Spir Dynamics 784, 789 2/8/96
A. Introduction.
1. The divine institutions are revealed in Scripture in codex one and codex three of the Mosaic Law.
2. God has ordained four divine institutions by which the human race is preserved and perpetuated as an extension of the prehistoric angelic conflict: mankind, marriage, family, and nationalism.
3. The divine institutions were created for people. God started the human race with only one person. Every divine institution is composed of people.
B. Divine Institution Number One—Mankind.
1. The first divine institution is the creation of mankind. He was alone and had perfect happiness.
2. The creation of mankind was the signal to Satan that the door to the courtroom of heaven was now open for Satan’s appeal trial.
3. This one man, who was the ruler of the world, was given a soul life to approximate the soul life of angelic creatures. Both man and angels have mentality and volition. In Gen 2:7, Adam is said to be “a living soul.” This living soul was under the authority of God but in the divine institution he carried in his body the authority of the soul—the mentality to understand divine mandates and the volition to accept or reject those mandates.
a. The three different parts of Adam (body, soul, and spirit) were created individually and had to be assembled.
b. There is no human being unless these components are put together, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe put them together. He formed the body from the dust of the ground and He breathed into the nostrils the breath of life. Until the placing of the soul in the body, no human being existed.
4. The authority of the first divine institution is volition. He had the authority of mentality to gather facts to hear and understand divine mandates. He had the authority over the woman and she willingly submitted to his authority and both were perfectly happy. 5. God gave a command to the man before the woman was created to not eat from the tree of conscience. The divine mandates involved the imperative mood directed toward the volition of the soul. Mandates from God are directed toward your volition. Gen 2:16-17, “The Lord God commanded the man, saying, `Every tree in the garden you may freely eat, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will not eat, for in the day that you eat from it dying you will die.’”
a. This command awakened the volition of the man.
b. God did not create in Adam the knowledge of conscience. The soul does not have conscience. Conscience must be taught. This was a knowledge that Adam had to learn, just as children must learn the difference between right and wrong.
c. A Conscience is created by mentality and then functions under volition.
d. You have to have vocabulary to know the difference between right and wrong.
e. The death mentioned here as “dying” is the instant death of spiritual death. “You will die” is a reference to physical death at the end of life. Rom 5:12, “For as by one man sin entered into the world and spiritual death by sin, for all sinned when Adam sinned.” 1 Cor 15:22, “In Adam all die...”
6. The choices you make determine the life that you lead.
7. God created an authority in our soul, and that authority is called volition.
8. The Issue of The First Divine Institution.
a. The body ate from the trees and was sustained as the house for the soul.
b. The soul had mentality to understand the divine mandate, but the volition was the authority to obey or disobey as in the prehistoric angelic conflict.
c. The whole man was the divine institution. Volition is the authority in divine institution number one, but mankind is the divine institution.
d. Fallen angels also had this same authority system and they made the wrong decisions to follow Satan and were condemned to the eternal lake of fire.
e. Eventually Adam and the woman made the wrong decision and became spiritually dead instantly.
f. Unlike Satan and fallen angels, Adam and the woman used their volition to accept the redemption solution.
g. Satan and all fallen angels refused to take the responsibility for their decision to revolt against God and further refused to accept the divine solution.
h. Therefore two categories of angels resulted: elect and fallen angels. The word “elect” implies that their was a choice in this angelic conflict, and election is always related to salvation, redemption.
i. Because of the progeny of Adam and Eve, procreation in marriage perpetuated the human race in a state of spiritual death at birth.
j. Individual non-meritorious volition in the form of faith in Jesus Christ is the same redemption solution. Volition was the issue in the fall of mankind and is the issue in the redemption solution.
C. Divine Institution Number Two—Marriage.
1. God took Adam from divine institution number one—mankind—to divine institution number two—marriage—by creating his perfect counterpart.
2. The first marriage was performed by Jesus Christ in the garden of Eden when He brought the right woman to the right man.
a. Monogamy, a permanent relationship between one man and one woman, is ordained of God to remind mankind that He has from the beginning a design called right man-right woman, Gen 1:26:27, 5:1-2, 2:18-25; 1 Cor 7:2-4.
b. When Jesus Christ created Adam He said, “not good that man should be alone.” Therefore God provided the female. Jesus Christ constructed Adam’s right woman. Their relationship, established in the garden, was continued after the fall. It has never been cancelled in any generation.
c. Marriage is the most basic and fundamental organization in the human race. Even the unbeliever, whose life is a total failure, can have great temporary happiness by marrying the right woman, Eccl 9:9.
d. The analogy to the monogamous relationship and our relationship to Christ is found in Eph 5:26-33.
e. Under the authority of the laws of divine establishment, the right man-right woman relationship becomes the normal, legitimate expression of category two love, 1 Cor 7:9; 1 Tim 5:14; Eph 5:22, 23, 28, 33; Heb 13:4.
f. Marriage is the beginning of authority in life for adults. The husband has all the authority; there are no exceptions or rationalizations. Violations of a principle do not change the principle. For example, God continues to use the local church no matter how badly it fails. We cannot deny the principle of marriage just because we’ve made a bad marriage.
g. Marriage is one of the greatest areas of mistakes in life because of emotion. You have to be rational in both response and function.
h Marriage is the basis for stability in society and for the formation of civilization.
i. Marriage rejects the theory of revolution, anarchy, promiscuousness, or communal living. It is the protection for the home where the parents exercise authority over the children.
D. Divine Institution Number Three—Family.
7. 1. Physical birth and the imputation of human life, plus the imputation of Adam’s original sin, finds the human baby both helpless and hopeless. Condemnation from God occurs immediately. Therefore, our personal sins do not condemn us and are free to be imputed to our Lord on the cross.
2. When we believe in Christ, God’s perfect righteousness is imputed to us and we now have a purpose in life—the imputation of blessing to that perfect righteousness, which glorifies God. The laws of divine establishment give freedom to exercise our positive volition toward doctrine so that we can develop the capacity for these blessings.
3. God has provided certain divine laws, such as the authority of parents, to protect, care, nourish, provide, train, and discipline children to prepare them for life.
4. Parental authority is the way of preparing children for a normal life. Permissiveness destroys this. There must be recognition of authority and orientation to certain principles in life.
5. The highest expression of parental love is to inculcate through the forms of discipline. Children must be trained to respect the privacy, property, and rights of others, not to abuse freedom, and to have respect for authority.
6. Adjustment to life and orientation to circumstances demand authority training. Parents must teach poise, objectivity, respect for police, patriotism, and willingness to serve to protect freedom.
7. Christian parents must also evangelize and provide pre-doctrinal training for their children, Deut 6:6-9, 7:9.
8. It is the responsibility of parents to instill respect for the Word of God, the teaching of Bible doctrine, plus recognition of authority of the pastor-teacher. This is a spiritual responsibility over and above their establishment responsibility.
E. Divine Institution Number Four—Nationalism.
1. If the entire human race were under one rule prior to the Millennium, it would self-destruct. Internationalism is outlawed as being evil by the Word of God.
2. To perpetuate the human race and bring history to its logical conclusion, God has designed the nation to protect the freedom and rights of X-number of people on this planet. We call this nationalism. Only one language should be recognized in a nation.
3. With the divine judgment of the original united nations at the tower of Babel, the human race was then divided into nations. This division was originally based on racial, geographical and linguistic norms.
4. As the human race continued in history, true racial distinctions were obliterated in the rise of civilization. Thus, racial purity is a myth except in pristine areas. Race is used by politicians to create false issues.
5. The formation of the Jewish nation set up the perfect standard of what a national entity should be.
6. The Biblical proof that nationalism is authorized by God is found in Gen 10:5; Deut 32:8; Acts 17:26-28.
7. All nations who follow the norms and standards of divine establishment possess the following characteristics.
a. Interior protection of freedom is provided through a proper system of law enforcement, jurisprudence, and a system of law whereby a person is innocent until proved guilty, where only proper testimony is allowed and no hearsay is permitted, and where double jeopardy does not exist.
b. The exterior protection of freedom comes through a strong, well-prepared military.
c. A government of whatever category must protect the freedoms and rights of its citizens without interfering with those rights by the illegal use of power.
d. An economy must be based on free enterprize and capitalism. Labor has no right to dictate the policy of management. Smart management always takes good care of its workers. Government, labor, or criminals do not have the right to superimpose their policy on management. The separation of business and state is an important distinction.
e. There must be a system of common law which prohibits crime and thereby protects the freedom, rights, life, and property of individuals. It must be a system of law which does not overstep the law by using the law to try to solve social problems. Law, therefore, must always be objective. Subjective distortion of the law uses legislation to invade individual rights, to steal personal property, and to erode human freedom; all in the name of the common good.
f. There must be a common culture which reflects the spiritual life, morality, esprit-de-corp, nobility, patriotism, and integrity of a nation through its literature, art, music, and drama.
g. There should be a system of government which functions under its power without abusing its power to destroy freedom and establishment. There should be an administrative body to represent the functions of taxation, law enforcement, honorable jurisprudence, maintenance of the military, and enforcement of law and order without the destruction of human freedom.
h. All of this is designed by God so He can always have a client nation.
F. Conclusion.
1. Every divine institution relates to the human race in general. It is not for believers only. The believer is always given higher standards. For people in general, to preserve the human race, we have four divine institutions.
2. God created the perfect woman and ordained marriage, when one male and one female are joined together in holy matrimony. The divine institution is monogamous status quo and the authority is the man.
3. Family is composed of family and children. The ultimate authority is the man, but the woman is included in the authority as a parent. All mandates for the family are directed toward the man.
4. The national entity is people living within boundaries under a common language, separating one unit from another unit, so that one group would not overrun and destroy the other group or create a system of tyranny.
5. There is authority in each divine institution.
a. The authority in the first divine institution is volition.
b. The authority in the divine institution of marriage is the husband.
c. The authority in the divine institution of family is the parents. The final authority is the man.
d. The authority in the divine institution of the nation is government.
(1) The protection of freedom and privacy of the citizen demands freedom as illustrated by the Ten Commandments.
(2) To protect human freedom in the national entity there must be law enforcement.
(3) To protect human freedom from external enemies there must be military establishment.
(4) There must be freedom to communicate the gospel to persons in the national entity.
(5) There must be freedom to communicate postsalvation spiritual life information, so that the volition of the believer can chose for or against the unique spiritual life of human history.
6. Postsalvation volition is still the issue in the spiritual life of the believer.
a. The believer who executes the unique spiritual life glorifies God to the maximum.
b. The believer who fails to execute the unique spiritual life becomes the most confused and miserable creature in time because of volition. The choices you make determine the life that you lead.