Two commonly misunderstood motifs in Romans 13 and the other passages of direct teaching on the state are "submission" and "honor." A careful study of these two terms reveals that there is a significant difference between "submission" and "obedience," and between "honor" and "fear."
Submission vs. obedience. "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities" (Romans 13:1). The term hypotassesthai is difficult to translate; different versions variously render it "be subject," "be obedient," "be submissive," or "be subordinate." It is most commonly assumed that the term simply means obedience.
C.E.B. Cranfield's extensive study of this word in his commentary on Romans 12 and 13 shows that the usage of the word in literature and the examination of how early Christian leaders interpreted and acted upon this injunction does not allow such an equation. The word Paul chose is not the best word to use if he meant an unambiguous "obedience." Three other words commonly employed in the New Testament to mean obedience are avoided in this passage. After surveying New Testament usage, Cranfield wrote: "Though the idea of obedience is sometimes clearly prominent (Romans 8:7), in the majority of cases, while it may be included, it is not clear that it predominates."
Obedience carries with it the idea of completely bending one's will and one's actions to the desires of another. Since obedience cannot be reciprocal, this connotation is excluded in some passages, such as Ephesians 5:22 where the word is used of a reciprocal obligation ("subject yourselves one to another in the fear of Christ"). Failure to see the word in its complete context of reciprocity has caused serious misunderstanding. For similar reasons, hypotassesthai is not best rendered by "subjection," which carries a connotation of being thrown down and run over, nor by "submission," with its connotation of passivity.
What then does the term mean? It appears most equitable with Romans 12:10 ("in honor preferring one another") and Philippians 2:3 ("each counting the other better than himself."). The thrust of the word in the New Testament seems to be the recognition of the other person's standing in God's plan. To submit to the state does not mean to adopt an uncritical and blind obedience to the authority's every demand, but to recognize the civil authority as part of God's plan for the world and to responsibly act in the light of that recognition.
Cranfield summarizes: "While it will often include obedience, it is never simply obedience and nothing more, is never an uncritical and unquestioning obedience, and in some circumstances will not include obedience at all." That one can be submissive even though not obeying is also argued by John Howard Yoder: "The conscientious objector who refuses to do what his government asks him to do, but still remains under the sovereignty of that government and accepts the penalties which it imposes, or the Christian who refuses to worship Caesar but still permits Caesar to put him to death, is being subordinate even though he is not obeying."
Submission might normally entail obedience, but as Cranfield goes on to say, "it also involves a serious and responsible disobedience whenever obedience would involve disobeying God." Thus the same man who wrote "submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human institution" (1 Peter 2:13) had no problems with standing before the authorities in Jerusalem and saying: "whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge" (Acts 4:19). "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29).
Honor vs. fear. "Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor" (Romans 13:7). Romans 13:7 is perhaps the earliest commentary on Jesus' words in Mark 12:17--"Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." The verb "render" is the same in both contexts.
That which belongs to Caesar and that which belongs to God is not explicitly defined in Mark 12, though it is certain that "rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesar's" does not mean giving him everything he asks, and the arbiter of what belongs to Caesar is not Caesar, but God. The context is very suggestive: Caesar is to be given back the coins stamped with his image; perhaps we are to give back to God that which is stamped with God's image, namely our whole lives.
Cranfield argues that the Romans 13 passage does explicitly define what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God--"taxes," "custom," and perhaps "honor" are due to Caesar, but "fear" is due only to God. He rejects the view that reads this verse as a list of the four kinds of things due government: taxes, revenue, fear, and honor. If this latter view should be correct, it would certainly be unique, since nowhere else in the New Testament is there a general exhortation to fear the civil authority (Romans 13:4 is addressed to the wrongdoer, not to men and women in general).
Cranfield's suggestion is more consistent with the parallel section in 1 Peter 2:17 -- "Honor all people; love your fellow believers, fear God, honor the king." Here Peter altered Proverbs 24:21 ("my child, fear the Lord and King") to avoid using the same verb to indicate what is owed to the emperor and what is owed God. The Carthaginian Christian martyr Donata, asked to swear "by the divine spirit of the Lord our Caesar," is said to have replied that she would "honor Caesar as Caesar but fear only God." This kind of distinction was probably a settled usage in the early church.
Thus, proper "honor" for authorities is something quite different from the "fear" that is to be given God alone. The system cannot threaten the Christian, not by withholding its rewards, not even by death. It is precisely the inability of Nero to intimidate the Christian that in turn makes all Christians a threat to Nero.
To "honor" those in authority means "to take them seriously--usually much more seriously than they take themselves--as the ministers of God," as individuals thus accountable to God for the solemn responsibility God has committed to them (see Cranfield). It is believed that Nero was emperor at the time Romans was written. For the recipients of the letter, honoring the king meant treating with full seriousness (for the sake of his office) a man who had little or no understanding of the true dignity of that office and who in himself was contemptible.
That to which honor is due is primarily the office and only secondarily the occupant of the office. "Honoring" an official does not exclude critical words of rebuke when the true dignity of the office is lost sight of. We have already seen this in Paul's attitude toward the magistrates at Philippi in Acts 16. Jesus' own behavior toward Herod might be thought to indicate disrespect by those who misunderstand the meaning of "honor": He evaded Herod, sent him a message of contempt, and when face to face with him at his trial had nothing to say to him. In Luke 13:32 he called Herod a "fox," a term used in contrast to a lion to indicate "low cunning" and an insignificant third-rate person, as opposed to a person of real power and greatness.
The injunction "render to all what is due them" must not be understood as "render to the state everything asked." The contrast in the New Testament between "fear" and "honor" suggests that ethical discrimination is an essential element of "honoring." Verse 8 confirms the discrimination implied in verse 7. In English we do not note that the words "what is due" in verse 7 and "owe" in verse 8 have the same root: "render to each his due ... nothing is due to anyone except love." Yoder writes:
The claims of Caesar are to be measured by whether what he claims is due to him is part of the obligation of love. Love in turn is defined (v. 10) by the fact that it does no harm. In this context, it therefore becomes impossible to maintain that the subjection referred to in verses 1-7 can include a moral obligation under certain circumstances to do harm to others at the behest of government.
Thus, it is not the Christian's duty to give the state everything asked, or to do whatever it says.
There is often the naive affirmation that whatever government does, it is serving God and that therefore what it is doing is a ministry in which the Christian should always share. Yoder challenges this understanding by examining in detail the latter part of verse 6: "For because of this you also pay taxes, for (rulers) are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very end." This latter phrase is taken by Yoder to be more of a criterion than a description. Thus, he rejects the interpretation of the participle, "devoting," as a further predication ("rulers are servants of God and devote themselves to this very thing--i.e., that of promoting good and of restraining evil in verses 3 and 4) and takes it as an adverbial modifier ("rulers are servants of God only to the extent to which they devote themselves to this very thing).
The context of the next few verses makes it clear that the Christian is being called to ethical discrimination -- perhaps this is to be the basis of that discrimination. This verse gives a criterion by which the functioning of the state can be measured. We can judge and measure the extent to which the state is accomplishing its ministry by asking whether it persistently attends to the rewarding of good and evil according to their merits. Yoder concludes, "The Christian who accepts his subjection to government retains his moral independence and judgment. The authority of government is not self-justifying. Whatever government exists is ordered by God; but the text does not say that whatever the government does or asks of its citizens is good."
The powers. One last term should be briefly mentioned. The attitude of Paul toward the state is seen in new theological depth and is placed in the context of his whole ideology when we consider the place of "powers" (exousiai, translated "governing authorities" in verse 1) in his teaching. Many major commentators (Cullmann and Cranfield are two) have argued that the "powers" of Romans 13:1 is a double reference to civil authorities and also to the spiritual powers standing behind, and acting through, the civil authorities. Those who wish to follow this up can find an excellent treatment of the issues in Cullmann, Cranfield, and Yoder. The value in making this connection between the state and the demonic powers standing behind the state is that it helps account for the "ambivalence" of Paul's attitude in such passages as 1 Corinthians 6. Cullmann writes:
Only in this way can we see in Pauline perspective the simultaneousness of the thoroughly positive role of the State on the one hand, and its provisional, in the last analysis problematical, character on the other. This is roughly the simultaneousness of Romans 13: 1ff. and 1 Corinthians 6:1ff. This apparently contradictory situation belongs essentially to the victory over the angel powers, and it becomes graspable, so to speak, in this point.
By this understanding, Cullmann continues, "it becomes especially clear that the State is now a temporary institution, not of divine nature, but nevertheless willed by God; that we must remain critical toward every state; that we must nonetheless obey every state as far as it remains within its bounds."
The context. "For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God" (Romans 13:1). Both Cullmann and Yoder reject the view that Romans teaches the divine institution of a particular government, but each argues differently. The ordaining of a particular government is what Yoder calls the "positivistic" view held in certain Lutheran circles, that "whatever government exists, it is by virtue of an act of institution, i.e., a specific providential action of God, that it came into being." Whatever government exists, it is the will of God.
Cullmann rejects this view and argues for the ordaining of the principle of government. He argues that Paul's teaching on the state in Romans 13 arises out of the context of the Christian commandment to love: The Christian is not to repay evil for evil (12:17) or to take their own vengeance (12:19), but the state legitimately takes vengeance on those who do evil (13:4). The Christians in Rome were perhaps disparaging the government because it was not, indeed could not, operate out of Christian principles. Paul was saying that because the state does properly the exact opposite of what the Christian is to do does not mean that the Christian is to reject it as a matter of principle. The state proceeds according to the principle not of love, but of retribution and the Christian is not to reject it a priori because it represents other than Christian principles. The context thus shows that the only thing repudiated in Romans 13 is "the renunciation of the validity of the state as a matter of principle." The state is still necessary, Paul argues, and is fulfilling a needed place in God's plan.
Yoder likewise rejects the "positivistic" view but argues for another position: the ordering of a particular government. There is a piling up of words containing the Greek root for "order" in the first two verses that is not readily apparent in the English translations. "Be subject," "have been instituted," "resists," and "appointed" are all based on the same root. Yoder argues that there is a difference between "ordain" or "institute" and "order." Thus the thought is: "Be subordinate, because the state is ordered by God." Yoder remarks:
What the text says is that He orders them, brings them into line, that by his permissive government he lines them up with his purposes .... That God orders and uses powers does not reveal anything new about what government should be or how we should respond to government. A given government is not mandated or saved or made a channel of the will of God; it is simply lined up, used by God in his ordering of the cosmos.
The broad contextual grid for the entire ethical section of Romans 12-15 is given in the first two verses: Put your bodies where your doctrines are, by the consistent worship that demands your very being as a living sacrifice, and stop allowing yourselves to be conformed and schematized by this world-system. Instead of being squeezed into its mold, have your minds transformed and keep letting yourselves be metamorphosed by the renewal of your worldview and your moral disposition, so that you may be able to discern, recognize, approve, and enjoy the will of God (Romans 12:1, 2 free paraphrase).
Romans 13 is part of the practical outworking of the principles in Romans 12:1-2. There is a direct connection between cultural conformity and ethical insensitivity: "be not conformed ... so that you may discern the will of God." Accommodation to the world-system and the adoption of its myths blunts the moral sensitivity of the Christian.
Perhaps the greatest cause of unbelief in our generation is the cultural conformity and consequent ethical insensitivity of the church. It is not the gospel that is incredible: the church is. The accommodated church cannot fulfill its proper political responsibility, because it must render to Caesar only that which belongs to Caesar, not that which belongs to God. And a conformed church can neither recognize nor approve of God's will and that which belongs to God.
If the church is to recover its calling in the world, it must once again become alien, pilgrim, prophet -- a counter-cultural community of outsiders living out their discipleship in a process of continual disentanglement from the values that dominate this age, sensitive to those cultural blind spots that mold its thinking and shape its actions to the standard that is passing away, proclaiming the great refusal to be squeezed into the world's pattern, pledging allegiance to the coming reign of God.
Robert A. Sabath is web technologist for Sojourners.
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