The Authority of Jesus
Matthew 21:23‑32
Let's open our Bibles this morning to Matthew chapter 21. I want us to examine verses 23 through 32, Matthew chapter 21 verses 23 through 32.
The word "authority" is a strong word. It's filled with meaning. When we hear the word "authority" there's a certain force about that word. There may be even a certain intimidation about that word. We talk about the authorities and we rightfully have a sense of respect...maybe a sense of awe, maybe a sense of fear. The word "authority" denotes permission. It denotes privilege. It denotes power. It denotes rule, control, influence. When someone has authority, that means they're on top of other people. They have responsibility beyond the norm. They are able to determine things, to decide things, to render judgments, to wield certain rights and privileges. And we say in the home there's authority resting with the father, the parents. In the government there are authorities, the police and those who govern us. In the schools there are authorities. In business, in the plant, in the job, in any dimension of life there are authorities. People who have the privilege, the power, the permission to set the rules, to determine the judgments and the verdicts.
But there is one who has authority that surpasses all other authorities. In Matthew chapter 28 verse 18, Jesus said this, "All authority is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." All authority is given unto Me. That is an amazing claim to privilege. That is an amazing claim to power, to permission, to right. And Jesus demonstrated that very well in His ministry. For example, when He had concluded the Sermon on the Mount, it says in Matthew chapter 7 verse 28, "The people were astonished at His doctrine for He taught them as one having authority." You see, He taught with authority. In their particular culture, that meant He quoted nobody, He footnoted nothing. He didn't say He had gotten this truths...this truth from some eminent rabbi. He didn't say that this was an exposition of some commentary written by some respected person of another time. He just spoke with authority.
In chapter 9 of Matthew, He healed a paralyzed man and forgave His sin. And the multitudes saw it and marveled and glorified God who had given such authority unto man. He had authority to say whatever He wanted to say and make it binding on men. He had authority to heal, authority over disease. He had authority to forgive sin. Remarkable.
In the gospel of Mark, chapter 1 and verse 22, again in Capernaum in the synagogue He taught and they were astonished at His doctrine for He taught them as one that had authority and not as the scribes. And then He was confronted in that same place with a demon‑possessed man with an unclean spirit and He healed the man, casting out the spirit. And verse 27 says they were all amazed insomuch that they questioned among themselves saying, "What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth He even the unclean spirits and they do obey Him. And immediately His fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee."
He had authority to teach whatever He wanted to teach and footnote no one. He had authority to heal the sick. He had authority to forgive sin. He had authority to cast out demons. Tremendous authority.
In John chapter 1, we read of another dimension of His authority. It tells us in chapter 1 and verse 12, and a very familiar text, "But as many as received Him, to them gave He the authority to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name." He had authority to make children of God. Tremendous authority. In John 5:27 it says that God had given Him authority to execute judgment...authority to execute judgment.
So He had authority to teach whatever He wanted to teach as truth and make it binding on men's conscience. He had authority to heal. He had authority to cast out demons. He had authority to forgive sin. He had authority to determine the children of God and grant that right. In john 10:18 it says, "No man taketh My life from Me, I lay it down of Myself, I have authority to lay it down, I have authority to take it again." He had authority for His own resurrection. He had authority to give His life, He had authority to raise it from the dead.
In John chapter 17, a most interesting statement in verse 2, "As Thou...He prays to the Father and says...As Thou hast given Him authority over all flesh that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him." And He's referring to Himself. He had authority to give eternal life. What authority! Authority to teach whatever He wanted to teach without any resource, without any precedent and to make it binding on men and determinative on their eternal destiny. Authority to heal the sick. Authority to raise the dead. Authority to cast out demons. Authority to forgive sin. Authority to designate children of God. Authority to give eternal life and authority to judge every person, tremendous authority.
Now He had so much authority that He was a problem to the Jewish system because, you see, they believed that they were the authorities. And they had a very highly developed and sophisticated system of authority and He absolutely ignored it. He never asked their permission for anything. He didn't ask them to approve His doctrine. He didn't ask them to approve His healings. He didn't ask them to approve His casting out of demons. He didn't ask them to approve His verdicts and His judgments. He didn't ask them to help Him decide who were the children of God. And He didn't ask for their advice on how to give eternal life. He totally ignored them.
Now in thinking about the authority of Christ, perhaps it's helpful to consider two words. The first is the word dunamis which the Bible translates "power." The second is the word exousia which the Bible translates "power" or "authority" and is best understood as "authority," and there is a difference. Dunamis or power is the ability to do something. Exousia or authority is the right to do it. And when we say Jesus had authority, we mean not just that He had power but that He had privilege. God had given Him the privilege of acting in His behalf in this world with no regard for the authorities of men. And so He had both dunamis and exousia, He had the power and He had the privilege. It was given Him by God and He said that again and again. He said in John's gospel at least three or four times from chapter 5 to 8, "I do what the Father shows Me to do and that's exactly what I do."
He had God‑given authority. And when He went into the temple early in His ministry in John chapter 2 and He made a whip and He threw everybody out of the temple and He cleaned the place up and when He did the same thing at the end of His ministry as we've seen recently, He didn't ask anybody's permission. He didn't check in with the Sanhedrin and say, "What are the rules for cleansing the temple?" He didn't ask any permission from anybody ever except the Father. And when He was released by the Father's permission and the Father's will, He sought no earthly approval, no earthly accreditation, no earthly ordination, no earthly credentials. And because of that, you have to understand, that He pitted Himself against the authority system that existed in a very dramatic way and ultimately it led to His death. You see, the Jews were amazed. They were distressed. They were appalled that He acted without any approval, without any authorization. I mean, you just don't go in and cleanse the temple. He never consulted the Sanhedrin. He never quoted an eminent rabbi. He did what He wanted. He said what He wanted. And He acted as He wanted.
Such behavior was absolutely unacceptable to them. You see, rabbinical teaching had no inherent authority. The rabbis quoted the rabbis who quoted the rabbis who quoted the rabbis who quoted the rabbis and that's the only authority they ever had. And you had to get approval from the Sanhedrin. You had to be ordained by the Sanhedrin to function as an accepted rabbi. But Jesus was His own authority because all authority had been given to Him by God. And He never had authorization from men for anything at all. In fact, He ignored their whole system of authorization.
And this sets up conflict. It sets up conflict. All through His ministry, He's in conflict with existing authorities in the Jewish community. And it comes to a head as we come now to Matthew chapter 21. And it comes to a very, very severe conflict.
Now let me remind you of the setting. Jesus has concluded His Galilean ministry, concluded His Perean ministry, crossed the Jordan River, entered Jericho, healed two blind men, one by the name of Bartimaeus, brought Zacchaeus into the Kingdom and now He in the midst of a procession goes from Jericho up the hill to Jerusalem for Passover. Having arrived in the vicinity of Jerusalem, He stays in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus that first Saturday night. He arrived on Saturday, He stayed that night with Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
On Sunday, He awakened in Bethany to a great crowd that had thronged out of the city and gathered around the home to see Him. They knew Him as the miracle worker. They knew Him as the one who had raised Lazarus from the dead and they wanted to see Him and be with Him and hear Him and all of that. And so, Sunday He spent with that multitude of people who had come to Bethany.
On Monday, He rose in the morning, sent His disciples to find the colt, the foal of a donkey to bring to Him fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah. He got on that colt and rode triumphantly into the city of Jerusalem while they threw palm branches and clothing in His path and hailed Him "Hosanna, blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord, the Son of David." They hailed Him as Messiah. It was His triumphal entry. He came in on that Monday and that procession ultimately ended at the temple. And then He returned to Bethany on Monday night to spend the night again in the home of Mary, Martha and Lazarus.
Tuesday morning dawned. He awakened and went again back into the city, this time He went directly to the temple. And when He came to the temple, He saw the wretched wicked devastation by the selfish money‑changers and animal sellers and all of that and so He cleaned out the temple. And this infuriated the religious leaders who already despised Him and wanted Him dead. And now the flames are fanned even hotter and hotter. And when He is just finished cleaning out the temple, little boys began to sing "hosannas" and to sing in praise Him and this infuriated the leaders even more, perhaps those little boys were the sons of Levites being trained in some of the temple activities. And when they see the temple being cleansed and in that cleansing He unmasks their hypocrisy and the falseness of their religious systems, the religious leaders are threatened more severely than ever. And when they hear the hosannas of those little boys, they know they represent the people who are on His side and who are enamored with Him. And in fear they work all the more feverishly to plot His murder. They cannot tolerate a person who exposes their false worship, who unmasks their rabid hypocrisy and so they must eliminate Him as fast as they can before a religious revolution takes place.
After cleansing the temple, He returns to Bethany that night again most likely spending it with Mary, Martha and Lazarus. And it is Wednesday morning. And on Wednesday morning, He goes back to the temple again. This time walking pass the fig tree which has been cursed and teaching His disciples some profound lessons about false pretense and the power of prayer. And then Wednesday, having passed that fig tree, proceeds directly back to the temple. And it is on Wednesday morning in the temple that we find Him in verse 23. He has cleansed the temple the day before. He now confronts the leaders and the people who are gathered there. It's almost as if He had to clean the place up before He could go back and minister.
Now, He begins a confrontation in verse 23 that doesn't end until the end of chapter 23. It's a long morning, folks, of confrontations. And it builds up the flames that ultimately lead to the crucifixion.
Now as we look at verse 23 to 32, I want us to just kind of hang our thoughts on four words, four ideas. Let's begin with the confrontation...the confrontation in verse 23. "And when He was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto Him as He was teaching and said, By what authority doest Thou these things? And who gave Thee this authority?"
Now you know the issue is authority. That's the whole issue here. When He was come into the temple, it says, that was His turf, remember? Remember that I've been telling you that He didn't come to overthrow the Roman occupation, He came to clean up Israel. He wasn't concerned with Fort Antonious, He wasn't concerned with economics. He wasn't concerned with the state of the nation militarily, economically, or socially. He was concerned with the state of the nation spiritually. He was no political Messiah. He was a Savior. And He came and confronted the heart of the nation where it needed to be confronted and that was at the point of its religion. So He came to the temple. That's always the place where God has to begin His work. That's why the New Testament says judgment has to begin at the house of God. He's cleansed the place and now He takes center stage.
That temple had a tremendous courtyard...huge courtyard. And surrounding it were these high walls and pillars. And in among those pillars were porches and colonnades and porticos and people would mill all about, especially at Passover, the place would be filled with people and especially having been cleansed. That would invite even more people. And then when Jesus came who had cleansed it, no doubt it was just teeming with people. And it says, you'll note, in verse 23 that He was teaching...He was teaching. He went back, took center stage in the cleansed temple. Now with its emptied courtyard and moving throughout that courtyard and up on the steps and into the porticos and porches and colonnades, He was teaching. And the people were collected around Him, a vast multitude.
You might ask the question: what was He teaching? I can tell you what He was teaching. O, I can't give you His outline but I can sure tell you what He was teaching. He was speaking, as it says in Acts chapter 1 verse 3, of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. He was doing what He always did, He was talking about the Kingdom. And if you were to read the parallel account to this in Luke chapter 20 verse 1, you would hear Luke say, "And He was preaching the gospel." And if you saw the parallel account in Mark 11:27, Mark says He was walking.
So, He went into the temple and walking about amidst the mass of people, He is teaching and preaching, teaching the Kingdom, preaching the gospel. And likely He talked about sin, the wretchedness of it and the folly of hypocritical religion. And likely He talked about judgment, the inevitability of hell for those who refused God's truth and God's way of salvation. And no doubt He talked about righteousness, the hopelessness of self‑righteousness and trying to attain salvation by your own good works. And He must have talked about humility and the place for brokenness and self‑emptying and self‑crucifixion and bankruptcy of spirit. And He must have talked about love, the love of God and the love men should have for God. And He must have talked about peace. He must have talked about the fact that God wanted to make peace with men, not on a temporary basis but on a permanent basis. And maybe He talked about false prayers. And maybe He talked about vain repetition. And maybe He spoke about doing religious deeds to be seen by men. And maybe He talked about false humility and maybe He spoke about spiritual pride. And maybe He talked about the cost of following Him and maybe He talked about persecution. And maybe He talked about eternal glory.
Perhaps He spoke about the law of God, the Word of God. Perhaps about honesty or marriage or forgiveness or true riches or faith or hope or grace or mercy or false teachers. Maybe He talked about entering the Kingdom, maybe about a narrow gate and a narrow way, or a broad way and a broad way. Maybe He talked about life. Maybe He talked about death because He must have talked about the Kingdom and preached the gospel. And you know something? The people really listened...they really listened. They were awe struck by Him, hopeful that He would fulfill all their dreams and expectations. And it says in Luke 19:48, "All the people were very attentive to hear Him." He had their ear and so He taught.
But the leaders, they could see a religious revolution taking place. They were in a state of panic and they wanted Him dead. And so as he moves about teaching, they confront Him and they stop His teaching. And stop it they wanted to do so fast, they couldn't allow this to go on. And they ask Him, "By what authority do You these things? And who gave You that authority?"
Now, you've got to understand who this gang is. This is a big group. First of all, Matthew says the chief priests and the elders, and those are very general terms to engulf a whole group of people. The chief priests would include all the priests. That would mean the high priests, perhaps Caiaphas and Annas who was behind the scenes. That would include the captain of the temple who was second in command, he was in charge of all the worship, he was able to arrest people who did violate the temple rules, as we find in Acts 5 when he arrested the Apostles. The captain of the temple was an office from which the high priest was elected. If the high priest was ill on the Day of Atonement or couldn't serve, then the captain of the temple was elevated to that role. So it was like being vice‑president.
And then under him came the priests of the weekly course of which there were twenty‑four of those who offered sacrifice and carried out ceremony. And then there were the priests of the daily course and there were 156 of those. And then there were ordinary...what was called overseer priests who had charge of the keys and the doors and the gates and little areas of administrative responsibility. And then there were the treasurer types who cared for the money, collected the money. And history tells us that these last two categories of overseers and treasurers could be divided into all kinds of people. For example, one would be over the branches used for festivals. One would be over music. One would be over trumpets. One would be over the bakery. One would be over the salt. One would be over the wood. One would be over the drink offerings. One would be over the lots. One would be over the burnt offerings. One would be over the animal offerings. One would be over the water, one over the signs, one over the show bread, one of the incense, one over the curtains, one over the robes and one to take care of people who got sick. And they all had their area of responsibility.
And then you probably had other priests. And then you had the non‑priests, the rabbis and the scribes. And there's a large group of guys involved in wanting to bring Jesus' ministry to a fast stop. It always fascinates me how people who can't get together on any other thing can get together against Jesus Christ. Have you noticed that? I mean, here you've got the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, maybe even the Zealots and the Essenes, none of whom could agree with each other. You've got all these divergent rabbinical viewpoints coming together and everybody had their own rabbi and everybody's own rabbi had his own view. And they can't get together on much but they can sure get together on stopping Christ because of this, folks, all religion that is false has this in common, it is the religion of human achievement...it is a religion of works. And thus it can define itself as against the religion of divine accomplishment which is the gospel.
It's that way even today. You can take all the religions of the world and though they all disagree with each other, they can commonly stand together against the truth of Jesus Christ, can't they? It's amazing what religion does to the truth, amazing. So all of these guys have been having a meeting, see. And they've been plotting how to get rid of Jesus. They can't take what's going on. He counters everything that they affirm. And so they say, "By what authority do You do these things? Show us Your ordination papers. Show us Your credentials. Where is Your Sanhedrin approval?"
What do they mean by these things? Well, no doubt teaching and preaching but more than that, cleansing the temple, the royal entry, accepting the accolades of the crowd, all of that and probably the miracles and everything else He did, commanding demons, forgiving sin, whatever else. "Where did You get the authority for this? Where are Your credentials? Where is Your Sanhedrin authorization?" By the way, it's the same question they asked Him in John 2:18 the first time He cleansed the temple. "Who gave You the right to do that?" I mean, really, that was a very, very strange thing for someone to do without authorization.
I mean, I could imagine recently when I was at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem that if...right under the wailing wall there's a synagogue there of a sort, a special prayer place. And then deeper down where they believe is the entrance to the Holy of Holies, they say is the most sacred spot now in the land, and they've built a little synagogue there. I remember the first day when we went there, I wanted to go into this place, there's all this stuff going...all these people praying and so I was curious. I put on a little cardboard yamalka and I thought I'd just...you have to have your head covered so I'll go in. And I started to go in and this man started waving his arm and telling me to go back, not to dare go in there. And maybe he perceived that I was a Gentile, which wouldn't be too difficult a perception and didn't want me in there. But anyway, I said to someone, I said, "What should we do?" He said, "Well, you don't want to go against them or they'll throw stones at you and spit at you." And all I was going to do was go through...walk through there, I wasn't going to...I thought, "What would it have been like if I had just gone in there and made a whip and just started cleaning out the place?" I can't even imagine that. Inconceivable what would happen.
But that's what Jesus did. Went to the temple, not even a synagogue which is a sad substitute for a temple, to the temple of God, made a whip and started throwing them out of there. You can imagine what that did to them, horrified them as well as pitting Him against their own authority. And they wanted to know where He got His authorization. They wanted to know where He got His permission. I mean, when we were there, we went down one night and there we ran into the chief rabbi of the holy places and then the chief rabbi of the state of Israel. I mean, those guys are in charge. And I suppose if you wanted to do anything special, you'd have to get their permission to do it. You just didn't take things into your own hands and exercise your own authority and do whatever you wanted, but Jesus did that, see. And they didn't like that. See, they were used to authorization. I mean, you either had to be the disciple of an eminent rabbi or have Sanhedrin approval.
Did you know there was a regular ordination process? I don't know if you're aware of that. But there was a regular ordination process. It started out that eminent rabbis would ordain their own disciples but there was some abuse to that so the Sanhedrin took that over. And then the chief priest also had the right to ordain people without the Sanhedrin but he abused that so they eliminated that so it came to the time of Christ when according to Edersheim, the Jewish historian, the Sanhedrin was the one that gave authorized ordination papers. And a person who wanted to be ordained as a rabbi was ordained as Rabbi Elder Judge, because he was given the right to teach, to show wisdom and to make decisions, to render verdicts. Those three functions combined in one office. And a rabbi had to come to a special ordination service, he had to give a discourse, he had to be approved. And then after his discourse, there was certain poetry read, there were certain hymns read, there were certain traditions followed and there was a ceremony by which he was granted the power to bind and loose, that is he was granted the power to teach and judge and so forth. And once he had his rabbinical authorization, which by the way could only be given within the land of Israel, not outside, he was recognized as a rabbinically credentialed teacher. Jesus had no such credentials, no such authorization.
They're big on that. I went to the synagogue in Tiberius one night and I noticed as they were going through their Shabbat that they all had different kind of hats. They all wear black long clothes and black...the frontlets of their hair they grow long, they had the prayer shawls, but they had different kinds of hats. Everything looked the same except the hats. Some had short brimmed hats with round tops, some had wide brimmed hats with flat tops, some had fuzzy hats, fuzzy little hats, fuzzy big hats, all different kinds of hats. And so I said to someone, "What is the hats...hat routine? What's with the hats?" And he said to me, "Well, the hat signifies the rabbi, that is your mentor. They identify themselves with certain rabbis and the tradition of those rabbis by nature of the hat."
So, everybody comes down the line, you see, hooked to some traditional rabbinical teacher, some eminent past person. Jesus didn't do that. He hooked up....He didn't wear a hat, if you want it in the contemporary sense. He didn't hook up with any traditional eminent rabbi. He didn't have any Sanhedrin authorization. He just wielded authority and it was totally apart from anything from within the Jewish system. And they said, "Where did You get this authority to do the things You do?" That was the confrontation.
Look at the counter‑question...the counter‑question. "And Jesus answered and said unto them," and in typically rabbinical fashion, He answers a question with a question, "I also will ask you one thing which if you tell Me, I likewise will tell you by what authority I do these things." He says I'll answer your question if you answer My question. I've got a question for you. He's not evading the answer. In fact, if they answered the question, they would have the answer to their question. He's not evading it. He's giving them an opportunity to honestly answer the question. And if they answer the question, their own question will be answered.
You see, they knew what authority He acted on. They knew He had said many times that He did what the Father showed Him to do. They knew that. And I think they would have liked Him to have said that again and then they would have accused Him of blasphemy and killed Him. Because, you remember earlier when He had claimed that He had authority from God, they said that He had blasphemed, making Himself equal with God, right? Perhaps they wanted Him to say that again so that they could accuse Him of blasphemy and that would be part of hatching the plot that would ultimately bring about His death.
But He didn't answer their question with an answer, He answered it with a question. And He says if you answer My question, I'll answer yours. Here comes His question in verse 25, "The baptism of John," now He's talking about John the Baptist, "The baptism of John, from where was it? From heaven or of men?"
It's a fair question. John the Baptist, the voice crying in the wilderness, out beyond Jordan, readying a people for the Messiah, everybody knew about him. The last prophet of the Old Testament age, a great man, he had been out there, all Israel had been going to him, remember? And he had been saying the Messiah is near, the Messiah is near, the Messiah is coming, the Messiah is coming. And the people were saying, "O, we must be ready when the Messiah comes." And they were confessing their sin and they were saying, "We want our hearts right so that when Messiah comes we can receive Him and His Kingdom." And so John was preaching a message of repentance. John was preaching a message of confessing sin. John was preaching a message of get your heart right with God.
And then he was baptizing them in the Jordan River to symbolize on the outside the inward cleansing of their hearts. And he was readying a people for the Messiah. He was gathering a people whose hearts were readied for the coming of Messiah. And all the nation was flocking out to him in excitement. And his demeanor and his power and his preaching and his content all said he was a prophet of God. The people believed it. In fact, in chapter 14