The Same Peter
Peter wrote, Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake (1 Peter 2:13). Peter also stood before the highest court of his people, under orders to stop preaching, and said, We ought to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29). It was the same man, and he saw no contradiction. Neither should we.
All human authority is delegated. God ordained government, and He did not resign when He did. When a ruler stays within what God gave him, we obey for the Lord's sake (see Government and the Christian). When he commands what God forbids, or forbids what God commands, he has reached past his authority, and the believer must obey the One who gave it. Obedience is the normal posture. Refusal is the rare exception, and Christians take no pleasure in it.
Refusing a particular command of a human authority because keeping it would mean disobeying God, while keeping every other duty, showing respect, and accepting the penalty. The word Peter used, peitharcheō, means to obey one in authority. He was saying that God outranks the court.
Three Questions Keep It Clear
- What must someone believe to be saved? The Gospel. No one is saved by courage, and a believer who has failed under pressure has not lost his Savior. Peter denied his Lord three times, wept bitterly (Luke 22:62), and was restored (John 21:17). If that is your story, this study is not written against you.
- What must a Christian believe and obey? The things no ruler can cancel: to worship God alone, to pray, to preach the Gospel, to gather with His people, and to refuse to take part in sin.
- Where has God granted liberty? Much of how this is carried out: whether to stay or to flee, how long to wait, which lawful remedy to try first, how a church gets through a crisis. Believers who agree on the line may differ on these, and they should not judge one another.
If the law of your land forbade what Jesus commands, what would you do, and how would you do it?
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For Deeper Study
- Grace Abounding to the Chief of SinnersAmazon John BunyanBunyan's own account of God's mercy, written in Bedford jail. Many editions include his Relation of the Imprisonment, the source of the quotations above. We differ with his Calvinism.
- Tortured for ChristAmazon Richard WurmbrandA Lutheran pastor's account of his years in Communist prisons in Romania, and of the underground church. Wurmbrand founded The Voice of the Martyrs.
- The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith ResurrectedAmazon Nik Ripken with Gregg LewisA Southern Baptist worker's account of what he learned from persecuted believers around the world. It will change how you pray.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Government and the Christian
God ordained civil government to restrain evil and reward good, so Christians obey the law, pay their taxes, honor those in office, and pray for them, while knowing that no ruler owns the soul and no ruler can save.
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