Idolatry & Human Leadership Part 5 of 6
An excerpt from Chapter 9 in David Orton's book,
"Snakes in the Temple: Unmasking Idolatry in Today's Church"
Part 5 of 6
by David Orton
WHAT IS GOD’S RESPONSE
TO HUMAN GOVERNMENT IN THE CHURCH?
As we have seen, just as Israel rejected God as king in their rejection of the prophet Samuel, the church rejected Christ as king when the office of bishop (the senior pastor) superseded the apostles and elders.
How did God view this miss-development? When Israel asked for a king, to be like the other nations, Samuel was “displeased” (1 Sam 8:6). But the measure of the man was seen in his response. Rather than reacting to the people he responded to the Lord, who counselled him to, “‘Listen to all that the people are saying…it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods…but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do’” (1 Sam 8:7-9 NIV, emphasis mine).
By refusing to react Samuel received wisdom to know how to respond to Israel’s defection. God gave him important insights for today’s church.
God shows mercy and provides for our weakness
First, Samuel was instructed to “listen to all that the people were saying” (1 Sam 8:7 NIV). He was not to judge them, but give them what they wanted. In fact, despite the heart condition of the people, he was to preside prophetically over his own replacement – over the establishment of the monarchy by anointing Saul as king.
God, in his mercy, had foreseen the weakness of his own people by allowing for a king in the law. Deuteronomy 17 prophetically foreshadowed, word-for-word, the people’s request to Samuel: “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us” (v. 14 NIV, compare 1Sam 8:5). The law then provided boundaries for the monarchy to protect both the people and their faith (v. 15-20).
God knows our frailty and provides for it. Jesus highlighted this when he pointed out the law’s provision for divorce: “‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning’” (Mt 19:8 NIV). While divorce was not God’s intent from the beginning, neither was the monarchy. Both, under the law, became his permissive will, and were allowed because of the hardness of the people’s hearts. God’s original intent for Israel was that they be a “kingdom of priests” (Ex 19:6) carrying his redemptive rule to all the nations of earth. But tragically, they sold their birthright. Through their rejection of God, as king, the congregation of the Lord traded its royal mandate for a human king. They had already relinquished their priesthood to Aaron, and now their kingship, to Saul.
Not until the new covenant would there be a people again called as “kings and priests” (1 Pet 2:9; Rev 1:6; 5:10). But, tragically, the new covenant community fell into the same error. By rejecting the ascension gift ministries of apostles and prophets they handed their king-priest role to a new priestly ruling class - the clergy, epitomised in the office of bishop – or, senior pastor. However, as we learn from the Lord’s direction to Samuel, even this is permissible and was not to be condemned. For it was through the monarchy that Messiah’s seed was to be preserved, ultimately emerging as the son of David. In the mystery of his sovereignty he uses human frailty to bring redemption to the earth.
Neither are we to stand in judgment of the religious system. Like the monarchy, it has preserved the seed of a coming visitation. Greater and more powerful seasons of revival and reformation are about to shake the institutional church. Just as Jesus came to his own as the son of David – a son of the monarchy, and Paul as a Hebrew of Hebrews,201 God will come again to the institutional church, providing it a window of visitation. God is slow to anger and full of mercy.202 Anger and judgmentalism toward the authority structures of the church are neither true to the heart of God nor worthy of Christ’s bride. She will exude the mercy of God toward the visible church, interceding for her, and only speaking the truth in love.203 Even so, she will face a decision to receive or reject the coming visitation. And if she rejects it she will come under a greater discipline of God, being left spiritually desolate until she can turn and say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Mtt 23:39).
But, God is grieved – because we have rejected his messengers
Secondly, in rejecting Samuel, the one “who came in the name of the Lord”, they were rejecting God: “…it is not you (Samuel) they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (1 Sam 8:7 NIV). This is one of the most sobering principles of God’s economy. Jesus said, “‘He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward…’” (Mt 10:40-41 NIV). How we relate to men and women of the Spirit exposes how in reality we relate to the Spirit himself.
We all know that “if you don’t like the message, you shoot the messenger”. Untold revelation and outpourings of the Spirit have been lost to the body of Christ because of our mishandling of the messenger. We have already seen how the Ephesians 4 ministries are given by the Holy Spirit, as people, to the body of Christ. The church’s record of receiving and valuing those whom he sends as apostles, prophets, and teachers is disastrous.
Jesus rebuked the religious system of his generation for this very reason. It was the product of generations of hypocrisy and violence toward the prophets: “‘Woe to you, because you build tombs for the prophets, and it was your forefathers who killed them. So you testify that you approve of what your forefathers did; they killed the prophets, and you build their tombs.’”
How easy it is to miss the visitation of God. Feel the grieving heart of God as Jesus cries out to the church of his generation: “…He saw the city and wept over it, saying, ‘If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you when your enemies … will level you to the ground and … and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation’” (Lk 19:41-44 NASB).
What is the lesson? Divine visitation is incarnational. God comes in the form of people – he gifts them by the Spirit and gives them to the church. But the religious system usually refuses to recognise them. They lack the pedigree or the position to warrant attention. The resumes of Jesus and the disciples were not too impressive. The carpenter’s boy from Nazareth and a rag-tag team of ignorant fishermen didn’t rate on the richter scale of religious power, but they were sent from God. And to the degree their generation received them, to that degree they received God.
Spiritual breakthrough in the Western church is contingent on one thing – receiving those sent by the Spirit. God has a habit, though, of coming to mangers, carpenters, and fishermen – he reveals himself to babes, to the uneducated, and the unrecognised. He uses “the things that are not to nullify the things that are” (1 Cor 12:28).
Like Hosea’s day human control has become so mainstream that, “the prophet is considered a fool, and the man of the spirit insane” (Hos 9:7). The question, therefore, is whether we are willing to turn our inherited leadership values and structures on their head.
So, when the second and third century church replaced the men of the Spirit with the bishop – with official power, they were not rejecting men, but God.
…to be concluded in Part 6 … an excerpt from David Orton’s book, "Snakes in the Temple: Unmasking Idolatry in Today’s Church"
End notes
201 Phil 3:5; Paul’s strategy was to go to the Jew first as the synagogues often provided the seed of gospel expansion. See Rom 1:16; Acts 3:26; 9:20; 13:5, 14, 46
202 Ps 145:8
203 Eph 4:15
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