THE FOUNDERS' WORLDVIEW
AUTHORITY AND GOVERNMENT
INDIVIDUAL SELF-GOVERNMENT
Authority and government fit together like hand in glove. The glove can do nothing without the hand giving it any power or ability to act. Likewise, no government has legal power or ability to act unless it has the authority to do so. Therefore, when Jesus says "all authority has been given to me in heaven and in earth" (Matt. 28:18), He is saying that no agency of government has any legal power or ability or right to act unless that agency can demonstrate that it has His authority to do so. That is the meaning of the phrase, "[F]or there is no authority except from God" (Rom. 13:1).
Thus, Man, as an individual agency of government, has the authority to do the commandments of his Creator, God (James 1:21-22; 4:17). However, the individual has no authority to break the Law or His commandments. In a family, the parents are responsible and accountable for governing within the authority granted by God, as Creator (Eph. 6:4). The elders constitute the governing authority in the church (Acts 20:28; Eze. 34:1-10). And, finally, Man has been given authority to institute or create the form of civil government he desires for the purpose of maintaining God's order in a society or nation (I Pet. 2:13; Rom. 13:2-4).
The word "government" simply means control, direction, regulation and restraint. According to the Created Order, there are two general kinds of government; namely, internal and external government. The common rule is that so long as the function of internal government is working properly, no form of external government may impose its will onto the entity practicing proper, correct or appropriate internal government. This is the essence of liberty; namely, freedom from externally imposed government.
To further understand, consider "government" as applied to the four agencies mentioned above; namely, the individual, family, church and state. The individual, having an understanding of an absolute standard of right and wrong (beginning with the Ten Commandments), necessarily has a standing rule by which to live. Another absolute standard called the "royal law" is, "[Y]ou shall love your neighbor as yourself (James 2:8). "Love" says the Scriptures, "does no harm to a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:10).
Again, "the law" begins with the Ten Commandments. Jesus made the Commandment "Thou shall not commit murder" even more strict when He said "everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court" (Matt. 5:22). Today, when the public school teaches our children that there are no absolutes, they are telling our children that the Ten Commandments, the royal law, and the words of Jesus no longer have credibility in our society. Such teaching of our children (80% of all Christian children go to public schools) is in direct opposition to what we, their parents, are teaching them at home. This teaching has a name...Atheism which we dress with respectability by calling it Humanism.
Self-control is one aspect of the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Gal. 5:23). Again, government means control, direction, regulation and restraint. Self-control, therefore, is self-government. The concept of self-government applies to the individual, the family, the church and the state. Our nation, the United States of America, is the only nation in history to have been founded on this concept of self-government.
Individual self-government requires the individual to adhere to a standing rule generally known at the time of our Declaration of Independence as the laws of nature and nature's God. Obedience to this rule will necessarily produce virtue or righteousness in that individual. So long as the individual observes this standing rule, no externally imposed government has authority to impose any other standard on that person's life. This is the very definition of liberty.
Until the individual has reached an age where his or her reason has established the absolute standards of right and wrong in that person's life, the family is the first and foremost externally imposed government responsible to God for setting the proper boundary for each person within the family to act. The proper boundary for any family must conform to God's higher law to be in accord with authority. Therefore, acts of power exercised with authority comply with the laws of nature and nature's God. Noncompliance with such laws produces an act of power exercised without authority.
