The Vision
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

Those of you old enough to avoid being called Generation X will remember the wars of the 1980's. In central America, particularly in Nicaragua and El Salvador the last fronts of the hot part of the cold war were still cooking. I remember the vision of the Communists-agrarian communism. The goal was ostensibly to take the large estates of the wealthy and carve from them small free-holds for peasant farmers. I'm no communist, but I must admit the rhetoric resonated with me. My objection against the communists was two-fold. First it's a great sin to steal land from people, even if those people have a lot, and if you plan to give it to those with little. Robin Hood was a hero not because he was a thief, but because of his unswerving loyalty to King Richard, the true authority. Second, the reality never matches the rhetoric. Some animals, after all, are more equal than others.

The bottom line then no to communist, yes to agrarian. The vision of yeoman farmers on their freeholds is a vision of self-rule. I have a mentor in the filed of limited government. Every time he would rail against state intrusions his wife would tell him, "Oh, you're just an old anarchist." And every time he would respond, "No, I'm just an old autarchist." This vision of limited government is not to rule, but rule by the self over the self.

Self-rule, however, need not degenerate into existential despair, or the curse of Judges, where, "every man does what is right in his own eyes." There is a big difference between saying that the state ought not to tell me what to do, and God may not. I am not anti-authority, but anti-illegitimate authority. That is why I tell my children, "You are free, and you serve no man but God." (Of course we are to give willing service to our neighbor, but never servile service.)

The bottom line issue is authority. Who shall rule? Ruling comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. Usually when we find ourselves in trouble it is because of a failure to recognize due authority, or the failure of assigning undue authority. When we let the spirit of the age determine how we will love our spouses, rather than the Spirit of God speaking in His Word, we will fail. When we let Madison Avenue tell us what really matters, rather than the Word of God, we will discover that you can't get no satisfaction. When we let the state determine how we are to discipline our children rather than the Word of God, we will find ourselves experiencing the loving discipline of our Father in heaven.

One of our functions here at the Highlands Study Center is to help people get those lines and spheres of authority into their proper places. It's not always an easy thing to do. And we start with ourselves. We begin by recognizing our supreme authority, God and His revelation. While we read and study other books, all that we read and study is checked against the inerrant Word. And we check how we teach with that authority.

Under the authority of the Word is the authority of the local church. We are a bit unusual, inviting folks to come and study out in the sticks. It's not surprising that some might be afraid to drink the kool-aid here. But we're not a cult. We operate under the authority of the local church, Saint Peter Presbyterian. The church operates under the authority of the Tennessee and Alabama Presbytery, which in turn operates under the authority of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. We are not an authority unto ourselves.

As an ordained teacher of the Word then, I seek to rightly divide issues of authority, and in my preaching and teaching help others to do the same. We talk about, and we hope model, authority in our home. Students here witness how that authority is used husband to wife and parent to child. Our hope is that as we exercise authority in accordance with The Authority, our students will and do likewise in their own lives. We are not tearing down legitimate authority, but hopefully repairing the ruins, building up those walls not just for ourselves, but for all the world. This tiny city upon a hill, we pray, is a city walled in by the Word.

Of course all Christians claim the Word as their authority. No believer suggests that we scrap the Word and look elsewhere for answers. Our practice, however, is often to check first with the world; Here we are to be separate. Too frequently we check to see what our consumerist culture would have us do. Here the call is to be simple. And when a host named Legion calls us to answer to every other conceivable authority, we must respond by being deliberate, by thinking through carefully why we do what we do.

It all comes back to His authority and His Word. Our king doesn't just claim a part of our lives. He did not say, "All authority at church and on Sunday has been given unto me." He did not say, "All authority on spiritual matters has been given unto me." All authority, on heaven and on earth, has been given unto Him. And just as with us His children, none of that power can be wrenched from His almighty hand. He alone has the authority to dole out authority in different spheres. The session of the church has the keys because Jesus gave those keys to them. The civil magistrate has the sword because Jesus gave it to them. And I am King in my home because the King has crowned me so. We reject statist oligarchy, and antinomian autarchy; we affirm eternal Monarchy.