Commandment Five The nature of authority

Exodus 20:12 and Ephesians 6:2 -4 “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth. And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.

The Fifth Commandment is like the first Commandment which was about learning to trust God as our source of life and love and identity and provision, which sets the course for our ongoing relationship with God. There we found our identity as his child made in his Image, and we Honoured the use of his name, then rested in mutual love and collaboration with him. So likewise here, the fifth Commandment sets the course for our relationships with other people, starting with a proper relationship with our parents so that life will go well with us. This Commandment is the foundation for our understanding of the nature of all authority in all its forms. Here we can learn to know who we are, and it works both ways, with parents and children. A child’s role is one of being under the authority of Mum and Dad and that role of being a person under one kind of authority or another lasts us for a lifetime and involves us all in many roles and functions.

So starting with God, and then Family, the other relationships with authority that are dealt with in this commandment are, Marriage, Ephesians 5:22-23, the Church Hebrews 13:17, Employment, Colossians 3:22-4:1, and the State, Romans 13:1ff. And of course, the individual under the Lordship of Christ.

The conflict between Church and State has been an age-old one that has gone on for centuries. Church and State can exist, side by side, as separate entities in themselves, both under the authority of God, because they both serve different purposes. The Church exists as God's authority structure for the sanctification of society on earth. The State is God's instrument for the keeping of law and order, that is why they 'bear not the sword (or whatever weapon), in vain', referring to the magistrates and police and military, and for this reason we pay taxes Romans 13:7 … tribute to whom tribute is due... Order can also involve areas of providing and maintaining infrastructure for the safety and wellbeing of an ordered society.
God will always work through an authority structure, according to the fifth commandment so as to check the unrestrained behaviour of human nature. Much unnecessary and harmful effort has been put in by the Church to run the State, and much unnecessary effort has been put in by the State, to run the Church, when both must be seen as being 'run by God' for His purposes

Resistance to Authority - a self determined life wants to resist any form of outside influence or control. This self determined person sees authority as a threat, and the behaviour that follows may fall into one of the three following categories: Escaping authority, destroying authority, and usurping authority (or taking-over authority). The disorder that these attitudes of unrestraint creates leads to anger and violence and malevolence (Commandment Six). Disorders such as tyranny and fascism led to millions of deaths in the 20th century. There are just causes for resisting such authority (Acts 4 and 5 and current Hong Kong situation).

A key role of authority in all its forms is to bring about agreement and collaboration for godly responsibility and accountability to operate in our lives. Some other key roles are; to care for, protect, direct, and correct. The overall role of authority is always to serve, a privilege that has always been tragically abused in human society. And God always backs authentic authority Matthew 20:20