God, the Bible and Political Justice: Chapter 4
Three Beings and Four Institutions of Authority:
The Building Blocks of the Kingdom
Before we leave Genesis and move on through the books of Moses, we must take time to look at the tacit principles and values that God weaves into the first book of Genesis. These truths run through all of Scripture and become more and more defined as God’s revelation unfolds. Here we can say we have the benefit of hindsight. We can look at the end of the revelation in Christ and the reality of the book of Revelation and then return to Genesis and see that the threads of these ideas were sown from the very beginning of God’s creation. None of the threads God is telling us about are more important than what He is revealing about authority and power in His Kingdom.
A Kingdom Is More Than a King.
A kingdom is the system by which a King delegates authority and power, the infrastructure through which a monarch creates liberty, jurisdictions, limits and boundaries. The key to understanding any culture or nation lies in understanding where they place authority and power within the community. This will not only help get things done within the country, it will give you the foundational values it builds on. The essence of governance is defining and maintaining these designations, their authority and limits.
In Genesis chapter one and two God establishes two institutions of authority, individual and family that by default will grow into two more and evolve as peoples and cultures multiply. The over all institutional design of the Kingdom of God includes four separate and limited sovereignties: the individual, family, government and church. Each of these has a designated purpose in the Kingdom of God and defined boundaries of jurisdiction. The four immutable vessels of authority are as important in the Kingdom as the objectives God has created them to accomplish.
In addition to these four institutions, Scripture gives us three “beings” in the Kingdom of God that share in some level of delegated authority and power: God Himself, human beings and angels. We cannot discuss institutional authority and power on earth without addressing the reality of both the seen and unseen world, and the “beings” that influence them.
These issues of authority and power are part of what Paul is referring to as the great mysteries of God kept secret but now revealed. Understanding what God has said in the Old Testament is essential to understanding what Christ has accomplished on the cross, what it means to have the Kingdom within us and what it means to disciple the nations.
The questions: Do I have authority? Who gave me that authority? Whom do I have that authority over? Who has the authority to stop me? What responsibility comes with that authority? Do I have the power to execute that authority? If not, where do I get it from? are all fundamental to all questions of law and governance and to understanding the Kingdom of God.
Power and Authority
What is the difference between power and authority? This is an essential question for anyone interested in justice and Kingdom building. Imagine the world’s greatest body builder and weight lifter, the world’s biggest, strongest man. Imagine this mammoth man holding a newborn infant. The question is “can he crush this infants head?” is a question of power. Of course he can. He has huge strength and the baby’s head is soft. “May he (does he have permission to) crush the babies head?” That is a question of authority, a completely different matter. In order to answer that question you would have to answer address the issue of where that authority would/could come from.
Definitions of the word “power” emphasize “capacity,” (Is he able?) The presence or absence of the power to act does not automatically correlate with the authority to act or visa versa. Power is ability I either have or do not have.
Definitions of the word “authority”, on the other hand, emphasize the word “given.” Authority is given to me. It is the “right” to use power. It is possible to have legitimate authority to act without the power to do so. Equally, it is possible to have the power to do something but not have the legitimate authority to do it.
Part of the meaning of the Hebrew word “justice” is “right order.” “…It is in many ways the antonym of ‘chaos.” Justice is restoring God’s right order on earth. It is giving the “right” individuals and the “right” institutions the “right” authority ordained by God along with the power to execute it. Part of building the Kingdom of God on earth then is seeking to give and to use legitimate authority and power.
In order to answer any question of authority, we would have to say where authority for this or that comes from. For instance, who has the authority to decide if the baby held by the big man lives or dies? The answer to that question, “from where, to whom and to do what” does authority come from is the essence of law and perhaps, the essence of a kingdom.
Three Beings
Scripture, Old and New Testament, reveal a Kingdom where God has shared power and authority with His creatures and creation. He has given limited power and authority with borders, responsibilities and requirements attached to it, but it is genuine power and authority, nonetheless. And God will not take back what He has given, for to do so would be to destroy what He has created. He seeks to redeem rather than destroy what He has made. In the hierarchy of the Bible there are three beings that have authority and power: God, human beings and angels.
God
It is clear in Genesis chapter one and two that God is the author of all that is, the seen and the unseen world. He is the Creator behind all that is created. He is the Power behind all power and the Authority behind all authority. God is “capable” (has enough power) of doing anything He likes. He has all power. Equally, God has all authority. Being God, He has the “right” to do what He likes. Most Christians, if not most religious people, will agree with these two statements at some level.
Once we move beyond these basic truths opinions scatter wildly about how God works. Has God delegated any of His power and/or authority? If He has, to whom and for what purpose has He delegated it? How much power and authority has He delegated? And would He ever revoke it? The answers to these questions in Scripture give us God’s definition of “proper order” and applied they tell us what God means by “justice.”
If we seek to institute justice, it must be a Biblical definition of “justice” that we seek to institute. It must be a Biblical set of must rights our systems seek secure and deny as well as a Biblical set of boundaries imposed on those rights. In other words, just governance in the Kingdom of God is, by design, a system of competing interests and rights held in tension by law. Justice is measured by whether the right people making the right decisions appropriate to their God given authority. Justice and morality in the Kingdom of God is not only “what we choose” but equally “who chooses.”
When Saul, King of Israel, seeks to murder David, David has no moral or legal responsibility to allow him to kill him. He runs! He has the right as an individual to safe guard his life and no obligation to surrender to the authority of the King when the King is acting contrary to the law of Israel. There are boarders set on the authority of the political leader and there are rights secured for the individual, family and tribe. In other words, there are limits to the Kings authority.
The Individual
In Genesis one and two God gives direct line authority to Adam, male and female:
1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
God decrees His human creatures to be second in authority over His creation. Adam, male and female and their progeny are made in the image of God and God gives them authority to rule the earth and the creatures that live there. We humans are coregents of our planet and co-heirs of the Kingdom with God. The enormity of this position will not become apparent until Jesus comes with the revelation of redemption. The New Testament writers will refer to this as the secrets and mysteries kept hidden from us from the beginning of time now revealed by the Spirit to us.
It is exceedingly important here to note that there is no authority given in Genesis one and two over each other, human being over human being. We will return to this subject as we develop the authority of civil governance and our discussion of institutions.
The building block of the Kingdom of God then is the individual. We are sovereign over ourselves as God is sovereign over all else. We are created in the image of God and therefore have limited freedom and authority from God to make choices. We have the “right” to sin (authority,) but we “ought not to sin” (morality.) We should not disobey God however we can and may with limits. While we can sin (have the power to), God will not bless it.
If we are created free to make a choice then there must be a choice to make. In other words, authority without power is rather a play on words. God is not playing with language. God is establishing authority in His Kingdom. God created a choice:
Genesis 2:8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…. 15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.
Angels
Adam, male and female, are not alone with God in the Garden. There are other beings in paradise. They do not appear in Genesis one or two but the story that evolves from chapter three on is that these being are “pre-human” and have a history with God before we were created. Our first contact with these beings is with one that has already “fallen,” or a demon. The serpent in Genesis chapter three is a disguised fallen angel. All of Scripture clarifies that before and after their rebellion against God, there were and are angelic beings, created by God for the service of the Kingdom.
Third in God’s hierarchy are angels, God’s emissaries in both the seen and unseen dimensions of His Kingdom. There are more than 290 references to angels in Scripture where they are sent to accomplish various tasks on God’s behalf and are delegated the authority from God to accomplish what He has sent them to do.
Angels’ job descriptions vary. They are sent to assist in earthly wars between humans influencing both seen and unseen powers in these battles. They are sent to dispatch wisdom and answers to prayer. They can be detained and scare animals. Sometimes they can be seen and sometimes not. They can change appearance and appear and disappear. They have capacities (powers) we do not have. But, they do not have sovereign authority. The description God gives us in Scripture is one where angels “wait” on the Lord’s command to act. When given a specific assignment, they are also given the authority by God to carry it out. But, they have no authority to self-initiate. They are not co-heirs or co-regents of the Kingdom of God as human beings are. They are rather, highly valued servants.
Therefore, when angles usurp authority for themselves and engage in “self-rule” they “fall.” Fall from what? They fall from God’s servant roster. They are no longer sent by God to do anything and therefore have “no” authority, or permission from God to act on His behalf.
The angels that have rebelled and rejected the God who created them have lost their position in God’s Kingdom. They exist, they are real, they maintain a certain amount of power (capacity) but have lost their authority, as God no longer sends them to do His bidding.
“And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home.”Jude 1:6
Satan, chief fallen angel, shows up first in Genesis chapter three in the guise of a snake. He is there to tempt Adam, female and male, to doubt God’s trustworthiness and their own capacity to understand His words.
He does not actively show up again until the book of Job 1:16 more than 500 pages later. In the books of the Law it is clear that demons are the ones being worshipped when Israel is sacrificing their own children in worship. Demons feature some in the Psalms, but do not become a major subject until the New Testament. There is a great deal of demonic activity throughout the Gospels and apostolic letters and they are a prevalent in the Revelation of John.
Jesus reveals that demons are the ones who “sew bad seed” in Matt 13:39 and that “hell” was created as a place for their destruction. Matt 25:41 and Mark 3:15 record Jesus stating that demons have no authority over us and Luke 10 clarifies they must “submit to the name of Jesus.” Paul makes it clear in Romans 8:38 that they “do not” have the authority or power to separate you and I from the love of God. And John makes it clear in Revelation that Satan and his fallen legions of angels are defeated and God is walking out the end.
For our purposes here then, fallen angels have retained some of their power (capacity) but none of their authority (permission.) Where then do demons get their influence and apparent authority today? From the only other source of authority in the Kingdom of God, human beings. Literally, the human being must give authority to Satan over himself and collectively over the culture.
Why is this important for us in this discussion of governance and political justice? It is very simple. Justice is, in part, assigning guilt and innocence, while creating a system of “proper order.” Proper order in the Kingdom of God is to place responsibility either on God or human beings, as they are the only two beings that have authority. Angels are glorious servant to God and man. Demons, at their worst, are defeated schemers who have already been tried, convicted, sentenced and are waiting for their incarceration. In the Kingdom of God the defense “the devil made me do it” is never valid, even when he was involved.
Institutions
In addition to beings with authority and power God created institutions as an extension of our individual delegated authority and power. Beginning with family, God created institutions to help mediate the impact of individual choices on the human community. As a Person, God created the individual. As a Father, God created family. As a King, God created governance. And as Priest, God created religion.
There are no known human cultures primitive or modern that lack any of these institutions. They are essential to the human design and experience. Without them we would self-destruct. As imperfect as each of these institutions may be in any given society, flawed they are still better than nothing at all. The only thing worse than bad governance is no governance. When anarchy reigns there are no borders on abuse. The only things worse than bad parents are no parents at all. When we try to raise children in institutional care or foster systems the abuse multiplies, although that is still better than nothing. And, though we rightly blame much of human violence on religious beliefs, the only societies that are more violent are those that claim there is no god.
We have institutions in all societies because that is the way God has created human culture to function. The question is whether these institutions will be, more or less, built on God’s template of authority and purpose. Because God has given humans authority and power and therefore, choice, individuals and groups will attempt to abuse that same power and authority. It falls to every culture and society to decide what boundaries it will place on the abuse of society by the individual and on the abuse of the individual by that society. This challenge is not a problem that we can solve but a dilemma of competing values we seek to keep in tension through “proper order” or justice.
God is clear in Scripture on the types of authority and the boundaries of authority that He desires in His Kingdom. It is our challenge as citizens and as political servants to work towards these same definitions and limits in our own society. We do not seek to create perfection on earth. That is not possible. But we do seek the best justice possible for all possible and for a healthy tension between the rights and responsibility of all individuals as well as the groups and institutions they create. We seek to bless our nations.
Four Institutional Authorities:
Individual, Family, Government and Church
Genesis one and two give us God’s first two institutions. In effect Scripture indicates that all authority on earth emanates from the delegated authority God has given to individual men and women. In other words the smallest unit of authority and power on earth is you. All of human culture builds on that foundation. Our view of the individual will be the foundation of the rest of our cultural values. And our view of the individual will build on our view of God.
The Sovereign Individual
As individuals, we are created in the image of God, free and sovereign over ourselves. In other words we are not controlled but empowered to make choices. We do not make choices over all things, but within the limits of our power, we choose how we will respond and use the circumstances that are beyond our control. A French politician who was freed after six years as a guerilla jungle hostage said, “I lost control of everything except control of the kind of person I was going to be.”
God does not deny the fact of nature and nurture but He adds and emphasizes the reality of a third fact, choice. Because all individuals are created free, the boarder of one person’s sovereignty must end where another person’s begins. Anarchy is the tyranny of the individual over riding the freedom of everyone else. Tyranny, on the other hand is a small group taking the rights away from everyone else. For this reason, any society will set limits to personal freedom, on the abuse of the few by the many and on the rights of few over the many. Without them the community would self-destruct. The question will be if those limits will be Kingdom limits?
As we saw earlier, Genesis details the decent of fallen human race into total anarchy and violence. From the first generation fratricide of Abel the escalation of violence is swift. Just nine generations later God has to destroy human life before they totally destroy themselves. God spares Noah and his sons in a desperate attempt to give humans a chance to rehabilitate.
We will look at this more in later chapters, but from the time of Noah to the creation of Babylon in Genesis 11, human reaction to anarchy inspires the idea of total control and the tyranny of the few over the many. Babylon conceives the idea that no one has rights but the few and the first empirical dream grows from there multiplying around the world with continuing violence. God labors through out human history with the pendulum swing from anarchy to tyranny and then back again. How can God keep the individual safe and free? Exactly!
The Sovereign Family
While delineating the creation of the entire universe in just two short chapters, Genesis one and two, God takes the time to oversee the creation and establishes boundaries on the second human institution of marriage and family.
Volumes can and must be written about the implications of this passage for all of our cultures. But for the purposes of this book we will focus on the question of authority. God delegates to first person Adam the naming of the animal kingdom. In this process Adam recognizes his “ownliness.” The solution God and Adam come to is the creation of “otherness,” or a “differentiation” of self. From his, Adam’s, self comes “another.” “Adam two.” female is literally taken from “Adam one.” The one has become two and the two will multiply. They now may join together again as one, if they so choose, creating an institution called marriage.
Who joins them? Who officiates this first marriage? Who marries them? There is no civil ceremony as there is no “state.” It is not a religious ceremony as there is no priest. God does not indicate that He officiates, even though He is there. There is not even family present to grant permission or a community to be witness. So, where does the authority for these two people to marry come from? It comes from the two of them. As individuals, as co-regents with God, they choose each other. They choose to limit their God given sovereignty over each their individual lives by giving themselves to each other.
Two individuals, one male and one female, agreeing to join in a lifetime exclusive relationship freely “give” themselves to each other, and the children they may have, forms God’s definition of family. The partners are co-equals as individuals, co-rulers in dominion of the earth, but they now sovereignly agree, mutually and exclusively, to belong to each other. God is their witness.
Now God makes an incredible declaration. He says: Genesis 2:24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Even though it has no practical relevance to this first union as there are no parents, God purposefully creates a boundary on the definition of family, its’ authority and responsibility. The authority and responsibility of family is the man, his wife and their children. This new family is not an extension of the their parents authority. It, the new family, is a new sovereign entity within itself with rights and responsibilities. God seeks to strengthen the rights of spouses while diminishing the rights of the extended family. And this is before the fall.
Here God has ordained children. The authority of parents over children and husbands over wives is the authority of “love” defined by God as “laying your life down to serve the other.” And so where there is tyranny in the family, couples trying to destroy each other, or their children, we have to create legal boundaries to minimalize the abuse of the individual within family and of that family within the society.
The Sovereignty of Government
Our next Kingdom institution, Government, will evolve as the human race multiplies and fills the earth. Individual freedoms and the authority of the family will have to be held in tension with the rights of other individuals and families, in other words the community. Families, as a basis for social development will dominate earliest human history. But multiplication will necessitate the evolution of tribes, a community of families and nations, a community of tribes.
With the loss of God’s perspective in the fall, definitions of both family and governance will take on a top down authoritarian form and lose God’s emphasis on the importance of the authority of the individual as the basic building block of society. All forms of government prior to the writing of the Law will be conceived with power and authority at the top.
When God speaks for Himself into human history, He will turn the pyramid right side up, declaring the authority and power of governance to be “in the people” being governed. As God reveals His values and ways through the Law, He will once again emphasize the importance of the individual AND the family and community.
Formed first in Deuteronomy chapter one, government as an institution is given responsibility to negotiate conflicting freedoms and rights within the community. It is here that the community defines and defends rights and sets limits. Because the people being governed are “created free” God gives the people the right to choose how, by whom and over what they will be governed as individuals, families and groups. God reveals “His definition” of just authority and limits in the Law but we do not have to follow God or obey these limits. God has given us choice and we may decide for ourselves as nations what we will call justice and live with the consequences of those choices. If we want God’s promised blessings, however, we must apply His definitions and limits. This dynamic relationship between the Law, our choices as nations and God’s blessing is illustrated in all of the history of Israel. God details what He said, what they did and what happened because they did it all the way through the Prophets.
The Sovereignty of Religion
Like families and governments, human cultures will all develop institutions committed to worship of god/s. In spite of our separation from God through sin, we retain our awareness that there is something greater than ourselves that influences our lives and planet. And we seek their/his/her blessing.
When God forms the priesthood in the Laws of Moses, He declares His right through this institution to speak for Himself. Unlike civil law, the authority of the Priesthood and their message come directly from God Himself. The institution of the priesthood has the right and responsibility to represent God but they do not have the authority to impose that belief on anyone. Because we have the right as individuals to believe what we like, societies will have many religions. Like “individuals,” “religions” have the right to exist. However they do not have the right to violate the freedoms of other individuals, families, religions and nations.
Now we are at the heart of Kingdom authority and the crossroads of civil law and political justice: the tension God has created in delegating authority to individuals, families, nations and religions.
A System of Checks and Balances to Authority and Power
The Scriptures give us a system of competing authorities and powers, all created by God. Sin, of course corrupts but does not destroy God’s design. In working to teach the nations God’s ways, discipling nations, we not only need God’s thinking on the content of law, but on the system of law He will bless. We must leave God’s delegated sovereignties in place. Building from the individual in the image of God with the authority to make choices, we must seek through civil law to secure certain rights including rights pertaining to personal conduct, thought, speech, family, faith and political conviction and, of course, limits to those rights.
We do not seek to perfect our nations through political control. We, as God’s ambassadors, seek to bless our nations through securing a just system of proper order.
Rights
We now have the Biblical basis for the discussion of what we call today “rights.” Because individual lives are sacred and the foundational building block of God’s creation, individuals, no matter who they are, have rights. Because family is the most concerned, connected unit of any community and ordained by God to hold the most influential role in raising the child, families have rights. Because human beings are created social beings that need the extended family to thrive and prosper, communities have rights. And because God guaranteed us the right to choose, religious freedom is mandated and therefore religious institutions have rights. The authority behind each institution is the God given authority. And because this is a competitive tension of rights, created by God, the question is not only “what would be right to do?” but also “who would be right to decide what is done and how will we secure that right?”
The challenge of civil governance then is to insure the rights of the right people to make the decisions God has ordained are theirs, whether we agree with them or not and the limits of the decisions they have the right to make. If we have no boarders on the freedom of the individual, we will dissolve into anarchy, the most violent of all systems. If we have no boarders on the rights of governments, we will end of with tyranny the second most violent of all systems. And if we have no limits on the rights of the many, we will end up with demagoguery, the tyranny of the many over the few. Welcome to the Kingdom!
