Martin Luther was one of the most courageous men the church has known. He challenged the pretences of the day, and restored the authority of Scripture within the church. The church that bears his name owes him an inestimable debt. Many will be feel a persuasive force in an argument that says that a position should be accepted because Luther held it. I would argue that that is un-Lutheran. Luther's approach is what should be followed. I would argue for a full-bodied understanding of what this entails. There were other folk of his era who thought that Luther stood for reform as such, and they thought they had better ideas of how to reform more deeply. Luther showed that what was central to his position was the Gospel and the authority of Scripture.
One of the earliest threats to the Reformation came from fellow travellers that Luther called the schwaermerei. At their most extreme, they thought that the Scriptures were of secondary importance to what the Holy Spirit was saying to us in our day. Luther countered them with a deep-hitting argument that has changed the way I read all Scripture. And the more I have read, the more I find this way of reading borne out, not only in the results that it produces, but in the attitudes of Jesus toward Scripture.
But first, Luther. In the Smalkald Articles, Article VIII, Luther says "For God wished to appear even to Moses through the burning bush and spoken Word; and no prophet neither Elijah nor Elisha, received the Spirit without the Ten Commandments [or spoken Word]. Neither was John the Baptist conceived without the preceding word of Gabriel, nor did he leap in his mother's womb without the voice of Mary." This passage has become somewhat of a "Luther's Razor" for me. "One should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of [special revelations] required to explain anything."
There are other similar principles. One might be found in the Lutheran concept of sedes doctrinae. Richard Muller offers as a definition "a particular text of Scripture that is used as the primary foundation of a doctrine." Our theologians were particularly insistent on this. Martin Luther would not allow passages from the Pauline Epistles to be used as clear passages to interpret the more difficult Words of Institution. Why not? Because the Words of Institution were the sedes doctrinae of the Lord's Supper. They are found at the Institution of the Lord's Supper. Other words in the Bible are, to be sure, divinely inspired, and therefore inerrent. But the other words are more occasional. These words are the ones given at the beginning. When God institutes something, he does so clearly. And he does so so clearly that even his other words cannot be used in a way that leads away from the clear teaching when he institutes something.
This goes back to Jesus. In Matthew, Jesus is questioned on divorce. Moses is cited. Now surely Moses's Law was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? So are not his words defining? No. Jesus takes his questioners back to the institution of marriage in Genesis. "From the beginning it was not so" (Matthew 19:8). Moses has to be understood in context.
Now, some people will read this passage and think that without Jesus, we could never have know this. But Jesus is teaching us how to read. Jesus did not need a special revelation to say what he said. He needed to be a right reader of Scripture. Other passages allude to this. "You know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God" he says (Mark 12:24), or "Have ye not read?" (Matthew 12:3,5; 19:4; 21:16,42; 22:31). We need to be right readers. And this means being alert for the sedes doctrinae. It is incumbent upon us to follow Jesus' lead here. Luther did in the Sacramentarian controversy. Now we must when questions of the state arise.
When we read Romans 13:1, it says that "the powers that be are ordained of God." Is this to be our starting point of an understanding of the state? Earthly governments had been around for thousands of years at this point. If Paul says they are ordained of God, what does this mean? My first inclination (now) is to look for the sedes doctrinae of this teaching. Is this like marriage, or one of the sacraments, where we will find clear language at the founding of the first state?
Some have claimed that we do. In his Patriarchia, or the Divine Right of Kings, Sir Robert Filmer claimed that the state was an extension of parental rule. So he founded it in Adam's rule over his progeny. John Locke tore this theory to shreds. Genesis did not teach such a rule. When we looked to Genesis, we found as many exceptions to the rule (as laid out by Filmer) as examples of the rule itself. Patriarchy was rule by elders, and Genesis often showed the youngest supplanting the oldest (e.g. Jacob and Esau). The blessing and birthright institutions which seemed to function were not themselves given as laws in Genesis. We don't see an example of inheritance at the death of Adam. Filmer's attempt to discover the state in early Genesis was a good attempt. In a sense, everyone should be tempted to try the same thing. Perhaps it will work with some further hermeneutics. But Filmer's attempt failed.
Either we should be able to find God explicitly instituting powers, or we should see if there are other readings of this passage available to us. My operating assumption is that St. Paul does not need special revelation in order to say what he says in Romans 13:1. That is not how God instructs us on such matters. You don't have government functioning for thousands of years, and then an explicit statement of institution. For how were governments legitimized before the statement, then?
Our first question has to be, What does ordained of God mean? The Greek word for "ordained" comes from the verb tassw. In the broader sense, it means "to place or station." And its other senses seem to be derived from this. It can mean "to appoint or establish someone in an office" or "to order, fix, determine, appoint." The latter is often used in predestinarian passages.
At first glance, it may seem that the right reading is that the powers that be were appointed to their offices by God. So God designed their offices and then filled them with capable people. But does this work with the rest of Scripture? He did not design the offices of our government the way he designed the Levitical offices, specifying details of rulership and communicating those through special revelation. Perhaps what God instituted was particular functions. I think of Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image." This would legitimize certain forms of vengeance. But it does not legitimize a modern state with all the trappings. On the other hand, if we take the more Predestinarian reading, God determined who would bear the sword. And God knew what he was doing when he did so. But this should be read in the light of the often ironic Providence of God. The ruler himself might mean things for evil, but God means them for good.
The trouble is that Romans then also seems to offer a more pragmatic understanding of the offices. They are for our good. This is something we can see.
But what about when there is an evil ruler. How does Romans read, then? Let's see.
"Therefore, he who resists [Hitler] resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For [Hitler] is not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of [Hitler]? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for [Hitler] is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for [Hitler] does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer."
This may be a bit shocking. It should be, in any case. A lot of readings that may be acceptable even with incompetent rulers must fall by the wayside here.
The first possibility is that St. Paul never meant this passage as a universal passage that would apply to a Hitler. St. Paul is offering a pragmatic argument as to why rulers should be obeyed. God instituted these offices for our good, so we should be greatful. They make a world that is better for us and our neighbor. In many instances, we can see this, and the pragmatic argument is worth of acceptance.
But what about Hitler?
The second possibility is that this passage is speaking of the deep Providence mentioned above. God did appoint Hitler, and set a boundary on his evil. What looks like an almost unmitigated disaster to us down here will be shown in eternity to be an act of mercy on the part of God. Though we probably do nothing but make Christianity appear riduculous to propose possible reconciliations this side of eternity. It is a statement of faith and not human ingenuity to say that God will bring good even out of this.
Yet though this reading takes into account the powers that be being appointed by God, it hardly makes any earthly sense of the rest of the passage. Is not Hitler a terror to good conduct? The parallel passage that comes to mind is the one about not fearing the one who can throw us into prison, but fearing the one who can throw us into hell (Luke 12:4-5). Perhaps if we could live up to this injunction even the passage would apply to Hitler? No. These Biblical commands not to do one thing but do another are more comparative statements. We are not forbidden to fear the one who can throw us into prison. But the fear that we do have should not compare to the fear we have towards God. Secondly, the part about Hitler commending us does not fit the reading. First, he would not do this. Second, who would be persuaded to act in order to secure such praise? Bad idea.
If we read tassw as appointing people to positions, then it is probably best to see this as specific functions within the state. And as not applying in all cases. If we read it as predestinarian, Romans 13 also does not seem to apply in all cases. God's providence may be at work even in the worst cases. But the Romans 13 argument will not.
It works better to see certain vocations within the state as having a legitimacy from God. There are probably then times when a Romans 13 sermon would do good. If you have a congregation of new converts to Christianity who decide that they can disregard all state laws because Jesus is their Lord, Paul supplies an argument. This does no good for your neighbor. It is not a proper use of Christian liberty.
But the passage should not be used to make Christians scrupulous about obedience to the state. The state has its functions. But the functions precede the state. I don't see Romans 13 as a blanket approval of whatever a state may ask. It speaks of rulers. And the ethics spelled out seem to be part-and-parcel of an actual relationship between citizen and ruler, something that is not found in many civil situations today. And the ethics only seem to fit situations where the reading of the passage does not become laughable.
I think this needs to be spelled out because it has implications for how we see ourselves as citizens today. I identify with the classical liberal position. (Don't read that as my being one of the liberals that Ann Coulter attacks with such style.) The position of the American Revolution. A position that was often argued in Biblical terms, where the pamphleteers had to answer charges that they were ignoring Romans 13, and the pamphleteers countered that their opponents were ignoring what the rest of Scripture said of government.
If our deeper operating principles are love of neighbor, we will want to promote a form of government which does correspond to the more universal ethics of Scripture. Not stealing. Not killing. If we take our government as we see it as a divine given, we have no reason to do this. But I think we can see that our government's bearing of the sword can be legitimate to a degree, without taking its current form as a given.