Timothy N. Baldwin -- Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission

Timothy N. Baldwin -- Romans 13: The True Meaning of Submission: "A GENUINE RECOGNITION OF submission to a God-ordained government may require new higher powers. Replacing bad government with good would be necessary to comport to God’s command for submission to government in Romans 13. One’s duty to God, self, family and neighbor sometimes requires this. It is this duty which creates obligation, and out of obligation comes power, or ordination. Put differently, “every action, contrary to the ends which God has proposed, is not agreeable to the divine Majesty; and that he approves, on the contrary, those which of themselves are proper to promote his ends.” Upon this principle, it has been rightly noted concerning the power of people to replace governors,

“This power [of governors] [the people] can limit, modify or recover at pleasure; for the alienation of such a right is incompatible with the nature of the social body, and contrary to the end of association.”

The people can limit this power because it is for their benefit that God ordained the power in the beginning. Where the power contradicts this benefit, God’s ordination rests with those who would resist and replace. For this reason, God rhetorically asks, “Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?” Truly, tyrants and those who seek fellowship with God do not mix."