Romans 13 Footnotes

13:1 Paul urged Christians to be submissive and model citizens because God has installed the governing authorities to keep the civil order and punish wrongdoers. Peter gave similar instructions about submission (1Pt 2:13-14,17). However, submission to authorities is not absolute. Both Jesus and the writer of Acts established this central Christian principle. Jesus said, “Give, then, to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mt 22:21). Peter and the apostles declared that they must obey God rather than humans (Ac 5:29). Any submission to the authorities must pass through the filter of God’s will and call on a believer’s life.

The difficulty here involves discerning God’s will and call in those areas to which Scripture does not speak, which requires determining and applying biblical principles rather than explicit biblical statements. This is the Christian’s crucial duty, for a failure to discern God’s will risks disobeying God and incurring his displeasure. Of course, obeying God against the government may result in incurring the government’s anger—as the NT and subsequent church history well attest—but this puts a Christian in good company (Mt 5:10-12).

13:11-12 The “day is near” evokes the common biblical idea of the “Day of the Lord”—used in both testaments to refer to God’s appearance, often to judge as well as vindicate (e.g., Is 13:6,9; Jl 2:1-2,11,31-32; Am 5:18-20; 1Co 5:5; 1Th 5:2; 2Pt 3:10). Paul did not set a date for the “day” to arrive but instead asserted that soon God would assess all of their deeds (Rm 14:10). This is the time to live righteously in anticipation of the Lord’s return and judgment. By “nearer” Paul did not mean “at any moment,” since in chap. 11 he envisioned a long interlude until the end (e.g., 11:11-32).