A Lesson In Authority, Part 11

Divine Example

Jesus Himself was under authority. As a 12 year-old boy, he “went down with them (Mary and Joseph) to Nazareth, and was subject unto them…”. Here is the Creator in submission to the creature! Here is the Wise subject to the simple! Here is the Omnipotent subject to the impotent! Here is the Omniscient subject to those of limited knowledge! Here is the Eternal subject to time-bound humans! Here is the Infinite subject to the finite. Here is the Sinless subject to the sinner!

And why was Jesus subject to these imperfect earthly parents? Because His heavenly father had chosen these parents to be over Him until “the time appointed.” As an infant and young child, He was absolutely dependent on them for life and sustenance. Was there ever a time during infancy and childhood that Jesus was not fully aware of Who He was? No, there was not.

And yet, even though He knew exactly who He was, and from His birth possessed all the attributes of deity, there was never a time, even during his teen and young adult years, when He threw off His parents authority or failed to honor them. Because, in being subject to their authority, He was not saying that Mary and Joseph were never wrong or never sinned, because they were wrong and did sin. He was saying that He was in submission to His heavenly Father, Who had placed Him in their care.

The result of His submission to these God-given earthly parents was that “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” He said, “Verily, verily I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do…”

If you study the life of Jesus carefully, you will see that His most striking characteristic was His submission to His Father. His casting out of demons was done by the authority given to Him by the Father. The healing of the sick, the working of miracles, His prayer life, His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, His “obedience unto death” was all accomplished with an attitude of submission to His Father. “Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done” was not a new attitude just then being expressed.

These words were not spoken just because of the gravity of the situation He was in. They were the expression of a life-long attitude of submission, which took Him to a cross of shame and agony. The sincerity of His submission was tested by nails, by a crown of thorns, by ridicule, by mocking, nakedness and a Roman spear.

Philippians chapter 2 is known as the “knosis” passage, taken from the Greek Word, which means “emptying.” It describes how Jesus, Who was the very essence of deity, gave up the prerogatives of deity and gave up His position of glory and honor, which He had shared with the Father since eternity past, and “emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam’s helpless race.”

We read “And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore, God has also highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and thing under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2)

Because of Jesus’ submission, His obedience, His humility, God highly exalted Him. If Jesus had not been submissive to His father’s authority, He could not have accomplished our salvation. Young people need to follow Jesus’ example and be “subject” to the parents God gave them.

To close, I share one of the most fascinating stories I have ever read in the Bible. It is found in Jeremiah 35. Judah is in disobedience to God. God is about to send judgment in the form of conquering armies and captivity.

So he tells Jeremiah to go outside Jerusalem to the large tent village of the Rechabites. God said to bring them to Jerusalem and then into the temple. He said to set jars of wine and drinking cups before all the Rechabites and to tell the Rechabites to drink the wine. God also told Jeremiah to bring witnesses into the Temple to view what was about to happen.

Jeremiah did what God told him to do. The Rechabites entered Jerusalem, came into one of the temple chambers, and then Jeremiah, with witnesses all watching, set wine before them. And he said, “Drink ye wine.”

And they said, “We will drink no wine, for Jonadab, the son of Rechab, our father commanded us saying, “ye shall drink no wine, neither ye nor your sons forever. Neither shall ye build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any; but all your days ye shall dwell in tents. Thus have we obeyed the voice of Jonadab, our father in all that he hath charged us.” (Jeremiah 35:7)

A condensed paraphrase presents God as saying to Jeremiah: “Go, tell Judah that the sons of Jonadab obeyed their grandfather and father and would not drink wine forever, and yet Judah will not obey me—their true father. Therefore Judah shall be judged, but there shall not fail one of the house of Jonadab to stand before me.”

We all know “the rest of the story.” Judah was taken into captivity. Why? Because they had failed to obey their true father—God. And I guarantee you that the Rechabites not only obeyed their earthly father, but also obeyed their heavenly father and were not a part of the crowd that God was about to judge, else God would not have used them as an example. Honoring a father’s authority is honoring God, because God is the one who gave the father his authority.

This is not an “extreme case.” It is a biblical case, and God tells us plainly in the Book of I Corinthians: “All these things were done for our example and for our learning, upon whom the ends of the earth are come.”

Let us not dismiss them, because they do not agree with our view of the situation. Let us do as the Word of God says—take them as examples and learn from them.

In conclusion, all authority comes from God; everyone is under some authority. In fact, everyone on the earth is probably under more than one authority, because each child on the earth is at least under some kind of “parental” authority. In addition, they are also under some kind of governmental authority. Hopefully, if they are converted, they are under some kind of “spiritual authority.” If a person is an orphan and destitute of father or mother, then God becomes his father to him and will care for him.

Conflicts, misunderstandings and sorrow result from a “confusion of authorities”— a situation that results from an authority’s misunderstanding of his subject jurisdiction. As a result, the ones who are under the authorities become “confused” about which authority they should obey. When this happens, the authority who has counseled outside his subject jurisdiction should recognize his error, apologize, and re-direct the one he has wrongly counseled back to the authority who can truly help him.

May we recognize these truths and abide by them, so God may be glorified in our exercise of His authority.