God and Violence (6) Limited Authority
During the Old Testament age, God had limited authority on earth. He had given humans authority over the earth, but they surrendered it to the spiritual powers of evil. God had given this authority without recourse, so he could not demand it back when humans messed it up. He had to deal with the spiritual powers of evil, but they had more authority on earth than he had.
To change the situation on earth, God had to fight an enemy that he did not have authority to fight, because humans had given the spiritual powers of evil permission to operate on earth. He could not attack them directly or destroy them, so he had to deal with them obliquely in the spiritual realm.
God’s lack of authority severely limited the scope of what God could do on earth. He was fighting against a ruthless and violent enemy with very little ability to fight back. He sometimes had to resort to using violent nations to hold back the worst of evil and protect his growing work on earth.
God could not touch the spiritual powers of evil while they were working on earth, as they had authority to be there. However, he still had authority in the spiritual realms, so he had to work there, by deceiving and manipulating the powers of evil. Because they are evil and love violence, he was mostly limited to getting them to stir up violence on earth. They were not interested in doing good things, of course.
By persuading the spiritual powers to fight against each other, and getting the strong nations to attack evil nations and empires, he was able to constrain the worst effects of evil on earth. Working in this way was not ideal, but it was better than letting the spiritual powers of evil get out of control.
God does his own dirty work. Humans had allowed the evil powers in, but God did not expect us to force them out. He chose to do the necessary violence himself, so we would not have to engage in violence. He initiates violent judgment when it has to be used so that we do not have to be violent.
2 comments:
I don't see how you can describe a place as being free of an evil authority, unless that evil can be kept out. Thus, in order for your system of authorities to work, defense is necessary.
I think a long time ago you were explaining why some sort of Christian action wasn't working on a college campus (maybe I got that wrong, but it was something along those lines). You said the campus authority was under the influence of evil.
So, this seemed like a plausible idea, albeit in reality it seems hard to implement, because most polities are influenced by evil. But the idea you could leave the campus and leave authorities that were under evil influence seemed more logical than whatever else it was I was reading at the time.
But if you don't have a defense, it really doesn't matter. And it doesn't really make sense to distinguish between God defending you and you defending you, if you are indeed filled with the Holy Spirit- because if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you'd be doing what He wants to do- and the chances ought to be high that He wants to defend you, your family, and your people, if Islam, or Antifa, or whatever other ungodly force shows up trying to invade and destroy. Or entice and degenerate.
Even if it's just the cops. Because most of the time you can find a compromised politician in their authority structure. So you don't even control your street, your home. Nothing. The enemy can rush in whenever he sees fit to do so.
August
I have dealt with these issues in full in books Kingdom Authority and Government of God. I suggest that you read them, if you want to understand my views.
Ron
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