4. What is the authority structure on earth?
God Delegated All Earthly Authority to Humanity
God delegated of His Own Choice. God did not need to delegate any authority, much less all earthly authority.
God owns the earth. God was and is the Sovereign Boss over all the earth … yet, in Genesis 1:26-28, He delegated.
As it relates to evil, who then is able to stop evil from hitting the earth?
Since God created and owns the earth (Psalm 24:1-2), and is Boss over the earth, therefore, the earthly authority structure
is whatever God says it is. Since we have assumed that God is in control on the earth,
we have also assumed that God could stop any evil from hitting the earth.
This is the hardest part of the solution to accept because those who have taught us, have taught us wrong.
God Himself spoke something different than all of our teachers say, therefore they think that it is settled … but it is upside-down.
Many who ‘know’ that do not even read what God said.
Assuming that God is in control on the earth, means assuming also that God could intervene to stop evil from hitting
the earth. Yet, we ask, “Why just one? Why does God not stop all ‘bad’ evil from hitting the earth? or at least the
‘bad’ evil that hits ‘my’ life?”
If God could stop one evil on His own, the Problem of Evil is not solved for us. Of course, His wrongly taught people are okay with that,
because they trust Him. It is okay that the answer is hidden in His wise, infinite purposes to allow this evil to hit the earth, but not that evil.
Since that is not our reality, we ask: “Since God is the Creator and Owner and Boss over the earth, is the authority
structure on the earth His direct control on the earth, or not?” If He did not change the authority structure on the earth,
if God is still in control on the earth, then the answer would not accessible to us … it would be hidden from us, since the details of
His wise ways are beyond us.
We should not believe that He is in control over all the earth, because God told us that He delegated all earthly authority to humanity.
God’s act of delegation is both clearly revealed in His Own words and it is essential to the solution to the Problem of Evil.
This is our reality.
God’s people who do not believe this, have two serious problems:
- The reality they think they live in is upside-down … His people live in an imagined reality, and
- they either do not believe the revelation of the Creator, or they do not read/interpret His words literally.
God never leads us astray. We believe His Own clear Word of delegation.
Those who do not believe this have an entirely inverted understanding … they are wrong at the most fundamental level.
In Genesis 1:26-28, God spoke His delegation plan after creating the earth and all life … except humanity.
God reveals in verses 26 and 27, why He planned and created humanity in His image.
In Genesis 1:28, God actually delegated to humanity direct authority over all the earth.
By His act of delegation, God is not in charge on the earth; God has no direct authority over any of the earth.
In verse 26, God planned humanity for earthly authority.
In verse 27, God created the human, male and female, to be able to fulfill His plan for authority … and more.
In verse 28, God blessed the human He had just created, and commanded them to subdue the earth, and to subjugate all previously created life.
After God delegated authority, humans have chosen badly and sinned.
In doing so, we have made a mess of the earth…and God let that happen.
We, people/humanity, are entirely responsible for the poor condition of the earth;
God did not stop humanity from making a mess of the earth that He created.
God enforced His Own created reality, and required that the evil effect(s) of every bad human choice hit the earth.
The Sovereign God delegated this one time, and never delegated again.
Since God is the Boss, He could have remained in charge of the earth of His creation or He could have delegated again,
for any reason He wanted. Yet, instead of re-delegating, when horrible choices continued to be made by the humans He put in charge,
God confirmed that His delegation of all earthly authority to humanity remained in effect.
Three large confirmations are:
in Psalm 8 after He gave the law to Israel and before the coming of Jesus;
- Psalm 8 was written by David when he was one of the strongest leaders worldwide.
- David would never say that the delegated authority belonged to him.
in Hebrews 2:5-9 after the coming, cross, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, and
- Jesus was Lord of heaven and earth … surely delegated authority now belonged to Him alone.
- Instead, the author added a double negative in verse 8: "nothing was not under humanity's feet".
in I Corinthians 15:24-28 at the end of time.