Coronavirus and Romans 13

Civil Government, Romans 13, and Love of Neighbor

And so, Dr. Sandlin, there are two primary issues right now that I think we have to address because they're the primary things that people are examining and they're the swords that are being wielded on both sides of this discussion.

One is the biblical law and command from Romans 13 to obey your governing authority, submit to the governing authorities. The governing authority is God's deacon. It's to wield the sword of justice and it's to punish the wicked, protect the righteous.

And so people say, therefore, you need to shut down all of society, destroy the economy, that's fine, because you gotta obey your government. Don't be for corporate worship because the government says so.

And they've made the decree, you have to obey Romans 13. The other one, Dr. Sandlin, is love your neighbor. They say, you need to self-quarantine, shut your business down. And they'll say, again, I'm using this language to describe just how far it goes.

People will say, and I've seen it, and I'm sure you have too. They'll say, to hell with the economy, we need to save lives. And so they'll say, it's love for neighbor that says you should close your church down right now, no more gathering.

Love for neighbor says you quarantine for the next couple of weeks until the Romans 13 government tells you you can come away. So Andrew, could you just speak to those just to start the conversation? Those are the two things I see most often appeal to and I think they're critical as we examine this.

Yeah, maybe I'll start with that last one first. The notion that lives are more important than the economy, it's a false dichotomy. The fact is, if there is serious and catastrophic economic damage, that will cost lives.

In fact, possibly even more lives that have been lost tragically by coronavirus. So it's not an issue of money versus dying. It's an issue of lack of money and poverty that often leads to tragic and lethal consequences versus other lethal consequences.

So we need to take that into account. But back to Romans 13, the Bible's quite clear that the civil magistrate is truly a minister. In fact, it's basically the same term that would be used for a minister in a church, though in a different sphere.

So the Bible's not antinomian. I think one thing that would help us to understand this, guys, and you know it and many of your audience do, though perhaps some don't, one aspect of a sector of the Reformed faith is fear of sovereignty.

God establishes various fears, the family and the church and the state, for example, that have their own specific calling, their own specific way of doing things, their own specific responsibility. Though ideally they should work together and with one another, they each have their own separate calling.

The state has the calling of suppressing evil and in that way protecting liberty and righteousness and so on. The church has a different responsibility, preaching the word and defending orthodoxy and the ordinances and sacraments and so on and then of course the family has its own calling.

Now the problem is when one of those begins to arrogate to itself authority that has been given to another. I think a prime example in this case is prohibition of worship. Now, does the state have, the civil government, does the civil government have a vested interest in the physical health of its citizens under its care?

Yes, it does, there's no question about that. That's a correct inference, I believe, from Romans chapter 13. However, that's not the only text in the Bible we have to look at. There are texts like Hebrews 10 .25 and other biblical texts that point out the necessity of the church meeting.

Now here's where I wanna say, and I think Jeff, you and I either were talking about it, maybe there was a Facebook comment or something that's really vital. There is no such thing as the ungathered church.

There's no such thing. I mean, the term that we in English, of course, it's the translated church. Some people think that's not the best translation. Ekklesia is the assembly. Ekklesia is the congregation, it's the gathering.

Now, church in English comes from words that mean the Lord's house, and so that might imply a building, though it really doesn't necessarily mean that. It could be metaphorical. But the ekklesia is actually the assembly.

So not to have an assembly is not to have the church. Now, this is something I hope that the ministers listening will think about, and I'm not in any way trying to impose a sort of a highly legalistic standard.

I believe that local elders, and I think you guys would agree with me on this, local elders are given, local church leadership, the responsibility to make decisions for what is best for their congregation.

For example, if elders in a congregation with a number of elderly people might make a different decision than those that don't have elderly people. I'm willing to grant that. I'm very happy to grant that.

But on the other hand, the idea of an unassembled church is false. So to say, well, we're gonna wait for perhaps a few months and we're not going to assemble, what they're really saying, and this is a weighty thing to think about, and I was thinking about this the last few days, is basically we're going to abolish the church for a while.

Now, they would say, oh, no, no, no. We still have the membership roles, and everybody still is on the phone. Yes, but an aspect of the church, an essential aspect of the church is the necessity to be an assembly, a congregation.

And I can assure you that Paul and Jesus and the other folks in the New Testament did not have in mind the internet. Nothing wrong with the internet. It's being used right now. But the internet is not a church.

So I think at this point, and I really appreciate those pastors I've talked to, those with whom I've discussed this, and are prayerfully considering what to do, but one thing is certain. If there comes a conflict between what the word of God requires and what the state requires, by the way, particularly if it's merely an executive decision, and it's not a legislative decision, and that's a whole different issue, particularly as to the case of what one man or one woman says in executive order, pitting that against what God says the church should do, there's really no question there.

There's really no question about what we should do. Notice I'm not saying that the church could never under any circumstances not meet, but simply bowing to a policy. Oh, the state said we can't meet as a church, and therefore, we can't meet as long as the state says so.

That, I believe, is not simply wrong, but is in disobedience to the word of God.

Local Church Authority and the Limits of Romans 13

Yes, and I just wanna say, we respect and love and honor the brothers, local elders, pastors, who have made a particular decision that's right for their body. We need to honor them.

Yes, I agree with that 100%, Jeff. I agree with that.

We need to honor them. We need to love them. We need to not cut each other's throats theologically or intellectually on this, but we need to just ask the question in terms of principle. And if you're asking us where we're standing as elders and as pastors on this issue, we're saying, here are the principles.

Now, I just wanna say just a brief thing to, we have to be cautious. Brothers and sisters, wherever you fall on this issue, we've gotta be so cautious and thoughtful about the implications of what we're saying.

So, for example, when people have said, and this is, I've seen a lot of this. People say, guys, it's no big deal.

We're the church.

We can just watch stuff online. I wanna say, guys, pause, take a breath, because those are the same people you argue against on a regular basis that tell you their reasons for not going to gather together on Sunday.

They say the same thing, and you just gotta be cautious about how you use that, because how many times have you guys heard, and I know even for those of you guys that are already saying, no, we need to do it for now.

We're the church.

Let's just watch it online. We're still doing this. I'm just saying, just be cautious about how you use that, because there's gonna come a time where this is over, and then you're gonna face that argument coming out of the mouth of a person who's just in sin and doesn't go to gather or be under local church authority.

They're gonna say, no, we're the church. We don't need that, and it's not really a necessity to gather together. I can just watch it online, and you're gonna be in the battle with them six months from now going, no, that's not what you're supposed to be doing.

No, that's not biblical. So all I'm saying is be cautious about the arguments you're making today, like, no, we're the church. We don't need a place. We don't need to gather. We'll just watch it online.

I'm saying, I've gotta confront people like that all the time, and so just be careful about using those arguments. So just quickly, I'll say here, I think it's important to note, and Dr. Sandlin, I'd like to hear you speak a little more to this.

Romans 13 is prescriptive. It is not descriptive, and people might be saying, what do you mean by that? Well, what I mean by that is Romans 13, it tells you what the government is supposed to be and to do.

It's not descriptive of what they are always doing. That's vital to get. Romans 13 is spread like peanut butter at times over all kinds of issues in a dangerous, very frightening way, to be honest with you.

When people just say, you gotta obey your governing authorities, I would say, really? You believe that in Nazi Germany? When the Nazis come and bang on your door and they say, you tell us the location of all the Jews in the area, and you've got some hiding under your floorboards?

What if some Christian raises their hand in the background and says, guys, Romans 13? Romans 13, obey your governing authorities. Or how about today, more modern context? This happens, I'm sure, globally all the time in different places.

China, the underground church, Chinese Communist government comes knocking on the door. They say, guys, tell us where all the other underground Christians are and tell us their worship service times. Romans 13, you gotta submit your governing authorities, or do you have the biblical right, and I would say obligation, to resist that kind of wicked action of an ungodly government.

It is pre

Oh, Jeff, and I've jumped in all the biblical examples. I mean, those, the handmaidens in Egypt, and of course, the early church, there's so many biblical examples that you could have given. That's precisely correct.

Yes, no, no, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, famous scene, bow and worship. No, we won't.

Daniel.

Daniel, exactly. You got Peter saying the, and I think this is just, it should do it for all of us. In the book of Acts, you've got Peter and the other apostles commanded, you stop preaching in this name, and then they go right back out and do it again, and they're like, didn't we tell you to stop preaching in this name?

And then Peter says, we must obey God rather than men. Well, really, were you being disobedient, Mr. Apostle, to submitting to your governing authorities, or do we recognize that there's nuance to the text?

Nuance to the text. I think we just lost Andrew. I heard something drop off there. So try to get him back up there, Isaac, but there's nuance to the text, and people understand this, and it's not compromise, it's nuance.

It's taking all of biblical wisdom and God's standards and putting them together. So for example, we all know this. I used it on Sunday. I think it's an excellent example that we can all think about, and it can refresh us in this area.

When the Bible says, wives submit to your husbands and everything, we all recognize that if a man comes in with his wife to do pastoral counseling, and we discover that he is being abusive, heavy-handed, mean-spirited, he is just an awful man to his wife, he's actually telling her to do sinful things, we all recognize, no, she doesn't have to submit to her husband, why?

Because he's not operating as an authority under God that's obedient to God. He is commanding and doing things that are sinful that God has already spoken to. So no, you are not required, wife, to submit to your husband in that thing.

But it says submit to your wives and everything. Do you see how the Bible can be abused when you take a proof text, you take it out of context, and you use it in a way that the text doesn't even intend?

So Romans 13, we believe, and if you know Apology of Church, you know that we are big on sphere sovereignty and we are big on civil government. We think the civil government is supposed to be under God, it is supposed to wield God's just standards.

I want the civil government to obey Jesus, and actually, to tell the truth, I want the civil government to have more power to wield the sword of justice in God's way.

I do.

I want, let's say, for example, I think that when a man, we're waiting for Andrew to come on, but just to give an example of what I think in terms of, I think the government needs to be more powerful here and strict and firm when a man, and this happens a lot, we know about sex trafficking, when a man kidnaps a child, brutalizes that child, rapes the child, kills the child, God's law says death penalty.

You've, justice is you've forfeited your right to live. That's justice. We don't do that anymore. Like, we're not concerned about that, overly concerned about justice in that way. So I think in many ways, our government isn't just enough.

But that's Romans 13. And I, we've talked about the fact that it's prescriptive, not descriptive.

Does it teach?

Yeah. Jeff, could I jump in? Maybe you already said this when I was just coming. This is really important. I think those in our tradition, the broad reformational tradition would argue, and I think this principle is true, that unless the state demands what the Bible forbids or forbids what it demands, we should obey.

The issue, of course, comes in conflict. A good example is it's a, the utter tragedy that the state permits abortion doesn't mean that I can get a shotgun out and go start shooting police officers.

That's right.

The fact that we have an evil state and the state does evil things doesn't mean I can disobey other commands. But where the state requires what the Bible forbids and vice versa, that's when we have to disobey.

And that, I believe, I'm at least suggesting we consider that's the case. And the one we're talking about right now as far as the church meeting for worship on Sunday.

Yes. So let's leap into this.

Quick.

Yes, go ahead.

One, I was gonna say, well, you just noticed that the pagan symbol trolls are out.

Tricetra, Trinity symbol, good to know it.

And full force today. They're not even listening to what we're saying because they're arguing over the symbol minus. But I just wanted to point a couple things before we switch topics at all. I wanna, again, reiterate what Andrew said.

We're not saying that, we're not even saying that we wouldn't shut down church if we felt like our congregation was in danger.

That's an authority under our jurisdiction.

That's our call to make. That's the only thing we're saying. Because I'm hearing a lot of feedback, people saying, well, you're just saying that you're being singled out as a church. And it's like, no, that's not what I'm saying.

Again, it's about principle. That's all we're saying. And one of you, I forget who, one of you was saying we're not judging those that had done that. I think you were saying it, Jeff. That's your decision to make.

That's all we're saying.

You have local church authority.

Yeah, and it's funny because I may have missed it, but I haven't seen any of the hatred, if you will, coming from people in our position, pastors in our position, saying you're a horrible sinner for shutting down church.

It's been the opposite. The pastors that have shut down are telling us, you're murdering people, you're gonna kill people.

Context, Mortality, and Local Pastoral Judgment

Luke, can maybe this help with that discussion with what you're saying in terms of local church authority has to make those decisions, not just by government decree. What about in Arizona right now, where we have a lower number of COVID -19 coronavirus, even two weeks ago.

What if you have a church that's like out in the sticks in the desert somewhere, it's a gathering of say 25 or 50 believers, and they're all just in this one town, right? Are they supposed to obey a government decree to not gather for worship?

They say there are 100 people or whatever it is. No one's left the town. You see what I'm saying? It's a local church context. Why would they have to? And considering the numbers in terms of the mortality rate, it'd be good for that pastor to say, excuse me, we face this all the time in terms of mortality rate.

We still meet for worship. We just need to make sure we're obeying proper government rules about washing your hands, social distancing, proper social distancing, don't hug each other, don't shake hands.

We'll use caution, but we're not stopping the gathering. Local church authority should make that decision. Like if you're a pastor at a nursing home next to where a cruise ship offloads from China, you might say, it might be a good idea for me to say, let me rework this, meet somewhere else, figure out a new way.

It just depends on the context,.

But the local church has the authority.

To look at the wisdom of the government and say,.

Is that biblical?

Is it wise?

Does it love my neighbor?

That's the point.

Yep, exactly.