A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Romans 13 as death penalty proof-text

There’ve been a variety of discussions and arguments among Christians in the wake of Saddam Hussein’s execution about whether it’s proper for them to support capital punishment. Invariably, someone trots out Romans 13 as a proof-text for the pro-death penalty side of the argument:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

Verse 4 in particular is frequently appealed to as the clincher: “for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

First off, I think there’s legitimate room for disagreement about what “bearing the sword” means in this context. Does it refer explicitly to capital punishment, or is “the sword” a more general symbol of earthly authority? Presumably this has been hashed out by people far better informed than me.

But, even assuming that v. 4 does refer to capital punishment, are the folks who use this as an argument for Christian acceptance of the death penalty prepared to bite the bullett and accept the political stance that seems implied by the passage as a whole? As has often been pointed out, Rom. 13 seems to encourage a stance of extreme submission to the existing political authorities. At the very least this would seem to rule out any kind of armed rebellion against the state. Are we prepared to repudiate the American revolution, say, in order to endorse the principle of “be[ing] subject to the governing authorities”?

Some theologians have argued that Paul is only referring to legitimate authorites whose rule is in harmony with the moral law, but that seems like a forced reading of the passage to say the least. So, it seems to me we’re forced, for the sake of consistency, not to appeal to it as a justification of capital punishment unless we’re prepared to assent to the teaching of the entire passage. I certainly don’t recall hearing too many pro-death penalty Christians repudiating the principles of 1776, but I’m open to correction.

Moreover, the point of the passage hardly seems to be to encourage Christians to support the death penalty within the empire, or petition for its frequent use. It looks a lot more like Paul is telling the Roman Christians to live in such a way as to be blameless before men and God. It’s about how they should act, not how the state should organize its criminal justice system.

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3 responses to “Romans 13 as death penalty proof-text”

  1. Chris T.

    I thought I would take a look at what Barth and LT Johnson say in their commentaries. Interesting stuff.

    LTJ: “For those of us on this side of the Enlightenment, it is critical to grasp something about the ancient world that is most strange to us. The very thing that we most take for granted, namely, that the social order is changeable and should be changed according to the will of its participants (that governments exist by the consent of the governed), is a premise that would have been rejected as outlandish, not only in ancient Rome but also in virtually every nation before the revolutions in the West spawned by the Enlightenment. As children of revolution, in other words, we literally live within a different perception of the social world.

    …

    Historical criticism has done a great service by identifying these ancient social realities. Otherwise, present-day readers might think that the New Testament was revealing God’s blueprint for the perfect family or the ideal state. We know, of course, that many people do read the New Testament just this way, often under the guise of taking the text seriously. In fact, however, to read the text that way is not to take it seriously enough. What New Testament writers like Paul and Peter were doing in their remarks on households was the same thing a moralist like Hierocles did in his work On Duties—attempting, within a given social order, to define the obligations imposed by that order on the person who wished to be virtuous.”

    In fact, LTJ goes on to say that this whole passage is just clarifying 12:19 — the imperial order is one place where “the wrath” may come from. Let any vengeance you desire come not from yourself (an actor you control), but from the state, if it will come. Which brings up the question — what if the state is being run primarily by Christians?

    In fact, Barth seems to go in an even more radical direction here (p. 490 of Epistle to the Romans): “God does not yield before our encroachments—and when do we not encroach upon His rights? The encroachments of revolution He meets with the sword of government; the encroachments of government with the sword of revolution. And in the fate of both we behold our own destiny—in fear and in pity. The wrath of God falls upon all of us. Upon each one in some way or other the sword is drawn; and it is not drawn in vain. Whether we attempt to build up some positive human thing or demolish what others have erected, all our endeavours to justify ourselves are in one way or another shattered to pieces. We must now assert that all these endeavours of ours not merely cannot be successful, but ought not to be so.”

    Really doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement of a “Christian nation” executing criminals, huh? 🙂

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  2. ktismatics

    Plato in Republic and Aristotle in Politics regarded the social order as changeable and amenable to purposive rational design. Paul, who wrote in Greek, lived in a Greek world as much as a Jewish one.

    How about this: At the end of Romans 12 Paul is exhorting his readers to live in harmony with one another, but if there are disputes not to seek vengeance. Instead, leave interpersonal justice to God. Then comes the beginning of Chapter 13, where the state is the governing authority authorized by God. So: if you can’t resolve your dispute, let the governmental justice system resolve it for you. Both parties in the dispute should regard the governmental law and court decision as binding. In this reading Paul’s endorsement of government becomes much more situational, pragmatic and limited in scope.

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  3. Lee

    Let’s split the difference and say that at least as far as first century Roman Christians were concerned, changing the government they lived under was not a live option. Either way it seems right to me that Romans 13 becomes, as K. puts it ” much more situational, pragmatic and limited in scope” with respect to the authority and purpose of government.

    Thanks for the good comments!

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