Authority

One of the greatest questions that people face in life is the question of authority. Where does authority come from? Who has true authority? What should I look to as my ultimate authority? By what authority do I judge myself and the world around me? Is there even such a thing as authority at all?

In Authority, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones answers these questions by propounding the authority of the following – Jesus Christ, the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit.

Christ, he argues, is presented in the NT not only as a sacrifice, a humble teacher, and a loving prophet, but also as the reigning King who holds supreme authority over all. Thus, when we preach Christ, we should not present Him as a janitor who can clean up your life if you let Him, show more but as a monarch who demands submission from all. We should not be purposely offensive or overbearing as we proclaim Christ, but we should remember that Christ Himself is offensive to those who are unbelieving. We should not be embarrassed or try to soft-pedal His achievement; Christ does not appreciate the diminution of His glory.

To affirm the authority of Christ, we must first affirm the authority of the Scriptures. This does not mean to accept bits and pieces or the general ‘message’ of the Bible, but to believe that every word in it is inspired and categorically true. This also means that we must be willing to apply it to ourselves and to the world. It must be the grid through which we view reality.

To be honest, I found Dr. Martyn’s assertion of the authority of the Holy Spirit to be less coherent and satisfactory than the rest of the book. He made excellent points, but the direction of his arguments was less clear. He did speak directly against the notion that there is any friction between the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures, and he was scathing in his denunciation of contrived revivalism. Still, either he was lacking in eloquence, or I in intelligence, because I could not discover any driving point in this chapter. : |

Conclusion. Other than the aforementioned lack of clarity (and a few jabs that Dr. Martyn leveled at apologetics), I found Authority to be a challenging work which encouraged me to view all of life through the doctrine of Christ’s Kingship. I hope to read more of Dr. Martyn’s works in the future.

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