An instruction often used by abusive pastors and directed at their congregations to keep them "in line."" It represents one of the most obnoxious exploitation of Scriptures for selfish gains.
The one anointed by the Lord is special to the Lord. The Old Testament recognizes this and in psalm of thanksgiving recorded in 1 Chron, God is quoted as commanding "Do not touch my anointed ones" (1 Chron 16:22). It is one of the great tragedies of church life that we often hear of pastors who foist this expression on their members in an effort to enforce compliance to their pastoral decisions. This is at once, presumptuous and arrogant, as well as an abuse of Scriptures.
While it is laudable that a pastor should exercise his ministry with the confidence and conviction that he has been called and appointed to his office, it is presumptuous to claim such authoritarian powers on the basis that he is "the Lord's Anointed." It is an attitude that forgets that, in the light of what Jesus has done, we are all mere servants. It represents one of the worst examples of pastoral duplicity to demand obedience to a Scriptural injunction when the pastor is himself disobedient to the equally important Scriptural injunction to be "shepherds of God's flock" but "not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock" (1 Pet 5:3).
It is also instructive that there is only one example of an application of the principle of the inviolability of the Lord's anointed in Scriptures; it is the well-known case of David's refusal to harm Saul when he had him cornered and vulnerable in the cave in Ein Gedi (1 Sam 24). It is important, however, to notice the dynamics of the encounter. It was David who volunteered not to do Saul harm because he understood Saul to be his king and the Lord's anointed. It was not Saul who demanded David's submission on account of him being David's king and the Lord's anointed. To assert one's right on the basis that one is the Lord's anointed is to put oneself in the shoes of Saul. Why would anyone want to do that? Saul was rejected. And he died beheaded!
The abuse of this expression is, of course, not new. If only we read more history, we would learn that countless preachers have hankered back to this expression when they do not like what they are offerred (more usually, what they are not offerred). In the early 16th Cent England, e.g., there was a custom in the Church that clergymen who had committed murder could be tried by the Church court and spared the penalty of death. This privilege naturally lend itself to great abuse. In 1512 the English parliament decided that an end should be put to such injustice, and it passed a bill that this "benefit of clergy" be removed, at least, from those in the minor orders, where discipline was always the worse and such abuse was most likely. One would have thought that any officer of the Church would be glad that a source of grave injustice was being eliminated. It was then that the abbot of Winchester declared in a sermon before the lords in parliament that the Act so passed stood against the laws of God and the freedom of the Church. You can guess the Scripture text on which he based his sermon. Yes, 1 Chron 16:22.
We end this discussion with this thought: Is not a leader one whom followers follow? If we need to assert our right to be respected and obeyed as a leader, we need to begin asking if we really have what it takes to be a true leader. Instead of abusing Scriptures to get our flock to obey us, perhaps we should spend some time in quiet before the Lord and ask if we have not sinned or if we have what it takes to lead God's people?
The article here is an abstract of a larger article on Christ. To open the full article in its native context, Jesus → Christ. 
©ALBERITH
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