BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
ment conviction that God is the ruler of all nations and of all history, and
it may be described as an aspect of the doctrine of providence, arrived by
taking seriously the fact of God’s lordship. In order to protect his crea-
tures he provides them with civil rulers, just as he provides them with
sun and rain. In which case, for Paul, the state has its appointed place in
the providential order which God has established for the good of man-
kind. Isaiah clearly says that God is the one who will raise up and ap-
point Cyrus to the task of serving him, in order that YHWH's purposes
with Israel might be served—that Israel would realize that there is only
one true God and He is YHWH. (:246) We note in this passage that
Isaiah is speaking proleptically and thus there is an eschatology inherent
in God's dealings with nations as he raises up leaders and peoples ac-
cording to his grand purposes. And 27:5-7 also declare God's sovereign,
punitive purposes as he works through the Babylonian nation and King
Nebuchadnezzar to bring judgement upon his people Israel. Moreover,
Jeremiah is very conscious of God's sovereign control of people on the
earth and the Jews knew what it was like to live under foreign domina-
tion. Though the church has a different commission than did Israel, the
analogy carries over in that God's people in the world have always had to
determine how they would relate to the worldly structures. In the same
way as Jeremiah was able to discern the workings of God through the
pagan nations, so Paul is able here to borrow on that precedent and
declare that all authority on earth ultimately comes from God. There is
an eschatology in Jeremiah that concerns the nations' dealings with
Israel in that God is using them to bring about a purified people. He is
using Babylon to bring about a nation obedient to him which will then
fulfil his eschatological purposes promised in Gen 12:1-3 and 2 Sam
7:12-16. Basing on the above premises, we can assume that either a
Hellenistic Jewish paraenesis or an Old Testament motif of providence
probably influenced Paul, or a fusion of the two worldviews.
Nature of the Authorities behind Paul’s message
Over and above the said hypothesises, scholars have grappled with the
nature of the authorities that Paul made reference to in Rom 13:1-7,
whether they are human or angelic. Barrett (1987) notes that it has been
assumed the authorities Paul has in mind are human authorities, in
particular the governing authority of the Roman Empire under which
Paul and his authorities lived. However, this view has been refuted by