Divinely Established Civil Authorities

Paul’s arrest while he was visiting the temple in Jerusalem put him in ongoing contact with the secular rulers of his day, various members of the Roman imperial government, leading ultimately to a journey to the capital of the empire, the city of Rome (Acts 21:27–28:31). The Apostle’s living under Roman custody for many years, and especially his appeal to his rights as a Roman citizen (25:12), raises questions related to the Christian’s relationship to the civil government and what the Bible has to say about the magistrate. We will now pause our study of Acts to look at what the Scriptures more broadly teach about civil government, using Dr. R.C. Sproul’s teaching series Church and State to guide our study.

People commonly think of the Bible as a religious book, and it is, but Scripture also has much to say about civil government. We can think, for example, of the Old Testament, wherein we read about old covenant Israel and its succession of divinely anointed kings  who were supposed to govern the nation according to the Mosaic law (Deut. 17:14–20). Often, Bible scholars will refer to old covenant Israel as a theocracy because religion and government were much more intertwined in that nation than in most modern states. We should note, however, that even under the old covenant, there was a distinction between the church and the state. Kings had a different job from the religious leaders—the prophets and priests—and while there was overlap at times, religious leaders had specific tasks such as leading in worship that kings did not have and vice versa. This was not exactly the separation of church and state as practiced in many modern societies, but it does indicate that God had specific tasks for civil rulers and different tasks for religious leaders even in old covenant Israel, where religion and civil governance overlapped in many ways.

Under the new covenant, the church and the state are perhaps less intertwined than they were under the old covenant, a reality that the New Testament recognizes. Nevertheless, this does not entail a freedom for the state to oppose the things of God. Our Creator did not stop being the final authority in the universe with the establishment of the new covenant. He still sets up kings and removes kings, as Daniel 2:20–21 says. All creaturely authorities exist by God’s appointment (Rom. 13:1), and appropriate obedience to lawful authorities is part of our duty to the Lord (1 Peter 2:13–17).