[This is my sixth post of ten in my “Vintage Wednesday” series on “Leadership Authority,” re-written/updated from a blogpost back in May of 2011.]

The sixth of Watchman Nee’s Ten Commandments of Spiritual Authority states that:

5. Rebellion against authority means that a person is not subjecting himself to God, though it may appear that the person is rejecting some impure manifestation of God’s authority through a human channel.

Numbers 16 records the rebellion of Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and On. They believed that Moses and Aaron had set themselves above everyone else apart from God’s authority. While Moses and Aaron were certainly human and thus prone to sin and failure, these rebels failed to understand that it was God’s authority they were questioning. They were struck down because they “treated the Lord with contempt” (see Numbers 16:30).

Incidentally, not long after this event, both Moses and Aaron also failed to subject themselves to God’s authority (Numbers 20:12) and forfeited their privilege of entering the Promised Land.

In any case, rebellion to God’s authority has serious consequences. Rebellion against human authority may or may not be the same. In the first situation recorded above, Korah and group were rebelling against God’s authority that had been placed within Moses and Aaron. But as I pointed out in my previous post, there are also times when human beings vested with authority can become corrupted.

Hence, one must search his or her soul to see whether or not they are giving in to a spirit of rebellion. Samuel pointed out to King Saul that, “rebellion is like the sin of divination/witchcraft” 1 Samuel 15:23. That’s pretty serious! If one commonly has a knee-jerk reaction to any expressions of authority it should serve as a warning sign. One might also wish to get the input of others regarding a situation in which the authority may be in question, as self-righteousness and arrogance cannot be typically detected by those afflicted.