By Water & Blood

Authorities are from God, not against him

4. With one or two testimonies we shall overturn them. For even if there are things called principalities and authorities, these have not come into being apart from God—especially in the heavens.

For Scripture knows how to speak of angels and archangels, not stationed for opposition, but “ministering spirits sent out for service for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation.”

And indeed on earth, in each kingdom, there are many authorities, but under one king. “For the authorities that exist have been appointed by God,” as the apostle says; “so then he who resists the authority has resisted the ordinance of God.

For the rulers are not against the good but for the good, and not against the truth but for the truth. Do you wish, he says, not to fear the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from it. For it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is a servant appointed by God for this very thing against the one who practices evil.”

And you see that this worldly authority has been appointed by God, and has received the power of the sword—not from somewhere else, but from God for vengeance. And we cannot say that because there are principalities and authorities in the world the king of these is not king, but that the principalities and authorities exist, and that their king also exists.

As, then, we see on earth (for it has been shown), the authorities are not opposed to the king but subordinated for the administration of the whole kingdom and for the good order of the land—where there are murders and battles, ignorances and teachings, good laws and lawlessness—and for this reason there are authorities, so that in well-ordered arrangement for the administration of the whole world everything may be well appointed and managed by God—

so also in heaven, and especially there above all, where there is no envy, no lawlessness, no opposition, no faction, no oath, no plunder, nor anything else of the kind, authorities have been appointed for another business.

And what kind do I mean, if not for the rhythm of the hymn, for the pure doxology above, for which our ungrudging God and King wished to grant to each of those he has made a fitting glory, so that the brightness and incomprehensibility and awesomeness of his kingdom may always be glorified. Clearly, then, those people have gone astray, not knowing the grace of God.