Christ’s Authority
Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). Please notice! Christ’s power is over both heaven and EARTH. Where did we get this notion that Christ’s authority is only in heaven? Why has He been stripped of His power over the earth? Christians have believed this and have abandoned their God-given responsibility to be the salt and light of the world (Matt. 5:13-16).
Why is America less and less Christian every year? This once Christian nation that valued life and held high moral standards has recently legalized homosexual marriage. It long ago legalized the killing of unborn children. It prohibits any mention of God or His commandments in its public schools. In a nation that is supposedly 70% Christian (once 99.8%), the Christian faith has already been marginalized, excluded from the schools, barred from the laws of the land and from public life. How long before it is driven underground with penalties for mere profession of faith? How did this happen? The answer, very simply is that Christians are not doing their job.
The early church saw Christ as Lord of all, king over both heaven and earth. At that time Christians saw Christ, holding all authority over heaven and earth, as their king and lawgiver. As free individuals they worked to extend His law over all of life, the civil as well as the spiritual. Their cry was Christ and not Caesar is Lord. They accomplished much; Rome eventually declared for Christianity and later incorporated much of God’s law into their laws.
Later, the church began to take on the form of an institution; it grew in power and effectively interposed itself between Christ and His people. Christians came to see themselves as directly responsible to the church and only indirectly to Christ. The clergy, a new higher class, now stood between them and the Lord and became their spiritual overseers. The previous world-changing energy they had as free men under Christ, directed to making Him Lord of all things, was first compromised and eventually lost.
The church, though it attempted to limit the power of the state, could not do what the early Christians did as dedicated individuals and families. The struggle between church and state for earthly authority went on for centuries with the state finally the victor. Today, the state claims total sovereignty and rules unchallenged as the supreme earthly power. Christ’s authority, intended to govern both church and state, has been reduced to the church only and restricted to spiritual matters. Everything else is under the secular state. This is where things stand today; Christ’s authority no longer presides over heaven and earth but has been reduced to heaven only. The moral mess that America has become will not be remedied until this historical travesty is corrected.
What we are seeing today is only the beginning, the tip of the iceberg, of what is in store for America’s future if we continue on this path. Christians must once again see themselves as the free servants of Christ, and see Christ as Lord of both heaven and earth, before they will be motivated to take action. When they begin to do so in significant numbers, we can begin to see some real progress toward the God-intended development of His kingdom on earth.