Before we can submit to any authority, we need to determine what morality is. And towards this goal, we need to ask ourselves if there is an absolute morality.
The word absolute carries a connotation of final, ultimate, and everlasting. Therefore, an absolute morality depends on the consistency of the authority (God, self, other).
Self is not consistent. We change our ideas of good and bad all the time.
Societies are also inconsistent, changing laws.
If God is the omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God we read about in the Bible, then He declares an absolute morality and He has been absolutely consistent with it.
Free will allows each person to chooses a morality of their own. The morality a person chooses may be in conflict with the morality that God defines. As was demonstrated in the first section, when any two moralities do not align, things will be good to one and bad to another.
As we understand more of what God is like, we can begin to align our personal morality with His absolute morality. Many people "come to God" by placing themselves under His authority. That is to say, they adopt His morality, by agreeing with what God has declared to be good and eschewing what God has declared to be bad. (To Christians, this includes the acceptance of God's provision for salvation, which is "good").
Morality and authority are intimately linked. Rebellion to authority (in absolute terms) is immorality. (I should be quick to add that I mean that rebellion to God [the Authority] is indeed immorality; any morality contrary to God's morality is immorality. This reasoning also works for atheists who declare there is no God. In essence, an atheist is his own god, or supreme authority.)
Remember that there are two kinds of submission: yielded and imposed. God accepts yielded submission and responds in love. Why? Because we willingly adopt His standard of good and bad - life is without resistance to the authority. God will not impose His authority until Judgment Day (exceptions being Judgments, such as the one on Herod Agrippa when he was struck dead). What I mean is that God will not impose upon the free will He gave us, to be "robots." Free will enables love to be given as well as received (or rejected).
One Day God will impose His authority on all rebels, and morality will be no more. That is, what will exist is separated bad and good. (Relative morality will still exist, however: I like chocolate ice cream better than butter pecan; so comparative goods will exist in heaven, and I believe, comparative bads will be in hell.)
Copyright, Mark Metcalfe, 1992 August
See my published Christian Men's Articles
See my Sunday School series on Marriage and Parenting
Created: March 23, 1999
Updated: April 9, 2003