What is the authority of the believer?

For believers today, though having no earthly king, we are infinitely blessed by having the Spirit of God dwelling in the Church, the body of Christ, providing guidance, strength and blessing for all His own. Our true authority comes from heaven, where the Lord Jesus is seated at the right hand of God, and those who are willingly submissive to the authority of the Lord Jesus do not need any authority of men on earth by which to be guided. Not that we are to do what is right in our own eyes, but by grace we are enabled to do what is right in the eyes of the Lord.

Paul also teaches that being redeemed, we should disown, and reject every authority that conflicts with that of Christ. "Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1 Cor. 7:23). It need hardly be said that he does not mean that we are not to have masters in this world. On the other hand, he has, by the Spirit, given special directions to those who are thus placed. But what he here asserts is the supremacy of the authority of Christ; and that we, since He has bought us with a price, belong to Him whatever our situation. "He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men" (1 Cor. 7:22-23). In like manner, enforcing the same truth, he reminds servants, in another epistle, that they "serve the Lord Christ" (Col. 3:24). Whatever our position, therefore, in this world, however subject it may be, we are never to forget that we belong to Christ, that He has purchased us with His own blood; and hence our eye must ever be upon Him, for He is our Lord, and it is Him whom we serve.

There are two aspects of the truth which are realized in Christian experience and which are wholly inconsistent with historical records. The first aspect is the establishment of the authority of God in man's soul which is an essential feature of His kingdom. The other aspect is that He has gained the confidence of those over whom He has established His authority. The authority of God is represented by the Lordship of Christ. With the heart man believes to righteousness and with the mouth confession is made to salvation. The word of faith involves confession of Jesus as Lord. (Rom. 10:8-10). At the name of Jesus every knee should bow...and every tongue confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Phil. 2:10-11). The Lord has established an unchallengeable claim and an absolute authority over every believer. The kingdom of God is an absolute monarchy!

We would call attention to two very distinct lines of truth flowing out of two distinct titles of our blessed Lord, namely headship and lordship. He is Head of His body, the church, and He is Lord of all, Lord of each. Now, when we think of Christ as Lord, we are reminded of our individual responsibility to Him in the wide range of service to which He, in His sovereignty, has graciously called us. Our reference must be to Him in all things. All our actings, all our movements, all our arrangements must be placed under the commanding influence of that weighty sentence (often, alas! lightly spoken and penned), ‘If the Lord will’. And, moreover, no one has any right to thrust himself between the conscience of a servant and the commandment of his Lord. All this is divinely true, and of the very highest importance. The lordship of Christ is a truth the value of which cannot possibly be overestimated.

Jesus is in the place of authority. It is His to command, ours to gladly obey, and that means the surrender of our wills to His.

We saw in the previous article that our God has, in His infinite mercy, provided for His people in this dark and evil world both authority and power — the authority of His Word and the power of His Spirit — for the path which they are called to tread and the work they are called to do. We have ample guidance in the Word, and we have the power of God to count upon for all the difficulties and demands of the scene through which we have to pass home to our eternal rest above. We have authority and power for all.

From what sorrow and disaster would the saints of God have been saved if they had remembered that the things that are written in this Epistle "are the commandments of the Lord" (1 Cor. 14:37) and had been subject to these commandments. has anyone else a right to command in the assemblies of His saints? Certainly not! If it is His circle, He only has rights there, and the place of every one whose privilege it is to be there is that of subjection to Him. What blessing, what continuous streams of blessing would flow to the saints if His supremacy were owned by all, for He exercises His authority in perfect love. He, the one perfect, all-wise Administrator, administers the fullness of God for the blessing of His own when they are gathered together in His name.

126 These gifts of the Spirit, then, set them in ministries to the Lord, in which they were individually responsible for their exercise to Christ — talents with which they were to trade; but then they were responsible to exercise them within the body, according to the order in which they were set in the body, and in subjection to the mind of the Lord the Head of the body. This preserved entire the full personal responsibility and liberty; for no one was Lord but one, not even an apostle, and yet mutual dependence, healthful for all, even for an apostle; for the Lord's authority was as great over the foot or over the hand, and as exclusive, as over the apostle himself. Nor would an apostle, having still the flesh to contend with, keep his place unless this were carefully held. Though by pre-eminence of gift he might guide, lead, direct, and, by revelation from the Lord, give a commandment to the Church, he could not in the smallest degree or tittle touch the direct responsibility of the least member to Christ the Lord Himself; he would have been setting up himself as the Vine, as lord over God's heritage, had he done so. The apostles were alone as helpers of joy, and that by authority entrusted for edification, but never as lords over their faith. Authority, however, as gift from the Lord, increased responsibility; but of this more hereafter. If he, the apostle, counselled any member by the Spirit, woe be to that member if his counsel be despised. Of course, if he revealed a commandment of the Lord, the believer became directly responsible to the Lord for obedience to that commandment. And though he specially, and the whole Church, might judge by the Spirit, still it was always with this remembrance — "another man's servant."

Verse 5 is not the question of power, but of authority. It is one Lord who is in authority over the various administrations, each gift given its proper place, and ordered in unity with the others. For the possession of gift does not give one authority to use it as he pleases, but only in subjection to the Lord.

The elders or bishops, of whom we shall hear more by-and-by, had a still more important charge. It was the office of oversight, or of a bishop, that was found in every fully-constituted assembly where there could be time for the development of that which was requisite in order to it. But whether there were charges or none, whether the due appointment was or was not, the Lord did not fail to give gifts for the carrying on of His own work. Now those persons who possessed gifts exercised them, as they were bound to do; for here was no question of appointment, and indeed their exercise had nothing, whatever to do with the leave, permission, or authority of any, but solely flowed from the Lord's own gift. This was properly ministry in the word. But there never was such an idea broached, still less acted on, as the exclusive ministry which in modern times has been set up, as if it were the only right thing in theory or practice. In point of fact it is thoroughly wrong, not only not defensible by the word of God, but flagrantly opposed to it.