War & Politics: One Authority

This post has been significantly updated from its original format.

As I was composing this post – on July 13th, 2024 – addressing how Christians should answer questions pertaining to “war and politics“, an assassination attempt was made on President Trump’s life, bringing our nation perilously close to what I believe would be Civil War. We are quickly approaching the time when Christians will be forced to answer the questions of war and politics that many haven’t yet thought through, making this series all the more necessary.

Such times require that Christians know where to stand. In my last post I detailed the first principle in what I’m calling a witness theology, namely that “Jesus is Lord“, which reflects the fundamental truth that shapes the Christian faith so that we are able to meet the demands of our time in ways that are not only consistent with the gospel, but which also bring us closer to the realities of God’s Kingdom.

However, since the time of the Roman emperor Constantine, the Christian Church has developed a framework called the Just-War theory, which attempts to delineate between the “religious” and “political” spheres of life in order to reconcile the issues of war to the Christian faith. The central proposition of the Just-War theory is that war, while inherently undesirable and often destructive, can sometimes be morally justified if it meets certain criteria and conditions. These criteria establish another authority, the rule of the sword, by which the State as God’s ministers of wrath operates. So, religious matters are placed within the Church, which operates by the gospel, and political matters within the State, which operates by the sword. Christians, then, who are regularly ordered by the gospel in their lives, are free from it by the authority of the State, who might command them to do things that Jesus would otherwise forbids. I find this kind of dualism to be in direct conflict with the proposition that Jesus is Lord.

So we must now explore the scope of Jesus’ authority.

SECOND PRINCIPLE

To begin, let’s consider what Matthew’s gospel says about the scope of Jesus’ authority:

Matthew 28:18 (CSB) — 18 Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

All authority has been given to Jesus, both in heaven and on earth. God has subjected everything – “every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come” – under his Son (Ephesians 1:21-22, CSB). The apostle John upholds the universal scope of Jesus’ authority when he wrote that “the one who says, ‘I have come to know him,’ and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him: The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked” (1 John 2:4–6, CSB). And Jesus himself recognizes no limits upon his authority when he said that “If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples” (John 8:31, CSB). Jesus never recognizes any limits to his authority, or constrains the scope of his commands, so we cannot grant the State permission to relieve Christians of their duty to the Lord’s decrees.

Unfortunately, the universal authority of Jesus often brings his followers into conflict with the State, which resists acknowledging any higher authority, especially heaven’s, often resulting in the persecution and martyrdom of God’s people.

Consider the psalmist’s words:

Psalm 2:1–3 (CSB) — 1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and his Anointed One: 3 “Let’s tear off their chains and throw their ropes off of us.”

The State is defiant by nature and inwardly corrupt. It is not an authority that should ever be permitted to release God’s people from the Lord’s decrees. Instead, the States exists as a subordinate authority through whom God exercises his wrath (See Romans 13:4), but which is itself unruly and so often corrupt.

What all this means is that Jesus’ authority is universal in scope, and the State, as defiant as it might be, is a subordinate power that does not possess the right to order the lives of God’s people beyond the Lord’s authority.

So now it remains to synthesize our proposition: “As Lord, Jesus alone possesses the authority – over all heaven and earth – to command his Kingdom because God has subjected every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given under his Son.”

Now there are certain applications that must be drawn our from this principle:

First, Christians cannot submit to any contrary authority without repudiating the authority of Jesus. No human command or interest can relieve God’s people of their allegiance and responsibility to his authority. Therefore, any ruler who would command God’s people to any end contrary to the commands of our Lord is “raging against the Lord and his anointed one” (See Psalm 2:1-3). In such cases, it’s the Christian’s duty to bear witness against the State’s insubordination. So we must be careful that “no one“, whether they be religious or civil authorities, “take us captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ” (See Colossians 2:8), lest we be deceived to rebel against the Lord. Therefore, for the Christian, every authority is subject to Jesus, and none may compel us against his will.

As an extension of this first point, it’s necessary to state how God’s use of his own people can be different from his use for the wicked. God works in ways that we do not always understand among the wicked. He does not only work towards their redemption (a role we are expressly called to assist), but he also works judgment among them, raising up rulers and kingdoms, and tearing them down as he sees fit. We are children of the light who do not belong to the darkness (See 1 Thessalonians 5:5), nor are we children of wrath (See Romans 9:22 and 1 Thessalonians 5:9), so we are not appointed to carry out the wrath of God. Instead, we are his vessels of mercy (See Romans 9:23), charged to carry forward the testimony of his witnesses and proclaim his good news to all (See Acts 10:40-43). This means that God does not always have the same use for his people as he does for the ruling powers. I will elaborate on this point in the future, but I believe that Scripture does inform us of God’s use for his people in this world’s “halls of power“, but, his use in such cases is never in contradiction of Jesus’ commandments. He will never send one of his children into the government only to have them defy the expressed commandments of the Lord. Therefore, God’s people must never submit to any authority that is contrary to the authority of our Lord.

Second, Christians must submit to God’s authority over the State (See Romans 13:1), including those who behave wickedly, as Rome was doing at the time Paul penned his epistle to the Christians in Rome. I’ve done an extensive analysis of Romans 13 to demonstrate its context and Paul’s meaning, which I encourage all to read, but, the simple point of this discourse is to serve as an illustration for how Christians can “overcome evil with good” (See Romans 12:21) in the context of the State. Paul means to assert that human government is simultaneously wicked and under God’s sovereign control. How? God raises up human authority and operates within them to effect justice. He legitimately punishes and constrains evil through the authority of human rulers, who also rebel against him to pervert the authority he grants them for injustice. We see this in even the worst regimes on earth, who still catch and punish murderers while also acting corruptly. Human government is, therefore, an authority through whom God’s sovereign actions can sometimes be understood in retrospect, but in which, he does not disclose his current workings. Scripture is replete with examples of God’s mysterious workings to use even evil-regimes for his purposes (regimes which he in turn punished for their corruption). So, this means that it’s necessary for Christians to both understand how to submit to God’s authority in human government (i.e. to accomplish justice) and to subvert its evil with good. This is Paul’s purpose in writing his discourse on submission to human rulers.

As an extension of this second point, Christians must understand that submission to the State does not mean obedience to its every command, but, instead, calls for our cooperation with its every just endeavor, and, where its corruption disables our cooperation, it calls for our courageous and peaceful testimony to the Lord’s justice as his witnesses. We do not subvert the corruption of the State through worldly means both because doing so could cause us to resist God’s sovereign and mysterious workings, and because doing so repudiates Jesus’ commands, that his people be “innocent as doves”, that we “do not resist the evildoer”, and that we “love our enemies”. We subvert the State as Kingdom witnesses who boldly proclaim and demonstrate the justice of God.

Third, Christians entrust themselves to God’s authority, not the State’s, believing that he is able to deliver and vindicate his people in due time (See Revelation 6:9-11). If there is one authority to whom we answer, and if Jesus is Lord, then Jesus is necessarily the one authority upon whom we depend for our justice. We forgo vengeance believing that it belongs to God alone (See Romans 12:19). We believe God operates through the State to effect justice (See Romans 13:4), which is why we cooperate with the State in its every just endeavor, but, even where the State rebels against God to “throw off his chains“, as it so often does, we entrust ourselves to God’s justice believing that he will vindicate us when the time is fulfilled (See Revelation 6:10-11).

So, what do you think?

Please share your thoughts in the comments below!