1 Peter 2:13-17 | Submission to Authorities
13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
Introduction
One day a group of Pharisees and Herodians came to Jesus with a coin and asked him, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (Mark 12:13-17). The two groups were bitter enemies, but they joined that day to trap Jesus. Was he loyal to God or Caesar? If his answer was “Yes, pay the tax,” he angered the Jews who refused to pay because it seemingly affirmed the inscription on the coin, “Son of divine Augustus.” If he said no, it would anger the government, who saw the tax as their due. But Jesus didn’t fall for the trap. He answered, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” In a sentence, Jesus legitimized the Roman government without de-throning God. It was a stunning answer. We can obey the government without compromising our Christianity. Obligations to church and state are not necessarily in conflict.
Government may not be explicitly Christian, but it is still good. It derives its goodness from God, even it if doesn’t formally recognize him. Government is a deeply biblical idea. When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he told them to subdue the earth. Government is one way to fulfill that command. The Bible continually reinforces the basic goodness of government. Israel became a nation. When in exile, Jeremiah said, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf.” Paul said in Romans 13:1, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” There is a way to live a distinctly Christian life in relation to government. Jesus said so. Jeremiah said so. Paul said so. And here Peter says so too.
Peter is starting a new section of his letter. So far, he’s talked about God’s mercy, starting in 1:3—“According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again”—and running to 2:10—“But now you have received mercy.” Now Peter aims to show how that mercy has a practical impact in the Christian life.
Peter hasn’t told us to do very much so far, but that changes here. And what he commands isn’t easy. You can see the difficulty right from the start. The first two words of verse 13, “Be subject.” Isn’t that an awful word? Who wants to submit? Peter knows this is a hard pill for us to swallow. That’s why he says in verse 11, “Beloved, I urge you…” He’s urging us, on the basis of God’s mercy, to live as fully formed Christians, to make a positive difference in the world for the glory of God. That includes voluntary submission and obedience.
Simply put, Peter commands God’s people to civil obedience. That’s an unpopular theme in our day. Civil disobedience is popular. Civil obedience is not. Rebellion is cool. Adapting, making it work, submitting, contributing to the solution alongside those we disagree with isn’t cool. Especially in this country, where we do as we please and are accountable to no one except ourselves, submission is the sign that we’ve given up. We’ve handed over our freedom. Our liberties are gone, and all that remains now is to be ruled by others. Submission is a deeply anti-American quality. But it is a distinctly Christian one. Knowing who he was and what he came to so, Jesus submitted himself to others (Clowney). He’s our example.
Peter is expanding on his call in verse 12 to keep our conduct honorable. The same word used for honorable is used in other parts of the Bible to mean beautiful, noble, praiseworthy, pleasing, excellent. As we engage with our world in matters of government, it is this call to honorable-ness that should mark us. The more our world spirals down into political division and partisanship and rage and cancellation, the more we Christians have an opportunity to publicly display the kind of peace Jesus brings into bitter fights and disagreements. As the world looks at Christians in the public square, what should they find? Should they find unreasonableness, unwillingness to cooperate, hostility, and fear? If so, we have lost our way. The proper path leads to more and more people thinking to themselves (and maybe even saying out loud) “These Christians are really making this world better.” When that starts happening, we’ll know we’re living out what Peter is calling us to. We are sojourners and exiles here, but we’re still here—and because we’re here, God wants us to live as well as we can for his sake.
So how do we get there? Only by the finished work of Christ on the cross and in the power of the Holy Spirit. God gives three truths to help in this passage.
Our motivating theme: “For the Lord’s sake” (vv. 13-14)
Our secure foundation: “The will of God” (v. 15)
Our great advantage: “Live as people who are free” (v. 16)
Our Motivating Theme: “For the Lord’s Sake” (vv.13-14)
Look again at verses 13 and 14, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.”
Why is Peter talking about this? If I was writing this letter, I’m not sure I’d start my section on submission with this. But Peter has been going on about how we’re sojourners and exiles. He called us a chosen race and a holy nation and God’s possession. So we might start thinking, “You know, this world doesn’t matter. Why should I have any allegiance to it at all?” But Peter doesn’t want us to go there. We have a dual citizenship. We are both citizens of heaven and earth, and we have a responsibility to live well here, as a witness to the mercy of God. We are God’s ambassadors, and we should take that responsibility seriously.
So, Peter says, “Be subject.” Now, we need a motivator for that command, don’t we? Peter provides one. The key phrase setting the tone for the entire passage is found right after those words in verse 13: for the Lord’s sake. The call to submission is grounded in the privilege of doing it for the Lord’s sake. I love how pastor John Piper put it. “Christians do not submit to human institutions simply because they feel like it, or because they have compliant personalities or because the institutions have coercive powers. We do not look first at ourselves to see what we feel like doing, nor do we look first at the institution to see if it there are consequences for not submitting. We look first to God…we submit for his sake.”
God must have known we’d need this in 2021. Could this be more relevant to our day? How we act in relation to the government says something about the God we serve. What do you think the world hears from the Christians in politics today? I can’t help but think about the events of January 6 as those Christian Nationalists invaded the Capitol building, bringing the name of God along with them as they constructed nooses outside while offering prayers in the chambers after terrorizing our country’s lawmakers. That is not what Peter had in mind.
Of course, that’s an extreme example. Most of our objections to government authority don’t rise to riots and invasions. They’re far more subtle. They’re Facebook posts and unkind words and talk radio and Fox News and CNN. It’s not hard to find reasons not to submit to the government.
But if we find it difficult to live this passage out in our day, let’s remember the context in which Peter wrote. The rulers of Peter’s day were not easy men to respect. There was Nero, the Roman emperor who led a great persecution against the Christians. There was Pontius Pilate who handed Jesus over to be crucified. There was Felix who imprisoned Paul. Those were not easy days. Peter wrote in very difficult circumstances under very difficult-to-submit-to leaders. And he didn’t call for a culture war. He called us to fit in, to cooperate, to positively contribute to the world of civic duty and responsibility. Why? Not for the sake of the political leaders, good or bad, nor for his own sake or the sake of his fellow Christians, but for the Lord’s sake. Therein lies all our motivation. The Lord is asking us to do this. How can we deny him?
Christians obey the government out of their obedience to Jesus, not because of the government’s greatness but because of Jesus’s. Jesus gave us our government, and even if it isn’t as great as it could be, almost any government is better than no government. Almost any government provides some semblance of civil order. Almost any government, as Peter says, “punishes those who do evil and praises those who do good.” God created government for the good of the world, and we submit to it for his sake, because he is Lord of all and he’s asking us to.
But why would he ask us to? Because as we submit to our political leaders, we say something about the God we serve. In the 1950s in East Africa, a pastor named Festo Kivengere lived through a time of intense political turmoil. There was constant conflict and war. In his book Revolutionary Love, he tells a story about the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya aimed at turning the whole Kikuyu tribe into freedom fighters against the British using brutal guerrilla warfare. They required all members to take an oath to murder. The Christians in the country agreed that Kenya should have freedom, but they wouldn’t kill to make it happen. What was the response? The Christians were killed. Kivengere says, “Christian resisters were quietly strangled on the path or chopped up with machetes at night in their homes.” The government officers assumed they must be allies. So they offered them guns for self-protection. Their answer was “No, thank you. We love you and we love our Kikuyu brothers as well. How can we tell the ones in the forest about the love of God if we are holding guns?”
A few years later, one of the Mau Mau fighters had come to Christ. Here’s how it happened.
“I was one who led a group of fighters to attack a Christian family at night. We were ordered to do it because they were ‘hard-cord resisters.’ But to my surprise, that man loved us. He said that he was not at all afraid to die, for he would immediately be with Jesus. Then he pleaded with us, not for his life, but for ours, that we awake and repent while there was still time. We killed him, but he died praying, ‘Father, please forgive them and give them time to turn about.’ We went back to the forest, but the face of that man and his love never left me. At last his Jesus found me, and now I want to tell everyone about him.”
Kivengere writes, “How do you destroy Christians like that? You beat them; they love you. You put them to shame; they think you have given them an opportunity to be creative. You kill them and they win you!”
“Be subject for the Lord’s sake.” Demanding our way doesn’t wow the world, but following our brothers and sisters of Kenya can, in God’s hands, save souls. Which path should we take?
When more and more people start respecting Jesus because of the actions of his followers we will know we’ve entered truly Christian politics. That is the upward call of Christ upon his people. For the Lord’s sake, not ours. For the name of Jesus, not our own name.
And as we do this, we find a surprisingly secure foundation: God’s will.
Our Secure Foundation: “The Will of God” (v. 15)
Submitting to the government is not a step outside of Christianity; it’s a step inside of God’s will. Look at verse 15. “For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” That is the secure foundation we stand upon.
In Peter’s day, Christians had a bad reputation. They were a new upstart group that wasn’t easily classified into the existing religious groups. By way of a misunderstanding of communion, there were rumors that they got together and ate human flesh. When ordered to stop preaching the gospel, they didn’t listen, saying they had to obey God rather than man. Countless Christians were imprisoned, and just imagine the reputation that earned the entire group. In more than one way, the word on the street was that Christians were up to no good. They were the rebels, the outliers, the problem children of the empire. They needed to be dealt with and dealt with harshly.
So what good does submission do in circumstances like that? Well, for starters, it is a great apologetic against the popular view of Christians as socially harmful. Notice, Peter says “by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” People think they know what Christians are like, but as we live in submission to Jesus, we surprise them, just like those Kenyans in the 1950s. We show the world that we have a higher authority, and he doesn’t stand against this world at all costs. He came into this world to save it. Where we can, we are more than happy to go along. In fact, we will go further than you might think. This world is full of people looking to take as much as they can, but Christians are that crazy counterculture looking to give as much as they can, for Jesus’s sake. Submitting to governing authorities isn’t opposed to our faith, in fact, it’s part of it. It’s God’s will.
This is so important in our day, just as it was for Peter’s. What do you think the prevailing reputation is of evangelical Christians in America today?
It’s so easy for us Christians to live in fear of the next president or the next vote or the next policy proposal. But fear is not the way God asks us to live our public life. We have here a general truth. Christians should submit and obey in most situations in relation to governing authorities. And, in fact, we go even further. Ours isn’t a weak obedience, disengaged from the real people occupying those offices. We pray for them. We speak well of them as best we can. In a word, we love them, even if they don’t love us. Why? It’s the will of God.
Another example from the life of Festo Kivengere. He lived in Uganda in the 1970s when a Muslim dictator names Idi Amin took power. He was an awful human being. But God was brining revival to East Africa and was changing hearts. What was the response from Kivengere, an Anglican pastor, to Idi Amin, the violent Muslim dictator? He wrote a book called I Love Idi Amin. He got a lot of flak for that book, but he didn’t recant. He meant it. Idi Amin was terrible, but Kivengere was going to love him for Jesus’s sake because he knew it was God’s will. What can a nation say about Christians who do such things? They’re put to silence by their goodness, for the Lord’s sake, because they’re living inside his will.
Christian goodness in this area stands as an apologetic for the gospel. Reasonableness stands against the prevailing image of unreasonableness. Real love for political leaders—even awful ones—silences the accusers of God’s people. If we throw ourselves into the good things of politics with an overwhelmingly positive voice of submission to authority and willingness to come alongside as peacemakers, with a message of the love of Christ, we confound the accusers of the church and God’s name is honored.
Of course, we have freedom, and in our country more than others. But how we use that freedom proves our true submission. Jesus taught us that freedom is for serving, liberties are for laying down, not taking up at all costs. We can live as people who are free because, in Christ, we are free. We don’t have to demand it; we already have it, even if the government won’t recognize it. And that leads us to our third point.
Our Great Advantage: “Live As People Who Are Free” (v. 16)
Look at verse 16. “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”
We have an advantage non-Christians don’t. We can live as people who are free. Why? Because we are free. The Bible says, “For freedom Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1). “For you were called to freedom, brothers” (Galatians 5:13). “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36). Non-Christians don’t have that kind of freedom. They live for the approval of man because they don’t know the approval of God in Christ. They live in fear because their life exists here and here alone.
But Christians are different. They are free, and it’s not because they have no limitations. I mean how can you look at this passage and not see limitations? Freedom is defined in our day as the removal of all limitations. It’s being totally free from anybody or anything. No rules. No lines. No boundaries at all. But that’s false freedom. We can never be free like that. Why? Because we were designed for a particular purpose, and only inside those lines can we find the freedom we long for. The best illustration I’ve ever heard for this comes from a book by Charles Hummel called Becoming Free. I’ve never read that book, but I’ve heard Tim Keller discuss it, so he gets the credit here.
Here’s how he puts it.
“Imagine a fish. The fish is in the water. “Ah,” the fish says. “I hate being confined and restrained to the water. That’s not fair. I don’t like this restriction. I am free.”
So the fish says, “I’ve never been out there on the land. I’m going to go…” He gets up on the land, and the next thing you know…He’s flopping around and gasping and dying. Why? Because the fish isn’t designed for the land. But put the fish back in the water, with a flick of his tail, he’s darting around like lightning. Why? Because he’s in the environment he was built for.
When he’s restricted to the water, he’s free. All of his potential is released. All of the things he couldn’t possibly do on the land he can now do in the water. If you believe in a God who created all things, he created you for himself. What that means is the only true water for your soul…is full service to him.”
We are like the fish. God created us and put us in this world and gave us the limitations of his Word. Many people see the Bible as incredibly restrictive. They think, “Who would want to live like that?” But the truth is God’s Word, with its limitations, gives us ultimate freedom. When we operate inside of his commands, we are free to do a thousand things we couldn’t otherwise do. We’re free from uncontrollable emotions and desires. We’re free from fear of circumstance. We’re free to serve, to love, to submit, to obey, to do a thousand good things we cannot do otherwise. We’re free to do everything God calls us to and to be everything God is making us into in Christ by his Spirit. It’s in the Bible where we find the will of God for our lives, even in passages like this. And when we know we’re operating inside of God’s will, we’re the freest people on the planet.
Of course, this is a paradox. The only way for us to find this freedom is by coming under the rule of Christ. the Bible actually uses the word slave. We must become a slave of Christ. The Bible says everyone is a slave to something. We’re either slaves to sin or slaves to Christ. If we’re slaves to sin, we’re held captive to sin’s passions and desires. It doesn’t matter what we tell ourselves about how free we are, we’re not free at all. Circumstances rule us. Bodily passions rule us. Fear drives us. We do whatever sin wants us to do. We can’t do the good things we want because sin is always crouching at the door. You want to help someone, but you also want the credit. You want to love someone, but you want your needs met first. You want to sacrifice for the greater good but only if enough is in it for you on the other side.
But when we become slaves to Christ, we find the freedom we’ve looked for everywhere else. We’re free to do the good we want to do because we don’t care anymore if we get the credit. We realize we can only do it anyway because God’s Spirit is in us to carry it out. We humble ourselves so that God gets the glory. We give without wanting anything back. We serve without needing anything in return. We’re free to honor others and respect authority. When we come under God’s spiritual authority, we find the liberation of his restrictions. We find true freedom. We finally have the freedom to do what is right, no matter what that means for us. Because in the end, this life we live we live to God, and because we’re doing his will, he will get the glory and he will take care of us.
Conclusion
Peter wraps up this paragraph in verse 17 with four commands. “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” We can use our freedom as a pretext for abusive, non-submissive talk or we can use it as a foundation for honor. God wants the latter. He’s asking us, for his sake, to honor everyone, to speak well of them without selfish motive, to treat them with dignity and respect because we’re all created in God’s image. Honor is one way we love the brotherhood. When we treat everyone with the dignity that God places on them, we experience the felt presence of his Spirit.
But notice what Peter says about God and the emperor. “Fear God. Honor the emperor.” That’s interesting. The call to fear God is placed in contrast to honoring the emperor. The emperor is to be shown respect due his office, but he is not to be feared. God alone is to be feared.
We know where ultimate authority lies. So no matter how powerful the government is, we know their power is but a splinter compared to the forest of God’s. We can honor them, but we must not fear them. They have much say in our lives, but not ultimate say. This leaves room for civil disobedience. When the government asks you to do something that God forbids, you must obey God, not the government. Like our Kenyan brothers and sisters, we do not murder in the name of freedom. We would rather suffer.
And that’s where we find ourselves in this world, isn’t it? Suffering. That’s where Jesus found himself. And what did do? Look down at verse 23. “He continued entrusting himself to God who judges justly.” Moment by moment, as we submit to God and look to him, he gives us his power to carry on, to do crazy things like submitting to the government and honoring everyone and loving the brotherhood and fearing God.
Peter’s words are not a pathway out of suffering, as if submission to the government will relieve the church of suffering. But it is a beacon of hope to a suffering world. The church of Christ has a power that the world does not. We have a freedom the world does not. We have a sort of invincibility the world does not. We can live in less-than-ideal circumstances and not lose hope because our hope is found in Christ alone. We are not imprisoned by our own security because, in this world, there really isn’t any. We look beyond, to God, and find our security in him, purchased by the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
By submitting to Christ, we can bless the nation we live in. We can provide a refuge for those lost and lonely. We can be a place of healing and liberation and hope. We can, in God’s mighty hands, be an outpost of heaven. And as we engage according to God’s will in the world of politics, and God’s name is no longer defamed in public for our less-than-Christian actions, we shine as a bright light to the watching world, offering a hope beyond this world that makes an impact on this world.
Let’s pray.
