Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
1 Peter 2:16-17
The Christian is to be both the most free and most constrained of all persons, for both freedom and constraint are the product of love.
First, love frees. One who is deeply loved (and is deeply aware of the fact) is not bound by introspection, nor insecurity, nor fear of failure, nor the need to produce. One who is loved is totally freed from oneself, from pride and despair. Thus, love casts out all fear and produces joy that is inalienable. Love frees.
But second, love constrains. Not by manipulation nor threat, but love constrains instead by the transformations of our affections. That is, when we are loved deeply, and know it, we turn towards the source of that love with release and malleability. Imagine the flower that bends to follow the sun across the sky, or the wife who curls into the arms of her husband. Love transforms us, giving us new desires and longings (affections), and so constrains us from whence we once looked for joy and life and purpose (namely, ourselves) unto Christ, the bearer and securer of love to us.
Peter is fairly clear. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, honor the emperor. This, following the mandate to live freely. How can rule-following exist within the ultimate reign of freedom?
By challenging the very premise of the question. Because freedom does not reign, nor do rules. Instead, love reigns, and both our freedom and our desire to respect those around and over us are merely an outflow of that love.
When are loved, we are freed. The more full the love, the more full our freedom within it. Yet love also draws us in and molds us into its own character over time. If it does not change us towards love in the end (understanding that the outward change is impossible to measure with certainty, and often is proportional to how much of our freedom in Christ's love we understand and therefore how much healing from past wounds we have undergone), we have likely not met love at all- at least not as love.
In true love we are freed to be ourselves, as we were created to be. But freed to be ourselves as created and redeemed by God. In Him we find that our nature is not self-serving, nor rebellious, but submitted to and serving, as Christ submitted to the Father and served us, His bride. Jesus Himself, Son of God, suffered injustice and insult because of His great love for us. How much more can we submit to and serve authority, even unto injustice, having been loved so sacrificially?
If we see love as license, we abuse it. If we see love as control, we reject it. Yet love seen as love is different, producing both freedom and constraint- and such is the love of God.
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Addendum:
Obviously there are times in which rules must be broken. Should authorities require rebellion against God, we can and must reject its rules. Jesus did, by healing on the Sabbath. The disciples did, by preaching after being instructed to preach no longer. Even calling Jesus Lord was seen as treason: Caesar was Lord, and to call Jesus such was thought rebellious. Yet Jesus paid the temple tax, and 'gave to Caesar what is Caesar's'. From this we glean that even poor leadership is to be honored, according to Jesus's example, so long as it does not cause us to sin. For another example, study David, Saul, and Absalom, and their relationships with each other.
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