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“Obeying God Rather Than Men”
Categories: M. W. Bassford, Sermons
In our Bible reading this week, we are going to encounter the story of the final confrontation between the apostles and the Sanhedrin. The Council demands that the apostles stop preaching Jesus, but, as Acts 5:29 famously records, they reply, “We must obey God rather than men.”
In these words, we find the reason why totalitarian governments never like Christians. Their authority cannot be total as long as we acknowledge an authority greater than theirs. However, I also have seen brethren claim that they are allowed to resist our government in defense of their inalienable Constitutional rights.
What are we to make of this tangle? Clearly, there are times when we must put the kingdom of God above the kingdoms of earth. Equally clearly, there are times when we must submit to the laws of the earthly governments where we reside. However, there also are edge cases between these two extremes. How do we know what to do when? Let’s look to the text of Acts 5 for some guiding principles as we try to figure out when to obey God rather than men.
First, we must SUBMIT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. We see the apostles exemplifying this in Acts 5:25-26. After the angel frees them from prison, they return to the temple and begin preaching to the crowds again. The temple guards show up to re-arrest them, but they quickly realize that they might touch off a riot if they do. Instead, the guards nicely ask the apostles to come with them.
The apostles are not idiots. They know they might be going to their deaths, and they can get away with refusing for now, thanks to the crowds. However, rather than resisting, they do as the guards ask. Even under extreme circumstances, they continue to submit to earthly authority.
This principle should guide our interactions with the government too. Romans 12 tells us to be at peace with everyone so far as it is possible with us. Romans 13 commands us to submit to the government and pay our taxes. As a rule, Christians must obey earthly law.
Sadly, in our country these days, a lot of people seem to think that they only have to obey the laws they like, and this is true on both left and right. I spend a fair amount of time on gun-enthusiast boards these days, and there are lots of people who talk about their plans to disobey the federal firearm regulations they see coming.
That kind of disobedience is not for us. It does not matter if we think the taxes are too high. We pay them. It does not matter if we think a law is foolish, oppressive, or unjust. We obey it. It does not matter if we think government officials are a bunch of crooks and jackbooted thugs. We honor them. Human justifications are never a reason to disobey human governments. We obey them because we obey God.
Second, we OBJECT ONLY TO CONTRADICTION. Look at the contradiction that appears in Acts 5:17-21, 27-28. The angel tells them that they have to proclaim the whole message of life, but the high priest says they can’t preach about Jesus anymore. It is impossible for the apostles to honor both God’s instructions and the high priest’s instructions. Something’s got to give, and the apostles choose to disobey the high priest.
There are a couple of things worth noting here. First, only the law of God allows the Christian to disobey the government. I’ve seen a lot of brethren recently arguing that they can ignore the government sometimes because of the Constitution. Well, yes and no. We do have the right to challenge some governmental action on the basis of our Constitutional rights, much like Paul used his rights as a Roman citizen.
However, the way we do that is through a lawsuit, not through defiance of the law. If we sue and the courts find against us, or if courts already have decided the issue, we must abide by that result. In our system of government, the courts, not the people, interpret the Constitution. To refuse to obey the government because of what we think our Constitutional rights are is not righteous. It is sin and lawlessness.
Second, a direct contradiction must exist. It is not enough that the government is putting our tax dollars toward an evil end, or that the government is doing something we think is ungodly. Instead, for Acts 5:29 to apply, the government must forbid us to do something God requires or require us to do something God forbids.
For instance, let’s say that over the next couple of years, the federal government repeals the Hyde Amendment, so that federal funds can be used to fund abortions once more. In fact, let’s say that the government gets into the abortion business itself and starts opening and running its own abortion clinics.
I would not be at all happy about that. I believe that the Bible teaches that abortion is evil. However, so long as the government is not actively demanding that Christians have or perform abortions, the conditions of Acts 5:29 have not been met. We must continue to honor the government.
Finally, if we resist, we must RESIST RIGHTEOUSLY. Consider the apostles’ example in Acts 5:40-42. Even though they have done nothing wrong, the Sanhedrin has them beaten because they preached Jesus. In response, they do two things. First, they rejoice that they suffered on account of Jesus. Second, they continue to preach.
Here, we see that the Bible limits both the circumstances under which we can resist and the means that we can use. This is actually a Bible-authority issue. One of the great themes of the New Testament is that Christians don’t fight back against oppressive governments. When Peter draws his sword to defend Jesus in the garden, Jesus tells him to put it up. When Saul of Tarsus was ravaging the church, no one fought back against him. It is never, ever godly for Christians to rebel.
In fact, rather than trying to defend our comfort through force of arms, we should rejoice in our suffering. If we are persecuted for the cause of Christ, that is nothing more than happened to Jesus Himself, and it shows that we are walking in His footsteps. If we were of the world, the world would love us back. The more the world hates us, the more it shows that we are imitating Him.
Instead, rather than trying to use evil to overcome evil, rather than meeting violence with violence, we must overcome evil with good. The only weapon that early Christians wielded was the sword of the Spirit—the word of God. They blessed their enemies and prayed for their persecutors. They suffered and continued to love.
Though this strategy seems weak in worldly eyes, it is very powerful. In the first century, truth and love prevailed over persecution. The more the enemies of the gospel tried to stamp it out, the more it spread. They lost because they were fighting against God. If we will follow Him today, He will be with us too, and none of our enemies, no matter who they are, will be able to overcome us.
