Thesis
Scripture commands two distinguishable duties that English most often calls by the single word “honor”: the respect owed to every person as a bearer of the image of God, and the honor owed to those who hold offices appointed by God. The two duties are related but not identical. Confusing them is the root of much of the trouble traced in Papers 5 and 6: the abuse of equality collapses honor into respect and so refuses what is owed to office, while the abuse of rank collapses respect into honor and so transfers the deference owed to office onto the person of the officeholder, beyond what is owed to him as a person. This paper sets out the biblical distinction, traces it through the relations of family, church, and commonwealth, and shows how the distinction is held together at the cross of Jesus Christ.
Introduction
Peter’s exhortation in 1 Peter 2:17 contains, in a single verse, the architecture of this paper. “Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” Four imperatives stand together. The first (“honor everyone”) and the fourth (“honor the emperor”) use the same Greek verb, timaō, but they cannot mean the same thing in the same sense, since the verse plainly distinguishes “everyone” from “the emperor.” The two duties are real, the two duties are related, and the two duties are distinct.
The same architecture is visible elsewhere. “Outdo one another in showing honor” is owed within the brotherhood (Rom. 12:10), while “double honor” is owed to elders who rule well (1 Tim. 5:17). “Honor your father and your mother” is the fifth commandment (Exod. 20:12; Eph. 6:2), and “show honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life” is the husband’s duty (1 Pet. 3:7). “Honor to whom honor is owed” is the rule of the citizen toward the magistrate (Rom. 13:7), and “you shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man” is the duty of the young toward the aged (Lev. 19:32).
The whole biblical vocabulary of honor presupposes that some honor is owed simply because the recipient is a human person, while some honor is owed because the recipient holds a particular office or stands in a particular relation. The duty does not collapse in either direction. The paper proceeds in five sections. The first establishes the respect owed to every person. The second establishes the honor owed to offices. The third works out the distinction in the three principal arenas of family, church, and commonwealth. The fourth treats the cases in which the two duties appear to conflict. The fifth shows that the distinction is held together at the cross. A pastoral conclusion follows.
I. Respect Owed to Every Person
The first duty—respect owed to every person—is grounded in the doctrine of creation. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 1:27). The image is conferred upon every human being, prior to and independent of any office, role, or vocation (Paper 2). It is not graded; one human being does not bear it more fully than another. It is not forfeitable; it is borne even by the human being who has marred himself most grievously by sin. It is a permanent dignity, inscribed by God upon every member of the human family.
James draws the explicit moral implication. “With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so” (Jas. 3:9–10). The reason cursing other human beings cannot stand alongside blessing of God is that those cursed are made in the likeness of God. To curse them is, in a real sense, to curse Him whose image they bear.
Peter’s command “Honor everyone” (1 Pet. 2:17) is the positive form of the same duty. The “everyone” is not qualified. It is owed to the slave and the master, to the citizen and the foreigner, to the wise and the foolish, to those who agree with us and those who oppose us. It is owed to the unbeliever as well as to the saint, because the image of God is borne by both. It does not require that one approve of what another has done; it requires that one treat the other as a bearer of the image, with all that this entails.
The respect owed to every person includes, at minimum, the refusal to murder (Gen. 9:6, where the image of God is given as the ground), the refusal to bear false witness, the refusal to despise or dehumanize, the refusal to take advantage of weakness, and the positive obligation to do good to all (Gal. 6:10) and to love the neighbor as oneself (Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:39). It is the floor of human dignity below which no Christian behavior may descend, regardless of the standing of the person before us.
This duty is owed regardless of office. The respect a husband owes his wife is not measured by her conformity to her office as wife; it is owed to her as a person made in the image of God and (where she is a believer) as a coheir of the grace of life. The respect a magistrate owes the citizen is not measured by the citizen’s conformity to the laws; even the criminal is a person, and even the punishment must be just and humane (Deut. 25:1–3). The respect an elder owes the member is not measured by the member’s good behavior; the member is still a sheep of the flock of God and is loved by the Chief Shepherd.
The conclusion is severe. There is no office of authority that lifts its holder above the floor of respect owed to every person. The husband who treats his wife as a thing rather than a person has violated the floor regardless of what office of headship he holds. The magistrate who treats the citizen as a means to his ambition has violated the floor regardless of his lawful authority. The elder who treats the member as raw material for his program has violated the floor regardless of his ordination. The office does not authorize the violation of the personhood beneath it. This is the first half of the doctrine of this paper.
II. Honor Owed to Offices
The second duty—honor owed to those who hold offices—is grounded in the doctrine of appointment. The offices in question are not human conveniences; they are arrangements established by God for the good of His image-bearers. Honoring them is therefore, in part, honoring the God who appointed them.
The duty is universal in Scripture. Children are commanded to honor their parents (Exod. 20:12; Eph. 6:2). The young are commanded to rise before the aged (Lev. 19:32). The congregation is commanded to give double honor to elders who rule well (1 Tim. 5:17). Citizens are commanded to render honor to whom honor is owed (Rom. 13:7) and to honor the emperor (1 Pet. 2:17). Servants are commanded to count their masters worthy of all honor (1 Tim. 6:1). Husbands are commanded to honor their wives (1 Pet. 3:7). Brothers and sisters are commanded to outdo one another in showing honor (Rom. 12:10).
Two features of this honor distinguish it from the respect of Section I.
First, it is differentiated rather than uniform. The respect owed to every person is the same respect; it is owed equally to all. The honor owed to offices is differentiated according to the office. The honor due a father is not identical to the honor due a magistrate; the honor due an elder is not identical to the honor due an aged neighbor. The differentiation is not arbitrary. It is shaped by the office. The father is honored as father, with the honor proper to fatherhood. The elder is honored as elder, with the honor proper to eldership.
Second, it is owed because of the office, not because of the worth of the officeholder. The fifth commandment requires honor to one’s father and mother irrespective of whether one’s father and mother are admirable. The command in Romans 13 requires honor to lawful rulers irrespective of whether those rulers are wise. Paul could write to Roman Christians under Nero that they were to render honor to whom honor was owed. The honor owed to Caesar was not a private endorsement of Caesar’s life or policies; it was the rendering to a lawful office of what that office, before God, is owed.
This second feature is decisive for the argument of this paper. Honor owed to office is owed because of the appointment of God. It is not measured by the officeholder’s personal merit or by the citizen’s personal approval. It is the recognition, in the form of due deference, that this office stands by God’s appointment for the good of the people. To withhold honor from an office on the grounds that the officeholder is unworthy is, in most cases, to confuse the two registers. The officeholder may indeed be unworthy as a person, and his personal failings may rightly be named; but the office, where it has been appointed by God, stands.
The corresponding caution is also important. Honor owed to office is owed to the office. It is not, simply by virtue of the officeholder’s standing, transferred to his person as a whole. The father is honored as father; this does not make every opinion of the father authoritative, nor does it convert his preferences into commands. The magistrate is honored as magistrate; this does not authorize him to demand worship. The elder is honored as elder; this does not make him infallible. The duty terminates on the office and on the person in his capacity as officeholder, not on the person without limit. The doctrine of the limits of submission belongs to Paper 9; the present point is simply that the honor of office does not absorb the personhood underneath it any more than the personhood underneath dissolves the office above it.
III. The Distinction Worked Out: Family, Church, and Commonwealth
The distinction between respect to persons and honor to offices may be sharpened by tracing it through the three principal arenas of ordered human life.
The family. The husband owes his wife respect as a person, since she is a fellow image-bearer and (where she is a believer) a coheir of the grace of life (1 Pet. 3:7). He also owes her honor in her offices as wife, as mother (where she is one), and as the “weaker vessel” whose physical vulnerability and covenantal companionship call for particular care. She owes him respect as a person, since he too is an image-bearer and (where he is a believer) a fellow heir; she also owes him honor as head of the household, “as the church submits to Christ” (Eph. 5:24). Children owe their parents respect as persons; they also owe them honor as parents under the fifth commandment. The parents, in turn, owe their children respect as persons and a kind of honor proper to the office of being a child in the household—an honor that, where it is faithfully given, makes obedience easier rather than harder. “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).
Two pastoral notes follow. First, a husband whose wife is a difficult person remains under obligation to respect her as a person, regardless of how she occupies her office. Second, a wife whose husband is a difficult person remains under obligation to honor him as head of the household, within the limits that Paper 9 will treat, even when his manner is hard. The distinction explains why a Christian wife may have to live with the costly task of honoring an office that is, in the particular hour, badly held. Her honor is not an endorsement of his abuse of the office; her honor is a stewardship before God of the office He has appointed.
The church. The members owe one another respect as persons and the love of the brotherhood (1 Pet. 2:17). They also owe particular honor to the elders who rule well, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching (1 Tim. 5:17). The elders, in turn, owe the members respect as persons and the honor proper to their place in the body. The body image of 1 Corinthians 12 already required this: the parts that “seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor” (1 Cor. 12:22–23). Within the body, honor flows in many directions: the eye to the hand, the head to the foot, each according to need. Honor is not a one-way payment from below to above; it is the ordered exchange by which the body lives.
Two pastoral notes again. First, an elder who is a difficult person is still owed the honor of his office, and the members are not freed from that honor because he is hard to honor as a person. They may need to express their objections through the channels the Scriptures provide (1 Tim. 5:19–20), but they may not despise the office. Second, an elder who has lost the office (through unrepented sin, manifest unfitness, or proper church discipline) is no longer owed the honor of an office he no longer holds. The distinction between respect and honor of office is therefore not only protective of office; it is also the basis on which an unworthy officeholder may be removed without violating his personhood.
The commonwealth. The citizen owes the fellow citizen respect as a person and the duties of love of neighbor. The citizen also owes the magistrate honor as the holder of an office God Himself has appointed (Rom. 13:1–7; 1 Pet. 2:13–17). The magistrate, in turn, owes the citizen respect as a person and the honor proper to the citizen’s office (where the citizen has one, e.g., as voter, as juror, as parent, as taxpayer, as image-bearer simply). The deepest part of the commonwealth’s honor is the recognition that the offices within it stand under a higher Authority than themselves; Caesar is rendered what is Caesar’s because, and only because, God is rendered what is God’s (Matt. 22:21).
The pastoral note in this arena is sharp. A citizen under a faithless magistrate is still owed honor by the magistrate as a person; a magistrate under a faithless citizenry is still owed honor by the citizens as a magistrate. The two duties hold, even when the relations are strained. Paper 9 will address the limit beyond which submission must yield to obedience to God; the present point is that the limit is not normally reached, and that for most of life the citizen and the magistrate exchange respect and honor across the ordered relation that the Lord has appointed.
IV. When the Two Duties Appear to Conflict
The two duties are sometimes felt to be in tension, particularly when an officeholder has used his office in a manner that violates the respect owed to persons. The wife of an abusive husband, the member under a domineering elder, and the citizen of an oppressive magistrate may each feel that the duty of honor to office is being weaponized against the duty of respect to persons.
The biblical answer is twofold.
First, the abuse of office does not abolish the office. The husband who has been harsh remains a husband under God; the elder who has domineered remains, until properly removed, an elder. The respect owed to the wife as a person is not vindicated by despising the husband’s office; it is vindicated by addressing the abuse through whatever means God has appointed: appeal to the husband, the involvement of the church, the protection of the law in cases of criminal harm, and, in the most extreme cases, the limits of submission addressed in Paper 9. The office stands until lawfully altered.
Second, the office itself does not absorb the person of the officeholder. The honor owed to the office is not a license for the officeholder to be honored as a person beyond what he deserves. The husband who has abused his wife is not entitled to act as if his office covered his sin. The elder who has domineered is not entitled to act as if his office prevented his rebuke. The magistrate who has oppressed is not entitled to act as if his office made him just. The office is real; the personhood is real; the abuse of the one against the other is named for what it is.
Two biblical cases illustrate the distinction.
The first is David and Saul. David repeatedly refused to lay a hand on Saul, even when Saul was actively seeking his life: “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD’s anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD’s anointed” (1 Sam. 24:6; cf. 1 Sam. 26:9). David did not deny that Saul was sinning grievously against him; he simply refused to violate the office of the LORD’s anointed in the meantime. At the same time, David did not pretend that Saul’s behavior was acceptable. He spoke openly with Jonathan (1 Sam. 20), he composed psalms about the wickedness he was suffering (e.g., Pss. 7, 35, 52, 57, 59, 142), and he sought refuge from Saul’s hand. The office was honored; the abuse of office was named.
The second is Paul before the high priest Ananias. When Ananias commanded that Paul be struck on the mouth, Paul answered, “God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall!” When told that he was reviling God’s high priest, he answered, “I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest, for it is written, ‘You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people'” (Acts 23:3–5). Paul’s response is a model of the distinction. He had named the sin; on learning that the man was the high priest, he immediately submitted to the rule of Exodus 22:28 not to revile a ruler. The naming of sin and the honoring of office stood together.
The pastoral lesson is that the apparent conflict between the two duties is often resolved by holding both, even when holding both is costly. The respect owed to persons is not satisfied by despising offices; the honor owed to offices is not satisfied by suppressing the truth about persons. To hold both is sometimes hard. It is, however, the way of Jesus Christ, who Himself held both at the cost of His life.
V. The Christological Resolution
The distinction between respect to persons and honor to offices is held together in the Son of God. He is the one Person in whom both duties find their fullest expression and their perfect coherence.
He honored every office that God had appointed. He submitted as a boy to His mother and to His earthly father (Luke 2:51). He paid the temple tax, lest He give offense (Matt. 17:24–27). He told the Pharisees who sat in Moses’ seat, “do and observe whatever they tell you” (Matt. 23:3), even while He warned His disciples not to follow their practice. He instructed the rendering to Caesar of what was Caesar’s (Matt. 22:21). He stood silent before Caiaphas, before Herod, and before Pilate at the proper points, and He spoke at the proper points, with no contempt for the offices, although He suffered the deepest abuse of them in the history of the world (Matt. 26:62–64; Luke 23:8–9; John 18:33–37).
He also honored every person whose path crossed His. He took children into His arms (Mark 10:16). He stopped for the blind man on the way out of Jericho (Mark 10:46–52). He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, when no Jewish rabbi of His day would have done so (John 4:7–26). He touched the leper (Mark 1:40–42). He restored the daughter of Jairus from death and gave instructions that she be given something to eat (Mark 5:35–43). He looked upon the rich young man, who turned away from Him, and “loved him” (Mark 10:21). He wept at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35). His attention to persons is the most remarkable feature of His public ministry, and it is in no tension with His honor for offices, since both were in the service of His one mission to glorify the Father and to give His life as a ransom for many.
The cross is where the two duties meet. There, the Son honored the office of the Father by His perfect obedience unto death; there, He honored the offices of the temple, the council, and the governor by submitting to their lawful word even at the cost of their unlawful sentence; and there, He gave Himself for the persons He came to save, “while we were still sinners” (Rom. 5:8). The respect owed to persons in their unworthiness and the honor owed to offices in their misuse were both held by Him at the same hour, and the holding broke His body and shed His blood for our sake.
No Christian doctrine of honor and respect can do without this picture. Whatever is said about the duties owed in family, church, and commonwealth is said under the cross of the Lord who lived them both in perfect proportion. The Christian who must honor the office of an unworthy officeholder is not asked to do something that the Lord did not do first. The Christian who must respect the person of an unworthy neighbor is not asked to do something that the Lord did not do first. The whole architecture of this paper is, at its center, an architecture of grace.
Pastoral Conclusion
The doctrine that emerges from this paper can be stated in three sentences. Every person is owed respect as a bearer of the image of God; this respect is the floor below which no Christian behavior may descend. Every lawful office is owed honor as an appointment of God; this honor is differentiated according to the office, and it is not measured by the personal merit of the officeholder. The two duties hold together at the cross of Jesus Christ, where the Son honored every office God had appointed and showed perfect regard for every person He came to save.
The two characteristic mistakes of this suite reappear here. The conflation of respect into honor of office produces the cult of the officeholder, the deifying of fathers, the worship of pastors, the bowing to magistrates as if to gods. The conflation of honor of office into respect produces the leveling that refuses to honor what God has appointed, that addresses the parent as a peer, the elder as a coequal in the same office, the magistrate as a hireling to be ordered about. Both mistakes are foreclosed by the distinction set out in this paper, and both are corrected by the example of the Lord Himself.
The next paper turns from the principles of honor and respect to a comparative study of the ordered relations in which both are exercised: children and parents, wives and husbands, citizens and magistrates, members and elders. The doctrine here will be the foundation for the comparative work there. Where honor and respect are properly distinguished, ordered relations can bear the weight of human life; where they are confused, the relations break or the persons within them are crushed. The Lord has been merciful enough to teach us the distinction; the next paper traces it through the relations themselves.
Notes
- All Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version (ESV).
- The two senses of the Greek verb timaō in 1 Peter 2:17 are treated in this paper as distinguishable on contextual grounds rather than by a shift in the word itself. The same word can carry both senses precisely because the underlying biblical theology unites them: in either case, the recipient is to be regarded as deserving of weight before God, but the kind and measure of weight are calibrated to the recipient (person as such, or officeholder).
- The fifth commandment (“Honor your father and your mother”) is treated in this paper as the paradigmatic case of honor owed to office within the family. The commandment is unqualified by the moral condition of the parents; the duty is owed under God irrespective of whether the parents are admirable in their persons.
- The reading of David’s refusal to harm Saul in 1 Samuel 24 and 26 is treated as a model of the distinction worked in this paper: the abuse of the office by its holder did not authorize David to violate the office itself. The narrative also shows that David, while honoring the office, did not pretend that Saul’s behavior was just; the psalms of complaint are part of the same David’s witness.
- The reading of Acts 23:3–5 takes Paul’s withdrawal of his rebuke as a deliberate honoring of the office of the high priest under Exodus 22:28, not as a retraction of the substance of his charge. The narrative therefore offers a paradigmatic case of honoring an office while resisting its abuse.
- The treatment of cases in which the two duties appear to conflict (Section IV) does not exhaust the question; the limit beyond which submission must yield to obedience to God is the subject of Paper 9. The present paper holds that the limit is not normally reached, and that in most cases the apparent conflict is resolved by holding both duties together.
- The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are referred to throughout by their scriptural names. The Son is named “Jesus Christ” in the form most frequently attested in the New Testament writings.
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