Romans — Chapter 13

Authorship & Background

Deep Dive

Setting: Paul writes from Corinth around AD 57 to the church in the empire's capital. Chapter 12 turned from doctrine to daily life: because of "the mercies of God," believers offer themselves as "a living sacrifice" (12:1), serve one another as one body, and never take revenge, but "leave it to the wrath of God" (12:19). Chapter 13 follows straight on. If Christians must not avenge themselves, what about the state, which punishes wrongdoers every day? Around AD 49 Emperor Claudius had expelled the Jews from Rome after disturbances that the historian Suetonius links to one "Chrestus," very likely a garbled reference to disputes about Christ (Acts 18:2). After Claudius died in AD 54, Jews drifted back. His successor Nero, then about sixteen, was guided in his early years by the philosopher Seneca and the officer Burrus, and those years were remembered as calm. But taxes were a sore point: Tacitus records that in AD 58 the people complained so loudly about the tax collectors that Nero briefly considered abolishing indirect taxes altogether (Annals 13.50–51). A church of Jewish and Gentile believers, recently scattered by one emperor's decree, needed to know how citizens of the coming kingdom should live under the present one.

Submission to the Authorities (vv1–7)

• "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities" (v1). "Every person" is literally "every soul," everyone, believers included. "Be subject" is hypotassō, originally a military word meaning to rank under. In the middle voice, as here, it means to subject oneself or obey. It is the language of taking one's place in an order, not of grovelling. "Authorities" (exousiai) can elsewhere mean unseen spiritual powers (Col 2:10), and Oscar Cullmann argued Paul had both in view, but most think the taxes and officials keep the focus on human government.
• "There is no authority except from God" (v1). This is Old Testament teaching. God "removes kings and sets up kings" (Dan 2:21), calls Nebuchadnezzar "my servant" (Jer 27:6) and Cyrus his anointed (Isa 45:1). Jesus tells Pilate, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above" (John 19:11). Paul is not saying every ruler is good or every act of government is God's will. He is saying that governing authority itself is God's arrangement, not the state's own invention.
• A word chain (vv1–2). Paul uses four words built on tassō, "to arrange in order": be subject (hypotassō), instituted (tetagmenai), resists (antitassō, to range oneself in battle against), and what God has appointed (diatagē, an ordinance). English hides the wordplay. God has set things in order, and to draw up a battle line against that order is to oppose the One who arranged it. The KJV's "damnation" (v2) is older English for condemnation.
• "Rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad" (v3). Paul describes government as God designed it to work. He knew rulers could be unjust: his Lord was crucified under Pilate, and he himself had been beaten by Roman magistrates at Philippi (Acts 16:22–23). The Tyndale notes make the same point: Paul is describing authorities acting within their calling, not addressing what to do when rulers reward evil and punish good. This is a general rule, not a treatment of every case.
• "He is God's servant for your good" (v4). "Servant" is diakonos, any servant or attendant, later a church deacon, and also used of public officials. A pagan magistrate serves God without knowing it. That raises government's dignity and limits it: a servant is not the master.
• "He does not bear the sword in vain" (v4). The machaira was the short sword carried by soldiers and officials, and the lexicon notes its link to the legal "right of the sword" (ius gladii), the power to punish, up to execution. Readers differ on how far to press it. Many, especially Reformed and evangelical readers, see here (with Gen 9:6) God's sanction for capital punishment, and some extend it to just war. Others read the sword more broadly as the state's power to enforce and punish, without settling the death penalty question. The historic peace churches (Mennonites and other Anabaptists) accept that God ordains the sword for the world's order but hold that Christians themselves should not wield it, following "Put your sword back into its place" (Matt 26:52). All agree Paul means lawful punishment, not private violence.
• "An avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer" (v4). This reaches back to 12:19. Believers must never avenge themselves but leave it to "the wrath of God." Here is one way that wrath works now: through the courts. "Avenger" is ekdikos, built on the same root as the "vengeance" (ekdikēsis) God claims in 12:19, and "wrath" is the same word, orgē. What is forbidden to the individual is entrusted, in a limited way, to the state.
• "Not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience" (v5). Two motives: fear of punishment (vv3–4) and conscience (vv1–2). "Conscience" (syneidēsis) is the inner awareness that judges one's own conduct. The Tyndale notes take it here mainly as the painful sense of having done wrong; the lexicon's "self-judging consciousness" is broader. Either way, a Christian submits not only when the police are watching but because it is right before God.
• The limits of submission. Romans 13 does not stand alone. When ordered to stop preaching, the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). The Hebrew midwives (Exod 1:17), Daniel's friends (Dan 3) and Daniel (Dan 6) all disobeyed and accepted the consequences rather than taking up arms. Nearly every tradition agrees this far: when rulers command what God forbids or forbid what God commands, God comes first. Beyond that, views differ. Many hold that believers may refuse but not resist, suffering unjust penalties as the apostles did. Calvin, and later Reformed writers such as John Knox and Samuel Rutherford, taught that lawful lower officials may resist a tyrant who overturns the very order God established. Lutheran "two kingdoms" teaching stresses that God rules the church by the gospel and the world by law and the sword. Each view is trying to honor both Romans 13 and Acts 5.
• "Because of this you also pay taxes" (v6). Paul writes within a year or so of the outcry Tacitus describes, and the Tyndale notes suggest some Roman believers may have been caught up in it. For Jews, paying Rome had a bloody history: Judas the Galilean led a revolt against the Roman census tax in AD 6 (Acts 5:37). Jesus was asked, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar?", and answered, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Mark 12:17). Paul's words echo his.
• "The authorities are ministers of God" (v6). A different word now: leitourgos, a public servant. In classical Greek it meant a citizen doing public service at his own expense; the Greek Old Testament uses it of temple servants. Tax officials, of all people, are God's public servants.
• "Taxes… revenue… respect… honor" (v7). "Taxes" is phoros, tribute paid by a subject people, a direct tax. "Revenue" is telos, tolls and customs, the indirect taxes behind the complaints of AD 58. "Respect" is literally "fear" (phobos). Most take it as the regard due higher officials, though some think Paul reserves fear for God, as in "Fear God. Honor the emperor" (1 Pet 2:17). Paul was not naive: he would later appeal to Caesar (Acts 25:11) and die under him. Yet believers learned to pray "for kings and all who are in high positions" (1 Tim 2:1–2), as Jeremiah told the exiles to "seek the welfare of the city" (Jer 29:7). One believer greeting Rome in this letter is Erastus, "the city treasurer" of Corinth (16:23).
• Commentators: All three teach real, conscientious submission with limits. Henry insists "every soul" means "every person, one as well as another, not excluding the clergy," yet adds at once: "Not that our consciences are to be subjected to the will of any man." He draws a careful line: "The usurpation of power and the abuse of power are not of God, for he is not the author of sin; but the power itself is." He notes that "never did sovereign prince pervert the ends of government as Nero did, and yet to him Paul appealed," and concludes, "Better a bad government than none at all." Guzik stresses that Rome was no friend to Christians and draws the limit from Acts 4:19. He takes the sword as capital punishment, noting that Romans normally executed by the sword and kept crucifixion for the lowest criminals. JFB applies the passage to every form of government, "from an unchecked despotism—such as flourished when this was written, under the Emperor Nero—to a pure democracy," and calls the sword "the symbol of the magistrate's authority to punish." It distinguishes tribute as a land tax from custom as a tax on trade, which matches the lexicon's phoros and telos.

Fulfilling the Law Through Love (vv8–10)

• "Owe no one anything, except to love each other" (v8). Paul has just said "pay to all what is owed" (v7), and the verb is the same, opheilō, to owe. So the turn is a play on words: settle every debt, then carry the one debt that is never settled. Some have read v8 as a ban on all borrowing. Most do not, since Jesus told his followers to lend (Matt 5:42), though Proverbs warns that "the borrower is the slave of the lender" (Prov 22:7). The Tyndale notes take a middle path: debt is not sin, but believers should be wary of it and repay promptly, so that they stay free to serve. The Tyndale notes take "each other" especially as fellow believers, though the neighbor of v9 is wider (Luke 10:29–37).
• "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder…" (v9). Paul lists commandments from the second half of the Ten, the ones about neighbors. Adultery comes before murder, the order also found in Luke 18:20, James 2:11 and some Greek copies of Deuteronomy 5. The KJV adds "Thou shalt not bear false witness," found in later manuscripts but not the oldest, which the ESV follows. Nothing hangs on it, since Paul adds "any other commandment."
• "Summed up in this word" (v9). "Summed up" is anakephalaioō, to gather up or present as a whole, as a speaker sums up an argument. Its only other New Testament use is Ephesians 1:10, where God plans "to unite all things in him," gathering everything up in Christ.
• "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (v9). This is Leviticus 19:18, which Jesus paired with loving God as the two commandments on which "depend all the Law and the Prophets" (Matt 22:40; also Gal 5:14). The same verse in Leviticus begins, "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge," exactly the theme of 12:17–21.
• "Love is the fulfilling of the law" (v10). "Love does no wrong to a neighbor" is stated negatively, matching the "you shall not" commands, but 12:9–21 has already filled love with positive content: honor, hospitality, blessing persecutors. Love does not replace the commandments, as though anything done "in love" is right. It is what the commandments were always describing. The Spirit brings that fulfilment about in believers (8:4).
• Commentators: Henry reads v8 first as plain honesty: "Do not spend that upon yourselves, which you owe to others." Then he turns it: love "is a debt that must be always in the paying, and yet always owing." He is careful on v10: love fulfils the law "not perfectly, but it is a good step towards it." JFB quotes Charles Hodge: "Acquit yourselves of all obligations except love, which is a debt that must remain ever due," and notes that the false-witness clause "is wanting in all the most ancient manuscripts," which is correct. Guzik does not treat v8 as a ban on borrowing, setting Matthew 5:42 beside Proverbs 22:7. Citing Leon Morris, he observes that taxes can be paid in full but love never can, and he insists that the neighbor means the actual people met every day, not humanity in the abstract.

The Day Is at Hand (vv11–14)

• "Besides this you know the time" (v11). "Time" is kairos, not clock time but a decisive, God-appointed season (Mark 1:15). Sleep pictures spiritual dullness and carelessness about eternal things (1 Thess 5:6–7; Eph 5:14).
• "Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed" (v11). Here salvation is not the start of the Christian life but its completion: Christ's return, the resurrection of the body, final deliverance (5:9–10; 8:23). Did Paul expect Christ's return in his lifetime? Some think he did and was mistaken about the timing. Others note that he never set a date, reckoned with his own death (Phil 1:21–23), and, with the rest of the New Testament, treated the whole time since the resurrection as "the last days" (Heb 1:2), so that every generation lives at the edge of dawn. Either way, nearness calls for readiness, not calculation.
• "The night is far gone; the day is at hand" (v12). "The day" echoes the prophets' "day of the LORD," when God sets the world right (Joel 2; Obad 15). Jewish and pagan writers alike used light and darkness for good and evil. The night is not over, but it is almost spent, and believers already belong to the day (1 Thess 5:5).
• "Cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light" (v12). The picture is waking and dressing: off with the night clothes. But the day's clothing is "armor" (hopla, weapons or arms). Dawn is a time for battle, not lounging. Paul uses the same picture in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 and Ephesians 6:11–17.
• "Not in orgies and drunkenness" (v13). "Properly" means decently, in a way that could bear being seen, and three pairs of night-time vices follow. "Orgies" is kōmos, a revel or carousal, the rowdy bands of drinkers who roamed the streets after a banquet, often linked with the god Dionysus.
• "Not in sexual immorality and sensuality" (v13). "Sexual immorality" is koitē, literally "bed." The lexicon notes that in the plural, as here, it means illicit sexual relations; the KJV's "chambering" kept the bed image. "Sensuality" is aselgeia, licentiousness or excess, behavior that has thrown off restraint.
• "Not in quarreling and jealousy" (v13). The list ends with a surprise: after drunken parties and sexual sin come the sins of respectable people. For a church soon to be told not to despise or judge one another over food and holy days (14:1–15:7), this pair may have been the most pointed.
• "Put on the Lord Jesus Christ" (v14). The armor of light turns out to be a person. In Galatians 3:27 all who were baptized into Christ "have put on Christ," with the same verb, endyō. What happened once at baptism is also done daily: deliberately taking up Christ's character and way of life, as one dresses in the morning (Col 3:10–12; Eph 4:24).
• "Make no provision for the flesh" (v14). "Provision" is pronoia, forethought, used in Acts 24:2 of a governor's "foresight." The point is practical: no planning ahead for sin, no arranging life so temptation is convenient. "Flesh" is not the body as such but human nature in rebellion against God (8:5–8).
• Augustine in the garden. In AD 386 Augustine, a brilliant teacher of rhetoric in Milan, sat in anguish in a garden, convinced of Christianity's truth but unable to break with his sexual habits. In his Confessions (book 8) he tells of hearing a child's voice from a nearby house chanting, "Take up and read." He opened Paul's letters and read the first words his eyes fell on: Romans 13:13–14. He writes that he wanted to read no further and had no need to, for a light of certainty flooded his heart and the darkness of doubt fled. He was baptized the next Easter and became the Western church's most influential theologian.
• Commentators: Henry's Concise Commentary (the abridgment found online) calls these verses "a Christian's directory for his day's work" and presses v11: "Let us mind our way, and mend our pace, we are nearer our journey's end." On v14: "Put on Christ; that includes all." JFB renders "high time" as "literally, 'the hour has already come,'" and calls the sleep "stupid, fatal indifference to eternal things." It holds that the nearness language works "without reference to the chronological nearness or distance of that event," and reads "chambering and wantonness" as "varied forms of impurity; the one pointing to definite acts, the other more general," which fits the lexicon well. Guzik, citing Morris, says Christ himself is the armor. He describes the middle pair as desire for a forbidden bed and as people who have lost all shame. The lexicon gives koitē in the plural as illicit sexual relations, acts rather than desire, and aselgeia as licentiousness or excess; shamelessness is a fair description but not the lexicon's own sense. Guzik sees in Augustine's story the discovery that the Christian life is lived by the Spirit's power and still has to be actively taken up.

Pointing to Christ

Romans 13 can look like the least spiritual chapter in the letter: taxes, officials, debts. Yet Christ runs through it. The rulers believers honor are servants of a greater King who will judge them. Jesus himself lived this chapter: he paid the temple tax (Matt 17:24–27), told his hearers to render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and stood before Pilate acknowledging that the governor's authority came "from above" while refusing to call his followers to the sword. He is the one who loved his neighbor perfectly and so fulfilled the law, the one in whom all things are "summed up" as the commandments are summed up in love. And he is the coming Day. In the last hour of the night, his people do not draw up battle lines against Rome. They put on the Lord Jesus Christ, clothed in the One whose return brings the dawn.

Commentary

• Enduring Word (David Guzik): enduringword.com Guzik examines submission to government, the limits of that submission, the debt of love, and the urgency of living for Christ.
• Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871): blueletterbible.org A critical and explanatory commentary on the whole Bible, more concise than Matthew Henry and closer to the Hebrew and Greek, with attention to historical and geographical detail. Public domain.
• Matthew Henry's Exposition (1710): blueletterbible.org A devotional verse-by-verse commentary in the Puritan tradition, still among the most widely read three centuries on. Public domain.

Videos

Articles

• Crossway: crossway.org On the whole letter: why Romans has carried the weight it has in church history.
• Crossway: crossway.org Why Paul's own story of being overtaken by grace is the right way into the letter.
• GotQuestions.org: gotquestions.org On the whole book: an overview of the book of Romans -- who wrote it, when, why, and how it fits the rest of Scripture.

Links open on the publisher's own site. Nothing here is reproduced on this page.

Reflection

• Submitting to Governing Authorities (v.1) — Paul teaches that governing authorities are established under God's overarching authority, so believers should generally honor and submit to them. How do you relate to leaders you disagree with — with respect for the office, or with open contempt?
• The Ongoing Debt of Love (v.8) — Paul says the only debt believers should always carry is love for one another, a debt never fully paid off. Who in your life is still owed that debt from you right now?
• Love Does No Harm (v.10) — Paul defines love partly by what it refuses to do — it doesn't harm a neighbor, which is why it fulfills the whole law. Honestly evaluating your relationships, is there harm you're causing through words, neglect, or indifference?
• Time to Wake Up (v.11) — Paul urges believers to recognize the urgency of the hour and shake off spiritual drowsiness. Are you spiritually alert right now, or have you quietly drifted into complacency?
• The Night Is Nearly Over (v.12) — Paul describes believers as living between Christ's first coming and His return, with the day of full redemption drawing near. How does that in-between reality shape your daily priorities?
• Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ (v.14) — Paul closes with a call to clothe yourself in Christ's character and stop making room for sinful desires. What "provision for the flesh" — a habit, an access point, an environment — do you need to remove?