The reason for the emphasis on authority in relation to Jesus Christ is very clear in my mind on this blog but perhaps not clear for those who have some alternative ideas about how authority works in history.
The political driving force behind the rise and fall of civilisations centres on the use of authority and its usage relies on a strong legal narrative that imbues human will with god-like powers to decide who dies and who lives. ‘It is right that some should die for the benefit of the greater number,’ gives a flavour of the kind of reasoning that infects the political process of legally endorsing the authority of tribal or State violence.
Jesus Christ came to show that the authority of political systems relying on this kind of moral philosophy is responsible for inbreeding and multiplying the very attitudes and ideas that undermine its own survival.
The presence of war in the world is a testimony of the abject failure of the human will to exercise responsibility and care for itself and others. Sin is the cause. The solution is not within the grasp of any human power, whether or not regulated by law, for it is the law that divides the human will against itself by sanctifying the wholesale slaughter of its own kind. Regardless of the boasting rhetoric of high culture, the verbosity of academia that makes it all look so shiny and successful, the freak show of human power is but a glitch in eternity.
Authority is a serious problem for those who don’t understand its purpose and even many Christians have been sucked into the most common of all fallacies about secular authority being part of God’s rule and authority.
At the end of the day, there are two types of authority. One is man-made and it is about legalising evil. The other is CHRIST-made and it is about stripping the authority of those who believe they can legalise evil. The former is an aggressive authority that dominates by force and its three dimensional form restricts it to a finite history. The latter is a passive authority that dominates by meekness and its spiritual form goes well beyond the small-minded world of materialism. The weapon of the first type is a physical implement and the second type a spiritual implement that cause death and life respectively. The one personified as a murderer by Christ is the same one who tempted Him, with the small mindedness of materialism, to dump his spiritual power of obedience to the truth for the tantalising offer of earthly obedience to sneering lies and innuendo. War is a manifestation of the mind of satan that has inspired lies and murder since the beginning.
The question of authority is also a question about the nature and character of mankind therefore, which is answered by its long history of bloodshed, bloodshed caused by both religious and secular hierarchies sometimes working together, sometimes independently, but in a unified attitude toward the purpose of ‘authority’. The kingdoms they form, using geographical, economic, intellectual, ideological or national boundaries rely on authority in a brutish way and this way has no mandate from heaven – even if it were sought with loud prayers and fasting.
The Kingdom of Jesus Christ is an eternal Kingdom that does not advance by violent means other than by the spoken Word and by the Spirit of God who reveals the meaning of the spoken Word. The Word that became flesh and dwells among us today is able to teach their meanings to those whose sin has been removed. Words that are inherently inclined to violate the minds of those who rely on the mediating authority of their laws and conventions to justify their violence are still just words. If a knife or a gun, or a hanging rope or wooden cross, is all that underpins the authority of the human race to improve itself then I have pity for those who have lived their lives by such a loathsome understanding of authority.
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