The Vitality of Obedience to Authority: The Lord Jesus Christ Sets the Example of Obedience to Authority

Every facet of God's Word relates to authority and with God at the Top.  Even in the model prayer, the Lord Jesus Christ references the height of God the Father, "which art in heaven."  The Lord Jesus sets Himself under the Father, which also doesn't in any way diminish Him.  Just the opposite, He is elevated by His submission.  God the Father gave the Son a name above every name, because He had made Himself of no reputation (Philippians 2:5-8).

Satan knew how important authority was to the plan of God.  When he tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he attacked Him each time in the realm of authority.  He tempted Jesus to turn stones to bread, and nothing was wrong with turning stones to bread, except that the act of doing so functioned outside of the authority of the Father, and Jesus came to do the will of the Father or live by the Word of God.  In the second temptation, the Father should not be put in a position to deliver the Son with holy angels.  The Son shouldn't test the Father, because the Father needs no testing.  On the third temptation, Satan did not have the authority to give the kingdom to Jesus nor should Jesus prostrate Himself before Satan, both of those corresponding to authority.

In the first recorded words to man, God commanded Adam and Eve with an emphasis on "commanded."  Why not eat of the tree?  God said so, and He's in charge.  He calls Himself the LORD God.  He has the prerogative to tell them what to do.  There are other good reasons, but they aren't given.

When God finishes commanding, He communicates punishment for not obeying the command.  He is in authority by commanding and then by punishing the violations of the commands.  When Adam and Eve do violate the commands, God punishes.  Satan had told them He woudn't.  Adam and Eve don't get right with God then by continuing in rebellion.  They do that by repenting.  They know they're in trouble.  They know how wrong they have been and they want to get it right.  Later when Cain will not submit, rather than getting right, he continues in rebellion against the standard.

Every problem in the world traces back to insubordination to God.  God lays out rules and man doesn't keep them.  For man to get right with God, He must give in to God in His heart, believing in Jesus Christ.  He confesses with His mouth the Lord Jesus.  He relinquishes His life to the charge of Jesus.

When Jesus came to set the example of a human life, He obeyed everything the Father wanted Him to do.  It wasn't just verbatim following exact instruction, although He did that too.  He was doing the will of the Father.  He always did what the Father wanted Him to do.  He was sent by the Father to do that, which included the means by which Jesus would reconcile man to God.  Even when the Father wasn't commanding, He was doing what He knew the Father wanted.

Jesus even limited the free exercise of His Divine attributes.  He knew everything, but He limited His knowledge.  He was all powerful, could exercise unlimited power, but He limited His power.  He confined Himself out of obedience and set that example for every man to follow.  Jesus said, Follow me.  The Father said, Hear ye Him.  Paul wrote, Follow me, as I follow Christ.  Christ set an example that we should follow His steps and that example is submission.

As the Father sent the Son, so sends He us.  It is a hierarchy all under the authority of God.  The people who will live with Him under His authority forever want to be under His authority.  He won't receive those who don't want it.  They must receive Him to become the children of God.  This isn't a way to wash away all committed sins.  Sins are washed away, but the washing is one that yields successful obedience in the nature of the Son.  They join the Son in obedience to authority.

Fundamental in human relationship is authority.  Man does what God wants, woman does what man wants, and children do what parents want.  The only exception comes if what the man wants contradicts what God wants.

People have liberty, but not to disobey authority.  They must always obey authority.  Not obeying is represented as worshiping creature rather than Creator.  They reverse the roles.  Man is above God.

Men and women have roles, both of which are given by God.  The husband loves his wife.  God has commanded him to do that.  The wife submits to her husband.  God has commanded that.  Children obey their parents.  God has commanded that.

I hear the idea, children need liberties.  They will chafe under authority.  They need to see that they can do what they want.  They don't want to be told what to do.  If you as a parent keep telling them what to do, they will stop listening.  Nowhere does scripture give that counsel.  As a child matures, he will do what God wants and what His parents wants without being told, much like Jesus does with His Father.  Being an adult doesn't change the relationship to authority.

The goal in life isn't to do what you want and you haven't reached the greatest position when you're doing what you want.  Even when your parents aren't telling you what to do, you're still supposed to be doing what you are told.  Children who think that adulthood is doing what they want will wreck their own lives and those of many others.

Disobedient children are not good children.  If the parents are telling them not to obey God, that's another thing and that's bad, but if the parents are commanding them to obey God and then enforcing that, that's good.  That's what God wants.  If children don't like that and run from that, go a different direction than that, that is on the children.  It's a very bad future for those children.   It's also the foundation of a terrible society, a messed up community, no matter how proud the children are of themselves and their accomplishments and whatever accolades other rebels give them.

What kind of wife and mother will a girl or daughter be who will not submit to her Father and her Parents?  If she hates obeying her Father and then doesn't, she won't obey God as a wife either.  Scripture teaches this.  The Father gives away His daughter to a man as her wife.  She doesn't leave on her own according to her own will.

Work your way through scripture and see how authority weaves itself into the most basic relationships.  Adam abdicated headship and Eve ate the tree, bringing the fall, spoiling the relationship between the man and the woman.  Authority is at the root of it.  In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul stops and spends a large chunk of space about symbols of male headship, the woman a headcovering and long hair, the man without the headcovering and with short hair, to support God's design.  The model is the Father and the Son at the beginning of the chapter.  A few chapters previous (7), if a father wants to keep his virgin daughter from marriage to stay at home, he has the authority to do so, and she should submit, which is also laid out in Numbers in the Old Testament.

The best church members are obedient church members, not self-willed.  They are hearers of the Word and doers of the Word, not those who are slow to hear and quick to wrath.  They obey them that have the rule over them.  That starts with submission in the heart and then moves to obedience in the life.  The Christian life isn't a new invention.  It is living according to something very old that has been successfully lived by others who lived like others lived and like others before them lived.  It's not about something new that someone wants to do on his own.

God wants subjection to government except in the very serious situation that the government clashes with what God says.  Believers must be very careful with that.  Successful nations are full of people who are like that.  A good economy is built upon that.  They are self-governed people, who then are also able to be governed.  It all relates to God's authority.  They want what God wants.

Peter wrote, be subject to your masters with all fear (1 Peter 2:18).  All authority is of God.  In whatever a place someone finds himself, he should obey authority and Peter says, "with all fear."  "Fear" is phobos.  Phobos, the basis of the word, phobia, is not a negative.  It is positive.  Fear and reverence of authority, what we might call, respect, is God's will, even if it isn't expected in this culture anymore.  God wants it.

Someone who continues disobeying is obviously not fearful enough.  The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.  The scorner in Proverbs is not fearful.  He is proud and unwilling to submit.  He doesn't want his error pointed out and he will not receive punishment for it.  When God punished Judah with the siege of Jerusalem, the perspective He offered to her was His faithfulness.  They weren't being consumed, which they deserved.  They were being punished and then needed to see the faithfulness of God in that.  He wanted the same over their later captivity in Babylon.  Someone who almost always complains about punishment of actual violations of scripture and will not submit to those is not submissive to authority.

If you are not going to obey, you have a responsibility in a clear way with due process to show how that what you are being told to do against God.  It is against what God has told you to do.  You better have very good reasons.  Your not liking it isn't good enough.  Your disapproval of how you were told or the kind of discipline you received when you didn't do what you are told is not a legitimate basis.  When correction comes, part of repentance throughout scripture is accepting the punishment.  For sure, there is punishment outside the bounds of scriptural punishment, but rarely is that exceeded anymore.  Almost always today it is short of what is right.  There is a right way to exact correction, but for the one corrected, his sin, his own lack of compliance to authority is what bothers him the most.

The Lord Jesus of course never had to repent of sin.  He always did His Father's will all the way to the end.  When scripture says the Father was pleased with the Son, it was always because He did what His Father wanted Him to do.  Jesus is the perfect example of obedience to authority.