Who's the Boss?

A Christian Explanation of Government Authority

Where do civil governments get their authority? Are all governments legitimate, or are some illegitimate? Under what conditions are Christians obligated to obey? Christians have struggled with these questions for the last 2,000 years. Here are some considerations that might be helpful.

Tyrants and Bullies

Maybe it would be helpful to consider authority within the context of a babysitting arrangement. Did you have an older sibling who was in charge when your parents left the house? Or maybe, like me, you were the older sibling. When and why are younger children obligated to submit to the authority of an older sibling? 

If you ask the brother who’s in charge of his siblings, “Why should your younger brothers and sisters obey you?” He might justify his authority by saying, “I’m older, bigger, and stronger than them. If they don’t do what I say, they’ll be sorry.” (If the brother acted like actual tyrants, he would probably concoct some elaborate story about mythical beings who bestowed on him unmatched strength.)

This arrangement is sometimes referred to as, “Might makes right.” The brother makes the rules because he has power and strength to keep his younger siblings in line. Obviously, this sort of power is usually ripe with injustice and corruption. When the strongman believes he has the right to rule as he sees fit, and is free to hurt anyone who stands in his way, history shows us that abuse of power is nearly inevitable.

Social Contract and Revolutions

There is another way to conceptualize the older brother’s authority over his siblings. According to one influential theory (which helped shape Western Civilization) the younger siblings might say their big brother only has authority because they allow him to have authority. The younger kids could philosophize that in their “natural state,” outside of the safety of the home, they would simply be self-governing (homeless) individuals. This “natural state,” of course, would be even more scary than having a big brother as a babysitter. 

So, they submit to a babysitter, because it is in their own best interest to live in community and allow someone to be in charge. According to this model, their older brother’s authority is derived “from the consent of” the younger siblings. They are obligated to obey his instructions because they are implicitly agreeing to do so by being part of the household’s social framework. Of course, the younger siblings maintain the belief that it is their right—even their obligation—to revolt and install a different sibling in the role of babysitter if the brother becomes a bully.

They even maintain the belief that they have the right to overthrow the brother and establish a whole new system by which they rotate babysitting authority. This is their right, they believe, because the older brother has no authority over them except what they allow him to have. 

In the first scenario, the brother believed HE was the ultimate authority figure. In the second scenario, the younger siblings believe THEY are collectively the ultimate authority.

An Unseen Father

Hopefully, at this point, you are asking, “Where are the parents in this metaphor?” That is a great question. Typically, when a sibling is in charge, his authority does not come from his strength or from his siblings’ consent, but from a parent. For the sake of our conversation, we will say there is a “father” who has given his son authority to govern the younger children.

Understanding the situation through this lens changes everything. It means the obedience of the younger children is not based on fear of their brother’s strength, nor on pursuing their own self-interests, but on doing the will of their father. They are supposed to obey the brother, because their father is still very much in charge, even when he can’t be seen. They obey because they are faithful, not to their brother, but to their father.

“But,” you might ask, “what if the older brother abuses his power?” The children can protest their brother’s injustice and appeal to their father’s revealed will, “Dad has always said….” Or appeal to the brother’s better judgement, “Don’t you think it’s best if you…” He might listen to his siblings’ appeals for mercy and justice. However, if the brother does not fear the father, the children must take their cries and protests directly to the father. They can call the father and ask him to return and deal with his son.

That said, obedient children will continue to obey the brother (even when he exceeds his authority), because they know the father will come home. They do not start an insurrection and wrest control from their brother’s hand. They wait and trust that their father is still in charge and that he will eventually sort everything out. 

There is, of course, an obvious exception to this obedience. If the older brother demands his siblings do something they know the father would not approve of, they must ask themselves, “Do I obey my brother or my father?” If they cannot obey both, they must choose their father’s will over their brother’s will. After all, their loyalty has never been to their brother, but to their father.

The Stories We Live By

People in the Roman Empire lived according to certain stories. One of those stories was that Caesar was a god. He had authority over the people because the gods had given him wisdom, strength, and power. If anyone doubted his divine right to rule, he could shame and punish them. This is similar to the scenario above, in which the older brother claimed to be the ultimate authority because he had the strength and power to do so.

However, human society typically loses patience with the claims of bullies and tyrants. The Western world, for instance, has adopted various philosophical positions, such as “social contract theory.” The West operates under the assumption that the “consent of the governed” is the ultimate source of any government’s authority. In other words, citizens in most Western countries simply take for granted that the “will of the people” reigns supreme.

If the ancient world believed in the deity of their monarchs, the modern world believes in the deity of the individual self and the citizenry. We simply take it for granted that each person is “autonomous” (self-governing). The ancients went along with the story that Caesar was a god, but moderns have come to believe that they themselves are the gods who grant power to those in leadership.

A Different Sort of Story

In the first century, believing the gospel of Jesus Christ meant rejecting the story Caesar was telling about himself. When a person said, “Jesus is Lord” he was implicitly saying, “Caesar is a liar.” To be a Christian was to reject the political and cultural stories into which they were born.

The apostles announced the Good News, Jesus is the Father’s anointed King. Jesus is God’s Son, the one truly in charge of the world. Caesar, on the other hand, was God’s pawn, a conscripted servant (John 19:11; Romans 13:1-7). The Father allowed Caesar to have power, but he was certainly no deity. The church was told to be obedient to Caesar (and to all governing authorities), not because they believed the imperial propaganda, but out of reverence for the Father and Christ (1 Peter 1:13-25).

Similarly, those of us living in the modern Western world must also reject the political and cultural stories into which we were born. We cannot allow ourselves to believe the propaganda about our own power and authority. We must reject the idea that we are lords and gods, that we are supreme. We must stop telling ourselves that the governing authorities only have power because we give it to them. 

How Must We Live?

If the first-century Christians were obligated to obey a tyrant like Caesar, surely we are obligated to be obedient to elected officials. However, like our ancient brothers and sisters, we obey not out of loyalty to the state, or to the head of state, but out of loyalty to our Father and to the true King. We live quiet, obedient, and submissive lives “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Peter 2:13; 1 Timothy 2:2).

By doing so, we are both submissive and subversive. We are submissive in the sense that we are not insurrectionists. We pose no violent threat to the state. However, we subversively reject the prevailing narratives. We reject the idea that human beings run the world. We reject the deification of the “self.” As Paul said,

“For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

Furthermore, we continue to protest injustice both to the governing authorities (Acts 22:25) and to our heavenly Father. If the state demands we do something of which our Father would disapprove, we respectfully refuse (Acts 5:29). Under this arrangement, some Christians will choose to vote and others will choose not to vote. I believe that is our prerogative, so long as we make that decision with the understanding that we are citizens of the New Jerusalem (Hebrews 13:14; Philippians 3:20), who are simply living as exiles in this place (1 Peter 2:11).

Our loyalty does not belong to the state, but to our Father and to Christ. We obey the state’s governing authorities, because we know God is allowing them to have authority and he will someday right all of their wrongs.

To sum it all up: Jesus is King!

I love you and God loves you,

Wes McAdams