Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 12 – March 1985
Authority In The Church
Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde M.A., M.Th. on Hebrews 13: 17
(Belgic Confession Art. 30)
Scriptures: 1Thessalonians 5:12-28; Hebrews 13:7-19
Suggested Hymns: 3; 368; 365; 305: 1,5,6,7; 468
Congregation of our Lord Jesus,
“Jesus Christ is Lord!” That was the key theme of the apostolic message; the basic truth that a person made his own when he responded to the apostles’ preaching. Without the Lordship of Christ, the Gospel is not the Gospel; and without confessing the Lordship of Christ no man or woman can be a Christian. As Paul said:
“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom.10:9).
So that’s something that all true believers have in common. They will gladly confess that Jesus is Lord and they all believe that God raised him from the dead.
But now in practice what difference does it make to believe in the living Lord Jesus Christ? Specifically how is that belief relevant to the everyday lives of people like you and me? What does it mean in the here and now? It’s the risen Christ himself who answers these questions. Before he ascended into heaven he told his disciples:
“All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” (Mtth.28:18).
That’s what it means to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord: all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. He is the absolute sovereign. He has it all under control. Now of course it’s an act of faith to believe that, but it’s an act of faith that every Christian is prepared to make. In spite of appearances, in spite of the mess the world seems to be in, we know and believe that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus Christ.
But notice that it says “has been given.” Someone gave it to him. He didn’t take it and he didn’t always have it. Of course, we don’t have to guess for too long to discover who that someone is. As Paul explains to the Corinthians:
“Now when it says that ‘everything’ has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” (1Cor.15:27,28).
God is placed above Christ, not because the Father is greater or more exalted than the Son, but because here we are thinking of Jesus Christ in his glorified humanity, as the second Adam, the new head of the human race. What Adam lost, he regained. He has dominion over all creation. That’s what we mean when we say that “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
But we can explore this further. This is a doctrine with remarkable implications. It means that anyone who has authority here on earth exercises that authority only with the permission of Jesus Christ. Only he has absolute authority. Everyone else’s authority is derived from him. You could say that Jesus Christ is like the head of a corporation who delegates authority. No effective manager does all the work by himself, but he learns to delegate. He knows how to give responsibility to others. Jesus does the same. His authority alone is absolute. Their authority is delegated. When we study the Scriptures we are told in no uncertain terms how Jesus Christ delegates his authority. Christ has delegated his authority in different areas of our lives, for instance…
(i) In the area of government citizens are to submit to state authorities.
(ii) In the area of employment workers submit to their employers.
(iii) In marriage wives submit to their husbands.
(iv) In the home, children are subject to their parents.
(v) And in the church, members are to obey their leaders.
Now let us look for some Scriptural backing for what we are saying. This is important and practical teaching and we must be sure of our facts. In fact these areas of authority are not taught just once but on several occasions. Obviously this is a message that God doesn’t want us to miss. So let’s look briefly at each of these five areas in turn.
(i) When it comes to the authority of governments, Paul could not have been clearer in the first two verses of Romans 13: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” That’s strong language and it becomes even stronger when you remember that Paul was writing to Christians at Rome where Nero was the emperor at the time. Paul was writing to people who lived in a context of cruelty and injustice, and even so they were to submit to the authorities.
(ii) In the area of employment the teaching of the New Testament was no less remarkable. Listen to the instruction that Paul gives to Titus. Titus 2:9: “Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive.”
“Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.” (2:18).
To our modern ears this teaching may sound very unusual and yet it is the teaching of Scripture. None of us are slaves today, but surely there are truths here that in one way or another every Christian employee should take to heart.
(iii) This brings us to the third area, that of marriage. Again we are confronted with some very relevant and penetrating commands: “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord… As the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything” (Eph.5:22,24). I’ll add no further comments, but if you have any questions you might like to read Ephesians 5 when you get home.
(iv) And then when we come to family life there’s a very direct instruction to children:
“Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord” (Col.3:20).
The most shining example of this is Jesus Christ himself. In all the Gospels there is but one comment we have about Jesus as a teenager, and that has to do with his relationship with Mary and Joseph:
“He went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them And he grew in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:51,52).
He was obedient. He matured. He was popular with people. Obviously there’s a connection between the three. Even Jesus knew his place in his parents’ home at Nazareth.
(v) And then finally this same authority structure applies to the life of the church. Christ has delegated responsibilities to church leaders and clothed them with his authority. Again the teaching couldn’t be clearer, as we find it in our text: “Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.”
Authority in the church is part of the overall picture of the authority that God has instituted in society as a whole. Christ has delegated his authority to heads of state, to employers, to husbands, to parents and to church leaders. It is the out-working of the Lordship of Christ in every area of our lives – in our church. That’s all implied in that great claim of the risen Christ: “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.”
Now before we move on to discuss the church in particular, I would like to first make three very practical comments:
1. Biblical authority is never a dictatorship.
One person may never lord it over another. Relationships are always a two-way street because both parties are responsible to Christ:
Wives are to be submissive to their husbands, but husbands are to love their wives.
Children are to obey their parents and parents are not to exasperate their children.
Slaves are to obey their masters, but masters are also to serve their slaves.
So let us remember that in the Bible no human being has absolute authority over another human being. Both are under God, and therefore you are called to disobey if someone tells you to do what goes against the will of God. Whenever there’s a conflict we must obey God rather than men.
2. But where there is no conflict – and this is my second practical comment – we are duty-bound to obey the authority placed over us; and surely this is where our confession of the Lordship of Christ is put to its severest test. If we believe that Jesus is Lord then we will obey those whom he has set over us.
So you are denying the Lordship of Christ in a very practical way if you disregard state traffic laws or try to dodge taxes imposed by the government.
And what happens to your Christian confession if you refuse to do an honest day’s work for your boss; or if as a wife you don’t accept your husband’s leadership; or if as a Christian child you don’t obey your parents? You may believe in your mind that Jesus is Lord, but you certainly don’t practice that belief in your life!
And the same is true of church members who show blatant disregard for decisions taken by the leadership of the church.
3. It’s no accident that we find all of this very difficult. Because the Bible also teaches that there’s someone who would like to turn God’s authority structure completely upside down, and that “someone” is Satan. Remember the situation in the Garden of Eden? Human society was very simple and there was a very simple authority structure: God was over man, man over woman, and man and woman over the animal kingdom. But Satan came and turned the whole thing topsy-turvy. He had the snake tell the woman what to do; then the woman told the man what to do and in the process they both defied God. Satan had succeeded in reversing God’s structure completely. He had put the whole thing on its head. And we see the same thing still happening today.
Now, we are no experts when it comes to saying exactly what the devil’s doing. Some people nowadays claim to have all sorts of insights. We don’t, but we can say with confidence on the basis of Scripture that this is an area where he’s specializing today. This is the subject that he’s really majoring in. You don’t need to have any profound insights to see that this is exactly what’s happening in the world today; the very thing that’s tearing apart the fabric of our society. We see it in politics. We see it in rampant unionism. We see it in some of the unhealthy aspects of the Women’s Lib. movement. We see it when families break down and again we see it in the ways teenagers rebel. It’s the “spirit of our times”. In some not very subtle ways Satan is plotting to overthrow the authority structure that God has laid down in the world. And if he’s such an expert at it when it comes to politics and economics, marriage and family, then it’s very unlikely that he would leave the church exempt. He doesn’t have to send persecution. He can destroy the church from within, simply by upsetting the authority structure that God has ordained. If members do their own thing or go their own way and disregard the leadership of the church or if they constantly oppose that leadership, then they run the risk of playing right into the hands of the enemy.
If we appreciate the Biblical structure of authority, we won’t need any profound insights to understand the dangers that confront us in the church today.
This finally brings us to the second point which deals specifically with authority in the church. Who has authority in the church? To whom are the members to submit? Of course Christ is the Head of the church, but to whom has he given the responsibility of leadership? And as we look around the Christian Church today we find a whole host of answers to this question. On the one extreme you have the Roman Catholic Church which believes that Christ has vested all his authority in one man, the Pope. On the other extreme you have Congregationalism which makes the church into a democracy so that on any issue it’s the members meeting which has the final say.
But the truth is different. The church is not ruled by one man, nor is it ruled by all its members. As the Belgic Confession says, “the church must be governed by that spiritual polity which our Lord has taught us in His Word; namely, that there must be ministers or pastors to preach the Word of God and to administer the sacraments; also elders and deacons, who, together with the pastors, form the council of the church”.
The Confession is simply telling us what we knew already: that the session rules the church. But the session does not rule in its own right and only in a limited sense does it rule by the will of the people. It governs under the headship of Christ. As R. B. Kuiper says in his very helpful book, “The Glorious Body of Christ”:
“The church is a monarchy. Christ is its one sovereign Head. Christ’s law is its only law. Its special officers are not to please men but Christ. After all it is Christ who appoints them to their several offices. It is Christ who clothes them with authority. It is Christ whom they represent. And their ultimate responsibility is to Christ alone.” (p.136).
That’s why the Scripture speaks of church leaders in such exalted and even glorious terms:
1Tim.5:17:- “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honour, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.”
Paul is making a very significant point. Because of their position the elders are worthy of honour and if they do their job well they deserve double honour.
Now let’s have a closer look at 1Thess.5:12&13 which we read earlier:
“Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.”
There’s a wealth of wisdom in these few words when it comes to the welfare and well-being of the church. Three things are said about the responsibility of the leaders and three things are said about the attitude of the members: Paul says the leaders do three things:
“They work hard among you, they are over you in the Lord and they admonish you.”
And all of this is to meet with a threefold response: you are to respect them, you are to hold them in the highest regard and you are to do all of that in love. Or to put it in a nutshell: the leaders labour, rule and admonish, and the members appreciate, esteem and love; and the result is peace: “Live in peace with each other.”
In his commentary William Hendriksen explains this well when he says:
“In connection with what immediately precedes, this must mean, ‘Stop your carping.’ Instead of continually criticizing the leaders, follow their directions so that peace may result.”
Obviously leaders can never do their best work when they are subject to carping criticism from those who should be their followers. In these verses we have Paul’s formula for peace. Do your leaders work hard? Are they over you in the Lord? Do they admonish you? Well then, respect them and hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work!
And now we come to our text in Hebrews 13 which makes exactly these same three points:
(i) It says what the members must do: “Obey your leaders and sub-mit to their authority.”
(ii) Then it says what the leaders do: “They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.”
(iii) And then it states what the results will be: “Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”
So let’s begin with the members who are to obey and submit. Here we have two words with a slightly different meaning. But these two words are used advisedly. Perhaps the difference can best be explained like this: You obey when you agree with what you are told to do; you are persuaded that it is correct and profitable. But you submit, you give way, you yield, when you have a contrary opinion. You may not agree with the leadership of the church on a given point, you might even be annoyed by a particular decision that has been taken, but unless you can show that it is against the Word of God, that it goes against the higher authority of Christ, it is your Christian duty to submit. In fact, whenever an elder or minister is installed, the congregation promises to do this very thing. The liturgical form for the installation of office-bearers puts it like this: “Do you promise to receive the Word of Truth from his lips with meekness and love; and do you promise to submit to him in the discharge of his holy office.”
So here is something that the Lord asks you in his Word and it is some-thing that you as a congregation have promised again and again. Let us put it this way: If the session makes a decision is it not the duty of the membership to go along with it? Don’t you have the responsibility to submit or run the risk of doing spiritual harm to yourself or others? Now we are not saying that when the session makes a decision that it’s infallible. But if a session has prayed and thought and discussed a certain issue and come to a unanimous decision, then isn’t that one way that God leads and guides His people? Isn’t that also a concrete and specific way in which God rules His people? And if this is so, would it not be at least unwise to disregard or criticize such a decision? Don’t we then risk tampering with the authority structure God has laid down?
To have authority in the church is certainly a solemn responsibility: “They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. We can hardly think of a more awesome responsibility that has been laid on the shoulders of the leaders of the local church. The day will come when we have to give an account. We will be responsible before God for the kind of job we’ve done. What kind of watchmen have we been? Have we warned people of danger? Have we warned them clearly enough?
Again this is a duty that the Lord lays upon the local leadership. They are watchmen on the walls of Zion. They are to blow the trumpet to warn the people of God of danger. There may be many people who are formative in shaping your Christian life. You may be influenced by many fine speakers and preachers and in our electronic age they may be no further away than your T.V. set or cassette tape recorder.
You press a button and you have an instant sermon from anywhere in the world. Sometimes this is good; sometimes this can be bad; but remember the unique responsibility that God has placed on the local leaders, which is: “they who keep watch over you as men who must give an account.” But again the happy result is stated: “Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”
Nobody here would like to see the leaders of the church groaning under the heavy load of their work. You want them all to enjoy the task that God has given them. Well, the best way to make your wishes come true is to do what it says in our text. You know, the converse of our text is also true: If you don’t obey your leaders their work will be a burden and not a joy, and that certainly would be of no advantage to you. It’s in the best interests of the membership to obey and submit to their leaders. Only if this is so can you expect them to do their best work.
In closing I would like to quote the verse immediately following our text: “Pray for us. We are sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honourably in every way.”
Brothers and sisters, the work of office-bearers can be either a joy or a burden and which of the two it is will depend largely on you.
Amen.