Again I want to quote from Newell's Romans: Verse-by-Verse (1938) for additional thinking about the government. I recommend this book for those looking for a good study guide on Romans. The following is a quote about Romans 13 verse 1:
There is great necessity at this hour to emphasize to all Christians this solemn exhortation of the apostle. Lawlessness,—contempt for authority—is upon us like a flood. This lawlessness (anomia) is the essence of sin. We have already called attention to the fact that the Old Version translation of 1 John 3:4: “Sin is the transgression of the Law,” is wholly astray. Not parabasis, transgression; nor paraptoma, offense; but a much deeper word, anomia,—literally, lawlessness: the spirit of refusing control,—this does God define as sin! Sin was in the world 2500 years before the Law. Already existing sin caused the Law’s “Thou shalt not.” Lawlessness is behind and below all law-breaking!
That the lawlessness of the last days is coming upon us, we see everywhere! In the contempt of treaty obligations on the part of nations; in the disregard for old-time honesty in private contracts; in the “breaking loose” of “flaming youth” from parental restraint, and the rush to “expressionism,” whether in school “dramatics” or in disdain of “old fogy” morals; in the calling the sin of lasciviousness and adultery by “modern” names,—such as “petting,” “sex-experience”; in the flood of murder magazines and “mystery” novels; in the unwillingness of the public to have crime really punished,—showing public sympathy with sin!
It is because of this latter that law-enforcement breaks down. For, on the whole, judges, prosecuting attorneys, sheriffs, and police, would have criminals dealt with firmly: but the “technicalities” of legal procedure are seized upon by evil, unscrupulous men to defeat law. And who would be so foolish as to claim that things could be so if the entire community were, in their hearts, righteously abhorrent toward all law-breaking?
Perhaps the most glaring of all instances of last-days lawlessness, is the tolerance of Red Communism. We do not now speak of Russia; but of the fact that Communistic doctrines (which openly declare war upon all Divinely appointed order) are held,—even by professing Christians! in England, the United States, Canada, and all over the world. You have no more right to “sit down” upon another’s property, against his will, than any common thief has to enter your home to plunder! God’s Word defends the rights of property, just as the right to life. “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not kill,” are in the same code of law. Christians need to read and heed Matthew 20:1 to 15. The “householder” there “agrees” with the “laborers”: these had the right to sell their labor at an “agreed” price; while he had the right to decide what he could profitably pay them, and “agree” to pay it. And he recognizes what they had earned as theirs: “Take up that which is thine, and go thy way” (verse 14). But as concerning that which was his, and which they had not earned, he says, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?” He paid them what they had earned, and sent them off his property! Now Christ gave this lesson! And He calls the eye “evil” (verse 15) that would covet what it had not earned!
No wonder Marx and Lenin and the Communists hate the Bible! It convicts them of covetousness and thievery! Read Matthew 20:1 to 15 again; and see what you think our Lord would have said of those laborers, if they had “sat down” in that vineyard, claiming, “It really belongs to us, ‘the workers’; and we will not move until this householder raises our wages to what we ask!” You see, the only way for Communism to exist, is to destroy all hold of the Bible on men! Communism is the devil’s opium for a people willing to let go the Word of God!
Let Christians beware of the specious lies of all movements of force (“direct action,” the Reds call it!) to right the wrongs of this present world. There are wrongs, as James tells us (Jas 5:1-6), but the Christian is told to be “patient until the coming of the Lord” (Jas 5:7-8). Pray and wait.
Things will get worse and worse, until “violence fills the earth,” as in “the days of Noah.” But God will deliver you—if you trust Him, and do not put forth your hand with “violent men.” I pray you, read Proverbs 1:10-15, where you have a vivid picture of all the “share the wealth” movements! Let the Lord’s people avoid them as the very plague! If, instead of “godliness with contentment,” earthliness and covetousness seize your heart, you are really setting in on Lenin’s and Stalin’s path—which ends in hell! and makes a land a bloody horror meanwhile.
The “restlessness” of today is really that deep “lawlessness” which God calls sin: “SIN IS LAWLESSNESS!” The Man of Sin is called “the lawless one” in 2 Thessalonians 2:7 and 8, where we are told that “the mystery of lawlessness” is already working, but that there is One (the Holy Spirit, we believe), that “restraineth now” until He be “taken out of the way.” “And then shall be revealed the lawless one.” This is the coming Antichrist.
Now since God’s saints know that lawlessness and violence, lust and covetousness, are characteristic of the last days, and know from Daniel’s prophetic interpretation of the Great Image Nebuchadnezzar saw, that we must be nearing the time of the end of the age, how peculiarly needful that we all lay to heart these instructions concerning magistrates!
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