Our Desperate Need of Authority
OUR DESPERATE NEED OF
AUTHORITY
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) I F I understand the modern religious situation at all, this whole question of authority is one of the most important problems confronting us. As such it demands our careful study. There is no doubt that things are as they are in the Christian church throughout the world today because we have lost our authority. We are faced by the fact that the masses of the people are outside the church. They are there, I suggest, because the church has in one way or another lost its authority. As a result, the people have ceased to listen or to pay any attention to its message. A great search for what has been lost characterizes many of the church's activities at this time. I believe that this fact is true of all sections of the church, including the evangelical section, which, as I shall try to show later, in common with others has been trying to produce a spurious,1 artificial substitute.
Another reason for considering this subject is that various contemporary and fairly successful movements owe their success, I think, to their claim to authority. Without doubt, the secret of the power of the Roman
Catholic Church lies in this fact: she claims to have authority, and people are ready to believe that she has it. This is true not merely of the poor, illiterate folk, but also of the intellectuals and sophisticated people who have struggled with the whole problem of life and of living and have failed to find satisfaction. They are ready in the end to capitulate2 and to say, "Here is a great church that claims authority. This church has been going throughout the centuries. I cannot understand all she says; some things seem difficult. But, after all, she speaks with the authority of the centuries. Here is this great tradition. Who am I to stand against it?" And so, they capitulate and are prepared to believe all that is proclaimed by that church.
At the opposite extreme, I believe that the success of Pentecostalism, speaking generally, is to be attributed to the same cause. For within that movement there seems to be a note of certainty and assurance—a note of authority. The same thing is true of many cults whose success is to be
1 spurious – counterfeit; not genuine.
2 capitulate – surrender.
Free Grace Broadcaster • Issue 263 attributed in much the same way to their claim to possess authority in some form or other.
Further, this whole question of the nature of authority is being raised, I think, acutely at the present time by movements such as the World
Council of Churches3 and the World Student Christian Federation.4
The question is being asked everywhere, "Is there any final authority?
Is there any objective source for this authority?" A similar question is, "Can truth be known? Can truth be defined? Can it be stated in a number of propositions?"
Now it seems to me that lying behind these questions is the suggestion that truth is so great and so marvelous that it cannot be defined and, therefore, that you cannot say definitely that this view is right and that is wrong. The result is that the average man feels that there is no such thing as "objective authority." A certain author, writing about a year ago, made the following statement, "The real issue today is between truth and fundamentalism." Observe the way in which he put it. Fundamentalism, according to that writer, cannot be true because it claims that truth can be reduced to a number of propositions.
Another learned man belonging to the same school of thought wrote a book in which he set out to deal with the fundamentals of the Christian faith and the whole source of our position. In the end, dismissing all suggestion that you can state or define truth in creeds and confessions of faith, he said that the situation is something like this. A man has been told that if only he climbs to the top of a certain mountain he will obtain a magnificent view. There, stretching before him, will be a wonderful and marvelous panorama. Very well, the man is anxious to see this. He begins to climb. He goes on and on. The sun sheds its clear rays upon him. He goes on in the blazing heat, and in spite of it. Eventually the ascent becomes so steep that he must get down on his hands and knees. As he scales certain crags, he has to hold on to little tufts of grass. But it is worth it. On he struggles, with hands and knees bleeding, but the quest keeps him going. And, at last, he arrives at the summit, and there, behold, is the grand panorama. What does he do about it?
Does he try now to reduce that view, as it were, to propositions and to state it in theorems5? Impossible! The thing is too grand and too magnificent. He just stands with his eyes and mouth wide open, lost in stupendous wonder and amazement. He cannot go down again and write
3 World Council of Churches – apostate worldwide ecumenical organization.
4 World Student Christian Federation – leftist youth and student arm of the global ecumenical movement.
5 theorems – ideas accepted as provable truths.
Our Desperate Need of Authority
out all he has seen and felt. He certainly cannot define it. That is impossible. Just as you cannot analyze the aroma of a rose, so you cannot reduce this great and glorious truth to a number of statements and propositions. In other words, it is something that can only be experienced, something you can feel. You might dance to it. You might sing to it. But you cannot state it in propositions. You cannot define it. You cannot reduce it to the form of a creed.
Now I suggest that, as Evangelicals, that is the major position that we must meet at this present time. There was a time when we were confronted by absolute denials. The position today is not that.
Instead, we are told that the truth is so marvelous that you cannot define it. One man may say this, and another may say that. We are asked to believe that they both are probably right. Everybody is right. There are many ways of getting to this summit. We must therefore welcome all approaches, and we must not say that a man has not the truth because he has not come to it our way. Such a school of thought claims that these are matters which, because of the very nature of truth itself, cannot be defined. Therefore, we cannot confidently speak of right and wrong.
Another reason that I would adduce for a study of the problem of authority in our day is connected with the desire for religious revival. Any study of church history, and particularly any study of the great periods of revival or reawakening, demonstrates above everything else just this one fact: that the Christian church during all such periods has spoken with authority. The great characteristic of all revivals has been the authority of the preacher. There seemed to be something new, extra, and irresistible in what he declared on behalf of God.
The final reason, I suggest to you, is that this subject of authority is indeed the great theme of the Bible itself. The Bible presents itself to us as an authoritative book.
With these thoughts in our minds, then, let us address ourselves to this subject.
From Authority (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1984), 7-10; used by permission; www.banneroftruth.org.
_______________________ David Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981): Welsh expository preacher and author; born in Cardiff, Wales, UK.
Authority: The right to bind the conscience in matters of faith and to command the will in matters of practice. This right belongs properly to God alone.
—Alan Cairns