Understanding authority, as God wants us to understand it, requires a paradigm shift in thought. As we have moved through life, life teaches us certain lessons. It may teach us that money is something to be coveted and chased after. It also may teach us that selfish ambition is a good thing, it gets you where you ant to go, and will eventually take you to a place of satisfaction in your life. But the world teaches us certain lessons, and those lessons aren’t always in alignment with how God wants us to think.
Authority is a good example of this. We often view authority with a sort of skepticism, or contempt, or are outwardly opposed to it. It is built into our system, based on our life experience, and we either embrace or grow in opposition to it.
God has a desire for us to look at Authority in the fashion that He has designed it for. Both in understanding God’s ultimate authority and learning how to follow human authority. Both are designed by God for us to learn and understand Him better.
But in order to understand authority we first have to look at truth itself. Is there a real truth or is truth subjective? Then, what is God’s authority? What does that word sovereignty mean? So, to begin this lesson, we have to look at three different aspects of God’s word in order to understand authority. We will look at these three subjects first:
Objective vs. Subjective Truth
The Word of God
God’s Sovereignty
Objective vs. Subjective Truth
What is objective truth and why does it matter? Objective truth is something that can be measured against reality. It is independent of feelings or bias. In other words, it is factual. You can make a decided statement about it and check it against fact to arrive at a factual conclusion.
Objective Truth
If I say St. Mark’s church stands on the corner of 12th street and Main in downtown Vancouver, Washington, you should be able to go to that intersection and check to see if it is true. If you go there and in fact see St. Mark’s church on that intersection, then you can determine that I have made a factual statement. It is something that you checked against reality ad verified its truth. This is Objective truth. The church does stand there. Further, my feelings about St. Mark’s church wasn’t revealed int he statement. My objective statement, or truth, had nothing to do with my feelings for the church itself.
Why is this important? When we are looking a truth as a whole, we must first determine that there is a truth. Some things are irrefutably true, based on how we can objectively measure it. This is important on the climb to understand the truth of scripture. Can we measure it? Do we believe it is not a truth, but the truth?
Subjective Truth
Subjective truth cannot be measured against reality. It is dependent of feelings or bias. In other words, subjective truth is opinion.
If I say St. Mark’s church is on the corner of 12th street and Main, that is an objective statement. You can drive to St. Mark’s and see it for yourself. But if I say that St. Mark’s is the best church in Vancouver Washington, is that objective? Can it be measured as truth?
This is a subjective statement. It cannot be measured through reality and is based upon my feelings. If we can’t measure it against reality, then it is an opinion. St. Mark’s could be a great church, but only through the scope of your experience.
The reason why this is important is because we often lose sight of truth. Opinion begins to drive our actions and we don’t often see the truth any longer. This can also the way we approach scripture. If we look for the items which give us a good feeling and ignore the ones that don’t, we could very well be driven by our subjective thinking and not by our objective mind.
This is important because there are things in scripture we may not agree with. We may want to look past items in God’s word that we don’t like, that conflict with our lifestyle or choices. So we begin to look at God’s word with a subjective mindset. We begin to cherry pick God’s word and twist it around for our own purposes.
The Word
It comes down to this initial question: do you believe the bible? Then this one: Do we trust the word as truth? And, is the bible our truth or the truth?
When trying to get at the heart of what we believe or choose to believe, we must understand that often we have a verbal response, but the life response may not be in-tune with it. Christians often jump to “of course I believe the bible” but that Christian’s life may not reflect it. As a Christian, we must come to the conclusion that we believe the bible as God’s objective truth. Not “a” truth in a sea of many truths, but God’s word that is powerful and trustworthy in our life. But how do we get there?
We cannot measure the word through emotion. Emotion is a very unstable way to measure anything in life. It mainly tells us that something feels good to us so it has value. How many times in your life have you made an impulse purchase? When in that store, looking at that big screen TV or brand new kitchen appliance you thought, deep down that this could serve a multitude of purposes. Perhaps in some ways it ultimately did. But how many times, after that purchase, do you have buyer’s remorse?
Emotion gets us into trouble. When we gauge our assessment of truth on our emotion, or how something makes us feel, we get into trouble. Not everything that makes us feel good is good for us, and not everything that makes us feel bad is bad for us. In fact, many of the things that make us feel bad teach us about life, which is for the ultimate good. So we can’t simply gauge truth on our emotions. That is a subjective viewpoint.
We cannot measure through opinion. Opinion is the definition of subjective truth. Opinion is simply our assessment of what is true based on our leanings, desires and needs. For example, we can agree with the President or not, but much of the time the way we agree or disagree depends on the way we view the decisions through political descriptors. If we are Republican and the President is Democrat, then it is far more likely that we will not agree with much of what the President chooses to promote. But are these grievances based on truth, or are they floating in the river of opinion? Are our opinions based on any sort of truth? Opinions often act as reactants to our own buried theologies. We birth opinion into reality based on what our deep-down beliefs are and use opinion to verify what we already believe. For example, if we hate Chinese food, we will often seek out a path verify that opinion. We will go to websites that shoulder the same opinion, we’ll find Chinese food flubs and critics, we’ll discover ways to discredit it’s nutritional value, all in an effort to verify that Chinese food is bad. But is it really? Is that based on any real truth? Opinions are a subjective viewpoint.
We must measure truth in an intellectual and spiritual space. Is the bible true and do we believe it’s true? If the bible is objective truth, then we need to see if the bible can be measured as so. So let’s take a look at some of the historical truth of scripture:
It was was written over approximately 1550 years
It was written by 40 different writers
It was written in a wide range of setting (deserts, prisons, royal courts, etc.)
It was written by a wide-range of authors (kings, servants, apostles, prophets, etc.)
Was written in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek)
Has one harmonious message
Is being proven to be accurate throughout human history
All of these items are objective truth. You can verify any of these through a multitude of sources. They are not statements of opinion but of measurable fact.
There is more evidence:
Manuscript Evidence: Manuscript evidence dating back to nearly the same time as Christ. The manuscript’s have been uniquely accurate through history
Historical Evidence: Unearthing of Archeological items that verify the biblical account.
Inspirational Evidence: Prophetic evidence that shows God’s miracles and predictions
Daniel’s prophecies about future kings and rulers
Old Testament prophecies concerning Christ
Isaiah predicting the reign of Cyrus (by name)
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of nations
All of these items fall under the category of Objective Truth.
But beyond the facts of scripture, those who have experiences Jesus’ saving grace reinforce the truth of scripture. This intangible evidence (your own story of grace) added to the tangible (factual) basis of God’s word creates an interesting equation: Spiritual + Intellectual =An understanding of the truth.
CONCLUSION 1: The Bible is objective truth.
So if the bible is objective truth and we, as Christians, must believe it to be the word of God, then we must go one step further: do we believe all of the bible? It is easy for us to say we believe, and especially for us to believe in the parts we agree with (see opinion sneaking in there again?). But if in fact the bible is the word of God, sent down from God to be written through inspired men, then we must regard the whole word as God’s decree.
If the bible is the word of God, then we must submit to God’s truth.
If God’s word is truth, then we must proclaim all of it as truth.
We can’t pick and choose what we want to believe.
We must submit to it, even if we may not agree with it.
Do we always agree with everything our boss asks of us? Some of it may seem trivial or incorrect, but we generally do as our boss says, even though we may not agree with the premise. It is the same way with God. Do we agree with everything He does, and furthermore, in the way He does it? I believe an honest answer is “no,” and the reason why is because we don’t see the entire picture of what God is planning to do. We get a glimpse and often that glimpse may not be satisfactory, so we oppose or refuse it.
We can do this with scripture too. Have you ever read something in scripture that you don’t agree with? Why don’t you agree with it? First, if we are doing our job as a Christian, we have to understand that the word of God is our instruction manual, the way we get through life in the best way possible. Like a car’s owner manual, if something isn’t working quite right in the car the owner can go to the manual and get a glimpse of how the car was built and what the car demands for best performance. If the manual says that you must change the oil once every 3 month, we may not like that, but if we want the car to run efficiently, it is our duty.
Getting back to the bible, there are things contained in God’s word that we don’t agree with. Do we agree with God when he sentences races of people to death? What about poor old Uzzah, who was immediately killed for trying to steady the Ark of the Covenant. Or that poor fellow who gathered wood on the Sabbath and was stones to death for it. The list continues. We don’r always agree with God’s word and the way He does things, but our job isn’t to oppose it. It is to submit to it. Even to the parts that we may not presently agree with. Our subjective truth (opinion) gets in the way and we attempt to twist the truth into our own framework instead of realizing that there is an objective truth to be submitted to. It comes down to this: Do we trust the word as complete?
CONCLUSION 2: We must submit to all of God’s word.
If we don’t believe the word as truth and don’t submit to that truth, then biblical authority won’t make much sense
Because biblical authority is built on submission
Submission is about trust
Trust is faith
Faith is the hope in what is not seen
Faith and trust begin with submission to the truth
God’s Sovereignty
So what we’ve learned so far is this:
The bible is the objective truth
We must submit to all of God’s word
The next question we must ask is this: Do we believe God is in charge?
It sounds like a silly question but it is an important one. Think about the trials in your life. Do you tend to operate on your own strength? Do you even involve God in your choices? But an even more elemental question is this: do you believe God to be Providential or Coincidental?
A Providential God is one who is in control of everything. Every beautiful thing like love, creativity, fellowship, along with all the bad too…wars, disease, death. God has His hand in all of these things and is working them all inside a greater plan, one which we don’t understand fully, but only get glimpses of.
A Coincidental God is one who doesn’t have control over anything but reacts when you do something. If you are walking down the street, pick up a rock and decide to throw it at a passing car, a coincidental God is surprised by your actions and must adapt to your choices, much like an RPG (Role Playing Game) video game. He is not in control, but adaptive your actions.
It is important to understand how you view God. Is He is control or waiting for you to make a move. If God is in fact reactionary, then there shouldn’t be a Book of Revelation, there shouldn’t be prophets or prophecies of any kind. As Christians, we first must look at God as the architect, in charge of all. His nature is mysterious, yes, but the bible gives us some indication of who God is and how He operated:
Isaiah 55:8-9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God thinks differently than us. He thinks on a higher plain, one which we cannot understand. For that very reason we must submit to His word, for His word, given to us by Him, helps us to understand the true heart of God, what is important to Him, and how we can grow into understanding what He values.
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
One of the pitfalls we can tumble into is to suggest that if we can’t understand everything about God then it isn’t worth it to live a life of purity. That isn’t true. God wants us to establish a growing relationship with Him in order to further our understanding of who He is. Part of that relationship is trust. Trust is submission. Our understanding will never be fully reconciled here on earth, but when we submit to God, in faith, we will begin to understand Him better.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
God is eternal. He works through time, sometimes long periods of time, in order to bring His mercy, love and justice to fruition. If you remember the story of the people of Judah, after the split of the kingdom a succession of kings ruled about 340 years. The kings of Judah were a mixed batch of sometimes good and benevolent kings, but most struggled with their power, some succumbed to disobeying God, while others sought to renew God with His people. In that long stretch of time we see God’s patience with the people, but we also see a definitive break in the people following God. After Josiah reinstates God to his people, the following succession of kings look to obliterate it. It begins a descent into lawlessness and ends with Nebuchadnezzar looting the temple, destroying it and deporting the Jews to Babylon. We can seen historical narrative, but can be see the spiritual?
Through that long story, we see God inserting himself into each kingship. Some of the kings welcome him in, only to fall later (Asa, Jehosophat, Hezekiah), while others don’t even try. But God is patient with them, until, of course, the line is drawn in the sand and God renders a judgment on them. Even then it is still 50 years before Nebuchadnezzar is used as an implement of justice against Judah.
But the end of the story isn’t Judah’s judgment and deportation. Through another ungodly king (Cyrus) the Jews are allowed back into the Promised Land to rebuild their temple. That s only established after a 70 year waiting period where the jews in Babylon had to come back to God fully.
Do you have a story where God has been patient with you through all of your mistakes, foibles and atrocities, only to welcome you back as His child? The bible is filled with those stories, but so are our lives. It is how God chooses to work, all the while creating an intricate tapestry in a world that ultimately serves his purpose.
Deuteronomy 31:8
The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
God’s intention is not to throw us into the world and watch us like a scientific experiment. The intention is for us to reconnect with Him, for he is protecting and guiding us through this life.
In these four powerful verses we begin to see what God’s intention for us is:
God thinks differently that we do
He is in charge
He is eternal and works for His purposes through time
He knows all and takes care of all
So if God is in our corner, if He is Providential, knows us intimately and wants us to connect with Him, then how does this help us to understand Authority? First, we must understand that the true authority is God and He alone gives authority to the world and nations. This is no better illustrated than in Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream.
Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
In Daniel 2 we have a long story about a dream that King Nebuchadnezzar has. To set the stage, Nebuchadnezzar has raided the temple in Jerusalem, then destroyed it, ruled over Jerusalem for a time before he deports the Jews with “talent” to Babylon. Here, he takes the Jews that he deems useful and goes to work stripping away their Jewish identity. Among these is a man named Daniel, who is an ardent follower of God and a man held in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace.
So the king has a troubling dream one night and calls on his league of paid astrologers to interpret it. But their phoniness comes to the forefront and they are unable to interpret the dream, let alone tell him what the dream was. He wants to kill them all, start over, when Daniel gets wind of the insanity. Instead of killing all these people, Daniel tells the king that he will interpret the dream. He returns to his fellow Jewish friends and prays with them before his big meeting with Nebuchadnezzar.
When Daniel relays the dream back to Nebuchadnezzar, it floors the king because no one else could do that much. Deciphering the dream is just as amazing. Nebuchadnezzar dream of a large statue that is broken up in different sections of fine metals:
The sections are appropriated to different ruling peoples. The gold (head) is Babylon, the silver (chest), is the empire of Persia, the bronze (waist) is attribute to Greece, the iron (legs) to Rome and the clay and iron (feet) to a future ruling power during the end times. The dream also includes a rock from heaven that slams into the statue at the ankle and brings the statue down, once and for all.
God gave Nebuchadnezzar a rare glimpse into how God operates and who is truly authoritative. He gives the king of Babylon a sightline into the future where his mighty kingdom, the mightiest in the known world at this time, is overtaken by another that is more powerful. But the Persians succumb to the Greeks and the Greeks to the Romans. All of these empires, so strong and formidable in their own times, fall due to God’s mechanisms, not their own. God allows the empires to rise and fall, all due to His glorious plan.
And what is His glorious plan? It is seen in the last part of the dream, Daniel 2:44-45:
44 “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. 45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
Kingdoms will rise and fall until God determines when it is time for the end, the final judgment. Just as God decreed a judgment on Judah because they turned away, He will also render judgment on the world, because in the end times, the iron mixed with clay symbolizes a government that is not untied, people in search of answers, and a rock cut out of a mountain - Christ - who slams the world governments into pieces, destroying the world system forever, in favor of a new and united kingdom under Christ.
This is God’s plan, and although we may see all of these former governments, and perhaps our own, as infallible, the message of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream still rings true: God is the ultimate authority over all kingdoms in the world. In that, all human authority falls under the authority of God. God also has a plan and purpose for government.
CONCLUSION 3: God is in charge of all.
Authority
When we address human authority and how we as Christians should view it, we have two sets of primary verses to look at in scripture. The first is Romans 13:1-7 and then 1 Peter 2:11-17.
Romans 13:1-7:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Let’s take it in sections:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
God appoints the authority; We are subject to that authority. Romans is a letter written by Paul. Paul is responsible for the lion’s share of bringing Christianity to the known world. In his frantic ability to share God’s word and build churches throughout Turkey, Greece and Israel, Paul was repeatedly hunted, thrown out of towns, stoned and maligned in various ways. His government did not support him. In fact, the Roman government imprisoned him and would martyr him in about 67 AD. But notice what all writes. We are still subject to the governing authorities. What if we don’t agree? It doesn’t matter. What if the government isn’t doing what we’d like them to do? It doesn’t matter. We are to submit to the government because God has established that government. Remember, God allows kingdoms to rise and fall. He judges accordingly. It isn’t our job to protest and picket and oppose the government. Why?
2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
When we rebel against those in authority, we are rebelling against God. This is a wakeup call for many, because opposing authority is viewed as a God-given right in the United States. But God is counter-culture. What may seem like an infringement of freedom to some is actually a call toward judgment to God. When we rebel against authority, we are rebelling against what God has put in place. We are saying, “what God has put there isn’t right”This is our subjective opinion! We aren’t looking at the truth of scripture, the exact source of objective truth to help us understand God and the world. We’ve traded it for a subjective view.
Paul also states there is a commendation for doing right. A blessing. If we follow God’s plan for authority, even if we don’t like it, there is a blessing in it. Why? Because God had appointed rulers Himself; they are his servants.
Now this is where it gets complicated, because you can look at your leadership and draw some parallels as to who is a good leader and who is not. Isaiah 45:1 will help us here:
“This is what the Lord says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
A hundred years before Cyrus would come to power and allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, Isaiah calls out Cyrus, by name, as one anointed by God to carry this out. Cyrus is the king of the Persians. He is a pagan leader. He isn’t a man of God, yet God has anointed him for His own purpose, to carry out a mission that will allow God’s work to be done.
Even those viewed as bad or ineffective leaders have a role in God’s plan. In that, we must always return to the mission that we have here: to submit to the ruling authorities and put away the grievances we have with them. If we truly believe that “God’s Will” will be done, then we can take heart that everything has a season, good and bad rulers, but all have a place in God’s ultimate plan. The submission we show is an act of respect and conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Paul capitalizes on this concept by bringing it to a realistic place. If you owe something, pay it. Be respectful of the governing authorities. We are to submit to the regulations of our country, and when in another country, submit to the laws of that country as well.
CONCLUSION 4: Submit to God’s Authority.
Peter 2:11-17:
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.
Let’s take it in sections:
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.
Peter urges us to first get right with God. Why? Because if we are unwilling to see God for who He is, then we will most likely be in opposition to Him.
12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Our charge is to live peacefully and by example, so that it affects unbelievers. This is the whole idea behind sharing the Gospel. It isn’t always about sharing what the bible says, but being an example to those around us. Many Christians forget this part. They may believe that being in church is the only way to honor God. But the way we live our life is of extreme importance to the word around us. We can’t affect many people inside a church. But we can affect people by the way they see us, the steadfastness in our faith, and the way we deal with the cultural environment and taboos of our time.
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
Peter says to submit ourselves to the authorities for Lord’s sake. Put aside the squabbles and differences we have with other warring factions in the world and submit for a higher reason. It is the same idea professed in Ephesians 5:21, where Paul discusses that a husband and wife should submit to God first before each other. It is for the Lord’s sake, not our own sake.
Peter also goes down a list of rulers that we should submit to. The idea is this: God has appointed them all and it is our duty to submit accordingly. Why? Because if we cannot understand how to submit to human authority, how are we ever going to know how to submit to God’s authority?
15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.
Peter’s point is this: if we live a good life in submission, it will ultimately silence those around us. It will change others. They will see the life lived and wonder things like: why isn’t this political issue freaking them out? Why aren’t they up in arms about what the President said? They will pause and perhaps make the connection that faith is at play, and supports God’s Will in His plan.
16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.
Our freedom should not lead to evil; our submission should bleed to all areas of our life.
Should we submit to ungodly authority?
We may not like the situation of our government or laws (subjective thinking), but as a Christian we are told to submit to the governing authorities as long as they do not command us to commit evil. There are two verses that articulate it:
Acts 4:15-19
15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges!
Acts 5:27-29
27 The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!
In both of these cases, the apostles were preaching about Christ and the Sanhedrin (the ruling body of the Jewish people) commanded them to stop preaching or they will be punished. The concept is this: if the government is forcing you to do something that completely conflicts with God, the truth of scripture, the objective viewpoint, then you have a right to disobey it. God is the ultimate authority, you will deal with Him ultimately, so understand that when it is time for you to stay up, then stand up!
This does not mean that an element of government that you don’t agree with is cause to throw the entire government out. If that was the case no one would have cause to follow! If the compliance is forced, then there is opportunity to resist.
How are we supposed to act under a
government that we don’t agree with?
To answer that question, let’s look at the biblical examples of Daniel and Nehemiah.
Daniel under Nebuchadnezzar
(Found in Daniel 1-4)
Nebuchadnezzar was a cruel and sadistic leader. Not only did he wreck the Jewish temple and steal all its riches, he was an authoritarian ruler who killed and maimed people at will. In Daniel 3 he erects an obelisk and commands all of Babylon to worship it. If anyone resists, they will be fed into an oven. We see Daniel step up against Nebuchadnezzar while relying on God and his faith in him. Attributes of Daniel:
Daniel did not stop serving the king
Daniel stood up to the king when necessary
Daniel was continually blessed
Daniel served under 5 kings of Babylon and Persia
He didn’t try to escape, protest or oppose the ruler
Because he understood that God was at work
And God eventually changed hearts in Babylon
Daniel was right where God wanted him to be
Nehemiah under Artaxerxes
(Found in Nehemiah 1-12)
Not unlike Nebuchadnezzar, Artaxerxes was also a tyrannical leader. He was a king in Persia and ruled in an authoritarian way that was customary for kings of that time. It was illegal for anyone to be unhappy in the presence of the king. It could mean a beheading if you frowned. Nehemiah, the cupbearer for the king, had a special relationship with Artaxerxes. With prayer and patience, Nehemiah was able to do God’s will through a bad king.
Nehemiah served in the citadel
He went before the king only when God instructed
He did God’s work
He returned to the king to serve
He did all of his work under the authority of the king
He was blessed because he listened to God and submitted to authority
Nehemiah was right where God wanted him to be
You’ll notice that both of these men of God lived under despotic regimes. These leaders were cruel and unpredictable, yet Daniel and Nehemiah both chose to submit to their leaders and laws to carry out their missions for God. Knowing God is in charge is important because it is the first thing we forget when times get tough.
The lesson here is this: you are right where you need to be. Just like Daniel or Nehemiah or any host of biblical or non-biblical characters, we are all thrust into the world with all its problems and chaos to do God’s work in spite of it. Jesus arrived in Bethlehem during a chaotic time of Roman rule, of Herod’s pseudo kingship, a time when false Messiahs roamed and people were killed, raped and taken advantage of. We don’t get a free pass in this world of chaos, but God in His perfect timing has landed you right where he needed to.
You are right where you need to be:
In your physical location
The age you are
With all your skills, passions and gifts
With all your limitations and sin
Under the government in the country you live in
Because God has you right where you need to be
Your job is to submit to God’s purpose
But what about bad leaders? How are we supposed to deal with them?
To understand how we are to deal with bad leaders, we have to understand again how biblical figures did it. Peter and Paul are a good example of this. They lived (and died) under the rule of Nero.
Nero was the fifth emperor of Rome from year zero (Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius came before him). A little about Nero:
Became emperor at age 16
Rose to power by poisoning his father Claudius
Had an incestuous relationship with his mother
Killed his mother (Agrippa)
Began the Christian persecution
Kicked his pregnant wife to death
Married a man and assumed the role as the wife
Married a different man and assumed the role of the husband
Had that man castrated in hopes to turn him into a woman
Declared a public enemy of Rome
Nero wasn’t a great guy, was he? He began the Christian persecution by blaming a fire on them, a fire he set to clear a field for an additional palace. Yet, Peter and Paul both instruct us to “submit to every human authority”.
We don’t live in such a terrible time as Peter and Paul did, but we must understand the deeper issue: If we can’t learn to submit to human authority, then we won’t understand how to submit to God’s authority. Our call isn’t to oppose but to work in the construct of the authority that is placed by God. If we aren’t working in it, then we are opposing it.
But why would God even allow bad leaders to exist? Why wouldn’t He saturate rulers with good hearts and minds into the places of power? First, the people he allows to step into the power that he creates for them all have a choice.
The story of Saul is a good example. In 1 Samuel 8, Israel makes the audacious choice to ask for a king instead of continuing with God’s plan of installing Judges. Their reasoning? They want to be like other nations, a slap in the face of the distinction God wanted Israel to partake in. But God relents, lets them have a king but the parameters are drawn out in 1 Samuel 12:13-15:
Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the Lord has set a king over you. 14 If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God—good! 15 But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your ancestors.
The king had a duty to follow God and his commands. If so, there would be a blessing on the land. If the king followed, and the people followed the king, then all was good. The king had a choice. And from the very beginning Saul is flummoxed by this choice. He leads his people into darkness and sends Israel down a costly road.
Leaders today also need to take this to heart. Currently we see leaders who actively edge away from God and instead listen to the pulse of culture. The position that God gave them is corrupted. Upon corruption these leaders take others down a path to darkness.
But God can still work in this space. If God knows all and controls all, then this is not surprising to God. In fact, it is part of His plan to connect the dots to the second coming of Christ. This is God’s long game, a game so long in some circumstances that a generation, maybe even ten generations, doesn’t see the results of God’s machinations. A good case in point is the following storyline:
2 Kings 24:8-12
8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem. 9 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done.
10 At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it, 11 and Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it. 12 Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him.
In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner.
Nebuchadnezzar invades Jerusalem, destroys temple and carries off the people to Babylon (608 BC)
Jeremiah 29:10
This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
God promises that after 70 years of judgment, the Jews will return to their land 608-539 BC
Ezra 1:1-4
1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:
2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
“‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. 4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’”
Cyrus, moved by God, allows the Jews to return, after 70 years of captivity, to build the temple
539 BC
Daniel 4:36-37
36 At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by God through a series of dreams and challenges (550 BC)
In these passages we see a story of how God moves through time. Nebuchadnezzar destroys Jerusalem. Put yourself in the place of a Jew in Jerusalem at this time. Everything you know is crushed, you are deported to a land you know nothing about, embedded into a culture that is completely different, your culture in many ways wiped away. It would seem like the end of the world.
But God is at work here. First, through Nebuchadnezzar, who unwittingly is a pawn in God’s play. Even though he isn’t Godly, he is doing God’s work in bringing the Jews to judgment. They losing everything at Babylon’s hand, yet God isn’t done with them. As we see in Jeremiah 29:10, God is at work. There is a timeline for their return. God already knows the amount of time –70 years – but the generations who have to work again for their renewed relationship don’t understand it. 70 years pass by in Babylon and a new king, Cyrus, moved by God, allows the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. God was able to exact His wished through two bad kings, kings that didn’t even know they were doing his work.
About 550 BC, in the 4th chapter of Daniel, we get a story, from Nebuchadnezzar’s point of view, of how God humbled him. The always prideful king was reduced to madness for seven years until he understood the power of the almighty God, and when we reach the end of that chapter, we see that all of Nebuchadnezzar’s cruelty, pride and arrogance is laid bare, and he is able to come to God.
Over 70 years had to elapse for God’s plan to come to fruition. In our life, we have to understand that the stresses of our days are there for God’s purposes, and instead of fighting them, ignoring them, trying to fix them or being crushed under them, we must understand that we are in this moment of time for God’s purpose. It is better to submit to the authority over us than to fight it. Like Nebuchadnezzar learned, God is the authority over all, every kingdom, every ruler, every moment.
Authority doesn’t always go our way. But our job is to submit to it, because God is in charge of it. Human authority teaches us how to understand God. If we can’t submit to human authority, we will have difficulty submitting to God’s authority.
CONCLUSION 5: Human authority exists so we can learn to submit to God.
CONCLUSION 1: The Bible is objective truth.
CONCLUSION 2: We must submit to all of God’s word.
CONCLUSION 3: God is in charge of all.
CONCLUSION 4: Submit to God’s Authority.
CONCLUSION 5: Human authority exists so we can learn to submit to God.
Authority is a good example of this. We often view authority with a sort of skepticism, or contempt, or are outwardly opposed to it. It is built into our system, based on our life experience, and we either embrace or grow in opposition to it.
God has a desire for us to look at Authority in the fashion that He has designed it for. Both in understanding God’s ultimate authority and learning how to follow human authority. Both are designed by God for us to learn and understand Him better.
But in order to understand authority we first have to look at truth itself. Is there a real truth or is truth subjective? Then, what is God’s authority? What does that word sovereignty mean? So, to begin this lesson, we have to look at three different aspects of God’s word in order to understand authority. We will look at these three subjects first:
Objective vs. Subjective Truth
The Word of God
God’s Sovereignty
Objective vs. Subjective Truth
What is objective truth and why does it matter? Objective truth is something that can be measured against reality. It is independent of feelings or bias. In other words, it is factual. You can make a decided statement about it and check it against fact to arrive at a factual conclusion.
Objective Truth
If I say St. Mark’s church stands on the corner of 12th street and Main in downtown Vancouver, Washington, you should be able to go to that intersection and check to see if it is true. If you go there and in fact see St. Mark’s church on that intersection, then you can determine that I have made a factual statement. It is something that you checked against reality ad verified its truth. This is Objective truth. The church does stand there. Further, my feelings about St. Mark’s church wasn’t revealed int he statement. My objective statement, or truth, had nothing to do with my feelings for the church itself.
Why is this important? When we are looking a truth as a whole, we must first determine that there is a truth. Some things are irrefutably true, based on how we can objectively measure it. This is important on the climb to understand the truth of scripture. Can we measure it? Do we believe it is not a truth, but the truth?
Subjective Truth
Subjective truth cannot be measured against reality. It is dependent of feelings or bias. In other words, subjective truth is opinion.
If I say St. Mark’s church is on the corner of 12th street and Main, that is an objective statement. You can drive to St. Mark’s and see it for yourself. But if I say that St. Mark’s is the best church in Vancouver Washington, is that objective? Can it be measured as truth?
This is a subjective statement. It cannot be measured through reality and is based upon my feelings. If we can’t measure it against reality, then it is an opinion. St. Mark’s could be a great church, but only through the scope of your experience.
The reason why this is important is because we often lose sight of truth. Opinion begins to drive our actions and we don’t often see the truth any longer. This can also the way we approach scripture. If we look for the items which give us a good feeling and ignore the ones that don’t, we could very well be driven by our subjective thinking and not by our objective mind.
This is important because there are things in scripture we may not agree with. We may want to look past items in God’s word that we don’t like, that conflict with our lifestyle or choices. So we begin to look at God’s word with a subjective mindset. We begin to cherry pick God’s word and twist it around for our own purposes.
The Word
It comes down to this initial question: do you believe the bible? Then this one: Do we trust the word as truth? And, is the bible our truth or the truth?
When trying to get at the heart of what we believe or choose to believe, we must understand that often we have a verbal response, but the life response may not be in-tune with it. Christians often jump to “of course I believe the bible” but that Christian’s life may not reflect it. As a Christian, we must come to the conclusion that we believe the bible as God’s objective truth. Not “a” truth in a sea of many truths, but God’s word that is powerful and trustworthy in our life. But how do we get there?
We cannot measure the word through emotion. Emotion is a very unstable way to measure anything in life. It mainly tells us that something feels good to us so it has value. How many times in your life have you made an impulse purchase? When in that store, looking at that big screen TV or brand new kitchen appliance you thought, deep down that this could serve a multitude of purposes. Perhaps in some ways it ultimately did. But how many times, after that purchase, do you have buyer’s remorse?
Emotion gets us into trouble. When we gauge our assessment of truth on our emotion, or how something makes us feel, we get into trouble. Not everything that makes us feel good is good for us, and not everything that makes us feel bad is bad for us. In fact, many of the things that make us feel bad teach us about life, which is for the ultimate good. So we can’t simply gauge truth on our emotions. That is a subjective viewpoint.
We cannot measure through opinion. Opinion is the definition of subjective truth. Opinion is simply our assessment of what is true based on our leanings, desires and needs. For example, we can agree with the President or not, but much of the time the way we agree or disagree depends on the way we view the decisions through political descriptors. If we are Republican and the President is Democrat, then it is far more likely that we will not agree with much of what the President chooses to promote. But are these grievances based on truth, or are they floating in the river of opinion? Are our opinions based on any sort of truth? Opinions often act as reactants to our own buried theologies. We birth opinion into reality based on what our deep-down beliefs are and use opinion to verify what we already believe. For example, if we hate Chinese food, we will often seek out a path verify that opinion. We will go to websites that shoulder the same opinion, we’ll find Chinese food flubs and critics, we’ll discover ways to discredit it’s nutritional value, all in an effort to verify that Chinese food is bad. But is it really? Is that based on any real truth? Opinions are a subjective viewpoint.
We must measure truth in an intellectual and spiritual space. Is the bible true and do we believe it’s true? If the bible is objective truth, then we need to see if the bible can be measured as so. So let’s take a look at some of the historical truth of scripture:
It was was written over approximately 1550 years
It was written by 40 different writers
It was written in a wide range of setting (deserts, prisons, royal courts, etc.)
It was written by a wide-range of authors (kings, servants, apostles, prophets, etc.)
Was written in three different languages (Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek)
Has one harmonious message
Is being proven to be accurate throughout human history
All of these items are objective truth. You can verify any of these through a multitude of sources. They are not statements of opinion but of measurable fact.
There is more evidence:
Manuscript Evidence: Manuscript evidence dating back to nearly the same time as Christ. The manuscript’s have been uniquely accurate through history
Historical Evidence: Unearthing of Archeological items that verify the biblical account.
Inspirational Evidence: Prophetic evidence that shows God’s miracles and predictions
Daniel’s prophecies about future kings and rulers
Old Testament prophecies concerning Christ
Isaiah predicting the reign of Cyrus (by name)
Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of nations
All of these items fall under the category of Objective Truth.
But beyond the facts of scripture, those who have experiences Jesus’ saving grace reinforce the truth of scripture. This intangible evidence (your own story of grace) added to the tangible (factual) basis of God’s word creates an interesting equation: Spiritual + Intellectual =An understanding of the truth.
CONCLUSION 1: The Bible is objective truth.
So if the bible is objective truth and we, as Christians, must believe it to be the word of God, then we must go one step further: do we believe all of the bible? It is easy for us to say we believe, and especially for us to believe in the parts we agree with (see opinion sneaking in there again?). But if in fact the bible is the word of God, sent down from God to be written through inspired men, then we must regard the whole word as God’s decree.
If the bible is the word of God, then we must submit to God’s truth.
If God’s word is truth, then we must proclaim all of it as truth.
We can’t pick and choose what we want to believe.
We must submit to it, even if we may not agree with it.
Do we always agree with everything our boss asks of us? Some of it may seem trivial or incorrect, but we generally do as our boss says, even though we may not agree with the premise. It is the same way with God. Do we agree with everything He does, and furthermore, in the way He does it? I believe an honest answer is “no,” and the reason why is because we don’t see the entire picture of what God is planning to do. We get a glimpse and often that glimpse may not be satisfactory, so we oppose or refuse it.
We can do this with scripture too. Have you ever read something in scripture that you don’t agree with? Why don’t you agree with it? First, if we are doing our job as a Christian, we have to understand that the word of God is our instruction manual, the way we get through life in the best way possible. Like a car’s owner manual, if something isn’t working quite right in the car the owner can go to the manual and get a glimpse of how the car was built and what the car demands for best performance. If the manual says that you must change the oil once every 3 month, we may not like that, but if we want the car to run efficiently, it is our duty.
Getting back to the bible, there are things contained in God’s word that we don’t agree with. Do we agree with God when he sentences races of people to death? What about poor old Uzzah, who was immediately killed for trying to steady the Ark of the Covenant. Or that poor fellow who gathered wood on the Sabbath and was stones to death for it. The list continues. We don’r always agree with God’s word and the way He does things, but our job isn’t to oppose it. It is to submit to it. Even to the parts that we may not presently agree with. Our subjective truth (opinion) gets in the way and we attempt to twist the truth into our own framework instead of realizing that there is an objective truth to be submitted to. It comes down to this: Do we trust the word as complete?
CONCLUSION 2: We must submit to all of God’s word.
If we don’t believe the word as truth and don’t submit to that truth, then biblical authority won’t make much sense
Because biblical authority is built on submission
Submission is about trust
Trust is faith
Faith is the hope in what is not seen
Faith and trust begin with submission to the truth
God’s Sovereignty
So what we’ve learned so far is this:
The bible is the objective truth
We must submit to all of God’s word
The next question we must ask is this: Do we believe God is in charge?
It sounds like a silly question but it is an important one. Think about the trials in your life. Do you tend to operate on your own strength? Do you even involve God in your choices? But an even more elemental question is this: do you believe God to be Providential or Coincidental?
A Providential God is one who is in control of everything. Every beautiful thing like love, creativity, fellowship, along with all the bad too…wars, disease, death. God has His hand in all of these things and is working them all inside a greater plan, one which we don’t understand fully, but only get glimpses of.
A Coincidental God is one who doesn’t have control over anything but reacts when you do something. If you are walking down the street, pick up a rock and decide to throw it at a passing car, a coincidental God is surprised by your actions and must adapt to your choices, much like an RPG (Role Playing Game) video game. He is not in control, but adaptive your actions.
It is important to understand how you view God. Is He is control or waiting for you to make a move. If God is in fact reactionary, then there shouldn’t be a Book of Revelation, there shouldn’t be prophets or prophecies of any kind. As Christians, we first must look at God as the architect, in charge of all. His nature is mysterious, yes, but the bible gives us some indication of who God is and how He operated:
Isaiah 55:8-9
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
9
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God thinks differently than us. He thinks on a higher plain, one which we cannot understand. For that very reason we must submit to His word, for His word, given to us by Him, helps us to understand the true heart of God, what is important to Him, and how we can grow into understanding what He values.
Philippians 4:6-7
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
One of the pitfalls we can tumble into is to suggest that if we can’t understand everything about God then it isn’t worth it to live a life of purity. That isn’t true. God wants us to establish a growing relationship with Him in order to further our understanding of who He is. Part of that relationship is trust. Trust is submission. Our understanding will never be fully reconciled here on earth, but when we submit to God, in faith, we will begin to understand Him better.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
God is eternal. He works through time, sometimes long periods of time, in order to bring His mercy, love and justice to fruition. If you remember the story of the people of Judah, after the split of the kingdom a succession of kings ruled about 340 years. The kings of Judah were a mixed batch of sometimes good and benevolent kings, but most struggled with their power, some succumbed to disobeying God, while others sought to renew God with His people. In that long stretch of time we see God’s patience with the people, but we also see a definitive break in the people following God. After Josiah reinstates God to his people, the following succession of kings look to obliterate it. It begins a descent into lawlessness and ends with Nebuchadnezzar looting the temple, destroying it and deporting the Jews to Babylon. We can seen historical narrative, but can be see the spiritual?
Through that long story, we see God inserting himself into each kingship. Some of the kings welcome him in, only to fall later (Asa, Jehosophat, Hezekiah), while others don’t even try. But God is patient with them, until, of course, the line is drawn in the sand and God renders a judgment on them. Even then it is still 50 years before Nebuchadnezzar is used as an implement of justice against Judah.
But the end of the story isn’t Judah’s judgment and deportation. Through another ungodly king (Cyrus) the Jews are allowed back into the Promised Land to rebuild their temple. That s only established after a 70 year waiting period where the jews in Babylon had to come back to God fully.
Do you have a story where God has been patient with you through all of your mistakes, foibles and atrocities, only to welcome you back as His child? The bible is filled with those stories, but so are our lives. It is how God chooses to work, all the while creating an intricate tapestry in a world that ultimately serves his purpose.
Deuteronomy 31:8
The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
God’s intention is not to throw us into the world and watch us like a scientific experiment. The intention is for us to reconnect with Him, for he is protecting and guiding us through this life.
In these four powerful verses we begin to see what God’s intention for us is:
God thinks differently that we do
He is in charge
He is eternal and works for His purposes through time
He knows all and takes care of all
So if God is in our corner, if He is Providential, knows us intimately and wants us to connect with Him, then how does this help us to understand Authority? First, we must understand that the true authority is God and He alone gives authority to the world and nations. This is no better illustrated than in Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream.
Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
In Daniel 2 we have a long story about a dream that King Nebuchadnezzar has. To set the stage, Nebuchadnezzar has raided the temple in Jerusalem, then destroyed it, ruled over Jerusalem for a time before he deports the Jews with “talent” to Babylon. Here, he takes the Jews that he deems useful and goes to work stripping away their Jewish identity. Among these is a man named Daniel, who is an ardent follower of God and a man held in Nebuchadnezzar’s palace.
So the king has a troubling dream one night and calls on his league of paid astrologers to interpret it. But their phoniness comes to the forefront and they are unable to interpret the dream, let alone tell him what the dream was. He wants to kill them all, start over, when Daniel gets wind of the insanity. Instead of killing all these people, Daniel tells the king that he will interpret the dream. He returns to his fellow Jewish friends and prays with them before his big meeting with Nebuchadnezzar.
When Daniel relays the dream back to Nebuchadnezzar, it floors the king because no one else could do that much. Deciphering the dream is just as amazing. Nebuchadnezzar dream of a large statue that is broken up in different sections of fine metals:
The sections are appropriated to different ruling peoples. The gold (head) is Babylon, the silver (chest), is the empire of Persia, the bronze (waist) is attribute to Greece, the iron (legs) to Rome and the clay and iron (feet) to a future ruling power during the end times. The dream also includes a rock from heaven that slams into the statue at the ankle and brings the statue down, once and for all.
God gave Nebuchadnezzar a rare glimpse into how God operates and who is truly authoritative. He gives the king of Babylon a sightline into the future where his mighty kingdom, the mightiest in the known world at this time, is overtaken by another that is more powerful. But the Persians succumb to the Greeks and the Greeks to the Romans. All of these empires, so strong and formidable in their own times, fall due to God’s mechanisms, not their own. God allows the empires to rise and fall, all due to His glorious plan.
And what is His glorious plan? It is seen in the last part of the dream, Daniel 2:44-45:
44 “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. 45 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands—a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces.
Kingdoms will rise and fall until God determines when it is time for the end, the final judgment. Just as God decreed a judgment on Judah because they turned away, He will also render judgment on the world, because in the end times, the iron mixed with clay symbolizes a government that is not untied, people in search of answers, and a rock cut out of a mountain - Christ - who slams the world governments into pieces, destroying the world system forever, in favor of a new and united kingdom under Christ.
This is God’s plan, and although we may see all of these former governments, and perhaps our own, as infallible, the message of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream still rings true: God is the ultimate authority over all kingdoms in the world. In that, all human authority falls under the authority of God. God also has a plan and purpose for government.
CONCLUSION 3: God is in charge of all.
Authority
When we address human authority and how we as Christians should view it, we have two sets of primary verses to look at in scripture. The first is Romans 13:1-7 and then 1 Peter 2:11-17.
Romans 13:1-7:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Let’s take it in sections:
Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
God appoints the authority; We are subject to that authority. Romans is a letter written by Paul. Paul is responsible for the lion’s share of bringing Christianity to the known world. In his frantic ability to share God’s word and build churches throughout Turkey, Greece and Israel, Paul was repeatedly hunted, thrown out of towns, stoned and maligned in various ways. His government did not support him. In fact, the Roman government imprisoned him and would martyr him in about 67 AD. But notice what all writes. We are still subject to the governing authorities. What if we don’t agree? It doesn’t matter. What if the government isn’t doing what we’d like them to do? It doesn’t matter. We are to submit to the government because God has established that government. Remember, God allows kingdoms to rise and fall. He judges accordingly. It isn’t our job to protest and picket and oppose the government. Why?
2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
When we rebel against those in authority, we are rebelling against God. This is a wakeup call for many, because opposing authority is viewed as a God-given right in the United States. But God is counter-culture. What may seem like an infringement of freedom to some is actually a call toward judgment to God. When we rebel against authority, we are rebelling against what God has put in place. We are saying, “what God has put there isn’t right”This is our subjective opinion! We aren’t looking at the truth of scripture, the exact source of objective truth to help us understand God and the world. We’ve traded it for a subjective view.
Paul also states there is a commendation for doing right. A blessing. If we follow God’s plan for authority, even if we don’t like it, there is a blessing in it. Why? Because God had appointed rulers Himself; they are his servants.
Now this is where it gets complicated, because you can look at your leadership and draw some parallels as to who is a good leader and who is not. Isaiah 45:1 will help us here:
“This is what the Lord says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
A hundred years before Cyrus would come to power and allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, Isaiah calls out Cyrus, by name, as one anointed by God to carry this out. Cyrus is the king of the Persians. He is a pagan leader. He isn’t a man of God, yet God has anointed him for His own purpose, to carry out a mission that will allow God’s work to be done.
Even those viewed as bad or ineffective leaders have a role in God’s plan. In that, we must always return to the mission that we have here: to submit to the ruling authorities and put away the grievances we have with them. If we truly believe that “God’s Will” will be done, then we can take heart that everything has a season, good and bad rulers, but all have a place in God’s ultimate plan. The submission we show is an act of respect and conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Paul capitalizes on this concept by bringing it to a realistic place. If you owe something, pay it. Be respectful of the governing authorities. We are to submit to the regulations of our country, and when in another country, submit to the laws of that country as well.
CONCLUSION 4: Submit to God’s Authority.
Peter 2:11-17:
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.
Let’s take it in sections:
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul.
Peter urges us to first get right with God. Why? Because if we are unwilling to see God for who He is, then we will most likely be in opposition to Him.
12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Our charge is to live peacefully and by example, so that it affects unbelievers. This is the whole idea behind sharing the Gospel. It isn’t always about sharing what the bible says, but being an example to those around us. Many Christians forget this part. They may believe that being in church is the only way to honor God. But the way we live our life is of extreme importance to the word around us. We can’t affect many people inside a church. But we can affect people by the way they see us, the steadfastness in our faith, and the way we deal with the cultural environment and taboos of our time.
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.
Peter says to submit ourselves to the authorities for Lord’s sake. Put aside the squabbles and differences we have with other warring factions in the world and submit for a higher reason. It is the same idea professed in Ephesians 5:21, where Paul discusses that a husband and wife should submit to God first before each other. It is for the Lord’s sake, not our own sake.
Peter also goes down a list of rulers that we should submit to. The idea is this: God has appointed them all and it is our duty to submit accordingly. Why? Because if we cannot understand how to submit to human authority, how are we ever going to know how to submit to God’s authority?
15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people.
Peter’s point is this: if we live a good life in submission, it will ultimately silence those around us. It will change others. They will see the life lived and wonder things like: why isn’t this political issue freaking them out? Why aren’t they up in arms about what the President said? They will pause and perhaps make the connection that faith is at play, and supports God’s Will in His plan.
16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.
Our freedom should not lead to evil; our submission should bleed to all areas of our life.
Should we submit to ungodly authority?
We may not like the situation of our government or laws (subjective thinking), but as a Christian we are told to submit to the governing authorities as long as they do not command us to commit evil. There are two verses that articulate it:
Acts 4:15-19
15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”
18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges!
Acts 5:27-29
27 The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!
In both of these cases, the apostles were preaching about Christ and the Sanhedrin (the ruling body of the Jewish people) commanded them to stop preaching or they will be punished. The concept is this: if the government is forcing you to do something that completely conflicts with God, the truth of scripture, the objective viewpoint, then you have a right to disobey it. God is the ultimate authority, you will deal with Him ultimately, so understand that when it is time for you to stay up, then stand up!
This does not mean that an element of government that you don’t agree with is cause to throw the entire government out. If that was the case no one would have cause to follow! If the compliance is forced, then there is opportunity to resist.
How are we supposed to act under a
government that we don’t agree with?
To answer that question, let’s look at the biblical examples of Daniel and Nehemiah.
Daniel under Nebuchadnezzar
(Found in Daniel 1-4)
Nebuchadnezzar was a cruel and sadistic leader. Not only did he wreck the Jewish temple and steal all its riches, he was an authoritarian ruler who killed and maimed people at will. In Daniel 3 he erects an obelisk and commands all of Babylon to worship it. If anyone resists, they will be fed into an oven. We see Daniel step up against Nebuchadnezzar while relying on God and his faith in him. Attributes of Daniel:
Daniel did not stop serving the king
Daniel stood up to the king when necessary
Daniel was continually blessed
Daniel served under 5 kings of Babylon and Persia
He didn’t try to escape, protest or oppose the ruler
Because he understood that God was at work
And God eventually changed hearts in Babylon
Daniel was right where God wanted him to be
Nehemiah under Artaxerxes
(Found in Nehemiah 1-12)
Not unlike Nebuchadnezzar, Artaxerxes was also a tyrannical leader. He was a king in Persia and ruled in an authoritarian way that was customary for kings of that time. It was illegal for anyone to be unhappy in the presence of the king. It could mean a beheading if you frowned. Nehemiah, the cupbearer for the king, had a special relationship with Artaxerxes. With prayer and patience, Nehemiah was able to do God’s will through a bad king.
Nehemiah served in the citadel
He went before the king only when God instructed
He did God’s work
He returned to the king to serve
He did all of his work under the authority of the king
He was blessed because he listened to God and submitted to authority
Nehemiah was right where God wanted him to be
You’ll notice that both of these men of God lived under despotic regimes. These leaders were cruel and unpredictable, yet Daniel and Nehemiah both chose to submit to their leaders and laws to carry out their missions for God. Knowing God is in charge is important because it is the first thing we forget when times get tough.
The lesson here is this: you are right where you need to be. Just like Daniel or Nehemiah or any host of biblical or non-biblical characters, we are all thrust into the world with all its problems and chaos to do God’s work in spite of it. Jesus arrived in Bethlehem during a chaotic time of Roman rule, of Herod’s pseudo kingship, a time when false Messiahs roamed and people were killed, raped and taken advantage of. We don’t get a free pass in this world of chaos, but God in His perfect timing has landed you right where he needed to.
You are right where you need to be:
In your physical location
The age you are
With all your skills, passions and gifts
With all your limitations and sin
Under the government in the country you live in
Because God has you right where you need to be
Your job is to submit to God’s purpose
But what about bad leaders? How are we supposed to deal with them?
To understand how we are to deal with bad leaders, we have to understand again how biblical figures did it. Peter and Paul are a good example of this. They lived (and died) under the rule of Nero.
Nero was the fifth emperor of Rome from year zero (Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula and Claudius came before him). A little about Nero:
Became emperor at age 16
Rose to power by poisoning his father Claudius
Had an incestuous relationship with his mother
Killed his mother (Agrippa)
Began the Christian persecution
Kicked his pregnant wife to death
Married a man and assumed the role as the wife
Married a different man and assumed the role of the husband
Had that man castrated in hopes to turn him into a woman
Declared a public enemy of Rome
Nero wasn’t a great guy, was he? He began the Christian persecution by blaming a fire on them, a fire he set to clear a field for an additional palace. Yet, Peter and Paul both instruct us to “submit to every human authority”.
We don’t live in such a terrible time as Peter and Paul did, but we must understand the deeper issue: If we can’t learn to submit to human authority, then we won’t understand how to submit to God’s authority. Our call isn’t to oppose but to work in the construct of the authority that is placed by God. If we aren’t working in it, then we are opposing it.
But why would God even allow bad leaders to exist? Why wouldn’t He saturate rulers with good hearts and minds into the places of power? First, the people he allows to step into the power that he creates for them all have a choice.
The story of Saul is a good example. In 1 Samuel 8, Israel makes the audacious choice to ask for a king instead of continuing with God’s plan of installing Judges. Their reasoning? They want to be like other nations, a slap in the face of the distinction God wanted Israel to partake in. But God relents, lets them have a king but the parameters are drawn out in 1 Samuel 12:13-15:
Now here is the king you have chosen, the one you asked for; see, the Lord has set a king over you. 14 If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God—good! 15 But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your ancestors.
The king had a duty to follow God and his commands. If so, there would be a blessing on the land. If the king followed, and the people followed the king, then all was good. The king had a choice. And from the very beginning Saul is flummoxed by this choice. He leads his people into darkness and sends Israel down a costly road.
Leaders today also need to take this to heart. Currently we see leaders who actively edge away from God and instead listen to the pulse of culture. The position that God gave them is corrupted. Upon corruption these leaders take others down a path to darkness.
But God can still work in this space. If God knows all and controls all, then this is not surprising to God. In fact, it is part of His plan to connect the dots to the second coming of Christ. This is God’s long game, a game so long in some circumstances that a generation, maybe even ten generations, doesn’t see the results of God’s machinations. A good case in point is the following storyline:
2 Kings 24:8-12
8 Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Nehushta daughter of Elnathan; she was from Jerusalem. 9 He did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father had done.
10 At that time the officers of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon advanced on Jerusalem and laid siege to it, 11 and Nebuchadnezzar himself came up to the city while his officers were besieging it. 12 Jehoiachin king of Judah, his mother, his attendants, his nobles and his officials all surrendered to him.
In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner.
Nebuchadnezzar invades Jerusalem, destroys temple and carries off the people to Babylon (608 BC)
Jeremiah 29:10
This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place.
God promises that after 70 years of judgment, the Jews will return to their land 608-539 BC
Ezra 1:1-4
1 In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah, the Lord moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and also to put it in writing:
2 “This is what Cyrus king of Persia says:
“‘The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. 3 Any of his people among you may go up to Jerusalem in Judah and build the temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, the God who is in Jerusalem, and may their God be with them. 4 And in any locality where survivors may now be living, the people are to provide them with silver and gold, with goods and livestock, and with freewill offerings for the temple of God in Jerusalem.’”
Cyrus, moved by God, allows the Jews to return, after 70 years of captivity, to build the temple
539 BC
Daniel 4:36-37
36 At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by God through a series of dreams and challenges (550 BC)
In these passages we see a story of how God moves through time. Nebuchadnezzar destroys Jerusalem. Put yourself in the place of a Jew in Jerusalem at this time. Everything you know is crushed, you are deported to a land you know nothing about, embedded into a culture that is completely different, your culture in many ways wiped away. It would seem like the end of the world.
But God is at work here. First, through Nebuchadnezzar, who unwittingly is a pawn in God’s play. Even though he isn’t Godly, he is doing God’s work in bringing the Jews to judgment. They losing everything at Babylon’s hand, yet God isn’t done with them. As we see in Jeremiah 29:10, God is at work. There is a timeline for their return. God already knows the amount of time –70 years – but the generations who have to work again for their renewed relationship don’t understand it. 70 years pass by in Babylon and a new king, Cyrus, moved by God, allows the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. God was able to exact His wished through two bad kings, kings that didn’t even know they were doing his work.
About 550 BC, in the 4th chapter of Daniel, we get a story, from Nebuchadnezzar’s point of view, of how God humbled him. The always prideful king was reduced to madness for seven years until he understood the power of the almighty God, and when we reach the end of that chapter, we see that all of Nebuchadnezzar’s cruelty, pride and arrogance is laid bare, and he is able to come to God.
Over 70 years had to elapse for God’s plan to come to fruition. In our life, we have to understand that the stresses of our days are there for God’s purposes, and instead of fighting them, ignoring them, trying to fix them or being crushed under them, we must understand that we are in this moment of time for God’s purpose. It is better to submit to the authority over us than to fight it. Like Nebuchadnezzar learned, God is the authority over all, every kingdom, every ruler, every moment.
Authority doesn’t always go our way. But our job is to submit to it, because God is in charge of it. Human authority teaches us how to understand God. If we can’t submit to human authority, we will have difficulty submitting to God’s authority.
CONCLUSION 5: Human authority exists so we can learn to submit to God.
CONCLUSION 1: The Bible is objective truth.
CONCLUSION 2: We must submit to all of God’s word.
CONCLUSION 3: God is in charge of all.
CONCLUSION 4: Submit to God’s Authority.
CONCLUSION 5: Human authority exists so we can learn to submit to God.