The principle is that the Christian must never submit to extra-biblical regulations upon religious observance as mandatory. To do so would be to lay down the freedoms which we have obtained in Christ as a matter of obedience to another authority. When we submit to the will of others in extra-biblical religious matters, we must always do so with guarded charity.

The Bible repeatedly affirms that no court has jurisdiction over the practice of the church. The key passage is Acts 5, where the priests and the council of Jerusalem elders arrested and held the Apostles for preaching the Gospel. This governing body clearly possesses both ecclesial and state authority. However, when the leaders of the Church were commanded to stop preaching the Gospel, Peter and the other apostles famously reply, “We must obey God rather than men” (v. 29).

Acts 5 highlights the strict limitations of Paul’s injunction in Romans 13:1, that Christians should “be subject to the governing authorities.” It means that Romans 13 applies only when governors stay within the boundaries of their authority. When they step outside these boundaries, they can and must be opposed.

Paul himself was no pushover when it came to holding governing authorities accountable to their own laws. In Acts 16, after a public beating and night in a Philippian jail, Paul both insisted on, and received, a public apology for his mistreatment.

But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out.” The police reported these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Roman citizens. So they came and apologized to them. And they took them out and asked them to leave the city (Ac 16:37–39.).

Again, on his final trip to Jerusalem, Paul held the governing authorities to the limitations of their own laws. This time he asserted rights much more quickly:

But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?” When the centurion heard this, he went to the tribune and said to him, “What are you about to do? For this man is a Roman citizen.” So the tribune came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.” The tribune answered, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum.” Paul said, “But I am a citizen by birth.” So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately, and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him (Ac 22:25–29.).

In other words, we discover from the actions of Paul and the other apostles that Romans 13:1 applies only when governing authorities are in fact acting lawfully. When they stop acting lawfully, they must be defied and held to account. After all, they too have taken oaths to uphold the laws which they steward.

In Galatians, Paul clarifies an even stronger principle than Romans 13 submission: the moral obligation of free people to vigilantly defend the freedom which they possess. The context for the letter is that a number of prominent church teachers were seeking to convince the Galatian Gentile Christians that they should become fully kosher, circumcised Jews. Paul’s response is nothing short of an all-out assault upon everyone who mandates or submits to the mandate of self-mutilation.

In Galatians 2, he recalls how he publicly opposed and humiliated the Apostle Peter in Antioch, for attempting to appease the circumcision party: “But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, ‘If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?’” (Ga 2:14).

Clearly, Paul believed that the freedom of the Christian must be guarded even at the cost of embarrassing the one of Christ’s greatest apostles. Then in Galatians 5:1, Paul articulates the principle behind his ire: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” In other words, Christian freedoms must be guarded with all vigilance. He continues: “Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you… You are severed from Christ…” (vv. 2, 4a).

The underlying principle at work is that if Christians submit to the loss of their own freedom in Christ on the basis of the unbiblical impositions, then they have lost Jesus Christ as their head, and are outside of Him. This fundamental principle can scarcely be overstated today, when we are weary of fighting for religious rights.

However, this principle also has its limitations. For example, when we are around strict vegetarians, we would do well not to eat meat (Rom 14, 1 Cor 8). When we are around people who regard certain days as more important than others, we should be willing to acquiesce. However, we must always do so out of love for them, as in 1 Corinthians 8:9: “But take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.”

Paul himself went out of his way to make concessions on the basis of appealing to those outside the faith. In Acts 16, the same Paul who excoriated the Galatians for submitting to circumcision as a Christian quasi-sacrament, personally took the knife upon his protégé Timothy, so as not to offend the Jews they were trying to reach for Christ. Verse 3 recalls, “Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.”

The principle is that the Christian must never submit to extra-biblical regulations upon religious observance as mandatory. To do so would be to lay down the freedoms which we have obtained in Christ as a matter of obedience to another authority. When we submit to the will of others in extra-biblical religious matters, we must always do so with guarded charity.

So far, we have seen the following principles, which I have arranged logically:

1. No court has jurisdiction over the practice of the Church.
2. Christians must never submit to extra-Biblical regulations upon religious observance as mandatory.
3. If Christians submit to unbiblical mandatory impositions on our Christian freedoms, then we are no longer under the protective headship of Christ.

If correct, these principles should dramatically change the way churches view our relationship to government mandates of Christian worship.

It follows that:

• We cannot submit to regulations simply because they are mandated by a governor. To do so would be to reject the headship of Christ. We can agree with the substance of the mandate, or agree that we should acquiesce for the sake of those we want to reach. However, we must never do so out of obedience to a governor who has no right to govern the church.
• We must inform our governors that we are not under their sphere of authority, regardless of what the Amendments of our Constitution do or do not protect. After all, we do not receive our rights from human documents, but from God. Whatever is good about the U.S. Constitution is good only insofar as it accurately protects the rights and freedoms that come from Above.
• We must educate our people about the biblical limitations of government jurisdiction, so that Christians of all stripes can navigate life with armed neutrality, knowing that they need not be bound by what governors call a “mandate.”
• We must pray to God that he gives us wisdom and courage to face the years ahead, when the separation of Church and State will be assaulted much more severely than anything we have seen in our lifetimes. We can be assured that it will be so, not because of the outcome of specific elections, but because the Bible makes it clear: Rulers always seek to overthrow God and his people (e.g. Psalm 2).
• Finally, We must stand against all the attacks of the enemy, from without and within (Ephesians 6).

Mike Littell is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of South Dayton PCA in Centerville, Ohio.