Page 50 - The Christian Life and the Church Life_Government of God

Living under the Direct Rule of God 49

God established the human government due to the fall of man. Romans 13:1
says, “Let every person be subject to the authorities over him, for there is no
authority except from God, and those which exist are ordained by God.” Here
it does not say that all of the good human rulers are ordained by God. All of
them are ordained by God including the ones that we do not consider good.
We can never say that because this human ruler is not a good person, then we
do not need to subject ourselves to the authority of this ruler. We must still
subject ourselves to this ruler because by doing so, we are actually subjecting
ourselves to God and to our conscience.
From the Point of View of Government, Man’s Fall Being a Fall from
God’s Rule to Self-Rule and Then from Self-Rule to Man’s Rule
From the point of view of government, man’s fall was a fall from God’s
rule to self-rule and then from self-rule to man’s rule. Man began under God’s
rule. Then due to the fall, the conscience was activated. Now man should
live under self-rule. Due to the inability of man to follow the conscience he
became subject to man’s rule.
Because Man Has Degraded from God’s Rule to Human Rule, God,
in Saving Man, Needing to Recover Man from Human Rule to Divine
Rule So That Once Again Man May Live before God in Simplicity and
under His Direct Authority
Because man has been degraded from God’s rule to human rule, God, in
saving man, must recover him from human rule to divine rule so that once
again man may live before God in simplicity and under His direct authority
(Matt. 5:3, 8; 6:33). We are being recovered. The kingdom life came into us
to rule in us and to recover us. We have to go back to God’s direct rule. As
man fell, he went from God’s rule to self-rule to man’s rule. Now we need to
go the opposite direction from man’s rule to the rule of the conscience and
eventually to the rule of God directly in the intuition of our spirit.
In God’s Plan of Recovery Man Needing to Retrace His Steps from
Human Rule to God’s Rule, Passing through Self-Rule in Between.
In God’s plan of recovery man must retrace his steps from human rule to
God’s rule, passing through self-rule in between. We go back the same way
that man fell. This is why we teach a new believer or a young believer to deal
with the conscience. Dealing with the conscience is a very elementary stage