Jeff Sessions recently cited Romans 13 to justify President Trump's immigration policy to separate children from their families at the US Border. Does Paul's statement in Romans 13 "let every person be subject to the governing authorities" command unbridled allegiance to evil governing authorities? No! Sadly Romans 13 has become a prooftext legitimizing unjust laws. So how do we make sense of Romans 13? Does it truly legitimize all government actions? Or does it secretly embrace revolution against them? In Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans (1921), he argues that Romans 13 neither legitimizes evil actions by governing authorities, nor does it endorse a revolt against them. 

Karl Barth wrote Der Romerbrief (The Epistle to the Romans) in 1921, after World War I, so he was aware of the curse and horrors of wars that result from conflicting governing authorities. Barth's commentary on Romans 13 was written over ten years before he wrote his famous Theological Declaration at Barmen (1934), so the following quotations do not represent Barth's most mature view on Romans 13 and resistance, but they are helpful comments never the less (even if the must be checked against his later writings). 

Barth provides a warning that Romans 13 is particularly difficult to understand, that admits that Romans 13 is prone to be abused by those who wish to quote it subversively (like Jeff Sessions):

"Accordingly a warning will not be out of place, a warning to those who are at the moment deeply involved in the controversy and also, very particularly, to those who may expect something sensational to be said about it. Should this book come into the hands of such persons, they ought not to begin with the Thirteenth Chapter. Those who do not understand the book as a whole will understand least of all what we now have to say. They will be puzzled as to why we say what we do say, why we do not say more, and why we do not say less." [1]

Karl Barth lists four basic types of governing authorities: Church, State, Law, and Society. These ethical spheres may be expanded, but these governing authorities exist to restrain lawlessness in the world, but in this cursed world, each of these governing authorities abuse their power and extend their authority beyond what they should command, and at other times they fail to exercise their power in the way they should. Barth explains that there is a twofold danger, a Syclla and Charybdis, between the error of Legitimism and Revolutionism, and Barth says that Romans 13 opposes both of these ends. 

These powers [Church, State, Law and Society] demand recognition and obedience, and we have to decide whether we shall or shall not yield to their demand. If we admit their authority, we concede quite clearly the principle of Legitimism: if, on the other hand, we reject it, we are bound to accept the principle of Revolution. Being, however, concerned to demonstrate the honor of God, we do not—as the impatient reader desires, or rather, since every one is as a matter of course a party man, as the opponent of revolution quite naturally desires—concede the principle of Legitimism. But, on the other hand, neither do we—as so many readers of the Epistle secretly hope—concede the principle of Revolution. On the contrary, for reasons which will appear later, we find in the Epistle a direct denial of Revolution. We have, however, already suggested that we find in it also a denial of Legitimism. Why we did not say this explicitly will also become clear later." [2]

Barth explains that the four existing orders of governing authorities (state, church, law and society) may exist in excess and in defect, and Barth provides a [confusing] formula to quantify the amount of excess or defect that these respective governing authorities represent. The main point of the formula is to show that these governing authorities miss the mark of fulfilling their divinely appointed task of protection of life. 

Let the existing order—State, Church, Law, Society, &c., &c. —in their totality be: ( a b c d ). Let their dissolution by the Primal Order of God, by which their totality is contradicted, be expressed by a minus sign outside the bracket: — ( +a +b +c +d ). It is then clear that no revolution, however radical, which takes place within the realm of history, can ever be identical with the divine minus sign outside the bracket, by which the totality of human ordinances is dissolved. Revolution can do no more than change the plus sign within the bracket—the plus, that is to say, which existing ordinances possess within the bracket because they exist—into a minus sign. The result of a successful revolution is therefore: — ( —a —b —c —d ). And now we see that for the first time the great divine minus sign outside the bracket has transformed the anticipatory, revolutionary minus sign into a genuine plus sign. Revolution has, therefore, the effect of restoring the old after its downfall in a new and more powerful form. [3]

When the balance between the "Primal Order of God" and existing governing authorities is not in equilibrium, Barth argues that legitimizing this imbalance is not a solution, but revolting against these governing authorities may only create a greater disequilibrium. If any revolution is justified, it is not anarchy, but a proper ordering of existing governing authorities with the divine Primal Order of God.

The rebel has thoughtlessly undertaken the conflict between God's Order and the existing order. . . . He may be justified at the bar of history; but he is not justified before the judgement-seat of God. The sequel shows ' the return of the old natural order where men oppose their fellow men'. When men undertake to substitute themselves for God, the problem of God, His mind and His judgement, still remain, but they are rendered ineffective. And so, in his rebellion, the rebel stands on the side of the existing order. [4]

The double-sidedness of Romans 13:1ff commands governing authorities also to be subjected to the Primal Order of God. Governing authorities should not seek license to do evil by invoking Romans 13:1, but instead they are called to the protection of life of their denizens.  

Equally false, however, is the reckoning of the legitimists: false, because they consciously and as a matter of principle—in their consciousness and in their appeal to principle lies the arrogant and titanic element in Legitim-ISM—add a positive sign to the terms within the bracket. But the divine minus sign outside the bracket means that all human consciousness, all human principles and axioms and orthodoxies and -isms, all principality and power and dominion, are AS SUCH subjected to the destructive judgement of God. Let every man be in subjection means, therefore, that every man should consider the falsity of all human reckoning as such. We are not competent to place the decisive minus sign before the bracket; we are only competent to perceive how completely it damages our plus and our minus. [5]

I've mentioned several times that the raison d'être for governing authorities is for the protection of life of their denizens, and this is a reference to Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics III/3 §55.2 "The Protection of Life" that contains a more mature statement on this subject, that I highly recommend reading. 

Sources:

1. Barth, Karl. The Epistle to the Romans, trans. Edwyn C Hoskyns, Oxford University Press, 1980, p. 476

2. Ibid. p. 477.

3. Ibid. pp. 482-3. 

4. Ibid. p. 482.

5. Ibid. p. 483.