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July 31, 2016 |
| Submission To Authority | ||
Our society teaches "I'm number one", "stand up for yourself", "fight back", "you have rights", "you deserve better than this", "who is he to say that to you", "don't let him disrespect you like that", "get even." It should not come as a surprise that the Bible teaches the opposite of what the world teaches.
Ego is the word we use to describe this sense of our own importance. The world teaches us to take actions to ensure that our egos are not damaged because, after all, we are important - so says the world.
Living in an ego driven society like ours it can be hard for us to accept that the Bible teaches submission, "the action or fact of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person"0. Those who can accept submission and live it find themselves living like strangers and outcasts in the world.
Submission, however, is critically important to the Christian life. Practicing and living submission is in fact how we fight against our egos. It turns out that conquering our egos in one area of our lives helps us to conquer our egos in other areas. Therefore starting in one small area leads to more areas and those lead to more areas. Submission is like the yeast of Luke 13:20-21, it spreads through us and changes us.
In this lesson we will look at what God says through the Apostles Peter and Paul about submission.
The first verse in this set is the theme for this lesson but the verse has two parts that I'm going to separate. The first part sets the theme and the second part begins expanding on the theme. We'll take that in two steps.
13 Submit to all the sons of men for the sake of God; […]
These are sometimes hard words for Christians to hear; they are crazy words for the world to hear. Yet, Jesus said the same and lived the same. He taught it in words, in examples like the parables about the least being first and he demonstrated it by washing the feet of his disciples.
13 Submit […] to kings, because of their authority,
The key to understanding this is in understanding that God is in complete control of everything. When we understand that we can see that he raises up kings, presidents, prime ministers, governors, and all the others in authority over us. He also deposes them as suits his will1. This doesn't mean that he has brought the best people, as we see them, to the job.
If God has given them authority, and he has, whatever the reason God has placed a person in authority, then we are to submit to them. This means we are to obey the rules they set down within their authority. We are not to not dishonor them by intentionally breaking those rules, an action that honors ourselves. We are not to discredit them, bad mouth them, or disrespect them.
There is an exception to this. Submission is not slavery. If the person in authority creates rules that conflict with God's rules, God's rules always overrule man's rules. We have to be careful though that we don't twist scripture to justify rejecting their authority. This exception applies only when the authority requires you personally to do something that God says is wrong.
Rejecting such a rule will likely bring us into conflict with the law. We have a fine example of this from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from Daniel 3. The king commanded that everyone would bow down and worship him, which was against God's commands. Daniel himself also had a similar problem in chapter 6. Their response was to disobey that command. It would have cost them their lives but God intervened to save them. God does not always do that.
In such a circumstance we may think we are justified in trying to remove that person from office through illegal means. Nowhere in the Bible is a justification made for rising up against the authorities that God has put in place. The theme we do see is that God has raised them up; God will depose them.
This submission to authority applies even to the regulations that those in authority have created for driving our cars. It is an ego in control that says "You need to break the speed limit to get to the meeting on time." It is a rebellious spirit that says "The speed limit is 40 but the police won't stop me if I'm going 43." It is arrogance that says "There is no one at the 4-Way Stop so I won't stop" or "the speed limit is unreasonably slow here." Practicing submission is poison to the ego and to its fruits which are rebellion and arrogance.
We don't encounter tax laws, property laws, or most other laws every day, but most of us encounter driving laws every day. The foremost and most obvious of these is speed limits. Therefore this is a daily opportunity to practice submission. This practice will benefit us in other areas of our lives.
Also remember that we do not submit to the law because it is the law, nor because the law was made by people given authority by God, but because that's what God expects our hearts to desire if we are his.
14 and [submit to] judges, because they are sent by him for the punishment of wrongdoers and for the praise of the workers of good.
Neither judges nor anyone else gives you a star for following the rules. The praise from judges comes when the judge decides that the other party has done wrong. The praise you receive because you have done what was right is implied praise. It is the satisfaction that the judge said you did what was right. It is also the satisfaction you get when you see the police have stopped the guy who blew past you on the highway.
But even if the judge decides against you unjustly and you have no hope of appeal, you are to submit to the judge. What does this mean for us? We must respect his judgment. Saying the judge was wrong is rebellion against his authority - you make yourself a judge over him.
15For it is the will of God in this way that by your excellent works you may shut the mouths of fools - those who do not know God,
Notice how Peter is referring to acts of submission as examples of excellent works. Also note that when we live lives of submission there is no fault that anyone can successfully bring against us. Such lives stand out as being beyond criticism and leave the un-Godly with nothing to say.
Peter now takes a small side trip to make sure his readers haven't misunderstood.
16 As free children, and not as persons who make their liberty a cloak for their evil, but as servants of God.
By saying "free children" he is talking about those who live under the grace and forgiveness paid for by Jesus' sacrifice. He wants to make sure that those who live under this liberty do not use it as an excuse or opportunity to do evil. This is a concept that we now call "Cheap Grace."2, "the teaching that the call to salvation does not also include a call to repentance and holy living […] that one cannot have Jesus as Savior without also acknowledging Him as Lord"3. So Peter is talking about people who call Jesus their savior but use his grace to excuse their evils.
In this verse, Peter introduces two ideas that conflict, that we should live "as free children" and also as "servants of God". The world likes to think that it is free to do what it wants and therefore it is free, but we understand that true freedom is having the freedom to choose but choosing what God wants. That is what Peter is getting at here.
17 Honor every person, love your brethren, worship God and honor kings.
Peter sums up this section by restating his original point. Honor everyone, which includes everyone in the world. Love those who are brothers in the faith. Peter also wants to make sure that we understand that Kings are not to be worshipped, only honored.
Peter now comes to the foundational concept for submission; we do so because Jesus is our example.
21 For you are called to this, for even the Messiah died for our sake and left us this example, that you would walk in his steps, 22 he who did no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth; 23 he who was insulted and did not insult, and he suffered and did not threaten, but he handed his judgment over to the judge of righteousness.
The foundational concept is that Jesus is our role model, our example, in everything. The life he lived should be the life we try to live. He lived a perfect life yet he was insulted and mocked but did not return insults. He was crucified and did not threaten or curse. Instead of returning evil for evil he left the judgment up to God the Father.
[...] They dishonor us and we bless; they persecute us and we endure. (1 Corinthians 4:12)
Now we'll look at what Paul says on this topic. We'll find that what Peter said in the verses above Paul repeats in the following verses. Paul shows us that the requirement for submission to authority is rooted in the 5th commandment.
Let every soul be subject to the authority of the great, for there is no authority that is not from the same God, and those authorities who are from God are under orders. 2 Whoever therefore stands against the authority stands against the decrees of God, and these who stand against them shall receive judgment. (Romans 13:1-2)
From Peter we already understood submission which is the same as being subject to authority. We also knew that God places people in authority as he chooses. Paul adds a new dimension though - those in authority are under orders. They are responsible to God for what they do with their authority. Moreover we see that it is not for us to stand against them. We will incur judgment if we do.
For judges are not a fear to the good doer, but to the wicked. Do you wish, therefore, to be unafraid of the authority? Do good, and you shall have praise from him. 4 For he is the minister of God to you for good. But if you have done evil, be afraid, for he does not wear the sword for nothing, for he is the minister of God and a furious avenger to those who do evil. 5 Therefore it is urgent for us to be subject, not for the sake of wrath only, but also for the sake of conscience. (Romans 13:3-5)
For this also that says, "You shall not commit adultery", "You shall not murder", "You shall not steal, "You shall not covet", or if there is any other commandment, it is summed up in the saying: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 10 Love does not commit evil against its neighbor, because love is the fulfillment of the Law (Torah). (Romans 13:9-10)
This submission and endurance and leaving the judgment to God includes our death. As Christians we say that we have given everything to God, but when it comes down to it, have we really given him our lives.
But we want you to know, brethren, concerning the affliction that we had in Asia, that we were afflicted greatly beyond our power, until we were close to losing our lives. 9 We passed a sentence of death upon ourselves, that we would not trust upon ourselves, but upon God who raises the dead, 10 he who has delivered us from violent deaths, and again we hope that he will deliver us (2 Corinthians 1:8-10)
Paul's point here is so important to understand. They gave up all effort to preserve their own lives and each man looked on himself as though he had already been sentenced to death and there was nothing more he could do. Instead they trusted in God alone, hoped for their deliverance, and continued their work, knowing that God would raise them in the resurrection.
This viewpoint of submission in faith is so at odds with the rest of the world, that it leaves us as outsiders, strangers in a strange land. That is the point of Hebrews chapter 11 which is summarized here in a few verses
By faith he became an inhabitant in that land which was promised to him, as in a foreign land, and he dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, his heirs of The Promise. 10 For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:9-10)
Others entered mockings and scourgings; others were handed over to chains and to prison cells; 37 others were stoned; others were sawn in half; others died by the edge of the sword; others traveled wearing skins of sheep and of goats, and were needy, afflicted and beaten; 38 persons of whom the world was not worthy; and they were as wanderers in desert places and in mountains and in caves and caverns of the earth. (Hebrews 11:36-38)
Submission is not part of our nature and the world surely does not teach it, but submission is centrally important to the Christian walk. Submission to God's will of course will require that we submit in other ways, which we have discussed in this lesson. Specifically we've covered submission
We submit in these things not just because it is God's will but also because it allows us to grow and our egos to shrink…
0 Google Online Dictionary
1 Daniel 2:21, John 19:11, Romans 13:1
2 from The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian, published in 1937
3 http://www.gotquestions.org/cheap-grace.html#ixzz35xHbBe8T