Systematic Theology - Authority

Living Under Authority

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Genre: Speech

Lesson: 5 of 19

Track: #05

Year:

Dictation Name: 05 Living Under Authority

[Rushdoony] Let us Worship God. Our help is in the name of the Lord Who made heaven and earth, oh come let us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God Thy dominion extends to heaven and earth and all things therein and we Thy people come into Thy presence to give Thee Thy due praise. Give us ever joyful and grateful hearts that we live, move, and have our being in Thee; that Thou art He who didst make heaven and earth and hast ordained all things for Thy glory and for their fulfillment in Thee. Give us grace to walk in terms of Thy holy purpose, to rejoice in Thy grace and to trust in all Thy tomorrow’s, in Jesus name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is from Colossians the first chapter. Beginning with verse twelve and continuing through verse twenty-three. Our subject Living under authority, living under authority Colossians one twelve through twenty-three.

12 Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:

13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:

14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

19 For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell;

20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled

22 In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

23 If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven; whereof I Paul am made a minister;

Our subject is living under authority and our particular concern is the thirteenth verse of Colossians one. It is important for us to know the nature of authority. To know what constitutes true authority and false authority. Most people have a preference through a superficial solution which will make life easier. Hence they avoid the essential question of authority. Moreover our age has a penchant for seeing alternatives in terms of ridiculously obvious ones. We are told for example by some, and I hear it regularly, that the federal government is a legitimate God created authority, and therefore we have a duty of obedience. True, but what are the limits of it? That’s the question. Where does it begin and end? Moreover we must say further that neither republicans nor democrats can command obedience as though they were the state. The better question would be, the better alternative is “does the federal government always and in all things have a legitimate authority over us?” And this is the question that our day in particular needs to ask.

To give an idea of the kind of abuse of texts in the Bible that deal with authority there is the favorite text with many husbands, Ephesians 5:22 & 23

22 Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

23 For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.

Now I submit from very unhappy experience that many men are in the church and are nominally Christians because they like such verses. It’s a good way of keeping the woman in line. After all she goes to church and takes it seriously, then she feels a duty of obedience. This gives such nominal hypocritical Christian’s security in there waywardness and freedom in what they do. But more than a century ago Charles Hodge in commenting on this text made it clear what it means, and I quote “She is to be subject in everything. That is the subjection is not limited to any one sphere or department of the social life, but extends to all. The wife is not subject as to some things and independent as to others but she is subject as to all. This of course does not mean that the authority of the husband is unlimited. It teaches its extent, not its degree. It extends over all departments but is limited in all; first by the nature of the relation, and secondly by the higher authority of God. No superior whether master, parent, husband, or magistrate can make it obligatory on us either to do what God forbids or not to do what God commands. So long as our allegiance to God is preserved an obedience to man is made a part of our obedience to Him, we retain our liberty and our integrity.” In other words as Hodge said, all authority under God is conditional, and no authority can long exist apart from Him.

Now this raises some obvious questions, what authority does a Godless or pagan state have over us? At times in the past popes dissolved the authority of subjects. The New Testament term for legitimate authority or power, because it means both, is exousia. It is normally reserved, that word exousia, authority, for Godly authority. But we have two uses of the word which depart from this. Satan is declared by scripture to have authority under God and by God’s permission. In Luke 22:52 our Lord says that Satan has been given power, authority, to crucify Christ. Now it is this word which appears in Colossians 1:13, because what Paul says is the Father has delivered us from the power, the legitimate authority, of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. In other words, what we are plainly told here is that we were under legitimate authority when were under Satan. Now we are under the legitimate authority of Jesus Christ because we have been transferred from the one realm to the other by the atonement of Jesus Christ. Our sin bearer Christ has delivered us thus from one authority to another, we are now separated from Satan’s authority.

Well what if the state is godless and a band of robbers, as Augustine said, a Mafia? Because Augustine made it clear that every civil government that is not under God is no more than a mafia. The medieval era in terms of this vindicated at times tyrannicide. However I think historians tend to forget of the medieval scholars who did not agree with tyrannicide. Paul says “let every man abide in the same calling where-in he was called” in first Corinthians 7:20 and again in verse 23 “ye are bought with a price, be not ye the servants of men.” As I’ve said more than once our way according to scripture is regeneration, not revolution.

Now let’s shift our emphasis to the non-civil realm, the church. When does the church’s legitimate authority cease? Can we say that a church which denies the atonement and the incarnation, and the virgin birth, and affirms abortion and homosexuality, and euthanasia, is a true church? In every community we have buildings and groups that call themselves churches that are marked by such evils. Not too long ago a catholic friend told me that on a recent trip to one city he turned to the yellow pages Sunday morning to see where he could go to church, and he found listings. Catholic churches - conservative, and then another listing, Catholic churches – liberal. I do know that in that very same city where he found such listings I had an hour and a half or a two hour debate on a radio talk show with a Catholic doctor who favored abortion and euthanasia.

But let’s carry the argument a step further. There are many churches which claim to believe the Bible from cover to cover but are dead churches. When I say dead I mean dead in the site of God, because they will have very often a large crowd, a beautiful choir, all kinds of activities every day of the week. But in a Christian sense they are dead. I am regularly told by members of these churches that neither the pastor, nor the board of deacons, or the session, nor the consistory our whatever the governing body may be, will not allow any reference to abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, communism, or anything else that they term “controversial.” Sometimes the people who tell me this will add “I happen to know that my pastor is against those things, but he wouldn’t dare open his mouth.” Are such churches alive?

In some churches it’s considered bad taste to refer to sexual sins. In fact I know a pastor who lost his pulpit for bringing up the subject; or to cite the Ten Commandments. Such churches what Christ only as their savior, not as their Lord, and such a separation is false. Let us remember that in the parable of the last judgment our Lord is dealing not with the world at large in that parable, but with church members who presented themselves as belonging to Christ, as members of Him. And no doubt they all believed they were good Christian because they could repeat the creed and went to church regularly, but He says “I never knew you.” Why? Because your faith was without works, it was dead. I was sick, naked, poor, in prison, and you did not visit me. It is interesting that so many churches will stress the love of Jesus, very real. But go through and list in separate columns all the texts in which our Lord speaks about love and all the texts in which He speaks with judgment; the text in which our Lord speaks of the sins of men far outweigh the texts which speak of love. After all man is a sinner, and he does need to have his sins pointed out, and our Lord does it over and over again.

Now Paul declares in the 23rd verse of Colossians one that this gospel of salvation has been preached to every creature which is under heaven, to all creation. Lightfoot said, and I quote “the statement is given in the broadest form. All creation animate and inanimate being included as in Revelation 5:13” It is interesting by the way that Bishop Lightfoot sees this statement all the same as hyperbole, but we cannot limit the Bible to our ability to understand it. Now Paul, in verses 19-32 of this chapter of Colossians goes on to say that this gospel has been preached widely, why? To present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight, God is working to reclaim the whole creation, and we are saved to fulfill God’s purposes. In first Timothy 2:4 Paul says that God’s purpose concerning salvation is that all men in their salvation might attain the knowledge of the truth. The object of God’s purpose is salvation, that we might know the truth. But the word for knowing the truth is epignosis, participating in. It is not nearly abstract knowledge, it is knowledge that you make a part of your life, and you live.

Now this appears in Revelation two and three in our Lord’s letters to the seven churches, because what He tells these churches can be summed up best in what He tells the Laocedian church, he does not say “your doctrine is false.” What he does say is that they are neither hot nor cold and therefore He will spew them out of His mouth. He does not rebuke any of the churches for being anything other than failing to live up to their knowledge. They are sitting back; they’re majoring in evil studying the works of Satan. Or they’re exploring this or that offbeat idea, but none of them are essentially false in the faith, they are false in their day-by-day living; and so unless they change they will be no more a church. Now the Lord speaks in all seven instances as the legitimate source of authority in the church, and there can be no apostolic foundation apart from Him. No church is a true church nor does it have a Godly authority apart from Him. The Lord is the legitimate source of authority in all the churches.

Moreover, and we’re wandering perhaps but we’re bringing in all the considerations of living under authority. The doctrine of the glory of God is essential to the concept of authority. The root meaning of Glory is heaviness, weight. So when the scripture speaks of the glory of God it speaks of it as the center of creation, the ultimate point of gravity or authority. Now in Ezekiel ten we have a vision of the temple, and Ezekiel says the glory of God left the temple and went to Babylon where some of the initial captives were. Moreover Jeremiah tells us that people were trusting in the temple as the source of their authority, because God’s temple was there and it had a surface resemblance to truth. So Jeremiah says in Jeremiah 7:4-11

“4 Trust ye not in lying words, saying, the temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are these.

5 For if ye thoroughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thoroughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor;

6 If ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your hurt:

7 Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, forever and ever.

8 Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit.

9 Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not;

10 And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are delivered to do all these abominations?

11 Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord.”

Now they were under a curse because while they were formally correct perhaps they had turned away from God in their practice. We can begin now with these things in mind to draw some conclusions concerning authority. The whole world is always under authority, no man can escape living under authority. The man who claims he is not living under authority is deluding himself. But the question is, whose authority, Satan’s or God’s? Our Lord makes clear that God has given Satan some authority, authority over those who refuse to be under God’s authority. We are delivered from Satan’s authority by the atonement. If we are unfaithful to the Lord, the glory of God leaves God’s ostensible people because they are lukewarm, and they are handed over to Satan. This is not all, even the Godly when erring, when stubborn, proud, or self-willed can be briefly given over to the authority of Satan.

Our Lord obviously loved Simon Peter, yet He tells him “Simon, Simon behold Satan hath desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat. But I prayed for thee, that Thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted strengthen Thy brethren.” Now we cannot say that Peter was not yet converted because the point here, the use of the word converted means that you come back to a true perspective because our Lord says “I’m praying that your faith does not fail.” He was obviously a man of faith, a converted man. But he was given over to Satan’s authority legitimately because he had gotten out of line; he was trusting in his power and the strength of his character and unwilling to see his weaknesses. We cannot escape authority. We are either under the Lord’s or Satan’s authority. The world of our day is very much under authority, but under the wrong kind.

Formal correctness has its place, but not as a substitute for faithfulness. The great statement by Micah in Micah six verses six through eight “Wherefore shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God. Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed me, oh man, what is good. And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Thy God.” Notice what it is that Micah caricatures, formal correctness. Sacrifices of rams and lambs, and oil, were legitimate. But a desire for formal correctness always overdoes everything so he exaggerates it with thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil.

Those who have a formal correctness only are very much given to over-doing their formal correctness, their formality, because they have nothing of substance behind it. Then Micah caricatures it further. Since it is their doing, their formality let them sacrifice their children; nothing they do will please God. And he says this formalism is what marks Molech worship, it is an externalism and nothing more. He has showed thee oh man what is good. “And what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.”

How do we obey authority? Teilhard has written “he who has the keys has authority.” But all to many, Protestant and Catholic alike, begin with a conclusion and then reason backwards; and this is wrong. Formal correctness is not enough, baptism can be preformed properly. For example, infant baptism; it can be done according to the Trinitarian formula. It can be done in a church that has all the marks of a true church, but what if it is not accompanied in a belief in Christian nurture, in Christian education, where all the things in the baptismal vow are disregarded. What meaning does baptism then have in that church, or communion? Now in the second volume of institutes I dealt with the relationship; one known from Old Testament times between communion and community. How can there be true communion where there is no community?

You see the Christian is not the end of the line for grace, but a generating point for action. To whom much is given of him much is expected, and the life of application is not a life of delegation. So religiosity cannot be substitute for faithfulness. The marks of a true church can mark many a sleeping or dead church. For that matter, what are the marks of a true state? The USA, the USSR, Switzerland, the Vatican, San Marino, Mexico, Libya, Lichtenstein, Canada, Red China, Cuba, and others all call themselves true states, which is a true state? According to the dictionary definition they all are. According to a formal definition, they all are. The dictionary defines a man as a human being or an adult male of the human species, but it doesn’t say that there is a difference between a dead man and a living man. Definitions don’t cover that fact.

The marks of a valid church are good and necessary marks, but does a dead church have any authority? For that matter can a dead and buried husband control a living wife legitimately? Or a dead not-yet married husband, can he control his wife legitimately? Our Lord says “by your fruits shall ye know them.” More is meant by good fruits then being merely alive and breathing. Satan has God given authority, when we are indifferent to God’s authority, when we do not bear fruit under God we pass under Satan’s authority. Our Lord says in John 15 verse 1 and 2, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.”

The cast away branch may be formally correct, but it bears no fruit. We cannot define our faith in terms of our neighbor or our church in terms of another church as did the Pharisee praying in the temple “I thank Thee God that I am not like unto these.” We cannot have a humanistic definition; our standard must be the Lord’s. And he requires a living faith and the fruits of faith. Thus our fruits, our works will clearly manifest the authority in which we live and move and have our being. We are always under authority, but whose authority? Let us pray.

Oh Lord our God Thou hast translated us from the authorities of the powers of darkness to the authority of Thy Son our Savior, Jesus Christ. Make us ever zealous in His service, ever fruitful unto Him, that we may not be transferred as individuals, as churches, and as nations, back to the authority of darkness. In Jesus Name, amen.

Are there any questions about our lesson?

No questions? Well let us bow our heads now in prayer.

And now go in peace God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always, amen.