The Powers

"For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." —Ephesians 6:12

Instead of the 20th century fulfilling the prophecies of liberals that the kingdom of peace, righteousness, and justice would be built here on earth, the power of evil was experienced in ways and in a magnitude never dreamed possible by many at the beginning of the century. The collective forces of evil, which transcend our own personal struggles with individual sin and our daily associates, threatened the existence and stability of our so-called great civilization. Since many Christians have come to have less and less faith in the structures of our society and their ability to save us, it is natural that many of us are looking in fresh ways to biblical clues about Christ and the powers.

This biblical interpretation represents an attempt to share simply many of the insights John Howard Yoder offers in his chapter on "Christ and Power" in The Politics of Jesus. Many of my friends are convinced that this book is so helpful in terms of greater clarity concerning biblical ethics and discipleship that it should be shared as much as possible with others. I am responding to an appeal to attempt to say some of the same things in less technical theological and biblical jargon. Though Professor Yoder's academic discipline has been in historical and contemporary theology and ethics more than in biblical areas, he is very much in dialogue in this book with much contemporary exegetical work. Since his book represents an application of such profound biblical studies to social ethics, I begin my attempt to summarize his summaries with a degree of fear and trembling. I want very much to share Yoder's insights and give him the credit. At the same time I want to acknowledge responsibility for deviations represented by my own thinking. My hope is to direct us to receive new guidance from the texts themselves. Some may be led, in addition, to pursue these themes more thoroughly by reading Yoder's book, which analyzes the politics of Paul and other New Testament writers in the context of interpreting the politics of Jesus. Others may be led to some of the studies drawn on by Yoder, the writings of scholars such as H. Berkhof, G.B. Caird, G.H.C. MacGregor, Clinton Morrison, and Markus Barth.

Jesus and Paul
What is John Howard Yoder really about in his insistence that the Jesus way includes the political? He wants to demonstrate by drawing on the best of current scholarship that the life, message, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ speaks to social issues as well as personal ethics. He is attempting to counter several generations of liberal scholarship which believed that Jesus focused on personal ethics and therefore is not relevant to the problems of power and structure. He wants to break open the thought patterns imposed on us by Freud and Jung in which our primary vision of a person has been that of a self-centered reacting organism. He wants to challenge Protestant individualism which has maintained that the gospel deals primarily with the personal or that the only way to change structures is to change the heart of the individual, preferably the one in power.

For Yoder there can be found in the gospels some concrete and specific clues as to the nature of the kingdom coming on earth. Against an "interim ethic" which says that the ethical teachings of Jesus are not applicable because they were given to a community expecting the end of the world, or against a "futuristic ethic" which says they are not relevant because we are not to live that way until He comes, or against an "impossible ethic" which demonstrates that the ethics of Jesus are not meant to be obeyed but to bring us to our knees in penitence, Yoder believes that Jesus' social ethic can speak to our age as it seldom has been free to do so before.

Even those who are aware of the politics of Jesus have argued that it was different with Paul and later New Testament writers. The teachings of Jesus may have had social implications, but Paul's contribution was one of an intense personal struggle with issues of law, justification, and faith. This Bible study, however, will focus on the growing realization that Paul dealt with structural issues and problems. Though Paul also appropriated cosmological (angels and archangels), and astrological, occultist language, there is a growing consensus that his terminology did encompass language which applies to the institutions and ideologies of society. We should be able to understand this variety of usage by examining our own use of the word "structure." We talk about "structures of the society," "the power structure," "the structure of the personality" or the "structure of a response." Berkhof delineates modern phenomena which he considers analogous to Powers in Pauline and New Testament texts. These include religious structures, intellectual structures ('ologies and 'isms), moral structures (codes and customs), and political structures (the tyrant, courts, schools, race, and nation).

Creation of the Powers
"He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities and powers; all was created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." —Colossians 1:15-17

Since most of the references to the Powers in the New Testament refer to them as fallen, it is good to begin the discussion with the text which tells us that they are a part of the good creation of God. All of nature's systems, as well as human systems, would be impossible without regularity and order. Christ shares in God's creation in that in him all of the world powers hold together. Here is the affirmation that the principle of organization, of structures, of humans relating to one another in orderly ways, is a part of God's plan. We cannot live without religious, intellectual, moral, and social structures of some kind. The sum total of these structures is more than the sum of the parts. This "more" makes up the invisible Power, which the New Testament writers talk about in more angelic terms than do we.

Fall of the Powers
"For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." —Romans 8:38

Though created by God to be good, human structures are fallen. The Powers which were created to be agents of God's purposes in the world, now seek to separate us from the love of God. They have rebelled against their original role. Rather than functioning as God's mediator and our servants, they have claimed for themselves an absolute value. Though we should be subject to those values and structures which are necessary to life and society, their absolute idolatrous claims enslave us. Many can feel with Jacques Ellul that technique, which is defined as the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency, leads to slavery instead of freedom. Though the principle of government is a part of God's creative purpose, the State can become the beast (Revelation 13) when it demands for itself an allegiance which belongs to God alone. Though we cannot live without the powers, neither can we live with them.

God's Sovereignty Over the Powers
"Ah, Assyria, the rod of my anger, the staff of my fury!" —Isaiah 10:5

This classic text is consistent with many others in claiming that in spite of their fallen condition, the Powers are still under the providential rule of God. As in the Joseph story (Genesis 50:20), the brothers meant evil against him, but God used it for good. The Powers, despite their fallenness, continue to exercise an orderly function. It is in this context that Yoder in his chapter on Romans 13 claims that the Greek verb does not mean that God ordains the powers that be. Rather He orders them, puts them in their place, and lines them up according to His purpose. Even tyranny, which according to Romans 13:1, is to be counted among the powers, is better than chaos. The fallen structures can be used by the preserving patience of God as the arena for His redemptive work. Instead of fitting neatly in the classical scheme which has given divine sanction to an existing government by naming it one of the orders of creation, this interpretation shares more of the concept of Bonhoeffer who wrote about the orders of preservation. Instead of God automatically approving governments, He uses them for His purposes. If, in their fallenness, they destroy rather than preserve the possibilities of orderly existence, they truly become representative of spiritual hosts of wickedness in high places.

The Work of Christ and the Powers
"And you, who were dead in trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, having cancelled the bond which stood against us with its legal demands; this he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it (the Cross)." —Colossians 2:13-15

Since our lostness consists in our subjection to the rebellious powers of a fallen world, our salvation will mean victory over the Powers. The Powers cannot simply be destroyed or set aside or ignored. Rather, their sovereignty must be broken. This is what Jesus did, concretely, by living a genuinely free existence. In his death the Powers, who in this case were the most worthy and weighty representatives of the power structures of His day, acted against Him. He was subject to them and submitted to their worst infliction of suffering. Nevertheless, He broke their rules by refusing to bow before their self-glorification. This is why they killed Him. For the first time we have to do with One who is not the slave of any power, of any law or custom, community or institution, value or theory. Not even to save His own life will He become a slave to the Powers. Thus it is in His death that He knows victory: "Wherefore God has exalted him highly, and given him the name ... which is above every name that every tongue might confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Phil.2:9-11).

Paul used three phrases to describe what the death of Jesus did to the Powers. He "made a public example of them." Previously the Powers were accepted as the most basic of realities, as the gods of the world. When God appears in Jesus it becomes clear that the Powers are not acting as God's instrument but as His enemies. Since none of the rulers of this age, either the Pharisees, Pilate, or the Scribes, understood God's Way and instead crucified the true Lord, they are unmasked as false gods. They are made a public spectacle. Thus Christ "has triumphed over them." The showing up of the Powers by the scene on the cross was already their defeat. Yet this only comes visible when believers know this. Therefore we must think of the resurrection as well as the cross. Yoder quotes H. Berkof (Christ and the Powers [Herald, 1962] ): "The resurrection manifests what was already accomplished at the cross: that in Christ God has challenged the Powers, has penetrated into their territory, and has displayed that He is stronger than they." The evidence of this triumph is that Christ has "disarmed the principalities and powers." Their chief weapon, their ability to convince that they were the divine regents of ultimate certainty, duty, and happiness, has been struck from their hands. Since Christ, we follow a different drummer. We have higher orders. No Powers can separate us from God's love in Christ. Unmasked, revealed for what they truly are, the Powers have lost their grip. Wherever the cross is preached, the Powers are disarmed.

The Work of the Church and the Powers
"Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace which was given me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places." —Ephesians 3:7-10

After Christ, the Church itself should be a sign and a token to the Powers that their dominion has come to an end. But our resistance to the gods of this age will be unfruitful unless we demonstrate in the community of faith how we can live freed from the Powers. To reject nationalism we must begin by recognizing that it was for all persons that Christ died on the cross. We can only resist social injustice if justice and mercy prevail in our common life. Only as the Church is truly the Church will it have much to say to the structures of society.

The Church must refuse to adopt a Zealot or Maccabean patriotism with the desire to bring the Powers to their knees. On the other hand the Church must avoid a Herodian collaboration. The very existence of the Church heralds its message of the Lordship of Christ over the Powers from whose dominion the Church has begun to be liberated. The community of faith should neither focus exclusively on individual salvation or avoid all participation in the structures of this world because they are impure or coercive. Rather we should attempt to discern how we can contribute to the creation of structures more representative of the Spirit of Christ inside or outside the institutions of society. Where we discern a kind of divine work within the structure, we can become a part of it if we remain firmly rooted and disciplined, in a community of faith. On the other hand we may discern that a particular power is so incorrigible that we should refuse to collaborate, perhaps, in order to take sides in favor of those that power is oppressing. This refusal is not necessarily withdrawal from society. Rather, it represents a major negative intervention within the process of social change. In all of its witness, the Church must continue to proclaim Christ as Lord, an affirmation to which individuals respond, but nevertheless one which constitutes a social and political challenge to the Powers.

From my paraphrasing of much of Yoder's thought, I would like to close with his very meaningful summary statement about the Powers (see page 162). Though far from the understanding of most Christians for generations, for me it represents both penetrating clarity as well as a radical call to discipleship. The Powers have been defeated not by some kind of cosmic hocus-pocus but by the concreteness of the cross; the impact of the cross upon them is not the working of magical words nor the fulfillment of a legal contract calling for the shedding of innocent blood, but the sovereign presence, within the structures of creaturely orderliness, of Jesus the kingly claimant and of the church who herself is a structure and a power in society. Thus the historicity of Jesus retains, in the working of the church as she encounters the other power and value structures of her history, the same kind of relevance that the man Jesus had for those whom he served until they killed him.

Dale W. Brown was professor of theology at Bethany Theological Seminary in Oak Brook, Illinois, when this article appeared in The Post-American, the predecessor to Sojourners.