[Sidenote: Ver. 1.] =Let every soul,= every person, who has "presented his body a living sacrifice," =be submissive to the ruling authorities;= manifestly, from the context, the authorities of the State. =For there is no authority except by God[223]; but the existing authorities have been appointed by God.= That is, the _imperium_ of the King Eternal is absolutely reserved; an authority not sanctioned by Him is nothing; man is no independent source of power and law. But then, it has pleased God so to order human life and history, that His will in this matter is expressed, from time to time, in and through the actual constitution of the state. [Sidenote: Ver. 2.] =So that the opponent of the authority withstands the ordinance of God,= not merely that of man; =but the withstanders will on themselves bring sentence of judgment;= not only the human crime of treason, but the charge, in the court of God, of rebellion against His will. This is founded on the idea of law and order, which means by its nature the restraint of public mischief and the promotion, or at least protection, of public good. "Authority," even under its worst distortions, still so far keeps that aim that no human civic power, as a fact, punishes good as good, and rewards evil as evil; and thus for the common run of lives the worst settled authority is infinitely better than real anarchy. [Sidenote: Ver. 3.] =For rulers, as a class (οἱ ἄρχοντες), are not a terror to the good deed, but to the evil;= such is always the fact in principle, and such, taking human life as a whole, is the tendency, even at the worst, in practice, where the authority in any degree deserves its name. =Now do you wish not to be afraid of the authority? do what is good, and you shall have praise from it;= the "_praise_," at least, of being unmolested and protected. [Sidenote: Ver. 4.] =For God's agent (διάκονος) he is to you, for what is good;= through his function God, in providence, carries out His purposes of order. =But if you are doing what is evil, be afraid; for not for nothing (εἰκῆ),= not without warrant, nor without purpose, =does he wear his (τὴν) sword,= symbol of the ultimate power of life and death; =for God's agent is he, an avenger, unto wrath, for the practiser of the evil.= [Sidenote: Ver. 5.] =Wherefore,= because God is in the matter, =it is a necessity to submit, not only because of the wrath,= the ruler's wrath in the case supposed, =but because of the conscience too;= because you know, as a Christian, that God speaks through the state and through its minister, and that anarchy is therefore disloyalty to Him. [Sidenote: Ver. 6.] =For on this account too you pay taxes;= the same commission which gives the state the right to restrain and punish gives it the right to demand subsidy from its members, in order to its operations; =for God's ministers are they,= His λειτουργοί, a word so frequently used in sacerdotal connexions that it well may suggest them here; as if the civil ruler were, in his province, an almost religious instrument of divine order; =God's ministers, to this very end persevering= in their task; working on in the toils of administration, for the execution, consciously or not, of the divine plan of social peace.
This is a noble point of view, alike for governed and for governors, from which to consider the prosaic problems and necessities of public finance. Thus understood, the tax is paid not with a cold and compulsory assent to a mechanical exaction, but as an act in the line of the plan of God. And the tax is devised and demanded, not merely as an expedient to adjust a budget, but as a thing which God's law can sanction, in the interests of God's social plan. [Sidenote: Ver. 7.] =Discharge therefore to all men,= to all men in authority, primarily, but not only, =their dues; the tax, to whom you owe the tax,= on person and property; =the toll, to whom the toll,= on merchandise; =the fear, to whom the fear,= as to the ordained punisher of wrong; =the honour, to whom the honour,= as to the rightful claimant in general of loyal deference.