Lawful Authority

John 2: 13-25 & Matthew 26: 57-66

The Reformer's Fire
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Exposition by Max A Forsythe

Question 78:
What is forbidden in the ninth commandment?
Answer 78:
The ninth commandment forbiddeth whatsoever is prejudicial to truth, or injurious to our own or our neighbor's good name.

 

Several times in my teaching career I have been forced to participate in an educational game based on a lifeboat scenario where all the participants are supposedly sharing in the decisions necessary for survival. Well does this game illustrate the bankrupt nature of contemporary education whereby wisdom is assumed to reside in the uneducated minds of any random social grouping. Whole courses on communications are constructed on this faulty premise and the rightful place of lawful authority and intelligent gathering of specific information which leads to knowledge is cast off in favor of group dynamics and absolute total equity without regard for experience or knowledge.

Always ignored in any lifeboat scenario are the laws of the sea and nations which still uphold the traditional authority of the ship captain and his appointed nautical experts amongst the crew. We might even make a legal case that there is an ordering of authority based upon age, specific knowledge and experiential ranking - where even gifts of common sense and character have more than passing importance. By that I mean - in such a lifeboat scenario, even if a ship's officer were absent, any person with seafaring experience or even a minimal military rank would be the logical person for assuming lawful authority over the situation at hand. We can go further than that in recognizing the natural gifts of leadership given by the Creator to some, but not all of the humans He has created.

This perception is very much at odds with the authority of ignorance preached and practiced widely in the public sector in our decade. In fact, most of the psychological testing done for decades would keep knowledgeable people from using their hard won knowledge in any public career where the psycho babble crowd has a minimal amount of influence.

Certainly, as our two Gospel passages show us, we must always be careful in our appraisal of who has biblical authority to lead and teach us. The article on "authority" in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia does talk about an internal and external understanding of authority. External Authority is by definition: "produced and authorized by 'custom, education, public opinion, the contagious convictions of countrymen, family, party or church'". Internal Authority is by definition: "the mere resort to testimony for information beyond our province does not fill the meaning of 'authority'; which we never acknowledge till that which speaks to us from another and a higher strikes home and wakes the echoes in ourselves ...

By this differentiation we may comprehend that the "lawful authorities" of Christ's day in Jerusalem were very very far from the truth in their understanding of just who Jesus was. We also know that Jesus called His own men to be Apostles, Teachers and Preachers to replace the reprobate leaders of the Old Covenant Community who refused to recognize their own Messiah. As we consider the application of truth and falsehood in relation to our Catechism Question today, we would do well to understand that all authority is derived from the truth that is in Christ and revealed by the Father through the Spirit.

Yes, all authority is externally centered in the Lordship of Jesus Christ so that we might be encouraged to make every thought and deed captive to the Word of God. But, at bottom authority is also internally applied by and through the Holy Spirit so that we may accept the revealed things of our Creator God. It is this twofold application and understanding of truth with which we are expected to avoid prejudice. This means that where any authoritative leaders are concerned - there must be a respectable conformity in showing the gifts present in their lives and actions as they reflect the greater glory of their Father in heaven through their daily walk and witness.

In-so-far as followers go, there must be a continual evaluation of the truthful dedication of those to whom they owe biblical and social obedience. Are your leaders under a higher authority which compels you to place yourselves under their stewardship of that higher authority.

Certainly we may make a spiritual and material differentiation here based upon the ordering of the two tablets and two great commandments of the Revealed Law. Traditionally this was the approach to understanding the study of history and government. To grasp this civilization model, we have to learn to step outside ourselves and our contemporary experience to appreciate the traditional beauty of the natural or moral law. Succinctly the Judeo-Christian ethic is summed up in this passage from the historic figure - Jesus Christ: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:37-39 NKJV

Since we may understand that the first commandment mentioned is a summary of the first four Mosaic commandments which apply specifically to the people of God and their relationship to Him. Thus, ministers and all religious teachers must submit to the instruction and leading of the first four commandments which comprises the first tablet of law. Otherwise they are not fit to lead within Christ's Church. Since only a fundamentalist theocracy would seek to publicly enforce the voluntary love and awe demanded from the first tablet, we have to be very careful in our maintenance of religious freedom. Unfortunately today, any peoples of faith are subject to suspicion and subtle persecution by an established anti-religious coalition that believes the First Amendment enshrines "freedom from religion" as a basic condition within the public square.

It was Theodore Roosevelt who highlights our second point when he said: "No man who is corrupt, no man who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty by the community." He went further in his urging "that the multitude of men who break the moral law ... are not to be justified because they keep out of the clutches of the human law." In the context of the his article (first printed in 1900) in World magazine last week, we may understand that national and state executives, legislators and judges ought to submit to the rules of the civilized moral law which is revealed in the second tablet of the Mosaic Law.

This second great commandment defined by Jesus Chris,t summarizes the last six commandments which relate and apply to the relationships between all of mankind in every age and place. A civilized state is one which incorporates and enforces a majority of those "secondary" Mosaic principles into its legal code. Historically, we may speak of various tribes and kingdoms who have managed in the course of time to uphold and enforce those same principles understood rather widely across the planet. "Family values", some would call them -- "a means for social stability" to others, but the principle concepts are the same, whether we know them from the natural law or the revealed law! Western Civilization is derived directly over the course of several centuries from the experience of the Romans, Greeks and Hebrews who all had at one time or another a profound respect for rule by law!

It is our relationship to the laws of nature and nature's God that defines our place in the ordering of society and church. This great principle of legal authority may be summarized in the ordering of two Latin Words: "Rex Lex" or "Lex Rex" . "Rex" is the Latin word for King and "Lex" is for law. Thus, when we say "Rex Lex" we are saying that the "King is Law". Certainly within the revelation of truth contained in scripture - that phrase describes our God and King. However, no mortal human should ever be allowed to take God's prerogatives to himself or herself and proclaim or act as if they are above the law! This is what the Reformers battled against during the Reformation, first against the Papacy and then against their magistrates.

The right attitude to the law is summarized in the phrase "Lex Rex" which means that the "Law is King" and every man, woman and child is expected to order their lives accordingly. May we be so imbued by the revealed instructional code provided for us by King Jesus in the Old and New Testaments so that truthfully we may reflect our love of Christ in the ordering of our lives and in our submission to lawful leaders who must be held accountable to God's eternal truths.

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