The Oath and Authority Authority

5. The Oath and AuthorityAuthority

A case law which has already been cited deserves particular attention, Exodus 21:17: “And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.” This statement is one of three in Exodus 21:15-17 which follow the requirement in Exodus 21:12-14 of death for murder. They are thus linked in a sense with murder. First , “And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death” (Ex. 21:15).Second , “And he that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death” (Ex. 21:16). Kidnapping and enforced slavery are punishable by death. The biblical law recognizes voluntary slavery, because there are men who prefer security to freedom, but it strictly forbids involuntary servitude except as a punishment.Third , the law against cursing parents, already cited, is also cited as comparable to

murder. Rawlinson’s commentary is to the point:

With homicide are conjoined some other offences, regarded as of a heinous character, and made punishable by death: viz. (1) striking a parent; (2) kidnapping; and (3) cursing a parent. The immediate sequence of these crimes upon murder, and their punishment by the same penalty, marks strongly God’s abhorrence of them. The parent is viewed as God’s representative, and to smite him is to offer God an insult in his person. To curse him implies, if possible, a greater want of reverence; and, since curses can only be effectual as appeals to God, it is an attempt to enlist God on our side against His representative. Kidnapping is a crime against the person only a very little short of murder, since it is to deprive a man of that which gives life its chief value — liberty.196

Related laws appear in other ancient cultures. Thus, ancient Babylonian law declared, “If a son has struck his father, they shall cut off his hand.”197 The authority of the entire society was endangered in any assault on parental authority or any other authority. Exodus 21:15, 17 was enacted very early into Massachusetts’ law; there is no record of any death penalty, but several cases prior to 1650 record severe whippings inflicted by the courts on rebellious sons, and on sons who struck a parent.198

Both the oath, or curse, and physical resistance are important matters. The oath or curse is an appeal to God to stand with us for righteousness and against evil. Similarly, physical resistance, whether in the form of warfare or personal resistance to murderous attack, or the attempts by evil men to overwhelm us, is a godly stand and by no means wrong. In an evil world, such resistance is often necessary; it is an unpleasant and ugly necessity, but not an evil. David could thank God for teaching him to war successfully (2 Sam. 22:35; Ps. 18:34; 144:1). In an evil world, God requires men to stand in terms of His word and law.

At this point, many will cite Matthew 5:39, “resist not evil.” The point made by Christ in this passage (Matt. 5:38-42) has reference to resistance to an alien power which governs the land, can “compel” man by a forced draft to serve the Roman imperial forces for a mile or more, seize property, enforce loans, and generally conscript property, money, and labor for its needs. In such a case, resistance is futile and wrong, and cooperation, going the second mile, is more productive of good. Ellicott’s comment on Matthew 5:41 was to the point:

The Greek word implies the special compulsion of forced service as courier or messenger under Government, and was imported from the Persian postal system, organised on the plan of employing men thus impressed to convey Government dispatches from stage to stage (Herod, viii. 98). The use of the illustration here would seem to imply the adoption of the same system by the Roman Government under the empire. Roman soldiers and their horses were billeted on Jewish householders. Others were impressed for service of longer or shorter duration.199

Christ’s words were thus a warning against revolutionary resistance. His warning was repeated by St. Paul in Romans 13:1-2, with the warning that resistance to duly constituted authority is resistance to the ordinance of God. At the same t ime, we must note that “Peter and the other

apostles,” when forbidden to preach by the authorities, declared, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

There is no discrepancy between these positions. Respect for duly constituted authorities is required both as a religious duty and a practical policy. The world is not bettered by disobedience and anarchy; evil men cannot produce a good society. The key to social renewal is individual regeneration. All authorities are to be obeyed, parents, husbands, masters, rulers, pastors, always subject to the prior obedience to God. All obedience is under God, because required by His word. Therefore, first , the covenant people cannot violate any due authority without taking the name of the Lord in vain. Disobedience at any level constitutes disobedience to God. Second , to strike a parent, or to assault a police officer, or any due authority, is thus to strike at God’s authority also and to use the right of self-defense for an aggression against authority. Third , to curse one’s parents is to attempt to place God on the side of rebellion against God’s central authority, the parent, and God’s central institution, the family. In murder, a man assaults and takes the life of an individual, or several individuals. In every anarchistic assault on authority, the assailant attacks the life of an entire society and the very authority of God.

The excuse for such assault isconscience. The autonomous and absolute authority of conscience has been progressively asserted since the Enlightenment, and especially with the rise of Romanticism. In the United States, the name of Thoreau comes most readily to mind as an example of Romantic anarchism. Conscience means responsibility with reference to right and wrong; conscience implies creaturehood and subjection. Conscience must be under authority, or it ceases to be conscience and becomes a god. The humanistic desire to live beyond good and evil is actually a desire to live beyond responsibility and beyond conscience. Under the facade of conscience, an assault is launched against conscience and authority.

The appeal of anarchistic revolutionists to conscience is clearly a lie and a fraud. Conscience in the modern philosophy and mood is simply a term for our own desires, enthroned as law. Thus, James Joyce, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, has Stephen Dedalus say, “Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” For those under the influence of Freud, the conscience, or superego, is simply the external authorities, parents, religion, state, and school, internalized. The superego is the successor and representative of the parents and other authorities; for Freud, the superego is the enemy of the id , the pleasure principle and will to live, and it is

therefore to be broken. Theid and the ego cannot be escaped, but the superego, as an immediate social product, can be broken in its power over man. Despite variations, Freud’s view of the conscience is the view of modern man. The conscience has no standing in modern thought, and is actually in disrepute,except when it is useful as an appeal against the law. The conscience of autonomous man is a studied rebellion against conscience and authorities as symbols of oppression and tyranny.

True conscience is under authority, godly authority. True conscience is governed by Scripture; it does not set itself up as an arbiter over God and His word, or as the voice of God and itself a special revelation. True conscience subjects itself to God’s authority: it is at all timesunder God , never itself a god and lord. In 1788, the Presbyterian Synod of New York and Philadelphia declared, in its “Preliminary Principles” to “The Form of Government,” that “God alone is the Lord of the conscience; and hath left it free from the doctrine and commandments of men, which are in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it in matters of faith or worship.” The declaration then defended the right of private judgment. The purpose was to free man from arbitrary demands of the state and men in terms of the absolute authority of God over the conscience. The humanistic concept of conscience, by denying the lordship of God, makes inescapable the tyranny of men. Every man’s conscience is made by humanism an absolute lord; the student rioters of the 1960s and 1970s, the anarchistic revolutionists, the “civil rights” protestors, all claim the right by “conscience” to destroy law and order and overthrow society.

The death penalty of Exodus 21:15, 17 makes clear that no evil can become an excuse for more evil. The family, as God’s central law order, even when parents are most evil, cannot be attacked by a child. The child is not asked to obey his or her parents by doing evil; the child is not asked to

call evil good. But honor must be given to whom honor is due (Rom. 13:7), and honor is due to parents.

This means that, while man must work to further righteousness,there is a limit to the extent of his right to war against evil. The Scripture is emphatic that vengeance belongs to God (Deut. 32:35; Ps. 94:1; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30). St. Paul states plainly: “Do not revenge yourselves, dear friends, but leave room for divine retribution, for it is written, ‘It is Mine to punish; I will pay them back,’ the LORD says” (Rom. 12:19, Berkeley Version).

Two legitimate forms of godly vengeance exist: First , the absolute and perfect justice of God finally and totally administers perfect justice. History culminates in Christ’s triumph, and eternity settles all scores.Second , the authorities ordained by God, parents, pastors, civil authorities, and others, have a duty to exercise the justice and vengeance of God. As themselves sinners, they can never do this perfectly, but imperfect justice can be justice still. A cloudy day cannot be called midnight; imperfect justice is not injustice.

A godly man does not expect perfect justice and vindication, and, at times, recognizes he cannot expect it at all of men. The Bible gives us instances of vengeance, of righting of ancient wrongs, but no such thing occurred for Joseph in relationship to Potiphar. Joseph had gone to prison for attempted rape; he was summoned out of prison to great power. His past was immaterial to the pharaoh. No doubt, to Joseph’s dying day, vicious critics whispered behind his back that Joseph was an ex-convict, guilty of attempted rape, but Joseph’s exercise of power was godly. Where it mattered, as with his brethren, he exacted a vengeance designed to test their character. To punish Potiphar or Potiphar’s wife would have accomplished nothing; and no punishment could have been more frightening for that couple than to know that their ex-slave was now the greatest power

in Egypt next to pharaoh. God was Joseph’s vindication.

For a man to dream of effecting perfect justice, gaining vindication in all things, and righting the record at all points, is to assume the role of vengeance which properly belongs only to God. It means joining the very forces of evil. While such a presumption is cloaked in the name of the Lord, it involves blasphemy. “And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death” (Ex. 21:17).