Chapters 8 to 9 - Christ’s Teachings and Today’s Christianity

- 67 - • In the case of secular authorities also, obedience is due them only to the extent that their laws do not conflict with those of God. You cite the words of the Apostle Paul found in the opening lines of the 13th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans as a basis for your doctrine that man owes obedience to his human superiors, but you have completely misunderstood the sense of these words and have translated them quite incorrectly. Paul is not speaking here of temporal authorities but of the spiritual ones that God assigns to everyone. • To each of you God has allotted His spirits for your direction and guidance, more of them to some, fewer to others, depending upon the magnitude of the task a person has been assigned by God. These spirits of God are sent not only to protect you, to inwardly admonish you, warn you, teach you and encourage you to do good, but they also have the right to punish you. They bear God’s sword of punishment, for the punishments that He inflicts are executed by His spirits, as you know from numerous passages of the Bible. I shall now give you the correct rendering of Paul’s words: ‘Every soul should render obedience to the spirit forces under whose guidance it stands, for there are no spirit powers placed over you but those that have been appointed by God. Therefore, anyone who opposes these spirit powers opposes the will of God and thereby incurs punishment. These powers are not a source of fear to those who do good, but only to those who do evil. So, if you want to have no reason to fear such a power, then do what is good, and you will earn its praise, for these servants of God have been assigned to you for the accomplishment of good. But if you do evil, you have reason to be afraid. The spirit power does not bear the sword of punishment in vain. As a servant of God, it is charged with avenging God’s wrath on those who do evil. Therefore, be obedient to that power, not only in fear of God’s wrath, but also following the voice of your conscience. Also make the spiritual sacrifices requested of you, for these powers are God’s envoys, attending continually upon you for this very purpose. Render to all of them their due! If one of them demands sacrifices from you, then make them; if a spirit envoy demands the execution of a task, perform it; if one leads you to fear something, then fear it; if one shows you something as valuable, then value it! Leave nothing undone that these Divine powers ask of you. You fulfill your obligations in every case if you love one another, for he who loves his neighbour has fulfilled the whole law.’ How could you interpret these words as referring to your worldly rulers? Do you seriously believe that every earthly authority is appointed by God? Did the countless kings and princes of history, who in so many cases were instruments of evil, rule ‘by the grace of God’, or did they not rather rule by the ‘grace of the Devil?’ Do the words from the passage I have quoted: ‘for they are servants of God for the accomplishment of good’, apply to those rulers also who committed the greatest acts of cruelty, injustice and oppression against their wretched subjects? • You mortals put your secular and religious leaders into power by virtue of manmade ordinances – not God. A spirit of God participates neither in your coronations nor in the election of your popes and bishops. When in your translation of the text in question you speak of ‘taxes’ and ‘dues’ and think that the passage refers to the earthly rulers to whom these are due, you forget that there are also spiritual dues that you owe to God. They are the fruits of the spirit. Just as a tree’s ‘annual payment’ consists of the fruit it bears, so you, too, are called upon to render payment to God in the fruit that the spirits of God assigned to you are constantly endeavouring to bring to maturity.

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