THE FOUNDERS' WORLDVIEW
AUTHORITY AND POWER
UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE
"All authority," Jesus said "has been given to me in heaven and earth" (Matt. 28:18). Since we know that there is no authority except from God (Rom. 13:1), it necessarily follows that Jesus received His authority from the Sovereign God, the Father and Creator of us all.
Having authority over earth establishes Jesus as having authority over everything and everyone of us who resides here. Said another way, Jesus is Lord because God, the Father and Creator of us all made Him Lord, whether we believe it or whether we don't. At the same time, most importantly for us to understand, God relinquished none of His authority. He only delegated His total authority to Jesus.
As Americans we are doubly blessed because the Founding Fathers recognized the sovereign authority of God when they embodied the laws of nature and nature's God as the ultimate legal authority for our nation. How do we know this? Read the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Thus, as our representatives, the Founders looked to the laws of nature and nature's God for the authority of the people of the United States of America to do two things; namely, (1) to dissolve the political bands connecting the people to England, and (2) to assume among the other nations of the earth, their separate and equal station as a new nation.
The Founders understood the importance of authority and believed it necessary to justify their actions under the authority of the Creator's laws. Due to their faithfulness to the Almighty, the United States of America is the only nation in history expressly founded under the laws of nature and nature's God which govern the actions of our civil government. Consequently, our nation started by acknowledging God's commandments as its Supreme authority. Thus, God's law is officially the law above the positive, written laws of our land.
Such written laws are supposed to draw the boundary within which the defined authority may be exercised. Any person has the faculty of doing or performing anything and enables a person to move and to produce a change in something. Such a faculty constitutes that person's ability or strength and is called power.
Is there any difference between power and authority? The answer is YES! Authority comes from the same root word for "author" who is one who produces, creates or brings into being. The acts of producing and creating are examples of power. Authority, on the other hand, defines the character of power and the relationship between the author and the created work. Regarding the latter, the author of anything has authority over that author's created work.
As to the character of power, authority is legal power, i.e., lawful or rightful power. Noah Webster (1828) further defines "law" as the law of nature and the word of God, and "right" as conformity to the will of God. With these understandings, a person's action (act of power) may be legal or illegal depending on whether or not it conforms to the laws of nature and the word and will of God. If such action does so conform, it is power exercised with authority. If it does not so conform, it is power exercised without authority.
Why is it then that no legislative or judicial body, or any executive agency ever acknowledges the laws of nature and nature's God as the law above man's law? Simply because the nation has become man-centered and is therefore now Atheistically-minded in all aspects of our society. Only revival and the restoration of righteousness can save our nation.
© Neil F. Markva