And yet Jesus lived under the protection of the Roman government and not only did not encourage rebellion against it but told them to pay to Caesar what was due to Caesar.
I've never thought of the "all authority" saying as applying to civil government. Not sure why anyone would.
I appreciate your comments, @kirbyhopper, but must respectfully disagree with them.
The institutional church has become so corrupt that it encourages misrepresentations of what Jesus said. The enemy controls not only the Powers That Be (human government) but a great deal of "organized" Christendom as well. For example, Jesus remarks about Caesar in no way instruct us to pay tax.
While Jesus did not "encourage rebellion" against government, he taught that it had been replaced by the Kingdom of God. Why do you suppose they crucified him?
If you care to delve much more deeply into this, I invite you to read some of the articles I've already written on the topic. You can find them readily accessible on my Library Christianity Shelf, just click the shelf below:
Jesus statement about "all authority" is an absolute. There are no exceptions. Any individual or institution that departs from Jesus' specification of what is right and wrong will ultimately face destruction. God's perspective on such rebellion is laughter (Psalm 2).
How do you know "Jesus statement about 'all authority' is an absolute" isn't an assumption? I find Jesus speaking in absolutist terms while dealing with only a local, temporal issue. For example, "No man can come to the Father except through me" is usually interpreted by the corrupt church (and I agree organized religion is corrupt - they just can't escape Lord Acton's maxim: Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely) to mean no human can ever know God apart from a knowledge of and faith in Christ. But the context tells us he was talking to a group of people who constantly saw his good works of healing people, hear his good teaching about love your neighbor, and yet still accused him of being a demon. For THEM, and them only, they would not see God without going through him, that is, heed his words and follow his example. A lot of people following him around took his words literally and got tripped up on many occasions. We need to be careful about applying his sayings to others beyond his immediate audience.
Do you believe in the authority of scripture?
I'll go first and try to express where I'm coming from...
I believe that all scripture (i.e. the most widely accepted canon of Christianity at large) has come to us by inspiration from Jesus/God himself. Further, I believe that we do need to be discerning, but that the true context for understanding any isolated scripture is in fact the entirety of the complete canon scripture.
And so, I could list a dozen or more scriptures that support my understanding of "all authority" being an absolute. Rather than look them all up right now, I'll allude to them in a paraphrastic free-form.
Jesus Christ is the only begotten God, full of grace and truth. He is King of kings and LORD of lords. At his name every knee shall bow throughout this universe and the highest of heavens. God laughs at the totality of all human governments that pretend to his throne. The very beginning of sin itself was Lucifer's incipient desire to usurp God's authority. Jesus/God will shatter all his enemies even as the pagan statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream was shattered. He is presently seated at the right hand of the throne of God, i.e. the seat of universal authority. He is presently exercising his rule, and will continue to do so until all his enemies are brought to heel or destroyed. He is the King, Eternal, Immortal, Invisible, the Only Wise God, to whom belong honor and glory forever. No man can on his own stand in Jesus' presence, and all who attempt to do so will be consumed by that very fiery presence on the day spoken of by the prophets when Jesus appears in flaming fire to take vengeance on those who do not know him.
I hope you're familiar with the many scriptures I've alluded to in support of my thesis that Jesus presently holds and wields all authority everywhere?
If you were to read my articles on the corruption of Romans 13, you would find that I believe it and many other scriptures have been grossly misapplied and in many cases intentionally mistranslated in order to support a false understanding of authority. The corrupt church browbeats parishioners into an utterly unwarranted subservience to human government, and I object to that in the strongest terms.
As creatures whose initial and ongoing existence are entirely the result of God's creative acts, we are his possessions, and we owe no debt to Caesar whatsoever. We are not subjects of civil government. If we are God's we are simply sojourners here, and citizens of another realm.
And yet Jesus said to pay to Caesar what is due to Caesar.
And Paul used his status as a Roman citizen to demand the rights granted to him by that human authority.
And nobody in the New Testament encouraged setting up a rogue society within the civil society. The Kingdom of God was spiritual, operating in tandem with civil government. It was never thought of to replace civil government, but rather they were asked to pray for their leaders that they would lead with justice.