Christian submission.
We now pass from ecclesiastical to civil relations. Because the Christian has entered upon a new brotherhood in Christ, he does not cease to belong to the old brotherhood of natural society. And as in the spiritual brotherhood humility and love are the twin principles that should regulate all our conduct, so in the natural commonwealth of the state there should be, analogously, submission towards the powers, and a love-inspired justice towards private members of the same. In these verses is inculcated the duty of conscientious submission to state authorities.
I. THE REASONABLENESS OF SUBMISSION. The submission to authority is spoken of as of a twofold nature—obedience to law generally, and payment of all dues. And the spirit in which such obedient and loyal conduct should be exercised is the spirit of reverence and honour. For even in state duties the heart should be concerned equally with the life.
1. It is reasonable, then, that we:
2. But our obedience and payment of dues will only be properly rendered by us, and will only tend to the proper rendering of the same by others, if our heart go with our deed. Let there then, as is reasonable, be fear, let there be honour, towards those to whom fear, to whom honour is due.
I. THE RIGHTNESS OF SUBMISSION. The natural man, on the grounds of mere reason, then, should submit to authority, with deed and with heart. But surely the Christian man should submit on some higher ground than this? It is not only reasonable, it is divinely right, that such submission be rendered to the powers.
1. It is right that we:
2. So the spirit in which we obey and pay tribute is to be one of reverence and honour, not only on the lower ground of the reasonableness of the same, but because in these human powers we discern God.
Here, then, as in the whole of life, the religious penetrates and sanctifies the natural. There is to be a perpetual transfiguration, in our eyes, of the human with the Divine. This is but an application of the injunction, "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God."—T.F.L.