Verse 2
2. Resisteth the power That is, resisteth a power which is confessedly the government.
The Romans to whom Paul wrote were under the rule, and lived not many yards from the palace of the Emperor Nero, whose is one of the names in history most conspicuous for tyranny and blood. Yet, bad as he was, and bad as was his government, it was the best thing of which the age was capable. When he was assassinated a series of civil wars and of brief tyrannies succeeded, under which the empire declined to its final fall under the incoming flood of the northern barbarians, under which the ancient society perished.
Damnation Divine condemnation. For he is guilty of treason not only against the existing government, but against the public welfare.
The apostle now argues against resistance, first, from the social necessity of a terror over the evil, and, second, from the rightfulness of terror as a governmental principle.
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