therefore must not honour and acknowledge them.

Certainly there is a place even here for submission but only as a chastisement sent us by God… but even when we do submit we must “bear a full and honest testimony against its evils,” and we must do everything we can to avoid anything that may us involve in their guilt.

 So what is the place of submission when the leader does not possess the qualifications which King Jesus requires and has prescribed?  They oppose his interests as Stephen Harper and Obama clearly do, they conduct their governments on immoral principles neither confessing Jesus as King of the nation nor taking His law for their law… so what do we do? 

First, we may submit to them but not because they have required it.  We submit rather because what is being asked is is lawful and reasonable.  Symington uses the example of an intruder coming into my home and demanding that I worship God love my wife and bring my children up in the nurture of the Lord… well this authority doesn’t belong to him.  He has wickedly usurped that authority, and yet I am under obligation to obey t those commands not because he told me but because they are lawful.   And should I do them I am not obeying the intruder but God.

 An unlawful authority is not to be obeyed because they have asked it but because what they have asked is good and lawful. 

You see it is not my duty as a presbyter to decide which of the directives of the presbytery are reasonable.  Obviously, I would have to disobey if asked to do something clearly in opposition to the word of God, but I submit to them because they are a lawful authority.  It is altogether different when the government is - as our government is - unlawful.  We may and should submit where the things they require are reasonable but we needn’t submit any further than that simply because they have usurped an authority that is not their own.

Now again, we can pay our taxes.  Because some of our tax money is used to fund abortion we are certainly not bound to pay them.  But this may be a case of choosing which battles to fight.  An argument could be made that it is reasonable even with an illegitimate magistrate to pay taxes.  Even the covenanters paid their taxes.  On the other hand, if a tax was raised specifically and only to fund abortion (for example) we would be under obligation to absolutely refuse payment.  To pay our tax in that case would be gross compromise.

You see, many of us are accustomed to seeing this passage as a call to submission in all cases except where the government requires what is clearly and plainly unlawful.  That’s what you expect of children and wives and congregations that they would submit to those in authority because those people are in authority (except when there’s a real problem with what is required).

But what if someone has usurped that which is not theirs?  You don’t submit to them because they are in authority, you only submit where what they ask is reasonable.  Wearing seatbelts is reasonable, driving 100 km/hr on the 401 is unreasonable.   Laws that require fences around pools are reasonable, laws that prohibit self-defense are unreasonable. 

But you see we have a calling as Christian citizens not to sit back and observe what is going on; not to complain and criticize and moan, but to do our duty.

 Let’s look at a few of those duties.  

First we have a duty to elect only those who qualified in three ways: natural, moral and religious.  

• First, and obvious to everyone in this room is the need to have some with the natural ability to do the job.  I would question whether Rob Ford has the ability to do his job if he is drinking heavily and using crack.  I do believe Stephen Harper has the ability to lead the country at least in this sense.  
• Second, and less obvious in this generation is the need for someone morally qualified.  We learned to think that natural qualifications and moral qualifications can be separate.  They can’t.  It just as dangerous to have an immoral man in the office as it is to have a tyrant.  God is clear here that the qualification for civil magistrate being an ordinance of God that he be then a minister for good and in order to do so he must be consistent.  He must not only put the law into effect but abide by it.  We are not at liberty as Christian citizens to simply vote according to the needs of our pocket book. We are not at liberty to put in office a man naturally gifted but immoral.   I don’t care what his policy, if he is a drunkard and idolater, an adulterer, a Sabbath-breaker he cannot have my vote.  It is that simple.  The issue is never expedience.  We must repent of our utilitarianism, which teaches us to choose the lesser of evils.  I have had to repent of this tendency.  When we put our name behind a man who is not morally qualified we share in the guilt of his election and the guilt of his rule and the blood then that comes on the nation as God’s judgment is on our hands.  Do we want to tell our children when faced with persecution, when faced with economic depression, when faced possibly with famines and other kind of judgment that the responsibility is their parents because we elected these men and put them in a position that was not theirs to take? 
• Finally, there is the religious qualification which is entirely off the radar of voters in Canada and the US – in fact, many think that a person’s religion is something that will only get in the way rather than help.   And even Christians today hardly consider this.  But it goes back to what was said last week.  Without religious qualifications there is no way for the magistrate to perform his duties.  How can he do what he is called to as vice-regent to King Jesus?  How can he own Christ as King when he doesn’t take Him as his own?  How can he put a law in place He doesn’t love and cherish out of love for His king?  The description “a minister for good” is not something we are reading in a political science text book.   Minister for good in the Bible means good according to the Bible and what the Bible calls good is God, is His holy law, is His name and works… Paul has already said that "the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be!  So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”  And do we honestly think that we put then a carnal man into office and except to please God?  But God has said "this is my office!  This belongs to me.  The civil leader is mine, and I rule over him to the church for the sake of the church… but you put a carnal man in he cannot please me, he cannot obey my law – he is at enmity with me!" 

James Bannerman pointed out that you can’t have a neutral magistrate, and we for many years have believed we could.   We are learning now a hard lesson… but we tried that out of expedience.  

What I am saying makes that point moot – its irrelevant.  Even if it were possible to be neutral, that is not the mission and purpose of the magistrate.  He exists for the sake of the church.

As I said last week he is not to interfere with it.  These are two different spheres.  

The one wields the power of the sword while the other wields the Word of God.  The one puts in prison the other excommunicates from the church.  But this doesn’t mean the civil magistrate should not be concerned with the church’s well being.  How can he if he is of God and a minister care about anything more?!  And it doesn’t mean you and I shouldn’t care about politics just because it is a different sphere.

Our duty is to elect a man who can fulfill his calling as vice-regent for the King of kings, who will have an eye to the glory of Christ in everything he does.  A magistrate, then, who will protect and uphold the true church.  A magistrate, then, who take god’s law as his law and the nations law. 

And anyone who does not come with those qualifications is not fit for the office; and we are not at liberty to give them our vote. 

Second, we have a duty when we have such a magistrate to give our allegiance to him and enter into covenant with him for the sake of the church and nation.  It was commonplace in the Old Testament to enter into such covenants.  It’s a very different thing from a glib promise.  

What we are called to do is to promise to do what God has required us to do.  When we came to Christ we entered into covenant with Him, and when we have opportunity it is absolutely our duty to enter covenant with each other as a nation and with God to do what God requires of us as Christians for the sake of His dear name and for the sake of His bride.  And that simply means covenanting together to obey God’s law, to reform the church and to own and serve and glorify Jesus Christ.

But what if the civil magistrate is not a minister for God?  

Its an important question since it applies to our situation here and the US – neither nation has a civil magistrate that is a minister for good.   Knowing that we need to be clear in our minds that we don’t submit to them because they are the civil magistrate but rather we submit because what they ask is lawful and reasonable and that is as far as we are obliged to go.

And then we testify against them.  

It becomes our duty to speak out on issues like abortion and like euthanasia and issues also like the Sabbath and idolatry.  We need to be bold, to fearlessly proclaim that abortion clinics are not so different from concentration camps, that mosques and Buddhist temples are a curse on this nation, that the widespread neglect of the Sabbath will be our ruin, that homosexuality is sin, that divorce and remarriage except in cases of adultery is sin.

It may not be helpful if you decide to start a business, it may not be helpful as you try to build your reputation, in fact, it may socially ruin you; but it remains your duty.  As it was the duty of Christian Germans to testify against Hitler and against the holocaust so it is our duty to testify against the sin in this nation and most fundamentally we need to call on our magistrate, our prime minister to humble himself before the King of kings.

You see you and I have a duty to our families and to the church; and should we find ourselves in a position where we are not even allowed to meet, than resistance would be called for.  

More likely the challenges are going to come to the family.  They will threaten to take away children from parents who will not comply.  So what do you do?

First sort out prayerfully whether or not submission to the magistrate is lawful.  Is it lawful to teach this particular curriculum in the way they want me to teach it?  If not than teaching it is not an option.  We do not have liberty to comply with the government in that case.  

But we still have choices.  We can assess the risk of non-compliance and choose to stay and see what comes or flee to a country where there is freedom.  

There is a final duty (and one that Paul stressed) and that is prayer.  We can and should always pray for our magistrates; but the need for prayer is now becoming even more urgent.  As this case goes to the supreme court we need to be praying urgently and consistently.  

We often worried when we could have prayed, and this is an example where we can really not do much; but we certainly can pray and we certainly can contact our MP. 

Fearful days may be ahead of us, and it may hinge by God’s providence on the prayers of His people.  Pray then for all you are worth.