Articles

God, Nations, and Borders: Why Sovereignty Is Not Sin

Article 1 of 7 | Welcoming the Stranger, Upholding the Law

by Dr Timothy Mann

Few topics today generate more heat with less light than immigration. Scroll through social media for five minutes, and you’ll see it: raw anger on one side, dismissive ridicule on the other, and somewhere in the middle, Christians who genuinely don’t know what the Bible actually teaches. I want to help with that.

Over the next several articles, we’re going to work through a biblical framework for thinking about immigration, law, dignity, compassion, security, deportation, and ultimately the gospel. We’re not starting with policy. We’re starting with God.

Nations Are Not an Accident

Here’s something that surprises people when they first encounter it: nations themselves are part of God’s design. We often treat borders as purely political inventions,  human constructs we can reshape however we like. But Scripture tells a different story.

After the tower of Babel in Genesis 11, God scattered humanity and established distinct peoples. It wasn’t a punishment that He later regretted. It was a purposeful arrangement. In Acts 17:26, Paul makes an astonishing statement to the Athenians: God ‘has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.’ Read that slowly. God determined the boundaries.

This doesn’t mean every border drawn in history is morally perfect. It doesn’t mean borders can never change. What it does mean is that the concept of national sovereignty,  the idea that a people occupy a particular land and govern themselves, isn’t a human invention to be dismissed. It’s rooted in the order God built into creation.

Government Is a Ministry, Not a Menace

Building on that foundation, Romans 13:1–4 gives us the theological scaffolding for understanding why governments have both the right and the responsibility to regulate who enters their borders. Paul writes that ‘there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.’ Government isn’t a necessary evil. It’s described as ‘God’s minister’, specifically, a minister appointed to restrain evil and protect the good.

Think with me for a moment about what that means practically. A government that cannot control its own borders cannot fulfill its God-given mandate to protect its people. The ability to say ‘who may enter and under what conditions’ is not optional for a government seeking to do its job well. It is essential.

We should be careful not to fall into a false spirituality here, the kind that treats any form of restriction as unkind, any enforcement as unloving. That is sentiment, not Scripture. Proverbs 28:4 warns that ‘those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them.’ Lawfulness is not a cold, bureaucratic virtue. It’s a biblical one.

Borders Are Not Bigotry

I want to say this plainly, because it needs to be said: supporting the enforcement of immigration law is not inherently racist, xenophobic, or anti-immigrant. A nation that enforces its borders is doing exactly what God designed governing authorities to do. That doesn’t settle every policy debate. It doesn’t mean every enforcement action is carried out justly or humanely. But it does mean that Christians can affirm the legitimacy of national sovereignty without embarrassment.

In the next article, we’ll discuss the dignity of the immigrant and see that Scripture holds both truths simultaneously. God establishes borders, and God commands compassion. These are not in competition. They’re held together in a biblical mind.

But we have to start here. If we don’t understand why God ordered the world into nations in the first place, we’ll have no stable footing for the harder questions to come.

Reflection & Application

How does knowing that God ordained the concept of national boundaries change the way you think about immigration debates? 

Does it surprise you that Scripture speaks to this? 

Take a few minutes this week to read Romans 13:1–7 in full, considering what it means for both citizens and governing authorities. 

If this series has been helpful, share it with someone in your church who’s wrestling with these questions. We’re thinking through this together.