Authority to Live
In the first part of this article I expressed the rather distressing contents of a dream in which I felt that many people were unwittingly trapped within a broader church system that reproduced “clones”. For example, all over the western world (at least) Christians do more or less the same thing when they come to church on a Sunday. You can pretty much predict what the format is going to be – welcome, lots of songs, notices, preaching, invited response, more songs, close. These are not bad things, but something seems to be stifling the enormous spiritual and cultural creativity that we would anticipate being released in the church of God when it assembles together and then moves out into the world.
In praying about this I believe God led me in quite an unexpected but truly exciting direction- it has to do with the sharing of authority; where authority is fully shared we will see the whole of the people of God (not just a few specialised ministries) active in church and world bringing in the kingdom of God with power. This is the biblical pattern.
Our story begins with the nature of God himself. Everything about God is shared, this is what it means to say that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). In particular, love always seeks to distribute itself through the sharing of authority. For example, even if God the Father is the Creator (Gen 1:1), he creates only through the Son (Col 1:15-16) and by the Spirit (Gen 1:1- 2). The whole of the Bible follows this pattern, the Father raises Jesus from the dead (Rom 6:4; Gal 1:1; 1 Pet 1:13.), Jesus raises himself as a gift from the Father, (John 2:19-21;10:18; 11:25.) and the Holy Spirit is given by God to resurrect Jesus (Rom 1:4;8:11; 1 Tim 3:16; 1 Pet 3:18.). A close examination of all of these sorts of texts reveals that authority flows from the Father, through the Son and in/by the Spirit.
To put the same reality in a slightly different and all –encompassing manner, the Godhead consists of a mutually embracing Lordship. The Father is “Lord of heaven and earth” (Matt 11:25), “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor 12:3) and “the Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18). The passion of the Father has always been to share his lordship with Jesus in the Spirit. “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgement to the Son, so that men may honour the Son even as they honour the Father….For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has given the Son to have life in himself; and has given him authority to exercise judgement because he is Son of Man.” (John 5:22- 23, 26 -27). This is an authority that the Father pre – eminently imparted to Jesus by raising him from the dead through the Spirit’s power. “‘God has made him both lord and Messiah, this Jesus who you crucified’…. declared to be Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Acts 2:36; Rom 1:4).
This principle of shared authority is then transmitted from Jesus to the apostles, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt 28:18 -19). The two parts of this text must be read in sequence: because the Father shares his universal authority with Jesus, the Son is empowered to share this authority with the church. Where this latter authority is not being exercised by the church, that is, where we do not see nations being discipled, then it must be the case that the more foundational truth of the Father sharing his lordship with the Son is being doubted.
Let me open up another illustration of the point I am trying to make. If I asked an average group of believers, “Who gives spiritual gifts?” most would reply, “The Holy Spirit.” A close examination of the New Testament reveals however that God (the Father) distributes gifts of the Holy Spirit “according to his will” (Heb 2:4); the Lamb sends “the seven spirits of God” into all the earth (Rev 5:6) and the Holy Spirit imparts charismatic gifts “as he chooses” (1 Cor 12:11). This is another example of the three-fold Lordship of God being exercised in the church. There can be no competitiveness, envy or jealousy in a God who is love. Love means sharing all that you are and have.
Probably the key event for our understanding how the three – fold Lordship of God is meant to flow through the church is the ascension of Jesus. In his preaching on the day of Pentecost, Peter proclaims, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit, he has poured out this you both see and hear.” (Acts 2:32-33). The sequence here is very important; the Father glorifies Jesus by his ascension to his right hand so that Jesus might have power and authority to send the Holy Spirit. Peter and the 120 disciples are able to speak the Word of God with boldness because the Spirit freely shares the power and authority of Jesus with them all (Acts 1:8;2:11).
It is because Jesus is no longer the earth – bound man, Jesus of Nazareth, but the one now ascended at “the right hand of power” (Matt 26:64) that the apostles possess authority to do miraculous works and to preach the gospel. In Acts 3:6 they give to the crippled man what they “have”, authority to heal the sick. Even their opponents recognise a supernatural “power” (Acts 4:7) is working through these men. It is an authority or power that is consistently shared with others; this is an unmistakeable feature of apostolic ministry. The classic text that opens up the nature of shared authority in the whole church is Ephesians 4:7-16:
7But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. 8This is why it says: “When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.” 9(What does “he ascended” mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions ? 10He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.) 11It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. 14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
As the ascended Lord and conqueror of all false powers (verse 7) Jesus gives various “ascension gift ministries” to people. These are the gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher (verse 11); at times they are called “the five-fold ministry”. Each has a share in the universal authority of the exalted Christ and should understand that their gifting exists for the distribution of Jesus’ authority in the church.
Apostles, who are always first in order (1 Cor 12:27, 29; Eph 2:20), should possess the highest level of awareness that they are a shared gift of Christ called to make sure that all his authoritative gifts are distributed in his body. It is this commitment to shared authority that makes apostles fathers in the church (1 Cor 4:15) for in a special way they image God the Father (1 Cor 8:6). Genuine apostles make it their aim to see that all the other ministry gifts (prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers) are maximally employed for the “building up” (Eph 4:12) of the people of God. The apostolic is therefore ministered into all of these five – fold realms of ministry.
In a properly functioning apostolic church, the community as a whole must be growing and becoming “mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13). People are receiving a deepening ability to hear God for themselves (prophetic realm), growing in boldness and expectation in witnessing (evangelistic realm), experiencing and communicating wholeness (pastoral realm), understanding God (teaching realm).
It is not just that the church has persons within it who are greatly gifted apostolic leaders, or authentic prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, but that all the five realms of ministry are vigorously multiplying themselves. This is self-evidently not happening in the vast majority of churches in Australia today.
The “five-fold ministry” does not exist for the sake of its own ministry but to “equip the saints for the work of the ministry” (Eph 4:12). This is not ministry restricted to the programmes and buildings of the church, but ministry in all the spheres of life and culture. Empowerment of Christians to be salt and light in the business sphere, in the home, in the factory, on the sporting field, as artists, politicians… The scope of the “work of the ministry” is as broad as the authority that Jesus possesses over the entire universe (Matt 28:18) and the world of humanity (John 17:2). The goal of the “five-fold ministry” is not to build bigger churches but to see the cosmos saturated with the glory of Christ (Eph 4:10).
This global perspective is not an easy vision to embrace. Most of those churches considered successful today are in fact more “Jerusalem churches” than “Antioch churches”. The Jerusalem church was enormous in numbers and experienced a powerful move of the presence of God, but in terms of strategy never accomplished a great deal missionally. The Antioch church however showed its maturity by releasing its best ministries into wider spheres of service (Acts 13:1-3). It was the church that launched Saul (Paul) and Barnabas into the world that was to become the model for all future pioneering ministries.
Jerusalem was held back because it had powerful “gate-keepers”, in their case those believers who were “zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20). The vigorous maintenance of their cultural identity as Jews never completely released them from an unbelief that God could share himself unconditionally with Gentiles. Unconsciously there was much gate-keeping in the very church that contained the greatest concentration of ministry gifts of all time.
The devil has repeatedly used this tactic throughout the history of the church. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century is a case in point. Despite the wealth of theological insight of the Reformers (, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Bullinger, Bucer etc.) there was a general failure to take the gospel outside of the bounds of Europe. We need to ask ourselves as the Australian church, “Has the proliferation of musical and other inspirational gifts been accompanied by a proportional release of believers into the realms beyond the organised church?” The clear answer is “No!”
In praying about these issues I believe God can me a specific word for understanding, it is “conveyance”. The apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers are not, in the main, “conveying” their gifting into the lives of their brothers and sisters. This is a very real tragedy for the church and the world. I sense the primary reason for this breakdown is that it is easier to relate to people as giftings or ministries rather than as people. We label others in terms of leadership and ministry rather than dealing with them as brothers and sisters of the same Father in heaven. The “level playing field of the heart” is an absolute prerequisite for a genuine spiritual renewal into the Australian community. What we are talking about is the simplicity and depth of true Christian love. When this comes, we will already be in revival. Only loving as Jesus loved (John 13:34 -35) contains the presence and power of God in sufficient measure to bring about the sharing of the lordship and authority of Christ with which this article began.
“Little children, love one another, for love is of God.” (The Apostle John)