ROMANS 13: THE SWISS WATCH
Today’s chapter, written by a Jewish religious scholar in the 1st Century AD, was originally part of a letter to both Jewish and non-Jewish Believers (followers of the Creator God’s epic storyline in HIStory) who were residents of Rome – hence the name “Romans” though not necessarily Roman citizens. When Paul originally wrote his letter, Jesus had died. However, what changed everything was an emply tomb, no body produced by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, and 500+ eye witnesses to His resurrection (alive again) along with a visible ascension – a real person who had just cooked them breakfast then ate fish with them, was last seen floating upward just as the ancient prophet Daniel had predicted. It was only at this point, when the anicent puzzle peices came together, that Paul – a student of one of the most respected lawyers at the time and member of the strictest branch of Judaism[a] – finally began to see clearly everything that he had been taught from the Creator God’s Epic storyline.
With new clarity and fresh understanding of what the Creator God had always expected of His people when it came to His Global Masterplan, Paul wrote to those living in Rome. In his letter he explains how Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection power, in addition to the coming of the Creator God’s Holy Spirit (predicted 400 years earlier by the ancient prophet Joel), would now profoundly and irreversibly transform a Believer’s worldview and behaviour in many varying ways. That so, today’s chapter is all about the Believer’s life orientation and their lifestyle that extends from a consideration of one’s Maker, His Word, and His Global Masterplan. As such, it can be broken up into three parts:
- How we respond to Governing Authorities [v1-7];
- How we respond to People [v8-10]; and
- How we respond to Time. [v11-14]
Remembering that the readers of Paul’s letter were living under brutal Roman rule, the first seven sentences in today’s chapter would have been an extremely hot topic. It’s on a par with living in Nazi Germany and someone saying that we need to submit to Hitler! But trying to get a creature that has been created in the image of the Living God and specifically designed to rule[b], to submit to anything, will always be an uphill battle. Complicate the matter by throwing in harsh parents, an obnoxious boss, or a tyrannical government, and we have all the elements for a difficult challenge.
Since the Creator God was known from ancient times as the One who puts kings on their thrones, and deposes kings[c], how are we to live in subjection to them? [v1] For the most part, Paul is speaking about correct behaviour and appropriate levels of respect 
towards the authorities that are over us. Those who are trying to maintain appropriate structure and peace. Opposing correction and showing disrespect from a young age towards parents, teachers, group leaders, police etc., is where it all starts. [v2] After all, when we’re obeying the rules, we never have to live with the additional stress or fear of getting caught/punished. [v3] In fact, the mechanism of punishment (whether in the home, at school, or on the streets) is actually divine punishment organised by our Maker for the greater good. It gives justice to the victims of our behaviour. Discipline/punishment trains us in corrective change. It reduces the practices of evil. [v4] If you’re wondering why God’s not involved in everyday life, He is!
“Every morning He brings His justice to light; He does not fail. But the unjust knows no shame.” [Zephaniah 3:5b]
Your Maker is active in the form of YOU when you appropriately discipline your children, or when you appropriately train/correct those under your leadership at work. He is active in your discipline and training received from your teachers, leaders, or work bosses. He is active in helping societies to set up justice systems. He is active in dispensing justice day after day through the prosecution system.
But this level of submission in today’s chapter isn’t just about avoiding the full force of the law. It’s for conscience sake. [v5] When we were originally designed to rule, 
we were designed with a conscience and free will. Then we came into the knowledge of good and evil.[e] Created in the image of God, the plan has only ever been for us to function in the likeness of our Maker. The fact that we inherently know deep down inside the difference between good and evil, proves outwardly if we are fulling functioning as we were intended to, or else malfunctioning and defective. Living in the likeness of the One who specifically designed us to be like Him, is the very basic starting blocks to our everyday “good” behaviour. [v6-7]
But here’s the catch, what if the leaders are saying something that our conscience knows is wrong? Well… Paul takes us back to the basics: the Creator God’s Ten Commandments that were then neatly summed up by Yehoshua ben Dovid (Jesus, Isa) into two commandments:
“And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” [Matthew 22:37-40]
What Jesus did in summing up the Creator God’s Law into two rules about love, wasn’t cutting corners. If the Creator God’s Law could be hung onto a coat hanger, then hung from one side of the coat hanger are four of His 10 basic Laws about how we can show our love/respect/allegiance/submission to our Maker. Hung from the other side of the coat hanger is six laws about how we interact appropriately, showing love towards others. If we get love right, love will cover a multitude of sins[d] while it sum up the fullness of the Creator God’s Law.
However, we need to love our Father God first, and this is where Believers today are all over the place when it comes to submitting to the governing bodies around us. This is most evident 
when what they’re saying is now right/proper/ok, yet it is against what our conscience (our heart of hearts) is saying is right/proper/ok. When we put our Creator’s Handbook above the rulebook of the society that we are in, and when we dig deep and search our conscience objectively without prejudice, we put ourselves in a better position for discerning what’s truly “right and wrong” – behaving as we were designed to behave, in HIS likeness. If we ignore His ruling authority and act as though we’re ashamed of what’s in His Handbook for LIFE, we end up relying on a very basic conscience that can get clouded by prevailing needs such as inclusion, acceptance and love.
Our conundrum will always be with us. The ancient prophet Daniel had to face the possibility of certain death in a lion’s den and his friends faced death by incineration because they weren’t going to put Father God second, and the latest policies of a local government first.[f] The ancient prophet Ezekiel, on the other hand, was “raked over the coals” by the Creator God for tolerance, acceptance and keeping quiet when he knew that his neighbour was in the wrong, yet didn’t speak out to correct him.[g] Though the stakes may be high, if love does no wrong to a neighbour, then love sums up what the Creator expects from us. [v9-10] But if submission the governing authorities and showing an outward expression of dedicated love was so important to Believers in the 1st Century AD, what was their ultimate motivation for submitting to people they don’t like, or showing love to people they don’t agree with? And, what crossover is there for me, living in the 21st Century AD?
When my life’s orientation is geared towards the plans of the Creator God for humanity’s future, a global Masterplan that has been in motion for 4500 years and that have been set in stone before the foundations of the world were laid, then my life-style, my decision-making process, and how I define “love” (both for my Maker and for those around me), will extend from my understanding of His plans.
50+ years ago, I sat on the back steps of our house watching the sun set while my Mum cooked the evening meal. It was an extraordinary moment with my Maker – a moment I’ve not forgotten. I wrote about it in Chapter Three “After the Sun Set” in my second book Mysterious?
I was ten years old at the time and had just finished my school homework in a quiet place under our high-set Queenslander-style home in Australia. When I was done, I came up the back steps, b
ut the sunset that painted the heavens caught my attention that day. Sitting quietly to watch the changing colours of that evening sky, it was as if I had seen the Kingdom of God for the first time. With it, I became privy to the greatest global event ever to take place in the history of the world. It was the idea of being left out that caused me to get on board!
Since then, I’ve realised that if my life is to be timed as accurately as a Swiss watch, I could say that I’ve been given seven days – one for each decade…
“The days of our life are seventy years; or eighty years, if we have the strength, Yet the best of them are but labour and sorrow; For they quickly pass, and we fly away.” [Psalm 90:10]
That true, then Sunday seemed to be a dreamy day where little could be remembered while between the ages of 0-10 years. Monday represents my get-into-action years from 10-20. If Tuesday was my third decade in this life, between the years of 20-30; Wednesday my time lived from 30-40 years; and Thursday my fifth decade when I was 40-50; and Friday represting my sixth decade between 50-60 years of age; then I’m now already well into Saturday and I only have the remains of the day left now to live! At the very least, it is because of this that it is “already the hour for me to awaken from sleep; for now my salvation (my end here and my beginning in my Maker’s Kingdom) is nearer to me than when I first believed”. [v11] But Paul, being a Jew and knowing the bigger picture of our Creator’s Global Masterplan, went deeper. There’s an atomic clock that has been set by the Creator’s own authority[h], and it’s marked for us in night and day. The night – that season when it seems that any existence of God is making no difference to the world around us – is coming to an end, and His Day – that long-predicted “Day of the Lord” when His decisive divine intervention is seen[i] – is about to dawn. [v12a]
Therefore, with an unknown and limited amount of time left on the clock, I’ll set aside what He considers as “deeds of darkness” – regardless of whether I agree with my Maker’s idea of right-ness, or not – and I will clothe myself in the strongest shell possible: what He calls “light”. [v12] If I’m serious about what He has previously predicted in His written contract with the world, that which is to come in my near future, I won’t stand here arguing over definitions, nor try to find loopholes to justify tolerance and acceptance with no need for any significant change to my life-style and free will. Instead, if I’m serious, I’ll make no provision for my lusts/yearnings/desires/thirsts/ hankerings/envies/longings. Instead, I’ll put on (I’ll totally encompass my life with, and live my life as if encamp within a tent of) …Jesus…
CLICK to return to today’s “Daily Breadcrumbs”
[a] Acts 5:34; 22:3 and 26:4-5
[b] Genesis 1:26-28a
[c] Daniel 2:20-22; Luke 1:52
[d] James 5:20
[e] Genesis 1:26 and 3:5,22
[f] Daniel c3 and 6:6-27
[g] Ezekiel 3:16-21
[h] Acts 1:6-8 (Referencing v7)
[i] Isaiah 13:6-13