Christian Citizenship, No. 3

George E. Fifield • November 19, 1896 • American Sentinel, Vol. 11, No. 46

"The powers that be are ordained of God."—Paul.

All must admit that this refers to the civil powers, the republics, the kingdoms, the empires, of the earth, as God said of the kingdom of Babylon: "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadneszar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and all nations shall serve him;" or as he said of the Persian empire under Cyrus: "Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him. I have even called thee by name, I have surnamed thee; I have girded thee though thou hast not known me." The immediate context is sufficient evidence of this. Let us quote the passage: "There is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive unto themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers attending continually upon this very thing.

In our last paper we saw that God is love and only love; that his law is a law of love, and that in his kingdom love is the only power. We saw that love was opposed to arbitrary force, for such force is a limitation of the liberty of love, and that, in the full realization of the divine kingdom, every one will be free to do precisely what he pleases, pleasing to do that only which love dictates. Now we see that this same God of love has ordained kingdoms and empires of arbitrary power, whose symbol of authority is the sword. He has not only ordained them, but he has declared that they bare not the sword in vain, but that they are his ministers to execute wrath upon them that do evil. Christian people must be subject to them, not only for fear of that wrath, but also for conscience' sake, and they must pay their taxes to support them in their work, for they are God's ministers attending continually to the divine commission granted to them, to restrain by arbitrary power, if need be, the wrong of man against his fellowmen.

The question naturally arises: How can these two things be harmonized? How can a God who is opposed, in his very nature, to all arbitrary manifestation of power, and who, when he has his way completely, will sweep from the whole universe all need, and all possible chance, for the manifestation of such power forever more,—how can such a God ordain such power now and declare that those who manifest it are his ministers? This question is not a difficult one. God is opposed to thorns and thistles and noxious weeds. In the Edenic world, these did not grow, at least not spontaneously as now, to choke out the precious fruits and grains. Neither will they thus grow in the Eden restored when God has his own way fully once more, for we read: "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off."

But while God is thus opposed to thorns and thistles, he ordained that for the present they should grow. "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee," and "in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread." "For thy sake," that is, on thy behalf, not because I am so offended that I wish to punish thee, but for thy good. God is love, and he acts only in love. All his curses, even, are blessings in disguise. They are curses over what might have been if man had not sinned and come short of the divine ideal, but they are blessings over what would be now without them. They are the best that infinite love can do under the circumstances, since we have resisted his perfect will.

If man had remained sinless, disposed to devote his leisure to the study of God, it would have been a blessing for corn and wheat and fruit to grow spontaneously with no battle with weeds, and God meant it so to be. Now, however, both science and history prove that where the conditions of life are too easy, even as where they are too hard, a high civilization and a good moral development cannot be reached. It is an old proverb:

"The devil has work for idle hands to do," and the trouble with Sodom and Gomorrah was abundance of bread and idleness. For this reason the God who is love and who is opposed to thorns and thistles ordained that they should grow, and that the toiler should earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. That curse was a blessing; it was love working for our sake.

Again, God is the fountain of life, and as such he is opposed to death. If man had remained sinless, permitting God's perfect ideal of love to be realized, there would have been no such thing as death and its sad partings from loved ones. When God's perfect ideal is realized in the redeemed world, we read that "death and hades [the grave] were cast into the lake of fire," and "there shall be no more death."

Yet for the present God has ordained death. Death is a curse, an enemy coming by sin, and yet it is a blessing. How much better it would have been for the present happiness of man had he never sinned, and so death here had never been necessary. But how infinitely better it is that sin, which brings sorrow and grief, should finally bring release from those in death, rather than that there should be endless life in hopeless misery. Thus God, who is opposed to death, ordained from the first that death should be, if sin should make it necessary.

So of arbitrary power,—the power of physical force. God is love, and love in its very nature is opposed to such manifestation of force. Had man, instead of sinning, yielded his heart to the divine love until the law of love fully controlled his life, there would have been no need or chance for the exercise of physical force in restraining evil. Each man, without any external restraint, could and would have done just what he pleased, for he would have pleased to do only that which was in harmony with liberty and joy. How much better this would have been! How much better it will be when this is so, for, praise God, through redemption his ideal is still to be realized.

But now since man is sinful, and, left to himself, the strong would combine to oppress the weak, and the guilty to crush out the innocent, God has ordained that civil governments should exist to compel those who will not yield their hearts to his righteousness, to be civil, and respect the rights of their fellows. Those who are righteous do not need to be compelled to be civil, for they are civil already—they love all men as brothers, and have no desire to oppress them or infringe their rights. The civil power cannot compel men to be righteous, since righteousness in its very nature, must be spontaneous if at all; it is a thing of the desires and affections, and not of the outward acts merely. In righteousness the outward acts are controlled from within by the divine love; in civility merely they are controlled from without by arbitrary force.

Since external force cannot reach and change the attitude of the heart toward God, and since God desires no worship of mere form,—no worship that does not spring from the love of the heart,—God has not ordained that the civil power should legislate in religious things, or in any way seek to control the consciences of men. He has ordained the powers that be simply to compel men to be civil, and regard the rights of their fellows, that we may live together and transact business, and be free to worship him or not as we see fit. How much better it would be if this compulsion were not necessary. But, now, under the present necessity, that the civil power is a blessing, the millions whose rights and happiness have been conserved thereby can testify. What this world would be without such restraint no human heart can conceive, and therefore no pen can picture. It would be a pandemonium of evil with lust and rapine running riot on every hand. The darkest hour of earth's history would furnish no complete illustration, for such restraint has never been fully removed.

Now, the Spirit of God, dwelling in the Christian's heart tends to bring him into harmony with God in all things. It makes him feel that this is not his abiding city, but only the place of his pilgrimage. It makes him long, as does the Lord himself, for the time when thorns and thistles and death and arbitrary power will no longer be necessities, and so will have passed away. It causes love to dominate and control every impulse of the life, so that the exercise of arbitrary force is distasteful and contrary to his nature as it is to God's. But while the Spirit of God brings the Christian into harmony with God in these things, it also brings him into harmony with God, in that he recognizes as does God the present necessity of the restraint of force, even as he recognizes that thorns and thistles and death are present necessities, and therefore blessings.

The Christian, therefore, not only submits to the civil government because he is afraid of its penalties, but as Paul says, for conscience' sake. He does not pay his taxes merely because he has to, but because he knows that God has ordained that the civil power should exist, and that therefore it is the duty and privilege of the Christian to support it.

We conclude by repeating, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of love and truth, and it is given to bring us into harmony with the divine love, with the truth of God in all things, and not merely in the one point that force becomes opposed to our nature as it is to his.