The King’s Limit to Human Authority

Nov 21, 2024 • Don Willeman

Transcript:

Hello! This is Pastor Don of Christ Redeemer Church. Welcome to The Kingdom Perspective!

Perhaps, there is no more famous articulation in recent memory of the limits of human government than that given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”.

In it he reasons from the theology of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Paul and Jesus Himself. A human law and its application are only valid to the degree that they square with the law of God. Why? Because human law is only legitimate within the bounds given by divine appointment. Human authority has limits.

Remember, Jesus told the corrupt Pontius Pilate: “You would have no authority…at all unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11). St. Paul says: “For there is no authority except from God” (Romans 13:1). Therefore, all who wield authority have a solemn responsibility before Almighty God to do so, not as they please, but as justice and mercy would require.

Moreover, all matters of justice must be properly weighted according to the balance given in the law of God. To do otherwise is to misuse the law and so to operate in functional lawlessness. As Jesus put it, the “weightier matters of the law” are “justice, mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23), and as the prophet Micah (6:8) admonished:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Do you exercise your rights, powers, and authority not merely for yourself, but for glory of God and the good of your neighbor?

Something to think about from The Kingdom Perspective.

“With what shall I come to the Lord

And bow myself before the God on high?

Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings,

With yearling calves?

Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams,

In ten thousand rivers of oil?