The subject of authority is not often mentioned these days. If it was considered and applied, there would be a lot less heresy and misdirected ministry. Christ Jesus had the authority of Heaven for what He had been doing in the Temple, but the chief priests and elders didn’t think so. The fact of the matter was that THEY didn’t have divine approval for what THEY were doing. They asked the right question of Christ, but they didn’t ask it of themselves. They just assumed that they had the permission of God to sell goats in the Court of the Gentiles, and to kick out men who were preaching the gospel and miraculously healing the sick and lame.
Consider what happened in Acts 3 and 4 – “Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. and he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And as they spake unto the people, the priests, and the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees, came upon them, Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in hold unto the next day.” Which of these people had the authority of God – the two disciples or the priests and temple guards? This is the subject of the scripture before us this morning. And it hovers in the background of thousands of ministries across the United States at this very moment.
Let’s begin by reconsidering what Christ was doing that day.
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?” These chief priests, scribes and elder of the people, were men which made up the Jewish government. Under the Romans, the Jews still possessed a complicated legal position. There was Herod who was considered the King of Jews, but who answered to Rome. There was Pilate who was the leading Roman official – not exactly above Herod, but not below him. Then there was the Sanhedrin – the secular Jewish authority. Notice that the reference to the “chief priests” is plural – it is not speaking of the High Priest – the descendant of Aaron. This is a group of men taken from among all the priests to sit on the Jewish governmental counsel. Beside them sat secular leaders elected or chose from among the people – “the elders of the people.” and then listed with them on most occasions were the scribes –professional secular and religious lawyers. Together they made up “the Sanhedrin” – the secular government of Israel. The people who confronted Christ that day were representing the Sanhedrin.
To what were the chief priests and elders referring when they mentioned“these things” Christ was doing? On the previous day, the Lord Jesus rode into the city to loud accolades of the common citizens. “By what authority dost thou receive this praise.” “I tell you that, if these should hold their praise, the stones would immediately cry out.” Then Christ went into the first court of the Temple and drove out the merchants and bankers there. He said, Scripture declares, “My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves.” What else had He done on that day? He had miraculously healed the sick and lame. The miracle itself declared His authority to anyone with an open heart and mind. As a former blind man later said, “Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind. If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.”
Now on the second day, apparently Jesus was doing little more than teaching and preaching. Mark says, “and as he was walking in the temple, there come to him the chief priests, and the scribes…” And Luke puts it this ways, “And it came to pass… as he taught the people in the temple, and preached the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes came upon him with the elders.” The Lord was teaching and preaching peripatetically – He was walking about the Temple grounds. The miracles of the first day prepared the way for the more important work of the second day – teaching and preaching the gospel. Christ was sharing with those sin-dead people the good news of the grace of God.
I wonder how much of what we now think of the gospel he was sharing with those people. Did He tell them that he was going to be taken and crucified? Did He tell them about the resurrection, as He had been telling the disciples so often lately? “The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men; and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall be raised again.” Did He share what His cousin John had declared three years earlier? “The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” Did Christ teach the people about the necessity of atonement and that He would do that for them? Were they made to understand that they needed to be born-again – regenerated? Christ was preaching the gospel and teaching the necessity for that gospel.
When the representatives of the Sanhedrin suddenly swooped down on him, saying, “By what authority doest thou these things?” were the “these things,” – what He had done yesterday, or was it the message of that day?
In the average “Christian” church today, the gospel which Jesus and Paul preached, is not very welcome. It has been altered with human sacrifice, and baptismal waters, and divine weakness. By what authority are you preaching salvation by the sovereign grace of God? By whose authority are you saying that salvation is eternally secure in Christ, and not dependent upon human efforts towards reform? And who said that salvation isn’t social change or educational or political improvement? Not only is the existence of the Lord’s churches questioned, so is the gospel that those churches preach.
The question of the Sanhedrin was two-fold.
First, by what KIND of authority do you do these things? And secondly, WHO gave you this authority? Since the days of Moses God had delegated some of His authority. We read from Deuteronomy 12 earlier, but consider verse 8 once again – “Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes.” At that point God ordained that there would be a single altar for the people of Israel, and that eventually became the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. When there is an institution with sanction from God, then we are not to choose whatsoever is merely “right in our own eyes.” The individual is not his own law in God’s service; he is subject to higher power. “But unto the place which the LORD your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come.” This establishes the fact that the place where God chooses to put his Name, must be the central base of all individual activities in his service. When God puts His name in a certain place and says, “Serve me there”… Then it is completely out of order for man to set up his own institution. He can’t say, “I’m going to serve the Lord here instead, or in this fashion rather than in God’s way.” We are bound to the place where God has put His name, and to His method of service.
Mark begins the second book of the New Testament by saying: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.” This means that gospel-related events are beginning to take place here. And what specific event introduced the gospel era?….The ministry of John Baptist. As God began that new era, He marked the agent of its introduction. John was given the sign which was to mark the wise Master-builder of the New Testament.
Just because a man goes out into the wilderness and begins preaching, or going through some religious ceremony – that doesn’t mean we should pay any attention to him. This sort of thing happens all of the time, and foolish people are following him and giving to his ministry. The Sanhedrin was right in asking their questions of Christ and of John before Him. But in this case the question was merely bait hiding in a trap, and Christ saw right through it. Those men were convinced that no matter how Jesus answered, they could arrest him and put Him to death. I am not so sure that their plan didn’t have flaws, but they were positive that they had a perfect trap. In this case Jesus chose to deflect the question with a promise and a question of His own. “Let’s make a deal. If you honestly answer my question then I will answer yours. I promise.” They were so sure of themselves that put their foot right into their own snare. That was when Jesus raised the question about the authority with which John ministered.
John’s ministry was two-fold – to identify the Messiah and to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. When he baptized Jesus he accomplished his first God-authorized objective. And out of the others whom he baptized, Christ Jesus established His first church. Christ had no problem accepting that John had the authority of Heaven – authority of God – to baptize.
I Corinthians 12:28 says that the apostles were first – the first members in Christ’s church. We are very familiar with those apostles – John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew and so on. Early in His ministry, Christ went up into a mountain for prayer, and in the midst of that prayer meeting Christ started His church in Mark 3:13-19. All these first church members had received the God-authorized baptism of John the Baptist. Christ did not rebaptize them, nor did He repudiate or minimize that baptism. Furthermore, after the ascension of Christ into Heaven, when the church felt it necessary to replace Judas Iscariot with another Apostle, it was stipulated that their nominees must have been baptized by John. The authority, given to John from Heaven, was recognized first, by John himself, then by Christ and then by the Lord’s church. It was doubted by no one but the enemies of our Lord.
Ok, that is fine, but can God’s institutional authority be passed on?
The Lord Jesus had a very concise and deliberate perception of the continuity of divine authority. The priests demanded to know where Jesus got His authority to preach the gospel, to cleanse the temple and to heal the sick. That is an excellent question, if asked in sincerity. The question of authority was raised in days of Moses and became a part of the treasures kept in the Ark of the Covenant, in the form of Aaron’s rod which miraculously budded. Israel wanted to know if Aaron was the only man authorized to be Jehovah’s priest. Aaron and some other wannabees were ordered to place their old, warn, hand-smoothed walking sticks in the Tabernacle before the Lord. Overnight the staff owned by Aaron, miraculously sprang back to life, proving and pointing to God’s choice of spiritual leader. These priests wanted to know whether or not Christ had received His authority from Heaven. That involved a sort of lineage – a hot electrical line back the source of power and authority. Jesus answered their question with a question and a promise.
In Luke 7 some of the people who had been listening to John, and following him, came to Christ. Jesus gave some very high words of praise for John. “What went ye out for to see? A prophet? Yea, I say unto you, and much more than a prophet.” John is my forerunner, preparing the way before me. “Among those that are born of women there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist.” The next verse in Luke 7 says, “And all the people that heard him, and the pharisees, justified God, being baptized with the baptism of John.” What does that word “justified” mean? It means that even the wicked, when they came under John’s ministry, were so wrought upon by the power and grace of God through it, that they approved of, and applauded the wisdom, goodness, and grace of God, in sending such a prophet. And when they were baptized they further acknowledged and testified that he was a man sent by God Himself.
From the authority given to John, Christ was identified as the Messiah. With the authority given to John the Lord’s first disciples were baptized. From the baptized Apostles, Christ, baptized by John, started the first church. That church started other churches, which passed on the Lord’s authority to other churches and others. If you want to find authority from Heaven today you must look to the linage which reaches back through the church, through Christ, through John, to God the Father. Christ didn’t break a sweat at the thought of God giving authority to John. Why should we sweat it that God’s authority still lies in His New Testament church?
When Christ Jesus was ready to return to Heaven he said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.” The word “power” in that verse doesn’t mean power in the sense of strength, but “power” as in ”authority.” Then He turned to the men in His tiny church in Jerusalem and said, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” That commission wasn’t given to a mere group of unorganized men, but to the Lord’s church. Then Christ added, “and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” None of those Apostles are alive and ministering today – they have all died. But the promise of the presence of Christ was made to His church – and that still exists – as promised. Only Christ’s church has been given the authority to disciple, teach and baptize. All the churches started by man, and preaching doctrines contrary to the scriptures, have no authority to associate with the name of God. And it needs to be pointed out Christ’s churches will exist until the end world. There are churches in the world today, which still have the authority of God originally given to John. And in looking at all the religious diversity in the world, obviously there are many so-called churches which don’t have that authority.
On one very special Day of Pentecost shortly after the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, that same little first-church was meeting for prayer. Over the previous three years the Lord had been putting all the pieces together. John the Baptist was like David gathering the materials for the Temple. Christ Jesus was like Solomon putting the pieces together. There were the people, then a multitude of doctrines. Finally all the parts were assembled, just as Solomon had done with Temple. Then when God was ready, the Shekinah glory of God filled the Temple. You could say that in Acts 2 God the Father took possession of the House where he placed His name. By that demonstration of power, He said, “World, take notice!”
The Sanhedin demanded, “By whose authority do you do these things?” It is a question which still needs to be asked, but for the most part isn’t. Christ’s answer is quite clear – “By the authority of God, we preach this gospel and do these things.” And He established His church to maintain and to continue that ministry under His authority.