Submitting to authority is submitting to God.
March 1, 2015
Text: Romans 13
To help our parents stay informed about what their students are learning during the Student Bible Fellowship time at church we are providing an overview of the lesson from this Sunday for you.
Submitting to authority is tough at any age, especially when you want to do your own thing. There is no law against doing your own thing, unless it impacts you or others in a destructive manner. God knew that every generation would want to leave its own unique mark on the world, and sometimes that would involve lawlessness. To protect those that may be injured by that activity, God gave us instructions on how to govern ourselves and told us to be obedient to those in authority over us. He reminded us that He placed the authority structure on the earth and He was ultimately the “boss” of all those in authority above us. So if it was God that ordained that we govern ourselves with laws and governors, then submission to those in authority above us is submission to God.
God doesn’t discuss in Romans 13 the question of what happens when God’s law and man’s law conflict, but He does make a spiritual distinction between the kingdom of this earth and its governing laws, and the spiritual kingdom of God and its governing laws. He lets us know that we can live in both kingdoms peaceably at the same time if we put on Christ (Romans 13:14) and keep the flesh under control. In doing so, we can love our neighbor and fulfill the Law of God (Romans 13:9-10) while at the same time subjecting ourselves to the powers ordained of God in the temporal kingdom of this life. This will bring us praise from our Lord who is the lord of both kingdoms (Romans 13:3, Romans 13:10).