Dr Paul Allen

Civil government is a means ordained by God for ruling and maintaining order in communities. It is one of a number of such means, including ministers in the church and parents in the home. Each such means has its own sphere of authority under Christ , who now rules and sustains creation, and the limits of each sphere are set by reference to the others. In our fallen world these authorities are institutions of God's " common grace " (kindly providence), standing as a bulwark against anarchy and the dissolution of ordered society. With reference to Rom. 13:1-7 and 1 Pet. 2:13-17, the Westminster Confession explains the sphere of civil government as follows: God, the supreme Lord and King of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates, to be, under Him, over the people, for His own glory, and the public good, and, to this end, hath armed them with the power of the sword, for the defence and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evil doers ...

Acts 4:1–22 “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” ( vv. 19–20 ). Christian ethicists have long debated whether or not it is ever legitimate for believers to defy the state. This is understandable since there are many passages, such as Romans 13:1–7 , that seem to encourage submission to the ruling authorities no matter what. Paul, however, was not reflecting any sort of naiveté when he instructed us to submit to the earthly authorities. After all, as one who was often imprisoned for preaching the Gospel , he well knew that the state could very easily become an instrument of evil. His commands to obey the state, as with all of the biblical injunctions to submit to the government, carry with them the assumption that our rulers are, broadly speaking, fulfilling the task that God has given them to preserve life and protect the right to private property. Yet when the state forb...

Image via Wikipedia Since Scripture commands believers to be subject to the governing authorities (Rom. 13:1), no Christian should disobey the government lightly. Christians are to suffer willingly for doing what is right rather than to dishonor the name of Christ for doing what is wrong (1 Peter 3:17). Believers are to be model citizens, adorning their profession of the Gospel with good deeds that are profitable to all (Titus 3:8). Civil disobedience is to be seen as a measure of last—not first—resort for the Christian conscience. There will be, however, those instances in which the demands of the state come into conflict with the requirements of God . In such cases, what precedents and principles from Scripture should guide the Christian’s conscience? First, the believer is not to obey the governing authority when the authority commands the believer to do that which Scripture forbids. We find a biblical example in Exodus 1. The Hebrew midwives refused to obey the order of the kin...