Commentary on First Peter (64)
Posted by Vincent Cheung on June 29, 2006In giving the Ten Commandments, God begins with the declaration, "I am the LORD your God…You shall have no other gods before me…" (Exodus 20:2-3), and so on. And it is under this context that he then gives the commandment, "Honor your father and your mother" (v. 12). Because the commandment appears under the declaration of God's exclusive deity and supreme power, it is implied that parental authority functions under the authority of God.
As Paul writes, "Children, obey your parents in the Lord" (Ephesians 6:1). Parental authority is not in itself absolute and independent, but it is derived from and dependent on the absolute authority of God. Thus when our parents command us to disobey God, we can refuse their command without facing a moral dilemma, since our moral obligation is to obey our parents in the Lord, and to obey our parents under the context of obeying the God who gave the Ten Commandments. A moral dilemma can only occur when we wrest the commandment away from its context and puts delegated authority on the same level with God's absolute authority.
Likewise, although the authority of the civil government is based on God's absolute authority, God never gave them the same absolute authority. Therefore, when a government commands us to disobey God, we can refuse their command without facing a moral dilemma. We can say, "We must obey God rather than men!" (Acts 5:29) – not because we are choosing the greater good and receiving an exemption from the lesser good, but we are choosing good over evil. God has never given any human institution absolute authority; rather, by his absolute authority he has given various human institutions a derived and limited authority over men.
Admittedly, we have not answered every question and challenge posed to divine command ethics, but this is a commentary on First Peter after all. A fuller discussion on the subject will take us too far away from the immediate context of our passage, and therefore must be reserved for a more appropriate setting.