Articles

Law, Order, and the Immigrant: What Scripture Actually Says

Article 2 of 7 | Welcoming the Stranger, Upholding the Law

by Dr Timothy Mann

In the last article, we established that God himself ordained nations and their borders. That’s the foundation. Now we need to build on it, because once you accept that national sovereignty is biblically grounded, a very practical question follows: what does the law have to do with it?

Some Christians feel uncomfortable saying that illegal immigration is a moral issue. It sounds harsh. It sounds political. But I want to suggest that this discomfort, however understandable, actually reflects a misunderstanding of what Scripture teaches about law itself.

Obedience to Governing Authorities Is an Act of Worship

Romans 13:1 couldn’t be more direct: ‘Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.’ This isn’t a grudging concession. It’s a command rooted in God’s character. When we honor legitimate authority, we’re honoring the One who appointed it.

Now, there are limits to this. Peter and the apostles famously said they must obey God rather than men when human authorities commanded sin (Acts 5:29). That’s real. But that exception does not devour the rule. The general posture of the Christian life is submission to lawful authority, not because governments are perfect, but because God has ordered the world through them.

What follows from this? If a nation establishes a legal process for immigration, entering outside that process violates civil law, and Romans 13 calls us to take that seriously. Compassion doesn’t erase that. Grace doesn’t dissolve it. The immigrant remains a person of profound dignity (more on that in our next article), and the law remains the law.

Lawful Immigration Reflects a Government Doing Its Job

I think Christians sometimes treat immigration law as though it’s inherently suspect, as if the very idea of requiring people to enter legally is already a kind of injustice. But lawful immigration processes are, in fact, an expression of a government fulfilling its God-given mandate. They reflect order. They reflect accountability. They are, in the broadest sense, an act of governing stewardship.

Proverbs 28:4 gives us a striking diagnostic tool: ‘Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them.’ There’s a moral weight to lawfulness that we can’t simply hand-wave away when it becomes inconvenient. A Christian commitment to justice must include a commitment to the law, including immigration law.

None of this is to say that every immigration law is perfectly crafted or that no reforms are needed. Those are legitimate policy conversations. But the existence of law, and the expectation that it be honored, is not the problem. It’s part of the solution.

Compassion and Law Are Not Enemies

Here’s where I want to push back against a false dichotomy that dominates this conversation. We are constantly told that we have to choose: either you care about immigrants, or you care about the law. Either you’re compassionate, or you’re for enforcement. That framing is not biblical. It’s not even coherent.

In the Old Testament, Israel had a robust set of laws for how foreigners were to be treated, with genuine dignity and care. And those same foreigners were expected to live under Israel’s laws (Numbers 15:15–16). Compassion and accountability coexisted. Mercy and order weren’t enemies; they were partners in a just and functioning society.

We’re going to spend our next article on the dignity of the immigrant, and I don’t want to shortchange it, because it’s vital. But let me plant this seed here: the goal is not to pit law against love. The goal is to hold them together, the way Scripture does, without allowing sentiment to dissolve one or harshness to destroy the other.

Christians can, and must, do both.

Reflection & Application

Do you tend to lean more toward ‘law first’ or ‘compassion first’ in your gut reaction to immigration discussions? 

Ask yourself honestly: “Does either tendency for law or compassion cause you to downplay part of what Scripture teaches? 

This week, read Romans 13:1–7 alongside Leviticus 19:33–34. 

Notice that both passages exist in the same Bible, written by the same God. The tension you feel is real, and it’s meant to keep us humble. Bring both to the Lord in prayer this week.