This quite naturally led to the subject of the relationship of individual members of the Jesus community to the Roman government. Here too the wish of the community’s Lord is for respect and peace.
The Christian communities in Rome were under more than usual surveillance ever since the Jewish Christians had been allowed back after Nero’s revocation of Claudius’ edict. It was important that these communities keep a low profile and give no substance to the false charges that they were plotting to overthrow the government.
As in many areas of biblical teaching, it is important to see that Paul is not speaking here to the issue of pacifism.
“Finally, it perhaps needs to be added that this passage does not speak to the issue of international conflict and so neither raises nor answers questions about a just war. Tax police are not soldiers, and what is expected of Christians in this passage is respect and resources. Nothing is said or implied about war or joining the military. This is not surprising since Roman legions had patron deities, and Christians would not have been able to participate in honoring them, as was required. Nor is anything said to suggest that the state has no right to use force to enforce its legitimate policies. Indeed, the opposite is said. Paul's ethic of pacifism and/or nonresistance in Romans 12-13 is an ethic for Christians and the Christian community. It is not an ethic he seeks or believes should be imposed on the non-Christian state” (Witherington, Romans, p 308).
13:1-2
“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves” (Romans 13:1-2 NIV)
Paul’s argument is based upon the principle that all rulers ("governing authorities")—including pagan ones—owe their position to the permission and will of the Lord of history. This was already affirmed by the Israelite prophets of old (Dan. 2:21; 4:10-25). And although at this very time revolutionary sentiment was boiling among many Jews in Palestine, neither Jesus nor his followers aligned themselves to revolutionary groups, such as the Zealots. This was the model that Paul wished to establish also in the capital city itself. Faith in Jesus, like the allegiance to Yahweh in the Old Testament, always implied a God-given critique of injustice in the communities where followers of Yahweh/Jesus lived. But the judgment on that injustice was God’s alone: it would not come through armed resistance by the believers. And lest the believers in Rome claim that they are exempt from what the rest of the (unbelieving) population must do, because of their heavenly citizenship, Paul emphasizes that everyone must submit (v. 1).
In view of all this, Paul's exhortation to pay customs and tolls fits in well as a proper Christian response to the state when it operates properly. Other expressions of allegiance such as emperor worship could not be assented to, so Christians had to be doubly diligent to perform fully the civic duties they could carry out.
"All that is asked of the readers is that they 'do good,' 'pay taxes,' and 'honor and respect those in power.' All that is legitimately ascribed to the authorities is punishing the evil and rewarding the good. This limited homage is far from an enthusiastic endorsement of the empire" (Witherington, Romans, 310).
13:3-7
“For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4 For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.” (Romans 13:3-7 NIV)
Wearing the sword was characteristic of the emperor but also of various deputies beneath him in the power structure. The sword symbolized the government's right to capital punishment.
It is proper to fear God’s righteous judgment. And since Paul has established that it is God who has established human governments to enforce justice and promote righteousness, it is appropriate for the believers in Rome too to fear the authorities, if they do not respect God’s duly constituted authorities but rather take up arms against them. Although in this section Paul does not explicitly quote scripture, he clearly has in mind Old Testament precedences and instances of each of his commands and warnings. In the present instance he undoubtedly thinks of passages in Jeremiah, where the prophet informed the Judaean king and his court that God had appointed the Babylonians to rule over them at this time, and warned them not to attempt to rebel, which they were bent upon doing (Jeremiah 21).
Peter Stuhlmacher in his commentary on this passage summarizes the situation:
“These verses are also unmistakably based on Old Testament and Jewish tradition. Already in the letter of the prophet Jeremiah to the Jewish exiles in Babylon from Jer. 29:1-23 the people are summoned to the greatest possible loyalty toward the power of Babylon as a foreign government. Moreover, this biblical instruction persistently influenced Pharisaism and early Judaism. Thus, until the outbreak of the (first) Jewish war of resistance against Rome in A.D. 66, offerings "for the Caesar and the Roman people" were presented twice a day in the Jerusalem temple (Josephus, Bell. 2.197). Furthermore, in the Sayings of the Fathers 3:2 the following saying by Hanina, the last Jewish head official of the temple, is transmitted: "Pray for the well-being of the government; for if there had been no fear before it, we would already have swallowed one another alive." In Prov. 8:15f. it states that the kings and rulers on earth judge and decide rightly by virtue of the wisdom granted to them by God. In Sir. 17:17 we read that God "orders a ruler for every people," while in Wis. 6:3-4 it is emphasized that the power of the earthly rulers is granted to them only by God, so that they are "servants of his kingdom" and stand under the judgment of God if they misuse their power. Conversely, beginning with Prov. 24:21 and extending on to Philo (cf., above all, Leg. Gai. 140), the constant Jewish conviction is that fear and the giving of honor are due to those who rule” (Paul’s Letter to the Romans [1994], pp. 199-200).It may have sounded blasphemous to many of Paul’s audience to hear him say of the Roman emperor “he is God’s servant” (v.4), but for this too there was Old Testament precedent. Through Jeremiah the prophet, God called the pagan king of Babylonia, Nebuchadnezzar, “my servant” (Jer. 25:9; 27:6; 43:10). And through Isaiah the prophet, God called Cyrus the Great of Persia “my shepherd” (Is 44:28-45:1; 45:13).
Paul adds that such an official is the “servant of God” most especially when as the executor of justice he exercises wrath on evildoers. C. K. Barrett observes that by executing justice the magistrate shows a preliminary manifestation of God's wrath, restraining evil, and so postpones the final manifestation of God's wrath (2 Thess. 2.6-7) (Barrett, Romans, 227).
There is no doubt that the gospel writers, especially Luke in both his gospel and Acts, give a generally favorable picture of Roman governing officials—in Palestine, Asia Minor, and Greece. Critical scholars often attribute this to an “agenda” of the New Testament writers, who wanted to curry favor with the Roman authorities in order to gain more freedom in worship and evangelism. Since by “agenda” they mean that the New Testament writers misrepresented the events portrayed, I most emphatically disagree with them.
We should also note that in these verses the issue on which the governmental authorities intervene in the individual’s life has to do with the citizen's doing “wrong” (v. 4). Paul would certainly have agreed with Peter, who wrote to Christians living under Roman rule in Asia Minor, that suffering punishment for doing wrong must be clearly differentiated from suffering incurred because of Christian faith and conscience (1 Peter 2:19-21; 3:14, 17; 4:15-16).
There seems to be an intentional limitation of the area of obedience given in verse 7, which many scholars believe is Paul’s summary: Christians owe to the government their taxes, respect for their authority, and honor. But the respect and honor are due to the office of rule itself, not necessarily to its occupant who behaves unjustly. We see this distinction in Paul’s reply to the high priest who—contrary to Paul’s legal rights— ordered him struck in the face (Acts 23:1-5). On that occasion Paul rebuked him for his illegal act. And when scolded for speaking ill of “God’s high priest”, Paul replied with irony “I did not know he was God’s high priest,” that is, “he certainly wasn’t behaving like one”!
If Christians in the United States complain at times of high taxation, we should be aware that at the time Paul wrote this to the Romans, they were paying exorbitant taxes to the government, including a head tax, a sales tax, an inheritance tax, and taxes for emancipation of slaves. Outside of Rome they also had to pay an income tax. Extra-biblical evidence from Rome at this time shows considerable unrest among the general population because of the greed and corruption of the state tax-collectors. Yet Paul does not urge the Christians to rebel.
“According to Tacitus, there were at this period growing complaints in society at large about taxation—so much so that in A.D. 58, Nero responded by proposing to abolish all indirect taxation (Annals 13.50-51 [see also Suetonius, Nero 10]). Was Paul anxious lest believers, living, as they knew themselves to be, in the new age, would have strong feelings about this—and an immediate temptation to resist payment? Did he fear that they might bring themselves into dispute with the authorities over an issue that did not have any direct bearing on the gospel? If so, his next words were appropriate to address such concerns. ‘For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God's public servants [leitourgoi], attending to this very thing. Pay to all of them what they are owed [opheilas], tribute to whom tribute is owed, tax to whom tax’ (13.6-7a). Such subjection to the authorities is not, moreover, merely a matter of the proper settlement in cash or goods; it is also a matter of respect and honor. As believers are concerned with the proper honor of God and of those within the believing community, so they are concerned with the honor of those beyond it, paying respect to whom respect is due, and honor to whom honor (13.7b)—for all, potentially, are members if God's people” (Christopher Bryan, A Preface to Romans [2000], 207).
It is very important too that we seek to understand Paul’s advice here in its local historical context. As Witherington (Paul’s Letter to the Romans [2004], 16) writes:
We should not be surprised to find Paul endorse the strategy he does in Romans 13 when it comes to respecting Roman authorities and paying one's taxes. In A.D. 56-57, Paul had no reason to suspect that Christians, particularly the Gentile Christians he was mainly writing to, were likely to be abused by Nero or other officials. After all, it was Nero who allowed Jews and Jewish Christians to come back to Rome, when he took the throne. We need to hear both sides of the conversation between Paul and the Roman Christians, for a text without a context … is just a pretext for whatever the individual reader wants it to mean.
Fortunately, even if modern readers don’t know all of the local context in Rome at this time, there are enough similar situations elsewhere in scripture to give a balanced picture of Christian responsibility to governing authorities, when they exercise their legitimate authority and when they overstep it. Paul’s words here should not be seen as a carte blanche for governmental abuses to go unchallenged and unchecked.
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