James Nisbet Commentary - Romans 13:4 - 13:4

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James Nisbet Commentary - Romans 13:4 - 13:4


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

THE MINISTRY OF MONARCHY

‘He is a minister of God to thee for good.’

Rom_13:4

So speaks the Apostle of the empire-monarchy of his own time, of its head, and of its officers. Minister of God: that name makes sacred the office and the authority to which it is given. If it could dignify in St. Paul’s eyes the person and officer of Claudius and Nero, under whose tyranny, pass a few years, he was to die, how much more can we ascribe it to the rule of our own Sovereign, anointed before God with Christian consecration and blessing, presiding over a system of government which draws its very substance and spirit from the Christian principles of liberty, justice and accountableness.

I. God uses the human instrument.—He takes the man, the woman, not different from their fellows, of the same flesh and blood, affected by the same joys and sorrows, pains, sicknesses, and death, and sets that one on a throne; and through such an one does His own work. That is His method, that is His way. The more visibly and undisguisedly and frankly human the ruler is, the better, then, will it be.

II. But let us go on a step.—Thank God the fashion of flattery, at least flattery of sovereigns, is largely past. But in the day of fierce light and plain speech, no thought is more widely shared, and more strongly held to-day in England, than that of the debt which England owes to the King for the high example of purity of life and court, of conscientious devotion to duty, of strong self-control and self-suppression for duty’s sake, of considerate and merciful remembrance of poverty and suffering, of strict observance of law and right. By being nobly and rightly, as well as frankly and familiarly, human, our King has been true to that method of God which makes a human life its minister.

III. Or take again the character of our King’s rule.—You will find cynics (though, thanks to the King, far fewer than there were), to carp and scoff at loyalty to the throne, and say that the Crown is a name and the people rule. In truth it is the King’s glory to show how, through him, a great people can rule itself. That is constitutional monarchy.

—
Bishop E. S. Talbot.

Illustration

‘It is not the King alone who is called to be the minister of God for good, but the nation whose is the power, and all of us who make up the nation. “There is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God”; and the nation is to-day such a power. For it we should pray, as we do for our King, that knowing whose minister it is, it may above all things seek God’s honour and glory.’