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The Gospel Answer to Caesar
“Be ready to give an answer”—1 Peter 3.15
The jailing this week of the Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk for failing to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals may well be a watershed, signaling that the era of governmental tolerance of Christianity in America is nearing an end. Such intolerance may be new to us, but it’s not new to history. The gospel has a good deal to say to believers about our relationship to civil authority, and now may be a good time to be reminded of this.
Two very different views of government are presented in the New Testament. The first, of which Luke and Paul are the chief expounders, is that government is a minister. The second, which is discussed mainly by Peter and John, is that government is a monster.
Minister. Luke, who wrote more of the NT than any other, opens his inspired writing referencing a Roman official and closes his story in the Roman capital. He begins his Gospel showing how an imperial decree served the Christ (2.1) and ends it by setting the record straight on Christ’s execution. In Acts—at Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus, and Judea—he tells how Roman justice protected Paul from injustice. And when Paul wrote to the saints in Rome, he stressed that the government is God’s minister; its authority to punish evil and promote good comes from God; to resist it, is to resist God (Rom. 13.1–4). For the first thirty years after Acts 2, the church had ample reasons to thank God for services rendered by civil authority.
Monster. But in AD 64, things changed. Rome burned. It’s not certain that the fire was due to arson, but it was rumored that Caesar&mash;Nero—started it to clear space for some urban renewal. To deflect attention, Nero scapegoated the Christians, and the entity that had served God’s people now turned on God’s people. Peter said it would happen. When he wrote that “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4.7), he wasn’t talking about the end of the world, but about the end of life as believers had known it, for now, for the first time, believers were criminalized just for being believers. “And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and … It was granted to him to make war with the saints” (Rev. 13.1ff). John’s beast depicted the active opposition—the fiery trial (1 Peter 7.12)—that ensued when the great dragon (Rev. 12) turned the imperial authority against the saints. And when this happened, what followed was horrible indeed
So what is the Christian answer when the civil minister becomes a monster?
Our answer is to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but to God what is God’s (Matt. 22.21). We will not worship the beast, but will follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 12.11,13.4,14.4). Our conduct will be lovely (see a Bible dictionary on 1 Peter 2.12), attracting the unforgiven by its goodness, and reducing to the absurd any suggestion of wrong-doing (1 Peter 3.16). We will not fear Caesar, but will be faithful to Christ (1 Peter 3.14–15). When cursed, we will love; when hated, we will do good; when persecuted, we will pray for our persecutors, committing ourselves to the righteous Judge (1 Peter 2.24), asking that our suffering advance His glory (1 Peter 2.25).
In the Holy War between leviathan and the Lamb—if we are to win a great victory, we must have great courage. To this end, may we always remember that by a blood that saves us, and a Book that strengthens us, and a belief that sustains us, even unto death (Rev. 12.11), we shall be more than conquerors through Him who loves us.
