Originally Posted by
xparte
The ‘state’ as a monopoly involving the initiation of coercion against persons and their property, is inherently unjust and is therefore not authorized or ordained by God. No command to do anything morally wrong can be binding, nor can any which transcends the rightful authority of the power whence it emanates.” In other words, it’s not only the command to sin that we don’t have to obey when it’s issued by any would-be authority, but further, we don’t have to obey anything coming from would-be civil authorities beyond the requirements to act justly and submit to justice, because that’s the limit on their God-ordained authority.
Westminster Confession (1646) where it talks about various authorities being limited in scope and to “things lawful.” And all the Reformation confessions have similar language. Taxes to whom taxes are due…” and so on, you’ll notice that this passage does not say, and no Scripture actually ever says, that anyone in fact owes a tax. Rather, it says (if you owe,) then pay what you owe Whatever terms the translations use, “the powers that be” or the “existing” or “governing authorities” in verse 1, to which we must submit, this doesn’t mean the de-facto powers who claim authority. Rather, the meaning here is only those whom God authorizes, ordains, or institutes (whatever word is being used) are actual legitimate authorities. That’s the meaning IMO the ‘state,’ as a particular form of political-legal order, and civil governance as such. Civil governance is basically the adjudication of civil disputes involving persons or their property. This has to do with rights. Rights are enforceable normative claims regarding your person or property. And so civil governance has to do, centrally, with the adjudication of disputes over those things, and with the rules and the enforcement that accompanies that adjudication. Romans 13 as Described in Ezra 7 MJ any discourse minus that heavy latin
