Hear now, you princes of the house of Jacob, and rulers of the house of Israel. Is it not your place to know justice, you who hate the good and love wickedness, snatching their skin from upon them, and their flesh from upon their bones?[514]
And the people will cry out unto the Lord, but He will not answer them, because they rejected His authority. This is His reward for their preference of a king. The kings, the princes, and all the lords have tasted the power of authority which allows them to do every injustice, to oppress the people of God; everything shall be measured, every iniquity contrary to brotherly love.
In oppressing a peasant they defile the pains of Christ. All this shall be counted and measured by God. Today, authority is a sweet affair to the king, opulent with fat and licentious in living … to whom the word “peasant” is repugnant… But woe unto him when he shall meet the words of God face to face… Then his violent deeds shall be met with great discomforts to his well-being, and he shall cry himself blind, “Alas! Woe is me! Why has my mother ever begotten me into this world!”
When Paul commanded the Christians in Rome to pay taxes to Nero he did not contemplate to introduce among them and sanction the Neronian right to oppress and to live off the fat of the land. [ When this authority was, in the end, brought into Christendom, Christianity became paganized. ]
INTERPRETATION OF ROMANS 13:5–7 (CONCLUSION)
First, Paul speaks of the pagan powers, and then he addresses those of the household of faith, saying,
Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.[515]
[ This applies for that inner circle of the believers. From it the authority of the king is excluded, together with his right of fees, taxes, tolls, tithes, and customs. Here he cannot subjugate his brother. There is no fear in brotherly love, but brotherly love casts out fear.[516] ]
You do not impose a bridge-toll on your brother, for – as a Christian – you would willingly carry him across on your shoulder. True Christian faith has no need of sovereignty and authority.
The Church of Rome has allied herself with the state, and now they both drink together the blood of Christ, one from a chalice, and the other from the ground where it was spilled by the sword…
