Authority, Given and Received

Authority, Given and Received June 22, 2015

The notion of conferred authority is strange. After all, if authority is conferred, it has to be conferred by someone with authority, presumably someone with more authority than the recipient of authority. Can a lesser authority confer greater authority? Medieval Popes thought not, and their coronation powers ritualized their superiority to earthly rulers. 

On the other hand, authority that is not conferred is equally strange. I can claim authority that no one has given me – authority to arrest speeders, for instance – but I can’t effectively exercise authority, even if I find a way to dress myself like a traffic cop. I could get away with it for a while, but finally my tickets w0uldn’t have any standing before a judge. So it seems that authority must be conferred.

But then where did the greater authority get his authority that he confers on a lesser authority? We seem to be left with an infinite regression of authority – unless there is an ultimate authority, without whom or which there is no authority anywhere.

Obviously, the writings of John assume that there is such an ultimate authority, and within that framework John speaks about both the conferral and the reception of authority. Pilate claims authority (exousia), but Jesus reminds him that he has no authority except given authority, given from the Father (John 19:10-11). Throughout Revelation, various characters are given authority to act for a time – the scorpions that torment men (9:3, 10) and the saints who overcome will receive authority over the nations (2:26). 

The flow of authority among the dragon, the sea beast, the land beast, and the kings who are allied with the beasts is intriguing. The dragon gives authority to the sea beast (13:2, 4, 5), and the land beast in turn exercises the conferred authority of the sea beast (13:12). To translate: The devil gives authority to the empire, and Jewish leaders enforced the satanic authority of Rome within the land. When we get to chapter 17, the horns who are kings have authority with the sea beast, but they exercise this authority, apparently derived from the beast who gets it from the dragon, by giving authority to the beast (17:12-13). The horn-kings exercise authority in the receiving and giving of authority.

In all this, the dragon-beast-king relationship is an infernal parody of the dynamics of interTrinitarian life. We may think that the three persons possess authority in themselves, but John’s gospel describes a more dynamic authority within the Trinity. The Son does nothing but He sees the Father doing, and He has authority because the Father has given Him authority, specifically the authority to have life in Himself and the authority to judge (John 5:27). The Son has authority to lay down His life, and to take it up, because of the authority He receives from the Father (10:18), and by this the Son receives the gift of authority over all flesh (17:2).

Within the Triune life, in human life, even in the demonic parodies of divine and human life, this pattern holds: Authority exists where authority is given and received. The only authority is conferred authority. Authority cannot exist at all, and cannot be used rightly, outside the play of gift and grateful reception.


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