Scripturally Speaking, Obeying the Law is Correct

Recently the broadcast media yippees of the day trotted out the war-wagons of palaver to chastise the Attorney General for his opinion that Christians should obey the laws, as should other people. Equal protection of the law is an important concept for democracy and justice; illegal aliens and citizens in the United States have equal protection of and accountability to the law; or should.

Governments can pass unjust laws. The U.S. Declaration of Independence explains how natural law provides an inherent right-of-revolt against unjust laws and rulers. It is a rational criterion that must be used by thinking people though about when it is right to revolt rather than to be a subversive because everything doesn’t follow one’s own political preferences. Too far to the non-conformist side and one finds the realm of sociopathic and tyrannical cult behavior.

Matthew Chapter 5 reads; “17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach [them], the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus was speaking about the religious laws of God rather than those of man, and that is a source of confusion to many modern secular people. They do not understand that Jesus was not working to reinforce a theocratic secular government; he created a new legal system where the laws of God were written on the heart rather than in civil code. Even so, he fulfilled the old religious laws rather than destroyed them.

Jesus said in the Gospel according to John Chapter 14, verse 21; “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”

Christians today should share a priesthood of believers church structure where all participate each Sunday as ministers professing faith. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 2, verse 13 that; “(For not the hearers of the law [are] just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.”

 Even so, traditional, pre-literate era Christian ministers should be aware that Christianity is about sharing Christianity rather than trying to change political affairs. It is a great achievement in a nation saturated with a yippee media, secular godless values and illegal drugs for a congregation to gather on a Sunday to worship God and turn away from secular political concerns. There are a great number of laws today that are against the spirit of the word of God, yet Christians themselves can work affirmatively on a world of Christian concerns civilly that positively affect the body-politic.

The silent majority (as Richard Nixon called it) obey the laws of government. That is good and sometimes bad (as in the slavery era of the south) or the 3rd Reich of the Nazi Socialist Worker’s Party. Bad leadership can take a people far to the gates of hell as in the case of the Bolshevik Party of the former Soviet Union. In this era of mass communication with the masses indoctrinated by a Universe of shallow sound bite silliness and propaganda from the turbo-superficial and short-sighted broadcast media, three scriptural citations are useful to consider on the topic of obeying government (and the U.S. Government is about the people deciding what laws should be made and are just through political representatives);

Romans 13:1-5 – “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.”  

Titus 3:1 –“Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work,”

Galatians 3:11 – “no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, [it is] evident: for, The just shall live by faith.”