Authority

The Greek word exousia is correctly translated as “authority”, and comes from the Greek verb exesti, meaning, “it is lawful”. It is important to note that many English translations translate exousia interchangeably as “authority”, “power”, or “dominion”, depending on what they are trying to convey. The KJV, for example, translates Ephesians 3:10 as “principalities and powers” whereas it should actually be “rulers and authorities”. The Greek dunamis, from which the English “dynamite” is derived, means “power”; the Greek ischus “strength” and the Greek kratos “might”. Exousia is properly translated as “authority” only.

The word “authority” comes into the English language from the Latin auctoritas and is related to the word “author”, which means one who originates, creates, begets, instigates or gives existence to anything. Thus, authority conveys a sense of right and entitlement deriving from ownership; that is, since the author created the subject, he has authority over it.

Simply put, authority means the legal right to be obeyed.

“And God said, ‘let there be light, and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).

All authority derives from God; there is no other source of authority in the universe; even Satan’s authority ultimately comes from God and serves God’s purposes, one of which is to separate the sheep from the goats and the tares from the wheat.  God’s authority derives from the fact that He is the Creator of the universe and all that is in it; being the Creator, He owns all that is created. “Then God said….…….and it was so”; this is the refrain repeated in the creation story of Genesis 1; this is authority manifest; God said it, and it was so.

The observable “Laws of Nature” are nothing less than an outworking of God’s authority observed. They provide an example to man of the peace and harmony that abides within the working out of God’s authority. A bee is inevitably drawn to do what it does. Within the hive, a bee becomes a worker, a drone or a queen; not because of genetic disposition but because a colony of bees adapts its members to fill the need of the community as a whole. Thus a bee is made into a queen by the rest of the hive, not born as a queen. A worker will instinctively gather nectar for the short duration of his life and a drone will tend to the hive’s housekeeping which is his created purpose. All of this is an outworking of God’s authority upon His creation. But it also serves the rest of creation by pollinating crops that would otherwise not be able to yield their produce.

Similarly, a salmon will inevitably swim upstream to mate and lay eggs in the season that God has ordained for that purpose. In their mating habits, indeed in their whole life, the salmon, like every other creature of God’s creation, acts under the authority of God. Man is able to observe that the salmon, by working in harmony with God’s authority, lives a life that is purposeful, its purpose being to provide man with necessary food and the essential and unique dietary qualities that the fish species contain and man requires.

A dog gives man another example and provides him with another lesson. Described by the world as “man’s best friend”, a dog is an example of faithfulness to his master, even a bad master. In the yieldedness of a dog to his master, we see a model of how man is meant to be to his Master; not by instinct, as with a dog, but by the free will that God has given him.

 Authority and Man

Man, alone of all God’s creatures, was given free choice. There was a reason for this; God wanted to be more than a Creator, He wanted to be a Father, so that God might express His Fatherhood in His relationship with man; that His only begotten Son might be the first-born of many brethren. Thus, while in relation to creation, God’s authority is absolute, in relation to man it is optional; that is, man is able to exercise his free will as to whether he will submit to the authority of God or not.

Here then, is a moral condition not faced by creation generally and each individual’s response to it resolves the issue of his true relationship with God, as opposed to that which he might profess. Only when a man chooses to obey God’s authority in all things, as did Jesus Christ, does that continuing choice establish the foundation of a relationship in which the Creator is able to become more than a Creator; He is able to become a Father.

God gave Adam authority in the world (Genesis 1:28), but Adam was deceived by Satan, the consequence of which was that the authority which God had given to Adam, was handed over to Satan. In the temptation of Jesus, Satan offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, saying “all this authority and its glory has been delivered up to me” (Luke 4:6). And so it had been – by Adam’s sin.

Jesus, unlike Adam, was perfected by His obedience to the Father’s wishes and, thus, He  recovered the authority which had been given to Adam and which Adam had lost to Satan; “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to Me”, He said (Matthew 28:18). His authority now applies to all those who choose to live in obedience to Him as He lived in obedience to the Father. The scripture tells us that “…He was made perfect in obedience” so that “He became the source of eternal salvation to all those obeying Him” (Hebrews 5:8-9).

Since the resurrection, therefore, the Son has had “……..everlasting authority that will never pass away” (Daniel 7:13-14).

Authority and Satan

Nevertheless, Satan still enjoys the authority he usurped from Adam in respect of all those not obeying Christ. There has now become two lines of spiritual authority in the world; one exercised in submission to Christ, the other in submission to Satan. Everyone is under the authority of either Christ or Satan; no other source of authority exists. Yet Satan’s authority is still under God’s overall authority; it is allowed by God, to fulfill God’s purposes. In relation to God’s people, Satan can only do what God allows Him to do, which is to deceive, tempt and persecute; in relation to the world Satan is “the ruler of this world” (John 14:30) and his authority is absolute, even if his exercise of it is restrained for a season by Christ Jesus.

Examples of Satan’s authority can be found in scripture; in John 10:1, for example, Jesus says that the thief enters the sheepfold other than through the door which is guarded by the doorkeeper. Thus, the prophetic word gives authority for that very thing to take place; Jude wrote of it, when he said that “certain men crept in unawares” (Jude 4). Their task was to turn the grace of God – a spiritual transaction – into “sensuality” – that is, something having its origins in the flesh and the senses; in other words, religion. That is the mystery of lawlessness exercising the authority of Satan to deceive.

Part of the mystery of lawlessness is that there is an anointing of lawlessness – a charisma – that is able to come upon God’s people if they allow it. Jesus referred to it in a way when He said; “If the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:23). This begs the question; how can darkness be light? The answer is, of course, that light can only be represented as darkness if it is false or counterfeit light. What Jesus is saying in these words is that there is an anointing of lawlessness that Satan has, a misuse of authority, which enables him to deceive God’s people into believing that the light that they have is True Light, whereas it is false light, or darkness.

Jesus referred to Satan’s authority when the priests and the elders came to arrest Him in the Garden, saying; “This is your hour and the authority of darkness” (Luke 22:53). The Greek word exousia, which means “authority”, is most often translated here as “power”; however dunamis is “power” and exousia is authority. It is translated as “power” because the original translators into English during the sixteenth century were evidently unwilling to accept and recognise that Satan has any authority. But he has, as we shall see.

Paul, too, spoke of this satanic authority when he wrote to the Colossian Church that Jesus had delivered us from “the authority of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son of His love” (Colossians 1:13). Again, exousia here is most often translated as “power” or “dominion” but this, once again, is a denial of what the scripture teaches, that Satan has authority – authority to deceive, tempt and persecute, where God allows it. In exercising these functions, he is doing God’s work of sorting out the goats from the sheep (Matthew 25:32), the tares from the wheat (Matthew 13:30) and the wicked from the just (Matthew 13:46).

Luke too, adds his voice to testify of the authority of darkness when he writes of Paul’s account of his conversion to Agrippa. In reporting what happened when he was apprehended by Christ, Paul said he had been told that his ministry was to the gentiles and that he was; “to open their eyes so that they may turn back from darkness into light and from the authority of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18).

Clearly, the kingdom of darkness could not function unless it had authority to do so, and all authority ultimately comes from God.

The mistranslations of the Greek word exousia are, themselves, examples of the mystery of lawlessness at work. His work is going on unrecognised and unobserved in and amongst those chosen to be God’s possession, whom he covets, and the deceived are totally unaware that they are deceived.

Believers live their lives under one authority or the other and the one under whose authority they live is a matter of fact, not profession; but one thing is certain; “no-one is able to serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24) and the one we serve will be evident in the life that we live internally.