Government’s Duty to God

The Bible clearly states Christians’ duty to civil government. Christians must submit to the authority of civil government. They must obey governmental authorities, whether the authority is legitimate or just or unjust until that authority requires the citizenry to disobey God, in which case the Christian should obey God. Furthermore, Scripture states that Christians are to pray for the civil authorities.

It is God’s will for civil government to exist with individuals appointed to exercise authority over the citizenry; therefore, to resist the authority of such persons acting on behalf of any form of civil government in exercising their lawful authority is an act of disobedience to God.

Christians understand that the reasons for obeying civil authority are that it is the will of God and that those in authority of the governmental apparatus have been ordained by God to repress evil and promote good. Therefore, you have no reason to fear a government that does not abuse the power delegated to it by God, so long as you do good.

But this is not a one-way street. While Christians and all citizens owe obedience to God’s will in subjecting themselves to civil authority, the government owes obedience to God in exercising its authority over the citizenry. No government exists unless God allows it. Governments of all forms, legitimate or not, or unjust, secular or religious, owe obedience to God in their civil practices.

On January 1, 1802, President Thomas Jefferson responded to an address from the 26-church Danbury Baptist Association. The Danbury Baptist Association was concerned with government overreach into matters of religion. Jefferson included the following phrase in his response: their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. The last portion of this phrase contained the unfortunate and inaccurate statement regarding “a wall of separation between Church & State.”

Great harm was caused when Jefferson’s “wall of separation” idea was incorporated into United States law. The United States Supreme Court (the “Court”) first applied this phrase to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in the 1947 Court case Everson v. Board of Education when Justice Hugo L. Black wrote in his majority opinion that the First Amendment erected a wall of separation between church and state. And it has been a standard court rule since then.

The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The prohibition applies to the U.S. Congress, and the First Amendment does not prohibit religion from being involved in matters of state, whether legislative, executive, or judicial. Using the incorporation doctrine, the Court later applied the First Amendment and much of the Bill of Rights to the state and local governments, overruling previous Court opinions to the contrary (Barron v. Baltimore (1833); United States v. Cruikshank (1876)). The First Amendment is plain and unambiguous ― it only constrains the United States Congress.

Jefferson’s inappropriate use of the term and the Court’s essential codification of this idea that declared a separation of the government apparatus and God and His church resulted in most Americans believing that the separation exists. The U.S. Constitution does not prohibit God in government and thus does not prohibit Bible reading on school property (Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963)), prayer in public schools (Engel v. Vitale (1962)), nativity scenes (i.e., religious symbols) on town property (County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573 (1989)), etc. Nevertheless, the Court disagrees and has ruled in the above parenthetical cases that such actions violate the First Amendment.

We must say, though, that there is, to a certain extent, an acceptable “separation” between the role of government and the role of the church. Jesus alluded to this in Mark 12:17 when He said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus teaches that governments have legitimate authority over their subjects in their jurisdiction, but this authority is not unlimited. Caesar’s image was on the coin of the Roman Empire for use in the Roman Empire, but God’s image is written in the soul of every human being. God’s power is thus infinite and unlimited. Moreover, Jesus also teaches that the government’s power is from God (John 19:11).

So, not only is the government’s power limited in scope, but there are also roles limited to the government and the church. The church may not enforce its religious tenets in a government’s proper realm of authority, and governments cannot interfere with an individual’s practice of religion, such as when a Christian prays or reads the Bible in school. However, the Court has ruled that government-directed prayer does violate the First Amendment. Such was the case in Engel v. Vitale (1962).

Therefore, the government is an institution established by God, and it owes obedience to God in exercising its legitimate authority over the citizenry. Those individuals invested with the authority of governance are appointed for the benefit of the people and, as such, are servants of the people and of God for the sole purpose of providing for the general welfare of society.

Christians are bound to accept the separation of church and state established by the Court. However, elected and bureaucratic government officials must obey God in performing their official duties within proper limits and roles. The church must be ready to call the government to task when it acts contrary to God’s will, even while remaining in subjection to said government.