The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

What can Paul mean when he writes that “All Government is appointed by God” and exhorts us to tame obedience to civil authority? If not he himself, then many of his followers will be martyred shortly for disobedience to the Roman government. We don’t know precisely why Paul was executed., we don’t even know for certain that he was. He was sent to Rome to be tried for alleged offences against Jewish law; once he was there it seems likely that he was caught in the persecution of Christians which Nero arranged to blame someone (that is,  someone else) for the fire which destroyed much of Rome. The Christians were known as secretive and dissident community, and so suitable scapegoats. The prolonged and systematic persecutions which followed were for the Christians’ disobedience in a more fundamental matter, and one which goes to the nature of the authority itself. The emperor did not think he was merely appointed by God, he believed he was a god and failure to make a token sacrifice to him was a capital offence.
 Paul would deny that Christianity was inconsistent with obedience to most civil authority and the law, and the purpose of this passage may be to emphasise that for the benefit of any of those authorities which might read this letter. Paul is perhaps saying “We are law abiding citizens, not a secretive anti-social movement, so don’t treat us as scapegoats”   But Paul’s acceptance of the civil order seems to be genuine, and it is notable that he is insistent on his rights as a Roman Citizen. His outlook generally is hardly radical on social questions. There is still, however, a dilemma; Paul may have accepted civil authority in secular matters, but for all his tolerance of religious sensibility in matters such as  diet or circumcision, he would never sacrifice to the emperor, and ultimately recognised only the authority of Christ. 
One explanation may be that Paul simply did not think that the secular world with it laws and government mattered very much. The context of this passage is a discussion of the divide between physical and spiritual existence and in Paul’s mind the physical is unimportant , ephemeral and illusory, compared to spiritual life in Christ. The body of the Church is composed of its members as a human body is built up of limbs and organs- its members forming a whole and self sufficient society which does not rely on the physical world. This division might become problematic if it was to endure, but Paul is convinced that the second coming is imminent, and so it was just a waste of time to fuss about the physical world; better just accept it and keep out of trouble. Anyway, most of the time, if for wrong reasons, secular authority upheld the same principles and practice as Paul accepted. So why rock the boat? Quite soon none of this would matter as the physical world passed away.
This line of argument needs some refinement if we are to accept it now, two thousand years later and with still no second coming in sight, at least no second coming as Paul seems to have envisaged it.
Some commentators take a retrospective view and assume that Paul did not mean all governments were appointed by God and should therefore be obeyed, but only that righteous or godly governments  should be respected. Unsurprisingly, many governments have claimed some form of divine appointment and even governments in the enlightenment appealed to a higher principle to justify their existence; power is embarrassing and need justifying by reference either to supernatural influence,  that is God, or natural social law such as the will of the people or some social contract.
 Paul’s words may have encouraged these developments but there is really nothing in what he says that that suggests he is only talking about obeying good governments, when he says there is no authority but by act of God. He seems to be assuming that conformity to law and social practice are in themselves good; only on that ground could he believe that authority is only frightening for the wicked, and that it should hold no terror for those who are doing good. In a secular and circular way this may be right, but Christians soon found that their consciences were seriously at variance with accepted law and custom. And at the same time, they would soon gain a reputation for their charity, exercising a law of love in the world about them. One reason for this, was surely because it became gradually clear that the second coming was not imminent and that if the Kingdom of God was to be realised then Christians needed to engage with the world around them. Ultimately and slightly paradoxically, this engagement was one of the reasons for the Christian triumph over paganism and in why it took over some of the functions of government in Late Antiquity. The Christians were organised to govern in a way that governments themselves were not. Christian society, the Church, as the body of Christ is reincarnated, it becomes again the human, worldly society, a phenomenon perhaps clearest in the structure of medieval society.
These developments throw some light on what Paul perhaps meant in this passage from Romans. Government like all human institutions and everything else tangible and intangible is appointed by God in that he created and goes on creating the world and all that is in it. Not all of it is good; we do not understand why but we cannot deny that things go very wrong, wrong that is by the standard which we believe Christ exemplifies, that love is the essential driving force of creation. A child’s life cut short by cancer and or the death and destruction caused by a tsunami are incomprehensible as expressions of loving creation, but they happen.
 In it way bad government is the same; a malfunctioning of human institution. But just as we can research the causes of cancer and (perhaps rather less obviously) predict and mitigate the effects of earthquakes, we also have the power to create good government. And it is only by good government that we shall eradicate poverty and violence from the world; the Kingdom of God is a kingdom- I like to think an enlightened and constitutional monarchy, but whatever its form, it is a political institution. Inadequate government and selfish despotism are aberrations- they are part of the created order that has gone wrong. They are however things which human endeavour may put right. Paul’s exhortation that we simply accept all civil authority and meekly pay our taxes tells how we should approach the task of putting them right and so bringing about the Kingdom; I think he’s rather too supine but I agree that violent revolution is seldom the best way of bringing about change, and the example of Christianity in Late Antiquity provides a better blue print as the love and care for our neighbours near and far eventually pervaded and overtook the, admittedly crumbling, edifice of the Roman Empire. It might do the same for us now.
As is apparent, I can’t find any really satisfactory analysis of Paul’s beliefs about divinely appointed authority, but thinking about the problem does, I hope, tell us something about the nature of government and the Christian’s response to society and its rulers.  We cannot believe with Paul that this world will pass away imminently and we have to believe that somehow, the Kingdom of God will be and is being realised here and now. To further that process we must engage with the World, and its political systems so that we can truly say of our government that is appointed by God and should be respected as such. Amen.