LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
Authority in the House of God
However reasonable an act of rebellion against the authority might appear, it will never have the backing of God.
Roberto Sáez
Readings: Luke. 22:42; Coloss. 4:12b; John. 18:1; 2 Sam. 15:23; 30; Heb. 1:13-14; 5:5a, 6a, 9a.
Disobedience being the sin that brought so much evil, both in the heavens and on the earth, we must consider how important it is for God that He be obeyed. For that reason, the words "authority" and "subjection" are of primordial importance. God is authority, and all His creation and His creatures are subject to him. So much the physical universe, as the intelligent beings; they are all under His authority. The Kingdom of the heavens is a hierarchy of authority in which God is the peak. In heaven, all obey.
However, there was an act that affected the heavens; the rebellion of Lucifer and the angels that followed him. The same situation took place on the earth, because of the enemy's influence. Man also rebelled, boisterously falling in his association with the evil one. Every time that some of the creatures disobey God, it will provoke God's "memory", about the origin of the wrong doing. Although the Lord Jesus Christ already conquered and claimed the authority of God with His work on the cross, the church is still required to put the enemy where Christ already put him: under His feet. Each generation has had a representative group of Christians who have done this; today it's our turn.
Christ's obedience
One of the biggest crises in Jesus' life as a man, was that which He lived in the garden of Gethsemane. It was there that He adopted the concrete resolution of taking the cup of curses that had been against humanity throughout time. God's wrath was against man; the sin demanded divine justice, and the Lord Jesus Christ knelt there with a legitimate fear of death- especially this type of death, in which He would be considered by the Father as one who was cursed, when carrying humanity's sin upon Himself. His soul, more than that of any human being, was so sensitive that it could perceive what this separation would mean (because death is separation).
Although it is certain that the fear of death that was upon Jesus made Him suffer a perspiration comparable to great drops of blood, what is much more incredible is the fact that His greatest fear was not due to the pain of death in itself, but due to what could have meant an act of disobedience.
The first Adam, in another garden, that of Eden ("Eden" means pleasure), didn't have the capacity to measure the chaos that his disobedience would unleash. Christ, on the other hand, the last Adam, had the antecedent of the origin of evil in heaven, when the principal angel didn't want to accept what God wanted for him. Our Lord was in the garden of Gethsemane (and "Gethsemane" means oil press). The meaning of "Gethsemane" was prophetic because Christ's soul was being subjected to a press that would make Him suffer agony regarding His will and that of the Father. Never before, between the people of the Trinity, had a disagreement existed. Blessed is the Lord Jesus Christ who was able say: "Father, if there was another form of redeeming…, but not as I want but as You want".
The rebellion of Absalom, the son of David, has the same characteristics as the rebellion that occurred in the heavens. A son wanted to pass over the authority of his father. Absalom was not 'in tune ' with his father, and began to scheme how to overthrow him. Because of that, for about three years, he sat down at the gate of the city of Jerusalem to judge people's causes. To each one he told them something pleasant and thus pleased each person. Until finally the people began to cry: "Who will give us Absalom as our king!".
Absalom deceivingly requested permission to offer sacrifices in Hebron, the city where David had begun his reign. The father was pleased that his son wanted to worship God; however, upon arriving there, he took the city, together with all his men, and he had the malicious ability to attract his father's counselors. When David knew about this, he covered his head with sackcloth and left Jerusalem barefoot and weeping, with all his family and the 600 faithful foreigners who always accompanied him. All the people who saw David under those conditions imitated his expression of pain, covering their heads and weeping because of Absalom's rebellion.
Beginning with this incident and even up to today, the Jews, men and women alike, adopted the habit of worshipping God with their head covered.
That night, David made the same journey that our Lord Jesus Christ would make one thousand years later. He crossed the brook Kidron and went up the hill of the mount of Olives (John. 18:1). David wept over his son's rebellion. (If there was anyone who was sensitive with regard to authority it was David, and now he had a foolish son who was doing something so contrary to his father's character). Jesus, in like manner, suffered over man's rebellion and over the rebellion that occurred in heaven because of Lucifer. Why did David cover his head?
There are incidents which are caused by the sovereignty of God and this is one of them. What is the message? That in heaven, the main angel, the most skilled of all, the most beautiful, the fastest, the director of praises, the one who made the musical adjustments, taking the sounds from God's creation in space; he didn't want to accept that in the future, neither he nor his companions would be the main characters of creation, but rather an inferior race called "man". "For not unto angels did he subject the world to come... What is man, that thou art mindful of him? ... Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.... But now we see not yet all things subjected to him... But we behold him who hath been made a little lower than the angels, even Jesus".
The angels, in some moment, learnt what their function in the future would be: to serve those who would be heirs of salvation. It was upon this point that the main angel and his followers objected. Envy found its way into them; as did jealousies and the arrogance of not accepting what God wants. Perhaps the main angel said to himself: "I have never served anyone below me; only above me. I have only served God; I have never served anybody that is inferior to me. All praises flow from me in heaven, how can God consider taking this glory from me? Ah, ha! I will ascend above God's head, I will ascend beyond His throne, I will take the Kingdom into my hands and I will do whatever I please". Many of those that were subordinate to him followed blindly. This is exactly what Absalom did: to take the Kingdom he had to kill his father; he had to go over his head. For that reason David, as a sign of grief, covered his head that day. We know what Absalom's sad end was.
When God suffered Lucifer's rebellion, He decided to give the Kingdom to His Son until the Son suppressed all dominions. This is a lesson that He teaches us so that any act of rebelliousness against authority, however reasonable it may seem, will never have God's backing.
Subjection and authority in the House of God
Adam's race never learned the lesson of obedience. For this reason it was exterminated with the last Adam on the cross of Calvary, and starting from there, a new race, a new creation arose, whose head is Christ the Lord.
The people of Israel solemnly committed to obey all the precepts of God's law. Perhaps in that moment they were sincere in promising such faithfulness, but their experience demonstrated that they could never obey. The only one from among men that has completed God's law has been the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam failed and then all Israel also failed. Christ has been the only one able to vindicate men.
But now the church as the house of God is the only place in the world where people are interested in what God wants. Nobody else, outside of the church, is worried about what God's will is. What's more, the world is God's enemy and is infected with Lucifer's rebellion. Human nature entered into concomitance with that of the enemy, and doesn't want what comes from God. The enemy has not repented of his rebellion and he never will because he is such an enemy that he doesn't want forgiveness, or salvation, or love, or anything that comes from God.
So too is man's condition when he is far from God; but the mercy and the love of God is persistent in offering man's return to the will of God through the preaching of the gospel. Only when he meets with Christ, and receives the life of God by the work of the Holy Spirit, is he then able to begin to want what God wants. From then onwards, there is a long road to travel in order to learn the lesson of obedience.
The church is the only place where the will of God can be appreciated. The church mustn't lose the blessing of obeying God. The brother Epaphras, in Colossians 4:12, was very concerned about this matter and prayed intensely "... that ye may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God." The only thing that we can be firm, perfect and complete in is in Christ, living in Him, for Him, and with Him. The will of God is Christ. All that God wants is in Him, so anyone who wants to be in synchrony with God has to know Christ and to learn what to be transformed to Christ's likeness implies.
This whole teaching needs to be brought into practice. To do so, God has left appointed authorities, entities of authority, like the church, the family, and the very order of God for the universe. In chapter 11 of 1st Corinthians we find the hierarchical order for the universe. It is interesting to observe that the angels are not considered in it, because God does not intend to subject the coming world to them, but to man whose head is Christ and His body which is the church. This collective man is He who is predestined to be the main character in God's universe. Of this it is said: " But now we see not yet all things subjected to him... But we behold …Jesus... crowned with glory and honor".
One could think that Paul ought to write that God is Christ's head that Christ is the head of the angels, that the angels are the head of man and that man is the head of woman. But this is not the case. The angels do not appear, because in the coming ages they are not destined to exercise authority, but to serve those who will be heirs of salvation.
The church is called to sustain a testimony that marks the consciences of the superior powers. The testimony consists of telling them that we have Christ as our head, that we submit ourselves to Him in everything and at all times, that nobody in the church seeks to be head and that those who are in spiritual authority in the church are there to serve, representing the authority of the Head, without ever substituting it.
When the seraphs worship God in heaven, they lift their wings and cover their faces in front of the throne of God. When doing so, they also cover their heads. Why? Because in that simple act, which perhaps is inadvertent for us, they are showing a sign to God, meaning: "God, we recognize that only You are the head of the universe; the first of our companions rose up against You, wanting to become head; but we love you and we cover our heads as a sign of acceptance that only You are head, and that such a rebellion is never ever going to happen among us".
The most overwhelming testimony that the house of God gives before the superior powers, the fallen angels and those who have not fallen alike, consists in how much we understand the will of God and how willing we are to obey it.
When authority and subjection are made official in an institutional way in the house of God, one runs the risk of working by external mechanics. A shepherd doesn't have authority because he has been recognized as such, but rather in as much as Christ's authority passes through him. No minister of the Lord has authority in himself, but only in as much as Christ is represented. Christ's authority, as head, is distributed in the whole body; but, often, the models of authority imitate the hierarchy of heaven which is pyramidal; on the other hand, the pattern in the house of God is to submit to one another. Only Christ is the head. So, Christ's grace passes through the members of the body and the whole house benefits in this way; but we must observe that it is by the grace of God and not by a mere institutionalism.
The word of God commands us to obey our shepherds in a practical way. Notice that it doesn't say "the leader" but "your leaders" (Heb. 13:17). It also commands us to obey our parents, the wife to the husband, the servants to their masters and in general to all authority, because all authority has been designated by God. Obedience in the house of God is not everyone obeying one person, but everyone to one another. The only case in which everyone obeys one person is when everyone obeys Christ; not when we lift up one leader who everyone obeys. Every brother who is honored with a visible position in the house of God must be regulated by the body. History tells us that when "generals" arise in the house of God they cause a disaster. The most dangerous thing is in the context of the church is for any individual to act alone without counterbalance. Rebellion is a seed that is in human nature and is the essence of sin itself, and it has a great deal to do with the desire to be head. We identify this sin as the worst of all because by this sin came the disgrace and the ruin of the fallen angels and all humanity.