The primary responsibility of every human government is to protect, defend, and maintain human life. In this sermon, R.C. Sproul continues to engage ethical dilemmas relating to civil authorities.

Today, we are going to continue our study of Paul’s letter to the church at Rome. Last time, we started our study of chapter 13, and we learned how God has ordained civil government to be ministers of His sovereign rule over all the world. I stopped before I dealt with verse 4, and so I will pick it up now with Romans 13:4–7. I ask the congregation to stand for the reading of the Word of God:

For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.

This is not the insight of a first-century Jewish scholar, but this is the Word of God. Please be seated. Let us pray.

Father, as we continue to explore the implications of these things that are revealed to us in Your holy Word, we ask that You grant us clarity of understanding and hearts that are submissive to the rule of Your Word. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Power of the Sword

Last time, as we came to verse 4, I interrupted my message and said that the contents of that verse were so many and so weighty that I did not think I could rush through that verse in the few moments we had left. But I would like to read again for you verse 4: “For he”—that is, the civil magistrate—“is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil.”

This verse, Romans 13:4b, is one of the most important verses in all of Scripture for the development of historic, classic Christian ethics, especially with respect to two monumentally important ethical issues. Number one is the issue of capital punishment. Number two is the controversial issue of warfare and whether Christians can, in good conscience, ever be engaged in war.

What is important about this text is that it is God who has given to the civil magistrate the power of the sword. That concept, the language of the phrase “the power of the sword” is an idiomatic expression for the power of capital punishment, the power of using a weapon that can bring death to enforce the law of God.

The idea of the sword being used to enforce the law of God is established early in the biblial record. Let me ask you to look at chapter 3 of the book of Genesis. The third chapter of Genesis records the circumstances of the human race’s fall into sin—the seduction of Adam and Eve by the serpent in the garden. Then we read at the end of that chapter, in Genesis 3:22–24, these words:

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.

In addition to the loss of the blessing that Adam and Eve would have received at the hand of their Creator had they passed their probation by rendering obedience rather than disobedience, the consequences of their sin included the curse that came upon man, woman, the earth, and all things in it. Then God drove Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden. They were forced to live east of Eden, outside of the presence of the paradise in which they were originally placed by their Creator.

In addition to this exile or banishment, where human beings were now forbidden to enter into the garden of Eden lest they should attack the Tree of Life unjustly, God established a sentinel. He put angels, armed with a flaming sword that turned in each direction, at the gateway to the garden in order to prevent any intrusion into that garden again.

Here we see the first establishment of physical force as a governing restraint upon sinful people in order to guard the entrance to the garden of Eden. That image of the sword placed as a guard is the image used throughout Scripture to indicate the authority carried by those who were given the responsibility of enforcing the law of God.

Whoever Sheds Man’s Blood

In the Old Testament, there were several offenses that were considered so heinous that, in the civil code of Israel, God required the death penalty for those who committed them. If I can briefly turn to Genesis 9, I will read another text that is of ultra importance to understanding this idea of the power of the sword. Genesis 9:1–6 begins with these words:

So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man’s brother I will require the life of man.

“Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.”

Here we see the biblical institution of capital punishment for the instance of murder. I want to pause for a moment to look at this, because the way this text is expressed may be easily misunderstood. It says in verse 6,

Whoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed.

We could misinterpret this text to read something like, “He who lives by the sword shall die from the sword,” as a kind of cryptic prophecy of the consequences of living a violent life. But the text does not indicate a future prediction of what would happen to people who shed human blood. Rather, this text is written in the form of an imperative. God is requiring the death penalty for murder.

When I say that, I have to qualify it. If you look through the law code in the Old Testament, you will see that the offense of murder is carefully explained. Distinctions are made in Old Testament law that correspond to our distinctions between first-degree and second-degree murder, between murder and manslaughter.

In the case of manslaughter, the penalty was not death but banishment to the cities of refuge. But when first-degree murder was committed, it was not simply that the law of Israel allowed for capital punishment, but the civil magistrates of Israel were commanded to execute the guilty party.

I remember when the question of capital punishment was before the state legislature in Pennsylvania. Originally, Pennsylvania did have the death penalty for murder. Then the state repealed it for a season, and when it was brought up on the docket to be restored to the law of the land, the state legislature voted to restore capital punishment in the case of first-degree murder.

At that time, the bill to restore capital punishment was vetoed by the governor of the state of Pennsylvania, who himself was Jewish by faith. The reason he announced to the press for vetoing capital punishment was that it was unbiblical. He argued that the Bible says simply, “Thou shalt not kill.” Therefore, he said, since God prohibits killing human beings, we must not tolerate the execution of murderers through capital punishment.

Of course, if the governor had read just a few pages further in the Old Testament, he would have seen that God required the death penalty for violation of the prohibition against murder. But many Christians have been misinformed about this biblical position.

The Covenant of Creation

What is so important about the text I have read to you is that when capital punishment was instituted by God, it was part of a renewal of the covenant of creation. We have to understand that throughout biblical history, many different covenants are set forth. There is the covenant God makes first with Abraham, then with Isaac and Jacob. There is the covenant mediated through Moses, the covenant God makes with David, and the new covenant instituted by Jesus in the New Testament. But the original covenant is called the covenant of creation.

When God establishes His law in creation, He does not establish laws just for Jews or just for Christians. Rather, the laws built into creation are given to man qua man, to everyone who is a human being. So, every person who is alive on the planet to this day is still under the authority of the terms of the covenant of creation.

Many people do not believe in creation or believe that they are under any covenant responsibility to God, but denial and unbelief do not eliminate that covenant. Every human being inescapably remains in a covenant relationship with God. We are either covenant keepers or covenant breakers. The majority of the human race exists in a state of covenant rebellion.

After God had established this covenant in creation, sin came into the world. Sin proliferated so rapidly that God decided to virtually wipe out the human race, saying that He would no longer strive with this wicked generation, save for the family of Noah. The account of the flood is both the account of God’s judgment on fallen humanity and the account of His grace to Noah and his family, with Noah being the instrument for the rescue of the wildlife of the world.

After the flood receded, the ark came to rest and God reestablished His covenant with Noah. He set His bow in the sky and said that He would no longer destroy the world by flood. But in the covenant that we call the Noahic covenant, we see the restitution and repetition of the ordinances of the creation covenant.

Why am I laboring this point? The point is that the law of capital punishment for murder is not restricted to the law code and civil penalties of Old Testament Israel, nor is it a portion of the jurisprudence of the New Testament, but it is a law that is rooted and grounded in creation. That means that as long as creation lasts, the principle of capital punishment in the case of first-degree murder is in effect.

The Sanctity of Human Life

Let me ask the next question: Why? Why is this principle of capital punishment in effect? A few years ago, I read an article from Larry King, in which he was outspoken in his criticism of the Christian community for its gross inconsistency. He argued in this manner: The Christian community protests against abortion on demand on the grounds that it involves the taking of human life, while at the same time, Christians argue in favor of capital punishment.

Larry King said, “I will not support the Christian’s opposition to abortion until the Christian church stops its support of capital punishment.” You see what Larry King was saying. He said that we are inconsistent because, on the one hand, we are opposed to killing, yet on the other hand, we support it.

What I wanted to say to Mr. King, but never had the opportunity to, is that there is no inconsistency at all. You may argue that the Christian church is wrong or that the Bible is mythological, but there is a strong point of consistency that stands behind both the church’s opposition to abortion and the church’s support of capital punishment. That principle is the sanctity of human life.

That principle, which resounds on virtually every page of sacred Scripture and is reiterated emphatically by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, is that human life is so sacred that we must never, ever take it with malice aforethought or out of personal convenience.

The reason why human life is so sacred is not because there is inherent value found in human beings that is not found in whales, eagles, and burrowing turtles. What makes the value of human life so significant is what is reiterated here in Genesis 9:6:

Whosoever sheds man’s blood,
By man his blood shall be shed;
For in the image of God
He made man.

What makes us different from turtles, whales, chickens, and kangaroos is that we have been stamped with the image of God.

What God is saying here is this: If someone, with malice aforethought, rises up and kills his brother like Cain did to Abel, then that attack on a human being is seen by God as an attack on Himself. This is because the human being who was murdered is one who is engraved and stamped with the image of God Himself.

God is saying that human life is so sacred and so important that if you rise up and kill your neighbor without just cause, you have lost all rights and privileges with respect to your own life. You have forfeited your own life. And God gives the right of capital punishment not to the victim’s relatives to seek vengeance, but to the one to whom He has given the sword to be His avenger and see that punishment is carried out. This punishment is given not for the sake of being bloodthirsty, but for the sake of saying to the world that we will not tolerate the murder of human beings.

That is the biblical rationale seen in the Old Testament. It is seen again in Romans 13, where God both ordains the civil magistrate and gives him the power to be His avenger. When God gives the magistrate the power of the sword, He does not give the power of the sword merely to rattle it. The power of the sword is given to be used to enforce law and justice.

Just War Theory

This same verse, Romans 13:4, is the single most important text in Christian ethics and has served as the locus classicus with regard to the question of just war. I would like to spend a few moments with you to talk about how, throughout church history, the just war theory has followed the writing of the Apostle Paul in Romans 13.

For example, we can go back to Saint Augustine, who made an observation about war and people’s participation in war. He said that all wars are evil. He excluded the divinely ordained conquest of Canaan. But since we do not have direct instructions from God to wage war in this day, we are left to make those decisions on the basis of our human understanding and the application of principles drawn from sacred Scripture.

Augustine said that all wars are evil and that there is no such thing, in our day, as a good war. But, Augustine said, not everyone’s involvement in war is evil. Thomas Aquinas seconded the motion, and in his moral theology, he worked out the details of what is involved in a just war.

Without going into all the technicalities, the fundamental principle of the just war theory is this: If one nation aggressively invades or attacks another nation, the nation who is the victim of external aggression not only has the right but the responsibility to protect themselves from the invading aggressor.

When Hitler invaded Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Lowlands, and the other nations, the governments of those nations had the moral duty to try to stop the Blitzkrieg from coming and enslaving their people. At that point, the warriors of the nations that were being invaded were fulfilling their duty as civil magistrates, bearing the sword to protect the lives of their own people.

Notice that phrase, “to protect the lives.” Again, the sanctity of life is what lies behind the just war theory. Life is so sacred that the civil magistrate has been given the sword to protect the innocent from the evildoer, just as the policeman has been given arms and the right to use arms to stop your wife from being raped, your house from being invaded, or your body from being harmed or killed. When the civil magistrate uses reasonable force to restrain the evildoer, he is not only serving the community, but he is serving God in that enterprise.

When we talk about just war, we are elevating those principles to the larger domain of national security and safety. In our day and age, when we invade without ever sending soldiers across borders but by sending missiles across oceans, and with the sophistication of modern weaponry, issues of just war become more and more complex.

The mentality of the New Testament and the Christian church historically has not been to encourage a bellicose national posture or a militaristic style that tries to scare everyone else away. Rather, it is to attempt as a nation to be good neighbors to other nations, to be loving to other nations, and to use the sword as the last possible resort when the defense of the people becomes a clear and present measure of necessity.

Conscientious Objectors

I remember back in the late 1960s, during the Vietnam War, how our country was divided between hawks and doves on the issue of war. I used to listen to the rhetoric of politicians on both sides of that question. The thing that disturbed me so much was that I heard arguments from both sides that did not have any soundness to them whatsoever.

The hawks were saying, “My country, right or wrong, my country.” Christians should never say that. If my country is wrong, I must oppose it, particularly when human blood is being shed. The other side was saying, “Better red than dead,” and more of this kind of rhetoric. No one was really looking at the issues of international law that were involved in that situation.

I had an unenviable position as a college professor in the middle of the 1960s. I had many students who were vehemently opposed to the war in Vietnam and who were applying for conscientious objector status. As was the rule at that time, they had to file affidavits to the government and to the draft boards, given by people who would, under penalty of perjury, give their testimony that the student’s conscientious objection was sincere.

I do not know how many of those papers I had to fill out for students. My responsibility was not to give my view on the war, whether I was for it or against it. That was beside the point. All the government wanted to know was, in my judgment, whether I believed this particular student was sincere in his conscientious objection to the conflict in Vietnam. Do you understand the difference?

So many students filed objections to the war that the Supreme Court of the United States made a decision that was, in my judgment, one of the worst miscarriages of justice I have ever seen. It was made without a peep from the Christian community. The Supreme Court ruled that no one could be given conscientious objection status unless they could demonstrate that they were opposed to all wars.

Let me say it again. The present rule of the land is that you cannot be a conscientious objector to a war unless you can demonstrate that you are conscientiously opposed to all wars. You must be a card-carrying pacifist, and you cannot choose your war.

The Principle of Obedience

The position of the Supreme Court ruling was strange, because at the Nuremburg trials, when the war criminals were tried after World War II, officer after officer pled the same excuse for the atrocities they committed in the death camps during the Holocaust. They said that they were merely carrying out orders. It was their superiors who were responsible, not them, because as good German soldiers, they simply did what their commanding officers commanded them to do.

What did the United States argue? Our government argued at Nuremburg that it is the responsibility of an individual soldier to disobey a command given to him by a superior officer if that superior officer commands him to do something evil.

This is the principle we talked about last time from chapter 13. It is our responsibility to be obedient to the civil magistrate unless the magistrate commands us to do something God forbids or forbids us from doing something God commands. In other words, the position the United States took after World War II was that those German soldiers should have been conscientious objectors. The United States did not take the position that all wars are evil, or that everyone’s involvement in war is always evil.

Now, the Christian is discriminated against if he holds to the just war theory, that involvement in war is only legitimate for a Christian if the cause is just. If my nation gets involved in a war that is not just, even though I hold the position that there are occasions of just war, I do not have the legal recourse in my own country to refuse to submit to that order.

That is a very serious matter, because as a Christian, before you pick up a gun, a knife, or a sword and kill anyone, you need to make sure that the cause is just. It is silly to assume that any government can be trusted to only engage in military activity in a just way. I do not know of any nation in history that has not, at one point or another, used its power and authority in an unjust manner.

That is why we have to be vigilant. We have to be scrupulous. When the nation is in peril and engaged in the just defense of its borders and its people, then if the civil magistrate calls me to pick up the sword, it is my duty to use the sword in participation with the just exercise of the magistrate’s duty. But if he conscripts me to engage in unjust aggression or the invasion of an innocent nation, then I am equally obligated to say no.

No one has ever said that living the Christian life is simple, or that making ethical decisions in the Christian life is always an easy matter. As I said last time, the principle is easy. We are always to obey the authorities over us, unless those authorities command us to do something God forbids or forbid us from doing something God commands. We cannot disobey the civil magistrate because they inconvenience us, because they burden us with heavy taxation, or because we disagree with their wisdom. Those are not just excuses for civil disobedience.

But at the same time, we are not to render slavish obedience to any authority, because authorities can work against the Word of God. We have to be careful, whenever we say yea or nay, to make sure our decisions are motivated by an earnest desire to obey God in all that He commands.

Protect Human Life

When Paul writes in Romans 13:4 that the civil magistrate has been given the power of the sword by God, we recognize that the magistrate has been appointed as an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. We see therein the biblical basis for the establishment of the force that is given to civil magistrates. If the civil magistrate uses that sword to promote evil, then the magistrate will be judged by God in all of His wrath. God Himself will take vengeance upon that magistrate and upon such bellicose nations.

Remember, dear friends, it is the Lord who raises nations up and it is the Lord who brings them down. We are to do just as the Christians in Rome during the first century, who received this letter from the Apostle Paul. They knew everything about the corruption of the Roman system, and yet they listened to the Apostle’s defense of the authority that God had given to the Roman Empire to wield the sword.

I am afraid that when we object to capital punishment and warfare in principle, we are objecting to those very things that God Himself has established and instituted. The sword is necessary because sin is in the world, and the sword is given to work against and to restrain evildoers in order to protect the lives of the innocent.

One last thing: We need to understand, in light of the biblical emphasis on the sanctity of human life, that the primary responsibility God gives any civil government—whether it is in China, Russia, the United States, or Iran—is to protect, defend, and maintain human life. When any government turns its back on that primary responsibility, it is acting in utter defiance to the law of God and exposing itself as a nation to the judgment of God.

In my opinion, the most serious ethical issue that this nation has ever had to deal with, more serious than slavery, is abortion on demand—the slaughter of the innocent. Today, people do not even argue that what is being destroyed is not human life. It is openly acknowledged that it is. But what is being destroyed legally, with the sanction of the federal government and of state governments throughout the nation, is human life.

The very thing that God appoints government to protect against, the government now supports. That is a travesty of the sanctity of life. I hope that none of you will ever march in that parade. Let us pray.

Our Father and our God, we shudder to think of the ways in which the nations of the world have defied Your law. They will not use the sword when they are called to use the sword, and they use the sword where they should never even touch it. Father, give us a capacity to know the difference between good and evil, to know the difference between the just use of force and godless tyranny. Give us the courage to speak when we see these things turned upside down. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.