Yahushua, A Man Under Authority

We see this hierarchy referenced in an exchange between Yahushua and an unnamed centurion from Capernaum whose servant was sick:

Matthew 8:5-10 And when Yahushua entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, ⁶ and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” ⁷ Yahushua *said to him, “I will come and heal him.” ⁸ But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. ⁹ “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” ¹⁰ Now when Yahushua heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.

The text says that, amazed at the centurion’s faith, Yahushua healed his servant at that very moment.

One aspect that is often overlooked in this familiar narrative is the parallel that the Roman officer draws between himself and Yahushua:

Matthew 8:9 “For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.”

The commander, who was under the authority of the primus pilus and ultimately Caesar, recognized that Yahushua was also subordinate to a greater authority. According to Yahushua, this higher authority is Yahuwah the Father:

John 14:28 “You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

Paul also speaks of Yahuwah’s supremacy over Christ in his letter to the church in Corinth, in which he writes, “Yahuwah is the head of Christ” and “Christ belongs to Yahuwah.”¹ We’ll look more closely at the apostle’s most declarative statement of Christ’s subordination momentarily. In the meantime, it is essential to emphasize that, just as the centurion did not appoint himself to a position of power, neither was Yahushua a self-appointed ruler. Indeed, Yahuwah exalted Yahushua to His right hand, having designated the Messiah as the one who would rule on His behalf.²

Micah 5:2 “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity.”

Moreover, Yahushua stressed that he was under Yahuwah’s authority when he more than once confessed that he had not come on his own initiative but that the Father had sent him.³

A Man Under Yahuwah’s Authority

The word authority in Matthew 8:9 in Greek is exousia. According to HELP Word Studies, it means: authority, conferred power; delegated empowerment (“authorization”) operating in a designated jurisdiction.⁴ In other words, just as the centurion’s authority was granted to him, so Yahushua’s authority was derived from Yahuwah the Father. Charles Spurgeon articulates this point well in a sermon in which he emphasizes the similarities between Yahushua and the centurion:

[The centurion] was a commander who derived his position and power from the great Emperor at Rome! He was “a man under authority.”…this centurion meant to say [to Yahushua], “I recognize in You, also, a man under authority,” for this blessed Christ of ours had come into the world commissioned by God. …[Yahushua] was here as the One whom the Father had chosen, anointed, qualified and sent to carry out a divine commission! This officer could see about the person of Christ the marks of His being commissioned by God. By some means…he had arrived at this very safe and true conclusion that . . . [Yahushua] Christ was acting under the authority of the great God who made heaven and earth! And he looked at Him, therefore, under that aspect—as duly authorized and commissioned for His work.⁵

Spurgeon is not alone in his understanding. Author and preacher, Harry Whittaker, writes:

What [the centurion] did say was: “For I also am a man set under authority.” The word “also” pointedly stresses a similarity in status between himself and . . . [Yahushua]. What was it? In effect, he declared: “My men obey every command of mine because I am under the authority of Caesar. They do my bidding because behind me is the supreme power of the Emperor. But I recognize that you . . . [Yahushua], are under the direction of the One greater than Tiberius. Behind you is the authority of Almighty God.”⁶

Without a doubt, Yahushua received his authority from the one true God, that is, the Father.⁷

Matthew 9:6 and 8 “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins“—then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.” …⁸ But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified Yahuwah, who had given such authority to men.

Matthew 11:27 [Yahushua said] “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father…

Matthew 28:18 [Yahushua said] All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

John 3:35 “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.

John 5:26-27 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; ²⁷ and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.

John 13:3-4 Yahushua, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands…

John 17:1-3 Yahushua spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, ² even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. ³ “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Yahushua Christ whom You have sent.

Ephesians 1:17 and 20-22 the God of our Lord Yahushua Christ, the Father of glory…²²…put all things in subjection under His [Yahushua’s] feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church,

1 Peter 1:3 and 3:22 ³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yahushua Christ…²² who is at the right hand of Yahuwah, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.

Revelation 2:27 AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON, AS THE VESSELS OF THE POTTER ARE BROKEN TO PIECES, as I also have received authority from My Father.

If Yahushua were himself Yahuwah, he would not require delegated authority since all authority would intrinsically belong to him. But as the human agent of Yahuwah, he needed and received power and authority from the Father to do the works of Yahuwah.

Yahushua is Subordinate to Yahuwah

According to theologian R. C. Sproul, a subordinate is not a peer but someone who is under another’s authority:

In our language, it is clear that to be subordinate to someone is to be “under” that person’s authority. A subordinate is not a peer; a subordinate is not on an equal level of authority with his or her super-ordinate. The prefix sub- means “under” and super- means “over” or “above.”⁸

Sproul balks, however, when he speaks of Christ’s subordination to Yahuwah:

When we talk about the subordination of Christ, we must do so with great care. Our culture equates subordination with inequality. But in the Trinity all members are equal in nature, in honor, and in glory. All three members are eternal, self-existent; they partake of all aspects and attributes of deity.⁹

Trinitarians are forced to agree that Yahushua is subordinate to the Father because the doctrine is pervasive in Scripture and cannot be denied. However, in order to preserve the post-Biblical doctrine of Yahushua’s co-equality with Yahuwah, they claim that he is subordinate in function only while remaining co-equal with Yahuwah in his essence. But what Sproul and others so confidently assert is never found in Scripture. Instead, we repeatedly read in the sacred texts that Yahushua is the servant of Yahuwah, not His co-equal.¹⁰ To be sure, Yahushua has a God.¹¹

Subordinationism and the Early Church Fathers

Subordinationism, the doctrine which states that “the Son is subordinate to God the Father in nature and being, and that the Son both takes his orders from and owes his existence to God,”¹² was prevalent among the early Church Fathers. Church historian, Kegan Chandler, writes:

It is an unsung fact of Church history that the most well-known second and third-century Church Fathers believed that . . . [Yahushua] had pre-existed, not eternally as the one true God himself, but as a subordinate angelic being, God’s first creation.¹³

The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Early Church confirms the prevalence of subordinationism among even the most recognized Church Fathers:

Subordinationism. Thus we call the tendency, strong in the theology of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, to consider Christ, as Son of God, inferior to the Father. Behind this tendency were gospel statements in which Christ himself stressed his inferiority (Jn 14: 28, Mk 10:18, 13:32, etc.) and it was developed especially by the Logos-Christology…Subordinationist tendencies are evident especially in theologians like Justin, Tertullian, Origen and Novation; but even Irenaeus, to whom Trinitarian speculations are alien, commenting on John 14:28, has no difficulty in considering Christ inferior to the Father.¹⁴

Theologian, Thomas C. Pfizenmaier, summarizes the prevalence of subordinationism in the first four centuries in this way:

While the forms of subordinationism varied, virtually all ante-Nicene theologians engaged in some form of it.¹⁵

What’s more, Church historian, R.P.C. Hanson, explains that the belief that Yahushua is subordinate to God the Father was the accepted orthodoxy well into the fourth century:

With the exception of Athanasius, virtually every theologian, East and West, accepted some form of Subordinationism at least up to the year 355 CE; Subordinationism, might indeed, until the dénouement of the controversy, have been described as accepted orthodoxy.¹⁶

It wasn’t until 325 A.D. that Biblical orthodoxy received a death knell. What the Roman centurion knew to be true–that Yahushua was a man under authority–would be obscured by doctrinal revisionists at the Council of Nicaea and beyond.

Yahushua, Under Yahuwah’s Authority for Eternity

Paul’s most thorough articulation of Yahushua’s subordination to Yahuwah the Father is found in his first letter to the Corinthians:

1 Corinthians 15:22-28 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. ²³ But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, ²⁴ then comes the end, when He [Christ] hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. ²⁵ For He [Christ] must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. ²⁶ The last enemy that will be abolished is death. ²⁷ For He has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. ²⁸ When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that Yahuwah may be all in all.

Paul describes for us the order of events that will take place at the end of this age. After the resurrection, when Christ has defeated death, he will hand the kingdom over to Yahuwah the Father because it was Yahuwah who subjected all things to him. But Paul, wanting to make sure that his readers understand, emphasizes that Yahuwah the Father is not subject to Christ. Rather, it is Christ who is subject to Yahuwah so that Yahuwah may be all in all.

Pulpit Commentary says that the phrase all in all “involves a complete and absolute supremacy.”¹⁷ Indeed, Yahuwah the Father is the Almighty who reigns supreme. Eugene Peterson makes this clear in his paraphrase:

1 Corinthians 15:28 When everything and everyone is finally under Yahuwah’s rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that Yahuwah’s rule is absolutely comprehensive—a perfect ending!¹⁸

Paul is emphasizing that Yahushua is not God [Yahuwah], but “God’s exalted, subordinate agent.”¹⁹

Conclusion

Yahushua’s subordination presents a problem for Trinitarian theology because it is at variance with the fourth-century doctrine. To resolve the contradiction, the theory of Christ’s dual natures (hypostatic union) was developed. Applied here, the theory says, in effect, that Christ was subject to Yahuwah only in his human nature. However, this is never taught in Scripture. What is taught in Scripture is that Yahushua is a man under the authority of Yahuwah. Because of his obedience, Yahushua was exalted to Yahuwah’s right hand and given authority in Yahuwah’s kingdom.²⁰ Paul’s point is that as powerful as Christ is, he is still under the authority of Yahuwah. As Biblical scholar James McGrath, explains:

Monotheism is preserved not because . . . [Yahushua] is absorbed into God or included in the divine identity but because even though . . . [Yahushua] reigns over absolutely everything else on God’s behalf, God himself is not subjected to Christ, but Christ is subjected to God.”²¹

What the Roman centurion knew to be true in the first century, that Yahushua was a man under authority, is still true today, despite fourth-century ecclesiastical efforts to redefine the meaning of Yahushua’s subordination.

¹ 1 Corinthians 11:3 and 3:23.

² Yahuwah exalted Yahushua to His right hand: Acts 2:33; 5:31. The prophet Isaiah also prophesied that the Messiah would rule for Yahuwah: Isaiah 40:1; Psalm 2:1-2, 6-8, 10-12.

^[7] Some interpret this passage to mean that Yahushua pre-existed in heaven as Yahuwah. However, the phrase “His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity,” indicates that the human leader was a part of Yahuwah’s plan from before the foundation of the world, not that Yahushua literally pre-existed. See also Acts 2:23; 1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8.

³John 7:28; 8:42. See also John 5:30 and 8:28.

⁴ HELP Word Studies, https://biblehub.com/greek/1849.htm

⁵ Charles H. Spurgeon, A Man Under Authority, Sermon #2434, (October, 1895), accessed 3-25-20, https://www.spurgeongems.org/sermon/chs2434.pdf

⁶ Harry Whittaker, The Healing of the Centurion’s Servant, Studies in the Gospels, http://christadelphianbooks.org/haw/sitg/sitg71.html

⁷ John 4:21-26; 8:54; 17:1-3; 1 Corinthians 1:3, 8:6; 1 Timothy 1:2, 2:5, etc.

⁸ R. C. Sproul, “The Subordination of Christ,” The Logos, March 27, 2009, accessed March 30, 2020, https://ho-logos.blogspot.com/2009/03/subordination-of-christ-rc-sproul.html

⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰ Acts 3:13, 26; 4:25-27, 29-30; Matthew 12:18; Hebrew 8:1-2 minister in this passage is leitourgos, Greek for public servant, minister, servant (NASB Greek-Hebrew Dictionary); Isaiah 42:1-9; Zechariah 3:8.

¹¹ Yahushua said he had a God numerous times: John 20:17; Matthew 27:46 (Mark 15:34); Revelation 1:6; 3:12. Even after his exaltation, Yahushua still has a God. Paul and Peter also attest to Yahushua having a God: Ephesians 1:3, 17; Romans 15:6; 2 Corinthians 1:3; 11:31; 1 Peter 1:3. Also, the author of Hebrews 1:8. The Old Testament authors understood that the messiah would have a God: Micah 5:4; Psalm 40:8; 45:6-7.

¹² Kegan Chandler, The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma, (McDonough, GA: Restoration Fellowship, 2016), p. 135.

¹³ Ibid, p. 76.

¹⁴ M. Simmonetti, “Subordinationism,” Oxford Encyclopedia of the Early Church, Vol. 2 (OUP, 1992), p. 797.

¹⁵ Thomas C. Pfizenmaier, The Trinitarian Theology of Dr. Samuel Clarke (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p. 91.

¹⁶ R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, 1988, p. xix

¹⁷ https://biblehub.com/1_corinthians/15-28.htm

¹⁸ https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+15%3A28-33&version=MSG

¹⁹ Chandler, Ibid, p. 444.

²⁰ Philippians 2:5-11; Ephesians 1:17-23.

²¹ McGrath, The Only True God, p. 50.

This is a non-WLC article. Source: https://oneGodworship.com/Jesus-a-man-under-authority/

We have taken out from the original article all pagan names and titles of the Father and Son, and have replaced them with the original given names. Furthermore, we have restored in the Scriptures quoted the names of the Father and Son, as they were originally written by the inspired authors of the Bible. -WLC Team