3-6. The exercise of ecclesiastical power, whether joint or several, has the divine sanction when in conformity with the statutes enacted by Christ, the Lawgiver, and when put forth by courts or by officers appointed thereunto in His Word.

DIGEST: The current PCA text remains unchanged from editions back to PCUS 1879, apart from the latter's capitalization of the word "divine".]

BACKGROUND & COMPARISON:
1. PCA 1973, Adopted text for 3-6, as printed in the Minutes of General Assembly, page 129
2. Continuing Presbyterian Church, 1973 Proposed text, 3-6
3. PCUS 1933, IV-§19
4. PCUS 1925, IV-§19
The exercise of ecclesiastical power, whether joint or several, has the divine sanction, when in conformity with the statutes enacted by Christ, the Lawgiver, and when put forth by courts or by officers appointed thereunto in his Word.

PCUS 1879, II-3-5.
The exercise of ecclesiastical power, whether joint or several, has the Divine sanction, when in conformity with the statutes enacted by Christ, the Lawgiver, and when put forth by courts or by officers appointed thereunto in His Word.

PCUS 1869 draft, II-3-6
Every exercise of ecclesiastical power, whether joint or several, hath the divine sanction, when in conformity with the statutes of the kingdom enacted by Christ, the Lawgiver, not only because of this conformity, but also because put forth by courts or by officers appointed thereunto in His Word.

PCUS 1867 draft, II-3-6.
Every exercise of ecclesiastical power, whether joint or several, hath the divine sanction, when in conformity with the statutes of the kingdom enacted by the great Lawgiver himself, not only because of this conformity, but also because put forth by courts or by officers appointed thereunto in his word.

COMMENTARY :
F.P. Ramsay, Exposition of the Book of Church Order (1898, pp. 29), II-3-6 :
19.--V. The exercise of ecclesiastical power, whether joint or several, has the Divine sanction, when in conformity with the statutes enacted by Christ, the Lawgiver, and when put forth by courts or by officers appointed thereunto in His Word.
And this holds even when the persons are in an office to which Christ has not really appointed them by his Spirit, but when he has appointed the office in his Word, and they have come into the office in the governmental method prescribed in Scripture. And it is important to remember that to resist official authority, put forth within the limitations here indicated, even by men secretly wicked themselves, is to resist Christ in his official dignity.