By What Authority
By What Authority
Matthew 21:23-32
A quick backward excursion, if you please, before we approach our text for this morning:
Early in this series, we were discussing the Sermon on the Mount. When we came to the end of it, we read this: When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law (7:29). The phrase one who had authority comes from the Greek as meaning one who has the right to speak or the power to teach. The scribes and rabbis quoted the authorities, quoted the Torah or the Prophets. They weren’t original and always tried to cite the authorities to support their teaching. But “authority” was original and indicated that someone had a degree of power. In Jesus’ case, they recognized that in the parable of the builders, in which Jesus refers to these words of mine (7:24), Jesus was inferring that his teaching came with divine authority. He had supernatural knowledge, and thus his words came from God. Jesus wasn’t quoting the authorities; he was the authority.
A little further on, in chapter 8(vv. 5-13), we have the encounter with the Roman centurion who wanted Jesus to simply speak a word of healing for his servant. He recognized that, just as he had authority and was part of a chain of command, so Jesus had authority. That is, Jesus had authority over the spirit world - he could command demons and illness. Jesus’ was, in the centurion’s view, at the head of the chain of command, so that all he needed to do was speak and he would be obeyed.
We are now in Holy Week. Palm Sunday, the Triumphal Entry, Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the foal of a donkey. Not just on a donkey, but on it’s foal, demonstrating further humility. He is spending his days in the city and leaving the city each evening to spend nights in Bethany, we assume at the home of Lazarus and his sisters. Our text is the same day that Jesus cursed the fig tree on his way to the city. Now, he makes his way through the city to the courts of the temple.
While he was teaching, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him. They are confronting Jesus, probing, trying to find a reason to destroy both his reputation and his life. What they want is to discredit him, and that is obvious by the question they ask. “By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” The Greek has the same word that Matthew used in chapter seven. We need to hear it this way: “Did God send you? Do you have divine authority, a God-given right to do and teach? Where does your power come from?”
Remember, they have already twice accused him of being in league with the devil. The accusation was that he was healing by the power of Satan himself (Mt 9:34; 12:24). It was not God at work but demons. In chapter 12, Jesus spoke harshly about blaspheming the Holy Spirit. That is a sin too far, too deep, for forgiveness. I told you then that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is to attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to coincidence, luck, or worse, to Satan. That is, the unforgivable sin is to give Satan credit for the work of the Holy Spirit, or vice versa, to blame the Holy Spirit for the works of the devil. When God is working on you, stretching you, testing you, and you blame Satan for your troubles, or when God touches you and heals you, and you credit Satan, that is a sin of the highest order. When the Pharisees watched Jesus heal and said it was the work of demons, they were marching through the gates of hell. The question of Jesus’ authority was another attempt to align him with Satan and deny even their own Scriptures.
And Jesus saw through them. He knew what they were up to. So he answered their question, as rabbis often did, with a question of his own. “If you can answer me, I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things.” Here’s a test for you: “John’s baptism - where did it come from? Was it from heaven, or of human origin?”
John had been a problem for them, partly because of his message and partly because of his popularity. His message had been one of repentance and preparation for the Messiah. He’d had the courage to call out their hypocrisy and their sin. He’d also endeared himself to them for his courage to confront Herod for his blatant adultery. In one way, John was considered a martyr to the Jewish cause. Mark tells us that John was preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Mk 1:4). No one could object to that. Mark also tells us that the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him (Mk 1:5). John had been immensely popular, not least because he was considered to be either the prophet who was to be the fore-runner of the Messiah, or the Messiah himself. So, whether they liked him or not, the Jewish leaders had had to deal with John. So, was John divinely appointed or not?
That put them on the spot and they retreated to discuss the problem. You see, they hadn’t really believed John’s message and had not responded. So, if they answered Jesus that John’s baptism was from God, he would rightly ask, Then why didn’t you believe him? If God speaks, or if God speaks through the written word - the Bible, or through a man - your pastor - you ought to respond in believing faith. You act on what you believe, and this question ought to haunt us - if the message is from God, why have we not responded to it? Why have we not believed? If you believe that the Bible is the word of God, why do you not read it and model your life on it’s words?
The other side of their problem was the people, “If we say, ‘Of human origin’ – we are afraid of the people, for they all hold that John was a prophet.” If they hold that John was a prophet, that means that they heard his words as coming from God. The chief priests and teachers feared that they would lose their power if they denied John’s prophetic status. So, they took the chicken way out: “We don’t know.”
Jesus’ response is not simply a refusal to answer; it is an acknowledgment of the priests’ denial of divine authority. Jesus knew the Source of his authority. John quotes Jesus, “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (Jn 5:19). And, “The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work” (Jn 14:10). Jesus knew where his authority came from, where his words came from, where his miracles came from. He was doing the will of the Father. His was divine authority. But it was an authority the priests and rabbis did not acknowledge.
How do we know? Well, beside the fact that they felt the need to question his authority, Jesus went on to tell them a parable. A man has two sons. He tells the first son, “Son, go and work today in the vineyard.” The son refuses, but later on relents and does what his father has asked him to do.
The father goes to his second son and tells him to go work in the vineyard. “Yes, father,” the boy answers. But then he goes to his room to play his video games and never gets around to doing as his father has asked.
Jesus asks them, “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” The answer is obvious – the first son. Which son was obedient? The first one. Which son, and here’s the punch – which son recognized the authority of his father? It is the son who, even though he was rebellious at first, did what his father asked. The obedient son is the one who recognized the authority of the father. He did not have to ask, who are you to be telling me what to do? Who made you the boss? Why do you think you can tell me what to do? Who gave you authority? Where does your authority come from? The obedient son recognizes his father’s authority, and it is evident by his obedience, by his behavior.
The second son did not recognize the authority of his father, even though he at first agreed to do as he was asked. He did not regard his father as having the right to instruct him, and that is also evident by his behavior, by his lack of obedience.
There’s a powerful lesson for us here. The problem is that we’ve heard it before. But we’ve heard it in the context of faith. We act on what we believe. Our belief is evident by our behavior. But we’ve heard it in a kind of general, almost nebulous way: if you believe in God, or don’t, that belief shows in your life. If you believe in Jesus, we say blithely, you will obey his word.
But Jesus makes it very specific. If you believe that God has the authority to command you, you will obey what he tells you. Your obedience to his commands reflects your understanding of God’s authority over you. If you do not believe that God has the authority to command you, you don’t obey what he tells you. Your refusal to obey, or dare I say your neglect of his commands, betrays that you don’t respect God’s authority, or don’t believe he has the right to tell you what to do. That is, our behavior as Christians is not simply about believing in God, or believing in Christ – our behavior as Christians is either an acknowledgment or a denial of God’s authority.
Do you treat the commands of Jesus, or the teachings of Jesus, as mere suggestions that you may or may not respond to, depending on how you feel? Are we like the second son in the parable, who acknowledges the father, “Sure, Dad,” and then goes off to do what we want to do?
The priests and rabbis believed in God. They even believed in the Torah. But here’s the problem: when confronted with a command from God, they did not respond. They are like the second brother, who acknowledge God, but don’t obey. When John issued a call to repentance, it was the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the sinners who came to repent and be baptized. The priests and rabbis, the Pharisees and Sadducees, stood and watched. They listened but did not repent, did not respond. Smug in their righteousness before the law, they were incapable of introspection – of seeing their own sin.
So Jesus tells them that the obedient enter the kingdom of heaven before the disobedient. Jesus said, “They are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.” Through Isaiah, God pronounced judgment on Judah: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught” (Isa 29:13). Earlier, when the Pharisees quizzed Jesus about his disciples washing their hands, Jesus quoted that verse from Isaiah (Mt 15:8-9). They were law-keepers but not God-honorers. There is a form of righteousness, Paul wrote, that denies the power of God (2 Tim 3:5). People who claim the name of Christ, but deny the authority of Christ. They don’t do it overtly. They won’t say that Christ has no authority, no power over them. But their lives demonstrate that they are Christian in name only.
This is something that has been bothering me for the past several years. And I’ve tried to find ways to express it. It is simply this: Christians love to claim Jesus Christ as their Savior. And many, perhaps most, will testify that Jesus is both “Lord and Savior.” And yet, they don’t really submit to his lordship, to his authority. They hear the words, and they do the things, but their hearts are not in it. They like God to be Father, but they don’t really honor him as God.
I’m not sure that we understand what lordship really means. If Jesus is Lord, he commands us. If Jesus is Lord, he has authority over us. If Jesus is Lord, we acknowledge his power over us. If Jesus is Lord, we submit to his rule. If Jesus is Lord, his word is law to us. If Jesus is Lord, we obey what he commands. We don’t question what he means. We don’t put it off until it is convenient. We don’t hesitate because someone might make fun of us. We just do.
When my son was small, in his elementary years, I would give him an instruction. When I told him a second time, he would respond, “I know, Dad. I know.” Here’s the thing: I didn’t care what he knew; what mattered was what he did about what he knew. Christians are often like that. We know the Word. We know the commands. I don’t have to review them for you this morning, because we all know what they are. And it’s important that we know. But it doesn’t end with what we know. And knowing the commands isn’t the same as obeying them. But what matters to God is what we do about what we know. Jesus tells us that those who do, those who obey, enter the kingdom of God ahead of those who know.
You claim Christ as Lord. Live like it. Speak like it. Think like it. Act like it. It’s wonderful that Jesus is your Savior. But he also wants to be your Lord. Obey his commands.