I saw that it is our duty in every case to obey the laws of our land, unless they conflict with the higher law which God spoke with an audible voice from Sinai, and afterward engraved on stone with His own finger. “I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people.” He who has God's law written in the heart will obey God rather than men, and will sooner disobey all men than deviate in the least from the commandment of God. God's people, taught by the inspiration of truth, and led by a good conscience to live by every word of God, will take His law, written in their hearts, as the only authority which they can acknowledge or consent to obey. The wisdom and authority of the divine law are supreme.
The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses—extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. Yet the Saviour attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments. Not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually, and must regenerate the heart.
Again and again Christ had been asked to decide legal and political questions. But He refused to interfere in temporal matters. Christ stood in our world as the Head of the great spiritual kingdom that He came to our world to establish—the kingdom of righteousness. His teaching made plain the ennobling, sanctifying principles that govern this kingdom. He showed that justice and mercy and love are the controlling powers in Jehovah's kingdom.
The spies came to Him, and with apparent sincerity, as though desiring to know their duty, said, “Master, we know that Thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest Thou the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly: is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no?”
Christ's reply was no evasion, but a candid answer to the question. Holding in His hand the Roman coin, upon which were stamped the name and image of Caesar, He declared that since they were living under the protection of the Roman power, they should render to that power the support it claimed, so long as this did not conflict with a higher duty.
When the Pharisees heard Christ's answer, “they marveled, and left Him, and went their way.” He had rebuked their hypocrisy and presumption, and in doing this He had stated a great principle, a principle that clearly defines the limits of man's duty to the civil government and his duty to God. CCh 314,315
"We cannot with safety vote for political parties:.....We cannot with safety take part in any political scheme.” GW 391
“It is a mistake for you to link your interests with any political party, to cast your vote with them or for them.” GW 393
“We are not as a people to become mixed up with political questions. All would do well to take heed to the word of God, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers in political strife, nor bind them in their attachments." 2SM 336
“The people of God are not to vote to place men (or women) in office; for when they do this, they are partakers with them of the sins which they commit while in office.” TE 476
“It is a mistake for you to link your interests with any political party, to cast your vote with them or for them.” GW 393
“We are not as a people to become mixed up with political questions. All would do well to take heed to the word of God, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers in political strife, nor bind them in their attachments." 2SM 336
“The people of God are not to vote to place men (or women) in office; for when they do this, they are partakers with them of the sins which they commit while in office.” TE 476
