What Does the Bible Teach About the Responsibility of Those Who Govern the Nations?

This is the second of a two-part series (read part one here) exploring (1) what the Bible teaches about nations and (2) what the Bible teaches about the responsibilities of those who govern the nations. These are not academic papers, and they are not meant to be polemical (though readers will see that I am arguing for certain conclusions). My aim is simply to walk through a number of biblical terms and biblical texts in an effort to address the two themes above.

It was required of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament that they would be set apart from the surrounding nations. To the Jews belonged the covenants, the law, the patriarchs, and the promises. God expected Israel to be a holy nation firmly and faithfully committed to the worship of the one true God. In the New Testament, this expectation rests upon the church. The holy nation that must be governed entirely by God’s law and free from all idolatry is the worldwide communion of those who belong to Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, God still judges the nations of the world. In both the Old Testament and the New, we see that the nations are held accountable for the wicked violence they inflict on others, for haughtiness and material theft, and especially for their mistreatment of God’s people. The good king or emperor is one who administers justice, deals fairly with his people, upholds what is good, and punishes those who do evil. Crucially, the honorable civil magistrate will ensure that God’s people can practice their faith and pursue their religious aims with freedom and without hindrance.

Old Testament Survey

In an effort to understand God’s expectation for the nations and for their leaders, let me highlight three texts and the larger themes connected to them.

Genesis 19

We see from the opening chapters of the Bible that God will judge sin and wickedness, even when the sinners are not a part of God’s chosen family. In Genesis 19, Sodom and Gomorrah were overthrown because of their immorality. Although we should not take Abraham’s intercession for Sodom as providing a precise mathematical formula to predict God’s judgment, it is striking that God was prepared to spare Sodom if even a remnant of ten righteous persons could be found. Perhaps this is a pattern God follows yet today: dealing generously with the nations of the earth for the sake of the righteous few, even if the many are wicked.

The three sister deception stories in Genesis offer an important window into God’s dealings with the nations. In chapters 12, 20, and 26, Abraham and Isaac put a foreign nation at risk because the men of the nation almost slept with a married woman. In each story, the ruler (Pharaoh or Abimelech) understands that adultery is wrong and that their people would have been judged had they committed this evil. In the context of Genesis, the main point is that God will bless those who bless the family of Abraham, and God will curse those who mistreat his people. The Abrahamic covenant proves to be a faithful promise—both for God’s people (despite themselves) and for the nations as they interact (for good or for ill) with God’s people.

The Old Testament is replete with warnings for foreign kings and promises of judgment upon the nations of the earth. Whether nations like Egypt, Assyria, or Babylon, or individuals like Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, or Belshazzar, we see that God raises up kings and brings down kingdoms. Importantly, when God destroys a nation in the Old Testament, it is always an act of justice. One of the reasons there was a 400-year delay in entering the promised land was because God was waiting for the iniquity of the Amorites to be complete (Gen. 15:16). Israel may have been uniquely accountable to God, but no nation was free to pursue rank wickedness with impunity.

It is important to see, however, that God’s judgment upon the nations was not identical to his judgment upon Israel. When God denounces his people, it is for idolatry, for ignoring the law of Moses, and for violating the terms of the covenant. God’s condemnation of the nations sounds a different note. God does not fault the nations for failing to be the sort of nation Israel was supposed to be. Instead, he faults them more generally for pride, violence, and oppression. In the language of Romans 2, we might say that God judged the Gentile nations for failing to obey the law revealed in nature and in the conscience, not the law of Moses as specially revealed to the Jews (Rom. 2:12–16). Obadiah prophesied against Edom because the nation was proud (Obadiah 3) and had acted violently against Jacob (Obadiah 10). Similarly, Nahum spoke against Nineveh because the city was “full of lies and plunder” (Nah. 3:1) and because the Ninevites had dealt harshly with Israel (Nah. 1:2; 2:2). We aren’t told why the Ninevites in Jonah’s day had to repent, except that the penitent king ordered everyone to “turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands” (Jon. 3:8).

We see this same dynamic at work in the longer prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. All three books deal extensively with Israel’s wickedness. The sins of God’s people are many, including rebellion, injustice, greed, uncleanness, oppression, hard-heartedness, idolatry, and spiritual adultery. Fundamentally, they had broken the covenant God had made with their fathers (Jer. 11:1–8). God is also angry with the nations. In Isaiah 13–24, we read of God’s judgment upon Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Cush, Egypt, Tyre and Sidon, and then the whole earth. In Jeremiah 46–51, we read of God’s judgment upon Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Damascus, Kedar and Hazor, and then supremely upon Babylon. In Ezekiel 25–32, we read of God’s judgment upon Ammon, Moab and Seir, Edom, Philistia, Tyre, Sidon, and Egypt. Generally, we are told much more about what the judgment will look like than why the judgment must take place, but the same three basic sins surface: a haughty spirit, violence, and mistreatment of God’s people. 

It is this last sin that gets the most prophetic attention. Take Ezekiel 25 for example. This chapter is one place where we are given a consistent “why” for God’s anger with the nations. Four times we have the word “because” (with reference to Ammon, Moab and Seir, Edom, and Philistia), and in each instance the “because” has to do with acting vengefully against the house of Judah (Ezek. 25:3, 8, 12, 15). No doubt, we are meant to see the promises and threats of the Abrahamic covenant in full effect. Both Israel and the nations are judged in the Old Testament according to the terms of the covenant: Israel is cursed for failing to walk in God’s ways, while the nations are cursed for dealing wickedly with Israel.

Proverbs

By definition, the book of Proverbs deals with maxims and aphorisms that generally apply to all peoples. To be sure, Proverbs teaches that “the fear of the Lord”—the covenant God of Israel—“is the beginning of wisdom” (1:7). And yet, the instructions in Proverbs are not confined to those living under the law of Moses. The wisdom of Solomon was known beyond the borders of Israel. The maxims are less concerned with observing the stipulations of the Mosaic covenant than with giving good advice to all, including kings and princes.

We can briefly note five qualities that are found in good rulers.

1. Wisdom. In chapter 8, the personification of wisdom declares, “By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly” (8:15–16). Specifically, we are told that wisdom is the way of righteousness and the path of justice (8:20). When a political leader is wise, he hates pride, arrogance, and perverted speech (8:13).
2. Understanding. Proverbs tells us that “it is the glory of kings to search things out” (25:2). If a ruler is to be a blessing to his land, providing order and stability, he must be “a man of understanding and knowledge” (28:2). Knowledge, in the book of Proverbs, is about knowing right from wrong. A good ruler has a moral compass. People flourish under an honorable ruler and suffer under a morally deformed ruler. “When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan” (29:2). The governing authorities ought to be people of sound moral judgment. A good king will delight in the truth and love those who speak what is right (16:13).
3. Justice. A good ruler builds up the land by justice (29:4). In particular, this means two things. First, political leaders should not give favorable treatment to the rich and powerful. “If a king faithfully judges the poor, his throne will be established forever” (29:14). The king must never sin in his judgments (16:10). He must always employ a just balance and fair scales (16:11). Knowing how the poor are more easily oppressed, the king should judge righteously and defend the rights of the poor and needy (31:8-9). Second, when political leaders rule by justice, they punish wrongdoers. Justice is about fairly applying the law and consistently enforcing the law. A good king shines favor upon the righteous but is “a messenger of death” to the wicked (16:14–15). “A wise king winnows the wicked and drives the wheel over them” (20:26). The wicked fear the king (24:21–22), because he is a terror to those who do what is wrong (20:2). His favor is like the dew, but his wrath is like the growling of a lion (19:12).
4. Humility. “The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom, and humility comes before honor” (15:33). In the book of Proverbs, humility means being teachable and open to correction (9:9; 11:2; 12:1). “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice” (12:15). In particular, the king must surround himself with good, honest counselors and be open to their insight and correction. “If a ruler listens to falsehood, all his officials will be wicked” (29:12).
5. Self-control. In the last chapter of Proverbs, before the famous section on the Proverbs 31 Woman, there are instructions for a Proverbs 31 King. The first eight verses relay instructions to King Lemuel from his mother. The instructions are chiefly about justice (31:8–9) and about self-control. The king is told to exercise personal discipline over his sexual desires (31:3) and over his drinking (31:4–5). The first set of desires can destroy the king (as it did Solomon), while the second set of desires can render him irrational, unable to exercise the mental faculties necessary for political leadership.

Isaiah 49:23

Finally, this brief Old Testament survey must touch on one of the most common verses cited in Christian political thought.

Our purpose here is not to explore how the Reformed tradition has employed the concept of “nursing fathers” (KJV), but to understand this curious metaphor in its original biblical context. Isaiah is predicting the future restoration of Israel and sees a time when there will be a great reversal. Just as Israel was once a servant of rulers, so kings and princes will come and prostrate themselves before Israel (Isa. 49:7). The Lord God will lift up his hand to the nations, signaling that the time has come for queens to carry Israel’s sons in their arms and for kings to hoist Israel’s daughters on their shoulders (v. 22). Where Israel once was forced to bow before mighty rulers, now the kings and queens of the earth bend the knee before God’s chosen people, tend to their children, and lick the dust off of Israel’s feet.

Like most prophetic imagery, Isaiah’s vision likely has a near and far fulfillment. Israel’s return from captivity in Babylon, aided by Cyrus, king of Persia, may be in view (Isa. 45:1). More dramatically, the promise of Isaiah 49:23 is part of the good news that God’s salvation will reach to the ends of the earth (49:6) and that the wealth and glory of the nations will come to Zion (60:5; 66:18–20). Isaiah foretells of a day when the rulers of the nations will know that the Lord is God and bow before the Holy One of Israel (49:7).

New Testament Survey

Having examined three Old Testament texts, we turn now to three New Testament texts.

Mark 12:13-17

It’s one of Jesus’s most famous lines: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). A few observations:

Jesus teaches that allegiance to God and allegiance to your earthly nation are not inherently incompatible. The tax in question is the poll tax or census tax. It was first instituted in AD 6, not long before Jesus’s ministry. When it was established, a man by the name of Judas of Galilee led a revolt, believing that it was sinful cowardice to pay tribute to the Romans. As far as many zealous Jews were concerned, if God was your real king, you couldn’t have any earthly king like Caesar. But Jesus disagreed. By telling the people, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” he was saying there are duties to government that do not infringe on your ultimate duty to God. It’s possible to honor lesser authorities in good conscience because they have been instituted by a greater authority. To put it in our terms, it is possible for church and state to be compatible rather than competing loyalties.

Moreover, Jesus’s response lays the groundwork for some measure of separation between church and state. If we can render some things to Caesar and render other things to God, it must be the case that they are not one and the same, that it is possible to have some separation between the realm of organized religion and the realm of government, that perhaps there are two kings and two kingdoms. Jesus showed that the legitimacy of civil government does not depend on whether that government promotes the worship of the one true God. We must pay taxes and honor the emperor, even if the empire—like the Roman Empire in the first century—was nothing close to Christian. This does not mean Christ is not Lord of all, but it means he rules over different spheres in different ways. Jesus did not come to establish an earthly kingdom, even if many were eager for him to do so (John 6:16; Acts 1:6). Jesus says in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world.” It won’t be until the end of the age that we will be able to say, “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of our Christ” (Rev. 11:15). Christians today will be more like Israelites in exile in Babylon, maintaining a kingdom within a kingdom, than like Israelites in the promised land where God’s rule and the nation’s rules were identical.

Finally, notice that Jesus believed the government’s power and reach had limits. The inscription on a denarius read: “Tiberius Caesar Augustus, Son of Divine Augustus.” Jesus knew that was a lie. If people were listening carefully to his answer, they would have heard Jesus say, “Give Caesar his taxes. But Caesar is not God.” Jesus not only tells us to respect the state; he tells us quite clearly that the state is not ultimate, despite claims to the contrary in some cases. The government has real authority but not comprehensive authority. We may owe taxes to Caesar, since his image is on the coin. But God’s image is upon every human being. We owe to God more than a denarius; we must render to him our very selves.

Romans 13:3-4

The most cited text on the role of the civil magistrate comes from Romans 13. After insisting that every person must be subject to the governing authorities because God has instituted government, Paul gives a brief description of what the governing authorities are to do:

The civil magistrate is given here a lofty title. He is called “God’s servant” (diakonos theou). Provided we don’t confuse the term with an ecclesiastical office, the governing authorities can be called “ministers of God” (v. 6, leitourgoi theou). The civil magistrate serves the people in two ways: positively by approving those who do good, and negatively by punishing those who do wrong. The role of government, then, is inescapably moral. There are good things rulers must encourage and bad things they must forbid.

But Paul does not exactly spell out what are the good things to promote and the evil things to punish. The burden in verses 1–7 focuses on the Christian’s obligation, not the magistrate’s. Paul stresses that being a Christian does not release one from being subject to the government, living as a good citizen, and paying taxes. The fact that Paul’s statements in verses 3 and 4 are assumed more than defended suggests that he is not saying anything unexpected about the role of the civil magistrate. Moral philosophers like Seneca (4 BC–AD 65) believed the ideal ruler would be virtuous and just, seeking the welfare of his citizens and upholding the rule of law fairly for all. Paul presumed that his Roman audience knew what he meant because he was speaking of a basic political order that could (and sometimes did) exist in the world around him.

A case can be made that the central requirement for governing authorities is that they make fair and impartial judgments. This is implied in the language about punishing evil and approving those who do good. The Old Testament often called for judges to decide cases with impartiality, without taking a bribe, and without favoring the rich or the poor (Exod. 23:3; Lev. 19:15; Deut. 1:17; 16:18–20). The chief failure of the governor Felix was that he kept Paul in prison to appease the Jews, even though he knew Paul was innocent (Acts 24:22–27). Likewise, Pilate’s great sin was that he caved to the pressure of the mob, even after he had determined that Jesus was not guilty of the charges against him (Luke 23:13–25). The governing authorities, as ministers of God, should be impartial in their judgments just as God is in his (Deut. 10:17; Rom. 2:10–11).

Returning to Romans, this is one instance where the date of Paul’s letter may be significant. Almost all scholars agree that Paul wrote Romans from Greece (probably Corinth) around AD 57. This falls squarely in the first part of Nero’s reign when the emperor was positively influenced by his tutor, Seneca, and his mother, Agrippina. Prior to killing his mother in 59, Nero ruled with relative skill and moderation. Hence, Paul’s letter to the Romans doesn’t contain the same persecution motif found in many of the other New Testament epistles. Paul seems confident that the duties he lays out in Romans 13:3–4 can be carried out by a Roman emperor—and likely were being executed reasonably well at the time he wrote this letter. Consequently, we should not think that rewarding good and punishing evil means more than what a fair-minded, virtuous ruler could implement according to commonly shared assumptions about right and wrong.

1 Timothy 2:2

The instructions here for the governing authorities may be occasional and implicit, but they are revealing nonetheless. Paul enjoins the church to pray for “kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Tim. 2:2). The “that” (ina) indicates a purpose clause. We are to pray for the rulers to the end that we may lead peaceful and quiet lives. The implied command is that those who are in high positions have a responsibility to ensure that those under their authority are not harassed and oppressed.

The civil magistrate’s duties are not wholly removed from concerns of godliness and piety. We can infer from this passage that the civil magistrate should not require his subjects to do what is ungodly or prohibit them from doing what godliness requires. But the magistrate’s responsibility as outlined here does not include suppressing every expression of ungodliness. Paul’s prayer is for a king who allows Christians the freedom to gather for worship and pursue a faithful Christian life without opposition from the government. 

We can also mention here Jesus’s words to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world” (John 18:36). Jesus explicitly disavows any notion that his kingship can be equated with earthly political rule or that it should be promoted by physical coercion. Of course, Jesus wants his disciples to seek first the kingdom (Matt. 6:33) and to pray that God’s kingdom would come (Matt. 6:9). He does not mean to defer everything about the kingdom into the future or heavenly realm. And yet, it will only be at the very end of the age that the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ (Rev. 11:15). In the meantime, Christ’s kingdom is manifested in the church, apart from the power of the civil magistrate’s sword.

Conclusion

While one could argue that Paul would command a different sort of prayer under different circumstances, there is no evidence from 1 Timothy 2:2, or from anything else Paul writes, that he expected or demanded the governing authorities promote Christianity above other religions. Of course, Paul didn’t live in a country or an empire with any Christian heritage or with a Christian majority. To say Paul did not require the promotion of Christianity from the governing authorities is not the same as saying he forbade it. We should not think 1 Timothy 2:2 prevents Christians from praying for more than “a peaceful and quiet life.” At the same time, it seems fair to conclude from Romans 13 and 1 Timothy 2 that if the governing authorities encourage what is good, punish what is evil, and protect the church from persecution, then they are fulfilling the mandate Paul had in mind. This conclusion also resonates with aphorisms about kings in the book of Proverbs and is consistent with the example of the Old Testament, where the pagan nations were punished, above all else, for mistreating God’s people.

Kevin DeYoung is the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church (PCA) in Matthews, North Carolina and associate professor of systematic theology at Reformed Theological Seminary.