Nobody likes authority. It isn’t just “ruggedly individualistic” Westerners (though we in the West have managed to cobble together a “society” that maximizes autonomy pretty well). No, suspicion of authority is something that goes right down to the roots of all our nature as those in rebellion against God. In our self-orientation and self-direction it became expedient to doubt and dismiss God’s good intentions concerning us. He cannot be trusted; he obviously doesn’t have our best interests in mind.
That much is confirmed everywhere for us, isn’t it? He who allows such suffering in our lives, who issues such warnings of death and judgment for disobedience must be a cruel tyrant… right? Really, there’s no question. It is actually impossible for sinners to interpret, or even imagine, God’s authority as loving. His authority is a threat to be resisted and fled. One must protect himself from God’s authority, even if it means absurdly denying God’s very existence in the face of the cosmic evidence for it.
But when we view God’s authority as a threat we’re misinterpreting his authority. We are not right to be suspicious. We are suspicious only because of our unnatural self-centeredness. Actually, we are projecting our own conception of authority on to him. We just cannot see his authority for what it really is. So we need it clearly, specially revealed.
Enter Jesus. He taught as one having true authority. He exercised authority and power over the forces of nature, over spiritual forces, over death itself. He even demonstrated authority over hell when he proclaimed the forgiveness of sins. All authority was his. And, just so we didn’t miss it, he taught about authority, to make explicit what God’s kind of authority really is like:
“You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. But it shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)
Jesus reveals God to us because he is God, and because he is the perfect human created in God’s image. And what Jesus reveals about God’s authority is this: his authority is the power to give himself in humble, loving, self-sacrificial service. He is able even to give himself in love to people who would destroy him and usurp his rule in their foolish rebellion.
“I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:17-18)
In Christ we see that God’s authority is his absolute freedom to be for us, even when we are against him. His authority is no threat to us, because his authority is one of love. The suffering servant is the fullest revelation of God’s kind of authority, and it’s good news, even for rebels like us.
Now, because of Jesus, we can trust and submit to God’s authority, even when he brings things into our lives that are easily interpreted as threatening. The Father’s love for the Son is everywhere attested, which informs our interpretation of the Son’s own sufferings as perfecting discipline (Heb. 2:10) rather than cruelty. And, if we know what the Father’s authoritative love looks like in his Son’s life—bringing many sons to glory through death and resurrection, to the eternal praise of his Son—we can trust that our sufferings aren’t punishment either, but perfecting discipline.
“The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons.” (Heb. 12:6-7, emphasis mine)
His authority, his discipline in our lives, is meant to make us to love like Jesus, to love with perfect freedom, to exercise the same kind of authority as the suffering servant himself. He shares his own authority with us, the love that leads to glory. So, you don’t have to be suspicious of God’s authority. It might not always make sense to you, but it’s for your good. Guaranteed.
