Authority and Christ, the abuse of law

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.

Christ wants to rule in the church first....

Postmodern skepticism among members of a large floating church would be overcome swiftly if church hierarchies disengage themselves from the blatant lie suggested by the canon that all the instances of the Old Testament portrayal of God is a true and accurate description of the nature and character of God. Until stubborn men and women within these hierarchies stop pushing an insulting theology of retrofitting the life of Christ like candy floss to a sinful scripture about killing and stoning people for their sin, the floating church of disillusioned and disappointed Christians will continue to drift around looking for the reality of Jesus in the church.
For over 33 years, in my journey through churches of all kinds, Anglican Charismatic, Pentecostal Free Church, Pentecostal House Churches, Evangelical Missions where I have prayed and worked with Spirit filled Christians I have had many confide in me their confusion about the nature and character of God that is linked with an uncertainty and wariness of the Old Testament being so closely unified with Christ.
Moreover, I have observed a general 'head in the sand' attitude by everyone toward the very very serious problem of Jesus being retrofitted to the Old Testament. 'Nasty stuff in the Old Testament but let's talk about Jesus today... .. and everything will be alright' typifies the way leaders opt out of facing up to the dire offence to Christ that the Old Testament causes by exisitng as Holy Writ. Everything will never be alright until the canonised appendage of sinner's lives, that suggests Jesus endorses everything they said and did when they used God's name, is weighed and tested at a judgement seat that has only One Person sitting on it.
It is time to stop this nonsense of trying to uphold a tradition of blending old and new wine into one Holy script simply because of its long history. It is time to accept that Constantine, favoured as a holy relic of Rome's hijack of the church, was nothing but a bloodlusting warrior whose dream about Jesus giving him victory in battle was nothing but a worship of the Roman god of war - Satan himself. The destroyer and liar from the beginning.
God has never instructed any man to kill his neighbour - this is a lie from the pit. Unless of course you live out of the Old Testament because, like Constantine, you believe Christ is a God of war and destruction.

Thesis 153

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

The Bible answered, “You are right in saying the Bible is a king. In fact, for this reason it was born, and for this it came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to the Bible.” John 18v 37

Jesus is the shortcut to understanding the truth but the long route is paved with sinner’s thoughts and ideas; the source of much speculation and division. If you want a sound mind I recommend you feed on the mind of Christ only and NOT on the mind of men born in sin. Words canonised by miniscule councils in a miniscule region of time and space will no longer be of any use when Jesus’ words are all that remains after heaven and earth has passed away.

It is worth considering the Word that became flesh, and dwells among us today, was born by the Holy Spirit as sinless flesh that physically rose again BECAUSE Jesus was born with authority to raise Himself to life with these same sinless words. The voices in the Bible were NOT born by the Holy Spirit as sinless flesh but were inspired by God for the sole purpose of preparing the world to only feast on Jesus as the Truth; the effect of contentious voices in the Bible upon the spirit of men and women has been cataclysmic.

For Christians who are confused about the often dual personality of church dogma and of many believer’s often confused description of the nature and character of God, you might find it interesting to consider also that the reason for the confusion might be because the second hand breath of the spirit of man might not be as reliable a vehicle for portraying God’s character and nature as the first hand breath of God is that CAME FIRST when Jesus, as indivisible from the Father, breathed on Adam with words that told him to feed off His voice – the right tree/vine. Separation from God came into the world through Adam who gave equal credibility to the voice of a sinner, Satan, -the wrong tree/vine. Instead of listening to Jesus’ voice, whose words came first because they have always been reliably holy and true before the foundations of the world were laid, Adam, like Judas, listened to the sinner's voice as 'authority'.

We have inherited a Bible that demands we feed off the words of sinners. Don’t you think this is a bit of an insult to Jesus Christ who went to the extreme of debasing Himself on the cross to separate us from sin?