Chapter # 13 Paragraph # 1 Study # 3
October 4, 2020
Humble, Texas
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Thesis: Divine "authority" is to be regarded as both
absolute and
legitimate.
Introduction: Before our extended interruption of studies in Romans, we had begun to look into Romans 13 and we had considered why Paul chose to address this issue in terms of man's "soul", and how desperately wrong-headed it is to determine that "Life" is somehow attached to our ability to exercise "authority" over either ourselves, or others.
This evening we are going to add to what Paul addressed as his main command: submit to "authorities" as a submission to God Himself.
- I. A Further Pursuit of Paul's "Authority" Concept.
- A. On the face of it, "authority", as Paul addresses it in this paragraph, is the ability to make "agenda" decisions, "methodology" decisions, and "enforcement" decisions for others.
- 1. These are the "logical" elements of "authority".
- a. "Agenda" decisions are at the very root of "authority" simply because without an agenda, no decisions can be made (this is, in the reality of all of the experiences of men, inescapable).
- b. "Methodology" decisions are the next most crucial element simply because without a "way" to pursue an "agenda", the "agenda" of itself is a vain thing.
- c. "Enforcement" decisions are the next inevitable necessity: without the ability to enforce compliance to the agenda and method(s), we run smack dab into another vanity.
- 2. Paul's "authority concept" was originally given in his first use of the term in Romans (9:21).
- a. Paul's use of the word translated "authority" in Romans is sparse (only 4 references in only 2 contexts): 9:21; 13:1, 2, and 3.
- b. Paul's initial text/context is highly significant in view of the fact that our present text/ context depends upon that initial text/context.
- 1) The backdrop for this concept is Isaiah's questions.
- a) Isaiah refers to the "authority/potter" motif in four texts/contexts.
- i. In 29:16 Isaiah raises the question: "Shall the potter be considered as equal with the clay, that what is made would say to its maker, 'He did not make me', or what is formed say to Him who formed it 'He has no understanding?'"
- ii. In 41:25 he declares that God is going to arouse one who will come upon rulers "even as the potter treads clay".
- iii. In 45:9 Isaiah pronounces: "Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker -- an earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth ... Will the clay say to the potter, 'What are you doing?' or the thing you are making [say] 'He has no hands'?"
- iv. And in 64:8 he declares, "You are our Father, we are the clay, and you [are] our Potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand".
- b) Thus, Romans 9:21 simply raises the question of the legitimacy of Isaiah's pronouncements that the "Potter" has "authority" to decide what a lump of clay is going to be.
- i. No one will argue that a "potter" has no such "authority".
- ii. The main difficulty with this analogy for most of us is that God reduces us to unfeeling, soul-less "clay" as a reduction to our origins in the dust of the ground without addressing the added characteristics of sentient beings who "feel"/"experience with extraordinary capacities of pain/pleasure, fear/peace, and humiliation/exaltation": In what way are we mere clay?
- i) There is no "loss" to "clay" to be put into a furnace of fire: it "feels" nothing.
- ii) There is an overwhelming "loss" to "clay to which 'experiences as felt realities' have been added if it be subjected to the furnace of fire".
- iii. Thus, "authority" to determine these realities is an enormous threat to any "person of clay" who takes the added privileges from the Potter and then abuses them and dishonors Him.
- c) The question arises because Paul has asserted the legitimacy of God's prerogative over the extensions of "mercy" as well as "compassion" (9:15) as his answer to the querulous objection to God's restriction of blessings by "promise" (9:5) rather than "meritorious actions of obedience" (9:8) based upon whether, or not, God is "righteous".
- i. The question of "righteousness" deeply involves the question of the legitimacy of God's claim to have the sole Status of the One Who has "compassion" and "mercy" to give, and does not give it equally to all.
- ii. However, these querulous objectors, by objecting, reveal that they have no sense of how "righteousness" works against them in their own deep depravity: Who, with any sense of his/her own depravity, "objects" to anything that God has set in motion?
- i) The very idea that a fallen creature, whose very existence rests upon the tolerant mercy of God, would have the temerity to challenge anything that God is, or does, is beyond stupid.
- ii) How does a creature who, by definition, is extremely limited in both knowledge and understanding, set him/her self up to be a judge of the omniscient God?
- iii. Under the standard of "righteousness", everything rooted in human performance is subject to criticism so that none shall ever, by his/her own righteousness, deserve to be treated with patient goodness by the God Whom these mere mortals deign to question.
- i) There is the plain fact, declared by God Himself, that His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways, so that we cannot pretend to be able to instruct Him; a fact that would be plain as day even if God had not come right out and said it Himself.
- ii) "Creature", by definition, is so far less than "Creator" that it has no rational basis for "objections" (of any kind).
- iv. And, God has erased all "legitimacy" from the objector since He, Himself, subjected Himself to the worst-case scenario of "clay in the Potter's hand" at Calvary where He took the most loving action conceivable and, then, insisted that all clay adopt this "love" standard willingly (there can be no "objection" to the "love" demonstrated at Calvary that can stand the "legitimacy" test).
- 2) The revealed base/root of all of God's dealings of blessing is "Promise"; ruling out any and all considerations of behavior (activities of body, soul, and/or spirit) because every blessing must be rooted in "faith" in "promises" and not in actions of obedience in order to be "guaranteed" (4:16).
- a) The rationale is simple: since all men "stumble in many ways" (James 3:2) and "stumbling" in any way is equivalent to "stumbling in every way" (James 2:10), no "outcome" can be secured by human behavior, even though it may be produced by the instrumentality of human behavior by the hands of God.
- b) Infinite retribution for any "sin" (because all sin is, ultimately, against God as Infinite) erases all of the foundation of "blessing based upon merit".
- c) Thus, there can be no "guarantee" of a good outcome by creature-behavior issues.
- 3) Thus, "authority" is the exercise of deciding how outcomes will occur.
- a) In regard to the potter/clay issue, "authority" is the actual determination of "outcomes".
- b) Paul even goes so far as to declare that any/all of our "good works" are rooted in their reality as being "prepared beforehand" into our behavior (Ephesians 2:10).
