On Thursday, Darin rightly questioned the use of “point in time” theology. I may have made it sound like I was assuming a point in time interpretation with no particular reason.
Look at the phrasing at the end of verse 1. It’s a bit awkward (although you can’t see that in the NIV). Paul says “the powers that are” are ordered by God. Why not just “the powers”? Why not “all powers”?
Remember the translation used by the KJV and the ASV?
“the powers that be are ordained of God.”
Webster’s old literal translation shows the awkwardness of the wording:
“the powers that are, are ordained by God.” (Webster)
Weymouth translated it favoring the “point in time” view:
“and our present rulers have had their rank and power assigned to them by Him.” (Weymouth)
A lot of translations go for the idea of “powers that exist.” This expression doesn’t necessarily mean that Paul is only referring to the powers that existed at that time, but it’s an unusual expression that will leave us watching for an explanation.
Would this suggest that it is possible for some authorities/powers (such as a government recognized by the world) outside and apart from God’s ordainment?
It is interesting because if we are to read this passage as though all governments exist by the ordainment of God then for the nations to overthrow such regimes as Nazi ruled Germany or a Sadsam Hussein ran Iraq would be to overthrow a power ordained by God. Of course to conclude that Hitler or Hussein’s rule was ordained by God seems incomprehensible considering the injustice and evil committed by both rulers. And to conclude they were ordained by God almost seems to make a theological claim about God (that God ordains injustice) that few, if any, Christians would want to make.
Of course, I am thinking outloud here but if we are to read Romans 13.1 in a way that says God does not ordain every historical power/human-authority (which seems to be a better way of reading this passage) then it shifts the burden upon those who claim a contemporary nation is ordained by God to show why that particular nation against others is ordained by God…and that is a burden that I do not think can be reasonably established froma biblical and theological viewpoint.
Grace and peace,
Rex
“They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval.” (Hosea 8:4)
This passage certainly suggests that God is not willing to take credit for every ruler that comes to power.
Thanks for pointing that out.
Tim: I don’t see where Hos 8:4 makes mention of this topic. All God is saying is that they did not ask Him or seek his counsel. It says nothing as to who ultimately placed a king in power.
Rex: Yes, God ordained Hitler, and Bush, and Obama, and Stalin, and Saddam, and Reagan, and whoever else we want to name off; all evil and all “good” kings, governors, judges, lawyers, bus drivers and janitors; past, present and future. And He did so for His own purposes, according to His own counsel and will so that His will and divine decree will be carried through to its perfect end. I cannot read the OT and escape the stories where the evil nations are ordained by God to destroy Israel; or vice-versa. Or, who ordained Christ to be slaughtered from before the foundation of the world, before there was ever a need for redemption? Should we accuse God of injustice in such cases (to use your wording)? I don’t think so. God cannot be unjust. He is never unjust to anybody or anything He has ever created (which would be all things). God is Perfectly Holy. Man is not. Nothing God does is unjust to such undeserving creatures. Meanwhile, man breaths injustice and spits in the face against our Creator every hour of every day. The only thing any man ever gets from God that s/he doesn’t deserve; is grace. If one believes otherwise then they are only trying to put God into debt.
And I’m curious: what theological claim do you suppose I am making about God when I take such a position? Should we attempt to judge God according to our evil, unknowing, human, standards? – or are we going to submit to the fact that He is Sovereign and can do whatever He pleases (and it’s always GOOD) with what He has created so that His Name be glorified to all powers visible and invisible? Is there another ultimate reason why we exist? Jesus didn’t think so.
What bugs me here is that it seems like so many try to save God from being God (like so many do with Jesus). I cannot read the Scriptures and come to the conclusion that God has nothing to do with evil men coming to power… or that God has nothing to do (by divine decree) with what we would call injustices (or disasters, or sin, or whatever) occurring in the world; the instances are endless. God is good and man is guilty. YHWH does what is right in His own eyes because He has absolute Sovereignty and there is no judgment or power or code above His own that He has to meet. The Triune God does all that He does for His own glory; and really, how man judges God doesn’t really mean a lick. Wisdom laughs.
Who is man to judge God and His decrees? “Who are you, O man?”
“all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,
and he does according to his will among the host of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand
or say to him, ‘What have you done?'” (Dan 4:35)
“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might. He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding; he reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him.” (Dan 2:20-22)
“‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Rom 11:34-36)
BTW: ESV of v.1 “For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”
So even if you just took this as temporal (which I do not); you still have the fact of God instituting the powers of Rome. So… how to sidestep that one?
They set up kings… they chose…
Strange you can’t see Hosea mentioning this topic. The people set up these kings, God says. Not the kings he wanted.
Shall we let God be God? Even if God decides to give men the freedom to choose? Or shall we lock him into a box that requires him to preordain every action in this world at the risk of losing his sovereignty? I believe in a God who can be sovereign even as he grants unto man the possibility of doing the very thing that God does not want.
That being said, I agree with the fact that we don’t always know good and evil when we see it, nor can we always see God at work in an evil situation.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Thank you for the gracious accusation in Comment #5. I do understand that daring to actually study a passage rather than blindly accept a traditional interpretation is an outrageous act. I suppose that’s your definition of “sidestep.”
Let’s pretend that your question were phrased in a non-insulting way. I believe that the rulers in Rome were there for a specific purpose. It wouldn’t hurt to examine the meaning of “instituted,” but that doesn’t change the fact that this passage teaches that the Roman government was not to be opposed because it was serving God’s purposes at that time.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Jr.,
We obviously have a disagreement on how God exercises his sovereignty in relation to the free-will of humanity, so I don’t think we are going to agree on this. I think part of the answer lies in what Paul means by the verb “instituted” (NRSV, ESV) for which I am sure, like most exegetical issues, there are several view points with reasonable aguments to support their conclusions.
However, the book of Job might bear some light on this issue as we all think about it (remember, I was only thinking outloud in my earlier comment). In the prologue of Job, we find Satan inflicting human suffering on the person Job. The text portrays Satan as the active agent and God as the passive agent. In other words, Satan acts only by permission of God but it is not God himself who inflicts Job with his suffering. God exercises Soverienty by limiting Satan from being able to take the life of Job but does not prevent Satan from inflicting other forms of suffering, such as loss of property, loss of children, and loss of physical health. However, God does not tell or cause Satan to inflict such suffering and thus the suffering Job incures is a result of a free-will choice of evil made by Satan.
What might this have to do with various governments and powers, either very historical or rather contemporary. Assuming that God wills for governing authorities to exist for the purpose of maintaining civil/lawful order (Rom 13.1-7; 1 Pet 2.13-17), it does not imply that God wills for *every* authority/power to exist nor for every authority/power to act the way they do. This means that just because regimes such as Nazi Germany or, even further back, Alexander the Great’s Greek empire exist, they do not exist and act because God automatically wills their existance and subsequent actions but instead they can exist and act because God *allows* their existance and actions rather than exercising his soveriegn authority to prevent their existance and subsequent actions.
That means that it is not true, as I have heard some claim, that God not only willed (as an active agent) Nazi Germany’s existance but also caused (ordained?) all of their actions including the execution of millions within the death camps and gas-chambers as part of his overall will and purpose to bring about his eschatological goal for creation. I even heard someone once suggest that God willed every act of evil committed by Charles Manson and his followers as part of his grand will for creation. I am suggesting that the prologue of Job teaches us that even though God is sovereign and able to accomplish his will as he chooses, God also chooses to allow other powers to act freely within the limitations God sets and therefore not every existance of a power and its subsequent actions is a result of God’s active sovereignty. Nor does this deny God’s sovereignty because whatever actions a power of evil (or good for that matter) committs, it is done within the sovereign limitations that God allows.
So to answer Jr.’s question about what theological claims might be made by stating that God actively wills (again, odrains?) all governments/powers to exist and subsequently act…I believe that makes a claim that God is the active responsible for all behavior including evil and that the said powers are not responsible since they have not acted with free-will choice; and I believe such a claim goes against what the prologue of Job teaches us about God’s sovereingty and the free-will of choice he grants others to act with.
Grace and peace,
Rex
Tim: In all sincerity, my comment was not mean to be an insult. And as to the topic of being offended…
Otherwise, your latter point in #7 I would affirm; though I would extend it to all times and all places.
By the way, “I believe in a God who can be sovereign even as he grants unto man the possibility of doing the very thing that God does not want,” is a box … and it is one that I again would affirm (with a Biblical understanding of the revealed will of God and the hidden will of God in firm grasp).
May He come quickly. Sola gratia –
Jr
Rex: Thanks, I see your position. And yes, we would disagree with how we can reconcile a Sovereign God with the “also” of man’s will; for to me, the concept of autonomous free-will is nowhere to be found in Scripture (we are either slaves of sin, or slaves of righteousness; either way we are slaves and we will act according to our natures, flesh/spirit). The only true autonomously free One is God.
Nonetheless, I would also disagree with your take on the prologue of Job. I take verse 8 to be a blatant instigation on God’s part, particularly the question “have you considered my servant Job?”. Considered? For what? Having him over for a tea party? (I’m being facetious, please consider that my attempt at humor) The previous verse (7) we have Satan “going to and fro on the earth.” Doing what I suppose? I would take it to mean “seeking people to devour” … which follows with God offering up Job as a challenge and instigation. In other words, “Here is my man, Job, take him on and see who he stays loyal to…” (knowing full well Job would never deny Him fully; even with the questioning and anger displayed). God was making a fool out of Satan.
And I have a hard time differentiating the “allows” part from the “ordains” part. If God allows evil to happen, then the ordaining logically encompasses the action. Because on the flip side… if He prevents evil from happening, does He not ordain for that evil to not happen? Even when it is according to the fleshly nature of man (which is why men are guilty).
Grace to you-
Jr
Jr,
I think the words “can be” at least leave the top off my box. :-)
Sidestepping gracefully,
Tim
Jr.,
How does God blatently instigate Satan in the in Job 1.7-8. I mean, assuming that God is “all-knowing” then does God know that Satan is their as an “accusor” (literal translation of the Hebrew ‘satan’)? Would God not just be responding to the reason for which Satan is already present? But even if we grant that this is a “blantant instigation” on God’s part, it still seems a free-will choice that Satan makes to inflict Job with suffering.
Grace and peace,
Rex
I should also say that the Hebrew word ‘satan’ translated “accusor” or “Satan” in our English Bibles is suggestive that Satan came accusing God of having no one who is righteous.
Grace and peace,
Rex
Great discussion. What do you think about the Roman rulers of the day? They were not exactly “good” as we might see good. So what kind of rulers were that at that point?
Just wondering.
Rex: I would say the satan is acting according to his evil nature. Therefore any “free-will” action on his part is still subservient to said nature which God has chosen to leave him in. Similarly, we come into the world with the nature of Adam/Flesh/Sin and the choices we make are subservient to that nature of bondage (i.e. see Romans 6:16-23 for an excellent description of this.). Only when we are born-again by the Sovereign act of the Spirit of God (as Jesus teaches Nicodemus in John 3:1-15, particularly v.8) is the nature of man changed and an act toward God (faith) even possible; and even then we are still slaves (though, of righteousness). We serve a master either way. Autonomous free will simply does not exist for the accuser, nor for man.
Grace to you-
Jr
Jr,
Why then did Jesus at times marvel at the faith he saw in certain people? Or the lack of faith? (Not an attack, just trying to get a better grasp on your beliefs)
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
Tim: Good question. I’m thinking off the cuff here and what came to mind was an analogy (we’ll see if it works):
Cancer. We know how destructive cancer is and what it does; yet we are still amazed at it when we see it in action. So like the sinful nature. Jesus knows how destructive the sinful nature is and what it does; yet He is still amazed at it when He sees it in action. On the flip side; knowing how destructive cancer is; when we see remissions and recoveries we are amazed. Thus Jesus, knowing how destructive the sinful nature is; can be amazed when even an ounce of faith is seen. (I will maintain in this analogy that the “how” of that faith occurring is not addressed in those passages.)
We have this other places, like where Jesus asks his disciples “do you still not understand?” The blindness of his disciples to who He is (which is put on display via the parabolic healing of blindness of various people, particularly in Mark 8-10) is frustrating to Jesus; and yet what we see is that they did not fully realize who He was until God opened their hearts to understand Him and the Scriptures after the resurrection.
It is a good question though; that was my first stab at it! Will consider it further…
Grace to you-
Jr