Romans 13 in Samuel Rutherford’s Lex Rex

One of the Greatest Texts on Protestant Resistance Theory Clarifies One of the Most Misunderstood Biblical Texts

The concept of resistance to the power and rule of governments is not foreign to the Christian tradition. Particularly in  Scottish theology, resistance has had a long-standing tradition going back to John Knox, George Buchanan, Andrew Melville, and Alexander Henderson.¹ One of the passages of the Bible that is brought into the theories of resistance is Romans 13. In this chapter, the apostle Paul addresses how Christian citizens should relate to the “governmental authorities.” Paul writes: 

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.  Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Rom. 13:1-2).

The question that is raised is how this passage fits within a biblical view of resistance. If Paul calls Christians to be subject to the governing authorities, and those who resist are resisting those whom God has appointed—what kind of resistance would be acceptable for the Christian without violating the apostle’s imperative? The purpose of this article will be to answer that question in the thought of Scottish theologian Samuel Rutherford in his work Lex Rex which is his locus classicus on the subject. 

Samuel Rutherford was born at the turn of the century in 1600 in the southeast of Scotland, probably in the town of Nisbet in the parish of Crailing, which is a short distance from the English border.² One of the influences on young Rutherford was Presbyterian David Calderwood. He had the opportunity to hear Calderwood expound on the two kingdom theology of Andrew Melville which asserted that the church was independent of the crown. By the time that Rutherford entered the University of Edinburgh in 1617, he found fellowship with some of the “radicals” who were outside the University and would hold meetings together. Some of the activities of the radicals would include the boycott of services held by ministers on holy days or communions where the congregation was required to kneel in accordance with the Articles of Perth. Rutherford graduated from Edinburgh in 1621 and was appointed the Regent Professor of Humanity, but eventually demitted the office in 1625.³

In 1626, Rutherford was called to the parish of Anwoth in Galloway without giving any acknowledgment to the bishop⁴. This was something out of the ordinary in the 1620’s, although there are indications that there were some ministers that were ordained in the Presbyterian fashion.⁵ Rutherford found himself ministering to the landed gentry in a rural perish that did not have a central town or city.⁶ It was here that Rutherford had a fruitful ministry. His communion sermons were well attended, and through his preaching he emphasized Presbyterian doctrine and practice.⁷ It was during his ministry in Anwoth that Rutherford was summoned to appear before the Court of High Commission in 1630.⁸ The basis for his appearance had to do with his non-conformity to the Articles of Perth, along with a work he wrote in objection to the Arminian theology that was being promulgated in Scotland by William Laud. The Court of High Commission ended Rutherford’s ministry in Anwoth and exiled him to Aberdeen, where he arrived in 1636.

For the next year and a half, Rutherford was banned from pastoral ministry and was confined to writing, where he produced hundreds of letters. John Coffey observes that the 219 letters that survived reveal a man that vacillated between spiritual ecstasy and deep frustration over the constraints that were placed on him. It was from this bottled-up frustration that Rutherford released letters to various nobles and ministers all over Scotland. He was still in Aberdeen in 1636 when the Book of Canons was published in Aberdeen, and in 1637 when the Prayer book was read in St. Giles, causing a riot which began the resistance movement in Scotland to the policies of King Charles. Over the next few months, revolution began with the signing of the National Covenant, which bound the signatories to maintain the kirk laws and liberties of Scotland. It was after the signing took place that Rutherford was able to leave Aberdeen and return to Anwoth. He was a commissioner to the 1638 General Assembly which swept away bishops, canons, and the Perth Articles. It was also decided by the assembly that Rutherford be designated Professor of Divinity at St. Mary’s College, St. Andrews to which he consented with the contingency that he have opportunities to preach regularly.

Political Background

While Rutherford was at St. Andrews, tensions were heating up on the political front. Civil war broke out in England in 1642 and in desperation, Parliament drew up the Solemn League and Covenant with the Covenanters of Scotland in 1643. In the agreement, the Scots would provide military assistance to the English Parliament and in return Parliament would abolish episcopacy and reform religion according to the word of God—which for the Covenanters meant England would be Presbyterian.⁹ The Scots provided England 20,000 troops in exchange for the promise that the English and Irish churches would become similar to their own. In this way, the Scots would ensure that the reformed religion would be maintained.¹⁰ It was agreed to that Parliament would call an assembly of divines to meet in London and to determine the type of government and liturgy that would be imposed on the church in England and Ireland. The Scots were invited to send commissioners to the assembly in order to aid the divines in their work, and Samuel Rutherford was among them. John Coffey notes that Rutherford more than likely was chosen because he had just published Peaceable Plea for Paul’s Presbyterie in 1642, and he had revealed himself to be an authority on New England Congregationalism which would have been considered as an alternative to Scottish Presbyterianism. In November 1643, Rutherford took his seat in the assembly and throughout 1644 he vigorously defended the Presbyterian cause, exercising an important influence. It was in that year that he wrote his well-known treatise Lex Rex.

Lex Rex

Broadly speaking, Rutherford wrote Lex Rex to justify the Parliamentary and Presbyterian campaign in the English Civil War and more specifically to answer a Royalist treatise by John Maxwell, the deposed Bishop of Ross. Rutherford not only drew from the Scottish tradition, but also from the large well of continental thought in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas—even quoting Jesuits when it suited his purpose. For example, within the first two sections of the work, Rutherford quotes from one Greek philosopher (Aristotle) and nine Roman Catholics—six of them being sixteenth century Spanish neo-Thomists.¹¹ In this treatise, Rutherford adopted the scholastic approach of question and answer with his interlocutors, and as Coffey has confessed, it is a work of complexity and, at times, downright confusion. The confusion comes where it is difficult to distinguish between Rutherford and an opponent that he is quoting. Be that as it may, Lex Rex can be broken up into four broad categories. Questions 1–14 dealt with the origins of government, questions 15–21 dealt with the relations between the king and the people—in particular the relations between the parliament and judiciary, questions 22–27 dealt with the relationship between the king and the law with the assertion that the king is submitted to the law, and questions 28–48 dealt with miscellaneous topics. To prevent getting tangled in the intricacies of a book this size, we will focus on a few categories and themes that are important to Rutherford’s exegesis of Romans 13. 

Rutherford’s View of the Old Testament 

It is clear when one reads Lex Rex that Rutherford had a deep appreciation for the Old Testament and understood much of it to still be normative. For example, he often appealed to Deuteronomy 17 as the prototype for kings of all ages, ruling in a godly way according to the divine law of God. This did not mean, however, that everything in the Old Testament was binding, including some of the typical laws of Israel. Yet, as Coffey points out, the real question was where the line was drawn between the moral laws (which were still binding) and the typical laws. While the Reformed theologians agreed that the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ, and therefore no longer binding, the disagreement came at whether or not both moral and judicial laws were applicable. Rutherford’s understanding of the Mosaic law was complex, whereas he believed that the judicial laws were no longer binding on nations so long as kings were following the “moral equity” of the Old Testament law. However, Rutherford strongly believed that the concept of national covenanting and the civil authorities’ responsibility to protect the true religion was still binding on Christians of his day, and he held the magistrates responsible for upholding that standard. The concept of a “covenanted nation” was very important to Scottish identity, and Rutherford upheld the notion. This two-fold covenant idea was that first there was a covenant between God, the king, and the people. The promise was that the king and the people would serve the Lord their God and uphold the laws and testimonies of Moses. Secondly, a covenant was made between the king and the people he ruled over with the promise to serve one another, to maintain fidelity to the first covenant, to preserve the true religion in the land, and acknowledge their limitations before God.¹² Thus, according to Rutherford, kings were maintaining the integrity of their office when they were upholding the law of God and protecting the true religion. He wrote: 

If the condition without which one of the parties would never have entered into covenant be not performed, that party is loosed from the covenant. The people and the princes are obliged in their places for justice and religion, no less than the king. Insofar as the king presses a false religion on the people…they are understood not to have a king. The covenant gives a mutual co-active power to king and people to compel each other, though there be not one on earth higher than both to compel each of them.¹³

Government in radice and in modo

Rutherford held that government was ordained by God according to Romans 13, but he also made an important distinction between government in radice and government in modo. Government in radice was immediately instituted by God, while government in modo was constituted by the people. That is to say, Rutherford understood that although God ordains governmental powers, those powers are chosen by the will of the people—whether the form of government be monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. He wrote: 

The question is whether the kingly office itself come from God. I conceive it is, and flows from the people, not by formal institution…God ordained the power; it is from the people only by a virtual emanation, in respect that a community having no government at all may ordain a king or appoint an aristocracy.

One of the passages that Rutherford turned to in order to provide biblical justification was Deuteronomy 17, where the people of Israel were to “set a king over them whom the Lord your God should choose.” Thus, Rutherford struck a balance between the conservative divine right of kings and the radical individualistic theory promoted later by men such as John Locke, in that, while the king derived his authority from God, the immediate source of a ruler’s power was the popular consent of the people. The king was accountable both to God and the consent of the people. 

Voluntas beneplaciti and voluntas signi

Another important distinction in Rutherford’s theory of resistance is the distinction in the will of God between God’s will of good pleasure—that is, God’s hidden decree (voluntas beneplaciti) and his revealed will manifested in sign of precept (voluntas signi).¹⁴ For example, God’s voluntas signi is found in the Ten Commandments—God’s will of expressed approval, while the voluntas beneplaciti is seen in the fact that at times, in the purposes of God, His creatures violate those commandments. The reason this is relevant to Rutherford’s theory is because he wanted to emphasize that simply because a ruler is put in power by God, it does not follow that everything that ruler does is right. Rutherford wrote:

…if the act of conquering be violent and unjust, it is no manifestation of God’s regulating and approving will, and can no more prove a just title to a crown because it was an act of divine providence than Pilate and Herod’s crucifying of the Lord of glory, which was an act of divine providence flowing from the will and decree of divine providence (Acts 2:23; 4:28) is a manifestation that it was God’s approving will that they should kill Jesus Christ.

According to Rutherford, since there were no modern day “Jeremiahs” prophetically calling people to submit to “modern tyrannical Babylonians” there was no basis for saying “tyranny” or “subjection to tyranny” was a good thing simply because it was in the decretive will of God (voluntas beneplaciti). McAnnally-Linz brings out the importance of this distinction for Rutherford’s theory when he writes:

This subtle distinction turns out to be pivotal for Rutherford’s project of grafting a defence of armed resistance into a high-Calvinist theological system with God’s all-encompassing providence at its roots, for it offers a way of speaking positively about resistance while still recognising that the person or government resisted came to power through providence.¹⁵

The King in concreto and in abstracto 

Another important distinction that Rutherford made to bolster his theory of resistance is the concept of the king in concreto and the king in abstracto. The king in abstracto is a reference to the royal office of king, while the king in concreto refers to the man who is king. The reason that this crucial distinction had to be made for Rutherford is because it justified the position that a king could be resisted when he was not acting in accord with the office to which he was called. If he was acting as a tyrant, he was acting as a man (king in concreto) and not as his office of king (king in abstracto) demanded him to act. This is vital in understanding his exegesis of Romans 13, because, for Rutherford, it was possible to resist a king and not be guilty of resisting the ordinance of God. 

Rutherford and Romans 13

As we turn to Rutherford’s comments on Romans 13, it is important to keep in mind the distinctions in his thought that were outlined above. In Romans 13:1-2, the Apostle Paul writes:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

Rutherford focused on the phrase “governing authorities” (ἐξουσίαις ὑπερεχούσαις) and hung his argument on the fact that it was in the plural. He asserted that this would include all governing authorities, kings and “inferior judges.” Rutherford wrote, “if Paul had intended that they should have given obedience to Nero as the only essential judge, he would have used the singular number.” His point was that inferior judges were just as much ordained by God as the emperor, and thus both bear the sword, and must be shown obedience. Furthermore, for Rutherford, this imperative from Paul was not saying that the king should be obeyed in all that he does, but rather the king, executing the functions of his office properly, ought to be obeyed. This is where his distinction of the king in abstracto and concreto is important. Rutherford’s exegesis of Romans 13 is read through the lens of these two categories. Paul is describing the importance of submitting to the authorities in abstracto. He wrote: 

It is evident from Rom. 13 that all subjection and obedience to higher powers commanded there is subjection to the power and office of the magistrate in abstractor or, which is all one, to the person using the power lawfully, and that no subjection is due by that text or any word of God, to the abused and tyrannical power of the king, which I show from the text, and from other Scriptures.

As John Coffey points out, for Rutherford, Romans 13 was not urging us to be in subjection to the abused and tyrannical power of the king. The magistrates of whom Paul spoke about were a terror to evildoers (Rom. 13:3-4) not to good Protestant subjects! Therefore, according to Rutherford, Romans 13 is describing the office of the king as king (in abstracto) and that the king was put there by the authority of God (and mediated through the will of the people). When the king was acting in accordance to his kingly office, he was to be obeyed, otherwise one would be found to be resisting the will (voluntas signi) of God. In contrast, a king who was not acting in accordance with his office (in concreto) was a tyrant and therefore was to be resisted. 

The question that immediately rises, and one that Rutherford was prepared to answer, was how the Emperor Nero fit into this exegetical understanding. Paul wrote Romans when Nero was emperor—a man who was anything but a benevolent king. Thus wasn’t Paul commanding the Roman Christians to submit themselves to Nero? Rutherford responded: 

Then must the text be expounded of Nero only. He wrote this when Nero played the tyrant and persecuted Christians, therefore we are not to obey Neroes now. He wrote it when the senate of Rome had power to declare Nero an enemy, not a father, as they did.

Admittedly, this argument is hard to follow, and does not seem to answer the fundamental objection. The closest he comes to answering the substance of the objection is when he wrote: 

…it is true subjection to Nero…is commanded here, but to Nero as such a one as he is obliged de jure, to be…but that Paul commands subjection to Nero, and that principally and solely, as he was such a man de facto, I shall believe when antichristian prelates turn Paul’s bishops (1 Tim. 2), which is a miracle.

Rutherford argued that what Paul is commanding is subjection to Nero when he is acting in accordance with his office as king—as opposed to when he is acting outside of it as a tyrant. In a slight to the advocates of episcopacy and the theory of the divine right of kings, Rutherford said that he would believe that Paul is commanding Christians to obey Nero as tyrant as soon as the prelates began acting in accordance with Paul’s list of requirements for bishops—which he did not plan to see occur.

What Are the Grounds for Resistance?

If Rutherford’s interpretation is correct and there are occasions where resistance to “governing authorities” does not violate the spirit of Romans 13, then what constitutes legitimate resistance? John Coffey asserts that on this question Rutherford was not entirely clear. Rutherford appeared to have different limitations on resistance depending on the context of the situation. First, Rutherford asked about the nature of the offense of the magistrate. Perceived offenses did not automatically grant the freedom to resist. For example, Rutherford did not think that taxation was a category that warranted resistance. He wrote: 

I think it not fit easily to resist the king’s unjust exactors of custom or tribute (1). Because Christ paid tribute to Tiberius Caesar, an unjust usurper, though he was free from that…(2) Because we have a greater dominion over goods than over our lives and bodies, and it is better to yield in a matter of goods than to come to arms, for of sinless evils we may choose the least.

Secondly, Rutherford asked who was the one resisting? There are times in Lex Rex where Rutherford described individual people resisting the magistrate. One example he gives was if a magistrate attempted to force himself on a man or a woman. However, violent re-offending was a last resort, and often only warranted in extreme situations. In ordinary situations, Rutherford found himself in the Calvinist tradition, arguing that lawful resistance to a tyrant must be led by the representatives of the people—not the people themselves. Thus, for Rutherford, the lesser magistrates, or “inferior judges” were the ones to ordinarily resist the tyrant. He wrote: “inferior judges are no less essentially judges, and the immediate vicars of God, than the king.” According to Rutherford, the inferior judges were mentioned in Romans 13 as “authorities” and thus were just as much ordained by God as the king himself. 

He is the minister of God for good, and has the sword not in vain, but to execute vengeance on the evil-doers, no less than the king (Rom. 13:2-4). He to whom agrees by an ordinance of God the specific acts of a magistrate is essentially a magistrate.

Rutherford asserted that if this inferior judge or magistrate is truly delegated by God to execute vengeance on the evildoer, then there may be times when he must resist the king if the king is not obeying God in his office. Moreover, there may be times when executing vengeance on the evildoer means resisting a tyrannical king.

Conclusion

There is more that could be said about this work, but suffice it to say that Rutherford was able to justify his position of resistance and still maintain a fidelity to the Scripture—particularly Romans 13. While obedience is expected to the authorities that God has placed over us, when they step out of the bounds of their God-given office, and break the covenant that they swore to uphold, they remove the basis for obedience—and lesser magistrates must fulfill their office of “doing good” (Rom. 13:4) by resisting them. Lex Rex was the work used to level a charge against Rutherford under Charles II. He was summoned to Edinburgh to give an account for its contents, but as John Macleod said, “there came another summons in the name of a higher than any earthly king that the accused must obey first.”¹⁶ In other words, he died. Lex Rex is an important work in the tradition of Scottish political theology, and it stood out among other productions in this field because it not only gave attention to a theory of resistance, but explored deeper questions about the origins and limitations of civil magistrates.

---

Image Credit: Unsplash

Share This