truth matters

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Authority in the Church

Teacher: If one toy costs 35p, what do ten toys cost?

Pupil: Are you buying or selling?

The pupil’s response catches the way that our answers vary depending which side of the fence we happen to be on. This is perhaps also true of questions about authority in the Church. Most of us feel the temptation to call for ‘discipline’ on ministers with whom we disagree while vigorously claiming autonomy for ourselves. It is also striking to see the variety of church governmental recipes Christians have advocated to solve authority questions, ranging from strict episcopacy through to no-one having authority (on the ground that all authority is immoral). However, it is sobering to reflect just how self-serving some of this advocacy can be: it is one thing to resist encroachments by some-one else’s authority, but quite another to restrain one’s own.

What then should we make of authority in the Church? This leaflet aims to answer that with two propositions:

1. Final authority in the Church resides in Jesus Christ.

2. Church government must therefore reflect and safeguard Christ’s authority.

Final authority in the Church resides in Jesus Christ

This sounds blindingly obvious, but it is worth retracing what lies behind this proposition. The Church in its fullness is that group of people of all times and all nations who have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God’s Son (Colossians 1:13). Formerly, in our sins, we were no people, but now in God’s mercy we are his people (1 Peter 2:10). Behind these statements about the origin of the Church is the understanding that each one now in the people of God was given by the Father to the Son (John 6:37, 39). This theme of the Father giving us to his Son is repeated in Jesus’ prayer in John 17 (verses 2, 6, 9 and 24).

This means that the Church becomes part of the eternal relationship between the Father and the Son, in which the Father, like a good father, gives gifts of love to the Son, and the Son, like a good son, lovingly and obediently receives (see John 6:37-38). Just as the Father gives eternally to the Son (John 5:26), so he also gives in space and time, and conspicuous amongst those gifts to his Son is his giving of us who believe.

This could sound a bit abstract. We rehearse it here to recall that evangelicals do indeed have a high doctrine of the Church, for our doctrine is related to God’s trinitarian life and to salvation by grace alone. More importantly this reveals all the more starkly the iniquity of displacing Jesus Christ from authority in the Church. To displace Christ is to rob the Son of the love-gifts of his Father, an insult both to the Father’s sovereignty and the love he bears his Son.

However, this needs amplification. The Father’s giving to the Son is related to the giving of all authority to the Son (John 17:2). To be a Christian, in the Church, is to be given by the Father into the Son’s authority. This means that the simple statement ‘there is no authority in the Church’ cannot be true. There is the authority of Jesus Christ. Further, to say final authority has been given to Jesus does not mean that there can be no other authorities, but they can only be subordinate authorities. All legitimate authority in the Church traces back to Jesus, existing for his purposes, at his grant, and on his terms.

This structure of authority is evident from passages such as Ephesians 4:7-16, where Paul teaches that Christ has given certain gifts to his Church, those exercising the ministries of verse 11. These ministries are granted by him, and are also for his purposes, to equip his people to minister in their turn (verse 12) and to be built up in their knowledge and belief in him (verse 13)

Church government must therefore reflect and safeguard Christ’s authority.

This background helps explain Jesus’ reaction to the request by James and John that they be given places of honour in Jesus’ kingdom (Mark 10:35-45). Jesus forbids his followers to ‘lord’ it over their fellows, and instead contrasts the ‘lording’ attitude with that of a servant. A servant, of course, lacks ownership. He cannot exploit the resources he has through his service simply for his own purposes. By contrast, ‘lording’ it over others includes connotations that one’s authority was absolute. The objection is not to authority as such (the New Testament envisages authority in the Church, notably in the conduct of Paul). The objection refers to authority that acts as if it were absolute, or free-standing.

Such ‘lording’ it over Christ’s people has not just the potential for abuse. Such ‘lording’ it also implies one generates one’s own authority, so that one is not accountable, but independent. This, of course, conflicts with the supreme authority the Son has been given. Instead, the authority of human ministers is only legitimate if it is both acknowledged to be derived from Jesus and also exercised for his purposes.

This means that legitimate authority can be forfeited in two ways.

First, an explicit declaration of independence. This covers the refusal to acknowledge authority is derived from Jesus. It attempts to usurp rule in his kingdom. An obvious example would be a church official who denied the Resurrection and consequently could not accept that the Father has given all authority to the Son

Second, an implicit declaration of independence. This covers claiming one’s authority derives from Jesus but using that authority in ways that he has forbidden.

This second way of forfeiting legitimate authority is worth pondering. It is more subtle than the first, because there is lip service to Christ’s lordship. Moreover, it is far closer to the dangers some denominations face, where the scriptural basis of ordination services is not matched by subsequent scriptural ministries. Crucially, such implicit declarations of independence can be all too welcome to church members. For we remain tempted by sin, and it is therefore precisely the teacher who relaxes God’s commands for our lives who can be sinfully attractive. He is attractive not because he is a faithful minister, but exactly because he is not (2 Timothy 4:1ff). Obviously, in our weakness we need to be especially vigilant concerning this implicit declaration of independence.

All this means continual affirmation to and by church leaders that their authority is derived and limited. Further, whatever detailed form of church government we have, it must be one that safeguards Christ’s authority and, given our sinful propensities, this means ensuring that all who have authority remain under effective scrutiny so that it is clear that they are accountable and not independent. The spectacle of bishops or chief teaching elders being effectively unaccountable should worry us at a far more fundamental level than it seems to.

Concluding Reflections

We finish with three brief but central points. First, the litmus test for whether Christ’s authority is respected is whether the word he authenticates is taught and obeyed. A church under Christ’s authority will be under the authority of the words he chose. Second, those of us who are ministers must recognise that we too are called to accountability: we are not above suspicion. Are we effectively accountable? Third, whether clergy or laity, we are increasingly faced by office-holders who deny Christ’s lordship explicitly or implicitly, as outlined above. If we permit this, or remain silent, or say forlornly we are under their orders, then we too, whether clergy or laity, become accessories to usurping the authority of Christ.

truth matters

Authority in the Church

Final authority in the Church resides in Jesus Christ

Church government must therefore reflect and safeguard Christ’s authority.

Concluding Reflections

Further Reading